THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME IN 2020

Yesterday was President Donald Trump's most humiliating day in office.  Sure, he was embarrassed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats for caving-in on the government shutdown and gaining zero concessions for a wall.  But that was nothing compared to fumbling his only possible legacy, a Nobel Prize for denuclearizing North Korea, while in synchronicity, being labeled a criminal by Michael Cohen, his former personal fixer, which could lead to serious prison time beginning in 2021 for himself, Junior and Ivanka.  Here are ten stunning moments from that hearing.

What happened?  In Vietnam, Kim Jong-Un, knowing the personal problems faced by Trump, gambled that he could get almost anything he wanted to give away almost nothing, leading to both leaders leaving country with nothing.  Feel free to also credit Michael Cohen for this combined flop, but the root of this disaster is simply that the President of the United States runs his office like a typical Mafia mob boss.

One plus is that there was no Russian collusion discussion in the House hearing yesterday.  But, guess what?  There is a third congressional hearing with Cohen today, and this before the House Intelligence Committee in a closed session.  Russian interference will be the focus.  Frankly, I don't think Trump actually colluded with Putin.  Trump was merely an accessory to this crime.

So here is what I see shaping up in 2020:

• The House will waste some time trying to impeach Trump.  Sure, impeachment will be passed on to the Senate, but nothing will happen.  The smartest thing the Republicans can do would be to Impeach Trump, but the timing will be controlled by the Democrats for the Fall Presidential election.

• Both the Mueller Report and New York Trump trial results will surface later this year, but maybe as late as 2020.  Both will further compromise Donald Trump and his family, but not enough for any Republican to seriously challenge Trump in the primaries.  Again, timing is key.

• Very soon after August 27, at the conclusion of the Republican National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, House Democrats will release reports implicating Presidential Donald Trump for a variety of crimes.  They will also leak items in the Mueller Report that were redacted by the Trump administration.

• On 3 November 2020:
• Donald Trump will again be humiliated.  Which Democrat will win?  Who knows today, but Michelle Obama would be divine justice.
• 22 of those 33 Senate seats up for election in 2020 are currently held by Republicans.  Today, 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats and 2 Independents (Bernie Sanders and Angus King; both caucus with Democrats).  If Democrats win only 16 of those 33 Senate seats, if the new President is a Democrat, they will have control of both the White House and Congress, as it is today inconceivable that Republicans will return to leadership there.

Those final two bullets are the goals of Democrats.  Everything else will be pure politics and almost irrelevant.

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Tropical Cyclone Pola is up to 105 miles and could be headed for Tonga:

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THE GREATEST TV SPLIT SCREEN DAY EVER

We are approaching CNN's 40th-year, bringing to the world 24-hour news coverage on a real-time basis.  Today, television has been gifted with two diametrically opposed events occurring exactly 12-hours and 8286 miles apart that could lead to two monumental conclusions:

     Donald Trump:  Nobel Peace Prize / Impeachment

Trump already had dinner yesterday with Kim Jung-Un at the Metropole Hotel in Hanoi. Hey, that's where I stayed when I visited Vietnam.  Today, they meet to agree on the denuclearization of North Korea, and what they will get for making that decision.

Yesterday, President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, and designated-fixer, Michael Cohen, testified behind closed doors for nine hours before the U.S. Senate.  Grilling was extensive, but no significant details have leaked.  However, Senator Mark Warner (D-Va) expressed alarm at what Cohen said.  But that is because Republicans run the Senate, and their goal is to protect this Republican president.

Today, at 10AM DC time, 10PM Hanoi time, 5AM Hawaii time, Cohen began testifying before the Democratically controlled House Oversight Committee.  He publicly accused Trump for committing crimes while in office.  On Thursday, Cohen will testify in another closed-door hearing before the House Intelligence Committee.

Cohen has already been convicted of lying to Congress and will be jailed in May for a three-year sentence.  One wonders why Trump and Cohen didn't agree to a pardon if he continued to support the President.  Supposedly, legal/political minds have said it would be both a legal and strategic error for Trump to do so, and Paul Manafort also, but any political repercussions would pale next to jail-time for the President.  After all, President Gerald Ford did in 1974 pardon former President Richard Nixon for his "serious' crime.  But Ford lost the subsequent election to Jimmy Carter.

If you have any time, you should watch the proceedings on one of those major news channel.  For example, at the beginning of this House hearing today, Republicans argued that this was all illegal.  Ten minutes into those arguments, Chairman Elijah Cummings just shut down the Republicans with some hocus pocus voting and went on to his opening statement.  Finally at 10:26AM EST Cohen made his opening statement with a raspy voice.  One day down yesterday, and two more to go.

Then again, on the other hand, why waste your time.  Republicans will do everything they can to discredit Cohen and make it difficult for Democrats to proceed.  Similarly, Democrats will try to pound more nails into Trump's coffin.  Make this clear, though, that Democrats want Trump to be the Republican presidential candidate in 2020.  A time will soon come when more than half of voting Americans will almost certainly recognize that Trump's character has become too much of an embarrassment for this greatest country today.

Oh, last night The New York Times published Cohen's opening statement, introducing scathing evidence, and called Trump a racist, con man, lier and cheat.  Read it all here.  Interestingly enough, The Washington Post last year reported that Trump lies almost ten times/day, adding up to, maybe 8,000 lies.

Have a good day, Donald.  Don't give away the house to Jung-Un, but go for that Nobel Peace Prize.

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FRANCE versus 15 CRAIGSIDE: A Theological Comparison

Imagine waking up at 5:30AM in Paris and returning to 15 Craigside in Honolulu 28 hours later, with a stop in Los Angeles.  If this is possible, my past two weeks have been both hellacious and wonderfully memorable.  Somewhat similar to a Circle Pacific trip in 2011 where I tasted 24 alcoholic drinks over a 20 hour period getting from Honolulu to Bangkok...

...then I got caught in Japan the day after 11March11 when the Great Tohoku Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Cataclysm crippled the country.  Then again, maybe my 2015 around the world trip would be more comparable when I lost both my wallet and tooth, followed by food poisoning just before a European river tour.

Nothing really terrible happened on this trip to France.  Maybe young pickpockets used a razor to cut my index finger, then again, perhaps those injuries were merely a reaction to the humidity and dryness of my lips and hands.  The train portion was something I'll never subject myself to again, for I was carrying too much for those stairs.  But I made it, and this morning, after that ordeal, feel truly terrific, accomplished and happy.

Let me start this comparative analysis of that 28-hour anguish with dinner the night before in our airport room with that spectacular 2015 Chateau Lassegue Bourdeaux gifted to our Mystery Lady.  Relaxing meal of penne pasta and chicken Caesar salad.  

The next morning, on the shuttle ride to the airport I took this photo.

The giant Airbus 380 ride was fine, with a most appropriate combination:  a glass of Champagne, bottle of Bordeaux and a spot of Cognac, all free:

By the second meal of a very tasty spinach risotto, I only drank a Coke:

The plane had a tail camera, and this is what I saw on our landing nearly eleven hours later at LAX:

We waited a while, and were called to enter the Hawaiian Airlines plane just minutes before we took off, as we were on standby.

This morning, what I saw when I awoke looked just like France of the past two weeks.  Hardly a cloud in the sky, looking at downtown Honolulu from my computer where I'm composing this posting:

A simple comparison would equate the Purgatory of 15 Craigside with the full range of France from Heaven to Hell.  The highlights were many:

• Petrossian lunch at LAX with French Caviar, Grey Goose (which comes from France) and Champagne (which has to to come from that country):

• A Flottes Valentine's Dinner of foie gras, escargot and Bordeaux after we landed in Paris and made it to the Renaissance:

• Fabulous duck lunch at Tour d'Argent with a view of the Seine

• A short walk then to the Louvre, which is almost across the block from the Renaissance.  My Blue-Bar Pigeon and Mona Lisa (note the reflection to protect her):

• Lunch in the Eiffel Tower, again led by my Blue Bar:

• Three bottles of Taittinger Champagne in Reims:

• A tour of the marvelous La Cite du Vin in Bordeaux, the world's largest wine museum, which just opened in 2016:

• Then, about a full bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild ($900), at no charge.  Elvis arranged the private tour and Tom, a colleague from Hilo, with Nicola, the Sommelier, to my right:

• A secret tour through Remy Martin, with some XO, followed by a special tasting from a Louis XIII cask and entry into a mysterious room rarely seen by anyone (here is the range of cognacs from Remy, but, sorry, no photos from those classified rooms):

Well, those were the Heaven parts.  There was, for me, a high level of stress, especially in Paris.  The Yellow Vests were okay, but they did block roads and cause general turmoil.  The trains were painful.  Very difficult to make reservations, no English announcement, difficult to see some train stations signs and all those stairs.  At least on the Shinkansen--and this will begin in a few weeks--roll-on/-off, escalators and security.

A simple walk in town is through land mines called dog doo-doo.   You mistrust everyone because of unrestricted pickpocketing.

The showers were so small that I kept bumping my elbow, although one was open and next to the toilet, which got drenched every time you used it.  Also, not one bathroom had any safety bars.  My bathtub in Purgatory pretty much breaks the Guinness World Record.  Plus my toilet seat is warm.  In France, there is a cold shock when you dare to seat.

After tasting the fanciest of Bordeaux and the cheapest (you can find bottles for $2 in markets), Mystery Lady and I came to a conclusion that some of those Two Buck Charlies tasted better than even the vaunted Chateau Lafite Rothschild.  We bought at least half a dozen for less than $3 each.  Every one was excellent, some at the taste level of, say, CLR.  For me, this revelation also applied to five dollar brandies and $4000 Louis the XIII.

And who is this so-called Mystery Lady?  Maybe like Purgatory, she is a figment of my imagination.  She made this trip especially memorable, in ways I can't detail.

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Former Super Typhoon Wutip is still at 120 MPH, but weakening and headed nowhere;

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COGNAC to Charles de Gaulle Airport

Dinner at Le Distellerie was interrupted by a fire alarm, so everyone had to leave the room and stand in the outside cold...very cold.  We were out only a few minutes.

Ordered a simple hamburger, but it came with goat cheese saturating the whole serving.  They changed it to no cheese.

I show a photo of our toilet for two reasons.  One is that most of the seat covers here are square.  And, they are all cold, very cold.  I have a heated seat at home.

Goodbye to the Chais Monnet, the best hotel, by far, on this two-week trip through Champagne, Bordeaux and Cognac.

You are in big trouble if you have a heavy suitcase, for each train entry has steps, and then there can be a second floor.  Then when you get to certain stations, there is no elevator or escalator.  At least they were not on strike this time, as I suffered through in previous Eurail trips through Europe.

 Anyway, my lunch on the TGV bullet train to the airport:

You can't imagine how thankful I am to be at the airport Marriott.  Tomorrow, we leave at 10:20 in the morning, transfer in Los Angeles, and arrive into Honolulu at 7:10PM, which would be 6:10AM in France.

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Typhoon Wutip is now at 155 MPH and is the strongest typhoon ever in February.  Guam escaped any serious damage.  Next???

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