California Dreamin

All the Leaves Are Brown: Corey Lewandowski testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee yesterday and, to say the least, it wasn’t pretty.  Lewandowski is known for his combative style, during the presidential campaign he physically accosted a Breitbart female reporter, so it’s no surprise that he was obnoxious and uncooperative.  He began with an opening statement  where he expressed his love for all things Trump while attacking everything about the Democrats, the Russia investigation and the hearing. Immediately after he delivered his opening remarks, Trump tweeted out his appreciation.  During one bathroom break Lewandowski had the audacity to tweet out “New website just launched to help a potential senate run. Sign up now!,” a reference to his Trump supported plan to seek the Republican nomination to run against New Hampshire’s Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen. Lewandowski didn’t deny that the Russians had tried to meddle in the 2016 election, but he of course denied there had been any Trump team collusion, instead blaming the failure to stop their interference on the Obama administration making sure to throw Joe Biden’s name in every time he cast blame on Obama because why miss an opportunity to attack Trump’s potential 2020 contender.  At one point he even deflected blame on to one of his Republican colleagues, Sam Clovis, for his failure to report one of the Russian attempts to reach out to the Trump team.  He did his best to cut into each of the Democrats’ five minutes of questioning time by refusing to even acknowledge statements he’d made to Special Counsel Mueller’s team and, citing instructions from his White House handlers, he refused to acknowledge that he and Trump ever talk to each other. He was helped out by the Republicans, particularly by Ranking Member Doug Collins who also questioned the legitimacy of the investigation and everything about the hearing process.  Collins, like the rest of the cohorts also stuck with the theme that everything was the fault of the Obama/Biden administration. For their part, Chairman Jerry Nadler and his Democratic contingent got off to a rough start, they had a hard time dealing with Lewandowski’s obstreperous antics and got blamed for their failure to adequately anticipate how difficult he would be and their inability to rein him in by the cable pundits who for some reason thought that blaming the victims, and to be clear, we are all the victims, was the right way to go. Despite his obstructive behavior, before the day was out Lewandowski admitted that he’d done all the things that he previously told Mueller that he did:  that he’d received a dictated message from Trump to direct and, if necessary threaten to fire, then Attorney General Sessions into un-recusing himself in order to fire and/or truncate Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation and that he took that dictated note and locked it in his personal safe because he knew that actually delivering it to Sessions might not be all that kosher.  Later in the day, while being professionally grilled by the Democrat’s staff lawyer he also admitted that he’d lied to the press, particularly during one interview with MSNBC’s Ari Melber,  saying sure he lied when he’d told Melber that  he didn’t remember Trump ever asking him to “get involved’ with Jeff Sessions or the Justice Department “in any way shape or form ever but since he has no obligation to be honest to the press,” who cares.  Just another technique he’s learned from his mentor Trump.  The bottom line is that the Democrats had a rough day, Trump and his buddy Lewandowski engaged in some more obstruction and neither impeachment nor an end of this nightmare is near.  And sadly Lewandowski isn’t the only one obstructing right now, the acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph McGuire announced yesterday that he has no plans to either testify or hand over the whistleblower complaint that may or may not implicate the White House in some more questionable behavior.  Just another stalemate to add to the pile.

If I Was in LA:  Trump is off to California to fundraise but not to worry, the bubbling Middle East cauldron is temporarily in the hands of his hawkish Secretary of State Pompeo who has been sent off to Saudi Arabia to get directions from Saudi Crown Prince MBS about how he’d like the US to deal with the festering Iran problem, the one Trump’s policies or lack thereof have exacerbated.  It still remains unclear whether or not Trump will opt to go to war over what most likely was an Iranian directed attack of the Saudi Arabian oil fields, something that the Saudi’s are now calling their 9.11, despite the twisted irony of the Saudis whose citizens were actually responsible for the real 9.11 calling any attack, particularly one where no one was killed, their 9.11.  While he hasn’t decided what to do next about Iran’s aggressive behavior, Trump has found a real enemy to go after at home. He’s now attacking California on all fronts.  Later today, he’s expected to revoke California’s authority to set stricter than the Federal government auto emission standards, because why would we want to clean up tailpipe pollution or have cleaner air?  It’s worth noting that thirteen other states follow California’s more restrictive standards and, for the most part, the auto companies are okay with them but Trump and his fossil fuel buddies don’t like the idea of more efficient cars so apparently it’s time for the California standards to go bye-bye.  Lawsuits, of course, will follow.  Trump is also planning to launch a war against California’s homeless population problem, a problem that California really has and one that local politicians including Governor Newsom acknowledge but one that is really hard to combat and can’t be nuked away.  California would like some real help from the Federal government including more funding for housing and social programs.  Sadly, it’s more likely that Trump, who views the problem mostly through the eyes of a real estate developer concerned about the value of his properties rather than as a bigger social problem, and his HUD Secretary Ben Carson, who’s been cutting housing assistance programs, just want to find a big warehouse somewhere to hide all of the homeless or better yet, incarcerate them in “crazy people” institutions or deport them, even the citizens among them, are unlikely to have real solutions to what is a really tough problem.  Expect lots of rhetoric, possibly even some contentious militaristic actions but no long term solution.  

Pretend to Pray:  The Israel elections are locked in a dead heat which might mean that Netanyahu’s main rival, former General Benny Gantz, will be given the first chance to try to form a government.  On the US front, the newest NBC/WSJ indicates that former VP Joe Biden’s lead has grown a little to 31%, that Senator Warren is up to an “enthusiastic” 25%, that Senator Sanders has slipped a little to 13% , that Senator Harris has slipped a lot to 5%, that Mayor Pete is static at 7% and that Andrew Yang has grown a bit to 4% while Corey Booker and Amy Klobuchar are up a tick to 2% each. It’s early, these are national polls and what matters more is how each of the candidates does in the first few state primaries.