It appears that Trump is backing off from insisting that the Senate stay in session until it approves Todd Blanche’s nomination for Attorney General. He “truthed” a social media post saying he was considering withdrawing Blanche’s nomination until next year, when John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who are not on board with Blanche, will no longer be in the Senate. Steve Benen writes that there are two potential problems with this plan. One is that there are legal questions about how long Blanche can fill the role in an “acting” capacity. Two, there is no guarantee Trump will have a Republican majority in the Senate next year. (Please.)
See also The GOP revolt over Todd Blanche is suddenly very real by Mychael Schnell.
Cornyn and Tillis, both of whom are leaving Congress at the end of the year, say the Trump administration has yet to satisfy their demands on Trump’s IRS settlement. The pair is asking Blanche to formally kill the so-called anti-weaponization fund and narrow the scope of the IRS audit immunity afforded to Trump, his family, his businesses and others under the agreement.
Until then, they’re refusing to advance his nomination to the Senate floor.
However, today the Senate Finance Committee voted down an amendment to a tax procedure bill that would have prevented the IRS from making any tax audit immunity deals with a sitting president, their family, or any connected entities. Which would effectively have killed Trump’s IRS audit immunity deal. And Cornyn voted to kill the amendment. So I don’t know what’s going on with that.
Trump could, of course, get the Blanche nomination back on track as soon as he releases written assurance that there will be no anti-weaponization slush fund or IRS audit immunity. But he won’t, probably because he cares about the slush fund and the audit immunity more than about Todd Blanche.
Trump also has been saying that John Thune may not be majority leader for much longer, as if he has anything to say about it.
John Light at Talking Point Memo
Throughout Trump’s SAVE Act pressure campaign on his Senate allies, he has repeatedly made demands that misunderstand the reality of how the Senate functions, and how bills become law. He has seemed amenable to passing what everyone has taken to calling the “SAVE Act” through budget reconciliation, even though a SAVE Act done through reconciliation, while bad, would likely be without the nationwide voter-ID and proof-of-citizenship mandates that are core to what the SAVE Act is. It is unclear whether Trump realizes this.
Pathetic. But the senators who are running for re-election are no doubt eager to get home and do some campaigning. And it appears neither Todd Blanche nor the SAVE America Act has the votes now. And I don’t see anything Trump can do to change that.
You’ll want to read We’ve Officially Entered the Twilight of Late-Stage Trumpism by Greg Sargent.
Good column by Sargent, nice title "…Twilight of Late-Stage Trumpism…" but to me it feels more like the Twilight ZONE of Late-Stage Trumpism.
Scapegoat, so many sins, so few sin eaters. Fauci is more the Greatest Of All Time version rather than a scape one.
The quick loop below will explain much.
Why MAGA is Obsessed with Anthony Fauci #psychology #politics #lucasbean #trump #fauci
Blanch is a goon, he's the closest thing Stump has found to his favorite crooked mob lawyer Roy Cohen. Watch the video below, he is getting grilled by Sen. Booker, fast forward to about the ten minute mark and watch the Goon lawyers reaction to the questioning, watch how he turns to the GQP chairman , signalling "why do I have to put up with this". These fucking people that work for Stump are all the same, they see out of control corruption and they want in on the Booty. They are a bunch of fucking mobsters. You know it's bad when Pam Bondo wasn't dirty enough for diaper don. The fact that this ruffian (Todd) would even be considered for AG just signals how far and how fast this country has fallen under Trump. We are truly fucked.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u8F6u182sQ
Blanch is on hold, but not because it was Trump's idea. It's like the Straight of Hormuz – when Iran effectively closes it, Trump says he is closing the Straight. There's a chance that Trump will lose the Senate but the nomination is going nowhere, so Trump is pretending he's in charge. It looks more and more like Trump wants that slush fund and the IRS immunity. Last I heard, a judge said no to both but the USSC will rule on this unless they decline to hear and leave it in a lower court's ruling.
Reporter Katie Phang recently grabbed a huge win against Blanche and his crusade to keep the Epstein files under wraps. After months of stalling by the Trump administration and ignoring the letter of a new law demanding the release of the sex-trafficker’s files, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan demanded insight on Trump’s longtime friendship. Sullivan sided with former MS NOW show host Phang in her lawsuit demanding the Trump administration adhere to the Epstein Transparency Act.
Phang predicted on Wednesday that Blanche — Trump's former personal defense attorney — would “try to get an appeal” to stall the release of the redacted information, but she acknowledged that this would be “very difficult” because Judge Sullivan already had denied on two occasions Blanche's attempts to get a stay or a delay in having to comply.
But instead, Blanche handed over the unredacted information to Sullivan to review, possibly for release to the public.
https://www.alternet.org/trump-jeffrey-epstein-todd-blanche/
I agree with you, because, if Dems hold the Senate, an impeachment will have a real, honest-to-goodness trial, and people will see Trump for what he is, and, sure, Republicans will probably vote to acquit, desperately hoping "maybe they'll get over it?" but at least it will be on the record, so to speak.
It takes a two-thirds majority to remove a president from office, which is why it’s never happened. Although it might have happened had Nixon not resigned ahead of the Senate vote. So we’ll need some Republican votes to do the right thing and relieve Trump of the burdens of office, so to speak. But that might not be impossible if Republicans are badly slaughtered in the midterms. They’ll want Trump to go away before 2028.
Melat Kiros and Margaret Hoover talked Democratic Socialism in quite a social and democratic way on PBS's Firing Line (link below). Melat is an up-and-coming Colorado politician defeating a fifteen-times incumbent in the Democratic primary there for the 1st district.
Most notable was the civil discourse regarding Israel, and the insightful discussion on the future of the region. Melat quickly emphasized self-determination as the key, with a democratic process rendering the future of the region developed by the people involved rather than some outside engineered "solution" imposed upon the involved people. A democratic solution arrived at in a social way. Sounds promising.
Melat Kiros | Full Episode 7.31.26 | Firing Line with Margaret Hoover | PBS
OT, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is one of my heroes. Here he lays out a brief taxonomy of the kinds of corruption we're seeing in DC. The corrupt Supreme Court is one particular kind of corruption, and with this, Whitehouse goes all the way back to the Powell Memo.
Excellent presentation by Sheldon Whitehouse. He has been one my favorites fro quite some time.