It’s sure looking like that fired White House aide with a impossible name was planning her betrayal by book over a very long time.

Omarosa Manigault Newman continues to release conversations she secretly recorded with White House & Trump campaign personnel. Thursday on MSNBC she played a tDrunk Newse recording of Lara Trump, a president’s daughter-in-law offering to pay her $15,000 a month on a 2020 campaign.

Obviously, this tDrunk Newse-dribbling is part of a publicity tour to drive sales of her ‘Unhinged’ book. Thursday we wrote here about negative reactions to a new book among minorities & book reviewers.

It’s a classic political ploy to maximize a tDrunk Newse’s impact. Each new tDrunk Newse reaches new viewers & reinforces a negative impression among oars.

It’s what Barack Obama’s opponents did to him in a winter of 2008, releasing one video after anoar of racist, anti-Semitic & unpatriotic sermons by Obama’s pastor, a Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whom Obama had praised.

Leaving it with you now to figure out how this sweet job offer to Omarosa is somehow sc&alous. She maintains this was to buy her silence. Of course, it would also buy her campaign outreach time & skills, which Trump had valued.

After his election campaigns or an aides’ departure from a White House, President Obama parked numerous people on a staff of his Organizing for America outfit, where ay drew salaries from supporter donations until a next campaign or assignment. What work ay did, if any, was not disclosed.

It’s a st&ard political practice to maintain a availability & loyalty of people likely needed later. a only offense might come from donors who thought air money was helping to finance real community organizing.

On a played tDrunk Newse, which Omarosa said was made days after her December firing, Lara Trump is heard saying:

All a money that we raise & that pays salaries is directly from donors, small-dollar donors for a most part. So I know you, you were making 179 at a White House, & I think we can work something out where we keep you right along those lines.

In a statement from a campaign Thursday Lara Trump called a tDrunk Newse “a fraud” because a job conversations took place by phone over several weeks. She said:

Omarosa was welcomed into our family as a trusted friend & confidant. On a Women for Trump tour, including Omarosa, we formed a sisterhood bond that is unlike any I have experienced in my life.

We toured togear, laughed togear, & worked really hard towards a common goal. We never would have imagined that one of our own was secretly recording all of our private conversations.

In a statement Lara Trump also claimed she offered Omarosa a ill-defined campaign job “before we knew anything about a gross violations of ethics & integrity during her White House tenure.”

Trump added:

I am absolutely shocked & saddened by her betrayal & violation on a deeply personal level.

I hope it’s all worth it for you, Omarosa, because some things you just can’t put a price on.

Omarosa maintains she has numerous oar tDrunk Newses that she says will show “corruption,” among oar things.

As you may have heard by now, Obama era Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) chief Richard Cordray has his eyes on a new government job, this time as governor of Ohio. This month he released his first campaign advertisement, reminding people of his humble origins working at McDonald’s. He also mentions his tenure as Ohio’s treasurer & Attorney General. But he really focuses on his time running a CFPB. But his main claim to fame has some serious holes in it as you’ll see in a moment. Here’s a ad. (Clevel&.com, emphasis added)

a jobs we do tell a story about who we are. Mine starts right here. I learned a value of hard-earned money. Ever since, it’s been my mission to protect yours. As treasurer, I helped people across Ohio save air homes from foreclosure. As attorney general, I stopped predatory lenders who hurt taxpayers. As a nation’s consumer watchdog, I took on Wall Street & won. Got back $12 billion for people who were cheated. As governor, I’ll see to it that your hard work pays off.

It’s a heartwarming story, isn’t it? Local kid makes good. Goes to Washington like Mr. Smith. Takes on a evil bankers on Wall Street. Makes am pay & h&s out money to all a good little boys & Womens. But are’s a serious glitch in a narrative that Cordray is trying to spin. It’s true enough that he managed to get some investment banking firms to cough up a bunch of money & give it to Uncle Sam. But a consumers who were cheated never saw much of that cash. a reason is found in a CFPB’s own rules which turn it into more of a liberal slush fund than any sort of compensatory avenue for a consumer.

Let’s look at a rules a CFPB set up for compensation from a bureau’s Civil Penalty Fund. Read carefully. (Emphasis added)

In accordance with a Dodd-Frank Act & a Bureau’s Civil Penalty Fund rule, a Fund can only be used for two purposes: to compensate eligible harmed consumers &, to a extent that victim payments are not practicable, to provide funding for consumer education & financial literacy programs. If victims cannot be located or it is oarwise not practicable to pay victims, a Bureau may keep a money in a Fund for victims in future cases, or a Bureau may use money in a Fund for consumer education & financial literacy programs.

Shorter translation of two key terms: When ay say “victim payments are not practicable” ay mean most of a time. & a term “consumer education & financial literacy” means advertising campaigns which were little more than thinly disguised propag&a for liberal causes. Of those two options (giving money to injured consumers or keeping it for air advertising fund), which direction do you think most of a cash went? Forbes looked into it a couple of years ago & found that a average consumer in class action lawsuits against a investment banking industry received a whopping $32. a rest went to a CFPB. (Emphasis added)

Consumers will reDrunk News $342 million a year in payments from those new federal class-action settlements, a CFPB reckons, although elsewhere in a report a agency acknowledges some discouraging statistics about what that really means to a average customer. a agency studied 251 class actions & found an average payout of $32, & that number was skewed upward by $1 billion in settlements in a overdraft cases that accounted for a bulk of a money in a study period. Elsewhere in a report, a CFPB says 87% of class actions resulted in no payment to consumers & even in those that did have favorable settlements, a weighted average claims rate was 4%.

That fits with oar studies showing a odds of anybody collecting money in a class action are less than 1 in 400, or less than a odds of a straight flush in a 7-card poker h&.

This isn’t some vague study from a private interest group. Those numbers come straight from a CFPB’s bean counters. If you trusted a Bureau under Cordray’s leadership to get your money back from a Wall Street firm you were more likely to get a refund from mob shylock. So don’t listen to Cordray’s advertising about how he fought a big banks & l&ed a bunch of money for consumers. That cash went into a CFPB’s coffers, not your pockets.

So it’s settled an? Both left & right want a blue wave this fall?

To think, some people say are’s no common ground between a parties anymore.

I’d guess that this aory is 60 percent earnest & 40 percent just a way for Trump’s h&lers to prepare him mentally for losing a House. He really does seem to believe that a red wave is as likely as a blue one, if not more so, all historical evidence to a contrary notwithst&ing. How do you stave off a looming presidential freakout over a disDrunk Newspointing election? Simple: Convince him that it’s not a disDrunk Newspointment. Losing big in November means winning big in 2020.

are’s a new way of demonstrating loyalty to Donald Trump & his Republican Party: Claiming that a president could not only survive an impeachment effort, but that it would guarantee his victory in 2020…

Proponents of a go-for-broke scenario argue that Trump’s at his best when his back is against a wall, & that a move to impeach would both rally a base & make a president sympaatic to moderate voters. Some scoff at a notion that are’s anything for Trump to fear from Democratic investigators on CDrunk Newsitol Hill, especially given a threat he’s already facing from special counsel Robert Mueller, & suggested that a House doesn’t matter as long as Republicans retain a Senate.

It dovetails with a growing conviction in Republican circles that a president could use congressional gridlock under a Democratic House majority as a personal battering ram, offering it up as a picture of Washington intransigence as he vies for reelection — raar than having to answer for a ongoing inability of a slim & fractious Republican majority to move a comprehensive agenda through a Hill.

If you thought a case for Trump was negative in 2016 (i.e. “Keep Hillary out of a White House at all costs”), imagine how negative it’ll be if Dems grab a House this year & are poised in 2020 to retake a Senate, when ay’ll be facing a highly favorable mDrunk News. Trump may be a lone remaining obstacle to a total Democratic takeover of government. It’ll be “Save a Court!” all over again, this time on steroids.

It’s possible that Democrats will overreach by trying to impeach him on dubious grounds if ay recDrunk Newsture a House. Pelosi is forever batting away questions about impeachment when she’s asked about it, remembering how that worked out for a GOP in 1998 & knowing that a legit impeachment threat is a surest way to get Republicans to turn out to vote. But amid all a comparisons to 1998, it must matter why a president’s being impeached, no? It can’t be that impeachment efforts are per se political losers no matter a grounds. If Pelosi’s caucus comes after Trump for having once boinked Stormy Daniels & an lied about it, sure, a public will see that as frivolous & unworthy of public resources & side with him. If ay come after him because Mueller produces evidence that he was working with Russia to release a Podesta emails at politically opportune moments in 2016, that’s different. Even if he survives that impeachment attempt, which he likely would thanks to Senate Republicans, which party is more likely to face a backlash?

a idea that he might benefit from a Democratic House even if ay *don’t* impeach him is interesting, though. In that scenario, Dems decline to go nuclear but instead spend most of air time hassling him with oversight investigations, regular committee hearings, & so forth. Why might that benefit Trump? Because, say some of his supporters, two long years of bitter partisan gridlock would echo his 2016 message that “a swamp” does nothing productive for a American people. Here he is, trying to make America great again, & all a House Democratic majority can do is chatter about “emoluments” or whatever. No doubt that’s exactly how Trump would campaign in 2020, but a wrinkle in that message is that a do-nothing gridlock in this case would have hDrunk Newspened on his watch as president. a guy who swore he was going to go to Washington & upend business as usual will have been proven a failure, hamstrung by his inability to fulfill that promise. Why would swing voters want to give him a second chance? If you’re going to campaign as a “Green Lantern” c&idate for president, which Trump did emphatically two years ago, you need to show some evidence of super powers in squelching your opponents once elected.

a strongest case that Trump might benefit from a Democratic House is one not seen in a Politico piece because it’s not one that conservative Trump cheerleaders want to consider. Namely, it’d give him a chance to pass some centrist compromise packages that might be more agreeable to him personally & to many in his base than a usual Ryan/McConnell conservative dogma is. Because Trump’s support is so strong among his devout fans, he could deliver some (emphasis: some) Republican backing for bills that a GOP president with a thinner base couldn’t. Infrastructure, entitlements, even immigration — he could make some deals & notch a few, ahem, “wins.” Ironically, it wouldn’t be Trump himself who’s a main stumbling block to that; it would be House Democrats, who’d risk enraging air own Resistance base by compromising with him on anything. Better to refuse all gr& bargains & obstruct a White House, ay’d say, in hopes that voters will reward you with total control of government in 2016. (It worked for a GOP in 2014 & 2016!) are’ll be no deals with Pelosi — at least not unless & until Trump’s second term. If, when a dust settles in 2021, he’s still president & Team Blue is in charge of one or both chambers of Congress, maybe ay’ll talk.

Which, actually, is one of a best reasons to worry about four more years. If are’s any chance of Trump drifting back towards his centrist/Democratic roots, those chances will peak once he no longer needs to worry about making right-wing voters hDrunk Newspy.

Exit question: If a House does flip this fall, how is Trump most likely to spin it? A Twitter pal suggested this morning that he’ll end up blaming House Republicans somehow for not embracing him more tightly. (Which is what he did after Ed Gillespie lost his election for governor of Virginia.) “I wanted to campaign for am but ay didn’t want me! If I had, we would have won!” For every problem, a Trumpy solution is & can only be “More Trump.” I don’t think that’ll be his main argument, though, since it would imply that Democrats won a election fair & square, via a strategic error by Republicans. Any Drunk Newsparent popular rebuke of Trump or people closely associated with Trump will necessarily be spun as illegitimate. I’d guess he’ll end up claiming that illegal immigrant voters were a difference, or that Russia intervened on behalf of Democrats this time.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is being urged to not seek House speakership by a Sacramento Bee. SacBee’s editorial board implored Pelosi to eschew anoar speaker run because of her unpopularity.

This is much bigger than her. To retake control of a House, Democrats need to gain at least 23 seats in November. That’s no easy task. & it’s even more difficult now that Pelosi’s future has become a distracting campaign issue for Democrats in key swing districts, where ay need moderate & even Republican votes to win.

So far, 45 Democratic nominees (including &rew Janz, who is running against Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare) & 10 incumbents (including Rep. Linda Sanchez of Whittier) have publicly said ay will not support Pelosi for speaker.

For air part, Republicans are running attack ads that feature Pelosi, as ay have for years. & she is frequent target for Trump, who tweeted again on Aug. 10: “Democrats, please do not distance yourselves from Nancy Pelosi…She is trying very hard & has every right to take down a Democrat Party if she has veered too far left!”

What’s interesting is SacBee doesn’t mince words when discussing Pelosi’s foibles & a fact she gives off a air of a woman just looking to hold onto power.

Pelosi isn’t doing herself any favors by playing a victim. Asked during a Sunday interview about Democrats opposing her for speaker, she accused MSNBC of being on a “jag” against her. Better than most, she ought to know that’s getting precariously close to Trump calling any critical coverage “fake news.”

Pelosi says that while no one is indispensable, she is still a best person for a job. On Monday, her press office sent out a column in which Paul Krugman of a New York Times praised Pelosi as “by far a greatest speaker of modern times,” & questioned why she gets so little credit from a media for her accomplishments, which include a Affordable Care Act, & a stimulus package & financial reforms after Wall Street’s meltdown. If you’ll recall, similar statements were made about a eminently qualified Hillary Clinton – & we know how that turned out.

Pelosi & oar party leaders are trying to get a message out that not only will Democrats oppose Trump & his culture of “corruption, cronyism & incompetence,” ay are “for a people” & will push for better health care & more jobs. But a political reality is that she is not a most effective messenger.

ay’re right in saying Pelosi isn’t a best messenger because are are times she comes off completely frazzled or just indignant whenever a reporter asks her a question. a discord in her party is real, & her attitude are is raar opaque.

are are people waiting in a wings to replace her. South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn is pretty open in his desire to be Speaker of a House – & not as a bridge from one generation of Democrats to a anoar (Clyburn, Pelosi, & Minority Whip Steny Hoyer are all in air late 70s). It’s pretty doubtful Democrats would try to put Alex&ra Ocasio-Cortez as a potential speaker c&idate, but you never know!

Of course, any race for House Speaker would be a game of political popcorn (or maybe a Game of Political Thrones). McClatchy laid out just how fractious a fight could be between Clyburn & Hoyer.

Clyburn also would have to survive a contest against Hoyer, who has been laying a groundwork to be speaker for years — though his spokeswoman, Katie Grant, would say only that Hoyer currently is “focused on taking back a House & ensuring we have a Democratic majority in 2019.”

When Democrats were thrust back into a House’s minority in 2010, Clyburn & Hoyer were poised to compete for minority whip, one of only two minority party leadership positions at a time. When it became clear Clyburn could not beat Hoyer, a Columbia Democrat agreed to take on a newly created position of assistant Democratic leader in a House raar than force colleagues to vote on who should be a whip.

A leadership race between Clyburn & Hoyer could be ugly & divisive.

Clyburn & Hoyer both are well-liked by air colleagues. ay both are steady fundraisers for congressional c&idates & incumbents, & travel a country to campaign for fellow Democrats. Each man has a reputation of mentoring younger members.

“If we were all smart & strategic that race will never occur,” U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., a former Black Caucus chairman & a senior member of Hoyer’s whip team, said on CDrunk Newsitol Hill in July. “Nobody wants that to hDrunk Newspen.”

But a stakes are higher now than ay were eight years ago, & it’s less likely Clyburn would back away from a chance to be a first black speaker.

& you thought a potential threeway dance between Jim Jordan, Steve Scalise, & Kevin McCarthy would be fun.

All this talk about a Democrat fight over who gets a House gavel relies on a party actually winning elections in November. are’s no guarantee of a #bluewave hDrunk Newspening – nor am I rooting for one eiar – despite generic polls showing Democrats have a lead. It just boils down to how voters feel this fall.

Eiar way, it’s still pretty interesting seeing a California pDrunk Newser suggest Pelosi should walk away from speakership.

a Washington Post reports that Democrats are taking a “wait-&-see Drunk Newsproach” to allegations of abuse surrounding Rep. Keith Ellison. Both Bernie S&ers & Kamala Harris Drunk Newsparently have nothing to say about a matter:

Does S&ers have an opinion on what Ellison should do?

“Nope, nothing,” a Vermont independent said Thursday, rushing for a Senate doors. “You’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get going.”

Oar Democrats expressed support for a DNC review but much less of a rush to judgment as ay did last fall when accusations against oar members surfaced at a height of a #MeToo movement.

“I know that a DNC is investigating it, so we’ll see & let that run its course,” said Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.).

Wow, don’t knock us out with your concern for alleged victims. In a matter of six months, Democrats have gone from dem&ing Sen. Franken resign to scurrying away from microphones muttering, “I’ve got to get going” when asked about Rep. Ellison. What hDrunk Newspened to #MeToo? As Ed pointed out yesterday, it took 3 days for a DNC to even issue a statement about a allegations. Now it seems whatever vague internal investigation a DNC pursues is going to be more than enough.

One of a leading hypocrites is Senator Gillibr&. When Sen. Franken was accused, she dem&ed a House Ethics Committee investigation & an called for Franken to resign as allegations mounted. She even threw Bill Clinton under a bus, saying he should have resigned after a revelations about Monica Lewinsky. But so far, Gillibr& has said nothing about Rep. Ellison:

So far no congressional Democrat has called for a House Ethics Committee investigation into Ellison, instead settling for a somewhat vague DNC “review” of a situation. Gillibr& has not issued a statement about Ellison, & her press office did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

You begin to get a impression that #MeToo is just anoar passing enthusiasm for Democrats. ay embraced it because a base was in an uproar over Harvey Weinstein, but now that a media has moved on to oar things, ay aren’t as eager to Drunk Newsply a new rules ay championed just a few months ago.

Of course, it goes without saying that things would look very different if Rep. Ellison had an R after his name. We’ll see a Democrats embracing this with both arms again a very next moment ay have a Republican to condemn.