Thursday, July 27, 2017

#52 - A Slow Day in the News Cycle

I have to be honest, I'm struggling a bit.  What should I write about today?

1) Should I pick up on the President’s new Director of Communications, Anthony Scaramucci, who is carrying the banner of the President, when he echoes the words of his beloved leader that, “We are going to be winning so much, we are going to get tired of winning”.  Yes Tony, I agree completely.  It's been one of my biggest desires for the longest time now, second only to my burning desire to catch the next episode of Real Housewives of Poughkeepsie.  Mooch the Smooch went on to proclaim his undying support for President Trump stating that Trump is “the smartest person that I’ve ever worked for” with “intuition” and “temperament that I have never seen”.  (sigh….), it's only been a week, but I miss Spicey already.

The Mooch clearly wanted to come on the scene and make a big splash, in an effort to curry favor with the Big Guy, he has become the point person on weeding out leaks in the White House.  So, he is going to “hermetically seal” the communications team and call out the other senior members of the administration, specifically Reince Priebus for being the source of the leaks.  I don't watch reality TV shows, so it's particularly annoying when I turn on the news and am forced to watch one of the worst on TV.

I would also observe that we seem to be getting leaks about the White House’s anti-leaking strategy. I guess they have a little more work to do on that.

2)  Maybe I should write about the Big Guy’s obsession with denigrating one of his earliest conservative supporters and his hand-picked Attorney General, Jeff Sessions.  Mr. Trump seems to be suffering from a significant case of buyer's’ remorse, and is publicly airing his disappointment, despite noteworthy blow back from his conservative supporters.  By all accounts, love him or hate him, everyone, including the conservative base, has said that Sessions did the right thing by recusing himself from the Russian investigation, everyone except the Big Guy that is.  As such, this makes Sessions the President’s biggest object of scorn and ridicule on that little Twitter toy of his.

3)  One of the scariest pieces of news to leak out yesterday (the Mooch hasn't quite yet perfected his hermetical seal) has to deal with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s unhappiness with his role and the administration.  He seems bothered by battles with other members of the administration and still can't get over the fact that he has to play second fiddle to the 34 year old boy wonder who is going to save the world.  Richard Haas, who heads up the Council on Foreign Relations and who has also been critical of Obama on several issues, observed that Tillerson has not helped his cause any by not fighting for resources, by not getting experienced people in place, and for deciding to reorganize the State Department at a time when the sky is falling.  Sure, Haas seems to have a point, but still I worry.  Aside from the members of the President’s national security team, Tillerson, while having no real diplomatic experience, out of all the other members of Trump’s Cabinet, at least has experience in ...something.  And with little things like North Korea taking a back seat to the President’s campaign rallies (you were under the impression that the campaign was over?) and his trips to Mira Lago, six plus months into this new administration, I would just hate to lose anyone in the administration who looks like they actually may have a head on their shoulders.

4). I could talk about the President's success re: his announcement of 13,000 jobs coming to Wisconsin (Paul Ryan’s home state) with Chinese company FoxxCon.   While it should be considered a small win for the President, it did not come without a cost.  FoxxCon will receive $3 billion in tax breaks, which works out to $230,000 per employee.  I know, you’re thinking, wouldn't it be simpler to just give the money away?  Perhaps, but the truth is all politicians have done this at different times, Obama gave $500 million to a solar panel company early in his administration and Rhode Island gave $40 million to former Red Sox ace and conservative talk show personality, Curt Schilling, for his computer gaming company and didn't even get a new rev of Pac Man for their troubles..  I do want to point out that the great state of Massachusetts, as liberal as we are, was smart enough to pass on this last fiasco.  

The point here is that giving away $3 billion doesn't exactly come under the category of draining the swamp.

5) I could actually write a short novella about the President’s expansive three-part tweet late yesterday in which he announced his new policy to ban transgender persons from the military because of the higher cost of their medical care.  In typical Trump fashion, he neglected to tell anyone else of his latest idea, including his communications team, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the conservatives in the House who only wanted him to eliminate the cost of the medical care, not actually Transgender persons from serving.  Now, everyone in country is scratching their heads, the LGBTQ community has declared war, and Vladimir Putin is laughing his ass off.     

6) Finally, I could choose to write about the Chief Scout of the Boy Scouts of America who apologized today for the behavior of our President when he spoke to the group on Tuesday..   On this day, we are all Boy Scouts, insulted by the actions of our President, and we apologize to the entire world and to God, for one of the dumbest things in the history of the planet, voting this dweeb into office.

Am I forgetting anything? Health Care?  The Russian Investigation?
Still, I’m unclear. What should I write about today? Any ideas?

No comments:

Post a Comment