Genius Moves

The Stable Genius:  In an effort to prove his competency and dispel suggestions that he’s a few cards short of a full deck, Trump’s handlers opened yesterday’s bipartisan meeting on immigration issues to the press pool and much to their surprise, allowed the reporters to stick around with their cameras rolling as Trump presided over an animated discussion of solutions to the DACA crisis. Speaking to the cameras, Trump said he wanted a “bill of love” whatever that means and promised to take the heat if the DACA solution was something that his more xenophobic followers found abhorrent.  When Senator Diane Feinstein asked for a clean DACA bill now, one that saved other immigration issues for another time, Trump, much to the surprise and distress of several Republicans, said sure, let’s do DACA we’ll worry about the rest of that stuff later.  Sadly, Trump’s momentary agreement to defer sticky issues like the wall, chain migration, and the visa lottery fell by the wayside so much so that by the end of the day when the White House released minutes of the meeting, they had actually edited out Trump’s compliant response to Senator Feinstein.  As to the wall, Trump hedged a bit saying that he was sure that he could build all that he wants for far less than the estimated $18 billion cost, specifically noting that of course, he wouldn’t build anything where geographic barriers like mountains and rivers already existed.  Later, just to be clear, he tweeted that the wall was still a priority.  The bottom line is that though Trump got to exercise his brain on camera, no progress was made on DACA or any other immigrations issues.  Nevertheless his mental gymnastics freaked out right wing pundit Ann Coulter who reacted to the mere suggestion that DACA could get resolved without the building of the wall by tweeting “Nothing Michael Wolff could say about @realDonaldTrump has hurt him as much as the DACA lovefest right now.”   Late last night, despite Trump’s dithering and Ann Coulter’s ire, the DACA kids got a little more breathing room when a federal judge in San Francisco temporarily suspended Trump's move to phase out the DACA program, agreeing to a request from California to require the Trump administration to continue accepting and processing DACA renewal applications while their lawsuits were being litigated.  The judge ruled that Attorney General Sessions' conclusion that DACA was illegal, the announcement that triggered the start of the DACA death clock, appeared to be "based on a flawed legal premise."  

A Woman Scorned:  Senator Feinstein did her best to dispel any suggestion by younger and more progressive Democrats that she is too staid and hung up on Senator etiquette to be worthy of another term in the Senate yesterday, doing an end run around Senator Grassley, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, by releasing the whole transcript of the testimony by Glenn Simpson, the co-founder of Fusion GPS, the firm that hired former British agent Christopher Steele to investigate Trump.  Her action was payback to Senators Grassley and Graham for their bizarre decision to refer Steele to the FBI for a criminal investigation, a move that was done behind her back and that appeared to be nothing more than a politically motivated gift to Trump.  The Fusion GPS testimony revealed that to Simpson the Trump assignment was just another opposition research project.  He hired former British agent Steele, based on his reputation and experience, directing him to find what he could about Trump’s sketchy entanglements.  In the course of completing his work Steele grew increasingly concerned that Trump was being blackmailed by the Russians so much so that he felt he had a duty to bring his FBI contacts into the loop. When he spoke with the FBI, he learned that they were already investigating Trump’s team because of information that they had obtained from a Trump team member, presumably coffee boy George Papadopoulos.  Despite Grassley and Graham’s efforts to malign Steele, there is nothing in the testimony that indicates that Steele did anything outside the boundaries of normal opposition research and, more significantly, the raw intelligence contained in the dossier that he prepared is largely accurate.  The working relationship between Grassley and Feinstein is now probably irretrievably damaged, leaving the Senate Intelligence Committee as the only Congressional committee still functioning in a bipartisan manner at least for now since it’s fair to assume that Republican Senator Burr, the Intel Committee’s Chairman, is probably being subjected to daily threats from Trump to stop cooperating with his Democratic colleagues.  Special Counsel Mueller’s work grows more important by the day.  

States’ Rights:  Last week, pushing environmental concerns aside, Interior Secretary Zinke announced plans to expand oil drilling in all US coastal waters.  In response governors and senators from virtually every coastal state except Alaska expressed horror at the thought of their pristine shores and waterways being subjected to the risks of drilling operations.  It turns out that it pays to be a state with a Republican governor, particularly one that Trump wants to see run for the Senate against a potentially vulnerable Democratic incumbent.  Yesterday Zinke exempted Florida from the drillable list.  Apparently, according to Trump and Zinke, Florida’s stands alone as the only State with waters and beaches worthy of protection.  Florida’s Governor Scott hasn’t announced plans to run against Senator Bill Nelson, but it’s fair to assume that he is giving the possibility of running serious consideration.  While Florida is benefiting from preferential treatment from Trump, North Carolina’s Republicans aren’t so lucky, they are under the judicial gun. Yesterday a federal court ruled that North Carolina Republicans unconstitutionally gerrymandered congressional districts in 2016 to ensure their “domination of the state’s congressional delegation,” ordering the state’s general assembly to come up with a new map by January 24. This represents the first time that the courts have ruled that partisan, as opposed to racial, gerrymandering is illegal. If North Carolina’s Republicans appeal the decision, it’s highly likely that this case will get combined with two other gerrymandering cases now under consideration at the Supreme Court. It’s anticipated that, influenced by swing justice Anthony Kennedy, the Supreme Court will issue a ruling putting some limits on partisan gerrymandering later in the year.   

Human Resources:  Not only is one time Trump strategist Sloppy Steve Bannon persona non grata at the White House, he is now out at Breitbart.  He’s lost the megaphone for his populist views, and presumably he’s also lost his Washington DC residence since he lived in the Breitbart townhouse.  It’s probably no coincidence that Trump’s decision to attend this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, the type of elitist event that he previously derided was announced the same day that Bannon was given his walking papers.  While Bannon is out of the picture for now, another one of Trump’s cronies, the controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio is taking full advantage of his Trump pardon.  The 85 year old Arpaio announced his plans to run for the Arizona Senate seat being vacated by Jeff Flake, proving that even without Bannon, the Republican party still faces the risk that far right candidates will complicate their efforts to put up mainstream, winnable candidates in the upcoming 2018 elections.  Republicans also lost their most viable candidate in Ohio, when Josh Mandel, the leading contender to run against Ohio’s incumbent Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, pulled his candidacy claiming that he had to redirect his attention to the care of his wife. His sudden departure from that race makes Brown’s reelection in the state that Trump won in 2016 much more likely. With the filing date fast approaching Ohio Republicans are now scurrying to find another viable  candidate, urging Hillbilly Elegy author JD Vance to throw his hat in the ring.  Due to Al Franken’s departure from the Senate and the shift in Senate make-up caused by Doug Jones’ Alabama victory two Democratic seats have opened up on the prestigious Judiciary Committee.  Yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer appointed New Jersey’s Cory Booker and California’s Kamala Harris to Judiciary, adding diversity to the committee and providing two potential Democratic presidential contenders an opportunity to increase their national profiles.  Their platform won’t be as big as Oprah’s but it’s a start.