Detached Reality

Reality Bites:  The Bob Woodward book, Fear: Trump in the White House, is finally out and selling like hotcakes.  In it Woodward, convincingly presses the case that Trump is uninformed and mercurial, incapable of speaking the truth, woefully ignorant of world political history, doesn’t comprehend the value of international alliances or understand the role that they’ve played in averting another world war, is impulsive and, despite his advisors’ best efforts to provide him with fact based reasons to alter his thinking on a number of important issues, is too set in his ways to give up any of his long held views, even after they’ve been convincingly disproved.  While most of us have independently reached these conclusions based on our own observations, Woodward’s conclusions are based on interviews with a large number of White House insiders, including former staff secretary Rob Porter and former economic advisor Gary Cohn who both appear to have contributed more than their share of insights about Trump’s flaws and the daily goings on at the White House.  Yesterday, they both issued non-denial denials, acknowledging their cooperation with Woodward but saying that he kind of misrepresented what they had to say. In an early morning interview with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie, Woodward anticipated that those denials would be forthcoming when he said that he had received phone calls from a number of the book’s contributors who told him that even though he had accurately portrayed their views, they would be issuing denials to cover their butts.  Notably Woodward, who has written books about nine presidents, says that he’s never encountered one like Trump and feels it is important that “people wake up to what’s happening” and though it might be easy to dismiss him by saying that he is overstating his concerns to hype book sales, his concerns appear to be very real.  Though Trump insists that almost everything in Woodward’s book is wrong, over the weekend he provided further evidence of his lying ways.  First in an effort to pushback against statements about the economic recovery that Obama made during his recent “I’m back” speeches, Trump bragged about the quarterly 4.2 % GDP growth exceeding the 3.9% unemployment rate but, since he couldn’t leave well enough alone, he went on to  claim that because of him it was the first time in a century that the GDP rate exceeded the unemployment rate. Virtually everyone, including his friends at Fox, pounced on his false assertion, pointing out that the GDP rate has exceeded the unemployment rate more than a dozen times since the 1940s. Then he cited a warm and wonderful letter that he received from his good friend Kim Jung Un as well as the absence of missiles at a recent North Korean anniversary parade as evidence of how well his North Korea denuclearization plan is progressing just as numerous reports emerged about North Korea actually increasing its nuclear arsenal, reports that must have already been shown to Trump during one or more of his daily security briefings.  Woodward insists that the truth on Trump will emerge because the truth always emerges, eventually.  Let’s hope he is right and that eventually happens sooner rather than later.

Russia, Russia, Russia:  George Papadopoulos, the Trump campaign advisor whose alcohol fueled conversation with an Australian diplomat about the Russian offer of Hillary Clinton emails triggered the beginning of the investigation into Russian election interference and Trump team collusion was sentenced to a disappointingly short 14 day prison term for lying to the FBI.  Naturally the talkative Papadopoulos is still talking and lying. He admits that Professor Mifsud, the Maltese academic who was also most likely a Russian cut-out and who has now vanished into thin air, offered up some Hillary emails and he admits that he had drinks with the Australian diplomat, but he says he doesn’t recall telling him anything about the Hillary emails although, oddly enough, he does admit to telling someone from the Greek consulate. Papadopoulos continues to assert that he never got around to telling anyone on the campaign but says he had planned to tell Stephen Miller but deferred his plans when their scheduled call got cancelled.  In all likelihood he really did tell someone, he’s just not telling us.  Marina Butina, the Russian red sparrow, is still sitting in a Virginia cell. Federal prosecutors involved in her case admit that they misinterpreted some of her texts, they still believe that she’s a Russian tool, they just don’t think that she was offering up sex for information. In any case the judge overseeing her case is keeping her in jail because of concerns that she remains a flight risk.  Reports have emerged again that Trump’s convicted former campaign manager Paul Manafort may be seeking a plea agreement to avoid his upcoming Washington DC trial.  It’s not clear that he is offering up any information on Trump, he may just want to avoid the additional legal costs associated with another trial.  However, the specter of him standing up in court and admitting to his crimes won’t make Trump, who has applauded Manafort’s unwillingness to concede to doing anything wrong, very happy.  It’s looking more and more like Russia’s nefarious actions weren’t limited to election interference, US officials now believe that they were responsible for the sonic attacks that damaged the brains of a number of US diplomats stationed in Cuba.  Putin wasn’t pleased about the Obama administration’s decision to ease restrictions against Cuba, he views a US presence in Cuba, a historically strong Russian ally, as an encroachment on his sphere of influence, so it’s thought that he teamed up with some like-minded Cuban hardliners to launch the attacks against the US diplomats in the hopes of ending the US-Cuba rapprochement.  Putin’s strategy worked, Trump who opposed Obama’s diplomatic moves anyway, took advantage of the attack on the diplomats to justify what he wanted to do in the first place, he pulled most US diplomats out of Havana.    

The Women:  Women problems continue to plague Trump, who can’t be all that happy about CBS’s Les Moonves demise or Ronan Farrow’s continued success at rooting out sexual predators.  Both Michael Cohen and Trump have agreed to end their suits against Stephanie Clifford AKA Stormy Daniels, the adult film star. In exchange, Cohen wants the $130,000 hush payment that she received returned.  As to Trump, he still refuses to admit that he had any sexual relationship with Stormy, but he’s okay with her talking if it means that he won’t have to be deposed in her case.  Her lawyer, the ambitious and ever present Michael Avenatti, isn’t giving up just yet, but it’s likely that the end of the Stormy case is near. Unfortunately for Trump and Cohen, the related campaign finance violation problems that the Stormy suit uncovered aren’t going anywhere.  While Avenatti may not get his Trump deposition, it appears that one time Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos will. She’s still suing Trump for defamation for calling her a liar over her assertions that he sexually assaulted her in 2007.  Trump and his lawyers have agreed to provide written answers to her lawyers questions by the end of this month, not as good as an in person interview but a start.  False answers could open Trump to charges of perjury, so whatever his lawyers “write” should be very interesting.   

The Supremes: Brett Kavanaugh will probably make it on to the Supreme Court but it won’t be because his opponents gave up without a fight.  Native Alaskans who view Kavanaugh as a threat to their sovereignty and protected fishing rights have made it clear to Senator Lisa Murkowski, who owes her last election victory to their support, that they want her to vote against him.  Likewise, Senator Susan Collins is facing a lot of blowback in Maine and from reproductive rights activists who have raised almost $1 million, funds that they promise will be given to whoever decides to run against her when she’s up for reelection in 2020.  Additionally, protesters have sent more than 3000 wire hangers to her offices.  She insists that none of that will impact her decision because she still believes that Kavanaugh will vote to uphold Roe v Wade, but has admitted to concerns about assertions that Kavanaugh may have lied during last week’s Senate hearings and during his earlier Appellate Court hearings when he insisted that he didn’t know that information provided to him back in the early 2000s when he was responsible for guiding George W Bush’s judicial nominees onto the courts had been stolen by GOP Senate aide Manuel Miranda from Democratic staffers.  That Miranda stole the memos is an established fact, the question is whether or not Kavanaugh knew at the time that the material provided to him by Miranda was stolen.  He says that he didn’t know but some of the Bush era emails that were released last week indicate otherwise.  Senator Durbin has released some other “confidential” Bush era emails, that he believes show that Kavanaugh also misrepresented his role advocating for William Hayne, a controversial judicial nominee who was involved in the Bush era terrorist detainee program. Senator Whitehouse is now asking questions about Kavanaugh’s odd baseball ticket related debts, specifically probing the possibility that Kavanaugh has a gambling problem.  Despite all of this, Senate Majority Leader McConnell is pushing to get the Judiciary Committee to vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination on Thursday with the hope of having him confirmed by month’s end.  That schedule may get derailed by Hurricane Florence giving Democrats more time to agitate.  As to the hurricane, while pointing out that it’s likely to be “tremendously big and tremendously wet” Trump said not to worry, he’s a whiz at hurricane management.  He cited as evidence the A plus that he gave himself last year with regard to Hurricane Maria and his “superb” handling of the Puerto Rico recovery.  

Shana Tova/Happy New Year