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!