Whiplash

Cyclone Trump:  Monday night, presidential Trump. Tuesday night, crazy Trump. Wednesday afternoon, back to presidential Trump. Whiplash anyone? After attacking all of the usual suspects at Tuesday night’s Phoenix rally, Trump normative showed up to the National Convention of the American Legion in Reno, Nevada on Wednesday to sign the Veterans Appeal Improvement and Modernization Act.  His spoke to a crowd that included friendly veterans, Veteran Affairs Secretary Shulkin, a very whiplashed Senator Heller, a skeptical Governor Sandoval and HUD Secretary Ben Carson, who, if he had any sense, would refuse being dragged around the country in order to “prove” that Trump isn’t the bigot he seems to be.  Sticking to the teleprompter Trump said that “it was time to heal the wounds that divide us.” He thanked the veterans for keeping history alive because “history and culture are so important,” a dog whistle reference to the important of leaving Confederate statues in place. While Trump was speaking, 2500 miles away, the Mayor of Charlottesville shrouded his Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson statues in black crepe in a show of mourning for the death of Heather Heyer, the woman killed when a White supremacist weaponized his car at the demonstration that had “fine people on both sides.”  In a related story, that really shouldn’t be related, ESPN reassigned a sports announcer named Robert Lee who was supposed to call the University of Virginia opening football game to a game in another city “because it felt like it was the right thing to do.” Really.     

The Transgender Ban: The Wall Street Journal reported last night that the White House that claims it wants to unite the country will be sending guidelines to the Pentagon to put backbone behind the transgender ban that Trump impulsively tweeted out last month without first consulting any of his military leaders.  It’s expected that the guidance will ban new transgender soldiers from enlisting and will ban payment for related medical treatment for existing transgender soldiers.  The policy will allow Secretary of Defense Mattis, who would rather focus on real security issues like Afghanistan and North Korea, to consider current service members’ ability to deploy in deciding whether to kick them out of the military. To put this in context, eighteen countries including Australia, Israel, Britain, Sweden and Canada allow transgender personnel to serve openly in their militaries. Presumably they’ve all concluded that transgender soldiers are deployable.  Expect a number of lawsuits to be filed shortly. 

Time to Pull the Emergency Cord:  Citing Trump’s irrational statements and erratic behavior, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has publicly expressed his worries about his fitness for office and questioned whether he should be allowed access to the nuclear codes.  It’s looks like a number of Republican Senators share some, if not all, of Clapper’s concerns.   Despite Trump’s contentious efforts to persuade him otherwise,  Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Corker exerted his independence by pushing ahead with the now passed legislation that limits Trump’s flexibility to lift the Russian sanctions that impede his ability to enhance his bromance with Putin.  Trump was also overheard having a loud argument with Republican Senator Tillis who is working with Democratic Senator Chris Coons on a bill to prevent Special Counsel Mueller from being fired in the event that Trump decides he wants to derail the Russia investigation. Trump, who has a hard time staying focused on legislative objectives, doesn’t seem to understand the nuance of health care and goes back and forth on whether he will hold up raising the debt ceiling, is consistent on one thing and one thing only, Russia.  To that end he can’t be happy that congressional investigators have uncovered another problematic email, this one evidencing an attempt by Rick Dearborn, a senior campaign aide who is now Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff, to schedule a meeting with some high level Russians, and he is probably completely ballistic about the likelihood that ten hours of Senate Judiciary Committee testimony about the Steele Dossier, the opposition research document that details some salacious activities and ongoing Trump – Russian relations is likely to be publicly released by Committee Chairman Grassley, another one of his uncontrollable Republicans, very soon.   

Another Resignation:  Daniel Kammen, one of the State Department’s science envoys has resigned citing Trump’s failure to condemn neo-Nazis and White supremacists.  Professor Kammen also criticized Trump’s decision to leave the Paris climate accords. Taking a page from the resignation letter that actor Kal Penn sent last week when he left Trump’s now disbanded Arts Committee, the first letters of each of the paragraphs in Kammen’s resignation letter spell out the word IMPEACH.  It’s not clear that Trump appreciated the subtlety. It’s not just actors, scientists and a few intrepid Republican Senators distancing themselves from Trump, a coalition of Rabbis representing a total of 4000 additional Rabbis and congregations across different movements of Judaism have decided that they will not participate in the traditional pre Rosh Ha Shanah presidential phone call this year in protest against Trump’s response to the violence in Charlottesville. They’ve accused Trump of giving “succor to those who advocate anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia.”   Ivanka and Jared, who is currently floating around the Middle East on one of his peacekeeping missions, may want to explain the book of life thing to Trump, his opportunity to be written down and inscribed for a good year is rapidly diminishing.