Target Practice

Throwing Stones:  Roger Stone is despicable.  That’s not much of a surprise, after all he has Richard Nixon’s face emblazoned on his back in indelible ink and has threatened to kill at least one therapy dog, a small white fluff named Bianca who keeps the nerves of his one-time friend and current foil Jerome Corsi in check. It’s not just dogs, for some inexplicable reason Roger Stone also thinks that it’s okay to threaten judges.  Yesterday he posted a picture of the Federal Judge overseeing his case on Instagram, a picture that included a target next to her head together with a fundraising plea with the following accompanying text: “Through legal trickery Deep State hitman Robert Mueller has guaranteed that my upcoming show trial is before Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an Obama appointed Judge who dismissed the Benghazi charges again [sic] Hillary Clinton and incarcerated Paul Manafort prior to his conviction for any crime. #fixisin Help me fight for my life at @StoneDefenseFund.com.”  After his post went viral, his freaked out lawyers forced him to delete the picture over their very legitimate concern that nothing good ever comes from threatening a judge, especially the one who could turn your limited gag order into a muzzle or completely revoke your bail on a moment’s notice.  Stone also apologized, or at least pretended to by posting a message saying that “a photo of Judge Jackson that appeared on my Instagram account has been misinterpreted This was a random photo taken from the Internet. Any inference that this was meant to somehow threaten  the judge or disrespect court is categorically false.” As to the those target “crosshairs” appearing near Judge Jackson’s head, Stone asserted that they were just a logo that he borrowed from the same right wing website where he found the Judge’s picture.  Concerned that his apology wasn’t sufficient, Stone’s lawyers followed-up with a formal filing saying that the “Undersigned counsel, with the attached authority of Roger J. Stone, hereby apologizes to the Court for the improper photograph and comment posted on Instragram (sic) today. Mr. Stone recognizes the impropriety and had it removed.” If she didn’t already, Judge Jackson probably now has her very own contingent of protective Federal marshals following her everywhere. Don’t be surprised if she takes some kind of punitive action against Stone by the end of the week.  Stone wasn’t the only one taking to social media yesterday, his good buddy Trump did as well.  Citing Sean Hannity and Fox news he attacked Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein and former FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe over McCabe’s claims that the two had seriously discussed the possibility of invoking the 25^th Amendment to remove him from office, tweeting “The biggest abuse of power and corruption scandal in our history, and it’s much worse than we thought. Andrew McCabe (FBI) admitted to plotting a coup (government overthrow) when he was serving in the FBI, before he was fired for lying & leaking. Treason!”   Trump’s other good friend Senator Lindsey Graham who appears to have forgotten everything that he learned about patriotism from his former mentor the departed Senator McCain promises to investigate Rosenstein and McCabe’s “treasonous” actions by calling the two in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.  Graham may want to reconsider, it’s not clear that he’ll be happy about the other things that McCabe and Rosenstein are likely to say because they won’t be pretty, especially the part about Trump believing that Putin is a more reliable “intelligence” source than any of the US agencies.  As to Rosenstein, last night it was reported that he will be gone from the Justice Department by mid-March.  At that point, with or without the push of Lindsay Graham he could start talking.  Maybe a lecture tour or a book beckons?  

2020: Another day, another Democratic presidential candidate.  This morning Bernie Sanders, whose “secret” announcement tape had already leaked out surprised no one by announcing that he’s running for president again because his “2016 policy ideas now have the support of more Americans” and he can’t bear the thought that those ideas could actually get implemented by someone other than him, someone younger, more amiable, more electable and who doesn’t look like he or she is about to keel over.  As to those ideas, at least one Democratic candidate isn’t so sure that they are affordable or that all of America is ready for them.  Last night during a CNN town hall the very moderate, maybe even too moderate for the primary, Senator Amy Klobuchar came off as far more pragmatic.  When asked about Medicare for all, she said that it was a nice idea but that she’d start with fixing Obamacare, when asked about free four year college, she said  "If I was a magic genie and could afford to give that to everyone I would" but since she’s not she’ll focus on a combination of grants and improved student loan financing.  As to the green new deal, she said it was an aspirational idea but that she’d focus for now on passable compromise legislation.  Although 2020 is just around the corner, or at least it feels like it’s just around the corner, 2018 isn’t over yet.  Yesterday the North Carolina Election board held the first of what is expected to be three days of public hearings on the absentee ballot scandal that has left the results of the North Carolina 9^th District race in limbo.  So far we’ve learned that somewhere around 1000 ballots went missing, a critical number because the “winning” margin of the  Republican candidate who hired the absentee ballot manipulator in the first place was only around 900 votes.

Not an Emergency:  Late yesterday sixteen states including Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Virginia joined California filing a lawsuit challenging Trump’s national emergency declaration.  California’s Attorney General who is leading the suit said that the plan is to halt Trump from “violating the Constitution, the separation of powers, from stealing money from Americans and states that has been allocated by Congress, lawfully," Some of the “stolen” money that Trump wants to redirect to the building of his vanity WALL could come from a $62 million project to construct the Fort Campbell Middle School near the Tennessee/Kentucky border.  Lindsey Graham who is of course standing firm with Trump on the emergency declaration isn’t all that concerned about that because as far as he’s concerned "It's better for the middle school kids in Kentucky to have a secure border. We'll get them the school they need, but right now we've got a national emergency on our hands.” Emergency or not, Trump spent the weekend playing golf near Mar a Lago, because that’s what presidents do when there’s an emergency, they head south and hit the links.