Fun Gun Girl

Smocking Guns:  While Democrats debate the wisdom of initiating impeachment procedures before Mueller completes his never ending Russian collusion investigation, Republicans continue to do their best to downplay and denigrate the whole investigation, its Southern District of New York offshoot and the ever growing list of indictments and guilty pleas that have resulted so far.  Individual 1 tweeted “Democrats can’t find a Smocking Gun tying the Trump campaign to Russia after James Comey’s testimony. No Smocking Gun...No Collusion. That’s because there was NO COLLUSION. So now the Dems go to a simple private transaction, wrongly call it a campaign contribution”  Trump’s denial entertained the twitterverse which ignored his criticism instead focusing on his repeated spelling errors, taking them as a further indication that his sanity, already stretched had reached it limits. Merriam-Webster staff just tweeted out a definition of smocking.  Utah’s retiring Senator  Orrin Hatch responded to the details about Russia’s outreach and the illegality of the payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal included in the Michael Cohen sentencing reports by saying that “The Democrats will do anything to hurt this President."  Then when he was informed that the report came from federal prosecutors in New York, Hatch said: "OK, but I don't care, all I can say is he's doing a good job." Iowa’s Senator Grassley just dissed Cohen saying "As long as Cohen's a liar, I shouldn't give much credibility to what he says" and Louisiana’s Senator John Kennedy, the master of the down home homily told reporters that "Jesus loves him, but everybody else thinks he's an idiot. He's obviously a sleaze-oid grifter. And if I were a prosecutor, I wouldn't base a prosecution on evidence given to me by Mr. Cohen."  Soon to be House Minority leader Kevin McCarthy, part of the crowd that investigated Benghazi for years and is still holding lame duck hearings on Clinton’s emails urged Democrats not to dwell on investigating Trump once they assume control of Congress because “America is too great of a nation to have such a small agenda. He dismissed concerns about Trump’s campaign finance violations saying everyone does them and then shrugged his shoulders when asked about a Washington Post article that listed all of the Trump team members who had interacted with Russians, saying that Washington was an international city, “people interact with a lot of individuals.”  Despite now former VP Chief of Staff Nick Ayer’s assertion that he turned down the opportunity to become Trump’s Chief of Staff to go raise his triplets back home in Georgia, the general conclusion is that he recognizes an impending disaster when he sees one and wants to get out of town while the going is good and before he incurs any legal expenses.  As to that Chief of Staff position, Trump who reportedly is really “pissed” that Ayers turned him down had no plan B, he’s now expanded his growing list of possible hires to include Yankee’s president Randy Levine who doesn’t seem all that happy about being on the list.  So far, only the rather bombastic Mark Meadows, the Tea Party Congressman from North Carolina, seems interested in the spot.  He is delusional enough to think that serving as Trump’s right hand man is preferable to being a member of the soon to be House minority party.

Russia Russia, Russia: Though all the details aren’t out yet the Daily Beast reports that Russian temptress and fun gun girl Maria Butina has reached a plea agreement with Federal prosecutors; she’s agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to violate laws prohibiting covert foreign agents. Butina is cooperating with investigators and is prepared to throw her “boyfriend” Republican operator Paul Erikson and the National Rifle Association under the bus in exchange for leniency.  Butina is expected to say that she relied on assistance from Erikson while taking direction from her handler, former Russian banker Alexander Torshin, as she “sought to establish unofficial lines of communication with Americans having power and influence over US politics, using those unofficial lines of communication for the benefit of the Russia Federation."  Butina’s efforts included bringing a crowd of Russians to the Republican Prayer breakfast and bringing a group of NRA officials to Russia where they met with foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and Putin deputy Dmitry Rogozin, a trip that coincidentally took place at the same time that former national security advisor Michael Flynn was at a celebratory event where he dined with Putin.   After the trip, Butina sent a message back to Torshin saying of her NRA buddies that “ we should let them express their gratitude now, we will put pressure on them quietly later.”  Butina’s tentacles reached far into the Republican party, she hobnobbed with Trump’s gun loving son Don at an NRA convention and has been photographed with former Pennsylvania Senator/occasional CNN commentator Rick Santorum and former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal among others.  In all likelihood Butina will be shipped back to Russia upon her release from jail, but it’s not clear whether she will be received as a returning hero or as a turncoat.  Her sponsor Torshin was recently relieved of his banking position and has not been seen for a while, hardly a good sign.        

Other News:  Things aren’t going all that well on the other side of the pond.  Prime Minister May has put off a vote on her Brexit plan primarily because it wouldn’t pass as it appears to be widely despised, not that anyone has any better ideas.  It’s not clear where the UK goes from here although one suggestion is another vote on the whole Brexit thing to the extent that’s even possible.  President Macron has been having an equally awful time in France, he is now trying to placate violent “yellow vest” protestors by cancelling plans for an eco-tax and promising an increase in wages,   Trump, enjoying Macron’s pain, claimed protestors were showing him love by calling out his name though there is no indication that his assertion is true.  As to the environment, Trump’s disdain for the climate science has moved from passive resistance to active disruption, during last weekend’s UN climate conference in Poland, the US teamed with Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to water down approval of a landmark report on the need to control global warming while also pushing for more use of coal and oil.  Lastly, moving to the domestic front, yesterday the Supreme Court sided with Planned Parenthood by refusing to consider two cases that would have allowed states to cancel Medicaid contracts with Planned Parenthood facilities.  Though Justices Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch voted to hear the cases, new Justice Kavanaugh joined Justices Roberts and the liberal block of Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan and Breyer by voting against taking the cases.  By no means does this mean that either Kavanaugh or Roberts have suddenly become pro-choice, it only means that they appear to understand that women go to Planned Parenthood for a variety of  health care services.