Tinderbox

Put a Cork On It:  Over the weekend Senator Corker, the Trump Truth Teller, said that most of his colleagues agreed with his assessment that Trump is reckless, unqualified and has no business being in the White House, unless the promotion of Trump business interests and the reduction of his taxes counts. Sadly, most of Corker’s House and Senate colleagues are still putting their own political careers ahead of concern for the country. Senate Majority Leader McConnell, who has been riding the Trump roller coaster to nowhere all year, called Senator Corker  “a valuable member of the Senate Republican caucus” adding “he’s also on the Budget Committee and a particularly important player as we move to the floor on the budget next week.”  Senator Lamar Alexander said “I work with Bob Corker nearly every day.  He is a terrific US Senator.”  Ohio’s Rob Portman weighed in with a few Corker supporting comments too but none of these oblique comments directly criticize Trump.  For his part, Senator Lindsey Graham a frequent Trump critic remained silent instead spending his Columbus Day playing a round of golf with Trump which he “really enjoyed.”  VP Pence, who spent well over $100,000 of tax payer money on his Trump planned quick football game exit stunt, weighed in by saying “no amount of criticism at home can diminish Trump’s accomplishments on the international stage.”  In case there was any doubt, religious fanatic Pence was a perfect choice for vice president.  Except for his time on the links, Trump remains isolated, there are even some rumors that his chief of staff, General Kelly is burning out, planning to follow Rex Tillerson out the door next year and expectations are that economic advisor Gary Cohn will leave moments after any tax reform or cuts are passed or whenever it appears that they are doomed. It’s not just Trump’s impulsive, irrational behavior that is problematic, his strategy of appealing to his base by restricting access to birth control, complaining about football players, and tightening immigration restrictions isn’t do anything to enhance his legislative ambitions.  His sometime strategist and good friend, Steve Bannon, who weighed in on the Corker comments by telling Fox News that if the “disgraced” Corker has any honor he should resign immediately, announced last night that he is supporting primary challengers against every Republican Senator running for reelection in 2018 except for Ted Cruz.  How fitting that Ted Cruz, who Al Franken says is the most hated guy in the Senate, is the one candidate that Bannon wants to leave in place.  Emboldened by his work helping disgraced former judge Roy Moore win the Republican nomination for Alabama Senator, Bannon is lining up behind a number of very right wing candidates including billionaire mercenary Erik Prince,  Health Secretary’s Betsy DeVos brother, who is considering running for Wyoming Senator Barrasso’s seat.  To get Bannon’s backing, candidates must be right wing nut jobs and promise to vote against Mitch McConnell’s reappointment as Majority Leader. To the extent his candidates aren’t billionaires, Bannon plans to throw money their way from the pool of funds provided by his good friends, the ultra-right wing Mercer family.  While Bannon tries to reshape the Senate in his image, Trump will face the challenge of trying to get Bannon’s targets to support his legislative priorities while enduring tough primary fights.  Good luck with that.

Back to Coal:  Saying that Obama had “departed from regulatory norms” by trying to reduce coal generated carbon dioxide emissions, EPA head Scott Pruitt announced that the “war against coal is over,” he will be signing a proposed rule to roll back the Obama Clean Power Plan.  He made that announcement in Hazard, Kentucky, no kidding, he announced it was okay to pollute the air in a city named hazard. Environmental groups and several states are expected to challenge the repeal in court.  Industry groups are happy but would have preferred a more modest proposal because they’d rather not see the rollback get mired in the courts but climate science denier Pruitt is very ambitious, all-in on getting rid of any regulation that limit emissions, besides he wants to solidify his place in Trump’s heart to compensate for his excessive flight expenditures.  In response to the Pruitt announcement, Mike Bloomberg, the real billionaire who should be president tweeted “The EPA can repeal the Clean Power Plan but not the laws of economics.  This won’t revive coal or stop the US from reaching our Paris goal.” 

International Complications: Speaking at an Army Convention in Washington,  Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley said that the US is in a bind with regard to North Korea, there are “no risk free options” nor is there an “indefinite amount of time to solve” the problem, “a full blown war will be horrific” and North Korea gaining possession of an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking the US would be similarly unacceptable.  Secretary of Defense Mattis then tried to soften the message by reiterating that diplomacy is the leading element of US strategy towards North Korea.  Given his bombastic statements it’s not clear that Trump goes along with that strategy, his crazy tweets and bad cop routine is sounding more and more like drums of war.  In any case Mattis said that the military would continue to prepare options should diplomacy fail, before adding, “Now what does the future hold? Neither you nor I could say.”  He also made a passing comment about Iran without directly mentioning it by name when he said “one state sponsor of terror in the Mideast cannot hide behind its nation-state status while in effect it is actually a destabilizing revolutionary regime.”  Although last week he said that Iran was meeting the terms of the multi-party nuclear agreement and the US should stay in it, yesterday he didn’t mention it but he did say that the “international situation is the most complex and demanding” that he has ever seen in his four decades of service,  the look on his face and his furrowed brow, seemed to be crying out for sane presidential leadership.    

Unsocial Media:  Google is joining Facebook and Twitter in the Russian spotlight.  They’ve discovered that Russian operatives spent tens of thousands of dollars on ads on its YouTube, Gmail and Google Search products in an effort to meddle in the 2016 elections.  The ads were bought by still another group of Kremlin mischief makers.  Regardless of how the investigation into Russian meddling turns out it is highly likely that some type of legislation will be passed requiring all of the social media companies to change their business practices subjecting them to the same type of legal requirements imposed on traditional media advertisements.  Going forward, expect to see statements like I am Vladimir Putin and I paid for this message through a false bot illegally located somewhere in middle America.