Friday began Week #22 with the Justice Department announcing they would be rolling back their efforts at enforcing Civil Rights through the Federal courts, the only meaningful platform for 50 State enforcement of our most basic human rights, then Trump threatening to treat Cuba like dogshit again, setting the tone for another disturbing week.
Those incremental bits of despotism aside, we all got a glimpse at Trump’s finances. Not, not his tax returns, but a Financial Disclosure Form revealing he is making about $75 million a year from just 3 properties he has been actively promoting during his presidency; Mar-A-Lago, Bedminster Golf Club and the Trump International Hotel in D.C. And no, he has not placed his business interests in any kind of receivership or blind trust as he promised he would.
Trump spent the Fathers Day Weekend at a non-Trump property for a change, the government-owned Camp David, the traditional weekend presidential retreat for presidents who do not own 100 golf courses. He brought his new housemates, First Lady Melania and 11 year-old son Barron.
Monday was an eventful day globally, with a terror attack on London Muslims outside a mosque, and a deadly accident at sea involving a US Navy warship. Trump reacted by getting mad at Assistant Attorney General Rosenstein, the guy who appointed the independent Special Counsel to investigate Russiagate, calling the investigations “a Witch Hunt. Sad.”
That’s about the extent of Trump’s global leadership skills, with Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron ably representing the Free World while the Big Dog is out of commission. The NATO alliance hasn’t been in such danger since Charles de Gaulle’s dementia-fueled temper tantrums in the 1960s.
The Russia scandal is consuming the Trump administration. Every single day another member of Trump’s team lawyers up, or his Press Secretary suddenly gets (!) camera shy, or the president makes up another version of whether or not any tapes exist, either the incriminating or exonerating kind.
Meanwhile, the Senate is on the verge of killing health care for 20% of the country by strangling Medicaid, something Trump promised he would not allow, and his reaction was to fly to Iowa on Wednesday to hold a campaign rally for an office he won last November. Trump’s rallies are his only source of praise as his approval rating dipped to a historically low 33%.
On Thursday, an interview with Trump was aired on Fox News, where he took careful aim and shot himself in the foot by stating that his Tweet about the alleged existence of tapes of their conversations was meant to influence James Comey’s testimony before the United States Senate. And perhaps it did, but not quite the way Trump intended. Now rumors that Manafort and Flynn are cutting deals with the Justice Department finally has Trump looking very Presidential. President Nixon, but still…