Surely he's not done nasty tweeting about Jeff Flake

Flake, a key Republican critic of Trump, said he was retiring at the end of his term in 2018 because there was no room for him in the party under the current president’s stewardship. He then delivered an emotional appeal from the Senate floor against the state of affairs under Trump, bemoaning that his Republican colleagues had “given in or given up on core principles in favor of a more viscerally satisfying anger and resentment”.

  

What principles? Power and greed have been the guiding lights for Republicans for decades.

“There are times when we must risk our careers in favor of our principles. Now is such a time.

“We must never allow ourselves to lapse into thinking that that is just the way things are now,” he added. “We must stop pretending that the degradation of our politics and the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal.”

But of course they are.

“Reckless, outrageous, and undignified behavior has become excused and countenanced as ‘telling it like it is’ when it is actually just reckless, outrageous, and undignified.”

I'll grant him that.

“When the next generation asks us: ‘Why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t you speak up? What are we going to say?’”

The next generation of Republicans is never ever going to ask that.

Flake was a co-author of a comprehensive immigration reform bill in 2013 that would have provided a pathway to citizenship for roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the US. He also differed from Trump on trade, but ultimately told the Arizona Republic newspaper his decision to leave the Senate was a moral choice.

[...]

Flake was one of the few Republican senators who declined to endorse Trump during the 2016 presidential election. Earlier this year, he published a book framing the rise of Trump as a moment of reckoning for the Republican party.

So that, at least puts him on firmer ground.  But, he was in on the ridiculous repeal and replace fiasco, and he's been a true Republican on the road to Trumpism.  It's hard not to think of his "retirement" as a way out without losing the next round of Arizona elections in 2018.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, played into the intra-party rift by dubbing Flake’s decision as “a good move” while telling reporters his remarks were not “befitting of the Senate floor”.

You're supposed to do your nasty work on Twitter.

Political operatives in Washington were surprised by Flake’s announcement, which followed a slew of similar decisions from Republicans in swing states.

Several Republicans serving in the House of Representatives have announced plans to retire, including David Trott of Michigan, David Reichert of Washington, Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, leaving an opening for Democrats in competitive districts.

If only the Democrats were up to the challenge.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Jeff Flake believes that the way to reassert the balance of power between the national legislature and a national executive with a narcissistic crackpot at the helm is to get the hell out of Dodge before the roof caves in. Good profile, lacks courage.

  Charles P Pierce

UPDATE 7:30 am:

Nope. He wasn't done.