HOT

Whiplash:  It’s not like anyone really believed that Trump was really at all upset about those “send her back” chants at last week’s North Carolina political rally but still the rapidity with which he returned to attacking the four members of the so-called progressive “squad” was whiplash inducing.  All weekend, he tweeted and shouted that the four women, Representatives Ocasio-Ortiz, Tlaib, Pressley and Omar, who not so coincidentally are women of color, were incapable of loving “our” country, calling their criticism of the US and, more specifically him, unpatriotic.  Then he went for the jugular, calling all of them out as anti-Semitic, anti-Israel socialists.  It’s hard to believe that Trump really cares all that much about Israel or Jews.  However, the “good people on both sides guy” who over the weekend retweeted another message from Katie Hopkins, a right wing former Apprentice contestant who, in addition to calling for the final solution for Muslims, blames the Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue bombing on its Jewish victims because of their sympathy for refugees, is well aware that his fundamentalist Christian supporters and some of his biggest donors do and that there may be just enough Jews in places like Florida, where every swing vote counts bigly, who won’t be able to figure out which is worse, anti-immigrant hate mongering reminiscent of 1930s Germany or all those “anti-Israel, anti-Semitic Democrats.”  And to be sure, Omar who, together with Tlaib, introduced a resolution last week supportive of the anti-Israel Boycott, Disinvestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, makes it easy for Trump, his supporters and others in the Republican party who are looking for reasons to paint all members of the Democratic party as anti-Israel, anti-Semites that much easier.  Though the anti-BDS resolution doesn’t have broad Democratic support and will be dead on arrival, the Omar and Tlaib sponsored resolution provided an endless source of talking points for Trump and his supporters this weekend, including the blindly loyal religious only when it matters to him VP Pence; the always snide Stephen Miller; the increasingly frightening and powerful Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney, daughter of that other Cheney;  Trump daughter-in-law Lara Trump, the wife of Eric who warmed up the North Carolina crowd for Trump;  and a number of indistinguishable pasty Republicans spokespeople who each spent much of the weekend pushing back against suggestions that Trump’s targeting of the “squad” members and his calls for immigrants to go back to where they belong was in any way racist because to paraphrase Miller just because you are only criticizing people of color doesn’t mean that you are racist. Fox’s Chris Wallace did a particularly good job of tearing each of Miller’s assertions apart, notably pointing out that attacking Ocasio-Cortez as unpatriotic for calling Trump’s policies garbage when Trump used to regularly say that everything Obama touched turned to garbage was particularly ironic.  For his part, CBS’s Major Garrett so befuddled Pence that the best the VP could do was say that Trump may, not would, just maybe may, speak out against crowds saying “send her back” in the future.  Sadly, Trump’s strategy of pitting white people against black people while using Jews and Israel as his heat shield, is frightening, divisive and effective. Expect to hear a lot more about socialism going forward too, Trump and Republican leadership will call any expansion of health care coverage, whether it involves just an improvement of Obamacare or the full Medicare for all plan just the tip of a huge socialist iceberg, because fear of socialism is a great motivator for those Republicans who find race baiting offensive but who can justify voting for Trump to protect the country from that “socialist” Democratic party.

International Front:  Things continue to percolate in the Persian Gulf where the Iranians have seized a British tanker.  While saying that we don’t have to, Trump pledged that the US will stand firm with our British allies.  He’s also decided to take Senator Rand Paul up on his offer to help negotiate a reduction in tensions with Iran, the same Rand Paul who opposes passing the 9 11 health care bill.  Neither national security advisor John Bolton nor Secretary of State Pompeo, both Iran hawks, are all that happy that Trump is letting Paul onto their turf and they may have a point, Paul, who so irritated his own Kentucky neighbor that the poor guy lost it and beat the crap out of him, is hardly a trained diplomat but at least he tends to shy away from armed conflict with other countries. Late last week Trump met with a number of survivors of religious persecution including a Nobel prize winning Iraqi Yazidi, a Uyghur from China and a Rohingya from Burma all of whom talked about their horrible experiences within their own countries and the importance of providing aid to refugees.  Unfortunately for them and somewhat embarrassing for the rest of us, the unprepared and disinterested Trump had no idea who any of them were, where they were from or even where their regions were located.  He did however, look very much like he was about to fire whomever it was who let them into his office in the first place.  On the Hong Kong front, demonstrators were back at it this weekend, clashing with riot police while protesting the Chinese government’s plans to extradite those accused of committing crimes in Hong Kong mainland China where they would face harsher treatment. 

Domestic News:  George Nader, another one of those Trump associates with, surprise, surprise criminal predilections has been indicted for child pornography and the trafficking of minors. Nader who had meetings with Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon during the transition period and who helped organize the questionable meeting between Education Secretary Betsy Devos’s brother Eric Prince and some Russians in the Seychelle Islands has served as a witness for the Mueller investigation.   As to Mueller, his testimony is still on for this week though Jerry Nadler, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, admitted this weekend that he remains concerned that Attorney General Barr is still trying to impede Mueller’s appearance.  And lastly, things aren’t well in Puerto Rico.  As if  suffering from the impact of Hurricane Maria, Trump’s disdain, years of financial mismanagement and the recent arrest of a few local politicians hasn’t been enough, the island’s Governor, Ricardo Rossello is now involved in a huge scandal of his own making related to pages of vulgar texts between him and his aides that somehow or other made it into the public domain.   In response to days of demonstrations from protesters who want him to step down immediately he has announced that though he plans to stay in place, he will not be seeking reelection.  Trump of course seems to be enjoying the spectacle.