The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance has a story it wants to tell you in this week's roundup, and it doesn't require a guarantee of immunity for that.

Off the Kuff looks at the Beto O'Rourke for Senate campaign and how it might be successful, and jobsanger also feels encouraged by O'Rourke's candidacy.

SocraticGadfly looks at Texas Senate Democrats all voting FOR Dan Patrick's budget, and the ugh "fear the police" bill from Whitmire-West, and for those who want to #resist, suggests another voting option.

A couple of somewhat dubious sources reported that Michael Flynn's offer to flip had Trump thinking about resigning the presidency.   PDiddie at Brains and Eggs has lots of corn ready to pop just in case.

Neil at All People Have Value continues to attend weekly protests outside the Houston office of wrongdoing U.S. Senator from Texas John Cornyn.  Never let up against Bannon/trump and all the wicked servants of Bannon/trump.  APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

Before leaving on a month-long fishing trip, CouldBeTrue at South Texas Chisme points to the McAllen Monitor's op-ed accusing Texas legislators of using religion to discriminate.  That's not what Jesus would have done.

Lewisville ISD's handling of a sexual assault allegation by a student requires some improvement, editorializes the Lewisville Texan Journal.

Alex Kotch at Rewire reports on the political action committees of three law firms, one trade association, and eight other companies that signed the letter against SB 6 (the bathroom bill) that have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the campaigns of Republican state senators who sponsored the bill.

And Texas Vox highlights Rep. Rafael Anchia's resolution committing the state to lead the way in ratifying an amendment to the US Constitution that overturns Citizens United.

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More news of interest from across Texas, focusing on the legislative session ...

Texas Freedom Network takes note of SB522, which allows county clerks to exercise religious discrimination against virtually anyone.

Better Texas Blog reviews where we are in the state budget process, and Raise Your Hand Texas tells the truth about vouchers and school district costs.

Conservative state legislator Jason Villalba lines up with Equality Texas -- and not Dan Patrick -- on the bathroom bill, and Scott Braddock reminds us that where there is bigotry and hatred in Texas politics, there's Steve Hotze.

The Texas Election Law Blog answers your questions about the redistricting ruling, and Michael Li examines how CD35 could be changed by it.

Grits for Breakfast wonders if the Trump administration's pivot on the opioid crisis might spur Greg Abbott to change his position on 'Good Samaritan' legislation in the Lege, which he vetoed in 2015. 

Maggie Gordon documents the efforts of Ted Cruz's constituents to find him doing his job, and DBC Green Blog reads some of Cruz's weekly email blasts and wonders why he subscribed to them in the first place.

Therese Odell has a Monday morning wrap-up of the Trumpcare debacle, and Paradise in Hell takes a guess at how low Dear Leader Trump's approval rating can go.

And Zachery Taylor has the Walmart crime report from March.

Sunday Funnies

(^^--click it to big it--^^)

Is Trump thinking about quitting?

Maybe I should have taken that bet.  Two sources I consider to be of dubious stature -- Palmer Report and Inquisitir -- are reporting exactly that as of last night, in ongoing fallout from Michael Flynn's implosion, his latest act of desperation being an offer to testify under immunity from prosecution.  First, from the Hillbot blog that almost never links to anything except Twitter.

Now that Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser is offering to testify in Trump’s Russia scandal in exchange for immunity, it significantly narrows the path for Trump managing to survive the scandal himself. Flynn is essentially admitting he’s guilty just by asking for immunity, and such a deal will only be granted if Flynn can take down a bigger fish; that fish would be Trump. So it doesn’t come as a total shock to see a credible report tonight that Donald Trump is considering resigning.

Go ahead, give the guy the click.  He mentioned 'big fish' and baited the hook for you.

Here's the excerpt from Jared Kushner's shop, which occasionally forgets to run some kinda big deal past its publisher.

Donald Trump is reportedly considering resigning the presidency after reports that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has offered to testify about allegations that the Trump campaign worked with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign.

To review:

There have been reports circulating for months that Trump was working closely with Russian intelligence officials, and the allegations were laid out in a dossier compiled by a former British MI6 agent. The report claimed that Russian officials had worked for many years to cultivate Donald Trump as a candidate, compiling embarrassing information to use as blackmail while also offering lucrative financial deals for Trump. The dossier alleged that Trump struck a deal to lessen sanctions on Russia in exchange for help taking down Hillary Clinton.

That help allegedly came in the form of emails from Clinton’s campaign leader and the Democratic National Committee, stolen by Russian hackers and published through WikiLeaks.

Flynn had already been taking (sic) down for his connections to Russia. The national security adviser served just three weeks before resigning for reportedly lying to Vice President Mike Pence about contact with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak.

Yesterday's Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, with Clinton Watts as the spotlight dancer, set ablaze the New Cold War paranoia again.  Let's read Newscorpse for the scary details.

Clint Watts, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday. The former FBI agent was called to give testimony about the unfolding allegations of collusion between Russia and Donald Trump. His testimony addressed many of the most troubling aspects of Trump’s unsavory connections to Russia during the 2016 election.

After his testimony, Watts was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer on CNN. He affirmed much of what he told the committee and described the objectives of the Russian operatives. Watts was straight forward with this assessment of the situation:

Blitzer: What was Putin’s objective in all of this?

Watts: The ultimate objective is to destroy democracies from the inside out. What he wants to do is erode trust and sow divisions in the U.S. electorate.

Watts went on to say that intelligence operatives saw hacks and leaks that were “synchronized” with the Trump campaign. “That tends to lead to the belief that there was coordination,” he said. He also spoke about the “trail of dead Russians” that could lead to the confirmation of allegations raised by the infamous “Trump dossier.”

This is about as close as any witness has come to asserting a direct relationship between Trump’s campaign and the Russians. The CIA has already confirmed that Russian operatives were working to help Trump get elected and to hurt Hillary Clinton. The risks facing Watts for his testimony were on his mind during the Senate hearings. He told Blitzer that:

“If I speak today, my bank account could be compromised, I could be discredited through compromising materials, some true some false, but I think the biggest concern is I’m not confident right now that the U.S. government would actually come to bat for me. I’ve seen President Trump call for Russia to leak emails against a political opponent, I’ve seen him discredit the U.S. intelligence community to cite conspiracies that he’s seen on his Twitter feed.

“So, if I say things that the Trump administration doesn’t like or that is counter to Putin, I’m not sure it’s not Trump first, Russia second and the rest of America third.”

That description of Trump’s loyalties should send chills down the spine of every American. Watts’ career has put him in dangerous positions around the world. He is no shrinking violet. But his doubts amount to an indictment of Trump’s patriotism. Watts added that the Trump White House could not be relied on for anything but its own self-interests. “They will push falsehoods to achieve political objectives,” he said, “before they will push the truth for the American people.”

That has been borne out many times as Trump and his spokespersons disseminate “alternative facts” and cast false accusations at critics and the press. It is part of a grand strategy to discredit anyone who dares to find fault with the president. But as the Russian scandals compound, Trump is finding it increasingly more difficult to defend himself and his cohorts.

This Daily Kos diarist also passes along a Tweet from someone named West Wing Reports that former RNC chief Michael Steele is telling him/her "at lunch that Trump will not finish his term; advises clients to bolster ties w/VP Pence".

Let's establish that Trump is precisely the sort of petty, hyper-aggressive bully that would take his ball and go home if everybody won't stop being mean to him.  But I am only able to give veracity to these accounts after the fact; if indeed Trump quits the presidency sooner than later.  Until that comes into reality, I'm popping corn and watching and reading along with you.

Beto is in

Or will be officially, tomorrow.  Jon Tilove at the Statesman:

U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s political operation has sent an email to supporters Wednesday promising a “big announcement” on Friday, an almost certain sign that the El Paso Democrat will be announcing his candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Ted Cruz.

“Beto’s been traveling across Texas for the past four months, meeting with people in communities big and small. The energy and passion he’s seen have been inspiring. Together, we can do something really big, and really powerful for the state of Texas — and for this country,” the email read. “Congressman Beto O’Rourke has a big announcement to make on Friday.”

U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, also has been considering entering the race and promised a decision by the end of April.

“It’s no secret that Joaquin is heavily weighing a Senate run, and he will continue to have those discussions with his family, friends and supporters across Texas,” Castro’s political director, Matthew Jones, said in a statement Wednesday. “He plans to make his decision in the coming weeks.”

If he entered the race, Castro would have distinct advantages in name ID and organization over O’Rourke. But he has been considered a less likely candidate. Both O’Rourke, 44, and Castro, 42, are in their third terms in the House. O’Rourke has promised not to serve more than four terms while Castro has a potentially longer, brighter future there. He serves on the House Intelligence Committee which is investigating potential Russia ties to the Trump campaign and Trump administration.

I wouldn't care for a contested primary (Democrats need less divisiveness, not more) and would rather Beto than Joaquin, as O'Rourke is somewhat to the left of Castro.  I say 'somewhat' because Justice Democrats, another organization trying to pull the Donkeys to the left, has a graphic that shows neither man has signed on to Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All bill, so there's an opportunity to take a stand for something that Hillary Clinton said would 'never, ever happen'.  I'm also no fan of the manner in which the twins perform this Hamlet-esque rumination over their political futures -- or perhaps more accurately, the way they allow and encourage reporters and bloggers and supporters and opponents to do so.  It's a little annoying.  Be that as it may ...

O’Rourke, little known outside his district, would be a long shot in a state that remains reliably Republican. But the Trump presidency adds an element of uncertainty to political calculations everywhere in 2018, and O’Rourke’s recent bipartisan road trip with U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Helotes, demonstrated a talent for winning positive notice and using social media to engage a large audience.

O’Rourke, a fluent Spanish speaker who lives on the border and says that it is the safest and best place to be, would offer a stark contrast to the politics of Cruz and Trump.

The key to victory for O'Rourke -- and not Castro -- won't be the money but the enthusiasm he is able to generate.  That, and Matt Dowd running.  Notable among his otherwise cipher-like qualities, Dowd predicted in September of 2015 that Trump would be the GOP nominee, which was a couple of months after Michael Moore did so, but was certainly a narrow limb to be perched on at that point in the 2016 cycle.  Now he wants to bid for the Senate as an indy, and that will IMO take more votes from Poop Cruz than it will either Democrat.  There is an Evan McMullin quality to Dowd that represents his greatest threat to the status quo today, and by virtue of the outcome of extremist conservative developments like the bathroom bill in the Lege, he may be able to parlay a chunk of unmeasurable anti-Trump/anti-Dan Patrick sentiment into something significant enough to tip the scales in a general election.  It would have to be at least ten percent of the vote, probably higher.

Debates between Dowd and O'Rourke would definitely not be at lowest-common-denominator intelligence level, and whether I'm right or wrong about the participants -- after all, Michael McCaul could still primary Cruz and defeat him -- a three-way race makes for some fun in 2018.

Gadfly has a good take and so does Kuff.

And starring Devin Nunes as Shemp Howard

I'm not as old as the Stooges, but I'm old enough to remember when Republicans in Congress had some dignity.  Why, they weren't all lickspittles to the president, even.

The evidence is now clear that the White House and Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, have worked together to halt what was previously billed as a sweeping investigation of Russian interference in last year’s election. “We’ve been frozen,” Jim Himes, a Democratic representative from Connecticut who is a member of the Committee, said.

The freeze started after last Monday’s hearing, where James Comey, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, revealed that the F.B.I. has been investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia since last July. Comey also said that there was no evidence to support Trump’s tweets about being wiretapped.

(Yesterday) the House panel was scheduled to hear from three top officials who had served under the Obama Administration: Sally Yates, the former Deputy Attorney General, who briefly served as acting Attorney General, before being fired by President Trump; John Brennan, the former head of the C.I.A.; and James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence. But last week Nunes cancelled today’s hearing.

“The Monday hearing last week was, I’m sure, not to the White House’s liking,” said Himes. “Since Monday, I’m sorry to say, the chairman has ceased to be the chairman of an investigative committee and has been running interference for the Trump White House, cancelling hearings.”

So much for checks and balances.  How many times must the same lesson be learned?  "It's not the crime, it's the coverup".  What are you hiding (or trying to help Trump hide)?

Since then, Nunes and the White House have kicked up a cloud of peripheral issues that have distracted attention from Comey’s testimony and that of Michael Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency; Nunes and the Trump Administration have essentially shut down the investigation. Last night, Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, called for Nunes to recuse himself from the investigation. “All of this has cast such a cloud on the public perception of his impartiality that I think it would be in his interest as well as the committee’s” ...

Since last Monday’s hearing, Nunes, who was a member of the Trump transition team, has spoken repeatedly about the issue of incidental collection, the intelligence community’s term for the communications of innocent Americans that can be swept up when the N.S.A. or other agencies legally spy on a foreign target. The Russian ambassador, a legal target of surveillance, was recorded talking to Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national-security adviser, who was a victim of incidental collection.

The White House and Nunes were clearly coördinating this strategy. A few days before the hearing, Trump seemed to offer a preview of it. In an interview on Fox News, the president said that he “will be submitting things” to Nunes’s committee “very soon,” and “perhaps speaking about this next week,” adding that “you’re going to find some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks.”

Last Monday morning, shortly before the start of the hearing, a senior White House official (said), “You’ll see the setting of the predicate. That’s the thing to watch today.” He suggested that (author Ryan Lizza) read a piece in The Hill about incidental collection. The article posited that if “Trump or his advisors were speaking directly to foreign individuals who were the target of U.S. spying during the election campaign, and the intelligence agencies recorded Trump by accident, it’s plausible that those communications would have been collected and shared amongst intelligence agencies.”

Go read that piece in The Hill.  And keep in mind two things: when Nunes ran to the White House to tell Trump this, Cheetolini felt 'somewhat vindicated' for his allegations of being wiretapped by Obama, and he went somewhere besides Mar-a-Lago to play golf last weekend.  For the first time since he was inaugurated.

The White House clearly indicated ... that it knew Nunes would highlight this issue. “It’s backdoor surveillance where it’s not just incidental, it’s systematic,” the White House official said. “Watch Nunes ...”

Sure enough, at last Monday’s hearing, Nunes asked in his opening statement, “Were the communications of officials or associates of any campaign subject to any kind of improper surveillance?” He continued, “The Intelligence Community has extremely strict procedures for handling information pertaining to any U.S. citizens who are subject even to incidental surveillance, and this committee wants to insure all surveillance activities have followed all relevant laws, rules, and regulations.” Nunes made it clear that Trump’s wiretapping claim was false, but he seemed intent on offering the President a fig leaf for the explosive claim. “It’s still possible that other surveillance activities were used against President Trump and his associates,” he insisted. The overwhelming majority of questions from Republicans at the hearing revolved around this issue.

Dunes set off these smoke bombs to protect his president at great loss to his reputation, whatever it may have been prior to his fully compromising it.  A hallmark of any Republican administration, but especially this one, is fealty.  Even if that means you fall on your sword when you are caught engaging in an obvious and perhaps criminal deception.  Like W Bush (Scooter Libby) and Reagan (Oliver North) and Nixon (Robert Bork, et. al.) before him, Trump and his ilk believe there is nothing they cannot do.  The difference -- and to be clear, this evolution began with Bush -- is that Congressional Republicans simply don't care if it breaks the law.

Read on through the rest of the developments Ryan Lizza chronicles at the first link.  It sorta feels like a constitutional crisis is coming down the tracks, particularly with a vote on a possible Supreme Court justice coming next week.

More from Jay Bookman, and the moneyshot:

Indeed, Nunes’ strange behavior, his constantly shifting stories and his seemingly panicked management style have made Trump look more guilty, even if he really isn’t. With his behavior, Nunes has also made it clear that we need an independent, nonpartisan counsel to investigate the increasingly troubling links between the Trump campaign, the Trump business empire and Russian intelligence operatives, and to give the American people a definitive account of what has happened.

[...]

It’s a clown act. And instead of dispelling doubts and suspicions about Trump’s campaign, it accentuates them. If Nunes thought that a fair and impartial investigation would clear Trump, why hasn’t he conducted that fair and impartial investigation? Why has he repeatedly acted as if the truth were dangerous?

Update: "(I)t isn’t a good sign when a leading senator from your own party says you’ve lost all credibility and mockingly compares you to Inspector Clouseau."

I'll stick with Shemp.