Politics

If the report released Thursday proved anything, it was that Robert Mueller and his team of prosecutors had an extremely broad mandate to investigate all conceivable angles of the theory that Donald Trump and/or his associates colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election. Page after page of the report describes the elaborate lengths Mueller went to ascertain whether there was any truth to this theory. And using the most emphatic language available to a prosecutor working within the confines of his legal remit, Mueller concluded with virtual certainty: No. There was no collusion.

Total exoneration? Pshaw! The Mueller report makes it clear that Trump, to use his own evocative language, was and remains a bad hombre. But whether any more voters conclude that he’s one than already had is an open question.If you like, you can read the efforts of the New York Times reporters reading the Mueller report. There are some nice salacious tidbits. Informed by Jeff Sessions about the appointment of a special counsel, Trump slumps in his chair in the Oval Office and announces, ‘Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I’m fucked.’Not quite.

President Trump isn’t supposed to be watching television at 9:30 am tomorrow. The White House has scheduled him to attend events that are supposed to make him look above the fray. But that’s also when Attorney General William P. Barr will take a breather from targeting asylum seekers and hold a press conference on Thursday morning to discuss the release of the Mueller report.If his previous performances are anything to go by, Barr’s comments will be directed directly at Trump in another bid to curry favor with him. Meanwhile, Trump himself is saying that he may conduct his own press conference: ‘Maybe I’ll do one after that, we’ll see.

Is a #NeverBernie faction starting to emerge among Democrats? Sanders is on a roll after his appearance at a town hall meeting on Fox News where he garnered the applause of many in the audience and attracted several million viewers. He attacked Trump as a ‘pathological liar’ and defended his sweeping healthcare — BernieCare? — plan. After Bret Baier asked how many in the audience were willing to trade in their current plans for Medicare for All, a majority raised their hands, much to his surprise. President Trump was clearly irked by Sanders’s successful foray into hostile territory, tweeting “So weird to watch Crazy Bernie on @FoxNews. Not surprisingly, @BretBaier and the “audience” was so smiley and nice.

Last week Barack Obama, grayer, wearier and older in every way, was in Berlin at one of his foundation’s conferences for ‘emerging leaders’ in Berlin. After wheeling out a few cringe-inducing platitudes like ‘I don’t have a regular meditation practice’ Obama did say something genuinely interesting about where the Democrats are heading going into 2020. He warned that elements of the party were becoming a ‘circular firing squad’ who targeted those ‘straying from purity’ on a variety of issues.

Let’s be honest – the best part of primary season is seeing just how wild some of the fringe candidates are. Every election cycle throws up a few quixotic single-issue mavericks without a hope in hell of actually securing the nomination. Such campaigns are usually admirable attempts to force concessions from more viable contenders or shift the debate on some key issue or another – standard politicking. Somewhat more unorthodox is the campaign of Mike Gravel – the ex-politician who doesn’t want anyone to vote for him at all. Mike Gravel, former congressman and senator from Alaska has been politically reincarnated by David Oks, a high-school senior who is now serving as his campaign manager.

Here’s an intense irony for you. The journalistic activity for which Julian Assange has been indicted in the Eastern District of Virginia led to the exposure of blatant American war crimes and official deceit in Iraq: the very war Donald J. Trump vociferously decried during his successful presidential campaign. Over and over again in 2016, Trump lamented ‘Iraqi kids blown to pieces’ and pilloried Hillary Clinton for backing the invasion. And yet now, by seeking the extradition and prosecution of Assange on charges that stem directly from the revelation of those crimes, Trump has chosen to shunt all this aside and do the bidding of his besmirched GOP predecessor, George W. Bush.

Undisclosed location, Florida In January, when heavily armed FBI agents swarmed my south Florida home in the predawn hours to arrest me for a series of process crimes, it changed my life far more than I ever imagined. The judge in my case has issued a gag order so I am not permitted to discuss the case, the prosecution, the court or the specific charges against me and will not do so here. As the judge said, the place for talking is in court — and that time will come. *** A vast American television audience was allowed to view the spectacle
 of my arrest, because CNN arrived
 15 minutes before the FBI swat team. CNN denies it was tipped off, instead chalking its good fortune up to a ‘hunch’. President Trump asked in a tweet 
‘Who alerted CNN?

William Barr flinched for a nanosecond, then plunged into the murky waters of the deep state. There was ‘spying,’ he ventured, in 2016 – against the Trump campaign. There was no ‘specific evidence,’ but he’s persuaded it happened. In that moment before the Senate, Barr betrothed himself to Donald Trump. Only moments earlier Trump had gone on a prolonged tirade about the malefactions of ‘dirty cops’ who had engaged in ‘treasonous’ activities against him and his aides. Trump, you could say, is on a roll these days. His chum Benjamin Netanyahu just won re-election, partly thanks to a series of boosts from Trump. He may be heading towards a trade deal with China.

Until now Donald Trump has proceeded with relative impunity in foreign affairs. But his imposition of a terrorist designation on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, which numbers some 1.1 million strong, could change that. Iran is promising to respond by labeling the American military as a terrorist organization. These moves could lead, willy-nilly, to a fresh conflict in the Middle East, the very thing, incidentally, that Trump promised to avoid when campaigning for the presidency in 2016. But then again Trump made a lot of promises. A wall would be built and the border secured. Obamacare would be nuked. Coal would make a big comeback. America would experience a Great Leap Forward. And so on. The contradictions of his presidency are now catching up to him.

There are some furrowed brows (as well as some furtive giggles) over Tucker Carlson’s recent hypothetical musings about what the president might do should he decide he wanted to lose his 2020 reelection campaign. Maybe he would cut funds for E-Verify, gratifying businesses that profit from exploiting the low-wage labor of illegal immigrants (that’s ‘undocumented workers’ in weeny-speak), but hurting American workers. Maybe he would make cuts to Medicare. Maybe — most deadly — he would raise taxes on gasoline, something that would matter hardly at all to those East coast elites who don’t drive much but that would have an immediate effect on those in the heartland who tend to drive more and are on a tight budget.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘charisma’ as ‘compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others’ – how fortunate then that the Democrats have been blessed with two exceptionally charismatic 2020 candidates in Beto O’Rourke and Andrew Yang. The candidacies of Beto and Yang are especially intriguing as they represent a pitch to the American people delivered from two opposing ends of the charisma spectrum. Beto is the hyper-sanitized, telegenic, photogenic, focus-group optimized old-money Texan who, as he says himself, was born to be in it. He’s also physically attractive, which counts in politics. This was true for John F.