It's coming from inside the House

Republicans were successfully able to modify the bill requiring background checks on all gun sales — a marquee vote in the new Democratic-led House — with a provision targeting undocumented immigrants who try to purchase weapons.

Democrats learned the specifics of the GOP motion only minutes before the vote.

[...]

The surprise win for Republicans — enough Democrats joined with the GOP to successfully attach the immigration related amendment to the guns bill — was the second such setback for Democratic leaders in recent weeks.

Earlier this month, Republicans used the same maneuver to successfully force Democrats to add language condemning anti-Semitism to an unrelated bill to halt U.S. involvement in the Yemen war. The resolution passed, but the GOP amendment ended up derailing the Yemen resolution in the Senate.

[...]

Speaker Nancy Pelosi later raised the issue at her weekly meeting with leaders of the various Democratic interest groups — from the Congressional Black Caucus to the Blue Dogs. Pelosi said it was disappointing that veteran lawmakers who had been awarded spots on coveted committees including the Ways and Means and Appropriations panels then chose to turn around and vote with Republicans on Wednesday.

  Politico

The maybe they should stop picking people for committee appointments on the basis of how much money they raise for the DNC and start choosing people who are appropriate for the committee. Or people they know will vote with Democrats every time, for that matter.

Pelosi said she was concerned these members would also have to take tough votes in committee and questioned how would they handle that if they already felt compelled to side with Republicans on votes that she and others saw merely as procedural exercises by the minority, according to a senior Democratic source.

[...]

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and other top Democrats are weighing revising the House rules to require Republicans give them more notice on specific procedural votes, known as a “motion to recommit,” a wonky tactic that the GOP has used to force Democrats to vote on a range of controversial issues since January.

What they need to change is the ability to tack on unrelated amendments altogether.

Pelosi, Hoyer and Clyburn have watched with alarm for weeks as Republicans have continued to win Democratic support for their controversial amendments, often from freshmen who have privately expressed concerns about the GOP using these votes against them in campaign ads.

[...]

Pelosi has met with the freshmen multiple times, encouraging them to stay unified and vote with the party — thus letting the air out of the GOP’s attack balloon. But multiple freshmen in GOP-targeted districts told POLITICO earlier this month they have no plans to change their strategy.

If true, that's just plain sad. What was the purpose of Americans electing Democrats if they're going to vote Republican? On the other hand, if they really are voting the way their contituents want them to, so be it. That's the only way to end the hell hole of partisanship that is currently our Congress.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Great picture of Trump's failed summit

They look like they've been up all night.  Or asked a question they weren't expecting.  Or got caught doing something naughty.


...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

NO COLLUSION

Never mind that he did provide evidence that Trump paid off Stormy Daniels through Michael Cohen with payments made to look like something else.  Or that he provided evidence that Trump falsely reported values of his properties to avoid taxes on them and to get larger insurance payments.  (Not mentioned was the $17 million fraud claiming damage to Mar-A-Lago that never happened.  I wish someone had asked about that.)

The GOP/Trump message is that he never colluded with Russia while ignoring the many crimes he did commit.  The legitimacy of Trump's election is more important than the fact that a criminal is the president.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Failure in Hanoi

Donald Trump has said that a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un broke down over the issue of sanctions, after the talks in Vietnam ended early with no deal.

“It was about the sanctions basically,” Trump said at a press conference in Hanoi. “They wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety and we couldn’t do that ... Sometimes you have to walk, and this was just one of those times.”

  Guardian

He really thought Kim was as easily flattered as he is, didn't he?  Republicans will be blaming it on the Democrats for holding the Cohen hearings while Trump was overseas trying to save the world.  One of them already tried to shame Cohen during his testimony for that very thing.

The US president said that Kim had offered to dismantle some parts of his nuclear infrastructure, including the Yongbyon nuclear complex, but was not prepared to destroy other parts of the programme, including covert uranium plants.

“There is a gap. We have to have sanctions,” Trump said. “They were willing to denuke a large portion of the areas we wanted but we couldn’t give up all the sanctions for that.”

So can we look forward to a return to the nasty rhetoric about "Little Rocket Man"?

“We spent all day with Kim Jong-un,” Trump said. “He’s quite a guy and quite a character. And our relationship is very strong.”

He even defended Kim over the death of US student Otto Warmbier, who had been sent back home from North Korea seriously ill in June 2017.

“He says he didn’t know about it and I will take him at his word,” Trump said, adding that North Korea was a big country and: “Those prisons are rough. They’re rough places and bad things happen.”

Not yet.

Trump said there was no plan for a third summit but made clear that the current status quo would continue, with North Korea continuing to suspend nuclear and missile tests, while the US would not take part in joint military exercises with South Korea, which the US president said he was opposed to anyway.

“I gave that up quite a while ago because it costs us $100 million to do it. I hated to see it. I thought it was unfair,” Trump said, saying South Korea should shoulder more of the costs. “Exercising is fun and it’s nice they play their war games. I’m not saying its not necessary. On some levels it is. On other levels it’s not.”

You don't know what you're saying. I think that's obvious.

He confirmed that the US side had confronted the North Koreans with the existence of covert nuclear facilities outside Yongbyon and demanded they be put on the negotiating table.

“They were surprised we knew,” he said.

I doubt that very, very much, considering that was widely reported in our news outlets after that first meeting.

The press conference came after a scheduled lunch and signing ceremony for the expected joint statement were both cancelled at short notice, as Trump and Kim left the summit venue and returned to their separate Hanoi hotels.

[...]

Signs of trouble at the second Trump-Kim summit appeared earlier on Thursday when Trump played down expectations of any kind of agreement in the Vietnam capital and urged the focus to be on longer term relations between the two leaders and the two countries.

[...]

“I’m sure over the years we’ll be together a lot, and I think we’ll also be together after the fact, meaning after the deal is made. We had very good discussions last night at dinner, and the pre-dinner was very good. And, there were a lot of great ideas being thrown about,” Trump said.

“So, I can’t speak necessarily for today, but I can say that this, a little bit longer term, and over a period of time, I know we’re going to have a fantastic success with respect to Chairman Kim and North Korea.”

[...]

Since the first summit in Singapore in June last year, Trump and his administration had claimed they were on the brink of a historic breakthrough in persuading North Korea to disarm, going beyond the agreements forged by former US presidents.

[...]

“No rush. No rush,” he insisted. “We just want to do the right deal. Chairman Kim and myself, we want to do the right deal. Speed is not important. What’s important is that we do the right deal. Thank you all very much.”

Maybe now he'll believe his intel agencies when they tell him Kim will never denuclearize.  (And why would he in today's world?)

All that flattery, wasted.



Will there be a Mission Not Accomplished sign on their return?



Wait.  Is Kim's chair bigger than Trump's?  Sure looks like it.  That's why the talks failed, isn't it?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

This guy is a Congressman from Louisiana and on the House Oversight Committee

Dear god.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

What a putz!

Hahaha.  Yeah, let's.

You and Trump are the only ones we've seen so far publicly threatening his family in any way.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The art of the deal

U.S. negotiators are no longer demanding that North Korea agree to disclose a full accounting of its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs as part of talks this week between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, according to current and former senior U.S. officials.

The decision to drop, for now, a significant component of a potential nuclear deal suggests a reality that U.S. intelligence assessments have stressed for months is shaping talks as they progress: North Korea does not intend to fully denuclearize, which is the goal Trump set for his talks with Kim.

Disclosure of a full, verifiable declaration of North Korea’s programs is the issue over which the last round of serious negotiations between Pyongyang and world powers, including the U.S., fell apart a decade ago.

  NBC

Well, that's one way to get a victory.





Yeah, that's not going to be the boost he needs to counter the Cohen testimony.



What's he going to tell us about this trip when he gets back?






...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Cohen's testimony

[The Republicans] provided Cohen with one slow pitch up the middle after another, letting him repeat the cooperating witness’s go-to explanation like a mantra: I did these bad things so often and so long because that’s what it took to work for your guy. I have seldom seen a cross-examination go worse.

If the hearing’s participants needed trial lawyers, its absent subject needs them even more. Whether the danger is looming impeachment hearings or the Special Counsel’s investigation, the president of the United States is in the soup.

Cohen put Donald Trump squarely at the middle of the harebrained scheme to hide hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels. He corroborated that tale with checks from Trump and from the Trump organization. The odd and haphazard way Trump reimbursed Cohen helps make the case that Trump knew the entire ruse breached campaign finance laws—if not clearly enough for a federal jury, at least enough for a House Committee on Impeachment. Cohen offered enough specific examples of Trump Organization financial skullduggery to launch a thousand subpoenas.

  Ken White

Looking forward to it.

He confirmed that Trump’s lawyers knew about, and even edited, Cohen’s prior false statements to Congress, suggesting a possible conspiracy to obstruct justice and lie to Congress. He also claimed that Trump talked to Roger Stone about Wikileaks in advance of the release of hacked DNC emails. That’s not itself illegal or “collusion”—it’s not against the law to receive dirt, even eagerly—but it probably contradicts the statements Trump has given under oath to the Special Counsel, leading to more danger for the president.

I hope we one day, before we get too old to recall what it was all about, get to see Trump's answers and how he might have lied in them.

Finally, Cohen confirmed that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York is still investigating Trump for unspecified crimes. Nothing good has come out of the Southern District for this administration.

Team Trump should be worried. Republicans did not successfully destroy Cohen’s credibility. Cohen, while characteristically squirrelly on some subjects, did not exude his customary arrogance.In fact, he probably gained credibility by limiting his accusations—he passed up numerous opportunities to make expansive claims about collusion or salacious ones.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:



If they are not in some way complicit or ensnared in the Russian collusion aspect of Trump's crimes, then they are indeed fools.



UPDATE:



UPDATE:

The full hearing (video from USA Today)

Somebody's going to be very sorry, your honor

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.”

  Daily Beast

It would be a bit ironic if Gaetz lost his law license a few days after Michael Cohen lost his (yesterday). He won't, of course, but he could be sanctioned or censured or whatever it is the Florida Bar does to slap attorneys on the wrist.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:



Hahaha.  Yeah, let's.

More to come

Amen

UPDATE: