New Rule : Put Up or Shut Up

djt's aides keep telling us that he's gone to one of his golfclubs for "meetings and phone calls." djt leaves after 4 1/2 hours (an average golf game lasts four hours - and he needs time to change), after being espied wearing golf togs (shoes, glove, gold slacks, polo shirt).   then we are NOT told who djt "met" with, or "called", let alone who he played with. Meanwhile the press is tucked away in a corner of the club.

New rule: the press is allowed to place 18 photographers, no audio recording equipment, at the golf club while djt is having "meetings and phone calls": one at each hole. (If the course is larger, say 27 holes, the photo pool gets larger.)

Partisanship

It is expected that if the ACHA passes, it will do so with solely GOP votes, just as the ACA passed with just Dem votes. It wasn't always this way.

In late 1940 FDR had just won an unprecedented (and now unrepeatable) third term as President, with 55% of the popular vote and 85% of the Electoral vote. FDR proposed that the US should be the "Arsenal of Democracy," supplying the sole major country still in the fight (Great Britain and her Empire and Dominions) with the means to fight. He then proposed "Lend-Lease," to allow the increasingly destitute British to acquire weapons, ammunition, and materiel even without the means to pay.

The House voted on the bill in February:

                                      Aye               Nay
Democrats                    238                25
GOP                                24              135

The Senate voted in March:

Democrats                      49                 13
GOP                                10                 17

Apparently, back then, it was thought the representatives of the people, not the party leadership, should decide on important issues.

Excusing the inexcusable

The intelligence community has concluded that Putin ordered Russian hackers to influence the 2016 US Presidential election. At least seven members of the djt campaign, some at very senior levels then and now, met with Russian officials and attempted to hide those meetings, even while under oath.

The hacking, the dissemination of the stolen material, and possible collusion with a hostile foreign power in either the hacking or the dissemination raises serious questions about whether Moscow has gained undue influence over the US Executive. But many in the GOP and elsewhere, even on the left, wish to sweep it all under a rug.

The excuses offered that I have heard include:

1. "Well, doesn't the US do that to other countries? This is just payback."
2. "There's nothing illegal about seeking to influence voters."
3. "It's just another conspiracy theory/spy novel."
4. "I'm not the puppet, you're the puppet." (projection)
5. "This is more hyper-partisanship."
6. "The 'Deep State' just doesn't like ... (fill in the blank - Flynn, Putin, Russia, djt)."
7. "It'll all blow over. The real problem is the GOP is ... (another fill in the blank).
8. "If we investigate Republicans we can't attend to our agenda." 
9. "But Hillary! But DNC! But Bernie!" also "But Obama!" (deflection)
10. "The Government's collection of information showing the action, especially of links to Americans, was itself illegal, and that's the problem."
11. "It was a routine meeting(s), nothing to see here.”

12. “What he really meant to say was ...”