Day 789

Day 789 Wednesday March 6, 2019

607 Days to the 2020 election and 685 Days to Inauguration Day

Bits and Bobs:

There are just a lot of things hanging around the edge of my plate, I thought I’d try to get as many of them off said plate as I could think of today. I am told in India when you get a round flat piece of bread the first thing you do is to go around the edge picking off the burnt and uncooked parts. That’s kind of what I’ll be doing here.

First off, is the delightful picture from CPAC 2019 of the folks waving flags that say TRUMP on them. They’re lovely flags: red, white and blue, in three big horizontal stripes just like, no exactly like, the flag of Russia. How appropriate! Apparently, the organizers of CPAC figured it out pretty quickly and being the kindly souls that they are threatened everyone by demanding to collect the flags and anyone caught waving one would be kicked out of the convention. Nice. Some people wanted to keep the flags as souvenirs. I guess they had to hide them from “the man.” (Oh boy, haven’t used that term in decades.)

This trick may have been done before. I can’t remember. I hope it resurfaces again. I wonder if the guy who did it is related to those two fellows who showed up at a Trump rally in New Hampshire dressed like Nazi brown shirts but with Trump armbands? They later showed up at a Jeb! rally (not as brown shirts however) and said they hadn’t been paid and where did they get paid? Jeb was flummoxed.

Then there are the investigations! Maxine Waters’ committee is going after Trump’s tax returns. Jerry Nadler has issued 81 requests from Trump people for documents relating to WikiLeaks. (the White House has already refused, setting them up for a subpoena and a fight over executive privilege, which might go to the Supreme Court and then we’ll get to watch the conservative Constitutionalist Federalist Society appointed judges twist themselves in knots. Erik Trump went on a wacky right wing demagogue’s radio show and said that all 81 folks should refuse, get subpoenaed and plead the fifth. Just like Nixon suggested right before he resigned and just like every mobster says his people should do. Nice. Plead guilty and take the fifth!)

Then there’s Elijah Cummings open testimony of Michael Cohen that kicked off so many little things. We watched Jim Jordan make such a fool of himself that he got parodied on SNL where the Democrats in the skit would yield most of their time to Jordan (played by Bill Hader) so he could continue to make an ass of himself. Jordan in the real hearings kept referring to this testimony as the first hearing of the committee and saying wasn’t it a shame that they were wasting their time on this when there was so much important work to do? Blah, Blah, Blah, in his smirky condescending little way. (Hey, does that guy own a jacket and tie? Let’s jump on the “Isn’t it disrespectful?” band wagon, shall we?) At the end of the hearing Cummings reminded everyone that the first hearing of his committee was from a mother who watched her daughter die because she couldn’t afford the insulin the kid needed. I guess Jim missed that meeting. And the next one, which Cummings also referenced. Maybe, Jim can’t count to three?

Then there’s Adam Schiff’s Intelligence committee and most of what they are doing is behind closed doors. But we got a peak or a hint. There is testimony that Michael Cohen gave that got the committee sitting on the edge of their seats. We don’t know what it is, but we know that much. There has also been activity in a courtroom regarding Chelsea Manning and WikiLeaks. We also know that Roger Stone and WikiLeaks are involved in another case. Perhaps, they are all related?

Speaking of Roger Stone, he can’t seem to keep his mouth shut or to stop doing things publicly. Somehow the judge has let him stay free, which is amazing. After publishing a picture of the judge with crosshairs next to her face and saying he didn’t know that they were crosshairs of a gun scope (which is amazing seeing as how he has done this many times before, so I’d call that outright lying to a judge, but that’s me.) Roger has now published a picture of himself as if he’s on the cover of a book or on a movie poster with the words “Who Framed Roger Stone?” And he did something else stupid like that too. The judge has warned him that he can’t talk, write or otherwise communicate to the public about his case. He seems to still want to run around like some kid in short pants and kick the authorities in the ankles. Let’s see: how long did he lasts this last time? Two weeks? What do you give him this time? Ten days? I’ll bet ten.

Then there’s Paul Manafort. He’s to be sentenced for his first trial where he was found guilty on a bunch of charges and missed being found guilty on all the charges by one hold out juror. The sentencing guidelines are 19 1/2 to 24 years. The Mueller team has weighed in saying he deserves no leniency for his supposed cooperation and in fact his behavior should be an aggravating circumstance, which means he should get in their opinion the max or worse. And oh yeah, they say he was committing crimes as late as October of 2018! Oh, and btw, he has yet to be sentenced for his other crimes in the other jurisdiction. That comes the following week.

Then there’s Deutsche Bank. The bank that kept lending money to Donald Trump after no one else would. The bank that had been caught laundering money for Russians and got fined $425 million by the State of New York for that crime. But hey, they laundered $10B so big deal. Cost of doing business. It was Anthony Kennedy’s son that was the guy while working at Deutsche Bank who was involved in okaying the money to Trump and the reason Kennedy suddenly decided to retire from the Supreme Court. They’ve been asked to provide records to one of the Congressional committees. I forget which one. 

Then there’s the security clearances of Jared and Ivanka, both purportedly were done over the objections of the intelligence community and personally okayed by The Donald, which Donald says he had nothing to do with. Do you think he’d lie? Well, lemme put that to the test with the Trumpolator -> “Would DT lie about this?” Answer: “Yes. He lies about everything.” Okay. That’s settled.

By the way, one of the concerns, we think that the Intel Community had with Jared was his being in so much debt and therefore his possible willingness to sell out U.S. interests for money. He got some juicy loans for his huge building in New York that he paid way too much for, and now it is reported that he and Ivanka made about $80 million this year. I wonder how? Nice work if you can get it. (I wonder how they got it?) And this with Ivanka shutting down her retail line of crappy jewelry.

Then there’s this little tidbit. Trump is moving the woman heading up the DC Justice Department to the #3 spot in Justice, which covers anti-trust stuff. Why, when this job has been vacant for over a year? You don’t think it is so he can appoint someone to her old job do you? (Trumpolator -> “Is that it?” Answer, “Yes.”)

She’s is overseeing the Stone, Manafort, and Butina cases right now. Maybe, Slick Donnie can get someone a little – ya know – amenable to his way of thinkin’? Ya know what I mean? (Trumpolator? “Yes, I know what you mean.”)

Better get this out there before more do-do hits the fan.

607 Days to the 2020 election and 685 Days to Inauguration Day

PS Big Tree – Little Me