Who will do the perp walk?

Early this morning (before sunrise) I predicted that today would be a huge news day. To be specific, I felt in my gut that Mueller would be fired, and that all hell would break loose.

Hasn't happened. Yet something seems to be on the verge of happening. Everyone seems persuaded that it -- whatever it may be -- will occur on Monday. Outside the insulated world of right-wing media, there is wide agreement that the current attacks on Hillary (or "the Clinton administration" as Corey Lewandowsky put it) are meant to distract us from an upcoming arrest.

Both Trump and Sarah Huckabee Sanders have explicitly embraced the "Hillary and Vladimir sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G" theory -- a theory which makes no sense, a theory which turns all the evidence upside down, a theory which has sent me to thesaurus.com in search of synonyms for "insane."

While eating lunch earlier, a thought struck me: Trump's insane theory mirrors one we recently heard from Vladimir Putin. Not long ago, the Russian government instituted a propaganda campaign designed to convince the world that martyred Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky -- after whom the Magnitsky Act was named --  was murdered by his client Bill Browder (an American businessman turned Putin critic), working with an unnamed MI6 agent.

In real life, Magnitsky -- who had documented Putin's thievery from the Russian state -- was held in one of Putin's most squalid prisons without charges for nearly a year. He was beaten, tortured, and left untreated for a variety of serious medical issues. The Moscow Helsinki Group said that Magnitsky was tortured to death.

Yet Putin wants you to believe that Browder and MI6 killed Magnitsky. The same crackpot theory is promulgated by American anti-Semites and Alt Rightists. (Example.)

As with Putin, so with Trump. "Browder killed Magnitsky" and "Hillary works with Putin": It's the same damned thing. Conspiracism has become the spatula that turns reality upside-down.

Many of you will argue that the right has always trafficked in paranoid accusations. True enough -- but I would argue that we're now seeing something new. Two reasons:

1. These reality-inverting "Big Lies" are particularly bold. A year ago, even Fox News would not have dared go this far.

2. Even though these Big Lies are easily exposed as such, they have the imprimatur of the government -- the Russian government in one case, the American government in the other. There was a time when governments cared more about preserving credibility when making official pronouncements. Even Stalin's government had limits.

I know what some of you are thinking: "Hasn't our own government told plenty of lies in the past? What about the time they lied about the Gulf of Tonkin incident? What about the lie that Oswald shot JFK all by himself?"

If that's the way you're thinking, you've missed my point. I said that these current Big Lies are easily exposed as such. They're obvious, absurd and shameless.

It was bad enough when the government said "Oswald shot Kennedy." Now we have a government willing to say "Batman shot Kennedy" or "Jackie shot her husband." We have a government that will say anything without apology or evidence, a government that no longer feels a need to come up with a superficially-credible cover story, a government wedded to the ludicrous, a government which doubles down on Crazy every time someone has the cheek to bring up reality.

Who will be arrested?  Certain cable news talking heads have seemed reasonably confident that Paul Manafort will be the first to take the Robert Mueller perp walk. But Manafort lives in Virginia, and my understanding is that the indictment came from a DC grand jury. (Mueller has two grand juries going.) The VA grand jury recently heard testimony from Manafort's realtor, which may indicate that Mueller suspects that the property was purchased with Russian money.

Manafort could still be the target -- but for now, I'm pondering other possibilities. Scott Dworkin has tweeted the following:

Was just told by attorney who used to work at FBI that Jared Kushner is most likely the one being arrested Monday. My bet’s still Manafort.

If Jared's the one, I'm going to need more vodka in the house. Serious celebrations will be in order. Unnervingly, the Tiki Torchers -- who hate Kushner because he's Jewish -- will celebrate alongside the liberals.

Added note: There are more hints that Jared is the one. Manafort doesn't think he is in immediate trouble. And consider this, from Keith Olbermann.

A more distant possibility is Roger Stone, whose tweeted rampages suddenly became so unhinged, profane and bizarre that Twitter suspended his account -- permanently. He's clearly sweating bullets. I hope he gives one of those jittery, gritted-teeth interviews in which he pretends to be blase and unconcerned. Don't you love it when they do that? If he remains a free man, I expect him to switch to an Alt Right/neo-Nazi social media platform.

You know who else was permanently suspended from Twitter? Michael Flynn's Alt Righty kid. It's tempting to suggest that Flynn could be indicted, but my understanding is that he was the target of the VA grand jury, not the one in DC.

Another possibility would be Trump himself. Unlikely, to be sure -- but we don't know what Mueller knows. He has access to intercepts and other evidence unknown to we mere mortals. Another Scott Dworkin tweet:

Multiple sources say Trump “completely lost his mind” after he found out Mueller’s filed charges & now he’s “having an epic meltdown”

More:

“If u thought you’ve seen crazy out of Trump, u haven’t seen anything yet, everyone should be terrified.” Fmr GOP Senate staffer said

“We expect Donald Trump to be indicted after Manafort, Flynn, Don Jr & Kushner. It’s inevitable” Current GOP Lobbyist

Almost finally: I find it hilarious that Republicans seem so outraged that news of the indictment leaked. The Ken Starr inquest was leakier than a wine barrel made of pegboard, yet Republicans didn't seem to mind.

FINALLY: If Mueller is fired, we need a strategy. And our strategy is this:

UNLEASH HELL.

If Mueller goes, the social contract goes with it. Democracy itself will be in mortal peril. I've always counseled non-violent resistance, but if Trump fires Mueller, I won't be able to give that advice. No justice, no peace.