In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb?

The House Intelligence Oxymoron:  The Republican members of the highly dysfunctional House Intelligence Committee surprised everyone, especially their Democratic counterparts, by announcing that they are finished. They’ve decided to forego future interviews, they have no interest in calling back or imposing penalties on any of those who refused to answer questions during their testimony, they are totally unconcerned that some like Erik Prince, who clearly lied about his Seychelle meeting with Russian oligarchs, were deceptive and they don’t need time to review the months of testimony that they did hear.  Last night the Committee’s leadership announced that as far as they are concerned there was no collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign and though they acknowledge that the Russians engaged in election interference and are likely to continue interfering in future elections, they are quite convinced that the Russian interference was not targeted. In other words, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary and the recent testimony of the leaders of the national security agencies Trump was not Putin’s preferred candidate.  At least one of the committee’s Republicans, Representative Tom Rooney, thinks that his committee has “gone completely off the rails” and has lost all its credibility.  Adam Schiff the ranking Democrat, who learned about his Republican colleagues’ conclusions through the news, responded by saying “While the Majority members of our committee have indicated for some time that they have been under great pressure to end the investigation, it is nonetheless another tragic milestone for this Congress, and represents yet another capitulation to the executive branch.” As to that executive branch, Trump gleefully celebrated the committee’s conclusions with an all caps I told you so tweet, screaming NO COLLUSION!!  The House Committee report won’t be finalized for a while, but a draft will be handed to the skeptical Democrats for their review shortly, ultimately the Committee will issue two different reports with vastly different conclusions. At least for now, the Senate Intelligence Committee is still at work and appears to be much more functional.  Also working is Special Counsel Mueller, if anything the scope of his work seems to be growing and that’s okay with his boss, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein who told Bloomberg News that Mueller is not an “unguided missile” and that the investigation has his full support. Mueller needs all the support he can get, at the end of the day his final conclusions will have to be very convincing to stand any chance at swaying the recalcitrant members of the House to act which may be why its been reported that he is slowing his investigation into obstruction, for now, while he beefs up his investigation into collusion.  Adding to the irony of the timing of the House Intelligence Committee’s announcement, yesterday Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused to acknowledge British Prime Minister Theresa May’s conclusion that it’s highly likely that the recent poisoning of Sergei Skripal, the former Russian spy, and his daughter was directed by Moscow.  May has summoned the Russian Ambassador in for an explanation.  Huckabee Sanders said that the US stands by the UK, our special ally, but refused to acknowledge even the possibility of any Russian involvement in the attack showing once more that despite the House Intelligence Committees assertions that there is no evidence of collusion, Trump is still colluding by refusing to hold Putin responsible for any of his nefarious deeds.    

Pennsylvania 18:  The polls are open and the voting has begun in the Pennsylvania 18 Pittsburgh area district  and if the pollsters are right sentiment has swung to Democrat Conor Lamb.  Yesterday, a respected Monmouth University poll predicted that Lamb will beat his Republican rival, Rick Saccone, by two to six points depending on voter turnout.  In a move that is likely to have significant impact on future races, Politico reports that the Republican party has moved away from touting its tax cut message because it isn’t resonating with voters, possibly because few of them are rich enough to be garnering much in the way of benefits. Trump’s recent imposition of steel tariffs, a gambit that may have been rushed out to influence this election, doesn’t seem to be helping either possibly because Lamb, who has also supported tariffs, has the endorsement of the steel workers union.  Still it’s too early to celebrate, as we all know polls aren’t always right and polls for Congressional elections are generally even more suspect than polls for larger statewide or national elections. Whoever wins, the victory will be largely symbolic, but even a symbolic victory carries weight and as the House Intelligence Committee’s dysfunction shows, it’s more than likely that only a Democrat led Congress would act on Mueller’s conclusions, and that’s assuming that he survives to the conclusion phase of his investigation.       

The NRA Approved Gun Solution:  Late Sunday Trump announced his plan for dealing with gun violence, and to the surprise of few it comes with the NRA’s full endorsement.  Just two weeks after telling members of the House and Senate that they shouldn’t fear the NRA, Trump capitulated to the gun group by adopting its full agenda.  He is no longer calling for the raising of age limits for the purchase of rifles, instead he is merely calling for further study, the arming of teachers and the improvement of the national background check system through the passage of the NRA approved Fix NICS legislation.  For its part the NRA is now suing the State of Florida, arguing that its recent imposition of age limits on rifle purchases is a violation of the Second Amendment.  Though it’s not clear that their strategy will work in the courts, it has certainly worked with Trump who also said that he doesn’t believe that there is widespread support for raising age limits, even though polls indicate that support is there, just not among NRA funded legislators. Trump also proposed creating a federal commission on school safety to study gun issues.  That proposal comes just a day after he stood in front of his Pennsylvania rally for Republican candidate Rick Saccone and called out federal commissions as ineffective time sinks, pretty much saying that a commission is the strategy of choice for when you don’t want to do anything else.  Adding to the irony, Trump plans to appoint Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to head the commission.  On Sunday, DeVos totally embarrassed herself in an interview with 60 Minutes’ Leslie Stahl by proving how little she knows about education, a performance that was so bad that even the White House was dismayed by its optics. It’s only fitting that DeVos is now part of the gun solution.  The NRA must be very happy.