Only the Bestest

The Best People:  One year out from the Charlottesville White nationalist march that resulted in the death of Heather Heyer, Trump still can’t find it within himself to acknowledge that Nazism and White supremacism are indisputably evil so to commemorate the day he stuck with his false equivalence theme, tweeting out a watered down version of last year’s “fine people on both sides” statement, this time condemning “all types of racism and acts of violence.”  Sure, all types of racism and violence are bad, but his failure to distinguish the difference between the instigators and the victims, or anything that acknowledges the country’s long history of racial discrimination and the continuing racial divide, exacerbates the problem and serves as a not so silent dog whistle to those White supremacists that he’s still their man.  Adding a touch of irony, his one time senior White House aide, Omarosa Manigault began marketing her tell-all book about her long relationship with Trump and her experiences at the White House.  Although Omarosa is hardly an innocent and has no doubt twisted many of her recollections to maximize her book sales, a lot of what she said rings true.  It’s hard to dispute her assertion that Trump’s mental capacities appear to have deteriorated over the years, whether intentional or not, his ability to speak in complete sentences does appear diminished and his repetition, made up “facts” and disparaging comments about African countries, as well as his inability to pronounce and remember the names of many of them are notable.  As to Manigault, its easy to express outrage at the fact that she taped White House conversations, going so far as to tape her dismissal conversation with White House Chief of Staff Kelly, a conversation that took place in the Situation Room, the place that is supposed to be the sciffiest of SCIFs, but shouldn’t we be more concerned about a White House with such bad internal security procedures that someone could actually bring a recording device into its SCIF and a president who surrounds himself with such questionable characters instead of all those “best people” that we were promised.  While Omarosa was playing her tape on Meet the Press, the White House team went on the offensive. Trump called his former bestie a “lowlife,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that the “very idea a staff member would sneak a recording device in the White House Situation Room, shows a blatant disregard for our national security. And then to brag about it on national television further proves the lack of character and integrity of this disgruntled former White House employee.” Then there is Kellyanne Conway, in an effort to defend Trump from one of Omarosa’s other assertions, that he is a racist who has been know to use the “N”word, something Omarosa may or may not have heard him say on one of those hidden Apprentice tapes, Kellyanne was asked to identify other Black members of Trump’s White House staff.  Stumped, she first named HUD Secretary Ben Carson, but when it was pointed out that he was a cabinet member, not a member of the White House staff, she froze and the best she could come up with was some guy named  Ja Ron, who’s done a “fabulous job” doing whatever he does, apparently Kellyanne didn’t know that Ja Ron has a last name. For the record there is a Ja Ron Smith, he may well be doing a fab job but he is at most a mid-level aide who works in the Executive Office Building not the White House, although, who knows, by now he may have been promoted just to prove Kellyanne right.  As to Omarosa, she asserts that following her dismissal she received an offer from daughter in law Lara Trump to work for a Trump related political group.  As she describes it, Lara said that in exchange for signing a promise not to talk about any of her White House experiences, she would be paid $15,000 per month and wouldn’t even have to show up at the office, in fact they’d rather that she work from home.  Coincidence or not, Trump’s former assistant and sometime bodyguard, Keith Schiller is now being paid $15,000 per month to do very little.  Schiller is the former, or should I say always Trumpkin, who insists that though Trump was offered the company of a few prostitutes during his visit to Moscow for the Miss Universe contest, that the offer was refused, because Trump who had no problem spending some quality time with a porn store while he was married and in the midst of a ten month relationship with a Playmate would never consider doing such a thing.  

Russia, Russia, Russia:  Trump’s other best person, Rudy Giuliani, America’s one time Mayor also hit the Sunday morning circuit.  During an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper Rudy insisted that Special Counsel Mueller had promised to shut down his investigation by September 1 in order to avoid any election interference, saying that if Mueller’s team conducted any business during the election run up that their “leaks” could damage the election process.  There is no evidence that anyone from Mueller’s team has ever leaked anything, there is also little evidence that Giuliani has ever had a substantive conversation with anyone on Mueller’s team. Rudy also insisted that he never said that Trump had asked former FBI Director Comey to lay off one time security advisor Michael Flynn, an assertion that was almost immediately proved false when Tapper’s producers managed to dig up the tape of him saying just that during the commercial break. For the record Giuliani continued to sputter out denials that he said or meant what he said.  In any case, on Friday, Randy Credico, a friend and associate of both Roger Stone and Julian Assange, revealed that he has been subpoenaed to appear before one of Mueller’s Grand Juries on September 7.  So much for Mueller voluntarily ending or freezing his investigation by September 1.  As to that investigation, it really is getting under Trump’s skin.  Over the weekend he again tweet attacked Attorney General Jeff Sessions, repeating his demand that Sessions end the Mueller “witch hunt,” and then asserting that Sessions was both “missing in action” and “scared stiff.”  Jeff Sessions doesn’t appear to be all that scared or missing, he’s been too busy implementing Trump’s anti-immigrant policies, cutting back on voter rights and extolling religious, mostly Christian, rights to have a case of the nervous nellies.  The person who appears to be nervous is Trump, the Mueller investigation seems to be inching closer to him and his family so in all likelihood, he’s the one who’s twitching.  As to one of Mueller’s other targets, the Manafort trial continued on Friday. The word is that prosecutors filed another complaint with Judge Ellis about his over the top comments and what appear to them to be a distinct lean towards the defense.  Though we don’t know what the judge had to say about that, we do know that something was up. The trial was put on a multi-hour hiatus during the day.  That hiatus may have had something to do with some inappropriate conversations among jury members.  Whatever it was, the trial reconvened later in the day, with the judge admonishing the jury to remain open minded until all of the testimony is heard.   As to concerns about Judge Ellis, New York Magazine’s commentator Cristian Farias says “that rumors of the demise of the Virginia prosecution against Paul Manafort have been greatly exaggerated. And that the heated confrontations between Judge Ellis and prosecutors — to the extent they happened in front of the jury — are just a foretaste of what the defense is likely to get when it starts to lay its cards on the table.”  That defense starts this week and it should be very interesting.  

Talking Turkey:  Trump is also taking some of his ire out on Turkey, the country, not those birds being fattened up for a November White House reprieve.  Last week he ramped up tariffs against the country, partially because he loves tariffs and partially because he is trying to force Turkey’s strongman, President Erdogan, to release Andrew Brunson, a Protestant American Pastor who has been accused of being a member of the Gulen group that Erdogan holds responsible for the 2016 coup attempt against him.  As part of Erdogan’s clamp down on dissidents he’s had Brunson charged with spying and attempting to overthrow the government. Turkey’s markets have been and continue to take a large hit from Trump’s actions, with the lira trading way down.  Unfortunately trade politics are another one of those complicated things and so Trump’s actions are also hitting a number of other emerging markets and the currency markets as investors flee to secure currencies.  This morning It appears that in response to what is now being called the Turkey economic crisis (to be fair this is hardly their first economic crisis) global stocks are extending the declines begun last week, “spilling over into the euro, hammering emerging market currencies around the world and driving investors into safe haven assets such as the yen and the U.S. dollar.”  Also, while it’s hard to feel too sorry for Erdogan, he’s hardly the nicest guy on the block, hammering Turkey has some other disruptive effects as it further damages the NATO alliance.  Given its location, Turkey is a strategically important NATO member.  To that end, over the weekend Erdogan placed a call to Putin, seeking some help from Russia. Why do things always circle back to Putin?