We’re so thick into constitutional crises today. But you’ve got to read this piece by Josh Kovensky. It’s about how the NRA tried to save itself financially or at least open up a critical new revenue stream by hawking what is not unfairly called “murder insurance.” Basically, if you’re a good guy with a gun and you kill someone, who’s going to cover you expenses? It turns out that even on its own morally dubious terms it wasn’t very good insurance and not necessarily legal. But beyond that, the contractors who created the plans were branching out from old fashioned defending your home style ‘self-defense’ to more like free range out and about waiting for bad guys to show themselves sort of ‘self-defense’. Proactive self-defense. Call it George Zimmerman insurance. Anyway, it’s simultaneously hilarious and really horrifying and on top of all that the NRA seems to have lost some serious cash on it. Read the whole story here.

In another impromptu White House appearance just now, President Trump went off on special counsel Robert Mueller all over again. In an especially bonkers moment, the President lamented the friendship between Mueller and fired FBI Director James Comey, citing a “picture file.”

“They were supposedly best friends,” Trump said. “You look at the picture file and you see hundreds of pictures of him and Comey.”

What is he talking about? A picture file?

One of the challenges of a Democratic primary cycle is airing reader emails with have strong positive or negative views of one or more of the candidates turns out to be very much a contact sport. Remember, it’s really the case that published reader emails do not necessarily represent the thoughts or beliefs of the editors, though some may make me smirk more than others. TPM Reader MM is a longtime TPM Reader and Vermonter who is not Bernie Sanders biggest fan.

I just read John’s piece comparing yesterday’s polling with that of the GOP candidates four years ago. I have two comments.

If you missed it, definitely listen to my new podcast discussion with cycling and safe streets advocate Doug Gordon. I learned a lot and it was a good conversation. But it’s not all fun and games! TPM Reader JG shares some troubling experiences with cyclist rage …

I hear Trump toadies on Capitol Hill, now in full rage on Don Jr.’s behalf, may have reasons to worry.

Happy Thursday, May 9. Tensions rose even higher between the administration and Congress this morning as House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) joined the battle, wielding a subpoena of his own for the unredacted Mueller report. Here’s more on that and other stories we’re following.

Last week I flagged this stunning and egregious story about Rudy Giuliani, the President’s private lawyer, going abroad to use to use the President’s power to enlist other governments to attack President Trump’s enemies. Giuliani has been globe-trotting like this for two years. In most cases, we don’t really know what he’s doing. In most cases he’s likely just collecting money. But in this case he’s using threat or inducement of the President’s power to target the President’s political enemies and then looping the corrupt Attorney General into the process.

This latest Trump/Giuliani gambit managed to get laundered into The New York Times via outlets like the propaganda chop shop at The Hill under John Solomon.

But here are some key new details.

Happy Wednesday, May 8. The fight between the administration and House Democrats for President Donald Trump’s tax returns rages on while the President stews over the New York Times’ revelation of his huge business losses in the 80s and 90s. Here’s more on that and the other stories we’re following.

Let’s talk about this eye-popping story from Reuters which claims that back in 2015 Michael Cohen helped early Trump endorser and now-consummate supporter Jerry Falwell, Jr. make some embarrassing photos disappear. This is at least the third story Aram Roston has written on this saga (this one at Reuters, the earlier two when he was at Buzzfeed). Each has reported a series eye-popping or bizarre facts. But each also reads with the clear sense that Roston either knows more than he can write or believes there’s much more to the story than he can prove.

The Times is out with an extensive story based on newly obtained tax documents for President Trump … but they’re for 1985-1994, not more recent years. Still, it’s a key period in the making of the myth of Donald Trump, and far from being the dealmaking whiz of lore, he was declaring staggering losses, more than $1 billion over that stretch: