The Wild West

F Troop:  Yesterday, still seething about the news that Secretary of State Tillerson had called him a moron behind his back, Trump tweeted “Rex Tillerson never threatened to resign. This is Fake News put out by @NBCNews. Low news and reporting standards.  No verification from me.”  The attack on NBC followed his earlier demands for a Senate investigation into news outlets for publishing unflattering stories about him, an escalation in his ongoing war against freedom of the press.  Trump’s behind the scenes reaction to Tillerson’s remarks was so vicious that Chief of Staff Kelly had to stay home from Tuesday’s trip to Las Vegas to deal with the fracas surrounding the leaked insult, the insult that Trump claims is False News.  Kelly summoned Tillerson and Defense Secretary Mattis to come up with a strategy to deal with Trump’s fury and “manage the fallout.” VP Pence was fuming as well, about the moron leak and about another item in the NBC story reporting that Pence had expressed concern about UN Ambassador Haley’s competence.  He called Tillerson from Phoenix to read him the riot act and to tell him to clean up his act with regard to the way he treats Trump.  Apparently it’s not just the moron leak that has Trump bent out of shape, he also hates that Tillerson is constantly lecturing him, he can’t stand his body language and he finds his dismissive tone reprehensible, most of all he hates it when Tillerson dismisses his decisions by saying “it’s your deal,” Tillerson’s way of saying do what you want you moron.  After the Pence call and the Kelly meeting, Tillerson gave his orchestrated little speech to the press where he said as many wonderful things about Trump as he could fit into one soundbite. In the meantime, more details about Treasury Secretary Mnuchin’s prolific military plane usage have come to the surface, his costs are up to $700,000 and rising. The Cabinet is crumbling and the “Rexit” clock is ticking.

Have Gun Will Travel:   In response to the Las Vegas massacre consensus is building that something should be done to ban “bump stocks,” the devices used to convert semi-automatic weapons to automatic.  Democrats want to proceed with legislation and a number of Republicans are warming to the idea. Following their usual post mass murder playbook, National Rifle Association leadership initially remained silent but are now weighing in.  The NRA, who forbids bump stock adapted firearm usage at their shooting ranges,  agree that bump stocks should be “subject to additional regulations,” but for them any legislative fix is a step too far.  Instead they are proposing that the Bureau of  Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives regulate bump stock use.  Their suggestion is pointless since the Bureau previously concluded that bump stocks were legal, kicking the decision to ban them to Congress. It’s not that the NRA doesn’t like legislative solutions, they are pressing for legislation allowing concealed weapon reciprocity so that any gun owner with a concealed carry permit could carry their gun in any other state which permits concealed carry and they are also pressing for the legalization of silencers.  Their bottom line is that legislation loosening gun restrictions is good; legislation tightening restrictions, bigly bad. Speaker Ryan, a self-described sportsman who shoots regularly, or so he says when NRA lobbyists with checkbooks are around, said that he didn’t even know what a bump stock was before this week, and appeared open to a legislative solution but his Whip, the recovering Scalise, takes the opposite view saying “A week ago most people didn’t know what a bump stock was, so to think that we’re now all experts and know how to write some, you know, panacea law, it’s fallacy.  Let’s focus on the facts.”  Apparently fifty-nine dead and five hundred plus injured aren’t enough facts for him.  

Unforgiven:  Trump can’t live with the Iran agreement, in part because by limiting its focus to Iran’s nuclear capability and the enrichment of uranium he believes it didn’t go far enough, a fair but moot criticism since Iran is abiding by the agreement we signed, and in part because it’s an Obama era agreement and nothing done by the Obama administration can be forgiven. It’s unclear which failing is the bigger problem for him but his rationale is irrelevant, he is expected to announce that he will “decertify” Iran’s compliance with the nuclear agreement  even though last week Defense Secretary Mattis testified that Iran is in compliance.  Trump’s decision is out of step with his advisors and is opposed by Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany, the other parties to the agreement.  His decision doesn’t necessarily kill the agreement, Iran has said that they believe that the US certification requirement is an internal American matter, they remain focused on the sanctions relief that was part of the deal and may ignore Trump’s actions if the sanctions that were lifted after the deal went into place aren’t re-imposed.  For his part, Trump wants to see the agreement expanded to include provisions limiting missiles, but none of the other parties are interested in seeing the deal reopened.  At best, further limitations would have to be taken up in a separate agreement, something that France’s President Macron has suggested as a possible solution. Last night during a dinner with military leaders Trump said the “it was the calm before the storm” but refused to say whether he was referring to his imminent Iran statement or something even more dire, like a move against North Korea.  Early this morning, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, in recognition of its efforts to avoid nuclear conflict at a time when it seems more likely than ever.  Perhaps the committee is sending a not so subtle message to Trump, to replace his ominous comments, tweeting and pact dismantling with negotiation and diplomacy.

Cowboys and Aliens:  On Wednesday, the Chairs of the Senate Intelligence Committee reported that they couldn’t get former MI6 Agent Christopher Steele to meet with them to discuss the items in his infamous Trump implicating dossier.  It turns out that the stealthy Steele has been cooperating, he has already met with Special Counsel Mueller’s equally low key investigators. The even more stealthy Russians have been up to their nefarious games for a while, in 2015 they stole NSA data including documents and hacking tools from an NSA contractor who had put the information on his computer, a computer using the Kaspersky Labs antivirus software that is believed to have provided a path to steal the tools and documents. The breach was discovered in 2016 but just went public and may explain why the Department of Homeland Security recently barred federal agencies from using the Russia based Kaspersky’s products.  Yesterday, it was also disclosed that General Kelly had to replace his phone after it was “compromised.”  Nothing is safe from alien eyes and ears.