Ready For Another?

Every time we turn around, there's another exploding example of Cult45 fuckery, and GOP shruggery.

At one of those town hall meet-your-Senator things, someone asked where we might expect certain congress critters to draw the line.

And Ernst did that bullshit limp-arm thing where instead of addressing the question - instead of addressing the problem that the questioner is pointing out - Ernst throws a blanket over it, saying, "Well, all corruption should be ferreted out no matter where it occurs..."

Nobody's going to disagree with it, but that kind of statement coming from someone who is supposed to be among the leaders of our democracy is dismissive and condescending. It says there's no problem with the fuckery as long as it's my guy doing it, and "What makes you peons think you can question your betters anyway?"

And now we have the next shoe to drop.

Business Insider:

With Washington, DC, embroiled in the fallout from a whistleblower's revelations that President Donald Trump pressured Ukraine's president to investigate a Democratic rival, another whistleblower scandal has received scant attention.

But experts say the second complaint could prove just as damaging for the president as the Ukraine controversy.

In a letter recently filed as part of his bid to obtain six years' worth of the president's tax returns, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Richard Neal, wrote that he received a credible complaint from a whistleblower at the end of July.

The complaint, Neal wrote, alleges "inappropriate efforts to influence" the IRS audit of Trump's tax returns.

At this stage, details are sparse. The identity of the whistleblower is unknown, as are the specifics of the complaint.

But experts and former prosecutors told Insider the complaint could land the president in legal jeopardy — and, just as important, lead to the release of the tax returns Trump has long shielded from public view.

It's not unreasonable to start with the premise that 45* keeps making it worse for himself because he's always having to make a calculation on what outrageous shit he can pull today in order to cover for the outrageous shit he pulled yesterday. That's not a fully adequate explanation, but it goes a good bit of the way in trying to get a handle on the lizard brain machinations of this guy.

I guess my hypothesis is that he's running around waving his arms yelling, "Look at me, look at me - I'm breaking the law right out in the open" for a couple of reasons.

First, so that we won't have time or energy to see the other shit that's going on - especially the shit that's hidden in his tax returns.

And 2nd, because if he can get "the base" to normalize this, he's that much closer to the unchecked power he craves.

There's gotta be some pretty amazing shit buried in those tax documents.