that I've ever read. It describes exactly the mood I remember when the Watergate investigation was going on, and it's a lot like what we are seeing now. We knew Nixon was lying through his teeth and that he was involved in the coverup all the way up to his beady eyeballs. We saw gutless Republicans defend him and accuse the press of conducting a "witch hunt." We worried that there was no way to get rid of Nixon. And we liberals went absolutely ballistic on account of the Saturday Night Massacre, and even then the GOPers defended him. It took the steady erosion of public support, and the GOPers' realization that their election prospects were deteriorating, to get them to even consider impeachment. The Republicans who finally decided Nixon had to go came to that conclusion not because they were principled defenders of the Constitution (they weren't; they were just as craven as today's GOPers), but because Nixon had become the proverbial albatross around their necks. Rich predicts the same will happen with Trump.

This is a must-read!

is immune to Lady Justice. When Nixon said "If the President does it, it isn't illegal", just as several Trump surrogates have echoed, it basically defies the rule of law. Were the Founding Fathers trying to emulate the monarchy without calling it that?

...from the time of the break-in.

If that's the "schedule" to use as a guide, we're way ahead of that now.

The country will suffer big time because of trump and the repubs. We were all warned, but naïve & foolish voters just didn't get it. They have and/or will very soon.

the Russian and gop collusion. All about the $$$.

Trump doesn't quit. Ever. He sees himself as a winner, even when he loses. He never quits.

He will never resign unless forced to. He will need to know that there are enough votes to impeach him or remove him, so that he will have no choice but to resign or get impeached: either way, he is forced to leave.

The Republicans in this Congress will NEVER vote to impeach him. They knew since last year that Russia was taking over our election system so that Trump would win illegally, and they championed Russia's cause. Still do. They are looking forward to the 2018 elections being hacked.

Today's Republicans are not like the Republicans of several decades ago. They are solely focused on their agenda, their tax cuts, their mega-wealthy donors. They would sell the country out for it, and have. Not all of them. But most of them. In the opinion of some of them, in fact, the government is the evildoer and is unnecessary and takes money and freedom from them, the only "we, the people" that count.

Our checks and balances system doesn't seem to be working. There is a Special Counsel, but no independent counsel. There was the judiciary, but now we're looking at Justice Kennedy-connected stacked Supreme Court, with a looming retirement by Justices Kennedy and Ginsburg.

All is not lost yet. It's in the hands of a few Republicans in the Senate (the House of Rep. is lost). And in the hands of the Democrats to gain enough seats in the 2018 election to get control of Congress...if they are ready to fight like hell.

I believe we have a de facto Russian White House. And most Republicans in Congress support that, in return for money. Our representatives are also being run by an oligarchy, now, which matters more to them than their constituents. That's the situation.

Those guys were just as focused on satisfying their wealthy constituencies by cutting their taxes and screwing the poor as the McConnells of today. The main difference is that now, because of the Internet and 24-hour news, we are much more aware of how toxic these assholes are; in the '70s it was a lot harder to follow what was really going on. But the notion that there were honorable GOPers who cared more for their country than for their party is largely false: the Republicans who finally decided Nixon had to resign made that decision because they didn't want to go down with his sinking ship at the next election.

And Nixon was every bit as determined to win at all costs as Trump is. He had the same attitude, just for a different reason: Nixon grew up poor; he didn't get into one of the top law schools; he felt he was looked down on by the Ivy Leaguers and the East Coast elites. He hated them and wanted to show them up. Trump, while born to wealth, came from the wrong side of the tracks and was also not accepted by New York's old money society, which regarded him, quite correctly, as a low-class arriviste. Trump has spent his whole life trying to impress and outdo the disdainful upper-class New Yorkers by accumulating wealth and slapping his name on everything. He, too, has to win at all costs. Nixon resigned because he saw that as less of a loss than impeachment, and he spent the rest of his life trying unsuccessfully to rehabilitate his reputation. I can see Trump resigning, too, if he can find some circumstance whereby he can call it "winning."

They had lunch together, worked on bills together, were shocked by anti-American actions by the President. Yes, both parties were partisan, but never left their duty to the country at the door, in return for money.

There was no tea party then. The average Republican now is an extreme version of the Republican then. The average Republican THEN was like a moderate Republican now, and there aren't many of those.

If you watch a documentary about Trump that explains his past and discusses his mentor, you will see a clearer picture of his personality and decision making M.O. He is at war. Always. His mentor taught him to go after the jugular brutally and destroy people, if they do something he doesn't like. Like a mob boss. His mentor taught him to never give up. So Trump sues...he's sued thousands of times, for anything and everything. He will refuse to pay a bill to a painting contractor, even though it's peanuts to him. Nothing is too small to go to war over.

It's like a mob boss protecting his turf. He never says uncle. What does a mob boss do? They don't give up or resign ever, unless they are forced to, like facing years in prison or else. Even then, a mob boss wouldn't necessarily resign.

This is a pretty romantic, and naive, take that we just have to wait and things will play out like the did with Watergate.

It also ignores what has happened since then - increasingly worse scandals with republicans being held in equal proportion TO THE OPPOSITE in accountability.

Watergate - a domestic political scandal with a coverup. Led to Nixon resigning and a boatload of prosecutions of underlings.

Reagen - pick the scandals, but lets go with Iran Contra. Reagen got firewalled and the country blissfuly let him off the hook based on the republican's reasoning that he simply was too senile to know what all was going on around him. A handful of underlings suffered consequences.

Bush II lied the country into Iraq. Literally nothing happened, just some nominal congressional investigations. Nancy Pelosi flat took impeachment off the table before 2006 mid terms.

Meanwhile, they spent the 90s using the federal government as a tool to desperately find a way to impeach Clinton, and followed that up by totally shutting down the congress for BHO's last 6 years.

We have seen over that time, republicans get increasingly radicalized, exponentially the last 8 years AND full out in not giving a shit because ...

This country relentlessly indulged right wing fuck wittery.

45 in 1,000 times worse in every way than Nixon. His family grifting on an international level, his conflicts of interest.

AND ... Russia.

That alone illustrates how empty this just wait and let it play out thing is.

This country has, literally over night, allowed itself to be Vlad Putin's she dog.

Led by the "Party of Reagen."

Christ, as much of a POS of Nixon was, he would have put a bullet in his own skull before he let Ruskies into the Oval office and had a back slap fest like 45 did.

his leaving the Oval Office is going to like the final scene in Scarface ...

If the get beat badly in 2018 they can blame Trump,

is going down. And so is his republican Cabal of Colluding Cronies.

Republican treason against America will not stand.

I agree that fRump's impulsiveness will be his undoing. One day he'll walk out of the white house in a huff, never to return. We'll hear the arguing "he didn't really mean it."

Rec

Just an inkling, but how I see things presently: Both the Faux-Noise mesmerized masses, the 1 percenter actual constituency and the RW congress critters much like McTurtle, seldom peek out of their shells to see how idiotic they look now. We saw a glimpse of a call for civility after the horrible baseball shooting incident.
I'm seeing a pattern daily at my hospital work: We're losing so much of the angry red-hatters at an unprecedented rate. They insist that stupid hospital teevee be turned to Faux-Noise "nothing to see here, everything's peachy-keen with Frump, you can die now peaceful in the fact you furthered the hateful agenda we convinced you to admire".
Nothing like this existed in Nixon's day. And I predict a possible self-destructive outcome after we sweep congress clean of much of the RW scum:
The Donald feeds on the constant praise and goes totally nuclear on anyone who criticizes him. If he had a congress as obstructionist, as disagreeable and as downright obstinate as it was the last 6 years of President Barack Obama's term:
OUR choice for a leader remained cool, collected, tempered any annoyance with graceful and intellectual banter under unprecedented obstinance.
How would the Donald react? See where I'm going with this?
I predict a total meltdown in year 3 of Cheeto's presidency If he doesn't cause all his loyalists to turn their backs on him before then due to massive FBI evidence bomb. I put my money on the former due to congress RW lock on everything shielding this buffoon from himself, they'll continue "dancing the sidestep" till after 2018. So I disagree with the author above, I believe this congress IS shielding Cheeto, massively.
Two reasons I expect a massive shift of congress: The loyal Trumpers will likely be far more complacent on turnout in the midterms. The pure shit show blasted all over media everywhere has finally grabbed worldwide attention of the millennials, and I believe they will turn out in unprecedented numbers to help place better congresspeople in office.

The entire narrative on the right seems to be that of an ostrich hiding its head in order to avoid witnessing the melee that is forming around it. Most of the Congress, the right wing press, and the MAGA crowd are united in their blissful ignorance. As long as they convince themselves that this is a liberal ploy, or sour grapes after losing the election, they will not address the true core issue at hand: that Trump and his cohorts, in concert with many in the GOP, colluded with the Russians to throw the 2016 election.

For his base, Trump won't let up. He'll continue to spin oddball tales and tweet disjointed and incriminating messages and the masses will be appeased. How could he then do a 180 and resign, a tacit admission of guilt if ever? No, he'll play the "political victim" card to the bitter end, in order to maintain that narrative in the months and years that follow. Instead, he'll continue the path he's chosen, and go down kicking and screaming...if he goes down at all.

A long but most worthwhile read.

Wait that long. Get 'em outta here!