In the Shallows

Traveling Squads:  Bone spurs and all Trump is finally off to Viet Nam to meet up with his pen pal bestie Kim Jong un who is traveling to Hanoi by train because, though he has the money for nukes, his antiquated inadequately maintained airplane fleet has a tendency to fall apart during flight.  Trump’s advisors, much of Congress and the leaders of the rest of the free world are a wee bit concerned that even though he’s been trying to lower expectations by tweeting that denuclearization takes a while, he will concede something significant to Kim Jong un in exchange for nothing more than a smile, a wink and a really good photo op so that he can emerge from his meeting with a good talking point, one that will distract attention from all of those problematic investigations and Michael Cohen’s upcoming testimony while advancing his Nobel Peace Prize aspirations and goosing his poll numbers.  Despite Trump’s post Singapore announcement that North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat, it is, even Secretary of State Pompeo admitted to that when queried by CNN’s Jake Tapper at the same time that he tried to brush off the suggestion that Trump had ever suggested that it wasn’t.  Too bad for Pompeo, Tapper had copies of Trump’s twitter feed on hand. Trump isn’t the only one on the road this week.  VP Pence is traveling to Colombia today for a one day summit on Venezuela where he’ll be meeting with the Lima Group, a group of 14 Latin American countries dedicated to “a peaceful Venezuela solution” whatever that is and Juan Guaido, the Venezuelan opposition leader who is supposed to lead that not so bloodless takeover.  For a day or more, Nancy Pelosi will be the most senior leader stateside.  Though it might be comforting to think that she could engineer her own bloodless coup while the other two are elsewhere, there is little she can do to prevent their return.  That said she will be busy.  Tomorrow she plans to call for a vote on a resolution to block Trump’s emergency declaration, the one he’s using or trying to use to build his WALL by directing funds from other places mostly within the Defense budget, ironically from pools of money that may have already been spent or committed. With or without much Republican support, Pelosi’s resolution is expected to pass the House.  Pursuant to the legislation that permitted Trump to declare the emergency in the first place, Senate Majority Leader McConnell won’t be able to sit this one out, he will be required to bring the House resolution up for a vote in the Senate.  So far, Senator Susan Collins has actually gone on record saying that she’ll vote with Democrats and her sometimes soul mate Lisa Murkowski has said that she is likely to cross aisles too.  Passage in the Senate will require that a number of the others who’ve publicly called out Trump’s executive over reach and emergency resolution as bunk follow suit.  Time will tell if they are willing to put their money, or in this case, their votes, where their mouths have already gone.  Keep an eye on Senators Lamar Alexander,  Corey Gardner, Thom Tillis, Marco Rubio and Mitt Romney.  Assuming the resolution passes the Senate, it will probably face an insurmountable Trump veto leaving WALL funding in limbo until the courts weigh in.

Mueller Time?  Despite assertions from various news outlets and other people who claimed to be in the know, at the end of the week a spokesperson from the Justice Department said that the Mueller report, to the extent there ever will be a real report, is not due out imminently, or at the very least it won’t be released while Trump is in Viet Nam, so it’s back to the waiting and kvetching game.  To that end Democrats spent a good portion of the weekend making it clear that when and if the report comes out, they want it to go public or else they’ll sue, subpoena, march and throw temper tantrums.  It took a little longer than expected, but Mueller’s much anticipated Manafort sentencing recommendation, the one for his Washington DC crimes, finally emerged on Saturday in the form of a much redacted 800 page tome. Mueller didn’t say much that we didn’t already know, leaving those in the no collusion camp to tweet NO COLLUSION, and others to say or hope that Mueller is leaving the best for last.  Although Mueller didn’t recommend a sentence, he more or less told Judge Amy Berman Jackson, that she should throw the book at Manafort.  His prosecutors told her that Manafort “brazenly violated the law,” that he ”chose repeatedly and knowingly to violate the law— whether the laws proscribed garden-variety crimes such as tax fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, and bank fraud, or more esoteric laws that he nevertheless was intimately familiar with, such as the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)."  Adding that Manafort shows a "hardened adherence to committing crimes, his criminal actions were bold, some of which were committed while under a spotlight due to his work as the campaign chairman and, later, while he was on bail from this Court."  The memo also points out that he lied to everyone including “tax preparers, bookkeepers, banks, the Treasury Department, the Department of Justice National Security Division, the FBI, the Special Counsel’s Office, the grand jury, his own legal counsel, Members of Congress, and members of the executive branch of the United States government.” According to Bloomberg, the news service not the possible presidential candidate, prosecutors in New York want to make sure that Manafort stays in jail for a long time even if he is a recipient of that much coveted Trump pardon.  To that end they report that both the State and the Manhattan District Attorney have initiated efforts to prosecute him locally.  For his part, Michael Cohen appears to be still cooperating with the Southern District of New York, providing them with additional information about the Trump inauguration committee and one of its donors Imaad Zuberi, who may or may not have attempted to engage in some pay for play funding with Cohen.  Cohen who will be testifying in front of the House Oversight Committee about everything not related to Mueller’s Russia investigation tomorrow appears to be trying to get his three year jail sentence reduced, of course for that to happen, his newly provided information would have to bear lots of fruit, and by fruit think lots of lemons for Trump.  Though we won’t hear him, assuming he survives his public grilling,  Cohen is also scheduled to testify in front of the House and Senate Intel Committees in their private SCIF’s.

Pence Effect:  Trump who never really cared about abortion until he decided to run for president is now doing his best to out Pence the VP.  On Friday, in what is intended to be a direct slam at Planned Parenthood, the administration announced that it will bar organizations that provide abortion referrals from receiving federal family planning money.  The point of the rule is to strip millions from Planned Parenthood in order to direct money to religiously-based, anti-abortion groups.  Another court challenge beckons.  We also learned on Friday more than we ever wanted to know about how some of Trump’s friends spend their free time, notably no forms of birth control were ever used in any of their activities, some of which may well have led to some very unwanted pregnancies.  Enough said about all that.   

Other News:  Trump finally weighed in on the Coast Guard officer and avowed white supremacist who was preparing to launch a deadly hate attack against Democrats leaders among others.  In response to a reporter’s question he said “I think it’s a shame…. A very sad thing” but when further queried if he thought that any of his own rhetoric was a factor in the decision by people like the Coast Guard officer to act on their hate,  he said  “I think my language is very nice.”  Since taking office, Trump has cut the already inadequate funding levels for Counter Violent Extremism programs that target white supremacists and neo-Nazis.  Kind of guessing that the White House has no plans to host any viewings of Green Book, BlacKkKlansman, Black Panther or Roma anytime soon.