Trump Goes Even Lower

@RealDonaldTrump:  Yesterday the Real Donald Trump descended from the Trump Tower elevator to announce his infrastructure plan.  For a few minutes he discussed plans to streamline the building of new infrastructure by eliminating a planning step related to climate change and flood damage to transform the US from a third world country to a modern Trump-gilded nation albeit one with a few roads occasionally underwater.  Then he opened his presentation to questions and the day descended into madness as an increasingly unhinged Trump aggressively responded to questions about last weekend’s events in Charlottesville.  He pulled the text of his original statement out of his pocket, the one that said the Charlottesville tragedy was due to violence on “both sides” and proceeded to argue that the guys who showed up with guns, military regalia, tiki torches, and swastika emblazoned shields and flags who were chanting anti-Semitic  and anti-Black comments were just a bunch of innocent White guys out to protect Confederate statues from marauding lefties.  In contrast the counter protesters, including Heather Heyer, whose mourning mother only had the best things to say about him, and the many participating members of the clergy were all “alt left” violent protestors wielding large sticks and looking for trouble and weaponized cars.  Trump who has never missed an opportunity to call any world tragedy involving Muslims an act of terrorism, before local authorities even know if any Muslims were really involved, ranted at the “fake news” dispensing dishonest press for demanding that he assign blame to the alt right Nazi, white supremacist crowd without all the evidence including some mysterious facts that only he has seen. As to those Confederate statues, he shouted you take down Robert E Lee today, what’s next George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, they were slave owners too!  Trump knows just enough history to distort the point.  Yes, Washington and Jefferson owned slaves and that’s awful but they were also the founders of the country and sadly slave ownership while despicable was accepted during their lifetimes. In contrast, Robert E Lee, a traitor to the US who was the leader of the Confederacy, fought to maintain slavery in a war that killed more than 600,000.  The disputed Charlottesville statue was erected in the 1920s to commemorate the good old pre-Civil War days at a time when Jim Crow laws were being passed to enforce racial segregation across the south. Trump also managed to malign John McCain, that duplicitous guy who voted against his no care health care plan while dissing each of the CEOs who have withdrawn from his economic council.  Asked about Steve Bannon, he was noncommittal about how much longer his philosophical compatriot will be allowed to hang in the White House, he also didn’t acknowledge that he’s afraid to boot Bannon who could be really dangerous as an outside critic. Then before going back up his gilded elevator to his office in the clouds, in response to a question as to whether he would go to Charlottesville, he bragged about his big beautiful Charlottesville home and his local winery, the biggest one in the country, the one that isn’t even the biggest winery in Virginia.  

Reactions:  Trump claimed that at first he didn’t even know that former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke was in attendance at the Charlottesville picnic but David Duke was there and yesterday he was is in full gloat mode.  After Trump spoke he tweeted “Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville.” In contrast, Chief of Staff Kelly looked despondent as he disappeared into the background, his arms folded tight and his head hung low.  It’s hard to believe that Kelly is happy about his decision to leave the relative sanity of the Department of Homeland Security where all he had to do was deport illegal immigrants and fight terrorism.  He will need a lot of stamina to stick it out and even then he will only stay out of a sense of duty and love of country.  The usual assortment of Republican politicians, including some of the guys who will probably challenge Trump if he is still around for the 2020 primaries including Senators Cruz and Rubio tweeted out variations of “oh come on, everyone knows White supremacy and Nazis have no place in our society” before heading out for mint juleps.  Majority Leader McConnell, whose wife Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao stood by Trump’s side as he raved and ranted said nothing.  An assortment of Democrats were too aghast at the thought that they really lost the election to this bozo to do much more than shake their heads and cry.  A few more CEOs and business leaders including the CEO of the AFL-CIO and the CEO of the Alliance for American Manufacturing left Trump’s Manufacturing Council leaving Trump to respond that those guys are not taking their jobs seriously.  He plans to replace them with some other CEOs or with Donny Jr, Eric or Barron.  No one knows what Ivanka or Jared are thinking, they are on vacation in Vermont.

The Real Stuff:  Trump still hasn’t announced whether his administration will continue to support the individual insurance market by making Obamacare insurer subsidies.  Yesterday the Congressional Budget Office said that without the payments premiums in the individual insurance market will rise by 20 percent in 2018 and by 25 percent in 2020.  As to Trump’s infrastructure plan, for now it’s all smoke and mirrors.  Until a budget is passed there will be no new infrastructure funding and if Trump passes substantial tax cuts and manages to obtain funding for his Mexican border wall, there won’t be much money left for those crumbling roads and bridges.    

Not So Sweet Alabama:  With Jeff Sessions now doing his best to dismantle Civil Rights as Attorney General, Alabama held a primary for his replacement.  An assortment of right wing and more right wing candidates competed for the Republican nomination.  Temporary Senator Luther Strange, who was endorsed by the unusual combination of Trump and Senate Majority Leader McConnell, got just enough votes to qualify for a runoff against former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, the guy who was stripped of his court seat for refusing to take down a monument of the Ten Commandments and then, after winning reelection, suspended for refusing to enforce the US Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage.  Both men garnered more votes than Congressman Mo Brooks who touted his pro-gun credentials by running an ad highlighting the shooting of his fellow Congressman Steve Scalise.  The winner of the Republican runoff will likely beat the Democratic candidate Doug Jones because Alabama is one of those states that typically elects Republicans no matter what.