Trump lifted sanctions against Russia. Finally! Now the main stream media can stop playing 20 questions with what has been obvious at least since Trump asked Russia if it was listening. Journalists and Op Ed columnists can stop searching high and low for a reason to give Trump, yet again, the benefit (however undeserved) of the doubt. We can stop being outraged. We can ignore Trump’s base and Faux News because we now know they could not care
On August 28, 2015, in his 6th year in office, the biggest “scandal ”of Obama’s presidency erupted. He wore a tan suit to a White House press conference. He was not meeting with world leaders, addressing the nation or at a funeral. He walked down the hall to a briefing room full of reporters in which some of the men were not even wearing ties. He was not the first president to wear a tan suit while in office. Reagan and Bush occasionally wore tan or khaki suits. This was Obama’s first time showing work in anything other than a black, blue or grey suit. He wore it well. I updated this post to add this WaPo article looking back on the tan suit affair 5 years later.
of the tan suit scandal. That was a calmer, less frightening and more joyful time
And then there’s today. It took Trump to teach the media about scandal and after 3 1/2 years of his two-scandals-a-day administration you can say they are magna cum laudes.
So just imagine what would have happened had President Obama said he was thinking about declaring a national emergency to divert money budgeted by Congress for other purposes to fund the Affordable Care Act?
Friday, January 25, Trump announced that government would reopen. The shutdown was over. For now. Reaction to the announcement was predictable. Trump caved or Trump betrayed, in the main. Pelosi won. Trump lost. Trump wimped out. A few Trump supporters including Hannity argued that Trump did not cave and even that ending the shutdown he created was a victory for Trump. More balanced heads pointed out that the crisis is not over until a permanent deal is reached. Others cautioned that talk that Nancy won, Trump lost would just make Trump, notoriously thin skinned when it comes to taking what he regularly dishes, more recalcitrant in the future. But to this I say, so what. Pelosi realized what Kelly, Tillerson, Mattis, etc. did not to their everlasting shame. There is no going along to get along when it comes to Trump. Sacrificing your principles by going along with his idiocy is perceived as a weakness to be exploited and validation of his “genus”. It simply leads to greater heights of idiocy.
Trump offered the Dems a deal: temporary protection for Dreamers in exchange for wall funding. Should they take it? No. This is a disingenuous offer that your two year old can see through. First, the protection is temporary. This means as soon as the protection expires Trump will begin aggressively deporting these young people assuming he does not do so before then. And just as the wall is a rallying cry (and dog whistle) for Trump’s base, deportation of DACA’s is too. Trump’s alt-right base and the Fox news personalities who keep them in a permanent state of frenzy consider DACA a program that grants amnesty to undeserving criminals. Whatever he agrees to now, Trump will flip at the first sign that he has the political muscle to do so. In short, he cannot be trusted to abide by the terms of even a temporary reprieve.
Every morning I check my phone for overnight news I missed. For ___ days now I’ve sighed in disappointment because that day was not the day that I woke up to news that Trump’s presidency is over. Today’s news that Roger Stone has been indicted moves the Russia probe another step closer to the Kingpin. If you think of the Special Counsel (SC) indictments as a group of nested circles, there is only one circle between Stone’s and the bullseye, Donald Trump. That circle is inhabited by Jared, Ivanka, Donald Jr. and a few others. Not one to lean on media to relay any more information than I must, I read the indictment. It is available on a number of sites but I got my copy from Documentcloud.org .