HuffPost: “Another White House council has taken a hit after President Trump’s controversial response to a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Seven members of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council, which includes Obama appointees, resigned this week, citing Trump’s Charlottesville response and other issues.”
Archives for August 2017
White House Sets Rules for Transgender Ban
“The White House is expected to send guidance to the Pentagon in coming days on how to implement a new administration ban on transgender people in the military, issuing a policy that will allow Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to consider a service member’s ability to deploy in deciding whether to kick them out of the military,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The White House memo also directs the Pentagon to deny admittance to transgender individuals and to stop spending on medical treatment regimens for those currently serving,”
Trump Takes Permanent Campaign to New Level
Los Angeles Times: “Unabashedly proclaiming his desire for a second term, Trump filed the paperwork establishing his 2020 reelection committee the day he took office and has already started fundraising, years before his predecessors began raking in cash. He has trampled protocol and turned explicitly nonpolitical events, like the Boy Scouts’ national jamboree, into replicas of his roisterous campaign stops.”
“Perhaps most significantly, Trump has transformed the bully pulpit — the president’s ability to rally the country in pursuit of his goals — into a sort of vanity project, staging events not to advance any substantive agenda but to vent and, as aides admit, bask in the adulation of supportive audiences.”
Trump Takes Aim at Press Again
New York Times: “Every time you think President Trump’s anti-press rhetoric can’t get worse, he finds a way of surprising you and not surprising you all at the same time. That he will attack journalists on a regular basis should be expected at this point, and it is. The surprising part comes when he manages to outdo himself. After all, he couldn’t possibly top ‘enemy of the people,’ could he?”
“Yet there he was in Phoenix on Tuesday, telling a crowd of thousands of ardent supporters that journalists were ‘sick people’ who he believes ‘don’t like our country,’ and are ‘trying to take away our history and our heritage.'”
Email Suggests Attempt to Arrange Putin Meeting
“Congressional investigators have unearthed an email from a top Trump aide that referenced a previously unreported effort to arrange a meeting last year between Trump campaign officials and Russian President Vladimir Putin,” CNN reports.
“The aide, Rick Dearborn, who is now President Trump’s deputy chief of staff, sent a brief email to campaign officials last year relaying information about an individual who was seeking to connect top Trump officials with Putin.”
“The person was only identified in the email as being from ‘WV,’ which one source said was a reference to West Virginia. It’s unclear who the individual is, what he or she was seeking, or whether Dearborn even acted on the request.”
Trump Clashed with Multiple Senators Over Russia
President Trump “privately vented his frustration over Russia-related matters with at least two other Republican senators this month, according to people familiar with the conversations — in addition to the president’s public admonishments of Mitch McConnell, John McCain, and Jeff Flake,” Politico reports.
“Trump expressed frustration over a bipartisan bill sanctioning Russia and tried to convince Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN) that it wasn’t good policy… Trump argued that the legislation was unconstitutional and said it would damage his presidency. Corker was unrelenting, these people said, and told Trump the bill was going to pass both houses with bipartisan support.”
Science Envoy Resigns with Hidden Message
Daniel Kammen resigned from his position as Science Envoy at the Department of State due to President Trump’s response to recent violence by white supremacists.
The first letter of each paragraph in his resignation letter spelled a hidden message.
Wall Street Journal Editor Admonishes Reporters
“Gerard Baker, the editor in chief of The Wall Street Journal, has faced unease and frustration in his newsroom over his stewardship of the newspaper’s coverage of President Trump, which some journalists there say has lacked toughness and verve,” the New York Times reports.
“Some staff members expressed similar concerns on Wednesday after Mr. Baker, in a series of blunt late-night emails, criticized his staff over their coverage of Mr. Trump’s Tuesday rally in Phoenix, describing their reporting as overly opinionated.”
Wrote Baker: “Sorry. This is commentary dressed up as news reporting… Could we please just stick to reporting what he said rather than packaging it in exegesis and selective criticism?”
McCaskill Accuses Rival of Violating Residency Law
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) “accused Missouri’s top law enforcement officer, who is weighing a campaign against her, of violating a state law that requires the attorney general to reside in Jefferson City,” the Kansas City Star reports.
Attorney General Josh Hawley (R) “has faced questions about his residency since taking office in January.”
Said McCaskill: “The law’s pretty clear. There’s never been an attorney general in the history of our state that hasn’t lived in Jefferson City because the law says ‘shall.’ Listen, I’m a Mizzou-educated lawyer, but I can keep up and I know what the word ‘shall’ means in the law. And I know he went to Yale, I think, or Harvard — one of those, one of those fancy ones — I think they taught him the same thing that shall means shall.”
Carson Broke the Law at Trump Rally
Washington Post: “Right before Ben Carson took the stage at President Trump’s rally in Phoenix on Tuesday night, the announcer introduced him. ‘The secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson,’ the voice intoned, prompting cheers from the audience. And, as simply as that, a law was likely broken.”
“Among the prohibitions included in the Hatch Act is one prohibiting Cabinet secretaries from leveraging their positions for a political cause. That means that the head of, say, the Department of Housing and Urban Development can’t appear at a campaign rally in a way that implies he’s doing so in an official capacity. Say, by being introduced with his official title.”
Two Government Shutdown Fights?
Playbook: “Many in the Capitol believe that September will be the first of two government-shutdown fights. The theory goes like this: Congress will pass a clean debt ceiling and a short-term government funding bill that extends funding only until December, setting up a Christmas-season dustup. There simply isn’t time to solve everything in September. Of course, Trump clearly wants a fight on border wall funding, so it’s completely feasible that he stands firm next month. But many on the Hill think there will be a second legislative fight, as well.”
“Likely scenario: They screw up both September and December for Washington…. Of course, a prolonged government-shutdown fight would adversely affect the prospects of tax reform.”
Moore Holds Big Lead Over Strange
A new Opinion Saavy poll in Alabama shows Roy Moore (R) leading Sen. Luther Strange (R) in the U.S. Senate primary runoff, 50% to 32%
Democrats Won’t Yield on Border Wall Funding
“House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) warned Democrats would hold fast to their pledge to oppose border wall funding, as President Trump threatened a government shutdown over the issue,” The Hill reports.
Said Pelosi: “President Trump’s multi-billion dollar border wall boondoggle is strongly opposed by Democrats and many Republicans. Democrats will stand fast against the immoral, ineffective border wall and the rest of Republicans’ unacceptable poison pill riders.”
“Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in a separate statement said Trump’s demands for wall funding in a government-funding bill would lead to a shutdown.”
Sanders Voters Tipped the Election to Trump
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Most Say Trump Is Dividing the Country
A new Quinnipiac poll finds that 63% of voters say that President Trump is doing more to divide the country, while 31% say he is doing more to unite the country, his worst score yet on this question.
Trump’s job approval also hits a new low of 35% to 59%.
Trump Voters See Discrimination Against White Christians
Public Policy Polling: “Asked what racial group they think faces the most discrimination in America, 45% of Trump voters say it’s white people followed by 17% for Native Americans with 16% picking African Americans, and 5% picking Latinos. Asked what religious group they think faces the most discrimination in America, 54% of Trump voters says it’s Christians followed by 22% for Muslims and 12% for Jews.”
The Final 12 Days
NBC News: “In the nine months since the election, political observers have pointed to various reasons why Hillary Clinton lost and Donald Trump won: FBI Director James Comey’s intervention; Russia and WikiLeaks; Clinton’s failure to campaign in Wisconsin; African-Americans who didn’t turn out as strongly as they did for Obama; and Trump’s strong performance among working-class white voters in the Rust Belt.”
“But the real tale of 2016 is how the final 12 days of the election turned a race that seemed out of reach on Oct. 27 into an upset decided by a total of 80,000 votes in three states.”
Clapper Worried Trump Has Access to Nuclear Codes
Former National Intelligence Director James Clapper questioned President Trump’s fitness for office following his freewheeling speech in Phoenix last night, which Clapper labeled “downright scary and disturbing,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Clapper: “I really question his ability to be — his fitness to be — in this office. I also am beginning to wonder about his motivation for it — maybe he is looking for a way out.”
He also noted he’s worried about the president’s access to nuclear codes: “The whole system is built to ensure rapid response if necessary. So there’s very little in the way of controls over exercising a nuclear option, which is pretty damn scary.”
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