CSotD: Wrapping Up a Long Weekend
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The master of the Art of the Deal may be recognizing that his good pal Vladimir doesn’t actually respect him that much after all.
Whamond is hardly the only one to note the gap between Trump’s campaign promise to end the war in 24 hours and his switch to what people are interpreting as a whine.
MacKinnon notes that Trump had done everything his friend wanted done, up to and including a proposed peace deal that amounted to Ukraine surrendering the territory Russia has seized so far, with the assurance that Putin only wants the Sudetenland the Crimea and perhaps some of Ukraine’s eastern provinces and certainly wouldn’t attempt to restart the invasion.
Which brings to mind the peace agreement in Vietnam for which Henry Kissinger accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, but Le Duc Tho turned down his part in the award and we can see who ended up in Saigon, and renamed it Ho Chi Minh City.
But, of course, Trump missed that war, didn’t he?
His failure as a Peace Keeper wasn’t the worst part of his week. He also gained notice for apparently being the only one who showed up at the Pope’s funeral without following Vatican guidance to wear dark colors, and several wags have altered the photo of him meeting with Zelenskyy to have the Ukrainian leader ask him why he wasn’t wearing a black suit?
If the mockery around his cry to Putin, his failure to dress properly for a funeral (and perhaps to stay awake through it) were not enough, his poll numbers have dipped to negative numbers in nearly every category, putting his 100-day approval rating at a near-record low.
Other polls don’t vary much from these ABC/Washington Post numbers, and while Bramhall picks a particularly unfavorable number from the Economist/YouGov poll, it’s not far from other results.
However, Bramhall is correct in that Trump’s response seems to be to double-down rather than back off.
As Davies notes, Trump’s continuing refusal to obey the courts in allowing due process has been highlighted by his administration’s decision to arrest and temporarily jail a judge for allegedly interfering with ICE’s attempt to arrest a migrant who was appearing before her.
Details are sketchy, and it’s not clear whether the judge wanted to prevent the arrest or to stop it from happening at the door to her courtroom, but the Milwaukee County Executive labeled the arrest a “large, performative showing of law enforcement officials,” Milwaukee’s mayor accused them of showboating, and Joyce Vance, a former prosecutor who is married to a state judge, went into detail, noting that such arrests generally happen a day later, and often by having the person turn themselves in.
Hauling Judge Dugan away in handcuffs was unusual and, if it were not intended to intimidate other members of the judiciary, statements by Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel seemed to point that way, both declaring that nobody is above the law.
Bondi went further, referencing a judge arrested in New Mexico, and saying “What has happened to our judiciary is beyond me. The [judges] are deranged is all I can think of.”
It was typical for Soviet-era authorities to accuse dissidents of being insane before sending them off to labor camps in the gulag, and now we’re hearing it from authorities in this country.
As for the idea that nobody is above the law, Rogers suggests that perhaps some felons are indeed treated differently than people wanted for misdemeanors like the fellow in Milwaukee who was appearing before Judge Dugan, or students seized for writing editorials in their school papers or making speeches at campus protests, which isn’t illegal at all.
The administration did get a bit of good news, in that they have arrested the person accused of snatching Kristi Noem’s purse the other night and he is reportedly an “illegal alien” who acted in tandem with yet another illegal alien, according to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.
More proof that those who are not born-citizens are born-criminals, I suppose, though, as Jones suggests, it more definitively proves that the head of Homeland Security can’t keep track of her own purse, even when it contains $3000 in cash, and that this suggests she is as inept at security as our Secretary of Defense.
But there is this apparent softening: The US Attorney said “President Trump’s direction to us is we charge these folks that are here illegally and we prosecute them, as well as deport them when need be, you know, as soon as that can happen.”
It’s good to know people are now going to be prosecuted prior to being deported, which is a change of policy since ICE sent a mother and her children off to Honduras without a trial and over the objection of the girls’ father, who pointed out to authorities that the younger girl, 2, is a US citizen.
Another deported US citizen is a 10-year-old child whose family was seized by ICE while they were heading for an emergency medical exam, since the little girl is being treated for brain cancer.
Or at least she was before she was sent to Mexico without a hearing.
Meanwhile, Chip Bok questions Dear Leader’s claim that if only Jerome Powell would lower interest rates, it would all be dandy and the flailing economy would repair itself.
Lower rates would be an acknowledgement of economic disaster, however, with economists saying the move would bring back massive inflation but do little to fix the economy.
And given how Trump has backed away from the wild tariffs Bok suggests caused the damage, it seems unlikely Dear Leader really believes it’s Powell’s fault anyway.
Then again, it’s hard to figure out what Trump really believes, and Siegel mocks the way Dear Leader explains trade deficits, which lack of logic, precision and consistency is what has roiled the markets.
Fortunately, the administration is able to explain its policies, priorities and principles, thanks to a qualified White House spokesmodel, though, as Danziger points out, it is necessary to keep her alert to what they are so that she can say them back verbatim.
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