Et Tu Matt Lauer

Another Step Forward: Tax reform legislation took a major step forward yesterday after the Senate version of the bill was voted out of committee on a party line vote.  Despite his claims that he would never vote for any tax plan that would increase the deficit by even a penny, Senator Corker, one of Trump’s biggest critics, proved that at the end of the day he really is just another complicit Republican more concerned about satisfying donors than the concerns of the ordinary folks.  He climbed on board apparently because a $1.5 trillion increase in the deficit is close enough to a penny to be just fine by him.  Before voting yes he extracted some kind of commitment that a trigger will be inserted into the legislation requiring taxes to be increased if economic growth doesn’t cover the deficit increase by some future date.  Senator Johnson, the other committee member who had been threatening to hold up the bill, voted yes too after he was promised better treatment for pass-through entities.  The bill is now poised to move to the Senate floor.  McConnell doesn’t yet have the fifty votes he needs but he’s getting closer.  The bill still differs substantially from the House version so even if it passes the Senate it will not be a done deal but it is substantially closer to passage than it should be.  The stock market is positively exuberant, for now.  Democrats are far less pleased, even the vulnerable red state senators who had been expected to feel pressured to vote for the bill are likely to remain in the no column.   

More Missiles:  North Korea launched another intercontinental ballistic missile yesterday, one that puts all parts of the US in striking distance.  China expressed their extreme concern and Russia blamed the US for showing a lack of constraint by ramping up sanctions and continuing joint  exercises with South Korea. South Korea responded by launching three of its own missiles in a show of their strength.  In a press conference following the launch Trump said “it is a situation that we will handle” and vowed to “take care of it,” whatever that means.  After the press conference he spoke with Japan’s Prime Minister Abe and they both agreed that China needs to “play an increased role to tackle the crisis.” Somewhere in China, Xi sighed.  The UN plans to hold another one of their crisis meetings.  One thing that was different about Trump’s reaction is that this time he also blamed Chuck and Nancy.  They were in his cross hairs because  after he preemptively attacked them in the morning by tweeting out they he would be “meeting with ‘Chuck and Nancy’ today about keeping government open and working.  Problem is they want illegal immigrants flooding into our Country unchecked, are weak on Crime and want to substantially RAISE Taxes. I don’t see a deal!”  they responded by refusing to attend his meeting.  Trump then pulled a “Clint Eastwood,” going ahead with the meeting without Chuck and Nancy, replacing them with empty chairs and inviting the press in for a photo-op so that they could broadcast Chuck and Nancy’s empty seats.  The stunt went about as well for Trump as it did for Eastwood when he spoke to an empty chair at the 2012 Republican convention, leaving many to quesiton his sanity.  For their part Chuck and Nancy agreed to the last funding extension because they thought that they had a deal with Trump to pass Dreamers legislation.  With no action on that front and Trump’s threatening morning tweet, they’ve had it with him and have no interest in playing by his rules. Speaker Ryan and Majority Leader McConnell can’t pass a budget extension without Democratic support because a number of Republican Congressman never vote yes on anything to do with the budget and McConnell can’t muster sixty votes without Schumer’s support.  If it comes to it, Trump and his Republican enablers will do their best to shift the blame for a shutdown onto Chuck and Nancy but try as they might controlling all three seats of government comes with responsibility, the blame will rest in Republican hands.  As to Trump’s sanity, it also appears to be slipping.  Not only is he now questioning the integrity of the Access Hollywood tape, a number of Senators who prefer to remain nameless, say that he has started questioning Obama’s birth certificate again too. 

Flynn, Flynn, Flynn: Trump’s sanity slippage may be attributable to the increasing number of stories about his good friend Flynn’s nefarious activities.  ABC news reported that one of Flynn’s lawyers was seen walking into Special Counsel Mueller’s office on Monday, bolstering expectations that Flynn is now cooperating with Mueller.  Also, more details are coming out about some of the things that Flynn did while he was serving as Trump’s security advisor.  It’s been known for a while that Flynn had advised and served as a consultant to some US companies involved in a controversial plan to build dozens of nuclear reactors throughout the Middle East.  The Wall Street Journal reports that he continued to advocate for the private sector clients behind the plan even after he was inside the White House so much so that before he was fired he was involved in the preparation of a memo authorizing the project that he, and his clients, wanted Trump to sign. The recent guilty plea by Reza Zarrab, the Turkish gold trader involved in violating sanctions against doing business with Iran, is also problematic for Flynn because Zarrab’s release was one of the issues that Turkish officials brought up with him last December at the meeting where they also discussed and possibly offered Flynn $15 million for his help with the “forced extradition” of Fethullah Gulen, the cleric that Turkish leader Erdogan wants sent back to Turkey. In exchange for leniency, Zarrab is now cooperating with US prosecutors, a problem for both Erdogan because of the implication that Turkey was involved in the Iran violations and a problem for Flynn because of expectations that Zarrab is also working with Mueller.  Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater and brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is scheduled to testify in front of the House Intelligence Committee this week.  Last December, Flynn, Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon met with then Russia Ambassador Kislyak and Mohammed bin Zayed, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi in one of the meetings they all conveniently forgot to disclose.  Following their tete-a-tete, bin Zayed organized a back channel meeting for the Trumpsters with Russian officials in the Seychelles Islands.  Because the attendance of either Flynn or Kushner would have been hard to hide, Erik Prince attended instead. Though information about the meeting has been known for a while, the name of the Russian who attended the meeting had not previously been disclosed. We now know that Putin’s representative was Kiril Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, another one of those sanctioned government owned Russian entities.   For the record Dmitriev acknowledges being in the Seychelles at that time, but says he was just there to work on his tan. Maybe, just maybe Prince will have something to say about the meeting.

More Men Behaving Badly:  The Congressional Black Caucus is planning to hold a closed door meeting during the day where they are expected to press for long time Congressman John Conyers’ resignation.  In all likelihood he will make an announcement that he’s on his way out very soon.  Assuming he resigns, he will have plenty of company at the commiseration bar.  This morning NBC fired their long time morning host Matt Lauer for sexual improprieties.  In the mean time, Alabama senatorial candidate Moore is moving up in the polls and Trump is still president.