Coals to Newcastle

Dissing Eliot Ness:  As far as Trump goes the concept of good will to all only goes so far and certainly doesn’t apply to the FBI, the intelligence agency that he continues to disparage as part of his effort to discount the Mueller Russia investigation.  He began his holiday weekend by throwing shade at two of his FBI foes, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and the recently reassigned Chief Counsel James Baker.  He reacted disingenuously to Baker’s reassignment, tweeting “Wow, ‘FBI lawyer James Baker reassigned,“ saving his harshest tweets for McCabe.  First he insinuated that McCabe’s investigatory actions were tainted, tweeting that he was “the man in charge, along with leakin’ James Comey, of the Phony Hillary Clinton investigation (including her 33,000 illegally deleted emails) be given $700,000 for wife’s campaign by Clinton Puppets during investigation?” By Clinton puppet he was referring to Virginia’s outgoing governor Terry McAuliffe whose political organization legally contributed around $500,000 to McCabe’s wife when she ran for a seat in the Virginia state senate during the 2015 election cycle.  McCabe wasn’t assigned to work on the Clinton email case until well after that election and only after an ethics review concluded that he had no conflict of interest.  Later, after learning that McCabe plans to retire in March once he qualifies for his FBI pension, a plan that he made months ago, Trump giddily tweeted that McCabe is “racing the clock to retire with full benefits, 90 days to go?!!!” If Trump had any sense he’d realize that another former senior government official on the outside, is not necessarily a good thing for him. He may have missed former Acting Attorney General Sally Yate’s not so subtle tweet, a reaction to his inappropriate Christmas attacks on McCabe and Baker, where she said that the Secret Service should be “on the lookout for three ghosts visiting Mar a Lago.” FBI Director Wray continues to voice support for both Baker and McCabe but now is in the difficult position of looking like he is kowtowing to Trump’s wishes to shorten the Russia investigation and only time will tell whether Wray is on team Trump or aligned with the interests of the country. For now his assertions that the management changes at the FBI have nothing to do with Trump’s wishes aren’t being helped by Jay Sekulow, Trump’s legal spokesman.  Sekulow told the Wall Street Journal that the investigation into Trump’s actions will be ending soon adding “I know we, collectively, the lawyers, are looking forward to an expeditious wrapping up of this matter.” Special Counsel Mueller’s team was too busy expanding their investigation to respond but a number of former Justice officials have jumped to his and the FBI’s defense.  Twenty-two former U.S. attorneys, who served under presidents from Nixon through Obama, say it is “critical” to the “interests of justice and public trust to ensure that those charged with conducting complex investigations are allowed to do their jobs free from interference or fear of reprisal.”

Bigots R Us: On Saturday, the NY Times reported that last Spring, infuriated that his attempts to cut off “undesirable” immigrants and visitors weren’t going according to plan,  Trump launched into a verbal tirade, asserting that all  Haitians entering the US had AIDS, that all visiting Nigerians wouldn’t leave because they’d never want to go back to their “huts,” and that any and all Afghans, even the ones who’d risked their lives to help our soldiers, were terrorists.  Together with little Stevie Miller, his fellow xenophobe, he blasted Secretary of State Tillerson for letting the State Department give any of these people of color or Muslims visas, even for temporary visits.  Others present at the meeting included Chief of Staff Kelly, who was then head of Homeland Security, Security Adviser McMaster and the current head of Homeland, Kirstjen Nielsen.  The NY Times reported that Trump’s response reflected his “visceral response” to immigration, in other words it provides further evidence that Trump, the man who equates Nazis and KKK members with civil rights protesters, is a bigot who wants to rid the country of Muslims and would really like to limit immigration, to the extent that he allows any immigration, to white Europeans.  None of this is wildly surprising to anyone who has followed his career or who has been listening to Trump over the past year, nevertheless his mouthpiece, Huckabee Sanders, the wind up doll programmed to lie on a moment’s notice, denied the conversation had ever taken place saying that all those present had no recollection of those words.  Of course her statement didn’t apply to any of the former White House staff members, many of them recovering Trump cult members, who seem to have no problem revealing all to the press.  Three of them were the NY Times’ “unnamed sources.”  In any case, Trump’s Muslim Travel ban remains largely in effect pending a review by the Supreme Court, although still another court ruling, again from the 9th circuit court said that Trump has gone “beyond the immigration powers that he has, and has ignored the law in issuing this discriminatory order."  For his part, Senator Jeff Flake, all but acknowledged Trump’s racist tendencies this weekend calling out the Republican party for its lack of diversity saying  "When you look at some of the audiences cheering for Republicans, sometimes, you look out there and you say, those are the spasms of a dying party. When you look at the lack of diversity, sometimes, and it depends on where you are, obviously, but by and large, we're appealing to older white men and there are just a limited number of them, and anger and resentment are not a governing philosophy. Sooner or later the voters will figure out, and I think they are and have, that we've got to have something else.”  A great observation from Flake, but sadly his views may not be all that widespread among Republicans. He isn’t seeking reelection in 2018 because he has no chance of winning the Republican nomination in his home state of Arizona.

International Update:  Despite the UN’s vote against the US over Jerusalem, the UN and the US are increasingly in the same place when it comes to North Korea as evidenced by the latest round of very harsh sanctions that were approved last week. In addition to imposing tighter trade restrictions, the newest round of sanctions calls for North Korean foreign workers to be sent home over the next 24 months, depriving Pyongyang of much needed hard currency.  Recent reports indicate that even before last week’s UN actions, China had gotten with the program, they exported no oil to North Korea and imported no iron ore, coal or lead during November. North Korea again called the sanctions an act of war, a statement that our military takes seriously.  General Robert Neller, the commander of the Marines, told his troops to get ready to fight because there is a war coming and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told soldiers at Fort Bragg that there is a “storm cloud gathering over the Korean peninsula.” Yesterday Russia’s Sergey Lavrov called for the US and North Korea to start talking and has offered to intermediate, for whatever that’s worth. In other news, one country has now joined the US in recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.  Guatemala plans to move their embassy and, the very industrious Nikki Haley announced that as a result of her input, the UN operating budget will decrease by $218 million next year.  

Like Sending Coals to Newcastle:  Michael Bloomberg, the real billionaire who isn’t president, criticized the newly passed tax legislation saying that “we’re not going to have money to do for infrastructure. We’re not going to have any money to improve our school systems, which are falling apart. We’re not going to do any of these things. And it exacerbates the income inequality problem at the same time. It’s really hard to see how you could call this bill reform. It has no reforms in it whatsoever. So, if you had tax breaks before, basically, you still have them. You’re just going to have a lower tax rate for some people, mainly for the very wealthy, and those people are just going to have a bigger percentage of the pie.”  One less eloquent California resident expressed his dismay over the tax bill by sending a Christmas present consisting of a horse manure to Treasury Secretary Mnuchin’s Beverly Hills house, something a little like sending coal to Newcastle or snow to Eskimos.  Shortly afterwards, the initially anonymous gift giver came forward, he is a psychologist who works for the LA Department of Mental Health.  It’s not clear what his action does for his employment prospects but it did add needed levity to a lot of other people’s holidays.