Consensual?

To Impeach or Not:  Democrats are in a quandary, they don’t want to go down the impeachment track unless and until they can convince more of the public that Trump really did the impeachable things he did.  To do that they need Special Counsel Mueller and former White House Counsel McGahn to appear before Congress because they believe that their testimony will be the vehicle that educates the public about the severity of Trump’s misdeeds, especially his efforts at obstruction.  The problem is that everyone in Trumpland is refusing to cooperate, releasing none of the documents that the Democrats have requested to view and putting limitations on or blocking all crucial testimony.  As a result items like the unredacted Mueller Report, former White House Counsel Don McGahn’s notes and Trump’s tax returns remain out of reach.  Similarly, despite Attorney General Barr’s assertion that he’s not doing anything to prevent Special Counsel Mueller from testifying before Congress, the Justice department has been interfering and as a result Mueller’s testimony keeps getting pushed off, now it isn’t expected until June at the earliest.   Likewise, the White House is still blocking or at the very least trying to block McGahn’s testimony, claiming executive privilige even though that ship sailed when they allowed him to speak with Mueller during the investigation.  Initiating impeachment proceedings would make it legally easier for the Democrats to get hold of the information they want and need to convince the public that Trump is the bad actor that he is but Democratic leadership fears that going that route without first getting the public and a few Republicans on board would be counterproductive and that’s the dilemma, you can’t convince the public that impeachment is justified without first initiating impeachment proceedings to get the airing of the evidence that proves that impeachment is in fact justifiable.  As to Republicans, on Saturday one, Michigan Congressman Justin Amash, announced that he, unlike most of his colleagues and most of the public, has read the Mueller report from cover to cover and as a result has concluded that Trump committeed “impeachable conduct.” Amash also accused Attorney General Barr of intentionally misleading the public.  His view is that Congress should move forward with impeachment hearings. Unfortunately Amash is more independent minded than your typical Republican, he’s known for saying what’s on his mind and has clashed with his party before.  Moreover it doesn’t appear that his move is likely to inspire any of his Republican colleagues to give up what he calls their extreme partisanship.  And of course, the Trump attack has already begun, he tweeted “Never a fan of @justinamash, a total lightweight who opposes me and some of our great Republican ideas and policies just for the sake of getting his name out there through controversy. If he actually read the biased Mueller Report, “composed” by 18 Angry Dems who hated Trump,.... “  Likewise, the Republican machinery, including Fox have followed suit, threatening Amash with a primary challenger or worse because speaking truth to power is the unforgivable crime. 

Abortion Politics:  Republican leadership has finally woken up to the fact that going after women’s reproductive rights is likely to alienate a number of those already upset about kids in cages women voters they’ll need in 2020 so now leadership is trying to backtrack on last week’s Alabama legislation.  To be clear, they’re not upset about taking away reproductive rights, they’re  just upset about losing votes and the impact that idiotic comments from people like the Missouri legislator who argued against rape and incest exceptions to abortion bans because in his experience as a former prosecutor he knows most of those claimed rapes are just “consensual” ones.  Yes, Representative Barry Hovis really said that though now he too has backtracked. To that end RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said that she personally opposes provisions in the new Alabama law that outlaw virtually all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest, but defended the range of views on abortion within her party because “we are a party that is a broad tent. If you agree with us 80 percent of the time, I want you to be a Republican. We don’t have a litmus test as to whether you can belong to our party.”  Really? Likewise while affirming his anti-abortion stance House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said that the Alabama bill goes further than he believes.  For his part, Trump who really doesn’t care about abortion but only became a right to lifer to get the support of the religious right tweeted “As most people know, and for those who would like to know, I am strongly Pro-Life, with the three exceptions – Rape, Incest and protecting the Life of the mother - the same position taken by Ronald Reagan.”  He then went on to brag about all of his wonderful new right wing judges.  Ironically, both Republicans and Democrats are in a similar position, neither side wants to see an abortion case get to the Supreme Court until after 2020.  Republicans still want Roe overturned, but only after they get four more years in power.  Democrats want to win, reclaim the Court, and protect reproductive rights.    

Other Shenanigans:  The New York Times reports that in 2016 and 2017 anti-money laundering specialists at Deutsche Bank, the Trump and Kushner lending institution of choice, flagged a number of financial transactions involving entities controlled by Trump and Kushner.  The staff filled out suspicious activity reports about the transactions but those reports were never filed with regulators because they were overridden by bank management.  For their part, Deutsche Bank, who has gotten into trouble in the past for facilitating money laundering, denies that the bank would ever, ever do that.  Likewise, the Trumps and Kushners insist they are clean as the driven snow  arguing that a lot of things that real estate tycoons do that look questionable aren’t. Trump responded to last week’s news that efforts had been made by one of his lawyers and a person “associated” with Congress to convince former national security advisor Michael Flynn to change his mind about cooperating with the Mueller investigation by saying that he never would have hired Flynn in the first place if only someone had told him about Flynn’s questionable past.  Apparently Trump has completely forgotten that he hired Flynn despite warnings from former President Obama and former Governor Chris Christie and kept him on even after then Acting Attorney General Sally Yates said that he had compromised himself by lying to the FBI.  Okay, maybe Trump hasn’t forgotten all that but he really wants the rest of us to.  He also probably doesn’t want any of us to focus on the whole kid separation thing anymore which may be why his administration waits until Friday afternoons to release more of those little factoids about how many more of those migrant children were separated from their parents than previously revealed.   On Friday the government disclosed that 1712 more separated children have been identified as a result of internal investigations and that the number is likely to grow since those investigations are ongoing.  On the international front on the one hand Trump seems to be trying to pushback against claims that he is seriously considering launching an attack against Iran but on the other he’s on the tweet offensive threatening that "If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran, Never threaten the United States again!"  That tweet was in response to a rocket that landed near the US embassy in Baghdad, even though there were no losses associated with the missile, missiles land in that area all the time and at least so far no one has taken credit for its launch. The sad bottom line is that if Trump or his advisors, Secretary of State Pompeo and national security advisor John Bolton, want to justify attacking Iran, they will find a reason, with Iran there are always reaons, its just not likely that any of them are worthy of a long protracted war.