IMPORTANT POINT: NO SENATORS CHALLENGED COMEY WHEN HE SAID TRUMP LIED.

Virtually no Republicans have come forward taking about the veracity of any of Trump's statements. 

David Brooks discussed the Comey testimony last night. Brooks was disturbing because he showed how Trump is getting normalized. Brooks said we had to understand Comey as believing in our legal institutions , while Trump believes in tribal and family loyalties. He said it as if it's a natural divide--a sort of cultural war about how to judge reality. 

Brooks said the average American doesn't care but this will eventually leach down into the country and cause Trump problems. He said it was only a Washington problem as of now.

Brooks said Trump wasn't hurt by Comey's testimony and that the issue of obstruction of justice is still ambiguous.

Good news--In Virginia , Trump has a 3% approval rating among Democrats.

LAW CASE NEWZ REPORTS SEALED INDICTMENT AGAINST TRUMP BEGAN WITH NY AG

Critics of Louise Mensch and Stuart Taylor should read today's LAW CASE NEWZ. The author says that Mensch caught how the New York AG took his case to the feds and a grand jury indictment was secured in Virginia. The New York case was based on Trump money laundering Russian funds. Apparently that was the reason the Trump lawyers were discussing impeachment this past week. They had already been served notice of the sealed warrant.

THE WORSE CASE SCENARIO COMES INTO VIEW--JOSH MARSHALL

Josh Marshall at TalkingPointsMemo reviews what we know about Kushner's meetings and explains why it shows that the worse case scenario is coming into view. 

Marshall discounts the idea the covert channel was supposed to be about Syria /ISIS as reported. It has to do about business opportunities for lifting the sanctions on Crimea.

Josh includes a handy map for you.

UNHAPPY POPE PRESENTS TRUMP WITH HIS ENCYCLICAL ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Rex Tillerson says Trump hasn't made up his mind on the Paris Climate Accords.

Rex also said Trump today will demand Europeans spend more on defense. Does someone tell Trump the Europeans made that decision two years ago.

TRUMP TOMORROW

++NY AG starts probe of Trump Foundation.

++Congressional Democrats ask for DOJ investigation of Trump Foundation.

++NEWSWEEK Published cover story on his overseas interests ,his dubious partners and how this jeopardizes national interest.

++NEWSWEEK also mentions he went to a mental institution during his divorce from Ivanka. 

++Josh Marshall has a piece today about his flawed surgery for baldness and his pain which caused him to rap Ivanka. He also went to Dr. Feelgood during the 90s and got shots of speed and was known for years as a speed freak.

++New York AG is opening the case against Trump University this week.

++The first court hearings on Trump raping a 14-year old girl will be held this week.

++Dr. Oz is going to reveal Trump's latest medical report without embarassing him.

++CNN did a report on Trump stiffing small businessmen.

++Senator Boxer has requested Homeland Security investigation on Trump's model agencies using undocumented workers.

++Trump still has not released his taxes,the first presidential candidate in 40 years ever to do so. Trump authors,aho have investigated Trump for years, say he hasn't paid taxes for years and contributes little to charity.

++Colin Powell's leaked emails say Trump is "a national disgrace" and "he has no shame."

++President Obama said today that Trump can't be a working class hero because he has spent his whole life avoiding the working class and hired illegal aliens.

TODAY'S STORIES

++Both the Washington Post and the New York Times continue to break the stories about how the DNC emails were leaked by Russian Intelligence. The post has a piece summarizing the allegations on whether Trump is Putin's Patsy.

++Josh Marshall reports his article on Trump and Russian finance became the most read piece he has ever written. He reposted the piece today.

++Kevin Drum at Mother Jones ponders whether this connections shouldn't be top news now.

++Charles Pierce writes that Putin's involvement is bad news for democracy.

++Yes, Trump seems to have gotten a bounce from the RNC and is now tied with Hillary. His big leap of support was among while makes without a high school education.

++Salon.com writes that the Trump phenomenon is sparked by the rise of white poverty in the suburbs.

Andrew Sullivan Returns!

++Andrew writes his first piece for New York magazine--Trump, an extinction event. Really it's title is about how Democracies die. Andrew writes about the fascist tendencies of Trump and his followers but points out that this does a disservice to fascism which was an ideology. But Andrew is wrong there as I have pointed out on this blog that all fascism starts out without a program and eventually creates one after taking power.

++He points to Trump's popularity as based on working class whites who have felt our culture has left them behind.Hence the attacks on "political correctness". These people believe the culture mocks their religion,their gender identity and their occupations. Trump's misogyny is tailored to his white male supporters feeling woman are dominant now and the prospects of a black President followed by a woman is just too much.

++Sullivan starts off the long essay on Plato's analysis of how Democracies fail but he may have been biased since a democracy executed his mentor Socrates. Sullivan writes that Obama was the bright point of our democracy as opportunities got expanded for all types to seek the presidency. But the flip side of that is a populism emerging from the whites who eschewed the elites and were conditioned to accept a "strong leader". 

++Sullivan has absolutely no respect for Hillary Clinton as he has made obvious through his journalistic career. He points to her tone-deafness to millenials and what he sees is her corruption. He believes Trump has the ammo to go against her. 

++Sullivan gets Trump's World Wrestling techniques and his appearances on the Howard Stern Show as appearing to be a "regular guy". His "You're Fired!" resonates because the white working class know their bosses are too cowardly ever to act that way. 

++He brings up his old bete noire Sarah Palin as an example of the bad populism that the Obama phenomenon unleashed and the story how she told Todd she was going to Costco when she really went to see the then-Mrs Trump to "participate in the glamour" she brought to Alaska. It is this that draws people to Trump, watching his plane appear before a rally. 

++Sullivan admits wavering between disbelief and dread about a Trump victory. I do too. 

++Read the article. I don't know whether the long format benefits Sullivan the way it used to.

++For data nerds,Sam Wang writes a long piece at Princeton Election Consortium about how accurate head-to-head polls are--Pretty accurate starting at February before a Presidential election. He has Hillary at 93% probability of winning and Trump at 7%. He warns you that summer polls tend to be less accurate as witnessed by the 2012 elections. Then they get right on the mark. His piece goes back in term and finds the Reagan 1980 election the outlier that conservatives all embrace but hasn't happen again.

++Happy Tom Friedman predicts that a terrorist attack would mean a Trump victory. Oh,myyy, as George Taki would say. 

++Josh Marshall analyzes Trumponomics. Trump believes with interest rates so low,instead of concentrating on deficits and the debt it's time we should build some infrastructure, which is just the thing the white working class want. Infrastructure pending is now at a 30-year low. 

The Donald Says His Poll Numbers Will Go Up After California Shooting

++The panic about Donald J. Trump is understandable. He just exposes what the congressional GOP really is without the pretense. No wonder the "establishment" is scared.