Volfefe

Tea with the Taliban:  Well, a lot of weird news over the weekend about subjects as different as the Taliban, questionable Scotland overnights,  and Chrissy Teigen.  To set the mood, let’s start with Chrissy Teigen, the outspoken, funny, model wife of singer and activist John Legend.  Apparently Trump got upset that he wasn’t being given enough credit for prison reform during last night’s NBC Lester Holt special on the subject so he slammed “boring musician” Legend, who appeared on the program and then for good measure called Chrissy out as “his filthy mouthed wife” adding her to the growing list of women of color he’s publicly insulted. Legend responded by suggesting that Melania praise her husband for something, anything because he’s clearly “in need,” but Chrissy, a master of the art of tweeting, who is not one to let an insult slide responded in kind calling Trump a “pussy ass bitch,” which of course is now trending.  Now to more serious subjects, it’s not a secret that the Trump administration has been negotiating with the Taliban in an effort to extricate US forces from Afghanistan before the 2020 elections.  However, no one knew that Trump had impetuously invited them to Camp David to “finalize” a peace agreement.  We learned that on Saturday morning after he tweet revoked their invitation saying first that “unbeknownst to almost everybody” he’d invited them but because they had tried to “build false leverage” with their most recent suicide bombing that had killed an American soldier and eleven others, he was “immediately” cancelling the meeting and calling off “peace negotiations.” Like the invitation, the cancellation was suspect; the suicide bombing behavior is hardly new.  Maybe Trump has finally started listening to his sidelined national security advisor John Bolton who has been opposed for some time to the direction that the negotiations have been taking. Whatever the real reason, even those supportive of Trump’s strategy of sidelining the Afghan government to  negotiate directly with the Taliban were outraged at the thought that he would consider inviting them to Camp David or even that he would allow abettors of the 9.11 terrorists to enter the US.  That Trump would even think about having the Taliban visit on the anniversary of 9.11 further fed their disgust.  Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar said “this isn’t a gameshow, these are terrorists.”  Congresswoman Liz Cheney, the daughter of former VP Dick, generally a Trump apologist, said “the Taliban should never visit Camp David” and Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, an Air Force veteran,  tweeted “Never should leaders of a terrorist organization that hasn’t renounced 9/11 and continues in evil be allowed in our great country. NEVER. Full stop.”  Senator Lindsey Graham, the toady who gets toadier every day, congratulated Trump for cancelling the meeting ignoring that Trump had invited the Taliban leaders in the first place. Last night the NY Times reported that Trump had ginned up the ill-fated Camp David invitation because “after staying out of the details of what had been a delicate effort in a complicated region, Mr. Trump wanted to be the dealmaker who would put the final parts together himself, or at least be perceived to be.”  So Trump who was so angry about not getting enough credit for prison reform that he lashed out at a singer and his model wife was so distressed about not getting enough credit for his “peace” efforts with the Taliban that he invited them to Camp David for Trump steaks, tea and ice cream?  Cancelled or not, at least the Taliban can say that they got an invitation.  Mother Jones magazine reports that in addition to holding up aid already promised to Ukraine, the embattled ally whose citizens fear every night that they will wake up to find that they have been annexed by Putin’s Russia, Trump is withholding an invitation to their new president Volodymyr Zelensky as part of an effort to get Zelensky to help his “legal advisor” Rudy Guiliani dig up or, even better, invent disparaging dirt about Joe Biden and his son.

Scottish Grifting:  Late Friday Politico reported that the House is investigating why US transport planes carrying supplies to Kuwait are now refueling at the underused Scottish Prestwick airport which is located all to conveniently close to Trump’s struggling Turnberry golf resort while the crews flying those planes are overnighting at the high priced resort.  Curiously the Pentagon has been rebuffing House investigators’ request for additional information about these flights and their “feed the Trump till” routes though last night, perhaps in response to press coverage, the US Air Force reported that it has ordered a sweeping review of the use of Trump resorts for overnight crew accommodations.  Politico reports that the frequency of the stops at the Prestwick Airport and overnight stays by the Air Force in the region has increased steadily from 95 stops and 40 overnights in 2015 to 250 stops and 220 overnights in 2019.  Details about how many of those crew overnights were at Trump’s Turnberry resort have not yet been provided by the Air Force.  Its worth noting that before Trump took office, he cut a deal with Prestwick Airport, part of his effort to keep the floundering airport open to facilitate visitation to his golf course. Coincidence that the US Air Force is now rerouting planes through Prestwick? Unlikely.  It’s also unlikely that NOAA officials in Washington came up with the idea of chastising the Alabama National Weather Service professionals who corrected Trump’s misstatement about Alabama being at risk from Hurricane Dorian without any influence from the White House.  As you can imagine, the head of the national union representing those workers says they are "shocked, stunned and irate" over NOAA siding with Trump over its professionals.  The union leader said “never ever before has their management thrown them under the bus like this…..These are the people risking their lives flying into hurricanes and putting out forecasts that save lives. Never before has their management undercut their scientifically sound reasoning and forecasts.” Bottom line, though it’s sunny in Alabama and Dorian has moved on to Canada,  #SharpieGate lives on.  As to all those battered Bahamians it’s now reported that even though Bahamian residents with clean records don’t generally need visas to enter the US many of those seeking refuge with friends and family stateside are being prohibited from boarding US bound flights.

2020:  Though the Republican National Committee is doing its best to cancel primaries wherever it can, former South Carolina Governor/Congressman Mark Sanford, the fiscal conservative who once claimed to be hiking the Appalachian Trail when he was actually with his Argentine girlfriend, has announced plans to primary Trump.  On the Democratic front, polls indicate that Senator Elizabeth Warren is gaining, mostly at the expense of Senators Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris but a little bit at the expense of former VP Biden who, gaffes and all, continues to be in the lead.  The third round of Democratic debates takes place in Houston on Thursday.  Although only ten candidates will be on the stage this time around, unless someone drops out beforehand, there will be eleven on the stage in October as billionaire, Trump impeachment advocate Tom Steyer has qualified for the next round.  It’s fitting that a billionaire qualified for the October debate stage on the same weekend that JP Morgan announced the creation of the “Volfefe,” an index which will track the effects of Trump’s tweets on the financial markets.