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Our leonine president spent the week pawing and poking his downed prey, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, licking the little mans fur in great slurps with appetite-whetting tweets as he dillydallied about delivering the death bite and devouring his catch.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes (where are E-mails & DNC server) & Intel leakers! Trump tweeted on July 25. Why didnt A.G. Sessions replace Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a Comey friend, Donald Trump tweeted in a damning two-parter the next day. I am disappointed in the attorney general. He should not have recused himself, the president said at a news conference a couple of hours later.

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Was it human sadism at work, an indication of how frustrated Trump has become at blunting the investigation into the scandal with no name? Or was it just Trump obeying the law of the savanna, which dictates that the strongest, largest cat with the most tufted mane and the most prolific seed shall dominate the pride at his leisure? According to Newt Gingrich, another subservient member of the Trump pride, the president doesnt like to deliver the dispatching blow himself. I think Donald Trump doesnt like to fire people, period, Gingrich told Fox News on July 25. Trumps squeamishness about sacking people and his insistence that others do the deed has been long acknowledged, most saliently by my colleague Michael Kruse. New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman asked two Trump insiders why he insisted on toying with his attorney general. Because he can, both said.

Trump prefers the suicide of resignationprovoked by nonstop, continued public humiliationover actually sacking staffers. The younger lions in the Trump pride, watching from the short grasses, have taken to mimicking their leaders displays of dominance. Anthony Scaramucci (who will first dare call him Scar?) has been playing a slightly less effective game of catch-torture-and-release, catch-torture-and-release, with his quarry, White House chief of staff Reince Priebus. Scaramucci used Twitter to threaten Priebus with an FBI and Department of Justice investigation, then deleted the tweet, denying Priebus would be targeted. In a profanity-laced conversation with the New Yorkers Ryan Lizza, Scaramucci made the vulgar Trump sound like a parson in comparison. He both promised bulk firings at the White House and used so many expletives to describe chief strategist Steve Bannon and others that newspapers and cable-news chyrons exhausted their hyphen stockpiles as they attempted to censor him. Scaramucci also accused Priebus of cock-blocking hima new one to me, requiring a visit to the Urban Dictionary. I hope Mooch meant it metaphorically.

His hairdo matted with lion spittle, Sessions temporarily escaped to El Salvador for a photo-op about deporting MS-13s bad hombres. He quivered like a baby wildebeest suffering PTSD when Fox News Channels Tucker Carlson caught up with him to inquire about the presidents scolding. Trumps steady disparagement was kind of hurtful, a humbled Sessions squeaked, but the president of the United States is a strong leader. Beyond saying his decision to recuse himself from the Russia business was the correct one, Sessions offered nothing that would provoke renewed Trump attacks.

The Sessions and Scaramucci dramatics muted any news about the slow-moving investigation in Russian meddling into the 2016 election, of which there was very little this week. The leader of the prides son-in-law, Jared Kushner, gave closed-door testimony on Capitol Hill in an attempt to untangle himself from the scandal. He told cameras afterward that he had never colluded with the Russians. What then, pray tell, was that Trump Tower meeting with four Russians, Donald Trump Jr., and Paul Manafort in which Russian kompromat to incriminate Hillary Clinton was on offer? So boring, he arrived late and sought an excuse to leave early, Kushner said in a statement.

Lost in the weeks histrionics was an NBC News piece sourced to the Department of Justice that connected former Trump campaign boss Manafort to an upper-echelon [associate] of Russian organized crime, a connection Manafort denied. The Guardian made a similar effort to link Russian money to the Kushner real estate empire. At the Atlantic, Julia Ioffe stirred the scandal stew looking for meat, and found a pot roast hidden in plain sight as she tallied the many overtures Russians have made to those in the Trump pride. This is how Russian intelligence works, sending tendrils into cracks and expanding.

The New Yorkers Lizza, who deserves some sort of bonus or promotion, hustled another bracing quotation this week, in a piece that complements Ioffes. Michael Hayden, former CIA and NSA chief, essentially told Lizza that Kushners Trump Tower confab was more like richly marbled antelope steak than nothing-burger. Through Haydens eyes, the meeting looked precisely like a Russian intel oppart of a patient, step-by-step effort by agents of influence, cutouts and front organizations to penetrate and compromise its target. If Hayden is right, his analysis helps explain why the Lion King roared so vehemently at little Jeff Sessions over the AGs recusal this week.

My god, this is just such traditional tradecraft, the spook told Lizza.

******

The search for a name for the no-name scandal conducted here over the past two months, continues. Theres still time to submit your nomination to Shafer.Politico@gmail.com. This weeks honorable mentions: Trump loeli, (Larry Gordon), Trump Cower, (Lisa Green), Kislyak and Tell, (Jim Zien), Irkutsk a Been a Contender, (Jim Zien), Tsar-a-Lago, (Keith Denoyer), Arrested Developer, (Daniel Nix), Borscht in the USA, (Alex Khachaturian), Dossier-evsky, (Alex Khachaturian), Beyond the Valley of the Russian Dolls, (Rana Buckner), and Fast and Spurious, (Teresa Miller). My email alerts have fired both my Twitter feed and my RSS feed. Readers will be the next to go.

Jack Shafer is Politicos senior media writer.

Read the original here:
Week 10: Donald Trump, Lion King - POLITICO Magazine

WASHINGTON In the wee hours of Friday, while most Americans were sleeping, Donald Trump suffered the biggest political defeat of his presidency.

Senate Republicans failed to repeal Obamacare again and this time, at least for now, they appear ready to throw in the towel. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) looked stunned as the vote went down, and set up a vote for a judicial nominee next week before gaveling out. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) issued a statement saying hes moving onto what hes wanted to do all along tax reform.

It leaves Trump in his weakest position yet. Six months into the job, he has failed to unify his party, at a time when the GOP controls all of government, to pass their No. 1-priority issue. Hes proven to be a terrible dealmaker. Hes demonstrated that his grand promises to his base about repealing President Barack Obamas signature law were empty, and that hes more interested in showmanship than substance.

The photo below from a May ceremony in the Rose Garden, when Trump took a premature victory lap with House Republicans after they passed their (now dead) bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, is already starting to feel like his very own Mission Accomplished moment.

Carlos Barria / Reuters

As lawmakers prepare to head home for the month of August,the president still doesnt have a single major legislative accomplishment under his belt. His popularity is stuck at historic lows. And while it may seem far away, the 2018 elections are on lawmakers minds and will increasingly drive how they vote, regardless of what Trump wants.

Some conservative pundits are already saying Trumps presidency is cooked.

This president cannot change, Rick Tyler, former communications director to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), said Friday on NBCs Morning Joe. And if you cannot change and you cannot become presidential, and you cannot convince the majority of the American people to enact some legislative agenda that he wants passed, his presidency legislatively is effectively over.

Part of Trumps problem is that he keeps burning bridges with the very people who are supposed to be his allies in policy-making: Republicans on Capitol Hill, who hes routinely thrown under buses and blamed for any failures.

On Friday, in a series of tweets, he criticized Senate Republicans who voted against repealing Obamacare and ranted about the need to change the chambers rules, which he still doesnt understand. He seems to think Obamacare repeal could have passed if the Senate only required 51 votes for its passage instead of 60. It couldnt even get 50 votes.

But if theres one thing Trump claims to love, its winning. And hes got a penchant for being able to cast anything as a win with the right framing.He could still eke out a win on health care if he put those skills to work, but it would mean redefining successand working with Democrats and the Republicans hes clashed with.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), one of Trumps biggest critics and one of the GOPers who voted against the Senates repeal bill, said in a Friday statement that its time for everyone to start fresh and work on a bipartisan solution to fix Obamacare instead of repealing it.

It is now time to return to regular order with input from all of our members Republicans and Democrats and bring a bill to the floor of the Senate for amendment and debate, McCain said I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to trust each other, stop the political gamesmanship, and put the health care needs of the American people first. We can do this.

Is it possible for Trump to not attack McCain over his war hero status, or not accuse him of generallylosing,or not criticize his daughter for being angry and obnoxiouson television, long enough to get something done together on health care?

A White House spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment.

Read more from the original source:
Donald Trump Slumps To His Weakest Position Yet - HuffPost

President Donald Trump speaks at Suffolk Community College on July 28, 2017, in Brentwood, N.Y.

President Donald Trump spoke before an audience of law enforcement officials on Long Island, N.Y., about measures his administration is taking to crack down on illegal immigrant gang violence.

The central theme of his July 28 speech was his goal of restoring law and order to a country he says has been beset by lax enforcement of immigration and other laws.

Heres a rundown of several specific claims Trump made, and whether they were accurate.

"The previous administration enacted an open-door policy to illegal immigrants from Central America. Welcome in. Come in, please."

The reality is Obama carried out more than 5.2 million deportations over two terms. That figure combines both "removals," which involve a formal court order, and "returns," which dont.

Obama returned more than 2 million Central Americans in his first seven years in office, according to data from the Department of Homeland Securitys Office of Immigration Statistics (that does not include formal removals or 2016 data).

Roughly 150,000 of those deported under Obama were returned to El Salvador, from which MS-13 hails, according to data from the Los Angeles Times.

Between 2003 and 2013, one in five deportations over this time were to Central Americas "Northern Triangle" countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, some of the worlds most dangerous countries, according to data analyzed by the Migration Policy Institute.

Michelle Mittelstadt of the Migration Policy Institute said Obama confronted a surge in migration from Central America, particularly from the Northern Triangle, fueled by instability, gang violence and worsening economic conditions.She noted the Obama administration faced legal constraints -- both from a congressional statutes and court rulings -- that impeded its ability to remove an influx of illegal entrants with children, or unaccompanied minors, many of whom were fleeing Central America.

"We have trade deficits with almost every country."

Trump said he couldnt find countries where the United States currently has a trade surplus. He might not have looked that hard.

"We have trade deficits with almost every country, because we had a lot of really bad negotiators making deals with other countries," Trump said.

Yes, the United States has a significant trade deficit with China, smaller trade deficits with Germany, Japan and Mexico.

But the United States actually has a trade surplus with more than half of the countries or governments it does business with, according to data kept by the United States International Trade Commission.

In 2016, the United States recorded a trade surplus with 134 different nations or governments. It ran a deficit with 99 nations or governments.

A surplus occurs when the United States exports more goods to a country than it imports from it.

Share the Facts

2017-07-28 19:16:29 UTC

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Wrong

"We have trade deficits with almost every country."

In a speech

Friday, July 28, 2017

2017-07-28

"I said from the beginning, let Obamacare implode, and then do it. I turned out to be right. Let Obamacare implode."

Trump actually argued that Republicans should not let Obamacare collapse because "it wouldnt be fair to the people."

"Frankly, we could sit back and it was a thought from a political standpoint, but it wouldnt be fair to the people," Trump said at a Jan. 11, 2017, press conference in New York.

"We could sit back and wait and watch and criticize and we could be a Chuck Schumer and sit back and criticize it and people would come, they would come, begging to us please, we have to do something about Obamacare. We dont want to own it, we dont want to own it politically. They own it right now.

"So the easiest thing would be to let it implode in 17 and believe me, wed get pretty much whatever we wanted, but it would take a long time. Were going to be submitting, as soon as our secretarys approved, almost simultaneously, shortly thereafter, a plan."

At the same press conference, Trump said he would repeal and replace Obamacare at the same time. It was also a core campaign promise.

"Itll be repeal and replace. It will be essentially, simultaneously. It will be various segments, you understand, but will most likely be on the same day or the same week, but probably, the same day, could be the same hour," Trump said.

"So were gonna do repeal and replace, very complicated stuff. And were gonna get a health bill passed, were gonna get health care taken care of in this country."

Share the Facts

2017-07-28 19:18:30 UTC

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Not what he said

"I said from the beginning, let Obamacare implode, and then do it. I turned out to be right. Let Obamacare implode."

In a speech

Friday, July 28, 2017

2017-07-28

"GDP is up double from what it was in the first quarter. 2.6 percent."

The GDP indeed grew at an annual rate of 2.6 percent between April and June, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, more than double the rate at which it grew in the first quarter (1.2 percent). This is the first full quarter of GDP growth since Trump took office.

Its much closer to the 3 percent growth rate promised by Trump in May, although many economists weve interviewed said sustaining that level of growth without substantial policy changes would prove difficult.

Economists would also refrain from attributing the growth to Trump, as many of his policies have yet to be implemented. Consumer spending, which typically makes up about 70 percent of the economy, partially drove the increase.

Share the Facts

2017-07-28 19:21:00 UTC

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Correct.

GDP is up double from what it was in the first quarter. 2.6 percent."

In a speech

Friday, July 28, 2017

2017-07-28

"Trump doesn't win, your Second Amendment is gone."

Trump dialed up a popular but False attack on his 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton.

"By the way, your Second Amendment is safe. Your Second Amendment is safe," Trump said. "I feel very good about that. Wasn't looking so good for the Second Amendment, was it, huh? If Trump doesn't win, your Second Amendment is gone. Your Second Amendment would be gone.

There was no no evidence of Democrat Hillary Clinton ever saying verbatim or suggesting explicitly that she wants to abolish the Second Amendment and the bulk of Clintons comments suggest she wanted to protect the right to bear arms while enacting measures to prevent gun violence.

Read the rest here:
Fact-checking Donald Trump's Long Island speech to law enforcement - PolitiFact

Donald Trump and his supporters may be waging battles against the press, immigrants, voting rights, the environment, science,social welfare programs, Planned Parenthood and what they label political correctness and the deep state.

But to them these are mere skirmishes in a muchlarger conflict. The president has essentially declared an all-out waron the American 1960s.

What he and his followers hope to do is not necessarilyturn back the clock to the 1950s, but rather restore a socialorder, value system and real America that they believe was hijacked by the liberal culture,politics, thought leaders and policy priorities that emerged from the 60s.

An October 2016PRRI surveyfound close to three-fourths ofTrump voters and white evangelical Christians bemoaning anAmerican society and way of lifethat to themhaschanged for the worse since the 1950s. Donald Trump has become their cultural and political reset button.

To be sure, no immigration policy orinsistence on saying Merry Christmaswill reinstate the 1950s in America. A nation that was87 percent non-Hispanicwhite in 1950will be 47 percent in 2050.Seven in 10 Americans claimed church membershipduring the 50s, butnow just20 percent of millennialssay churchgoing is important andalmost40 percent say they have no religious affiliationat all.

But while the president and his supporters cant reverse demography, they are trying through rhetoric, symbolism, policy and politicsto resurrect an iconic post-World War IINorman Rockwellversion of what itmeans to be authentically American.

To them, the 60s undermined what was good and virtuous in America. In their sepia-toned view of our history, it was atriumphant military,a white working class and aconceptionof nuclear families, moral values andsuburban bliss that made America great.

In this America wesaluted the flag, revered the police, attended church, trusted authority, respected traditionand veneratedsturdy, stoic,upstanding lunch pailheroeswho earned theirAmerican dreamwithout griping or government assistance.

Its not that religious and ethnic minorities are absentfrom this history they gave America character, after all and we all need to show our melting pot tolerance. But how nice it was that they knew their place, didnt get too uppity and honored the primacy of Christians and whites who, the story goes, steadied and builtthe United States.

America was much more of a community before the agitatorscaused all the problems, wasnt it?

Then came the 1960s.And it was then that the so-calledagitators pointed out that those charming Levittown havens just like theTrump apartment complexes had no welcome mat for blacksand thosegood middle-class occupations excluded women.

It was a generation that questioned God, fled the church, disparaged conformity, upended gender roles, asserted black powerandcriticized the military for Vietnam and thepolice for brutalizing civil rights workers, killingAfrican-Americans and bullyingantiwar protesters.

It also was a singular moment in our historythat codified into lawpersonal privacy rights and a womans rightto control her own fate. It would begin our long cultural march to rethink masculinity andlift the taboo from same sex relations. It also launched an environmental movement that said yes to the Earth and no to thesmokestack.

In the 60sour moral compass pivotedfrom judgmental scrutiny of ourprivate lives to an examination of our collective and individual capacity for prejudice, bigotry and discrimination. Minorities, previously considered Americas outliers, became central to our historical narrative. We passed civil rights and immigration laws that changed the complexion of mainstream America and who showed upto vote.White men would no longer control Americas storyline.

For many, the 60s redefined patriotism away from flag waving and military mightto the pursuit of equality and justicefor all. It was an era that celebrated an unbowedpress forrooting out corruption, uncovering secrets and pointing out where our democracy had fallen short.

Whereas the 1950ssanctifiedunfettered capitalism as a rebuke to communism and symbol of freedom, in the 1960s many began to eyeitwith a new skepticism as corporations pumped pollution into riversand produced carsunsafe at any speed.The economic and cultural fulcrum also began its shift from the factory floor to the college campus and with it camethe realization that brains and not brawn would define our future and builda stronger America.

The 60s also challenged a shibboleth of the 50s: that if you worked hard you could succeed, but if you didnt succeed it was because you didnt work hard. Liberals led byMartin Luther King Jr. and Lyndon Johnson argued thateven the hardest of work didnt free millions from the chains of history, and so they turned to government to level the playing field and cushion the hard blows of misfortune.

To many white men who saw their own sweat and labor yield suburban happiness and middle-class fruits and seemingly unconcerned that the same opportunities werent available to all government elites werecreating a protected class at their expense.

The 60s bent the river of American history and now Donald Trump and his own silent majority are doing everything in their power to bend it back.

On immigration, race, voting rights, womens rights, religion, cultural issues, public schools, higher education, social programs, business, labor, coal, the environment, the news media, the white working class,themilitary and the police,virtually all of his policies, pronouncements and tweetsare aimed at restoring what Steve Bannon has called thevery kind of 1950s valuesthat made America great.

Perhaps that is what President Trump meant in hisJuly 2017 speech in Warsaw, Poland, when he dedicated his presidency to counter forces . . . that threaten over time to undermine these values and to erase the bonds of culture, faith and tradition that make us who we are.

Its often said that Trump is fixated on undoing everythingPresident Obama accomplished. But in truth its not the Obama legacy hes undoing. Its the 1960s.

See more here:
Donald Trump's war on the 1960s - Salon

Rev. Al Sharpton is protesting President Trump for using what he says is an anti-Irish racial slur in a speech on Friday, the civil rights leaders announced.

Paddy wagon is the term that offends Sharpton, a former Democratic presidential candidate. Trump used the term which refers to a police van during his remarks at an event honoring police officers in Brentwood, N.Y.

Sharpton is upset not just at what he says is an anti-Irish pejorative, he is also taking Trump to task for his advice to officers about how they should treat criminal suspects during arrests.

When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you just seen them thrown in, rough. I said, Please dont be too nice,' Trump said.

When you guys put somebody in the car and youre protecting their head you know, the way you put their hand over, Trump said, pointing to his head. Like, Dont hit their head and theyve just killed somebody, dont hit their head. I said, You can take the hand away, OK?' he continued, as officers in the audience laughed and cheered.

Liberal activists said that Trump was condoning police violence. Trumps supporters said he was making a joke that is familiar to many police officers.

Ironically,Sharpton is not attending Saturdays protest with an Irish-American activist. Instead, he will join Gyalwang Drukpa, the Head of the Drukpa Lineage of Buddhist.

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Al Sharpton Is Protesting Trump Over Anti-Irish Racial 'Slur' - The Daily Caller