I'm Outta Here

Ryan Out:  Speaker Paul Ryan is on his way out.  Saying that he wants to be more than just a weekend dad, the speaker of the house announced plans to retire from Congress at the end of his term.  Ryan, who had been reluctantly drafted to assume the speaker position after his predecessor John Boehner threw in the towel, has probably concluded that the chances of the Republicans maintaining control of the House are growing smaller and smaller each day and as much as he dislikes being speaker, he’s decided that being minority leader would be even worse.  The Republicans fear that Ryan’s decision to leave will have a rolling impact on both fund raising and other Republican’s decisions to run and to that end, Dennis Ross, a Republican from Lakeland, Florida announced his plans to leave Congress at the end of his term.  He revealed his plans shortly after Ryan made his announcement.  According to Pew Research so far a total of 57 members of Congress have announced that they are leaving the House, 39 of those leaving are Republicans. Ryan plans to stay until the end of his term, however, a number of his party faithful are so annoyed by the timing of his announcement that they would like to see his move aside sooner.  As of now, Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise are seen as most likely competitors for the Republican leadership post. Nancy Pelosi is doing her best to hold on to the Democratic leadership position, she really wants another chance to be Speaker of the House, and the way things are going for Republicans right now she might just get that opportunity.  Ryan didn’t disclose his future plans but he might want to give former Speaker John Boehner a call for some suggestions, yesterday Boehner, who used to be a leading opponent of the legalization of marijuana,  tweeted that he was joining the Board of Advisors of Acreage Holdings, a corporation formerly known as High Street Capital Partners that operates cannabis cultivation, processing and dispensing across 11 states.  

Syria Tweet Storm:  Trump, who many times said that only an idiot would publicly announce military plans in advance of taking action, has been acting like that idiot all week. He’s been tweeting like crazy, threatening Syria, decrying Russia and blaming the Democrats for pushing the Russians to support the Syrians and their nefarious actions.  Specifically, while warning that an attack by US led forces was imminent, yesterday he tweeted “Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and “smart!” You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!”  He then revealed the thing that bothers him as much as chemical gas attacks on civilians by tweeting “Much of the bad blood with Russia is caused by the Fake & Corrupt Russia Investigation, headed up by the all Democrat loyalists, or people that worked for Obama. Mueller is most conflicted of all (except Rosenstein who signed FISA & Comey letter). No Collusion, so they go crazy!”  I guess it takes crazy to know crazy.  Defense Secretary Mattis was seen going into the White House yesterday, he looked even more downtrodden than usual.  It can’t be easy trying to plan defense strategy and implement an attack when your commander in chief is getting out ahead of you with inane tweets. As to the Syrians and their Russian and Iranian allies, they’ve been busy too, scattering resources, soldiers and chemical stores in order to minimize the impact of the attacks that they know are coming.  It’s fair to say that Putin is having buyer’s remorse and that Trump, who ran as an America First candidate, is pushing the US closer to confrontation with his one-time BFF.    

Russia, Russia, Russia:  With Trump going off the rails, a number of Senators are finally trying to take action to protect Special Counsel Mueller and his investigation.  Senator Grassley, the head of the Judiciary Committee, announced plans to take up the bi-partisan legislation proposed by Democratic Senators Coons and Booker and Republican Senators Tillis and Graham. It’s not clear that the Mueller protecting legislation would actually make it through the Senate or that it would stand any chance in the House, so this move may be largely symbolic but still it sends a message to Trump that his increasingly aggressive rhetoric hasn’t gone unnoticed.  As to Trump, he and his most dedicated acolytes appear to be planning a counter offensive and even the banished Steve Bannon has gotten in on the action.  The Washington Post reports that Bannon is pitching a three pronged plan that would include having Trump fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, that would stop all future cooperation with the Mueller investigation and would call for invoking executive privilege in order to prevent any White House officials from cooperating or speaking with Mueller.  That last part is particularly screwy because it calls for the executive privilege to be retroactively applied so any and all prior interviews are rendered “null and void.” For the record, Bannon is not a lawyer and his plan, especially that last part, isn’t likely to pass legal muster.  Bannon isn’t the only Trump supporter pursuing a counter offensive, the always reliable Representative Devin Nunes continues to wage his own personal but Trump inspired war against Mueller, the FBI and the Department of Justice and sadly he’s been having some success.  Yesterday, after he threatened to “impeach” FBI Director Wray and Rosenstein, whatever that means, Rosenstein finally let him review a previously protected document that the FBI used to initiate its investigation of the Trump campaign’s Russia contacts. That document revealed that the inquiry was launched because of an intelligence tip that George Papadopoulos, a campaign foreign policy aide, had revealed to an Australian diplomat indicating that Russia had obtained negative material about Clinton. Nunes has backed off of his “impeachment” threats for the moment, but only for the moment, he still wants to see almost everything else that the FBI doesn’t want him to see.  It’s easy to discount his actions as a sideshow but he’s been shockingly effective at muddying the waters and providing fodder for those members of the Trump base who believe that the whole investigation is just a Clinton supported deep state conspiracy.  As to the investigation, it appears that the FBI Agents searching Trump lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen’s office and residencies were looking for any evidence detailing any of the efforts that Cohen may have made to suppress negative evidence about Trump and whether his activities violated campaign finance laws. To that end, in addition to information about payments made to Stormy Michaels and Playboy model Karen McDougal, they were also seeking more information about the Access Hollywood tape and any other relevant communication related to “hush” agreements. Anything they find related to Russia will be immediately shipped back to Mueller. One interesting side note that can’t be making Trump all that happy, not that any of this stuff makes him happy, it turns out that Geoffrey Berman, the interim US Attorney for the Southern District of New York recused himself from the Cohen probe handing it over to career attorneys.  Trump was unusually involved in Berman’s appointment  and selected him for the spot in the hope that he would represent his best interests.  It turns out that Berman put country first.  Needless to say Trump is not satisfied with his performance.