Hanoi Hilton

Split Screen:  Trump has finally made it to Viet Nam and is currently having a preliminary one on one with North Korean Leader Kim Jong un.  Trump must have been tired of reading stories about his “bone spur” deferments because upon landing he tweeted out “I have now spent more time in Vietnam than Da Nang Dick Blumenthal, the third rate Senator from Connecticut (how is Connecticut doing?). His war stories of his heroism in Vietnam were a total fraud - he was never even there. We talked about it today with Vietnamese leaders!”  It’s doubtful that he really did discuss Blumenthal, who did serve during the Viet Nam era but has apologized countless times for saying that his service included time in Viet Nam when it didn’t, with anyone but Trump loves to slam Blumenthal whenever its opportune or whenever he needs some diversion and right about now he probably needs some diversion.  Though Blumenthal isn’t in Hanoi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is, he arrived early possibly to be available to Trump who according to Russian media has sought out Russia’s “advice” on how to negotiate with the North Korean dictator.  Russia’s suggestion is that the US should offer Pyongyang “security guarantees” in exchange for disarmament.  By security guarantees, Russia probably means that Trump should promise to pull US troops out of South Korea and other Asian countries ceding dominance of the region to Russia and China.  Though he slammed Blumenthal, Trump is probably more concerned about what his former fixer/lawyer plans to tell the House Oversight Committee during today’s testimony.  He is right to be concerned about that. In his opening remarks Cohen is planning to tell the Committee that Trump is “a racist, a conman and a cheat.”  Among other things Cohen is expected to say that he continued to receive reimbursement payments for the funds he fronted for the hush money paid to playmate Karen McDougal well into Trump’s presidency and that those payments came in the form of checks hand signed by Donald J Trump himself. If true, that would indicate that Trump continued his criminal ways while in the White House.  Not all that shocking but very incriminating.  Cohen is expected to provide one of those checks as proof.  He also will say that Trump knew that Roger Stone had communicated with WikiLeak’s Julian Assange about the hacked DNC emails, that Donald Jr kept his father in the loop about the Trump Tower meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, that though Trump didn’t specifically order him to lie to Congress about the Moscow Tower project Trump repeated his version enough times for Cohen to understand how he was supposed to testify. Cohen will also say that Trump’s lawyers reviewed his testimony several times in advance.  Apparently Trump is also very sensitive about his SAT scores and grades.  Cohen reports that at Trump’s request, he sent letters to his schools and colleges telling them that they would be in bigly trouble if they shared any of his records with the press, am guessing that he never made Dean’s List unless of course the list of students who’s father’s bought them into college counts.  As to the White House response to Cohen’s testimony, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the following “Disgraced felon Michael Cohen is going to prison for lying to Congress and making other false statements. Sadly, he will go before Congress this week and we can expect more of the same. It's laughable that anyone would take a convicted liar like Cohen at his word, and pathetic to see him given yet another opportunity to spread his lies."  She has a point, Cohen is now a convicted felon, however at this point he is unlikely to lie as any more false statements could subject him to further prosecution and would most certainly make it that much more difficult to obtain that already elusive recommendation for leniency that he hopes to get from the Southern District of NY prosecutors. Sanders isn’t the only one slamming Cohen, yesterday Florida Congressman and Trump acolyte Matt Gaetz threatened Cohen, tweeting "Hey @MichaelCohen212, Do your wife & father-in-law know about your girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat. I wonder if she'll remain faithful when you're in prison. She's about to learn a lot..."  The Congressman’s tweet went over about as well as expected.  His fellow Republicans winced but said nothing, Democrats called it out as an attempt at witness tampering.  Gaetz, one of Trump’s most ardent supporters remained unfazed by the criticism, in fact it’s fair to say that he’s loving the attention. If the US press corps appears more prickly than usual it may be because they were thrown out of their hotel, the Melia Hanoi, it turns out that Kim Jong un is also a guest there and isn’t accustomed to running into unwelcome photographers and probing reporters. His “flipped out” staff had the press removed possibly out of fear that if they didn’t do so they would find themselves relocated to the notorious Hanoi Hilton, permanently.

2020:  Former VP Joe Biden hasn’t announced his 2020 plans yet but appears to be closing in on an affirmative decision.  He says that that his family is supportive of him running, notable because they are likely to be subjected to additional scrutiny if he does and his surviving son Hunter who has recently gone through a messy divorce, is now involved with the widow of his departed son, Beau.  It’s reported that Biden’s been quietly seeking to hire staff in New Hampshire, an early primary state.  Bernie Sanders who has raised scads of cash from his pool of dedicated Berniacs as well as a large number of new individual donors,  is now finding himself subject to the scrutiny that he managed to escape in 2016 when everyone was far too busy chasing down Hillary’s emails to focus on his wrinkles. He didn’t release any of his tax returns in 2016 and appears to be trying to do the same this time around.  He promises to release them eventually when they are “ready” but wants us to know that they are boring. Where have we heard this before? Notably, Senator Elizabeth Warren who promises not to accept any donations from anyone with any money to donate has already released hers. North Carolina is still short one congressperson.  A special election for the seat left empty due to some absentee ballot election fraud won’t be held until sometime in the fall. Although the Democratic candidate Dan McCready has already announced that he’ll be running again, his disgraced opponent, Republican pastor Mark Harris, has pulled himself out of the race over “health concerns,” he says that he’s suffered a few mini strokes possibly over the fear that he could now end up in jail.  As to that fraud, Senate Majority Leader McConnell blames it on Democrats for failing to support more stringent voter ID requirements.  Gotta love that McConnell, he has an explanation for everything.   

Emergency Conditions:  As expected the House passed the Democratic resolution rejecting Trump’s emergency declaration.  All the House Democrats voted for the resolution as did thirteen Republicans, not enough to override a Trump veto but still a notable amount.  One of those Republicans was Texas Congressman Will Hurd whose district includes the largest stretch of the Mexican border.  So far only three Republican Senators are on record saying that they will support the resolution when it comes up for a vote in the Senate but reports are that ten others have expressed reservations and that each of those not so brave souls are waiting for another to become the critical fourth vote before coming forward.  Curiously, though it would be a stretch to assume that he would even considering voting for the resolution, Republican leader McConnell admits that he’s not sure that the emergency declaration is legitimate, which might be a signal to his Republican colleagues that they are free to vote their consciences.  Well maybe.  In what may be a real emergency, overnight Pakistan shot down two Indian fighter planes. More to come?