Pipe Bombs and Poppycock

The pipe bombs destined for the mail boxes of prominent liberals have accomplished one thing for Trump: it has knocked Khashoggi news out of the pole position. According to AP,

The attacks overtook other news in an already-tense political season that could reshape Congress and serve as a referendum on the first two years of Trump’s presidency. The actions, which caused panicked building evacuations and reports of additional explosives that later proved unfounded, are bound to add to fears that overheated rhetoric could lead to deadly violence as the parties engage in bitter fights over immigration, the Supreme Court and the treatment of women.

The pipe bombs have allowed Trump to return to his comfort zone and rail against the fake news manufactured by the mainstream corporate media, which, well all is said and done, is the source of his rock-solid 40% approval rating.

There is a stable "American" minority whose identity is based on boorishness, whiteness and a cockeyed fantasy of "exceptionalism" -- the very same identity promoted by the corporate media that acts as Trump's foil.

Juxtaposed to the solid Trump minority is an anti-Trump majority, usually around 52-53%. The problem for the anti-Trump majority is that beyond "Never Trump" it does not have a stable identity.

The latest Khashoggi developments include crown prince Mohammed bin Salman's public declaration of disapproval of the assassination that he ordered and CIA director Haspel's study of Turkey's audio recordings of Khashoggi's murder.

The breaking news is that Saudi Arabia has changed its story once again. Now the Saudi public prosecutor is saying Khashoggi's death was premeditated and not the accidental result of a brawl.

It's part of the "rope-a-dope" strategy. Rest against the ropes while public outrage punches itself out. Replace one load of poppycock with another. At the end of the day the crown prince remains in power.

There Will be Impeachment

Given that the Democrats were going to take back the House anyway prior to Trump consigliere Michael Cohen pleading guilty to, among other things, violating federal campaign finance law by paying hush money to two of Trump's former paramours; and given that there was going to be a leadership battle in the House Democratic caucus; now it is inevitable that there will be impeachment. A zombie-like Nancy Pelosi, on record of being reticent about pursuing impeachment, will have to pledge allegiance to the cause if she is to have any hope of becoming Speaker again.

What makes it interesting is that if articles of impeachment manage to clear the House, the Republicans in the Senate will be placed on a very hot seat -- all in the run up to a presidential election. It is going to be hard to apply the brakes. It could be a runaway train.

From "Legal noose tightens around Trump White House" by Patrick Martin:

The logic of the Cohen case was best summed up by one of his own lawyers, Lanny J Davis, a veteran of the Clinton White House during its defense against impeachment. If what Cohen did in relation to the payoffs to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal was a crime, Davis argued, and he did it on behalf of and for the benefit of candidate Donald Trump, then Trump is also guilty of a crime. Last month Davis released an audio recording Cohen had made of Trump admitting to knowing of the payment made to silence McDougal.

From "A One-Two Punch Puts Trump Back on His Heels" by Mark Landler, Michael Shear and Maggie Haberman:

Still, Mr. Cohen was blunt about the president’s culpability as he stood in court and admitted his guilt: “In coordination with, and at the direction of, a candidate for federal office,” Mr. Cohen said he conspired with a media company to keep secret Mr. Trump’s affair with Stephanie Clifford, a pornographic film actress known as Stormy Daniels.

“Mr. Cohen, when you took all of these acts that you’ve described, did you know that what you were doing was wrong and illegal?” the judge asked. Mr. Cohen answered, “Yes, your honor.”

The startling charge directed at Mr. Trump carried echoes of President Richard M. Nixon, who was named an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the special prosecutor’s investigation of Watergate.

And it raised the prospect that Mr. Trump’s presidency could be at risk by impeachment in Congress even if the sprawling Russia investigation never definitively concludes that there was collusion or obstruction of justice.

[snip]

“I think impeachment is now squarely going to define the midterms,” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican strategist who has been critical of Mr. Trump. “It’s inescapable now that Democrats can legitimately raise that issue.”

He added, “There’s a lot of Republican members of Congress sitting in tough districts that are going to have to really think hard about how they’re going to finesse this in the days ahead.”

What makes it harder for Republicans, he said, is that this did not emerge from the Mueller inquiry. “This isn’t something from the deep state,” he said. “This is a classic B-team type of bumbling screw-up of covering up mistresses.”

And, he added, “It’ll be very hard to distance the president. You would assume that there’s legitimate evidence that the president was aware that those invoices were not for services rendered. You already have the one tape.”

Stormy Monday

There were no great revelations from the Stormy Daniels 60 Minutes interview. In 2006 the adult film star had sex with Trump one time; basically a "down payment" for Trump's efforts to get her to appear on his reality television show, The Apprentice.

In 2011, after a magazine offered $15,000 for Daniels' story, Team Trump swung into action and threatened to sue. The magazine dropped its offer. Around the same time Daniels was threatened to keep her mouth shut about The Donald by a goon in a Las Vegas parking lot.

There the matter rested until shortly before election day 2016 when in exchange for $130,000 Daniels signed a non-disclosure agreement with Trump attorney Michael Cohen.

It is that gag agreement that Daniels is suing Trump to get out of. She has problems with her veracity though because she signed two statements denying that she had intimate relations with Trump. Her legal case seems to boil down to Trump never signed the non-disclosure agreement.

The #NeverTrumpers have a stake in the Stormy Daniels affair because the $130,000 hush money should have been reported under campaign finance law as an in-kind contribution.

All in all I thought Anderson Cooper was much harder on Stormy Daniels than Norah O'Donnell was on Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, which should remind us that our corporate media prefer young genocidal despots to fading porn stars.

That Trump is feeling the heat, not from Stormy so much as Mueller turning his probe to the seamy story of Elliott Broidy selling White House access to convicted pedophile George Nader who acted as a foreign agent on behalf of the United Arab Emirates, should be apparent from the ordered expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats.

Democratic Panic

The dream machine is spinning furiously as the clock ticks on #ReleaseTheMemo. On Monday the House Intelligence Committee voted along party lines to release a secret memo written by committee staffers. The memo exposes FBI use of information from the dubious "Steele Dossier" to acquire a FISA wiretap warrant against a member of the Trump campaign. Eileen Sullivan explains in "Answers About the Secret Memo on the Trump-Russia Inquiry":

What does the memo say?

The memo, according to people who have seen it, is a short summary of some of the intelligence used to support a government request to secretly surveil Carter Page, the former Trump campaign associate.

In order to obtain the warrant, the F.B.I. and the Justice Department had to show a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that they had probable cause to show that Mr. Page was acting as a Russian agent.

The memo’s main argument is that the government, in seeking the warrant, did not disclose that information in the application came from research paid for by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Mr. Trump has said that the Democrats’ financial ties to the research support his belief that the Democrats are behind the Russia controversy.

The man behind the research is a former British spy, Christopher Steele, who compiled a dossier of explosive, unsubstantiated information about Mr. Trump and Russia. He told the F.B.I. that he was working for interests opposed to Mr. Trump, and the Republicans question whether the intelligence court judge was misled about Mr. Steele’s credibility.

Some Republican lawmakers who have seen the memo have said it reveals that the F.B.I. was biased against Mr. Trump and misused its authorities in its investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.

But that argument is undercut by another piece of information said to be in the committee memo: that the top official at the Justice Department who is overseeing the Russia investigation, Rod. J. Rosenstein, approved a government application to continue the surveillance of Mr. Page, which was originally approved in mid-October 2016. Mr. Rosenstein is a Republican and was appointed by Mr. Trump.

The highlighted portion is the source of worry for Democrats, #NeverTrump Republicans (who are once again mulling third-party challenge) and the furious spinning at The New York Times. Rosenstein is tainted. Rosenstein is in charge of special counsel Mueller. So if Rosenstein goes, Mueller can't be far behind. This is the long and short of Charlie Savage's "The Real Aim of the Secret Memo Is the Mueller Investigation."

Democrats have reason to be worried. No one, not even mainlining Rachel Maddowites, can coherently explain the Mueller investigation. It has something to do with Russian interference. When you ask, "Does that mean that Russia stole the election from Hillary?" They get defensive and respond, "Hillary won the election!," before accepting that, well, okay, Russia might not have been solely responsible for electing Trump.

So even partisan Democrats are confused, in denial. As for the general public, it has stopped paying attention to the Mueller investigation months ago.

Trump is about to rack up a big win in the info wars. The general public can understand a dirty-tricks campaign (Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky). People will comprehend, as many already do, that all this Russophobia is just politics as usual, standard partisan dirty tricks, and not high crimes and misdemeanors.

Deep State Desperation

There is a good synopsis in this morning's Foreign Policy Situation Report of the latest Deep State effort to disqualify Trump before his inauguration next Friday:

Well, that was something. Welcome to the New Normal, where the head of the Senate Armed Services Committee personally delivers memos to the FBI director, alleging the President-elect’s team has been in contact with Russian intelligence, which has compromising personal and financial material. That was the bombshell dropped Tuesday by Buzzfeed, which published the documents, calling them “unverified, and potentially unverifiable.”

Quickly. The memos, first disclosed by CNN, were written by a former high-ranking British intelligence official hired by Republicans last year to collect information on Trump, were delivered by Sen. John McCain to FBI chief James Comey in December. While the FBI has not verified the accuracy of any of the claims, “U.S. officials had evaluated the sources relied upon by the private firm, considered them credible, and determined that it was plausible that they would have firsthand knowledge of Russia’s alleged dossier on Trump,” the Washington Post reports.

Briefing book. The information was included in the classified report the U.S. intel officials briefed to President Obama and Trump last week.

The first elements of the story were published in October by Mother Jones’ David Corn, but as The Guardian’s Julian Borger points out, Trump’s staffers have been an object of interest for the U.S. intel agencies for months. “The FBI applied for a warrant from the foreign intelligence surveillance (Fisa) court over the summer in order to monitor four members of the Trump team suspected of irregular contacts with Russian officials. The Fisa court turned down the application asking FBI counter-intelligence investigators to narrow its focus. According to one report, the FBI was finally granted a warrant in October, but that has not been confirmed, and it is not clear whether any warrant led to a full investigation.” On Wednesday, Moscow denied having any compromising information on Trump.

Then for the Gray Lady Jonathan Weisman regurgitates Trump's tweeted rejoinder, "Trump on Compromising Dossier Leak: ‘Are We Living in Nazi Germany?’"

What Buzzfeed did was to reanimate opposition research (crafted by a former British intelligence official) that had been floating around in the press prior to the November election. Buzzfeed was able to call this news because of Deep State consul McCain's hand-off of the old opposition research to FBI's Comey. Pretty pathetic and desperate. It's reminiscent of the "Dodgy Dossier."

Sanders Must Win Arizona

Before turning to two interesting posts -- Lambert Strether's "The Democrat Establishment Plan for a Three-Front Anti-Trump, Republican-Splitting, Anti-Left Campaign" and this morning's FiveThirtyEight chat "The Most Important States On Trump’s Path To 1,237 Delegates" -- let's get the latest on the terror attack in Brussels from the early morning Foreign Policy "Situation Report" by Paul McLeary and Adam Rawnsley:

BREAKING: At least 13 people were killed and dozens more wounded at the Brussels international airport on Tuesday after two explosions rocked the departure area,collapsing part of the ceiling and spreading chaos. The attack -- which Belgian authorities said was a suicide strike -- came at the same time as another bomb went off at the city’s Maelbeek subway station. Belgian officials are reporting 15 dead and 55 injured in the subway blast. All flights and train service in and out of the country have been cancelled.

The attacks come just days after the main suspect in the November Paris attacks that killed 130 was arrested in Brussels, FP’s Lara Jakes and Alicia P.Q. Wittmeyer write. The arrest on Friday of Salah Abdeslam heightened fears of more terror attacks in the country, as European officials warned that many people who were involved in the Paris attacks people were still at large. No group has claimed responsibility for the Brussels strikes, but the Paris attackers were affiliated with the Islamic State.

Belgian federal prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw called all three explosions “terrorist attacks,” and Prime Minister Charles Michel said, "we were fearing terrorist attacks and that has now happened." Witnesses to the attack at the airport described a bloody scene where water pipes burst, mixing with the blood of the wounded and dead as dazed survivors staggered from the building. Security at airports and train stations around Europe has been heightened in the wake of the attack.

Brussels is a batting-practice fastball right to Trump's wheelhouse. He is the only candidate who viscerally addresses the fear and loathing the masses feel towards the establishment in regards to the perpetual war on terror. Joe the Plumber and Brittany the Burger Flipper are more hip to how the game of global jihad works than the power elite and the mainstream press care to acknowledge. The masses might not be able to describe how Pakistan runs the Taliban with Saudi input or how Islamic State, Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra are main players in Syria thanks to the generous support of the Gulf shiekhdoms, but they know the United States and our European cousins are getting played. Trump, all bluster and braggadocio, says it has to stop, that we need to bar all Muslims from entering the country until we can address the problem, and people listen. People listen because they are tired of the never-ending, ever-expanding war on terror.

So expect Trump to benefit in the near term and every time there is a bombing or gun battle in a Western city.

The FiveThirtyEight chat susses out the real estate mogul's chances of locking up the GOP nomination after the primary season ends June 7. The long and short of it depends on how he does in California. A native of the Golden State myself, I think Trump will do quite well.

An interesting exchange in the FiveThirtyEight chat has to do with Trump's potency among blacks in traditionally Democratic enclaves:

dave: Trump seems to be benefiting a great deal from the fact that there are many places where neither Cruz nor Kasich has much natural appeal. For example, Trump has won a lot of delegates in African-American-majority congressional districts in places like St. Louis and Chicago where there aren’t many evangelicals, wealthy whites — or for that matter, Republicans period. So I see Trump winning a lot of delegates in minority-majority districts in places like California and New York, and that’s a big problem for #NeverTrump right now.

This was brought home to me by a clip on Democracy Now! of a black guy beating the shit out of a Hippie protester at a Trump rally in Tucson.

Hillary's overwhelming support among African Americans is due to her being a known, familiar figure. Well, black people feel like they know Trump too. As long the billionaire can keep the spotlight off the crackers who constitute the base of his support and keep it focused on a cartoon version of a bloodthirsty Muslim, he will win his fair share of African American votes.

What blacks and Bernie supporters need to come to grips with is that we will be consigned to the scrap heap by the end of spring. Lambert Strether lays it all out clearly. There will be no role for Bernie in the Hillary general election campaign and his supporters will not be catered to. The reasoning is well known to progressives and peaceniks. You got no place to go. Team Clinton will happily wave goodbye to all the Hippies and Punks who leave the Dem rez to vote for Jill Stein. The big-game hunt for Hillary is the mythical soccer mom ensconced in her exurb McMansion.

As Strether convincingly argues, Trump v. Clinton is going to be a horrendously negative, epically brutal, low turnout campaign. Hillary will pitch her message to moderate Republicans. By September Bernie Sanders will be a memory as distant as a Nader Super Rally in Y2K.

Bernie is not even mentioning Hillary, choosing instead to inveigh against Trump. He had an opportunity to score points when he was in Seattle over the weekend by mentioning that David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager who is part of Hillary's brain trust, is an Uber executive who spoke out against the company's drivers unionizing with the Teamsters. Top Dems now openly advocate union-busting knowing there will not be a peep from AFL-CIO headquarters. It is truly pathetic.

Bernie shit the bed last Tuesday by losing all five contests -- Missouri, Illinois, North Carolina, Florida and Ohio. He is running significantly behind in Arizona. The way I see it he has to win everything from here to California to prove he is something more than a progressive boutique candidate. Sanders has to beat Hillary in Arizona to take the narrative back.