4804

Good piece.

And sure enough, Senate Republicans, who’ve never mustered the nerve to oppose Trump on much of anything, are fretting. The Hill reports, “The GOP majority in the Senate is shaping up as a firewall for Republicans who are worried that President Trump might falter and lose the White House next year.” They also don’t think much of their chances to retake the House. The report continues:

“If we lose the presidency — and if I had to guess right now, the odds are 10 percent we get the House back — the Senate is the only check and balance,” said one former Republican Senate chief of staff. “If we don’t keep the Senate, we’re basically screwed. I hate to just cut to the chase, but that is exactly what the [National Republican Senatorial Committee] is running with.” . . .

The “firewall” narrative has trickled down to battleground Senate races, with GOP incumbents seizing on McConnell’s message.

"The socialism charge in particular works well with some of the soft Republican voters, suburban voters that Republicans have struggled with in the Trump era … so I think you’ll see a lot of Republican candidates talk about the Senate being the last firewall,” said a national GOP strategist watching the Senate races.

4805

Balance? That’s rich. The Republican party is comprised entirely of checks.

-Tom

4806

Hey, at least if there were democrat in office, they’d do their jobs in that regard.

4807

Really interesting thread here.

4808

Sorry, but that reads no less farfetched than a QAnon fever dream about rounding up all the Democratic pedophiles and deep-state operators on a certain day.

4809

I think it’s far, far more plausible than that. The Deutsche Bank/ Tax records of DJT are a disaster for him, which is exactly what that thread is laying out.

4810

The mistake it makes is thinking facts matter. If we have incontrovertible proof that Trump laundered money for the Russians… it changes nothing. Everybody already knows that. Number of Trump supporters and Republican elected officials who will turn against Trump based on this: Zero.

4811

Now, now. It’s possible there might be one or two who express serious concern.

4812

That’s exactly how it read to me as well. In fact, it also felt like a parody of Trump’s speech patterns (not only is it a good strategy, it’s the BEST!) and I’m still not convinced anything about it is serious, including the request for the retweets (who does that?)

4813

This a million times. We’ve already proven that he’s violated campaign finance laws, emoluments, and a host of other issues. None of that matters as long as the GOP stands by him, and they ain’t leaving over some pathetic bank records now.

4814

It’s just difficult for them to take him to task for breaking the exact same laws they’re currently breaking themselves, why shine a spot light on that sort of stuff? If they’re going to hold him accountable for something, it needs to be a crime unique to Trump, so they can distance themselves from it, be above it.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, there aren’t any crimes left in the books Trump can commit that they haven’t already.

4815

Romney will say that he is deeply disappointed, then vote with/for Trump all down the line.

4816

Interesting.

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4817

The GOP may want to rethink leaning too heavily on that assumption. I happen to live among a pretty good-sized contingent of those soft Republican suburban voters who are uncomfortable with Trump, and a decent percentage of them also happen to be struggling with the out-of-control costs of healthcare and college tuition for their kids (it comes up A LOT in conversations). In 2016 they voted Republican despite Trump because “SCOTUS” and “Anyone But Hillary”. SCOTUS is a battle that’s been won as far as they’re concerned now, and there is no “Hillary” equivalent in this race, so the promise of someone actually lowering the cost of healthcare and education might actually outweigh the whole “Socialism” scare-tactic in 2020. They may not vote Democrat in 2020, but they very well may simply stay home, which is just as good from my standpoint.

4818
4819

DJT not wanting to be in pictures with his daughter because she’s fat is the most on brand news item possible for DJT. Never mind that he himself probably weighs more than Taft at the height of his powers.

4820

Years of them going on about Clinton’s emails and Comey’s memos, but they won’t say shit about him putting this out there.

Unlike Clinton’s emails mentioning drone strikes everyone knew about, or Comey mentioning some country this shit is actually useful to other countries wanting to know just how capable our imaging is.

4821

Elect a clown, get a circus. None of them ever get to walk back from this shit when DJT chokes on his last Big Mac.

4822
4823

Can we please go back to President Trump ignoring intelligence briefings?