Supremacist in Chief Speaks

Gunsmoke:  Teleprompter Trump stepped to the podium yesterday to deliver one of his more somber speeches, his response to the weekend shootings in El Paso and Dayton only he erroneously referred instead to Toledo, a mistake that anyone could make because how many coast denizens are all that up on Ohio geography anyway and one that would have been easier to forgive if he had only given up that Sunday golf game in a show of real concern.  As to the speech, despite his early morning tweet calling for stronger background checks in exchange for immigration legislation, Trump avoided both issues and instead stuck to the usual NRA approved talking points.  Ignoring his campaign’s own divisive internet ad campaign, the one that’s been amplifying claims of an invasion from Mexico, Trump blamed the weekend shootings on the perils of internet and social media and then went on to site “gruesome and grisly” video games, a “culture that celebrates violence” and called for taking firearms away from people found to be mentally ill even going so far as to call for the involuntary confinement of people at risk of committing violence because “Mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun” and who cares about civil rights anyway? For the record, virtually everyone in Japan is into video games, yet almost no one dies from gun violence there because Japan has strict gun control laws and other countries have just as many people who suffer from mental illness but again, since most countries have strict restrictions against gun ownership and few of the mentally ill are actually homicidal maniacs mass murder rates abroad are dramatically lower than ours.  For the record, last year Trump and the Republican controlled House and Senate loosened restrictions that kept people with records of mental illness from buying guns but who’s counting.  Trump also called for a bipartisan effort to do something, but only a little, his way of ignoring that Speaker Pelosi’s House has already passed two gun control bills, bills that Senate Majority Leader McConnell, A/K/A NRA Mitch, has refused to bring to the Senate floor.  In response to Trump’s newest mandate NRA Mitch dialed in from Kentucky where he is recovering from his shoulder injury alongside Kentucky’s other Senator Rand Paul who is recovering from the removal of a section of his lung, a consequence of having been beaten to smithereens by his neighbor. What is it with Kentucky?  McConnell ignored calls to cancel the Senate’s August recess but did appoint three Republican Senators, Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander, South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham and Mississippi’s Roger Wicker to “engage in bipartisan discussions of potential solutions to help protect our communities without infringing on Americans’ constitutional rights” whatever that means.  Oh, and for good measure, Trump, who white supremacists and racists everywhere see as their guiding light, also disingenuously condemned white supremacism, at least for now, mostly because a few aides including first daughter Ivanka and son in law Jared thought it would be a good idea for him to do that.  Most Republicans remained in witness protection mode though Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Mike Braun of Indiana and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania all said that an already proposed bill to expand background checks for gun purchases should be brought to a vote.  Democrats remained outraged, especially the ones running for President.  Beto O’Rourke, the most personally affected by the increasing death toll in El Paso, showed some of that genuine emotion that almost propelled him to a Texas Senate win last year.  When he was asked another question by the press about what Trump could do now, he responded “What do you think? You know the sh-t that he’s been saying. He’s been calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals. I don’t know, like, members of the press: What the f-ck?”  Kamala Harris called Trump out for playing golf while “blood was streaming” and while mangling the locations of the two murder sprees Joe Biden still managed to exude enough genuine heartfelt compassion to compensate for his flub. He also called for a national gun buyback program.  As to McConnell though he’s in too much “pain” to travel to Washington, his Senate campaign operation has been very busy showing off his true evil nature.  For some reason they thought it was a good time to send out a picture of a graveyard with tombstones including the names of Amy McGrath, one of his potential opponents, and Merrick Garland, the justice whose nomination to the Supreme Court he proudly thwarted.  That picture came to light on the same day that another one depicting several very white young men wearing Team Mitch T’s and mauling a life-sized cut out of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went viral on twitter.  That Moscow Mitch is such a charmer. Trump plans to visit both El Paso and Dayton (or maybe Toledo) later this week despite indications from both cities’ Democratic mayors that few of their residents are all that eager to meet him right now. FlightAware reported that a White House plane headed out to El Paso on Sunday night to start prepping for the visit, the advance team assignment probably includes busing in some Trump supporters from neighboring towns.  Maybe Diamond and Silk will be asked to show up as well?  It’s not just Trump who’s taking heat right now, after the NY Times print editor tweeted out an early preview of today’s edition with the headline “Trump Urges Unity Against Racism,” the paper was subjected to so much criticism for mischaracterizing both Trump’s speech and the actual content of their story by readers who called for them to do better “because people are actually dying” that they changed the headline to  “Assailing Hate But Not Guns.”           

      

Free Falling:  Escalating the trade war with the US, China devalued its currency yesterday, which explains yesterday’s bigly stock market drop. China also suspended all US agricultural imports.  Echoing warnings from many economic prognosticators,  Bloomberg News warned that the “eruption in the U.S.-China trade” dispute has now pushed a widely watched Treasury-market recession indicator, the yield-curve inversion (when long term interest rates are lower than short term rates), to the highest alert since 2007.  In other news, the US announced a total economic embargo against Venezuela, freezing all of the government’s assets as part of Trump’s continued push for regime change, things continue to deteriorate in Hong Kong, India is playing with fire in Kashmir and I think North Korea shot off a few more missiles, it’s hard to keep count.