Cornflakes

Half Flake:  Early on Friday, Senator Jeff Flake sent out a press release announcing his support for embattled Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.  Democrats fumed, and upon learning about the press release from a group of reporters Flake’s Democratic buddy Delaware Senator Coons, who had spent the evening before trying to turn Flake’s vote around, uttered an uncharacteristic F-bomb.  Things changed after Flake got ambushed by two female sex assault victims as he tried to get his Senate elevator doors to shut.  He finally made it to the dais with the rest of the Senate Judiciary Committee members, well most of the rest, in frustration Democratic Senators Booker, Harris and Blumenthal had bolted out to dramatize their protest.  As each Senator spoke, Democrats detailing Kavanaugh’s failings, Republicans lauding his great accomplishments and unfair treatment, an ashen Flake, squirmed before standing up, tapping the shoulder of his buddy Coons and walking out of the chamber to meet in what they described as a teeny weeny phone booth.  After some soul searching and additional persuasion from Coons, Flake, who later said that he understood Kavanaugh’s anger at being accused of sexual misdeeds and excessive drinking but wanted to minimize national divisiveness, returned to the Senate Chamber, to announce that he would vote yes for Kavanaugh’s nomination to be forwarded to the floor of the Senate but that his vote would be contingent on an agreement to reopen Kavanaugh’s FBI background check for one more week.  The Democrats, especially Coons were confused, they’d thought that Flake was going to vote no until the check was completed but were relieved to have achieved even a half Flake.  Republicans, especially Trump BFF Senator Lindsey Graham were livid, they thought that they had the whole Flake on their side.  Later in the day, upon the formal request of Committee Chair Grassley, the White House signed on and requested a reopening of the Kavanaugh FBI back ground check.  For awhile it looked like the FBI had been given one week to conduct a thorough investigation, but now it looks like the FBI’s mandate is limited, that they’ve been directed by the White House to focus their follow-up on Kavanaugh’s drinking buddy Mark Judge and second accuser Yale classmate Deborah Ramirez.  Reports are that they’ve been told to stay away from Michael Avenatti’s client, third accuser Julie Swetnick, the woman who says she has stories to tell about drug fueled “rape trains” and from an examination of Kavanaugh’s drinking habits   Of course, since this is Trumpland and facts are flexible, Trump and his spokeswomen, notably Kellyanne Conway and Sarah Huckabee Sanders insist that the White House is not “micromanaging” the FBI investigation.  To drive her point home, Kellyanne says that she of all people is particularly understanding of victims like Dr. Blasey since she’s been a victim of sexual assault too, however, she then went on to mumble that victims are responsible for their victimization without going into any details of her own experience.  In any case, regardless of White House claims, it does appear that Don McGahn who is still White House Counsel and who is one of Brett Kavanaugh’s biggest advocates, has directed the FBI to limit its inquiry.  For their part the FBI isn’t talking so at least until they come back with a report, the rest of us will have to rely on comments from the people they do question and then only if those individuals choose to go public. Not satisfied with that, last night Ranking Judiciary Committee member Diane Feinstein sent a letter to the White House and the FBI asking for a copy of the instructions that the FBI received from McGahn.  In the meantime, in an effort to further muddy the process Senators Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton are calling for an inquiry into Diane Feinstein so that they can get to the bottom of who leaked victim number one Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s letter to the press in the first place because though they aren’t all that concerned about what Kavanaugh may or may not have done, they are really exorcised over the fact that Dr. Blasey’s accusations were ever made public.  The Intercept, the e-magazine that first published Blasey’s accusations says that Feinstein was most definitely not their source. Over the weekend Lindsey Graham continued his run for Attorney General’s Sessions cabinet seat by arguing that “everyone” knows that Dr. Blasey’s accusations would never be enough to pursue a criminal case and therefore shouldn’t be used to besmirch Kavanaugh, even though the Kavanaugh hearings are supposed to be the equivalent of a job interview and few if any companies would ever hire someone credibly accused of attempted rape who also had a very visible anger management problem and who expressed a love for beerskis while countering questions about his drinking habits with questions about theirs during a job interview.  For her part prosecutor/Republican surrogate Rachel Mitchell who never should have besmirched her own professional record by serving as the Republican stand-in sent a memo to the Republican Senators that she subbed for telling them that a "reasonable prosecutor" would not bring a case against Kavanaugh based on the Blasey  sexual assault allegation given the evidence presented to the Judiciary Committee while pointing out what is obvious only to the Democratic committee members, “a Senate confirmation hearing is not a trial, especially not a prosecution."  For his part, Trump, spent part of the weekend in West Virginia at a rally for  Patrick Morrissey, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin’s opponent, telling the crowd that a vote for “liberal” Manchin would be a vote against a Conservative Supreme Court and would turn the country into Venezuela.  Manchin, who is far from a liberal, remains one of the undecided Kavanaugh voters and though he is comfortably ahead in the polls its though that his vote as well as enough of the votes of Senators Flake, Collins, Murkowski and Heitkamp to seat Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court will hinge on the outcome of the FBI investigation.         

Call Me By Another Name:  Canada is finally on board so new NAFTA is here, just don’t call it NAFTA.  Ever the branding guru Trump has renamed the trade pact between the US, Mexico and Canada  the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement or USMCA.  Basically USMCA represents more of an update to the old NAFTA, than a wholesale revamping.  Provisions regarding dairy products, one of the sticking points, are now similar to those that Canada already agreed to with its European trading partners, a quota has been placed on the import of cars from Canada, however the number is well above the number of cars that Canada currently sends to the US and the new NAFTA now addresses intellectual property.  There are also stronger enforcement provisions and an agreement that new NAFTA will come up for review every six years.  Tariffs on Canada’s steel and aluminum exports remain unresolved.  The bottom line is that Trump gets to brag about his totally new deal, one that he achieved by threatening to exclude Canada even though the deal isn’t all that new, relations with Canada were unnecessarily strained and Congress, who has to sign off, would never have signed off on any form of NAFTA that didn’t include Canada.

Other News:  Homeland Security is moving children in the middle of the night again, taking them out of local facilities and foster homes where they were enrolled in schools to facilities in nowhere Texas where they will be isolated without formal education but will be given some do it yourself workbooks.  They still haven’t figured out how to get rid of the kids, most of whom traveled to the US on their own, but have decided that a more costly housing solution beats out the lower cost of keeping the kids in the community.  Separately, the Trump Justice Department is suing California over its new net neutrality law, a law that tries to maintain an equal playing field by preventing internet companies from slowing down or blocking some content.  Attorney General Sessions,  says that California is once again trying to get in the way of the Federal government and he won’t have it, or at least he won’t have it until he is gone, replaced by some other Trumpkin with a similar philosophy.  As to Justice, Trump still hasn’t had his face to face meeting with Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, but their meeting is still planned.  Rosenstein is also due to meet with a few of the members of Congress who want him impeached.  He is expected to survive for now, but it’s easy to understand why he’d prefer jumping ship.