The Eye of the Maverick

Sunday, Tweety, Sunday:  Sunday, before heading out to ignore protestors and bathe in the adulation of fans at the US Women’s Golf Tournament at his Bedminster course, Trump tweeted:  “Hillary Clinton can illegally get the questions to the Debate & delete 33,000 emails but my son Don is being scorned by the Fake News Media?”  He went on to thank his former aide Michael Caputo for saying that there was no Russian collusion. Definitive proof of collusion is not there, yet, but the timeline of campaign boasts in which Trump promised new damning information about Hillary and called for the Russians to find her missing emails coincides too neatly with Don Jr’s meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya and her murky companions.  Additionally, the Don Jr news is certainly not fake and Trump’s efforts to distance himself from knowledge of the meeting does nothing to help his argument that Don Jr is an innocent idiot.  Though Trump’s spokes lawyer, Jay Sekulow, asserts Trump didn’t know anything about Don Jr’s Natalia meeting until his plane ride back from Hamburg, he couldn’t offer any explanation as to who other than Trump authorized his reelection campaign fund to pay Don Jr’s new lawyer a $50,000 down payment in late June, around the time that Kushner submitted revised security clearance forms revealing the Natalia meeting, but well before Trump says he knew about the meeting.  Sekulow, who appeared on five Sunday morning news shows, also asserts that Trump didn’t draft the misleading Don Jr press release that claimed the meeting was all about adoptions but artfully avoided confirming that Trump had approved it before it was sent out.  Countless times he reminded each of the talk show hosts that he can’t be expected to be up on all or any details because he represents Trump not little Donny.  He also called for an investigation into the Hillary campaign’s efforts to learn more about Manafort’s Ukraine exploits, blamed former FBI Director Comey and his “illegal” emails for the appointment of Special Counsel Mueller and the Secret Service for letting the sketchy Russians into Trump Tower.  Later in the day a Secret Service spokesperson, less than pleased at the department being used as a scapegoat, distanced their agents from Sekulow’s accusation by pointing out that Don Jr didn’t have their protection during the campaign. All of this is starting to impact Trump’s favorability ratings, something Trump acknowledged when he tweeted  “The ABC/Washington Post Poll, even though almost 40% is not bad at this time, was just about the most inaccurate poll around election time!”  It wasn’t.  

The Eye of the Maverick:  Senator John McCain, who has really good health insurance, had a craniotomy to remove a large blood clot from behind his eye and can’t travel back to Washington right now so Majority Leader McConnell, who needs every vote he can get, will not be bringing Trumpcare, the plan that takes health insurance away from millions, up for a vote this week.  Although McCain has been critical of the Trumpcare legislation he was likely to vote for it anyway, because though he talks like a maverick, when push comes to shove he tends to go with the herd.  While McCain was recuperating in Arizona, McConnell sent surrogates out to  talk up Trumpcare to anyone who would listen and to many who wouldn’t.  VP Pence went to the National Governors Association meeting in Rhode Island to try to convince the guys who actually run governments and have to answer to constituents that an $800 billion cut in Medicaid expenditures would strengthen Medicaid.  Though the full charm offensive was pressed on Republican Governors from states with wavering Republican Senators few appear to have been swayed.  So far Nevada Governor Sandoval, who received the most hugs and kisses still opposes Trumpcare.   The Office of Management and Budget Scoring Report was due out today but is now delayed. When it is finally released expect McConnell and his cohorts to continue slamming it’s veracity.  It’s still not clear whether the scorers will be including the Cruz amendment in their analysis so it’s possible that when released the report will show a small decrease in the number of people who lose insurance.  Don’t be fooled, scored or not the Cruz amendment will throw a lot of people off the insurance rolls and the insurance companies say it’s unworkable.  Health Secretary Price says that the insurance companies will be fine, they can “dust off how they did business before Obamacare” when few with pre-existing conditions could afford insurance.   There are still only two definite “no” votes, but McConnell’s decision to postpone the vote until McCain returns means that he is worried.  No one knows if more time out in the open will sink Trumpcare or advance its passage.        

The Perfect Spy:  Rinat Akhmetshin, the initially unidentified Russian American who attended Don Jr, Kushner, and Manfort’s meeting with Natalia and her apparatchiks, has a storied past.  He has fostered a reputation for obtaining email records using spyware and Russian hackers to get  “kompromat” against his clients’ opponents.  His not so sterling reputation and unique skills may explain why Don Jr and Kushner forgot to report his attendance at their now infamous meeting.     

Altered States:  The WSJ reports that in the lead up to the 2016 election there were nearly 150,000 attempts to penetrate South Carolina’s voter registration system.  Aware of the attempts, South Carolina worked with the Federal government and outside consultants to strengthen the state’s system by repairing vulnerabilities.  Because actual voter rolls were kept offline, South Carolina officials do not believe that the outcome of the election in the very pro Trump state was impacted but nevertheless their experience provides an indication of efforts that were ongoing nationwide during the last election and raise concerns about what the Russians could accomplish in the future especially if Kris Kobach, the head of Trumps Voter Fraud Commission, ever manages to put together a nationwide voter database.         

Made In America:  It’s time for another Trump administration theme week so this week has been designated Made in America week. When a reporter asked how many of Trump or Ivanka’s products are made in the US, a White House spokesperson said they’d have to get back to him.  As of last week, none of Ivanka’s products were produced in the US.  Made in America week doesn’t apply to Trumps.