End of the Beginning

The One Two Punch:  You’ve got to give it to Special Counsel Mueller, he takes his job very seriously.  As expected, early yesterday morning former campaign manager Paul Manafort and his long-time associate Rick Gates, who also served as a member of the Trump team, outlasting Manafort by several months, were arrested.  Mueller’s twelve count indictment includes charges accusing Manafort and Gates of money laundering, conspiracy and failure to report income.  Significantly, the laundered money traveled through the Cyprus bank route favored by Putin’s Russian oligarch crowd.  Almost immediately Trump tweeted “Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign. But why aren't Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus?????” following up with “also, there is NO COLLUSION.” His way of expressing relief that the charges had nothing to do with the campaign or playing footsie with the Kremlin, because Trump doesn’t count financial interactions with Manafort colleague and Putin crony Oleg Deripaska as anything unusual.  Before he had a chance to down a celebratory Diet Coke, Mueller delivered the second, more deadly, punch disclosing that over the summer he had very discretely arrested George Papadopoulos, the not so expert foreign affairs advisor who had worked on the Trump campaign and who Trump had once introduced to the press as a really smart person.  Papadopoulos subsequently pled guilty to having lied to the FBI during three FBI interviews, one of those definite no-no’s that can land you in bigly trouble. 

The Back Story:  In March, almost immediately after joining the Trump campaign team, Papadopoulos responded to moves from a number of Russian cut-outs, including one representing herself as Putin’s niece and another who was allegedly a professor. They approached him, asking for his help facilitating a meeting with Trump to advance Russian-US relations and suggested that they might have some damaging Hillary Clinton emails, which was odd because at the time they offered up the “dirt” no one on Hillary’s side even knew that their servers had been hacked.  That is no one except the Russians, who knew because they were the hackers, but they hadn’t yet released their bounty to the guys at WikiLeaks, who one month later disseminated the Democrats emails on the internet.  Papadopoulos emailed requests for meetings to various and sundry Trumpsters hoping to set something up with the Russians.  Some of this went public over the summer, but at that time the Trump party line was that no one took that guy Papadopoulos, who by then was called a useless volunteer, up on his offer.  However, yesterday we learned that at least three people in the Trump campaign were interested.  One of those people appears to have been Manafort, whose response to Papadopoulos’ offer, via email of course, was “We need someone to communicate that D.T. is not doing these trips.  It should be someone low level in the campaign so as not to send a signal.”  Another was Sam Clovis, a climate denier who is now a nominee for a high level Department of Agriculture position, but was then a senior campaign official, who told Papadopoulos to “make the trip if it’s feasible.”  Papadopoulos is awaiting sentencing but is expected to get a suspended sentence as payback for being “helpful” to Mueller, in other word he’s been flipped and the reason no one knew he had been arrested is because under Mueller’s direction he’s been quietly interacting with other Trump team members, possibly wearing a wire and getting them to implicate themselves.  During yesterday’s press conference Sarah Huckabee Sanders ignored all of this, stuck with the party line that Manafort’s crimes all predate the campaign, insisted that there was no collusion, said that Mueller’s investigation is nearing completion and basically continued to dig herself into liar’s hell. Trump lawyer, Ty Cobb, insisted that Trump is fine with Mueller and has no plans to fire him any time soon.  The Washington Post reports that Trump sits upstairs at the White House with the TV on, fuming over the indictments and trying to control his impulse to do away with Mueller, an act that Mueller has made almost impossible with these indictments.  Manafort and Gates are out on $10 million and $5 million bail, respectively, only allowed to leave their homes to go to the doctor, their lawyers or church.  Anyone who’s ever spoken with Papadopoulos is now in a state of panic.  It’s not just Trumpsters and Republicans who’ve been impacted by Mueller’s investigation.  Tony Podesta, brother of John Podesta of Clinton fame, who worked on one of Manafort’s Russia friendly Ukraine assignments and may have provided some source material to Mueller, has stepped down from his eponymous consulting firm. To paraphrase Senator McCain, the shoes are falling, and the millipede has many more feet.

Troops Transgender and Not:  While attention was focused on Mueller and the indictments, a Washington DC Federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s policy prohibiting transgender troops from serving in the military, ruling that it was “based on disapproval of transgender people” and was not consistent with the military’s own conclusions that having transgender troops doesn’t impact military readiness.  The judge cited the way that Trump had announced his decision and the lack of any facts to support the ban as reasons for her decision.  The judge did let stand the prohibition against funding for sex reassignment surgery.  Bowe Bergdahl may be another beneficiary of Trump’s tweet diarrhea.  He is due to be sentenced for desertion during his service in Afghanistan and the judge is taking into consideration the impact that Trump’s verbal and tweet attacks during the 2016 campaign may have had on his trial.  So who would have guessed, rash decisions by tweet are not the way to go? 

Kelly, Oh Kelly:  Chief of Staff Kelly appeared on right wing pundit Laura Ingraham’s FOX TV program last night.  Among other things he defended Confederate statues telling her that “Robert E. Lee was an honorable man who gave up his country to fight for his state.” He then applied the “there are fine people on both sides” excuse to the Civil War, suggesting that a better job of compromise might have avoided the war between the states.  By compromise, does he mean that another one hundred years of slavery would have been fine with all those fine people?  It looks like his inaccurate recollection and nasty comments about Congresswoman Frederica Wilson were not such an aberration after all.  Sigh….

Naturally

Who’s on First:  Ty Cobb, Trump’s in house lawyer for all things Russian, wants us to believe that Trump is cool, calm and collected about this morning’s pending pick-up of the not so innocent person or people who were indicted on Friday but judging by yesterday’s tweet tsunami, that’s just another trumped up alternative fact.  No doubt on the advice of counsel, Trump avoided directly threatening Mueller, instead focusing his onslaught on Hillary the DNC, the uranium deal, phony Trump collusion, and the Steele dossier, that he claims without any evidence cost the “Dems” $12 million.  For the record, the “Dems” paid their law firm around $9 million or so, but that was for all their services, we don’t know how much of that money went to Fusion GPS for the production of the dossier. Trump also questioned the timing of the upcoming indictment, suggesting that it was taking place now in order to interfere with his tax reform plans.  One word about that – delusional.  With regard to the dossier and the uranium deal, Trump was joined by a squadron of surrogates, who all want to know why Hillary, the women who is not the current president of the United States, isn’t already hanging by her toes in a guarded Guantanamo Bay prison cell.  As to Special Counsel Mueller, the swords are out for him too.  The Rupert Murdoch controlled Wall Street Journal editorial board has called for him to step down for collaborating with the Democrats by using the dossier.  The WSJ suggestion that Mueller is relying on the dossier for his indictments is nonsense and they know that but it appeals to the right and the Breitbart set.  The WSJ used to be good at investigative reporting, but they’ve stayed largely on the sidelines when it comes to the Russian investigation, ceding any  future Pulitzer prizes to the NY Times and Washington Post.  WSJ stories come out late and with the exception of their story about Peter Smith, the Republican operative who confessed that together with Michael Flynn, he tried to obtain Hillary’s elusive 33,000 emails before committing suicide, they’ve added little to the dialogue.  Soon to be ex-Governor of New Jersey Christie said that whoever leaked the indictment to the press should be arrested, but at least he had the good sense to also say that he doubted that Mueller or anyone on his staff was the leaker.  Surprisingly, Representative Trent Gowdy, who thought that the Benghazi witch hunt was awesome, actually said something nice about Mueller, pointing out that he was well respected, and should be allowed to continue with his investigation, at least until he’s not.     

What’s on Second:  The small group of Republican legislators spent the weekend trying to make $5 trillion worth of “square” tax cuts fit into a $1.5 trillion “round” slot.  They are still tinkering with 401K plans and are likely to try to convince those Americans who save for their retirement, that less savings are better than more and that they’ll be just as happy if they shift some of their hard earned dollars to Roth plans paying income tax now, avoiding taxes later when funds are withdrawn.  They are counting on the fact that few Americans understand present value or discounted cash flow analysis.  The plan still eliminates the deduction for state and local taxes but in an effort to get the high tax state Republicans back on board, it now allows for the deduction of local real estate taxes.  New York Governor Cuomo, isn’t buying their compromise, he’s already started slamming the few upstate House Republicans who voted yes on last week’s budget bill.  One influential group, the National Association of Home Builders, which initially had said that they were open to changes in the mortgage interest deduction, have now withdrawn support, saying the bill is bad for the housing sector.  Later this week, once the full terms of the bill are made public, the line of special interest lobbyists joining them in protest is expected to wind around the Washington DC Tidal Basin.  Democrats who have been completely excluded from writing the tax bill are so far uniform in their opposition.   Despite Republican claims that the bill is, as a disingenuous Ohio Senator Portman alleged, all about lowering middle-class taxes, the Democrats are calling it out for what it is, a gift to the very rich, tied in a big red bow and because it is largely a gift to the rich, red state Democrats still feel emboldened enough to join their blue state colleagues in opposition.  The Republican’s keep on citing the Reagan era tax cuts as their model but forget that those cuts came to pass with the help of Democrats, including former NJ Senator and NY Knick Bill Bradley.  They also forget that some Reagan era cuts subsequently had to be adjusted up after the deficit ballooned. 

I Don’t Know:  In other news of note, the $300 million fishy Whitefish contract that the White House insists was only a local Puerto Rico problem has now been cancelled by the Puerto Rico Electrical Authority and Governor Rosello.  The White House was nervous enough about the optics of the contract to call Interior Secretary Zinke in to discuss it, he still alleges that he had nothing to do with the contract that benefited one of his Montana friends, but while he was in town with Trump the two agreed to shrink the Bears Ears National park down to size because who needs pristine park land anyway?  Steve Bannon notified Trump that he plans to do all he can to destroy the wellbeing and career of Republican supporter billionaire investor Paul Singer, the man who funded The Washington Beacon website that initially hired Fusion GPS to do opposition research about Trump.  Trump is off to Asia this week to improve or further diminish the US world position and prospects for peace and trade.  North Korea spent the weekend practicing nuclear preparation drills. Jared Kushner spent part of his weekend traveling back from Saudi Arabia where he is still the man of the moment but will be spending less time with Trump in China, where his role has been scaled back, perhaps because screwing up in China is potentially more deadly than delaying Middle East peace talks.  And lastly, it’s 7:15 AM and we still don’t know who’s door got the Mueller knock this morning.      

Deflect and Deny

Alternative Facts: The theme of the week was deflection and denial.  It was Hillary Clinton, the woman who is not president, who gave our uranium away to the Russians, who colluded with Putin on the opposition report that resulted in the infamous “ Steele Dossier” and who is responsible for North Korea, Iran, the harassment scandals and the last flu epidemic.  And, if you read the released Kennedy papers very carefully you will probably find out that she, together with Ted Cruz’s dad and Lee Harvey Oswald, was involved in the JFK assassination plot.  Diverting attention to Hillary, provides Republicans with some cover as they start to wind down some of the activities of their investigative committees and question Special Counsel Mueller’s budget.  Of course Trump was in on the action too.  He started Friday by tweeting  “It is now commonly agreed, after many months of COSTLY looking, that there was NO collusion between Russia and Trump. Was collusion with HC!” As to all those accusations about harassment, Sarah Huckabee Sanders reiterated that "Yeah, we've been clear on that from the beginning, and the president's spoken on it," those sixteen women who've accused Trump of harassment are all lying, all of them.  

Real Facts:  Although the women accusing Trump of sexual harassment stand by their statements, there’s not much new to report on that front, so far Teflon Don has escaped the consequences raining down on countless other prominent harassers.  However, things are percolating on the Russian front and the news for Trump and his cronies is not so good.  Because everything happens on Fridays, last evening CNN reported that Mueller filed criminal charges in the Washington DC Federal Court against someone implicated in the Russian probe.  Since the indictment is sealed, the target or targets are not yet publicly disclosed, but whoever he, she or they are, they are likely to be picked up on Monday.  The smart money is on Paul Manafort or Michael Flynn, but at this point that is just an educated guess, it could also be someone who could help Mueller “turn” Manafort or Flynn.  A few other things also came to light on Friday.  The Fusion GPS firm responsible for the Steele Dossier, was first retained by the Conservative Washington Free Beacon website, which hired the Fusion firm to provide research on multiple Republican candidates in the 2016 primaries.  Paul Singer a billionaire GOP donor provides financial support to the website. The Beacon’s acknowledged involvement puts to rest accusations that there never was a Republican funder for any part of Fusion GPS’s investigation.  More connections between Rebekah Mercer, the very rightwing billionaire Steve Bannon supporter, and the hacked DNC and John Podesta emails was also revealed. She apparently requested that Cambridge Analytica, the data management firm that she helped fund and that was employed to assist with Trump’s campaign efforts, allocate resources to making the purloined emails more searchable so that they could be more effectively weaponized.  Then there’s Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with Don Jr, Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, allegedly to discuss only Russia adoptions.  It turns out that, despite her assertions that she was acting independently of the Kremlin, the talking points memo she brought with her to the meeting had been crafted together with Putin’s prosecutor general, Yuri Chaika.  The memo contained unverified information accusing the Ziff Brothers, major real investors who were also Hillary supporters, of investing in a Russian fund to avoid taxes.  The fund was managed by Bill Browder, the man responsible for the Magitsky Act that Putin hates so much so the accusation was as much about attacking Browder’s reputation as about accusing Hillary of accepting money from “shady” investors.  In any case, though the meeting remains very problematic for Don Jr and his cohorts, Donny didn’t think the accusations were all that useful, probably because it would be hard for Trumps, given their track record, to throw stones at other real estate investors seeking to avoid taxes.  Lastly, Dana Boente, a 33 year veteran of the Department of Justice, resigned yesterday.  Boente, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was very senior in the Justice Department hierarchy and at various time had stepped up to a number of senior “acting” positions when others had been fired.  He’s the guy who temporarily replaced Sally Yates as Acting Attorney General before Attorney General Sessions was confirmed and Rod Rosenstein was put in place as Deputy Attorney General. To the extent that Rosenstein is ever forced out or resigns under pressure to do something unethical, Boente would have been in line to supervise Mueller.  Just days before he resigned, Boente,  who was juggling two positions since he was also serving as the acting attorney for national security, told associates that he was looking forward to returning full time to his post at the Eastern District. His unexpected resignation raises some interesting questions:  Was he fired?  Did he step down because he is being called as a witness against Trump in the Comey firing?  Was he asked to do something that he found ethically untenable?  Hmmm.

The INS Tales:  Earlier in the week the Departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services conspired to block a young woman’s reproductive rights.  Now they’ve moved on to trying to deport a ten year old girl with cerebral palsy.  The young girl, who has been in the country for years, was on her way for much needed surgery when INS agents stalked her car.  They allowed the surgery to proceed but stood guard outside her room to make sure that she didn’t stage a daring escape.  Now they are holding her in limbo, refusing to return her to her relatives.  Her parents, who are in the US illegally are in hiding, but the family members who took her to the hospital and who are trying to get her back are being prevented from taking her into their care.  Remember when Trump said that his focus was the deportation of dangerous felons.  That was then, now he’s protecting us from ten year old impaired little girls.  Feeling safer? 

Just Say No

Smoke and Mirrors:  After months of dilly dallying Trump finally declared the Opioid addiction crisis a “public health” emergency rather than a “national” emergency.  His choice of words was important, national emergencies get immediate access to federal funds, public health emergencies do not, but they do get access to redirected grant funds, something akin to shifting the chairs on the Titanic.  Trump’s plans include a “really tough, really big, really great advertising” campaign aimed at persuading people not to start using drugs in the first place.  If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is highly reminiscent of Nancy Reagan’s 1980’s “Just Say No” campaign that did little to prevent drug abuse but did result in an increase in incarceration.  Trump plans to enlist the help of the first lady, Melania in a body con dress and Louboutin stilettos whispering this is your mind on drugs while she searches for a way out of Washington will be fun to watch, especially once Saturday Night Live tweaks the image, but won’t do much for solving the epidemic.  Talking about his brother Fred’s early alcoholic related death, Trump said “this was an idea that I had, where if we can teach young people not to take drugs” because it’s really, really easy not to take them.” Trump, the teetotaler,  seems not to understand that not everyone shares his willpower, with upwards of 60,000 dying a year from opioid addiction, it’s fair to say that it’s not so easy “not to take them.”  More substantively, Trump’s plan does include more training for safe prescription practices, an initiative to develop non-addictive painkillers, an effort to block shipments of fentanyl from China, and one more very important thing, the construction of a really, beautiful big wall.  To fulfill that last commitment, yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security unveiled several border wall prototypes because promises are promises, and Trump promised a wall.

Next Up, Taxes:  The House passed the Senate version of the budget outline, a largely symbolic move that paves the way for what they really want to do next, pass tax reform through the lower vote threshold reconciliation process.  The 216 to 212 House vote was a bit of a squeaker.  With many members of the New York and New Jersey delegations voting “no” due to their concerns that the still not finalized tax plan will eliminate deductions for state and local taxes, Speaker Ryan had to cast his vote to get to the required 216 “ayes,” unusual because the Speaker usually doesn’t vote.  California’s Republican delegation voted for the budget but put leadership on notice that they do not intend to support a tax reform plan that eliminates the deduction.  Leadership is expected to announce the details of their tax reform/cut plan next week.  Then the negotiation, persuasion and threats will really accelerate.  Republicans are desperate to get something passed in order to defuse Steve Bannon’s onslaught against party standard bearers.  Donors are demanding action, high tax state Republicans will need some kind of concession related to the state and local tax deduction and few Trump voters will be happy if they lose their 401 (k) deduction. Making everyone happy while not further inflating the deficit beyond the permitted $!.5 trillion increase will be close to impossible.  At the end of the day, some legislation may pass, but it might not pass before year end and there is a good chance that any resulting legislation will provide a ten year tax cut for some rather than permanent tax reform.

Russia, Russia, Russia:  The Russia investigation is getting attacked on all sides.  A number of Republican members of Congress are planning to go after Special Counsel Mueller’s funding when it comes up for review.  Senate Judiciary Committee heads, Grassley and Feinstein are going their separate ways, Feinstein remains focused on Russian collusion and Trump obstruction, Grassley has shifted his attention to Clinton’s role or non-role in the “Watergate” sized uranium controversy.  To help him with his investigation, Trump directed his staff “to facilitate the Justice Department’s full cooperation to lift” a gag order preventing one FBI informant from providing his testimony about the uranium transaction’s alleged improprieties.  Trump’s move is unprecedented because the Justice Department has strict rules limiting White House involvement in criminal law enforcement matters, especially when it relates to actions involving the President’s political opponents, but Trump is seeking to redirect attention away from the inquiry into his campaign’s Russian activities and attacking Hillary Clinton is a key part of his strategy, so precedents are not his concern even if his actions bolster claims that he is obstructing justice.  As to that problematic Russian involvement, Barbara Ledeen, a conservative activist and a current Judiciary Committee staff member whose husband is a friend of former security advisor Michael Flynn attempted to locate the missing Hillary Clinton emails in 2015, reportedly because she wanted to keep her children safe from foreign intermediaries.  According to The Hill, she sought outside help from a number of people including Newt Gingrich, whose wife Callista was recently confirmed as the US emissary to the Vatican.  Grassley acknowledges that Ledeen is on his staff, but doesn’t see why her involvement is his “investigation” is a problem.  For his part, Devon Nunes, Trump’s stooge, is making the most of this week’s disclosure that the Clinton campaign paid for a portion of the Fusion GPS opposition research work, he told his friends at Fox News that the Democrats are responsible for Russian interference because of “their” dossier.  Nunes is a clown, but he is a clown with a ready and willing news platform that Trump’s base watches religiously.  To cap off the day, without any specific evidence to back up her claim, Sarah Huckabee Sanders told Fox News’ Bill Hemmer, that Special Counsel Mueller was close to wrapping up his investigation  because “every day we find out more and more details about why the President has been right all along and why the Democrats have been wrong all along and I think that each day we’re getting closer and closer to closing the loop on this on our front.”  Mueller’s office had no comment.

The DMZ:  In anticipation of Trump’s upcoming trip to Asia, Defense Secretary Mattis is in Korea, making nice with the South Korean’s in order to blunt anything really foolish that Trump might say or tweet during his visit.  During a stop at the Demilitarized Zone, the narrow, tense strip that separates South Korea from North Korea, he echoed Secretary of State Tillerson’s earlier remarks stating that "our goal is not war, but rather the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean peninsula."  Let’s hope he is right.

WikiWhat

The Spinner in Chief: Trump may not have mastered the art of the deal but he does seem to be the master of the spin cycle.  Citing the wild applause that he received at his lunch with Senate Republicans as evidence that he is more loved than ever and that Republicans are way more united than the Democrats, he dismissed Senator Flake’s critical speech and decision not to run again as a big nothing.  He even said that until a few months ago he didn’t even know who Senator Flake was and that the first time he heard him speak, he thought he was one of those dreaded Democrats. The very conservative Flake, who votes the party line more than 90% of the time, would probably be horrified to know that Trump thought he was a Berniac. Trump’s Mr. Outside, Steve Bannon, celebrated the Flake announcement by saying “another day, another scalp.”  As he was leaving for a trip to inspect hurricane relief in friendly Texas, Trump held one of his impromptu White House lawn pressers.  Responding to a question about accusations that he was responsible for a decline in civility, Trump said that any lack of civility was due to the way that he was treated by the press, boasting that he was an Ivy league graduate and very smart but when attacked he had to counterpunch because that’s what Ivy league guys do. The Wharton School may want to rethink their curriculum.  In response to another question about Sgt. Johnson’s bereaved wife’s insistence that his remarks to her weren’t nice and that he couldn’t remember her husband’s name, Trump couldn’t just let it go, instead saying that she was wrong because he couldn’t have been any nicer and besides he’s got a great memory.  So just to be clear, Trump wants us all to know that contrary to assertions and rumors he isn’t a moron, nor does he have early onset Alzheimer’s.  And then before stepping on his helicopter, he went after Hillary and the Democrats by calling the alleged Uranium affair worse than Watergate and the Democrats’ funding of the Christopher Steele dossier just more indications that the Russian related accusations against his team are part of the biggest hoax ever.   Senate Judiciary Chairman Grassley from Iowa, who Trump has been cultivating with corn ethanol friendly regulations, has been impeding Justice Committee investigation into Russian related issues but is jumping on the Uranium-Watergate analogy.  Tuesday night he’s called on the Justice Department to appoint a special prosecutor to look into the  Obama-era deal.  Also on Tuesday, the Senate approved legislation killing a new rule allowing class action lawsuits against banks. Senators Corker, Flake and McCain all voted with the majority, sadly proving that their conservative principles “trump” their concerns about Trump.  Two Republicans, Senators Graham and Kennedy voted with the Democrats; VP Pence cast the deciding vote.    

Healthcare Fix:  The Congressional Budget Office scoring report is out for the Alexander-Murray Obamacare fix and this time the scorers have some good news.  They project that the bill would save the government $3.8 billion from 2018 to 2027 without changing the number of people with health insurance coverage.  The fix calls for the reinstatement of the Obamacare insurance subsidies that Trump likes to misleadingly call bailout payments for insurance companies.  Since a federal judge ruled that the administration doesn’t need to resume making those payments while several lawsuits make their way through the courts, the Alexander-Murray fix provides the best chance to stabilize the insurance markets and the scoring report provides a compelling argument that the fix should be passed.  Nevertheless, Majority Leader McConnell won’t proceed without Trump’s blessing and, at least for now, he’s still not interested. This may be another one of those things that Chuck and Nancy seek to attach to the year-end funding resolution, right next to the DACA fix.     

WikiWhat:  The Daily Beast reports that Alexander Nix, the chief executive of Cambridge Analytica, the billionaire Mercer family funded data analytics firm that the Trump Campaign used upon the recommendation of Steve Bannon, sent an email to several people including Rebekah Mercer, telling them that he had emailed WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange seeking access to emails from Hillary Clinton’s private email server to turn them into a searchable database for the campaign or a pro-Trump political action committee.  Assange confirms that he was contacted by Nix but denied that he provided him with the Clinton emails. The assertion that the Trump campaign was seeking out the Clinton emails is consistent with earlier reports that Peter Smith, a Republican operator, was also seeking the emails. The White House responded to the Daily Beast article by releasing a statement that downplayed the campaign’s use of Cambridge Analytica’s services and said that “any claims that voter data from any other source played a key role in the victory are false,” an odd non-denial denial which focuses on the value of the data in aiding Trump’s election win rather than just outright denying that they had sought or received outside data.  It’s worth remembering that Trump called for WikiLeaks to release Hillary information countless times during the campaign and applauded WikiLeak’s release of the hacked Podesta emails.  Downplaying the relationship with Cambridge falls into the Trump playbook alongside claims that Paul Manafort only headed his campaign for a minute, that he never met Carter Page, that Michael Flynn was only a short term advisor and that he knew no Russians.      

Jane Doe:  Despite the best efforts of the Trump administration’s morality police, “Jane Doe,” the 17 year old Central American held in an immigration detention center, was allowed to proceed with the termination of her pregnancy.  Despite repeated allegations by Fox News that the government was being forced to “illegally” pay for her abortion, her procedure was privately funded. Sadly, this probably won’t be the last time that anti-choice activists try to stand in the way of a woman’s right to choose.  A draft Health and Human Services report calls for women to choose abstinence or “fertility awareness” over the birth control pill which they bizarrely assert doesn’t work.  Fertility awareness, which used to be called the rhythm method, has a 24% failure rate. To date, Congress hasn’t passed the renewal of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), is on the verge of passing a budget outline that calls for a huge cut in Medicaid services, another major funder of children’s health care services, and all this is occurring while the Department of Health and Human services is advocating fertility awareness.            

Silence is Complicity

The Tipping Point: The thing about Trump is that everything feels like it’s the beginning of the end and then it’s not.  Trump started his day by tweet attacking Tennessee Senator Bob Corker “who helped President O give us the bad Iran Deal & couldn’t get elected dog catcher in Tennessee, is now fighting Tax Cuts.” Corker, who had opposed the Iran agreement tweeted back “same untruths from an utterly untruthful president” before putting down his tweeter and going old school.  He went down to the Senate halls and launched into a verbal attack of Trump to virtually every news outlet he could find.  Among other things he said that Trump is not a role model, he debases our country, the White House staff should figure out a way to control him, he has great difficulty with the truth, world leaders are aware that much of what he says is untrue and when his term is over he will be most remembered for debasing the nation.  Corker’s decision not to run for reelection has freed him to speak his mind and did he ever, he now has some more company.  Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, who didn’t support Trump during the 2016 election and who published a book criticizing Trump earlier in the year, has joined the Corker-McCain speak your mind train.  Facing a tough primary in Arizona against a Bannon supported wingnut, Flake announced that he won’t be seeking reelection in 2018.  He announced his decision in a blistering speech to his Senate colleagues, saying among other things that he can’t win the Arizona primary without wholeheartedly supporting Trump and he won’t compromise his values to do so.  He added that it’s time to stop pretending Trump is normal, because he is reckless, dangerous and undignified.  Silence is complicity, and he doesn’t want to be complicit.  Freed of the constraints of the election process, the two Senators, both conservatives and both highly respected for their integrity, will be thorns in Trump’s side until the end of 2018 and maybe, just maybe a few other Republican Senators will join their chorus. A complicit Majority Leader McConnell praised Flake, saying that he was highly principled and a fine man and said he was “grateful” that Flake would be around through the end of 2018, because Republicans had big things to do.  Then the Republican senators went to lunch with Trump to discuss priorities and tax reform and what a good job he is doing.  Louisiana Senator John Kennedy reported that the lunch went well because “nobody called anybody an ignorant slut or anything.”  Only time will tell if Flake and Corker’s willingness to speak up was a tipping point or another nothing burger.

Tax Reform:  There’s still no finalized tax plan, but the push to begin the legislative process continues.  Without providing much in the way of details Trump talked about the importance of getting it done, telling the Senate lunch crowd that though he appreciates Lamar Alexander’s great work on health care, he wants tax reform done before he’ll even consider the Obamacare “fix.”  Tonight, the House is scheduled to vote on the budget that has to be passed before tax reform can be addressed but they may have encountered an impediment that could hold up its passage.  A number of Republicans from New York and New Jersey say they won’t vote for the budget plan unless Republican leadership retreats from plans to eliminate the state and local tax deduction.  Trump and Pence were working the phones, but so far the issue has not been resolved to the satisfaction of the high tax state crowd. For their part, Democrats, frustrated by the Republicans’ one party approach to passing legislation, are taking a hardline on the tax reform plan.  Senator Schumer’s position is that “there is a path forward, but only after this tax bill fails,” an indication that he is going to press his red state Democratic Senators like Joe Manchin, Claire McCaskill and Joe Donnelly to hold out until a more middle class friendly plan is presented.     

Russia, Russia, Russia:  Despite concerns that the House Intelligence Committee review of Russian related issues is growing increasingly political, the committee is still ploughing ahead.  Yesterday they held closed door sessions with Trump’s in-house lawyer Michael Cohen and campaign digital director Brad Pascale.  Pascale is the guy who appeared on 60 Minutes a few weeks ago to brag about all of the “neat” work he’d done directing tailored political “ads” to voters.  At that time he denied that he’d provided any of his targeting information to anyone named Boris or Natasha; there is no indication as to whether he was more forthcoming with the committee.  Paul Manafort’s life just got a bit more complicated.  He is now being investigated for money laundering by the Federal Court for the Southern District of New York, the Manhattan court is collaborating with Special Counsel Mueller.  At the same time the Brooklyn US Attorney’s office is investigating the Kushner Companies.  Trump has been personally interviewing candidates to lead both of these offices, and in both cases the individuals under consideration have ties to his personal lawyer’s firm and to political allies.  Why is this not surprising?  In other investigative news Trump’s favorite congressional toady Representative Devon Nunes announced that the House Intelligence and Oversight panels will be looking into the 2010 sale of a majority stake in a Canadian company called Uranium One to an arm of the Russian government.  The deal was cleared by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US , a national security panel, at the time it was done.  Hilary Clinton was not involved but investigating the sale plays into Trump’s much tweeted narrative that Congress should be investigating Obama and the Clintons for what he alleges to be their Russian involvement.  Budget cuts for health care, diplomacy and the social safety net, but plenty of funds for bogus investigations, it’s no wonder that the public hates Congress more than almost any other institution.   Although we still don’t know the name of the Republican who commissioned the Fusion GPS opposition research firm investigation into Trump that led to the hiring of Christopher Steele and the production of his infamous dossier, yesterday we learned that once Trump secured the nomination, a lawyer related to the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign stepped into the original sponsor’s shoes, funding Fusion GPS’s continuing activities.  This isn’t all that surprising or unusual, but it does make for more Fox News fodder and falls into Trump’s other narrative that the Democrats invented Russian collusion accusations to make excuses for their election losses.

A Few Other Tidbits:  Kid Rock said  he will not be running for Senator in Michigan, his exact words were “F-ck No.”  He admits that his assertion that he was seriously considering a run was just a publicity ploy to spur album sales. Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow who is up for reelection in 2018 had been taking his candidacy seriously, a skilled pianist, singer and guitar player she’d been brushing up her musical skills in anticipation of his run.  Proving that Democrats can be just as dysfunctional as Republicans, Bernie Sanders and his Our Revolution Group will not endorse Ralph Northam, the Democratic Candidate for Governor in Virginia.  Northam is struggling to hold on to a shrinking lead and could have used their boost but he doesn’t meet their progressive standards.  Also, despite his promise during the 2016 campaign that going forward he would run as a Democrat,  Sanders announced that though he will continue to caucus with the Democrats he will be running for reelection to the Senate as an Independent.  Uranium resources may be one of the reasons that Niger is important to the US and the west and may explain why we have almost 1000 soldiers in the country.  Niger is the world’s fourth largest producer of Uranium, a key component of nuclear weapons. Interior Secretary Zinke, already receiving attention for his questionable private plane usage and government funded campaign travel, is now getting a little more unwanted coverage.  Whitefish Energy, a tiny Montana company, was recently awarded a $300 million contract to help restore Puerto Rico’s power grid.  The company has only two employees but does know Zinke, because as he says “everyone in Montana knows every else.” This definitely smells fishy.               

Nightmare in Niger

Out of Africa:  Though Trump still refuses to answer any questions about the size of the US presence in Niger or the events that resulted in the death of the four Green Berets, Joint Chief of Staff Dunford was fairly forthcoming during an hour long presentation to the press.  Though an investigation is ongoing and details remain sketchy, it looks like the fallen soldiers and their comrades were set up by local villagers sympathetic to ISIS who pursuaded them to stay longer than they had planned at a meeting with with town elders. ISIS related fighters staged an explosion, ambushing the soldiers when they went to investigate.  Dunford was also much more respectful to the families of the fallen soldiers than Trump who continued his fight with the Sgt. Johnson’s grieving wife Myeshia by questioning her emotional account of their disputed phone call. Almost immediately after she told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that Trump couldn’t even remember her husband’s name, he tweeted that her recollection of the call was wrong.  It really doesn’t matter what he said or thought he said, she’s upset, she lost her childhood sweetheart, her husband and the father of her two, soon to be three chldren, he should back off but sadly, he can’t help himself and so the imbroglio goes on.  Members of the Congressional Black Caucus are calling him out for his tendency to insult minorities and women and with Congresswoman Frederica Wilson and Myeshia Johnson, he’s hit the daily double. The Caucus is also demanding that General Kelly issue an apology for his “reprehensible,” “reckless,” and “false” statements. Yesterday, Trump made at least one Gold Star father happy, the $25,000 check he promised has finally arrived, the check that was coincidentally dated the same day as the Washington Post article that mentioned how it had been promised but never delivered.

Tax Reform is Complicated:  To avoid a Democratic filibuster Republican leadership plans to pass tax reform through the reconciliation process taking advantage of the lower vote fifty vote threshold that served them so well during their failed attempts to repeal Obamacare. Passing a budget that both the House and Senate agree upon is the first step, so the plan is to finalize the budget resolution this week, hopefully without the need for a time consuming conference to work out their differences.  Once approved the budget plan, itself only an illusory goal, will include a provision allowing the tax reform bill to add $1.5 trillion to the deficit over ten years.  The problem is that a plan that includes all of Trump’s promised tax cuts would result in a $5 trillion deficit increase with corporate tax cuts, the centerpiece of Trump’s plan, contributing a whopping $2 trillion to the total.  Tax writers are on a mission to locate other revenue sources to keep the deficit closer to the $1.5 trillion target.  They thought they had solved some of their problem with their plan to restrict 401(k) contributions  but Trump put the kibosh on that by tweeting that there would be no changes to 401(k)s.  Eliminating the state and local tax deduction would provide a $1.3 trillion decrease in the projected deficit number, however pushback has already started there as well.  The party line is that the tax reform/cut plan is “almost” ready, but it’s not.  The votes might not be there either.  “Little” Senator Corker has already said that he won’t support any tax plan that increases the deficit, Senator McCain voted no the last time tax cuts were proposed and Rand Paul is always hard to pin down.  And that’s just the Senate, if the elimination of the state and local tax deduction remains in the bill Congressional Republicans from high tax states will have a hard time supporting the plan.  Ready or not, the push is on, the White House is in the process of mapping out a multimillion dollar marketing campaign to sell tax reform to the public.     

Election Season:  Listening to the despicable Steve Bannon, you’d think that the 2018 midterm elections were around the corner.  They aren’t yet but there are a few interesting elections coming up during the next few weeks. Virginians go to the polls to elect a new governor on November 7.  Because Virginia Governors cannot succeed themselves, Virginia’s popular Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe cannot run for reeletion so the race is between the Democratic Lt. Governor Ralph Northam and Republican Ed Gillespie.  Most polls show Northam leading by about 5 points, but one  recent poll shows him down by 1 provoking a lot of fear among Democrats who’ve learned to be skeptical of political projections. Obama was in Virginia last week campaigning for Northam, Pence showed up to a half empty room for Gillespie but so far there’s been no Trump, mostly because Gillespie is concerned that he’d be a hindrance.  Despite his mixed feelings, Gillespie is adhering to the Trump playbook, he’s attacked Northam for supporting sanctuary cities even though there are no such cities in Virginia.  Virginia has been gradually moving from purple to blue so a loss here would be especially demoralizing for the Democrats who need to control more governorships to secure a bigger influence on the crucial redistricting that will follow the next census.   The Alabama special election for the Jeff Sessions seat takes place on December 12.  This one should be a shoe-in for the Republican candidate, controversial former judge Roy Moore, Steve Bannon’s golden boy, who is running against Democrat Doug Jones. Trump won Alabama by 28 points but Moore is a controversial character and recent disclosures that he lied about the salary he received from his non-profit Foundation for Moral Law may be hurting him.  Polls are showing a surprisingly close race, though it would be a real shocker if Moore lost in such a solidly red state.  Chris Christie’s term as Governor of New Jersey ends soon, it’s highly likely that the very progressive Democratic candidate Phil Murphy will defeat Republican Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno largely because after eight years of the now very unpopular Christie, New Jersey residents are ready for a change.  The New Jersey election takes place on November 7.  

Russia, Russia, Russia:    The NY Times reports that the House and Senate committees investigating Russian meddling and Trump team collusion are starting to feel pressured to wrap things up sooner rather than later to avoid running too far into next year.  They are understaffed, overwhelmed and in the case of the House Intelligence Committee mired in partisan politics.   That leaves attention focused on Special Counsel Mueller.  He’s still toiling away and now a prominent Democratic lobbyist has gotten pulled into his web.  Mueller is investigating Tony Podesta, not to be confused with his brother John Podesta, Hillary’s campaign manager.  Tony Podesta’s company did work promoting Ukraine’s image as part of a public relations campaign  organized by Paul Manafort.  Podesta may have violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act by failing to disclose work benefitting a foreign government in a timely fashion.  No surprise that Fox News is all over this one, citing Podesta’s involvement, which took place well before 2016, as proof that it wasn’t just Trumpsters who were hobnobbing with the Russians.  Podesta may be in trouble but his problems don’t extend to US election inteference.  The nefarious Putin is up to his old tricks.  He had Bill Browder, the British hedge fund manager responsible for the Magitsky Act, the law that prevents Putin’s cronies from entering into the US, put on Interpol’s International Watch List.  As a result Browder’s US visa was cancelled by the Department of Homeland Security.  Senator McCain responded by tweeting  “Bill Browder is a champion of anti-corruption in #Russia. DHS must immediately review decision to revoke his visa”  When McCain tweets, DHS listens.  Browder has been told that to the extent he still wants to visit, he is once again welcome.  Mueller may still be holding his cards close to his vest but former FBI Director Comey has gone public with his secret twitter handle. You can follow him @FormerBu under the account name of Reinhold Neibuhr, a deceased theologian that Comey studied while an undergraduate at the College of William and Mary.

Other Ironies:  Given the administration’s view on climate science it shouldn’t be all that shocking that the EPA is now refusing to let three of its scientists speak about the demonstrable effects of climate change at the upcoming Narragansett Bay and Watershed program, a government funded program that addresses climate change in the region.  EPA head Scott Pruitt’s lame explanation is that climate science has not yet been subjected to “a robust meaningful debate.”  Melania Trump was in Michigan yesterday speaking out against bullying, telling children to choose kindness instead.  Wonder if she knows how to say hypocrite in any of the five languages she supposedly speaks.  For some inexplicable reason, Sean Spicer is now a visiting fellow at Harvard University. Apparently he is still defending the Trump White House and his lie that Trump’s inauguration was the biggest ever.  Harvard parents should be asking for a tuition rebate.       

The Divisiveness Crisis

Race Baiting:  Only Trump could turn the tragic death of four soldiers into a nasty racially tainted political fight.  In an effort to distract from the still unexplained Niger ambush, an attack by fifty ISIS militants that doesn’t fit into his narrative that the war against ISIS is almost over, Trump claimed that he, unlike his predecessors, always called the families of fallen soldiers.  He then hastily called the family of Sgt. Johnson, one of the fallen Green Berets, with a bungled message that wasn’t well received. The wisdom of Congresswoman Wilson’s decision to go public with the text of the call is debatable, but Trump’s response to her is not.  He should have let it go, writing the family’s reaction off to their pain at losing a loved one but that’s not how Trump rolls so we’ve had to endure an increasingly virulent and racially charged attack against the Congresswoman.  First Chief of Staff/General Kelly called her out as an empty barrel, whatever that means, for words she never uttered.  His choice of words and tone was awful and at first blush seemed out of character, until you remember that as Homeland Secretary he had no problem with Trump’s ill-fated first attempt at a Muslim ban.  Kelly could still apologize, but he works for Trump so who knows what he’ll do.  And Trump, whose staff was left scrambling, express mailing  condolence letters to the families of the soldiers who have died in action since he took office, the families he never contacted despite his assertion that he had spoken to every one of them, is still attacking the Congresswoman.  Sunday morning, Trump, the man that his golf buddy, Senator Lindsey Graham, called a race baiting, xenophobic, bigot during the Republican primaries held true to form tweeting  “Wacky Congresswoman Wilson is the gift that keeps on giving for the Republican Party, a disaster for Dems. You watch her in action & vote R!”  In Trump speak wacky is a dog whistle for  “Black Woman,” another one of those not so subtle messages to the core of his base.  As to Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ assertion that Kelly can’t be questioned because he’s a four star marine general,  retired General Petraeus’ response is that generals are fair game, “we are fiercely protective of the rights of our Americans to express themselves, even if that involves criticizing us.”  And though he’s not a general, CNN’s Jake Tapper got it right by tweeting “I have tremendous respect for the military but the notion that no one can even question the statements of generals is un-American.”  For his part at one time or another, Trump has tweet bashed General Colin Powell “never a fan, we can do much better,” General John Allen “his record = BAD,” General Martin Dempsey “he is no Patton or MacArthur,” and all Generals “we don’t have the leadership.”  Stepping back to Niger, the issue that triggered Trump’s diversionary kerfuffle over which president did the best job contacting families, several senior members of House and Senate leadership who should have known, were surprised to find out that our presence there had grown to almost 1000 soldiers.  Senator McCain, in his role as Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, will now be spending some time with another one of the generals, Defense Secretary Mattis, exerting Congress’ oversight role, getting up to speed on the scope of the US presence in Niger and finding out what happened during the ill-fated mission.  

The Predecessors:  The five living former Presidents attended a fundraiser for hurricane relief.  Trump stayed home, phoning in his remarks, possibly because it would have been awkward hanging with the guys while his Mr. Outside, Steve Bannon, ripped into George W for the speech he made earlier in the week, attacking W for “not knowing what he was talking about” when he attacked Trump’s nativism and bigotry.  Ninety-four year old Jimmy Carter offered to go to North Korea to mediate the increasingly confrontational situation on the peninsula.  As preposterous as that sounds, someone needs to start acting diplomatic, Kim Jong Un is so convinced that a US attack is imminent that he sent a letter to Australia’s government warning that the Trump administration “is trying to drive the world into a horrible nuclear war.”  

Russia, Russia, Russia: In an effort to discredit the “salacious” Christopher Steele dossier, Trump tweeted “Officials behind the now discredited "Dossier" plead the Fifth. Justice Department and/or FBI should immediately release who paid for it.”  Trump’s tweet refers to the refusal of Glenn Simpson, the head of the Fusion GPS research firm that hired former MI 5 agent Steele to research links between Russia and Trump, to testify or reveal who paid for the dossier. Trump’s stooge, Congressman Devon Nunes, who is supposed to be recused from the Russia investigation, went behind the back of the other members of the House Intelligence Committee and subpoenaed several years of Fusion GPS’s bank records in an effort to find out who paid for the dossier, believed to have been commissioned on behalf of one or more of Trump’s primary opponents.  Once Trump won the primary, it’s thought that someone with Democratic ties picked up the dossier’s costs.  Simpson is cooperating with Special Counsel Mueller but doesn’t trust Nunes, doesn’t believe that he has subpoena authority, and believes that the subpoena, to the extent that it is lawful, is overly broad in that it goes after years of his financial records.  In any case, the value of the dossier is that it serves as a roadmap for sources and information, on its own it cannot be used as evidence. The Republican National Committee has covered more than $400,000 of Trump and Donny Jr’s Russia related legal costs.  Now Trump is offering to set up a fund to pay a like amount of his staff’s legal bills.  It’s not clear who would benefit from his largesse, but it’s easy to believe that he is trying to influence someone’s testimony.  Bill Clinton considered setting up a similar fund during his administration but didn’t after his lawyers advised him that it was ethically questionable.  Of course, to Trump nothing is ethically questionable so keep an eye on this one. My first guess is that Hope Hicks, the current communications director and former personal assistant who probably knows where the bodies are buried will be one of his beneficiaries.   

The Legislative Agenda: To the extent that he can focus on anything, Trump is going all in on tax legislation, so much so that he told a meeting of Republican legislators to start calling the legislation a “tax cut” plan because no one in his base cares about reform, they just want to think they are getting tax cuts.  Speaker Ryan insists that the House will sign off on the Senate budget outline by the end of the week so that the legislative focus can shift immediately to tax reform/cuts. It may be delusional but the plan is to push tax legislation through by year end, even though the components of the tax plan are still up in the air.  Over the weekend there were reports that the tax rate for those making over $1 million would remain at 39.6% in order to raise a few more dollars and more importantly improve optics.  Also on the table is a drastic reduction in the maximum 401K contribution from $18,000 ($24,000 for those over 50) to $2400.  Reducing the contribution, which is intended to offset the loss in tax revenues from cutting the corporate tax rate, is not going to be popular with middle and upper middle class taxpayers and is bad policy, unless of course you think that discouraging retirement savings is good policy or are desperate to push tax cuts through for your billionaire donors who have threatened to withhold campaign contributions unless they get a corporate tax cut and the inheritance tax is eliminated. Though tax cuts are Trump’s priority, a few other items remain in the legislative queue. Senator Schumer says that all of his 48 Democratic senators are ready to vote for the Alexander-Murray Obamacare “fix” and that together with the twelve Republican who’ve signed on as sponsors, the sixty votes needed for “regular way” passage are ready and waiting.  Majority Leader McConnell says that he will only bring the Obamacare “fix” to the floor if he gets sign off from Trump and so far he’s too busy with taxes, golf and tweeting to have provided his answer.  It’s not just health care that needs a “fix,” the dreamers are still waiting for DACA and the government will run out of money if another funding resolution isn’t passed by year end.  

What Opioid Emergency:  There is the real opioid crisis, the one that is may be killing 60,000 people a year, and then there is the other opioid crisis, the one that has Trump’s staff in a panic.  They had no idea that he would promise to formally declare the opioid epidemic an emergency this week.  They have no plan because the position of the headless Department of Health and Human Services is that the epidemic doesn’t warrant an emergency declaration.  If Trump sticks to his plan and formally signs an emergency declaration this week, expect to see lots of smoke and mirrors and pretty charts but no real plan or list of actions.

So Much For Generals

The Company You Keep:  On Thursday Chief of Staff Kelly lambasted Miami’s Democratic Congresswoman Federica Wilson for egregious self-aggrandizement, asserting that she inappropriately boasted about her efforts to secure funding for a new Miami FBI building when she gave a speech at its dedication and naming ceremony.  Wilson denied Kelly’s account, pointing out that she wasn’t even in Congress when the building was funded although, after she was asked to help, she did enlist the assistance of Republican leadership and the Obama White House to expedite approval for the naming of the building which honors two FBI agents who died in the line of duty, to ensure that the formal naming could take place on the same day as the building dedication ceremony. Unfortunately for the White House and General Kelly, the Orlando Sun Sentinel released the entire tape of her speech yesterday.  The tape shows that she spoke eloquently about the brave acts of two FBI agents and expressed appreciation to the FBI for their service, asking all of the agents in the audience, including then FBI Director Comey, to stand up to receive a round of applause. She then went on to thank the other local Congressmen, at least one of whom was a Republican, for their efforts obtaining funding for the building.  She also thanked then House Speaker Boehner, also a Republican, and Florida Senator Rubio, another Republican, for their help expediting the legislation needed for the approval of the naming.  At no time did she take credit for the funding. When the inaccuracy and inappropriateness of Kelly’s insulting diatribe against the Congresswoman was brought to the attention of Press Secretary Huckabee Sanders, she refused to acknowledge the Sun Sentinel tape, claimed that the Congresswoman had said the things she didn’t say and then said it was highly inappropriate to question Kelly’s veracity because he is a “four star marine general.”  Anyone relying on Kelly to save the country from Trump better look elsewhere,  just a few months in the White House and his ability to spin lies exceeds Trump’s, at least you can tell when Trump is lying.  Kelly is a more gifted speaker so his comments and previously sterling reputation led many to question the veracity of that “wacky” Congresswoman Wilson, mocking her attitude and her flamboyant hats and adding a racial quotient to an already charged environment.  Were it not for the Sun Sentinel tape her reputation would have been tainted.  Now it is Kelly’s that is tarnished. Last night the Washington Post published an editorial entitled “John Kelly owes the Congresswoman an apology.”  He should act on the Post’s advice ASAP, he can find Congresswoman Wilson in Miami where she will be attending today’s funeral for Sgt. Johnson.  There is still no explanation as to why it took two days to retrieve his body from Niger, no one knows how and when he died or what caused the “massive intelligence failure” that left him and the other three fallen soldiers vulnerable to an ambush by fifty ISIS fighters.  Senator McCain, who has little time for a run around, said that he will request that records concerning the attack be subpoenaed if more information isn’t provided soon.  As to the speeches given earlier in the week by former Presidents Bush and Obama, Huckabee Sanders said that their references to bigotry and divisiveness had nothing to do with Trump because if they did, the formers presidents would have attacked him more directly, that’s what Trump would have done.    

Out of the Norm:  Trump has taken it upon himself to personally interview candidates for certain US Attorney positions.  Coincidentally the districts involved, the Southern District of New York, the Eastern District of New York and the District of Columbia, are the districts where cases about his financial misdeeds, campaign collusion, or cabinet improprieties would be heard. Though legal, his interviews are not normal, and leave the impression that he is trying to cultivate relationships with the US Attorneys who could someday hold his fate in their hands.  When asked about this during his contentious testimony to the Senate Justice Committee, Attorney General Sessions claimed he was unaware that Trump was involving himself in the interview process and then said that it would be legal for him to do so.  It is legal, but it’s not normal practice, by comparison, President Obama never conducted any US Attorney interviews.

Not So Intelligent Director:  CIA Director Mike Pompeo is a former Republican Congressman and an early supporter of Trump who likes him so much that he insists that Pompeo trek to the White House every day to personally deliver the morning intelligence briefing.  Pompeo, one of the people who’s been proposed as a possible replacement for Secretary of State Tillerson, is so eager to please Trump that he told NBC News that the 2016 election was conducted with integrity, adding “yes, the intelligence community’s assessment is that the Russian meddling that took place did not affect the outcome of the election.”  While that’s the narrative that Trump wants everyone to believe, to date the intelligence community has not reached that conclusion and has never before said so.  Shortly after Pompeo made his remarks a CIA spokesman issued a clarifying statement walking back Pompeo’s assertion by saying that “the intelligence assessment with regard to Russian election meddling has not changed, and the director did not intend to suggest that it had.”  Pompeo’s job requires that he be an honest broker of intelligence.  Sadly, this week he showed that covering for Trump comes first.     

A Texas Handmaid’s Tale: Scott Lloyd is the official responsible for the Office of Refugee Resettlement, he has no experience working with refugees but he is an anti-abortion activist who doesn’t even believe in birth control which explains why the cards are still stacked against seventeen year old “Jane Doe,” the Central American refugee who wants to end her pregnancy.  Instead of allowing her to immediately proceed with an abortion, a D.C. appeals court panel made up of two Republican appointees and one Democratic appointee voted two to one to give the Department of Health and Human services another eleven days to find a suitable sponsor to help her proceed with her request, if they can’t find an “appropriate relative” the case will then revert back to the lower court that said that the government should facilitate her abortion “without delay.”  By then she will be at least seventeen weeks pregnant.  Scott Lloyd is likely planning his next move, he only has to figure out a way to stall another three weeks since abortions in Texas where Jane Doe is in custody are not permitted after twenty weeks.  So much for the right to choose. 

Moving on to Taxes

Rest in Peace:  Yesterday, General Kelly provided an emotional defense of Trump’s remarks to the wife of one of the Green Berets killed in Niger.  He walked through what happens when a soldier dies in combat, personalizing his own experience losing a son in Afghanistan.  He said that he’d advised Trump not to make calls to the fallen soldiers’ family members but when he insisted, helped him with his remarks.  What Kelly said was forceful but doesn’t change what the family of Sgt. Johnson heard Trump say.  Kelly’s suggested “script” passed through the Trump filter and delivered with Trump’s unique tone just didn’t come out with all the right words included or in the compassionate way that Kelly had intended.  Kelly’s defense was impressive but it would have gone over much better if he hadn’t tacked on an attack of that “empty barrel” Congresswoman Wilson who had revealed Trump’s remarks.  His attempt at demonizing her lessened the impact of his comments, though she may be a politician, she really is a family friend and had served as a mentor to the fallen soldier.   With all the attention focused on Trump’s criticism of prior presidents and the text and tone of his call, the real issue that spurred the controversy has been conveniently obfuscated.  To date the Trump administration has not provided an explanation of what the soldiers were doing in Niger  and why their “safe” mission turned into such a lethal ambush. It was left to Defense Secretary Mattis to say that an investigation is now ongoing at the Pentagon, he promised an update as soon as its available.  Last night, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow suggested that the fatal mission took on added danger because of the withdrawal of critical Chad troops from Niger, an event that preceded the Green Beret mission by a day or so and that may have been the Chad government’s response to being inexplicably included in the most recent version of Trump’s travel ban.  Chad’s appearance on the list of banned countries was a surprise to most diplomats experienced in the region and to the US military because the Chad government has been a loyal and effective supporter of US efforts in the fight against ISIS.  The MSNBC report suggests that Chad’s inclusion in the ban may have had more to do with the country’s dispute with Exxon over unpaid taxes than anything else.  Exxon is Secretary of State Tillerson’s prior haunting ground.  It’s not clear if the Maddow story is correct, but if it is, it adds another wrinkle to the Niger story. Last night, Trump continued to tweet attack the “wacky” “lying” Congresswoman Wilson but provided no additional color about the events in Niger.    

The “Real” Russian Story:  When things aren’t going his way, Trump resorts to attacking Hillary Clinton so yesterday he tweeted accusations that the 2010 sale of a Canadian company that owned US uranium mines to Russia’s atomic energy commission while Clinton was Secretary of State is the real Russia collusion story that the mainstream “fake Media doesn’t want to follow” because it “effects people they want to protect.”  Trump brought the uranium mine sale up frequently during the 2016 campaign. Now, citing his friends at Fox News and a recent article in The Hill that suggested that the FBI may have uncovered and hidden some inappropriate Russian activity related to the sale, he’s latched onto the story again.  It’s not clear that any of the FBI information, to the extent it exists and was available in 2010, ever made it to anyone in the Obama administration before the sale was approved, still it’s an intriguing story that Trump likes because it distracts attention from the other Russia investigation, the one that looks into election meddling and Trump team collusion, the one that he continues to call a hoax. Despite Trump’s refusal to acknowledge that the Russians meddled in the election it’s growing increasingly clear that Kremlin funded bots spread false anti-Hillary news stories and that they had some help.  The Daily Beast reports that Kellyanne Conway, Donald Trump Jr, Michael Flynn, Michael Flynn Jr, Roger Stone and the Trump campaign digital director all followed and retweeted tweets from @Ten_GOP, which called itself the unofficial account of Tennessee Republicans but was really operated by a Kremlin funded troll farm.  What’s not yet known is whether or not they knew they were acting as Putin’s pawns.

More Critics:  In addition to his frustration with the Russian investigation and his concerns over the growing list of his former and current staff members seen going in and out of Special Counsel Mueller’s office, Trump is now facing more criticism from the Senate and former presidents.  Just a day after Senator McCain lashed out at him while receiving a freedom award, former President George W Bush defended free trade and the contributions of immigration, decrying nationalism and bigotry while delivering a rare and unusually coherent speech in New York.  He didn’t name Trump but it was clear to listeners who he was “bemoaning.”  Meantime, former President Obama, speaking at political rallies for Democratic candidates running for governor in NJ and Virginia, attacked the return of the old politics of division, a not so subtle attack of Trump’s race baiting and divisiveness.  Yesterday, white supremacist Richard Spencer spoke at the University of Florida, though his audience was small and few like-minded students attended his event, the fact that he’s on the college speaking tour is beyond troubling.  No comment or concerns were expressed by Trump, however the University of Florida is now out $500,000, the amount they spent to ensure that the campus would remain safe during the Spencer speech.    

Alive and Kicking:  The Alexander-Murray Obamacare ‘Fix” bill is gaining some traction in the Senate.  A number of key Republicans, including Senators Grassley, Corker, McCain, Murkowski, Collins, Graham and Cassidy are now on board.  To move forward the bill will need the support of Majority Leader McConnell to make it through the Senate and then Trump will have to put pressure on the reluctant Paul Ryan to get him to push it through the House.  Trump has been all over the place on this so its future is still up in the air.  Early yesterday he was still claiming he had the votes to pass the Graham Cassidy block grant health legislation that went down in flames a few weeks ago.  For their part Graham and Cassidy are supporting the Alexander-Murray Fix because they view it as a bridge to eventually getting their plan passed.  To the extent that Trump buys in to their way of thinking he might step up and put his weight behind the “Fix.”   A large group of conservative Republicans will squawk but with all the Democrats on board the bill has enough votes to pass if Republican leadership gets behind it.

Puerto Rico:  With Puerto Rico’s Governor Rosello by his side, Trump gave himself an A plus rating and a 10 out of 10 for his stellar Puerto Rico rescue efforts. Left to his own devices,  Rosello was probably thinking something in the order of a D minus or a 2 was more appropriate, but he needs money and aid, so he sat by Trump’s side playing nice but looking like a shell shocked hostage and said that Puerto Rico was thankful for Trump’s support.  Puerto Rico’s economy is crippled, 80% of the island’s residents still don’t have power and only 39% have drinking water but Trump, ever the consummate deal maker, wants Rosello to provide assurances that any loans made by the Federal Government get paid back before any payments are made on Puerto Rico’s $72 billion of debt. The sit down with Rosello made for a nice photo op, but Trump still doesn’t understand that Puerto Rico is part of the US and that the discussion of lien superiority while Americans are suffering is crass and callous.

The Road To Tax Cuts:  Late last night the Senate passed a budget blueprint that would protect a $1.5 trillion tax cut from a Democratic filibuster, setting the stage for what Trump calls tax reform but what will really be tax cuts for him and his buddies.  The budget passed by a vote of 51 to 49 with all Republicans on board except for Rand Paul who always votes no on anything that negatively effects the deficit.  The Senate blueprint calls for a $1 trillion cut in Medicaid and a $470 billion cut to Medicare spread out over ten years but excludes the additional $200 billion dollars in cuts that was included in the House’s version.  The House is expected to take up the Senate plan as early as next week.  If Speaker Ryan can convince his budget hawks to pass it without making any changes, the Republicans will then be able to move quickly to their favorite subject “tax reform.” They are highly motivated since they desperately need to pass tax cuts as soon as possible to avoid losing the support of the billionaires that fund their campaigns.   

No Tea No Sympathy

Sadness Multiplied : Two weeks ago after four US soldiers died in a deadly ambush in Niger, someone on the National Security Council drafted a statement of sympathy for Trump to deliver but he was too busy tweeting about kneeling football players, upending treaties and dismantling Obamacare to take the time to issue the statement.  Instead he waited until he was asked to explain the events leading to the soldiers’ death and then, instead of responding directly to the question asked, he launched into an attack of previous presidents, claimed he made it a practice to always speak with fallen soldiers’ families and said that he was just biding his time waiting for the perfect time to contact the grieving families. Turns out that the perfect time was the morning after he was caught ignoring them.  We all know that Trump hasn’t mastered the English language and has trouble stringing words into coherent sentences and it’s a given that compassion isn’t one of his skills so it’s not totally surprising that when he finally reached out to the wife of Sgt. Johnson, one of the fallen soldiers, his comment that “he knew what he signed up for” was pretty callous.  He can almost be forgiven for his awkward language, after all calling grieving family members is hardly an easy task, what can’t be forgiven is the way he responded to Congresswoman Frederica Wilson, calling her  a liar when she called him out for his poor choice of words.  He could have apologized for his verbal stumble and tried again, but then again he doesn’t apologize ever so instead he tweeted “Democrat Congresswoman totally fabricated what I said to the wife of a soldier who died in action (and I have proof).” There were other family members present during the Johnson family conference call, the Congresswoman wasn’t lying, and Trump has no tapes proving her “wrong.”  This wasn’t the first call he bungled. Oddly enough earlier in the year he called another grieving father, promising to send him $25,000 after that father told him that his son’s survivor benefits would all go to his estranged wife.  The father was touched by Trump’s offer and was disappointed but not shocked when the money never arrived.  Last night, after a mad scramble at the White House that confirmed the validity of that father’s version of events, a check was put “in the mail.”  A number of other military families never received any call from Trump.  True to form Sarah Huckabee Sanders response was to lash out at Congresswoman Wilson, calling her comments appalling.  Sanders also said that Gold Star father General Kelly is disgusted by the way that the response to soldier deaths has been politicized but failed to acknowledge that it’s Trump who instigated the disgusting discussion.  As to kneeling, NFL Commissioner Goodell said that the “league wants players to stand for the anthem but it won’t be forcing them with any rule changes.”  Trump, of course, found time to respond tweeting “Total disrespect for our great country!”  Just to be clear treating grieving families with disdain is okay, protesting racial injustice by kneeling, not so much.

Squirrelly Sessions:  Attorney General Sessions testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, his first appearance in nine months.  The last time he appeared he was squirrelly, evasive and lied to Senator Al Franken by denying he’d ever had any contacts with Russians. That lie and the subsequent news that he had participated in a few meetings with Russian officials, including then Ambassador Kislyak, resulted in his recusal from the investigation into Russian meddling and collusion and, together with the firing of former FBI Director Comey, triggered the appointment of Special Counsel Mueller.  Yesterday, Sessions was even more evasive.  He refused to answer questions concerning conversations with Trump even though executive privilege wasn’t on the table, he was extra combative with Franken who reminded him of the times he’d lied during his prior testimony and basically left all of the Democrats and many of the committee Republicans dissatisfied with his testimony.  He wouldn’t even confirm whether or not he had been or was scheduled to be “interviewed” by Mueller and when asked how he justified participating in Comey’s firing when he was supposed to be recused from involvement in the Russia investigation he said that Comey was fired because of his handling of the Clinton emails, the lie that Trump rebutted in the infamous Lester Holt interview. When asked if the administration was doing anything to prevent Russian interference in the next election, he admitted that enough wasn’t being done, adding “maybe that’s something we should consider.” No sh-t Sherlock!  Sessions may have no plans to do anything substantive to prevent future election meddling but Democratic Senators Klobuchar and Warner are taking a first step.  They are introducing legislation that would increase the transparency of political ads on social media platforms like Facebook.  Yesterday, Senator McCain became the first Republican to sign on to their “Honest Ads Act.” If they have their way, going forward political ads on Facebook will soon include disclaimers similar to the ones already included on TV, something along the lines of “I am Putin’s bot and he approved this message, dasvidanya suckers.”   

Solution Dissolution:  Tuesday Trump expressed full support for Senators Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray’s Obamacare “fix” legislation, the plan that would have funded insurance subsidies through 2019 in exchange for concessions giving states more program flexibility.  Yesterday, after it dawned on him that the Alexander-Murray solution would stabilize Obamacare and under pressure from Budget Director Mulvaney and Speaker of the House Ryan who both want Obamacare to die freeing up more funding for tax cuts for their billionaire donors, Trump withdrew his support tweeting “I am supportive of Lamar as a person & also of the process, but I can never support bailing out ins co’s who have made a fortune w/ O’Care.”  Lamar who thought he had Trump’s full support was baffled, Murray and her fellow Democrats are furious and Obamacare is again hanging on for dear life.  Trump has proven once more that he is an unreliable negotiating partner.  Like his promise to pass DACA legislation for the Dreamers, his initial approval of the Obamacare fix was fleeting.  Nancy and Chuck are back to playing hardball, if nothing is resolved before December they are expected to demand that Obamacare subsidy payments and DACA legislation be included in the government funding resolution that must be passed by year end to avoid a government shutdown.

Russia, Russia, Russia:  Jared Kushner is a little nervous about what former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus had to say during his all day tete-a-tete with Special Counsel Mueller so he’s added another lawyer to his team.  Charles Harder, his newest lawyer, represented Hulk Hogan in his dispute against Gawker Media, winning more than $100 million in a settlement that wiped out the company.  Shortly after announcing that he planned to sue the New York Times for its article exposing the allegations of sexual assault against Harvey Weinstein, he left Weinstein’s legal team.  It’s not clear which newspaper or media company he plans to sue on behalf of Kushner but it is totally fitting that Trump’s son-in-law is now working with a lawyer fresh off Weinstein’s team.

Other Legalities:  A second judge has halted the most recent iteration of the Trump travel ban.  The Maryland Federal judge said that Trump’s own comments on the campaign trail and on Twitter convinced him that the “directive was akin to an unconstitutional ban on Muslims.”  In another case a Federal Judge ruled that the Trump administration must allow an undocumented teen in its custody to obtain the abortion that she has requested.  The judge, who clearly has never met VP Pence, says that she was “astounded” that the Trump administration was trying to block the procedure.  The teen who is being held in Texas is now 15 weeks pregnant.  She has obtained outside funding so no Federal funds would be used, nevertheless officials at Health and Human Services have been trying to prevent her from obtaining the abortion, going so far as to take her for anti-abortion counseling.  The Justice Department has already appealed the decision, no doubt trying to run out the clock.  Texas prevents abortions after 20 weeks.  Health and Human services may be planning to ban abortions after week zero, there are reports that such a plan exists in draft form deep within the department awaiting the day that Pence steps into Trump’s shoes.