Scary thought: The next Supreme Court Justice will rule on the coming Constitutional Crisis.

You know, a street hawker playing a shell game has a better skill-set at deception than the political moves from this president and his supporters.

Justice Kennedy's move to retire brings full focus on his Federalist Society son's associations with Donald Trump, Jr. We're reading that this friendship is a back channel to Trump. The fact that we can see it clearly today may be a strong reason for Kennedy to step aside. He is, essentially recusing himself before the big case comes to the bench -- the one that will allow Trump to pardon himself and an entire party of co-conspirators or co-complicit GOP politicians.

We need to see two steps ahead, because those pardons are the end game for the Republicans. They know that Mueller's investigation will be fruitful enough to wipe them all off the political board, so the Supreme Court's decision to rule that a president has a right to pardon himself is the one most important objective for them.

That's what I see in their chess moves. Justice Kennedy removes himself, and he takes away all the questions that might arise about his objectivity. Trump then puts in a loyal Supreme Court judge who will rule in his favor. It will be someone new and it will take Democrats too long to figure out all the back channel relationships that would make him or her an unsuitable replacement.

Nothing can stop them, except for Democratic Senators playing hardball.

And, one last thing, FUCK YOU, SUSAN COLLINS. How can any Republican hold their head up and opine that Democrats should not make the same mistake that McConnell made with Merrick Garland. She said that. She admitted that McConnell was a dirty cheat.

Justice takes into account how the other side plays the game, and if one side cheats, that creates the need for a fair, leveling response.

UPDATE: I wrote the above before the breaking news that the Supreme Court decided to review a case that involves Double Jeopardy when an individual has to face charges for the same incident because of State and Federal courts. What did I say? They are moving the chess pieces. This has Federalist Society written all over it.