Don't Despair!?!

Petulant and Petty:  Trump’s pettiness knows no bounds.  Having already rejected the release of a statement that had anything nice to say about Senator John McCain or his legacy, Trump decided to keep going lower, or in this case higher but in a bad way.  So While flags at the US Capitol and other Washington landmarks remained at half-staff, early Monday the White House returned its flag to its usual level. That was notable since typically, once a decision is made to move a flag to half-staff, it stays there until after the honored individual’s funeral. Faced with withering criticism, and a statement from the American Legion, the large veterans organization, that urged him strongly “to make an appropriate presidential proclamation noting Senator McCain's death and legacy of service to our nation, and that our nation's flag be half-staffed through his interment” Trump finally relented and sometime after 3 pm finally had the flag at the White House lowered to half-staff.  Later, while meeting with a some of those evangelical leaders who hypocritically continue to support him despite his history of outrageous moral failures and his ongoing bad behavior, Trump finally managed to spit out some prepared remarks, saying "Our hearts and prayers are going to the family of Senator John McCain. There's going to be a lot of activity over the next number of days. And we very much appreciate everything that Senator McCain has done for our country."  While many leaders, Republican and Democrat, were stunned by Trump’s inability to rise above his feelings to honor the departed McCain, Senator Imhofe, the Oklahoma Republican, cut Trump some undeserved slack saying that McCain was partially to blame for the diss because “well you know” he was very outspoken. He disagreed with Trump “in certain areas and wasn't too courteous about it." Senator Isakson would have none of that, the Georgia Republican said “anybody who in any way tarnishes the reputation of John McCain deserves a whipping, because most of the ones who would do the wrong thing about John McCain didn't have the guts to do the right thing when it was their turn." For his part, McCain managed to take another swipe at Trump from the hereafter, in his last prepared statement which was read aloud by Rick Davis, his campaign manager.  In those remarks McCain said “We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all the corners of the globe. We weaken it when we hide behind walls, rather than tear them down, when we doubt the power of our ideals, rather than trust them to be the great force for change they have always been.”  McCain went on to say  “Do not despair of our present difficulties but believe always in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here.”  Let’s hope that he is right about that. 

NAFTA No More?  Early yesterday morning, in an attempt to regain the spotlight from the departed McCain, Trump held a heavily orchestrated phone call with Mexico’s outgoing president, Enrique Pena Nieto.  The call got off to a rocky start when someone in the White House communications department failed to actually secure the connection to Mexico before inviting the press in to hear Trump’s momentous announcement, the announcement that was more about glitz than substance.  During the call, Trump claimed to be ditching NAFTA, the long term tri-lateral trade agreement between the US, Canada and Mexico, for a new bilateral agreement with Mexico.  However, Pena Nieto didn’t seem to be onboard with that, he kept on referring to what Trump wanted to call the Mexico-US Trade Agreement as an improved NAFTA, one that would rely on Canada eventually coming on board. Though Trump did manage to get a few concessions mostly with regard to automobile manufacturing, his agreement with Mexico, is just a preliminary agreement in principle, one that looks a lot like the old NAFTA with a few tweaks and without the sunset provision that Trump wanted.  Canadian trade representatives are expected to continue discussions with their US counterparts this week, so it’s likely that Trump’s announcement was another attempt to put further pressure on the Canadians, one of those Trump style threats to get on board or else.  To that end, the Canadians have a lot of support from members of Congress, their support is necessary and a number of prominent Republicans, not to mention Democrats, won’t sign off on any agreement that doesn’t include Canada. Bottom line is that despite the fanfare, Trump and Pena Nieto’s announcement wasn’t as significant as Trump would like us all to believe except that it did provide the markets with the hope that an agreement on revising the important three party NAFTA treaty will be made and that the agreement will be made sooner rather than later.         

Election Update:  Today is primary day in Oklahoma, Florida and Arizona where voters will get to decide whether to choose the despicable Sheriff Arpaio, the equally despicable Dr. Kelly Ward, or the Trump fangirl Representative Martha McSally to run against Democratic candidate Kyrsten Sinema for Jeff Flake’s Senate seat.  That said, the really big news is what’s happening in North Carolina.  Late yesterday, a panel  of three Federal judges ruled that North Carolina’s congressional districts were unconstitutionally gerrymandered to disproportionately favor Republican candidates over Democrats, a decision bolstered by an admission by one of the Republicans who drew the lines that that was precisely what he had in mind when the districts were created. This case has been percolating for a while, it had already made it to the Supreme Court and been sent back down to be reviewed again by the lower court panel.  Subject to what is likely to be another, this time accelerated, Supreme Court review, it is quite possible that North Carolina will be forced to have an impartial panel redraw the district lines before the November midterms.  The three judge panel did recognize that given the short time frame such an outcome might not be possible but instead of relenting and pushing off any redistricting to the next election cycle, they said that the state should consider holding a primary to select candidates from the soon to be drawn new districts on the regular election day, postponing the actual Congressional elections to early January. North Carolina elections officials are expected to appeal almost immediately to the Supreme Court.  However, with Justice Kennedy gone from the court, and only eight judges available to make a decision, its possible that the Supreme Court will reach a four-four tie, which would leave the three judge panel’s decision in place.  To the extent that the new districts are drawn, Democrats would likely pick up a few crucial seats.  This is not an outcome that will go over all that well with Republican leadership or Trump and, to the extent that the much anticipated blue wave isn’t quite the tsunami that the Democrats hope for, could leave control of the House up in the air until January.   Just a little more upheaval for an already under attack election process.

More on Manafort:  Late yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported that Manafort’s lawyers approached Special Counsel Mueller about some kind of plea agreement while the Virginia jurors who eventually found him guilty on eight counts were deliberating.  It’s not clear what Manafort was offering, he may have just been trying to get out from under the threat of more convictions in his upcoming Washington DC case or he may have had something substantive to offer.  In any case, the negotiations stalled.  It’s not clear whether or not the two sides are still talking but it remains highly likely that Manafort is still hoping for that maybe not so elusive Trump pardon.  Stay tuned, more news is sure to come on this and a few more things.  To the extent that Rudy Giuliani is right, and there is little reason to believe that he is, Mueller is supposed to go silent after Labor Day, staying quiet until after the elections so this could be a big week, or not, because one thing is for certain, no one really knows Mueller’s plans, the man and his team never talk to the press, not even a little.