"I Am Not a Racist"

Vile and Vulgar:   Last night, from the luxury and warmth of Mar a Lago, Trump declared “I am not a racist.” His denial was all too reminiscent of Nixon’s infamous speech where he declared “I am not a crook,” all things considered probably not the best president for Trump to emulate.  Trump and his acolytes spent the weekend denying Senator Durbin’s description of the vile and vulgar language that Trump used during last week’s White House immigration meeting, with their statements growing more deceitful as the weekend progressed.  In his first reference to the meeting, Trump tweeted “The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used,” a kind of non-denial denial. Senators Cotton and Perdue first said that they had “no recall” of the hateful remarks but by the time Sunday rolled around their memories had mysteriously sharpened with Perdue, in reference to the sh-thole word, telling ABC’s George Stephanopoulos  "I'm telling you he did not use that word, George, and I'm telling you it's a gross misrepresentation."  Perdue doubled down also attacking the integrity of Senator Durbin, saying that Durbin, who has a pretty good reputation for being a straight shooter, had a history of making up deceitful accusatory remarks. For his part Cotton told CBS’s Face the Nation "I didn't hear it, and I was sitting no further away from Donald Trump than Dick Durbin was." Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen also has a selective memory and/or defective hearing.  She said that though Trump is passionate on the subject of immigration, she denied the sh-t comment and the equally bad Haiti diss, saying she doesn’t remember him using “that exact phrase,” adding that she takes “a little offense to allegations that the president is racist.”  For his part, Lindsey Graham took a step back from his recent bromance with Trump.  He reports that “following comments by the president I said my piece” and though he didn’t come out and verify Durbin’s word for word account, he did express his support for Durbin. Although he wasn’t at the meeting, Senator Flake, another member of the immigration working group, said that he spoke with some of the attendees immediately after they left the White House and what he heard was consistent with Durbin’s description and that the statements weren’t tough, they were abhorrent. Flake, no friend of Trump, is preparing to embark on a speaking tour where he plans to further express his views on Trump, calling him out for his excessive lying and comparing him to Josef Stalin for his attacks on the press.  The US Ambassador to Panama, a former Marine pilot, resigned over Trump’s comments, saying that he could no longer serve this president, more ambassadors would probably follow suit, except that so few of them have actually been appointed so far. One European official said that Trump must have forgotten to engage his brain before speaking.  Over the weekend the government announced that they will resume processing DACA documents for existing recipients pending the outcome of any appeal to last week’s court ruling that said they shouldn’t have stopped in the first place.  That action provides the DACA kids with a temporary respite but does nothing to permanently solve their problem.  On Sunday Trump tweeted DACA is dead and last night from Mar a Lago, with Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy by his side, he blamed the Democrats. A number of Senators from both sides of the aisle have reported that they plan to introduce legislation this week in an attempt to go around Trump and his ardent anti-immigration whisperer Stephen Miller. The country is due to run out of money again on Friday without another continuing resolution and Democrats aren’t feeling all that cooperative about helping Republicans out absent a DACA solution.  As to Trump’s denial that he is a racist, NY Times opinion writer Charles Blow put it simply by saying that Trump is a racist.  We can put that baby to bed.”  Sadly, racism isn’t unique to the US, the girlfriend, now ex-girlfriend of the leader of the UK’s anti-European Union Independence Party, made several disparaging, racist comments about Prince Harry’s fiancée Meghan Markle over the weekend.  Sadly, it may be Martin Luther King Day, but racial hatred is still in vogue.     

Human Error:  Someone in Hawaii pushed the wrong button, or more accurately clicked on the wrong option, and erroneously sent out a warning of an imminent missile attack over the weekend.  With cell phones beeping out dire warning messages, thousands of people ran for cover trying to locate family members for final goodbyes.  Almost immediately, officials knew that the message had been sent in error, however since the cranky system didn’t have an “oops, that was a mistake” message ready to go, it took around thirty eight minutes for them to be able to issue a retraction, an eternity if you’ve been listening to the Little Rocket Man and Trump fight over the size of their red buttons and think that the big one is about to hit.  To their credit, officials in Hawaii, from the Governor on down, took full responsibility for their actions and are now in the process of “fixing” their system.  Trump, who had been playing golf at one of his Florida courses remained strangely silent about the incident.  It’s probably a good thing that he was busy on the back nine, because had he been watching Fox he might have decided to respond to the non-attack attack by hitting his “red” button.  A reassuring message to Hawaii and the rest of the country would probably have been in order, however Trump was too busy with golf and tweeting to do that.  The best we got was a statement wedged in between his racist denial and his attack of the Democrats for their DACA intransigency.  He expressed his appreciation that Hawaiian officials have admitted to their mistake and said that his Homeland Security Officials were now on the case.  Before they run to Hawaii, Homeland Security might want to spend a little time with Trump and his cabinet.  Apparently practicing an emergency response in case of attack was one of the things left undone after Chief of Staff Kelly moved from Homeland to the White House, which may explain why Trump was left on the golf course for a bit while Hawaii, the blue state that Attorney General Sessions calls those islands in the Pacific,  was in a state of panic.     

Politics as Usual:  With the 2018 midterms approaching, most of the focus has been on whether or not Trump’s declining popularity will overcome the rising stock market and strong economy, leading to a large Democratic wave, which may explain how Chelsea Manning, who was convicted of giving military secrets to WikiLeaks back when she was Bradley Manning, managed to quietly put together her campaign plans.  Yesterday, Manning announced that she will be challenging incumbent Senator Ben Cardin in the Democratic primary for Maryland Senator.  Senator Cardin is well respected and fairly popular in Maryland so it doesn’t appear that his nomination is in doubt but he probably could do without the Manning induced headache.  For her part Manning seems to be running as a statement against the status quo rather than as a criticism of Cardin since the progressive Senator is a fairly unlikely target.  Nevertheless, with politics becoming increasingly unpredictable, this is one to watch.  Wonder if this is the outcome that Obama expected when he pardoned Manning for her crimes?   Less unpredictable, but still notable, former Massachusetts Governor Romney has started telling business leaders in Utah that he is running for Orrin Hatch’s soon to be vacated seat.  The only uncertainty remaining is whether Romney will remain a thorn in Trump’s side or whether he join the rest of the Republicans on the complicit side of the aisle.