monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

We understand why McConnell and crowd are operating so secretively. We understand why they'd like to get this "done" with no public debate and with no public awareness of what they are up to and the real-life consequences for American citizens. And we understand that they hope/believe they can somehow get away with this through deceits and obfuscations which will be supported and forwarded by the media system on the right and thus minimize electoral consequences for them.

Republicans are poised to take the unprecedented step of passing a sweeping piece of legislation — a bill to eliminate health insurance from millions of Americans — without so much as a single hearing. In defense of his plan to keep his bill secret, and rush it into law with minimal public scrutiny, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell claims the debate has really been going on for seven years anyway.

“Look, we’ve been dealing with this issue for seven years,” McConnell tells the New York Times. “It’s not a new thing.” McConnell adds that there have been “gazillions of hearings on this subject” over the years.

The talking points list speaks for itself! No counter-arguments are required, it's mere existence is evidence of guilt and fear.

Are the American people supposed to have concluded by now (Thanks to WaPo and the NY Times) that because they've reported that Mueller is investigating Trump for obstruction; based on the word of unnamed "officals," that the case is closed and Trump and his associates are all guilty?

Watergate is just one of many examples. The press have a proper role here and if they were to shirk in their institutional responsibility, we'd be far worse off as a society.

I have noticed a lot of your post are disingenuous.

for eight long years we have had republicans making very provocative hate filled statements

Moreover, Fox News and other conservative media went on about Obama for eight years every bit as much as MSN (so called) media is now.

There just happens to be more to report about Trump because of the very real Russian investigation and Trump and his associates ties to it.

...and since he's obviously a pretty bright guy, that's troublesome. If he was just stupid it would be easier to dismiss the stupid things he says. But since he's smart you have to think he's being consciously disingenuous, or that he is somehow self-deceived so completely its almost on an organic level.

and I ask again ... who benefits from the increased partisanship in the US?

and if he's corrupt people should know? Maybe?

Somebody should post Trump's talking points on A2K every day. It might well spare us the copy-pasted posts of his followers.

It's two things, Walt:

1. What did russia do to affect our election--how did they do it, and how can we prevent it in the future?

2. The bogus allegation that he colluded with the russians to "rig" the election.

There actually are laws against inciting riots, inciting violence, inciting murder, and against other forms of gross misuse of the First Amendment. Those law should be enforced, beginning immediately. No reasonable society should be expected to tolerate the kinds of activities which Democrats and other leftists have been perpetrating since the election last November.

The left's hatred of Nixon was almost as intense as it is for Trump. Back then they were bombing federal buildings and police stations, while going on wild "days of rage" wantonly destroying property and injuring innocent people. All because Nixon presented a "threat" to them, i.e., he didn't adopt their cheese-eating agenda.

In fact, going into this year, only two American presidents have ever been the subject of federal criminal inquiries -- Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton -- and both ran into trouble in their second terms.

This small club, however, now has a new member, with Donald Trump facing his own criminal investigation. Time will tell what becomes of the ongoing federal probe, but MSNBC's Ari Melber raised an interesting numerical point yesterday: when Nixon first faced a criminal inquiry into his misconduct in office, he'd been president for 1,580 days. For Clinton, it was 1,835 days.

For Trump, it was 145 days.

Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt
6:07 AM - 16 Jun 2017

Trump's Derangement Deepens
Let me put this as simply as I can. After firing FBI Director James Comey for investigating the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russians, the president is now openly smearing and threatening to fire his successor as most prominent investigator, special counsel Robert Mueller. There is no question about the motive behind all this, because Trump has told anyone within hearing distance or access to a television that he fired Comey to kill a vital and important investigation into Russian interference in our elections, which yesterday Putin all but admitted: “They meddle in all other countries’ affairs, what did they expect?” For good measure, Trump is now openly arguing through surrogates that Mueller is acting in bad faith, pursuing a “witch hunt,” and should be fired if his investigation gets anywhere near the president.

Every now and again, you have to take a moment, stop being distracted by the constant breaking news, and let all this sink in.

This is now a slow-moving version of Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre — but graver. It’s graver because the original crime — the Kremlin’s attempt to hack our elections in possible cahoots with some on the Trump campaign — has so much wider ramifications than an office break-in...

Well, he definitely is going to be a noted figure in US history. I expect that future historians of the presidency will refer to this point in time as the WTF?! period.