What's Your Superpower?

A Dreamer Reprieve:  The Dreamers got a little more breathing room yesterday when the US Supreme Court refused to grant the administration expedited review of injunctions issued by two district courts.  As a result of the lower court rulings most of DACA has been temporarily reinstated.  The District Courts had conceded that it is lawful for Trump to end the DACA program by executive action but they disagreed with the reasons that had been given.  Though the administration could try stopping DACA now with a more thought out rationale, it’s highly likely that the Department of Justice will let the case follow the typical more time consuming route through to the Supreme Court.  As a result, Dreamers have gained a reprieve for another year or so, the amount of time that the judicial process through the appeals courts and up to the Supreme Court would ordinarily take.  The reprieve is limited to those already in the program, existing Dreamers will be permitted to renew their paperwork but at least for now, no new undocumented “children” will be allowed to apply for Dreamer status.  Though the court decision has extended the Dreamer’s painful state of limbo by taking away the urgency for Congress to come up with an immediate Dreamer solution, it has also removed a bargaining chip from Trump’s quiver, at least for now he can’t hold the Dreamers hostage by threatening to deport them if he doesn’t get his wall fully funded and all of his draconian immigration demands met.  There is still a small possibility that a legislative extension of the DACA program, together with a modest amount of wall funding could get shoehorned into the omnibus spending bill that must be approved by March 23 to avoid another one of those government shutdowns.  Of course, we’ve heard that story before.          

More Gun BS:  If only Trump had been in Parkland when the crazed shooter barreled into the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school.  He asserts that had he been there he would have bravely run into the building blocking the flying bullets with his little hands.  The oh so brave Trump who received five heel spur deferments during the Viet Nam era actually stood in front of the nation’s governors claiming that he, unlike those “cowardly,” armed local sheriffs, would have risked his life to save the students.  No one in the room took him all that seriously, they also don’t expect him to accomplish much on the gun control front.  Trump lunched with NRA leader Wayne LaPierre, who he referred to as a “great patriot,” on Sunday and though he told the assembled governors not to be afraid of NRA pushback, because “they are on our side,” he has already responded to LaPierre’s pressure.  Trump seems to be backing down from his call to raise the age limit for purchasers of semi-automatic weapons, instead focusing his attention on institutionalizing “crazy” people, hardening schools by arming teachers, and a probably illegal regulatory ban of bump stocks, all things that come right from the NRA playbook.  He’s also talking about supporting some form of legislation to modestly improve the national background system for firearm buyers but has not thrown his full support behind any specific plan and at least to date, those other great “patriots,” leaders McConnell and Ryan have not shown a willingness to do anything.  As to his assertion that he would have run into the gunfire, even Sarah Huckabee Sanders knows that it was just some more BS, during her daily press conference she clarified his remarks, saying that he really just meant that he was a “leader.”                      

Human Resources:  Since Trump has already made his former golf caddy, Dan Scavino, the director of social media, his son’s wedding planner, Lynne Patton, the HUD official in charge of housing for the New York region, his gal Friday and pants presser, Hope Hicks, communications director, his son in law, Jared Kushner, chief Middle East negotiator and jefe for all things Mexico among other things, and his daughter, Ivanka, sometime ambassador to South Korea, it really should come as no surprise that he’s now seriously considering appointing his personal pilot as the head of the Federal Aviation Administration.  His pilot, John Dunkin, is superbly qualified for the job if you, like Trump, believe that managing a fleet that consists of a 757, a Cessna business jet and three Sikorsky helicopters makes one qualified to manage the system that oversees tens of millions of air travelers and that will also include the overhaul of the nation’s air traffic control system.  Dunkin’s appointment isn’t a done deal yet, some Republicans are balking, but it is being taken frighteningly seriously, in part, because Trump really wants to make sure that air traffic over Mar a Lago continues to be banned even after he leaves the presidency.  As to Jared Kushner and the tale of his missing security clearance, he appears to still be working on lots of secret stuff, and at least so far, no one will say whether or not he is still allowed to read the super confidential presidential daily briefing. During an interview with NBC’s Peter Alexander, Ivanka, who was in South Korea on the US dime serving as ambassador to the Olympics and South Korea, got really annoyed when Alexander asked her about the many women accusing Trump of sexual harassment, saying that she believes her father because, well, he’s her father and that’s what daughter’s do.  Though her expressionless face was oddly frozen, she seemed to be really angry, when she added that the question was inappropriate to ask any daughter.  The perfectly coifed Ivanka wants to be treated like a real government official except when it comes to questions about her father, then she wants to be treated like his perfect little girl. Trump’s perfect surrogate daughter Hope Hicks is scheduled to appear in front of the House Intelligence Committee today, Hicks probably knows a lot more than she will be willing to say, so it’s likely that she, like several White House denizens before her will try to assert some sort of executive privilege, In any case, we won’t know much about what she has to say until someone leaks something, since her testimony will be given behind closed doors.  Lastly, Melania’s occasional event planner and long term society friend, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, was ceremoniously dumped from her White House perch last night in response to news reports that she may have substantially overpaid herself for the work that she did on the inauguration.  Trump probably doesn’t really care that Wolkoff walked off with an extra million or two, after all the money didn’t come from his pockets, it was donated, but he is very annoyed that she got caught by his nemesis the “fake press” New York Times.