snip ...

And finally, when we started planning this item, we could squint and see how the GOP approach just might work. But we think that the $1.776 billion slush fund brought that line of thinking to a conclusive end. The billion-dollar grift is going to be the bright sun in the universe of grift, outshining all else by many orders of magnitude. It's like this famous cartoon about notorious Gilded Age spoilsman Richard Croker:

All you have to do is replace "CROKER" with "TRUMP, $1.776 Billion."

In the end, the slush fund is just so egregious, and is such obvious self-dealing. Even if you believe California is committing fraud (beyond the usual level of Medicare fraud that every state deals with), nobody has suggested that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) is personally lining his own pockets.

So we think, on corruption/fraud, it's going to be "advantage Democrats" for the rest of the cycle, and beyond. (Z)