Spa Plans

Never Ending Story:  Despite former CIA Director John Brennan’s prediction Friday came and went without the release of Special Counsel Mueller’s report and without any of the additional indictments that he predicted would be forthcoming.  However, over the weekend it did become increasingly clear that Erik Prince, the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, should expect to see one soon.  Prince, the former SEAL and founder of the military government “services and security firm” Blackwater whose employees/mercenaries committed a few crimes against humanity during their stint in Iraq, recently gave an interview to Al Jazeera’s Mehdi Hasan during which he admitted participating in a 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Don Jr, George Nader, the former advisor to the United Arab Emirates who is also a known pedophile, Stephen Miller and Joel Zamel, a former Israeli intelligence operative whose company Psy-Group specialized in social media manipulation.  Prince told Hasan that the subject of the meeting was Iran policy.  The problem for Prince is that he did not disclose any of this during his November 2017 testimony to the House Intelligence Committee, in fact he told them that he was not really all that involved in anything related to the Trump campaign, an assertion that no one, at least none of the Democrats believed given that Prince was known to have participated in an odd Trump related meeting in the Seychelles.  When Hasan pointed out the inconsistency between what he told Congress and what he said during their interview, Prince responded with a very Trumpian excuse, claiming that the House Intelligence Committees’ transcript of his testimony was inaccurate. On Sunday, Adam Schiff, the current chairman of the House Intel Committee, said that he’s convinced that Prince committed perjury the only question is whether Mueller thinks it was indictment worthy perjury.  Prince isn’t the only one involved in sketchy activities with the Trumps.  It turns out that Cindy Yang, the one-time owner of the “spa” that New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft liked to patronize for some of those “extra” services, who continues to own a chain of spas that provide similar services also runs a consulting business that has offered to sell Chinese clients access to Trump and his family at Mar a Lago. Her website includes, or at least until this weekend included, pictures of her hobnobbing at Mar a Lago with virtually every significant member of the Trump orbit including Trump, Don Jr and Eric, Cabinet members Wilbur Ross and Elaine Chao, who is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Sebastian Gorka and even Kellyanne Conway.  Late Sunday, Mother Jones correspondent David Corn and his team reported that Yang is connected to Chinese intelligence.  It wouldn’t be a stretch to conclude that the Chinese possess some interesting photos of Yang’s most notable and important clients.  Last year the Chinese government awarded daughter Ivanka a trademark for Ivanka brand spa services, in light of the recent disclosures about Ms Yang, those trademarks take on added meaning.   As to Trump, he’s up to his usual crowd pleasing antics.  Last week during a visit to tornado ravaged Alabama, he signed a few Bibles, while promising that he’ll make sure that FEMA provides Alabama with A plus assistance, not that D minus assistance that was provided to Puerto Rico.  He called Apple CEO Tim Cook “Tim Apple” to his face on camera but then denied that he had, insisting that it was just more of that fake news, a variation of his claim that it wasn’t really his voice heard by just about everyone on the infamous Access Hollywood tape, the tape that should have tanked his election but didn’t because of the virtually simultaneous release of the DNC emails.

Democrats' Meltdown:  The Democrats hoped to put the imbroglio related to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s “unintentional” because she didn’t know any better anti-Semitic remarks behind them with their resolution that condemned everything hateful, however that strategy doesn’t appear to be working all that well.  While, Omar moved on to a new target, slamming former president Obama as a “pretty face” who “got away with murder,” her good buddy left wing darling Representative Alexandria Cortez-Ocasio (AOC) spent part of her weekend tweeting out support for her “misunderstood” freshman colleague, going so far as to say that the two of them together with Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib and Massachusetts’s Ayanna Pressley are the left wings version of the Tea Party.  She then went on to call capitalism irredeemable and moderates “meh.”  One of those “meh” moderates Colorado Governor Hickenlooper may have shot himself in the foot when he refused to admit that he was a capitalist, instead saying that it is silly to define candidates as either socialist or capitalist, a surprisingly unprepared answer from someone who aspires to be president.  If he doesn’t up his game soon, he’ll be one of the early race dropouts.  For her part, Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is one of the more left wing presidential aspirants had a far more nuanced answer.  She refused to be labeled a socialist, saying instead that she believes in markets, “markets that work.”  Warren, who earlier proposed a wealth tax on super wealthy people went on to say that she thinks that the social media companies have gotten too big, and that she thinks that they should be broken up in a way that doesn’t disrupt service to consumers but does promote more competition.  Agree with her or not, her answers do appear to be thoughtful, nevertheless current polls put her in third place well behind Bernie Sanders, who doesn’t mind being called a socialist and who rarely adds any nuance to his positions, something that hasn’t hurt him to date, and Joe Biden, the moderate who hasn’t yet announced that he’s running even though everyone assumes that he is.  As to all that talk about anti-Semitism and socialism, Trump, another guy short of any nuance is now telling his supporters that Democrats hate Jews and Israel, and that despite his Charlottesville comment that there are “good people on both sides” that his party is the party of racial and religious tolerance.  He’s also latched on to the anti-socialist mantra, warning his supporters and those all important independents that a vote for Democrats is a vote for a Venezuela type disaster.  Suffice it to say, Nancy Pelosi has her hands full, herding her unruly, outspoken members continues to be akin to herding cats.  Last week, in addition to condemning all that hateful stuff, the Democratically controlled House passed HR 1, a wide ranging elections reform measure that would reshape campaign finance rules, impose new voter registration requirements that expand voter access and compel presidential candidates to release their personal tax returns.  The bill will be dead on arrival in the Senate where Senate Majority Leader McConnell is on record saying that he won’t take it up because, among other things he doesn’t want to see expanded voter access, in fact he’d rather more people stay home on election day because that rather than increased participation would benefit Republican candidates.  That should be a big story but instead we are mired in a battle over socialism, anti-Semitism and focusing on the handful of left wing Congressional newbies instead of important legislation and the interests of the much larger contingent of purple and in some cases red district new congresspeople who were far more responsible for tipping control of the House back to the Democrats.   

Other Items:   Former Fox official Bill Shine resigned his Communications Director spot on Friday.  The White House released a statement saying that he was moving over to work on the 2020 campaign but the truth is he was forced out because Trump didn’t think he was doing a good job.  He wasn’t but that’s largely because Trump acts as his own communication director and then blames others for his own missteps. New Yorker Magazine’s recent article on the too close ties between the White House and Fox and the fact that Shine, who was booted out of Fox due to his failure to do anything about the company’s sexual harassment issues and was still receiving very large payments from the network didn’t help.  As to Fox, the Democratic National Committee announced that they will not invite the network to host any of their debates because of the too close ties between Fox and the Trump White House.  Lastly, the White House provided a preview of the 2020 budget outline that Trump plans to present to Congress.  He wants $8.6 billion in wall funding, billions more for military spending, and major cuts in domestic spending to offset the ballooning federal deficit, a result of the tax cuts.  That proposal will be dead on arrival.