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Where Things Stand: Cornyn’s Taking Notes 
The self-preservation expectation-setting is spreading.
The Great Moonwalking, long foretold, is beginning in advance of President leaving office or even losing office. We are now hearing that even some of President Trump’s most committed lickspittles and toadies were in fact anti-Trump all along, just working secretly, operating from the inside. To borrow the Catholic hierarchy’s usage, they were in pectore members of the resistance.
Last week we had Ben Sasse detailing all the President’s many transgressions in a campaign call he was sure would rapidly make it into the papers. Yesterday John Cornyn, one of the President’s most loyal Senate soldiers, announced that contrary to all appearances he has not in fact loyally supported the President at every turn. In fact he has opposed almost all of his major policy initiatives – just secretly. Cornyn cast himself as an abused wife who has only latterly realized there’s no changing Trump. “Maybe like a lot of women who get married and think they’re going to change their spouse, and that doesn’t usually work out very well.”
We’re Still Waiting On SCOTUS To Act On A Blockbuster Voting Dispute In Pennsylvania
Expanding the Court Gains Critical Ground
Immediately after I started saying that Democrats should expand the number of Justices on the Court in response to Republican court packing, I heard from a couple people telling me that the coteries around Pelosi and Biden were saying, no way. Not happening. (Interestingly, I heard a pretty different message from within the Senate caucus leadership – which is and should be the real locus of decision-making.)
But things are changing. Last week Joe Biden shifted his public statements to explicitly connecting his decision on expanding the Court to the outcome of the Barrett confirmation process. Her confirmation is of course a foregone conclusion. But clarifying the cause and effect, the order of events is critical: Democrats are reacting to and trying to repair the damage caused by Republican court-packing and corruption. If Republicans are upset by the prospect of all their hard work and corrupt acts going up in smoke with a simple majority vote they can take the opportunity to rethink their next actions.
The Complicit Start to Turn on the President
There is an unfolding development which you can miss in the muddy onrush of campaign events but is nevertheless important to take note of. As President Trump’s electoral prospects appear increasingly dire, national security officials, intelligence officials and his own top political appointees are talking more openly and critically to the press about the President. There are many examples of this. But yesterday’s Washington Post article about intelligence warnings about Rudy Giuliani are a good example. If you read the article closely the sourcing seems to come either directly or with the okay of the President’s National Security Advisor, Attorney General and other top appointees. It’s not new information. It goes back almost a year. It’s new willingness to talk. The NYPost “emails” story is the peg. But the willingness is new.
Where Things Stand: Conveniently Sasse-y
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) should’ve learned from Jeff Flake.
Now We’re Talkin’
Two articles were published this evening which suggest that the FBI is investigating Rudy Giuliani’s Delaware laptop caper as a potential Russian intelligence operation targeting Vice President Biden. At NBC Ken Dilanian reports that “Federal investigators are examining whether the emails allegedly describing activities by Joe Biden and his son Hunter and found on a laptop at a Delaware repair shop are linked to a foreign intelligence operation.”
The article suggests the probe long predates the New York Post’s publication of the purported emails on Tuesday.
What The Heck Is Going On At Voice Of America?
Where Things Stand: The Only Time The Deficit Matters
For the GOP, clinging to austerity is a task employed only when it’s most convenient. Or most desperate.
