GUNS, TAPES AND LIES — D.C. AND GOP HAVE IT ALL

NRA NEEDS ‘THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS’

Where is President Barack Obama when the National Rifle Association needs him?

The NRA has lost tens of millions of dollars in membership dues since the 2016 election and is more than $30 million in debt, according to an audit obtained by OpenSecrets. The audit shows membership dues dropped by more than $25 million in 2017.

It seems that when the NRA can’t falsely ramp up fears that Obama is going to take all our guns, nobody cares about sending cash to the gun trade group.

And it probably doesn’t help the NRA that it’s now a suspect party in the growing web of Russian meddling in our 2016 election. Who knows, maybe Russia quit signing up NRA memberships? After all, alleged Russian agent and NRA poster girl Maria Butina is still in jail. You’ll recall that the NRA went all in during the 2016 election cycle, breaking its own spending records to help catapult Donald Trump into the White House and protect Republican majorities in the House and Senate. The NRA spent at least $54.4 million boosting Republicans — with Donald Trump being, by far, the biggest beneficiary, according to OpenSecrets.

But earlier this year, the gun advocacy group, traditionally one of the most powerful and financially intimidating interest groups in Washington, alleged financial hardship in a lawsuit, citing “serious difficulties obtaining corporate insurance.”

Let’s offer the NRA our thoughts and prayers, shall we?

BRING ON THE TAPES

To borrow from former FBI chief Jim Comey: Lordy, we hope there are tapes.

According to a New York Times scoop Friday, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein suggested last year that he secretly record President Trump in the White House to expose the chaos consuming the administration. What’s more, Rosenstein reportedly discussed recruiting cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office for being unfit.

The Times reports that none of the alleged proposals — made shortly after Comey’s firing — apparently came to fruition, and Rosenstein denies the accounts that sources gave to the newspaper.

“The New York Times’s story is inaccurate and factually incorrect,” Rosenstein said in a statement. “I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the department and are advancing their own personal agenda. But let me be clear about this: Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment.”

The Times also writes that a Justice Department spokeswoman also provided a statement from a person who was present when Rosenstein proposed wearing a wire. The person, who would not be named, acknowledged the remark but said Rosenstein made it sarcastically.

We’re going to assume that Rosenstein cleared his office out before he left Friday, since Trump has clearly been itching for an excuse to fire him. But we sure hope he or someone squirreled away some tapes first.

Where’s Omarosa Manigault when we need her?

THE D.C. BOYS CLUB PROVES ITSELF

Our bully president couldn’t help himself.

It was just too tempting to blather about his Supreme Court nominee’s attempted rape accuser.

“I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!” Trump said in a tweet Friday. In another tweet, he wrote: “The radical left lawyers want the FBI to get involved NOW. Why didn’t someone call the FBI 36 years ago?”

He might as well have used a cattle prod, and the ploy worked on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, who said later Friday morning: “In the very near future, Judge [Brett] Kavanaugh will be on the U.S. Supreme Court. So, my friends, keep the faith. Don’t get rattled by all this. We’re going to plow right through it and do our job.”

Let’s review: Christine Blasey Ford accused a Supreme Court nominee of drunkenly pinning her to a bed, groping her and covering her mouth when she screamed. He was 17. She was 15. She says she was saved when a second boy in the locked room jumped atop both of them and sent them all tumbling off the bed. She escaped and locked herself in a bathroom until the boys left to rejoin a party. She provided therapist notes from well before Kavanaugh was a high court nominee. She took a polygraph test. She is willing to undergo an FBI investigation, while he and the president are not. She is willing to testify under oath before the Senate, but the Senate is throwing up barriers and deadlines.

Now McConnell wants to “plow right through it.” There is no way these men could be any more disgusting.