The Honeymoon is Over 

Another Divorce:  This morning the Wall Street Journal compared Trump’s relations with the Republican party to one of his failed marriages. Trump notified wife number two, Marla Maples, that he was ditching her by leaking it to the NY Post.  Now he is using twitter to announce that he is separating from main stream Republicans.  He’s been endlessly tweet smacking Senate Majority Leader McConnell for his healthcare failure, he’s gone after Senator McCain for his healthcare vote, he’s been attacking “flake” Senator Flake for his critical remarks and that’s just the tip of a very large ice berg though given what’s happening to ice bergs these days that’s probably not the best analogy.  The Journal goes on to say that GOP leadership should just go on with their plans without Trump, pretending he’s an Independent rather than a Republican.  That way they can shift any failures back to his court.  Trump is also continuing his war of words with former Director of National Security Clapper who has been questioning his mental fitness.  Trump says Clapper’s remarks just reflect petty partisanship and cites a letter of support that Clapper gave him after his election victory as evidence that Clapper really admires his mental acuity.  Clapper asserts that the letter was just his way of passing the torch to the new president.  He had two identical copies one for Hillary and one for Trump and sadly the Hillary one went to the dumpster.  Trump isn’t the only one in government who doesn’t have the mental capability to recognize the severity of Putin’s efforts to disrupt the 2016 election, when he ran the CIA former Director Brennan wrote several letters to his staff telling them though most members of Congress appreciated their Russia investigation, some didn’t understand the “importance and gravity of the issue.”   The CIA is now run by one of those unappreciative members of Congress, Mike Pompeo, a strong Trump supporter, and it’s not clear that his view of the Russian investigation has changed.  He’s made some changes in the CIA’s structure bringing the division most responsible for the Russian investigation more directly under his purview. Some CIA agents are concerned that he may be attempting to politicize their work weakening the overseas investigative work relied upon by the FBI and Special Counsel Mueller.

Debt Ceiling and Government Funding:  The debt ceiling hovers over Washington.  McConnell and Ryan continue to express confidence that the ceiling will be raised, finding the specter of a default on their watch unthinkable,  but Trump vacillates between saying that he will sign a “clean bill” and demanding that any bill, ceiling or funding, include money for his border wall.  Freedom Caucus Republicans will also try to hamper the passage of clean debt ceiling legislation by trying to push reforms onto any bill.  Yesterday, Trump tried to throw the fault for the debt ceiling showdown onto Congress by tweeting he “requested that Mitch M & Paul R tie the Debt Ceiling legislation into the popular VA Bill for easy approval.”  “They didn’t do it so now we have a big deal with Dems holding them up.” Ryan, who is still basking in the glow of his passage of an Obamacare bill has been doing his best to avoid confronting Trump on anything, so he just batted his baby blue eyes and responded that all will be fine.  For their part the “Dems” are doing their best to make it clear that they aren’t the problem.  As to passing a funding bill to avoid a government shutdown, the Wall Street Journal recommends that Republican leadership pass the bill they want, forcing Trump into a game of chicken.  If he decides to veto their bill, throwing the government into a shut down, the blame will then fall squarely on his shoulders.       

Kindergarten Cop:  Chief of Staff Kelly is doing his best to reduce White House mayhem.  He started by limiting unscheduled visits to the Oval Office so that only Melania and Barron are allowed to come and go without a hall pass.  Ivanka is allowed in too, but only if she promises in advance to limit her unscheduled visits to family issues.  Now Kelly has moved on to editing Trump’s press clippings. Though Trump still has access to all his favorite cable TV programs, Kelly is only permitting articles from mainstream organizations into his daily news summaries; no more stories from Breitbart, Daily Caller, and Infowars.  Unfortunately, Melania and Donny Jr, who still has phone privileges, are both avid readers of all those fine publications and Breitbart’s newest Chairman,  Steve Bannon still has Trump’s personal phone number on speed dial which may explain why one of Trump’s most recent tweets showing him eclipsing a disappearing Obama was a cut and paste from a neo-Nazi site. The Trump tweeter remains off limits to Kelly’s prying eyes.

Obamacare Lives On:  Despite Trump’s claims that Obamacare is imploding,  Bloomberg News reports that Obamacare plans will be sold in every part of the US next year after an insurer agreed to do business in the last Ohio county that had remained uncovered.  A day doesn’t go by without Trump haranguing Majority Leader McConnell about his “one vote” failure to pass repeal legislation and he  continues to call upon the Senate to take another stab at passing some form of no care legislation.  No doubt, Trump is eyeing New Jersey’s Democratic Senator Bob Menendez and his upcoming corruption trial, hoping that a guilty verdict will force Menendez out of the  Senate while Republican Governor Christie is still around to appoint a Republican replacement, giving him another critical vote.  If found guilty, there is precedent for Menendez to stall his departure from the Senate long enough for Christie’s likely Democratic replacement to appoint his successor, but the timing will be a squeaker. The Menendez trial adds more drama to the ongoing Obamacare epic.          

Honey I Shrunk the Monuments:  Interior Secretary Zinke has completed his study of more than two dozen national “monuments,” and by monuments think national parks and nature sanctuaries. Although he loudly proclaimed that no monuments will be completely eliminated, he will recommend that several including, Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase- Escante Monuments and Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou Monument undergo significant shrinkage and even that is an unprecedented outcome.  In addition Zinke’s report will call for the resumption of some exploitive activities that previously had been banned.  Sadly, the outcome of his study isn’t much of a surprise since the whole purpose of opening the analysis to so many monuments was to justify the “limited” outcome.  Zinke’s recommendations will be challenged in court so his shrink attack will not be implemented any time soon.  

Dreamer Kids:  The clock is ticking for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) program.  Even though Trump says that he has a heart when it comes to the Dreamer kids and young adults, he appears to be succumbing to the pressures to kill the program coming from his more anti-immigrant Governors and his xenophobic Attorney General Sessions.  Sadly he is creeping closer to rounding the Dreamers up, sending them back to their countries of origin, even if they have nowhere to go and don’t speak anything other than English. This is just another one of those things that may happen in what is expected to be a rough September.  Heartless.

Am blaming today’s late delivery on Dear Evan Hansen!