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.