Unhinged

He Said What: Yesterday while signing the long overdue extension of the 9 11 health care fund, Trump expressed appreciation for the sacrifices made by the first responders and those who labored at the World Trade Center site but then since he was unable to leave well enough alone, he added that “I was down there also — but I’m not considering myself a first responder. But I was down there. I spent a lot of time down there with you.” No, bone spurs Trump did not spend time at the poison spewing pit though he did have some association with the terrorism: he managed to glom on to some of the funds allocated to businesses hurt by the disaster, he did falsely brag that as a result of the attack that his downtown building at 40 Wall Street had become the tallest one remaining in lower Manhattan though it wasn’t and he did claim that thousands of Muslim’s cheered the disaster on from the shores of New Jersey though they didn’t.  Notably, only a group of Republican legislators were there to celebrate Trump’s signing.  Despite her long term advocacy for the 9 11 first responders and her sponsorship of the bill, New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney wasn’t invited to attend, neither was New York’s Jerry Nadler, another long time supporter of the legislation.  Elsewhere in Washington, outraged that the sobriquet #MoscowMItch awarded to him by MSNBC Joe Scarborough was trending on twitter, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who earlier help lift sanctions against Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska in exchange for the funding of a Kentucky plant, took to the floor to defend himself against the assertion that he was blocking election protection legislation from coming up for a vote to keep some combination of Russian oligarchs, Putin and Trump happy.  He called his critics modern day McCarthy’s, and attacked the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank for his “unhinged” assertion that he was a “Russian asset.”  Still, McConnell made it clear that he has no plans to allow any election protecting legislation to come up for a vote because as far as far as he’s concerned the purpose of such legislation would be to even the playing field, making the chances of a Democratic victory in 2020 more likely.  Though he enlisted his “good friend” Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings support earlier in the year when he was called a racist, Republican Congressman Mark Meadows slow walked his defense of his “good friend” Cummings, failing to speak up while Trump continued his tweet attack against him and the entire city of Baltimore, the city where son-in-law Kushner owns lots of slummy apartments.  Meadows finally came out of his hole, barely, he did that by sending a statement to CNN’s uber conservative contributor former Senator Rick Santorum in which he defended both Cummings and Trump saying that "neither is a racist,” a variation on the “good people on both sides” defense.  For his part Senator Mitt Romney who has no reason to fear Trump, he doesn’t need his job and won’t be up for reelection for another six years, refused to comment on Trump’s racist diatribe against the popular, well liked and respected Cummings, instead when asked he kept walking saying only “it was just the latest act of political theater.”  As to that theater even Trump may understand that he overreached by attacking Cummings, so yesterday he redirected his fury to an easier target, New York’s Al Sharpton.  The self-aware Sharpton who still hasn’t and will probably never fully recover from his Tawana Brawley days responded by first tweeting an old picture of himself with Trump and then adding that “Trump says I’m a troublemaker & con man. I do make trouble for bigots. If he really thought I was a con man he would want me in his cabinet.”  With all of the “racist” accusations flying it might have been easy to miss that at the end of last week Attorney General Barr announced plans to start executing people again, something that the federal government hasn’t done for sixteen years, and that yesterday he announced that he was overturning an earlier Immigration court ruling that allowed asylum for people whose claims and fears were based on being related to persecuted family members.  And at the end of the day an email written by Trump aide and all around immigrant hater Stephen Miller confirmed what everyone already knows, that the administration’s view and Miller’s “mantra has persistently been presenting aliens with multiple unsolvable dilemmas to impact their calculus for choosing to make the arduous journey to begin with."  In other words, the cruelty towards migrants is intentional.

2020:  It’s debate night again.  Tonight’s CNN hosted Democratic debate in Detroit includes spiritualist Marianne Williamson, Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, former Texas Congressman Beto O'Rourke, former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, former Maryland Congressman John Delaney;  and first timer Montana Governor Steve Bullock.  Like last time the candidates will be positioned according to their poll rankings which places like minded Senators Sanders and Warren side by side on the center of the stage. Look for Sanders who is reportedly frustrated that Warren and her ”I have a plan for that” strategy is outpolling his gruff “I’m Bernie, the ideas were mine first” approach to try to do something to get back on top of the progressive pile.  As to the others, particularly the one-percenters, expect one or more to try to ignite a flame of some sort since tonight is likely to represent their last chance to gain the traction they’ll need to continue raising enough money to continue their campaigns.  Also, don your sunglasses, tonight’s crowd of candidates is glaringly white, if it wasn’t for the presence of the three women candidates,  they’d look like a gang of Republicans.