Storms, Fires and Emissions 

Timing is Everything: You have to give it to the Trump administration, they have a brilliant sense of timing. Just days before Hurricane Dorian started forming in the Atlantic Ocean they disclosed that they were shifting funds from FEMA’s emergency management account to the southern border to Trump’s war against the “marauding” migrants.  And now, with the fires raging in the Amazon bringing even more attention to the need for coordinated action on climate and environmental issues, the EPA has announced plans to cut back on the regulation of methane emissions, one of the major contributors to climate change even though major energy companies have spoken out against the change and the EPA’s own economic analysis of the rule change estimates that it would only save the oil and natural gas industry $17 to $19 million, a mere pittance considering that the US oil industry as a whole has annual revenue between $100 billion and $150 billion. Who would have guessed that an EPA staffed by former energy lobbyists and climate change deniers overseen by a self-professed environmental expert who knows nothing about real science and is determined to undo all Obama era regulations wouldn’t want to miss an opportunity to overturn an environment protecting regulation, even one with such a small impact on profits?  As to Hurricane Dorian, now that it looks like swing state Florida and Trump’s beloved Mar a Lago palace and bed bug ridden Doral resort, rather than his least favorite place Puerto Rico, are in the eye of the storm, Trump has become really concerned, so concerned that he cancelled a planned trip to Poland, one that he didn’t really want to make anyway in part because he still hasn’t recovered from of all the bad press he received while on his Biarritz G7 sojourn.  Instead, he plans to stay home to “monitor” the situation, don’t be surprised if a good portion of that “monitoring” takes place from a golf cart in NJ. Though Dorian’s path and timing remains uncertain, the storm is likely to be a bigly problem but don’t worry about Poland, the US will still be represented at their WWII commemoration ceremony as the ever dutiful Mike Pence is on his way in Trump’s place.  We should all be concerned about the UK where another kind of storm is brewing but that’s for another day largely because it’s hard to understand what PM Boris Johnson is or isn’t doing.

Comey Chronicles: The FBI Inspector General Report on former FBI Director Comey and his contemporaneous memos was released yesterday.  The bottom line is that while Comey broke a few FBI rules by publicly releasing the memos, despite Trump’s repeated assertions and a lot of histrionics from various and sundry people associated with Fox News and the Republican party, he didn’t break any laws nor did he share any top secret information. The Department of Justice does not plan to prosecute Comey, not out of the goodness of Attorney General Barr’s heart, to the extent that he has one, but because he didn’t do anything illegal. Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes succinctly described the report’s conclusion as follows: Michael Horowitz, the inspector general of the Justice Department “has determined that it is misconduct for a law enforcement officer to publicly disclose an effort to shut down his investigation.”  In other words, for some reason that Wittes believes is really curious and in and of itself deserves further examination, Horowitz concluded that Comey should have kept his concerns about Trump’s nefarious actions to himself rather than sharing them with the rest of us.  Though he doesn’t expect to get one, Comey responded by saying that an apology from all of his critics, hint, hint Trump, Fox, Gym Jordan, etc. would be nice.  Though Comey is now in the clear, Former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe could be facing an indictment for having made misleading statements about communications that he made and/or authorized to be made to the press during his stint at the FBI. To be clear, the issue is about what he said about the press communication, not the communication itself which he was authorized to make.  Criminal charges for his “crime” would be unusual and experts believe that it’s unlikely that the government would prevail in front of a jury, but some “deep state” head has to roll to placate Trump and it looks like Barr is on board with making McCabe the designated soccer ball.  News on that front is expected shortly. The Inspector General is also expected to release a report on whether the Russia investigation was triggered by abusive FISA warrant practices rather than questionable actions and outright lying by Trump people like George Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn, who still hasn’t been sentenced, shortly and still another report about all those leaks that may have been made by NY area FBI agents to Rudy Giuliani about Anthony Weiner’s laptop and the Hilary Clinton email investigation in the run up to the 2016 election is also due out someday, well maybe, we’ve been hearing about that report for some time but at least for now it’s still crickets at least with regard to Rudy. Apparently, Madeleine Westerhout, Trump’s personal assistant has been fired and kicked off the premises for failing to abide by the “crickets” rule, she got caught gossiping with the press about Trump’s family.  

Footnote:  Lastly, while immigration authorities have still not changed their plans to start deporting those very sick kids getting crucial medical care in the US, attention to their nightmare continues to grow.  Today’s NY Times has an article about one young Guatemalan woman who was brought to the US as a child by medical scientists who needed her to participate in research into the treatment of a rare genetic disease.  The good news is that the treatment works, it was approved by the FDA and she’s doing well.  The bad news is that even though her family has paid for all of her medical care, she has received a deportation notice that requires her to leave within 30 days.  If she leaves the US she will lose access to the lifesaving infusions of the drug that was approved because of her participation in the trial study.  Here’s hoping that all the press attention and pressure from some Democrats in Congress and on the campaign trail helps and that someone, somewhere in the Trump administration sees fit to overturn their heartless decision ASAP.      

Have a Great Labor Day!     

No Citizenship for You!

2020:  It turns out that the Monmouth University Poll showing a three way tie between Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and former VP Joe Biden really was an outlier so much so that Patrick Murray, Monmouth’s polling director, released a statement yesterday acknowledging that the “picture it painted diverged from others," pollspeak for we goofed.  He made that statement after Quinnipiac University and USA Today/Suffolk University released their polls, both of which showed Biden as the top choice of 32% of Democratic and independent voters who lean Democratic.  Quinnipiac showed Warren in second with 19% and Sanders in third 15% while the USA team found Warren with 14% and Sanders with 12%. Those results were consistent with last week’s CNN poll.  As a result of the polls and their fundraising efforts only ten Democratic candidates have met the qualification criteria for the upcoming September debate meaning that we will be subjected to only one night of Biden gaffes combined with almost everyone but Biden dumping on Biden.  The ten qualifiers include Biden, Booker, Buttigieg, Castro, Harris, Klobuchar, O’Rourke, Sanders, Yang and Warren.  Yesterday, after failing to make the cut, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, the women’s rights advocate who never really recovered from her role in dethroning former Senator/serial pincher Al Franken  dropped out of the race.  In response, Trump, the serial molester who gets away with everything, snidely tweeted “A sad day for the Democrats, Kirsten Gillibrand has dropped out of the Presidential Primary. I’m glad they never found out that she was the one I was really afraid of!” Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who came close to meeting the criteria but at the end of the day didn’t make the cut, expressed her frustration with the Democratic process by going on Tucker Carlson’s Fox show to kvetch about the process, odd but considering that she’s also canoodled with Syria’s Assad, not a stretch for Tulsi.  By the way, Trump is a bit angry with Fox because a few of its serious reporters have actually been reporting the real news, so he tweeted that he’s now “looking” for a “new News outlet, Fox isn’t working for us anymore.”  In any case there’s still a chance that Tulsi and billionaire businessman Tom Steyer, who spent around $16 million on TV and Facebook ads in an effort to buy himself onto the stage could still make it into the October debate.  In other 2020 news, Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson announced that due to his deteriorating health he plans to step down at the end of the year.  Georgia’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp who squeaked out a questionable victory over Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams will now get to pick his successor, or at least his temporary successor. A special election for the seat will be held in 2020.  With Georgia’s other Senator David Perdue up for reelection in 2020, that means that both of the state’s senate seats will be up for grabs. If only the Democrats had a few good candidates, or a few good ones willing to run.  Abrams who stands the best chance of winning was quick to say that she’s not interested in running possibly because she’s hoping to be selected as someone’s vice president, a spot that that Gillibrand also said that she would consider if only someone would ask.   

Storm Clouds:  In addition to throwing shade at Gillibrand, Trump stuck it to Puerto Rico and San Juan Mayor Carmin Yulin Cruz, another one of those “nasty” women he finds so offensive by tweeting ““We are tracking closely tropical storm Dorian as it heads, as usual, to Puerto Rico, FEMA and all others are ready, and will do a great job. When they do, let them know it, and give them a big Thank You — Not like last time. That includes from the incompetent Mayor of San Juan!” It looks like Puerto Rico will be spared the brunt of Dorian which appears to be saving its energy for Florida, but it is worth noting that Mayor Yulin Cruz actually was fairly complimentary of FEMA yesterday, saying that they appeared to have learned a lot from their Hurricane Maria experience.   Former Secretary of Defense Mattis who left the Trump administration in protest after Trump announced plans to withdraw all US troops from Syria, something that he actually still hasn’t done, finally spoke out, just a little, yesterday. In a Wall Street Journal excerpt of his upcoming book, because almost everyone who gets close to Trump inevitably goes on TV and whines and/or writes book, he wrote “I did as well as I could for as long as I could.  When my concrete solutions and strategic advice especially keeping faith with our allies, no longer resonated it was time to resign.” If Mattis was still in the administration, he’d be pulling his hair out right about now.  Yesterday it was reported that Trump, who continues to work at making Vladimir Putin happy, is slow walking the delivery of $250 million in military aid allocated to Ukraine, the country that Putin keeps going after.  As to that whole Trump Russia thing, after a Trump lawyer threatened to take action against NBC for Lawrence O’Donnell’s report that a Russian oligarch had cosigned one or more of Trump’s Deutsche Bank loans, O’Donnell retracted the story.  To be clear, he didn’t say that it had been proven false, rather he apologized for reporting a story that hadn’t gone through “our rigorous verification and standards process,” adding “I shouldn’t have reported it, and I was wrong to discuss it on the air.” That story still has legs.

Immigration Skirmishes: The report that Trump’s been promising pardons to anyone in his administration willing to skirt the law in order to advance the building of his WALL has gone over about as well as expected possibly because Republican property owners on the border might not be all that into having their property snatched away from them via illegal land grabs. For the record, his spokespeople didn’t deny his offer, they just said that he was kidding and should not be taken seriously.  Just more fodder for the 135 or so House Democratic who are now on board for impeachment, an amount that sounds impressive but that still falls short of the 218 votes that Speaker Pelosi would need for impeachment, and Nancy, the ultimate vote counter, never moves forward with a vote unless she’s confident of victory. In other news, because expelling sick kids receiving life saving treatment in the US isn’t enough for this administration yesterday the US Citizenship and Immigration Services issued a policy alert saying that some children born to US service members and government employees overseas will no longer be automatically considered citizens of the US. Though the directive was somewhat confusing it’s thought to mean that  children who are adopted by US service members abroad or who are born to service members while overseas who are not yet citizens such as service members who are green card holders will not receive automatic citizenship. Massachusetts Congressman Joseph Kennedy, who recently indicated plans to challenge fellow Democrat Senator Ed Markey for his seat because he’s a Kennedy and he really wants to be Senator, responded by saying that even those immigrants willing to fight for this country aren’t spared from Trump’s hate.  He has a point, at least with regard to Trump’s hate.

Riders on the Storms

Storm Clouds:  It’s hurricane season, and Dorian, another potentially deadly storm is currently running amuck through the Caribbean on its way to Puerto Rico and Florida but nothing to worry about here, Trump and his administration are on the case.   Yesterday instead of expressing concern for any of those in Dorian’s path,  Trump tweeted “Wow! Yet another big storm heading to Puerto Rico. Will it ever end? Congress approved 92 Billion Dollars for Puerto Rico last year, an all time record of its kind for ‘anywhere.’”  The tweet wasn’t just callous, it was also inaccurate.  Congress approved $42 billion, of which only $14 billion has actually made it to Puerto Rico.  While Trump was tweeting his administration revealed that it is moving $271 million from the Department of Homeland Security to pay for detention space and hearing locations for the asylum-seekers that they have sent to wait in Mexico, $155 million of which is being pulled from FEMA’s disaster relief fund.  Perhaps that’s because Trump, who describes himself as an expert on climate because of all the environmental impact statements his real estate businesses have had to fill out over the years, has heard from the storm gods or maybe from his good friend Jerry Falwell Jr, who is now involved in another scandal, this one with his trainer rather than his pool boy, that this year’s hurricanes won’t be all that damaging? As to all of those migrants, the Washington Post reports that Trump is so desperate to have hundreds of miles of his border WALL built before the 2020 election that he’s “directed aides to fast-track billions of dollars’ worth of construction contracts, aggressively seize private land and disregard environmental rules” because not building WALL would be an embarrassment and a disappointment that would make him look bad with his voting base.   He’s also told staff that he’ll pardon anyone who gets into trouble for any of illegal actions they take to make his WALL wishes come true.  Ever the micro manager, at least with regard to the border, Trump also told his aides that he wants his WALL painted black.  The administration isn’t just rushing to get some WALL built, they are also eliminating a protection that lets immigrants remain in the country and avoid deportation while they or their family members receive life-saving medical treatment. Democratic Senator Ed Markey called this a “new low” saying that “Donald Trump is literally deporting kids with cancer.” He is totally on point, which probably explains why #crueltyisthepoint continues to trend on Twitter.

Thoughts and Prayers:  Trump has expended an awful lot of energy trying, so far successfully, to keep his financial statements private so despite all their efforts and various subpoenas Congress still hasn’t managed to get hold of his tax filings.  Yesterday, after refusing to acknowledge whether or not the bank had received any of his, his companies’ or his families financial filings, Deutsche Bank finally admitted to a NY Federal judge that they are in possession of final and draft copies of several years of tax filings,  though they didn’t specifically say whether those returns related to Trump, his businesses or one or more members of his family, though it’s fairly obvious that Trump’s returns are involved.  They made that admission in a letter that they very reluctantly provided to the judge.  Last night, while cautioning his audience that he has only one source, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell reported that his source, someone close to Deutsche Bank, says that those tax returns reveal that Trump paid little to no income tax in some years which isn’t all that surprising and probably won’t matter to most if not all of his base since Trump frequently bragged about how good he was at avoiding paying taxes during the campaign. Much more significantly, the same source told O’Donnell that Deutsche Bank is in possession of loan documents that show Trump’s loans had co-signers and that the co-signers were Russian oligarchs close to Putin.  We’ve heard a lot of seriously implicating “wishful” stories over the past two and one half years that turned out to be fake, so at least for now, we should probably take this one with a grain of salt. That said, if O’Donnell’s source is correct, this would be hugely bigly and would explain a lot about why Trump has been working so hard to keep everyone in the dark about his financial information; it would also explain, among other things, his affinity for all things Putin, why he won’t acknowledge Russian election meddling, why he won’t let Moscow Mitch bring election protection legislation up for a vote and why he keeps advocating for Russia to be invited back into the G 7.  Remember when Eric Trump, the son whose intellect everyone likes to mock, told a golf journalist that “we get all the funding we need out of Russia,”  he was probably telling the truth.  Anyway, Trump who is supposed to be occupied with important things like running the country, spent some time yesterday refuting a Miami Herald story about bedbugs at his Doral resort, so it will be interesting to see how he responds, or even if he responds, to the much bigger story that he had co-signers and that they were Russian.  In any case we shouldn’t expect much help from Attorney General Barr, yesterday it was reported that bedbugs or not,  he’s another fan of Trump hotel venues.  He plans to hold a Christmas holiday bash for 200 people at Trump’s Washington hotel.  We know that because he signed a contract, personally guaranteeing to spend at least $31,000. Not to worry though, apparently he ran his plans by the Justice Departments ethics guys and they’ve signed off because ethical considerations are so yesterday.

International News:  Trump tweeted out support for his great friend Brazil President Bolsonaro, saying that  “He is working very hard on the Amazon fires and in all respects doing a great job for the people of Brazil” implying that if Bolsonaro wants to refuse European aid in a fit of pique, good for him. It turns out that Trump’s other good friend North Korea leader Kim Jong un has been pretty busy lately.  In addition to writing all those warm love notes to Trump, satellite photos indicate that he’s been working on the development of a ballistic missile submarine and may be making preparations to test a submarine-launched missile.  Wonder if he mentioned any of that in his last missive to Trump?  Lastly, UK Prime Minister is going nuclear too, well metaphorically at least.  He is so determined to push forward with his disruptive no-deal Brexit plan that he is asking the Queen to suspend parliament in an effort stop his opponents’ from preventing him from going ahead.  Storms brewing on all fronts.

        

Pinocchio Days

Liars Prevaricate: Trump stuck it out in Biarritz to the end of the G 7 summit but failed to attend one of its more more important meetings, the one on climate change, not all that surprising given that he doesn’t believe in science, thinks nuking hurricanes is a thing, believes that raking solves forest fires, that windmills cause cancer and that staring directly into solar eclipses is perfectly safe.  He and his handlers falsely claimed that he missed the meeting because he was busy having meetings with other world leaders, a provable lie as all of those other leaders were actually participating in the climate change meeting while his seat remained empty. Trump also lied when he said that China had called him in an effort to restart trade talks, they haven’t. And lied again when he said that many of the other G 7 members want to readmit Russia to the group, they don’t though reports are that Trump pressed hard for Russia to be invited back in during several closed door meetings. And he lied again when he repeated his claim that the reason that Russia had been kicked out of the G 7 was because Obama had been outsmarted by Putin and was mad, Russia was kicked out because Putin annexed Crimea, a bigly problem for neighboring countries who fear they’ll fall victim to similar treatment. PBS News Hour reporter Yamiche Alcindor gets bonus points for actually asking Trump why he continues to make that assertion when its “clearly a lie.”  And Trump lied once more when he said that Melania had gotten to know North Korean strongman Kim Jong un really well, she’s never met him, something that a White House spokesman subsequently “clarified,” while asserting that if she had met him she would really like him because he’s a very nice guy, especially if you ignore his affinity for murder, mayhem and missiles.  And then Trump lied repeatedly when he announced that he plans to host next year’s US based G 7 meeting at Trump National Doral saying it provides the only suitable location in the entire US, that countless other places have been evaluated and that all of them fall short in comparison and that he won’t benefit, citing as proof that his presidency is costing him $3 billion to $5 billion dollars, another lie.  He omitted that the Doral resort is currently losing money so much so that departing members who have to wait for four new members to join before getting their membership fees refunded now face a decades long wait for the return of their money. He also failed to mention that prior presidents have found the government owned facilities at Camp David more than adequate.  Having the meeting at a Trump owned resort is clearly a violation of the emoluments  clause of the Constitution, if only anyone in the Justice Department cared enough to do anything about it.

Time Wrinkles:  For a brief second in time, it looked like President Macron’s efforts to broker a meeting between the US and Iran might actually pay off.  Trump said that he would meet “if the circumstances were correct or right” and the Iranians had appeared receptive. But now, facing hardliners at home and possibly wanting to preempt Trump from being the first one to cancel, the meeting is off, at least for now, as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has backed off the idea of direct talks with Trump, saying Washington must first lift sanctions against Tehran.  It also appears that Brazil President Bolsonaro isn’t interested in accepting any of that paltry $22 million that the G 7 members, or at least those members who attended the climate meeting, planned to send his way.  Bolsonaro, who like Trump, doesn’t believe that climate change is a thing or that the fires raging in the Amazon are more than just a seasonal nuisance, albeit one that has shrouded parts of Brazil in smoke, slammed the offer as “colonialist” and questioned what the other countries want in return, because as far as he’s concerned that they might just want clean air and a livable planet isn’t credible. 

Polling Panic:  Yesterday, a Monmouth University Poll indicated that the Democratic race was now a three way tie between Senators Sanders, Warren and former VP Biden. Obviously the poll got lots of attention, made Sanders and Warren very happy and the Biden team not so much.  A few commentators suggested that Biden’s days were numbered but then several pollsters and pundits pointed out that the Monmouth Poll was based on a very small sample, had a margin of error of 7 points and was probably an outlier.  So basically, nothing yet to report.

Hurricane Nuke

Crazy Train: As you probably heard, Trump reached new levels of crazy on Friday. He flipped out on Fed Chairman Powell for not lowering interest rates during his speech at a Jackson Hole Fed symposium, a meeting where action on interest rates is never taken, even though Powell did hint that another interest rate cut could come as soon as next month. Trump reacted by questioning “who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi," who had just imposed some additional tariffs on US goods.  He then doubled down saying that if Powell wanted to resign, it would be okay by him.  Then because the markets weren’t rattled enough, he “hereby ordered” American companies to “immediately start looking for alternatives to China,” a pretty bold move from a guy who sources all of his MAGA hats and extra-long ties from China.  He later justified his royal edict by saying that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act gives him the right to say and do stupid things whenever he wants.  In response to the China meshugas, economic advisor Larry Kudlow told anyone who would listen that though he concurred with Trump’s interpretation of that act, Donald only meant that American companies should take a fresh look at moving out of China.  Not surprisingly the stock markets were not amused by Trump’s rantings, by the end of the day the NYSE had dropped more than 600 points.  After the markets closed Trump announced an increase on tariffs on Chinese goods.

Biarritz: After freaking out the markets and a large swath of sane people, Trump headed to Biarritz for the annual G 7 meeting. While there he lashed out at the media, or at least the media other than Fox, and claimed that the strength of the US economy was the talk of the town. That said, possibly because the market drop really had him rattled, by Trump standards he was on good behavior, he didn’t shove any other world leaders or leave early in a huff.  Those other leaders appear to have developed strategies for expressing their reservations, delicately.  When Trump asserted that North Korea’s continued provocative launching of missiles didn’t violate any treaties, Japan’s leader Shinzo Abe said oh yes they do. Then when Trump trumpeted a new trade deal with Japan, one that he said would result in Japan buying hundreds of millions of dollars of corn, Abe calmly said there was still more work to be done.  Despite Trump’s insistence that some of the other leaders were supportive of inviting Russia back into the group, UK’s new leader Boris Johnson, who Trump feels an affinity towards because of their shared support of Brexit, said no way that’s going to happen.  Johnson also gently pushed back on trade wars with what he described as a “faint, sheeplike” dissent, saying “we’re in favor of trade peace on the whole, and dialing it down if we can.”  Taking a page from Trump’s book, the meeting’s host, French leader Macron, pulled a fast one of his own, he invited Iran’s Foreign Minister Zarif to attend the meeting for some sidebar meetings on the nuclear deal.  While Trump insists that he was given a heads up about Zarif’s attendance, US aides appeared stunned, an indication that if Trump was given a heads up, it was one delivered at the last minute.  Macron should be careful, over the weekend Axios reported that Trump wants to know why he can’t  nuke hurricanes to prevent them from making landfall over the US.  You never know, Trump could decide to test that out over Martinique or St. Martin.  As to China, this morning, Trump is now suggesting that a trade deal with China is in the offing.  Stock futures are up, for now. Whatever.    

2020:  Though Congressman Seth Moulton, who never even made it to the debate stage, ended his quixotic campaign for the Democratic nomination for president, the real news of the weekend was on the Republican side. Former Illinois Congressman Joe Walsh announced his plans to primary Trump.  Walsh, a tea party Republican who served for only one term before becoming a conservative talk rate show host, is no charmer, he’s been known to say some pretty outrageous things and was one of the many Republicans who advanced the Obama birther crap.  Nevertheless he says that he’s running because Trump is “unfit” and somebody needs to step up and there needs to be an alternative for right wingers because the “the country is sick of this guy's tantrum -- he's a child." The pundit class, or at least the never Trumper Republican crowd thinks that, unlike some of the more civilized Republicans who are toying with running such as former Massachusetts Governor Weld and former South Carolina Congressman/Governor Sanford,  Walsh may be bombastic and aggressive enough to inflict damage on Trump giving some in the party’s right flank a fiscally conservative alternative.  His announced run has already made George Conway, Kellyanne’s husband very happy.  George spent much of Sunday tweeting out his enthusiasm, just another bizarre summer weekend at the Conways.  Though it’s hard to know what to make of Anthony Scaramucci, Trump’s communications director for eleven days, he is also up to something.  Among other things, the Mooch is threatening to create an anti-Trump PAC.  At the same time he claims to be working on cajoling a number of former members of the Trump staff and cabinet to break their silence about the insanity that permeates the Trump White House.  Maybe one of them can address the hurricane, nuke thing?  It’s fair to assume that the Mooch doesn’t expect that other former South Carolina Governor/UN Ambassador Nikki Haley to join him, she spent much of the weekend supporting a lot of Trump’s actions while at the same time dismissing rumors that Trump is thinking about dropping her “good” friend Mike Pence from his ticket in order to add her on.  To that end last week she tweeted "Enough of the false rumors, Vice President Pence has been a dear friend of mine for years. He has been a loyal and trustworthy VP to the President. He has my complete support.”  What’s that about?          

We Didn't Start the Fire

On the Road Again: Trump is due to leave soon for this weekend’s G7 summit in Biarritz soon where he is expected to continue to act like a bull in a china shop.  In anticipation of his boorish behavior, French President Macron has already said there are no plans to issue a joint communique at the end of the meeting largely because no one expects Trump to sign-off on one that the rest of the members can live with. Trump continues to insist that Russia should be invited back into the group because who really cares about that whole Crimea annexation and anyway it was that other guy Obama’s fault. In an effort to bolster his argument, Trump’s insisted that Macron told him that he wants Russia to be invited back in too, only Macron says he didn’t say that.  In any case, next year’s meeting is scheduled to take place in the US and the host gets a lot of leeway about who is invited, so Vlad shouldn’t be too disappointed about missing out on Biarritz, he’ll probably get an invite to attend next year.  At Mar a Lago or Trump Doral Miami?  Odds are that the other world leaders will avoid bringing up Trump’s Greenland/Denmark fiasco though that story has legs, we learned yesterday that Trump didn’t come up with the idea of buying Greenland on his own, he got it from Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton who boasted to a group of businessmen at a Little Rock luncheon that he’s the one who told Trump that he should try to buy the island because its “economic potential is untold,” it’s “vital to our national security” and “anyone who can’t see that is blinded by Trump derangement.” Republican groups are now raising money selling t-shirts that include Greenland as part of the map of the US, I did you not. It looks like Senator Cotton is still angling for a position in the Trump cabinet, and his aspiration isn’t all that unrealistic as reports have surfaced again that Secretary of State Pompeo is still considering a run for the Kansas Senate seat being vacated by retiring Republican Senator Pat Roberts.  That could be a problem for Trump and the rest of us because Pompeo is considered a “voice of reason” or at least reasonable when compared to the other people whispering in Trump’s ears.  One of those other whisperers, “Acting” Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney had been pushing for Trump to cut foreign aid by $4 billion, but had his hopes dashed after Pompeo together with Treasury Secretary Mnuchin convinced Trump that it would be “detrimental to national security and to bipartisan negotiations ahead of another shutdown deadline.“  Still another one of Trump’s whisperers, his sometime legal advisor Rudy Giuliani who also aspires to be the Secretary of State but who could never get confirmed, has been back to Ukraine, where with the help of State Department officials, he “strongly urged” Ukrainian presidential aide Andriy Yermak, to investigate whether there was any impropriety in Joe Biden’s diplomatic activities in Ukraine while his son worked for a gas company in the country because having benefited and so far gotten away with getting help from Russia during the last election the collective Trump team sees nothing wrong with seeking help from still another country this time around.  To be fair to the Ukrainians, they don’t appear all that interested in helping Trump’s team out but are fearful that failing to do as asked could cost them some much needed military assistance. 

2020: Getting back to Pompeo and his “will he or won’t” he run for the Senate dance, he is being pressured to run by Moscow/NRA Mitch McConnell who is growing increasingly concerned that the Republicans really could lose control of the Senate in 2020.  He wants Pompeo running for the Kansas seat because he fears that if he doesn’t the Republicans could end up with Trump stooge Kris Kobach, the guy who once headed the phony election fraud commission, as the Republican candidate and is fearful that Kobach would lose the seat to almost any Democrat opponent.  We know that McConnell is particularly concerned about the outcome of the 2020 election because of his NY Times op-ed, the one where he warns Democrats that they should leave the filibuster intact if they take over control of the Senate.   He argues that the filibuster is important because of its role in preserving the Senate’s treasured tradition of deliberation over efficiency, which he calls “one of the body’s central purposes is making new laws earn broader support than what is required for a bare majority in the House.”  This from McConnell, who proudly brags about effectively preventing anything not related to tax cuts, repealing Obamacare, or confirming “his” judges from coming to a vote.     

Burning:  Fires are raging in the Amazon, not the warehouse but the rainforest.  Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro, a climate change denier who believes that deforestation is okay especially if it leads toconomic growth, has, without any evidence, blamed the raging fires on non-governmental organizations, claiming that they set them to undermine his leadership.  He also struck out at France’s Macron asserting that Macron’s statement that “Our house is burning. Literally. The Amazon rain forest — the lungs which produces 20% of our planet’s oxygen — is on fire, it is an international crisis. Members of the G-7 Summit, let’s discuss this emergency” is just proof of Macron’s “colonialist mindset.”  Trump, who ironically has been accused of colonialism for his attempt to buy Greenland, is a supporter of Bolsonaro, in addition to their shared views on climate science, Trump admires his nationalistic policies and his disdain for his own indigenous population.  Just another reason that the upcoming G 7 meeting will be very testy.  On the US front, yesterday Bernie Sanders released his version of the Green New Deal, an ambitious $16 trillion plan to transition the US to 100 percent renewable electricity and phase out traditional gasoline-powered engines over the next ten years.  Since the plan is from Bernie, it relies chiefly on the government with far less involvement from the private sector than other plans.  He insists that his plan would “end unemployment” by creating 20 million jobs and offering assistance to displaced fossil fuel workers.  Unrealistic and prohibitively expensive, probably, but then again right now half of Brazil is covered in smoke and San Paolo is “dark and stormy” from the smoke so everything should be on the table, that is everything except for denial and doing nothing.  

Jerusalem Syndrome

The Chosen:  Every year a couple of people visiting Jerusalem are so overwhelmed by the experience of being so close to so many religious sites that they become psychotic, some even convince themselves that they are Jesus. Psychiatrists in Israel have a name for this break with reality, they call it Jerusalem Syndrome.  Well Trump wasn’t in Israel yesterday but he appears to be suffering from the syndrome.  He went so far off the rails during an especially long and steamy press Q & A session that a reporter from The Guardian said he “swept away all previous Trumpian benchmarks for incoherence, self-aggrandizement, prevarication and rancor in a presidency that has seemed before to veer loosely along the rails of reason but may never have come quite so close to spectacularly jumping the track.” During his half-hour rant, he “trucked in anti-Semitic tropes, insulted the Danish prime minister, insisted he wasn’t racist, bragged about the performance of his former Apprentice reality show, denied starting a trade war with China, praised Vladimir Putin and told reporters that he, Trump, was the “Chosen One” – all within hours of referring to himself as the “King of Israel” and tweeting in all caps: “WHERE IS THE FEDERAL RESERVE?” For good measure the dramatic Trump looked to the sky while making that “chosen one” claim.    Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes responded to Trump’s performance by pointing out that the last president to compare himself to the Messiah was Andrew Johnson and that the letters of impeachment against him cited his “intemperate, inflammatory and scandalous harangues.”   

Nasty, Nasty, Nasty:  Of course, during his Denmark diss, Trump called Denmark Prime Minister Nette Frederiksen nasty, because aren’t all assertive, competent and powerful women nasty? Not satisfied that he’d adequately insulted a valuable ally, he later tweeted more criticism, this time about the inadequacy of Denmark’s contribution to NATO, again slamming NATO, leading to increased concern that he will follow-up on his earlier threats to pull out of the alliance, a real concern since most, if not all of those who convinced him to stay in NATO last time he said he was pulling out are long gone from his administration. Getting back to his hot rant, he also whiplashed on policy, this time saying that he was no longer considering either payroll or those “elitist” capital gains tax cuts that he had said he had been considering on Tuesday, adding, however, that he was back to considering more gun background checks, a statement that few if any believe.  On the immigration front, he defended the decision to try to upturn the rules governing the treatment of migrants detailed in the Flores Settlement, because why shouldn’t he be able to throw migrant families into detainment cages for indeterminate periods of time.  And then for good measure, he added that he was also again focusing on getting rid of “birth right” citizenship, a bigly problem since doing so would violate the Constitution.

2020:  Last night Washington Governor Jay Inslee announced he is no longer running for president.  Though he’d drawn wide praise for bringing climate change to the forefront of the campaign and had raised enough money to qualify for the next debate he hadn’t been able to break through in any of the polls, another one of the debate participation criteria. He teased that he had another big announcement coming up and followed up very early this morning by announcing that he will run for a third term as Governor.  Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, another presidential dropout, has announced that he too is running, not for Governor but for the Senate.  Though he still has to make it through a crowded state primary, he’s polling way ahead of Senator Cory Gardner who is viewed as the Republican party’s most vulnerable sitting Senator.  In Arizona another one of those vulnerable Republicans, Senator Martha McSally, is now polling five points behind former astronaut Mark Kelly, the Democrats' most likely candidate for the Arizona Senate seat.  With Alabama Doug Jones’ seat considered very vulnerable largely because he only won his Sessions-filler seat in red Alabama because his opponent was a pedophile, the Democrats will need to win in Colorado and Arizona and in a few more states like Maine and North Carolina to take Senate control away from Moscow/NRA Mitch and his Republican party.

The Rasputin Effect:  During his steamy rant Trump insisted that the economy was doing great however, though it’s not in the tank, or at least not there yet, things aren’t as copacetic as he’d like us all to believe.  Yesterday the Labor Department revised down total job gains from April 2018 to March 2019 by 501,000, the largest downward revision in a decade.  One economist said that the mystery had been “how the economy was continuing to get 200,000 jobs a month," adding now that we know that growth was a more modest 170,000 month, that’s “less of a mystery now."  Additionally, the federal deficit is growing faster than expected because it turns out that all of Trump’s tax cuts combined with the impact of all of his tariffs are forcing the Treasury to borrow increasing sums of money.  The deficit is now expected to reach $960 billion for the 2019 fiscal year ending September 30, widening to $1 trillion for the 2020 fiscal year.  Referring to trade advisor Peter Navarro as Trump’s Rasputin, the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board says that the best way for Trump to prevent a recession would be to cut the “trade-uncertainty tax,” their term for his tariffs.  He could also drop a few of his other Rasputinesque advisors and try to leave #25thAmendment territory, but that’s not likely to happen.  

Hamlet and Tropes

Something Rotten: Back in 2016, Senator Ted Cruz who was then running for the Republican nomination for president tweeted about Trump “I don’t know anyone who would be comfortable with someone who behaves this way having his finger on the button.  I mean we’re liable to wake up one morning and Donald if he were president would have nuked Denmark.”  Well, the good news is that Trump hasn’t nuked Denmark yet, but he does appear to have inflicted significant damage on an important relationship with a once loyal ally all over their failure to seriously consider his plan to acquire Greenland.  It turns out that Real Estate whiz Don wasn’t kidding when he said that he wanted to buy that highly desirable “property.”  He confirmed that last night when he stunned the Danes by tweet cancelling his scheduled trip, saying “Denmark is a very special country with incredible people but based on Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s comment that she would have no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland, I will be postponing our meeting scheduled in two weeks for another time…The Prime Minister was able to save a great deal of expense and effort for both the US and Denmark by being so direct…”  That tweet followed one he’d sent on Monday night that showed a big gold Trump tower photoshopped onto Greenland, the text in that tweet said “I promise not to do this to Greenland.”  The Danes, loyal allies who have suffered casualties supporting the US effort in Afghanistan, had thought Trump was visiting to meet with their Queen and Prime Minister to express appreciation for the two countries’ special relationship.  Instead, they are now so furious about the snub and the whole Greenland thing, that a headline on the website of the state broadcaster reads, “Trump sends Denmark and the US’s relationship to the freezing point.”  As to that whole nuke thing, we should all be concerned.  Last weekend,  a week or so after the Russians accidentally irradiated a few villages and killed some scientists by accidentally exploding an experimental missile of their own, we tested a  medium-range cruise missile, just weeks after pulling out of a key treaty with Russia that had banned such nuclear-capable weapon testing. Arms race aside, Trump remains frustrated that he won’t get to see his good friend Vladimir Putin at the upcoming G 7 meeting so he once again called for Russia to be readmitted, blaming their exclusion from the economic leadership group on his least favorite ex-president, Obama, claiming that he had booted Russia from what was then the G8 because “he got outsmarted” by Putin.  For the record, Russia was kicked out of the group as punishment for invading and annexing Crimea.    

Tropes R Us:  Frustrated that his efforts to gain more Jewish support from the controversy surrounding Congresswomen Tlaib and Omar’s cancelled Israel trip are falling flat, Trump stepped in deep dreck yesterday after he pulled out the dreaded dual loyalty trope saying that Jewish Americans who vote for the Democratic Party show "either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.”  Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League responded by tweeting “It’s unclear who @POTUS is claiming Jews would be ‘disloyal’ to but charges of disloyalty have long been used to attack Jews.” During a CNN interview Florida Democratic Congressman Ted Deutch  said  Trump should apologize for using “the kind of language that ends up fueling the anger of white nationalists” adding what Trump “is doing is creating an environment in which anti-Semitism can flourish.” The American Jewish Committee said that “political affiliation is not tied to religious identity and urged Trump to stop making his "divisive" and "disrespectful" judgements. Suffice it to say, it’s unlikely that any Jews who weren’t already in Trump’s camp will be joining him in any Hava Nagilas or at the ballot box anytime soon, a problem for Trump because to the extent they are all that predictive recent polls results which show him trending down appear to have him twisted in knots.  A Fox News poll shows Trump losing head-to-head matchups against four of the top Democratic presidential primary contenders. The Fox poll found Trump with 39 percent support among registered voters in head-to-head matchups against Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, and Elizabeth Warren with Sanders “beating Trump with 48%, Warren winning over Trump with 45% and Harris winning with 46% support.” The same poll shows Joe Biden, gaffes and all, beating Trump by the most with “50% support among those surveyed, compared to Trump's 38%.”  Notably, despite Trump’s fury at Fox, their poll is no outlier.  As to the battle among the Democrats, a CNN poll shows Joe Biden back up to 32%, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren at 15% and 14% respectively and Kamala Harris down to 5%, in the same spot as Mayor Pete Buttigieg. So far ten Democrats including Cory Booker, Julian Castro, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke,  Andrew Yang and the five mentioned above have all qualified for the September Democratic debate stage.

No Flu Shot for You:  Yesterday, Customs and Border Patrol stated that they have no plans to provide flu shots to any of the migrants in their custody. Their position is that since they only keep the migrants in custody for a short time period, it’s not their problem and anyway who cares about flu epidemics anyway?  As to that whole short time in detention explanation, it doesn’t really fly as the Trump administration is trying to terminate the Flores settlement, the immigration related court order that prevents most migrant family units from being held in detention centers for more than 20 days. Eliminating the Flores settlement would allow the government to hold migrant children and their families indefinitely while they await their court hearings. Flu may be just the tip of the epidemic iceberg.   

Other News:  Despite claims that the economy is doing fine, Trump is growing increasingly nervous about a recession as are his advisors so they really are considering cutting payroll taxes and inflation adjusting capital gains to minimize capital gains taxes, a plan that has been under consideration for a while.  Who cares about further ballooning the deficit anyway?  As to guns, Trump doesn’t appear all that concerned about them either.  He told NRA head Wayne LaPierre that universal background checks are no longer under consideration.

Flop Sweat

What Me Worry?  Though Trump insists that the economy is very strong, he’s obviously starting to get very nervous that it’s about to tank. His tweets are the tell.  Yesterday he once again attacked Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and the entire Federal Reserve Board as well as the Democrats who he tweeted are “trying to ‘will’ the economy to be bad for purposes of the 2020 election, very selfish!”  He also tweeted that “interest rates, over a fairly short period of time, should be reduced by at least 100 basis points, with perhaps some quantitative easing as well,”  while at the same time complaining that the strong dollar was hurting the other world economies, dragging ours down too.   That last tweet was notable for a few reasons.  First, there is no way he wrote it, neither Trump nor his base, nor most of the rest of us have a clue what “quantitative easing” even means, simplistically it’s shorthand for asking the Fed to pump more money into the economy to weaken the dollar. Second, and more importantly, you don’t dramatically drop interest rates or pump money into a booming economy, both are steps taken when trying to urgently address a slumping economy (think 2008) and at least with regard to interest rate cuts, it’s important to leave room to make more gradual cuts when they are actually needed.  This weekend it was reported that no one in the Trump administration even had a plan for what to do if the economy takes a turn for the worse.  Not entirely surprising given that Trump mostly surrounds himself with sycophants, would you want to be the one to tell him, the “emperor” with no clothes, that his economy was shedding attire?  The NY Times now reports that while still refusing to admit that there is a significant risk that the economy will turn downwards,  the White House is scurrying to develop a plan to “help bolster” the economy to prevent it from falling into a recession. Implementing a payroll tax cut and reversing some of Trump’s tariffs are among the items under consideration. Trump hasn’t signed off on either strategy, he may not even know that a plan is in the works.  In any case, while futzing with the tariffs is something he could do on his own, he would need Congress’ help with the payroll tax cut, and it’s unlikely that he would get it during the run up to 2020.  There’s always a chance that all those economists predicting an economic slowdown are wrong, they frequently are, but if they are correct expect lots of flop sweat, frantic tweeting and more slurred but upbeat reports from economic advisor Larry Kudlow, who for the record is almost always wrong.

Privates:  The NRA appears to be going through tough times.  They keep losing board members; they are engaged in a legal battle with Ackermann McQueen their long time advertising company/partner in gun promotion; they’re being tortured by New York’s Attorney General who is questioning the validity of their tax-exempt status; and you can’t pick up a paper without learning more about CEO Wayne LaPierre’s  NRA funded shopping sprees.  Despite all that, or maybe because of it, they are working really hard and still seem to have Trump by his private parts.  He seems to be running away from gun restrictions, in addition to blaming all the recent mass shootings on mental health problems and the closure of all those old style mental institutions, the ones where lobotomies and strait jackets were de rigueur, he’s now wants us to know, or at least his gun toting base to know that he’s  “very, very concerned with the Second Amendment, more so than most presidents would be,” and by the way “people don’t realize we have very strong background checks right now.” For substantive gun legislation to pass, Trump will have to take the lead and twist some arms, starting with those of Moscow/NRA Mitch and it’s looking less and less likely that he will go there.  Sadly, the NRA isn’t the only institution under the gun so to speak, Planned Parenthood is also going through tough times.  The Trump administration may be unwilling to curb gun ownership, but limiting access to reproductive care is something they are depressingly good at.  Yesterday, in response to a new Trump administration rule that forbids family planning organizations receiving money under the Title X federal family planning program from making referrals to doctors who perform abortions, Planned Parenthood decided to withdraw from the program.  That means, that at least until a court rules in their favor, assuming one ever does, Planned Parenthood will give up about $60 million annually, funds that “enabled the group to provide more than 1.5 million low-income women each year with services like birth control and pregnancy tests, as well as screenings for sexually transmitted diseases and breast and cervical cancer.”  Though Planned Parenthood needs the money, they’ve decided that refusing to provide appropriate referrals would be unethical because people expect their doctors to tell them where to go for care!

Other News:  In the wake of the recent explosion at its missile testing facility, the one that killed at least seven people, Russia appears to have disabled several of its nuclear monitor stations because one way of hiding nuclear leaks is to stop measuring radioactivity.  And why not, that’s the approach that the Trump administration takes to climate change, if you don’t measure things, doesn’t that mean that they are really happening?   Jeffrey Epstein may be gone but his story continues to reverberate.  Yesterday, while admitting that he knew that the federal prison system was suffering from acute staffing shortages due to administration imposed hiring freezes,  Attorney General Barr reassigned the Acting Director of Prisons, replacing him with Dr. Kathleen Hawk Sawyer, who served in that role during Barr’s first stint as Attorney General.  Though we still don’t know who Epstein left his $550 million plus fortune to and it probably doesn’t matter because it’s fair to assume that his victims, beneficiaries and the government will be fighting over his money for a long time to come, we now know he had a will, one that he signed just two days before his apparent suicide.  It was filed in the Virgin Islands.  Daniel Pantaleo, the police officer who used the controversial chokehold that resulted in the death of Eric Garner during an arrest for selling single cigarettes in 2014 was fired by NYC’s Police Commissioner yesterday.  With the support of his union, Pantaleo is already appealing his dismissal. Not so fun fact, while chokeholds were illegal in NYC at the time of Eric Garner’s death, they are now allowed under “exigent circumstances,” whatever that means.     

Art of the Danish 

Rinse and Repeat:  With little new to report, the press, with the help of the agitator in chief, managed to repeat last week’s news this weekend,  beating a few items to death.  Israel remained the focus of attention and not in a good way.  Late Friday, after Israel granted her permission to visit her elderly grandmother on the West Bank Congresswoman Tlaib, who had written a letter promising to stay away from politics during her visit in exchange for that permission, rejected the offer allegedly because of those restrictions, but more likely because she was more interested in poking Israel than seeing her “ailing” grandmother. Trump responded by again dissing Tlaib and her fellow pack member Ilhan Omar.  Additionally a number of Democrats, including Bernie Sanders suggested a reconsideration of aid to Israel and/or some kind of formal reprimand of Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the US and/or David Friedman, US’s ambassador to Israel. Although it’s not clear how much, if at all, any of this will impact the outcome of elections in either the US or Israel, one thing is certain, none of it did anything to calm regional tensions, on Saturday Hamas shot three missiles into Israel and Israel responded in kind.  Still Trump got what he wanted, his base appears to be buying into the argument that Democrats hate Israel and that Tlaib and Omar are the face of the Democratic party and the Israel fracas deflected attention, temporarily at least, from the issue that has Trump very worried: the state of the economy and the possibility that a recession will hit just in time for the 2020 election.  To that end he sent economic advisor Larry Kudlow, who back before he became a card carrying member of the Trump administration talked up the stupidity of trade tariffs, out to the morning news shows to assert that “there’s no recession on the horizon” that things are as good as they can be, that tariffs were working and that people just need to show some “optimism.”  The content of Kudlow’s presentation got significantly less attention than the fact that he was bleary eyed and slurring his words, possibly drunk or suffering another cardiac related crisis.  Either explanation is possible because working for Trump and spewing things you know aren’t true are both deleterious to one’s health, particularly for someone like Kudlow who has a history of both heart disease and substance abuse.  Peter Navarro, Trump’s  trade advisor, took a different tack, he just dismissed concerns that the yield curve, the predictor of recessions, had inverted last week by saying that everyone but him had misinterpreted the curve.  As to Trump he mumbled some of his usual incomprehensible nonsense on his way back to Washington yesterday conceding that economies across the world are "not doing well like we are doing, the rest of the world, if you look at Germany, if you look at European Union, frankly, look at the UK, look at a lot of the countries, they are not doing well."  Then he added that "most economists actually say we are not going to have a recession," another lie but who besides the Washington Post is counting?  All of that was a variation on the spiel he pushed at his New Hampshire rally where he warned his supporters, most of whom don’t have 401ks or IRAs of note, that the market would tank even more if they voted for one of those socialist Democrats. After that rally, he bragged that the crowd size had been the bigliest ever held in the New Hampshire space, not true as evidenced by the pictures of all of the empty seats in the arena but at least his New Hampshire crowd was made up of voluntary attendees.  Apparently, last Tuesday the plant workers at a Royal Dutch Shell’s manufacturing facility in western Pennsylvania were told that they had to attend a Trump speech and smile or forfeit the day’s pay, no joke.  Trump’s interest in purchasing Greenland from Denmark is also not a joke, or at least not a joke to Trump.  Though most viewed  reports that Trump had asked his staff to investigate the possibility of taking Greenland off of Denmark’s hands as another attempt to divert attention from economic headwinds and stock market volatility, Trump doubled down this weekend saying that he really does want to purchase Greenland something that the possibly inebriated Kudlow repeated as well.  Trump plans to pitch the purchase during his scheduled September meeting in Denmark with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen who continues to insist that Greenland is not for sale.  Who knows maybe that’s because Frederiksen has read the “Art of the Deal” and is holding out for a higher price?

Miller Time:  Stephen Miller, Trump’s immigration guru was featured in both the NY Times and the Washington Post this weekend, a notable bifecta for such a curiously evil character. His life trajectory from a liberal upbringing in Santa Monica, California to Duke University to key roles as an aide to both former Congresswoman/one time presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and former Senator/Attorney General Jeff Sessions and then onto the White House would be much more impressive if only any of those positions involved working for ethical intellects and he hadn’t used his positions to effectively advance his white supremacist/anti-immigrant views.  Speaking of white supremacists, the right wing, Trump supporting Proud Boys faced off against some members of the extreme left wing Intifa crowd in Portland, Oregon this weekend at an alt right rally, one of many that the Proud Boys plan to organize going forward.  Trump had no problem with the Proud Boys or their message but did say that he was considering designating Antifa as an “organization of terror,” because in case you missed it, terror only lives on the left, on the right it’s okay, or okay with Trump.  Apparently, the FBI isn’t on board with Trump’s message that only Antifa is the problem, over the weekend they arrested a white nationalist for threatening to shoot up another Jewish community center, this one in Ohio.  They seized an arsenal of weapons from his parent’s home that included two AR-15 style rifles, bulletproof armor and a “ton” of ammunition.  As to guns, the dialogue continues with Trump blaming “mental issues” and calling for the opening of more loony bins and Republicans like Senator Lindsey Graham sounding, with the emphasis on “sounding,” like they’re interested in doing something, possibly passing a really weak red flag law, and Democrats calling the House Judiciary Committee back to Washington early to address more gun legislation, nice but nothing happens in Washington without Moscow/NRA Mitch McConnell’s support and he appears to be stalling while “recuperating” from shoulder surgery in Kentucky.  By the way his surgery was paid for by his really good health insurance, insurance that he appreciates but wants taken away from millions.   Axios  reports that the general sentiment is that If new gun legislation doesn't pass in September, it won't get done before the 2020 election.  As to Moscow Mitch earlier reports that he pushed for the lifting of sanctions against Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska in exchange for an investment in the building of a $1 billion plus aluminum plant in Kentucky continue to reverberate and that should matter but won’t because Mitch like Trump seems to be coated in Teflon or aluminum or whatever.  

Friends?

Stuck in Second Gear:  Friends are not supposed to let friends drive drunk or push them to do really stupid things but then again Trump isn’t anyone’s friend.  He’s a transactional guy who acts impetuously and does whatever he thinks is good for him without caring about the long term consequences for his “friends.”  His decision to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to ban Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar from visiting Israel violated norms, was heavy handed and feeds the already strained relationship between Israel and the left.  Ironically, it’s also not likely to bring Trump any additional voters, right leaning Jews and Christian groups are already in Trump’s camp but liberal and moderate Jews who mostly vote Democrat, are largely horrified, even AIPAC, the staunch supporter of Israel that rarely strays from the Israeli government party line has expressed its disapproval.  Yesterday they issued a statement saying “We disagree with Reps. Omar and Tlaib’s support for the anti-Israel and anti-peace BDS movement, along with Rep. Tlaib’s calls for a one-state solution. We also believe every member of Congress should be able to visit and experience our democratic ally Israel firsthand.” As to Netanyahu, his administration had previously said that  Omar and Tlaib’s visit would be approved, despite the fact that their vocal support of the BDS (Boycott, Divestments, Sanction) movement violates an Israeli law that permits the government to deny entry to outspoken foreign supporters of the movement, out of respect to the US Congress.  However, under pressure from Trump, Netanyahu another self-interested politician, facing a tight election mulligan and pressure from his right flank, caved to his puppet master, well mostly caved.  This morning, perhaps in response to pushback from almost everyone not named Trump, Israel’s Interior Minister approved a humanitarian request from Congresswoman Tlaib to visit her grandmother who lives in the West Bank.  In exchange Tlaib has agreed to “not promote any boycotts against Israel during her visit.” The bottom line, making Tlaib and Omar the face of the Democratic party is one of Trump’s election strategies, and in a week dominated by recession fears, a market meltdown and increasing tensions in Hong Kong, dissing the two “pack” members provided a much needed diversion.  Whether that diversion will have enough staying power to help Trump in the long term is anyone’s guess but one thing is for certain, Trump’s pressure and Netanyahu’s acquiescence has done nothing good for Israel.

2020:  As expected, yesterday former Colorado Governor Hickenlooper announced that he is no longer running for president.  Instead he is giving serious consideration to running for the Senate, a net win for Democrats because he is very popular in Colorado and, assuming he runs and wins the Democratic primary, he should be able to run a competitive campaign against Republican Cory Gardner.  Beto O’Rourke is back from the break from the campaign trail that he took to spend time commiserating with the El Paso injured and the families of the dead victims.  In an emotional and forceful “return” speech he made it clear that he "will not in any scenario run for the United States Senate... I’m taking this fight directly to Donald Trump and that is what I am exclusively focused on doing right now."  He also said that he’s not going to go to traditional places and by that he means he won’t be eating corndogs in Iowa, rather he is going to follow his heart, taking the battle against Trump to the places where he feels he is most needed.  He plans to start by going to Mississippi, his counter to Trump’s INS raids.  For his part, Trump, whose up again, down again popularity ratings are in a down phase, or are at least in a down phase for now, took to New Hampshire last night.  He stuck to his usual themes, doubled down on  Tlaib and Omar, claimed that the markets would really crash if any of his Democratic rivals make it to the White House,  bashed “Sleepy Joe Biden,” promised to bring back his Pocahontas nickname for Elizabeth Warren, a recognition of her steady climb in the polls, and spit out Kah-mah-la and Beto’s names with his usual disdain. He also expressed support for his one-time campaign manager Corey Lewandowski who is considering running against Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen who is up for reelection in 2020 even though mainstream New Hampshire Republican officials intensely dislike Lewandowski and do not want to see the “thug” run but then again making mainstream Republicans, if there even is such a thing any more, happy isn’t Trump’s mission in life.  Yesterday, Dee Margo, the Republican mayor of El Paso, revealed that Trump dissed him, calling him a RINO (Republican in name only) during last week’s “compassion” visit.  Trump did that after Margo corrected him for saying that El Paso had been crime ridden before it got its sliver of border wall, a lie that really rankles Margo. 

Green Day:  Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal, not the Onion but the Wall Street Journal, reported that Trump has asked his aides to look into the possibility of purchasing Greenland.  Among the things that have been discussed is “whether it is even legal, what the process would be for acquiring an island that has its own government and population, and where any money to purchase a giant landmass would originate.”  It’s not clear what Trump would do with the island’s 58,000 residents, 82% of whom are Inuit, few of whom resemble Trump’s preferred blonde Norwegians because what he wants are all those natural resources not the people.  Maybe Trump’s legal wizards are also evaluating whether it would be legal for him to deport people from their homeland?   On the legal front, White House officials are considering invoking executive privilege to limit Corey Lewandowski, who together with former White House aide Rick Dearborn, has been subpoenaed by the House Judiciary Committee,  from complying with his subpoena despite the fact that Lewandowski never served in any role in the administration.  The Judiciary Committee wants Lewandowski to testify about that time when Trump asked him to obstruct the Mueller investigation by getting the then recused Attorney General Sessions to dramatically limit its scope.   Exerting executive privilege over Lewandowski’s testimony  makes about as much sense as buying Greenland but then again Trump seems to get away with doing whatever he wants so who knows? If things don’t work out in New Hampshire maybe Lewandowski can become the Governor of Greenland.

Cats and Dogs

#TrumpRecession:  If yesterday’s 800 point stock market drop freaked you out, you are not alone.  Apparently Trump is pretty concerned too mostly because he’s worried that with little else to brag about, a declining market, slowing economy and fears of an impending recession could hurt his reelection prospects causing him to lose those voters willing to put up with a little white supremacism and a few racist utterances as long as the value of their 401Ks and/or IRAs are on the upswing.  To that end, the twitterer in chief can’t be all that happy that #TrumpRecession is now trending on his favorite medium.  Needing someone to blame for yesterday’s bloodbath he’s reupped his criticism of  Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, blaming the Fed for the slowing US economy and the recession predictive yield curve inversion that spurred stock markets in their downward direction.  Yield curves are outside of Trump’s wheel house but someone has probably explained to him that when short term interest rates are higher than long term rates it’s time to deflect and run for cover so he tweet called Powell out as “clueless” and tweet screeched about that “crazy inverted yield curve!”  Of course he finished his tweet with a claim that “we are winning, big time,” a reference to his trade war with China, a major cause of the recession fears and stock market decline.  As to China, yesterday Politico reported that Trump’s response to China’s harsh actions against Hong Kong’s pro-democracy demonstrators has been so muted largely because of a promise he earlier made to China’s President Xi during a mid-June phone call. At that time Trump “surprised his aides” by telling Xi that he would not condemn the Chinese government over a crackdown in Hong Kong because “he understood it was an internal issue,” one in which the US would not interfere.  Almost immediately after Politico reported about that phone call, information that the news outlet likely received from a White House leaker trying to push Trump to assume a more assertive posture, Trump reversed his hands off position a bit by tweeting  “I know President Xi of China very well. He is a great leader who very much has the respect of his people. He is also a good man in a “tough business.” I have ZERO doubt that if President Xi wants to quickly and humanely solve the Hong Kong problem, he can do it. Personal meeting?”  He also implied that success in trade talks with China may now be linked to a peaceful resolution of the Hong Kong situation, a policy that is unlikely to go over well with Xi whose propaganda machine has been deflecting blame for the Hong Kong situation on US pro-Democracy policies, kind of ironic given that Trump has an affinity for autocratic governments and could hardly be described as being all in on Democracy.  

Epstein Saga:  Well, it looks like the reason that the coroner hasn’t definitely stated the cause of Jeffrey Epstein’s death is because it’s not clear what actually caused his death.  Last night the Washington Post reported that the coroner determined that Epstein “sustained multiple breaks in his neck bones” and that the hyoid bone was among the bones broken.  That’s significant because though “such breaks can occur in those who hang themselves, particularly if they are older, they are more common in victims of homicide by strangulation.”  Conspiracists everywhere just got a little more grist for their theories.  In other Epstein related news, Scott Borgerson, the CEO of Cargometrics, denied Daily Mail reports that Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s one time girlfriend and alleged long term sexual predator cohort, was staying at his Manchester, Massachusetts home.  While admitting that they were friends and that they shared a passion for “ocean policy,” he also denied that they were dating, or at least that they were dating now.  He went on to say that claims that the dog he’d been seen walking belonged to Maxwell, instead insisting that the dog in question is his pooch “Secretary Hamilton,” named after that other Hamilton.  However, he then told one reporter that he was home alone with his cat.  Though Maxwell’s location remains a mystery, one thing’s for certain, she’s now being sued.  Yesterday, taking advantage of the new New York State child sex abuse law Epstein accuser Jennifer Araoz filed a lawsuit against Epstein’s estate, Maxwell and three unnamed female household staff members.     

Guns, Guns, Guns:  Despite all those guns in the hands of the kind of good people, i.e., police who are trained to deal with crazies and criminals with guns, it took eight hours  for police, six of whom were shot during the incident, to end a shoot-out with one of those gun toting criminals.  After the incident Philadelphia’s Mayor Jim Kenney called out for gun legislation saying "Our officers deserve to be protected and they don't deserve to be shot at by a guy for hours with an unlimited supply of weapons and an unlimited supply of bullets. It's disgusting and we got to do something about it ... quickly.” As to that gun legislation, although hope springs eternal and first daughter Ivanka has had her PR machine leak that she’s on the case, it’s hard to believe that anything substantive will actually come out of Washington  For his part, Trump has commissioned a poll to see how his base will react if he actually gets behind something substantive.  And Walmart, the site of the El Paso shooting spree, they’re still selling guns but have pulled items that promote violence from the company’s website inventory. Thoughts and prayers?

Yikes:  Iowa’s Republican Congressman Steve King who had already been kicked off of all House Committees for some of his more racist utterances defended his position that abortion should not be allowed even in cases of rape or incest by saying “What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled those people out that were products of rape and incest? Would there be any population of the world left if we did that? Considering all the wars and all the rapes and pillages taken place and whatever happened to culture after society? I know I can't certify that I'm not a part of a product of that." #WTF