The Heart Of Putin-Gate-- Russian Financial Leverage Over Trump-- Was Shut Down By Rod Rosenstein And Never Investigated

Peter Strzok, who led the FBI’s Russia investigation, was a long-time Trump target and, because he was an FBI agent, was unable to respond to Trump or the Trump goons who attacked him mercilessly. The day after tomorrow his book, Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump will be released... and he has a lot of responses to Señor Trumpanzee and his goon squad.

Ironically, Strzok didn't look at Trump's campaign as criminal as much as compromised. His initial goal was to find out who in the Trump campaign was working with the Russians to undermine the Clinton campaign. As the investigation got underway, top candidates were various combinations of Paul Manafort, Carter Page George Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn. And if that set of names doesn't spell criminal, you shouldn't be in law enforcement.

Prohibited Acts by Nancy Ohanian

In the book, Strzok wrote that he "hadn’t wanted to investigate the president of the United States" but after Trump was elected the evidence of Trump's collusion with Russia was so massive that it was difficult to avoid not investigating him. With the approval of Andrew McCabe, the FBI's deputy director, Strzok opened a counterintelligence case against Trump, sealing his own fate (and that of McCabe's and much of the FBI leadership's).

Strzok felt then-- and still feels now-- that deep, hidden Russian financial leverage over Trump-- which Rod Rosenstein never allowed Mueller's team to wade into-- was the key to the whole case. Eventually Mueller took over the investigation and Strzok and his team came under his aegis.

AP's Eric Tucker reported that "Trump’s attacks have continued even as two inspector general reports found no evidence Strzok’s work in the investigations were tainted by political bias and multiple probes have affirmed the Russia probe’s validity... 'I deeply regret casually commenting about the things I observed in the headlines and behind the scenes, and I regret how effectively my words were weaponized to harm the Bureau and buttress absurd conspiracy theories about our vital work,' Strzok writes."

Strzok documents pivotal moments during the investigation, recounting for instance how then-national security adviser Michael Flynn “baldly lied” to him and another agent about his Russian contacts even though Flynn had not shown customary signs of deceit agents are trained to look for.

Though Trump supporters contend the interview was designed to get Flynn to lie, Strzok says the FBI actually gave him multiple prompts to refresh his memory. While Attorney General William Barr has said the interview was done without a legitimate purpose, Strzok says it was necessary to better understand the Trump orbit’s ties to Russia and Flynn’s own “hidden negotiation with a foreign power that had just attacked our elections.”

Flynn later pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. Barr’s request to dismiss the case is pending.

Like by Nancy Ohanian

Writing for Politico yesterday, Natasha Bertrand, who has read an advance copy of Strzok's book, reported that "After nearly two years, Mueller released his final report in April 2019. It outlined the Trump’s campaign’s extensive contacts with Kremlin-linked actors before, during, and after the election, and led to dozens of indictments and multiple guilty pleas and convictions, including of Manafort. But the report showed no signs of a holistic examination of Trump’s decades in the business world, including his company’s myriad real estate transactions with several Russians suspected of ties to organized crime and the many opaque deals, masked through shell companies, that helped Trump’s companies stay afloat throughout the years. 'I personally don't see how they could have done [the counterintelligence investigation] because I don't know how you do that without getting tax records, financial records, and doing things that would become public,' Strzok said of Mueller’s team. 'Had they done it, I would have expected to see litigation and screaming from Trump. And the absence of that makes me think it didn’t occur.'"

I sincerely doubt that a Biden Justice Department will consider reopening the case for more than 10 seconds-- even though American democracy absolutely requires it.

Live By The Sword, Die By The Sword

The two venal and equally corrupt party establishments have created an electoral system where the cost of entry has put all the power into their own hands. The parties' leaders in DC have helped prove the costs of elections so sky high that no one can afford to participate other than themselves and the wealthy self-funders they back.

I was laughing my ass off the other day when one of my informers inside the DCCC told me that after the DCCC got stuck with a nearly unelectable candidate, Gil Cisneros, in what should be the easiest of the Orange County GOP-held districts (CA-39, the one Hillary one with the biggest margin), their whole vile scheme started coming apart of the seams. Cisneros is a conservative "ex"-Republican who knows as much about public policy than Rue and Rooney, the two dogs in the neighborhood that I give dog biscuits to on my hike every morning. The DCCC didn't care about the district until after the current incumbent, Ed Royce decided to retire. But by then, it was too late. The DCCC had directed Cisneros and another candidate to run there instead of in the district they both lived in because they did care about the other district but not about CA-39. (The most inept of all the lame DCCC staffers, Kyle Layman, was largely responsible for this kerfuffle.)

Anyway, to make a short story long, the DCCC embraced Cisneros because he's rich and bribed everyone he needed to bribe. He spent $4,739,403 on the primary, after putting $4,552,762 of his lottery winnings into his campaign. After he beat legitimate candidates who could have won, he told the DCCC and California Democratic Party he expected them to start paying for things, like field organizers. They told him to go fuck off and as much as admitted to him that the reason they backed him was so that they wouldn't have to spend their own funds in the district. Now they're at a standoff another air is heavy with acrimony.

Remember when Obama did an event for the DCCC on Saturday in Anaheim? So far the only southern California candidate Obama has refused to endorse is Cisneros. But Layman stuck him up on stage with Obama anyway. He also neglected to invite Ammar Campa-Najjar to the event and when Obama personally invited him and sent him tickets, Layman wouldn't allow him onstage. That guys like Layman-- rather than elected politicians-- are allowed to run loose without supervision is disastrous for the Democratic Party. Polling in CA-39 may turn around but right now it shows Cisneros losing. The latest polls in CA-50 show a 46-46% between Ammar and Drunken Hunter-- with momentum completely with Ammar. Leave it to Layman and the DCCC to force another loss.

Is it any wonder billionaires who can, have been going around the party establishments and doing their own thing? Yesterday McClatchy ran a piece by Adam Wollner, Rogue billionaires are giving the GOP and Democrats a migraine, about people with enough cash to tell their respective party establishments to buzz off and play politics the way they want to, not the way party bosses what them to. Wollner is sympathetic to the establishments. I'm not. He focuses in on how Republican Richard Uihlein and Democrat Tom Steyer are "irritating" the bosses, who Wollner refers to as "their political parties" and "party leaders" instead of... oh, say "assholes" or "incompetents" or something more descriptive and accurate. Wollner assumes that people like Kyle Layman know something. He should rethink that.

The two billionaires have backed candidates and causes that Republican and Democratic leaders believe are detrimental to their chances in November. Uihlein, the founder of a Wisconsin-based shipping supplies company, has boosted insurgent conservative candidates over the GOP’s choices in several races. Steyer, a San Francisco hedge fund manager, has poured cash into a campaign to impeach President Donald Trump, an effort many Democrats view as counterproductive at best.

“Both parties have never been weaker than they are at this point in time,” said Jim Manley, a longtime Democratic operative. “It allows vanity projects to dominate the process. These wealthy donors are taking over functions that have usually been left to the parties in years past.”

While Uihlein and Steyer have ranked among the most generous donors in recent elections, they are stepping up their activity in 2018 as they try to pull their parties further from the political center.


Both have contributed nearly $30 million each to outside groups so far this cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks political spending.

It’s unclear how much more Uihlein plans to give, but he’s already spent more than he did in the last two election cycles combined-- $24 million. And Steyer, after spending $74 million in 2014 and $90 million in 2016, has pledged to spend a total of $120 million in 2018.

Only Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam have outpaced them to this point, shelling out $55 million so far to two super PACs aligned with Republican congressional leadership.

Uihlein hasn’t picked many winners this cycle, and some Republicans think his efforts have only weakened their position in races across the country. Following multiple accusations of sexual misconduct against Roy Moore last year, most Republicans in Washington abandoned their nominee in his Alabama Senate race. Not Uihlein, who gave $100,000 to a pro-Moore super PAC.

In Illinois, where Uihlein resides, he backed state Rep. Jeanne Ives to the tune of $2.5 million as she challenged GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner in the primary. Rauner survived, but is considered to be one the most vulnerable governors running for re-election this fall.

Most recently, Uihlein spent nearly $11 million in the Wisconsin GOP primary to support Kevin Nicholson, a Marine veteran who had never run for office before, and attack state Sen. Leah Vukmir, who was endorsed by the state party. After the bruising contest, Vukmir now faces a tough battle against the well-funded Sen. Tammy Baldwin.


Charlie Sykes, a former longtime conservative radio host in Wisconsin, said the primary forced Vukmir to tack to the right and constantly reinforce her support for Trump, which could now weaken her in the general election.

“The entire race basically occurred because Uihlein was willing to dump in eight figures behind Nicholson,” Sykes. “He would not have been a legitimate candidate without that one donor behind him.”

“If we lose in November, a lot of people are going to look at Uihlein and say, it’s your fault,” added one Wisconsin Republican strategist involved in the race, who requested anonymity to speak candidly.

The next test for Uihlein comes in Mississippi where a special election to replace Sen. Thad Cochran takes place in November. Uihlein supports conservative state Sen. Chris McDaniel over GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who is serving out the rest of Cochran’s term. Republicans fear that if McDaniel emerges from primary, Democrats would have an opportunity to win the seat.

Uihlein has already given $750,000 to a pro-McDaniel super PAC, which has some Republicans concerned that more could be on the way.


“That is a genuine risk. In a small state like Mississippi, if he pumped another $2 million in before the election, he could have a big impact,” said one Republican operative involved in the race. “I worry about that everyday.”

Josh Holmes, a leading GOP strategist, said he thinks Uihlein has been a victim of bad advice, and is holding out hope he will be as active in the general election as he was in the primaries.

“If your advice is to throw $30 million behind Roy Moore, Kevin Nicholson and Chris McDaniel, you’re going to lose all that money. That’s an investment that’s akin to setting a pile of money on fire,” Holmes said. “It’s not the return on investment Republican donors should expect.”

Uihlein did not respond to multiple requests for comment. But one of his closest allies, Illinois Policy Institute CEO John Tillman, explained Uihlein’s donations by saying, “Dick believes in the underdog.”

“He believes it’s important to build mechanisms of accountability for lawmakers from both parties,” Tillman said. “He is pragmatic and realistic about every investment he makes, whether it’s in policy, politics or charitable giving.”

While Uihlein stays out of the spotlight, Steyer embraces it.

Through his “Need to Impeach” campaign, he has starred in his own ads, held town halls across the country, and frequently appeared on TV for interviews. In total, he plans to spend $40 million to encourage voters who want to kick the president out of office to actually vote on Election Day.

Many Democrats, including the party’s leadership in Washington, believe pushing for Trump’s impeachment ahead of the midterms will backfire.


 “The message of impeachment revs up the Republican base,” said Sheila Nielsen, a Democratic donor from Illinois. “I’d rather have those people sleeping on the couch than coming out to vote. Let’s not talk about impeachment right now.”


Steyer’s efforts also have some Democrats wondering whether the billionaire is more concerned about boosting his own profile as he toys with a 2020 presidential run, or helping the party take control of the House of Representatives.

“It’s a bad strategy,” Manley said. “I’d rather see him put that money behind candidates than impeachment.”

Steyer’s groups have been less active for candidates thus far. NextGen America gave more than $1 million to Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, a progressive who scored an upset in the Florida Democratic gubernatorial primary this week. At the federal level, the group spent less than $700,000 on ads across eight races. In total, NextGen plans to spend $32 million on the midterms across 11 states, with an emphasis on mobilizing young voters.

Steyer also endorsed liberal state Sen. Kevin de León over Sen. Dianne Feinstein in the Democrat-versus-Democrat Senate race in California. But he has yet to spend money on the election aside from a personal donation to de León’s campaign.

From Steyer’s perspective, the Democratic Party does not have a history of success in the midterms because it has failed to get its core voters to the polls. He and his team are convinced the prospect of removing a despised figure like Trump from office will be a more potent turnout tool for the party’s base than any policy area.

“Democrats need to stop worrying about Republicans, and worry about our base voters that continuously don’t show up to vote for midterm elections,” said Kevin Mack, a political adviser to Steyer.

The pro-establishment bias in this piece is so pronounced and so unselfish-conscious that I suspect Wollner would be shocked to hear he needs to go back to journalism school and start all over again from scratch. Is he, for example, even aware that Feinstein, one of the most shockingly corrupt members of the Senate-- and utterly senile and unable to function-- was rejected by the California Democratic Party for reelection and that the party endorsed Kevin de León? Is he aware that conservative Democrats keep being nominated for statewide office and keep being rejected and that the reason a half million more Democratic primary voters turned out this cycle than anyone predicted was because they were excited to have someone and something to vote for instead of another Republican-lite nothing like Gwen Graham or Philip Levine?

Not talking about impeachment is one approach; talking about it is another. Did Wollner think the two approaches through and make a decision which was better before turning in his OpEd disguised as a news story?

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

In addition to the above, Paul Ryan's House crew, in a further attempt to obstruct justice and merge our country with their beloved Russia, have now filed impeachment papers against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in their effort to subvert and obstruct the Mueller Investigation. Treason is as treason does is the new motto of the Republican Party, or, is it One Nation Under Putin?

Few in the media will call this like it is. They tell us that it's just a small handful of Repug congresscretins who are doing this. They'll even quote Speaker Ryan insincerely implying that he kind of thinks the idea of obstructing Comrade Trump is wrong. Really? Ya think? But the bottom line is that, once again, The words coming out of Ryan's diseased hellpit of a mouth mean nothing and only his actions do. It is his actions that reveal his betrayal of his country, if he ever considered America his country. It's Ryan who encourages people like Jim Jordan, Trey (for traitor) Gowdy, and even more obvious Russian agents like Devin Nunes and Dana Rohrabacher to do their worst for our country. It is the entire Republican Party who voted their approval of the subversive treacheries listed in tonight's meme. Meanwhile, the rest of Washington just stands by; tacit approval all around.

If America and its voting public were sane, these people would be living in cages in GITMO or Leavenworth for the rest of their days; cages much smaller than the ones we place kidnapped children in. Instead, we send these people to Washington, where they can do the most harm.

What Right Wing Former Wrestling Coach Jim Jordan Is Up To Now

UPDATE: After being turned down flat and mocked from every direction they turned yesterday, Jordan and Meadows threw up their hands, raised the white flag and buried their own absurd, self-serving resolution to impeach Rod Rosenstein. Now they're going to try to get a vote holding the Department of Justice in contempt.


Randy @IronStache Bryce frightened Paul Ryan out of his reelection plans and he's retiring from Congress instead. But Ryan is working hard now to make sure his party isn't obliterated in November. It's no longer a question of keeping power in the House-- that's long-- but of how many dozens of seats the GOP is going to kiss goodbye. Trump is an albatross and the Republican generic poll numbers are murderous. This week Ryan was looking at numbers for his own state where just 36% of likely voters say Trump is doing a good job-- the same number who say that in Michigan, two states that the Kremlin stole for Trump in 2016.

Ryan picked a clone (a corporate lawyer who used to be his driver) to try to defend the seat against Bryce. Ryan's superPAC, Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), isn't getting anywhere and instead is spending money to push an unelectable minor candidate against Bryce, last week by releasing a fake poll pretending the Democratic primary was tied, and this week was in the field with a push poll promoting the weak Democratic candidate who backed Hillary in a district that was firmly in Bernie's corner.

Meanwhile, Ryan is trying to contrast the mainstream of the House GOP with the extremists. He's using the extremists' latest call to impeach Rod Rosenstein to do that. One top GOP staffer told me that the 11 Republicans behind the move are "mostly seen as psychos... and pests." The leader of the pack is Ohio Republican Jim Jordan who's embroiled in 2 cases, spanning decades in which he protected child molesters who were having their way with under-age boys under his care. So far Jordan himself hasn't been accused of sexual relations with under-aged boys but almost a dozen men who were on a wrestling teach he coached have come forward to say he protected the man who was molesting them. In the other case, his staffer, Wes Goodman, was eventually forced to resign from the Ohio state House when it came out, so to speak, that he was having sex with young conservative boys who were impressed with his closeness to Jordan.

When he went on the attack against Rosenstein-- nothing more than a protected way to obstruct justice and derail the Mueller investigation-- Jordan complained about evidence being withheld. "Enough is enough," he whined. "It’s time to hold Mr. Rosenstein accountable for blocking Congress’s constitutional oversight role."

The same GOP House staffer who told me the whole bunch of them are considered "psychos" and "pests," also suggested I look into who exactly was working with Jordan on this. Scott Desjarlaid, a Tennessee doctor who used to drug his female patients and have sex with them when they were semi-conscious, was another misfit behind the push to destroy Rosenstein. "Given many opportunities to cooperate with Congress," he said in a statement, "Rod Rosenstein has demonstrated a chronic inability to answer questions important to our investigation of alleged criminal abuses of intelligence services under the previous administration. Even under subpoena, the Deputy Attorney General has refused to produce necessary documents, because they implicate top Department of Justice and FBI officials, including himself. His own role in fraudulent warrants and wiretapping the President’s campaign is a major conflict of interest that renders him unfit to oversee the Special Counsel or DOJ. Removing Mr. Rosenstein from office is the only option left to Congress."

Ryan made light of their caterwauling by noting to the media that Rosenstein's behavior doesn't rise to the status of a "high crime or misdemeanor," and is basically laughing at them. He told reporters he has no intention of allowing a vote on it. Jordan-- the ex-wrestling coach (like Denny Hastert-- who was eventually put in prison for raping underage boys after denying it for decades, as Jordan has so far)-- is running for the top Republican in the House. In fact, many Republicans say this unserious attempt to impeach Rosenstein-- if they really wanted to do it, it would have been a "privileged motion"-- accomplishes 2 things for Jordan:

1- diverts attention away from his sex scandal
2- helps him promote his bid to replace Ryan in the leadership

One member of Ryan's team, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), who would like to run for Ryan's job himself but is afraid he won't be able to overcome Kevin McCathy, is gambling on backing the far right extremists on this one. He announced yesterday that he supports Jordan and Meadows on impeaching Rosenstein.

Wrestlin' by Chip Proser

Yesterday, in a column in the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin came right to the point-- the top take-away from all this is that The GOP Isn't Fit To Govern "[T]here has been," she reminds her readers, "no finding that Rosenstein is in contempt of Congress or that he has broken any regulation or law. The impeachment resolution is pure piffle. (“A Justice Department official said Wednesday that only one committee request has been formally denied-- a demand to see the unredacted Justice Department memo detailing which Trump associates are under investigation by Mueller and for which potential crimes. Officials declined that request because, they said, providing it could compromise ongoing investigations.”) Not even House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) thinks that the resolution has merit."

Indeed, former Justice Department officials and legal scholars have fretted that Rosenstein has been too accommodating to congressional requests. “The ironic thing about this push is that Rosenstein has done far more to satisfy what are really inappropriate requests from House Republicans than DOJ has ever done before,” former Justice Department spokesman Matt Miller says. “It’s been clear from the beginning that Meadows and company weren’t interested in anything other than shutting down the Mueller investigation, and this ridiculous move makes it even more obvious.”

The damage here is being done not by Rosenstein, but by irresponsible, hyper-partisan congressmen. Former White House ethics counsel Norman Eisen and Fred Wertheimer, founder of Democracy 21, recently wrote about the impeachment gambit:

Key House Republicans are abusing their offices and the public trust to blindly provide protection for [President] Trump. They are doing so instead of working to get to the bottom of the worst foreign attack on American elections in our history.

They need to be called on their scandalous efforts to undermine the Mueller investigation and ignore Russia’s cyber invasion of our democracy. A bipartisan outcry greeted Trump’s Helsinki betrayals. We should be hearing protests at least as loud and bipartisan in response to this parallel-- and equally unmerited-- attack on American law enforcement right here at home.

It is not Rosenstein who should be removed from office, but rather, the House Republican members who are obstructing an ongoing investigation of the Republican president and his cronies. While their actions are protected (most likely) under the "speech or debate" clause (preventing criminal prosecution or civil suit for actions that would otherwise be actionable), their pattern of conduct (cooking up a misleading memo about the FISA warrant application for Carter Page’s surveillance, exposing a confidential intelligence source, smearing the FBI) amounts to multiple blatant attempts to thwart an entirely legitimate investigation. If anyone in the White House is conspiring with them to interfere with the investigation, such individuals could be investigated for obstruction of justice.

“This is a cynical, corrupt effort to kneecap the legitimate investigation of Jordan’s and Meadows’s ally, the president,” Eisen tells me. “Their gambit is entirely divorced from the reality of Rosenstein‘s compliance with congressional requests , which has been quite good on his part. For that reason, it is highly likely to fail.” He observes that a similar effort with “the same actors previously tried the same ploy with another set of baseless allegations, against IRS Commissioner [John] Koskinen. They were defeated by an overwhelming bipartisan vote and the same thing will likely happen here.” He concludes, “Unfortunately, real harm will be done to an outstanding public servant and to law enforcement itself in the process. Jordan and Meadows surely know that and are proceeding anyhow to protect the president. What a betrayal of their oaths-- and their country.”

...Ironically, Republicans have been arguing that if Democrats ever get control of Congress, they will tie the place up with bogus impeachment hearings and create gridlock. No, Republicans are doing that all on their own. “It’s a PR stunt that nobody who knows anything about impeachment could take seriously,” says constitutional scholar Larry Tribe. “But it will do great harm anyway by contributing to the degradation of the impeachment power, making it harder to use when it is truly needed to rein in a would be-dictator.” Referencing his book with Joshua Matz, To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment, Tribe tells me this is why he and Matz argue that “casual and frequent impeachment talk can damage the already frayed fabric of our dangerously polarized polity.”

Trust Jim Jordan? by Chip Proser

Politically, We're Still Far From The Public Accepting Impeachment For Trumpanzee

Polls show that most Americans know Trump's a liar. Revelations of more lies-- daily revelations of more lies-- isn't going to change anything. That he's a dishonest asshole is baked into the cake. It looks like Señor T was partially correct when he said he could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose any voters. "Any voters?" Wrong. He won't lose the obsessed racists and willing fascists. In reality, though, he has lost voters.

A new Ipsos poll for Reuters found that union members who voted for Trump in greater numbers than for Hillary have been abandoning him. His support among union members is down by 15 points in the last year-- now at 47% from a high of 62%. Union members put Trump over the top in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. That wouldn't happen again if the election was held today. Many union members who vote dfor Trump in 2016 have buyer’s remorse and plan to take it out on Republicans in November. Reuters quoted a 37 year factory worker in Dubuque: "Trump is for the rich. [Republican Congressman] Blum’s for big business. They said they were for the workers, but they’re not."

That sentiment should encourage Democrats, who saw their once-reliable labor vote help send Trump to the White House after he vowed to revive Rust Belt factories with trade tariffs and ailing coal mines with environmental deregulation. Now-- with coal still struggling and Trump stoking a trade war-- many union workers have soured on the president ahead of November’s midterm congressional elections, the Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll shows.

...A loose coalition of union leaders, Democratic strategists and political action committees (PACs) aims to seize on that shift by directing money and campaign workers to about 30 competitive races in union-heavy districts. The party needs to gain 23 seats to retake the U.S. House of Representatives... Democratic strategists are targeting blue-collar enclaves of the Midwest, along with districts covering California farmlands, New York industry towns and Montana wilderness. They aim to trash the Republican tax cut, along with Trump’s failure to back a minimum wage and his attempt to repeal Obamacare.

...In interviews with Reuters, union members criticized the tax cut, along with Republican moves in some states-- including Iowa-- to curtail collective bargaining by public employees. And while Trump’s tough trade talk attracted many union workers to his campaign, some now worry his policies may protect some blue-collar jobs at the expense of others. Trump’s steel tariffs, for instance, could raise prices for the raw material used in factories supporting union jobs.

Reuters/Ipsos polling data shows union workers now view Democrats more favorably on key issues such as healthcare, the economy and taxes.

The percentage of union members who favored Democratic stances on health care, for instance, rose 7 points to 42 percent since March 2017, compared with 29 percent favoring Republicans. Democrats saw similar gains on taxes, jobs and the economy.

Ken Jones, a retired mechanic and Teamster union member, backed Trump because he believed Clinton was “crooked”-- borrowing Trump’s signature insult-- and that Trump might curtail illegal immigration, create jobs and fix Obamacare.

“Now I see he’s not going to do anything,” said Jones, of Oklahoma, who plans to vote Democratic this fall. “The working man don’t get nothing out of it. I never voted Republican until Trump, and it was the worst mistake I ever made.”

Pew released a new post simultaneously-- with some good news for Trump and some bad news.

A majority of Americans find little or no common ground with Donald Trump on issues, but the share who say they agree with him on many or all issues has risen since last August. The public’s assessment of Trump’s conduct as president is little changed over the past nine months, with 54% saying they don’t like the way he conducts himself as president.

Currently, 41% of the public agrees with Trump on “all or nearly all” or many of the issues facing the country, while 57% agree with him on just a few issues or virtually none. In August, just 33% said they agreed with Trump on many or all issues.

Ethics, of course, is a weak point for Trump and his whole regime. In Congress it's another story, a very partisan one. Republicans are sticking with Trump like flies to dog shit. Members of Congress don't care about ethics at all unless someone is caught. Interestingly enough, over the weekend a Fairbanks newspaper reported that Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) warned Trump to keep his mitts off the Mueller investigation. This is particularly important because House Republicans are expected to impeach Rod Rosenstein this week. It will just take a couple of Senate Republicans to throw it out and with Murkowski's statement, it's likely she'll be one of them.

"I have said all along that Mueller should be allowed to take this investigation wherever it takes him and his team," she said. "And I said that at the beginning and I repeat that, because I believe very, very firmly in that. And I think any efforts to thwart that are dangerous.

"If the investigation takes them to an additional turn that needs to be followed, I think this is what we're asking for when we ask for an independent investigation," she said. "That means that the president can't meddle. That means that the attorney general can't meddle. That means that the United States Senate can't meddle, and I just firmly believe that they should be able to take it where it goes."

..."I do not subscribe that this is some kind of a witch hunt," she said, referring to President Donald Trump's oft-repeated criticism of the special counsel inquiry into alleged Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election and that now appears to have spread to other matters involving Trump and his associates.

Reports regularly surface that Trump is highly frustrated by the investigation and that some of his supporters are urging Mueller's firing.

The Senate Judiciary Committee last week, in a bipartisan vote, approved a bill that would provide for judicial review of a president's firing of a special counsel. The counsel would have, under the proposal, 10 days to seek an expedited review of his or her firing. The bill also would require the attorney general to report to Congress if a special counsel is fired or appointed and to provide Congress with details if the scope of the investigation changes.

Murkowski said she is inclined to support the bill if it reaches the Senate floor.

"I have had good discussion with colleagues about this legislation," Murkowski said. "So I have said that I would consider supporting it, and based on what passed out of committee, if it comes to the floor, unless something changes I'm prepared to support it."

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said, however, that he will not allow the bill to proceed, citing constitutional concerns about encroaching on executive branch authority.

Murkowski also defended the FBI's work on the Russia investigation. The agency has been a frequent target of Trump, who only last week in a Fox News interview said, "And you look at the corruption at the top of the FBI, it's a disgrace. And our Justice Department, which I try and stay away from, but at some point, I won't."

Eventually Everyone Will Flip On Trumpanzee... Except Some Voters In Wyoming, Oklahoma And West Virginia

Trump is demanding Sessions fire his perceived political enemies. Months ago he went nuts on Sessions and FBI Director Christopher Wray about why they hadn't fired Peter Strzok and Lisa Page from the FBI for disloyalty to the all high Trumpanzee, unable to distinguish between loyalty to America and loyalty to the Führer, who "pressed his attorney general and FBI director to work more aggressively to uncover derogatory information within the FBI’s files to turn over to congressional Republicans working to discredit the two FBI officials."

The effort to discredit Strzok and Page has been part of a broader effort by Trump and his allies to discredit and even fire FBI officials who they believe will be damaging witnesses against the president in Mueller’s obstruction of justice probe.

Those attacks, in turn, are part of a broader push to denigrate Mueller himself and make it easier for Trump to publicly justify his potential firing. Those efforts have taken on new urgency as Mueller continues to rack up guilty pleas from former senior Trump officials like Michael Flynn and Rick Gates, and after the FBI, in conjunction with other federal prosecutors, raided the office, home, and hotel room of Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime lawyer. Trump’s fury over the raid has made many of his closest advisers worry that he’s inching closer to firing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the Mueller probe, and possibly Mueller as well.

Friday night, a team of Washington Post national security reporters wrote that Sessions said he'd quit if Trumpanzee fires Rosenstein. That might be another incentive for Señor T to initiate his own Saturday Night Massacre. I wonder if anyone has explained to the ignorant Putin puppet what the Saturday Night Massacre was and what it led to.

He's still fuming that Sessions recused himself from all things related to Putin-Gate and would love to see him leave the Justice Department. Sessions called Don McGahn, the official chief White House counseland told him if Trumpanzee fires Rosenstein over the Cohen raid, he may have to resign. The Post speculated that "the protest resignation of an attorney general-- which would be likely to incite other departures within the administration-- would create a moment of profound crisis for the White House." Really? Why? Trump only cares about what his base thinks and none of this would mean anything to them as long as Trump tweets something derogatory about Sessions.

The 4 Post writes pointed out that "Last summer, when it appeared Trump was going to fire Sessions or pressure him to resign, Republican lawmakers and conservative advocacy groups rallied to Sessions’s side and warned the president not to move against him." Since then, Trump's power with the GOP has grown immensely and he doesn't care what Republican lawmakers or conservative advocacy groups whine about. If he's not king of America, he is king of the GOP. He dominates the Republican Party utterly and entirely. He refers to Sessions as Mr. Magoo and Rosenstein as Mr. Peepers. There is no one who can stand up to him--no one. And remember, Rosenstein isn't some Obama administration hold-over. Rosenstein, a Republican, was put in place by Señor Trumpanzee himself.

Trump had told senior officials last week that he was considering firing Rosenstein, who was confirmed by the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support last year. Since then, alumni of the Justice Department have rallied to Rosenstein’s defense.

As of Friday afternoon, more than 800 former Justice Department employees had signed an open letter calling on Congress to “swiftly and forcefully respond to protect the founding principles of our Republic and the rule of law” if Trump were to fire the deputy attorney general, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III or other senior Justice Department officials.

...Rosenstein, the Justice Department’s No. 2 official, is tasked with running the day-to-day operations of the sprawling agency of 113,000 employees who work for the FBI; the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Bureau of Prisons; U.S. attorneys offices; and Main Justice, the agency’s headquarters. But from the time he was confirmed in May of last year, the investigation into possible coordination during the 2016 presidential campaign between Trump associates and agents of the Russian government has overshadowed everything he has done.

...A month after Rosenstein became deputy attorney general, he was criticized for his role in the firing of FBI Director James B. Comey. Rosenstein wrote a critical memo lambasting Comey for his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, and the White House later used the document as a pretext to remove the FBI director. After a few days, though, Trump said he was thinking about the Russia investigation when he fired Comey. Comey has said in recent days he believed Rosenstein “acted dishonorably” and could not be trusted.

At that point, Rosenstein was overseeing the Russia investigation because Sessions had recused himself. On May 17, about a week after the Comey firing, Rosenstein announced that he had appointed Mueller as special counsel to conduct the Russia investigation.

Rosenstein took the action without first consulting Sessions and notified him when he was at the White House meeting with Trump. The decision took Trump by surprise and greatly angered him.

A person close to the White House and the Justice Department said Sessions has “vacillated, I think, from being concerned about the deputy leaving or being fired and recognizing that Rosenstein has not been a friend of either him or the department.”

...This week, two of Trump’s top legislative allies and leading members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus met with Rosenstein and pressed him for more documents about the conduct of law enforcement officials involved in the Russia probe. They warned him that he could face impeachment proceedings or an effort to hold him in contempt of Congress if he did not satisfy Republican demands for more documents.

By forcing the Justice Department into releasing Comey's memos to themselves, House Republicans-- who promptly leaked the memos to the press-- blundered into making Trump look even more repulsive and more guilty than he already looked. On top of which there's all this chatter about whether or not the sleaze-bag Michael Cohen will "flip" on Trump. It's unimaginable to be but... isn't Trump in the White no less unimaginable? [Also unimaginable: the media referring to yenta and Fox scumbag Alan Dershowitz as a "liberal."]

Two sources close to the president said people in Trump’s inner circle have in recent days been actively discussing the possibility that Michael Cohen-- long seen as one of Trump’s most loyal personal allies-- might flip if he faces serious charges as a result of his work on behalf of Trump.

“That’s what they’ll threaten him with: life imprisonment,” said Alan Dershowitz, the liberal lawyer and frequent Trump defender who met with the president and his staff over two days at the White House last week. “They’re going to threaten him with a long prison term and try to turn him into a canary that sings.”

...In a court filing last week, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York explained the FBI raid was “the result of a months-long investigation” into the president’s lawyer and that prosecutors were looking for evidence of crimes related to his business dealings.

Trump and his allies fear that documents and recordings that the FBI swept up from Cohen’s home and office could come back to haunt the president, whose lawyers have joined Cohen’s in New York in asserting attorney-client privilege and are asking a federal judge to approve an independent review of the material.

“Who knows what Cohen has in those files,” said a person close to the White House.

But their concerns go beyond Cohen’s voluminous files. Increasingly, Trump’s outside advisers are worried about the risk posed by Cohen himself.

“I think for two years or four years or five years, Michael Cohen would be a stand-up guy. I think he’d tell them go piss up a rope. But depending on dollars involved, which can be a big driver, or if they look at him and say it’s not two to four years, it’s 18 to 22, then how loyal is he?” said one defense lawyer who represents a senior Trump aide in Mueller’s Russia investigation.

“Is he two years loyal? Is he 10 years loyal? Is he 15 years loyal?” the attorney added. “That’s the currency. It’s not measured in inches. It’s measured in years.”

Jay Goldberg, a longtime Trump lawyer, told the Wall Street Journal that he spoke with Trump on Friday about Cohen and warned the president against trusting Cohen if he is facing criminal charges. Goldberg said he warned the president that Cohen “isn’t even a 1” on a scale of 1 to 100, where 100 was remaining fully loyal to the president, the newspaper reported.

...The prospect of years or even decades in prison might be easier to swallow if Cohen believes a presidential pardon is possible. White House officials and others close to the president insist that last week’s decision to pardon former Vice President Dick Cheney’s senior aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby on perjury charges dating to his service in the George W. Bush administration was not intended to send a message to Cohen-- but it nonetheless could go a long way toward reassuring the president’s lawyer.

“They’re going to squeeze him like a grape. I think in the end he’ll pop unless Trump pardons him,” said Paul Rosenzweig, a senior fellow at the nonprofit R Street Institute and a former senior counsel during independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s investigation into President Bill Clinton.

...Cohen flipping “would be Trump’s worst nightmare,” said John Dean, the former White House counsel whose cooperation with Watergate prosecutors helped lead to President Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974.

“It would be as stunning and life-disrupting a surprise as his winning the presidency,” Dean added. “And if there is any prosecutor’s office in the USA that can flip Cohen, it is the Southern District of New York.”