Amber Alert

Maybe Yes, Maybe No:  The Singapore Summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un appears to be on again, at least for now.  Although Trump cited Kim’s nasty comments about Pence as well as the other hostile statements emanating from the hermit kingdom as the primary reason that he had sent the “Dear John” letter pulling out of the summit, it’s likely that  Trump’s decision was based more on the fact that the North Koreans had stood up a US advance team, leaving them twiddling their thumbs in Singapore for three days.  Regardless of the reason, Trump’s decision to pull out sent South Korean President Moon, who has staked his reputation on advancing peace with his North Korean neighbors, into panic mode.  His efforts to revive summit preparation appears to be working so much so that over the weekend Trump sent teams to both Singapore and North Korea to discuss logistics and to lay the groundwork for points of discussion.  They appear to be trying to come up with a definition of denuclearization that would work for both sides, which could represent an admission by Trump that complete denuclearization is probably really off the table.  A senior North Korean intelligence officer is on his way to Washington for further discussions and the US has delayed the implementation of a new round of sanctions against North Korean interests that had been announced.  For his part, although he’s still remaining coy about plans and timetables, Trump seems more motivated than ever to proceed with the summit.  Although he still has his eye on that Nobel prize, he’s appears to be equally focused on coming up with a publicly acceptable excuse for deferring or indefinitely postponing any sit down with his nemesis, Special Counsel Mueller.  To that end, the loquacious Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s current spokesperson, again made it clear that it would be inappropriate for Trump to spend any time preparing for or sitting with Mueller, especially if that time interfered with his Korean preparation, to the extent he really plans to do any, or more importantly his time on the greens.  With regard to that problematic Russia thing, Trump continued his tweet attack again harping on what he is still calling “Spygate,” again asserting that the Obama administration inserted a spy into his campaign, a move that he says, makes Watergate look like a blip on the radar screen and delegitimizes the basis for the whole Mueller investigation.  In one tweet he went so far as to say that “With Spies, or ‘Informants’ as the Democrats like to call them because it sounds less sinister (but it’s not), all over my campaign, even from a very early date, why didn’t the crooked highest levels of the FBI or ‘Justice’ contact me to tell me of the phony Russia problem?”  Of course, the FBI did alert him early in the campaign, warning him to look out for Russian’s bearing campaign gifts and requesting that his campaign call in immediately if any of those wily Boris or Natashas showed up at the Trump Tower entrance.  As we know, instead of barring their entrance and calling the Feds, the Trumpsters welcomed them in. Maybe one or more Trumpsters failed to realize that a Natalia counted as a Natasha?   In what may be an admission that Trump’s team did collude, Giuliani is now saying that efforts to discredit the Mueller investigation, including the “Spygate” accusations are part of a public relations campaign aimed at staving off impeachment.  He told CNN’s State of the Union that “because eventually the decision here is going to be impeach or not impeach” its important to get out there and convince Trump’s base and anyone else who’s on the fence that the investigation is just another one of those Obama-Hillary plots to delegitimize Trump’s election victory.  Trump and his team hope that turning the election into a referendum on impeachment will energize Republican voters who might otherwise stay home to show up and vote for Republican candidates in November. For their part, Democratic leadership is trying to downplay that narrative because their best shot at achieving a “blue wave” in November relies on Democratic voter enthusiasm outweighing Republican impeachment fears.  Republicans lost another incumbent this weekend when Virginia Republican Tom Garrett, a Freedom Caucus member, pulled out of his race saying that as everyone who knows him knows he is an alcoholic who needs to get his life in order.  To retake Congress, Democrats will need all the help they can get, various polls show that the Republican “impeachment strategy” is working, the likelihood of a huge Democratic wave may be vaporating.   

Amber Alert:  The other big story of the weekend focused on the 1475 immigrant kids who appear to be missing.   For the most part, that number reflects unaccompanied minors who crossed the Mexican-US border illegally, were scooped up by INS and delivered to the Department of Health and Human services who then placed them in foster homes before losing track of them.   It’s likely that most of those children are okay, possibly with relatives who are avoiding prying government eyes but it’s also likely that some of them are being mistreated, trafficked, or worse.  In any case, the report that they are missing from the system has raised quite a few eyebrows particularly as it follows recent news that Homeland Security is now separating minors from the parents at the border.  Many of those being separated are families, primarily mothers and children presenting themselves as refugees seeking protection from violence at home. For the most part these are women and children coming from countries other than Mexico.  In an attempt to deflect criticism for the implementation of this policy, Trump again lashed out at his predecessor and the Democrats with the curious all-encompassing tweet:  “Put pressure on the Democrats to end the horrible law that separates children from there parents once they cross the Border into the U.S. Catch and Release, Lottery and Chain must also go with it and we MUST continue building the WALL! DEMOCRATS ARE PROTECTING MS-13 THUGS.” No where in his tweet does he mention that under his direction Attorney General Sessions announced a "zero tolerance" approach to illegal border crossings last month by saying "If you are smuggling a child then we will prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you as required by law" a policy that the Kirstjen Nielsen led Homeland Security Department is  now following.  It’s not that Trump cares much about the separation of children from mothers, he just didn’t anticipate that  videos of young children being pulled from their mother’s arms might go viral.  As to efforts to blame Obama and the Democrats, the law that Trump appears to be referencing bans the incarceration of immigrant children. During the Obama era, to avoid violating that law, mothers with children were released under their own recognizance. Sessions and by extension Trump have concluded that such a policy is too lenient because it “encourages illegal immigration” so their solution is the separation of children from moms.  And now they are facing the consequences of their callousness, at least until Trump comes up with a new more outrageous diversion.

Notable Lying:  Before plans for the Singapore Summit got back on track, or what appears to be back on track, the White House Communications team held an off the record meeting with reporters to discuss the ongoing efforts to revive the Summit.  Following the meeting, which was attended by representatives of a number of news outlets, the NY Times published a story quoting a statement made by one of the White House officials who spoke and since it was an off the record meeting they cited the source as off the record.  Apparently Trump wasn’t all that happy with what his official had to say so he lashed out at the NY Times by tweet attacking the “failing” paper for quoting a “‘a senior White House official,’ who doesn’t exist, as saying ‘even if the meeting were reinstated, holding it on June 12 would be impossible, given the lack of time and the amount of planning needed.’ WRONG AGAIN! Use real people, not phony sources.”  As to that “phony” report and source later in the day the White House released a transcript of the meeting including the so called questionable remark.  The bottom line, Trump lies, he lies all the time, so much so that it seems almost ordinary, accept that it’s not.  Sadly, it is effective.