Hamburgers

Racial Politics:  Yesterday while Starbucks stores across the country were preparing to close for racial bias training, Roseanne Barr decided to weigh in on race relations in America with a few tweets of her own.  She attacked George Soros, the Hungarian born Jewish financier, by calling the WWII survivor a Nazi, she attacked Chelsea Clinton, suggesting that she was married to one of “that Nazi” Soros’ nephews, and then capped off her tirade by going after former Obama aide Valerie Jarett by comparing her to an ape.  No one, least of all ABC, should have been all that surprised by Barr’s tweets, they were totally in character.  Still it is commendable that ABC management reacted swiftly, mostly to the Jarett tweet, by ditching Roseanne and her highly rated program, the one they revived in an effort to appeal to Trump’s base.  Stations rebroadcasting old Roseanne episodes followed suit.   As to that base, though Trump remained silent, refusing to answer questions about Barr’s anti-Semitic and racist tweets, a number of his supporters, including  current and former Fox pundits  Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, weighed in against Barr’s rants and in support of ABC’s action. For his part Trump Jr expressed his approval of Barr and her views by retweeting out her tweets early in the day.  Taking a page from his father’s book, he later called reports of his retweets “fake news” even though they weren’t.  For his part Trump Sr flew off to Tennessee to a political rally in support of Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, the Republican candidate running to replace retiring Senator Corker in the upcoming 2018 election.  He stuck to his usual themes and lies.  He attacked the Russia investigation calling “Spygate” the worst scandal ever,  bragged about his much coveted Mexico wall, saying that in the end they will pay for it, a statement that was quickly slapped back by Mexico President Pena Nieto who tweeted in real time  “NO. Mexico will NEVER pay for a wall. Not now, not ever.”   He attacked Blackburn’s Democratic opponent, former Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen by saying that he “never heard of this guy, who is he? Who is he?” before then saying that “he's an absolute, total tool of Chuck -- of Chuck Schumer. He's a tool of Chuck Schumer and of course the MS-13 lover Nancy Pelosi." In other domestic news, Missouri Governor Greitens, who has been accused of some really outrageous sexually improprieties, finally announced that he will be stepping down shortly, news that is making Republicans everywhere much happier.  They are hoping to knock out Missouri’s Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, one of the more vulnerable Democrats up for reelection in the fall, and the overhang from the Greitens scandal was making their job more difficult.       

The Russian Front:  While Trump was rallying in Tennessee, the NY Times reported that his nemesis Special Counsel Mueller is focusing on Trump’s efforts to convince Attorney General Sessions to “unrecuse” from the Russia investigation.  Based on interviews with a number of former and current Trump staffers, the people who are always willing to talk off the record to anyone and everyone from the press, the NY Times reports that in March 2017 while working on one of the iterations of the Muslim travel ban Sessions flew down to Mar a Lago because he needed immediate input from Trump who was so upset with him over his recusal from the Russia investigation that he wouldn’t return his calls.  Once he arrived  at what Trump likes to call his Winter White House, Sessions couldn’t get Trump to focus on the travel ban because all Trump wanted to do was press him to change his mind about his recusal from anything having to do with the Russia investigation.  Sessions, who had recused himself in the first place after being told by Justice officials that he had to recuse himself because of his involvement in the Trump campaign and his meeting with Russian Ambassador Kislyak, the one that he had forgotten to mention to the Senate during his confirmation hearing, stood firm, staying recused essentially because he had no choice. Despite their failure to say much if anything publicly, the NY Times reports that Republican leaders in the Senate have made it clear to Trump that he has to stop directing aides to fire Sessions.  As far as they are concerned, Trump is stuck with Sessions, if he tries to replace him the Senators have told him that they won’t confirm a replacement. For the most part Republicans have also ignored or stayed quiet about Trump’s “Spygate” claims.  However, yesterday Trey Gowdy, who together with Trump toady Devon Nunes participated in last week’s inappropriate document “reveal” meeting with the FBI and Justice said that he saw nothing in the meeting that would lead him to believe that the FBI acted inappropriately by asking an informant to assist in their investigation of the activities of Trump campaign aides Page, Papadopoulos and Clovis.  He said "I am even more convinced that the FBI did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got.”  He went on to say that at least for now Trump is not a subject of the investigation.  He said this on Fox News, the station that serves as Trump’s official mouthpiece.  Gowdy, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, is another one of those Republicans not seeking reelection in November.  Despite Gowdy’s report that he saw nothing inappropriate, Rudy Giuliani insists that Trump will not sit for an interview with Mueller unless he, Rudy and the rest of the Trump legal team get to look at the evidence that Gowdy, Nunes and the Gang of Eight got to see last week.      

Hold the Fries:  Political turmoil in Italy drove the stock markets down yesterday.  The drop was due to concerns that when an Italian government is finally formed it will be made up of “euroskeptic” parties, increasing the chance that Italy withdraws from the Euro currency something that would be very destabilizing for the currency, for the rest of Europe and the markets.  Adding to market turbulence, the Trump administration ramped up the trade war with China by announcing tariffs on $50 billion worth of goods and by placing limitations on investments in high tech industries.  The China news was surprising because just last week Treasury Secretary Mnuchin announced that the trade war was on hold and because, despite Congressional pushback,  Trump continues to press for the easing of sanctions on ZTE, the Chinese telecom company that has a history of stealing intellectual property, creating phones that spy on users and doing business with North Korea and Iran.  Commerce Secretary Wilbur Mills is on his way to China for trade discussions making it possible that the tariff announcement is part of a bargaining strategy but that theory didn’t stop the markets from slumping. Regardless of what happens, Ivanka Trump and her businesses are coming out ahead, more of her patents have been approved by the Chinese government because she’s Ivanka and you are not. As to North Korea, the march towards the June 12 Summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un continues even though the two sides remain miles apart on a definition of denuclearization, a chasm that was highlighted by yesterday’s report that a recent CIA analysis of North Korea’s intentions concluded that Kim Jong Un has no intention of giving up his nukes but would be willing to permit the opening of a US hamburger outpost in Pyongyang.  Extra toppings for all.