Healthy Holly?

Obsessing: Despite claiming that he’s been fulling exonerated Trump just can’t let it go.  Yesterday he continued tweeting against interest, asserting among other things that “As has been incorrectly reported by the Fake News Media, I never told then White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire Robert Mueller, even though I had the legal right to do so. If I wanted to fire Mueller, I didn’t need McGahn to do it, I could have done it myself."  Mimi Rocah, a former Southern District of NY federal prosecutor responded to Trump’s tweet with one of her own, pointing out “To the extent [Trump] had any argument about executive privilege (which was clearly already waived) it’s 100% gone now, Can’t hide behind legal privilege & then go out & give your (lying) version of the facts. That’s the law & it’s just common sense.”  In an interview with his favorite Fox guy, Sean Hannity, Trump once again called the investigation into Russian election interference out as a “coup” and “an attempted overthrow of the US government,” going on to say that it was a one sided witch hunt by angry Democrats.  He also suggested that the long awaited Justice Department  Inspector General report due out soon will prove him right. Then he asserted once again that he hadn’t engaged in any obstruction a conclusion that Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano, who Trump previously suggested would make a great Supreme Court Justice, roundly disputed in a scathing Fox op-ed where he said “When the president asks his former adviser and my former colleague K.T. McFarland to write an untruthful letter to the file knowing the government would subpoena it, that’s obstruction of justice, when the president asks Cory Lewandowski, his former campaign manager, to get Mueller fired, that’s obstruction of justice. When the president asks his then-White House counsel to get Mueller fired and then lie about it, that’s obstruction of justice. When he asked Don McGahn to go back to the special counsel and then change his testimony, that’s obstruction of justice. When he dangled the pardon in front of Michael Cohen in order to keep Cohen from testifying against him, that’s obstruction of justice.”  Napolitano’s conclusion is that Attorney General Barr was wrong to absolve Trump of obstruction. It looks like he can kiss any hopes, as remote as they were, of a Supreme Court nomination good bye.

Twenty in 20:  Joe Biden’s campaign launch was short on policy substance but long on anti-Trump rhetoric, part of his strategy to distance himself from the rest of the Democratic pack by messaging that he’s the one who can best take Trump down. All that policy stuff, he’ll get to that when he’s ready.  Biden’s message may or may not be going over well with primary voters but it seems to have hit home with Trump who has already gifted him with his very own nickname, albeit one that borrows heavily from the “Sleep Eyes” moniker that he earlier assigned to NBC’s Chuck Todd. Trump revealed his concern about the Biden threat by first welcoming “Sleepy Joe” to the race and then saying "I only hope you have the intelligence, long in doubt, to wage a successful primary campaign, it will be nasty - you will be dealing with people who truly have some very sick & demented ideas. But if you make it, I will see you at the Starting Gate!  Biden didn’t seem at all cowered by Trump but Trump is right about one thing, Biden needs to make it through the primaries first and his long history of service, a plus to some, also provides fodder to his many critics.  Yesterday, it was reported that one of them, Anita Hill, isn’t all that forgiving.  Apparently, in the run up to his announcement he reached out to her to apologize for the treatment she received back in the day when he chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time when she testified against Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearings.  Suffice it to say, Hill is still holding a bigly grudge.  Trump also told Sean Hannity that Mayor Pete Buttigieg is his favorite Democratic candidate, and its fair to imagine that’s not because of Mayor Pete’s mastery of six languages or sharp wit, but because he’s saving up some hateful bigoted homophobic remarks to use as “needed.”

Other News:  Add Steven Miller to the list of people that the White House wants to keep away from Congress.  The House Oversight Committee would like to question Miller to get to the bottom of the mess at the Department of Homeland Security since it’s been reported that as Trump’s immigration guru he’s the one behind all of the recent Department firings but Trump who usually enjoys it when the very untelegenic Miller appears on Sunday talk shows, doesn’t want the public to see his little tyrant duke it out with Elijah Cummings or any of the other combative Democrats on his committee.  As much as he liked the whole child separation thing, listening to Miller defend the caging of kids and the still separated children are among the things that Trump could live without in the run up to the 2020 election. On the North Korean front by all accounts Kim Jong un’s visit with Vladimir Putin went according to plan, nothing concrete came out of it, but it did make for a great photo-op and probably irked Trump to no end, probably the whole point of the meeting.  Separately we learned yesterday that in order to finalize the release of the comatose Otto Warmbier from his captors, Trump signed off on North Korean’s $2 million medical bill to compensate the North Korean’s for all that wonderful hospital care that Warmbier received after they tortured him.  When asked if the bill had been paid, the generally mendacious Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded “We do not comment on hostage negotiations, which is why they have been so successful during this administration.”  On the political front, a panel of three federal judges ruled 34 congressional and state legislative districts in Michigan are “extreme partisan gerrymanders and unconstitutional” because they were drawn to advantage Republicans at the expense of Democratic voters.  The judges ordered that the state redraw maps in time for the 2020 elections.  To be fair, it’s worth noting that Democratic politicians are equally adept at committing illegal acts. Yesterday the FBI executed search warrants at the home of Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh.  The Mayor is currently being investigated for a scheme which involved the channeling of money to her from the proceeds of ridiculously inflated sales of her Healthy Holly children’s book.  She gets points for creativity but loses far more for corruption.  Her lawyer released a statement saying that she’s not feeling all that well right now and isn’t lucid enough to make any decisions but that she is likely to feel well enough to resign next week.  Politics as usual?