Who's the Racist Now?

The Revolving Door:  Though he tried, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta couldn’t distance himself from his role in the Epstein Affair because it turns out that for some people at least, the consequences of letting a repeat pedophile and trafficker of teenagers off easy catches up with you, especially when one of the responsibilities of your job is going after human traffickers.  As part of his effort to make all things Epstein disappear from the news cycle, Trump kicked Acosta to the curb while lavishing him with praise, claiming the decision to leave was all his, and saying that he had done extremely well for a Hispanic guy.  With Acosta out, Trump doesn’t have anymore of those Hispanic guys in his administration, he pretended to be concerned about that, but we all know he could care less.  As to the Epstein saga, despite Trump’s best efforts it’s not going anywhere.  Over the weekend, more victims came out of the shadows, more strange stories about Epstein’s wealth and activities in NYC, Florida, New Mexico and his private Virgin “pedophilia” island came to light and later today the judge overseeing his case is expected to release a decision on whether to grant him bail or keep him in jail, in the cell down the hall from the one currently occupied by Mexican drug lord El Chapo.  Trump is probably not the only prominent person concerned about what Epstein might be willing to say to get himself out of a long sentence and what’s in all those photos that the FBI found in his NYC mansion, not to mention what they are likely to find in his Virgin Islands retreat but unlike Epstein’s other “friends” Trump’s main man Attorney General Barr, who has “unrecused” from the current case remains in the loop and is probably doing his best to protect his interests.  Late Friday, it was also reported that Trump is once again considering getting rid of his respected Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats primarily because Coats has a habit of seeing things as they really are which means that he has disagreed with Trump on Russia election interference, North Korea nukes, the Saudi directed killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and whether or not ISIS is really on its last legs.  It’s reported that Trump’s preferred replacement is Fred Fleitz, national security advisor Bolton’s former deputy and a former CIA analyst best known for his association with a far-right, anti-Muslim think tank, his view that all Muslims are bad, and his frequent appearances on Fox News.  He might not be confirmable, but then again Trump has a habit of keeping his appointees in “acting” mode for as long as possible so that might not matter to him. This morning it was reported that Trump is also considering replacing Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross who he holds responsible for the 2020 Census citizenship question fiasco.

Migrant Mess:  On Friday, VP Pence and a traveling squad including wife/mother Karen, Senators Lindsey Graham, John Cornyn and Mike Lee and a few pool reporters  went on a field trip to the border to visit two migrants camps. One of the pool reporters from the Washington Post said that they saw 400 single men in a crowded portal with no mats or pillows, that the men shouted that they had been there for 40 days, that they were hungry, wanted to brush their teeth, that it was sweltering hot and that the guards wore face masks to help them deal with the stench. The perfectly postured and poised Pence, who reacted to the stench by delicately scrunching his nose, didn’t interact with any of the migrants, but did acknowledge the obviously disgusting conditions by saying "I knew we’d see a system that was overwhelmed.  This is tough stuff," and then went on to blame Democrats for the conditions because of their failure to pass immigration legislation, ignoring that Republicans had been in charge of all three branches of government for the first two years of his administration.  Pence also said that the Border Patrol was providing care that “every American would be proud of” and slammed the press for not saying enough good things about the other much cleaner “show” facility that they visited. Notably they did not visit any facility housing women, largely because the optics of showing women in cages doesn’t fit the Trump narrative as well as showing all those single male “criminals” and “terrorists.” It’s worth remembering that few if any terrorists have really crossed into the country from Mexico, they typically fly in or cross over from Canada.  Trump’s promised INS raids also started over the weekend, but between the storm in Louisiana, the blackout in New York and warnings from various mayors, members of Congress and governors, it’s not clear that any of them actually resulted in the rounding up of any undocumented migrants, yet, though they did inspire a lot of fear and left many usual weekend recreation areas empty.  The fear part was probably the whole point of the exercise.

Racial Politics: Last week we were all treated to a back and forth war of words between Speaker Pelosi and the four members of the Democrat’s left wing twitter brigade, Congresswomen AOC, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley.  Pelosi, the ultimate vote counter, noted dismissively that the newbie women had only four votes and that despite their noise she was more concerned with unseating Trump and satisfying her whole caucus, particularly those from more centrist districts, AOC responded by implying that Pelosi was targeting the four because they were women of color. Things heated up  further this weekend when Congresswoman Pressley said that Democrats don't need "any more black faces that don't want to be a black voice" during a liberal Netroots Nation conference, a comment that didn’t please many of the long term members of the Congressional Black Caucus who are already furious that the Justice Democrat progressive group that helped the four women win their seats plans to primary some of the more moderate black members of Congress.  Of course, Trump couldn’t leave any of this alone so he interjected himself into the Democrats feud first by weighing in on Pelosi’s side because though he doesn’t agree with her about anything, he actually respects her capability as weird as that sounds. Then he really threw himself into the drech pile by tweeting that the four Congresswomen should “go back to their country of origin.” His series of tweets, called out as racist by Democrats and the press, or at least the press that’s not Fox, but largely ignored by all Republicans, turned the focus back to him and away from the Democrats’ unseemly and unproductive squabble.  The tweets also highlighted his absolute ignorance as three of the four Congresswomen are American born with the fourth, Omar, a naturalized American citizen.  Ayanna Pressley was born in Cincinnati, Rashida Tlaib was born in Detroit, and AOC was born in the Bronx, which like Puerto Rico, is actually part of the US.  Trump’s tweets probably went over well with his core base, which was the point.  Also, as an added benefit they momentarily drew attention away from the Epstein affair.

Testimony Update:  Special Counsel Mueller’s testimony has been pushed off from this week until July 24 purportedly to allow more time for expanded questioning.  For now at least, Democrats have agreed to proceed without immediate access to Mueller’s top deputies Aaron Zebley and James Quarles who were supposed to appear in private after Mueller’s public testimony.  Both Zebley and Quarles are now private citizens so it’s possible that they could be convinced to show up at a subsequent date but at least for now Barr and his cronies at the Justice Department have managed to put the kibosh on their appearance.  Also, at the end of last week Democrats approved subpoenas for 12 witnesses to appear before the House Judiciary Committee. Targeted individuals included a large cast of the usual suspects including Jared Kushner, Michael Flynn, Jeff Sessions, Rod Rosenstein, John Kelly, Corey Lewandowski, Rob Porter and David Pecker of the National Enquirer. Don’t hold your breath waiting for most of these guys to appear.