March 30, 2018--Stormy Weather

The two most watched TV shows in at least a decade were aired last week--the return of Rosanne (18.2 million viewers) and the Stormy Daniels interview on 60 Minutes (22 million tuned in). 

They had one thing in common: Donald Trump. 

One thing he is good at is attracting a crowd. Sort of like watching a car wreck.

Since Rosanne Barr is an enthusiastic Trump supporter and the "Rosanne" character on the show is as well (she talks about how America has been made great again)  she received a congratulatory phone call from him. 

Stormy Daniels, in contrast, didn't even get a tweet. In fact, as I write this, it has been about a week since Trump has had something to say about anything having to do with Stormy. That in itself is remarkable since the president has never before been shy about making comments about anything that he perceives to be affecting him.

It appears remaining silent about her is one of the very few things his lawyers, actually, his one remaining lawyer, has been able to convince him to do.

Wondering about this and also, I confess, coming away feeling disappointed that the 60 Minutes interview turned out to be boring, that it wasn't salacious enough, I had been hoping that she would reveal what was on that threatening-feeling DVD disc that her lawyer, Michael Avanatti, had hyped in advance--maybe pictures--wondering, I concluded that what she and he concocted was brilliant--

They weren't thinking about what would appeal to an audience of 22 million, but to an audience of one--Donald Trump. The only audience that mattered to them.

Their entire strategy is to smoke him out. To get him on the record carelessly saying something defamatory. If they could get under his skin enough as the result of the daily media barrage Avanatti is engaged in, they might have a chance to sue him for defamation and thereby make him liable to being deposed, to force him to answer questions in open court rather than in the secrecy of an arbitration procedure where typically individuals who have signed an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) wind up.

They focused most of their jabs on Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, who says he paid Stormy $130,000 in hush money out of his own pocket--money he claimes he got from a personal home equity loan--without Trump's knowledge or approval. 

How believable is that? Anyone have a lawyer who doesn't want to get paid?

So Daniels, and especially Avenatti, have been making the rounds of every possible cable talk show other than those on Fox, using Trump's own scorched earth approach against Cohen and especially Trump himself.

Thus far they managed to get Cohen and his lawyers (with anything having to do with Trump's lawyers need lawyers to protect and defend them) to step in it enough to get at least one defamation suite working it's way toward federal court.

It's still a long shot that they will succeed. But if they do, as with Bill Clinton it will be sex that brings Trump down, not collusion with the Russians or obstructing justice.

Stay tuned. Literally.    

Michael Cohen

March 26, 2018--"Give Melania A Gun"

My second favorite sign at Saturday's New York City's March For Our Lives march was--

"The only thing easier to buy than a gun is a Republican politician."

My favorite--"Give Melania a Gun." This even before Stormy Daniels appeared on 60 Minutes.

Along the route, at Columbus Circle, we came upon the Trump International Hotel & Tower, a gilded blot on the landscape just across from one of the grandest entrances to Central Park. A tower of brass and glass as tasteless as its eponymous owner. Shame on anyone visiting New York who checked in. Certainly to call it anything International" is a boastful reach. It's more Atlantic City than Manhattan.

The kids who brilliantly organized the march paused there to chant abuse in its soulless direction--"Lock him up. Lock him up." And did the same a few blocks later when the marchers swung east onto Central Park South and, slowing, turn to face another eyesore, Trump Parc Condominium. A residential tower on which, for a hefty fee, the actual owners were able to affix Trump's tarnishing name.

Hooking south down sun-filled Avenue of the Americas, which every real New Yorker still refers to as 6th Avenue, one of the organizer kids noticed at 48th Street there was the headquarters of Fox News and, at street level, the studio where Fox & Friends is broadcast.

In a prepubescent voice not yet changed, he began to chant--

Hey, hey
Ho, ho
Fake News
Fox & Friends 
has got to go.

Hey, hey . . .

Soon, all of his classmates and the rest of us stopped in the street to join the now soaring, angry chant. "Hey, hey . . ."

"Isn't it something," Rona said with welling eyes, "that these kids know all about Fox & Friends. Six weeks ago, back in Florida, they were thinking about the upcoming prom."

March 22, 2018--BREAKING NEWS!!!

Rona is making predictions again. This time about Stormy Daniels.

Not about what she will reveal Sunday evening on 60 Minutes. Not about the headlines she will inspire, even if she brings along a picture or two of a certain gentleman caller in flagrante delicto. 

But rather her prediction is about the headlines that gentleman caller will inspire.

Headlines Monday morning of the most shocking kind that, in a banner, will span all six columns at the top of the front page of the New York Times and every other paper in the United States and western world and will lead to 24/7-days of Breaking News on the three cable news channels.

TRUMP FIRES SPECIAL COUNSEL ROBERT MUELLER!!!

In the case of the New York Post, over a photo of Trump, pointing at the camera, in his Apprentice pose--

YOU'RE FIRED!!!

"Expect that to occur," Rona says, "Sunday afternoon to allow editors to get their stories written and typeset. To scoop Stormy. She'll be relegated to page 14, below the fold, and will be mired there for as long as it takes for this Sunday massacre to play out. Probably for the whole week after Republican members of Congress emerge from their bunkers and join Democrats in expressing upset about the 'constitutional crisis,' which, by the way, you can explain to me when you have a moment,"

When I overcome my shock, I ask, "Explain what?"

"'Constitutional crisis.' I have no idea what that means."

"It means," I stammer, "It means . . .  you know I really don't know. Maybe until they get the impeachment process going?"

"Dream on," Rona says, "You really think Republicans in Paul Ryan's House are going to impeach Trump? Enrage his base? They'd all get tossed out of office in November."

"Dream on," I cynically say.

"Maybe the crisis will result from what gets unearthed by various congressional committees."

"Dream on," I say. 

"You're right. There will be no committee investigations with the GOP in the majority."

"Correct. The Dems can jump up and down and scream about the need to get to the bottom of things but unless Ryan and Mitch McConnell allow it to happen there will be no meaningful investigations. The way Congress works the leaders and committee chairman totally control the agenda, including not allowing members of the minority, Democrats, to even call witnesses. It's almost as totalitarian as the Russian or Chinese legislatures. We've seen those in action. Members behave like zombies."

"This is very scary stuff. Is it the beginning of the end of our democracy? What if nothing can be done about this?"

"I have a crazy idea," I say, "Organize a Guerilla Congress."

"You're making light of this? We're in a crisis and you're cracking jokes?"

"I'm totally scared by what you said about Trump firing Mueller this weekend. I'm trying to keep myself from going crazy because what you are predicting sounds more than plausible to me. Look at the new lawyers he's hiring. That Joe diGenova is a killer."

"So what's your idea about Congress?"

"Since the Democrats have no power whatsoever, while waiting for the midterm elections in November, they should rent a big conference room in a Washington DC hotel and hold a Rump or Guerrilla Congress there. Do their  own investigations, try to get witnesses to show up, take testimony, issue findings. All of it unofficial, of course, but if they invite people carefully they could get quite a few to come before them. For example, by mid April, former CIA director Jim Comey will be on the talkshow circuit to publicize his new book and I suspect would appear before the Guerrilla Congress. As would another former head of the CIA, John Brennan, who went off yesterday on Morning Joe when he implied that the Russians may have personal dirt on Trump."

"Not a bad idea," Rona said, "I'll bet MSNBC and CNN would give it some coverage. It would break the mold and in its own way be entertaining. Which is sadly required by the news these days."

"There was a Rump Parliament in England in the middle of the 17th century. I think it has something to do with Charles I."

"Yours may be a crazy idea," Rona says, ignoring my historical example, "but we'll have to come up with things of this kind to keep Trump's and his sycophants' feet to the fire."

"Back to your prediction."

"You know I don't make them often, but about this one . . ."

"Please, for the sake of my sanity, don't finish the thought."

Rump Parliament