Putin-Gate

By this weekend, even Fox viewers were finding out about Trump-- or at least his campaign-- conspiring to collude with the Russians.

White House President Stephen Miller has no problem with a long, long government shutdown. Neither does Trump's base. Jennifer Epstein at Bloomberg News reported that "Negotiations are at a standstill and no more talks are scheduled for the weekend or early next week.

Congressman LeBoutillier (R-NY), back in the dayIt was strange when John LeBoutillier was elected to Congress on Long Island in 1980. He was nationally prominent young, antagonistic and brash right-wing Republican-- a Matt Gaetz of his day-- and he beat a liberal icon, Leslie Wolff, who had held the seat since 1964.

The White House announced that Señor Trumpanzee isn't going to his Mar-A-Lago $1,000/guest New Years Eve party tonight. The Palm Beach Post's gossip columnist wrote that "It’s unclear whether Mar-a-Lago will let people wiggle out of their tickets at this late date.

Do you remember Marc Thiessen? From his days working for George W. Bush? From his many appearances on Fox? For his deranged book, Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack, a defense of torture and war criminals? Yes, a truly horrid person.

by NoahMitch McConnell: Accomplice in Trump's betrayal of America. Call him Accomplice #1. As Majority Leader, MConnell not only pushes Trump's agenda of policies and nominations, he is Trump's eager protector, ignoring his sworn oath, saying and doing nothing to protect the United States and The Constitution.

This is kind of a Part II of the Brexit post from earlier this evening. There are plenty of Democrats-- including many who I like and respect-- who don't believe that Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was significant. I disagree, extremely so. I'm far from a Clinton supporter, but I feel absolutely certain that Trump would not be in the White House today had Putin not decided to make a big push to put him there.

This week's embodiment of corrupt Trumpist dysfunction-- rodeo clown Ryan ZinkeMiss all those polls that we got to read every couple of days in the run-up to the elections? (Did any of them predict a net 40 seats flipping?) A couple of new ones came out today.

The first I ever heard of Russian oligarch and Putin crony Dmitry Rybolovlev-- the "king of fertilizer"-- was on Rachel Maddow's show. She talked about him quite a bit last year, as you can watch her doing above in a clip from March 2017. She kept going back to him not just because he's a billionaire who bought a Greek Island, a French soccer team and the most expensive apartment in Manhattan, but because in 2008 he bought a rather dilapidated Palm Beach mansion from shady businessman and already notorious money launderer Donald J. Trump.

Individual One by Nancy Ohanian-by Reese ErlichNew York, America's largest city is abuzz over the latest revelations about Donald Trump's crimes. I'm here on book tour discussing Iran, but audiences want to know if Trump will be impeached.Court documents filed in the case of Trump's long-time personal lawyer Michael Cohen show The Donald paid off two women with whom he had sexual relations.