Once again, Senate Republicans bravely run away

The United States Senate bravely ran away today. The original plan for the day was a vote-o-rama to pass the Republican-authored budget reconciliation bill, the one that would throw $72 billion to the Department of Homeland Security so that ICE and Customs and Border Protection (but mostly ICE) can be restructured into an instrument of domestic terror and manager of new concentration camps capable of holding millions. That was the Trump-Miller plan that caused yet another government shutdown after Democrats refused to have any part of it.

That was the plan, at least, but then Donald Trump and his band of fascist thugs announced their $1.8 billion slush fund for paying off Jan. 6 criminals and other allies who have faced federal charges for their actions in service of President The Antichrist. New head crook Todd Blanche, Trump's former lawyer and now his "acting Attorney General," shuffled his way into the Senate this morning to defend the fund to Republican senators, and apparently it didn't go well.

Apparently it really didn't go well. On X, Andrew Desiderio reported the two-hour meeting was "incredibly hostile."

As many as 25 GOP senators spoke (this is very rare for these meetings), all in opposition to weaponization fund.

R's pitched specific ideas such as dictating how the 5 commissioners are chosen & not allowing people convicted of violence against cops to be eligible for a payout.

Before you get any grand theories about the crookedest Senate in United States history beginning to find some basic decency, focus in on that last point. About half of the Republican caucus was willing to unload on Blanche about how setting up a special government fund specifically for the purposes of paying cash rewards to people who've done crimes on Trump's behalf was, actually, an indefensible pile of crooked garbage so nasty that not even they could support it.

The solutions offered, however, weren't to take an axe what's already being called the most corrupt thing a U.S. president has ever attempted. Instead the assembled Republicans debated over whether they could have some say in who gets to serve on the Cash Payouts For Pro-Trump Crimes commission. Or a carveout specifically exempting the insurrectionist rioters who beat one U.S. Capitol police officer to death and injured roughly 140 others.

Paying off the rest of the seditionists, including the militia members who traveled to Washington, D.C. with weapon and ammunition stockpiles in preparation for planned street violence? Paying off the numerous lawyers and Republican officials who attempted to forge fake electoral results to be passed to Mike Pence before the election was certified? All the rioters subsequently arrested for child molestation, illegal explosive devices and the like? That's all fine. That's a level of corruption Senate Majority Leader John Thune's caucus can stomach, if Blanche could assure them that the people who ganged up to assault U.S. law enforcement officers as the rest of us watched on live TV wouldn't get a cut of the action.

Apparently Blanche wasn't willing to offer any such promises, and Thune could neither convince senators up for reelection to back the Violent Sedition Reward Program nor cobble together any restrictions that Republican senators would be willing to challenge Trump on, so they all just gave up and left. They won't be back until June.

CNN reports:

Sen. Susan Collins, the top Senate appropriator, told CNN that Blanche hadn’t convinced her to support the fund for individuals claiming they had been unfairly treated by past Justice Departments.

“I do not support the weaponization fund as it has been described,” Collins, who faces a tough reelection in November, said ahead of the meeting. “I do not believe individuals that were convicted of violence against police officers on Jan. 6 should be entitled to reimbursement of their legal fees.”

Wow, Blanche, you almost got an emotion out of Susan Collins? You screwed up big-time.

Sen. Thom Tillis was especially colorful in his distain.

“Under what circumstances would it ever make sense to provide restitution for people who were either pled guilty or were found guilty in a court of law? You want to talk about maybe providing restitution for people who weren’t found guilty? Fine, but if you do this, why not for the poor, mostly peaceful prospect protesters in Kenosha, in Portland?” the outgoing senator said of the fund.

“I mean, my God, do you see where this would head? These people don’t deserve restitution; they, many of them deserve to be in prison. Some of them deserve the pardon because they were over prosecuted, but this is - I mean, this is just stupid on stilts.”

Technically, sir, I'm not sure you should call this "stupid on stilts." The White House might prefer you call such things "stupid in oversized shoes." "Cuck-chair stupid" would also pass as an answer, as would "Loomeresque."

You'll note that Tillis is an outgoing senator, whereas Collins is still trying to find the precise point between pro-fascist corruption and mildly expressed concern that would still let her keep her office come next January. From multiple reports, Trump's efforts to sabotage multiple Republican incumbents in the primaries so that he can get more obviously crooked and even more obviously toadying sycophants installed in their place has brought caucus tempers to the boiling point.

It's still not enough for Thune and the others to oppose the single most corrupt thing any U.S. president has ever done, though. So rather than block Trump and Blanche from implementing the $1.7 billion slush fund through legislative action, Republicans are going to take a long vacation that lets them out of voting either way on it.

Trump thus remains free to move forward with the fund. Well, except for the part that it's all wildly illegal to begin with, which nobody inside government seems too worked up about.

And yes, we'll be right back here in June. The House and Senate aren't getting out of this; they're just kicking the can down the road for a bit in the hopes that the problem will miraculously solve itself.

So no, I don't think anyone should be viewing this newest Republican fiasco as sign that Republicans have truly tired of Trump's orgy of corruption. There's simply no case to be had that a government slush fund to reward key figures in an attempted violent coup is anything but open corruption, an act of pure contempt towards American citizens, its Congress, and democracy itself. Opposing it is a no-brainer that should not earn anyone Special Ethics Points; not condemning the whole idea as "stupid on stilts" is itself a corrupt act.

Senate Republicans faced a question with only one correct, non-corrupt response and they proved once again to be gutless cowards, mere grifters and charlatans more obsessed with keeping a demented criminal fart happy than with whether their constituents survive all of this. They have had ample opportunities to rein in Trump's disastrous, world-economy-shaking bumblefuck in Iran, and did nothing. They have watched Trump "weaponize" the Department of Justice with acts that would have seen any previous president impeached; they do nothing. Blanche scrawls up a new supposed rule shielding Trump, his family, and his "associates" from any IRS action against any of them, and they say nothing.

The best they can muster is a compromise position that would allow Trump to pay millions to every political ally who's ever gotten caught doing crimes—if Trump is just willing to agree that attempted murder shouldn't be one of the crimes rewarded. And he's not willing to agree, so now we're at another impasse.

This is what we've seen since Trump first began to do his crimes and misdemeanors: Congress has proved itself obsolete. It is a non-entity. There is no challenge the nation faces that House Speaker Mike Johnson gives a damn about or will admit to hearing about, if doing so would put him in mild opposition to the party's Dear Leader. There is no act of violence, whether against Americans on the street or elected officials in the Capitol itself, that will rouse the Senate to lift a shriveled finger against him.

And now, of course, authoritarian Trump is openly mocking them. His latest ruse is that he is allowed to build an ostentatious gold-topped 250-foot "triumphal arch" to tower over Washington, D.C., entirely of his own design and say-so, because a hundred years ago a long-dead congress approved a pair of smaller monuments that weren't an arch and that never got built. Sucks to be you, House and Senate, but you don't get any say in this!

It's still not clear what triumph Trump's newest monstrosity will commemorate. He is known for one and only one true triumph in his life: His complete triumph over the Republican Party, its supposed principles, and its supposed leaders.

While it's not nearly as consequential as the Presidential Crimes Fund will turn out to be, it is still an open mockery of our now-dead legislative branch. You can rest assured they will not press the point; if Trump and his appointed cronies can steal nearly $2 billion from the government to reward themselves for having the courage to commit crimes, nobody is going to say squat if Trump transforms the architecture of Washington into his own gaudy fascist theme park.