1. The Democrat establishment has vortexed the party's narrative energy into hysteria about Russia (a state with a lower GDP than South Korea).

It is starkly obvious that were it not for this hysteria, insurgent narratives of the type promoted by Bernie Sanders would rapidly dominate the party's base and its relationship with the public.

Without the "We didn't lose--Russia won" narrative, the party's elite and those who exist under its patronage would be purged for being electorally incompetent and ideologically passé.  The collapse of the Democrat vote over the last eight years is at every level, city, state, Congressional and now, presidential.

Yet this narrative has reached a dead end – and thus so has the Democrat Party as a political institution.

If they weren’t trying to destroy the president, Democrats would have to focus on an agenda most Americans don’t support.

By 1968, voters had tired of the failed Great Society of Lyndon Johnson. Four years later, the 1972 Nixon reelection re-emphasized that a doubled-down McGovern liberalism was even less of a viable agenda.

In that context, in 1974, obsessing on Watergate and a demonized Nixon were wise liberal alternatives to running on a positive left-wing vision, given the growing conservative backlash of the 1970s.  After Watergate and the Ford pardon, Jimmy Carter squeaked to a close victory and a one-term presidency — before the country tired of his strident liberalism poorly cloaked in conservative clothing.

Given this historical reminder, the current efforts at Trump character assassination may be the best — or only — progressive pathway back to political power.  Here is why – in excruciating (for Democrats) detail.

When Bernie Sanders first came to Vermont, he bought a shack with a dirt floor with unemployment money. Last year, Bernie joined the company of Vermont’s 1% and bought his third home.

Nice to have a summer beachfront home on a private island on Lake Champlain, isn’t it?  Along with your other two homes, in Burlington VT and Washington DC.

The money that Bernie used his way to break the $1 million mark and buy his way into the 1% came from the $27 donors he touted during his campaign. Other campaigns were funded by billionaires.

But the folks paying for Bernie’s private Delta 767 with its menu of herb crusted lamb loin, chocolate ganache, fine cheeses and white wine were ordinary people who would never be allowed to fly on it.

Yes, last year (April 2016), Bernie chartered a Delta 767 to fly him, his wife, friends, and campaign staff – less than 50 total – to Rome and back.

Bernie could live large on their donations, but he couldn’t directly pocket their money. Not unless he figured out how to sell them something of his own. And that’s how Bernie joined the 1%.

A considerable portion of America’s permanent bureaucracy, including elements of its intelligence community, is engaged in an illegal and unconstitutional mutiny against the elected commander-in-chief, President Donald Trump.

Most of the Democrat Party and a fair sampling of the Republican Establishment wants to force Trump out of office, and to this end has undertaken an entrapment scheme to entice the president and his staff into actions which might be construed after the fact as obstruction of justice.

By means yet undisclosed, the mutineers forced Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn from office and now seek to bring down the president for allegedly obstructing an investigation of Gen. Flynn that arose in the first place from the entrapment scheme.

The Trump-Russia collusion story is nonsense, as its disseminators know better than anyone else. The object of the exercise is not to support the innuendo, but to launch an investigation which can provoke the White House into responses that might be construed as illegal.

The intelligence leaks involved in framing the story alone are probably sufficient grounds to put several dozen senior officials in federal prison for double-digit terms. That consideration gauges the scale of the problem: the mutineers have committed multiple felonies, and their downside should the mutiny go wrong is not ignominious retirement but hard time at Leavenworth.

Why Robert Mueller should step down as special counsel or recuse himself from any aspect of the investigation involving James Comey:

*The appointment of Mueller under the special counsel statute is illegitimate. That's because the special counsel statute can only be triggered if there's an underlying criminal probe. News to the world: There ain't no underlying crime.

*The law governing the special counsel (28 CFR 600.7) specifically prohibits Mueller from serving if he has a conflict of interest in the case.  The rule has been interpreted to mean that even the appearance of a conflict is sufficient for disqualification. A conflict of interest is a situation in which an individual has competing interests or loyalties.

*Mueller and fired FBI Director James Comey are best buds. Family vacations, picnics, hours spent at the office, and cocktails after work. As former FBI Assistant Director James Kallstrom says, “Bob Mueller and Jim Comey are the best of friends and have been for over two decades.  It’s a massive conflict of interest.”