Raindrops Keep Falling on His Head

Nothing Seems to Fit:  Though Trump proclaimed election victory on Wednesday by the end of the week as the results poured in so did reality.   That may be one explanation for the even more than usual cantankerous behavior he exhibited as he was getting ready to board Marine One on the first step of his trip to Paris.  He continued to attack the press for their “stupid,” “racist” questions focusing his ire on three female African American journalists, Yamiche Alcindor, April Ryan and Abby Philipps who was standing in for Jim Acosta, the CNN reporter who had his press credentials for grating on Trump’s nerves and failing to adequately respect his holiness.  Though his obvious bias against Black women might work with his base, as Tuesday’s results show, it doesn’t go over well with the rest of the voting public, particularly Black women voters who continue to turn out in droves for anyone opposing his politics and white suburban women, many of whom seem to finally have come to their senses. As to Acosta, to further justify stripping him of his White House credentials, the White House circulated what appeared to be a doctored video of him asking the question that drove Trump to the edge in order to “prove” that he had karate chopped the arm of the intern trying to get the White House mic out of his hands. Although the White House first denied that the video had been doctored, Kellyanne Conway later said that it had been sped up, who knew that “sped up” and “doctored” are synonyms? Trump also didn’t have anything truthful to say about his possibly illegal appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting Attorney General so he went with “I don’t know Matt Whitaker.” That lie was his way of distancing himself from Whitaker’s controversial appointment.  To be sure, Trump and his advisors knew that appointing an unconfirmed, unqualified, stooge might generate some bad press and infuriate Democrats, as well as Senators Jeff Flake and Susan Collins, but for some inexplicable reason they once again forgot to consider that all of Whitaker’s critical remarks about the Mueller investigation, including his statements that it could be squashed by starving it of funds and that going after Trump’s financials would equate to a crossing of that oft mentioned redline, would immediate resurface and be played on a continuous loop.  Also, since vetting doesn’t seem to be a Trump White House strength, they also missed that the Miami office of the FBI is currently investigating World Patent Marketing, the fraudulent company that bilked many veterans out of their savings.  Whitaker was a particularly active member of the company’s advisory board.  On Friday the Wall Street Journal reported that Whitaker appeared in some of the company’s promotional material and threatened clients who complained about the company’s scams by suggesting that he, as a former Federal Attorney, could have them investigated and that he could arrange to have some former Israeli security professionals sent to their homes to practice deadly Krav Maga if they didn’t stop squawking about being taken to the cleaners. As a result of a civil settlement other far less active advisory board members have returned the payments they received from the company but to date Whitaker has refused to do the same. In any case Trump pushed back at any suggestions that Whitaker was an inappropriate choice by saying that he, unlike Mueller, had been confirmed by the Senate because he’d once been a Federal attorney, another distortion of the facts. Though it’s true that Whitaker was once confirmed, that confirmation was related to his five year stint as the US Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa a position he left in 2009.  He was not confirmed by the Senate for his most recent job,  Chief of Staff to Jeff Sessions.  In any case to the extent that prior Senate confirmation has any relevancy, its worth noting that Mueller was confirmed when he served as FBI Director, a position that he held for twelve years across several administrations.  After calling Kellyanne Conway’s husband George, Mr Kellyanne, in an attempt to belittle him for questioning the constitutionality of the Whitaker appointment, Trump directed Kellyanne to show up on Sunday talk shows to defend his choice.  Ever  loyal to Trump, that is,  she admitted to Fox commentator Chris Wallace that Trump has had many interactions with Whitaker but that they had only known each other for thirteen months so those encounters didn’t count.  She also said that since Whitaker hadn’t been read in on the Mueller investigation, or at least hadn’t been read in until last week, that his earlier comments didn’t really matter and didn’t represent a conflict of interest.  Suffice it to say, others aren’t buying her argument.  Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is now threatening to hold up government funding legislation unless it includes a Mueller protection amendment.  It’s not clear whether that will work but to the extent that he’s still on board come January and even if he’s not as some people think his tenure might be measured in Scaramuccis, Whitaker will be immediately subpoenaed by the House Judiciary Committee and it won’t be pretty.

Sleeping on the Job:  Well it’s not clear that Trump was actually sleeping on the job, but he might as well have been.  He traveled to Paris to participate in the centennial commemoration of the end of World War I but failed to attend a scheduled service honoring fallen US soldiers at a cemetery outside of Paris.  The official excuse was that he couldn’t go because Marine One was grounded due to the inclement weather but Chief of Staff Kelly and General Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were able to attend.  They made the roughly 50-mile long trip to the cemetery by car. The drive took about 90 minutes each way.  Apparently both of them put honoring the fallen over sartorial concerns.  To be fair, a Trump road trip would have required some additional security but prior White House officials report that  such a “plan B” would have been worked out even before Trump left for Paris so his decision to stay home was inexcusable but may have been attributable to him stewing about another damning Wall Street Journal article.  Friday the WSJ reported that Trump was actively involved in all the decisions related to the Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal payoffs.  The article sites many sources and reports that the Stormy payoff became even more complicated when National Enquirer owner David Pecker refused to make a payment to a porn star, forcing Cohen to pay out of his own pocked, which then led to the complicated scheme to pay him back, one that involved some of those other sources.  Anyway, back to Paris, all the other world leaders made it to their respective memorial locations and none of them looked any worse for wear, in fact they all looked rather chipper but then again none of them melt in the rain, or at least care too much about their hair to be concerned about a wet wind gust or two.  On Sunday, Trump missed another ceremonial moment when he opted out or showed up too late for a group arm in arm walk/photo-op with other world leaders to the Arc de Triomphe.  That said, Trump wasn’t the only leader to opt out of the show of unity, Vladimir Putin also arrived separately, flashing a thumbs up to Trump as he arrived.  Though the two did manage to sit near each other during lunch they never had their planned one on one in part because French President Macron made it clear that such a meeting wasn’t appropriate during the war commemoration event.  Macron also made his views of current political trends and Trump’s affinity for nationalism clear during his speech to the other world leaders by saying  "Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism," Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism. By saying our interests first, who cares about the others, we erase what a nation holds dearest, what gives it life, what makes it great and what is essential: its moral values. I know there are old demons which are coming back to the surface. They are ready to wreak chaos and death. History sometimes threatens to take its sinister course once again."  Trump just looked sullen.

Talking to the Sun: One sun state appears to be nearing the conclusion of its Senate race while the other seems mired in its usual pit of dysfunction and political name calling.  In Arizona, though votes are still being counted, last night the non-partisan Cook Political Report projected that Democrat Kyrsten Sinema had defeated  Republican Martha McSally to become the next Senator. Cook says that there aren’t enough remaining votes from McSally friendly areas to overtake Sinema’s growing lead.  Sinema will replace outgoing Republican Jeff Flake, a much needed pick up for the Democrats.  That won’t make Trump all that happy.  Over the weekend, despite a lack of evidence that anything funny was going on in Arizona he called for an election mulligan.  To her credit, McSally did not follow his lead, nor did Arizona’s re-elected Republican Governor Doug Ducey who made it clear that there were no irregularities in Arizona, just a slow vote count as so many of the state’s votes come in by mail.  Sadly, the Governor of Florida, Rick Scott, is so fearful that his shrinking lead will continue to diminish that he is doing his best to throw as many roadblocks in front of his state’s mandated recount process as he can.  He’s called for the State Police to get involved in the recount as has Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, one of Trump’s biggest advocates and conveniently  also one of his Attorney General contenders.  Thus far the State Police, seeing no obvious criminal activity, has resisted but it’s only a matter of time before political pressure makes that position to difficult to maintain.  In any case, despite Scott’s assertions the biggest problem in Florida is that it’s electorate is so evenly split that statewide elections end up being very, very close and close elections get messy.  Republicans have pointed their fingers at the “unethical” Broward County and Palm Beach liberals who he claims are futzing around with ballot counts. So far, it appears that officials in Broward are just slow and incompetent, not criminal.  At this point a machine recount is underway with results due in by Thursday, although already some county officials including those in Broward say that they will need a little more time.  To the extent that the machine recount indicates a margin of .25% or less, a manual recount will follow.  It’s expected that the race between incumbent Senator Nelson and outgoing Governor Scott will be so tight that it will go to a manual recount.  It’s not clear that the race between Democratic gubernatorial candidate/Tallahassee Mayor Gillum who at least for now has withdrawn his concession pending final results and Republican candidate Ron DeSantis will fall into manual recount territory, a machine recount may be sufficient.  The bottom line is that things appear to be going from awfully close to awful in Florida right now.  Scott who should recuse himself from the whole process, won’t and Trump who should just shut up is screaming voter fraud, a scream that will turn into a screech to the extent that Nelson pulls into the lead.  Things are growing more testy in George too where Democratic candidate Stacy Abrams continues to press for every vote to be counted. There’s virtually no chance that she will come out on top but she’s hoping for her opponent Brian Kemp’s vote count to fall below 50%, the threshold that would mandate a runoff.  There are no lawsuits and fraud cries flying in Mississippi, where Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith is headed for a runoff against Democrat Mike Espy, however “raindrops” are falling there too, that is raindrops in the form of dog whistles.   Yesterday Hyde-Smith pulled out the lynching card by joking about public hangings, hardly a subject to joke about anywhere but least of all in Mississippi when your opponent is an African American.  Their runoff election takes place at the end of the month.  For her part Hyde-Smith sees nothing wrong with her hanging joke, after all it is the kind of thing that Trump would say.   

More Raindrops Needed:   Were it not for the dreadful fires and increasing death toll in California local Democrats would be greeting happiness right now.  Unfortunately, the death toll from the fires keeps climbing and Trump, proving once again that consolation is not his thing particularly when the victims are “blue,” is instead blaming Democrats for their “weak” forest management skills and threatening to cut aid.  He’s right about one thing, California is blue and with the help of California. Democrats will end up gaining somewhere close to House 40 seats once final results are in.   Turns out the wave really was a wave, maybe even a tsunami.