hard to envision a scenario where the russia saga wont be damaging to republicans in 2018. dems are a bunch of worthless hacks and all of them need to be primaried, but we've already seen the effect in montana and georgia

And we're surely in that territory of somewhere in between.

I edited my post but unless Mueller explicitly suggests criminal charges and does it in such a way the Justice Department acts -- then the ball will probably end up simply back over to the GOP Congress and voters. You can see all kinds of outcomes:

1. Mueller uncovers suspicious things and other sundry wrongdoings but doesn't recommend charges, which will cause the GOP will declare eternal victory because it was all a pointless witch hunt. GOP ~0% chance to impeach here unless Mueller indicts/recommends charges or whatever he does at the end of this. Any wrongdoing that is not explicitly declared criminal will just be hand-waved away as nothing, just a bunch of partisan bickering.
2. Mueller uncovers suspicious things all over the place but can only recommend indictments on obstruction, which the DoJ handwaves away with some blah blah about how the President can't obstruct justice by definition, poor Trump is such an impulsive guy he didn't know what obstruction was the poor naive knave, well thanks for the info Bob but we'll pass on this one. GOP may move to do something up to impeachment, depending on how bad it looks, because obstruction is a legitimately bad look. But chances are they'd probably do nothing.
3. Mueller delivers the goods and recommends indictments for obstruction plus more, collusion treason or whatever the really serious crimes are. The DoJ is going to have a super hard time being like "no thanks" to that, the pressure will really be on the GOP then, etc.

But #3 is really the only outcome where Trump gets truly dismantled. #1 and #2 will probably result in tons of exasperated Democrats surprised yet again justice is ultimately political and the Republicans are too craven to do anything.

Then it's up to voters to take action. I make no predictions about 2018/2020 but 2016 can't leave you feeling that optimistic about anything.

So I agree the canyon is vast but Mueller is literally gonna have to chuck Trump into it to get the GOP Congress or a Trump/Sessions controlled DoJ to move. If Mueller drives right up to the cliff but stops, it's back over to the GOP Congress and voters to constrain this. And Democrats can't be all that confident about how that will go.

In theory, the integrity of our elections is a big deal. I certainly care about that sort of thing. But in practice, does Joe Sixpack or some comfy suburban mom really give a **** if Donny Jr. tried to get some dirt on Hillary? Is that really substantially different from the normal skullduggery that candidates engage in? It's a tricky sell.

at least at that point it will be very easy and obviously time for me to move out of the country and never come back tho

Those guys campaigned hard on healthcare, FWIW.

do you really think that's where it ends?

afaik, ossoff didnt do that at all

i saw ads from him about reaching out and meeting in the middle

No, and to be clear: I def think the integrity of our elections and foreign collision are huge deals, but my sensibilities are very much in line with the West Wing / Acela Corridor Dems, and aren't reflective of many voters. Grandma losing her healthcare due to pre-existing conditions, that's what people care about.

No ****. If voters can be duped by this conman once, its not unreasonable to think it could happen again. I'm kicking myself for not going to a red state and opening up a kool-aid stand.

Furthermore, he has to deliver the goods on Trump personally. Indicting Kushner and Manafort isn't close to good enough.

I'm pretty sure Mueller can indict people without DoJ approval.

One thing I've noticed since Day 1 of Trump is how much people are sitting around waiting for the Ultimate Authority Trump Arbiter to step in and reassert sanity. It's always been Fox News, then the GOP elite, then the Intelligence Community, then moderate Republicans, then voters, then it was McMaster, then Comey, then the GOP Congress.

Mueller is sort of the perfect icon for this movement now. He's in control, he'll nail this, he's got 15 prosecutors, can't escape the long arm of the Special Counsel.

I truly hope the conclusions are vast and drastic but I'm afraid the real world isn't that neat and these right-wingers are playing for keeps, they ain't gonna let their President go down simply because ole Bob Mueller gets them on some technicalities and liberal nerd law stuff, that's all a farce to them anyway. Just wait for it; they're already working on the talking points: All Mueller's lawyers made donations to Hillary Clinton dontchaknow. Bill Clinton obstructed the justice too. Where is Hillary's email server? We're deeply concerned about Trump/Russia ties but Trump has learned his lesson and will do better, it's time to stay the course. etc. etc. meow chow. Mueller gonna have to literally show Trump getting handed briefcases with dollar signs on them from Boris Badenov and a signed agreement to sell Alaska to Russia before the GOP or the DoJ does anything.

The new line is that Comey leaked classified information for ****'s sake, that only makes sense if you're admitting Comey's memos were accurate, but they absolutely will flip this into a whistleblower hunt for people insufficiently loyal.

Oh yeah forgot that one. They'll just say Comey leaked classified Fake News, a high crime. You don't have to admit anything is accurate. The Deep State made up a bunch of lies about Trump which Comey irresponsibly leaked, thank goodness Trump is Draining the Swamp.

Remember Valerie Plame? The scandal around the leaking of her covert identity led to Scooter Libby being convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. That's about the level of outcome I expect from Mueller atthe end of the day. Maybe Flynn gets convicted of somethng and that's about it. Thanks for playing.

We shall together sing Molitva russkikh when Trump is freed of this distraction to Make America Great Again, comrade, and celebrate in ways that would make Peter the Great proud of his children.

I mean people cared about EMAILS so it kinda depends how the media covers it. The problem is this story probably has like a 2 day news cycle given how ****ed up everything is right now.

No one cared or understood EMAILGHAZI, even the most literate right-wingers couldn't and still can't even explain the crime or wrong-doing. It was just stuff for morons to yell about. If it wasn't EMAILZ it would have been something else.

This feels like a really strong assumption. They're willing look past the highest crimes of collusion / treason to retain power but somehow have the good graces to offer free and fair elections?

Good point. Related:

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elec...-trump-n780611

Counting on anyone in the GOP to wake up is a laughably naive and pointless exercise. The liberals who keep arguing against individual lies are completely failing. It's pointless. Have we learned nothing from the success of right wingers? Pick like 3 things and just repeat them endlessly.

Am I missing something or is the "adoption" part of the discussion really about the payback for whatever information this Russian lawyer was trying to provide? Russia wanted a reversal of the adoption policy in exchange for anti-Clinton information. Is that it?

Eh, disagree pretty strongly with that. Understand? No. But people cared about it. The media discussing it non-stop gave people the idea that it was a BIG DEAL.

And when I say "care" I don't necessarily mean only on the surface level. Being hammered with a message over and over can affect the subconscious level too. This is one of the most agreed-upon tactics for TV commercial marketing, for example.

I mean let's not forget this graphic: EMAILS
The media is quite powerful in shaping opinions, imo.

Yeah, maybe most people didn't care about emails in the sense you mean but it definitely reinforced the inclination people had about Hillary being an untrustworthy ***** who only cares about power and well this confirms it.

Sure, the republicans would have come up with something else for morons to yell about, but the media played along with the EMAIL scandal because it was just real enough, and that gave it credibility in people's minds. I'm skeptical a completely made-up scandal would have worked as well -- I don't think BENGHAZI was as effective, for example -- but my point anyway is that the media can drive people to care about things that may not be worth caring about.

Trump's myriad scandals during the campaign, too, didn't really stick because there were too many of them. On the other hand, I think the Russia thing is sticking because, like EMAILS, people are just being hammered with RUSSIA over and over again for months. And with this one, there is the added benefit of it possibly being a legitimately huge scandal.

This constant battle on the right AND left about Russia being over covered and whether there's collusion or other crimes is all BS and everyone needs to ****ing focus.

Remove the GATE from RUSSIAGATE. See if I care one bit. You know why? Because what Russia is doing to us NOW is REAL and SERIOUS.

If the cybergeeks and election experts are correct, we're finished if we can't get Trump to act soon. Not in a year or two when Mueller finishes. Not after the Senate agrees on their tax cut poor death bill and 3 years later when it kicks in. And not in 2016's election campaigns a year ago.

Besides, Mueller and all of us get to smile with relief anyway because Trump will be caught in an impossible situation even if we ignore the Trump Team's Russia ties completely and only focus on stopping Russia now. Baby-Daddy isn't opposing Putin-Daddy because he CAN'T, not because he's stubborn.

So all we have to do is focus on the dangers of Russiagate going forward and drop everything else to a minimum volume. Constituents will pressure GOP, then GOP will pressure the POTUS, and the POTUS will need to decide his fate within a short deadline. Side with the United States and protect the country in time, side with Russia and get impeached.

Vladimir Putin knows that all he needs is for the US President to stall just long enough over the next few months and he gets to manhandle America in ways he never even dreamed of before.

Vladimir Putin wanted to personally adopt child refugees from Comet Pizza, in exchange for proof that James Comey leaked classified emails about Seth Rich's murder.

You left Russia's influence out of your post. You did say something about the media a few times, but you forgot that Russia owned YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and even search engines. So, while media is important, SOCIAL media is really important these days. It's even more of an impact for something as trendy as Trump & Putin made the 2016 election.