Motorcycles and Hens

Caged Hens:  Trump continues to rail against the Democrats and the migrant hordes that they, the party that controls none of the three branches of government,  are letting into the country, asserting that their failure to back any form of immigration legislation that he would support is the source of the problem.  And to be clear, he’ll only support legislation that provides him with $25 billion for his wall, an amount that he wants funded upfront.  Not one to be all that concerned about facts, his focus continues to be on migrants crossing the Mexico border even though those crossings, even with this Spring’s bump, are the lowest they have been since at least the 1970s.  In fact, the Washington Post reports border crossings don’t even account for a majority of the people joining the unauthorized population since visa overstays by people lawfully entering the country account for about two thirds of the total number joining the undocumented population in any given year.  Those kind of details don’t make for very good soundbites and are unlikely to energize his base and certainly won’t help him get funding for his wall so Trump doesn’t mention them when speaking to his crowds.  He doesn’t like to spend much time talking about the kids who’ve been separated from their parents either, yet more than 2000 remain in limbo, spread across the country while their parents are either imprisoned or already deported without them.  Yesterday, more stories emerged about the techniques used to remove children from their parents and a few reporters were finally allowed into a few more of the detention facilities where some of the children are being held.  Borrowing from recent history and not in a good way some parents were convinced to “temporarily” release their children with the claim that the kids were just being sent for showers, a “proven” technique.  As to the facilities, the reporters likened them to the military detention facilities that they’d seen in places like Iraq, only this time the prisoners are somber faced children.  At the end of one of the tours, a senior manager at a child detention camp in Texas told the reporters that the decision to separate families was “dumb” and “stupid” going on to say that “all it did was harm children.”  Referring to his detention center, he said that it would not have been necessary had it not been for the separation policy.  As to that separation policy, the zero tolerance that led to the forced separation of the children from their parents in the first place, despite a series of murky denials from various members of the administration, including Sarah Huckabee Sanders, it has been put on hold, at least for the time being, not because any of the Trumpsters think that its morally abhorrent but because immigration authorities have run out of  places to house intact families.  After avoiding the podium for a week, Huckabee Sanders finally held one of her not so daily news conferences yesterday.  Sticking with the Trumpian policy of ignoring real issues, she led off with a discussion of her “horrible” restaurant experience, the one where she was asked to leave a Red Hen, the restaurant that Trump attacked by tweeting “The Red Hen Restaurant should focus more on cleaning its filthy canopies, doors and windows (badly needs a paint job) rather than refusing to serve a fine person like Sarah Huckabee Sanders, I always had a rule, if a restaurant is dirty on the outside, it is dirty on the inside.” Humorous only because the restaurant in question has an impeccable cleanliness record, more than can be said for many of Trump’s dining establishments which have been repeatedly cited for fairly notable health code violations. For his part Trump also managed to attack the outspoken Congresswoman Maxine Waters, threatening her for encouraging people to keep pushing back on members of his administration in public spaces, like restaurants, department stores and gas stations. While Waters comments, statements that were walked back by Democratic leaders Pelosi and Schumer who are trying to discourage their members from getting trapped in the Trump personal attack rabbit hole, were somewhat imprudent, it’s worth noting that they pale in comparison to the threatening comments that Trump and his supporters routinely make at his rallies.  Unlike Trump Waters didn’t suggest anything violent and didn’t offer to pay legal fees for supporters “roughing up” hecklers, something Trump has done.  In addition to attacking Waters and all Democrats, Trump also attacked any suggestion that more judges were needed to process any of the migrants crossing the border because that “due process” thing is just so annoying and unnecessary.  In response, a number of lawyers led by the Chairs of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison and Lowenstein, Sandler wrote an Op-Ed which appears in today’s NY Times.  Speaking on behalf of 34 major American law firms they said that they “cannot stand by as our government, under the pretext of enforcing the law, violates it and traumatizes children and their parents.” They called “upon the administration to develop an immediate plan for reunifying children with their families, to release families who pose no threat to our country and to terminate the policy of criminally prosecuting asylum seekers” and announced that their law firms which collectively employ about 30,000 lawyers in nearly every state, will help “reunify families and ensure representation for legitimate asylum seekers.” Nice.

The Mueller Front:  Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager, continues to languish in a jail cell because witness tampering has its consequences.  That said, he hasn’t turned or given up yet.  His defense attorneys filed an official notice with the DC Circuit Court of Appeals  appealing the decision that got him tossed into the clinker in the first place.  His team also filed another appeal over a decision that the same judge, Amy Berman Jackson, issued nearly two months ago tossing out a civil suit that they hoped to use to block any further prosecutions of him by the Special Counsel.  While Mueller toils on in relative silence, opponents of his investigation continue to question his authority.  Focusing on the text messages sent by the much maligned FBI Agent Peter Strzok, in a now much cited Wall Street Journal op-ed, two of Trump’s defenders argue that even if the “honorable” Mueller concludes that Trump and his team are guilty of lots of nefarious act, the whole investigation is tainted and that any evidence of evil acts should be thrown out as “fruit of the poisonous tree.” Somehow or other all, the writers miss or refuse to acknowledge that the FBI sat on information about the investigation into the Trump campaign, even going so far as to deny it to the NY Times when that paper was about to publish a story about the Trump investigation right before the 2016 election, all while they had no problem coming forth with information about the Clinton emails on Anthony Weiner’s laptop just days before the election.  Anti-Trump bias, hardly.

International News:  International Front:  Son-in-law Kushner has been running back and forth to Israel with Trump’s Middle East peace envoy Jason Greenblatt as part of their continuing efforts to broker a peace agreement between the Palestinians and Israel.  Even though Palestinian leaders refuse to meet with them, they report that they will be ready to release their proposal shortly and they promise that it will be well received by everyone, except for the Palestinians.  Jordan’s King Abdullah visited with Trump at the White House.  Proving that he has Trump’s number, the King threw a few compliments Trump’s way saying “If the rest of the world just took a little of your humility and your grace to help us, we’d be in a much better position.”  Trump ate it up. responding “Remember, he used the word humility with respect to me, so I am very happy with that one, that’s probably the nicest compliment I’ve gotten in a long time.”  The White House announced that Trump will be calling Turkey’s President Erdogan to congratulate him on his election victory. No doubt Trump is just a wee bit envious of Erdogan who just solidified his control over his country by winning “sweeping” new executive powers, pulling Turkey further away from democratic rule.  Lastly, the Dow Jones Industrial stock market index dropped well over 400 points yesterday before settling in to a 328 point loss.  Just another response to Trump’s new tariffs, part of that trade war that he insists won’t have any lasting effect on the US economy, unless of course you count the announcement by Harley Davidson that they are moving some of their production facilities and jobs to Thailand in order to avoid paying tariffs on motorcycles sold to Europe.  Trump responded by saying that he’s was surprised "that Harley-Davidson, of all companies, would be the first to wave the White Flag,” going on to say that "Taxes just a Harley excuse - be patient!"  Speaker Paul Ryan was less happy and Wisconsin’s Republican Governor Scott Walker, a one- time presidential aspirant, who is facing a tough reelection campaign might find that patience thing just a tad problematic.