Evil, Evil, Evil

Ban the Trucks:  The creep who killed twenty-six people in Texas was also a wife beating, child abuser who had been convicted of domestic assault at a court martial hearing and had been released from the Air Force on a bad conduct discharge.  He was able to purchase his arsenal of weapons because the Air Force failed to enter his domestic violence record in the federal data base.  During a press conference in Korea, when asked a question about why he was unwilling to apply extreme vetting to gun purchasers, vetting that might not have worked here due to the Air Force blunder, Trump responded with the usual canned remarks.  First he said that now wasn’t the time to discuss gun control, then he said that it was a good thing that others near the Texas church had guns to stop the rampage, insisting that otherwise hundreds more would have been killed, an assertion that makes no sense since there weren’t hundreds more people hanging out in the sparsely populated town.  He then said that Chicago’s gun regulations do little to keep its murder rate down because Chicago’s problems are his answer to every question about gun regulations.  Senator Cruz added another component to the gun discussion, saying you can’t stop people who want to do “evil, evil, evil” and questioning whether trucks should be banned because of the weaponized vehicle used in last week’s NYC terrorist attack.  Unlike Trump and Cruz, NYC has actually done something to prevent future vehicle onslaughts, the city has already started putting more traffic barricades in place. For their part, Congress won’t even take action against the bump stocks used in Las Vegas but are doing their best to defund mental health care.  Trump remains all in on guns and gun ownership, after all the NRA is one of his biggest supporters, however at least, for the moment, he’s toned down his remarks about North Korea.  Facing unhappy South Korean protesters and perhaps because he’s actually seeing how close Seoul is to the DMZ and the North Korea border, he’s been speaking in slightly more measured tones about the “little rocket man” with the very big guns.    

Election Day is Here: The polls are open in Virginia where voters get to choose between Ed Gillespie, a previously mainstream Republican insider and lobbyist AKA swamp denizen and Ralph Northam, the dull pediatrician who is also the current Lt. Governor.  Though he’s avoided aligning himself with Trump, to gin up enthusiasm among Virginia’s rural Trump supporting base, Gillespie has run an increasingly nasty Trump-like campaign, painting the milquetoasty Northam as a gun banning supporter of the MS-13 gang who will banish all of the confederate statues to some long hidden rock quarry.  Gillespie’s strategy appears to be working well, polls indicate that Northam’s lead, in a state that Hillary won by five points, has grown so razor thin that the race is now considered a toss-up.  Phil Murphy, NJ’s progressive Democratic contender is expected to trounce Republican Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno, who also has launched a few Trumpy attack ads over the past few days in a desperate last ditch effort to gain more votes.  Maine, the home of Senator Susan Collins, is having a referendum on whether or not to sign up for the Obamacare Medicaid expansion, an option that the state’s Republican governor Paul LePage has vetoed five times even though the residents of his rural state could use the assistance.  New York City residents have the option of voting to reelect Mayor Bill Di Blasio, who has been under attack for his pay to play antics or a relatively unknown Republican Nicole Malliotakis or a few other fringe candidates.  Di Blasio is expected to win easily, assuming his largely unenthusiastic voters show up.  New York State voters are being asked to vote on a proposition for a constitutional convention, an effort that supporters bill as an opportunity to fix NY’s notoriously corrupt and inept state legislature but that opponents fear because of their very real concerns that the rewrite of the constitution would give upstate conservatives an opportunity to write new provisions into the state constitution that would diminish reproductive rights and move social progress to the right.  

Russia, Russia, Russia:  Yesterday, the House Intelligence Committee released the transcript of quirky former campaign advisor Carter Page’s six hours of rambling testimony.  Despite his earlier assertions that he didn’t meet with any government officials during his Russia trip, when confronted with a trail of emails, Page admitted that he met with members of Russia’s presidential administration and with the head of investor relations at Rosneft, the state owned oil company. Before heading to Russia, he had told several members of the Trump team including then campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, long term Trump aid and now Communications Director Hope Hicks, and JD Gordon, who ran the Trump campaign foreign advisors committee, about his plans.   Following the trip he wrote JD Gordon, that he had gained “incredible insights and outreach from a few Russian legislators and senior members of the presidential administration here."  His memo about his meetings confirms another one of the assertions contained in the infamous Steele dossier.  Don Jr is also getting some unwanted attention.  To the extent that she can be believed, Russian lawyer and Putin crony, Natalia  Veselnitskaya, says that he offered a quid pro quo at their meeting by suggesting that in exchange for good Hillary dirt the Trump administration, assuming it won, would seriously consider watering down or getting rid of the Magitsky legislation that Putin and his oligarchs hate so much.   Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross tried to beat back accusations that he had been less than forthcoming about his ownership interest in Navigator, the energy company with Russian connections.  He argued that he had been clear about his plan to hold on to his shares, but failed to explain why he hadn’t mentioned the Russian connection.  The focus on Navigator has brought another Trump administration aid into the spotlight.  Wendy Teramoto, a senior Mills aide, served on Navigator’s board while also being responsible for the negotiation of a new trade deal to increase natural gas shipping, another one of those bigly conflicts of interest. Although Ross previously publicly complimented Teramoto for her accomplishment, the party line now is that she didn’t really do much, she was just another coffee server.  Ross’ spokesperson said that “none of this is a problem because Ross has recused himself from matters involving trans-oceanic shipping vessels and supports the Trump administration’s sanctions against Russian entities.”  So the guy responsible for commerce is now recused from lots of commerce, only in Trumpland does that make any sense.

Tax Reform:  With Trump away and out of tweet range, Congress is working on modifying their tax reform legislation with the help of VP Pence who has otherwise been keeping a low profile.  Among other changes, the House is considering increasing the deductible amount for new mortgage loans from $500,000 to $750,000 in order to gain the support of some unhappy blue state Republicans.  To raise some additional revenues and satisfy budget hawks, they are also considering raising the tax rate for a portion of hedge fund carried interest.  The elimination of the Obamacare individual mandate is also being discussed though, at least in that regard Trump might be giving them some help.  To the extent that Congress doesn’t eliminate the mandate themselves, the White House is considering an executive order that would effectively gut the mandate.  Eliminating the mandate would result in far more people going without insurance, freeing up hundreds of million dollars of health care aid for tax cuts.  Another backdoor effort to dismantle Obamacare.