Virus Follies

The Joke's On Us:  In 2014 Trump tweeted “Obama just appointed an Ebola Czar with zero experience in the medical area and zero experience in infectious disease control. A TOTAL JOKE!” Yesterday during a morning interview,  Donna Shalala, the Florida Congresswoman who previously served as President Clinton’s Health and Human Services Secretary, said that since presidents aren’t experts in the minutiae of health care the best way to reassure the public during a crisis is to limit their speaking time while keeping the experts front and center.  Trump clearly didn’t get that message nor does he remember that 2014 tweet so last night he controlled the mic during a press conference intended to reassure the country that his administration has a handle on the Coronavirus pandemic and announced that he was putting VP Pence in charge of his COVID 19 effort citing Pence’s stellar experience managing health care as Governor of  Indiana rather than the real reason, his total obsequiousness, as his chief qualification.  In case you are wondering Pence’s health care experience includes his decision to defund a major Indiana HIV testing facility because it was run by Planned Parenthood, his efforts to block a needle exchange program that was desperately needed in an area where addicts were injecting opioids and sharing used needles and cutbacks in overall health expenditures.  The defunding of the HIV testing facility and his opposition to the needle exchange program led to a very preventable spike in AIDs cases.  Then there is that op-ed that Pence wrote in 2000 in which he claimed that the notion that smoking kills people was just ”hysteria from the political class and the media.”  In other words, by Trump standards Pence who appeared unusually red faced and who actually wiped his nose with his hand during the press conference while germophobe Trump was correctly extolling the importance of good hygiene and hand washing, is perfect for the job.

Fun Facts:  Trump, who admitted that he only just learned that 12,000 to 61,000 Americans die from the flu every year, did have a few health experts standing behind him and even let a some of them speak but notably Dr Nancy Messonier, the CDC official who warned that we are likely to face life disruptions going forward was not one of them.  Messonier, who believe it or not is Rod Rosenstein’s sister, is now in the conservative pundit penalty box for making those frank remarks because apparently she, like her brother, is just another member of the never Trump dark state.  Getting back to the experts who were at the press conference, right after Trump’s vaccination expert said that one for COVID 19 wouldn’t be available for at least a year and that even that schedule was optimistic, Trump contradicted him, saying it would be out really soon.  And after another one said that the incidence of COVID 19 in the US was likely to increase soon, Trump said that would probably not happen because he has his best people on the case.  Trump also blamed this week’s stock market drop on the Democrats, saying that it was their Tuesday night debate that was responsible for the sharp decline.  He’s not wrong about that debate being unsettling, but since it followed two days of declining indexes blaming the Democrats rather than concerns over the potential impact of the coronavirus was just more Trumpian bunk. He also criticized Speaker Pelosi and Senator Schumer’s insistence that more funds than he thinks are necessary be allocated to fighting the virus but said he’d take them if offered, probably planning to reallocate them to his wall because who thinks that exposed health care workers really need face masks and other such things anyway?  As to Trump’s assertion that concerns about COVID 19’s spread are overstated, last night the CDC confirmed the first case of unknown origin in Northern California, indicating possible “community spread” of the disease.  And, closer to home, or at least closer to my home city, Nassau County health officials placed 83 individuals who recently returned to New York from China in self-quarantine due to concerns they had been exposed to the virus.  The good news is as least so far none of them are exhibiting any symptom. We’re likely to survive this virus, but that will be despite Trump’s efforts rather than because of them.   

Et Cetera:  Trump’s campaign is suing the NY Times over an op-ed that he found offensive.  It’s a pointless harassment suit but very on Trump’s brand.  Disagreeing with three other federal appeals courts one in NY ruled that the Trump administration can withhold millions of dollars from law enforcement agencies in so-called sanctuary cities that don’t cooperate with immigration enforcement agencies. That decision affects New York as does the administrations’ decision to halt the state’s participation in the trusted traveler program and a recent decision by the Army Corp of Engineers to freeze a study on a NYC sea wall that Trump thinks is stupid, mostly because Trump now hates his former home because we don’t like him.  And so it goes and goes.

Wash Your Hands!  A lot!       

Here, There And Everywhere

Food Fight: I am not much into debate watching so I ended up paying far more attention to Rachel Maddow and her all about the coronavirus counterprogramming but those who watched, and probably everyone else paying any attention to the Democratic primary insanity, know that the Democratic presidential candidates were at it again last night.  In a nutshell, during another even more chaotic than usual debate everyone jumped on Bernie but Bloomberg, who did a bit better this time mostly because he couldn’t do any worse, was targeted too.  For what it’s worth the pundits say that Biden had his best night, though I suspect that the real winner was Trump.  For some reason billionaire Tom Steyer is still running and was back on the stage and, largely due to his huge investment in South Carolina and his increasing appeal to the local African American community, may actually impact the outcome of its primary.  In any case we’ll know more about how every really did after the results of Saturday’s South Carolina primary come in.  And far more importantly last night’s debate is the last one before March 3’s Super Tuesday when primaries or caucuses will be held for a total of 1617 delegates in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and American Samoa. Early voting has already begun in some of these states, most notably California where 415 delegates are up for grabs.  Though Bernie and his fans believe, and a few national polls indicate, that he could beat Trump in November, one indicator that others aren’t buying it is that Michigan Republican Congressman Fred Upton announced that he’s decided to seek reelection because he believes that if Sanders is the Democratic candidate, the Republicans stand a good chance of regaining control of the House and he’s willing to stick around to get a chance to chair a committee.  Yikes.  On a more promising front, it’s reported that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was back in Montana trying to convince the outgoing, very popular Governor Bullock, who for a short time was running for president, to run for the state’s Senate position even though the Governor has previously insisted that he’s not interested. Schumer’s visit follows one by former President Obama who is also trying to convince Bullock to run. 

Here, There:  Democratic food fights aside, the Coranovirus continues to dominate the news cycle.  Trump, who remains mostly fearful that the virus will impact his reelection insists that he has the situation under control saying “CDC and my Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus, including the very early closing of our borders to certain areas of the world…”  As to that, apparently his State Department overrode an order from the CDC to keep fourteen people who tested positive off a plane that was supposed to be taking only healthy passengers from one of those stranded cruise ships back to the US. Reminiscent of how he denies and then admits things related to Russia and Ukraine, Trump first insisted that the State Department did that without his knowledge and then contradicted himself saying that he was on board with their decision because it was the right one.  And basically that typifies the combination of misinformation, poor planning and lack of coordination currently dominating the scene.  Yesterday Trump also insisted that a vaccination for COVID 19 is very close.  Spoiler alert, though one may go into phase one testing soon, at best a vaccination is a year away so after Trump made that assertion the White House walked it back saying he meant that an ebola vaccination will be out soon.  Great news, if you’re planning to travel to any ebola infected regions, not so much if you are concerned about the coranovirus.  Adding to the mixed messaging, while the stock markets continued their downward spiral, Economic Advisor Larry Kudlow appeared on CNBC where he said that the the US had “contained” the threat of a domestic coronavirus outbreak.  Unfortunately for him, and the rest of us, at the same time that he was making that fanciful statement Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases soberly said  "Ultimately, we expect we will see community spread in this country" adding that Americans should channel their concerns into preparing for its arrival.  To that end she said that she talked to her children about the issue telling them “While I didn’t think they were at risk right now, we as a family ought to be preparing for significant disruption to our lives.” Don’t be surprised if Trump fires her for insubordination shortly. As to preparation, what does that mean?  Stocking up on cans of tuna, pasta and face masks and/or more teleconferencing?

And Everywhere: Chad Wolf, the Acting Head of the Department of Homeland Security, is supposed to be coordinating the response to the Coronavirus threat but yesterday during Senate testimony he couldn’t answer most of the questions thrown at him by quirky but sometimes spot on Louisiana Senator John Kennedy.  Wolf didn’t know the number of infected people who had been repatriated back to the US and when asked about the virus’ mortality rate he said it was about the same as the run of the mill flu.  Data on COVID 19 is still pouring in but it appears to be far more deadly than the flu and if he’s in charge Wolf should know that, though to be fair to him he’s not qualified for his job and it was Trump and his White House advisors, aided by Kennedy’s fellow Republicans, who fired the people and underfunded the agencies that should be running the virus containment effort.  Anyway, the virus may be ebbing in China, but still growing in Europe and though the number of known cases in the US remains low, somewhere around 57 plus one US soldier in South Korea, it’s likely just a matter of time before our turn in the barrel arrives.  And by then hopefully all or at least most of our officials, or at least our state officials, will be up to handling it, or at the very least they’ll do a better job that Iran’s Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harichi who started sweating profusely during a press conference where he was denying that his country was covering up the scale of the outbreak in Iran. That sweating wasn’t due to fear of public speaking, after leaving his press conference he tested positive for the virus.  

Et Cetera:  Trump’s still hate tweeting judges, again going after Judge Amy Berman Jackson who is far from pleased with him.  Yesterday she cited his attacks and commentary from “conservative” media like Fox News’ Tucker Carlson and InfoWars Alex Jones as part of a “campaign of intimidation and harassment of the Roger Stone jurors.  She went on to defend holding yesterday’s hearing on Stone’s request for a retrial behind closed doors saying that making jurors' identities public "would put them at substantial risk of harm.”  Adding that “in a highly publicized political climate ... the risk of harassment and intimidation of any juror who may testify to the court today is extremely high.” And apparently in response to concerns from the various intelligence agencies, the new woefully unqualified except that he’s a Trump toady Acting Director of National Intelligence, Richard Grenell has asked Shelby Pierson, the election security czar, to stay on in her role, well at least until he can figure out a way to sideline her quietly .  It was her report to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees about the Russians being at it again that infuriated Trump so much that he fired her boss, the prior DNI Maguire, for letting her speak.  And then there’s that ever wily Senate Leader Mitch McConnell.  He held a vote that he knew he’d lose on two anti-abortion provisions.  McConnell generally refrains from holding votes unless he’s sure he’ll win but he wanted to give Maine’s Susan Collins a chance to show that she’s mostly pro-choice while also letting everyone in Alabama know that at risk Democratic Senator Doug Jones is too.

Johns Hopkins Are You Listening?

Virus Watch:  Over the weekend I listened to a Lawfare Podcast featuring Lisa Monaco who was President Obama’s counterterrorism and Homeland Security Advisor in the White House.  Her responsibilites included managing epidemic and pandemic disease events; she was responsible for overseeing the ebola outbreak that ocurred during Obama’s adaministration. Two things she said were striking: first that despite all the other critical issues he confronted, Obama’s administration recognized that a pandemic could present the most existential threat to the country and second, that the Trump administration, in its infinite wisdom, early on made the decision not to have a point person in the White House responsible for dealing with pandemic diseases.   They did that while “hollowing out” senior leadership in many of the other government departments that handle science and health emergencies so that by 2018 the federal government’s entire pandemic response chain of command had been fired.  Those decisions  could explain some tweets sent by Acting Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Ken Cucinnelli yesterday.  Cucinnelli who’s chief qualification for his job is that he hates immigrants as much as Trump’s advisor Stephen Miller is the top member of Trump’s coronavirus task force.  He asked, via twitter, if anyone else was having trouble accessing an online map producted by Johns Hopkins Univesity of the coranovirus spread.  So many things are wrong with that tweet that there is no point in detailing them so I’ll move on.  While Cucinnelli was tweeting the stock markets finally awoke to COVID 19’s impact on world economies, the DOW and NASDAQ closed down 1032 points and 355 points respectively.  For his part Trump, who appears more concerned about the market’s decline and the impact that lower stock prices will have on his 2020 campaign economy spiel than disease related mortality, tweeted from somewhere in India “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”  The administration, which cut CDC funding is now requesting that Congress provide it with $2.5 billion to fight the disease, part of which they’d like to see diverted from other federal programs, including efforts to keep ebola under control because who cares about keeping ebola under control anyway?  While criticizing Trump’s decision to leave critical disease management positions at the NSC and NHS vacant, Speaker Pelosi called the funding request “long overdue aned completely inadequate to the scale of the emergency.” The odds are that we will muddle through this mess, or at least I hope we will, but right about now wouldn’t it be nice to have a leader who actually led, and by led, I don’t mean tweeted.

Court News:  The “MeToo” movement finally caught up with Harvey Weinstein who, though he was acquitted of the most serious charges against him, was convicted of criminal sexual assault in the first degree and rape in the third degree yesterday.  Weinstein was immediately remanded to jail but due to “chest pains” was diverted from Rikers Island to the Bellevue Hospital prison ward.  In other news, Roger Stone still isn’t in jail and given his relationship with Trump may never end up there.  Later today, Judge Amy Berman Jackson who already refused his lawyers’ request that she disqualify herself from his case because she had thanked his jurors for “serving with integrity under difficult circumstances” some of which may well have had to do with a certain tweeting president, will be holding a closed during hearing on their request for a new trial based on allegations of juror misconduct, another hail Mary pass on their part but you never know.  And though it’s unlikely that US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell will ever end up in jail for his questionable foreign lobbying endeavors, at least one Republican Senator Susan Collins has expressed her disapproval about his suitability for the Acting Director of National Intelligence position that Trump has appointed him to assume saying that she would have much preferred that Trump had retained and promoted Joseph Maguire, the guy he fired for actually keeping Congress up to date on Russian election threats.   Collins added that the person in that position needs experience in the intelligence community which “regrettably Ambassador Grenell does not have.”  Notably Collins, who is generally easy to dismiss for her predictable pearl clutching, serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee, is the first Senate Republican to question Trump’s intelligence shake-up and helped write the law creating the position in 2004.  As to people named Collins, over the weekend another one, Republican Congressman Doug Collins, made it clear that he has no interest in the DNI job as he is adamant about running for the Georgia Senate seat.  Just another example of Trump proposing a name for a position without checking with the person first.  Oh, and because he can, Trump is now picking a fight with Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg triggered by Sotomayor’s comment that her conservative colleagues are rolling over on the Trump administration’s requests to let them proceed with policy changes before they are reviewed by the whole court. Trump wants them to recuse from anything related to his administration.  I want Gorsuch and Kavanaugh to recuse, does that make us even?  

Democrats:  There’s another debate tonight.  It’s likely that Bernie Sanders will be the target of most of the incoming but you never know with this crowd of presidential wannabees, most of whom should have dropped out by now.  Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Andrew Yang are looking wiser every day.  By the way, Bernie is also taking some heat in Florida for praising the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro’s literacy program. Bernie responded to those remarks last night during a CNN townhall by saying that he has always condemned authoritarianism and ardently believes in democracy but “you know the truth is the truth,” even dictators get it right on some things.  He has a point, Cuba has also done a comparatively okay job with primary health care, another observation that wouldn’t go over well in Florida but Bernie needs to start appealing to a wider base and offending voters in swing states by complimenting dictators who also repress their people isn’t the way to do it.  During the same CNN event Sanders provided a fact sheet explaining that he'd pay for all his new aspirational government programs like Medicare for All and free education through new taxes and massive lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry, as well as by slashing spending on the military and savings on what would become unnecessary administration activities.  His new taxes would include raising corporate tax rates and increasing individual marginal tax rates to as much as 52% for income over $10 million, a level that will cause agita among those making lots of money but will probably raise few eyebrows elsewhere.      

Namaste?

Modi Meeting: Trump is in India where he was greeted by a huge crowd, not the millions he predicted but probably enough to feed his ego.  Upon arrival he lavished praise on India’s Prime Minister Modi who has faced international criticism for his crackdown in Kashmir, India’s Muslim-majority state, and for the passage of a religion based citizenship bill.  It’s also reported that Modi had a wall built around a slum on Trump’s route from the airport to spare Trump’s delicate sensibilities.  The two leaders must have so much to talk about given their joint affinity for walls and discrimination.  Before leaving Washington Trump celebrated the results of the Nevada caucuses, another one of those states where he managed to get the Republican one cancelled. Trump also attacked and threatened Democratic Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, asserting that he had fabricated and/or leaked, he can’t keep his story straight, that the Russians are once again interfering in the elections on his behalf by tweeting “Somebody please tell incompetent (thanks for my high poll numbers) & corrupt politician Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff to stop leaking Classified information or, even worse, made up information, to the Fake News Media. Someday he will be caught, & that will be a very unpleasant experience!”  Although Trump hasn’t started rounding up Democratic politicians yet, Axios reports that with the help of a Conservative group led by Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, he’s been identifying and ridding his administration of never-Trumpers for some time, a process that is now being expedited by his former body man, new personnel chief/sometime gambling addict Johnny McEntee. That hunt for never Trumpers might explain VP Pence’s Chief of Staff/spokesman Marc Short’s willingness to disingenuously assert on Meet the Press that the Russians are only helping Bernie, not Trump.  And it wasn’t just Short, current national security advisor Robert O'Brien his ABC to deny those intelligence reports that Russian actors are interfering on Trump’s behalf while admitting that he has not looked at or sought out materials surrounding those reports because apparently ignorance is bliss and aren’t national security advisors supposed to enjoy bliss.  One thing that isn’t all that explainable either is that Trump’s new acting Director of National Intelligence/current Germany Ambassador Richard Grenell previously lobbied for and was paid by a questionable Moldovan oligarch and ala Manafort and Flynn failed to disclose all that. Namaste?   

Panic on Dem Street: We learned on Friday, that the Russians are also fans of Bernie Sanders. It’s possible that old Vlad thinks that Bernie’s affinity to Marxism, or at least his past affection for Marx,  would make him more fun to work with than any of the other Democrats or, more likely, that he just believes that Bernie’s nomination would lead to four more years of Trump, a view shared by many moderate voters and, judging by his glee at Bernie’s rise, by Trump, who congratulated Sanders on his Nevada caucus victory.  And Sanders actually earned that congratulations.  Although all the results aren’t yet in Sanders appears to have exceeded expectations, garnering 47.1% of the vote and 13 delegates.  Former VP Biden came in second with 21% of the vote and 2 delegates, followed by Pete Buttigieg, who’s disputing the results, with 13.7% of the vote and 1 delegate.  They were followed by Elizabeth Warren with 9.5%, Tom Steyer who will be back on the stage for this Tuesday’s South Carolina debate with 4.7%, and Amy Klobuchar with 3.9%.  No one other than Bernie, Joe or Pete earned any delegates.  Mike Bloomberg was not on the ballot, and, yes you read me right, there is another debate this Tuesday. Bloomberg, who announced in response to Elizabeth Warren’s withering attacks that he is freeing three of his former female employees from their non-disclosure agreements, will be on the stage on Tuesday where he both hopes and dearly needs to improve his last performance.  By choice he will not be on the South Carolina ballot but Joe Biden who is and who desperately needs to win the state is expected to receive an endorsement from influential party leader South Carolina Congressman Jim Clyburn momentarily. Odds are that Clyburn’s endorsement is worth a bit more than Marianne Williamson, hers went to Bernie over the weekend, or Clint Eastwood’s, who appears to have endorsed Bloomberg.   As to the rest of the Democrats, Andrew Yang wisely said that it’s time for some more of them to pull an “Andrew Yang,” and by that he means its time for some of the moderates to pull out so that the remaining ones can consolidate, his way of warning that if they don’t do so soon, the Democrats will end up with Bernie as a candidate.  

Feeling the Bern: Getting back to Bernie, late Friday he confirmed that he had been told by intelligence officials that the Russians appear to be weighing in on his behalf.  Careful listeners at the last debate may have noticed that he more or less implied that when he said that some of those nasty tweets attributed to Bernie Bros might be coming from, or at the very least be being amplified by others.  When asked about the Russian interference he wisely responded by denouncing them and saying that a Bernie Sanders administration would not be Russia friendly but then instead of leaving his remark as is he turned around and blamed the Washington Post for “leaking” the story to hurt his chances in Nevada.  I have no idea if the widely expressed fears of pundits that Bernie would be the worst possible Democratic presidential candidate are true or not because politics is topsy turvy these days but it’s hard not to notice that Democrats in red and purple districts and states are positively panicked about Bernie’s ascension and Bernie’s interview on 60 Minutes with Anderson Cooper probably did little to dispel their concerns. It doesn’t help that Bernie keeps dismissing the more center leaning Democrats as out of step “mainstreamers,” I guess Trump really has succeeded in making “mainstream”  an insult?  It also doesn’t help that Bernie attacked AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee,  this weekend, refusing an invitation to speak at their upcoming convention.  Although AIPAC conventions are typically attended by leaders from both sides of the aisle, Bernie never attends anyway but his turn down was particularly harsh as he said he would not attend due to AIPAC's connection to "leaders who express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights,"   He also said that “the Israeli people have the right to live in peace and security. So do the Palestinian people” but the first part of his statement is likely to cost him votes on the margin, in key places like Florida and perhaps even Ohio and Pennsylvania. Note to Bernie – you could have delivered your message, support for a two state solution and unhappiness with Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu far more effectively and less divisively by showing up and doing so in person.  Tweeting is so, so Trumplike. #Sigh

COVID-19:  That’s the new name of the spreading coronavirus which has apparently reared its ugly head in Europe, most notably in the Lombardy region of Italy where Milan is located. Quarantines are being imposed, fashion shows have been sparsely attended, Venice Carnival  festivities have been cut short and sports events have been cancelled. That said, don’t panic, we don’t know how many people have actually had COVID 19, most who have had it probably didn’t even know that they had anything more than a cold, assuming they even sneezed.  So far it’s fair to say that the garden variety flu remains a bigger threat to your health.  What we do know is that markets are jittery over concerns on COVID-19’s impact on economic growth.  Rocky roads ahead and I am not just talking about the virus.      

No Character, No Compass

Election Alert!  At the end of the impeachment trial, House Intelligence Chief Adam Schiff warned us that Trump has not changed and will not change because “a man without character or ethical compass will never find his way,” adding he has done it before and he will do it again.  Well, sadly Schiff’s remarks were spot on. On February 13 senior US intelligence officers told Congressional lawmakers that Russia is up to its old tricks, interfering in the Democratic primary process and working to get Trump reelected and that Trump, furious, not that the Russians are interfering again but that this information was shared  with Congressional Democrats, most notably arch villain Adam Schiff, went into a rage, screaming at then Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire.  He then followed up by announcing that Maguire was “leaving” his position to be replaced by Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, whose only qualification for the position, one that by law can only be permanently filled by someone with extensive intelligence experience, is that he is a Trump loyalist.  The claim was that Maguire had to leave not because of his loyalty lapse but because the amount of time that he could serve in an acting capacity had expired.  It turns out that Grenell, will be multitasking, he will continue to serve as Ambassador to Germany and will only serve as the Acting DNI until someone else is nominated and confirmed by Congress. Notably, the same law that requires that the permanent DNI have intelligence experience says that it’s okay for someone serving in the acting capacity to be intelligence ignorant and that an acting DNI can stay in place for as long as it takes for a permanent DNI chief to be nominated and confirmed, which means that the “expired” Maguire could have stayed in place if Trump had nominated a permanent replacement which kind of proves that he was fired not because his time had expired but because Trump wants a compliant lackey in the DNI spot to insure that no more intelligence about Russian election interference or anything else for that matter is shared with Congress especially Democrats and most especially Adam Schiff.  

Even more troubling, last night we learned Trump has assigned Kash Patel, a former aide to the nefarious Intel Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes, to serve as a senior advisor to Grenell.  Patel played a key role in helping Republicans discredit the Russia probe which by Trump standards makes him uniquely qualified for his new position.  Who cares if Grenell knows nothing, he’s got Patel to run the operation and make sure that none of that troubling intelligence stuff reaches probing eyes.  Why should we care about a little election interference anyway?  To add another wrinkle to this mess, late last night Trump also said that he’s considering Georgia Congressman Doug Collins for the permanent DNI spot.  If that name sounds familiar it’s because as ranking member of the House Judiciary Collins was one of the loudest screamers during the House impeachment process.  Collins who had been Trump’s preferred choice for the Senate seat vacated by the ailing Johnny Isakson lost that spot to Kelly Loeffler, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp’s preferred choice.  Collins has announced plans to run against Loeffler in the primary.  By appointing him to the DNI spot, Trump checks several boxes: he gets to keep Grenell in place until the nomination is confirmed;  possibly gets his fanboy Collins into the key DNI slot; preempts the risk that a messy Republican primary in Georgia leads to a Democratic Senate pick up in 2020; and notably Trump wins even if Collins fails to be confirmed by the Senate, a process that the wily Senate Leader McConnell no doubt will delay until it’s too late for Collins to primary Loeffler.     

Stone Saga:  Trump also appears poised to pardon his long term crony in crime Roger Stone who was finally sentenced yesterday by Judge Amy Berman Jackson.  While Judge Jackson was reading her sentencing announcement, one that was preceded by a lengthy and scathing speech where she said that “truth still matters” and where she expressed her “dismay” and “disgust” at the attempts to defend Stone’s actions as just business as usual and that was a complete and total rebuke of Trump and his assertion that Stone was a victim of overzealous prosecution by Special Counsel Mueller’s team of “Democratic loyalists,” Trump continued to tweet out that Stone has a good chance of exoneration.  In addition to making it clear that Stone was not prosecuted for standing up for Trump but for covering up for him, Jackson called out Attorney General Barr saying his intervention to reduce career prosecutors' sentencing recommendations was “unprecedented”  At the same time she made it clear that the politics surrounding the case had not influenced her decision, a point brought home when she sentenced Stone to 3 years and four months rather than the longer period called for in the relevant sentencing guidelines.  To be clear her decision to sentence Stone to the lesser amount of time had little if anything to do with the revised sentencing memo provided by Barr’s Justice Department flunkies, nor did it have anything to do with Trump’s tweets.  More likely her decision reflected current trends for sentences to fall below the guidelines.  Moreover by going with a less harsh sentencing she made it harder for Stone to win an appeal.  As to Stone, he’s still a free man, at least until Jackson rules on his attorney’s request for a new trial or until Trump provides him with that get out of jail free card that we all know he will eventually deliver. And of course Judge Jackson is now being attacked on twitter and by Trump’s flunkies including Tucker Carlson who says that she should be impeached.

Et Cetera:  With all the focus on Trump’s shenanigans and those messy, dare I say disastrous Democratic primaries, it’s been easy to forget about the way that people are being treated at the border but the situation there continues to fester.  Yesterday, David Bury, a federal judge in Arizona, ruled that conditions in holding cells operated by the US Customs and Border Protection agency are so vile that they violate the constitution. Calling them "substantially worse than detainees face upon commitment to either a civil immigration detention facility or even a criminal detention facility, like a jail or prison," he ruled that no migrant or asylum seeker can be held in those facilities for more than 48 hours. The Judge’s remarks follow acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney’s comments to an audience at a private gathering in England that the Trump administration “needs more immigrants” for the US economy to continue growing.  No doubt he means more Scandinavians.  On the Syrian front, the Wall Street Journal reports that one million people in northwestern Syria are trapped between the advancing Syrian military, backed by Russian airstrikes and pro-Iranian militias, and Turkey and with the border closed are about to be annihilated.  Remember when Erdogan promised Trump that he would make sure that everyone would be just fine if the US withdrew its forces from the region?  And lastly, not as dire but equally predictable, the Trump administration has weighed in on behalf of Oracle in its long running copyright dispute with Google.  That’s especially notable since the Trump administration brief was presented to the Supreme Court on Wednesday just as Oracle founder Larry Ellison held a bigly dollar campaign fundraiser for Trump at his southern California estate. Did I mention that the Democrats are so screwed up right now that we could end up with four, or more, years of this?

Bombing Bloomberg

Democracy on Fire: First the good news, my jury duty is over.  Half my fellow jurors-in-waiting were called to a voir dire, the rest of us spent the day taking advantage of the city provided, probably very hackable WiFi while twiddling our thumbs in the jury on-call room before being set free.  The Harvey Weinstein jury was deliberating next door but aside from all the extra security and TV camera crews nothing happened there either.  Now the bad news, the Democrats debated last night.  I am so debated out that despite the fireworks, and there were fireworks, I fell asleep almost immediately.  My general impression is that we’re all toast, that the moderates are busy squabbling amongst themselves while the progressives, Bernie and Elizabeth won the night which means that Bernie won the night and if Bernie won than Trump won too.  As to Mike Bloomberg he took a lot of incoming and many hits.  Suffice it to say, he needs to practice, practice, practice and improve his performance for the next debate if he hopes to lead the party out of its misery.  Although Bernie’s health came up, he got off easy which wasn’t fair given that earlier in the day Briahna Joy Gray, one of his campaign spokespeople, called demands that Bernie release more health reports, the ones that he promised he would release before saying that he wouldn’t, were part of an organized smear campaign against him.  She then went on to falsely claim that Bloomberg, who has released extensive health reports in which he disclosed that he too has some stents, ones that were put in years back when he was mayor, had also had a heart attack.  That’s not true, Bloomberg has never had a heart attack.  She later claimed that she just misspoke, but she also voted for Jill Stein in 2016 so that tells you as much about her as you need to know.  At the end of the debates, all the candidates were asked what should happen if no candidate has the 1991 delegates needed to win the nomination by convention time.  All but Bernie said that they would abide by the Democrats already agreed upon procedures for a contested convention, those are the new rules that were put in place at the request of those like Bernie who felt that the so-called superdelegates unfairly tilted the nomination towards Hillary Clinton in 2016.  Bernie, who could well have more delegates going into the convention, albeit not enough to win, self-servingly said that the one with the most delegates at that point should be anointed. In other words, forget about those new rules, it’s all about me. A disaster looms?  Since I’d hate to end this paragraph on such a sour note, one piece of good news:  In Arizona, former astronaut Mark Kelly is leading Republican Senator Martha McSally in the polls by 7 points, an amount that has increased since the impeachment vote.     

Et Cetera: It looks like Trump has found himself a new acting Director of National Intelligence.  He’s tapped Richard Grenell, the current US Ambassador to Germany.  Grenell has no relevant intelligence experience but as a staunch and vocal Trump fanboy he’s offended a lot of European leaders with his Trump styled nationalist comments which makes him perfect for the new position.  Needless to say the members of the intelligence community are alarmed.  Grenell will be replacing Trump’s current acting DNI,  Joseph McGuire, who has reached the end of the time limit for serving in an acting position without  Senate confirmation.  As an ambassador Grenell has already been Senate confirmed once.  Also on the staffing front, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John Rood, the Pentagon official who warned against withholding aid to Ukraine, has resigned at the request of Trump who continues to rid the government of anyone unwilling to heed his party line, in other words anyone with a moral center.  On the political intrigue front, yesterday during a pre-extradition hearing in London the lawyers representing WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange said that he was offered one of those Trump pardons, one that would have required that he deny that the Russians had anything to do with the DNC email hack.  Specifically they claim that former Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher offered Assange the deal in 2017 representing that he was acting on behalf of Trump.  Trump of course says he “barely knows” Rohrabacher.  For his part Rohrabacher admits to meeting with Assange as part of his own “fact-finding mission” but says that he was not directed to do so by Trump.  Assange’s lawyers say that they have some evidence to back up their claims.  It’s only a matter of time before Trump admits to being chummy with Rohrabacher and then to admitting that he did offer up a quid pro quo pardon but so what?  It’s also worth noting that back in 2016 House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump.”  In other news, today is sentencing day for Roger Stone.  Tune into twitter, Trump is likely to erupt.

Jury Duty

Pardon the Interruption:  Before heading out to California for some fundraising and a golf outing hosted by Oracle Chair Larry Ellison, Trump did some exercising yesterday, practicing and perfecting his already quite proficient pardoning and commutation skills because who doesn’t think that he will eventually need them to pardon his good buddies Paul Manafort and Roger Stone and maybe even George Papadopoulos and that British lawyer/oligarch son-in-law Alex van der Zwaan?  All in, Trump let eleven people off the hook, including: Rod Blagojevich, the former governor of Illinois who tried to sell Barack Obama’s Senate seat; Bernard Kerik, the Giuliani era NYC police commissioner who, among other felonies, committed tax fraud, spent government money on two lady friends and lied to Congress when being considered to be Bush’s Homeland Security Secretary; Michael Milliken, the former Junk Bond King because who doesn’t need a good friend who can guide you out of bankruptcy; and Edward DeBartolo, Jr, the former owner of the San Francisco 49ers who had gotten into trouble over something to do with a river boat gambling scandal involving Louisiana’s former Governor Edwin Edwards.  Some of the beneficiaries of Trump’s largesse not so coincidentally are donors to his campaign, others like Kerik are besties with members of Trumps inner circle and most notably Blagojevich, who was once on Trump’s Apprentice program, was put away by none other than Trump’s number one enemy former FBI Director Comey and what better way to snub your nose at Comey than to give early release to the subject of one of his most prominent investigations.

The Stone Chronicles:  As to Roger Stone, though we don’t know all the details of what was discussed on yesterday’s call with his judge, Amy Berman Jackson, we do know that his sentencing is still on for Thursday despite his lawyers request to postpone her decision until after she rules on their request for a new trial.  Stone’s lawyers assert that recently revealed anti-Trump views on one of Stone’s jurors Facebook pages proves that she was too biased to be on the jury.  However, since they knew that she was a Democrat, and what Democrat hasn’t expressed some anti-Trump views, it’s unlikely that Judge Jackson will acquiesce to their request, even though Trump has made it clear that he thinks that Stone’s conviction should be thrown out.  Anyway, why does it matter, Stone is unlikely to spend much time in jail given the certainty that he will eventually get that Trump pardon.  On the Department of Justice front, Attorney General Barr doesn’t seem to be enjoying all those calls for him to resign so to make it seem like he’s experiencing severe emotional stress, he leaked to several press outlets that he’s told people in the Trump administration that he’s seriously thinking of resigning even though just about everyone knows that he’s not, he just wants to make it seem as if he’s concerned, a trick he may have learned from Maine’s pearl clutching Senator Susan Collins.  We also learned yesterday that under Barr’s direction the Eastern District of New York is now responsible for overseeing all Ukraine related investigations, that’s notable because it means that authority that previously resided with the more independent Southern District of New York, the place where the investigation into Rudy Giuliani and his cronies, or one time cronies Lev and Igor’s case originated, now falls to a more Trump friendly US Attorney.        

Democrats:  I am off to jury duty this morning so I’ll keep this short.  Bernie Sanders star continues to rise as do concerns that should he be the candidate, down ballot candidates will suffer bigly.  Bloomberg’s star is rising too, but he’s going to take lots of incoming flack during tonight’s debate over disparaging remarks he’s made to women, about transgender people, stop and frisk and his past membership in the Republican party.  For the record Elizabeth Warren used to be a Republican too and Bernie isn’t even a Democrat but whatever. Word is that Bloomberg has been practicing his debating skills, we should find out soon if any of that expensive training has paid off.  

As to Jury Duty, seems kind of pointless these days, with pardons so in fashion.  #Sigh   

Hunger Games

Dancing with the Democrats:  So much for the Democratic debate series being all about elimination.  The endless saga now has a new character, none other than Former Mayor/Multi billionaire Mike Bloomberg.  He qualified for tomorrow night’s debate by achieving more than 10% in four polls, a criteria he met after the results of last night’s NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll showed him at 19%, second only to Bernie Sanders’ 31%. The same poll shows Biden down to 15%, Warren down to 12%, Klobuchar up to 9% and Buttigieg down to 8%.  The debate should be riveting assuming that you think that watching a Mike feeding frenzy, one where everyone on stage pulls apart everything he’s ever done or said, is must see TV. For his part Bernie Sanders has got to be relieved, as the front runner he and his “progressive” positions should be taking all the heat from the gaggle of more moderate candidates but with Bloomberg on the stage Sanders may well get a pass despite all the hateful attacks being pushed by his Bernie Bros, the guys he continues to disavow with a wink. Well, at least a partial pass, Bloomberg’s ad machine is already going after the Bernie Bro’s hateful and harassing tweets.   No doubt Trump will be happy too, because what’s more fun for him than watching his competitors eat each other alive. Getting back to Bernie, although he continues to do well versus Trump in national polls, moderate Democrats and the outspoken crowd of former Republicans who dominate mainstream punditry remain very concerned that his presence at the top of the ticket will make it virtually impossible for Democrats to take over the Senate and could even put the House majority at risk. That fear was further fueled yesterday after Jane Sanders, Bernie’s wife, slammed former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper who is viewed as the Democrat’s best chance for winning the Colorado Senate seat currently held by vulnerable Republican Cory Gardner.  She did that by essentially saying that Hickenlooper wasn’t progressive enough for her.  Although early voting is underway, the Nevada caucus formally takes place on Saturday.  Bloomberg will not be on the ballot because he didn’t register to participate.  As of now all indications are that Sanders will emerge from the caucus on top of the leader board. For now?  

Barring Barr:  To the extent that it matters, Attorney General Barr’s reputation continues to circle the drain.  Yesterday the Federal Judges Association, an independent group headed by US District Judge Cynthia Rufe,  a George W Bush appointee, called an emergency meeting to address “growing concerns” about the Department of Justice, Barr, Trump and their “intervention in politically sensitive cases.”  Judge Rufe said that the group couldn’t wait until their regular April meeting because the situation is very concerning.  In the meantime, the list of former Department of Justice officials who’ve signed onto the letter condemning Barr’s actions with regard to the Roger Stone sentencing recommendation has grown to over 2000. Additionally Donald Ayer, a former US Deputy Attorney General under George HW Bush, who has known and supported Barr for 40 years, has written an op-ed published in The Atlantic calling for Barr’s resignation.  To drive his point home, Ayer also showed up on several news shows yesterday.   Of course, Trump is still fully behind Barr because with the exception of his failure to indict former FBI guy Andrew McCabe, Barr is doing all the things he wants him to do and because Roy Cohns are hard to find.  On the Roger Stone front, Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s all hands phone call, the one where she is expected to ask the Justice Department to do lots of ‘splaining about its “odd” behavior, is scheduled for later today and, assuming nothing changes on the schedule, she is expected to sentence Stone on Thursday.

Et Cetera:  In other news at the end of last week the Senate passed an Iran war powers bill.  Basically, the bill, which passed by 55 to 45 with the support of all the Democrats and Republican Senators Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Lamar Alexander, Bill Cassidy, Todd Young, and Jerry Moran, is intended to stop Trump from going to war with Iran without Congressional authorization, a fear that was further fueled after Trump’s assassination of Iran’s General Soleimani brought us to the brink of war not to mention the 100 plus soldiers who suffered head injuries during Iran’s retaliatory attack against the US base in Iraq. As to that Soleimani “take out,” despite the administration’s initial claim that his killing was necessary because he represented an imminent threat to the US, a memo delivered by the White House to Congress admits that there was no imminent threat.  Of course Trump plans to veto the bill when it comes to his desk.   

Cake and Emoluments

Barring Barr:  More than 1100 former Justice Department  prosecutors and officials who served under both Republican and Democratic administrations are now calling for Attorney General Barr to step down.  Apparently they aren’t buying Barr’s complaint about Trump’s incessant tweeting making it impossible for him to do his job because they, like most of the rest of us, have figured out that Barr is only upset about the tweeting not about helping Trump chip away at justice nor about undermining the conclusions of the Russia investigation.  To that end, we learned over the weekend that in addition to requesting a lighter sentence for Trump’s long term crony Roger Stone, the self-professed political dirty trickster who was convicted for lying about conversations he had with Trump about WikiLeaks, Barr was also behind the recommendation that former national security advisor Michael Flynn receive the lightest sentence possible.  Additionally, it was also revealed that Barr has now “tasked” Jeffrey Jensen, the US Attorney from St Louis, to reexamine the political motives behind several of the Justice Department’s high profile cases, including most notably the Flynn case.  Apparently investigating anything and everything to do with the Russia investigation is all the rage in Barr’s Justice Department.  Late Friday we also learned that despite Barr’s best efforts to make Trump happy, the Justice Department has finally given up on trying to convict former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe for his “lack of candor.” To be clear, Barr and company tried hard to indict McCabe, they just couldn’t get a grand jury willing to go along with them; it’s fair to assume that the reason that we and McCabe are learning about all this now has a lot to do with Barr trying to make it seem like he doesn’t always do what Trump wants him to do. Note to Barr – no one’s buying it, least of all Trump who is apparently furious that he can’t seem to get McCabe thrown into a prison cell.  

Though neither Barr nor Trump care much about that letter asking for Barr’s resignation, nor about the outrage being expressed by various Democratic politicians and some newspapers like the Boston Globe whose editorial “Barr Must Go” says it all, they probably aren’t all that pleased that the letter also calls for current staff at the Justice Department to report any and all wrong doings to their inspector general, or at least to the inspector general while he is still employed.  It’s not a stretch to assume that the very enraged and emboldened post impeachment Trump will fire the guy as soon as he gets an opening to do so.  Keep an eye on Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy too, his days could be numbered as late last week he said that he has no plans to investigate either of the Vindman twins despite Trump’s insistence that they should be punished for Alexander’s truth telling.  In addition, neither Trump nor Barr can be all that pleased that while Barr has established a special channel for Rudy Giuliani to provide him with dubious “evidence” about the Biden’s Ukraine “corruption,” the US attorneys in the Southern District of New York are ramping up their investigation into Giuliani’s not so legal shenanigans. Despite its well-earned reputation for acting like an independent “sovereign state” the SDNY reports to Barr, so at some point their efforts could lead to some very public fireworks.  As to the Roger Stone case, his lawyers are now requesting a new trial, citing a juror’s history of anti-Trump sentiment as proof that Stone’s trial was unfair.  Presiding Judge Amy Jackson Berman doesn’t appear all that amused by that or about last week’s dueling sentencing memos so she’s now scheduled an emergency all hands on deck conference call for tomorrow to get to the bottom of the mess. 

Food Fight:  The circular firing squad also known as the Democratic primary continues.  Everyone is going after billionaire former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, dredging up anything and everything he’s ever said about race and women and since he said a lot of things he probably shouldn’t have, there’s a lot there to unpack.  The crowd is also going after each other.  Neither Amy Klobuchar nor Tom Steyer, that other rich guy who seems to be gaining some traction with voters in South Carolina, could name the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, during an interview with Telemundo, an embarrassing gaffe, especially for Klobuchar who really should’ve been able to answer that softball question.  Pete Buttigieg, who could because he seems to know everything and Spanish is one of his zillion languages, jumped on that but focused more on attacking the economics of Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All health plan and on beating back that icon of probity Rush Limbaugh’s slimy comments about his relationship with his husband.  As to Bernie, a very chagrined Joe Biden called on him to condemn the “vicious, malicious, misogynistic” rhetoric coming from some of his supporters and to do more to stamp it out, after some of Bernie’s supporters personally attacked the leaders of the Culinary Workers Union for their disdain for Medicare for All.   And so it goes.

Et Cetera:  Trump is once again seeking to redirect billions of dollars allocated to the military, including $1.5 billion originally allocated for buying equipment for National Guard and Reserve units, such as trucks, generators and spare parts, as well as fighter jets and ships, to wall funding which begs the question, why does Congress keep increasing military funding if Trump believes that the money isn’t really needed for military expenditures? Maybe a focus on things like pandemics would be more helpful right about now or climate concerns or really needed infrastructure? Trump continues to rely on his excuse that there is an “emergency” at the border, when the only emergency is that he needs to show more “wall” progress in the run up to the election.  For his part Trump had a very busy day yesterday, in addition to his usual hate tweeting, he took a lap at the Daytona 500, leaving before the race started to get back to Washington to attend Stephen Miller’s wedding, yes that Stephen Miller, at, where else, the Trump International Hotel. Cake and emoluments for some.   

Just Another Quid Pro Quo

Barring Justice: Yesterday during an interview with ABC News’ Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas,  Attorney General Barr asserted that Trump had never asked him to weigh in on any case or investigate any of his political enemies, that he would never do such things even if he was asked and that he made the decision to request a lighter sentence for Trump crony Roger Stone without any input from Trump.  He then took things one step further, moaning about Trump’s incessant tweeting saying that Trump should stop tweeting about the Justice Department because his tweets “make it impossible for me to do my job.”  The interview got a lot of attention but few other than the truly gullible believe that Barr meant any of what he said because it’s fairly obvious that he does takes direction from Trump, because if Trump was truly frustrating him so much and inhibiting his ability to do his job properly, he would quit and he doesn’t appear to have any interest in doing that and, most telling, after the interview, Trump didn’t complain about his remarks.  In all likelihood, Barr gave the interview to try to calm the troops at the Justice Department, his attempt to prevent more embarrassing departures.  It’s not that Barr cares all that much if those unwilling to adhere to his instructions leave, it’s just that he doesn’t want their departures, and parting shots, to further tarnish his already damaged reputation. As to Roger Stone, the original sentencing recommendation, the one that Trump slammed and that Barr revised, was harsh but only because it stuck to Federal sentencing guidelines for Stone’s crimes.  Barr’s amended recommendation argued for a lesser sentence by saying that despite the jury’s conclusions Stone didn’t really mean it when he threatened one of the witnesses. The revised recommendation also failed to mention that Stone threatened Judge Amy Berman Jackson by circulating a picture of her with a target on her head, however it’s highly likely that she hasn’t forgotten about that.  So far Judge Berman hasn’t said anything about this fracas, nor has Chief Justice Roberts, but Beryl Howell, the DC District Court Chief Judge has and she’s hardly impressed by Trump and Barr’s shenanigans.  Yesterday she said that the “Judges of this Court base their sentencing decisions on careful consideration of the actual record in the case before them; the applicable sentencing guidelines and statutory factors; the submissions of the parties, the Probation Office and victims; and their own judgment and experience, criticism or pressure is not a factor." Stone is due to be sentenced on Thursday.  As to the very emboldened Trump nothing seems to be stopping him lately, yesterday he started in on the woman who served as jury foreperson in Roger Stone’s case, suggesting that she was obviously biased and then for good measure he admitted that his administration’s decision to drop New York State from the trusted traveler programs had nothing to do with security but a lot to with getting the state’s lawmakers to promise not to move forward with any of those investigations into him and his business interests.  He did that by tweeting that “New York must stop all of its unnecessary lawsuits & harassment, start cleaning itself up, and lowering taxes,” just another quid pro quo from the bully in chief who got away with his last one.   

Revolving Door:  And by revolving door, think spinning like crazy.  When last seen Hope Hicks was working for Fox in California as the company’s Chief Communications Officer, a job she obtained with the help of her good buddies Ivanka and Jared.  Whether that LinkedIn line item was all just a ruse to get her away from probing eyes in Washington DC for a while, or it didn’t work out, or she just missed the White House doesn’t matter much because Trump’s fave Hopey is returning to the Trump saga to work as Jared Kushner’s sidekick.  Also returning is former Trump body man  John McEntee, another Trump favorite who was booted and frog marched out of the White House by former Chief of Staff John Kelly after he failed to pass his security check, something to with  debts incurred by excessive online gambling. Apparently, with Kelly gone, no one cares about security issues anymore so McEntee has been invited back in to run the White House Personnel Office.  He’s totally unqualified for that position but Trump views him as the ultimate loyalist and  who doesn’t love a well-managed March Madness pool?  On another note, Jessie Liu, the  US attorney whose nomination for a top Treasury Department post was yanked because she ran the office responsible for Roger Stone's prosecution has resigned because with her previous position reassigned to a Barr loyalist she had nothing to go back to,  just another casualty of Trump and Attorney General Barr’s collaborative efforts to rid the Justice Department of any senior attorneys unwilling to tow their line.      

Democratic Showdown:  The Democratic nomination process is getting harder and harder to watch.  Trump and his people at Fox are continuing to attack all the candidates focusing on those they view as the most threatening and they’re getting lots of help from the liberal media.  Everyone seems to have focused in on all of Mike Bloomberg’s old interviews, in addition to his contradictory messages on “stop and frisk,” yesterday’s news included an old interview where he discussed redlining, the practice of depriving loans to people who live in underprivileged, mostly minority neighborhoods.  In that interview, Bloomberg partially blamed the 2008 financial crisis on the push to lend more money to borrowers from those areas.  My view is that Bloomberg, never one to mince words, was stating a fact, that loans to riskier credits were more likely to default and that just opening up the loan spigot to underprivileged populations wasn’t an adequately comprehensive remedy for dealing with a much bigger societal problem: how to increase home ownership among minority populations.  However, no one is much into nuance these days and of course, Elizabeth Warren whose campaign is flailing, was more than happy to weigh in, using her expertise in consumer finance and bankruptcy to jump on the Bloomberg feeding frenzy.  Anyway, Bloomberg like everyone else near the top of the Democratic pile needs to come up with good answers to tough questions because those tough questions are going to keep coming. As to Mayor Mike, like him or not he is awfully good at getting under Trump’s skin and those barbs the two keep exchanging are fairly entertaining, and right about now who doesn’t enjoy watching the “short” guy knock the intellectually challenged one down a few pegs. The Nevada caucus takes place on February 22, Bloomberg won’t be on the ballot there but everyone else will be.  Bernie Sanders did not get an endorsement from the influential Nevada Culinary Workers Union because their members like their health care benefits and do not want to give them up to a Bernie  Medicare For All plan.  The good news for Bernie, who will probably do well in Nevada anyway, is that the union decided not to endorse anyone, a big disappointment for Joe Biden who hoped that he would get their blessing.  As to Bernie, though he keeps on trying to distance himself from the contingent of his diehard supporters who are badmouthing the other candidates, he doesn’t appear to be doing much to stop them which isn’t much of a surprise because that’s how he rolls.                       

Not a Rational Actor

Trump the Terrible:  In the run up to the impeachment vote Trump toned down his comments, don’t get me wrong, he still held his rallies and said and did lots of awful things but they just weren’t as outrageous as usual.  Now having gotten away with extorting Ukraine for his own personal benefit he’s learned his lesson, just not the lesson that Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and those other quisling Republicans “hoped and prayed” that he would.  Instead he’s learned that he can get away with saying and doing anything he wants.  To that end yesterday during a news conference with President Lenin Moreno of Ecuador, malicious Trump was in full force.  While he continued to deny that he had anything to do with it, he congratulated Attorney General Barr for intervening to lower the Justice Department’s Roger Stone sentencing recommendation calling Stone’s prosecution “a disgrace” for which he deserves an apology.  Commenting on the Russia investigation Trump then went on to say that “Evidence now clearly shows that the Mueller Scam was improperly brought & tainted. Even Bob Mueller lied to Congress!” Of course though Mueller’s testimony was far from adequate, especially to those of us who had pinned our hopes on him  actually condemning Trump, Mueller didn’t lie to Congress.  Trump knows that but he also a big user of that Hitler Big Lie technique, the one where if you repeat a lie enough times, lots of people eventually believe it, and keep in mind that while the Germans had evil propaganda genius Joseph Goebbels they didn’t have Fox.  With that in mind Trump also lashed into former FBI Director Comey saying that it was unfair that he hadn’t been jailed, once more brought up his favorite foils, FBI sexters Lisa Page and Peter Strzok and suggested that all those prosecutors who participated in the “witch hunt” go back to school before launching into a number of other boldfaced lies about everyone else involved in the Mueller investigation. That he did all this in front of another world leader was par for the course but at least this time he picked one who was somewhat simpatico as just last week Ecuador’s Moreno said that “women only report harassment when it comes from an ugly person” and that “men faced the constant threat of being falsely accused of harassment,” two tenets that Trump must really relate to.  

Getting back to Trump and his good buddy Roger Stone, in addition to dismissing the severity of those charges that Stone was convicted of by a jury, Trump said he wasn’t ready to talk about a pardon now, pretty much confirming that he would at some future date.  As to Stone, we also learned yesterday that last week Judge Amy Berman Jackson rejected his lawyers request that he be granted a new trial, just one of those things that partially explains why Trump has added her to his long list of targets.  In other related news during testimony in front of the Senate, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin refused to answer any questions about the reason for Trump abruptly withdrawing the nomination of former US Attorney Jessie Liu to serve as the Treasury Department's undersecretary for terrorism and financial crimes even though everyone knows that her nomination was pulled because she previously headed the office that oversaw Stone’s prosecution and because Trump holds her responsible for failing to obtain an indictment against another one of his enemies, former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe. Though Senate Republicans, most notably Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, have no interest in calling AG Barr in to testify about any of this, House Democrats are interested in hearing from the devious Barr.  To that end Barr has now agreed to appear before the House Judiciary Committee on March 31.  Don’t ink that one into your calendar, there’s plenty of time for an intervening national emergency.      

Dueling Democrats: On the Democratic front, Mike Bloomberg continues to fight off scathing criticism about his old “stop and frisk” policies while earning more endorsements from African American politicians who don’t seem to care as much about his past as they do about beating Trump.  Joe Biden is trying to find donors willing to keep funding his struggling campaign.  Pete Buttigieg’s people are sparring with Bernie Sanders’ people over who currently holds the Democrat’s leading position. Like Kamala Harris,  Amy Klobuchar’s prosecutorial past is coming back to haunt her because apparently having served as a prosecutor, something that used to be a good way for Democratic candidates to prove that they were tough on crime, is now a bigly minus. And still another Democratic candidate, albeit one who was very late to the game, has dropped out.  Deval Patrick the former Governor of Massachusetts who like Elizabeth Warren thought that his state’s proximity to New Hampshire would help him gain a footing left the field.  As to New Hampshire, one interesting footnote, that other former Massachusetts Governor, Bill Weld, actually won around ten percent of the vote in the Republican primary and as a result was awarded one delegate.  Clearly his performance won’t earn him the Republican party’s nomination but maybe just maybe some of the voters who cast their lot with him will either vote Democratic, go with a write-in, or stay home in the Fall.    

Better Late than Never?  Former Homeland Security Secretary/Chief of Staff John Kelly is finally speaking some truth.  Last night during a Drew University event he said “Lt Colonel Vindman is blameless and simply followed the training he’d received as a soldier; migrants are ‘overwhelmingly good people’ and ‘not all rapists;’ and Trump’s decision to condition military aid to Ukraine on an investigation into his political rival Joe Biden upended long-standing U.S. policy.” Kelly went on to question Trump cozying up to North Korea’s Kim Jong un and criticized his affinity for Vladimir Putin who he described as “not necessarily a rational actor.”  Need I point out that Trump is hardly all that rational either. Kelly also had nothing good to say about Trump’s intervention in the case of disgraced Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher, saying that he never would have let that “wrong thing to do” happen.  While it's nice that Kelly has found his voice, let’s not forget that a lot of awful things happened while he was in the White House and that he still hasn’t apologized to Congresswoman Frederica Wilson for the disparaging untruthful things he said about her.  Anyway, it’s fair to assume that Kelly will now be the target of some Trump’s tweets as soon as now.  

Democracy Fading Fast

Death Throes of the Republic?  The New Hampshire primary is newsworthy, I’ll get to that next, but I am starting with what happened yesterday at the Justice Department because those events were stunning and in a very bad, end of democracy as we know it way.  On Monday, after the Justice Department filed its sentencing recommendation for Trump’s long term associate Roger Stone, Trump tweeted that the sentencing  recommendation was “very horrible and unfair.”  Clearly, Attorney General Barr got Trump’s message  because yesterday, while most were diverted by events in New Hampshire, the Justice Department pulled their sentencing recommendation.  That’s unprecedented, so unusual and alarming that as the day progressed all four of the career prosecutors handling the Roger Stone case, including Jonathan Kravis,  Aaron Zelinsky, Adam Jed and Michael Mirando, withdrew from the case in protest with Kravis leaving government service altogether. At the same time, Trump revoked the nomination of Jessie Liu, the former US attorney in the District of Columbia, to a top Treasury Department post. Liu, who had supervised the Stone case when it went to trial, was due to appear before Congress this week and there was no way that Trump wanted to see her answering any questions about the severity of Stone’s crimes.  Of course when asked by the press about his involvement in any of this Trump, the gas lighter in chief, claimed that he had nothing to do with the decision to pull the Stone sentencing memo but that he had every right to do so, kind of his way of acknowledging that of course he demanded the change.  Through a spokesman Barr disingenuously asserted that he’d never approved the recommended sentence in the first place but that after learning about its severity had decided, without speaking to Trump, that it was outrageously harsh.  By the end of the day Justice submitted a revised memo, one that said nothing more than that it might make sense for Stone to serve some time in prison but that failed to say how much. 

Attacking the Good Guys:  For good measure Trump then tweet attacked the four departing US attorneys, alleging they “cut and ran after being exposed for recommending a ridiculous 9 year prison sentence to a man that got caught up in an investigation that was illegal, the Mueller Scam.” He also then raised questions about Stone’s Judge, Amy Berman Jackson, tweeting "Is this the Judge that put Paul Manafort in SOLITARY CONFINEMENT, something that not even mobster Al Capone had to endure? How did she treat Crooked Hillary? Just asking!."  Why not go with some fascist style judge intimidation when you’re getting away with every other crime you’ve ever committed?   And  then he queried “Whatever occurred to Hillary marketing campaign supervisor Podesta’s BROTHER? Wasn’t he caught, pressured to go away his agency, with BIG BAD issues to occur? Why did nothing ever occur to him, solely to the “other” facet?”  Not yet done,  Trump also called for the Defense Department to punish Lt. Col Vindman for his actions, though we all know his only “crime” was that he showed up to testify and told the truth when he was subpoenaed to do so.  The Stone sentencing decision is now in Judge Jackson’s hands, of course it probably doesn’t matter what she does because it's clear that ultimately Trump will pardon all the members of his crime family: Stone, Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn.  As to Flynn we also learned yesterday that Barr’s hands are all over the decision that led to his sentencing being put on hold.  The bottom line is that Barr’s Justice Department no longer has anything to do with justice, it’s fully controlled by Trump. And that’s not how democracies are supposed to work, at all.  In case you are wondering Speaker Pelosi and Senator Schumer and a number of other Democrats have already expressed their outrage, but no Republicans, especially those who said that they were sure that Trump had “learned” from his impeachment experience have had anything to say and sadly little the Democrats say or do matters anymore.

New Hampshire News:  Senator Bernie Sanders won the New Hampshire primary but not by as much as anticipated.  With 88% of the results tallied he’s in the lead with 25.7% of the vote to Former Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s 24.4%, Senator Amy Klobuchar’s 19.8%, Senator Elizabeth Warren’s 9.3% and former VP Joe Biden’s 8.4%.  Those results mean that both Sanders and Buttigieg will receive 9 of New Hampshire’s delegates with Klobuchar receiving the remaining 6.  While winning is a good thing and Bernie most definitely won, he underperformed expectations, doing far worse than he did in 2016 when he won 60% of the vote which isn’t much of a surprise since that race was just between him and Hilary Clinton but also giving up share to rising star Buttigieg and that other moderate Klobuchar.  Buttigieg’s performance, on top of his Iowa win, was impressive, a clear sign that Iowa despite it failings was no fluke.  As to Klobuchar her jump up the leader board provides proof that people really were impressed by her stand out performance at last Friday’s debate and that there’s a lot of interest in selecting a centrist candidate but that voters are not yet sure who that moderate choice should be.  Though she’s not ready to throw in the towel, Elizabeth Warren admitted that her performance was not a good thing and Joe Biden just left New Hampshire early, heading to South Carolina, because if he doesn’t do well there or in Nevada he’s toast.  One very good thing for Democrats in general is that despite Republican efforts to make it more difficult for new residents, mostly students, to vote, participation was up.  Though Mike Bloomberg wasn’t on the ballot, he got a lot of attention yesterday after some old videos of him defending “stop and frisk” surfaced.  It’s not clear whether his campaign released them to deal with their consequences now or whether they came from the Trump campaign, but Trump of course jumped on them, calling Bloomberg out as a racist.  In response to  Trump’s tweet attack some of his very recent demands for “stop and frisk” to be used in Chicago then surfaced leading his team to pull his anti-Bloomberg messages from his twitter feed.  And so it goes, the race for those key Black voters is on and that will be a challenge for many, most notably Buttigieg and Klobuchar who have not yet gained any traction in the African American community.  In any case there will be fewer Democrats seeking those votes.  Both entrepreneur Andrew Yang and Colorado Senator Michael Bennet have ended their runs though that other billionaire Tom Steyer and Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard are still running.  To that end, Gabbard has been doing most of her campaigning on Fox News where, among other things, she  most recently called for DNC Chairman Tom Perez to resign his post.

Et Cetera:  Yesterday the Republican led Senate blocked an effort by Democrats to unanimously pass three election security-related bills because those bills would require campaigns to alert the FBI and the Federal Election Commission about foreign offers of assistance and would provide more election funding and ban voting machines from being connected to the internet and why would anyone want to make any of that happen?