What a Dump

Cutting Immigration:  Flanked by Senators Cotton and Perdue, Trump announced plans to introduce a bill that would cut legal immigration to the US by one half over ten years. The plan calls for a points based immigration policy that benefits educated, financially independent, English speaking immigrants over everyone else.  Trump sent Stephen Miller, whose presentations skills remain as offensive and bombastic as they were when he defended Trump’s travel ban earlier in the year to present the plan during the daily news conference.  Miller explained that the purpose of the new bill was to prioritize US citizens, particularly lower income workers and the unemployed over job stealing, wage depressing immigrants and the investor class. He said that green cards were the “golden tickets” that would only be awarded to the most deserving. The bill would narrowly define families, so that new immigrants couldn’t sponsor their parents, this administration has a thing against grandparents, they also tried to exclude them under their travel ban.  When CNN’s Jim Acosta commented that the bill wasn’t in keeping with the Emma Lazarus inscription on the base of the Statue of Liberty, the one that says “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free,” Miller snapped back that the poem isn’t actually part of the original Statue of Liberty and is not the law of the land.  When Acosta, whose Spanish speaking parents immigrated to the US from Cuba, suggested that the English language requirement would restrict immigration to people from countries such as the UK and Australia, Miller called him an “ignorant cosmopolitan” for suggesting that people from other countries don’t speak English.  All the fireworks aside, the introduction of this bill was a ploy by Trump to appeal to his base at a time when he’s been facing so much bad news and has been unable to pass any health legislation.  The immigration bill which would need sixty votes to pass through the Senate, has little support even among Republican Senators and would likely be a drag on the economy which needs immigrants across the employment spectrum to fuel growth.  As to health care, Trump is still pushing the Senate to do something and hasn’t yet said whether he will make the key insurance subsidy payments.  

  

Finally, a Signed Sanctions Bill:  He really, really didn’t want to but Trump finally signed the Russia, Iran, and North Korean sanctions bill but not before questioning its constitutionality and attacking the “flawed” bill for the limitations it imposes on his ability to do whatever Putin wants.  Sticking with one of his favorite themes, he said that Americans made him president because he is rich, smart and a superb businessman with fantastic judgement.  He questioned why someone with those attributes should have to delegate sanctions decisions to a bunch of Congressmen and Senators, most of whom aren’t even rich. Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev trolled Trump by tweeting that “the US establishment fully outwitted Trump. The President is not happy about the sanctions, yet he could not but sign the bill.”  As evidenced by his recent retaliatory expulsion of US Diplomats, Putin is not happy that Trump signed the bill but he seems to understand that Trump’s hands are tied and for some reason still thinks that Trump will still be able to do something about those two dachas that he wants back. Former State Department employees say that the reason Secretary of State Tillerson has decided not to use $80 million already allocated for fighting terrorist propaganda and Russian disinformation is because he believes that extra funding to counter media influence will anger Moscow.  When asked if Trump had called Vlad and made any side promises Press Secretary Huckabee Sanders called for another question.  

Lies and Deceptions:  Trump’s speech at the Boy Scout Jamboree is still paying dividends.  He told the Wall Street Journal that the head of the Boy Scouts called him to say that his speech was the greatest ever. He also reported that Mexico President Nieto had called him to praise his immigration policy.  The only problem is that neither of these calls ever took place.  When asked why Trump lied about these calls, Huckabee Sanders responded “I wouldn’t say it was a lie, that’s a pretty bold accusation.”  Adding “the conversations took place, they just simply didn’t take place over a phone call.”  It’s not clear who Trump had those conversations with, it wasn’t Nieto or the head of the Boy Scouts, maybe he was talking to his imaginary friend Jimmy, the guy who doesn’t go to Paris anymore.  Trump did speak to Golf Magazine, explaining that the reason that he spends so many of his weekend’s away at either his Bedminster Club or Mar a Lago is because the White House is a dump. Too few gold plated faucets and toilets for him.        

Shifting Polls:  When it comes to Trump’s popularity it’s hard to rely too much on polls because the last time we believed the polls we ended up with Donald J. Trump.  Still it’s encouraging to note that a few Republicans have been watching something other than Fox News.  According to Quinnipiac, Trump’s approval among Republicans is 76%, down from 84% in June. Overall, just 33% of Americans think that Trump is doing a good job with his disapproval rating standing at 61%.  Clearly a lot of Republicans are still suffering from cognitive dissonance, but it looks like the slide has begun.  

The Generals:  Last night General Kelly, the new Chief of Staff, called Attorney General Sessions and reassured him that his job was safe.  Sadly, this is a good thing. Sessions is not very supportive of civil rights, he’s pro-deportation, anti-immigration, against the legalization of marijuana, even for medical purposes, and is supportive of mandatory sentences.  He is also very effective at transforming his views into policy.  However, as long as he is around so is Special Counsel Mueller, Trump’s quiet but persistent nemesis.  Security Adviser McMaster, another one of Trump’s generals, has finally managed to purge the last of Michael Flynn’s allies.  He gave the heave ho to Ezra Cohen-Watnick, who had gotten some notoriety for passing documents about unmasking to Representative Nunes who then pretended he had evidence that Obama had taped Trump.  McMaster has been trying to rid himself of Cohen-Watnick for a while but had been stymied by Kushner and Trump.  Trump’s other Generals, Defense Secretary Mattis and Joint Chiefs of Staff Dunford are having a more difficult time.  Trump is annoyed that they haven’t managed to come up with a plan to win the war in Afghanistan, a war he thought he would be able to win as soon as he became president. He’s pushing to replace the commander heading the US effort.  Turns out Afghanistan is complicated.