Brussels Sprouts

The World Order:  While we were sleeping Trump arrived in Brussels for the NATO summit.  While he was traveling, the Senate passed a largely symbolic, non-binding resolution expressing full support for the alliance, a not so subtle reminder to Trump that he shouldn’t do something rash, like pull out of NATO, a not so crazy concern given his ongoing stream of anti-NATO rhetoric and his general dislike for multilateral organizations, particularly those that don’t include Russia.  The measure passed by a vote of 92 to 2, with Republican gadfly Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky and one other Senator, Utah’s Mike Lee, voting in opposition.  For his part Trump hit the ground running, or at least running his mouth off, antagonizing allies and sticking with his disrupt the world order, America only theme.  He’s continued to hammer most of NATO’s members for failing to keep their defense budgets at required levels and for not paying their share of NATO’s budget. Though past presidents, including Obama have pressed NATO allies to raise their budgets and have to a certain extent got some results, including commitments for gradual increases, they’ve stuck to the facts, unlike Trump who seems to make them up on the fly.  Prior US leaders have also understood that NATO’s continued existence fosters regional and world stability and benefits the US. Trump won’t acknowledge that NATO stood up for us after we were attacked on 9-11 mostly because that fact doesn’t support his anti-NATO views. Trump’s newest anti-NATO soundbite involves attacking Germany as a captive of Russia for entering into a “massive” energy deal with Russia. That deal, which involves the building of a  new $11 billion pipeline to bring Russian gas across the Baltic Sea has raised concerns among other EU nations, however German Chancellor Merkel insists that the project is a private commercial venture not funded by German taxpayers. That said Trump continues to attack the arrangement saying “we’re supposed to be guarding against Russia and Germany goes out an pays billions and billions of dollars a year to Russia.” Trump, who wants nothing more than to play footsie with Russia and Putin, is implying that US payments to NATO are being used by Germany to fund the pipeline, a spurious allegation but one that seems to be the theme of his trip. It’s also worth noting that whenever Trump criticizes someone else, it’s usually because he’s done something similar but worse.  He will be meeting with Putin before he returns to the US.  Who knows, by the time he returns, maybe the US will be Russian’s captive, or worse?  As to that meeting with Putin, before leaving Trump said that “I have NATO, I have the UK which is in somewhat turmoil, and I have Putin. Frankly, Putin may be the easiest of them all.  Who would think?  Only Trump of course.

Kids Are Not All Right:  The Trump administration is failing miserably at reuniting the families separated at the border despite HHS Secretary Azar’s initial promise that putting them back together would be easy as pie and Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen’s initial assertion that they’d never been separated in the first place.  Despite a judge’s order to have all the “tender age” children returned to their parents by yesterday, the government says that it has only returned 38 of the children and given that only 4 had been returned by yesterday morning, it’s hard to believe that even than number has been achieved.  As to the remaining 64, HHS says that some of their parents have already been deported and are hard to find, that others have incomplete paperwork making it hard to verify that they are really the parents and that the rest have criminal records. As to that paperwork, the problem mostly originates with the government who took the required documents away from the parents when they crossed the border and is now making it difficult, if not impossible, for the parents to get their documents back.  Also, with regard to the assertion that some of the parents are “criminals” many of those allegations are false but by placing the burden of proof on the parents, the government gets to justify keeping them separated from their children.  Despite an appeal from the Justice Department to extend the deadlines for returning the children, Judge Sabraw, who set the deadlines in the first place, is providing no relief, he wants the children returned pronto, is only providing exceptions on a case by case basis and continues to insist that the rest of the “older” children be returned by his next deadline. He’s also said that the government should relax some of its return criteria, since those rules were originally set for unaccompanied minors not for children taken from their parents arms.  Moreover, he has told that ACLU  that he wants government officials to be held accountable to the extent that they don’t cooperate. When asked about the slow reunification process, Trump said that the solution is for people not to come to “our” country “illegally,” period, ignoring the fact that that many of those crossing the border seeking asylum are following the law.  Trump doesn’t like that law, so it doesn’t count.

Manafort, Flynn and Cohen:  Last week Paul Manafort’s lawyers requested a change in venue to a more “Republican” part of the state for his upcoming Virginia case and complained that the prison where he is being held is too far away from their offices making it burdensome for him to work with them on his case.  So far the Judge hasn’t agreed to the change of venue but yesterday, he did agree to move Manafort to a prison closer to home. Manafort has changed his mind, he doesn’t want to move and is now asking to stay put, claiming that the new location would be too dangerous. Mostly, Manafort just wants out and was hoping that the judge would let him return to his home. Since his gambit didn’t work, he’d rather stay where he is, perhaps because the new jail doesn’t have suitable VIP facilities.   Of more concern to Manafort is that the Virginia judge, like the judge in his Washington DC case, has denied his lawyers’ attempt to throw out boxes of business documents that prosecutors had gained in a raid of his storage unit last year. The judge found that the search didn't violate Manafort's rights.  Manafort's request to keep the evidence out of the trial was one of his last remaining attempts to avoid the full weight of the criminal case that prosecutors plan to bring against him when his trial on bank fraud and other financial crimes charges starts in two weeks. Still there has been no indication that Manafort is ready to flip.  Former security advisor Michael Flynn, who has already flipped, made a court appearance yesterday because his sentencing judge who has never met him, wanted to meet face to face. Prosecutors are still trying to push off Flynn’s sentencing which may be an indication that they might want him to testify on their behalf at a future date.  The cash strapped Flynn may or may not have a new job.  Yesterday, it was disclosed that he had joined Stonington Capital, a consulting firm with the kind of questionable international clients that got Flynn into trouble in the first place, as their Director of Strategy.  Flynn’s lawyers forced a backtrack, saying that the announcement of his new gig was a mistake even though his new role was already featured prominently on that company’s website.  Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer/fixer, and his newest lawyer, PR guru, Lanny Davis continue to hint that Cohen is on the verge of spilling his guts to prosecutors.  On Sunday Davis responded to a suggestion by Rudy Giuliani that Cohen should cooperate with prosecutors because the ”president had done nothing wrong with him” by tweeting back Did @rudygiuliani really say on Sunday shows that @michaelcohen212 should cooperate should cooperate with prosecutors and tell the truth? Seriously? Is that Trump and Giuliani definition of "truth"? Trump/Giuliani next to the word “truth” = oxymoron. Stay tuned. #thetruthmatters.   The Michael Cohen watch continues.   

 

The Rose Goes to .....

The Supremes: Trump managed to keep his decision to nominate Judge Brett Kavanaugh to serve as the next Supreme Court Justice under cover almost until his prime time rose ceremony, a notable accomplishment for the not so leak proof White House. Despite Trump’s best efforts a few intrepid news reporters ruled out two of the potential nominees after they were spotted puttering around their gardens in their home states and another group of reporters spotted Kavanaugh being picked up by a fleet of limos which was then seen heading off in the direction of the White House so a number of news outlets reported Kavanaugh’s imminent nomination a few minutes ahead of schedule.  Trump’s official 9 PM announcement was immediately followed by a lovely speech from a “humble” Kavanaugh who presented himself as a man of the people who had been raised in a family dedicated to serving the community, so dedicated that his parents had spent some time teaching in the inner city.  That said, Kavanaugh, who clerked for retiring Judge Anthony Kennedy, worked with Ken Starr on the Whitewater investigation into Bill Clinton, served as a George W Bush aide, and was appointed to the Washington DC Federal Court by Bush in 2006, is widely viewed as a staunch conservative, with a track record to match. As to his views on Roe v Wade, although Kavanaugh’s supporters want us to believe that he would uphold the Roe precedent, that’s a push given that he sided with the Trump administration when it tried to prevent the release of a detained teenage migrant seeking an abortion.  After the rest of his colleagues on the DC court ruled in favor of releasing the teenager so that she could obtain the abortion, Kavanaugh argued that the majority "badly erred" in their decision to allow the procedure and characterized the ruling as creating a new right for undocumented immigrant minors in US custody to receive "immediate abortion on demand."  Also, since Trump said that he would only appoint anti-abortion justices, it’s a given that he believes that Kavanaugh will join the anti-abortion wing of the court, tipping the court’s balance and putting Roe in jeopardy.  Kavanaugh is on record saying that he believes that presidents shouldn’t be subject to indictments, he says that they can be but, because he thinks it would be so disruptive as to render them unable to do their job, he recommends that Congress pass legislation that would limit the ability to indict or even sue a sitting president. Given his view, its quite possible that Kavanaugh would conclude that Trump couldn’t be indicted while in office to the extent that Special Counsel Mueller presses forward with such an indictment, something that would most certainly end up in front of the Supreme Court.  Kavanaugh’s nomination also puts Obamacare at risk. His expansive view of executive power, he has argued that a president could decline to enforce a statute such as Obamacare even if a court upholds its constitutionality, makes it quite likely that he will rule in favor of a lawsuit being pursued by attorneys general from twenty states calling for the end of the requirement that health insurers cover those with preexisting conditions.  That case, which the Trump administration has joined, is due to be heard in district court in Texas and could wind up before the Supreme Court soon. Given their minority status, its unlikely that Democrats will be able to stall the Kavanaugh confirmation process beyond the November elections and, even if they could, it’s not a given that it would matter since it’s not all that likely that Democrats will win enough seats to take over control of the Senate anyway, so the confirmation process will in all likelihood move ahead and to the extent that he can pull it off, Senate Majority Leader McConnell will try his best to streamline the process.  Kavanaugh’s opponents are pinning their hopes on the two so called moderate, pro-choice Republican Senators, Murkowski and Collins.  Both of them declined Trump’s invitation to attend Kavanaugh’s coronation as did the few red state Democrats who were also invited. While the abortion issue remains front and center, concerns about the elimination of Obamacare’s preexisting condition mandate is likely to be as important especially to Collins and West Virginia Democrat Manchin since the risk of losing insurance coverage is likely to resonate more with their constituents and could provide those senators with the justification they need to vote against the Kavanaugh appointment.  If either Collins or Murkowski refuse to fold under what will probably be withering pressure from Trump, their fellow Republicans and right wing political groups,  their no votes will probably provide the vulnerable red state Democrats the cover they’ll need to vote no too.  However, if the ladies buckle a few of the red state Democrats will follow much the way some of them did when they voted yes for Justice Gorsuch’s nomination.  At the end of the day, despite the inevitable progressive outrage that will ensue, neither they nor Democratic leadership will see the point in risking their seats, or the possibility, as slim as it may be, of a Democratic takeover of the Senate, on a losing battle.  The game is now on.

International Affairs:  With his Supreme Court nomination out of the way, Trump’s is now on his way to Brussels to attend the NATO summit meeting.  Last year he caused a lot of agita when he initially failed to endorse NATO’s “all for one and one for all commitment.”  This year he is expected to be even more disruptive.  Not only has he ratcheted up his criticism of those countries who haven’t met their full financial contributions and dissed the whole concept of the alliance,  but this time around he’s expected to threaten withdrawing troops from Germany in order to punish German Chancellor Angela Merkel for not contributing more to the NATO budget and also because he really doesn’t like her very much. In an attempt to set him straight, last week the conservative Heritage Foundation tweeted out a few points for Trump to remember before he further disrupts the world order.  Specifically they tweeted “Russia is the aggressor – Ukraine is the victim.  Crimea belongs to Ukraine, NATO and US troops in Europe serve our national interests.  Europeans must spend more on defense.  Putin’s track record shows he can’t be trusted.”  Angela Merkel isn’t the only European leader under pressure.  UK’s Prime Minister Theresa May is facing a crisis of her own.  Her plan for a “soft” Brexit are facing pushback from her own party.  Her Brexit Minister surprised her by resigning and Boris Johnson, a Brexit supporter who aspires to supplant her as Prime Minister also jumped ship saying that her soft approach to exiting the European community would turn the UK into a colony of the rest of the European community. Because dealing with Brexit and bolting ministers isn’t enough torture for one month, Trump is expected to stop by London after he finishes disrupting the NATO alliance and though he will be meeting with the Queen, few other Londoners are all that excited about his visit which explains why a few of them plan to fly a large mocking baby Trump blimp during his visit.  Following his London stay, Trump heads to Helsinki for his much anticipated meeting with his BFF Putin.  They haven’t seen each other for a while but by many accounts they do speak frequently.  In fact it’s thought that many of Trump’s most controversial statements and “off the cuff” policy changes, including his surprise announcement of the cancellation of the usual joint military exercises with South Korea and his suggestion that the annexation of Crimea was justified because the locals there speak Russian originated with Putin.  As to Korea, despite the North Koreas assertion that Trump and his messenger Secretary of Pompeo are acting like gangsters, Trump insists that all will end well there because he has a “contract” with Kim Jung Un, and that “contract” will be honored, or else. 

Migrant Status: Dolly Gee, the US District Court judge responsible for overseeing the 1997 Flores Consent Decree Agreement, rebuffed  Trump’s Justice Departments efforts to alter the agreement to allow for the long-term detention of migrant children entering the US “illegally” with their parents.  The Judge was dismissive of the  Trump administration’s legal argument which she called out as “tortured” and ”cynical.”  She did say that some immigrant families could be detained together if their parents’ consent, but said that without that consent the children must be released. She also said that an indefinite placement of a child in an unlicensed detention facility, “would constitute a fundamental and material breach” of the Flores Agreement. That’s a particular problem for the government since virtually all of the facilities where adults are currently being held are not licensed to hold children. Since Trump has said that children will no longer be separated from their parents at the border, Judge Gee’s ruling pretty much pushes immigration officials back to the “catch and release” practice that Trump abhors.  The Justice Department is reviewing the ruling and is expected to appeal to the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals, at some point the case could make it all the way to the Supreme Court, just another reason why confirming Kavanaugh is so problematic.   As to the 3000 or so children who have already been separated from their families, yesterday a Justice Department lawyer represented that 54 of the 102 “tender age” children will be reunited with their families by today.  The Judge in that case also set another hearing for today to get an explanation as to why the remaining 48 are not being returned on time. His order to reunite the 2900 older children by July 26 remains in force. No one from the government has yet been held in contempt even though their actions do remain contemptible.

Zero Hour 9 PM  

Still Separated:  No one really cared, certainly none of the people who thought that separating young children from parents was ever an acceptable policy.  There can be no other explanation for the Department of Homeland Security’s failure to create a system to track parents and the children that were taken from them when they crossed the border other than that no one was ever all that concerned about reunification.  Think about it, if one person in authority had directed just one half way competent junior person to create a database, not even a database, an EXCEL spreadsheet and a dedicated 24 hour phone line would have sufficed, then the government would know where all the chldren were located.  If the same official had thought to also focus on having someone keep track of the parents, perhaps using those ankle bracelets bought by the previous administration, then they’d know where all of the parents still in the US were located.  And if they’d just cared one iota about the idea of putting families back together they  could have held up a few deportations by a day or two, providing enough time to return children to their parents so that they could go back to their home countries together instead of sending indigent back to the lawless places that they had fled from in the first place.  Sadly, no one cared enough to think through the “no tolerance” policy, because family reunification was never a priority or even a concern.   The whole point of the “no tolerance” exercise was deterrence, the children were just disposable collateral damage. Fortunately a few judges and some dedicated lawyers do care.  Late Friday, one judge refused to grant the government more time to come up with a list of the “tender” age children, the judge insisted that the government provide a list to the ACLU by Saturday, even after, or perhaps because, one government lawyer said that she couldn’t work on the assignment because of her weekend dogsitting obligation.  Late Saturday, Health and Human Services finally came up with a list of the 100 “tender” age children, solving one half of the equation, now the Department of Homeland Security has to locate the parents, easier said than done since somewhere along the line, someone has lost or destroyed some of those relevant records, but then again as Health Secretary Azar admitted on a phone call on Friday, the government had always assumed that some of the Department’s “wards” would never be reunified with their parents anyway, they figured that the kids could just be put in long term foster homes or up for adoption.  The government now has until July 26 to come up with the list of the rest of the children, the 2900 or so over the age of five.  Meantime, the number of politicians and officials upset because they can’t eat in public without being heckled by demonstrators is growing. Poor Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority leader was the target of protesters  shouting “where are the children” in his own home state of Kentucky after someone tweeted out where he was dining.  It turns out that failing to use your authority to forcefully push back against despicable acts when you are in charge of the Senate sometimes has consequences or, at the very least, makes it hard to eat out.  As to Health and Human Services, the department’s priorities are still focused on trashing Obamacare.  Late Friday, while few were paying attention the administration announced that it is halting billions of dollars of  payments to insurers under Obamacare’s risk-adjustment program, a move that further disrupts the insurance market and could lead to more premium increases next year.  

The Supremes:  The big reveal is still scheduled to take place tonight at 9 PM but it’s still unclear who will be named the winner of Apprentice Supreme Court Edition.  Going into the weekend it was though that Brett Kavanaugh, the Yale College and Yale Law School educated Judge for the US District Court of Washington DC was the likely winner of the title in part because Trump likes judges from Ivy League Schools and in part because he remains White House Counsel Don McGahn’s first choice.  However Kavanaugh, an experienced judge has actually written lots of opinions, and though he’s widely viewed as conservative, apparently some of his opinions aren’t reactionary enough for the right wing of Trump’s very right wing party.  Majority Leader McConnell, has told Trump that he might face too  much pushback from his most conservative Republican Senators if Kavanaugh is nominated and, that given the extensive number of opinions written by Kavanaugh, Democrats might be able to extend his review process by claiming they need time to read through all he has written.  McConnell also told Trump to ditch the idea of nominating Amy Coney Barrett because he thinks that given the things that she has said about abortion rights,  her nomination would make it virtually impossible for him to secure the votes of his two pro-choice Senators, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski or any of the targeted red state Democrats. Its not that the other candidates aren’t anti-abortion, its just that they have been more discrete about their views.   McConnell is instead pushing for either the lesser known Raymond Kethledge or Thomas Hardiman.  Hardiman had been the second choice for the Scalia seat that was handed to now Justice Neil Gorsuch, presumably both guys are sufficiently conservative since their names come from the list prepared  for Trump by the right wing Federalist Society.  Another plus for Hardiman is that he is the choice of Trump’s sister, retired Judge Maryanne Trump Barry.  Judge Barry stays out of the limelight but does talk to her brother frequently and has made him aware of her preference.  Stay tuned.

Regrettable:  Secetary of State Mike Pompeo’s trip to Pyongyang didn’t really come off as planned.  First of all he never got to deliver Trump’s very special present, a CD of Elton John’s Rocket Man, to Kim Jong Un because though Pompeo was forced to sit through several ceremonial meals with dozens of North Korean officials,  the Little Rocket Man didn’t show up to any of them.  Despite being stood up, before boarding his plane for his return flight home, Pompeo reported that his conversations with North Korea officials had been productive and carried on in good faith.  However, as soon as Pompeo’s flight got into international airspace the North Koreans released a statement describing the meetings as regrettable, lambasting Trump for his “one-sided” and “robber like” demands.  Although Trump still hasn’t admitted that in his enthusiasm to get a deal done, he was basically snookered by the way more experienced and very intractable North Koreans, he was.  And who, besides virtually every foreign policy expert, saw that coming?  Most certainly, National Security Advisor John Bolton did.  He’s been biding his time, letting Pompeo try to achieve what is likely an impossible denuclearization commitment and timetable from the North Koreans.  Sadly, Bolton whose solution to virtually every international impasse is premptive war may now get a chance to plan one against the North Koreans, or at least that’s what he is hoping.  As to the usually thin skinned Trump, he hasn’t overreacted yet, but he might and the risk is that when that happens he will start paying far too much attention to the war mongering Bolton.  Senator Lindsay Graham is providing some cover to the North Koreans, he insists that their “change of mind” has been encouraged by the Chinese who are angry about Trump’s tariffs.  Graham is right about the Chinese being angry about tariffs but misses that the North Koreans don’t intend to denuclearize. As to the Chinese, the tariffs are likely to make it more difficult for Trump to get their cooperation on North Korean sanctions going forward.  Also regrettable was the July 4^th junket by a number of Republicans  including  Senators Shelby of Alabama, Kennedy of Lousiana and Johnson of Wisconsin.  No Democrats were invited to participate on the trip.  The Senators didn’t get a much hoped for meeting with Putin, who may have been too busy preparing for his upcoming summit with Trump or more likely attending World Cup matches to spend anytime with the US delegation.  They did however learn from the Russians that did meet with them, including former Ambassador Kislyak, that the Russians didn’t meddle in the US elections. Senator Johnson came back so impressed with the Russians hospitality and “frankness” that he said that the US should consider recognizing the Russian’s annexation of Crimea because as the Russian’s reminded him, the region has been part of Russia before.  Johnson, one the many Republican politicians who always finds the time to support Trump and any conspiracy theory that benefits Trump, may have just paved the way for Trump to formally recognize the permanence of the Crimea annexation.  

Rudy’s Back:  Rudy Giuliani remerged big time over the weekend, appearing on the Sunday talk shows where he insisted that Trump would only agree to sit down with Special Counsel Mueller if certain conditions were met.  Those conditions involve Mueller revealing everything he’s learned about Trump’s bad acts to Trump and his attorneys before the interview, something that Giuliani admits that Mueller would never agree to do.  As to those bad acts, Giuliani also said that there were none, because Trump has never colluded or obstructed and he knows that because that’s what Trump’s told him.  Though he didn’t explicitly bad mouth Mueller, Giuliani called the investigation “extremely disgusting,”  “biased” and the “most corrupt he’s ever seen.”   As to extremely disgusting things, Congressman Jim Jordan wants us all to know that he never saw or knew of any of the acts of molestation committed by the Ohio State team doctor during the time that he was the assistant wrestling coach.  Though Jordan did acknowledge that there was some talk in the locker room, as far as he’s concerned, it was just that, unfounded locker room talk.  Despite the fact that so far seven wrestlers have come forward saying that Jordan was aware of their fear of being left alone with the team doctor, Jordan insists that they are all lying and that the  person responsible for the wrestlers’ “phony” accusations is Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein who is the leader of a deep state conspiracy to punish Jordan for attacking him and the Mueller investigation.                         

Pruitt Out

Pruitt Pruned:  Well it looks like we won’t have Scott Pruitt to kick around anymore.  Just one day after he dined on free hotdogs at the annual July fourth festivities on the White House lawn, Pruitt “submitted” a letter of resignation to Trump.  The letter expressed his honor at having had the opportunity to serve Trump and cited the Lord too many times to count, even suggesting that serving Trump was akin to serving that other higher authority.  He also blamed the unrelenting and unfair attacks from the press for his demise.  He didn’t express any remorse and somehow or other failed to mention his preference for special lotions, used mattresses, expensive flights, extreme security protections and tactical pants nor any of his other absurd ethical violations because given another opportunity he would do all of them over again.  For the foreseeable future, Pruitt’s replacement will be EPA’s Deputy Administrator, Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist who previously worked for Oklahoma Republican Senator Imhofe, one of the Senate’s most vocal climate change skeptics.   Expectations are that Wheeler will follow in Pruitt’s footsteps at least with regard to policy, not with regard to lotion preferences,  although he is likely to be friendlier to the biofuels industry.  To that end Iowa Senator Grassley, who didn’t care all that much about Pruitt’s ethics violations but was very concerned about his disdain for ethanol, applauded Pruitt’s resignation and Trump, who also cared little about Pruitt’s ethics but who does care a lot about votes, may have secured support from a few more farmers, blunting some of the pushback that he’s now getting as a result of his trade war.  As to that trade war, $34 billion in US tariffs against Chinese products went into effect at midnight, China responded in kind all while a ship full of US soybeans raced to a China, hoping to pull into port in time to beat the midnight tariff deadline.  

Not So Shining Light:  Yesterday, former Fox co-president Bill Shine formally joined the Trump administration as Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications.  Shine resigned from Fox last year after being accused of covering up a series of sexual harassment scandals, just one of those things that makes him particularly attractive to Trump.  He is also close with Sean Hannity, Trump’s shadow chief of staff, who was instrumental in his hiring. Gretchen Carlson, the former Fox star lamented Shine’s hiring, tweeting about the irony of his joining the Trump team on the second anniversary of her filing her harrassment lawsuit, the one that led to former Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes demise and Shine’s Fox “resignation.” At least so far, no one has explained how Shine will manage to complete his security forms and whether or not he will manage to get a clearance. His problems may pale in comparison to former aide/wife abuser Rob Porter.  With Shine on board, Trump has officially merged the White House communications team with Fox News.  Shine got right to work, accompanying Trump on his trip to Montana and sadly he is likely to be quite effective at helping Trump deliver his message.  While in Montana, in addition to campaigning for Matt Rosendale, the Republican seeking to unseat Montana’s Democratic Senator Jon Tester, who Trump holds responsible for highlighting just how unsuited former White House physician Ronny Jackson was for the VA Secretary position, Trump spewed an unusual number of lies, repeated false claims and went after several of his favorite targets.  It was most fitting that with the abuser enabler Shine by his side, he attacked Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, again throwing shade at “Pocohantas” for her assertion that her family has native American roots while also dissing the “MeToo” movement.  Perhaps because shining was on his mind, he also questioned the meaning of a George HW Bush speech, the one advocating volunteerism as "points of light" a concept that he just doesn’t get.  During his flight to Montana Trump expressed his undying support for Freedom Caucus Congressman Jim Jordan, saying that he doesn’t believe any of those men who have come forward to accuse Jordan of covering up for the Ohio State doctor who is now being accused of molesting members of the school’s wrestling team.   Trump told reporters that Jim Jordan is one of the “most outstanding people” he’s ever met since coming to Washington. Adding “I believe him 100 percent. No question in my mind. I believe Jim Jordan 100 percent. He’s an outstanding man.”  Trump didn’t mention that another accuser has come forward, supporting the accusations against Jordan that have already been expressed by three other former wrestlers.  Jordan, Shine and Trump, what an impressive trio. 

Cohen Chronicles:  Michael Cohen, who Trump once believed in 100% or at least trusted enough to have him cover up sexual misdeeds and advance his less than above board business dealings in places like Russia, continues to distance himself from his former mentor.  Yesterday Cohen added former Bill Clinton lawyer Lanny Davis to his legal team.  Davis, who is skilled at public relations, is likely to deal with the press and work on Cohen’s public image, while his other new lawyer, Guy Petrillo, focuses on cutting Cohen the best possible deal with federal prosecutors.   Davis confirmed his role by saying that  "Like most of America, I have been following the matter regarding Michael Cohen with great interest….. Michael Cohen deserves to tell his side of the story - subject, of course, to the advice of counsel.   Rudy Giuliani, who has been a little bit quieter than normal over the past week responded to Davis’ hiring by saying Cohen "should have the attorneys who he has the most confidence in,”  which probably translates to holy crap, Cohen is flipping and his lawyers are really good, we are in for it now.  It is ironic that Cohen now has a more rounded and competent legal and PR team than Trump.

Immigration Blues:  Yesterday Health and Human Secretary Azar who reportedly has been spending longs days and nights trying to figure out where his department stashed all of the kids who been separated from their parents, admitted that more of those children than was previously acknowledged are under his care.  He still isn’t all that sure where all the boys and girls are or where their parents are currently being held or, to the extent they’ve already been deported, how to find them, but now thinks that all told there are about 3,000 separated children, more than the 2047 previously acknowledged.  He reports that Health and Human Services is doing its best to “comply with the artificial deadlines created by the courts,” his way of saying that he knows he’s supposed to get all of the children under five years of age back to their parents by July 10, with the others following shortly thereafter, he just doesn’t know how he is going to manage to meet the deadline because although the INS and Homeland Security were really good at grabbing kids from their parents arms, it never occurred to anyone to keep track of the children or to make any plans for their return.  At this point he is relying on a combination of faulty records and children interviews to gather information about the children’s parentage, clearly a problem given that a number of the children are too young to communicate.   HHS is considering swabbing children and parents, to the extent that they can find them, in order to match-up DNA samples, a plan that is scientifically sound but which is unlikely to fly with the families or the ACLU because no one trusts that the DNA won’t end up in another government database.  The government may be awful at tracking kids but seems skilled at maintaining DNA records.  As to migrant rights, Trump continues to believe that they don’t have any, and to the extent that they do, the law should be changed so that they don’t.  Yesterday he tweeted “When people, with or without children, enter our Country, they must be told to leave…..without being forced to endure a long and costly trial. Tell the people “OUT,” and they must leave, just as they would if they were standing on your front lawn. Hiring thousands of “judges” does not work and is not acceptable - only Country in the World that does this!” Separately a federal judge in California on Thursday denied a request by the Trump administration to suspend California’s so-called sanctuary policies that limit cooperation between federal immigration authorities and state and local law enforcement.  As to courts, Trump is still expected to formally announce his newest Supreme Court nominee on Monday night during primetime, because when else would he and his newest hire Shine want to make such an important announcement.  Indications are that Trump has already made up his mind and that his choice is Brett Kavanaugh, the establishment’s preference.  However, a lot can happen between now and Monday so Trump and Shine recommend that you stay tuned, to Trump TV available on Fox networks everywhere.   

Karma Chameleon

Dogs or Burgers:   Tuesday afternoon,while most people were planning their July 4^th bar-b-ques and Joey Chestnut was prepping for another annual hotdog eating contest, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a summary of its examination of the Intelligence Community Assessment, the January 2017 report that laid out the case of Russian election meddling.  The Senate panel concluded that the intelligence community was spot on with its conclusions that the Russians had indeed meddled in the 2016 presidential election and that the intent of the meddling was to boost Trump’s chance of victory while denigrating Hillary Clinton.  The Senate also found that the so-called Steele Dossier, the one that Trump and his House quislings and buddies at Fox, have spent a lot of time attacking, did not “in any way inform the analysis in the Intelligence Community Assessment – including the key findings.” The Senate’s overall investigation into Russian election meddling is still ongoing, the committee is still in the process of investigating whether or not there was any collusion between the Trump team and the Russians, this was just an interim report.   Notably, the Senate report is at odds with the House Intelligence Committee report mostly because the House Committee, led by Trump ally Devon Nunes and a number of Trump’s most dedicated excusers chose to ignore the evidence, opting instead to attack the intelligence community for their “significant intelligence tradecraft failings.”  When asked about the report Hogan Gidley, a White House spokesmen said Trump “has been very clear and has said it many times that he feels the Russians meddled in the election.”  It’s not clear that Gidley has spent much time reading his boss’ tweets, as recently as last week Trump tweeted that “the Russians are innocent because they say they had nothing to do with Meddling in our Election” while at the same time going after one of his favorite whipping boys "Where is the DNC Server, and why didn’t Shady James Comey and the now disgraced FBI agents take and closely examine it? ….Why isn’t Hillary/Russia being looked at? So many questions, so much corruption!"  Trump spent a good portion of the lead up to the holiday tweeting, although he did wish the country a happy fourth he also tweeted out some rather absurd lies and distortions, including one where he attacked Obama, another one of his favorite whipping boys.  He tweeted “Just out that the Obama administration granted citizenship, during the terrible Iran Deal negotiation, to 2,500 Iranians, including to [sic] government officials. How big (and bad) is that?” Trump based that tweet on a story he saw on Fox news, one that the Fox geniuses picked up from an outspoken Iranian cleric named Mojtaba Zoinour, a critic of both Iran’s President Rouhani and the Iran nuclear agreement, who has been spreading the accusation in an attempt to discredit Rouhani, who by Iranian standards is a moderate.  Had Trump bothered to check with his intelligence gurus, he would have known that the accusation is false, but where’s the fun in that?  Besides tweeting about Obama collusion with Iran is just another way to distract from accusations about the possibility, okay likelihood, that he colluded with the Russians.  As to the whole tweet thing, Michael Cohen, Trump’s one time fixer/lawyer has now removed any reference of his affiliation with Trump from his twitter account and Trump, who must be truly concerned about Cohen, probably on the advice of counsel, continues to remain strangely silent about him. 

Court Tease:  As of now Trump plans to formally announce his Supreme Court nominee on Monday, waiting until after the weekend in order to build suspense and maximize publicity.  Though he’s interviewed a few more candidates, including Utah Senator Mike Lee, who has been lobbying for the position, expectations are that his final choice will be between Brett Kavanaugh, Raymond Kethledge and Amy Coney Barrett.  Kavanaugh remains the first choice of the mainstream Republican community and is being pushed by White House Counsel Don McGahn but is facing pushback because of his association with the Bush administration and because the evangelist and anti-Obamacare crowd fear that he’s not a sure thing, and by sure thing they mean someone who will adhere to their views on everything.  Senator Rand Paul is also expressing concerns about Kavanaugh’s Bush era work and possible contributions to post 9-11 warrantless wiretapping and enhanced interrogation programs.  Trump can’t afford to lose Paul’s vote, especially if he loses either one of the pro-choice Republican Senators Collins or Murkowski, but Paul will probably get on board since generally he is an attention getting irritant more than a firm anti-Trump voter.  As to Amy Coney Barrett, Trump likes her because he thinks he’d win points by appointing an attractive conservative woman to the court, and because he’d love to stick it to Senator Diane Feinstein who raised concerns about Barrett’s religious views during her October 2017 confirmation hearing.  At that time Feinstein questioned whether or not Barrett who is a member of People of Praise, a very conservative and charasmatic Catholic group that some call a cult, would be able to “render judicial opinsions faithful to the law” given her religious views saying “ The dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s of concern when you come to big issues that people have fought for for years in this country.” Feinstein’s questioning has turned Barrett into a bit of a cause celebre to the fundamentalist community something that Trump finds very appealing.  Her confirmation would be far from a sure thing, but Trump might relish the fight, as another way to further energize his base to come out for the midterm elections.  Anyway, we probably have to wait until Monday to find out who will be winning Celebrity Apprentice Judicial edition, unless of course, Trump, who has a hard time holding on to secrets, decides to announce his winner earlier.

International Arena:  Trump continues to insist that the North Koreans have the best of intentions and has sent Secretary of State Pompeo back to Pyongyang to get them to give up the nukes that they don’t plan to give up anytime soon or anytime at all.  Trump is scheduled to attend the NATO meetings which start on July 11, NATO allies are rightfully nervous about what he will say or do during those meetings.  After he does his best to disrupt the NATO alliance, Trump will move on to his meeting in Helsinki, Finland with Putin.  Contrary to usual practice followed by prior presidents, he’s told his aides that he plans to leave them out of the meeting with Putin because he wants to keep it to just the two of them and their interpreters.  No point in having anyone present when he agrees to formally recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea or formally hands control of all things related to Syria to his BFF.  In all likelihood the rest of us will have to wait for Putin’s press release to find out what gets said and agreed to during that meeting.  Over the holiday, we also learned that Trump has been seriously considering invading Venezuela to overthrow Venezuela’s leader Nicoloas Maduro.  Trump’s advisors, including one time National Security aide McMaster have warned him that an invasion could backfire, explaining that US allies in the region were firmly opposed to such drastic action. His aides want us to believe that Trump has just been ruminating out loud and that no military plans have been formulated. Conditions are very bad in Venezuela but Trump’s main interest is probably less about providing relief to economically strapped and oppressed Venezuelans and more about getting control over the country’s oil assets, particularly at a time when he’s pressing “allies” to abide by sanctions against Iran and pressing OPEC countries to increase supply and reduce prices.  After all, Increasing gas prices is just another one of those things that could influence the midterm elections.  

MeToo Strikes Again:  Representative Jim Jordan, a leader of the House Freedom Caucus and one of Trump’s loudest and most annoying supporters is now facing a few accusations of his own.  Apparently from 1986 to 1994, before he was a Congressman, Jordan was the assistant coach for the Ohio State wrestling team.  Three former members of the wrestling team say that it was common knowledge that a team doctor sexually abused team members and that Jordan was aware of the doctor’s actions.  Jordan denies that he ever knew anything about the abuse and goes on to claim that no one from Ohio State has contacted him about what is now an ongoing investigation into the students’ accusations even though a law firm participating in the investigation says that it contacted Jordan’s office several times but couldn’t get anyone to respond to inquiries and one of the former student wrestlers says that he spoke with Jordan about the abuse.  Jordan’s days in the House are probably not numbered, yet, but the accusation certainly has him rattled.  Wonder if he’ll get the fair treatment that he’s been giving people like Rod Rosenstein, Jim Comey, Bob Mueller and all those other people looking into Russian meddling and collusion? Karma strikes again.  

Country First

Cohen Chronicles:  Michael Cohen, Trump’s one time fixer/lawyer,  is either making a last ditch effort to get a pardon from Trump or really is close to turning on his mentor.  Yesterday, ABC released the audio portion of his interview with  George Stephanopoulos.  During the interview Cohen announced that he was putting his wife, children and the country before all, leaving the distinct impression that he was no longer willing to step between Trump and any of those bullets he previously said he would stop.  No one really believes that Cohen has suddenly developed a conscience or cares all that much about the country, but he does appear to care about himself, his wife and his kids.  Cohen’s new lawyer, former US Attorney Guy Petrillo, is due to officially come on board shortly, as soon as the review of all of those files and documents that the Feds grabbed from Cohen’s home and office are released, something that is expected to happen shortly. As Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniel’s attention seeking but generally correct lawyer predicted, few of those files are protected by attorney client privilege.  Assuming that Trump doesn’t do something to bring Cohen back into the fold, Cohen is expected to drop his joint defense agreement with Trump and begin cooperating with the Feds.  The last two guys to follow a similar game plan, Michael Flynn and Rick Gates, turned against team Trump so expectations that Cohen is following suit are reasonable.  During his Stephanopoulos interview, Cohen declined to answer questions about what Trump knew about the infamous Trump Tower meeting with the Russians but left the distinct impression that he knows something damning about that meeting and much more about lots of other Russian and “women things.”   As to the interview, Cohen had been planning it for a while, as part of his plan to improve his tarnished image.  To that end, he got a new haircut and donned a spiffy new suit but at the last minute, under the advice of his new counsel, he stuck to the audio only format.  Camera or audio, signaling to the Feds that you are eager to cooperate via a network interview is unusual, but traditional went out the window a long time ago.  Just another chapter in the Trump reality saga, the saga with no end in sight.

Migrant Morass:  The number of kids separated from their parents is probably way higher than anyone knows.  Even Health and Humans Services Secretary Azar is concerned.  Though he spent the first weekend of the migrant crisis partying at his Dartmouth reunion, he has now hunkered down and has been spending long nights in his office, scouring files trying to figure out how many children are really under his care.  He’s also trying to figure out where they’ve been stashed.  To the extent that he is successful, at some point the government may figure out how many kids they’ve separated but the rest of us won’t get to know the total, yesterday a HHS spokesperson announced that the department will no longer be disclosing exactly how many children it is holding as a result of the Trump separation policy.  Apparently they’ve concluded that transparency is so overrated.  In addition to separating children from their parents at the border, the Trump administration has been cracking down on asylum seekers by detaining them for unconscionably long periods of time.  Last night, US District Judge James Boasberg,  ordered the government to immediately release or grant hearings to more than 1,000 asylum seekers who have been jailed for months or years without individualized case reviews. The Judge pointed out that ICE ignored its own policy, one that states that asylum applicants who establish a “credible fear” of persecution in their native country must be granted a court hearing within seven days or be released. The ruling came in a case filed by the ACLU on behalf of a Haitian teacher who has been held in detention for more than eighteen months even though his fears of returning to Haiti were determined to be credible. Before Trump took office and before he and Sessions started imposing their draconian standards, about 90% of those establishing credible fear were released pending asylum reviews, that number is now down below 10%, even lower in some parts of the country.  The judge’s ruling only applies to certain regions but is likely to have a larger impact, that is until the Trump administration appeals or tries to appeal.

Supreme Shuffle:  Yesterday’s Boasberg ruling highlights again why Trump and his team have been working so hard to stack the Federal courts with conservative judges and why they are working so hard to get the most conservative person possible onto the Supreme Court.  To that end Trump is planning to announce his Supreme Court nominee early next week.  Yesterday he interviewed four candidates, including Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, Raymond Kethledge and Amul Thapar, all of them sitting Federal court judges.  Though Barrett has received a considerable amount of attention from those who believe that it would be harder for pro-choice Republican Senators Collins and Murkowski to vote against a fellow women, experts, to the extent they are to be believed, think that it is likely that neither Barrett or Thapar will be nominated for the Kennedy seat since, despite the fact that they’ve passed Federalist Society scrutiny, they are new to the courts and don’t have enough of a track record of delivering reliably conservative rulings.  Neither Trump nor his conservative benefactors want to run the risk of being “soutered,” a term that originates from the appointment of Justice David Souter to the Supreme Court by George H. W. Bush. Although a self-proclaimed conservative, once he ascended to the court, Souter revealed himself to be, horror of horrors, a liberal. Its highly unlikely that Trump’s team would make a similar mistake.  Though the Trump administration generally fails to get most things done right on their first or even fifth attempt, they seem to be atypically efficient when it comes to getting their guy onto the Supreme Court.  They succeeded with Gorsuch and are moving full steam ahead with Judge Kennedy’s appointment, so much so that yesterday it was reported that the White House staff has been reorganized to facilitate the mission.  As part of that reorganization, Raj Shah who has done such a good job twisting facts in his  Assistant Press Secretary position has been detailed to handle communication related to the court appointment.  

Trump Diplomacy:  Trump quickly reached out to Manuel Lopez Obrador, congratulating him for winning Mexico’s presidential election.  Lopez Obrador is a leftist and a populist but is also described as a pragmatist.  He responded by acknowledging the importance of improving relations with the US.  That said, he’s expected to push back at Trump, is not going to pay for the totally ridiculous wall and isn’t likely to do much to prevent migrants from crossing through Mexico to the US.  Trump may have met his match, at least with regard to posturing.  Trump has nothing nice to say to the members of NATO.  Yesterday he sent letters to the leaders of NATO allies, including Germany, Belgium, Norway and Canada, demanding that they increase their defense spending and threatening to alter the US global military presence if they do not.  Apparently the letter to Germany’s Angela Merkel was particularly harsh saying "continued German underspending on defense undermines the security of the alliance and provides validation for other allies that also do not plan to meet their military spending commitments, because others see you as a role model."  Trump also hinted that the US could alter its global military presence if NATO allies do not increase spending on their own defense.  Its not clear if Trump wrote the letters by himself or if they were dictated by his BFF Putin but regardless of who crafted the words, the theme comes straight from the Putin playbook.  As to Merkel, she managed to avoid another government crisis yesterday, holding her coalition government together by clamping down on asylum seekers seeking to settle in Germany.  Trump’s problems with all those “marauding hordes” of Mexicans and other Latin Americans pales in comparison to the problems facing Europe.  With wars, famines and climate change remaining a constant, the refugee crisis, is and is likely to continue to be a bigly problem.

Pruitt Nonsense:  Scott Pruitt is still running the EPA, but his problems continue to earn him more unfavorable, though sometimes humorous, press attention.  Apparently in addition to trying to buy used mattresses from the Trump organization and spending way too much money on unnecessary accoutrements like protective vests and cones of silence, Pruitt keeps at least two sets of appointment books, a scoured set that reveals only his most above board meetings and a second set that includes all of his meetings with industry heads seeking relaxation and elimination of all of those troublesome rules and regulations that limit them from polluting.  He even had his staff erase any record of his Rome dinner with the disgraced Cardinal Pell, a climate science denialist and known child abuser.  Falsifying government records is a bigly no no, unless of course you are Trump’s favorite Cabinet member.                                       

Hope Springs Eternal

Justice Games:  On Friday via the NY Times we learned that Trump together with his very special assistants Jared and Ivanka and even little granddaughter Arabella, waged a not so subtle charm offensive on the soon to be former Justice Anthony Kennedy in an effort to convince him to resign before the 2018 midterms.  The campaign which clearly was effective involved nominating Kennedy’s former clerks to federal judgeships and promoting at least one of them so far, Neil Gorsuch, to the Supreme Court.  The NY Times also reported that the Trump-Kennedy family relationship predates the Trump presidency,  as head of Real Estate Capital Market, Kennedy’s son Justin lent Trump’s real estate empire more than $1 billion when no other bank would touch the Trump organization  It turns out that Kennedy, the so called “swing” justice who wrote the opinion that legalized same sex marriage and who received liberal appreciation for protecting the landmark Roe v Wade decision should be better remembered for writing the Citizens United opinion, the decision that resulted in more dark money going into political campaigns, and by dark money think major buckaroos from billionaire wingnuts, and for voting with the majority on the Hobby Lobby decision which allows corporations to refuse to provide birth control coverage for “moral” reasons.  Now as Kennedy exits, with his reputation a bit tarnished, the Trump spin machine is trying to convince the rest of us that Trump’s next court nominee won’t vote to overturn Roe.  Even though Trump campaigned on the promise that he would appoint anti-abortion judges and he continues to diss reproductive choice, now he’s talking out of both sides of his mouth, saying that he won’t ask any of the judges under his consideration about their abortion views while at the same time saying that he sees a future where the decision on whether or not abortions can be legally performed returns to the states.  As to whether he’ll ask the judges directly, he probably won’t to the extent that his aides and White House Counsel Don McGahn, who is sticking around just to shepherd in a new conservative justice, can keep him muzzled, but he doesn’t have to, his picks are all coming from a prescreened list prepared by the very conservative anti-abortion Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation so whoever he nominates will be able to honestly say at his or her confirmation hearing that he or she never discussed Roe with Trump.  As part of the Trump team’s efforts to diminish the very rational concerns about the future of abortion rights, they are now trying to argue that because of stare decisis,  the doctrine of honoring precedent, regardless of who is appointed to the court, Roe would never be overturned because having been in effect for over forth years “it’s the law of the land.” At least that’s what Senator Lindsay Graham kind of wants us all to believe, though he also reiterated on NBC’s Meet the Press that he’s pro-life and  thinks the court should remain open to hearing additional arguments about abortion, hardly much of a reassuring statement.  It does seem that Senator Susan Collins is genuine in her belief that Roe should stand.  She told ABC’s This Week that she believes it is “settled law” and that hostility towards the decision is the “outcome of activism” that disrespects judicial precedent. She went on to say that she’s told Trump that he should be considering judges not already approved by the Federalist Society.  That sounds great but loses some of it weight when you consider that she also believes that newest Justice Gorsuch who she voted for and who is considered even more conservative than former Justice Scalia who he replaced,  wouldn’t vote to overturn Roe.  To save Roe, the Democrats are going to have to hold all their Senators, and that won’t be easy.  One of the candidates Trump is seriously considering is Amy Coney Barrett who currently serves on the 7th District court, the court that covers parts of Indiana, the home state of Senator Joe Donnelly, one of the most vulnerable Democrats up for reelection in November.  Donnelly and West Virginia Senator Manchin both voted for Barrett when she was  nominated to the serve on the Federal Court, a nomination that was heavily contested because of her strident religious views, views so conservative that she is the evangelical movement’s preferred choice. Another one of the leading contenders is Judge Brett Kavanaugh who has written that a president should get to decide whether and when he can be investigated, and that a sitting president should not be able to be indicted which likely explains why though they remain focused on the Roe decision, Democrats are also arguing that Trump shouldn’t be allowed to appoint another justice to the court while under investigation and though that argument probably won’t fly with any Republicans, it does have the support of Harvard constitutional law scholar Lawrence Tribe who tweeted yesterday in reference to the NY State case against Trump’s charity where Trump’s lawyers are arguing that as a sitting president he can’t be forced to testify that for his Supreme Court nominee to cast the decisive vote on that “would be outrageous.  The Senate should consider no nominee while POTUS is being investigated.“

Migrant Morass: Nationwide tens of thousands demonstrated against Trump’s policies this weekend. Nevertheless the separated migrant children are mostly still separated from their parents and going forward the Trump administration plans to start incarcerating kids with their parents for far longer than the thirty days permitted under the longstanding Flores Consent Agreement, setting up another inevitable lawsuit against the Trump administration.  Over the weekend NBC reported that the administration has been separating children from their parents for far longer than was originally revealed.  Apparently even before the “zero tolerance policy” was announced and possibly even before Trump took office, a pilot plan was being run by Department of Homeland Security officials in El Paso, Texas.  Somehow or other during all the time that DHS was running that “pilot” program it never occurred to anyone there to figure out a better tracking system, one that would facilitate the reunification of families.  In the meantime, a number of Democratic politicians, many of them 2020 presidential aspirants, have called for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to be abolished, or reorganized, a view that would sound more radical if it wasn’t shared by nineteen ICE officials who sent a letter to DHS Head Kirstjen Nielsen expressing their belief that Trump’s crackdown on undocumented migrants has made it “more difficult for them to conduct investigations into significant national security issues.”  They go on to say that they are supposed to “be out there making these major cases, these big cartels that are smuggling guns, drugs, money,” but “because of this whole immigration rhetoric -that immigrants are bad, that they’re criminals and rapists and all that -the focus is totally off mission.” Ignoring the ICE agents concerns, Trump instead tweeted that the Democrats who he says are for open borders and crime are “making a strong push to abolish ICE, one of the smartest, toughest and most spirited law enforcement groups of men and women that I have ever seen. I have watched ICE liberate towns from the grasp of MS-13 & clean out the toughest of situations. They are great!” Sadly, though Trump’s comments aren’t true, there hasn’t been a whole lot of town liberation, his spin is potent especially when amplified by the likes of Judge Jeanine Pirro, not one of his Supreme Court nominees, but someone most definitely in his court.   

Prevarication File: On Friday, Trump’s economic advisor Lawrence Kudlow, back from his heart attack, insisted that as a result of the tax bill the deficit is shrinking even though it has grown significantly.  Kudlow, formerly of CNBC, made that claim on Fox Business News in the hope that no one would contradict his assertion.  Unfortunately for him his own colleague,  White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, acknowledged last week that the deficit was “skyrocketing.”  Remember when Trump insisted that the North Korean nuclear threat was no longer a threat, well that was either extreme wishful thinking or another Trumpian lie.  New satellite imaging reveals that North Korea is completing a major expansion of a key missile-manufacturing plant, just another indication that Kim Jong Un has punked Trump and is pushing ahead with his nuclear weapons programs.  And that trade war, the one that will be so easy to win, Canada has now implemented a bunch of retaliatory tariffs. As to Harley Davidson, Trump’s once favorite company, he insists that since every single person whoever bought a Harley hog voted for him, that the company’s decision to move some manufacturing overseas in response to the trade war will lose it all of its customers.   Over the weekend someone at the White House leaked a draft document to Axios detailing Trump ‘s plans to enact a bill that would effectively abandon the World Trade Organization, just another one of those multinational organizations that Trump hates even though it keeps the world’s economies on an even keel and benefits the US.  It’s unlikely that Trump would ever be able to get his plan through Congress, but still he’d like to try.  As to the plan, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin denies that it even exists.  Trump also continues to deny that the Russian’s meddled in the US election so as he prepares for his upcoming summit he doesn’t really think it will be all that necessary to discuss the subject with Putin.  That said, his National Security advisor, John Bolton, insists that he will bring it up.  Who should we believe?  The guy with the bushy moustache or the one with the weird combover?  As to that guy with the weird hair, despite rumors to the contrary he wants us to know that he and the very bald Chief of Staff Kelly are getting along really well because he is a “great guy,” in other words he’s on his way out and now a new name, Hope Hicks, yes that Hope Hicks, the one with the long locks, has been added to the list of his possible successors.