Spelling Trouble

Quadrupling Down:  Yesterday during one of his more memorable White House lawn pressers, Trump reupped his Sunday racist tirade, the one in which he said that those four Congresswomen of color should go back to their “broken infested countries” if they “hate it here,” because while it was more than okay for Trump to have run an entire campaign hammering that Black guy Obama’s management of the country, it’s not okay for anyone, especially a group of “foreign” women of color to criticize him or his policies.  In response to one reporter’s comment that his remarks were being interpreted as racist he said “it doesn’t concern me because many people agree with me.  A lot of people love it by the way.”  Sadly he may be right about that, or at the very least he’s calculating that making racist, xenophobic comments is a good campaign strategy because as evidenced by the typed notes clutched in those little hands of his, his remarks weren’t the impromptu rantings of a crazy mind, they were  planned down to his comment that at least one of those four Congresswomen is an al Qaida supporter, or as he spelled it in a handwritten addendum to his notes  “alcaide” but then again the stable genius who claims to be a really good speller  also spelled people as “peopel.”  He’s also calculated that calling the four out as anti-Semitic, Israel haters will earn him a few more votes, mostly from the religious right but also from some Jews, so he managed to throw that into his racist rant as well. Hawaii’s Senator Brian Schatz wasn’t amused, he quickly  tweeted “I have been pretty polite about this and so have other American Jews. But you really have to leave us out of your racist talking points. You are not helping us, you are not helping society, you are not helping Israel. Your racism is your thing and we are not your shield.”  Quite a few other Democrats quickly went on record condemning Trump’s remarks and though it took a bit longer a number of Republicans finally stepped up though for the most parts their comments also included a few critical zingers about the four targeted Congresswoman. Texas’ Will Hurd, the sole Black Republican Congressman, was one of the first to condemn Trump, he called Trump’s remarks racist, xenophobic, unbecoming of the leader of the free world and inaccurate, a reference to the fact that three of the four Congresswoman are native Americans who have no countries to go back to.  Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, who is up for reelection in 2020 also agreed that the remarks were racist, adding “uh yeah, they’re all Americans” and though neither he nor Susan Collins actually used the “R” word, they too called out Trump’s comments, with Collins saying “they were over the line” and Romney saying they were “destructive” and “demeaning” and fell short of “unifying rhetoric befitting of the nation’s highest office.”  As usual, Senate Leader McConnell remained silent but Montana Senator Steve Daines expressed his unqualified support tweeting “Montanans are sick and tired of listening to anti-American, anti-Semite, radical Democrats trash our country and our ideals. This is America. We’re the greatest country in the world” and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, who’s been otherwise occupied actually talking to Speaker Pelosi about what it will take to raise the debt limit to avert a cataclysmic financial crisis simply said that Trump’s tweets weren’t racist.  VP Pence’s Chief of Staff Marc Short weighed in too, saying that since Trump had an “Asian woman of color” in his cabinet he obviously wasn’t a racist, for the record that Asian woman is Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, Mitch McConnell’s wife.  For their part, the four Congresswoman held a joint news conference late in the day where they strategically stayed away from saying much that was controversial, trying very hard to take the high road, although Ayanna Pressley notably refused to refer to Trump as president instead referring to him as the “occupant of the White House” and both Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar called for the immediate initiation of impeachment proceedings, something that Tlaib has been doing for a while now but that Omar had been more reticent about.  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who spoke last added “"I am not surprised" by the president's actions, given the actions  he's taken against immigrants and to hurt the average American. She called Trump's comments a "distraction," saying that Trump “does not know how to defend his policies, so instead he attacks us personally. That’s what this is all about.”  She also pointed out that she and her colleagues weren’t going anywhere because "we don't leave the things we love and we love all people in this country."  Like them or not, the four Congresswoman won the day, well at least they one the day with people who think that advocating xenophobia and racism is so yesterday.  As to hatred, coincidentally or not Trump’s ever dutiful Attorney General William Barr hosted an event targeting anti-Semitism yesterday, he cited an uptick in violence against Jews and Jewish institutions,  and Education secretary Betsy DeVos called out the growth of the “pernicious” anti-Israel BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement on college campus and the ostracizing of Jewish students. A noble effort but they do know that they work for Trump, who repeatedly says that there are good people on both sides, don’t they? And proving that her marriage, like her boss Trump’s administration remains highly dysfunction, Kellyanne Conway who doesn’t believe that Trump is a racist defied a congressional subpoena from the Oversight Committee about her Hatch Act violations while her husband, whose mother is from the Philippines, published another opinion piece in the Washington Post, this one relaying his experience growing up in a mixed race family.  In his piece he called Trump out as a racist and a bigot. 

Immigration Politics:  While Trump’s racist rantings dominated the news cycle, his administration announced plans to proceed with a new rule that will severely impact the ability of Central American migrants crossing the Mexico border to obtain refugee status in the US.  The rule requires that asylum-seeking immigrants who pass through a third country en route to the US first apply for refugee status in that country rather than at the US border.  Since most immigrants fleeing Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras by necessity cross through Mexico the new would effectively make it impossible for any of them to obtain US refugee status. The restriction will likely face court challenges.  And those raids that were supposed to have scooped up either 2000 or one million undocumented immigrants, for the most part though they stoked a lot of panic, they didn’t happen last weekend, which isn’t to say that they aren’t still planned.

Epstein Update:  Jeffrey Epstein is still hanging out in the Manhattan Correctional Facility awaiting a Judge’s ruling on whether or not to allow him back into his Fifth Avenue mansion, the location where he’d prefer to spend his time while awaiting trial.  Yesterday, prosecutors from the Southern District of New York argued that Epstein was both dangerous to the community, or at the very least the community of young upper east side girls, and a flight risk who should be denied bail.  They told the Judge that they had found piles of diamonds and an “extra,” albeit expired, passport with Epstein’s picture but someone else’s name in his town house safe.  In addition they reported that they believe Epstein tried to influence witnesses by paying out a total of $350,000 in what they implied was hush money to two individuals, including a former employee, in the last year.  A number of Epstein’s accusers also testified. Could this be just another one of those things that Trump, who one of Epstein’s accusers alleges raped her at one of Epstein’s homes while another one says she was recruited by Epstein while working at Mar a Lago, would like to distract us from?