Watch the Throne

Can’t Tell Me Nothing: Fox is no longer carrying Trump’s campaign rallies live because they’ve grown so repetitive and stale that they’ve become a drag on ratings.  That’s left Trump seeking alternative ways to get his messages across to his base and others who he hopes to see join that base.  With that in mind he had Kanye West AKA Mr. Kim Kardashian to the White House yesterday purportedly to get the musically skilled but otherwise off the rocker rapper’s advice on prison reform.  It’s not clear that Kanye had much to contribute on policy but he did manage to shut Trump up for a few minutes by delivering a profanity strewn rambling tirade in the Oval Office, one filled with a few motherf-cker’s and other such language. That’s about as much as I am going to say about Kanye, instead I recommend checking out Pete Davidson’s on point SNL Weekend Update segment which appeared last week where he explained that some people thought that Michael Che “should be the one to talk about Kanye, but we discussed it, you know because Che is black, but I’m crazy and we both know which side of Kanye is at the wheel right now.”  As to crazy, Trump believes that a MAGA hat wearing Kanye hugging him in the Oval Office will dramatically up his support in the black community particularly among black men.  Good luck with that. While in the Oval Office, Trump also answered some questions about missing, presumed chopped up journalist Jamal Khashoggi.  When asked if he agreed with Senator Rand Paul’s call for the stopping of arms sales to Saudi Arabia over their presumed involvement in Khashoggi’s murder, Trump responded “What good does that do us? I would not be in favor of stopping a country from spending $110 billion, which is an all-time record, and letting Russia have that money and letting China have that money.”  It’s rather comforting to know that Trump’s priorities are in the right place, right? Earlier in the day during another rambling interview, this one on the Fox And Friends morning show, Trump said that he and his administration were looking into the Khashoggi situation very seriously “We want to find out what happened, he went in and it doesn’t look like he came out….. No good.” But he added that relations with the kingdom were “excellent.”  By excellent, he means that Saudi Arabia has spent a lot of money at his Washington DC and New York hotels and in addition to keeping the arms sales agreement alive, he wants to continue personally benefitting from their largesse.  To that end, when asked about actions taken by a bi-partisan group of Senators to begin the process that could lead to the imposition of Magnitsky Act sanctions against Saudi Arabia, State Department Spokesman Heather Nauert, one of those former Fox and Friends anchors, said that the Senators’ actions were premature because you know, what’s a little dismemberment among friends.  As to that dismemberment, last night Turkey’s investigators claimed that video and audio recordings exist that prove Khashoggi was killed and chopped up within the Saudi Arabian embassy. Bolstering that claim, one of the Saudis who flew in and out of the country around the time of Khashoggi’s disappearance was a forensic expert known for “pioneering rapid and mobile autopsies,” in other words someone who is particularly skilled at chopping and dicing, think Ginsu knives on steroids.  To be clear, though no one’s suggesting that Trump had anything to do with what’s looking more and more like Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s (MBS) decision to rid himself of a vocal and respected critic, Trump’s comments about the “fake press,” his administration’s failure to stand up for the press rights across the globe, and his refusal to condemn MBS’s imprisonment and harsh treatment of his adversaries earlier this year most likely emboldened MBS to think that he could  get away with more heinous actions.  As to son-in-law Kushner, who soon to be former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley calls a “hidden genius,” his genius skills, to the extent that he has any might not include character assessment.  While Kushner may have thought that he was successfully “cultivating” a relationship with MBS to advance his Middle East peace strategy, it’s looking more and more like MBS was just using him to gain US support for his own personal objectives, which in addition to getting rid of rivals includes solidifying support for Saudi Arabia’s increasingly violent war against Yemen. Regarding Nikki Haley’s replacement, Trump’s efforts to get another prominent woman to assume the United Nations Ambassador position, something that he hopes will also help him recapture the hearts and votes of skeptical Republican soccer moms put off by his zero tolerance child separation policy, hit a stumbling block yesterday after former Trumpster and current Goldman Sachs banker Dina Powell withdrew her name from consideration.  Despite Trump’s support, Powell’s appointment was opposed by Secretary of State Pompeo and national security advisor John Bolton, both of whom had started to spread rumors that she really isn’t all that competent.  While Powell’s purported reason for turning down the UN spot is that its travel requirements would keep her away from her young family, it’s likely that she was well aware that she’d be stepping into a hostile and chaotic environment, and who needs that when millions of Goldman dollars beckon.  Additionally, Powell may have found Trump’s blasé attitude about the Khashoggi murder hard to stomach or not as she was one of the people who had advocated strengthening relations with Saudi Arabia by cultivating MBS.  

Twenty-Five Days:  The mid-terms are getting closer as is the likely end of Attorney General Sessions’ tenure in the Trump cabinet.  The Wall Street Journal reports that the list of his possible replacements continues to grow, now in addition to Senator Lindsey Graham and Sessions’ Chief of Staff Matt Whitaker it  also includes Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, Transportation Department general counsel Steven Bradbury, former Attorney General Bill Barr, Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan and Janice Rogers Brown, a retired appeals court judge from the District of Columbia Circuit.  Of the newbies, Azar, Bradbury and Sullivan may have an edge since they all already serve in Senate confirmed positions.  No doubt, since the real reason for forcing Sessions out would be to curtail the Mueller investment, a chief requirement of the job will be agreement with Trump on that front.  As to that Mueller investigation, its now reported that Trump and his lawyers are working on written answers to Special Counsel’s questions about collusion, which doesn’t mean that Mueller has given up on speaking directly with Trump or that he has given up investigating obstruction.  As to obstruction and the upcoming election, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who is also that state’s Republican candidate for Governor running against Democratic candidate Stacey Adams, is doing his bet to suppress minority votes by employing a controversial verification law.  He’s put a hold on 53,000 voter registration applications, 70% of those “on hold” registrations belong to African Americans, a percentage that far exceeds African American representation in the Georgia voting pool. Lawsuits alleging that Kemp’s policy violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, and the First and Fourteenth Amendments have been filed by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the Campaign Legal Center.  Additionally, the Abrams campaign has called for Kemp to step down from his Secretary of State position while he is campaigning for Governor.  The Georgia election is expected to very close so the suppression strategy could affect the outcome, which is exactly why Kemp is resisting calls to step aside.  What’s a little voter suppression and election rigging anyway?