Post Labor Day Blues

Better in the Bahamas?  Trump cancelled his trip to Poland so that he could stay home and deal with Hurricane Dorian, the slow moving, lethal category 5 storm that appears to have caused massive destruction in parts of the Bahamas but seems to be avoiding Florida landfall, at least for now.  Who knew that “dealing” with the deadly storm meant tweeting out misinformation about its path, playing multiple rounds of golf and doing his best to avoid answering questions about the weekend’s other tragedy, the shooting in Odessa, Texas? His press secretary insisted that Trump was accompanied by a weather expert at all times who provided him with constant updates on Dorian’s status, it’s not clear if that expert was a real person or the weather app on his trusty twitter device but whatever or whomever, Trump clearly had a problem assimilating the data he was getting so after claiming that category 5 storms are unheard of, he then tweet warned residents of Alabama that they were in Dorian’s path, misinformation that was almost immediately refuted by local weathermen, Alabama’s governor and the National Weather Service.  Given how popular Trump is in Alabama, one reputable and usually trusted local forecaster was actually slammed by some gullible Alabamans for having the nerve to refute Trump’s weather alert causing the disgusted forecaster to respond "I have zero interest in politics. Dorian will not affect Alabama in any way. That is not a political statement."  As to Poland, when Trump was asked if he had a message for Poland on the twentieth anniversary of the beginning of World War II, he responded by saying “I do have a great message for Poland and we have Mike Pence, our vice president, is just about landing right now...I just want to congratulate Poland," leading many to conclude that he didn’t know that Poland was invaded and smashed by the Nazis in 1939.  For his part, Pence did what Pence does, he appeared serious and made few waves though he did acknowledge that the Russians were still engaging in election interference, either a curious disagreement with Trump or part of their ”good cop/bad cop” routine.  Following his Poland visit, Pence continued on to Ireland for a meeting with Ireland’s Prime Minister/Taoiseach Leo Varadkar but instead of staying in or near Dublin, he stayed at Trump International Golf Club at Doonberg which is three hours away and across the country from Dublin, because grifters grift and so do their vice presidents.  Though it’s generally difficult to out stupid a Trump tweet,  Deputy White House Secretary Judd Deere managed to earn this weekend’s prize for idiocy by tweeting “For all of you who still think our @VP is anti-gay, I point you to his and the @SecondLady’s schedule tomorrow where they will join Taoiseach @LeoVaradkar and his partner Dr. Matthew Barrett for lunch in Ireland.”  So, forget about all of his anti-gay statements and policy initiatives, Pence having lunch with the gay Prime Minister of Ireland while he’s in Dublin to have lunch with the Prime Minister of Ireland is proof of his tolerance?        

American Weekend:  Saturday afternoon another white guy with an AR style weapon went on a shooting spree this time in Odessa, Texas. As a result, including the shooter, eight people are now dead and twenty-two others, including three law enforcement officials and a 17-month-old, who was hit in the mouth and chest with shrapnel, were wounded. Texas Governor Abbott a proud gun rights advocate who once tweeted that he was “embarrassed” California was buying more guns than Texas, calling for Texans to “Pick up the pace” blamed the shooting on the failure of the state to adequately deal with mental health problems but said nothing bad about gun ownership.  He also had nothing to say about the series of new firearms laws that went into effect in Texas on Sunday, just hours after the shooting.  Those laws further loosen gun restrictions in the state that’s “had four of the ten deadliest mass shootings in modern US history.” As a result of the new laws, going forward there will be more guns in schools, in homes caring for foster children, in places of worship and apartment buildings because apparently more people having guns is a good thing, right? Marc Short, who is now VP Pence’s Chief of Staff, said that the administration is now working with the Justice Department on draft legislation that would expedite capital punishment for those found guilty of mass killings. It’s worth noting that study after study confirm that fear of the death penalty is not an effective crime deterrent.  In any case, as in Odessa, most mass shooters die during their rampages.   

More Stuff: It’s now widely accepted by everyone other than Trump that he’s been played by North Korean strongman Kim Jong un.  While writing all those flattering letters to Trump, Kim has been making significant advances in missile technology.   The New York Times reports that all those missile launches that Trump claims are no bigly deal have allowed North Korea to “test missiles with greater range and maneuverability that could overwhelm American defenses in the region.”  While he continues to defend Kim Jong un’s missile launches, Trump has gone all in on taunting Iran.  For some reason clear only to him, on Friday Trump tweeted out a super duper top secret satellite image of an Iranian space center where an explosion had taken place.  In the tweet he mocked Iran while asserting that the US had nothing to do with the explosion.  Trump may be right about that but his decision to share the image freaked out the intelligence community because of how much it revealed about the capability of US satellite photography.  Unfortunately, as in the case of the Israeli intelligence that Trump “accidentally” revealed early on to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov during that odd Oval Office visit early in his administration, he gets to decide what is and isn’t confidential. In other international news, the UK remains mired in their Brexit problem, predicting the path of Hurricane Dorian is easier than figuring out what Prime Minister Boris Johnson is doing or what will happen next.  On the US political front, this morning West Virginia’s Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, the centrist who frequently infuriates Democrats with his Senate votes but who generally votes with the Democrats when his vote really matters, is expected to announce whether he will run for  Governor. The Trump administration appears to have backed off on their plans to start deporting children who are receiving treatments for their dire health issues in the US not because they don’t want to see the children deported but because of all the bad press that can’t be going over well with suburban Republican soccer moms.  Another presidential debate looms and the Democrats appearing to be ramping up their hearings and investigations into things Trump.  Welcome to September.