No More Dreams

Dream a Little Dream:  It’s looking more and more like Trump will end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.  At this point the only thing that’s holding him back is the optics of throwing immigrant achievers out of the country while many of them are enduring the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.  As usual, Trump’s advisors are split on this decision.  The globalists and Chief of Staff Kelly, who as former Head of Homeland Security knows that the DACA kids present no risk to national security, are for leaving the program alone.  The xenophobes led by Attorney General Sessions and Stephen Miller are for shipping the DACA kids back home pronto, even if that home is a country they haven’t been to since early childhood. A group of ten State Attorney Generals, including the Attorney General from Texas, are in the xenophobe camp, threatening to sue the federal government in September if DACA isn’t rescinded and Sessions supports their suit.  If he ends DACA, Trump will probably let the DACA kids stay until their current work permits expire, because he has “heart,” but then will give them the boot.  Beyond the threatened lawsuit, there is no rational reason to end the DACA program, the kids are so well vetted that they are the most well behaved young adults in the country.  Still Trump is Trump and today is Friday going into a holiday weekend, a good time to hide a truly horrible announcement, so who knows.  If he does end the program expect a lot of blowback and demonstrations throughout the country.  The team that organized the Women’s March is set to go.  

Russia, Russia, Russia:  Trump’s lawyers have had a few conversations with Special Counsel Mueller’s team arguing that Trump’s firing of former FBI Director Comey was well within his presidential rights and therefore not an attempt by Trump to obstruct justice. Part of their strategy is to malign “showboater” Comey’s judgement while ignoring Trump’s statement to NBC’s Lester Holt that he fired Comey to make the Russia investigation go away.  This may be why stories that Comey started drafting his statement clearing Hillary Clinton of criminal charges before she was interviewed by the FBI emerged today. Apparently Senate Judiciary Chairman Grassley and Senator Lindsay Graham have written to new FBI Director Wray requesting that the FBI provide additional information about Comey’s decision process.  None of this is slowing the investigation down. After Don Jr, former campaign manager Manafort and son-in-law Kushner met with the Russian lawyer to discuss “adoptions” and Hillary dirt, Don Jr reported that the meeting was a nothing burger, citing as proof that Manafort was so bored that he spent the meeting checking his cell phone.  It turns out he wasn’t playing God of War but was typing in meeting notes.  One of the things he typed was a cryptic note including the word “donations” with a reference to the Republican National Committee, raising the possibility that a Russian contribution to the RNC was discussed during the meeting.  Contributions from foreign governments to US elections are illegal so if that was the case it would be another bigly problem for the embattled Manafort.  Last night the Daily Beast reported that  Mueller isn’t stopping at cell phone notes, he has enlisted the help of agent’s from the IRS’s Criminal Investigation unit.  Ironically, since Trump never got around to appointing a new head to that unit, the current head who would sign off on the request is a Bill Clinton appointee.  Trump tax returns anyone?

Kushner’s Real Estate Problem:  Kushner gets his own category today because his problems go far beyond Russia.  Yesterday Bloomberg News detailed the sorry financial state of his family’s 666 Fifth Avenue property.  The Kushners are running out of time to put in place a refinancing for the overleveraged, out of date property. Before the election Jared approached virtually every potential lender who would take his call, including France’s richest man and a number of Israeli financial institutions, attempting to obtain funds to knock the building down to its foundation, to replace it with a new four billion dollar plus, multi-use signature building.  As the election approached, and the Kushner name gained cachet sovereign related investors from South Korea, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and China took his calls and considered providing financing to curry favor with the new regime, but when confronted with the combination of the folly of the investment and negative press associated with paying to play with Trump, they bailed too.  And then there were those meetings with the Russian banks, the ones that Kushner said were just meet and greets but the Russians said were about business.  To date the Kushners haven’t raised the money they need, but Kushner has earned himself multiple visits to various congressional committees as well as some Mueller time. 

Obamacare:  Ohio Governor Kasich, a Republican and Colorado Governor Hickenlooper, a Democrat sent a plan to Congress yesterday with their suggestions on how to stabilize the Obamacare market.  Their plan would keep the individual mandate, would require that the government continue to make insurance company subsidy payments,  would continue efforts to promote enrollment, would create a temporary stability fund for states to use to reduce premiums and minimize insurers’ losses, would spur competition in underserved areas and would give states more leeway in meeting basic coverage requirements.  During yesterday’s press conference Sarah Huckabee Sanders again referred to Obamacare as that failing disastrous plan that needs to be repealed so it’s unlikely that Trump, who just cut back funding for the advertisement of Obamacare sign up periods, will spend any time reviewing the Kasich-Hickenlooper plan.  Hopefully Congress will deem it worthy of consideration.

The Church Ladies:  The Washington Post reports that Trump is having a hard time with the “best practices” that Chief of Staff Kelly has imposed upon the White House.  Trump misses the drama and his unscheduled, wackadoodle visitors.  Other’s in the White House have started calling Kelly the Church Lady.  It’s fair to say that the Trump-Kelly honeymoon is over.  Vice President Pence spent yesterday in Texas, beginning his visit with an impromptu prayer led by his wife before moving on to help remove storm debris.  Clad in jeans that looked like they’d actually been worn before, Pence looked comfortable and presidential. Trump, who still hasn’t mastered the whole presidential thing, heads back to Texas this weekend in an attempt to look more Pence like.  Press Secretary Sanders reports that he is pledging $1 million to the Hurricane Harvey fund.  Since every good Trump deed is offset by at least two not so good ones, it’s looks highly likely that controversial sheriff, David Clarke, who just resigned from his position in Milwaukee, will be given a job in the administration, one that doesn’t require confirmation.  Clarke who has been accused of committing serious abuses of prisoners is Trump’s second favorite sheriff, right after Arpaio.  Trump’s Education department hired a former dean from shady for profit school DeVry University, his job will involve cracking down on fraud at higher education institutions because if you want to ferret out fraud, you hire a fraudster.   

What’s With Mnuchin?  First Treasury Secretary Mnuchin defended Trump’s statements equating neo-Nazis and KKK members with the rest of us.  Now he’s decided not to move forward with removing Andrew Jackson, Trump’s favorite president,  from the twenty dollar bill, replacing him with Harriet Tubman. It’s not clear if the administration’s opposition to the switch is because it was first suggested by Obama or if they have a problem with Tubman, an American abolitionist, humanitarian and an armed scout and spy for the US Army during the American Civil War.  Mnuchin isn’t the only cabinet secretary getting criticized for poor decisions, the Washington Post reports that Secretary of State Tillerson may be getting closer to an early exit.  Events surrounding North Korea, including yesterday’s temperature raising flyover by US and South Korean planes,  highlight the need for a robust State Department, one staffed to do some diplomacy.  Tillerson was probably just following Trump and Bannon’s orders when he decided to reorganize the State department into a lean and ineffective boutique operation, but no doubt he will be the fall guy for the failure of the Bannonesque deconstruction.