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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.