Now that most of the panting, gasping, and wheezing over the Mueller Report has worked its way through the system, now begins the sorting, cutting, and classifying every page, phrase, and semicolon.
That's loosely called parallel construction and I'm pretty sure I overdid it.
The White House (and, by extension the Justice Department) cooked the results of the Mueller Report by the way they rolled it out and the way Attorney General William Barr highlighted the parts that were favorable to Donald Trump and either played down, or ignored the parts that weren't.
Doesn't matter. Mueller's report is what it is, and it is time for the Democrats to move along.
As far as national polling is concerned, according to the RealClearPolitics.com aggregation of polls the release, and discussion, of the Mueller report appears to have had almost no effect.
On the morning the 448-page version of the Mueller report was delivered to Congress and the public (April 18) Trump's job approval stood at 44 percent approve, 52 percent disapprove. In the four days since, his numbers have barely moved and as of Monday afternoon (April 22) his disapproval has increased to 52.3 percent and his approval has dropped 1.5 percentage points to 42.5 percent.
For people who thought either Bob Mueller or Donald Trump was going to be marched out in handcuffs, this has been a disappointing four days.
The arguments are not over, of course. The Trump campaign did not covered itself in glory in the way it dealt with the Russians. According to BusinessInsider.com
"There are at least 101 known points of contact between people associated with the Trump campaign and Russian government-linked individuals or entities from November of 2015 all the way up to January of 2017."
There are 195 countries in the world and the Trump people found a reason to speak to representatives of one of them over 100 times.
While Washington Republicans are not exactly throwing their copies of the Mueller Report onto a pro-Trump bonfire, national Democratic leaders are trying what to do about the "I" word - impeachment.
We've talked about how spending the better part of 1998 before voting articles of Impeachment probably cost House Republicans 8-10 seats in the midterm election of that year. That has not been lost on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Nevertheless, others like the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Elijah Cummings, think that opening a full-blown impeachment proceeding against Trump is a necessity.
Knowing full well that there are not now, and probably will never be 67 votes in the Senate for conviction (given what we know today) the question for the Dems is: Will an impeachment proceeding "just because" become another new normal in Washington? Will every President be subject to impeachment any time the House is controlled by the opposite party?
This is not to say the appropriate House committees should stop their oversight responsibilities, but is it likely that the staff of, say, the House Judiciary Committee will turn over a rock that Mueller's investigators missed over the past two years?
No. It is not likely.
I am also troubled by the House Democrats demanding financial records from Trump's banks and financial advisors, and demanding his tax returns.
The Baltimore Sun wrote:
"Cummings has long expressed frustration with the administration's refusal to respond to requests for information that he believes help fulfill the committee's duty to spotlight potential executive branch abuses."
Someone has to explain to me how the Trump Organization's dealings with Deutsche Bank and his accounting firm can possibly have anything to do with "executive branch abuses."
There are plenty - PLENTY - of executive branch abuses that have been, and continue to be, perpetrated by actual members of the executive branch who have nothing to do with phony financial statements issued by Trump.
This is April of the off year. We are 19 months from election day in 2020 which will be on November 3. The clock is ticking.
House Democrats need to propose real solutions to real problems. Many are frightened to oppose New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her Green New Deal which makes Bernie Sanders' proposals look like Herbert Hoover.
The Dems need to give their voters - and disaffected Trump voters - something to be for.
Turning America's electoral and financial systems on their heads is not it.
In the Secret Decoder Ring today: A lesson in when and how to use a semicolon, to the Real Clear Politics polling page, and the Business Insider's look at Russian contacts by the Trump camp.
Mullfoto that combines a photo of a car and a license plate all in one.
® 
