Borderline Obesity 

Cabinet Deception: If there was any doubt that Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen pledged an oath of loyalty to Trump to secure her job, she dispelled it by joining the long list of Trump enablers willing to lie on his behalf.  Yesterday in a Senate Judiciary hearing that had been scheduled before last week’s sh-thole discourse, Nielsen got drilled about what was said during the memorable sparring session.  She spent an awful lot of time trying to hide behind a flawed memory but tipped her hat when she responded to  Senator “Dickie” Durbin’s questions by first saying that though she’d heard lots of “tough” language she couldn’t remember Trump saying what we all know he said.  Upon further questioning from Durbin, she added that she’d heard Senator Graham use tough language too and that’s when she fell into Durbin’s trap, he pointed out that the tough language she heard Graham utter was Graham throwing Trump’s racists rant back at him.  By the time that Senator Klobuchar got to her, a testy, worn down, Nielsen admitted that it was possible that Trump had uttered the despicable disputed words though she still wouldn’t concede that the population of Norway is substantially white.  For his part Senator Booker, a recent addition to the Judiciary Committee, slammed Nielsen with a passionate speech in which he said that Trump’s words give license to bigotry and hate and that her silence made her complicit. Following Nielsen’s testimony, Senator Durbin said that Trump is not being well served by his staff especially those people at the White House with an irrational view of immigration, by those people he means Stephen Miller and Chief of Staff Kelly.  Senator Graham just called the whole situation a sh-t show adding that he doesn’t know what happened to the Trump who said that he wanted to treat the DACA recipients with love, but he really wants him back.  Graham appears to be coming to the realization that kowtowing to Trump’s demands might get him invited for golf, but it doesn’t get Trump to act cooperatively, especially when it comes to issues near and dear to him like keeping immigrants from places other than Norway as far away as possible. To the extent that she reads the Washington Post, Nielsen might want to take Jennifer Rubin’s observations about her performance to heart.  Rubin, WaPo’s resident Republican albeit a never Trumper, concludes that Nielsen has committed perjury and advises her to consider amending her testimony before she gets into bigly trouble.  While immigration legislation languishes at the hands of the hardliners and xenophobes, the Justice Department is continuing to do its best to kill off what remains of DACA by trying to circumvent the recent ruling by the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals that temporarily reinstated it.  Though still appealing that ruling, the Department is simultaneously going to the Supreme Court seeking direct review of what Trump and Sessions view as the Appeals Court judge’s inappropriate “liberal” ruling.

Double Trouble: Former strategic adviser and one time Trump soul mate Steve Bannon also had a pretty tough day.  While he was “voluntarily” testifying before the House Intelligence Committee, the NY Times reported that he’d been subpoenaed to testify before Special Counsel Mueller’s Grand Jury making him the first member of Trump’s inner circle to be formally called to testify.  Then after he refused to answer any of the Committee’s questions about his time in the White House or during the post-election transition, limiting his responses to questions about the campaign period, Republican leadership grew so frustrated with Bannon’s White House dictated evasiveness that sometime Chairman Devon Nunes issued a subpoena on the spot, fairly notable since Nunes generally toes the Trump party line.  After consulting with the White House, Bannon’s lawyers advised him that despite the House subpoena he still couldn’t answer questions covering the disputed time periods. It is fair to assume that Bannon knows a few things that the White House would prefer not to see disclosed to the extent that they can prevent it.  The House Intelligence Committee hasn’t given up, they plan to resolve their issues with the White House, though they didn’t say how, and have Bannon back in two days for more grilling. As to silencing Bannon, last night the Daily Beast reported that the White House has no plans to attempt to exercise similar executive privilege with regard to testimony that he gives to Mueller’s Grand Jury, so whatever he knows and whatever gets resolved with Congress, Bannon will be required to come clean soon, very soon.

 

Trump’s Health:  Oddly enough, Trump is the picture of health.  It turns out that if you have “superior genes” you can eat quarter pounders, treat yourself to double portions of dessert, swill diet coke, never exercise, have moderately high cholesterol, be “borderline” obese and live forever.  Curiously Trump, who takes a small dose of cholesterol lowering drugs, a larger dose of hair enhancing Propecia and the occasional Ambien, has grown an inch and weighs only 239 pounds.  The less than believable height and weight figures provide one indication that Trump was given the privilege of editing his results just a little.  Nevertheless he’s now on a diet and has promised to engage in some exercise despite his concern that too much physical exertion uses up the daily battery.  At Trump’s request, Ronny Jackson, the White House physician also performed a cognitive assessment. Dr. Jackson reports that Trump received a 30 out of 30 score on the exam, leading him to conclude that despite all appearances to the contrary, Trump’s acuity is just fine, he doesn’t appear to be suffering from early stages of Alzheimer’s.  He also doesn’t appear to be suffering from those annoying bone spurs that kept him out of the Viet Nam war.  The doctor reported that Trump only needs about four to five hours of sleep a night and that he has the unique ability to wake up care free and happy regardless of how upset he was at the end of the prior day.  For some reason, the doctor seemed to have missed that lack of conscience is a characteristic of a sociopath. 

The Legislative Arena:  Fifty senators, including all forty-nine Democrats plus Senator Susan Collins have signed on to sponsor legislation that would restore net neutrality.  To the extent that they can find another willing Republican to join them, they will be able to force a Senate vote.  The House is unlikely to be as receptive to overriding Trump’s elimination of net neutrality, but still it’s a start.  On another front Republican Senator Rubio of Florida and Democratic Senator Van Hollen of Maryland are introducing the “Defending Elections from Threats by Establishing Redlines Act.”  The intent of the act is to send the message to hostile players and countries such as Russia that if they disrupt our elections in any way there will be consequences and by consequences think immediate financial sanctions that will make those imposed by the Magnitsky Act that Putin hates so much seem like a mere slap on the wrist.  As to funding the government, no one is all that sure that Congress will be able to get their act together in time to meet the Friday night deadline so if you have plans to visit the Smithsonian this weekend you might want to come up with a plan B just in case.  

Other News: In a possible harbinger of things to come in the 2018 midterms, a reliably Republican state senate seat in Wisconsin was won by the Democratic candidate in a special election.  Sensing the way the wind is blowing, Tim Pawlenty, the popular former governor of Minnesota, has decided not to run against Senator Tina Smith, Al Franken’s interim replacement, whose seat is up for election in 2018, because he doesn’t think that he could win.  Though Obamacare isn’t dead, it’s suffering, the number of uninsured Americans has increased by three million people since Trump has taken office.