I didn't link to last week's edition, because news was breaking so fast that I felt it was obsolete by the time I hit publish. It's there if you want to read it, but now, a week later, I feel it's even more obsolete. This week has been even crazier. So instead of focusing on the big issues in the foreground (Comey, Russia-Trump, Trump intelligence), I wanted to hit several subjects for a paragraph or so that are under the radar a bit.
Impeachment
This is an undercurrent below the foreground issues, although it's moving to the foreground a bit. Friends, there will be no impeachment of Donald Trump. He will be your president through 2020 at least, with a possibility for 2024. Give up that hope. There's a long sequence of events that would have to happen, and they won't for the same reason — parties don't turn on their own man. Nixon held on to most of the GOP support. Clinton held on to most of the Democrat support. You're not going to see 15-16 Republicans switch on Trump in the Senate to vote him out of power, even if he is impeached by the House. Further, unless the Senate switches, the Senate Majority Leader is Mitch McConnell, whose wife is Trump's Secretary of Transportation. The only other option is for Trump to resign. He's been defiant in the face of investigation and shown no signs of backing down. We've seen plenty of evidence that Trump has no shame (Khizr Khan, John McCain, Access Hollywood, firing Comey, sharing classified intel, etc.). He's not going anywhere.
Republican Legislation
The GOP had some big legislation in the works this year, and none of it has made it through the Republican-controlled Congress (confirmation of Justice Gorsuch was a Senate-only thing, so it doesn't count). Of those priorities, a national transportation program and the American Health Care Act were the chief among them. The AHCA passed the House, but senators have repeatedly said that they're kind of ignoring that entirely and starting over. It's anyone's guess how long that will take, but I'm going to bet on one of the following outcomes: a) Senators reach agreement, but it expands on Obamacare rather than reversing it or b) Senators never reach an agreement and it falls apart. As for a transportation plan, that's a rare situation in which Democrats might actually work together with Republicans. But instead, there's been no forward momentum. In addition, the tax reform issue that is the other priority of the GOP Congress has been silent. If there's progress, I haven't heard about any. Perhaps that's because Congress is busy solving whatever crisis-of-the-day is taking place across town at the White House. Or maybe it's because the real divides that are in the Republican party are harder to solve than they'd anticipated.
Jailing Journalists
This is a serious threat that has gotten little attention. A week ago, a reporter in West Virginia attempted to ask HHS Secretary Tom Price a question about the AHCA (Trumpcare, if you will). As Price ignored him, the reporter repeatedly asked the question, raising his voice. The reporter says he was not warned to back off or anything before he was arrested for "willful disruption of state government processes", a misdemeanor with a sentence of up to 6 months in jail. Quite simply, he was arrested for yelling his questions too loudly. It would be one thing if this were an isolated incident, but it might not be. One under-covered portion of the Comey memos is that Trump asked Comey to arrest journalists who publish classified information. But this flies in the face of a landmark Mass Communication Law (required for my degree) case: New York Times v. U.S. In short, the Times had obtained what's called the then-classified Pentagon Papers, which revealed that the U.S. was bombing Laos and Cambodia in the Vietnam War and other information unknown to the public about the war. Then-President Nixon claimed he had the executive right to prevent the Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers. The Supreme Court eventually decided in a 6-3 vote that the First Amendment freedom of the press is greater than the Executive Branch's desire for secrecy. The modern interpretation is that journalists can print anything they get their hands on — they're not the leakers. If the government discovers the leak, they can punish the leaker. But they can't punish the journalist.
Trump and Twitter
Here's a tip for the national news media, and you at home: Ignore what President Trump writes on Twitter. It gets everyone riled up, but rarely on anything of substance. That's because what he writes on Twitter is rarely of substance. They're usually deflections or distractions or completely without base in facts. The sooner the national media learns to ignore them or to hand-wave them off, the better.
Racism in Blue Springs
There were two incidents of anti-black racism recently in my hometown. In one, someone painted "DIE N-----" on a black-owned barbershop window. In another, at my old high school, a biracial student found racial slurs written on her homework after she'd left it in an unlocked physics drawer. At a recent community meeting on race relations that was full of anger but poorly attended, it was revealed that the area that black students gather at my old school is referred to by some students as "Africa." I never heard those things when I was there more than 10 years ago. That said, there were definitely racist students. I am glad to see Principal Charlie Belt is taking a strong stand against racism, but how can the community heal if people have a hard time admitting there's a problem? It seems like a pair of incidents that the city would really like to just go away.
Summary Judgments
One little pet peeve about equality that I found: On the House Judiciary Committee's listing of members, there are color photos in the same background for the GOP members, while the Democrat members are in black and white in differing backgrounds. It honestly draws more attention to the fact that 10 of the 16 Democrats are a minority (women, black, Hispanic and Asian). Only 2 of the 24 Republicans are a minority (women). Is there any reason the photos need to be different? Can't the committee schedule "Everyone take a photo day?" Further, why are the committee members separated into "Majority" and "Minority?" You can't just list the members together? It seems divisive and unbalanced. I don't care who is at fault — fix the optics here, people. • • • The Kansas City Star has really been incredible lately. There was this column by Sam Mellinger (I had lunch with him once in high school when I job shadowed another KC Star employee), whose mom had died days before Mother's Day. There was this story about a local alterations shop owner who, at age 70, had run seven marathons in seven days on seven continents (!). Then there was this story about a local woman who used trails to walk across Kansas City, south to north, in three days. It's about 43 miles. • • • Trump's properties do not have a very secure technology system. • • • Donald Trump favorite and far-right crazy Alex Jones had to issue a retraction/apology after falsely claiming Chobani yogurt was causing tuberculosis in Idaho because it hires immigrants. Yeah, reread that sentence. • • • This story caused me to shake my head. • • • I don't have a race until June 10, but I'm trying to get up to 4 miles to make up for the 4-miler I didn't do. I ran 3.5 miles today, so I'm almost there. • • • Evie didn't want to go to day care today. She said her toe was sick (she smashed it earlier in the week). Nice try, kid.
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