The House is too gerrymandered from the 2010 Census to be a realistic goal. The Dems should push for whatever they can get there, but be mindful that the odds are deeply against them doing anything more than narrowing the gap by a few votes. And the Dems should put their focus on picking up House seats in the swing states where they need to be actively campaigning and not in states like California where they already have a large lead. Just picking up more California or New York seats will reinforce the Right Wing meme that the Dems only have purchase in those states. It is VITAL that the Dems reassert themselves in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, etc. That’s a big part of what will be needed in 2020 – along with a candidate who comes from one of those states and has the salt-of-the-earth credibility that will be needed to clarify who the Dems are vs the unfortunate people now inhabiting the Pence White House.

As for the Senate, it’s more than vital that the Dems flip it next year. Every month or so, the Right Wing again floats talk about Anthony Kennedy somehow retiring tomorrow, or posits their hopes about negative things happening to Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Stephen Breyer. It is urgent that we have a Dem majority in the Senate to properly answer any further gargoyle attempts like Gorsuch, and to send Mitch McConnell packing for his vicious behavior over 2016 and 2017, where he decided that it was up to him to steal a Supreme Court seat, and then celebrated with schoolyard high fives on the Senate Floor when he got away with the theft.

Let’s see if the Right Wing gets away with the dangerous game they are playing with this tax transfer attempt. It is entirely possible that they will, but I continue to hope that they will once again trip over their own feet. If that happens, and if Dem voters can actually be bothered to show up in the swing states and elsewhere next November, we can expect a slew of angry pieces on Fox News and AM Radio about how the GOP blew it when they could have had everything they wanted. Frankly, we’re already seeing that kind of coverage – but it will be helpful for that to be a done deal and not just a goad that people like Rush Limbaugh or wannabes like Sean Hannity use to try to bully GOP congresspeople into caving to their whims.

The reality of this matter has little to do with the viciousness and rage of Trump supporters and sycophants like Sean Hannity. These guys are determined to see a criminal prosecution of Hillary and Bill Clinton, and it now appears that one is imminent.

Given that Mueller’s team will shortly be announcing more indictments of Trump/Pence folk, it is not hard to understand why the Right Wing desperately wants to change the subject. We had discussed this situation a year ago, noting that Pence would want to have the Clinton perp walk happen as a distraction when their legislative agenda stalled. And here we are – a bit later than anticipated, but essentially in the same position.

This matter may look amusing on the surface, simply due to its nonsensical outrageousness. But Hannity and the people he’s trying to influence are quite serious about this. They’re not kidding when they chant “Lock Her Up!” Underestimating their hatred or their determination is not a course I would advise.

I have a feeling that Smith will have an even bigger issue after Sessions announces the Special Counsel who will be setting up the prosecutions of the Clintons and everyone around them.

It’s obvious that Carlson was waiting for the Line of the Day, as he didn’t know how to discuss this situation without it. Right Wing media in general was clearly looking for an anti-Dem angle to paint, rather than acknowledging the serious ramifications of this story.

So today, the Right Wing coalesced on their take on this situation. The preferred flavor is to say that the story is “suspicious”, and that the women should have come forward a long time ago. But if that doesn’t totally work, the Right is happy to play the card that various angry Right Wing Alabama voters chosen for inclusion on Fox News coverage or calling in to AM radio shows are fuming that they’ll vote for Moore no matter what. Heck, Sean Hannity is trying to paint himself as a sage and sober statesman trying to get everyone to evaluate the facts before opining. (This of course forgets the raging speed with which he flew into attack mode at Harvey Weinstein and anyone else in Hollywood he could spit at over the past few weeks…)

The Right Wing is clearly hoping that Moore will somehow win next month, even if they are taking pains to note that they find his behavior repugnant. They just want to see him win so they can gloat about it on Fox News and for years in the Senate.

I’m impressed that Rosenberg responded as calmly as he did. Francis was repeatedly baiting him and cutting him off before he could finish his sentences. Of course, she was much more deferential to Avella, who threw out several Right Wing talking points.

Francis was trying to trap Rosenberg into accepting the premise of the GOP tax transfer as something the Dems could or should embrace. Rosenberg is correct to note that there’s nothing in the package that Dems could ever support. The whole point of the package is to give the wealthy a major tax cut, while using middle class voters in Blue States to provide a small Band-Aid for the lost funds before cutting major programs due to lack of revenue. Had Rosenberg accepted the Right Wing premise that this is a good idea, they would have cornered him with it, and used it in other interviews – saying that “some Democrats are able to work with us, why can’t YOU?”

Avella enjoyed trying to throw a nonsense talking point into the middle of the situation – repeating a Right Wing canard that after the GOP somehow gets to 51 votes in the Senate, several Dems will magically support the tax transfer for some unknown reason. Avella is ignoring the reality – that in the event the GOP manages to get this mess through the Congress, the Dems will want to stick together as a statement. If the Right Wing actually manages to wreck our tax code in this manner, the Dems will not want their fingerprints on the carnage.

A few quick notes:

First, the indications are that the man who shot Devin Kelley did not kill him, nor did he deter Kelley from his slaughter of the people in the church. Instead, the man ran up to Kelley as he was exiting the church and exchanged shots with him. Had he done this inside the church, it is unfortunately likely that he would have caused injury or worse to the parishoners. Following the exchange, Kelley then jumped in his vehicle and two men chased him on the road in a dangerous high-speed pursuit, during which Kelley crashed into a ditch, thankfully without wiping out any other cars or pedestrians in the process that we know of. Kelley then had enough time in the wreckage of his car to contact his father and say he didn’t think he’d make it before using one of his own guns to commit suicide.

Fox News’ celebration of the man who shot at Kelley is understandable – it fits their narrative about a “good guy with a gun” versus a “bad guy with a gun”. But it’s easy to see the fallacy of that nonsensical argument. The reality is that the guys who engaged Kelley and then chased him across town did so for understandable and even admirable reasons. But their irresponsible behavior could have caused even further death and destruction – and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them looked at for charges of their own. If I jumped in my car and chased a shooter or robber in a 95 mph chase on public roads, I’d be looked at for charges too.

Next, Fox News and the Right Wing have absolutely no moral standing to say ANYTHING about when political statements can be made. These people have repeatedly cried crocodile tears whenever one of these now-regular massacres happen, and demanded that nobody dare speak about what allowed the massacres to happen. And at the same time, the second there is a massacre that they can pin on someone who is Muslim or who can be a good boogeyman for their listeners, the Right Wing immediately jumps on the opportunity. If they want to have any credibility, they can’t have this both ways. The reality is that the Right Wing loves to politicize a tragedy as a way of kicking entire ethnic groups in the face – whether those be Muslims or Chicanos or African Americans. If gun violence happens and the perp is not white, you can count on the Right to instantly attack. But if the perp IS white, you can count on the Right to instantly attack anyone who dare call out what happened.

I find it interesting that within ten minutes of this story being reported, Right Wingers were already trying to disclose the name of the shooter (a false name was thrown around for nearly a day before Kelley’s name was released) and were already declaring that the shooter was a member of Antifa and had been seen screaming Antifa slogans as he opened fire in the church – something that was blatantly false on its face. But the Right distinguished itself by jumping on the opportunity to attack, before anyone even knew who the shooter was.

The reality of this case is that it was about a hateful and violent young man who had little trouble obtaining high-end weaponry, which was done for openly nefarious purposes. This is a man who was violent toward his own family, and who was directing his current anger toward his in-laws. Those in-laws attended this church, something he clearly knew. They were his intended targets, but when he walked in and didn’t see them present, he decided to shoot up the place anyway. So much for the Right Wing’s desperate attempt to smear even Antifa with this violence.

Truman is correct. As soon as the next wave of indictments are announced by Mueller, Jeff Sessions is quite likely to announce the special prosecutor, who will quickly announce indictments of his own against the Clintons and anyone else they can smear. These guys aren’t kidding about the “Lock Her Up” chant. Assuming that they wouldn’t do this is foolhardy given their record over the past year.

Hannity is clearly terrified that Mueller is about to come out with more indictments. There are indications that Flynn and his son are next, and that Jared Kushner may be following shortly afterward. So Hannity is now frantically beating this drum as hard as he can. No matter that there is no case to be made. No matter that even Donna Brazile has made clear that her comments have been taken in a manner she didn’t intend. No matter that there is no real story in the various hoax conspiracies that Hannity is desperately peddling.

As soon as the next set of indictments are announced, get ready for Hannity and various others on Fox News to begin screaming at the top of their lungs for the special prosecutor and indictments of the Clintons as soon as possible. And get ready for the announcement by Jeff Sessions. We’ve known that these guys were going to do this ever since the Pence White House took office. It should not be a surprise when it happens.

I agree that there will come a point with this nonsense where we should be concerned – particularly with a bunch of angry Right Wingers who are becoming increasingly unhinged at the growing scandal and the indictments announced and to come. It’s almost certain that a cornered Pence White House, supported by angry voices like these, will call for an indictment of Hillary Clinton out of sheer spite. We’re already seeing Trump scream about it on a regular basis. If these guys see that the ship is going down, they won’t hesitate to lash out at anyone they can – and the Clintons are easy targets for them. I’m frankly surprised we haven’t already heard about charges being filed by Jeff Sessions, but the Pence White House has tended to run about 6 months behind my thinking each time. (They waited til last month to issue the EO’s that have killed the ACA, and they waited to September to destroy the DACA program – both ideas that could have been done in January.)

On the other hand, I’m not that concerned about a pointless bill coming from Louie Gohmert of asparagus fame. He regularly brings up pointless bills that just fuel his own emotional need to do so, but they don’t tend to go anywhere. Gohmert is not anyone of note or influence. When we hear this is coming from someone more substantial (and that could happen very quickly), then we’ll have a very different situation.

It’s odd to see Right Wingers frantically trying to hide their true intentions behind the latest attempt at GOP bullying of the rest of the country. The Pence White House does not care a whit about average middle class families struggling to get by. The actual impact of this massive tax cut would be painful for tens of millions of middle and working class Americans, both in their tax bills and in the subsequent elimination of various programs that could no longer be funded.

In reality, the Right Wing has three goals here, and they’re pushing hard to get them done. The first goal is to achieve a massive tax cut for the wealthy, particularly the Ultra Wealthy. They’ll accomplish this by removing the Alternative Minimum Tax and altering the Estate Tax and of course slashing the corporate tax rate since many wealthier people incorporate to reduce their tax bill, among other things. The result there would be a windfall for someone like Trump – on the order of millions of dollars in a single year. Right Wingers are literally salivating that they could pull this idea off. Getting this done would be a massive payback to their donors and, for the wealthier among them, a large gift of cash that would keep giving for decades. And by the way, that idea about corporations returning their offshore work to the USA is nonsense. We learned that the last time it was tried – what actually happens when you give them a way to bring the IGG home is that they pocket the money and buy back a chunk of their public stock, thus sending their stock prices higher and making them untold millions more. There is very little impact in terms of bringing actual jobs back – they have no intention of doing that – at least not unless American workers are willing to work for a lot closer to minimum wage for those jobs. So people shouldn’t be fooled into thinking that a massive job wave would result. (In the same way that people in coal company are hopefully realizing that coal really isn’t coming back, and that they really do need to look at job retraining, etc if they want to be able to continue working.)

The second goal is to punish the Dem states around the country for having the temerity to not vote for the Pence White House, as well as for refusing to keep their heads down and just take their beatings during this Year of The Bully. By removing most of the deductions and just going with a mildly expanded single deduction, the Pence White House would immediately be able to punch middle class taxpayers right in the stomach. Lower income voters will just use the standard deduction anyway, so none of this would really affect them other than in a nominal way. People earning more in the middle class normally deduct a larger amount for various purposes – including all kinds of expenses that total out a number much higher than the expanded standard Pence would now permit. So all of their taxes would go up, some quite sharply. And to put the cherry on the sundae, they now throw in this idea of getting rid of the State and Local deduction, which is a deliberate slap at people living in California, New York, Massachusetts, etc. The purpose there is to not only kick those voters in the stomach but to punch their teeth out at the same time. Right Wingers living in those states are hoping this will cause those local governments to suddenly cancel services and lower their taxes, which of course totally ignores that a state like California has higher taxes because it’s a huge state trying to cover services for a massive population. Going with the Texas model just means that you’d have what a state like Texas does – an ineffectual state government that leaves everything substantial to the federal government, meaning that all the Blue states have to pay for those services. In the simplest of terms, the new tax attack would target and cost Dems in Blue states in a collective order of hundreds of millions of dollars – all to be transferred to wealthier Right Wingers living in Red States. It’s a really vicious move, soured even more by the Right Wing’s smug moralizing about whether it’s fair to have a state or local tax deduction in the first place. A Right Winger I know in Los Angeles smugly told me that he’d like to see that deduction thrown out, even if it causes his own tax bill to go up – just because he hates the state government of California and would like to see this cause them some grief. And his tax bill will be balanced by the benefits he’ll get from the elimination of the Estate Tax and the AMT and the corporate reduction, so in the end, he’ll come out way ahead anyway.

The third goal is to ram this attack through the Congress as fast as possible, and get it done without any Dem votes, by the end of the year. So that the Pence White House can declare a legislative victory and kick all the Dems in the face right before the midterm campaigns. There is no intention of bringing any Dems on board for this, although the Right Wing is gloating that they think they can bully some Dems into supporting this monstrosity if they are running in Red states. (They haven’t acknowledged that the Dems will almost certainly refuse to have anything to do with this bill). Even Bill O’Reilly is now saying that passing this bill and getting it to Pence’s desk for Trump’s signature is “everything” to the Pence White House now. He’s saying that he thinks it will get through the House, then get narrowly through the Senate by 51 votes, and then quickly be signed by Trump in a triumphant flourish at the end of the year as a big win. If O’Reilly is correct, it will certainly be a demoralizing blow for most of the country, and a signal of how much worse things will get before 2020.

We can only hope at this point that the GOP continues to demonstrate the dysfunction they’ve been perfecting over the past year. If just 3 GOP Senators have issues of various kinds with this measure and allow it to go down like the legislative ACA repeal did, then that will do it – and this time, Pence will not have any options of Executive Orders that would change the tax code. In that event, expect Trump to once again publicly blame the Dems.

It’s fairly clear that the Pence White House has known these indictments were likely to hit very soon and thus attempted to pre-spin the narrative against Hillary Clinton. Didn’t matter that Pence’s narrative here was nonsense. The Uranium One situation was thoroughly debunked some time ago. And even if you thought there was anything there (and there isn’t), you’d have to wonder why a GOP-controlled House ignored such a “massive story” for nearly 7 years. The Fusion GPS story was quickly debunked last week with the revelation that the research was generated by a Right Wing tabloid and only continued by Dems at a later point.

Which is more likely? That an independent prosecutor’s timing is completely fickle and somehow that man suddenly decided to announce major indictments because of Fox News running nonsense stories? Or that the independent prosecutor was doing his job, and Fox News and AM Radio tried to get out in front of his work by pre-smearing as hard as they could?

Hannity’s outrage last night was understandable, but laughable. And his program was full of blatant falsehoods. No matter how much Hannity lies about this (and gets support from discredited voices like Sekulow and Gingrich), the truth will out.

But let’s also keep in mind that Hannity and Fox News are not done with their full court press to see the Clintons indicted and arrested. The more dominoes fall at the Pence White House, the more likely it will become that we will see a retaliatory arrest made against whatever target the Right Wing hates most. These days, it’s the Clintons. Tomorrow it may be the Obamas.

Laura Ingraham has repeatedly been noted for vicious behavior on the air, usually toward her guests. This site alone has noted her conduct multiple times, including her attempted bullying of Dr. Laura Berman and her unfortunately successful provocation of Charlie Rangel.

She can be relied on to provide a creative backup to the blindly pro-Trump primetime lineup on Fox News. And, as we’ve discussed previously, it will be very interesting to watch how Fox News is evaluated in the years to come after the Pence White House has come to its predictable result. At the least, Fox News will find the old “Fair and Balanced” slogan not only unusable, but instead a badge of the shame they have richly earned for themselves.

It’s not hard to imagine how Fox News’ evening shows would handle this information. And they aren’t disappointing expectations.

Tucker Carlson already spent the first half of his show repeatedly trying to make the discussion about Tony Podesta, including an insinuation that Podesta is issuing “threats” to him about his slanderous coverage of the Podestas. (I note that Podesta had his lawyer draft a Cease & Desist letter, and did not file the multimillion dollar SLAPP suits filed by Carlson’s friends Eric Bolling and Bill O’Reilly). One of Tucker’s explosive exclusives was his interview with discredited Hard Right congressman Dana Rohrbacher, in which the congressman frantically lied about the contents of the Manafort indictment today. Rohrbacher repeatedly said that the indictment only covers activity from years before he was involved with the campaign – and as noted, that’s a bald faced lie.

Sean Hannity is spending much of his show in a rabid, hysterical tantrum at the “unfairness” of Paul Manafort and insisting he is the only person in the world watching out for justice. He all but demanded his audience riot in the streets over how awful it is that the Clintons haven’t been indicted and frog marched yet.

As we’ve noted before, these guys are quite serious. Pirro is just a more openly vicious part of the equation, as she’s repeatedly demonstrated over the past year. But she’s just going with the Fox News Hard Right line.

Now that Manafort has been indicted (with more presumably to follow), expect Fox News to press for indictments of the Clintons and anyone else they can use for a distracting public spectacle. If they don’t get a frog march of the Clintons in front of everyone, then they’ll campaign on the basis that it’s wrong for Manafort to be arrested when she wasn’t.

But have no doubt – the anger and the hatred of the Right Wing on this matter is quite real and quite deep.

The only downside is for O’Reilly himself. If he wants to put himself into bankruptcy over these tantrums, it’s up to him.

I greatly appreciated Brad Sherman’s work here. Carlson clearly didn’t. Let’s see if Carlson has him back on again.

I would take Gorka’s threats here very seriously. The hatred these people have for the Clintons and the Obamas is quite real – and they’d be happy to see them prosecuted, convicted, sentenced and punished – as publicly as possible. It doesn’t matter that there’s nothing illegal or even unethical about multiple US agencies approving a Canadian company being bought by a Russian consortium. It doesn’t matter that people like Hannity and Limbaugh have twisted the information here into a gerrymandered pretzel. It doesn’t matter that people will see this for the panicked deflection that it is. All that matters is that these guys hate the Clintons and the Obamas to a level beyond rationality, and they want that perp walk. They didn’t spend months chanting “Lock Her Up!” for nothing – and if you pay attention to Trump’s little rallies this year, they’re STILL doing that.

Keep in mind that the Pence White House has a record of almost total failure for the year in the major things they pledged to accomplish. True, they did steal a Supreme Court seat, but that wasn’t anything Pence or Trump can take credit for – that was the vile work of Mitch McConnell last year, when he refused to do his job out of sheer spite. And it’s true that they have pretty much destroyed the ACA and systematically bulldozed every Obama Administration program and policy they can – but they’ve had to do this as Executive Orders, not as acts of Congress. Which means that much of the damage they’ve done could be halted or undone if people actually show up to vote next year and in 2020. (By the way, I found it interesting that Fox News and AM radio tried to make a lot of hay out of Jeff Sessions surrendering in court regarding the nonsensical suits about the IRS and the tax deductible groups. Fox News ran it as a headline that the IRS had admitted guilt and that everyone on the Right was vindicated. Except that’s not what happened. The reality is that the Pence appointees at the IRS were told to admit guilt and did so, and the Sessions Justice Dept attorneys were told to drop the existing contests and they did so too. It will be the same when Sessions tells his attorneys to drop their contests about ACA subsidies – assuming he hasn’t done so already.)

At this point, Trump is now clearly desperate for Congress to give him a massive tax cut for the wealthy, while simultaneously punishing Dem voters in Blue States. If and when that effort stalls out, just as the attempt to legislatively kill the ACA did, Trump and Pence will be looking for somewhere for their base to find solace. We’ve been talking about this for nearly 11 months now, and the conduct of Fox News and Limbaugh of late makes clear that these guys are gearing up to make sure this happens. In the event that Trump cannot claim any legislative win this year, don’t be surprised to see Jeff Sessions announcing that the “evidence” surrounding these nonsensical charges is just too compelling and he’s filing criminal charges against the Clintons. Even if the Trump base cannot claim any real victories this year, they’ll at least get to see that video of the Clintons being frog marched into the police station. The base will forgive the Pence White House almost anything if they get that.

It will be interesting to compile all of Hannity’s on-camera behavior when this miserable epoch is finished and the Pence White House is ejected from office. He’s already racked up a year of complete viciousness and one can only wonder how he’ll sustain this much hatred over the next 3.

But in the end, history tends to view that behavior in a much less friendly light than I think Hannity has ever considered possible.

It’s obvious that this was retaliation, and Fox News is not known for being subtle about such things. And now John Huddy will have the same issue his sister has dealt with for over a year – trying to get another outlet to hire him after having the odor of Fox News surrounding him. There’s a reason people never leave that network, and it isn’t just that they’re well paid to be there.

A few notes on this typical Hannity nonsense.

First, Hannity has been desperately trying to drum up attention for anything he can that might look sinister about President Obama’s White House for the past 8 years, so this is not a new idea. We just need look back on his earlier hit songs like “Joe Sestak” and “Solyndra” and “Fast & Furious” and “IRS” and, well, the list could go on for days. Sadly, Hannity has never been able to make any of that stuff stick, so he just keeps trying to throw the mud, figuring that his audience won’t remember which story he told last.

Second, none of Hannity’s sources here are reliable by any means. Ellen correctly notes that Peter Schweizer’s work has been roundly discredited by anyone who actually took the time to examine his outrageous claims. If anything, Schweizer is simply one of a line of Clinton and Obama attackers who regularly get platforms on Fox News. Ed Klein is another of the group. There’s another one in the bunch who Hannity regularly tries to sneak in: Victoria Toensing, a discredited attorney who has made a career with her husband of trying to spread blatant smears about Dems. Toensing has not only been discredited; she’s actually been repudiated by some GOP congresspeople for her attempts to promote outlandish smears as a way of making money for herself.

And of course, there’s John Solomon and Sara Carter and Circa News. The linked article from Media Matters makes a crucial point – Circa News is not the independent mobile device news service it once was. When Sinclair bought it in 2015, it became a reliably pro-Trump hard-right resource for people like Hannity and Fox News. John Solomon may now be EVP at The Hill (which is a pretty right-wing operation if you actually read the materials they regularly distribute), but he is better known for his time at the Far Right Washington Times. He’s been known to peddle in conspiracy theories before and is not considered to be a reliable journalist by any stretch. As for Sara Carter, she made her career by peddling the infamous Ramos & Compean myth to AM radio in the 2000s – it didn’t matter to her that her story was almost completely false. (The Ramos & Compean story is one that is quite illustrative of how Right Wing media tends to play on the prejudices of many gullible listeners. Sara Carter actually had AM listeners to shows like “John and Ken” in Los Angeles donating time and money to a couple of guys who had been convicted of attempted murder.)

I should also note that multiple AM radio guys are trying to push this story, and to push its publication in The Hill as some kind of legitimacy. Armstrong & Getty tried this tactic, telling their listeners that “The Hill is a left-wing publication, so if they’re saying it too, you’ve gotta think there’s something to it.” Again, they’re betting that their listeners are gullible enough to believe that idea just because they said it. The reality is that multiple Right Wing and pro-Trump media services are trying to push this as a way of deflecting from the real mess that surrounds the Pence White House.

And what is the actual reality of the Uranium One story? This is where the story gets fun, because it doesn’t line up with the Right Wing spin at all. In reality, Uranium One is a company that has gone through a bunch of hands over the past decade. They have mines and resources all over the world, having merged and acquired multiple companies in this field. Their resources include many in Asia and I believe in Kazakhstan. The US resources actually cover about 20 percent of our CAPACITY to produce uranium, but in reality they produce very little here – maybe 2 percent. A Russian consortium started to build up interest in this company in the latter 2000s and was finally approved to get a majority control of it after 9 separate US agencies and departments looked at it, including the completely non-partisan Nuclear Regulatory Commission as well as the regulators in Utah. All the departments approved the deal as part of a resetting of our relations with Russia, and mostly because the deal was considered to be of no real impact to national security anyway. It was a good-faith thing, showing we could be a good business partner. Nothing really sinister about it, and no real indication that Hillary Clinton had anything to do with it beyond eventually hearing about it along with President Obama, with all the departments telling them this was a no-brainer.

Hannity and the Right Wing would like you to believe that as soon as this deal went through, the Russians poured 140 million dollars into the Clinton Foundation and paid 500K for Clinton to give a speech. Most of that assertion is nonsense once you look at the actual records. In reality, it looks like perhaps 1-5 million actually was donated to the Clinton Foundation around the time this sale was approved, by a single investor (Ian Telfer), who is or was the Chairman of Uranium One. The rest of the donations were pledged and put in motion years before this sale was approved. Nearly all of that big figure comes from donations from Frank Giustra, who put over 130 million into the Clinton Foundation between 2005 and 2007, when Hillary was in the Senate and not involved in this stuff. It was known that she would run for President, but this deal wasn’t even started at that time. Some of the other donations look like they happened in 2008, when she was in the midst of her presidential run, but those don’t look like they were intended to make this sale happen – they look like the typical lobbying that happens when various investors court presidential campaigns. As for Bill Clinton’s speech, yes, he was paid a LOT of money to give speeches, with that amount really going up once President Obama took office and his wife was the Secretary of State. He wasn’t just paid amounts like that by Russians – he was getting paid by anyone who wanted him to speak at their event. Keep in mind he’s always been an excellent speaker and motivator, and he remains a very popular President, known for presiding over a period of considerable prosperity.

So where’s the conspiracy here? Where do we see someone trying to change news stories or trying to dissuade Americans from voting? Where do we see Russians actually trying to generate false or misleading stories in US press and social media? The easy answer is that it’s not in this story. A congressional investigation into this is a fairly boring dead end. But I do agree with Hannity on one point – when the Mueller investigation is finished, it is quite possible that some people will in fact be going to jail. I just don’t think Hannity will be happy to see who that turns out to be…