Spin Cycle

No Bueno:  In private, officials are now acknowledging that the Trump administration was too slow to react to the severity of the impact of Hurricane Maria on Puerto Rico.  Facing huge amounts of criticism, the administration has finally started to take the devastation seriously. Yesterday, in response to calls for military resources,  Lt Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, an Army commander, was put in charge of the relief effort.  When asked why he wasn’t deployed earlier, Tom Bossert, the homeland security spokesman, said the situation in Puerto Rico “didn’t require a three-star general eight days ago,” which is government speak for we screwed up big time by not treating Puerto Rico with the care and respect that the island deserves, besides Trump  just figured out Puerto Ricans are Americans.  Trump also temporarily lifted the Jones Act restriction banning non-US ships from carrying cargo from other parts of the US to Puerto Rico after getting criticized for his earlier decision not to lift the ban because affected US shipping companies didn’t think he should.  With distribution capability severely diminished due to the destruction of roads and trucks, many of the supplies arriving in Puerto Rico are stuck at the docks so lifting the Jones Act won’t result in an immediate improvement but the optics of leaving it in place when it had been lifted for Texas and Florida was dreadful.  People have been living at San Juan airport, lining up to get on one of the flights leaving the island.  Trump’s visit, planned to take place on Tuesday, will lengthen departure waiting times since the airport will be shut to accommodate his photo-op.  Many of those leaving Puerto Rico are expected to move permanently to the mainland feeding Republican worst fears and Democratic pipedreams that states such as Texas and Florida, likely destinations, could turn blue.      

The State of Health:  With Obamacare repeal efforts dead for now, the Trump administration is doing its best to hinder enrollment because increasing participation by healthy people is the key to the program’s continuing success. Health Secretary Price has cut funding for enrollment groups and advertising, shut down the enrollment website for hours a week and halted the participation in enrollment events.  Asked for comments on why they had pulled out of assisting enrollment efforts in Mississippi, a Health department spokesperson responded “Obamacare continues to collapse, HHS is carefully evaluating how we can best serve the American people who continue to be harmed by Obamacare’s failures.”  Health Secretary Price has been “best helping Americans,” by diverting funds to pay for his private flights.  Already under criticism for spending $300,000 on domestic private flights, yesterday added attention was focused on his international travel.  He ran up an additional $500,000 using military transport to cities well served by commercial carriers.  Despite the fact that the international flights were approved by someone in the White House, Trump is furious about the attention that the cost of Price’s travel has received.  When asked if he still supported Price, he walked away without answering the question.  Price, who complained about tax-funded travel when he was in Congress is now planning to reimburse the government but only for $50,000, the cost associated with his “tickets.”  He has no plans to cover the cost of his entourage.  Price isn’t the only Cabinet member who has questionably commandeered military flights, Interior Secretary Zinke has also gotten in on the action and EPA’s Pruitt has racked up $58,000 on “military air.” Suddenly, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin’s ill-fated attempt to arrange for a military plane to take him to his honeymoon location looks like the norm for Trump’s swamp denizens.  As to Obamacare, with Price busy raising cash by selling stocks from his insider trading portfolio, the portfolio that should have derailed his confirmation as Health Secretary in the first place, Republican Senator Alexander and Democratic Senator Murray have gone back to work on their Obamacare “fix,”  Senate Minority Leader Schumer reports they are close to finalizing their plan.               

Unsocial Media:  Yesterday was Twitter’s turn on Intelligence Committees hot seats. They revealed 201 Russian  “bot” accounts spent $291,000 on twitter ads during the 2016 elections.  After their presentation to the Senate committee, Senator Warner, the Senate panel’s top Democrat, said that Twitter’s presentation was inadequate.  It was his impression that the information they presented was “derivative, based upon accounts that Facebook had identified, showed an enormous lack of understanding of how serious this issue is, the threat it poses to democratic institutions and again begs more questions than they offered.” Adam Schiff the Congressional Committee’s ranking Democrat agreed that the Twitter information was derived from Facebook’s analysis, saying it’s “clear that Twitter has significant forensic work to do to understand the depth and breadth of Russian activity in the campaign.”  Facebook’s earlier disclosure about Russian activity on their platform only tracked ads purchased in Rubles, to date neither Facebook or Twitter have disclosed Russian funded ads purchased in other currencies so their findings represent just the tip of what may be a very big and nefarious iceberg.  Trump’s lawyers have responded to all this by requesting information about anti-Trump ads and the Russians have responded by continuing to stir the pot with more football inspired #takeaknee ads intended to foment more political discontent.    

Tax Reform Tidbits:  Remember when Republican deficit hawks were concerned about the growing budget deficit and burgeoning federal debt.  Not anymore, Republican Representative Mark Walker disingenuously explained away the likelihood that the new Tax Reform plan will dramatically increase the federal debt by saying such concerns make for “a great talking point when you have an administration that’s Democratic-led.  It’s a little different now that Republicans have both houses and the administration.”  Walker’s comments aside others are very concerned about some of the components of the administration’s tax reform proposal.  Democrats and Republicans from states with high state and local tax burdens are pushing back against the plan’s elimination of state and local tax deductions.  To pass tax reform through the House, Speaker Ryan will need to get most of the thirty-three Republican Representatives from high tax “blue” states to vote for tax reform and many of them are unlikely to support a provision that puts their seats in jeopardy so expect some changes in this provision.  Economic advisor Cohn refused to say that the plan favors the wealthy and that no middle class payers would end up paying higher taxes.  He then went on to say that the average American family who he said earns $100,000 would get a $!000 tax cut that could be used to remodel a kitchen or buy a new car. It’s not clear who wrote his talking points, he misstated the average American household income which is somewhere around $70,000 and that’s the average, not the median.  Does anyone know where you can buy a new car for $1000 or remodel a kitchen for $1000, even HGTV can’t do that.  Cohn’s credibility declines daily, he needs to work on his spin, stop lying, or leave and start rebuilding his tarnished reputation.

Have an easy fast and whether your fasting or not enjoy a break fast bagel and lox!

The Tax Pivot

Trumpcare Eulogy:  Yesterday was supposed to be all about tax reform but oddly enough Trump couldn’t pivot without first making several strange and untrue comments about health care and Puerto Rico.  Just one day after the Graham-Cassidy plan was pulled for lack of support, Trump said that they had the necessary 50 votes but couldn’t proceed right now because one Senator was in the hospital dealing with a serious medical condition and two others just needed more time to process their decision.  He then promised that they would get back to health care in January or maybe February or maybe March as soon as they finished tax reform.  The so-called hospitalized Senator was 80 year old Tom Cochran from Mississippi, who is home recuperating from surgery but is not in the hospital.  In any case Cochran’s absence from Washington is irrelevant, Graham-Cassidy did not have the needed votes and it’s highly unlikely that tax reform will speed through the legislative process by January or February and March may be a stretch as well.  Trump then went on to say that he would be announcing a major executive order to allow the sale of health insurance across state lines, a practice that sounds good but doesn’t really work.  Insurers can already sell across state lines as long as they comply with state regulations and consumer protection laws.  Attempts by Wyoming, Maine and Georgia to encourage across state sales have failed because insurance companies have shown little interest in selling insurance or creating provider networks in states where they have no customers. Nevertheless, the populist sounding promise, combined with the assertion that health care reform was just around the corner must help Trump deal with bitter disappointment about nine months wasted on the Trumpcare legislative catastrophe. Trump also asserted that all was proceeding nicely in Puerto Rico, a claim that would surprise millions of the suffering Puerto Ricans who are in the throes of a huge humanitarian crisis if only they had the ability to hear his statement. Because he doesn’t want to upset the shipping industry, Trump announced that he has no plans to lift the restrictions of the Jones Act, a law which restricts foreign carriers from shipping goods from one US port to another. Trump lifted the Jones Act to help out Houston and Florida after hurricane Harvey but Puerto Rico isn’t Houston or Florida, isn’t “red” and is the home of Puerto Ricans  so Trump, oblivious to the optics, has decided an exception isn’t necessary.  Needless to say, Puerto Rico Governor Rosello disagrees, he wants ships, he wants them now.  Before finally, pivoting to tax reform, Trump mumbled something about turning to Democrats to work on health care reform.  It would be nice if that was his one truthful statement.   

Tax Reform:  With Indiana’s red state Democratic Senator Donnelly dragged along for the ride, Trump went to Indianapolis to announce his much anticipated tax reform plan.  The plan that Trump calls a “once in a generation opportunity” calls for cutting the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20% and makes it easier for corporations to repatriate overseas earnings. Among other things It collapses the seven individual income tax brackets into three ranging from 12% to 35 %, doubles the standard deduction, eliminates the marriage penalty and eliminates the deduction for state and local taxes. Though Trump says that his tax reform plan “was not good for me,” the plan also eliminates inheritance taxes and the alternative minimum tax.  We’ve still not seen Trump’s tax returns but the one page that was mysteriously released earlier in the year showed that Trump was bigly impacted by the AMT and obviously, were he to kick the bucket, his family would hugely benefit from the elimination of the inheritance tax so that statement is highly suspect.  At this point no one is talking about how and who will pay the $2.2 trillion cost of the plan.  The “big six” group of tax writers, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, economic advisor Cohn, House Speaker Ryan, House Ways and Means Chair Brady, Senate Majority Leader McConnell and Senate Finance Chief Orrin Hatch know, but they aren’t telling. yet.  In any case, it’s way too early to get too excited or exorcised about any of the provisions included in this version of Trump’s plan because it’s just a starting point, the devil will be in the details and so far the details are missing. As Lindsey Graham, who knows a lot about failed legislation, said yesterday the difference between success as a party, a one or two term presidency and surviving the 2018 mid-term elections lies in tax reform.  Hold on tight the battle has just begun.

Calling Human Resources:  Rather than draining the swamp the Trump team is filling it up daily.  Health Secretary Price is facing a lot of criticism and scrutiny over the more than $300,000 he has spent on private airplane travel.  It doesn’t help that the driving force for a number of his trips was personal priorities, including private golf outings, visits to his private properties and lunch with his son.  When asked if he will be fired for his plane transgressions, Trump said “we’ll see,” the answer he gave when he was asked about Steve Bannon’s role in the White House shortly before Bannon was given the boot.  Interior Secretary Zinke isn’t doing much to improve employee morale at the Department of the Interior, he’s announced that at least 30% of Interior employees are disloyal, and by disloyal he may mean that they actually believe in science and climate change.  He is doing his best to make their lives miserable.  EPA Secretary Pruitt is spending $25,000 building a private “cone of silence” in his office for all those super-secret conversations he’s been having with T.H.R.U.S.H. and various chemical companies.   He’s also been flying private, racking up about $58,000 to date.   Chuck Rosenberg, the acting head of the Drug Enforcement Agency, one of the good guys, announced that he’s resigning because he’s become convinced that Trump has little respect for the law.  In his parting remarks to his staff he told them that they should continue to “persevere in the face of adversity” and do great things, he will be cheering them on from the sidelines.

Social Media Footnote:  It’s Twitter’s turn in the hot seat.  Attention is now focusing on the number of fake accounts pushing  #fakenews.  Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that his company was wrong to initially dismiss concerns about the use of his platform to push false news, he also pushed back against Trump’s recent accusations that Facebook has always been “anti-Trump.” Those accusations may be Trump’s way of acknowledging that his team used social media to push fake stories because when it comes to Trump the truth frequently lies in his counterpunches.  The Russian #fakenews stream continues, current stories have shifted from Hillary and the  Muslim menace to “horrific” attacks by mostly Black athletes on the US flag.

An Island in the Ocean

Obamacare Lives:  Senator Lisa Murkowski finally came out of hiding yesterday but was spared from having to disclose how she would vote on the Republican’s last and worst health plan when Majority Leader McConnell pulled Graham-Cassidy once it became apparent that he hadn’t convinced the requisite fifty Senators to vote for a plan that eviscerated health insurance and drastically cut the Medicaid safety net.  Trump is not a happy camper and is still playing “chicken” with the cost-sharing care subsidies that help reduce the cost of some of the Obamacare premiums. He blames McConnell for weak leadership, McCain for having been a prisoner of war and everyone and anyone for failing to repeal Obamacare.  The not ready for prime time Republican players will now move to tax reform, trying to move ahead with substantial tax cuts without the trillion dollars that they had hoped to steal from health care by repealing those pesky Obamacare taxes.  Republican leadership plans to start the new federal fiscal year, which begins on October 1, by quickly passing a budget resolution so that they can shift gears to tax reform, which they intend to pass using the nifty fifty vote reconciliation process.  Senate rules dictate that only one reconciliation bill can be “open” at any given time so Obamacare should be safe for a while unless an effort is made to combine health care and tax reform into one huge reconciliation bill; so far leadership doesn’t seem interested in creating such an unwieldly monster.  Passing tax reform is another one of those “complicated” things. It’s likely that McConnell will have to reach across the aisle for help from some of the vulnerable red state Democrats because his budget hawks are unlikely to vote for any plan that increases the deficit and all the versions of tax reform under consideration will increase the deficit.  McConnell’s awful day went from bad to worse when his close friend Tennessee Senator Bob Corker announced that he’s retiring at the end of his term and his favored candidate Luther Strange got trounced by former Judge Roy Moore in the runoff for the Alabama Republican Senate nomination.  To the extent that he wins the November general election, Moore, a birther who believes that the 9-11 attacks were punishment for the country straying away from God and who brandished a pistol during his last campaign speech, will be a thorn in McConnell’s side.  He’s a Steve Bannon-like government disrupter who will not tow the party line.  Corker, the respected Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, who had said that Trump hadn’t yet demonstrated the stability or competence to be president, was expecting a primary challenge from another Bannon supported candidate. Though he likely would have won what would have been a bruising primary fight, he isn’t interested in returning to the dysfunctional Senate.  Without an incumbent running, the Tennessee seat may now be vulnerable for pick off by a Democratic challenger.                      

Puerto Rico is an Island:   Over the weekend Hillary Clinton tweeted  “Trump, Sec Mattis and DOD should send the Navy, including the USNS Comfort, to Puerto Rico now.  These are American Citizens.”  Initially, Trump dithered, ignoring Hillary’s pleas because he wasn’t all that concerned about Puerto Rico and he was too busy tweet attacking various and sundry football players, team owners and North Korea’s little rocket man.  By Tuesday, with criticism mounting he decided to heed Hillary’s tweet.  He announced that resources including the USNS Comfort hospital ship will be sent to Puerto Rico while explaining that it’s very tough to deal with the crisis in Puerto Rico because “it’s an island.  In Texas, we can ship the trucks right out there.  And you know, we’ve gotten A-pluses on Texas and on Florida, and we will also on Puerto Rico. But the difference, is this is an island sitting in the middle of an ocean.  And it’s a big ocean; it’s a very big ocean.  And we’re doing a really good job.”  It will take more than a week for the USNS Comfort to make the trip to Puerto Rico. In the meantime, though smaller vessels and planes including one owned by Trump’s arch rival, Mark Cuban, the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks, have started bringing needed supplies and personnel, the situation in Puerto Rico is still deteriorating.  Trump reported that the island’s Governor Ricardo Rosello said he was doing a great job. Carmen Yulin Cruz, the Mayor of San Juan believes that the Governor isn’t satisfied with Trump’s performance but, facing a crippling humanitarian crisis, he is too desperate to be critical.  She said that while the island is getting help from FEMA, they aren’t getting enough and its arrival has been slow and uncoordinated.  As to Trump’s earlier comments about Puerto Rico’s “crippling debt” she said “these are two different topics. You don’t put debt above people, you put people above debt.” Trump plans to visit next week, it’s unlikely that he will get another A plus for his report card but NY’s Governor Cuomo, Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel and NYC’s Bill De Blasio who’ve all delivered aid to the island are getting gold stars.  Yulin Cruz isn’t the only one who’s having a hard time with Trumpspeak.  Pyongyang has reached out to Republican party experts, including analysts at the conservative Heritage Foundation for help decoding Trump’s tweets because “they can’t figure Trump out.”  While they wait for their decoder ring to arrive, the North Koreans have stayed busy, moving their planes into more defensive positions.    

Russia, Russia, Russia:  Roger Stone testified at a closed door session of the House Intelligence Committee yesterday.  He reported that the meeting went well and that he was treated respectfully by everyone except for that disagreeable Congressman Adam Schiff.  Stone said that as far as he’s concerned Special Counsel Mueller should be fired because his good friend Paul Manafort is being subjected to undue pressure to lie and say that Trump colluded with the Russians, even though he asserts that no one in the Trump camp did, ever.  He then went on to allege that everyone knows that the DNC computer hacking was an inside job by someone who downloaded the files to a thumb drive before handing them over to WikiLeaks.  By someone, he means Seth Rich, the young man who’s unsolved murder has become fodder for right wing conspiracy theorists.  Despite his earlier claims that he spoke directly with the Russian hacker Guccifer 2.0 and that he’s good friends with WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange, Stone backtracked from both claims and, according to the disagreeable Schiff, refused to answer some critical questions.  Schiff also reported that Stone was an uncooperative witness and suggested that he will be subpoenaed to testify under oath.  Separately, Senator Blumenthal of the Senate Judiciary Committee said that he is 99% sure that there will be some criminal charges from the investigation.  He added that “Manafort and Flynn are the most prominent but there may be others.”  Though they did not participate in the summer raid of Manafort’s home, the IRS Criminal Investigation unit is now working closely with Special Counsel Mueller and likely has provided him with Manafort and Flynn’s tax records, and possibly Trump’s. The involvement of the IRS could explain why Trump launched into another one of his bitter tirades against Attorney General Sessions, this time at Monday night’s White House dinner with conservatives, where one guest reported that Trump was “dripping with venom” as he complained about Sessions recusing himself from the Russia investigation.  He told the various Republicans in attendance that Sessions was “ineffective in his job” and asked them to tell him to “get moving.”  So far Sessions is not going anywhere, yesterday he told a carefully screened group of “receptive” students and faculty at Georgetown University Law School that he “will enforce federal law, defend free speech and protect students’ free expression from whatever end of the political spectrum it may come,” by that he means that right wing speakers need more respect, left wingers and football players, not so much.   

Mas Ayuda Por Favor

Lost in Translation:  North Korea has been listening very carefully to Trump’s pronouncements and tweets and unlike the rest of us they believe everything he has to say.  Yesterday, Ri Yong Ho, North Korea’s foreign minister said Trump’s Saturday tweet, the one in which he warned that North Korea and Kim Jong Un “won’t be around much longer” amounted to a declaration of war.  He then said that Pyongyang reserves the right to shoot US warplanes out of the sky, even when they are outside of North Korean airspace, a bigly problem because we fly lots of military missions near North Korea.  To drive his point home he said “the whole world should clearly remember it was the US who first declared war on our country.”  The official response from the Trump administration came from Sarah Huckabee Sanders who said “We’ve not declared war on North Korea, frankly the suggestion of that is absurd.”  She then went on to say that “it’s never appropriate for a country to shoot down another country’s aircraft….our goal is still the same.  We continue to seek the peaceful denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.”  Trump’s national security advisors may share Ri Yong Ho’s assessment that Trump has declared war on North Korea.  They’ve advised him to ratchet down his rhetoric and have specifically asked him to stop goading Kim Jong Un by calling him a little rocket man, sadly Trump’s not listening. It’s not unprecedented for North Korea to accuse the US of declaring war and they have shot down planes before.  What is unusual now is the back and forth with Trump and the concern that a misstep by either side could have unintended consequences.    Experts at the Ploughshares Fund, an organization dedicated to reducing the prospects of nuclear warfare, are so concerned that they estimate the likelihood of conventional and nuclear war at 50% and 10% respectively.  As to that new advanced Iranian missile test that Trump tweeted about over the weekend, it didn’t happen.  The video that prompted his accusatory tweet and accusation that Iran was working with North Korea was seven months old.  Iran hasn’t completed any tests lately.    

Desperately Seeking Susan and Lisa:  Republican efforts to pay off Maine’s Susan Collins with an interim increase in Medicaid funding fell flat yesterday.  Shortly after the Congressional Budget Office issued their preliminary assessment that the Graham-Cassidy health care plan would result in millions more losing insurance coverage, Collins announced that she would not support the bill.  In a statement that was clearly written in advance of the release of the CBO’s conclusion, Collins said that the cuts to Medicaid would hurt too many of the neediest Americans, that the newest version of Graham-Cassidy would essentially eliminate insurance for people with preexisting conditions and that ultimately premiums would increase.  Collins joins Senators McCain and Paul in the “no” column, theoretically dooming the Graham-Cassidy plan. However, although Senator Paul insists that he is a firm “no,” nervous Democrats don’t consider him to be all that dependable so though they are cautiously optimistic that Graham-Cassidy won’t see the light of day they are still awaiting for Alaska’s Senator Lisa Murkowski to announce how she plans to vote.  At least for now, Murkowski remains in hiding.  Senator Cruz claims that he and Senator Lee will also vote against Graham-Cassidy but “lying Ted” has credibility problems so no one’s taking his vote to the bank. For some reason, Lindsey Graham still remains optimistic about passage, however, it’s not clear that Senator McConnell will even move forward with a vote.  Democratic Senator Patty Murray, who had been working with Republican Senator Lamar Alexander on an Obamacare fix-it bill before Graham-Cassidy reared its ugly head wants to get back to their bipartisan effort.  

Trump’s Katrina Moment:  While Trump’s been busy tweeting about football and flags, Puerto Rico is drowning.  The situation is dire, 3.5 million people are suffering,  60% of the population doesn’t have drinkable water and food is scarce.   With few ATMs working or stocked, cash is running out. Most people do not have electricity and prospects for improvement soon are limited since 80% of transmission lines have been destroyed.  The only electricity that exists on the island is being provided by generators but with fuel sources limited their use is curtailed as well.  With 95% of cell phone towers knocked out communication is also severely impaired.  Thus far the Trump administration’s response to the crisis has been lethargic, it pales in comparison to the response to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, storms that hit delegate rich “red” state voters.  More resources are desperately needed and sadly indications are that the White House doesn’t plan to request more funding for Puerto Rico until October because Trump’s been too busy tweet attacking football players and calling for owners to fire “disrespectful” players to do more much than send a damage assessment team to Puerto Rico.  Last night after Hillary Clinton called for more action and for the dispatch of a Navy hospital ship, Trump responded by tweet blaming Puerto Rico’s old electrical grid and unpaid debts to Wall Street, which he said “must be dealt with.”  As for those disrespectful players, last night, Trump’s good friend Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, #tookaknee together with his team before standing up and linking arms as the Star Spangled Banner was played while the Arizona Cardinals linked arms to show unity for the ongoing league-wide protests.  Sarah Huckabee Sanders rejected criticism that Trump spent hours tweeting about kneeling when he should have been focusing on Puerto Rico by saying that Trump is “emphasizing” and “promoting patriotism.”  She refused to acknowledge that there was a racial element to Trump calling football players “sons of bitches” but did suggest that if players were protesting police brutality they should “protest the officers on the field” instead of the American flag. One sided, armed confrontation, what could go wrong with that?

More Email Hypocrisy: Private email usage in the Trump White House may have been the norm rather than the exception.  Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon, Gary Cohn and Stephen Miller have all used their private email accounts to conduct official business.  And it turns out that despite initial denials, Ivanka also used her email for more than hair appointments and playdates.  For the record the Kushner family email domain is named IJKFamily.com and fittingly it’s registered with Go Daddy.  All the private emails are now enroute to Special Counsel Mueller who will probably be focused on today’s House Intelligence Committee meeting where Roger Stone, Trump’s loony, sometime friend will be testifying in what he promises will be “epic testimony debunking charges of collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump team.”  Stone and erstwhile erratic Committee Chairman Devon Nunes have a lot in common.  

Football Wars 

Football and the World Order:  North Korea is threatening to explode a hydrogen bomb into the atmosphere and we’ve countered by sending B1 and F15 bombers as close to their airspace as possible.   Trump is threatening to pull away from the Iran nuclear agreement and they’ve countered by testing a new long range ballistic missile that could reach Israel and Europe.  Having thoroughly disrupted the world order Trump’s moved on to domestic politics. In an effort to further exploit the racial divide, he is now targeting football and basketball players for exercising their First Amendment rights. What he started by insulting players and their mothers in his campaign speech in Huntsville, Alabama, he continued with a series of tweets over the weekend calling on football fans to stay away from games, team owners to fire players and by rescinding an invitation for Stephen Curry and the rest of the Golden State Warriors to visit the White House as part of a customary victory trip, although as the Cleveland Cavaliers’ Lebron James pointed out “U bum” you can’t rescind an invitation to someone who “already said he ain’t going, Going to the White House was a great honor until you showed up!”  Much the way that his tweet attacks on North Korea and Iran have inspired more hostility from North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Iran’s Hassan Rouhani, his attacks against the mostly African American players inspired an even larger number of football players, team owners and coaches to follow in the footsteps of Colin Kaepernik, the former San Francisco 49er, current free agent, who initiated the kneeling movement by refusing to stand during the national anthem as a protest against racial oppression.  Ironically, Trump, who can’t distinguish a neo-Nazi from a weaponized car victim and who famously said that John McCain isn’t a war hero because he was a prisoner of war for five years, claims that the players’ protests show disrespect for the military.  Yesterday, after a number of players, coaches and owners supported their kneeling colleagues by locking arms, Trump amended his complaint to say that locked arms were okay, because if a White guy like New England’s Tom Brady, his bro crush, locks arms it must be okay, right?  Kaepernik, who has had trouble finding a new team ever since he initiated his protest is no longer kneeling alone, with several quarterbacks off to a bad start this season, he may find himself in demand again, which is more than anyone can say for Treasury Secretary Mnuchin.  Mnuchin was the designated Trump moron this weekend.  He was sent out to defend Trump’s increasingly hostile tweet diplomacy against North Korea and hint about tax reform plans but ended up fielding questions about Trump’s football philosophy and racially charged provocations.  Proving once again why he is one of Trump’s favorites, Mnuchin said that players only have First Amendment rights when they are off the field.  He called for owners and the National Football League to pass rules requiring that players stand during the playing of the national anthem.  League Commissioner Roger Goodell missed that memo, he called Trump’s remarks divisive.          

Down to the Wire:  This year’s war against Obamacare is gasping for air but still has a few breaths left.  Though it looks less and less likely that the Graham-Cassidy plan will pass the Senate, Trump, Majority Leader McConnell and Senators Graham and Cassidy haven’t given up yet, they are still trying to induce fence sitters and naysaying Senators to jump on the no care health care bandwagon.  As of now, Arizona’s Senator McCain is a hard no, Kentucky’s Rand Paul says he can’t vote for anything that doesn’t eradicate all vestiges of Obamacare, and by vestiges he means Obamacare taxes, and Maine’s Susan Collins says that she can’t imagine voting for a bill that dismantles Medicaid but is waiting for the Budget Office to release its report so that she has all the information she needs before voting no. Alaska’s Senator Murkowski has gone into hiding and a few other Senators, including Texas’ Ted Cruz, Utah’s Mike Lee, and Colorado’s Cory Gardner are leaning towards voting no if in fact the plan makes it to the Senate floor for a vote, Cruz and Lee because the plan is too liberal and Gardner because it is too damaging.  Today, Senators Graham and Cassidy are expected to announce changes that will increase funding for Arizona, Alaska and Maine, changes that will make the soon to be released Budget Report useless even before it is released.  Graham is enthusiastic and confidant that these changes will make Graham-Cassidy passable.  He may or may not be delusional, changes that please Murkowski and Collins are likely to further distance Paul, Cruz and Lee; McCain, to the extent that he is to be believed, is insistent that he won’t change his vote under any circumstances.  For his part, despite evidence to the contrary, Senator Cassidy is still insisting that his eponymous plan covers pre-existing conditions even though it doesn’t, a point dramatically hammered home last week by night show host Jimmy Kimmel, with the coaching of Trump’s erstwhile friend, Chuck Schumer.  Still today is only September 25 and Obamacare repeal is a festering sore that never heals so we will have to wait this one out until the clock strikes twelve on September 30, the last day that an Obamacare repeal bill can be passed with the votes of only fifty senators.          

More Irony:  You’ve got to hand it to Jared Kushner.  While his father-in-law launched himself into the presidency by relentlessly attacking Hillary Clinton for her private mail server, Kushner set up his own private email account and then used it to communicate with other members of the White House staff including former Chief of Staff Priebus, former strategist Steve Bannon and economic advisor Gary Cohn. Kushner’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, insists that only 100 emails were sent from Kushner’s private email address and none of them contained confidential information but as we know from his difficulty filling out his security forms, Kushner’s lists have a tendency to grow over time and his facts tend to meander, so who knows how many emails he really sent from KushnersChutzpah@NotTheWhiteHouse.com.  Ivanka also set up a private account, but she’s managed to limit its use to making hair appointments and arranging after school dates for the kids, or at least that’s what we are being told.   

Another Travel Ban:  Last night the White House announced that with the earlier heavily litigated travel ban expiring they’ve replaced it with a new and improved travel ban.  This one includes a few more countries some without Muslim majorities. The nations facing travel restrictions under the new policy include Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.  Sudan was dropped from the earlier list.  Venezuela and North Korea’s inclusion is largely symbolic,  not many North Koreans travel to the US as visiting Disneyland is a crime punishable by poison dart and Venezuelans are still welcome, it’s only their government officials who are banned, but neither country has many Muslims so including them on the list makes it seem more balanced and justifiable.  More litigation is likely because basically this is still a Muslim ban, albeit one sporting a new headscarf.  

Another Merkel Term:  Angela Merkel, the leader of the free world, won an unprecedented fourth term as chancellor of Germany yesterday.  However, her party didn’t win enough votes to rule on its own so she will have to form a coalition government.  Sadly, for the first time since 1957 a right wing, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic party garnered enough votes to be seated in Parliament. Merkel doesn’t plan on inviting them into her coalition but their very presence will make governing more complicated.           

Making Faces

The Faceoff:  Trump’s advisors told him to avoid personalizing his harsh criticism of North Korea during his UN speech but he went off script anyway, again belittling and threatening rocket man Kim Jong Un.  This may explain why chief of staff General Kelly looked like he was doing an Edvard Munch Scream impersonation during the speech.  Trump’s impulse control problems continue to get the best of him. Early yesterday morning, after North Korea’s official spokesperson threatened that Kim Jong Un would explode a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean, Trump responded with “Kim Jong Un of North Korea, who is obviously a madman who doesn’t mind starving or killing his people, will be tested like never before!”  Trump’s right, Kim is a vindictive madman, but that’s the precise reason that tweet threatening him is not a sane strategy.  Crazy people act even crazier when backed into a corner. If Trump had any self-awareness he’d know that. Trump went after Kim Jong Un again last night during a crowd pleasing speech in Alabama when he said that the “little rocket man should have been handled a long time ago.” He is backing Kim into a corner, one stacked with nukes and missiles. Iran is also testing Trump’s patience, in defiance of his threats to ditch their nuclear deal, they tested a new medium-range missile early this morning, a Rouhani targeted tweet storm is sure to follow. Trump was in Alabama related to another faceoff, the Republican primary runoff for the seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions between the Trump and Senator McConnell supported conservative Luther Strange and the even more right wing, outsider former Judge Roy Moore, who rails against homosexuals and wants to impose Christian style sharia law in America.  Moore, who has the support of Breitbart News, Steve Bannon, Sarah Palin, and Trump’s HUD secretary, Ben Carson, is leading in the local polls. Moore is the type of disruptive candidate that Trump would ordinarily support, but McConnell has warned him that having Moore in the Senate will make passing tax reform legislation even more challenging so Trump has thrown his support behind the more amenable Strange though he’s hedging his bets; last night at the strange Strange rally he said that he would also be content if Moore won. He also used the rally opportunity to weigh in on another crowd pleasing topic by going after Colin Kaepernick, saying that any SOB who protests racial injustice by refusing to stand during the national anthem should be fired, constitutional rights be damned.  The Republican primary is on Tuesday and its highly likely that the winner, however despicable, will trounce the Democratic candidate in the November elections.

Maverick McCain Strikes Again:  A week of ranting about the stupidity of the Graham-Cassidy health plan and the duplicity of Senator Cassidy has paid off for Jimmy Kimmel, the comic and talk show host who appears to have a better understanding of how health insurance works than either Graham or Cassidy. Yesterday, John McCain surprised everyone by announcing his opposition to his best friend’s Obamacare repeal plan.  He balanced his wish for a bipartisan process against his friendship with Lindsey Graham and decided to stick with his principles.  To his credit, Graham graciously said that though he disagrees with McCain and is disappointed by his decision, his relationship with him is “not based on how he votes but respect for how he’s lived his life.” With Senator Susan Collins saying though she’s waiting to hear what the Congressional Budget Office has to say, she is moving closer to being a definite “no,” and Senator Rand Paul still insisting he is a “no,” Graham-Cassidy should be a dead bill walking but nothing is certain so one more “no” vote would be nice.  That vote could come from Alaska’s Senator Murkowski who voted against the last Obamacare repeal attempt.  She says that she is still reviewing the Graham-Cassidy plan and the questionable provision that’s been included to benefit Alaska and Hawaii. That provision which was specifically designed to entice Murkowski, maintains Medicaid levels for Alaska and Hawaii for a while longer than for other states.  Hawaii is an incidental beneficiary thrown in to make it look like the Alaska provision isn’t there just to entrap Murkowski. To the extent that McConnell decides to proceed with a vote, we’ll find out where Murkowski stands next week. For their part, a number of others including Senators Portman and Moore-Capito, who come from states that would suffer huge financial losses if Graham-Cassidy were to pass, must be breathing a huge sigh of relief off the backs of their braver colleagues.      

Facebook’s About Face:   After weeks of refusing to cooperate, Facebook’s general counsel announced that the company will hand congressional investigators more than 3000 ads that were purchased by Russian trolls.  Back from his paternity leave, Marc Zuckerberg, who initially resisted any allegations that Facebook was used to manipulate the 2016 election, finally acknowledged that the company was part of the problem by saying that he doesn’t want anyone to use his “tools to undermine democracy.” Though Zuckerberg is now convinced that social media was manipulated by the Russians, Trump continues to reject any suggestion that the Russians interfered in the election, he tweeted “the Russia hoax continues, now it’s ads on Facebook. What about the totally biased and dishonest Media coverage in favor of Crooked Hillary.” Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s not so credible spokesman agrees with Trump, he said “we don’t know who put the ads on Facebook and how.”  Despite Putin and Trump’s protestations about election meddling, yesterday the Department of Homeland Security notified twenty-one states of attempted breaches of their electoral systems conducted by “Russian government cyber actors.”  States targeted included Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Virginia, all key political battlegrounds.

Costly Endeavors:  Trump and Trump Jr’s legal fees are being covered by the Republican National Committee and Trump’s PAC contributors including all those MAGA hat buyers but VP Pence, who is not a billionaire or even much of a millionaire, is somehow or other paying his own legal bills, a good strategy for someone who aspires to higher office.  Health Secretary Price may need to come up with some funds soon, the Health and Human Services Inspector General is now investigating his dubious use of taxpayer money for expensive charter flights.  Unlike Pence, Price who engaged in some insider trading in health care stocks while he was a Congressman, probably has an emergency slush fund.  He may have to tap that fund soon.     

       

Ticking Time Bombs

The Healthcare Clock is Ticking:   After the last attempt at repealing Obamacare failed, several key Republican mega donors threatened to close their wallets to the party which partially explains the impetus to push the Graham-Cassidy Obamacare repeal plan regardless of its content or dire impact on healthcare coverage. With the September 30 deadline date for passage by reconciliation looming, Majority Leader McConnell plans to bring Graham-Cassidy up for a Senate vote on Wednesday.  If all goes McConnell’s way he will then ship the bill to the House.  If House Speaker Ryan can get his blue state Republicans to vote against the interests of their states and constituents, the biggest losers under Graham-Cassidy, the bill will pass, Obamacare will die and donor wallets will reopen.    All eyes are now focused on Alaska Senator Murkowski and Arizona Senator McCain’s thumb. Senator Graham who previously said that he would never vote for a bill that had a specific state carveout, such as the Iowa benefiting “cornhusker kickback” that was for a time included in Obamacare, has included an Alaska targeted provision in his Graham-Cassidy legislation.  The “igloo kickback” will defer Medicaid cuts in Alaska for a few years in a craven attempt to influence Murkowski. During the last round of the Obamacare repeal fight, Murkowski said that she couldn’t be bought off.  We will soon find out if she meant it or if she is as fickle as Graham.  Though Senator Cassidy continues to claim that his plan covers people with preexisting conditions, VP Pence all but admitted it doesn’t when instead of answering a question about coverage he quoted Thomas Jefferson who said “that the government that governs least governs best” adding don’t you trust your governor and state legislature more than a “president in a far-off nation’s capital?”  In other words,  no pre-existing conditions coverage for you!  Yesterday, all fifty state Medicaid directors voiced their opposition to Graham-Cassidy, they clearly don’t trust their own state legislatures and governors.  Further complicating the upcoming vote, Senators Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar are scheduled to debate Senators Graham and Cassidy on the merits of single payer health care vs the Graham-Cassidy plan in a CNN town hall on Monday.  It’s not clear why Sanders and Klobuchar think that now is the right time to further fuel fears of “socialized medicine,” the Republican name for Bernie’s single payer plan  While the health care battle wages on, Health Secretary Price, continues to fly around the country on expensive private planes.  So far he’s racked up more than $300,000 in charter bills.  Price has no problem drastically cutting health care services but waiting in airports for delayed commercial flights is one thing he can’t bear.    

Sanctions and Tantrums:  Yesterday Trump announced an expansion of sanctions on North Korea and praised China for taking action to limit financial transactions with the Kim Jong Un regime.   The move and China’s cooperation were hailed as a success and an indication that despite his rhetoric, Trump was moving ahead with diplomatic actions.   Unfortunately Kim Jong Un remains focused on Trump’s Tuesday speech where he threatened to destroy the North Korean regime if it attacked Japan, South Korea or any other US ally.  Kim said Trump will “pay dearly” for those remarks, “I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged US dotard with fire.”  Overnight, he added further clarity to what he means by “fire,” he is now threatening to test a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean. Japan is taking this threat very seriously, this morning their defense minister warned the country that they now must prepare for such a test. 

  

Dissing Manafort:  As Special Counsel Mueller tightens his noose around former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, the Trump administration is doing its best to further distance themselves from Manafort.  Ty Cobb, Trump’s in-house Russia lawyer, said “it would be truly shocking,” if true, if Manafort “tried to monetize his relationship with the president,” adding “it certainly would never have been tolerated by the president or his team.”  Of course, Cobb had nothing to do with Trump and his team during the campaign or early months of the administration so he has no idea what they would have tolerated.   Speaking at George Washington University Corey Lewandowski, the political operative who was fired and replaced my Manafort but who remains a Trump surrogate, said that if Manafort, Carter Page or Roger Stone colluded with Russian officials during the elections, they should “go to jail for the rest of their lives.”  For the time being, no one is saying much about Jared Kushner’s involvement nor have we heard much from the son-in-law.  Not only does throwing shade at Manafort, Page and Stone protect Trump, but the strategy also pushes Kushner, and more importantly Ivanka, away from the center of the Russian storm.  For now.

 

Gefilte Fish

Graham-Cassidy Stinks:  Benjamin Franklin famously said that guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.  You could say the same thing about the Graham-Cassidy healthcare plan.  The more it’s exposed to light, the more it stinks.  It’s so bad that New Jersey Governor Christie, usually a Trump fan boy, announced on Wednesday that he opposes Graham-Cassidy because it is “too injurious to the people of New Jersey…. I’m certainly not going to support a bill that takes nearly $4 billion from people in the state.”  Senator Cassidy promised that the plan meets the Jimmy Kimmel test because he alleges that it provides insurance to people with preexisting conditions.  Kimmel whose baby son has a heart condition challenged Cassidy’s claim because states can opt out of covering people with preexisting conditions and will be incented to do so as funding cuts go into effect.  Kimmel asked Cassidy to stop using his name to promote the crappy plan.  It turns out that Kimmel has a better understanding of how Graham-Cassidy works than either of its namesakes.  It’s quite possible that a person with a preexisting condition would be able to get affordable health insurance under Graham-Cassidy but they would only be able to get insurance that didn’t cover their condition so, for example, a cancer patient could get coverage but not for chemotherapy, radiation or any other cancer treatment.  Virtually every patient focused medical organization opposes the bill.  Avalere Health, a respected consulting firm projects that ultimately health care cuts could reach $4 trillion and that thirty-four states plus Washington D.C. would be net losers as soon as 2020, the year the cuts start taking effect.   West Virginia, Alaska, and Ohio are among the big losers.  Alaska’s Murkowski, who voted against the last Obamacare repeal attempt, says that she is in the process of evaluating the bill, no word yet from Ohio’s Portman or West Virginia’s Caputo where they stand but they are facing mounting pressures from big donors to support the plan regardless of the dire impact on their constituents.  Senators Rand and Collins remain in the no column and McCain was last heard shouting he wants a return to regular order, whatever he thinks that means.  In support of the plan Health Secretary Price has been flying around the country, racking up big bills for private charters, including for flights between Washington DC and Philadelphia because he is too important to fly commercial or take the Acela train with the ordinary folks.  Trump, who hasn’t bothered to read the plan, weighed in last night, he wants in passed and says that if Senators Graham and Cassidy say it covers essential services than they must be right even if they are lying.  Senate Majority Leader McConnell says a vote on the Graham-Cassidy plan will take place next week.    

Russia, Russia, Russia:  The Washington Post reports that less than two weeks before Trump accepted the Republican nomination, Paul Manafort, then his campaign chairman, offered to provide private election briefings to Oleg Deripaska, a wealthy Russian oligarch and friend of Putin.  We know this because he sent the offer to a consulting firm colleague in Russia via his campaign email and those emails have been turned over to the intelligence committees and Special Counsel Mueller. Another email reveals that he was trying to figure out how to “monetize” Trump’s success, although it’s not clear if he was trying to get clients to pay him money owed or if he was trying to use his role with Trump to pay off earlier debts.   Manafort’s spokesman, Jason Maloni, acknowledged this saying it was not a bigly deal, everybody sells government access to Russians. Both the NY Times and the Washington Post report that Mueller has requested that the White House provide so many records, that Ty Cobb, Trump’s lawyer for all things Russian, has organized the requests into thirteen categories.  Among other things Mueller appears to be looking at the conversations and emails about the Flynn and Comey dismissals, the meeting in the Oval Office with former Russian Ambassador Kislyak, the one where Trump called Comey a nut job, the process for crafting the letter that attempted to whitewash the Don Jr organized meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Vesilnitskaya and anything and everything that references Manafort.  Mueller’s requests suggest that he is focusing on both Russian collusion and obstruction of justice.  The case against Manafort is damning, the one against Trump is building, but remains harder to prove. Manafort must be really desperate to raise cash, despite his impending indictment, he recently accepted an assignment representing Iraq’s Kurds who are pushing for passage of a resolution calling for their independence, a referendum that the US opposes.   Mueller has also notified the White House that he plans to interview Sean Spicer, who apparently wrote everything down in stacks of notebooks, perhaps in anticipation of writing a book.  Spicer hasn’t been able to negotiate a book deal yet, but he shouldn’t worry about that, Mueller will be happy to read his handwritten scrawl. It’s probably time for Spicer to lawyer up.

Persian War: Trump “coyly” told the press that he’s already made his decision about whether he plans to walk away from the Iran nuclear deal or not but he’s keeping it a secret, for now. It’s possible that he will refuse to recertify that Iran has been meeting the terms of the nuclear deal in October but it’s also possible that he is using the threat of withholding the recertification as a negotiating wedge to push the parties to alter the terms of the deal. Though it’s widely acknowledged that Iran is meeting the letter of the deal, they are continuing to develop missile technology and foster regional conflicts, neither of which were covered in the very limited nuclear deal. Trump is concerned that a failure to address these concerns now will lead to another “North Korea” type problem in 2025 when the limitations on Iran’s nuclear program are scheduled to be lifted.  He rejects what he calls Obama’s strategy of “kicking the ball down the road.”    French President Macron agrees that the nuclear deal doesn’t do enough to rein in Iran’s ambitions but doesn’t want another North Korea problem right now.  He’s pressing Trump to leave the agreement intact but is also pressing Iran to enter into discussions about another agreement intended to curb their ballistic missile testing, an outcome that is likely to meet the concerns of Israel, who is not a party to the Iran agreement but who feels most threatened by Iran’s ambitions.  For his part Iran’s President Rouhani, whose twitter skills and bombastic language matches Trump’s, called Trump a “rogue newcomer to the world of politics” and said that his UN speech was “ignorant and absurd.” Yesterday, Secretary of State Tillerson met with the seven parties to the Iran nuclear deal, including Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif. The game is on.  

Bellicosity

Bellicose Trump:  Trump's speech to the UN went off as expected. He began with his old standby, a self-congratulatory statement about the booming US economy because that's how he begins all his speeches, regardless of the venue.   He saw no irony extolling the importance of his America first nationalism to an institution that was put in place to promote international cooperation.  Most of the delegation members from Iran and North Korea, two countries that share his views on putting national interests before all others, left the room before he spoke.  As a result they weren't there to hear Trump say that "the US has great strength and patience but if its forced to defend itself or its allies, we have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea," adding rocket man Kim Jong Un is on a "suicide mission for himself."  They also missed it when Trump called the nuclear agreement with Iran "one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the US has ever entered....an embarrassment to the US."  Trump went on to call Iran a murderer's regime whose activities are destabilizing the region and said that "we cannot abide by an agreement if it provides cover for the eventual construction of a nuclear program," a comment consistent with concerns that he is considering pulling out or trying to renegotiate the terms of the deal.  Although some members of the UN audiences slept through his speech, others paid attention and were not amused.  Chief of Staff Kelly, who couldn't have been surprised to hear what Trump had to say, looked like he wanted to jump off the nearest bridge, French President Macron warned that Iran could become a rogue nuclear state like North Korea if Trump abandoned the deal, and Israel's Netanyahu smiled as the Iran agreement got bashed. Putin wasn't present, but got off relatively easy.  Trump briefly mentioned Ukraine but said nothing about Russia's cyber warfare campaign against the US and various European democracies.  China's Xi wasn't there so he missed Trump's criticism of those who trade with the North Korean regime, a not so subtle jab at China's support for the regime.  Trump’s speech wasn’t all that surprising but was  nevertheless very disturbing and could be a harbinger of things to come, none of them good. 

The War Against Healthcare:   The war against Obamacare wages on.  Republican leadership is pushing forward with the Graham-Cassidy Obamacare repeal plan.   Senator Graham is working closely with Republican leadership, VP Pence, Trump and Health Secretary Price.  Together they are putting pressure on the few wavering Republican senators to jump on the Obamacare repeal train or face the horrors of Bernie style socialized medicine, primary battles, shunning and a few plagues. VP Pence and House Speaker Ryan announced that there was no way that either of them would support Senators Alexander and Murray’s bipartisan effort to fix Obamacare, making it clear that for Republicans the choice is between Graham-Cassidy or that “failing, horrible Obamacare.”   A bipartisan group of ten Governors isn’t convinced, they sent a letter to Senate leadership saying that Graham-Cassidy should be abandoned in favor of legislation written via a bipartisan, open process.  The list of dissenting governors included five Democrats (Colorado’s Hickenlooper, Montana’s Bullock, Pennsylvania’s Wolf, Virginia’s McAuliffe, Louisiana’s Bel Edwards), four Republicans (Ohio’s Kasich, Nevada’s Sandoval, Massachusetts’s Baker, Vermont’s Scott) and one independent (Alaska’s Walker).  Since he is one of the cosponsors, it’s unlikely that Nevada’s Senator Heller will vote against the plan despite his governor’s opposition, however Alaska’s Murkowski is likely to be influenced by her governor’s opinion and Collins is already a likely no vote.  At this point the fate of Obamacare rests in the hands of the usual suspects:  Murkowski and Collins who seem to care about health care, Paul and Lee who want health care taxes to go away, and McCain who seems to be wavering between cementing his maverick status and sticking with his good buddy Graham.   

Russia, Russia, Russia:  Trump’s loyal consigliore and long-time real estate lawyer Michael Cohen was supposed to testify to a closed door session of the Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday but his meeting was cancelled at the last minute when he totally pissed off Senators Burr and Warner by violating the terms of their agreement.  Cohen had promised not to release a statement but went ahead and released a self-serving statement shortly before his scheduled closed door “interview.”  The Intelligence Committee had been caught short when Jared Kushner had done the same thing before his earlier “interview” and had specifically told Cohen releasing a similar statement would jeopardize their agreement with him.  Cohen went ahead anyway, the Senate cancelled his appearance and he will now be “invited” or subpoenaed, his choice, to testify in a public hearing, more fun for us, since we will get to hear him obfuscate, but more dangerous for him because Special Counsel Mueller will also be listening.  Paul Manafort wants the government to go after the leakers who claimed that he was the subject of two FISA warrants, the warrants that were obtained after the FBI and the Obama Justice Department convinced a judge that he was an agent of a foreign government. To the extent that he was wiretapped, Manafort would also like to get copies of those tapes.  Everyone’s legal bills are climbing but Trump has nothing to worry about.  A good portion of his are being paid by the Republican National Committee and his campaign fund, which may explain why Trump set up a campaign fund for the 2020 election so soon after winning the 2016 election. Wonder how all his donors feel about paying a billionaires legal bills?     

Shanah Tova  

Hardball for All

Manafort Hardball:  When FBI agents raided former campaign manager Manafort’s house in July they didn’t knock at the front door and say hello, FBI calling. Instead, they picked his lock, barreled in, grabbed files, took pictures of his expensive suit collection and looked for evidence of illegal financial activities, giving him the full mobster treatment.  While they were there they told Manafort that he should expect to be indicted.  He hasn’t been indicted yet but he has been under FBI scrutiny for a long time.  In 2014, well before he joined the Trump campaign, the FBI obtained one of those secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants to wiretap his phones.  At that time, their focus was his work with Ukraine’s former ruling party.  At some point the FISA warrant was not extended and the wiretapping ceased.  Manafort joined the Trump team serving as campaign manager from May until August 2016.  During that time he was not the subject of a FISA warrant.  However, by the time he was fired from the campaign the FBI had noticed a good deal of unusual activity between suspected Russian operatives and Trump campaign members including Manafort who was believed to be encouraging coordination with the Russians.  The FBI obtained another FISA warrant and Manafort was put back under surveillance.  Trump never really stops talking to his team members even after they are fired, so it’s possible that he was “incidentally” picked up talking to Manafort, possibly about  Russian oligarchs, possibly about the weather. Unfortunately, Manafort was not under surveillance when he participated in Don Jr’s meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.  Manafort isn’t the only Trump team member in bigly trouble and running up legal bills.  Former security advisor Flynn’s family has started a legal defense fund and is soliciting donations from anyone who isn’t a foreign government or a member of the Trump family, not that Trumps pay legal bills. Trump has just added a new member to the White House legal team.  Steven Groves, UN Ambassador Haley’s former chief of staff, is joining the White House team to serve as a deputy to Ty Cobb, part of his job may be making sure that Cobb stops having loud legal conversations at popular Washington restaurants, especially conversations where he reveals the possibility that White House Counsel Don McGahn has a few secret documents squirreled away in a White House vault. Groves’ salary is being paid by US taxpayers.

Obamacare Under Attack:  Republican Senators Graham and Cassidy are pushing forward with their Obamacare repeal plan and are making disturbing progress.  Their plan phases out Obamacare, replacing it with block grants that give states the flexibility to design and implement their own plans, it also skews more money to “red” states than “blue” ones.  The new state plans would not be required to cover existing conditions or any of the Obamacare essential health services and there would be no limits on the cost of premiums for older participants.  It would gut basic Medicaid and eliminate the Medicaid expansion and funding for Planned Parenthood. The Congressional Budget Office has advised Majority Leader McConnell that, given the September 30 deadline for final passage, they don’t have the time to produce a full scoring report.  At best they can provide an assessment of fiscal impact but won’t be able to provide an estimate of the number of people who would lose their coverage, a number that would be even larger than for previous repeal attempts. Republicans have no problem voting on a plan without a full report and may even prefer voting without knowing how many people will be kicked off the insurance rolls.  Democrats are fuming.  Arizona Senator McCain, who together with Senators Murkowski and Collins voted against the last attempt to derail Obamacare, cited the concerns of his Governor and his desire for a return to “regular Senate order” as the reasons for his “no” vote.  Yesterday Arizona’s Governor Doug Ducey signed off on the Graham-Cassidy plan, so one of those reasons has fallen away. The “regular order” problem still exists but Graham is McCain’s BFF so his support is now a possibility.  Graham is marketing his plan to his colleagues by telling them that if it fails they will end up with Bernie’s “Medicare for all plan,” a potent pitch since nothing freaks Republicans out more than universal health care. Maybe Bernie should have waited a few more weeks before introducing his plan.  If McCain goes to the dark side, the fate of Obamacare will rest on the shoulders of Alaska’s Murkowski, Maine’s Collins and Kentucky’s Senator Paul.  Neither Murkowski or Collins have weighed in yet but so far Paul is a holdout because the plan doesn’t eliminate the Obamacare taxes he hates. If McConnell brings the Graham-Cassidy plan to the floor for a vote, ninety seconds will be provided for debate, seriously, ninety seconds.  In the meantime Republican Senator Lamar Alexander and Democratic Senator Patty Murray have been told that their bipartisan fix for Obamacare is off the table, putting more pressure on Republican Senators to line up behind the sinister Graham-Cassidy plan.   

Make the UN Great: Trump’s new slogan is Make the UN Great, no “again” at the end because as far as he’s concerned the UN has never reached it’s potential.  Trump will make his big speech to the General Assembly today, he’s expected to call for more burden sharing, less bureaucracy and to take a bellicose approach to Iran and North Korea.  Yesterday after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, he said prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace are better than ever because he is president and Jared is his Middle East whisperer.  He also hinted that he is getting close to walking from the Iran nuclear deal.  In addition to meeting with Bibi, he met with France’s President Macron who once again pushed him to remain committed to the Iran agreement and to rejoin the Paris Climate Accords.  Trump again told Macron how much he enjoyed his Paris Bastille Day military parade and expressed an interest in celebrating next year’s US Independence Day with a similar display of US might.  Yesterday Defense Secretary Mattis hinted that he has military options for dealing with North Korea “that might spare Seoul from a brutal counterattack” but didn’t go into any details. Unfortunately it sounds like the possibility of Trump seeing that US might in action is growing daily.  Sadly, we will see it too.

Social Networking: Facebook is under scrutiny for its role facilitating the propogation of false news stories during the election.  Mueller’s team and Congressional investigators are focusing on their involvement and Vanity Fair has suggested that Mueller’s investigation is also scrutinizing the election data operation that Jared Kushner bragged about in a 2016 interview right after the election when he told Forbes that “I called somebody who works for one of the technology companies that I work with, and I had them give me a tutorial on how to use Facebook microtargeting.”  He and his digital campaign chief, Brad Parscale, worked with the data mining firm Cambridge Analytica, whose major investor is right wing billionaire Robert Mercer, an investor in Breitbart News, a supporter of Steve Bannon and a contributor to Trump’s campaign.  Hmmm.  

It's Lonely Out in Space

Climate Change Change:  The flip flop Don may have pulled another one.  On Saturday the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump is reconsidering his decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Accords.  Moments after the article appeared, White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that “there was no change in the US position on the Paris Agreement” but by Sunday a number of Trump officials, including Security Advisor McMaster and Secretary of State Tillerson, provided more nuanced answers when asked about the possibility of the US staying in the climate agreement.  According to Tillerson, economic advisor Gary Cohn has been tasked to “consider other ways in which we can work with partners in the Paris climate accord.  We want to be productive.  We want to be helpful.”  Cohn’s deputy Everett Eissenstat led a US delegation to Montreal this weekend where the US, China, Canada and thirty other countries discussed the accords.  After the meeting the EU’s climate chief might have gotten over his skis by saying that the US had signaled that it wanted to reengage before Trump was ready for the announcement or he’s just being overly optimistic.  Only time will tell.  Unrelated to the Paris Accords, Huckabee Sanders is now facing an ethics violations complaint.  A law bans certain federal employees, including the White House press secretary, from influencing employment decisions of a private company on the basis of partisan political affiliation.  By calling for ESPN’s Jemele Hill to be fired for her “Trump’s a white supremacist” tweet, Sanders may have violated this law, which is punishable by a fine, up to 15 years in prison or both.  Good thing her boss has the power of the pardon.  As to DACA, Trump’s other flip flop, it remains up in the air.  In an effort to promote the RAISE Act, his harsh plan to limit immigration, Senator Tom Cotton was out on Sunday saying that Trump promised him that there is no deal yet on DACA.  The RAISE Act would impose strict limits on immigration and would advantage “merit” based immigrants.  Cotton is either unaware or has elected to ignore that the DACA kids are the type of well educated, contributors to the economy who should qualify for admission under the Raise Act.     

Rocket Man:  As evidenced by the traffic jams, frozen zones and helicopters flying overhead, it’s UN Week in New York City so Trump spent the weekend practicing his speech to the General Assembly, engaging in twitter diplomacy and proving that he still hasn’t gotten over losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton.  He disclosed the content of his conversation with South Korea’s President Moon by tweeting that he “asked him how Rocket Man is doing.  Long gas lines forming in North Korea.  Too bad!” By Rocket Man he means volatile North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the guy least likely to appreciate public ridicule and who could react by sending off one of those “rockets.”  In any case despite sanctions there are no gas lines in North Korea and security advisor McMaster says that Kim Jong Un’s rocket capability is something we shouldn’t be laughing about.  Trump then retweeted a GIF of himself hitting a golf ball into a plane, hitting and knocking down Clinton because the presidency is the right platform to use to depict violence against women.  Already stretched, Trump’s diplomatic skills will be further tested this week when he speaks in front of the General Assembly.  He doesn’t bash the UN as much as he did when he was campaigning but his America first mantra probably won’t go over well with the assembled diplomats nor will his spot on criticisms that the UN is a bloated institution in need of reform that provides unwarranted deferential treatment to some of the world’s worst players. UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, who has criticized some UN practices, tempered Trump’s expected message by saying that the UN is already incorporating some of the reforms that Trump wants to see.  Little seen Secretary of State Tillerson’s star continues to fall, there are rumors that he may be replaced by Haley.  He is out of favor with Trump for vocally disagreeing on a number of things including Qatar, Charlottesville, climate change and, most recently, for trying to claw back a $75 million Congressional allocation to Israel, a move that was quickly rebutted by the administration.  Tillerson, who is way behind hiring undersecretaries and assistants for troubled parts of the world, released his plans to reorganize and cut staff and budget at the State Department this week.  He will have to rethink this plan, the Senate Appropriations committee allocated $51 billion to the State Department, $11 billion more than Trump’s budget request because they were outraged by the planned cuts in spending on diplomacy.      

Russia, Russia, Russia:  Michael Cohen, Trump’s confidante and long-time real estate lawyer, is scheduled to testify in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday.  Cohen should have lots to say about the ill-fated Trump Tower Moscow project, the effort that was ongoing when Trump was claiming to have no involvement in Russia.  However, in the past he’s said that he “would take a bullet for Trump” so it’s unclear if he will come clean. Cohen is not the only one with reservations about sharing informaiton, last night the New York Times reported that Trump’s lawyers are fighting about how much they should cooperate with Special Counsel Mueller’s requests for emails and files.  Ty Cobb, Trump’s in house lawyer for all things Russian, wants to be as cooperative as possible to speed the investigation process, but White House counsel Don McGahn, who is expected to be called to testify about former FBI Director Comey’s dismissal, has been arguing for pushing back against Mueller’s requests because he thinks sharing sets a bad precedent, or it could be that he knows something that he doesn’t want to share.  We know about their argument not from a leak but because Ty Cobb was overheard discussing it at a popular steak house. In addition to seeking White House files and focusing on social media’s role propagating false news, Mueller is following the money.  He recently added Kyle Freeney, a Justice Department lawyer with experience pursuing money laundering cases, to his team bringing his lawyer count to seventeen.  

Health Care for All or Some:  Bernie Sanders defended his universal health care plan over the weekend.  Sometime Republican candidate for President Rick Santorum called the plan an admission that Obamacare isn’t working, said it’s prohibitively expensive and generally dissed it because Republicans don’t believe that everyone deserves or wants health coverage.  Bernie hit back pointing out that any financial analysis has to consider premium savings, the transfer of high insurance profits and salaries to health care consumers, dramatic reductions in drug costs and more efficient administration.  On its surface Bernie’s plan appears radical, but parts of it are fairly mainstream.  Allowing those fifty-five years and older to buy into Medicare is a provision that almost made it into Obamacare and would solve many of the Obamacare exchange problems. Allowing Medicare to negotiate drug pricing makes compelling economic sense.  Meantime the Graham-Cassidy Obamacare repeal bill is closing in on getting the fifty votes it needs to pass through the Senate. Though no scoring report has been released yet for the Graham-Cassidy plan, OMB did release a report saying that the Trump administration’s failure to commit to funding Obamacare insurance subsidy payments is contributing to the increase in Obamacare premiums.  Republican Senator Lamar Alexander, who has been working across the aisle to solve Obamacare’s subsidy problem has infuriated some of his Republican colleagues, particularly Lindsey Graham because fixing Obamacare doesn’t achieve their repeal effort.  As to the Graham-Cassidy plan, when released, its scoring report will say that it would result in even more individuals being dropped from the insurance rolls than previous Obamacare repeal efforts.  So much for universal coverage.    

Til Touchdown Brings Me Round:  Interior Secretary Zinke’s report is out, it recommends that Trump modify ten national monuments (i.e. parks) by shrinking the boundaries of at least four western sites and permitting grazing, logging, coal mining and commercial fishing within the parks.  Zinke argues that previous administrations overreached by preserving nature and natural resources when exploitation was possible.  Though not the fault of anyone in the Trump administration, Cassini’s thirteen year Saturn Mission has ended.  With its time running out, NASA directed it to plunge into Saturn. National monuments may be getting more congested but it’s still lonely out in space.

Unsocial Media

The Facebook Chronicles:  Last week despite Facebook’s initial claims that they hadn’t sold ads to any Russian entities or bots, an internal review revealed that fake accounts, likely run from Russia, placed $100,000 of ads on Facebook that were then pushed out to millions of targeted “swing” voters. Facebook presented some of this information to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees but did not provide much detail and wouldn’t leave any copies of their presentation material, leaving committee members frustrated by their lack of transparency.  It turns out that Facebook has been cooperating with Special Counsel Mueller, providing his investigators with copies of ads and explaining how they were targeted and who bought them.  Pursuant to their interpretation of applicable law and as a matter of company policy Facebook will only provide such detailed information in response to a warrant.  Apparently, Mueller obtained such a warrant and is now focusing on the weaponization of social media during the election.  In addition to Facebook, he is also looking at Twitter, another source of questionable content.  So far there is no evidence that Google is involved in this investigation, however Google and Facebook are now facing criticism for allowing advertisers to direct ads to users who express an interest in “racist sentiment and hate speech.”  Advertisers get to target Jew Haters and people who use the “N word.”  So much for the advent of social media.  

DACA Tick Tock:  There’s been a lot of back and forth about a DACA solution ever since Trump had his dinner with Chuck and Nancy.  He’s hemmed and hawed with a series of comments about border security, the wall and the prohibition of chain migration, i.e. family reunification, while the most anti-immigrant members of his base, right wing pundits and some xenophobic members of Congress have expressed their fury with any DACA legislation.  For their part Democrats continue to insist that they want clean legislation that doesn’t include border wall funding.  With all this noise in the background, House Speaker Ryan has  put together a working group including various factions of his party to come up with some form of compromise DACA legislation. To pass legislation Ryan only needs around 25 Republican votes to add on to Nancy Pelosi’s Democratic bloc but his task is complicated by the Hastert Rule, an informal Republican governing principle that requires a “majority of the majority” to pass legislation.  Ryan can opt to ignore the rule, but doing so will make his standing with his more conservative colleagues even more perilous.  Like Healthcare and Tax Reform, passing immigration legislation is complicated.  While Ryan dithers, DACA kids with military aspirations have been told that their enlistments are being put on hold.  The DACA kids join the military’s transgender population, another group that’s in limbo.  They’ve been told that they are fine at least until February at which time Defense Secretary Mattis’ policy review will be completed.        

Obamacare Repeal:  It’s back, the Obamacare repeal is once again rearing its ugly head.  Senators Graham and Cassidy claim that they are closing in on having enough votes to pass their plan through the Senate. The so-called Graham-Cassidy plan replaces Obamacare with block grants, reducing allocations to the mostly “blue” states that participated in the Obamacare Medicaid expansion and upping allocations to “red” states.  Their plan reduces overall spending and likely dramatically reduces the number of people who are insured much the way earlier Senate iterations did. With the plan gaining traction, Senate Majority Leader McConnell has requested that budget office scorers give it priority over the other legislation on their lengthy to do list so that a score can be released ASAP.   Graham and Cassidy’s assertions that they can muster fifty votes may be overly optimistic.  Senator Paul says that he’ll vote no because the plan retains the Obamacare taxes he wants repealed.  No word yet from Senators Murkowski, Collins or McCain, the Senators who sunk the last attempt at Obamacare repeal but Trump is frothing at the mouth over the possibility of getting healthcare done and McConnell would love to prove that he can actually pass legislation in order to put a crimp in Trump’s relationship with his new BFFs Chuck and Nancy.  This chapter of Obamacare repeal/replace won’t be over until September 30, the deadline for passage of healthcare by reconciliation.   

Tweet Bombing London:  Yesterday after a terrorist bomb was detonated in London’s subway, injuring at least 29 people, Trump launched into one of his tweet storms.  He used the attack to call for a “far larger, tougher and more specific” travel ban and then went on to assert that the London assailant had been known to Scotland Yard, infuriating British Prime Minister May.  Either Trump was making up his assertion, heard it on Fox or was privy to confidential information that was not his to share, either way his tweet was inappropriate at a time when tea and sympathy would have been more welcome.  It’s also hard to miss the irony that Trump who failed to react to this summer’s Minnesota Mosque bombing because he was “waiting to gather all the facts,” was quick to get out ahead of this attack.  

North Korea Festers:  Security Advisor McMaster and UN Ambassador Haley attended Friday’s White House press conference to discuss North Korea’s most recent missile launch and talk about next week’s United Nations General Assembly Meetings.  Providing more evidence that US communication strategy isn’t well coordinated, Haley distanced herself from Secretary of State Tillerson’s earlier call for even more sanctions by saying that the most recent round of sanctions against North Korea are only now going into effect and that they will “strangle their economic situation.” She also said that it’s important to push through “as many of the diplomatic options that we have” but that she has “no problem kicking it” to Defense Secretary General Mattis because he has “plenty of options,” none of them good.  McMaster then added that there are “strong military consequences if North Korea initiates hostilities.” Trump, McMaster, Tillerson and Haley will be joining other world leaders at the UN meetings. Trump will be making his first address to the UN General Assembly, his speech is expected to address peace, sovereignty, accountability, prosperity and shared responsibility and anything else he decides to throw in when he goes off script. He will also have a series of “speed dates” with other world leaders but won’t be seeing China’s Xi or Russia’s Putin who have decided to skip the UN meetings this year. Trump meeting with a series of world leaders, what could go wrong?    

Trump Takes on ESPN:  Apparently it was okay for Trump to call Obama a racist and repeatedly insist that he was born in Kenya when starring in NBC’s The Apprentice, but it’s a fireable offense for ESPN SportsCenter commentator Jamele Hill to call him a “white supremacist who surrounds himself with white supremacists” on her twitter account. Hill who also posted “The First White President,” a recent Atlantic article critical of Trump’s racial politics on her Facebook page subsequently apologized for publicly airing her views about Trump, an apology accepted by ESPN, but that’s not enough for Trump or his mouthpiece, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Trump tweet attacked both ESPN and Hill and Huckabee Sanders said that Hill should be fired citing ESPN’s firing of Curt Schilling as justification for her view.  For the record Schilling was fired because he continued to make inappropriate remarks after ignoring repeated warnings from his ESPN bosses.  Late Friday ESPN management sent an email to its employees reminding them that their personal tweets should refrain from inflammatory remarks.  At least for now, despite Trump and Sanders’ best efforts, Hill remains a SportsCenter commentator and Trump still thinks there are “fine people” on both sides. 

Both Sides Again

Amnesty Don:  Trump’s DACA dinner agreement with his good friends Nancy and Chuck provoked strong responses yesterday. Basically the right wing press is outraged that Trump is even talking to Nancy and Chuck and the idea that he would allow the DACA kids to stay, possibly with a path to citizenship, is beyond their worst fears.  They are also fixated on the wall and can’t envision life in the US without it.   Ann Coulter said “put a fork in Trump, he’s dead, if we’re not getting a wall I’d prefer President Pence.” Mark Levin called him a RINO (Republican in Name Only) and Rush Limbaugh asked “is he this ignorant?”  Last weekend Steve Bannon told 60 Minutes that allowing the DACA kids to stay in the country would alienate Trump’s base and lead to the destruction of the Republican party; he’s doing his best to make his prediction come true,  Breitbart News is now calling Trump Amnesty Don.  Trump has been all over the place. On the one hand he’s said that Nancy and Chuck’s assertion that he agreed to push for DACA legislation without requiring border wall funding wasn’t true, even though it probably was since he seems to want to make the DACA problem go away, desperately wants to pass some legislation and tweeted out “Does anybody really want to throw out good, educated and accomplished young people who have jobs, some serving in the military? Really!...” Trump’s political committee is trying to reassure his base, they sent out an email that said “There’s been a lot of noise today… Let me set the record straight in the simplest language possible:  WE WILL BUILD A WALL.”   Later in the day, while flying home from a show of compassion in Florida, Trump dismissed wall concerns by claiming that it is already under construction citing ongoing projects including a wall renovation begun under Bush, another wall related project undertaken by Obama, and the building of prototypes as proof. He then went on to say that there will be massive border control and that the whole wall will eventually be built.  As upset as he is about Trump’s DACA pronouncements, Representative Steve King admitted that the jury is still out on how Trump’s base will react.  Majority Leader Ryan said that there was no agreement between Trump, Chuck and Nancy, just a “discussion, not a negotiation” but also said that he’s supportive of moving forward with legislation once terms are worked out between Trump and Republican leadership. McConnell, still annoyed that he missed out on egg rolls and spare ribs with Chuck and Nancy and unhappy with the Trump process, said that he was looking forward to receiving the administration’s proposal.  Despite McConnell’s dour demeanor, members of the Senate will likely be more supportive of a plan that solves the DACA dilemma than members of the House. For DACA kids the clock is ticking.

Smarmy Sessions:  The New York Times shed more light on the end of the Trump-Sessions bromance yesterday.  In May, upon learning that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had decided to appoint Special Counsel Mueller to run the Russia investigation, Trump exploded, blaming Sessions for his earlier decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation, the worse decision ever made.  An out of control, livid Trump then called Sessions an idiot and asked for his resignation on the spot.  Later that day, Sessions submitted a formal resignation letter.  Trump wanted to accept it but didn’t because VP Pence, then Chief of Staff Priebus, and then strategist Bannon told him that firing Sessions in the aftermath of firing Comey would inspire even more backlash.  Later in the summer, Trump again threatened to fire Sessions, but was once again talked down by his advisors.  For his part the punctilious Sessions was humiliated by Trump’s theatrics but decided to stay on as Attorney General because killing the DACA program, banning Muslim immigrants, and increasing incarceration rates are his life dream.  Sessions can’t be happy that Trump’s flip flop on DACA could foil one of his dreams.

Both Sides Again:  Earlier this week Trump met with South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, the only Republican African American currently serving in the Senate.  Senator Scott initiated the meeting to personally express his dismay about Trump’s Charlottesville response in the hope that he could educate Trump about the history of White supremacism.  His attempt to explain why neo-Nazis and KKK members are not “nice people” was not all that successful, yesterday in an Air Force One press gaggle Trump repeated his Charlottesville remarks, again blaming the violence and tragedy in Charlottesville on “both sides.”  Apparently, he’s been studying up on the Antifa movement or, more likely, watching a lot of Fox News, but no one at Fox told him that at Charlottesville the Antifa guys protected the counter protesters and stood guard outside of the local synagogue but didn’t kill anyone.  When he got home from Florida, Trump reluctantly signed the resolution condemning White supremacism that Congress passed earlier in the week, not because he has a problem with bigotry but because he had no choice.  Flying brings out Trump’s inner Chatty Cathy.  While on Air Force One he again attacked Senator McCain’s health care vote, holding him responsible for Bernie Sanders single payer plan.  He claimed that his still unformed tax reform plan, the one that will be released by the end of September, will be revenue neutral but only if the annual growth rate, currently around 3% or less goes to 4 or 5%.  He promised middle class tax cuts, dramatic corporate cuts, the repatriation of billions of corporate dollars from overseas and a possible increase in taxes on the wealthy, though he didn’t specify what counts as wealthy.  That last point about increasing taxes on the rich echoes a comment Steve Bannon made last month.  Bannon may be gone from the White House but he’s not forgotten.

Russia, Russia, Russia:   Jason Maloni, former campaign manager Paul Manafort’s spokesman, is scheduled to testify in front of Mueller’s grand jury about Manafort’s business practices today.  It’s not clear what he knows but Manafort can’t be happy that he’s been called.  Later this month, Roger Stone, Trump’s on again, off again advisor and confidante is scheduled to testify in front of a closed session of the House Intelligence Committee. The dramatic, eccentric Stone wanted to testify in public but with Representative Nunes serving as its chair the House Committee already has one public drama queen too many.

International Affairs:  Despite, or maybe because of the new sanctions that were passed by the UN Security Council, Pyongyang launched another ballistic missile last night, this one flew over Hokkaido an island in the northern part of Japan.  Intelligence had revealed test site activity so the launch was anticipated.  Secretary Tillerson responded with a strong statement and the UN will be meeting later today to discuss a response to the launch.  Trump is also focused on the Iran nuclear agreement which he hates. He had been considering re-imposing sanctions on Iran in violation of the terms of the agreement, however instead, after Cabinet officials and aides convinced him that scuttling the deal would damage alliances and free Iran to proceed with its nuclear ambitions, he decided to keep it alive, at least for now, but he is likely to press for additional actions against Iran soon.  Trump also is planning to travel to Asia in a month or so to visit China, South Korea, and his good friend President Duterte of the Philippines.  Jared and Ivanka were supposed to go to China first to lay the groundwork for his visit.  However, their plans have been cancelled because someone in the administration, possibly Chief of Staff Kelly, has decided that given Ivanka’s clothing line, Jared’s ongoing search for real estate financing and involvement in the Russia investigation, not to mention their lack of applicable experience, they are not the right people for that job.