Blue-wave voters will drain the swamp-wave Republicans

There is consternation in the Republican cloakrooms as scandals spread, voters revolt, Democrats surge and midterm elections come closer as the blue wave of Democratic voters yearns to drain the swamp wave of Republican scandal.

Voters seethe, and Republicans squirm as Scott Pruitt, the boss of the Environmental Protection Agency who seeks to turn his agency into a paradise for polluters, comes to testify before Congress.

{mosads}Voters are angry, and Republicans should be ashamed as Ben Carson, a man who likes to buy luxury furniture for his office paid for by taxpayers, heads a department that is supposed to make housing better but is instead trying to impose punishing rent increases on poor, disabled and elderly tenants.

Many veterans were upset, and Republicans were alarmed when White House physician Ronny Jackson was named to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs, a post he was manifestly unqualified to hold, who said that the president could live to be 200 years old if he had a healthier diet.  

Jackson was forced to withdraw from the nomination before he was defeated in his confirmation after being overwhelmed by allegations from multiple military whistleblowers.

Taxpayers become angry and Republicans disgraced when Mick Mulvaney, whose tenure as boss of the Office and Management and Budget is highlighted by a massive increase in the budget deficit and who is also working to destroy the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, told the American Bankers Association of his approach to government: “If you’re a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you.”

As Mulvaney spoke to the bankers with his swamp-wave message, extending a GOP palm seeking to be greased, one wonders whether the bankers were reaching for their checkbooks or text messaging their attorneys.

The consternation in the Republican cloakrooms in Washington was made even worse when former FBI Director James Comey, a long time Republican, compared the Republican president to a mafia boss.

Shortly thereafter, Michael Cohen, the president’s long-time attorney who has been labelled by many his “fixer,” revealed he would take the Fifth Amendment, an action Trump once claimed is behavior similar to conduct of mobsters.

Meanwhile Stormy Daniels’s attorney has virtually taken up residence in television studios, getting as much attention as Clark Gable playing Rhett Butler in “Gone With The Wind,” dangling tidbits of dirt to wangle more invitations to appear, pollinating the airwaves with tales from the swamp, suggesting the president’s former fixer will soon cop a plea deal with the feds.

Meanwhile the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller proceeds with some Trump associates being indicted and others copping plea deals with the feds.

The cloakrooms and airwaves swirl with speculation about whether the president would agree to be questioned by the feds, and if he does, whether or not he would also take the Fifth. If he does not, there is speculation whether he would be served with a subpoena to be questioned before a grand jury.

While the president seethes and Republicans are alarmed, Washington is full of rumors about whether the president, taking a page from Richard Nixon, would fire the special counsel, the attorney general, the deputy attorney general or all of the above.

While the president grants pardons to some dubious beneficiaries, some of the best legal minds in the nation warn that he is sending a signal to his former fixer and his former campaign manager that if they do not cooperate with the feds, they will be rewarded by a pardon from their friend.

The voters of America are like midterm marauders, looking for ways to drain the swamp, end the corruption and demand that the bad guys are run out of town.

The midterm marauders are the voters who comprise the blue wave that is determined to defeat the swamp wave in Washington, which is now the brand of Republicans at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Brent Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and former Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Ark.), who was chief deputy majority whip of the U.S. House of Representatives. He holds an LLM in international financial law from the London School of Economics.