Trump's Card

[Hot Pepsi]

That’s interesting, did the Poor Whites of the Tennessee hills see through the Antebellum elite bullshit that kept them almost as fucked as the slaves?

Yeah, that's pretty much the long and the short of it.

[Satchmo Distel]

Presumably Mueller wouldn't have let Flynn take a plea deal unless he was confident it would lead to a bigger fish? If Flynn was as high as Mueller could go, he'd be frying Flynn not giving him a get out of jail option.

Meanwhile what happens when Moore gets to Congress? Does he vote with the GOP, abstain, just not show up for votes? Does Pence blank him?

[Gerontophile]

Look, whatever happens, Flynn isn't going to say anything on TV until there is an indictment of someone else which goes to trial.

So, yes, great that Flynn is copping. Meanwhile, Manafort gets out from house arrest on bail. Wired to the eyeballs, no doubt, but still.

And horrific as it is, Moore is a sideshow, when it should be the main event, at this moment. The other thing will take a while.

[ursus arctos]

The consensus bet is that Flynn has fingered Jared Kushner at a minimum.

There have been some rumblings within senior GOP Senate circles that they would not seat Moore or immediately start an investigation of some sort, but it is hard to take that seriously given how many times they have folded already. He clearly would be a stupider version of Sessions on social and criminal justice issues and likely do as told on economic questions.

[Satchmo Distel]

I hadn't looked at it that way but, yes, I can see that once Moore is elected the GOP could justify seating him with some BS about respecting the wishes of the voters of Alabama.

[Incandenza]

NBC has two sources who have told them that the "very senior member" of the transition team mentioned in Flynn's statement as the person who directed him to reach out to Russia and other nations about the UN resolution on Israel...is Jared.

[San Bernardhinault]

If Moore's elected, they won't even try and kick him out. At least, not unless he starts regularly voting against Mitch. And even then it's not clear that they have the legal power to kick him out. Nor, necessarily, any moral power given that he has got elected despite the public having the full knowledge of what he did.

And I'd put the chances of Moore getting elected at still about 90%. Which is less than the 99.8% chance I'd have given any other Republican in Alabama, but still... Nobody should hold their breath on this one.

[Tubby Isaacs]

McConnell says he has the votes.

[Tubby Isaacs]

CNN say it's Kushner.

[Wouter D]

Kind of hard to build a cordon sanitaire around a party that has held the Presidency for most of your lifetime.

People simply not bothering to vote make it substantially more difficult, though.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Trump doesn't care about Kushner. He's only going to flip out if they put handcuffs on Ivanka. Only he's allowed do that. He doesn't care about that fucking Ken Doll he married her to. Look at him, you just know he's perfectly smooth down there. Donald wouldn't have it any other way.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

wow. Large doses of Steroids can take you by surprise sometimes.

[San Bernardhinault]

So, the question remains how does this lead to anyone actually getting Trump out of office? There's certainly no harm in Kushner, Flynn, Manafort and Gates being locked away, but is it materially damaging to Trump?

[Satchmo Distel]

Barring an economic collapse or military disaster or tapes of him fingering a toddler, we have to wait until he gets too bored, tired or ill to want to run in 2020.

[anton pulisov]

I dunno, there's a chance that the Trump family holiday videos might still surface.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Or tax returns.

[Lang Spoon]

Ach, Trump Trump 2020 is still on. And then we’re truly fucked.

[Incandenza]

The pee tape is definitely going to come out within the next year

[WOM]

No use squatting on it if it's no longer good for anything.

[ursus arctos]

They have the votes, but still don’t have a bill, because every fat cat lobbyist in town is still adding amendments to make it even worse

[San Bernardhinault]

It sounds like they only just have the votes, though. Corker's not happy, so they probably only have one spare (plus Pence). There's a risk that too many late amendments will piss off McCain (or Collins over Obamacare, or Murkowski who seems to have lost her special Alaskan drilling rights, or Flake who seems pretty, well, flakey about this). Worse for them, though, is with only one vote to spare they become utterly dependent on Alabama after the bill goes through conference.

[ursus arctos]

Corker appears to be a definite no now.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Have they got no senators in states where the local taxes deduction thing is going to be a major problem? Or is that just a House problem for them?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Corker appears to be a definite no now.

Interesting.

Might not be a very good look if they get it through effectively on Roy Moore's vote.

[ursus arctos]

Only an issue in the House