HickenWho?

Fallout:  During last week’s Michael Cohen hearing and again during the weekend news shows, instead of denying that Trump had committed bad acts, Republicans spent most of their time attacking lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen for being a liar, a not totally illogical strategy given that Cohen is an admitted liar and because even they know that Trump has committed most if not all of the bad acts that were discussed during the hearing.  They also repeatedly brought up the subject of impeachment, asserting that the whole purpose of the hearing was to lay the groundwork to move forward on that front, to upend the “will of the people” through a devious attack on all things Trump.  Notably, Democrats didn’t broach the impeachment subject during the hearing, at least for now their strategy is to bombard the public with details of Trump’s fraudulent business practices, ethical failings, and propensity to lie in an effort to further damage his “brand” and to persuade some wavering Trump supporters that it’s time to hold him accountable for his misdeeds, a strategy that faces an uphill battle if polls are to be believed.   It’s not that Democrats aren’t also pursuing the election interference and Russian collusion issues, it’s just that with most of that investigation still behind closed doors, it’s a harder case to make right now.  Additionally to successfully impeach Trump, Democrats would have to convince a significant number of Republican legislators to move off of their “Trump as King” position  and right now that doesn’t seem all that possible.  That said, one Republican does appear to be concerned that the Democratic onslaught is denting the Trump armor, that Republican is none other than Donald J Trump himself.  Over the weekend he gave a two hour plus largely unscripted and wildly unhinged speech at the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) conference.  Sweating bullets, he hugged an American flag,  attacked Cohen, called Mueller’s team out for being devious Democrats, called again for Hillary to be locked up, mocked former Attorney General Sessions’ southern drawl while slamming him once again for recusing himself from the Russian investigation, among other insane things.  Ironically, though he trashed Cohen, Trump applauded the parts of his testimony that “proved” that there was no collusion.  Then before winding down, while again bragging about the “record” size of his inaugural crowd, he thanked the CPAC audience for staying put in their seats for his entire rant even though many had departed somewhere around the end of the first hour.  As to that Democratic onslaught, Jerry Nadler the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee announced over the weekend that his committee will be “issuing document requests to over 60 different people and individuals from the White House to the Department of Justice, Donald Trump Jr, Allen Weisselberg, to begin the investigations to present the case to the American people about obstruction of justice, corruption and abuse of power” and his House Intelligence Committee counterpart Adam Schiff minced no words telling CBS’s Face the Nation that he thinks “there is direct evidence” of Russian collusion.  Only time will tell if Schiff is right, but at least one pundit believes that his assertion cannot be ignored, after hearing Schiff’s assertion Harvard Law School’s Laurence Tribe tweeted  “If @RepAdamSchiff says there is direct evidence of Trump/Russia collusion, you can take that to the bank. Rep. Schiff NEVER overstates. He is the epitome of caution and precision. This is big.” Then again Tribe is no fan of Trump’s and also believes that a sitting president can be indicted. It’s not just Cohen and the various Congressional investigations that have Trump tied in knots right now, his failure to get any concessions from his North Korean buddy Kim Jong un has left him bereft and in search of someone to blame for his failure so late yesterday he tweeted “For the Democrats to interview in open hearings a convicted liar & fraudster, at the same time as the very important Nuclear Summit with North Korea, is perhaps a new low in American politics and may have contributed to the ‘walk,’ Never done when a president is overseas. Shame!”  To combat criticism of the Hanoi summit, Trump sent national security advisor John Bolton out on the talk show circuit, a curious choice given that it’s well known that Bolton has long questioned the value in trying to negotiate with the North Koreans. Unwilling to really defend Trump’s assertion that Kim Jong un wasn’t responsible for the death of US student Otto Warmbier, Bolton instead resorted to some double speak saying that even though Trump said he takes the North Korean leader at his word that doesn't mean he accepted Kim's word "as reality," it merely means that he “accepts that's what Kim Jong Un said.”  What?

2020:  Bernie Sanders was out on the campaign trail over the weekend, delivering a well-attended speech in his Brooklyn childhood home before moving on to Selma, Alabama for the commemoration of the Bloody Sunday marches where 600 civil rights workers led by current Congressman and Civil rights hero John Lewis were attacked by state and local lawman on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.  Sanders who did poorly with Black voters in 2016 is pulling out stories about the time he marched for civil rights in an effort to prove that he really is an advocate for racial equality, a task complicated by the fact that given that only 1.6% of his Vermont constituency is Black he hasn’t shown much interest since then. He was a bit upstaged in Selma, where competing candidate Senator Cory Booker appeared far more at ease and his one time and apparently forever nemesis Hilary Clinton was being honored.  Booker greeted Clinton with a warm bear hug, Sanders barely shook her hand.  This morning another Democratic candidate, former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper joined the fray, announcing that he too is running for president. Though Hickenlooper doesn’t yet have the name recognition of some of the other Democratic candidates, he should be taken seriously.  He’s got a good government and business track record, who doesn’t love a guy who established his business credentials by opening a successful beer brewery and who leads one of the first two states to legalize marijuana? Besides, once you hear his name, it’s kind of hard to forget it.  Hickenlooper joins Washington Governor Jay Inslee who formally announced his anticipated run last week.  Inslee is running as the environment candidate. Not sure if it’s a coincidence or not, but Washington was the other state that legalized recreational marijuana around the same time that Colorado did.   

Other News:  Senator Rand Paul announced over the weekend that he plans to vote against Trump’s emergency declaration because he “can’t vote to give extraconstitutional powers to the president.”  Though Paul has a reputation for going back and forth on issues, this is one he will probably stick with, he has consistently opposed executive overreach.  He joins Republican Senators Collins, Tillis, and Murkowski so unless one of them changes their mind or a Democrat crosses the aisle, the resolution opposing Trump’s emergency declaration will pass once its brought up for a vote in the Senate.  Unless he changes his mind, Trump will follow with a veto, one that neither chamber is likely to be able to override.  On the investigatory front, Roger Stone has some more explaining to do.  Apparently he is on the verge of publishing a book that among other things criticizes the Mueller investigation and  yesterday he posted on Instagram that he is being framed by Mueller.  Neither he nor his lawyers ever told Judge Amy Berman Jackson about the book, moreover the Instagram posting appears to violate her expanded gag order.  Separately, Michael Cohen is still talking with the House Intelligence Committee, he’ll be back in with them midweek, it’s reported that one of the “new” things that has peaked their interest relates to his last conversation with the White House, a conversation that took place after his office was raided, a conversation where a pardon may have been dangled.  Obstruction?