(diary)
Fri 14 Feb 2020
I’m ending the week that should have despondency instead with optimism. One of the lawyers I follow (probably Teri Kaniefeld?) advised that the coming months up until the election, and likely after, will contain a maelstrom of offenses. He’s completely unfettered, he benefits from distractions, there’s no chance that Rs will check him in any way from this point on. Instead of focusing on the day’s chaos, plan for the exit strategy that is the next election. Accept that there is (very likely) no punished or pause for him while in office. This is good advice that could have been given at any point in the last 3+ years, so the following it always depends on just how much zen-like calm you can muster.
It’s always a balance of feeling necessary alarm and planning measured strategies.
The necessary alarm was expressed in a manner I had never heard or expected from Preet Bharara and Anne Milgram the day after Trump pushed Barr pushed the four federal prosecutors to resign their roles on the Stone case. While driving home from work on Wednesday, I listened to their unscheduled podcast (which, even when it’s only a day or two later, I miss that his deeper-than-Twitter insights are not more immediate) regarding the Barr fiasco, and I actually felt nauseous. Lawyers and ex-AGs in my Twitter feed had been sounding the “four alarm fire” all day, but hearing the normally sensible hosts actually express panic… was unnerving.
Hope Hicks is back in the WH. Insider word is that she’s needed to calm his frenzied mental decay. Tom Joseph has long tracked signs of his impending dementia and has warned that when it goes into its catastrophic phase, it will happen quickly. He predicts before the election. Take that how you’d like.
Melancholy quote from Chris Hayes paraphrasing a quote from an Indian writer (who’s name I forget): “We’ve come to miss hypocrisy because it’s the ghost of some decency we remember.” The hatred for Susan Collins’ and Murkowski’s ignorant, opportunistic permissiveness was swifter than I expected. They are really the most disgusting people this week.
What’s next?