You Say Hole, I Say House

Hole v House:  On Martin Luther King Day Trump, the man who claims to be the least racist person you will ever meet, made no attempt to follow in the footsteps of prior presidents by engaging in any service activities, instead he stuck with his favorite pastime, golf. With the Friday deadline for funding the government looming, he did find time to blame Democrats for scuttling the DACA talks and putting government funding in jeopardy.  No surprise that his target de jour is now Democratic Senator Durbin who revealed Trump’s racial profanities to the world.  Trump tweeted “Senator Dickie Durbin totally misrepresented what was said at the DACA meeting.  Deals can’t get made when there is not trust! Durbin blew DACA and is hurting our Military.”  That’s Trump’s position and while he is sticking with it, the facts indicate otherwise.  The Washington Post reports that before they went over to the White House for their ill-fated immigration meeting, Senators Graham and “Dickie” Durbin spoke with Trump, ran him through the details of their proposal and received an enthusiastic and positive response.  Someone in the White House must have realized that Trump was ready to make a middle of the road deal so the usual anti-immigrant folks were rounded up to talk him down. That crowd was then kept around for the Graham-Durbin meeting.  It sounds like the someone who orchestrated the counteroffensive, may have been Chief of Staff General Kelly, the former Homeland Security Secretary, who apparently shares Trump’s views on immigration and who warned him that going with a compromise plan would enrage the Trump base.  So much for expecting Kelly to provide a moderating influence to Trump’s worst instincts.  As to what was what said, Trump was so happy about his “vile and vulgar” language that he bragged about it to his rightwing buddies on Friday night, pleased that they shared his views.  Senators Cotton and Perdue, whose recollections of the meeting morphed with time are now justifying their story that they didn’t hear Trump say sh-ithole by saying that he said sh-thouse, a distinction without a difference. Only in Trump land would the latter be better than the former. Regardless of what was said, Pence who, of course has remained silent on the subject, got an earful from a Maryland pastor on Sunday when the straight talking pastor said  “I stand today as your pastor to vehemently denounce and reject any such characterizations of the nations of Africa and of our brothers and sisters in Haiti. And I further say: Whoever made such a statement, and whoever used such a visceral, disrespectful, dehumanizing adjective to characterize the nations of Africa … whoever said it, is wrong. And they ought to be held accountable.”  A red-faced Pence grabbed Mother Karen and slinked away after services.  Soon to be Senator Romney was less wordy but got straight to the point, calling Trump’s words, hole or house, “antithetical to American values.”  As to funding the government, since Republicans don’t have the votes to go it alone and Democrats are facing a lot of pushback about voting for funding absent a DACA resolution, this time around there really could be a government shutdown. Despite the fact that the Republicans control all three branches of government  Trump is already trying to tweet-shift the blame to Dickie and the Dems.  And its only Tuesday. 

Hush Money:  The fight over DACA and Trump’s foul language did accomplish one notable thing, it shifted attention from last week’s story about the $130,000 payment Trump’s fixer and lawyer Michael Cohen allegedly made to porn star Stephanie Clifford, AKA Stormy Daniels to stop her from telling all about her consensual affair with Trump.  The affair took place back when Melania was home taking care of baby Barron.  Stephanie/Stormy had been in negotiation with both ABC’s Good Morning America and the Daily Beast to reveal details of the sordid relationship just before the November 2016 election but she pulled back at the last minute after receiving the Trump payoff. Cohen didn’t directly deny the story, but did respond by saying “These rumors have circulated time and again since 2011. President Trump once again vehemently denies any such occurrence as has Ms. Daniels.”  Adhering to the terms of her non-disclosure agreement, the one signed by alter ego Stormy, Stephanie doesn’t have much to say either.  The Daniels story doesn’t come as much of a surprise, in late October 2016 another porn star, Jessica Drake, said that Trump offered her $10,000 in exchange for sex in 2006 and in November 2016, the WSJ had reported that the National Enquirer paid a Playboy centerfold $150,000 for the exclusive rights for her Trump affair story, a story that the Enquirer, owned by Trump friend David Pecker, never published.  It can’t be a coincidence that the Stephanie/Stormy story is coming to light now, days after Steve Bannon was kicked out of both the Trump orbit and the billionaire Mercer owned Breitbart News.  Bannon, who told Fire and Fury author Michael Wolff that Trump’s lawyers made hundreds of allegations about consensual and not so consensual encounters “go away,” may be reminding Trump just how dangerous he can be when he’s on the outside and feeling scorned.  Later today, Bannon will have more time to talk about what he knows, he is due to testify in front of the House Intelligence Committee.  Bannon, who swore he’d never need a lawyer, has hired one, possibly an indication that he expects to also spend some time on Mueller’s hot seat.  Hope Hicks, Trump’s gal Friday and surrogate daughter, who Wolff says is one of the people who knows too much about almost everything, is scheduled to testify later in the week.      

More Fake News:  Up until now, the Rupert Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal has pretty much ceded the Trump turf to the Washington Post and the New York Times, but now the paper appears to be playing catchup.  Over the weekend the WSJ was in a “truth off” fight with Trump who tried to deny that he had said he was friends with Kim Jong Un during the interview he gave the WSJ last week when he thought that they would only say nice things about him.   Trump tweeted “The Wall Street Journal stated falsely that I said to them “I have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un” (of N. Korea). Obviously I didn’t say that. I said “I’d have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un,” a big difference. Fortunately we now record conversations with reporters...”  Yes, there was a tape, actually two tapes, the Wall Street Journal kept a copy too.  The  Journal provided its copy to an expert who confirmed the accuracy of their reporting.  The WSJ is on a role, yesterday they reported that the FBI warned Ivanka and Jared Kushner to be wary of their friendship with Wendy Deng Murdoch, Rupert’s ex-wife, who also is one of Ivanka’s BFFs. Apparently, the FBI is concerned that Wendy, whose marriage to Murdoch may or may not have broken up because of an affair she may or may not have had with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, was using her Kushner connections to advocate for Chinese interests in Washington.  Though this has nothing to do with the Russia collusion investigation, it does provide another example of how foreign powers are exploiting Trump family idiocy and vanity.  Trump’s Fake Press award show is still on the schedule for tomorrow.  The WSJ may have earned themselves a prize or two. 

One more correction, this time from me, though Nixon was defending himself from allegations of financial improprieties in his Eisenhower era Checkers speech, it wasn’t until Watergate that he uttered the words “I am not a crook.”