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.