And then again...

On the other hand, surely there comes a time when too much becomes too much right? I want to share with you a little bit of a chat that I had with my friend Karl this morning. Behold, in all it's poorly formatted glory.
Also, did you know it is really hard to copy/paste a Facebook conversation while keeping it legible and still being able to type anything else in the same post? It took me five minutes of stripping out HTML tags and editing it again.

Karl
 how...how does Donald Trump Jr. tweeting incriminating emails about collusion with Russia help him or his dad in any way?

Logan
 I have no idea whatsoever, my only guess is that he knew it was gonna come out anyway and decided to own it and gamble that people just won't care.

K
well, Trump supporters won't care they're fucking morons.

L
Yup

K
well shit

L 

Also yup.
It all depends on how the republicans in the house and senate react. Eventually the evidence gets too overwhelming right?Except I thought that months ago.

K 
I'm sure whatever's going to happen will be disappointing and half-assed but it certainly looks like the GOP machine is preparing to pivot vis a vis - Mike Pence fundraising.

L 
The one thing we can rely on in this crazy world is that it will be disappointing and half-assed.
Also yeah, the machine totally wants to pivot, just we are seeing the difference between the machine and the people making it up.

K
as we've discussed before, it's the one saving grace about all of this: politicians are idiots and the GOP platform is far from cohesive, they may have bullied their way into power, but they can hardly get out of their own way to do anything.

L
The more I think about it though, the more I think the best move would have been for him to deny everything and scream fake news when confronted with evidence.

K
well that's certainly what I expected but some people seem to think that it proves their innocence because they act like it's no big deal.

L
Yep, they are pretty terrible.

We are of course discussing the news that broke this morning of Donald Trump Jr voluntarily releasing screen captures he claims are of the email discussion leading to his meeting with a representative of the Russian government in hopes of getting compromising information on Hillary Clinton, specifically regarding the Clinton Foundation. Bafflingly, the emails he released say precisely what the NY Times investigation into them said they were saying, basically that yeah that totally happened and he was completely on board with it.

The defense, as far as I can tell, seems to be "Hey guys they totally didn't have anything worth the meeting, big waste of time" Which, I dunno, doesn't really seem like that should fly to me? I mean, if I go offer to pay someone some money to kill somebody, and they choose to not take my offer, it's still a crime, if I attempt to buy drugs of someone and they don't have any, I still tried to buy drugs, if I meet with a foreign agent promising me state secrets, and they don't give me any, I still tried to perform espionage. If I attempt to break into someone's house and can't get through the door, or I do get in and they don't have anything I want to steal, I still committed a crime.

So yeah, if ever there was a smoking gun this would be it. Will it do anything? I dunno, like you saw in the discussion above, neither me or Karl is at all confident that the GOP has any sort of spine anymore, jury's still out on the Democrats as well really.

What I don't get, like I said, is why they didn't use the convenient argument they have spent the last year or so building? They have set up a post-truth presidency, and all they have to do to keep their supporters happy is scream about "fake news" whenever something comes out they don't like, no it doesn't convince anyone with a brain, but it keeps the supporters happy like I said and they allies have so far been comfortable enough with that as well. A little shouting about fake news and the liberal media vendetta, some redirects to the Clinton email scandal, and the Fox News crowd quiets down once more. I don't see that happening here, DJT Jr. basically broke every rule of preventing self-incrimination, and it included Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner as well, hell Trump Sr is on record of having approved the meeting!

I know they are idiots, but can they really be this stupid? My guess is that they are approaching the presidency in much the same way as they run their businesses, I don't know if it is legal to meet with agents of foreign powers to get dirt on your competitors, but I am pretty sure it happens a lot and no one cares too much, so maybe he figured it wasn't a big deal and just put it all out there expecting, at worst, a slap on the wrist?

Maybe Don Jr. really hates his father and is doing what he can to bring the campaign down? Putting this out there and then making an immunity deal in return for testimony on something that directly implicates the president?

Maybe he really thinks he can just announce this and get away with it? I mean, the campaign and administration has gotten through things almost as bad already, a great many of them, and I wrote just yesterday about how that doesn't seem to matter to many people.

Any of those options could be correct, I know the one I want to be right, but it probably isn't that one. What I do know is the result so far has been pretty much madness, the GOP players are pretty uniformly appalled, though no calls for action have happened yet, it does seem like the machine is ready to have someone not named Trump calling the shots for a while. Time will tell, but it is very exciting, also terrifying.