Michael Grimm

In case you missed Chris Hayes' jaw-dropping interview with double (or triple) agent Felix Sater Friday night, MSNBC has actually posted it in embeddable form. That's it above. Sater is the kind of instinctual career criminal who will work for the Mob one day, the FBI or CIA the next day and the Russians the day after-- at the time, of course-- working for no one but Felix Sater. They don't come lower. But they do come as low. Remember Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm? Like Sater, he likes to immunize himself from criticism by screaming how he served in the military.

A photo that probably won't help Grimm much anymoreBy asking the question Where are Staten Island's congressional race donations coming from? Staten Island Live is making a civic contribution media outlets should follow everywhere.

In response to the subject line above… well of course and there's no chance many DWT readers doubted either premise at any point. This episode of the nasty little back and forth started with a David Smith report in The Guardian, basically a pre-review of Michael Wolff’s new book, Fire and Fury: Inside The Trump White House.

I often mention how hard it is for the House Democrats to effectively message a progressive agenda because so manyDemocrats in Congress do not adhere to progressive policies.

Remember the good old days when the NRCC made Mafia thug Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm a member of their Young Guns program? Grimm managed to beat a Democratic incumbent, Blue Dog GOP-lite backbencher Michael McMahon 65,024 (49.5%) to 60,773 (46.2%). But Grimm is a big time career criminal and Congress didn't slow him down one bit and he eventually wound up in prison. So now he's a felon-- and a candidate for Congress again.

The California GOP is in big trouble-- even in the corners of the state they still dominate. All 4 Republican congressmembers in what was once the Republican Party heartland-- Orange County-- are holding on by a thread. Hillary won all 4 districts and independent voters have had it with the GOP and are teaming up with Democrats to replace Darrell Issa, Ed Royce, Mimi Walters-- who never even bothered to move away from the beach and into her own district after being elected in 2014-- and Putin puppet Dana Rohrabacher.

Two of the most outstanding campaign videos so far this cycle were the ones introducing Randy Bryce (WI) and Amy McGrath (KY). Bryce immediately proved himself an even better candidate than the one his video showed. He built a powerful populist brand that is going to bring him all the way to Congress and make history by taking down Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House and a darling of the Beltway media. McGrath, on the other hand, was anything but ready for prime time.

Even Mussolini rejected the Mafia... but Bannon & Trump have no problem with the MobBannon's anti-establishment rampage so far has been directed towards Republican Senate incumbents allied with Mitch McConnell. Except in one instance: Bannon has allied with the Mafia to try to get convicted felon Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm back into Congress over the political corpse of Ryan ally Dan Donovan.

Blame Trump?Mafia thug Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm was convicted on a plea-bargain and given a slap on the wrist sentence because he had so much dirt on so many FBI agents. Now he's out of prison and feels he is entitled to run for Congress again and pretend the only thing he ever did wrong was about paperwork.

Former Mafia thug Michael,"Mikey Suits" Grimm got off very easy. He was given a sweet plea deal in return for resigning from Congress and for agreeing to not embarrass anyone in the FBI. So now he's out of prison after less than a year and already attacking former Staten Island D.A.