Liberals know that people left to their own devices will act in their own self-interest.

Conservatives pretend that isn't so.

Several possibilities:

1) He's a career liar and can't tell the truth, period;

2) He has been and still is angling for a pardon;

3) He thinks his family is in danger if he spills the full can of Russian beans.

Right on both counts, which keeps leading me to (3).

I thought Kavanaugh was supposed to have said he favored expanding "a president's" pardon ability to the state level?

With all the oligarchs and banned-from-entry Russians Trump has had as guests (even his inauguration?) I wouldn't be surprised if one was able to bring in the special radioactive hypo-dart number as seen in England and Europe.

Isn't it possible to circumvent this, theoretically, in the way Mueller has handled Manafort by not charging him at the federal level for all possible crimes so that, say, the State of New York could still charge him for anything he did that Mueller did not prosecute? Or would a blanket pardon by Trump preempt that? Or is that the whole question?

Round-up of some interesting items (at least to me):

Student Loan Payment Grab by Republicans
Senate Republicans have introduced a bill that would require employers to withhold money from their employees' wages if those employees have any federal student loans to repay. There would be two plans available, one that took out a flat 10% and one that allowed a steady repayment over a 10-year period. Critics of the plan argue that this is "mandatory wage garnishment" and that payments "should always be voluntary".

First off, the government needs to recognize and admit its role in the current student loan crisis. By making money available to everybody, because private lenders used to pick and choose who to lend to (and yes, I am sure that there were many discriminatory factors at play in those decisions), the cost of tuition skyrocketed, because whenever the government is involved in giving out money, those in receipt of it (such as colleges and universities) know that as prices rise, the government will just keep shoveling money out the door, creating an upward spiral of cost and debt to the students.

As for the plan itself, it's heartless (which makes it pretty much stock in trade for Republicans), as it will negatively impact folks who can ill afford to lose 10% of their wages off the top and force them to make decisions between rent, food, healthcare, and other items.

However, for the critics saying that "payments should always be voluntary", that's a little naive; these folks borrowed money and agreed to pay it back by signing a contract, and in my experience, most contract clauses aren't "voluntary".

AOC Celebrates Amazon Leaving NYC Behind
In other news, media darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to Twitter to celebrate Amazon deciding against building their second (or third) HQ in New York. She wrote "Anything is possible: today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers & their neighbors defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world."

I wonder how this is going to sit in a couple of years, when she is up for reelection and the wealthiest man in the world, who is a known backer of Democrats, decides to throw money behind any potential opponent to her seat just to tweak her for a little revenge. I get that she thinks that she is important because she has millions of Twitter followers and the mainstream media fawns over her like nobody else, but she really needs to consider that not every thought that shows up in her head needs to come out in 140 characters. She is really running the risk of backlash, not just from the right, which was a given, but also from Democrats who see her as a distraction and lightning rod that could galvanize the right even more in 2020.  It's a delicate balancing act, and I don't think it's one that someone as inexperienced as she is truly understands; you can be a firebrand, but in doing so, you run the risk of burning down everything around you.

And this just in...
Trump to Sign Bill to Keep Government Open, but Also Declare Emergency for Wall
In a move that should shock no one who has actually been paying attention, POTUS Donald J. Trump has decided that since his negotiators failed in their one task, which was to get him $5.7B for the boondoggle that will be the Southern Border Wall, he will declare an emergency so that he can pull funds from elsewhere to build the monument to his ego and keep Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Fox News devotees happy by trying to keep out brown folks with funny accents (unless they're coming to work at one of his properties, and then they are A-OK).

What a waste of time and resources, and what a sad and enduring testament to how far America has fallen in the past two years and one month this will be. Hopefully this will get tied up in the courts until long after he's gone (either just from office or to when he gets his special place next to the boiler in Hell).