1) The most powerful man in Washington right now is Robert Mueller. He's got GOP and Democrat support, so firing him is basically an impeachable move. He's got the President of the United States acting scared and drawing "red lines" that are immediately crossed. The general public might look for fireworks and big moves, but I've been watching the smaller, subtler signs. Mueller has quietly put together an all-star team of prosecutors, including white-collar crime and international finance lawyers. He's expected to interview basically the entire FBI leadership team -- who can provide backup to Comey's testimony. He's already impaneling one grand jury and issuing subpoenas related to the Russia-Trump Jr. meeting. Meanwhile, the Mueller team has not been engaged in grandstanding — there haven't been comments from the team's spokesperson in reaction to this or that report. Think of Mueller's team as the San Antonio Spurs, quietly going about their business, while the Trump Administration has been garnering attention but not success: Los Angeles Lakers or New York Knicks, perhaps? Potential is power — and Mueller has the potential to bring down the most powerful man in the world.
2) Sean Spicer and Reince Preibus reportedly fought hard to keep Anthony Scaramucci out of the White House. Upon losing their battle, Spicer quit and Preibus was soon replaced. It appears they had the correct stance, as Scaramucci was ousted after less than 10 days by new Chief of Staff Ret. Gen. John Kelly. I think Kelly made the right move -- Scaramucci was a disaster. I also think Kelly will bring a discipline to many in the White House that didn't exist before. That, coupled with the timely 17-day vacation Trump will take, means that we're likely to get a ton of stories about Trump "pivoting" or trying to be less controversial/being more Presidential. Although that would be a good thing for the country as a whole, I will believe it when I see it. If Kelly can get President Trump to stop Tweeting, I'll sing Kelly's praises myself.
3) Speaking of the President, his transcripts from his January calls to the Mexican and Australian heads of state were embarrassing. Not only did he call New Hampshire a "drug-infested den" — a state he narrowly lost to Hillary Clinton and will be harder-pressed to win again with that in the pocket of future attack ads — but he also showed a lack of empathy and a self-centeredness that disgusted me. At one point, he essentially says that if Mexico keeps saying they won't pay for the wall, then he won't talk to them anymore. It was... a completely empty threat. You can read the Mexican prime minister (lower approval ratings than Trump) walk Trump out of talking about the wall, where they have no common ground. Then, with Australia's prime minister, Trump consistently talked about how bad things would make him look. Also: "I am the world's greatest person..." Yuck.
4) I don't know if this remains true or not, but when I went to Washington on a job-shadow trip while a college student (W. Bush era), I learned that there are two press conferences at the White House almost every day. The first is the morning press conference, which involves the TV cameras. The person I job shadowed said that this press conference usually contains nothing of substance, because it's almost entirely for show. It's spectacle. You saw that on display with CNN's Jim Acosta and Stephen Miller squaring off this week in an argument that made neither look particularly good. The other press conference is off-camera but on the record, and is mostly the print reporters and other reporters getting actual substance. This was usually at the 12:30/1:30 time slot. From what I can tell, those times have been switched if there are still two such press conferences. But make no mistake: TV cameras are more for sizzle than for steak.
5) The economic news lately has been a success. This should be no surprise -- the economic conditions were favorable at the end of Obama's tenure and have continued into Trump's. Further, the President actually holds relatively little power over jobs numbers. Here's my theory on the recent economic swing: Businesses expect a free-er regulatory and economic market under Trump, and are therefore acting accordingly and expanding business and pushing deals/hiring/etc. You can read that one of two ways: 1) "Big Business" feels like it can get away with more things under Trump or 2) Regulations under Obama were stifling business growth. It depends on how you view the intentions of "Business." I tend to fall in a middle category: Regulations have an important place to protect investors, the public and the country's general welfare. However, they should not be so stifling as to be impractical. I don't mind inconvenient — I mind overbearing.
6) It's easy to get caught up in the presidential approval numbers. They're historically bad for President Trump right now, with about 37 percent approval compared to about 57 percent disapproval (538.com's average). However, Vox did an informative study of the decline. What they've found is that Democrats or those in Democratic-leaning districts have moved even more against Trump, while Republican-leaning districts haven't changed at all (It's notable that heavily Republican areas have also seen a decline in Trump support, but I'd argue that those folks are not about to abandon the GOP party, even if they don't approve of Trump.). What I'm saying is that a decline in Trump support does not make a Democratic takeover of the House/Senate that much easier if the only gains for the Dems are coming in places already favorable to them. The same could be applied to the Electoral College.
7) You may have noticed that I haven't jumped on the "Fox News coordinated with the Trump campaign to spread the Seth Rich story" story. That's because I don't feel anything has been proven yet. The allegations, which are all they are at this point, are in a lawsuit. That doesn't mean any court has found them believable or that any decisive evidence has been made available. The Seth Rich story (Long story short: Fox News ran a story about a DNC staffer who was murdered in D.C. Fox blatantly said Rich had given info to Wikileaks and implied his death was caused by some nefarious scheme on the Democrats' behalf. This was demonstrably false, and Fox issued a correction on both the Wikileaks angle and the Democrats' connection — it was just a robbery gone bad.) is a black eye for Fox News as a whole. We shall see in the light of court and the public whether any damnable evidence comes out. But at this point, it's mostly just Fox News' opponents trying to pile on.
8) Bad headline watch: "J.K. Rowling sorry for Trump tweets" -- CNN. The story is not that she is sorry for ALL of her Trump tweets. Rather, she's sorry for a few of them that turned out to be false. This does not mean she's always wrong, but she's wrong about this particular subject. The headline seems to imply that she's apologizing for everything she's ever said about Trump, which is wholeheartedly not the case.
9) Let's establish what is and isn't fake news. Fake news is not news that you disagree with. Fake news is news that is false. For instance: The Mexican Navy did not make an arrival in California. The Navy SEALS were mistaken for the Mexican Navy. That is fake news. Fake news is not Mueller impaneling a grand jury in Washington. You can verify that. It's actual news. Related, I want to show you a great two-part story on when to trust unnamed sources and anonymous sources. They are great at explaining why you should trust them and which stories you can ignore. Please read them.
Summary Judgments
It sounds like the "bipartisan" effort on Obamacare fixes is mostly to shore up the marketplaces. If you ask a Democrat what the biggest flaws with the ACA are, they'll point to GOP attempts to sabotage these marketplaces. So in theory, this would be a major concession to Democrats that the ACA is sticking around and needs to be buttressed if it'll stay. I'm curious to see, though, to see what concessions the moderate GOP members ask the Democrats to make. I still don't think a bipartisan bill is likely, though. • • • Rhode Island has now joined liberal states like Oregon and New York and conservative state Tennessee in making all community college tuition and fees free for residents. I like this plan a lot. • • • I have been back on my run schedule. I ran 4.5 miles this morning, with only one short (0.1 miles) walk in there, and I did it in 47 minutes. That's a great time for me. Better yet, I didn't feel exhausted afterward. I felt good and refreshed. My two potential causes of that great run: beautiful, cool weather and finding a good music station that didn't take me out of the groove. • • • Roland, unprompted: We're being nice! Me: Are you two both being nice? Roland: Yeah! Evie, mischievously: Nooooo. Me: You're not being nice? Evie: Noooope.
No comments:
Post a Comment