Trump Cards, Con't

The annual CPAC gathering of conservative grifters is this week outside DC, and the capstone was Donald Trump's screaming, explicit two-hour tirade against his enemies list, giving his rank-and-file supporters marching orders about what to do when the Mueller report hits.

President Donald Trump on Saturday delivered a scorched-earth speech to conservative activists, calling the Russia investigation "bullshit," adopting a southern accent to mock his former attorney general, and asserting that some members of Congress "hate our country."

The rollicking two-hour-plus appearance at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland offered the president a brief respite from an otherwise miserable week in which his much-touted summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un ended in failure and his former personal lawyer delivered explosive testimony to Congress.

Trump, basking in the adoration of the crowd, largely glossed over the North Korea summit's collapse, instead reviving several of his greatest hits, from rehashing the 2016 election to obsessing over the crowd size at his inauguration.

The speech amounted to a boatload of red meat for conservatives, with Trump promising he’ll protect them from undocumented immigrants, socialism and liberal Democrats he claims are dead set on bankrupting the country with proposals like the Green New Deal.

“You know I’m totally off script right now,” Trump said at the beginning of his speech. As his meandering speech continued, it became clear that his assessment was an understatement.

At one point, Trump regaled the crowd with a story about a general he said was named "Raisin Caine" (it wasn't immediately clear who he was referring to). He said he always sits with the pilots when airplanes are landing: "They know what we’re doing." He said he has good eyesight and later added, "I don’t have white hair." He derided a Hawaii senator as a "crazy person." And he accused Hollywood of discriminating against conservatives.

He even revisited his campaign kickoff speech from June 2015. "From day one, I mentioned the word rape. If you look at that first speech, that was very innocent compared to what’s happening," Trump said. Trump came under fire for his 2015 comments, which appeared to broadly assert that Mexicans were rapists.

Throughout, Trump revealed himself to be a president deeply scorned by what he views as unfair media coverage and a lack of recognition from many in Washington. "I get no credit," he said multiple times throughout the lengthy speech.

But the crowd gave him credit.  It was a malignant narcissist's wet dream, Trump basking in the adoration of his hateful fans while he pumped them full of vitriol, screaming about how he has been persecuted and by inference, all of his voters.

And he dared them to get out there and to stop his enemies, promising he would force colleges to give conservative "free speech" or lose all federal funding, declaring Democrats to be enemies of the country who hate America, attacking Robert Mueller as a traitor, and worse, declaring America is "one people, one family and one nation."

This was a disturbing, demented, and dangerous speech.  We've now reached the point where Trump knows he's not going to make it to a second term, and he's going to see this country and millions burn on the way down.

E pluribus Unum went right out the window. Trump's America is what Dear Leader Donald says it is.  And anyone else will be dealt with...

Enemies Of The People

The Republican Party knows it lost the House in 2018 because of Trump, so now it is trying to demonize House Democrats by whatever means necessary in order to enrage its base to take action against them.  The GOP will tell you of course that the action they prefer is "voting" but, you know, whatever works to stop the Democratic party.

The reverberations of an anti-Muslim poster on display at the West Virginia Capitol rotunda continue, with the House Sergeant at Arms resigning and talk of possible discipline against a lawmaker who allegedly injured a doorkeeper Friday.

Sgt. at Arms Anne Lieberman resigned Friday afternoon after delegates accused her of using an anti-Muslim slur. "The sergeant of arms of this body had the nerve to say to us 'all Muslims are terrorists' that's beyond shameful and that's beyond freedom of speech," Del. Michael Angelucci, D-Marion, said.

The poster that sparked the controversy consisted of two photos. The upper photo was a picture of the World Trade Center towers during the 9/11 attack. A caption read, "'NEVER FORGET' - YOU SAID.."

Below it was a photo of Minnesota Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, wearing a hijab. Omar is Muslim, and was one of two Muslim women elected to Congress. That picture's caption said, "I AM PROOF - YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN."

The anti-Muslim display was outside the House of Delegates chamber as part of a “Republicans Take the Rotunda” event.

A lawmaker told us Friday evening that the House Rules Committee will meet at 8 a.m. Saturday to decide if Del. Mike Caputo, D-Marion, will face repercussions for allegedly injuring a doorkeeper during an angry outburst regarding the poster. Caputo is the minority whip in the House.

Caputo admitted to kicking the door because he wanted to get into the chamber and he said he was being blocked. "We have created an anger that I have never witnessed in 23 years in this body and it sickens me. It absolutely sickens me. So yeah, I kicked the door open I'll own it," Caputo said. The doorkeeper was taken to the hospital for evaluation.

Democrats in the House spoke out against the poster, saying it is the second hateful event to happen in that legislative body during this session. They referred back to when Del. Eric Porterfield, R-Mercer, compared the LGBTQ community to the Ku Klux Klan.

West Virginia Republicans essentially accusing Rep. Ilhan Omar and American Muslims of causing 9/11 is just expressing the vile hatred in their hearts.  They know that in the era of Trump they don't have to hide it anymore, they can freely post Facebook memes as recruitment posters for their two-minute hate sessions.

And if something happened to Rep. Omar, not a one of them would lose a wink of sleep.

America, this is your Republican party.

Meanwhile In Bevinstan...

Kentucky is the latest state to embrace the gun death culture as apparently our elected officials here feel we need to get rid of the background check, training, and permit fee for concealed carry.

Kentucky lawmakers sided with a powerful gun-rights organization Friday in approving a bill to let people carry a concealed handgun without a permit or training.

The measure, backed by the National Rifle Association, sparked impassioned debate in the House that veered between gun ownership rights and fears of more gun violence. The bill won final passage on a 60-37 vote and goes to Republican Gov. Matt Bevin.

"This comes down to a constitutional right. We have a right in this country to own and bear arms," Republican Rep. John Blanton said in supporting the measure.

Under the legislation, Kentuckians able to lawfully possess a firearm could conceal their weapons without a license. A gun-carrying permit in the state now carries a fee and a gun safety training requirement. Objections from opponents included dropping the training requirement as a condition for carrying concealed weapons.

"The right to carry a weapon in our society — as with all rights — comes with responsibility," Democratic Rep. Maria Sorolis said. "And this bill provides no protection for responsibility by gun owners to know their weapon, to be able to use them well."

Bevin's office did not immediately respond to an email asking if the governor will sign it into law. Bevin, a staunch conservative, is seeking re-election this year.

If Senate Bill 150 becomes law, Kentucky would become the 16th state to allow adults statewide to carry concealed firearms without permits, according to the NRA.

Kentucky now requires people to get a permit before they can carry a concealed firearm in the state. To do that, they have to undergo a background check, complete some gun safety training and pay a $60 fee.

The legislation would allow people who are at least 21 years old and meet other legal requirements for gun ownership to carry a concealed firearm without a permit.

Supporters said the measure makes no changes regarding where and when people can possess concealed weapons.

The bill sailed through the Republican-led Senate on a 29-8 vote last month.

Kentucky is already an open carry state on top of all this, but again, it's up to Matt Bevin.  This didn't pass the General Assembly by a veto-proof margin, although it was close.  Bevin I'm sure will sign the bill, he loses re-election for sure if he doesn't.

There will be consequences though, and those consequences will be deadly.

Last Call For Another Hat Lands In The Ring, Con't

As a new study is out this week tying climate change to a major loss of ocean fish worldwide, the governor of one of America's largest fishing states is entering the 2020 Democratic presidential race.

Fish populations are declining as oceans warm, putting a key source of food and income at risk for millions of people around the world, according to new research published Thursday.

The study found that the amount of seafood that humans could sustainably harvest from a wide range of species shrank by 4.1 percent from 1930 to 2010, a casualty of human-caused climate change.

“That 4 percent decline sounds small, but it’s 1.4 million metric tons of fish from 1930 to 2010,” said Chris Free, the lead author of the study, which appears in the journal Science.

Scientists have warned that global warming will put pressure on the world’s food supplies in coming decades. But the new findings — which separate the effects of warming waters from other factors, like overfishing — suggest that climate change is already having a serious impact on seafood.
Fish make up 17 percent of the global population’s intake of protein, and as much as 70 percent for people living in some coastal and island countries, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

“Fish provide a vital source of protein for over half of the global population, and some 56 million people worldwide are supported in some way by marine fisheries,” Dr. Free said.

Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee announced he is entering the race this morning and is running on fighting climate change as the number one issue for America.

Inslee, who is the chief executive in Washington state, served as the chair of the Democratic Governors Association during the 2018 midterms. In a field where the biggest names are almost all US senators, Inslee is planning to lean heavily on his executive experience and talk about how progressive politics can turn states like his into economic juggernauts.

“We are, according to CNBC, the best place to do business this year. And the reasons for that in part are because of our progressive policies,” Inslee told Vox last year. “We welcome computer scientists and geneticists who are helping to cure cancer instead of denying them because they’re Muslim. We have policies that protect our environment so we have a great place to live, clean water and clean air; as a result, it’s a great way to recruit people to come here.”

Inslee is making climate change his No. 1 priority, but he doesn’t want to be a single-issue candidate. Instead, Inslee is treating climate change like an umbrella issue under which other issues like the economy, health care, and national security also fit.

The Washington state governor plans to tie each issue to the broader theme of using the power of the presidency to dramatically lower America’s carbon output and scale up renewable energy.

“He’s going to use the full power of the presidency to defeat climate change,” an Inslee aide told Vox. “This is different than saying you support the Green New Deal.

Inslee is originally from Seattle and has lived in Washington for much of his life. He’s held a number of roles in politics, serving in the Washington state legislature and a brief term in the US House in the early 1990s. After a failed run for governor in 1996, he served as a regional director for President Bill Clinton’s Department of Health and Human Services.

Inslee returned to the US House late in that decade, where he served until he was elected governor in 2012. He’s presided over a time of economic growth; Washington is consistently in the top 10 state economies, according to rankings from US News & World Report and USA Today.

Washington’s governor has argued the progressive policies he’s embraced have had a big hand in attracting people to his state. That’s been especially prescient during the Trump administration, where the federal government has made its opposition to transgender people, Latinos, and Muslim immigrants well-known. Inslee has made it a point to push back against Trump’s policies and underscore that his state is a welcoming place for all.

“A lot of people over the years have argued that environmental laws or laws involving equity and who you can marry are inimical,” Inslee said. “In fact, they’re actually crucial to economic development. Some of the hottest economies are places with these progressive policies.”

It's a good idea.  Inslee's argument is that climate change is so important that it affects every other major Democratic platform plank: racial equality, criminal justice reform, women's rights,  LGBTQ equality, national security, jobs and the economy, public infrastructure, universal health care, child care, affordable housing, sustainable agriculture, public education, you name it, and he's got a solid point.

Climate change is going to make all of these other issues more difficult and more expensive because it will be hurting everyone, adding a growing cost to everything the federal government tries to do. Therefore, Inslee argues, the federal government should be doing everything it can in a way to fight back as it's the only sensible and moral course of action.

It's a strong argument.  How well it will resonate with an American populace where half of us have been trained for decades to laugh at climate change, I don't know.

Jared, The Galleria Of Crime, Con't

So turns out Donald Trump's worthless son-in-law Jared Kushner only got a top-secret security clearance after Trump ordered by then White House Chief of Staff John Kelly to give him one, because Kushner essentially failed every single possible red flag check to get it.

President Trump ordered his chief of staff to grant his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, a top-secret security clearance last year, overruling concerns flagged by intelligence officials and the White House’s top lawyer, four people briefed on the matter said.

Mr. Trump’s decision in May so troubled senior administration officials that at least one, the White House chief of staff at the time, John F. Kelly, wrote a contemporaneous internal memo about how he had been “ordered” to give Mr. Kushner the top-secret clearance.

The White House counsel at the time, Donald F. McGahn II, also wrote an internal memo outlining the concerns that had been raised about Mr. Kushner — including by the C.I.A. — and how Mr. McGahn had recommended that he not be given a top-secret clearance.

The disclosure of the memos contradicts statements made by the president, who told The New York Times in January in an Oval Office interview that he had no role in his son-in-law receiving his clearance.

Mr. Kushner’s lawyer, Abbe D. Lowell, also said at the time the clearance was granted last year that his client went through a standard process. Ivanka Trump, the president’s eldest daughter and Mr. Kushner’s wife, said the same thing three weeks ago.

Asked on Thursday about the memos contradicting the president’s account, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said, “We don’t comment on security clearances.”

Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Mr. Lowell, said on Thursday, “In 2018, White House and security clearance officials affirmed that Mr. Kushner’s security clearance was handled in the regular process with no pressure from anyone. That was conveyed to the media at the time, and new stories, if accurate, do not change what was affirmed at the time.”

The decision last year to grant Mr. Kushner a top-secret clearance upgraded him from earlier temporary and interim status. He never received a higher-level designation that would have given him access to need-to-know intelligence known as sensitive compartmented information.

It is not known precisely what factors led to the problems with Mr. Kushner’s security clearance. Officials had raised questions about his own and his family’s real estate business’s ties to foreign governments and investors, and about initially unreported contacts he had with foreigners. The issue also generated criticism of Mr. Trump for having two family members serve in official capacities in the West Wing.

Bet it had everything to do with Kushner being in bed with Russian, Saudi, and Emirate real estate deals and owing these governments tens of millions, if not more.  That's leverage, leverage to be used against him, and all indications are that this has already happened, particularly the Saudis.

The Washington Post backs up the NY Times story, with the addition that House Democrats remain very interested in how Kushner got his clearance.

Congressional Democrats said Thursday that they plan to aggressively scrutinize the role Trump played in securing Kushner’s clearance. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, noted that his commitee has already launched an investigation into the White House security clearance process and has yet to receive a response to its request for documents.

“The Committee expects full compliance with its requests as soon as possible, or it may become necessary to consider alternative means to compel compliance,” Cummings said in a statement.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) said in a statement late Thursday that his panel, as well as the House Oversight Committee, will continue in their investigation of the White House’s security clearance process.

“The revelation that President Trump personally intervened to overrule White House security officials and the Intelligence Community to grant a Top Secret security clearance to his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is the latest indicator of the President’s utter disregard for our national security and for the men and women who sacrifice so much every day to keep us safe,” Schiff said. “There is no nepotism exception for background investigations.”

Sadly, I'm not sure how much Democrats can actually do here.  Presidents have full authority to grant clearances to whomever they wish.  That fact is being abused here, and Trump lied about it, even though it was legal.

That tells you everything you need to know about Trump and his son-in-law.

The Third Party Screw Job

With news that billionaire Michael Bloomberg is getting serious about entering the 2020 race as an independent, and with former Starbucks CEO and billionaire Howard Schultz still lurking in the shadows, it's time for a sobering reminder from my old friend Steve M that a Ross Perot-style independent run in 2020 would all but assure a second Trump term.

Dr. Rachel Bitecofer, a pollster and political science professor, published a New York Times op-ed last month called "Why Trump Will Lose in 2020" -- but that was before Howard Schultz began making noises about running as an independent. Dr. Bitecofer, who conducts polls for the Wason Center for Public Policy, alerts us to the results of Wason's latest survey, which suggests that a third-party run could turn a Democratic blowout into a Trump win.

The Wason Center survey of likely 2020 voters shows that, in a conventional two-party race, the Democratic Party nominee holds an 11-point advantage over Trump, 48%-37%, well outside the +/- 3.2 margin of error. However, when respondents are offered the option of an Independent candidate, a far different picture emerges. Under this scenario, the race becomes a statistical tie between Trump (34%) and the Democrat (32%). Fully 16% of likely voters indicate they would vote for the Independent candidate and another 16% report being undecided — up from 9% in the two-way contest.

... the Democrat loses five times more voters than Trump (16 points vs. 3 points). That is, for every voter who switches from Donald Trump to the Independent, five voters switch from the Democrat to the Independent. 

It's just one poll, but the numbers are bad.

The dropoff is quite extraordinary. In a two-person race, Trump gets 86% of the Republican vote; with an independent in the race, he's down to 78% -- an 8-point drop. The drop among Democratic voters, by contrast, is 23 points -- the Democratic candidate goes from 95% to 72%.

With no independent in the race, men go for Trump 44%-38%; add an independent and the numbers are 44%-20% (with 23% going independent) -- Trump doesn't lose any men, while the Democrat loses nearly half of his or her male supporters. And oddly, this isn't primarily a white phenomenon -- non-white support for the Democrat drops from 70% to 43% with an independent in the race.

And why wouldn't this be the case? The Democratic Party has a terrible brand. For years, Republicans have nationalized every election, portraying each contest as a one between pure evil -- the Democrats, along with their putative support network of radical college professors, Hollyweird celebrities, and effete soy boys -- and pure good. Democrats, by contrast, run against their opponents, or against the president of the United States when he's a Republican, but they never run against the Republican Party. And they don't run with pride in being Democrats -- swing-district 2018 House candidates downplayed their party affiliation; Bernie Sanders allied himself with the Democrats in 2016 only long enough to run for president, and is doing the same thing agin this year. Even Democrats mock the Democrats. I mock the Democrats. So it makes sense that a significant percentage of anti-Trump voters would blow off the Democratic Party if given an alternative. 

Again, this is one poll, but it would be a disaster for Democrats if either Schultz or Bloomberg ran (or god help us, both).  Both men have to be aware.  Both men have to see that their stated goal of getting rid of Trump would only be destroyed by entering the race.

I expect ego will drive one of them, if not both, to enter anyway.

StupidiNews!

• After more than 20 years and $400 billion in research, development and construction, the US Navy has finally signed off on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft for use aboard aircraft carriers.
• A white nationalist convicted of shooting into a crowd of protesters and the University of Florida in 2017 has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for aggravated assault and firearms charges.
• Tesla says it will not be profitable in the first quarter, cutting its Model 3 price to $35,000 with plans to close most of its US showrooms and move to online-only global sales.
• Workers in Washington DC now have the most expensive commutes in the US, with Charles County, MD commuters spending an average of nearly 400 hours a year in traffic.
• European Union officials say big tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter aren't living up to voluntary EU standards on stopping fake news, and new legislation may be coming.

Last Call For Kim's Inconvenience

Donald Trump's dog and pony show in Vietnam collapsed completely as he walked away from the summit table with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un having earned nothing.

President Trump and Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader, abruptly ended their second summit meeting on Thursday after talks collapsed with the two leaders failing to agree on any steps toward nuclear disarmament or measures to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

“Sometimes you have to walk,” Mr. Trump said at an afternoon news conference in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam.

He said Mr. Kim had offered to dismantle the North’s most important nuclear facility if the United States lifted the harsh sanctions imposed on his nation — but would not commit to do the same for other elements of its weapons program. That, Mr. Trump said, was a dealbreaker.

“It was about the sanctions,” Mr. Trump said. “Basically they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, but we couldn’t do that.”

The premature end to the negotiations leaves the unusual rapprochement between the United States and North Korea that has unfolded for most of a year at a deadlock, with the North retaining both its nuclear arsenal and facilities believed to be producing additional fissile material for warheads.

It also represents a major setback at a difficult political moment for Mr. Trump, who has long presented himself as a tough negotiator capable of bringing adversaries into a deal and had made North Korea the signature diplomatic initiative of his presidency.

Even as the talks began, Mr. Trump’s longtime lawyer and fixer, Michael D. Cohen, was delivering dramatic and damaging testimony in Congress, accusing him of an expansive pattern of lies and criminality.

There's that.  Trump ran away because he had to get back to Washington and deal with the absolute disaster that the Cohen testimony was for him and his family.  They are all going to prison and for a very long time.

Trump will still spin this as a victory, his rabid fanbase will call him brilliant for being "brave" and walking away from a summit that he never could have made an agreement on, but even Trump appeared deflated on this.

He knows he has a much, much bigger problem to deal with back home.

Bibi Busted Big Time, Con't

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing three major bribery and corruption cases, and with early national elections that he called for just 40 days away, Bibi figured any possible indictments for a sitting PM would never come as he could say they were a direct effort to interfere in an election.  He figured he had another term as Prime Minister in the bag.

Today he found out just how wrong he was.

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.

Police have previously recommended indicting Netanyahu for bribery, fraud and breach of trust in three different cases.

Police recommended an indictment in the case based on evidence collected that confidants of Netanyahu promoted regulatory changes worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Bezeq. In exchange, they believe Netanyahu used his connections with Elovitch to receive positive press coverage on Bezeq's popular subsidiary news site, Walla. Police have said their investigation concluded that Netanyahu and Elovitch engaged in a "bribe-based relationship."

Police also recommended charges be brought against Elovitch, members of his family and members of his Bezeq management team.

Police have previously recommended indicting Netanyahu on corruption charges in two other cases. One involves accepting gifts from billionaire friends, and the second revolves around alleged offers of advantageous legislation for a major newspaper in return for favorable coverage.

Netanyahu, 69, who is serving his third consecutive term as prime minister and his fourth overall, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and called the various allegations against him a witch hunt aimed at removing him from office.

The attorney general's decision to publish his conclusions 39 days prior to the general election on April 9 is raising questions about what impact it can have on the outcome of the vote.

Israeli media reported Thursday that with just hours to go before Mandelblit's anticipated decision to indict Netanyahu, his Likud Party filed a petition to the Supreme Court to stop the announcement from happening before the election on the grounds that it would unfairly impact on Netanyahu's prospects of re-election. However, the court's spokesperson confirmed later in the afternoon that the petition was rejected.

The indictment marks the first time in Israeli history that a sitting prime minister has been charged with a crime.

It'll be years before the case will be heard, of course.  But an indicted politician running for leader of Israel is probably not going to be very successful.  This puts the future of Israel very much up in the air.  There's no way Bibi resigns, he's too much of an ass.

Where does Israel go from here?  We'll see.  Uncharted territory for sure.

Russian To Judgment, Con't

The Michel Cohen show on Wednesday delivered all that was promised and then some, as Donald Trump's former fixer implicated him in multiple criminal activities while in the White House, activities that are definitely being investigated by the Southern District of New York federal investigation into the Trump Organization.

Even if those watching didn't believe anything else he said, Donald Trump's former lawyer and fixer, 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.

"Is there any other wrongdoing or illegal act that you are aware of regarding Donald Trump that we haven't yet discussed today?" Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois asked Cohen, in the middle of the seven-and-and-a-half hour hearing full of stunning, ugly allegations.

Cohen replied: "Yes and again those are a part of the investigation that's currently being looked at by the Southern District of New York." 

It wasn't even the day's biggest headline. Cohen, who once said he would take a bullet for Trump, attacked his former boss in deeply personal terms, painting a picture of racism, deceit and immorality. He spoke about hush money payments, lies about a real estate project in Russia, an overheard phone call between Trump and Roger Stone, and potential tax and bank fraud.

But Cohen's comments about the Southern District investigations may be what figure as the most important of the hearing a year from now.

In an answer sure to be seized on by the president and his allies, Cohen said he knew of no evidence that Trump or anyone around him colluded with the Russian election interference effort. He also testified he had never been to Prague or met with Russians in Europe, refuting a key allegation by a former British intelligence officer whose dossier sketched out a Trump-Russian conspiracy.

But even as Cohen poured water on the Russia collusion narrative, he fueled the idea that Trump's biggest legal problems have to do with his real estate business, his taxes, his bank statements, and the secret payments he made to women.

The disbarred lawyer, scheduled to report for a three-year prison sentence in May, came to the hearing with a $35,000 check written to him by Trump, dated Aug. 2017, seven months into the Trump presidency. That was part of the payback, Cohen said, for the illegal campaign contribution he made by paying $130,000 to the porn star known as Stormy Daniels.

Cohen had already testified Trump ordered him to commit a felony; now he was showing that Trump participated in the alleged scheme while occupying the Oval Office.

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."

I don't know very much about Cohen in Prague, that seemed a bit too neat to me, but there still more than enough here to have Trump and his kids sweating.  They're going to prison.  It may not be Mueller that lowers the hammer, but the SDNY folks aren't screwing around and there's nothing Trump can do to stop them.

StupidiNews!

• In a 5-3 Supreme Court decision, Chief Justice Roberts sided with the court's four liberals to stay the execution of an Alabama inmate who can no longer remember his crimes after muliple strokes.
• The House voted 240-190 to require universal background checks for firearms purchases, Senate Republicans vow the measure will never pass, and the White House says Trump will veto the bill.
• The White House has barred multiple reporters from covering Donald Trump's summit dinner with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam, over questions asked preceding the summit.
• The US is drafting a UN Security Council resolution for possible military action in Venezuela in order to safeguard humanitarian aid, the measure faces a near-certain Russian veto.
• A team of German and US researchers say a way to commercially produce cheap hydrogen fuel cells could be ready within the next decade using wind farms to power the process.

Last Call For A War On The Board

Meanwhile, events in Kashmir have gotten so tense that India and Pakistan are all but in an open shooting war.

Tensions between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan escalated sharply on Wednesday, following conflicting claims by both of having shot down each other’s fighter aircraft in aerial ‘dogfights’ in the disputed Kashmir region.

A day after Indian Air Force (IAF) fighters attacked an alleged terrorist camp deep inside Pakistan, Islamabad said it had captured one Indian pilot after his aircraft was shot down in the first air-to-air engagement between the two forces since their last major war in 1971.

Pakistan military spokesman Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor said the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) had shot down two Indian fighters after they strayed into Pakistani air space and captured one pilot.

He told reporters in Islamabad that one of the IAF aircraft crashed in Pakistan-administered Kashmir while the second was hit and “limped” back to its base on the Indian side of the disputed principality.

He also displayed the seized pilot’s identity documents, in addition to publicising video clips of the trussed-up and bloodied pilot on social media outlets, in which he identifies himself and reveals only his service serial number.

India has called on Islamabad to treat the officer humanely and in accordance with the Geneva Convention. In a demarche to a senior Pakistani diplomat from its embassy in Delhi, India’s foreign ministry has demanded the pilot’s swift return.

An Indian foreign ministry official provided a different account of the events that led to the pilot’s capture. Raveesh Kumar claimed that Pakistan had responded to Tuesday’s attack by the IAF on a terrorist camp deep inside its territory by launching a retaliatory strike early the following morning against Indian military installations in Kashmir.

There's every indication that this is only going to get worse, and may I remind everyone, India and Pakistan are both nuclear powers.  Commercial flights to Pakistan have been suspended and Indian PM Modi has effective slipped the leash on India's military.

It's going to get bad most likely, and quickly.

Ohio Gets The Gas Face

Over at the Cincinnati Enquirer, politics writer Jason Williams argues that the incoming 18 cents-per-gallon gas tax increase is the result of eight years of John Kasich's funding neglect as governor, and not current GOP governor Mike DeWine's fault.

The next time you hear John Kasich on CNN or on a campaign trail bragging about how he was such a budget hawk during his time as Ohio governor, remember this:

His parting gift to Ohioans was leaving the transportation budget in shambles. The fallout: The cost of your commute is likely going to increase beginning in July.

Kasich kicked the can for years on a long-term budget fix in order to help preserve his political future – leaving the state facing a projected shortfall of $1 billion a year for roads over the next decade.

As the legislature mulls new Gov. Mike DeWine's whopping 18-cents-per-gallon gas tax increase, don't forget this: This tax hike is very much a part of Kasich's legacy.

If the legislature approves DeWine's plan, Ohio's gas tax would increase to 46 cents per gallon – fifth-highest in the U.S.

Don't blame DeWine, who has the political capital to do this because he's in his job before retirement. His options are limited, especially considering the Kasich administration strapped the state with hundreds of millions in debt to fix roads and bridges.

I don't blame either of them...I blame Ohio's GOP state lawmakers who spent years cutting taxes for the rich and for fracking companies (the latter something Kasich actually tried to stop) and didn't give a damn about the state's roads or bridges.  Republicans had a supermajroity in both the Ohio House and Senate for years and did nothing to alleviate the problem then.

Now DeWine is stuck holding the bag, but he still has the same GOP majorities to get this past, and odds are they won't pass it, while Ohio's infrastructure continues to fall apart.

Williams goes on to say Kasich was too much of a coward to fix the budget and raise taxes in order to maintain his business-friendly image heading into 2020 and that's correct, but the tax issue isn't his problem, it's the Ohio State House, and it always has been.

Kids Are Still In Cages

And these kids in Trump™ Brand Immigrant Youth Detention Facilities are being sexually abused by the thousands, because the regime cares so very much about the sanctity of human life.

The Department of Health and Human Services received more than 4,500 complaints of sexual abuse against unaccompanied minors from 2014-2018, according to internal agency documents released Tuesday by Florida Democratic Rep. Ted Deutch. 

In addition,1,303 complaints were reported to the Justice Department during that same time frame, according to the documents. 

Deutch addressed the documents during a high-profile House hearing Tuesday on the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy that resulted in thousands of immigrant children being separated from their parents. 

He said that the documents "demonstrate over the past three years, there have been 154 staff on unaccompanied minor, let me repeat that, staff on unaccompanied minor allegations of sexual assault." 

"This works out on average to one sexual assault by HHS staff on unaccompanied minor per week," he added. 

Axios first reported the documents. 

"I am deeply concerned with documents that have been turned over by HHS that record a high number of sexual assaults on unaccompanied children in the custody of the Office of Refugee and Resettlement," Deutch said. "Together, these documents detail an environment of systemic sexual assaults by staff on unaccompanied children."

This should be a massive story leading to mass resignations from the Trump regime, but nobody cares.  And yes, I know that 2014-2018 means that this happened during the Obama administration too, but they're already all resigned, yes?  Sylvia Burwell has some questions to answer, certainly.

But current HHS secretary Alex Azar however has far more, as does Azar's predecessor, Tom Price.  In fact, Azar is already the fifth person to hold this position, acting or otherwise, in the Trump regime.  I'd like to hope that Rep. Deutch will be calling on them to elaborate.

StupidiNews!

• The US House voted 245-182 to end Donald Trump's emergency declaration on the southern border wall, the measure now heads to the Senate for a vote.
• The remains of hundreds of Jewish WWII prisoners in Belarus were discovered in a mass grave near the Polish border town of Brest.
• The US State Department denied more than 37,000 visa applications due to the Trump regime's Muslim travel ban last year, compared to the roughly 1,000 denied in 2017.
• New Bloomberg News analysis finds that as many as 11 million Americans will be paying billions more in taxes this year thanks to the GOP tax bill's cap on state income tax deductions.
• A federal appeals court has rejected the Trump regime's bid to end the proposed AT&T/Time Warner merger, clearing the way for final approval for the deal this year.