One can not help to think that if the Republican-controlled Congress had the information that we all now know and a Democrat was the president, they would already be halfway through an impeachment process at this point, even without knowing all the facts.
And that is what is needed, the facts. Operatives for the president, like Roger Stone and Rudolph Giuliani are expected to put up a fierce defense, and as infuriating as their answers and conduct can be, we'd expect no less.
However, when you pledge to defend the Constitution like Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH), Mark Meadows (R-NC) and Devin Nunes (R-CA) have and then break that oath, it's not only reprehensible but un-American. These three men need to be called out because they do not deserve the offices they hold.
In terms of Roger Stone and his answers to Mr. Todd's queries, he obviously had advanced notice of what Wikileaks was going to do to damage the Clinton campaign. He can nuance his answers all that he wants but any reasonable person would understand that Mr. Stone knew what was going to happen and that a foreign actor was going to meddle in the campaign for President of The United States. He can go into the semantics all he wants, trying to convince, incorrectly, that 'the' means plural or other such nonsense, but it just doesn't wash. As Hugh Hewitt pointed out, Mr. Stone is worried about 'extraneous crimes,' in lieu of his statement that no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign has been proven. But what about other entities?
Well, in today's reporting by The New York Times, we now know what Donald Trump Jr.'s main job was during the campaign and that was to get campaign help from as many foreign entities, actors and governments as possible to help his father win. Doing this is a crime by the way despite what Mr. Giuliani would tell you.
Chuck Todd pointed out to guest Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA), ranking Democratic member of the Intelligence Committee that four people have not been interviewed by the special counsel - Donald Trump Jr., Brad Parscale, Michael Cohen and the aforementioned Mr. Stone. Mr. Schiff outlined two possibilities for this. One, Mr. Mueller's team is saving those interviews or that these individuals are targets of the investigation. Well, considering that Michael Cohen is about to be indicted in the Southern District of New York, it's logical to conclude that it is because the others are targets, as they should be.
Hallie Jackson reported that the Administration, Mr. Trump, is furious about all these stories coming out, so why would that be? He's furious that the truth is coming out and that it's being reported to the public? If the investigation is a 'witch hunt' as the president says it is then why hide these meetings?
Chuck Todd speculated that these foreign entities, including Israel, saw Mr. Trump as a transactional figure, from whom they could extract something for themselves. Some great deal maker, Mr. Trump moved the embassy to Jerusalem without asking anything of Benjamin Netanyahu. He got played. Mr. Trump, it seems, can be bought and sold on the cheap.
What also seems to be cheap these days is prayers. Prayers for more victims of another school shooting, nice as they are which Mr. Trump offered, do nothing. "Not surprised, just scared," Paige Curry, student survivor at Santa Fe High School said of the shooting. Texas's Lt. Governor Dan Patrick is on record recommending fewer doors in schools and arming teachers. In the Socratic method, one can not illicit 'dumb' answers, but Mr. Patrick has proven that axiom false. As this column has stated before, arming teachers is not the solution. Typically, every 'solution' will be put on the table with the exception of even modest gun control measures. As the panel discussed, state governors will act, because their state residents will demand it, but as Ms. Jackson said, Congress has little appetite for any gun laws because they salivate for NRA cash contributions.
As PBS's Yamiche Alcindor said, it will be up to today's young generation to change things because they've "grown up at rock bottom." Our leaders have really failed us on this.
Panel: Hallie Jackson, NBC News; Yamiche Alcindor, PBS News Hour; David Brooks, The New York Times; Hugh Hewlitt, Salem Radio Network
One more thing...
I disagree with Hugh Hewitt on many things, but he did have a likeable quote today, "Live with what you tweet." He directed it at Roger Stone, but that was one for the president as well.
Sunday, May 20, 2018
Sunday, May 06, 2018
5.6.18: President Trump Is Compromised From All Sides
When the discussion all week via conservative media outlets and more liberal media outlets is about the president's credibility, you know there is a problem, and in this case a big one. As Danielle Pletka from the American Enterprise Institute put it, we should be worried because it's a matter of leadership or the lack thereof.
There's little dispute that President Trump lies to the American people on an unprecedented scale and frequency. The president and his stupid new lead attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, have made enough conflicting statements about the $130,000 payment to Stephanie Clifford that they have both lost all credibility on the matter, and until the matter actually comes up in court, Ms. Clifford's attorney, Michael Avenatti is going to try this case in the press. (The case they have against Michael Cohen has been delayed due to Mr. Cohen's criminal legal troubles.) What Ms. Clifford and Mr. Avenatti are fighting for is the right to tell her complete story without legal repercussions that of course would cause great personal embarrassment to President Trump. What it will cost President Trump is not only embarrassment, but also what he covets the most, money. If the alleged affair officially moves from that status to being confirmed, surely Mrs. Trump will file for divorce, which will come with a heavy price tag. Additionally, the president's political fortunes will also turn, especially if he loses evangelical support amongst his base. Why evangelicals still support Mr. Trump is beyond reason, but that's a longer discussion for another time.
All these conflicting explanations on the part of his president and his attorney have compromised the president's ability to be taken seriously and to do what is best for the country and the American people. As The Boston Herald's Kimberly Atkins stated, the facts have become irrelevant. If the president can not level with the American people on the small stuff, how are we to believe him when a real crisis hits, or to do the right thing to protect our democracy, which he is definitely not doing therefore breaking his oath as president to uphold the Constitution and protect the American people.
And here we're talking about Russian meddling in the 2016 election. As The Washington Post's Robert Costa noted, the administration seems to be operating separately from the president himself. The Administration, Mr. Costa explained, are continuing to carry out many policies of the Obama Administration, but when it comes to Russian election meddling, it's the president sets the agenda, the response, the preventative measures.
Why hasn't President Trump taken action? It's clear that in some way, shape or form that President Trump is compromised by the Kremlin.
Whether it's something more intimate stemming from the Steele dossier or it's the president's finances or both, the president is not taking the initiative to stop the Kremlin from meddling in U.S. elections, and the danger is if Mr. Putin decides to move from disinformation to straight up hacking to do permanent damage to our democracy, the president will once again lie about it and use it for his own authoritarian inclinations.
Former ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul outlined a number of reasons behind Mr. Putin's motivations for 'taking the gloves' off when it comes to going on the offense against the United States, which were:
Hillary Clinton's statements as Secretary of State, saying that Mr. Putin's election wasn't legitimate;
the national embarrassment over the Olympic doping scandal;
the release of the Panama papers, which exposed the wealth of Mr. Putin and other Russia oligarchs;
and the last straw, Mr. Putin blaming the CIA for the ousting Viktor Yanukovych as president of Ukraine.
Speaking of Ukraine, with all due respect to Alan Dershowitz and the judge in Virginia both saying that the Mueller investigation is going outside its scope in bringing money-lauding charges against former Trump Campaign chairman Paul Manafort, it's hypocritical. The parameters have been set by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and include any criminal activity stemming from the investigation. The reason it's hypocritical is that President Bill Clinton was investigation by Specical Counsel Kenneth Starr for the Whitewater land deal, but then the Monica Lewinsky affair came to his attention and he went after President Clinton for that. How did that affair have anything to do with real estate? Nothing.
President Trump for his part has been forced to admit that there was Russian meddling in the U.S. election, but since he's done nothing about it. And why? Because President Trump, it surely seems, has been compromised. There's no other explanation.
For additional reading on Russia protests of Mr. Putin's fourth term inauguration, see this article from yesterday's Washington Post: Russian Police Detain 1,600 Protesters
Panel: Kimberly Atkins, The Boston Herald; Danielle Pletka, American Enterprise Institute; Robert Costa, The Washington Post; Jon Meacham, historian
One more thing...
Though this column has not always agreed with his positions, and over the years he has made some questionable decisions (haven't we all), Senator John McCain (R-AZ) is a true American patriot and hero. America needs more leaders like him who stand up for their principles though you don't always agree with them.
That needed to be written into this blog's record because President Trump dishonoring Senator McCain has been among his most despicable statements.
Best to the Senator and his family in a most difficult time.
There's little dispute that President Trump lies to the American people on an unprecedented scale and frequency. The president and his stupid new lead attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, have made enough conflicting statements about the $130,000 payment to Stephanie Clifford that they have both lost all credibility on the matter, and until the matter actually comes up in court, Ms. Clifford's attorney, Michael Avenatti is going to try this case in the press. (The case they have against Michael Cohen has been delayed due to Mr. Cohen's criminal legal troubles.) What Ms. Clifford and Mr. Avenatti are fighting for is the right to tell her complete story without legal repercussions that of course would cause great personal embarrassment to President Trump. What it will cost President Trump is not only embarrassment, but also what he covets the most, money. If the alleged affair officially moves from that status to being confirmed, surely Mrs. Trump will file for divorce, which will come with a heavy price tag. Additionally, the president's political fortunes will also turn, especially if he loses evangelical support amongst his base. Why evangelicals still support Mr. Trump is beyond reason, but that's a longer discussion for another time.
All these conflicting explanations on the part of his president and his attorney have compromised the president's ability to be taken seriously and to do what is best for the country and the American people. As The Boston Herald's Kimberly Atkins stated, the facts have become irrelevant. If the president can not level with the American people on the small stuff, how are we to believe him when a real crisis hits, or to do the right thing to protect our democracy, which he is definitely not doing therefore breaking his oath as president to uphold the Constitution and protect the American people.
And here we're talking about Russian meddling in the 2016 election. As The Washington Post's Robert Costa noted, the administration seems to be operating separately from the president himself. The Administration, Mr. Costa explained, are continuing to carry out many policies of the Obama Administration, but when it comes to Russian election meddling, it's the president sets the agenda, the response, the preventative measures.
Why hasn't President Trump taken action? It's clear that in some way, shape or form that President Trump is compromised by the Kremlin.
Whether it's something more intimate stemming from the Steele dossier or it's the president's finances or both, the president is not taking the initiative to stop the Kremlin from meddling in U.S. elections, and the danger is if Mr. Putin decides to move from disinformation to straight up hacking to do permanent damage to our democracy, the president will once again lie about it and use it for his own authoritarian inclinations.
Former ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul outlined a number of reasons behind Mr. Putin's motivations for 'taking the gloves' off when it comes to going on the offense against the United States, which were:
Hillary Clinton's statements as Secretary of State, saying that Mr. Putin's election wasn't legitimate;
the national embarrassment over the Olympic doping scandal;
the release of the Panama papers, which exposed the wealth of Mr. Putin and other Russia oligarchs;
and the last straw, Mr. Putin blaming the CIA for the ousting Viktor Yanukovych as president of Ukraine.
Speaking of Ukraine, with all due respect to Alan Dershowitz and the judge in Virginia both saying that the Mueller investigation is going outside its scope in bringing money-lauding charges against former Trump Campaign chairman Paul Manafort, it's hypocritical. The parameters have been set by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and include any criminal activity stemming from the investigation. The reason it's hypocritical is that President Bill Clinton was investigation by Specical Counsel Kenneth Starr for the Whitewater land deal, but then the Monica Lewinsky affair came to his attention and he went after President Clinton for that. How did that affair have anything to do with real estate? Nothing.
President Trump for his part has been forced to admit that there was Russian meddling in the U.S. election, but since he's done nothing about it. And why? Because President Trump, it surely seems, has been compromised. There's no other explanation.
For additional reading on Russia protests of Mr. Putin's fourth term inauguration, see this article from yesterday's Washington Post: Russian Police Detain 1,600 Protesters
Panel: Kimberly Atkins, The Boston Herald; Danielle Pletka, American Enterprise Institute; Robert Costa, The Washington Post; Jon Meacham, historian
One more thing...
Though this column has not always agreed with his positions, and over the years he has made some questionable decisions (haven't we all), Senator John McCain (R-AZ) is a true American patriot and hero. America needs more leaders like him who stand up for their principles though you don't always agree with them.
That needed to be written into this blog's record because President Trump dishonoring Senator McCain has been among his most despicable statements.
Best to the Senator and his family in a most difficult time.
Sunday, April 29, 2018
4.29.18: Credibility and Bad Actors
Everyone on either side of the political aisle has an axe to grind with fmr. FBI Director James Comey, but the notion that he should have waited to write a book bout his experiences is ridiculous. When he was fired by President Trump, mainly because of the Russian investigation, he became a private citizen and was therefore free to write a book, make money, and do interviews. So anyone upset by that saying that he has a sense of duty to wait, get over yourself. He was unceremoniously relieved of his public duty so now, like every other private citizen, his duty is to himself and his family. If people are upset that he's made money from the book, well, welcome to the world.
With that, Mr. Comey is correct in his assessment that the House report on Russian election meddling is a political document, and as NBC's Kasie Hunt simply stated, Republicans have their own set of facts when it comes to the Russian investigation. The House Intelligence Committee has been indeed wrecked as Mr. Comey said, and as much as this column loathes Congressman Devin Nunes (R-CA) and his actions in heading up the committee, he's not the worst actor in all of this. The worst person in all of this has been the current Speaker of House, Paul Ryan (R-WI).
Mr. Ryan has fully enabled and sanctioned Mr. Nunes's shenanigans in terms of the Russia investigation. Mr. Ryan has fully proven himself a man of little integrity, which was further reinforced just this week when his firing of the House Chaplin became public. Political partisans didn't like what the Chaplin has to say in prayer so Ryan bowed to the pressure to be the first House Speaker to fire a Catholic priest from the post. And why? Because Father Patrick Conroy reminded House members that Jesus was a fighter and advocate for the poor? Jesus didn't teach the 'prosperity gospel,' despite what some House members would wrongfully tell you. Mr. Ryan's actions and non-leadership have been disgraceful, to say the least.
You don't always have to agree with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, but she accurately summed it up when she said that Mr. Ryan now feels that the House doesn't need a Chaplin anymore because Republicans have sold their soul to President Trump.
And speaking of the president and credibility, nothing Mr. Trump says in terms of the Russian investigation is to be believed. At his Friday night rally, Mr. Trump said that Vladimir Putin was now telling Russians embroiled in the Russia meddling to incriminate themselves because the U.S. president has been so tough on Russia. As Mr. Comey accurately assessed this morning, it gives little hope that the president is thinking clearly.
The Washington Examiner's Stephen Moore said that Mr. Comey has politicized the FBI, but like on most things political Mr. Moore is incorrect. The politicizing and diminishing of our institutions falls squarely on Mr. Trump's shoulders. Mr. Moore was also wrong today when he assessed the Russia investigation as a partisan 'witch hunt.' Now, had Mr. Comey made mistakes? Yes, a lot, which were driven by his own self-importance that clouded his judgement at times. However, Chuck Todd said that Mr. Comey prejudged the president, which isn't necessarily true because Mr. Comey during the election knew something that the public and the press didn't know, which was that his campaign manager and others were already under investigation for improper Russian contacts during the election.
Where we shouldn't prejudge the president is with regard to the historical events that occurred on the Korean Peninsula this week, with the small exception that Mr. Trump shouldn't take credit for 'everything.' More campaign-style hyperbole from our hyperbolic president. What we must understand going in is that denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is going to be a long process. Taking Kim Jung Un's word for it, just isn't going to cut it. However, the North Korean dictator sees the writing on the wall, in which he and the elite leaders in his country are now the ones also being squeezed financially, not only his people, which he has mercilessly oppressed. Political and economic pressure is now coming from Kim's biggest benefactor, China, so he has to make a move and his aspiration is to set himself up as a junior Xi - leader for life in a system he completely controls, but one that is slightly more open. Pressure has indeed come from Mr. Trump, but what does it say when the dictator of North Korea considers the President of the United States to not be a rational actor. Ouch.
Panel: Kasie Hunt, NBC News; Maureen Dowd, The New York Times; Edward Glaude, Princeton University; Stephen Moore, The Washington Examiner
With that, Mr. Comey is correct in his assessment that the House report on Russian election meddling is a political document, and as NBC's Kasie Hunt simply stated, Republicans have their own set of facts when it comes to the Russian investigation. The House Intelligence Committee has been indeed wrecked as Mr. Comey said, and as much as this column loathes Congressman Devin Nunes (R-CA) and his actions in heading up the committee, he's not the worst actor in all of this. The worst person in all of this has been the current Speaker of House, Paul Ryan (R-WI).
Mr. Ryan has fully enabled and sanctioned Mr. Nunes's shenanigans in terms of the Russia investigation. Mr. Ryan has fully proven himself a man of little integrity, which was further reinforced just this week when his firing of the House Chaplin became public. Political partisans didn't like what the Chaplin has to say in prayer so Ryan bowed to the pressure to be the first House Speaker to fire a Catholic priest from the post. And why? Because Father Patrick Conroy reminded House members that Jesus was a fighter and advocate for the poor? Jesus didn't teach the 'prosperity gospel,' despite what some House members would wrongfully tell you. Mr. Ryan's actions and non-leadership have been disgraceful, to say the least.
You don't always have to agree with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, but she accurately summed it up when she said that Mr. Ryan now feels that the House doesn't need a Chaplin anymore because Republicans have sold their soul to President Trump.
And speaking of the president and credibility, nothing Mr. Trump says in terms of the Russian investigation is to be believed. At his Friday night rally, Mr. Trump said that Vladimir Putin was now telling Russians embroiled in the Russia meddling to incriminate themselves because the U.S. president has been so tough on Russia. As Mr. Comey accurately assessed this morning, it gives little hope that the president is thinking clearly.
The Washington Examiner's Stephen Moore said that Mr. Comey has politicized the FBI, but like on most things political Mr. Moore is incorrect. The politicizing and diminishing of our institutions falls squarely on Mr. Trump's shoulders. Mr. Moore was also wrong today when he assessed the Russia investigation as a partisan 'witch hunt.' Now, had Mr. Comey made mistakes? Yes, a lot, which were driven by his own self-importance that clouded his judgement at times. However, Chuck Todd said that Mr. Comey prejudged the president, which isn't necessarily true because Mr. Comey during the election knew something that the public and the press didn't know, which was that his campaign manager and others were already under investigation for improper Russian contacts during the election.
Where we shouldn't prejudge the president is with regard to the historical events that occurred on the Korean Peninsula this week, with the small exception that Mr. Trump shouldn't take credit for 'everything.' More campaign-style hyperbole from our hyperbolic president. What we must understand going in is that denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is going to be a long process. Taking Kim Jung Un's word for it, just isn't going to cut it. However, the North Korean dictator sees the writing on the wall, in which he and the elite leaders in his country are now the ones also being squeezed financially, not only his people, which he has mercilessly oppressed. Political and economic pressure is now coming from Kim's biggest benefactor, China, so he has to make a move and his aspiration is to set himself up as a junior Xi - leader for life in a system he completely controls, but one that is slightly more open. Pressure has indeed come from Mr. Trump, but what does it say when the dictator of North Korea considers the President of the United States to not be a rational actor. Ouch.
Panel: Kasie Hunt, NBC News; Maureen Dowd, The New York Times; Edward Glaude, Princeton University; Stephen Moore, The Washington Examiner
Sunday, April 15, 2018
4.15.18: Sinking In the Depths of Trumpian Seas
For the purposes of this week's column, it's expedient to cover the last major segment first, which was the interview with the Speaker of House, Paul Ryan (R-WI). In good faith, you can respect Mr. Ryan's desire to spend more time with his family, which played a major factor in his reasoning to not seek reelection. However, in equally large part, Mr. Ryan is jumping ship before his party sinks beneath the Trumpian sea. The Republican party's complicity with the president and his cabinet's many ethical violations, not to mention the seediness of the various allegations of the president's affairs along with the general daily chaos in the White House have left the prospects dim for Republicans controlling the House after the midterms. There is no way that Paul Ryan wants to be minority leader and neither does he want to have to defend this president another two years. The writing is on the wall.
And the tapes are in the drawer...
Though Michael Cohen fashions himself a Ray Donovan style fixer, he is a lawyer and more specifically Donald Trump's lawyer. For FBI agents to conduct surveillance leading up to this week's search of his office, home, and hotel room, the threshold needs to be very high with a high degree of certainty that Mr. Cohen may destroy potential evidence. Unbelievably, Mr. Cohen recorded many conversations and it's known that he's used those recordings as leverage on the president's behalf. If anyone knows which closet all of Mr. Trump's skeletons are located it would be Michael Cohen. No matter what filing Mr. Cohen's lawyer offers for an injunction, it will fail and now the District Attorney in the Southern District of New York and the FBI will know as well. Plausible deniability on the part of the president is thin, at best.
Not only will this collected evidence play a part in the more salacious stories of pay-outs to women for their silence, but could also play a part in the Russia investigation as well. As John Brennan said today in his interview with Chuck Todd, the revelation that Michael Cohen did in fact travel to Prague as confirmed by McClatchy news service, after Paul Manafort stepping aside as campaign chairmen, could be "explosive." Mr. Trump's lawyer, already known to make shady payments, may have met with a Russian contact in Prague, to pay 'cut-outs' for the Kremlin to meddle in the 2016 election. If proven, it's direct evidence that Mr. Trump and his campaign subverted American democracy with the help of a foreign government.
Let that sink in for a moment.
That opens up the possibility of the President of the United States being blackmailed by a foreign government, not just of any country but Russia and Vladimir Putin.
At a rally about a week and half ago, the president stated that the American military would be getting out of Syria and said that it should be left to others. When the Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad heard that, he took it as a green light to commit another atrocious act in the form of using chemical weapons. Then on Monday, the FBI seized evidence from the president's personal lawyer. On Friday night, in cooperation with Britain and France, targeted airstrikes took out Assad's chemical weapon capabilities.
There was talk about a 'wag the dog' situation, in which the president was conducting a military operation to distract from all these domestic investigations. It would seem that way, but that's a degree of cynicism that this column cannot indulge in. Without a response, the use of chemical weapons would become normalized and that just cannot stand.
The New York Times Magazine's Mark Leibovich rightly said that the president doesn't get to define the red line when it comes to investigations of Russian meddling and potential illegal payments made by his fixer. However with regard to Syria, the president can and should draw this line. One would have to agree with Mr. Brennan that despite the many criticisms one could throw at this administration, it has acted in a measured, appropriate way in response to Assad's use of chemical weapons.
Panel: Kristen Welker, NBC News; Carol Lee, NBC News; Mark Leibovich, The New York Times Magazine; Al Cardenas, Republican strategist
One more thing...
With regard to fmr. FBI Director James Comey's book, Chuck Todd asked the a key rhetorical question. What does it say about a president that the former FBI director would characterize him the way he did? It also needs to be said that the president calling him an 'untruthful slime ball' and the president's press secretary calling him a 'partisan hack' just shows the American people the quality of this administration, or the sore lack thereof. Both comments are contemptible.
And the tapes are in the drawer...
Though Michael Cohen fashions himself a Ray Donovan style fixer, he is a lawyer and more specifically Donald Trump's lawyer. For FBI agents to conduct surveillance leading up to this week's search of his office, home, and hotel room, the threshold needs to be very high with a high degree of certainty that Mr. Cohen may destroy potential evidence. Unbelievably, Mr. Cohen recorded many conversations and it's known that he's used those recordings as leverage on the president's behalf. If anyone knows which closet all of Mr. Trump's skeletons are located it would be Michael Cohen. No matter what filing Mr. Cohen's lawyer offers for an injunction, it will fail and now the District Attorney in the Southern District of New York and the FBI will know as well. Plausible deniability on the part of the president is thin, at best.
Not only will this collected evidence play a part in the more salacious stories of pay-outs to women for their silence, but could also play a part in the Russia investigation as well. As John Brennan said today in his interview with Chuck Todd, the revelation that Michael Cohen did in fact travel to Prague as confirmed by McClatchy news service, after Paul Manafort stepping aside as campaign chairmen, could be "explosive." Mr. Trump's lawyer, already known to make shady payments, may have met with a Russian contact in Prague, to pay 'cut-outs' for the Kremlin to meddle in the 2016 election. If proven, it's direct evidence that Mr. Trump and his campaign subverted American democracy with the help of a foreign government.
Let that sink in for a moment.
That opens up the possibility of the President of the United States being blackmailed by a foreign government, not just of any country but Russia and Vladimir Putin.
At a rally about a week and half ago, the president stated that the American military would be getting out of Syria and said that it should be left to others. When the Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad heard that, he took it as a green light to commit another atrocious act in the form of using chemical weapons. Then on Monday, the FBI seized evidence from the president's personal lawyer. On Friday night, in cooperation with Britain and France, targeted airstrikes took out Assad's chemical weapon capabilities.
There was talk about a 'wag the dog' situation, in which the president was conducting a military operation to distract from all these domestic investigations. It would seem that way, but that's a degree of cynicism that this column cannot indulge in. Without a response, the use of chemical weapons would become normalized and that just cannot stand.
The New York Times Magazine's Mark Leibovich rightly said that the president doesn't get to define the red line when it comes to investigations of Russian meddling and potential illegal payments made by his fixer. However with regard to Syria, the president can and should draw this line. One would have to agree with Mr. Brennan that despite the many criticisms one could throw at this administration, it has acted in a measured, appropriate way in response to Assad's use of chemical weapons.
Panel: Kristen Welker, NBC News; Carol Lee, NBC News; Mark Leibovich, The New York Times Magazine; Al Cardenas, Republican strategist
One more thing...
With regard to fmr. FBI Director James Comey's book, Chuck Todd asked the a key rhetorical question. What does it say about a president that the former FBI director would characterize him the way he did? It also needs to be said that the president calling him an 'untruthful slime ball' and the president's press secretary calling him a 'partisan hack' just shows the American people the quality of this administration, or the sore lack thereof. Both comments are contemptible.
Sunday, April 08, 2018
4.8.18: President Trump's Isolationism Isn't Nationalistic/ And a Word On Regulations
At the top of the program, Chuck Todd mentioned 'nationalistic themes' running through Mr. Trump's presidency, but are they nationalistic or really isolationist? Nationalistic is the belief that your country is superior to other countries, but that's not what we're seeing from the president.
Also, more Americans than just the president's base supporters do not necessarily disagree with the Administrations mends as much as the president's method and madness.Case in point is the deployment of National Guard troops to the southern border. As The New York Times Helene Cooper pointed out, Presidents Bush and Obama sent the National Guard there. However, Mr. Trump is bent on creating hysteria, xenophobia and fear to justify these actions. Until the wall is built, the 'military,' as Mr. Trump purposely phrases it as such, has to guard the border.
Even with the tariffs that the president is imposing, many agree that something needs to be done about China's unfair trade practices and their constant theft of American intellectual property. When Mr. Todd asked, Peter Navarro, the Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, about the president's tariff announcements and whether they were negotiating tactics or policy, the director said, "both," but in the meantime there's much economic uncertainty being created. Tariffs need to be carefully negotiated, not tweeted as a blanket statement and then later walk some back through exceptions - e.g., steel and aluminum. The president has to be willing to face the political repercussions of the hit American farmers are surely going to take when China implements tariffs in kind. When the president makes mad statements, others (namely China) will get mad back.
Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) was right when he said that not doing the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership (TTP) was a mistake. With that partnership the United States could have locked in a multi-national trade deal with countries right on China's doorstep, and that would have created more leverage for the U.S. to deal with China. Senator Rounds also went on to explain that the president said that it would be better to negotiate with each country one on one, but none of these deals have been put in place yet.
It's also worth noting the refreshing appeal the Senator made for the Administration to stop fighting with Mexico and Canada on trade - our two best partners.
With regard to Syria, the president who has famously said that he would never show his hand when it came to foreign policy said that we're pulling our troops out of Syria where they have provided instrumental assistance in liberating cities once occupied by ISIS. Now, in light of another reported chemical attack, tacitly supported by the Kremlin, the president is 'boxed in' and there's a lot of pressure to respond as the National Review's Rich Lowry explained. The last time there was a chemical attack, the administration responded with a highly publicized missile attack. Ms. Cooper reported that U.S. military leaders are formulating multiple strike possibilities. Yet, according to the president, we disengaging from Syria.
Pulling back from promoting and selling American products, ceding our foreign policy to Russia and Iran in the Middle East and building a wall to keep 'them' out aren't nationalistic, it's isolationist. Donald Trump is a great salesman, but he doesn't sell American strength and prosperity to the rest of the world, he only sells himself to Americans.
Mr. Lowry stated that the president is 'dug in' on his support for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, despite Mr. Pruitt's many ethics violations. However, what he also essentially said was that Mr. Pruitt should own these excesses and vow to correct them, but that won't happen.
Mr. Pruitt is a conservative hero and and giving him the boot is not the way to endear yourself to the conservative base. With that, what everyone pointed out today, Mr. Pruitt has carried out a great deal of Mr. Trump's agenda, more so than any other cabinet member.
Chuck Todd asked Senator Rounds, a Pruitt admirer, why one could not like his regulation rollbacks, but not his ethics violations, to which Mr. Rounds doubled up on the administrator's achievements. Scott Pruitt is the poster child for conservative zero-sum politics and as long as he's winning, it doesn't matter how much of the taxpayers' money he spends on himself. Just a check, I did a quick search of regulations that illustrate what Mr. Pruitt was has been accomplishing.
President Trump signed an executive order on February 28, 2017 directing EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to review and rescind or replace the 2016 Waters of the U.S. Rule (also known as the “Clean Water Rule”), and on June 27, 2017, EPA and the Corps released a proposal to rescind the rule.
On April 25, 2017, the Trump Administration halted, indefinitely, certain compliance deadlines in the 2015 Steam Electric Effluent Limitations Guidelines (“ELG”) Rule, which set, for the first time, limits on toxic water pollution from coal-fired power plants.
On September 14 2017, the Pruitt EPA announced that it would be reconsidering its Coal Ash Disposal Rule, the first federal rule governing disposal of coal ash, the by-product created from burning coal. Coal ash (also called coal combustion residuals) contains toxic pollutants including arsenic, cadmium, and hexavalent chromium that can leach into groundwater, surface water, or air and threaten health and the environment without proper disposal controls.
On October 10, 2017, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt issued a notice proposing a repeal of the Clean Power Plan, which requires utilities to reduce carbon emissions from existing facilities by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, for rollback.
On April 2, 2018, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced that his agency plans to eliminate new greenhouse gas reduction targets for cars and trucks that would double fuel efficiency by 2025.
I sourced these from the Environmental Integrity Project, which I'm sure someone, if not many people, will accuse of bias, but these are all documented by other sources or put into writing by the president himself, so you be the judge as to whether you think these regulations should have been reversed. In my humble opinion, these are all moves that set the country back, and in addition stifle ever-necessary energy innovation.
And finally, Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. Let's just say that with regard to Mr. Zuckerberg's appearance on Capitol Hill this week, Charles Cook, the Cook Political Report, summed it up best. If Mark Zuckerberg had appeared before Congress right away, it would have been bad, but now it's going to be horrific. "Roasted" was the term Rich Lowry used.
Mr. Zuckerberg's days of apologies and self-regulating half-measures are coming to a conclusion. It's just not going to work anymore that he's the individual who decides who gets your data and how much of it.
But here's the rub: When you have erudite old white men predominantly presiding over Congress who don't understand the back end of social media, regulation is going to be slow and ineffective. Conversely, this is why Mr. Wylie's insights are quite credible when he explains that it could be a lot more than 87 million people who have had their data shared with third parties.
Panel: Doris Kearns-Goodwin, presidential historian; Helene Cooper, The New York Times; Rich Lowry, the National Review; Charlies Cook, the Cook Political Report
One more thing...
As a former teacher, I can safely say that teachers need to be paid more... much more. And states like Oklahoma that cut funding for their schools should be ashamed of themselves. Hard stop.
Also, more Americans than just the president's base supporters do not necessarily disagree with the Administrations mends as much as the president's method and madness.Case in point is the deployment of National Guard troops to the southern border. As The New York Times Helene Cooper pointed out, Presidents Bush and Obama sent the National Guard there. However, Mr. Trump is bent on creating hysteria, xenophobia and fear to justify these actions. Until the wall is built, the 'military,' as Mr. Trump purposely phrases it as such, has to guard the border.
Even with the tariffs that the president is imposing, many agree that something needs to be done about China's unfair trade practices and their constant theft of American intellectual property. When Mr. Todd asked, Peter Navarro, the Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, about the president's tariff announcements and whether they were negotiating tactics or policy, the director said, "both," but in the meantime there's much economic uncertainty being created. Tariffs need to be carefully negotiated, not tweeted as a blanket statement and then later walk some back through exceptions - e.g., steel and aluminum. The president has to be willing to face the political repercussions of the hit American farmers are surely going to take when China implements tariffs in kind. When the president makes mad statements, others (namely China) will get mad back.
Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) was right when he said that not doing the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership (TTP) was a mistake. With that partnership the United States could have locked in a multi-national trade deal with countries right on China's doorstep, and that would have created more leverage for the U.S. to deal with China. Senator Rounds also went on to explain that the president said that it would be better to negotiate with each country one on one, but none of these deals have been put in place yet.
It's also worth noting the refreshing appeal the Senator made for the Administration to stop fighting with Mexico and Canada on trade - our two best partners.
With regard to Syria, the president who has famously said that he would never show his hand when it came to foreign policy said that we're pulling our troops out of Syria where they have provided instrumental assistance in liberating cities once occupied by ISIS. Now, in light of another reported chemical attack, tacitly supported by the Kremlin, the president is 'boxed in' and there's a lot of pressure to respond as the National Review's Rich Lowry explained. The last time there was a chemical attack, the administration responded with a highly publicized missile attack. Ms. Cooper reported that U.S. military leaders are formulating multiple strike possibilities. Yet, according to the president, we disengaging from Syria.
Pulling back from promoting and selling American products, ceding our foreign policy to Russia and Iran in the Middle East and building a wall to keep 'them' out aren't nationalistic, it's isolationist. Donald Trump is a great salesman, but he doesn't sell American strength and prosperity to the rest of the world, he only sells himself to Americans.
***
Mr. Lowry stated that the president is 'dug in' on his support for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, despite Mr. Pruitt's many ethics violations. However, what he also essentially said was that Mr. Pruitt should own these excesses and vow to correct them, but that won't happen.
Mr. Pruitt is a conservative hero and and giving him the boot is not the way to endear yourself to the conservative base. With that, what everyone pointed out today, Mr. Pruitt has carried out a great deal of Mr. Trump's agenda, more so than any other cabinet member.
Chuck Todd asked Senator Rounds, a Pruitt admirer, why one could not like his regulation rollbacks, but not his ethics violations, to which Mr. Rounds doubled up on the administrator's achievements. Scott Pruitt is the poster child for conservative zero-sum politics and as long as he's winning, it doesn't matter how much of the taxpayers' money he spends on himself. Just a check, I did a quick search of regulations that illustrate what Mr. Pruitt was has been accomplishing.
President Trump signed an executive order on February 28, 2017 directing EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to review and rescind or replace the 2016 Waters of the U.S. Rule (also known as the “Clean Water Rule”), and on June 27, 2017, EPA and the Corps released a proposal to rescind the rule.
On April 25, 2017, the Trump Administration halted, indefinitely, certain compliance deadlines in the 2015 Steam Electric Effluent Limitations Guidelines (“ELG”) Rule, which set, for the first time, limits on toxic water pollution from coal-fired power plants.
On September 14 2017, the Pruitt EPA announced that it would be reconsidering its Coal Ash Disposal Rule, the first federal rule governing disposal of coal ash, the by-product created from burning coal. Coal ash (also called coal combustion residuals) contains toxic pollutants including arsenic, cadmium, and hexavalent chromium that can leach into groundwater, surface water, or air and threaten health and the environment without proper disposal controls.
On October 10, 2017, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt issued a notice proposing a repeal of the Clean Power Plan, which requires utilities to reduce carbon emissions from existing facilities by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, for rollback.
On April 2, 2018, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced that his agency plans to eliminate new greenhouse gas reduction targets for cars and trucks that would double fuel efficiency by 2025.
I sourced these from the Environmental Integrity Project, which I'm sure someone, if not many people, will accuse of bias, but these are all documented by other sources or put into writing by the president himself, so you be the judge as to whether you think these regulations should have been reversed. In my humble opinion, these are all moves that set the country back, and in addition stifle ever-necessary energy innovation.
And finally, Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. Let's just say that with regard to Mr. Zuckerberg's appearance on Capitol Hill this week, Charles Cook, the Cook Political Report, summed it up best. If Mark Zuckerberg had appeared before Congress right away, it would have been bad, but now it's going to be horrific. "Roasted" was the term Rich Lowry used.
Mr. Zuckerberg's days of apologies and self-regulating half-measures are coming to a conclusion. It's just not going to work anymore that he's the individual who decides who gets your data and how much of it.
But here's the rub: When you have erudite old white men predominantly presiding over Congress who don't understand the back end of social media, regulation is going to be slow and ineffective. Conversely, this is why Mr. Wylie's insights are quite credible when he explains that it could be a lot more than 87 million people who have had their data shared with third parties.
Panel: Doris Kearns-Goodwin, presidential historian; Helene Cooper, The New York Times; Rich Lowry, the National Review; Charlies Cook, the Cook Political Report
One more thing...
As a former teacher, I can safely say that teachers need to be paid more... much more. And states like Oklahoma that cut funding for their schools should be ashamed of themselves. Hard stop.
Sunday, April 01, 2018
4.1.18: Two Questions: A New Cold War? And Should Someone Profit Off Of Veterans?
Danielle Pletka from the American Enterprise Institute was sort of correct when she explained that the Trump Administration would not do something if the president wasn't OK with it. She also said that the Trump Administration has been tougher on Russia than the Obama Administration, which is also half right. The explanation comes in the face of the notion that the Administration/U.S. Foreign Policy apparatus writ large access and act in a way that is different from the president's.
Granted that U.S. and British politics respectively are chaotic and in a weakened state, it's still safe to say that the 'sacred relationship' between the two countries, dysfunctional as it is right now, is not broken and will not break in favor of Russia or the president's predilection to its leader Vladimir Putin. Even President Trump isn't going to jeopardize that even if it isn't his preference.
Was the Kremlin responsible for the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter? Given the use of the particular poison, Novichok, it's most probable as it was determined by the British government. Certainly a brazen act, it also put a significant amount of British citizens at risk. Standing with the UK, despite their exiting the EU, these countries stood with them:
EU Countries Non-EU Countries
Belgium Albania
Crotia Australia
Czech Republic Canada
Denmark Macedonia
Estonia Moldova
Finland Montenegro
France Norway
Germany Ukraine
Hungary United States
Ireland
Italy
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxemborg
Netherlands
Poland
Romania
Spain
Sweden
So the question: Are we headed for a new cold war?
From the amount of countries expelling Russian diplomats and the Kremlin reciprocating in kind, it would seem so, but alas it's unlikely. These expulsions are a tit-for-tat and expected, but because of President Trump's consistent silence in relation to Russia keeps it from going any farther.
If the president starts in with harsh Russian rhetoric that would trigger it, but it's not going to happen because of the Russian probe hanging over the administration. Contacts between Russian officials and Trump campaign officials have in fact been established, but it's up to the special counsel headed by Robert Mueller to put the story together and show that laws have been broken.
For the rest of these countries, some are standing in solidarity with Britain, but many one can suspect are joining the fray for various reasons, whether it's election meddling, annexing territory, naval activity in another country's waters, energy manipulation, or plain old deep distrust carried over from the Soviet era.
Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) described Russia as an 'unfriendly adversary,' which sums up the general attitude of the U.S. Senate and it also means that the Russia probe will continue. Speaking of that, Mr. Johnson also said that he thought that the special counsel should have been appointed after the Senate and House investigations. Good thing he isn't the attorney general because despite his reasoning that the special counsel disrupts congressional inquiries, the incompetence of the House and the hiccups in the Senate query have proven that it would have been the wrong move to wait.
Professor Emeritus at Harvard, Alan Dershowitz explained that a pardon can not be used as the pretext for a criminal charge because it's a Constitutional Act, even if there is corrupt intent because that last part is difficult to prove - even if it's for pardoning acts of collusion. As a counter-weight, Bob Bauer, former general counsel in the Obama Administration stated that the underlying reason for the pardons, the collusion, was at issue. Mr. Dershowitz explained the collusion is not unlawful as it is not mentioned. However, what he failed to mention, what Mr. Bauer began to state but was interrupted, is that having foreign nationals participating in a campaign, depending on degree, is in fact illegal. See FEC laws: https://www.fec.gov/updates/foreign-nationals/
As for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, fmr. Secretary David Shulkin stated that he did not violate any ethics laws, but nonetheless the investigation provided the pretext for his firing. But one has to think that there is some truth to what he was saying about privatizing the VA and look no further than today's interview with Senator Johnson for evidence.
Though he said being the head of the VA is a thankless job, he described the VA as a single-payer system, run by the government that doesn't work. That's the sound of someone who thinks privatizing the VA would be a good thing. However, that's not what most veterans would say. My general feeling is that once you bring in the profit motive into helping veterans that soon the profit will become more important than the veterans. An even more insidious thing could happen if private companies who run VA hospitals need to keep making profits. Think of this analogy: private prisons need to keep cells full to keep making money. Ugh. Does someone actually need to profit monetarily from the suffering of brave men and women who served their country?
Lastly, the panel discussed the police shooting of Stephon Clark in Sacramento and noted a column written by David French in the Weekly Standard, in which he said that police are trained to expect the worst at all times. But what ever happened to training police not to shoot unless shot upon? If that were the training then Mr. Clark would have not been shot because he didn't have a gun. Shooting first and asking questions later is a military tactic, not a policing tactic. With the militarization of the police, which Elise Jordan mentioned, it's this mentality that overrides restraint.
Panel: George Will, The Washington Post; Danielle Pletka, American Enterprise Institute; Joshua Johnson, NPR; Elise Jordan, NBC
A couple more things....
Art reflects cultural and the general mood of a society at the time it's being created. Not all the time, but many times. With that said, you have Roseanne Barr's television reboot. As Joshua Johnson explained the show is nuanced. But the bottom line is that it is a television program. If you like it, watch it. If you don't then don't. All good either way.
Granted that U.S. and British politics respectively are chaotic and in a weakened state, it's still safe to say that the 'sacred relationship' between the two countries, dysfunctional as it is right now, is not broken and will not break in favor of Russia or the president's predilection to its leader Vladimir Putin. Even President Trump isn't going to jeopardize that even if it isn't his preference.
Was the Kremlin responsible for the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter? Given the use of the particular poison, Novichok, it's most probable as it was determined by the British government. Certainly a brazen act, it also put a significant amount of British citizens at risk. Standing with the UK, despite their exiting the EU, these countries stood with them:
EU Countries Non-EU Countries
Belgium Albania
Crotia Australia
Czech Republic Canada
Denmark Macedonia
Estonia Moldova
Finland Montenegro
France Norway
Germany Ukraine
Hungary United States
Ireland
Italy
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxemborg
Netherlands
Poland
Romania
Spain
Sweden
So the question: Are we headed for a new cold war?
From the amount of countries expelling Russian diplomats and the Kremlin reciprocating in kind, it would seem so, but alas it's unlikely. These expulsions are a tit-for-tat and expected, but because of President Trump's consistent silence in relation to Russia keeps it from going any farther.
If the president starts in with harsh Russian rhetoric that would trigger it, but it's not going to happen because of the Russian probe hanging over the administration. Contacts between Russian officials and Trump campaign officials have in fact been established, but it's up to the special counsel headed by Robert Mueller to put the story together and show that laws have been broken.
For the rest of these countries, some are standing in solidarity with Britain, but many one can suspect are joining the fray for various reasons, whether it's election meddling, annexing territory, naval activity in another country's waters, energy manipulation, or plain old deep distrust carried over from the Soviet era.
Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) described Russia as an 'unfriendly adversary,' which sums up the general attitude of the U.S. Senate and it also means that the Russia probe will continue. Speaking of that, Mr. Johnson also said that he thought that the special counsel should have been appointed after the Senate and House investigations. Good thing he isn't the attorney general because despite his reasoning that the special counsel disrupts congressional inquiries, the incompetence of the House and the hiccups in the Senate query have proven that it would have been the wrong move to wait.
Professor Emeritus at Harvard, Alan Dershowitz explained that a pardon can not be used as the pretext for a criminal charge because it's a Constitutional Act, even if there is corrupt intent because that last part is difficult to prove - even if it's for pardoning acts of collusion. As a counter-weight, Bob Bauer, former general counsel in the Obama Administration stated that the underlying reason for the pardons, the collusion, was at issue. Mr. Dershowitz explained the collusion is not unlawful as it is not mentioned. However, what he failed to mention, what Mr. Bauer began to state but was interrupted, is that having foreign nationals participating in a campaign, depending on degree, is in fact illegal. See FEC laws: https://www.fec.gov/updates/foreign-nationals/
As for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, fmr. Secretary David Shulkin stated that he did not violate any ethics laws, but nonetheless the investigation provided the pretext for his firing. But one has to think that there is some truth to what he was saying about privatizing the VA and look no further than today's interview with Senator Johnson for evidence.
Though he said being the head of the VA is a thankless job, he described the VA as a single-payer system, run by the government that doesn't work. That's the sound of someone who thinks privatizing the VA would be a good thing. However, that's not what most veterans would say. My general feeling is that once you bring in the profit motive into helping veterans that soon the profit will become more important than the veterans. An even more insidious thing could happen if private companies who run VA hospitals need to keep making profits. Think of this analogy: private prisons need to keep cells full to keep making money. Ugh. Does someone actually need to profit monetarily from the suffering of brave men and women who served their country?
Lastly, the panel discussed the police shooting of Stephon Clark in Sacramento and noted a column written by David French in the Weekly Standard, in which he said that police are trained to expect the worst at all times. But what ever happened to training police not to shoot unless shot upon? If that were the training then Mr. Clark would have not been shot because he didn't have a gun. Shooting first and asking questions later is a military tactic, not a policing tactic. With the militarization of the police, which Elise Jordan mentioned, it's this mentality that overrides restraint.
Panel: George Will, The Washington Post; Danielle Pletka, American Enterprise Institute; Joshua Johnson, NPR; Elise Jordan, NBC
A couple more things....
Art reflects cultural and the general mood of a society at the time it's being created. Not all the time, but many times. With that said, you have Roseanne Barr's television reboot. As Joshua Johnson explained the show is nuanced. But the bottom line is that it is a television program. If you like it, watch it. If you don't then don't. All good either way.
Sunday, March 25, 2018
3.25.18: Cambridge Analytica's Dirty Tentacles Reach into The Fox and Friends Administration
As Mr. Todd outlined at the top of the program, President Trump is certainly fighting on many fronts - China and trade, North Korea, the Iran nuclear deal, the Mueller investigation, and last but not least Ms. Stormy Daniels. Mr. Trump's management style of 'crisis, chaos and confrontation' is now baked into the descriptive vernacular of his administration. Though it may not be quite complete, the president's new-look, Trumpian cabinet has taken shape this week with fmr. CNBC personality Larry Kudlow as economic advisor and FOX's John Bolton as national security advisor. To boot, you can throw in FOX's Joe diGenova who thinks Trump was framed by the FBI to the his legal team.
Hugh Hewitt was feeling very good about it, the others on the panel including the moderator looked queasy.
When you have a president that doesn't read his daily briefing, but never misses cable news political punditry every morning, this is what you're going to get, a cabinet and staff full of hyperbolic hard-charging types, as Robert Costa described them. However, the president is the only one who doesn't seem to know that you cannot run the government of the most powerful nation in the world like a soap opera. In fact, it's inexplicable some of the thought islands this president is on such as: tariffs are good - no one agrees; Russia didn't meddle, they certainly did; there were good people on both sides. It's like the Superman comic book character Bizarro who is the mirror image, exact opposite antagonist to Superman. His thoughts and inclinations are all backward.
With regard to John Bolton's appointment in particular, Heather McGhee described an old white guy who avoided ever going to war so doesn't know the human impact of it while cavalierly calling for bombing and troops and regime change. Unintentionally, she was also describing Mr. Hewitt in a sense as well, which must explain why he's happy with the choices.
Corey Lewandowski was also praising the president's decisions, saying that the president was putting America first by installing people on that fully behind the president's positions. If you're thinking that those two notions run counter to one another, take consolation that you have a good read on things. In response to the president congratulating Vladimir Putin on his election 'win' and the subsequent leak on the conversation briefing adamantly advising the opposite, Mr. Lewandowski blamed it on a leak from the deep state. Give us a break... It came from an aide to the president as Mr. Todd pointed out, which is NOT the deep state.
A new rule for "Meet The Press" should be that any one who blames the 'deep state' for anything should not be allowed to appear on the program. What's the point? The person instantly discredits him or herself thus simply becoming a waste of good air time henceforth. You can't take the person seriously.
You can get other individuals on the program to confirm that the president will go without a chief of staff if General Kelly is dismissed from his post or that Rex Tillerson was fired because he basically disagreed with the president on every foreign policy crisis. But as soon as you get into the 'deep state,' forget it.
John Bolton on the other hand is for cancelling the Iran deal as is new Secretary of State nominee Mike Pompeo, which will further isolate the United States from its allies and rivals alike. The other countries that signed on, which include China, Russia, England, France and Germany will not follow suit. Mr. Lewandowski also said that H.R. McMaster wanted more troops in Afghanistan, which the president disagreed with, only to replace the fmr. NSA with a person who wants to put lots of troops in other places. Playing the long game is not what Trump does, obviously.
For all that, Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) said we're more vulnerable as a country, because he didn't call out or condemn Mr. Putin for his actions. One of the core questions we all hope that Mr. Mueller's investigation will answer is why doesn't the president ever say anything in opposition to or negative about Mr. Putin?
More poignantly, Senator Warner stated that he thought Facebook has been less than forthcoming about what it knew about what Cambridge Analytica was doing with ill-gotten Facebook data, and for how long they knew.
Mark Zuckerberg is open to the idea of testifying in front of Congress? As Mr. Warner emphatically stated, it's his company so he has to take responsibility for it, and answer for it in front of Congress. As he described it, there was a broad weaponization of information through social media, most prominently through Facebook. The argument that Facebook and Twitter are in a sense media companies is well founded, certainly media aggregators.
And hopefully Mr. Mueller's team can unravel all the tentacles that Cambridge Analytica has and the role it's played. Now we find out that Steve Bannon was a founding partner of the firm while being the president of a media company and having roles as campaign chairman and presidential advisor. And where Mr. Bannon was (not now), the Mercers were always standing two feet behind. The entire thing looks dirty. As Robert Costa explained, since the election the Trump Administration has been trying to distance itself from the data firm after singing it praises during the campaign.
Lastly, in response to Mr. Todd's query about what would have more impact 6 months from now, the Stormy Daniels story or the March For Our Lives, call for gun control, the time frame seems a bit disproportionately (not purposely) to the short-term. Stormy Daniels, which has potential for explosiveness and very public legal battles, isn't going away anytime soon. It's the kind of 'entertainment' that Mr. Trump does in fact like, but only when it doesn't involve him. Basically, a mess.
More significantly, in more than 800 cities around the U.S. and the world, people lead by students came out in the hundreds of thousands in a March For Our Lives to say, "Enough with gun violence," and this is not going away for generations. You have to realize that the students that lead this march have grown up in a world where mass shootings are part of life and only getting worse. They're tired of it, enough is enough, they will not shut up about it, and they will vote on it.
Their passion now will turn into action later, and gun-control votes for years to come.
During the voter round table segment, a woman who supports the Second Amendment explained the 'shall not be infringed' clause of it, which is understandable, but she failed to mention the 'well regulated' part, which is not the case at all.
The round table featured one independent voter, an African American Army veteran who was featured little, but the three things he said were the three that made the most sense:
-Gun violence has become an national emergency now that white kids are getting killed.
-Adults are not good advocates for children right now.
-Like cigarettes, there should be a big tax on the a gun purchase.
Panel: Heather McGhee, President of DEMOS; Kasie Hunt, NBC News; Robert Costa, The Washington Post; Hugh Hewitt, Salem Radio Network
Hugh Hewitt was feeling very good about it, the others on the panel including the moderator looked queasy.
When you have a president that doesn't read his daily briefing, but never misses cable news political punditry every morning, this is what you're going to get, a cabinet and staff full of hyperbolic hard-charging types, as Robert Costa described them. However, the president is the only one who doesn't seem to know that you cannot run the government of the most powerful nation in the world like a soap opera. In fact, it's inexplicable some of the thought islands this president is on such as: tariffs are good - no one agrees; Russia didn't meddle, they certainly did; there were good people on both sides. It's like the Superman comic book character Bizarro who is the mirror image, exact opposite antagonist to Superman. His thoughts and inclinations are all backward.
With regard to John Bolton's appointment in particular, Heather McGhee described an old white guy who avoided ever going to war so doesn't know the human impact of it while cavalierly calling for bombing and troops and regime change. Unintentionally, she was also describing Mr. Hewitt in a sense as well, which must explain why he's happy with the choices.
Corey Lewandowski was also praising the president's decisions, saying that the president was putting America first by installing people on that fully behind the president's positions. If you're thinking that those two notions run counter to one another, take consolation that you have a good read on things. In response to the president congratulating Vladimir Putin on his election 'win' and the subsequent leak on the conversation briefing adamantly advising the opposite, Mr. Lewandowski blamed it on a leak from the deep state. Give us a break... It came from an aide to the president as Mr. Todd pointed out, which is NOT the deep state.
A new rule for "Meet The Press" should be that any one who blames the 'deep state' for anything should not be allowed to appear on the program. What's the point? The person instantly discredits him or herself thus simply becoming a waste of good air time henceforth. You can't take the person seriously.
You can get other individuals on the program to confirm that the president will go without a chief of staff if General Kelly is dismissed from his post or that Rex Tillerson was fired because he basically disagreed with the president on every foreign policy crisis. But as soon as you get into the 'deep state,' forget it.
John Bolton on the other hand is for cancelling the Iran deal as is new Secretary of State nominee Mike Pompeo, which will further isolate the United States from its allies and rivals alike. The other countries that signed on, which include China, Russia, England, France and Germany will not follow suit. Mr. Lewandowski also said that H.R. McMaster wanted more troops in Afghanistan, which the president disagreed with, only to replace the fmr. NSA with a person who wants to put lots of troops in other places. Playing the long game is not what Trump does, obviously.
For all that, Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) said we're more vulnerable as a country, because he didn't call out or condemn Mr. Putin for his actions. One of the core questions we all hope that Mr. Mueller's investigation will answer is why doesn't the president ever say anything in opposition to or negative about Mr. Putin?
More poignantly, Senator Warner stated that he thought Facebook has been less than forthcoming about what it knew about what Cambridge Analytica was doing with ill-gotten Facebook data, and for how long they knew.
Mark Zuckerberg is open to the idea of testifying in front of Congress? As Mr. Warner emphatically stated, it's his company so he has to take responsibility for it, and answer for it in front of Congress. As he described it, there was a broad weaponization of information through social media, most prominently through Facebook. The argument that Facebook and Twitter are in a sense media companies is well founded, certainly media aggregators.
And hopefully Mr. Mueller's team can unravel all the tentacles that Cambridge Analytica has and the role it's played. Now we find out that Steve Bannon was a founding partner of the firm while being the president of a media company and having roles as campaign chairman and presidential advisor. And where Mr. Bannon was (not now), the Mercers were always standing two feet behind. The entire thing looks dirty. As Robert Costa explained, since the election the Trump Administration has been trying to distance itself from the data firm after singing it praises during the campaign.
***
Lastly, in response to Mr. Todd's query about what would have more impact 6 months from now, the Stormy Daniels story or the March For Our Lives, call for gun control, the time frame seems a bit disproportionately (not purposely) to the short-term. Stormy Daniels, which has potential for explosiveness and very public legal battles, isn't going away anytime soon. It's the kind of 'entertainment' that Mr. Trump does in fact like, but only when it doesn't involve him. Basically, a mess.
More significantly, in more than 800 cities around the U.S. and the world, people lead by students came out in the hundreds of thousands in a March For Our Lives to say, "Enough with gun violence," and this is not going away for generations. You have to realize that the students that lead this march have grown up in a world where mass shootings are part of life and only getting worse. They're tired of it, enough is enough, they will not shut up about it, and they will vote on it.
Their passion now will turn into action later, and gun-control votes for years to come.
During the voter round table segment, a woman who supports the Second Amendment explained the 'shall not be infringed' clause of it, which is understandable, but she failed to mention the 'well regulated' part, which is not the case at all.
The round table featured one independent voter, an African American Army veteran who was featured little, but the three things he said were the three that made the most sense:
-Gun violence has become an national emergency now that white kids are getting killed.
-Adults are not good advocates for children right now.
-Like cigarettes, there should be a big tax on the a gun purchase.
Panel: Heather McGhee, President of DEMOS; Kasie Hunt, NBC News; Robert Costa, The Washington Post; Hugh Hewitt, Salem Radio Network
Sunday, March 18, 2018
3.18.18: The Fog of Irony Is Thick But The Mueller Probe Isn't Going Anywhere
Despite the fact that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was fired, something wasn't really even touched on, it's the Friday firing of Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, two days before his retirement and pension collection, that had everyone's attention today.
If you're trying to decide whether it's worse to be fired through Twitter or have your firing celebrated on Twitter by the president, the latter is clearly the choice. The irony that a person whose catch phrase on television was, "You're fired," can not seem to do it for real, face to face. I'm sure that isn't lost on anyone. But knowing he couldn't be the one to fire Mr. McCabe, the president celebrated it on Twitter. He said, "It is a great day for Democracy," of all things, which is ironic in and of itself because it's really a sad day when the President of the United States demeans the office by being so small minded and petty so publicly.
The president felt the firing presented another good opportunity to lash out at the Mueller probe, essentially saying it is a politically partisan witch hunt. Nothing new there. However, it also emboldened Mr. Trump's lawyer, John Dowd, to issue a statement to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, demanding that he shut down the Russia investigation.
With that said...
You have to agree with The National Review's Jonah Goldberg when he explained the irony of this distasteful firing (McCabe's) being an actual preventative measure in saving the Mueller probe because it saves Attorney General Jeff Sessions' job, which blocks Mr. Rosenstein from direct attack, which in turn keeps Special Counsel Muller in place.
And Press Secretary Sarah Sanders called Mr. McCabe a bad actor?
The irony is so thick you can practically smell it. Unfortunately, it smells like a fart, powerful enough to humble.
Speaking of humble, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) certainly seemed to be one public official humbled in the last month or so by the events in his state - the Parkland shooting of course, but also the passed legislation that ensued, and now this week's bridge collapse. For Democrats who get their underwear in a twist about the potential firing of Mr. Mueller, Senators like Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham are in strong support of the special counsel, and as he said today, he supports the probe and in any direction it leads. Frankly, Mr. Rubio has had it with Trump; you can see it in his face. This attests to today's journalist-full panel accounts that Republicans in private are nervous and say they dislike the president's actions and statements. However, in public they're are stuck in supporting him because his popularity among the Republican base is greater than congressional Republicans. For Mr. Rubio though, it's getting more difficult to hide his feelings.
The probe is not going away; not as more stories keep coming like the one discussed today, in which it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica, doing work for the Trump Campaign, had somehow obtained the Facebook profiles of 50 million people. Did this organization somehow help Russian operatives spread fake news? That's the question Mr. Mueller and his team are investigating.
Facebook's role in all this lead to The Cook Political Report's Amy Walter asking whether the technology has gotten away from Facebook that they can no longer control the platform they created? Or are they just unwilling to spend the money to stop it from happening? You'd have to go with the latter again since Facebook has been trying to accommodate Chinese sensors for years so they're willing to spend the cash there to penetrate the market.
The other big news this week was that the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee wrapping up its Russia investigation because it said it found no evidence of collusion. In studio with Chuck Todd, making his first Sunday show appearance ever, was member of said committee Congressman Mike Conaway (R-TX). However, Mr. Conaway has a little explaining to do about his explaining because what he said today didn't make any sense at all. At one point in his interview he said the committee wasn't focused on Russian collusion but later said they found no evidence of it. Chuck Todd's point that if it wasn't a focus and you weren't looking into it, how could you find any? But then Mr. Conaway did say they investigated collusion. However, he explained that in terms of Vladimir Putin's intention to help Mr. Trump, he didn't see it.
At the 3:30 mark of the video, the discussion of the investigation begins...
Mr. Conaway didn't agree with Chuck Todd's assessment that the committee went 'off the rails' and said that oversight is constant. He also said that if there was something that surfaced that caused the committee to reconsider reopening, it's possible. However, that's unlikely because as long as Devin Nunes (R-CA) is the chair of the committee, it is in fact off the rails and will not reopen. They didn't even do a full investigation of the Russian meddling so how would they if something else came up? They didn't even interview George Papadopoulos, a key figure in it all.
There will be a time when congressional Republicans have their reckoning for being complicit and in many cases supportive of the president's constant attacks on our institutions, further deteriorating them by the day. Republicans in the Senate who think more long term, it seems, understand this more than their party brethren do in the House, and you can see Senate Republicans slowly souring. But it may not matter because as Poltico's Eliana Johnson pointed out, the Republicans have no legislative agenda for this year, which won't bode well come November.
Panel: Eliana Johnson, Politico; Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report; Jose Diaz-Balart; NBC; Jonah Goldberg, The National Review
A few more things...
Chuck Todd threw out something today that didn't really get any follow-up discussion, but it was a great nugget. He said that Trump Organization lawyers have joined Michael Cohen in trying to push the Stormy Daniels' case back into private arbitration, which means it's official that Mr. Trump was involved in some way with Ms. Daniels. Awesome.
Jose Diaz-Balart was right with the whole notion of 'emotional spasms on Twitter' for sure, and I agree that Comey, Trump, Brennan et al should all stay off of Twitter, but this one from former CIA Director John Brennan is something... because wouldn't he have such insight?
If you're trying to decide whether it's worse to be fired through Twitter or have your firing celebrated on Twitter by the president, the latter is clearly the choice. The irony that a person whose catch phrase on television was, "You're fired," can not seem to do it for real, face to face. I'm sure that isn't lost on anyone. But knowing he couldn't be the one to fire Mr. McCabe, the president celebrated it on Twitter. He said, "It is a great day for Democracy," of all things, which is ironic in and of itself because it's really a sad day when the President of the United States demeans the office by being so small minded and petty so publicly.
The president felt the firing presented another good opportunity to lash out at the Mueller probe, essentially saying it is a politically partisan witch hunt. Nothing new there. However, it also emboldened Mr. Trump's lawyer, John Dowd, to issue a statement to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, demanding that he shut down the Russia investigation.
With that said...
You have to agree with The National Review's Jonah Goldberg when he explained the irony of this distasteful firing (McCabe's) being an actual preventative measure in saving the Mueller probe because it saves Attorney General Jeff Sessions' job, which blocks Mr. Rosenstein from direct attack, which in turn keeps Special Counsel Muller in place.
And Press Secretary Sarah Sanders called Mr. McCabe a bad actor?
The irony is so thick you can practically smell it. Unfortunately, it smells like a fart, powerful enough to humble.
Speaking of humble, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) certainly seemed to be one public official humbled in the last month or so by the events in his state - the Parkland shooting of course, but also the passed legislation that ensued, and now this week's bridge collapse. For Democrats who get their underwear in a twist about the potential firing of Mr. Mueller, Senators like Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham are in strong support of the special counsel, and as he said today, he supports the probe and in any direction it leads. Frankly, Mr. Rubio has had it with Trump; you can see it in his face. This attests to today's journalist-full panel accounts that Republicans in private are nervous and say they dislike the president's actions and statements. However, in public they're are stuck in supporting him because his popularity among the Republican base is greater than congressional Republicans. For Mr. Rubio though, it's getting more difficult to hide his feelings.
The probe is not going away; not as more stories keep coming like the one discussed today, in which it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica, doing work for the Trump Campaign, had somehow obtained the Facebook profiles of 50 million people. Did this organization somehow help Russian operatives spread fake news? That's the question Mr. Mueller and his team are investigating.
Facebook's role in all this lead to The Cook Political Report's Amy Walter asking whether the technology has gotten away from Facebook that they can no longer control the platform they created? Or are they just unwilling to spend the money to stop it from happening? You'd have to go with the latter again since Facebook has been trying to accommodate Chinese sensors for years so they're willing to spend the cash there to penetrate the market.
The other big news this week was that the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee wrapping up its Russia investigation because it said it found no evidence of collusion. In studio with Chuck Todd, making his first Sunday show appearance ever, was member of said committee Congressman Mike Conaway (R-TX). However, Mr. Conaway has a little explaining to do about his explaining because what he said today didn't make any sense at all. At one point in his interview he said the committee wasn't focused on Russian collusion but later said they found no evidence of it. Chuck Todd's point that if it wasn't a focus and you weren't looking into it, how could you find any? But then Mr. Conaway did say they investigated collusion. However, he explained that in terms of Vladimir Putin's intention to help Mr. Trump, he didn't see it.
At the 3:30 mark of the video, the discussion of the investigation begins...
Mr. Conaway didn't agree with Chuck Todd's assessment that the committee went 'off the rails' and said that oversight is constant. He also said that if there was something that surfaced that caused the committee to reconsider reopening, it's possible. However, that's unlikely because as long as Devin Nunes (R-CA) is the chair of the committee, it is in fact off the rails and will not reopen. They didn't even do a full investigation of the Russian meddling so how would they if something else came up? They didn't even interview George Papadopoulos, a key figure in it all.
There will be a time when congressional Republicans have their reckoning for being complicit and in many cases supportive of the president's constant attacks on our institutions, further deteriorating them by the day. Republicans in the Senate who think more long term, it seems, understand this more than their party brethren do in the House, and you can see Senate Republicans slowly souring. But it may not matter because as Poltico's Eliana Johnson pointed out, the Republicans have no legislative agenda for this year, which won't bode well come November.
Panel: Eliana Johnson, Politico; Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report; Jose Diaz-Balart; NBC; Jonah Goldberg, The National Review
A few more things...
Chuck Todd threw out something today that didn't really get any follow-up discussion, but it was a great nugget. He said that Trump Organization lawyers have joined Michael Cohen in trying to push the Stormy Daniels' case back into private arbitration, which means it's official that Mr. Trump was involved in some way with Ms. Daniels. Awesome.
Jose Diaz-Balart was right with the whole notion of 'emotional spasms on Twitter' for sure, and I agree that Comey, Trump, Brennan et al should all stay off of Twitter, but this one from former CIA Director John Brennan is something... because wouldn't he have such insight?
Sunday, March 11, 2018
3.11.18: A Typical Week of The Trump Presidency Testing Our National Sanity
At the top of the program, Chuck Todd said that people are running out of ways to describe a week in the Trump presidency, alas Mr. Todd settled on 'crazy.' However, it's seems ever more clear that President Trump aspires to call a week such as this as 'typical,' because with this administration that's what a week like this has become. This 'typical' is also testing our national sanity on a weekly basis.
Each week there are so many things swirling that you inevitably hear someone in the TV media say, "That happened last week? It seems like a year ago." So next week, we'll be able to say that last year it was fmr. campaign aide Sam Nunberg, Tariffs, Gary Cohen, Stormy Daniels and the PA campaign rally. All this still does leave a columnist with the dilemma of where to start.
What stuck with Mr. Todd was the president's campaign stop in Pennsylvania on Friday night, particularly the president's continued attacks on the media, but when you're show is called "Meet The Press" it's understandable that such attacks would get up into your craw and stay there. Not to mention that little bitty about the press in the First Amendment in the Constitution and its freedom. And that's why it's totally justified for Mr. Todd to lay into the Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, about it because the president is supposed to uphold and defend the Constitution, something neither this secretary nor the president understand. Mr. Mnuchin dismisses vulgarity on the part of the president at a campaign rally as something of no consequence, indicative of a shill whose moral compass only points to money.
The campaign rally intended to support state legislator Rick Saccone's congressional candidacy instantly became a campaign for the president. Mr. Trump wouldn't have it any other way. Despite his appearance, Mr. Saccone's campaign is flagging and many political prognosticators are predicting that his opponent Connor Lamb is going to win in a conservative district in the Pittsburgh suburbs where the last Republican ran unopposed and Mr. Trump won by 20 points.
Mr. Trump's bombast and unpredictability keep growing as the undercurrent of these special congressional races show support for the president dwindling rapidly, which may fully manifest itself this November.
His appearance nor steel tariffs are going to turn this around in Pennsylvania or the country. In a conservative upper middle class district like PA18, it's more troublesome that the president's chief economic advisor Gary Cohn resigned over tariffs than it is keeping steel tariffs low. Never mind that he didn't resign over Charlottesville, which he should have, his exit is another sign of informed analysis and stability leaving the White House.
Or so it seems...
There may be a method to this madness if you'll indulge me for a few moments. Domestically, Mr. Trump attacks the press and anyone else (Republican, Democrat, celebrity or non) who vocally speaks out against him. Internationally, he's implementing steel tariffs that disproportionately hurt our traditionally allies setting off potential trade wars with Europe, while saying this week that he'll meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un in May. If you look at all these steps in totality, Mr. Trump is realigning the United States to be more reflective of countries that we've stood opposed to in philosophy for the past 70 plus years. Russia's not a threat, Steel and Aluminum tariffs hurting our allies is good, Xi and Duterte are great guys and I'll meet with Kim Jong Un...
As The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson said about the Stormy Daniels story (which we'll get to in a minute), these things are a big deal as to what they're showing us about conservative Republicans. The Republican Party has never supported positions mentioned above, but now with a few exceptions are so neutered that they have nothing to say. On tariffs, House Speaker Paul Ryan and other leaders vocally opposed them but were too impotent to do anything. The President signed the tariffs into law on Thursday.
The evangelicals as Mr. Robinson explained have been left supporting a man they're giving 'mulligans' to on multiple affairs, the latest with a porn star. And let's not pretend that it's alleged. Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council clan have shown themselves to be more hypocritical than other group doing back flips to support this president, and they're becoming more and more irrelevant in doing so.
The panel debated whether the Stormy Daniels affair is of significant importance. Yahoo News's Matt Bai didn't think it a big deal while Andrea Mitchell spoke about the imperative of truthfulness and transparency in the presidency. The conversation reference The New York Times Michelle Goldberg's column that explained the Stormy Daniels story was not a sex scandal as much as it was a campaign finance scandal. Yes, but ultimately, this story will not damage the president politically. The big rub is that it will further damage the president's marriage and most probably his number one legal sycophant, personal attorney Michael Cohen will be disbarred. Maybe it will be confirmed that the president did in fact have the affair, something we already knew because Press Secretary Sarah Sanders admitted it this week from the podium.
Former campaign aide Sam Nunberg? As for him, we all know someone like him who will make a big deal of himself saying he won't do this or that, and I dare them... blah, blah, blah. But at the end of the day, he's going to do what's he told and he was told to testify, which he did. Mentor or not, if Roger Stone has to go down because of Mr. Nunberg's testimony then so be it in the mind of Sam Nunberg.
This leaves us with the big announcement on North Korea, in which the President of the United States of America agree to meet with dictator Kim Jong Un in may, the details for which have not yet been laid out. I state it like that because one would have to agree with the panel consensus that it's largely a win for Kim to get the meeting. They also pointed out that usually the diplomacy comes first and then the summit, but this seems to be the other way around. However, with this president it seems that these two things are going to happen simultaneously. And now that Gary Cohn is gone when you look around the room in the Trump administration you have to ask, who's going to get this done? As Andrea Mitchell pointed out, we have no Korean expert in the administration, no ambassador to South Korea.
We'll see how it all goes, but we probably know how this summit's going to start...
Kim: Do you know Dennis Rodman?
Trump: I do know Dennis, too much metal in his face but a good guy.
Kim: He is my friend...
Panel: Andrea Mitchell; NBC News; Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal; Matt Bai, Yahoo News; Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post
Each week there are so many things swirling that you inevitably hear someone in the TV media say, "That happened last week? It seems like a year ago." So next week, we'll be able to say that last year it was fmr. campaign aide Sam Nunberg, Tariffs, Gary Cohen, Stormy Daniels and the PA campaign rally. All this still does leave a columnist with the dilemma of where to start.
What stuck with Mr. Todd was the president's campaign stop in Pennsylvania on Friday night, particularly the president's continued attacks on the media, but when you're show is called "Meet The Press" it's understandable that such attacks would get up into your craw and stay there. Not to mention that little bitty about the press in the First Amendment in the Constitution and its freedom. And that's why it's totally justified for Mr. Todd to lay into the Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, about it because the president is supposed to uphold and defend the Constitution, something neither this secretary nor the president understand. Mr. Mnuchin dismisses vulgarity on the part of the president at a campaign rally as something of no consequence, indicative of a shill whose moral compass only points to money.
The campaign rally intended to support state legislator Rick Saccone's congressional candidacy instantly became a campaign for the president. Mr. Trump wouldn't have it any other way. Despite his appearance, Mr. Saccone's campaign is flagging and many political prognosticators are predicting that his opponent Connor Lamb is going to win in a conservative district in the Pittsburgh suburbs where the last Republican ran unopposed and Mr. Trump won by 20 points.
Mr. Trump's bombast and unpredictability keep growing as the undercurrent of these special congressional races show support for the president dwindling rapidly, which may fully manifest itself this November.
His appearance nor steel tariffs are going to turn this around in Pennsylvania or the country. In a conservative upper middle class district like PA18, it's more troublesome that the president's chief economic advisor Gary Cohn resigned over tariffs than it is keeping steel tariffs low. Never mind that he didn't resign over Charlottesville, which he should have, his exit is another sign of informed analysis and stability leaving the White House.
Or so it seems...
There may be a method to this madness if you'll indulge me for a few moments. Domestically, Mr. Trump attacks the press and anyone else (Republican, Democrat, celebrity or non) who vocally speaks out against him. Internationally, he's implementing steel tariffs that disproportionately hurt our traditionally allies setting off potential trade wars with Europe, while saying this week that he'll meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un in May. If you look at all these steps in totality, Mr. Trump is realigning the United States to be more reflective of countries that we've stood opposed to in philosophy for the past 70 plus years. Russia's not a threat, Steel and Aluminum tariffs hurting our allies is good, Xi and Duterte are great guys and I'll meet with Kim Jong Un...
As The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson said about the Stormy Daniels story (which we'll get to in a minute), these things are a big deal as to what they're showing us about conservative Republicans. The Republican Party has never supported positions mentioned above, but now with a few exceptions are so neutered that they have nothing to say. On tariffs, House Speaker Paul Ryan and other leaders vocally opposed them but were too impotent to do anything. The President signed the tariffs into law on Thursday.
The evangelicals as Mr. Robinson explained have been left supporting a man they're giving 'mulligans' to on multiple affairs, the latest with a porn star. And let's not pretend that it's alleged. Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council clan have shown themselves to be more hypocritical than other group doing back flips to support this president, and they're becoming more and more irrelevant in doing so.
The panel debated whether the Stormy Daniels affair is of significant importance. Yahoo News's Matt Bai didn't think it a big deal while Andrea Mitchell spoke about the imperative of truthfulness and transparency in the presidency. The conversation reference The New York Times Michelle Goldberg's column that explained the Stormy Daniels story was not a sex scandal as much as it was a campaign finance scandal. Yes, but ultimately, this story will not damage the president politically. The big rub is that it will further damage the president's marriage and most probably his number one legal sycophant, personal attorney Michael Cohen will be disbarred. Maybe it will be confirmed that the president did in fact have the affair, something we already knew because Press Secretary Sarah Sanders admitted it this week from the podium.
Former campaign aide Sam Nunberg? As for him, we all know someone like him who will make a big deal of himself saying he won't do this or that, and I dare them... blah, blah, blah. But at the end of the day, he's going to do what's he told and he was told to testify, which he did. Mentor or not, if Roger Stone has to go down because of Mr. Nunberg's testimony then so be it in the mind of Sam Nunberg.
This leaves us with the big announcement on North Korea, in which the President of the United States of America agree to meet with dictator Kim Jong Un in may, the details for which have not yet been laid out. I state it like that because one would have to agree with the panel consensus that it's largely a win for Kim to get the meeting. They also pointed out that usually the diplomacy comes first and then the summit, but this seems to be the other way around. However, with this president it seems that these two things are going to happen simultaneously. And now that Gary Cohn is gone when you look around the room in the Trump administration you have to ask, who's going to get this done? As Andrea Mitchell pointed out, we have no Korean expert in the administration, no ambassador to South Korea.
We'll see how it all goes, but we probably know how this summit's going to start...
Kim: Do you know Dennis Rodman?
Trump: I do know Dennis, too much metal in his face but a good guy.
Kim: He is my friend...
Panel: Andrea Mitchell; NBC News; Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal; Matt Bai, Yahoo News; Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post
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