Trump's Swamp

Chris Collins (R-NY) making headlinesEarly this morning, western New York Congressman Chris Collins, who represents the Buffalo and Rochester suburbs in a safe (R+11) seat that Trump won 59.7-35.2%, was arrested by the FBI, along with his son Cameron and Cameron's father-in-law, Stephen Zarsky.

I was speaking to a congressional campaign manager yesterday who had just finished a poll of which issues were resonating in his rural district. Some of the issues were what you'd expect: Medicare expansion and Social Security being the top two. But two I didn't see coming-- at least so high up on the list: the trade deficit and the budget deficit.

At this point, national polling doesn't tell us as much as district polling doesA nice theme has been developing over the past year or so: our political system is riven with corruption-- a culture of corruption-- and congressional Republicans are at the root of it. Sounds about right, although letting the Democrats off the hook is ludicrous. Sure the Republicans are more corrupt... but the Democrats are plenty corrupt.

Moscow's Mule by Chip ProserOn Saturday morning, Axios put together a quickie post, "3 lies heard 'round the world," and I'm sure you know exactly who told the 3 whoppers. He claimed he bent NATO members to his will, which never happened. He tried walking back his trazodone-fueled interview with The Sun, calling it "fake news," even though they released a tape.

by NoahScott Pruitt, one of Trump's "Best People" and uber Swamp Thing is gone. It's a nice bit of news but that news has to be tempered with the fact that the new cretin will be every bit as bad, if not worse, for America and the world. The new EPA clown will probably be more clever at hiding his scandals. How could he not be?

Yesterday Axios published some advise by Jim VandeHei: How to be the next Trump which starts with an assertion that may or may not be partially true: "Most coverage of President Trump focuses on the negative aspects of his style: the making-it-up-as-he-goes, the lying, the management-by-chaos." Maybe on Chris Hayes' Lawrence O'Donnell's, Rachel Maddow's and Jake Tapper's shows. Most of the mainstream media does not focus on that.

Yesterday Politico began the day with couple of paragraphs detailing how normalized corruption has become in The Swamp. And, yes, of course there's never been as huge and as toxic a swamp as the Trump swamp. "YES, guys like Michael Cohen routinely get paid amounts like $1.2 million to offer insights about their boss or former boss. Yeah, it’s crazy.

Ronny's gone-- is Mulvaney next? Pruitt?

The White House has been sending signals to Senate allies to not go out on any limbs defending EPA Director Scott Pruitt. On Monday, Bloomberg was already reporting that the Pruitt defenses were starting to crumble.

Last week, Vicky Ward wrote the definitive piece on GOP slime machine Nick Ayers, Swamp Thing. It's like a book about an insider that few people know about. Ayers is Mike Pence's brain in the same way Rove was Bush's.