Maverick's World

The Daily Donald 4/5/2017

Yesterday we witnessed another horrifying chemical weapons use in Khan Shaykhun in Idlib Syria. As with the 2013 attacks in Ghouta, the prime suspect for the attacks is the Assad regime. And as with before the Russians are contesting the story. However unlike 2013, our president is actually spending most of his time blaming President Obama for his "failures" in Syria - instead of getting off his ass and doing something to help the victims or catch the perpetrators.

The death toll currently stands at somewhere around 75. I imagine it will get a lot worse. Most of the dead are children. The target of the attack was a hospital. The wounded from an earlier chemical weapons incident in Al-Lataminah were being treated at the hospital when it was attacked with chemical weapons yesterday. The most detailed summary so far is available from Bellingcat.

While the White House covers its lack of inaction by spending most of its energy blaming President Obama for what is happening, the State Department is bluntly stating that it believes the Assad regime is behind the attack. As Secy of State now openly contradicts the President and sounds more intelligent then him, it is only a matter of time before he is relieved of this duties. Trump is insecure when someone is visibly smarter than him.

If the chemical weapons attack in Khan Shaykhun was not bad enough, North Korea tested a long range missile yesterday. The move was met with - a complete lack of response - there was large amount of loose talk about "all options being on the table" etc... you know the kind of talk that makes seasoned watchers of international affairs roll their eyes. Trump had made a very big fuss about taking on the North Korea issue "all by himself" - which most of the outsiders saw as a candid admission of the fact that no one below him wanted to take the fall for the inevitable shit show that would follow. Now we hear talk of pre-emptive strikes, invasions, shows of force with B1 bombers etc... I feel the Trump Admin has now pushed itself into the corner on this and they will attempt some harebrained scheme to try and dissuade Kim Jong Un from embarrassing Donald Trump. Basically we are still committed to moving up Jackass Street!

I feel we are getting a preview here of how the Trump Admin handles a real crisis. They don't. 

The Trump White House spends most of its energy trying to make it look like everything is President Obama's fault. If it doesn't do that people will focus on it's own complete incompetence on all issues put before it.

Massive fissures are now visible between the three factions that comprise the core of the Trump machine

1) After Cernovich called Breitbart "Fake News" - Alex Jones went on a massive swear word filled rant about "Gays" controlling the HPSCI. After that Roger Stone Jr went on to accuse Jared Kushner of leaking information  to Joe  Scarborough on MSNBC.

2) An  oped appeared asking Donald Trump why he hadn't fired Mick Mulvaney [1] and another Deputy COS was relieved of his duties after Katie left for the America Priorities PAC.

3) Polls indicate a massive drop in support for Trump among White Men and among rural voters.

The entire machine is coming apart at the core.

The nomination of Judge Gorsuch has run into trouble over allegations of plagiarism. It is unknown at this time whether the allegations will stick.

In the meanwhile Sen, Mitch McConnell has filed for the cloture (i.e. nuclear option). I am sure he will get what he wants but should he really want this? As things stand now the Trump Admin can leverage anyone in the GOP thanks to RU hacking of the RNC and all the stuff taped on cameras at Trump resorts (apparently the GOPers party in ways their public positions on morality are inconsistent with). Once the cloture passes, he can open agendas with the Democrats and sail bills across the Senate with GOP defectors completely bypassing Mitch McConnell.

I don't know what will be worse for Mitch McConnell forcing the Cloture vote and Gorsuch nomination on his peers in the GOP senate or failing in the process of doing so.

The HPSCI appears to be coming back together on key issues and more testimonials are scheduled, but not date has been set. The failure to stop the SSCI meeting had invalidated the need for suppressing the HPSCI.  I feel that Chairman Nunes has outlived his use to the Trump Admin.

And entirely unsurprisingly the Russian investigative committee on terrifying St. Petersburg blasts has recommended at that all public rallies be denied permission on security grounds. I think there is no need for more investigation and the blame-a-Muslim game can stop. We all know who did this now.

posted by maverick @ 7:13 AM