The New Normal?

Deep Dump:  Tuesday after segments of the soon to be released Bob Woodward book Fear were revealed it was reported that an angry Trump wanted to root out and eliminate each and every one of the White House denizens who had talked to Woodward about his long list of inadequacies.  Of course, to do that he’d have to eliminate virtually everyone, because almost everyone approached had cooperated with Woodward to one extent or another, and though the full text of the book isn’t out yet, from what we’ve all heard, few had complimentary things to say.  Expectations were that Trump would really freak out on September 11, the book’s official release date.  Well, the full freak out came a bit earlier than expected in reaction to an anonymous Op-Ed piece published yesterday afternoon on the NY Times website and appearing in print in today’s hard copy version.  The opinion piece’s is titled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump White House.”  The unknown author, who the NY Times says really exists and who they confirm is a senior member of the White House team, reveals that things are as least as bad as we all believe and in most cases worse, that Trump is missing a few too many marbles, that he is impulsive, and that he understands little about policy or foreign affairs.  The author insists that he or she, though in this case it’s thought that the person is a he, is part of a team of people who are doing their best to “thwart” the “amoral” Trump’s crazier tendencies, to “frustrate his inner inclinations” in order to assure that democracy is maintained while those all important conservative objectives are met.  The author goes on to justify his efforts by pointing to the administration’s awesome accomplishments with regard to deregulation, tax reform and expanded military capabilities.  The author leaves the impression that his small underground group is doing their best to run the country, and keep the Trump mania at bay.  For a mere second, it sounded really reassuring to know that deep within the White House a group of people who understand that Trump is truly dangerous are doing their best to right the ship, but come on, if this person and his deep state (Trump’s right there really is a deep state and it’s in the White House), are so concerned shouldn’t they go public, en masse, and scream their concerns to anyone who’ll listen.  The reaction to Mr. Anonymous’s piece were pretty much as expected.  Trump who is reported to be totally volcanic, immediately erupted in a rant, questioning whether the anonymous person really exists or whether he is just a figment of the failing NY Times and their Trump hating editorial board, he then screamed out his varied accomplishments and insisted once again that he is the best president ever.  He also called for the NY Times, to turn the person, to the extent that he exists, over to the administration so that he can be tried for treason.  Yes treason, because Trump doesn’t known the definition of treason but does love the sound of the word.  Later, the ever reliable White House spinner, Sarah Huckabee Sanders released a statement slamming the “gutless anonymous source” saying that “The individual behind this piece has chosen to deceive, rather than support, the duly elected president of the United States," this coward should do the right thing and resign." When asked about the Op-Ed, Senator Bob Corker shrugged saying "This is what all of us have understood to be the situation from day one...,” while the increasingly complicit Senator Lindsey Graham took a different tack saying that all this was new to him, as far as he and the people of South Carolina are concerned Trump is a superstar.  Countless media pundits, including reporters at the news side of the NY Times are trying to figure out who the anonymous person is while Trump and his remaining allies are organizaing a White House witch hunt to get to him first.  Suggestions on the twitterverse range from VP Pence, who could be angling to takeover now or in the unlikely event that the 25^th Amendment is ever really invoked to one of the Generals, Mattis or Kelly, to son Barron.  As to General Mattis, the man who according to Bob Woodward really has been doing his best to prevent Trump from assasinating world leaders or inadvertently triggering WW III, the Washington Post reports that Trump has started to search for his replacement.  Names mentioned include another one of the generals and a few senators including Cotton and, wait for it, Lindsey Graham, the astute and observant guy who asserts that he hasn’t noticed that Trump is bat sh-t crazy.   

The Supremes: The Kavanaugh confirmation hearing continued into the night and as expected Kavanaugh did his best to avoid tipping his hand on any of the pressing issues of the day.  He justified his dissenting opinion, the one that slammed his colleagues for letting the 17 year old held by INS get her abortion, by saying that he just wanted to give the INS more time to find her a guardian and didn’t really think that delaying her procedure was such a bigly deal, even though she was coming very close to missing the Texas 20 week deadline. He sympathized with those concerned that the elimination of abortion rights could lead to more back alley abortions, but only sympathized with the concerns, he left the clear impression that he didn’t believe that they were valid.  You’d have to be truly delusional or Susan Collins or Lisa Murkowski to believe that he wouldn’t vote to over turn Roe.  He gave even vaguer answers on a number of other questions, claimed that he’d never even thought about whether a president pardoning himself would be okay, denied that he had any memory of speaking with any member of one of the law firms representing Trump about the Mueller investigation but then asked the querying Senator, Kamala Harris, who she thought he had spoken with, a kind of odd response. As the day wore on, he looked stressed but he stuck to his guns, refused to answer any probing questions and had convenient losses of memory about others.  The bottom line is that he did what most nominees now do in his spot, answer little, smile as much as possible and hope to glide through and in his case, unlike most of his predecessors, since he only needs a simple majority to get voted on to the court, absent any truly damning as yet unrevealed factoid from one or more Democrats he probably will make it on to the court where he will get to rule on one or more cases related to the Trump investigation and get to show us how he really feels about expanded presidential authority and abortion, as if we don’t’ already know.            

Politics:  If the Democrats are to win over the House, and polls indicate that their chances are increasing, they will have to do it without any help from North Carolina.  Though they’ve concluded that North Carolina districts have to be withdrawn, the courts agree that there just isn’t enough time to do so before this year’s elections so they’ve okayed the election  going on with the existing Republican friendly map.  In the meantime, though Kris Korbach is no longer running the now disbanded Trump and Pence voter fraud commission, he is busy running for governor in Kansas.  That said something fishy is still going on the fraud seeking front.  The US Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of North Carolina has subpoenaed the records of more than 40 election boards  as part of an effort to root out any of those millions of illegal aliens who’ve been illegally voting in the North Carolina elections.  At last count a grand total of 19 nefarious alien voters have been identified. As to Kobach, not everyone appreciates his focus on illusory election fraud,  Bill Graves, a former Republican governor of his state, just announced his endorsement for Laura Kelly, his Democratic opponent.