MUELLERS HERE, MUELLERS THERE, MUELLERS, MUELLERS EVERYWHERE!

Remember when your ex-friend told you that Donald Trump was playing chess while everyone else was playing checkers? If you thought Trump was unintelligent, it was because you were failing to see his long game.

There certainly are chess players in this surreal drama where we now live, but none of them are named Donald Trump. Vladimir Putin is playing chess. Kim Jong-un is playing chess, and thankfully, Robert Mueller has been playing chess from the moment he was appointed special counsel.

Remember when we were afraid Donald Trump would fire Robert Mueller? Or that he would order Rod Rosenstein to do the dirty job? Remember when he tried so hard to discredit the Mueller team by branding them as 17 angry Democrats, even though most are registered Republicans?

It seems like ages ago that Matthew Whitaker would either fire Mueller or clip his wings by defunding the investigation or limiting its scope. It seems like years ago that William Barr would stop the investigation in its tracks by declaring it out of bounds the very moment he was sworn in as attorney general.

But that was yesterday, and this plot never pauses long enough for the audience to take a breath.

To his small credit, Donald Trump has always been afraid of Robert Mueller, but this is not fear based on deductive reasoning. In his heart, Donald Trump knows that he is incapable of comprehending the use of strategy. He is intellectually limited to instinctive moves. He knows to fear Mueller like a cocky hyena knows to fear a relentless lion, sensing that he is being stalked by a superior predator.

He smells it. And now, he shows it. We can see it in his eyes and hear it in his devolving speech.

Mueller did what Trump would never be able to imagine, because it does not exist in Trump’s universe. Mueller made himself dispensable. He did this by making more Muellers.

In a simultaneous chess exhibition, a superior chess player, or grandmaster, will play as many as 40 or 50 opponents at one time, by moving from one chess board to the next after making a move.

Now imagine that instead of a grandmaster, the lone player is one who cannot think beyond the immediate present. And imagine that his opponents are sharing information amongst themselves to help them prepare for their next moves.

At one table sits the Southern District of New York, nicknamed the Sovereign District of New York because of their reputation of independence, relentlessness, and track record in taking down high-profile criminals.

Sharing the next table are the Attorney General for the State of New York and the Manhattan District Attorney. A presidential pardon works for federal crimes, but not for state crimes. Do you think that career white collar criminals like Donald Trump and Paul Manafort cheat on their federal tax returns but not on their state tax returns? Is it likely that the Trump Organization and the Trump family meticulously operated within state and local laws? Look no further than to the Trump Foundation and Trump University for the answer to that question.

Now, as Michael Cohen and the future witnesses named by Cohen, lead to more House investigations by more U.S. attorneys, more attorneys general, and more district attorneys who will take their places in the most important chess tournament that has ever taken place – important legally, politically, and morally.

And what are the stakes?

Well, let’s start with the future of the Trump presidency, the survival of the Trump business empire, the freedom of Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. When lawbreaking is allowed to become your privileged routine, you don’t do less of it. In fact, you stop giving it a second thought.

What is giving them a second thought are those sealed indictments that await Mueller’s decision to unseal them – at the time of his choosing. They are all part of Mueller’s unrevealed long game.

Donald Trump is feeling his powerlessness. His rambling two-hour speech at CPAC smelled of desperation. His failures on the world stage have shattered his “Only I can fix it.” myth, just when he needed it the most.

Publicly referring to Apple’s Tim Cook as Tim Apple is just another poetic reminder that the man who went to such great lengths to conceal his grades and S.A.T. scores is as ill prepared to handle the escalating chess attacks as he was to assume the lofty position that he never really wanted.

Just think! Instead of taking second prize, he could have had Trump Tower Moscow. As the man himself would say, Sad! Very SAD!

OPERATION GODZILLA

Donald Trump knows how to play offense, and he is good at it. He learned early-on that if he fought dirty, and never let up, and ignored all of the rules, others would step back and let him have his way. If they didn’t, he would sue them.

The heart of the Trump offense is not strategy. The man who famously does not read is not a student of George Washington, or Ulysses Grant, or Ike, who at war was the hero of D-Day and at peace, mobilized the wheels and gears of government to revolutionize our infrastructure by creating the interstate highway system.

The heart of the Trump offense is simple. It is loudness – overwhelming and unrelenting loudness, battle tested to drown out the voices of perceived adversaries. Up against non-stop loudness, the reasonable and the rational have wound up battered and bloodied.

And that might explain why so many of my fellow anti-Trumpers are noticeably lacking in optimism, in spite of the great Blue Wave that placed the people’s House in the hands of the Democrats. The Mueller investigation, though richly productive, continues to be quiet – too quiet if you have been nervously biting your nails, waiting for the big takedown.

Now, Democrats are running the committees, and they too have been nerve-rattling quiet and way too reasonable and rational to give hope to many that are waiting and praying for a Democracy-loving King Kong to arrive on the scene and save us from the godless Godzilla.

To those of you looking for Kong, please believe me:

The game has changed.

Six Democrats, possessing different styles, different skills and different super powers – brand new super powers – will soon have him cornered, and we will begin watching him take the blows in real time. Finally, he will have to play defense like his presidency and the future of his adult children depend on it.

A foreign government is not supposed to help elect a president of the United States, but Russia did exactly that. Devin Nunez, the now former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, did back flips to convince us that our real enemies were our own intelligence agencies, and that these deep state, Obama agents were out to frame the innocent POTUS.

Nunez made sure that witnesses, called before his committee, were handled gently. In fact, witnesses called before all House committees were handled gently, if they were called at all. For Devin Nunez and his committee counterparts, protecting America was replaced with protecting Trump. This heist took place, while the one man who could have stopped it, Paul Ryan, stood silently and impotently at the door.

Now Paul Ryan is out and Madam Speaker is in.

His speakership will be defined by his feeble excuses for not using his voice.

She, on the other hand, took the gavel, not simply as a person who fought for her job and was clever and savvy enough to win it, but as one filled with the belief of her appointment with destiny.

Devin Nunez is out and Adam Schiff is in.

While Nunez publicly trashed the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Constitution, Schiff, the ranking member, could only watch the charade and call it out in the press. Setting the record straight earned him the Trump tweet-name, Little Adam Schitt.

Now, Little Adam Schitt is chairman, and real investigations are about to begin. New witnesses will be called. Old witnesses will be recalled. Subpoenas will be issued. The story of: What did the president know about Russia and when did he know it? is about to unfold before our eyes.

And there will be more – a lot more.

Ranking members, Jerry Nadler on the Judiciary Committee, Richard Neal on Ways and Means, and Maxine Waters on Financial Services could only watch the Republican charade and call it out. Soon they will start calling witnesses. Corrupt cabinet members, abandonment of Puerto Rico, immigration, family separation, money laundering, campaign violations, possible criminal behavior by Don Jr., Ivanka, and Jared, and the pursuit of Trump’s tax returns will all be getting a long awaited dose of daylight.

And, that first sustained blast of daylight will take place on February 7th, when Elijah Cummings, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, grants former Trump fixer, Michael Cohen the opportunity to come clean, as all of us watch. Michael Cohen is on his way to a three-year prison term. He branded himself as Trump’s go-to hatchet man, once boasting “I would do anything to protect Mr. Trump.” He would like to change both his prison sentence and his public image.

In fact, he hopes that loudly serving the crime boss’s head on a platter will make him the hero of this story. Grateful though we may be, history will not be so kind, regardless of the secrets he might reveal.

The real heroes, like Mueller, will be strategic, focused, and unflappable.

For Adam Schiff, Richard Neal, Maxine Waters, Jerry Nadler, and Elijah Cummings, the tone has been set and probably much of their agendas. They will go after the truth, while being goaded by committee Republicans (like the rabid Jim Jordan) to lose their tempers, to appear overzealous and vindictive, but they are unlikely to take the bait.

And Godzilla will do everything he can think of to drown them out, to stomp on them and their hearings.

But they have been preparing for their moment for what must seem like an eternity, and they understand that history is watching.

Of course, nobody understands that more than Madam Speaker, who wields a very big gavel and is not afraid to use it.

WILL DIRECTION DEFECTIONS TILT THE ELECTIONS?

We will have to wait for the opinion polls to tell us how voters are processing the revenge of Omarosa, the guilty verdict against Manafort, and the guilty pleas of Michael Cohen, the revelation of thirty hours of testimony given to the Mueller team by White House counsel Don McGahn, and the granting of immunity, first to Trump Organization CFO, Allen Weisselberg, and then to National Enquirer publisher, David Pecker.

And to all of that, we now add the death of John McCain.

Barring a crazy event (which you can never discount in the age of Trump), John McCain will dominate the news, and the comparisons between the American statesman and the man who pledges allegiance to himself will be unavoidable to any thinking person.

We can expect that some or all of those recent developments may have nudged some Trump supporters to slowly drift away, but not the ones who attend his rallies, where Trump does what Trump does best --stir the inner fires of the faithful, prompting their tried and true chants of “LOCK HER UP!”

But the numbers indicate that the desertions have already begun.

I tell everyone who will listen that Donald Trump’s favorability ratings of 40 to 45% do not reflect his hardcore loyalty numbers -- the devoted ones who will support his presidency, regardless of what he says or does.

I do not dispute the accuracy of those poll numbers. I think that about 43% of our friends, neighbors, and family members continue to support Donald Trump. I just happen to believe that it is only 30 to 35% of those individuals who would stick by him if he actually does shoot someone on 5^th Avenue.

The latest Quinnipiac University Poll tells us that only 31% of voters say they LIKE Donald Trump. I am certain you know one or two of those people. We all do. They still respond to evidence of incompetence and criminality with “Anyone but Hillary,” and they know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Obama’s mother faked her newborn baby’s birth certificate, so that he could one day be President of the United States. The woman had vision.

That Quinnipiac poll also tells us that 43% of voters approve of Donald Trump’s policies, but only 30% approve strongly.

That squishy 13% gives me hope – a lot of hope, and if your inner optimist hasn’t thrown in the towel, that 13% should give you hope too.

Speaking of optimism, when the Trump supporter you know and love (or used to love) starts looking glum, you can take that as a hopeful sign. Has he stopped saying that Trump is playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers? Has he or she stopped insisting that alienating our allies, starting trade wars, and standing by his pal in the Kremlin are going to make us great again?

Maybe he has finally decided that the country might be on the wrong track. Maybe she is worried about how her children and grandchildren will be affected by opening the door to more dirty air and rising sea levels.

There should be major opinion polls that measure optimism and pessimism.

Actually there are, and one of them is now in. The Monmouth University poll for the month of June told us that only 40% of voters believed that the country was headed in the right direction, while 53% believed we were on the wrong track.

But under this runaway presidency, June is now ancient history. What do we know about optimism and pessimism in August?

This is what we know.

The Monmouth poll conducted between August 15 and August 19 tells us that only 35% of voters now believe we are headed in the right direction, and 57% believe we are on the wrong track.

And need I remind you that a lot has happened in the few action-packed days since August 19?

And, do you doubt that a lot more will happen in the many action-packed days before the November 6^th midterm elections?

Speaking of the midterm elections, the exit polls will be revealing, to say the least. The answers to those poll questions will tell us how many Americans voted to change direction.

I hope voters are asked if character and integrity influenced their vote. We might assume that those who answered YES voted for the candidate more like John McCain and less like the phony who disparaged his heroism.

And now my optimistic two minutes are up.

CRIME UNIVERSITY

As far as I know, a school for criminals does not exist. That is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your point of view. If you are in favor of the survival of the civilized world, it can be somewhat reassuring that criminal wannabes cannot enroll in a prestigious institution, created to educate and graduate some of the worst among us.

Crooks learn by doing. This imperfect, unsystematic learning system eventually results in most of them getting caught for committing crimes that they should have gotten away with, thanks to sloppy execution.

Sure, there are elite criminals, like the gang that robbed the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, in Boston, stealing priceless masterpieces, without leaving a trace.  At Crime University, they could be professors or guest lecturers.

Remember that time you were sitting in a bar, having a great conversation and drinking way too much, and began saying things you should not have said? You blurted out a few things that you later regretted. But I doubt that you revealed any information, while “feeling no pain,” that triggered an FBI investigation into a campaign for the presidency of the United States.

But that is exactly what George Papadopoulos did, in a London pub, when he informed an Australian diplomat that he knew that Russia had dirt on Hilary Clinton.

Had he attended Crime University, he would have been required to take a class called Crime Basics. In that class, he would have learned that drinking and bragging can land you in prison or force you to become a cooperating witness.

Had Michael Cohen attended that same class, he would have learned that when juggling multiple crimes, it is absolutely fundamental to stay organized. Why is that so important? Because when you are in possession of 3.7 million files, you have to know which of those files will put you or your client in prison.

That way, when you begin shredding documents ahead of a police raid, you are not wasting precious time shredding CVS and Costco monthly fliers. You only shred documents related to hush money, money laundering, bank fraud, and of course absolutely anything related to Russian oligarchs.

And, you have to be thorough. You do not leave document shreds in the shredding machine, because there are people who will painstakingly sift through those shreds and glue them back together to restore the documents you spent all that time shredding, which is exactly what the FBI did.

At Crime University, he would have learned that shreds need to be flushed!

And imagine that you are brought before a judge and placed under house arrest, and required to wear an ankle bracelet while awaiting trial. If you are a white collar criminal, out on bail, you are being spared the ugly experience of going to jail, where some of your fellow guests will regard you as fresh meat. So you do not want to violate the conditions of that parole by committing a brand new crime, which is exactly what Paul Manafort did, while wearing not one, but two ankle bracelets.

Paul, Paul, Paul, why would you think that you could get away with witness tampering by sending encrypted messages through a Russian agent to two potential witnesses with the purpose of getting their stories straight, while Bob Mueller and the Untouchables are praying for you to screw up?

So much for Crime 101!  At Crime University, there would be an advanced course called Crimes You Should Never Attempt.

As the new National Security Advisor, Mike Flynn should have just said No! to outside income opportunities. When the Turkish despot offered him $15 million to kidnap the exiled opposition leader from his home in Pennsylvania, and give him a one-way plane ride to a Turkish prison, Mike should have said, “I’m sorry. I could sure use the $15 million, but I am pretty sure it’s illegal to commit a kidnapping on behalf of a foreign government.”

But, he didn’t say that, and he didn’t cover his tracks – not that he could have covered his tracks. From the beginning, General/Foreign Agent Flynn was no match for the federal bloodhounds who caught him in so many lies, he had to cop a deal, preventing him from kidnapping anyone.

Sad as his story is, he could someday become a respected authority on Crimes You Should Never Attempt. In the post-Trump era, you might see him doing a TED Talk.

I want to be very clear that I am not in favor of the creation of Crime University, but I think it might be valuable to establish The Museum of Political Crime. In fact, I would put it at Mar-a-Lago, once it is confiscated as criminal forfeiture.

The very thought of that makes me want to go past my two minutes.

GANGSTERS, TRUMPS, AND THIEVES - PART ONE

For those of us anxiously awaiting the first wave of books and movies, chronicling the Rise and Fall of the House of Trump, every spicy story-appetizer served up by leaks and investigative reporting pleasantly teases us with the feast that will one day be served – hopefully served warm, rather than cold.

We already know that the feast will include heaping portions of Russian caviar and lots of Stolichnaya vodka, so how appropriate that a catering hall has a prominent place in this Russian flavored American saga!

El Caribe is a catering hall/social club in Brooklyn, New York. Check out their website. It looks like a beautiful venue for a wedding, anniversary or birthday party, bar mitzvah or christening, or a future celebration of the return of our national sanity, hopefully beginning in November.

But today’s El Caribe lacks the sizzle that it had a few decades ago. In the 1970s through 1990s, Russian and Italian mobsters did a lot of socializing, celebrating and business dealings at the Brooklyn gathering spot.

Evesei Agron, otherwise known as the Russian Godfather, had an office there. So did Marat Balagula, sometimes referred to as the Russian Tony Soprano.  Marat was a sometimes business partner of Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso, a ruthless murderer who headed the Mafia’s Lucchese crime family.

Back in the day, you would likely have run into Gaspipe at El Caribe, because Gaspipe was held in high regard by the club’s owner, Morton Levine, or “Uncle Morty,” as he was known to his favorite nephew, Michael Cohen.

Michael Cohen and his cousins each owned a piece of Uncle Morty’s El Caribe, though Michael “the Fixer” Cohen gave up his interest when Donald Trump was elected president.

I guess he thought it might look bad.

After all, he expected to be awarded a big job in the Trump administration, maybe chief-of-staff.  Attention would be paid to his business interests.

He never got the job, but he is certainly getting the attention.

Besides bungling the porn star problem, what else did Michael “the Fixer” Cohen fix? Besides Donald Trump, the man he called, “Boss,” who else in the House of Trump did he fix problems for? And, just what means did he employ to fix those problems?

Clues to answering that third question might begin in the book chapter entitled, El Caribe.

Well, that's it for now. Time really flies when you're talking about murderous gangsters with colorful nicknames and connections to the president's buddy-in-charge of solving potentially embarrassing problems. 

More delicious appetizers will be served in my next two minutes. Yum!

A TALE OF TWO FIXERS (OR FIXERS WHO NEED FIXERS)

Ray Donovan is a fictional character. Please keep that in mind. Ray drives a cool Mercedes, wears expensive suits, and has a drawer full of Rolex watches. Maybe not every one of them is a Rolex. Maybe some of them are more expensive than a Rolex. I have no idea. The point is that Ray Donovan is just about the coolest tough guy you would ever meet.

Cool as he is, you would not want to meet him if you were causing problems for one of his employers, like a big law firm or a movie star or a rich professional athlete, etc. etc. etc. Ray gets hired by the rich and famous to make problems go away. He will do what his employer can’t do, which might mean a duffle bag full of cash, an envelope full of compromising photos, or a very convincing threat of bodily harm.

Michael Cohen dubbed himself Donald Trump’s Ray Donovan. Every kid should have a role model.

Presidential candidate, Donald Trump had a pesky little problem with a porn star. His lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen made the problem go away. End of story!

Well, not quite!

The silenced porn star came strolling onto center stage, arm-in-arm with the lawyer from Hell. And now, Michael “the fixer” Cohen has an influence peddling problem, which happens to include – you won’t believe this -- a Russia connection!

Now the ex-fixer, himself, has been silenced and will likely remain silenced until he decides to sing like a canary to stay out of prison. Michael Cohen – a fixer no more -- will need to find a new claim to fame, not to mention a new fictional role model.

Fortunately, the president has found a new fixer.

Enter Rudy Giuliani!

Finally, the president has the defender he needs and deserves – a former legendary prosecutor and associate of Robert Mueller, a former legendary crime-busting mayor, and the hero whose strength and calm under fire guided New York in the aftermath of 9/11.

And more importantly, a combative personality who could go on television news shows with a big (and strange) smile, and slap down biased interviewers, who are on a mission to trick Trump surrogates into telling the truth.

Oh, and one more thing: a man who has perfected the skill of answering any tough question by adding the line “Hilary did worse and she didn’t go to jail.”

As you know, Rudy got off to a rather rocky start. First he contradicted the president’s claim that he didn’t know about the $130,000 payoff to Stormy Daniels. Then he tried to explain why the contradiction wasn’t really a contradiction. Then he explained that he was new on the job and wasn’t quite up to speed on the facts.

It was important for us to know that the president did nothing illegal and despite appearances, he was not trying to influence the election, and Hilary did a lot worse and didn’t go to jail.

So, seeing the mounting confusion and increased legal jeopardy, his employer had to step in and fix it, as only he could. Here’s what the great communicator said:

“When Rudy made the statements – Rudy’s great – but Rudy had just started and wasn’t totally familiar with everything.”

“We love Rudy, he’s a special guy. What he really understands is, this is a witch hunt. He understands that probably better than anybody … but when he made certain statements, he just started yesterday.”

And that pretty much explains it. Don’t you think?

Of course there is more. The Rudy Reality Show is still going strong. But that is for another two minutes.

NO ROOM FOR DESSERT!

It is really not fair when spectacularly encouraging news happens within a few days of other spectacularly encouraging news. Before you are finished celebrating and savoring the first mood booster, you have another and maybe even better one to begin digesting. Think of when the waiter ruined your perfect dining experience by bringing your amazing entrée while you were still enjoying your amazing appetizer.

So, you find out that the FBI raided the office, home, and hotel room of Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal attorney. Holy cow! Did anyone see that coming? What incriminating treasures are now in the hands of America’s lawmen?

And then, Paul Ryan, the most powerful enabler in government announces his retirement, making that promised blue wave look even bigger and bluer. At another time, this story would be huge, and there would so much to talk about, but living as we do in a 3-ring Trumpian circus, it can be difficult to keep your eyes on the fire-eater, while another performer is sticking his head in a tiger’s mouth.

Like I said, it’s not fair.

But, back to the Cohen treasure chest.

Michael Cohen, the self-proclaimed fixer, was apparently doing much more fixing than lawyering.

Fortunately for us, he is a very sloppy fixer.

He missed getting his client’s signature on the Stormy Daniels non-disclosure agreement, possibly nullifying the NDA. Oops!

Now we know that he brokered a $1.6 million hush-money deal for Elliott Broidy, RNC deputy fundraising chair who made the completely understandable mistake of impregnating a Playboy Playmate, who was also not his wife. Did the fixer really think this would stay fixed?

So Broidy was forced to resign, following in the equally creepy footsteps of former RNC fundraising chair, Steve Wynn. But that is not the priceless, museum quality treasure unearthed in the raid on the president’s sloppy fixer.

Nope! There is something bigger and much more precious.

There just might be solid evidence that Michael Cohen lied about a very important matter – a matter of Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential election.

The famous Christopher Steele dossier claimed that Michael Cohen was in Prague in late August or early September of 2016 for the purpose of meeting with Russian hackers to discuss paying for their services without leaving a trace of those payments.

Michael Cohen reacted immediately to this report, by stating: “I have never been to Prague in my life.” He even showed a picture of his passport to prove it. Does the Mueller team have proof that he was in Prague? Do they have proof that he met with Russian hackers? Do they have proof that payments were made?

And will Michael “the Fixer” Cohen do as he once bragged by “taking a bullet” for Donald Trump?

Or will Michael Cohen, decide not to spend the rest of his life in prison and do what mobster, Sammy “the Bull” Gravano did to his boss, John Gotti, and testify against Donald Trump?

That would truly be a Fantasy Flip!

I can’t believe my two minutes are up, and I haven’t even mentioned the name, Comey.

A QUICK SEX SCANDAL REVIEW OF THE PARTY IN POWER

There is a lot to cover here, and because I am limited to two minutes, I will have to talk fast. So please pay attention.

Number One on The Hit Parade: Stormy Daniels, Of Course!

Thanks to her never-letting-up lawyer, Michael Avenatti, who keeps his client under the spotlight, with legal maneuvers and schoolyard taunts of the Orange Man and the Orange Man’s hatchet man, Michael Cohen, Stormy’s smiling face (and other famous parts) are just about inescapable. Avenatti is having fun with this. Stormy is having fun with this. Donald Trump, not so much.

The Best Trophy Girlfriend Award: Playboy Model, Karen McDougal.

For ten months, until she says that she broke it off, she was his mistress. Normally, it’s bad P.R. for a married man to be traveling around with a woman who is not his wife, instead of with the woman who is his wife. Fortunately, this president makes his own alternative P.R. -- which is just fine for those who enjoy alternative facts.

The Unappreciative Apprentice Award: Summer Zervos.

She says that Donald Trump didn’t just say, “You’re fired!” he made unwanted sexual advances. He says she’s a liar. Now, she is suing for defamation of character. The courts said the suit can proceed. When it does, there will be a discovery phase. When Paula Jones sued Bill Clinton, it was the discovery phase that led to Monica Lewinski’s icky dress. And that is what led to Bill Clinton’s impeachment.

The Bizarre Hypocrisy Award: Tim Murphy.

This Pennsylvania Republican, a vehemently anti-abortion lawmaker, was forced to resign after it was revealed that, upon learning that his mistress was pregnant with his child, he tried to coerce her into having an abortion. Apparently, abortion had its place, when it came to protecting his own self-important backside. The special election to fill his seat resulted in a shockwave win by Democrat, Conor Lamb.

The “That is Definitely Not My Job Description” Award: Trent Franks.

This Republican Arizona lawmaker was forced to resign after it was revealed that he approached  female staff members with a request that one of them agree to act as a surrogate by carrying his child – presumably utilizing the fun method of impregnation. 

The “I Really Thought This Was Part of My Benefits Package” Award: Patrick Meehan.  

Compared with the other members of this club, it might not seem like such a big deal that this Republican lawmaker settled his sexual harassment claim brought by a female aide by paying her off with taxpayer money (which the House kept secret until House women forced open the closet door), but he made the list because he had to resign his position on the House Committee on…wait for it…wait for it…The House Committee on ETHICS! He will not be seeking re-election.

The Creepiest Judge in History Award: Roy Moore.

He almost made it to Congress as Alabama’s replacement for Jeff Sessions. I think when you get thrown out of a shopping mall for having a history of stalking young girls, you probably shouldn’t go to Congress, or ever have presided over a trial, or ever be allowed within twenty feet of an elementary school.

Of course there have been some recent sex-related scandals in the Democratic Party. But, none of them possess the entertaining weirdness of those on this special list. Democrats will take back the House in November. And some of them will behave badly. Let’s not forget to skewer them when they do.

But, until then, I just need to survive Trump.

My timer just sounded. It was set for exactly two minutes.