September 20, 2018--Show Up!

Changing votes among Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee is no longer the issue.

All GOP minds are shut tight. Without hearing one word from Dr.  Blassey Ford all are ready this minute to vote to send Brett Kavanaugh on to the full Senate where the weak-kneed and well-named Jeff Flake, the equally well-named Bob Corker, and the ever self-justifying Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins now have all the rationals they need to fall familiarly in line. All four can now feel virtuous. They will even be able to boast that they don't sound as clueless as Senator Orrin Hatch who called Dr. Ford "mixed up."

Even a few Red State Democratic senators can now justify that they too can vote for Kavanaugh and avoid rightwing retribution this November as they precariously seek reelection. 

And all things being equal (which they are not) holding her appearance before the committee hostage in the hope that the FBI will undertake an investigation is appropriate but in the real political world is a fantasy,  Such an investigation would have to be ordered by Trump and he's the last person to have any interest in seeing more accusations and facts surface. He personally knows how that feels and what that can yield. Just say "Stormy Daniels." 

Then no one in the Senate or political class cares much about Kavanaugh's candidacy. At least six Democrats on the committee have their eyes on another prize--the presidency--and see the committee's hearings to be an opportunity to come off looking nominatable and presidential. Thus far they have been so inept at this as to reduce the little stature they have. Even non-committee White House aspirants (Elizabeth Warren comes to mind) can't speak even one sentence about this without making fools of themselves. They are that desperate for power.

Sadly, it does not matter any longer if Dr. Ford is telling the truth. The committee is not a grand jury, it is not a court of law, it is a place where the essence of truth can become manifest. Hers and also, let's be fair, his.

What then is at issue? What's left is for Dr. Ford to tell her story directly to Congress and, more important, beyond that, to the American people. 

Especially to female Americans who have been fighting for decades to have their voices heard.

Forgive me, but thus far Dr. Ford has offered a tease. To tell her story to 100 million is certainly frightening, particularly while being savaged on social media, including having her life threatened. There are all those Trump crazies out there who are not to be ignored. 

But if Professor Ford is changing her mind about testifying (as of this morning she may or may not be), she should have been certain she was willing to show up to testify before beginning to squeeze out her story to her local congresswoman and the Washington Post.

If she refuses to show up on Monday to tell her story the real losers will be women who find her story all too credible and feel from their own life experience that they have been shused and held silent for too long.

The negative example of backing out, not showing up, will be devastating. And will provide cover for the worst kind of gender stereotyping. 

So please pack a bag and head for Washington. It's big person time.

December 15, 2017--John McCain's Thumbs Up

Many admired John McCain, recently diagnosed with incurable brain cancer, when he appeared on the Senate floor past midnight in late September to vote thumbs down, literally thumbs down, on the Republican bill to repeal Obamacare.

Many were looking forward to a repeat performance next week when the Senate appears set to vote on one of the most regressive budget-busting tax-cut bills in modern legislative history.

Alas, McCain has indicated he will vote for it. Actually, try physically to vote for it if the wicked side effects of radiation and chemo therapy will allow him to do so. 

If he cannot make it to the Senate, the Republicans will have an even smaller margin to pass it. Thus, if Susan Collins of my beloved Maine comes to her senses and changes her mind and votes against the bill, it has a chance of being defeated. 

I have been wondering, why McCain, at times a legitimate maverick, was or is set to vote for it, considering how much he despises Donald Trump. I came to the one obvious conclusion--he and his family would be enormous beneficiaries of the GOP bill.

It would be kind to him and especially his heiress wife who own no fewer that eight homes (remember how that was revealed during the 2008 presidential election?) since this bill is quite friendly to people with large real estate holdings.

More than that, with his and his wife's net worth topping $100 million (she inherited a fortune in beer distributorships) by doubling the current $11million one can pass along tax free--John and Cindy McCain's heirs will net at least $11 million more than they would at present

Not the kind of political legacy I would imagine he seeks. But I guess when it gets right down to it, money is money. 

October 27, 2017--Trump's Get Out of Jail Free Card

Up to now here's how I thought Donald Trump's presidency would end:

For many months I've been writing that the real threat to him is not the ideological split among Republicans, the opposition of the Democrats, his failure to accomplish anything, or his intemperate and outrageous behavior. Like the sort of things he said recently about John McCain, Senator Bob Corker, and gold star families, among the many targets of his ire.

Most perilous, I have felt, would be the looming findings of the investigation being directed by special council Robert Mueller. This, I thought, will turn out to be the ticking time bomb that would bring him down before the end of his term. 

We would learn about collusion between Trump and the Russians who worked together to doom Hillary Clinton's candidacy, Trump's corrupt business practices in Moscow and elsewhere, illegal money-laundering activities that would be discovered through an examination of his personal finances, and his various efforts to obstruct justice as this investigations unfolds.

That the weight of evidence would turn out to be so overwhelming that he would either be impeached and voted out of office by the Senate or, like Richard Nixon, be forced to resign.

None of this is any longer likely.

No matter what Mueller finds it will be at most a one-week story.

Here's why--

Trump and his enablers have come up with a winning defensive strategy. Much of it focused on Hillay Clinton, the Clintons (plural) and Trump's favorite nemesis, Barack Obama.

They are working on three themes--

First, they are in the process of turning the focus of the collusion-with-the-Russians narrative from Trump to Hillary. Earlier this week Trump and his people basked in the revelation, reported in the fake-news Washington Post of all places, that the infamous BuzzFeed dossier that outlines in literally explicit detail Trump's nefarious business activities with Russian oligarchs and frolics with prostitutes was largely paid for by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee. More than $10 million worth.

People close to Hillary Clinton acknowledged this, claiming that it was routine opposition research. Everyone does it they blandly said. Well, that may be true, but from a political perspective it is ruinous to any attempt to use the dossier revelations as part of a case against Trump. Now the whole episode will become a case against Hillary. Slimy political jujitsu at its best.

Then there is the uranium flap. 

This was reported by the New York Times many months ago and at that time I had a few things to say about it. The paper of record alleged that at the behest of Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton herself while Secretary of State and Barack Obama was president approved the sale to Russian business interests of the Canadian company that produces of 20 percent of our uranium supply. 

Bill Clinton was shown to be in the middle of this--he was paid $500,000 to deliver a speech in Russia after which more than $100 million was donated by Russians to the Clinton Foundation. These, it is speculated, lubricated the approval process by U.S. governmental agencies, including Hillary Clinton's State Department. 

Republicans at the time did not make that big a deal of it. They were focused more on pillorying Hillary about Benghazi. But periodically during the campaign Trump alluded to it. Now, reprised earlier this week by Trump's Minister of Propaganda, Sean Hannity on his radio and Fox TV shows, it is proving to be another effective diversion from the Mueller investigation, which reportedly is moving along quickly.

Then, to finish the trifecta of Trump preemptive defensive strategies there is the slow boiling process of sliming Robert Mueller. 

Again, Fox News and Trump himself are beginning to bring up things, I should say, make up things in an effort to undermine Mueller's reputation. They are saying he was and is chummy with fired FBI Director James Comey and that he has ties to the law firm that was paid by the Hillary people to come up with the BuzzFeed dossier. Thus, they are asking how can we trust anything Mueller and his staff uncover.

Couple this with a large part of the public's disinterest in anything critical of Donald Trump and the very recent reports that Republicans in Congress are rolling over for Trump and giving him standing ovations, afraid that if they don't Steve Bannon and his people will come after them with pitchforks and toss them out of office, putting all of this together, I am coming to think that whatever Mueller reports and recommends will be largely ignored, except on MSNBC.

With the resignation of congressmen such as Jeff Flake and Bob Corker, the Republican Party is in the process of becoming the Trump Party. 

He may be all the things critics say about him, but one thing he surely is--when it comes to fighting back he's shameless and effective.