;)
The Commentariat -- February 28, 2019
Late Morning Update:
Yuliya Talmazan & Paul Goldman of NBC News: "Israel's attorney general announced Thursday that his office had indicted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on corruption charges after a two-year investigation. The prime minister faces one count of bribery and two counts of fraud and breach of trust."
Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post: Trump's "diplomatic" pratfall "should surprise no one, says Brian Katulis of the Center for American Progress. 'What happened on North Korea is a textbook case of what not to do,' he says. 'He flew all the way on the other side of the world for a deal that wasn't anywhere close to having the necessary ingredients -- let alone being partially baked.... It was so poorly planned it makes me think Trump may have wanted an excuse just to get out of town during the damaging and embarrassing [Michael] Cohen testimony.'... There was no agreement worked out in advance, so the risk of failure was high.... Kim didn't need to give an inch, and Trump wound up with another diplomatic belly-flop.... More egregious than Trump's diplomatic malpractice was Trump's defense of the murderous Kim....'It is simply disgusting what he said exonerating Kim for the murder of a U.S. citizen,' Katulis says. 'No one has been brought to justice for that murder. The episode shows how weak Trump is when he meets with leaders like Kim and Putin -- he turns into a fawning, shrinking violet who kowtows to America's worst adversaries.'"
Joyce Vance in a Washington Post op-ed: "Michael Cohen's testimony before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday was a master class in how prosecutors can present cooperating witnesses who have lied and engaged in criminal conduct, and use their testimony to obtain convictions from juries.... Choirboys don't often end up in the middle of criminal conspiracies.... On Wednesday, Cohen began the transformation from deceitful criminal to believable witness.... First, Cohen, as they say, brought the receipts.... Second, Cohen didn't go too far, when he easily could have.... Third, Cohen's story made sense.... Finally, there was Cohen's demeanor.... He was serious and respectful."
*****
Fake Summit Collapses. See news below.
May You Live in Interesting Times *
Here's an accurate summary of the House Oversight Committee's hearing to question Michael Cohen:
The Conscience of the House:
Peter Baker & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "President Trump's longtime lawyer and fixer accused him on Wednesday of an expansive pattern of lies and criminality, offering a damning portrayal of life inside the president's orbit where he said advisers sacrificed integrity for proximity to power. Michael D. Cohen, who represented Mr. Trump for a decade, told Congress that the president lied to the American public about business interests in Russia during the 2016 campaign and lied to reporters about stolen Democratic emails. Mr. Trump also told Mr. Cohen to lie about illegal hush payments to cover up alleged sexual indiscretions, the lawyer charged. The allegations, aired at a daylong hearing before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, exposed a dark underside of Mr. Trump's business and political worlds in the voice of one of the ultimate insiders. Perhaps no close associate of a president has turned on him in front of Congress in such dramatic fashion since John Dean testified against President Richard M. Nixon during the Watergate scandal."
Michael Tackett of the New York Times: Michael Cohen's "televised appearance put old facts in a new light, with a named accuser testifying under threat of perjury outlining a vivid bill of particulars against the president of the United States.... Here are some key takeaways from Mr. Cohen's testimony."
Ken Dilanian of NBC News: "If Wednesday's extraordinary House oversight committee hearing< made anything crystal clear, it was this: No matter what Robert Mueller concludes from his investigation of Russian election interference, federal prosecutors in New York pose their own separate danger to the president and his business associates.... Michael Cohen left no doubt that he is working closely with prosecutors in Manhattan's Southern District in criminal investigations that could end up roiling the Trump presidency. Unlike the special counsel, those prosecutors have no specific mandate -- they can investigate any crime that comes to their attention.... Asked after the hearing if he believed Cohen established that the president had committed a crime while in office, House oversight chairman Elijah Cummings answered, 'It appears that he did.'"
Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: House Republicans seem to have conceded Wednesday that "their" President* is a criminal. They spent almost all of their teevee time berating Michael Cohen & none of it defending Donald Trump. They showed absolutely no interest in a "search for the truth" & an abiding compulsion to distract from Trump's bad acts. It's sort of a "group consciousness of guilt." They seem to be suffering from Trump Syndrome, which is a type of Stockholm syndrome. ...
... Conservative Peter Wehner in a New York Times op-ed: "Michael Cohen's testimony before Congress on Wednesday revealed as much about the Republican Party as it did about President Trump and his former lawyer. In the aftermath of Mr. Cohen's damning testimony, several things stand out.... Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, in their frantic effort to discredit Mr. Cohen, went after him while steadfastly ignoring the actual evidence he produced. They tried to impugn his character, but were unable to impugn the documents he provided. Nor did a single Republican offer a character defense of Mr. Trump. It turns out that was too much, even for them.... In the most transparent and ham-handed way, they saw no evil and heard no evil, unless it involved Mr. Cohen.... Republicans are dedicated to annihilating truth in order to defend Mr. Trump and they will go after anyone, from Mr. Cohen to Robert Mueller, who is a threat to him. He is their emperor, and they are his political Praetorian Guard." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Actually, Wehner gives short shrift to the Praetorian Guard, who developed a habit of overthrowing the emperors they were charged to protect. ...
... ** Charles Pierce: "Not one Republican asked a question about the specific offenses that Cohen had illuminated in his opening statement. Instead, they hammered away at Cohen's own crimes -- which, of course, did nothing but remind the folks watching at home on whose behalf Cohen had told so many lies and paid off so many women.... Freedom Caucasian Mark Meadows ... thought he had something going with an item regarding contracts with foreign clients on a disclosure form that Cohen had signed, only to have Cohen point out that, contrary to Meadows's obvious reading deficits, the form referred only to foreign governments, for whom he had not worked. Meadows thundered away that Cohen was dodging the truth only to have a copy of the form pop up all over the Intertoobz in about 15 minutes, just long enough for Congresswoman Katie Hill to read it into the record and make Meadows look like a fool.... These are the complete creatures of the talk-show culture, the perfect products of two and three generations of gerrymandered in-breeding." ...
... Conservative David Frum of the Atlantic: "Michael Cohen's testimony to the House Oversight Committee was uncontradicted. The former personal attorney of the president of the United States today accused him of a litany of crimes, improprieties, immoralities, and betrayals of national security. And not one Republican member of the committee breathed one word in defense of the leader of their party. Those Republicans have learned the hard way never to trust ... Donald Trump's denials."
He had no desire or intention to lead this nation -- only to market himself and to build his wealth and power. Mr. Trump would often say, this campaign was going to be the 'greatest infomercial in political history.' He never expected to win the primary. He never expected to win the general election. -- Michael Cohen, in testimony Wednesday
Nicholas Kristof: "Cohen's testimony was staggering because of the cumulative sum of alleged misconduct, because of the overall portrait it provided of Donald Trump as a 'mobster.'... The range of Trump cons that Cohen outlined was extraordinary, from rigging an auction for the sale of a Trump portrait, to apparent bank fraud, to apparent perjury, to secret hush money payoffs to women, to apparent advance knowledge of a WikiLeaks dump of Democratic emails. There was even a tantalizing suggestion of other criminal conduct that the Justice Department's Southern District of New York is investigating that we may know nothing about.... What was almost as dispiriting as the range of misconduct alleged was the behavior of Republicans on the committee."
Jonathan Chait: "Trump's former fixer alleges not only systematic criminality by his former boss, but deep culpability in the Russia scandal itself. There is no longer any serious chance that Trump will avoid impeachment proceedings. Cohen's testimony should be seen as the first hearing." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
Michael Shear of the New York Times: "The dramatic public testimony to Congress on Wednesday morning by President Trump's former lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, could intensify the legal issues facing the president in the criminal and civil investigations that are swirling around him.... Legal experts said several of the specific allegations by Mr. Cohen in his opening statement could be relevant to questions about whether Mr. Trump participated in a conspiracy to affect the 2016 election, violated campaign finance laws and obstructed justice in an effort to deflect investigations."
How to question a witness (and how a witness should respond) in a designed-to-fail 5-minute format:
... Ed Kilgore of New York: "... at the end of a long, tedious day in the House Oversight Committee marked by clumsy questioning of Michael Cohen by Democrats, and shrieking hostility to the witness from Trump-loving Republicans, AOC (as she is universally known in the political universe -- you know, like FDR and JFK) put in perhaps the single most impressive appearance of the hearing. She was crisp, succinct, and very focused on raising some previously undiscussed potential criminal liability issues for Trump that Cohen's testimony suggested (e.g, insurance fraud), including several where the hot-button issue of Trump's missing tax returns might be germane."
Roger Stone Removes His Gag. Zoe Tillman of BuzzFeed News: "Roger Stone pushed back against Michael Cohen's claims that Stone told Trump in July 2016 that he had spoken to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange about an email dump that would hurt Hillary Clinton's campaign, saying in a text message to BuzzFeed News: 'Mr. Cohen's statement is not true.' Stone's text, which he made clear was a 'statement,' was just the one sentence, and he did not explain what exactly about Cohen's testimony he maintained was false. Stone, who is facing criminal charges for lying to Congress, is under a gag order not to publicly comment on his case, special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, or any 'participants' in his case or the investigation." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Matt Naham of Law & Crime: "Roger Stone's comments in multiple publications on Wednesday in response to Michael Cohen's testimony on Capitol Hill has some attorneys thinking he may have already violated a gag order and risked jail before trial.... Stone told BuzzFeed News, 'Mr. Cohen's statement is not true.' Stone told VICE News, 'Mr. Cohen's testimony is entirely untrue.' Stone told the New York Times by phone that 'Mr. Cohen's statement is untrue.' He told ABC News the same thing.... 'Given that his prosecution involves Stone's communications with Wikileaks/Assange as well as touches upon President Trump's alleged knowledge, a reasonable interpretation of the Court's gag order is that it was violated,' national security lawyer Mark Zaid told Law&Crime. Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti commented elsewhere that the statement 'appears to violate the gag order, although [Stone] will argue that it is a profession of innocence and thus does not violate the order.'" (Also linked yesterday.)
MEANWHILE, at Fox "News," "Analysts" Go Wild. Owen Daugherty of the Hill: "Fox News commentators Greg Gutfeld and Juan Williams got into a heated exchange Wednesday after Michael Cohen's testimony to a committee committee, with Gutfeld threatening to throw Williams 'off the set.'"
Lachlan Markay & Sam Stein of the Daily Beast: "The Florida Bar has opened an investigation into whether Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) violated professional conduct rules by threatening former Trump fixer Michael Cohen ahead of Cohen's congressional testimony on Wednesday. The organization, which licenses lawyers to practice in the state, would not disclose details of the investigation, but spokesperson Francine Walker, said the bar is 'quite aware of [Gaetz's] comments ... and we have opened an investigation.' 'If rules have been violated, The Florida Bar will vigorously pursue appropriate discipline by the Florida Supreme Court,' Walker said.... 'The Florida Bar takes its responsibility of regulating lawyer conduct very seriously.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Jack Crosbie of Splinter: "Matt Gaetz is an overtly racist lunatic who seems hell bent on espousing every single one of the Republican party's many, many odious positions. On the other hand, he is extremely, intensely dumb. Just a laser-focused idiot. Industrial grade stupidity.... I can think of no better outcome to the Cohen fiasco than it somehow claiming Matt Gaetz's law license through an incredible act of collateral idiocy.... But there's more. During the Cohen hearings, which Gaetz has been hanging around despite not being on the committee (because he is clearly a messy bitch who lives for drama), Virgin Islands Del. Stacey Plaskett went as far as to suggest that Gaetz could be referred for criminal prosecution for witness tampering." Mrs. McC: Don't you wish New York Times reporters & columnists wrote like this?
Sharon LaFraniere & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "The attorney general for the District of Columbia has subpoenaed documents from President Trump's inaugural committee, the third governmental body to delve into how the fund raised $107 million and spent it to celebrate Mr. Trump's swearing in. The latest subpoena follows similar demands for documents by federal prosecutors in Manhattan and by New Jersey's attorney general. The attorney general in Washington is a local official who enforces statutes governing the operation of nonprofit organizations like the inaugural committee." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Sharon LaFraniere: "The special counsel's office, citing new information from a cooperating witness, appeared on Wednesday to correct one element of its earlier allegations that Paul Manafort, President Trump's former campaign chairman, lied about his contacts with a Russian business associate whom they have linked to Russian intelligence. In a heavily redacted memo filed in United States District Court in Washington, prosecutors working for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, cited new evidence that they obtained less than two weeks ago from Rick Gates, the Trump campaign's deputy chairman. They said their revised account should not change the recent ruling by Judge Amy Berman Jackson that Mr. Manafort had been untruthful about his interactions with the Russian associate, Konstantin V. Kilimnik, because they had presented sufficient other evidence of Mr. Manafort's lies. Nonetheless, the filing was a rare admission of a mistake by the special counsel's office...."
Trump & Kim's Excellent Play DateTM: Mrs. Patrick
Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un abruptly cut short their two-day summit [in Hanoi] Thursday after the two leaders failed to reach an agreement to dismantle that country's nuclear weapons. Although Kim said he was ready in principle to denuclearize, his talks with Trump collapsed unexpectedly as the two men and their delegations departed their meeting site in Vietnam's capital city without sitting for a planned lunch and or participating in a signing ceremony. Trump said he felt he had to 'walk' from the negotiating table, in part because Kim wanted the United States to lift economic sanctions on North Korea in their entirety. 'We had some options, but at this time we decided not to do any of the options,' Trump said. He added, 'Sometimes you have to walk, and this was just one of those times.'" ...
... New York Times: "A day that started with the promise of a denuclearization deal and talk of an official declaration to end the Korean War ended abruptly, without a deal.... Mr. Trump said the major sticking point to a deal with North Korea was the lifting of sanctions. Mr. Kim, the president said, wanted sanctions fully lifted in exchange for dismantling some -- but not all -- of the North's nuclear weapons program.... First came word that Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump's lunch would be canceled. Then the scheduled signing of a joint agreement was called off. By midday Thursday, it was clear the talks had collapsed." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Of course all the experts agreed that Kim would never give up the country's nuclear weapons capabilities, so the whole premise of the "summit" was bogus. But in a "real" summit, career diplomats & negotiators would have hammered out the parameters of any agreement before the principals showed up, so there was no reason whatsoever for the dear leaders to meet. Talk about a hoax. On the other hand, the meeting -- just like the previous one -- enhanced Kim's standing in the world & humiliated the U.S., a Trump specialty.
He tells me he didn't know about it, and I take him at his word. -- Donald Trump, on Kim Jong-un & North Korea's torture & murder of American student Otto Warmbier ...
Trump Takes the Word of Another Brutal Dictator. Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Thursday defended North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over the death of American college student Otto Warmbier, whose family says he was 'brutally tortured' while imprisoned in North Korea and died in 2017 after being flown back to United States in a coma.... 'I don't believe he would have allowed that to happen,' Trump said.... Trump said that he spoke to Kim about the death of Warmbier ... and that Kim 'feels badly about it.' He said the North Korea leader, who rules the country with an iron grip, knew about the case but learned about it only after the fact because, Trump suggested, 'top leadership' might not have been involved.... Trump's defense of Kim mirrors his willingness to take the word of autocrats in other cases despite the findings of his own government or experts.... On Thursday, Trump jumped in when an American journalist asked Kim about his human rights record, saying they would discuss it privately. 'You've got a lot of people,' Trump said of North Korea during Thursday's news conference. 'Big country, a lot of people. And in those prisons and those camps, you've got a lot of people. And some really bad things happened to Otto.... But [Kim] tells me he didn't know about it.'"
Trump Calls Murderous Dictator "a Great Leader." Julian Borger of the Guardian: "Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un have begun their second summit, with the US president calling his North Korean counterpart 'a great leader' and offering to help give his country a 'tremendous future'.... 'It is an honour to be with Chairman Kim. It's an honour to be together in a country, Vietnam, where they have rolled out the red carpet and they are very honoured to have us,' the US president told reporters as the two men sat alongside each other before brief introductory talks." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: As a reminder of what a real president looks like when he must meet with a murderous dictator who starves his people, here's a photo of Bill Clinton meeting in 2009 with Li'l Kim's father Kim Jong-il (or a look-alike), when Clinton served as an envoy to President Obama to negotiate the release of two U.S. journalists whom North Korea had jailed:
Andrew Restuccia & Katie Galiato of Politico: "... Donald Trump was hit with a spray of shouted questions on Wednesday evening in Vietnam, including one about his former fixer Michael Cohen's salacious testimony, as North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un sat alongside him, chuckling and looking bemused at the media outburst. Minutes later, the White House barred four American journalists from covering their next event. The decision ... sparked outrage among the White House press corps and prompted immediate accusations that the White House was punishing journalists for asking the president uncomfortable questions.... Ultimately, just one print reporter from the pool of 13 journalists that shadow the president on foreign trips was allowed into the subsequent dinner meeting between Trump and Kim. Reporters from all three wire services -- the Associated Press, Reuters and Bloomberg -- as well as a fourth reporter from the Los Angeles Times were blocked from the meeting. Past White Houses have often fought for increased access for American journalists while the U.S. president was traveling abroad in an effort to underscore the importance of a free press." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Nahal Toosi of Politico: “It seems that ... Donald Trump has met a 'socialist' country he actually likes. In recent months Trump has repeatedly cited what he calls the growing threat of socialism in an effort to tarnish leftist Democrats eyeing the Oval Office while also justifying his efforts to oust Venezuela's dictator. But this week, the U.S. leader has been praising Vietnam, the socialist-in-name country hosting his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. In fact, Trump has pointed to Vietnam's economic advances as a model Kim could emulate if he gives up his nuclear weapons. 'Vietnam is thriving like few places on earth,' Trump tweeted Wednesday...."
** Deanna Paul of the Washington Post: "Attorney Eric Miller was confirmed as a judge on the country's most liberal appeals court this week, and for the first time in the Senate's history, the confirmation took place without the consent of either home-state senator, a break from tradition that Democrats say Republicans will come to regret.... Miller's lifetime appointment followed a brief hearing, which took place during a congressional recess and with only two Republican senators present. Miller was confirmed on Tuesday on a 53-46 vote, allowing Trump to continue to move toward a more conservative federal judiciary, one of his key campaign promises."
Brakkton Booker of NPR: "The House passed the most significant gun control measure in more than two decades on Wednesday when it approved the first of two bills aimed at strengthening the federal background check system for firearms purchases. The bill will likely stop in the House, though, as the Senate is unlikely to take up the measure and, even if it does, the president likely would not sign it. The vote on the first bill dubbed the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019 passed largely along party lines 240 to 190 with Democrats who control the House cheering as they carried the legislation across the finish line." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Beyond the Beltway
Maine. Save the Forgotten White People! Mike Tipping of the Maine Beacon: "Speaking to the hosts of the WVOM morning show this week, former Governor Paul LePage lambasted a bill being considered by Maine's legislature to join with other states to essentially bypass the Electoral College and ensure that the President is elected by the national popular vote. 'Actually what would happen if they do what they say they're gonna do is white people will not have anything to say. It's only going to be the minorities that would elect. It would be California, Texas, Florida,' said LePage. The former governor, calling into the show from his home in Florida, also labeled the proposal 'an insane process' and warned that 'we're gonna be forgotten people.'" Via TPM.
North Carolina. Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "The North Carolina political operative who oversaw a fraud-ridden voter-turnout effort on behalf of a Republican congressional candidate was arrested on Wednesday, a prosecutor said, after a grand jury's secret indictment this week. The campaign contractor, L. McCrae Dowless Jr., was among five people charged in Wake County, N.C., in connection with misconduct related to absentee ballots. Mr. Dowless faces the gravest charges, including three counts of felonious obstruction of justice." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Texas. Oliver Laughland of the Guardian: "A federal judge has blocked election officials in Texas from checking the citizenship of registered voters and potentially purging them from electoral rolls in a temporary order that marks a significant victory for civil rights activists. The ruling by US district judge Fred Biery on Wednesday comes a month after the Texas secretary of state's office flagged almost 100,000 registered voters who it claimed required a citizenship review in order to maintain the right to vote in the state. The office was later forced to concede the data it had used was significantly flawed as advocates argued it discriminated against Hispanic Americans. The move prompted three legal challenges from civil rights groups targeting several counties in Texas with Biery's order effectively stopping the entire state from requesting proof of citizenship or purging voters without informing the court first. The order will remain in effect until the legal challenge is fully argued."
Virginia. Res Ipsa Loquitur. Gregory S. Schneider & Laura Vozzella of the Washington Post: "A Virginia state employee has complained that her eighth-grade daughter was upset during a tour of the historic governor's residence when first lady Pam Northam handed raw cotton to her and another African American child and asked them to imagine being enslaved and having to pick the crop."
Way Beyond
Maria Abi-Habib & Hari Kumar of the New York Times: "Pakistan said Wednesday that it downed two Indian fighter jets and captured a pilot, escalating hostilities between the nuclear-armed neighbors a day after Indian warplanes struck inside Pakistani territory for the first time in five decades. The rapid turn of events raised fears that the historical animosities between India and Pakistan could be steering them toward another war." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
News Lede
New York Times: "André Previn, who blurred the boundaries between jazz, pop and classical music -- and between composing, conducting and performing -- in an extraordinarily eclectic, award-filled career, died on Thursday at his home in Manhattan. He was 89."
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Reader Comments (9)
Beware. There a whole lot of voters that are not part of Trump's base. These voters look down their noses at Trump and would never admit their support. But this is a group of Americans that will defend their benefits from Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy.
Thirty seven percent wing nuts and seven or twelve or fifteen percent wealthy voters and perhaps we should pray for impeachment
The president* may not have his long time fixer, Michael Cohen,
any longer but it seems he now has the whole (or most of) the
Republican party as his fixer.
Could it be most of them fear not being re-elected rather than
doing the right thing? Don't answer that.
So there he was, testifying. A con man describing the con man he had worked for as long as a decade. Here is a man, having lost everything, confessing to his criminality, and to his adulation and then loathing of Trump. I found him not only credible but knowledgeable in the sense that "bad" people who do terrible things can sometimes do good things ( and good people can do bad things) or in this case can turn themselves around. Except for one, ( a young, nice looking guy who treated Cohen with respect and even compassion–-didn't get his name) the rest of those "friends from the other side of the aisle", not sharing that moral universe, stuck to their play list and hammered Cohen and not once asked questions about Trump. It was quite a spectacle–-Meadows and Jordan were like chickens whose heads had been just cut off–-running around verbally in a frenzied dance of denial.
What is truly historic here is that finally we have a testimony implicating a president of criminal behavior while that self same president is at a failed summit with a criminal leader with whom this president has expressed love and admiration for and both are in Viet Nam, a country we destroyed because of fear of communism but is now flourishing.
I question Politico's use of the word "salacious" in describing Cohen's testimony. Except for the "hush monies" for the lush honeys, salacious could hardly describe the whole.
Sooooo-- it appears the whole Northam family is nuts or idiotic. How did the Mrs. not know that she was prancing amongst land mines? Democrats don't need The Stupids in power.
Watched a lot of the Cohen Chronicles. Honest to pete, I don't know how he kept his cool while being pelted with idiocies and hostilities. In no way do I defend his past actions, but the man was dignified and respectful, while his adversaries gibbered like cartoon monkeys, screeching and sputtering and wearing silly things. The absolute worst was the token black woman brought in to be an exhibition of dumpsterfire's vaunted great relationship with minorities. If the rest of the world was watching, I'm sure there was a mass scratching of heads. How has the good ole USA come to this?? You need not answer this question and I expect you will ace the test anyhow.
@PD Pepe: I think you mean Justin Amash, a weird libertarian guy who represents the Grand Rapids, Michigan, area & is a Trump opponent. Although I probably would disagree with him about 90 percent of the time, it's kinda nice to see a representative who really does march to his own drummer.
Marie,
Quite right about the Praetorian Guard. Another feature of the Guard, aside from occasionally assassinating (or allowing to be assassinated) emperors, was their penchant for choosing who would be next on the throne. In modern times, this duty is now assigned to the Supreme Court.
While very much unlike the Praetorian Guard, the current iteration of the Republican Party is reminiscent of another group of post-Republic Romans: eunuchs. As Walter Stevenson, professor of classics at Richmond University has pointed out, "...the word eunuch comes from the Greek for 'bed-guard' eunen echein..." which places Gaetz and Jordan and company outside the king's bedroom to ward off interlopers and fend off bothersome types like the dread Michalius Cohensus.
Although one similarity to the Guard strikes me as germane to modern times; Praetorians, when faced with doing their job or indulging in a little jettisoning of the rules, could, for a price, be bought off. One short-lived emperor (Galba--seven months) who stiffed the Praetorians, found that a rival (Otho) paid off the right members of the Guard to make himself emperor. Shortly thereafter, Galba was lynched.
The Guard desired money, power, and influence. Today, all you have to do is hint at the support of certain voting blocs to get the current crop to renounce their oath of office. Progress?
Does Michael Cohen come with baggage? A truckload. He's a jerk and a creep and no moral touchstone. As for whether or not his testimony will stand, a raft of former Mafia bosses have been put away on the testimony of guys a lot more despicable and criminally contaminated. Even if Mueller gives a pass on collusion, it ain't gonna be roses and sunshine for the Trumpies. They should be worried. Bank fraud alone is a biggie (it's what got both Manafort and Cohen accommodations in a very small room with bars on the window).
@ Marie: thanks so much for the name of Justin Amash: just finished reading about him and certainly agree with you about disagreeing with him most of the time but yes, he does display a strong drum roll and from the get go he was against Trump.
@Ak: you say Cohen has no moral touchstone and you may be correct in that assessment, but I think if lacking that he would not have testified as he did. He has defined his actions in a most despicable way and appears genuinely repentant. Let's say if that touchstone before was just an ugly rock, he has discovered some pretty new gems. There is nothing like jail to facilitate change.
How does the "Donny of the Deal" come back empty handed from little Rocket Man? I'm perplexed. Surely it wasn't DD's fault, he's the greatest, biggest brain, and deals is what he does.
How long till he and his pathetic sycophants start blaming Democrats for the big fat diplomatic failure? Donny couldn't focus with the mean ol' Democrats splashing his alleged crime ring all across the teevees. If they truly loved Amerika they would've cancelled the hearing and waved pompoms for the presidunce*.
And I've got a sneaky suspicion about all the repeated questions the GOP kept returning to concerning the "lucrative book/movie deals" Cohen might pursue... You really think these Confederate assholes give two shits about a book they'd never read or a movie they'd never watch? You think the Fox News conservative electorate is going to read the book? Not a chance in hell. But their Dear Leader is deathly afraid of any attempts at revealing his true character, and only sees the world through film and newspaper clippings. I'm betting he ordered his sheeple to try to trick Cohen into agreeing not to pursue a deal that would enrich him considerably, all at the expense of the thin skinned hack occupying the White House.