In Their Genes

Going Rogue:  The consequences of the murder of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi continue to reverberate.  Yesterday, a disingenuous Trump took a page from his Russian playbook, suggesting that since Saudi King Salman had strongly denied any involvement in Khashoggi’s murder and dismemberment the evil act may have been done by a rogue operative or two, possibly even the same 400 pound hacker who broke into the DNC server. He’s sent Secretary of State Pompeo over to Riyadh to meet with King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salmon (MBS) to figure out what really happened or more likely, to come up with a more palatable version of what happened, to the extent that is even possible.  Later in the day it was reported that the Saudis are likely to admit involvement in the Khashoggi affair, however their party line is going to be that they only meant to kidnap and interrogate him because kidnapping and interrogation is apparently okay by Saudi standards.  They will say that they never really meant to murder and dismember him, that part only happened by accident due to the actions of an overzealous group of poorly trained interrogators, a variation of the Trump rogue actors theory. To drive that point home, it’s likely that we will soon learn that the interrogation/hit squad was appropriately punished, possibly by a firing squad, a very Saudi way to get rid of anyone who knows anything that could tarnish, or in this case further tarnish, the royal family. It was also disclosed that the Saudis are now cooperating with Turkish investigators which could mean that Turkish President Erdogan is doing his best to extract a payment of some sort in exchange for “losing” those tapes that his intelligence forces have of what went on within the Saudi embassy walls.  As to reputations, those of both princes, MBS and Kushner, look bigly worse for wear. It turns out that Kushner isn’t really much of a diplomat and is certainly a poor judge of character, his decision to aid MBS’s ascension by sharing confidential information during back channel conversations wasn’t really all that wise. If we weren’t living in an alternative universe, he’d be kicked to the curb for buying into MBS’s  “great reformer” charade.  As to the “great reformer,” having disposed of most of his internal rivals he’ll probably survive too because in the long run money and oil trump all, especially when it comes to dealing with Trump. That said, more corporate sponsors and attendees have pulled from the still scheduled Saudi “Davos in the Desert” conference  but at least for now Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde are still planning to attend. 

Election SNAFUs:  Pollsters and pundits are now predicting a split result for the midterms.  Expectations are that Democrats will eke out a modest House victory but that the Republicans will hold on to the Senate, where they may even solidify their majority position by gaining a few seats.  Of course, Republicans aren’t taking any chances instead they are doing their best to place impediments in front of likely Democratic voters.  In North Dakota, state officials are requiring registered voters to provide their street addresses, a problem for many Native Americans who only have post office boxes and a problem for embattled Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp since Native Americans make up part of her base. In Georgia, Secretary of State Brian Kemp who is also the Republican candidate for Governor is still overseeing the election process and continues to try to do his best to suppress voter turnout by stalling the approval of 53,000 registrations, a problem for Democratic candidate Stacy Abrams since a disproportionate number of those suppressed voters are from minority communities who make up a portion of her base. For some unfathomable reason Senator Elizabeth Warren decided that instead of focusing all her efforts on helping Democrats across the country win in the midterms, now was the time to send out more signals that she’s gearing up for a  for a presidential run.  To that end she released the results of the DNA test that she took to prove to Trump, who has been baiting her by regularly calling her Pocahontas, that she really is part Native American.  He had challenged her to prove her heritage, offering to pay the charity of her choice $1 million if she could prove Native American ancestry. Fittingly, her charity of choice is the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, an organization that provides funding to abused Native American women.  Yesterday, Trump first claimed that he’d never made the $1 million promise but then after video of his challenge went viral he backtracked and said that he didn’t trust Warren’s results, that he would pay up but only if she’d let him administer the test.  Trump cheek swabbing Warren, not exactly a good image for either one of them, and certainly not something that will help Democrats win any elections.  Of course Kellyanne Conway had to weigh in too, she did so by saying that DNA was junk science so who could believe the results anyway.  Maybe she wants to supervise the cheek swabbing?  Hillary and Bill Clinton are also doing their best to muddy the waters, they’ve announced a joint speaking tour and Hillary is once again defending Clinton’s transgressions. It would be nice if the two of them could just go dark for a while, but sadly going silent isn’t in their DNA. While Maine is in the process of selecting another governor, one who may or may not move forward with the Medicaid expansion that the outgoing and controversial Governor LePage refused to do, it’s only fitting that the Trump administration has tapped Mary Mayhew, an ally of LePage in his fight against Medicaid, to oversee the national Medicaid program. Something fun to do when few were watching.