August 3,2017


News and Views


LAW PROFESSOR SAYS THAT THESE RECENT EVENTS INDICATE WHAT MAY BE A SUBSTANTIALLY WIDER INVESTIGATION THAN JUST THE ORIGINAL FLYNN MATTER. MUELLER IS MAKING HEADWAY, APPARENTLY.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/report-robert-mueller-convenes-grand-jury-in-russia-investigation/
CBS NEWS August 3, 2017, 4:11 PM
Report: Mueller convenes grand jury in Russia investigation

Photograph -- Outgoing FBI Director Robert Mueller smiles as he speaks at the Justice Department in Washington, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2013. EVAN VUCCI / AP

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has impaneled a grand jury in Washington, D.C., a clear sign that the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election is ramping up, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The special counsel's office did not return CBS News' request for comment.

Grand juries give prosecutors the ability to put witnesses under oath if there is evidence of a crime. Mueller and his expanding team will also have the power to seek indictments and subpoena documents. According to the Journal, the grand jury was convened in Washington several weeks ago. Another grand jury in Virginia had been investigating former national security adviser Michael Flynn, but that probe has been taken over by Mueller, the Journal reported.

Report: New chief of staff Kelly reassured Attorney General Sessions his job is safe
Play VIDEO
Report: New chief of staff Kelly reassured Attorney General Sessions his job is safe

"This is yet a further sign that there is a long-term, large-scale series of prosecutions being contemplated and being pursued by the special counsel," Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas, told the paper. "If there was already a grand jury in Alexandria looking at Flynn, there would be no need to reinvent the wheel for the same guy. This suggests that the investigation is bigger and wider than Flynn, perhaps substantially so."

The existence of the grand jury does not mean that Mueller will necessarily bring charges, former federal prosecutor Thomas Zeno told the Journal, but it also shows he is "very serious."

"He wouldn't be doing this if it were winding down," Zeno said.

President Trump has repeatedly called the investigation into Russian interference, and the alleged connections between his campaign and Russian figures, a "witch hunt." He has also suggested that he might attempt to fire Mueller, a former FBI director whose investigation falls under the purview of the Department of Justice. In response, Congress is currently considering bills that would make it harder for Trump to fire Mueller.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller special counsel in May, and Mueller was given a broad mandate to investigate and prosecute any potential crimes he uncovered. The appointment came after Mr. Trump fired then-FBI director James Comey and Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the investigation, delegating oversight of the probe to Rosenstein.

Ty Cobb, a member of Mr. Trump's legal team, said he was unaware of the existence of the grand jury until he was notified by the Journal, noting "grand jury matters are typically kept secret."

"The White House favors anything that accelerates the conclusion of his work fairly...The White House is committed to fully cooperating with Mr. Mueller," Cobb said.



THOSE PLANS ARE TOO COLD. MAKE ME NEW ONES! POOR MCMASTER. IT SEEMS HE HAS BEEN OUSTING THE RIGHTISTS, AND IS NOW UNDER FIRE BY THE ALT-RIGHT ON THE INTERNET. DOES THAT MEAN HE’S ONE OF THE GOOD GUYS?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/mcmaster-goes-to-waragainst-his-white-house-enemies
LOCKED ON
McMaster Goes to War—Against His White House Enemies
The National Security Adviser is purging the Trump White House of hardliners. But the “nationalists” are quickly moving to strike back.
LACHLAN MARKAY, ASAWIN SUEBSAENG,KIMBERLY DOZIER
08.03.17 4:35 PM ET

Empowered by a new chief of staff and goosed by a president angry with a perceived lack of creativity, National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster is sweeping out some of the White House’s most fervent ideologues.

But McMaster has to move fast, senior administration officials tell The Daily Beast. Because the hardline nationalists at the core of Trump’s political base have declared war on the president’s top national security aide. His own role is by no means secure.

“The president hasn’t liked the plans he’s been presented on Iran, Afghanistan, or ISIS,” one of the officials told The Daily Beast. “The process hasn’t worked like it should,” to produce the innovative plans President Donald Trump tasked his team with crafting—plans that look different from what the Obama administration, or even the Bush administration, tried before.

So McMaster has been removing anyone on his team who either obstructed his own vision or had trouble rallying the other agencies around particular policy, like NSC intelligence director Ezra Cohen Watnick, who was let go on Wednesday. The officials said he’d had a “rough start” with McMaster as the two didn’t see eye to eye on some aspects of Mideast policy, and Cohen Watnick—a holdover hired by now-resigned National Security Adviser Michael Flynn—was blamed for anti-McMaster leaks to the media. The former DIA analyst was also openly criticized by CIA officers who saw the 31-year-old as inexperienced, which didn’t help him win over the powerful agency. Cohen Watnick was unable to be reached for comment.

McMaster has also removed anyone who was directly responsible for the plans that most frustrated Trump, like senior Mideast adviser to the president and retired Col. Derek Harvey. Harvey himself was hawkish on Iran, but other agencies contributing to the discussion were reluctant to embrace any action that might draw the U.S. into a shooting war with Tehran. Harvey did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Last month McMaster also fired Rich Higgins, an official in the NSC’s strategic planning office, after he penned and circulated a controversial memo alleging a conspiracy by “Islamists” and “cultural Marxists” to undermine the Trump administration. Higgins did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

The firings buy McMaster time to put his own people in place, but if he doesn’t come up with new plans, his own role is at risk. The clean sweep drive has also made his tenure more precarious in that it has infuriated elements of Trump’s political base that see it as a purge of nationalist, anti-Islam ideological elements—officials dubbed by some in the White House as the Flynnstones, a reference to former adviser Flynn.

‘Weak’ War Plans

The leading Iran, Afghan, and ISIS plans recommended to Trump by the majority of his cabinet secretaries all resemble strategies assembled under the Obama administration, with slight modifications or increases to numbers of troops, or tightening of sanctions or cooperating on even more local forces.

A furious Trump has sent his National Security Council adviser and staff back to the drawing board on all of those plans, griping in essence that doing the same thing as before and expecting a different result is the platitudinal definition of insanity.

The recommendations on Iran were that the Trump administration re-certify that Iran is complying with the JCPOA, then find new ways to enforce it, while also find new ways to make life difficult for Iran and its proxies in places like Yemen and Lebanon. That was deemed as not creative or aggressive enough by Trump, according to the two administration officials.

On the Afghan war plan, Trump’s top cabinet officials have all tacitly backed the Pentagon proposal to increase U.S. troop levels by up to 5,000, and keep the mission open-ended instead of setting a public deadline as President Barack Obama did. “None of the principals have spoken against that plan,” said one of the senior administration officials. “It’s other parts of the government that are lobbying against it,” one of the officials said. He was referring to the America-First-style nationalists who want to withdraw completely or outsource the problem to contractors, a sort of modern-day East India Company occupation of Afghanistan, put forward by former Blackwater chief Erik Prince.

“We keep going back and forth on it,” one defense official said of the wrangling with the NSC to come up with a new, more innovative plan.

A proposal to negotiate U.S. military assistance in return for commercial access to Afghan minerals was briefly hailed inside the NSC as the possible breakthrough Trump was looking for—showing his base that he wasn’t just going to keep spending U.S. blood and treasure in Afghanistan and get nothing in return. But that plan has somewhat faded as other advisers pointed out that U.S. companies have struggled to safely access the areas they would mine, nor do they have a cost-effective way of shipping such heavy cargo out for processing. It doesn’t help that China already negotiated lucrative deals with the new government shortly after the Taliban regime collapsed.

On Trump’s frustrations and internal administration divisions regarding Afghanistan, NBC News reported Trump was so angry with the proposed plan for Afghanistan that he suggested replacing Afghan war commander Gen. John Nicholson—a sort of “shoot the messenger” approach as Nicholson bluntly told Congress the war in Afghanistan is being lost, and he needs more resources to turn it around.

Sources close to Trump told The Daily Beast that the president has privately complained in recent weeks that U.S. strategy and the war in Afghanistan—where American forces are “losing,” according to the president—is embarrassing his young presidency and making him look “weak” and “not good” on the international stage and at home.

As The Daily Beast reported last month, several of Trump’s closest advisers have been vocally against, or skeptical of, current plans for the Afghan war. These officials include chief strategist Steve Bannon, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, economic adviser Gary Cohn, and even senior adviser and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Bannon, for his part, has tried to caution the president against further military involvement in Afghanistan by relaying to him the lessons of the failed Soviet occupation of the country to draw parallels to the U.S. predicament today. (The White House chief strategist is a military-history obsessive.)

“Six months ago, General Nicholson testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee and warned that the United States was not winning the war in Afghanistan,” McCain said in a statement Thursday, in defense of the general. “Our commanders-in-chief, not our commanders in the field, are responsible for this failure,” said McCain, who chairs the armed services committee. He added that if the White House hadn’t produced a new strategy by the fall, he’d introduce legislation to chart a way ahead.

Gorka Is Not a Goner

Two senior administration officials say the combative adviser to the president Sebastian Gorka is safe from the latest clean sweep, in part because he reports to the president, who likes him (especially when Gorka is on TV repping the White House and sparring with cable-news hosts), not the NSC, and he’s popular with the Trump base. “He’s one of the few people who can articulate Trump’s vision effectively,” one of the officials said. Both spoke anonymously in order to describe staffing changes at the White House.
Still, the purge of other “Flynnstones” has riled Trump supporters who blame McMaster for leaks of sensitive White House information and for moderating key White House foreign policy decisions, such as its recertification of the Iran nuclear deal last month.

“Since McMaster took the job of National Security Advisor, he has systematically undermined the President’s policies,” wrote Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, a hardline foreign policy group supportive of the president. “America needs Rich Higgins in office, not H.R. McMaster.”

Mainstays of the pro-Trump media all sure to registered their disapproval of Higgins’ firing as well. Breitbart, the news outlet formerly run by chief White House strategist Steve Bannon, blared headlines across its homepage on Thursday accusing McMaster of being “deeply hostile” to Trump’s agenda.

Gateway Pundit, another prominent pro-Trump news site, dubbed McMaster a “globalist,” a common epithet among the pro-Trump “alt-right” movement—and even within the Trump administration. “Many eyebrows are being raised now as Nationalist advisors are being pushed out or put on the back burner while globalists trickle in,” wrote a Gateway Pundit blogger. “Was the ousting of General Flynn planned all along in order to stop Trump’s ‘America first’ agenda? Seems likely.”

Mike Cernovich, a controversial far-right blogger and self-help author set up a website this week devoted to attacking McMaster and publishing leaked information about him. A cartoon leading the site shows McMaster and Gen. David Petraeus dancing on the ends of puppet strings held by billionaire hedge fund manager and right wing bogeyman George Soros.



THE NEW COLOSSUS – A GUIDE TO THE TRUE AMERICAN PATH – “I – NOT JUST THE STATUE, BUT THIS HARBOR, THIS NATION – WELCOME YOU AS A MOTHER WOULD.”

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/trump-adviser-stephen-miller-reject-immigrants-huddled-masses-w495696
Trump Rejects the Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free
The president and his adviser, Stephen Miller, should pay closer attention to the poem on the Statue of Liberty
By Jesse Berney
August 3, 2017 7 hours ago

VIDEO -- On Wednesday, Donald Trump's policy aide Stephen Miller briefed reporters on legislation that would curtail legal immigration.
RELATED
Trump Advisor Stephen Miller Defends Travel Ban

Miller spoke of the need to keep out of the country people who don't "share our values"

You know the lines CNN reporter Jim Acosta quoted to White House adviser and sleepy-eyed hate goblin Stephen Miller; we all do. "Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Acosta quoted the poem "The New Colossus" to Miller, who retorted by questioning its relevance, as it was added later to the Statue of Liberty.

But of course the history of Emma Lazarus' sonnet is entwined with the statue's. She wrote it as part of a fundraising campaign for the pedestal it now stands on. And the poem, attached to the statue on a plaque in 1903, has become absolutely essential to our understanding of what it represents.

Lady Liberty is more than just a light broadcasting the idea of American freedom to the world. Lazarus ensured it was a welcome, an invitation to join the world's greatest cultural experiment.

We all remember "give us your tired, your poor" because it defines what the statue stands for. But the rest of the excellent poem is worth reading and understanding too, because it explains what she isn't.

The New Colossus, Lazarus begins, is not like the ancient Wonder of the World the poem is named for:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

The Colossus of Rhodes was a warning, according to tradition. Ships supposedly had to pass between its giant legs to enter the harbor, an act of submission. (The Colossus, about the same size as the Statue of Liberty, actually stood on a single pedestal. But like all good poets, Lazarus didn't let the facts get in the way of a powerful metaphor.)

The New Colossus isn't a celebration of military victory or a symbol of masculine posturing.

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch,

Immigrants from Europe traveling west toward New York harbor could see the sun setting behind the city if they arrived at the right time of day, and greeting them would be a woman, not warlike but still mighty, because strength can come from holding a torch that lights the way as well as a sword that threatens harm.

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
MOTHER OF EXILES.

Wielding lightning was a power reserved for the most powerful ancient gods. But here, the lightning is repurposed as a light to welcome exiles who have no other place, to welcome them as children into, not a strange place, but a new home. It is an act of incredible power, but an act of love.

From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

There it is again: "her mild eyes command." Strength, resolve, warmth, love. Her command goes out to a harbor, to the cities it serves, and to the nation it opens. "World-wide welcome." Not to one people, not to one race or religious tradition. The world's exiles are welcome here. I – not just the statue, but this harbor, this nation – welcome you as a mother would.

America is for everywhere. But not for everything.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

America was still modern then, still a new idea. It was George Washington's insistence he not be addressed by any royal title and his abdication after two terms in office that solidified the notion of a citizen president.

Lazarus was not simply welcoming the tired and poor of other nations; she was asserting their superiority to the kings who ruled them. Keep your pomp. We're building a nation with the people you consider the least, the ones desperate for freedom, your refuse.

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Of course Stephen Miller rejects the poem's significance. Lazarus' words reach through time to rebuke him and his hate. The law Trump introduced yesterday with Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia, the one Miller was defending from the podium, would allow only the elite of other countries to immigrate to the United States. Educated, skilled workers who already speak English would be welcomed by Trump and Miller's regime. Huddled masses yearning to breathe free can stay on their own teeming shores (unless Trump needs more housekeepers at Mar-a-Lago, of course).

The administration’s targeting of undocumented immigrants – not just violent criminals as they claim, but families, decent people, contributors to their communities – is another rejection of Lazarus' welcome. She understood the true meaning of Lady Liberty. It wasn't just a promise to immigrants, but a desperate call to join our grand experiment. She understood our strength as a nation derived not from military might but from a maternal willingness to welcome. Open arms are stronger than a closed fist.

Miller doesn't get it. He has a history of racist rhetoric dating back to high school. Like too many Americans, he doesn't understand America. He should take a closer look at Lazarus' poem. There's no better explanation of our strength, our power, our greatness, our decency. America is wildly imperfect, with a history that includes bigotry in its ugliest forms. But the promise of America is anybody can be an American, no matter where you're from and what you look like. Trump promises to make America great again, but he and his ilk have never understood the first thing about what makes America great.


WHO IS STEPHEN MILLER, ANYWAY? SEE VIDEO BELOW.

https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2017/08/02/Pro-Trump-trolls-and-white-nationalists-praise-Stephen-Millers-nativist-immigration-presse/217503
Pro-Trump trolls and white nationalists praise Stephen Miller’s nativist immigration presser
Video ››› August 2, 2017 10:40 PM EDT ››› NINA MAST & SANAM MALIK

During an August 2 press briefing, President Donald Trump’s senior policy advisor, Stephen Miller explained the president’s support of the RAISE Act, a Republican sponsored immigration proposal that would prioritize immigration based on the "skills" immigrants bring to the country and favor English speakers over non-English speaking immigrants. Miller’s contentious back and forth with reporters during the briefing to promote the anti-immigrant proposal gained the praise and admiration of pro-Trump trolls and white nationalists.

Stephen Miller press briefing on Trump’s support of RAISE Act

President Donald J. Trump backs RAISE Act. The White House released a statement on Trump’s support of the RAISE act which would “create a merit-based immigration system” that prioritized English-speaking, “highly skilled immigrants.” From the August 2 press release (emphasis original):
FOR ACT TEXT, SEE WEBSITE.

Stephen Miller attacks CNN’s Jim Acosta during the press briefing on RAISE Act. During the August 2 press conference, Miller attacked CNN's Jim Acosta as having a “cosmopolitan bias” for asking whether Trump’s support of the RAISE Act, was in line with the ideals inscribed on the Statue of Liberty:

“Acosta referred to Trump's plan to award points to green-card applicants based on English proficiency and asked, “Are we just going to bring in people from Great Britain and Australia?”

Rather than defend the fairness of Trump's proposed emphasis on English skills, Miller said Acosta had just insulted English speakers from every country other than Britain and Australia.

“I am shocked at your statement, that you think only people from Great Britain and Australia would know English,” he said. “It's actually — it reveals your cosmopolitan bias to a shocking degree. … This is an amazing moment. That you think only people from Great Britain or Australia would know English is so insulting to millions of hard-working immigrants who do speak English from all over the world. Jim, have you honestly never met an immigrant from another country who speaks English, outside of Great Britain and Australia? Is that your personal experience?” [The Washington Post, 8/2/17]

Pro-Trump trolls support Stephen Miller’s contentious press conference attacking a reporter

Gateway Pundit’s Lucian Wintrich: “WATCH Stephen Miller's EPIC Shutdown of CNN's #FakeNews reporter @Acosta during today's briefing!”



HYBRID IMMIGRATION SYSTEM – A REPUBLICAN SENATOR FROM SOUTH CAROLINA RECOMMENDS INCLUDING BOTH HIGHLY QUALIFIED ENGLISH SPEAKING IMMIGRANTS, AND IMMEDIATE FAMILY MEMBERS OF THOSE WHO ARE ALREADY SETTLED IN THE COUNTRY AS WELL. LINDSAY GRAHAM SAID THAT IT WOULD BRING IN TOO FEW, THUS CAUSING WORK SHORTAGES IN SECTORS AND AREAS WHERE MANY UNSKILLED WORKERS ARE NEEDED. I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO SEE MEDICAL OR PERSONAL HARDSHIP CASES INCLUDED.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/sen-scott-calls-for-hybrid-system-of-immigration-reform/
By EMILY TILLETT CBS NEWS August 3, 2017, 10:16 AM
Sen. Tim Scott calls for "hybrid" system of immigration reform

After the unveiling of the Trump administration's latest agenda-setting direction on immigration reform, Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina says the country needs a "hybrid" policy that reflects America's economy and family needs instead.

"I want to make sure that folks have an opportunity to assimilate to what it means to be an American and so what we should look for are hybrids where we meet our economic needs and at the same time allow for family cohesion to be what it always has been, which is the anchor of the American society," Scott said on "CBS This Morning" Thursday.

U.S. jobs most held by immigrants
24 PHOTOS
U.S. jobs most held by immigrants

The RAISE act, which Mr. Trump threw his support behind at a press event Wednesday with the bill's sponsors, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, and Sen. David Perdue, R-Georgia, would establish a "points-based system for acquiring a green card," according to Mr. Trump. It would reduce the number of legal immigrants allowed into the country while also preventing immigrants from collecting welfare once they arrive in the United States.

The bill aims to make the U.S. immigration system more competitive through rewarding immigrants who speak English, have financial stability and demonstrate useful skills, among other factors.

It would also end "chain migration" in the green card application process by only extending to immediate family, such as minor children and spouses. Finally, the legislation would limit the number of refugees permitted to enter the country and eliminate the visa lottery, which makes 55,000 Permanent Resident cards available every year to immigrants from "underrepresented countries," according to the Department of Labor.

"The problems within our legal immigration system isn't the number," Scott said. "If there's needs for reforms, we should reform the systems that need to be reformed, but the reality of it is it has less to do with the number and more to do with reforms and in South Carolina there's a lot of jobs that go unfilled because we can't the workers to do those jobs."

While Scott called the use of a merit-based system of entry for immigrants a "good idea" successfully implemented by other countries like Canada and Australia, he said the crucial step is to help fill the "largest holes in the our [sic] economy."

Scott said sectors like STEM (science, technology engineering and math) and agriculture are two areas where workers are desperately needed.

Scott's comments come after his South Carolina Republican colleague, Sen. Lindsey Graham, said that if the RAISE proposal becomes law, it would be "devastating to South Carolina's economy, which relies on the immigrant workforce." Graham said it would cut the immigration population in half for those who work legally in areas like agriculture, tourism and service industries.

Follow
Lindsey Graham ✔ @LindseyGrahamSC
SC #1 industry is Ag. Tourism #2.
If proposal were to become law... devastating to SC economy which relies on this immigrant workforce. 3
12:50 PM - Aug 2, 2017
574 574 Replies 341 341 Retweets 1,023 1,023 likes

Scott says it's certainly possible to have both a merit-based program and one that allows for "family cohesion" to continue.

"I'm a big proponent for us to sit down at the table, figure out which way is up, because right now we have a lot of issues we haven't figured that out on, and if we can figure that out, head in that direction. So for me, up is more workers who meet the high demands that we have within our economy. We need to match the folks coming into the country with the jobs that we need."

He added, however, that legal immigration has not been the main priority for lawmakers as of late.

"There's nothing wrong with making sure that we create access for family members who are already here as long as we do it right, and the legal immigration system has not been the focus, nor has it been the problem for us for the last several years."



IN THIS ARTICLE IS AN IMAGE OF TRUMP IN THE 1990S BY HIS FRIEND/ACQAINTANCE AT THAT TIME, MATT BAI, WHICH IS INTERESTING. HE ALSO MAKES AN INSIGHTFUL COMMENT ABOUT WHY I FEEL SO MUCH MORE AT EASE ABOUT KELLY: “KELLY GIVES YOU THE SENSE, AT LEAST, THAT IF WE WAKE UP TOMORROW TO FIND THAT NORTH KOREANS HAVE LAUNCHED A MISSILE AT ANCHORAGE, OR THAT RUSSIAN TANKS ARE STREAMING INTO BELARUS, SOMEONE IN CHARGE AT THE WHITE HOUSE WILL NOT BE WORKING OFF KNOWLEDGE GLEANED FROM A TOM CLANCY NOVEL.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/kelly-signal-new-path-trump-090039132.html?soc_trk=gcm&soc_src=60f73942-c8f9-11e5-bc86-fa163e798f6a&.tsrc=notification-brknews
Does Kelly signal a new path for Trump?
Matt Bai
Yahoo News August 3, 2017

Images of Kelly and Trump

You could hear the collective exhaling in Washington as President Trump’s new chief of staff assumed his command Monday, after another awesome week in which Trump first seemed set on handing over his White House to a bombastic financier exactly like himself, then stood by as his mini-me publicly eviscerated the president’s loyal chief of staff, and then kicked them both to the curb in quick succession.

“No WH chaos!” Trump declared in a tweet, proving yet again that whenever the president wakes up tweeting, there’s pretty much a 100 percent chance that what he’s saying is the inverse of the truth.

Republicans are counting on John Kelly, a popular and decorated general, to put the presidency on a calmer course. They’re hoping Trump will actually listen to Kelly’s counsel and allow him to instill some discipline into the whole operation.

And yet they might be missing the point. Generals are great at plotting strategy and establishing protocols and getting supplies to the front. But even in war, they rely on a leader to define the political objective.

The pressing question here isn’t whether Kelly can run a more efficient White House than his predecessor. (Honestly, my kid’s camp counselor could pull that off.)

The question is: to what end?

As I’ve said before, it was always Trump’s second White House staff — not the training-wheels version — that was going to tell us what kind of president he ultimately intended to be. And if I were a Republican on the Hill right now, I’d be starting to wonder if Trump actually plans to be a Republican president, or some other kind altogether.

Remember that Trump is only nominally a Republican to begin with. When I met him in the late 1990s (we hung out at Trump Tower and went to dinner with Alec Baldwin, believe it or not), Trump was disdainful of politicians and their predictable ideologies, generally.

At that time, he was an avowed independent fluent in the language of libertarianism as it’s spoken on Wall Street — favoring strong borders along with lower taxes and less government interference, in both the boardroom and the bedroom.

View photos

Trump really only became a Republican, later, by default, because he despised President Obama as some kind of foreign-born interloper — a fiction he championed for years and for reasons I will leave to a psychologist. You’d have to believe he entered the Republican primaries last year because it was a whole lot easier than building an independent campaign from the ground up, and because the whole thing was more of a ratings stunt to begin with.

Only Trump’s primetime special turned into an extended run. And even by the time he won, Trump had no coterie of experienced advisers, and no plan for governing.

His choice of Reince Priebus as chief of staff probably signaled some combination of desperation on one hand — “Hey, you! That guy! You know something about Washington, right?” — and pragmatism on the other. Priebus represented the party apparatus, and giving him at least titular control of the White House was a way of trying to build instant relationships with Republicans who remained wary of the invading Huns.

Which might have been fine, except that Priebus never had Trump’s confidence, and he wasn’t prepared for the job. He was a Wisconsin party operative and able fundraiser who’d barely seen the inside of the White House, much less worked there. Priebus never had a chance.

For a few hours last week, it actually seemed that Trump was going to layer over Priebus with the outlandish Anthony Scaramucci, who appears in almost every photo I see with slicked hair and mirrored shades, as if he were auditioning to be Tom Cruise’s wingman in “Top Gun.” Alas, Scaramucci turned out to be like that solar eclipse everybody’s waiting for: breathtaking for an all-too-brief moment, then gone for good.

So Trump turns instead to Kelly, which at first glance seems reassuring for governing Republicans. This is, by all accounts, a serious and honorable man, someone who can restore a little functionality. He’s already served in much the same role for two secretaries of defense.

Kelly gives you the sense, at least, that if we wake up tomorrow to find that North Koreans have launched a missile at Anchorage, or that Russian tanks are streaming into Belarus, someone in charge at the White House will not be working off knowledge gleaned from a Tom Clancy novel.

But unlike virtually every chief of staff in recent memory, Kelly isn’t a known entity inside the party, either. As Doug Wilson, a Democrat who oversaw public affairs at the Pentagon during the Obama years, and who grew to deeply respect Kelly, told me this week: “To this day, I wouldn’t know what his party affiliation was.”

Kelly isn’t the guy you pick, after a legislative disaster like the one Republicans just suffered with health care, if you’re looking to lead your party into the midterm elections. He’s more like someone the ’90s Trump would have picked — unaligned and uncompromised by political alliances.

What this signals, perhaps, is that six months into his presidency, after a string of defeats in Congress and ugly approval ratings, Trump is starting to understand that his only path to success lies in becoming an independent president, rather than a party leader who looks to loyalists like an impostor.

View photos

Fevered rallies and white resentment got him through the primaries, and that’s still where most of his base lives. But for Trump to maintain any hold on the part of the electorate that provided his margin of victory, he needs to rediscover his inner reformer — the pragmatic billionaire who defined himself in opposition to strident ideologies and blatant self-interest.

If this turns out to be where Trump is going next, then I’d be cautiously supportive, or at least intrigued. The problem — and it’s a big one — is that if you want to chart a new course for American politics, you have to have a sense of where you want to end up. You can’t be Teddy Roosevelt without having an actual governing platform, or at least a philosophical conviction.

Trump doesn’t have that, or at least not yet. He doesn’t know what tax reform means, beyond a bunch of big cuts. He doesn’t have any proposals to improve the political system itself, beyond this silly commission aimed at nonexistent voter fraud. He doesn’t have a plan to deal with the exploding cost of entitlement programs or the long-overdue modernizing of infrastructure.

In the absence of that, he dissembles and distracts. He provides answers — like banning transgender soldiers — to questions no one was asking. He falls back, always, on his emptiest impulse, which is to evoke some kind of emotion.

John Kelly is the right pick to be Trump’s first real chief of staff. He holds out the possibility, at least, of consensus and competence within a White House that isn’t just another subsidiary for the dilettante Trump kids to play with.

But he can’t provide the vision, or the agenda. For that, the general awaits his orders, and so do the rest of us.


IT LOOKS AS THOUGH TILLERSON, AS WELL AS TRUMP, DESIRES SPECIFICALLY TO KEEP RUSSIA HAPPY, EITHER TO BE THEIR TRUSTED ALLY, OR TO AVOID PUNISHMENT. THIS RACHEL MADDOW VIDEO IS AS SHOCKING TO ME AS SOME OF THE THINGS THAT TRUMP HAS DONE. ARE THEY WILLING PAWNS IN AN UNACCEPTABLE INTERNATIONAL GAME? THEY HAVE BOTH TRIED TO LIMIT THE US SANCTIONS ON RUSSIA THAT OBAMA PLACED; THAT’S AT LEAST POSSIBLY AN ATTEMPT TO AID PUTIN DIRECTLY.

I CAN’T GET OVER THE SHEER NUMBER OF RUSSIAN CONNECTIONS THAT HAVE BEEN EXPOSED BETWEEN TRUMP AND HIS FAMILY, HIS ASSOCIATES AND THEIR MONETARY LINKS, TO A DOZEN OR MORE OF HIS APPOINTEES. AND YET, TRUMP SAYS THAT IT’S “A WITCH HUNT!” TODAY’S REPORT ON MUELLER’S SETTING UP A SECOND GRAND JURY ON THE WHOLE INCREASINGLY SPREADING MESS. SEE THE OTHER ARTICLE ON MUELLER’S ACTIONS EARLIER IN TODAY’S BLOG.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 8/2/17
Tillerson fears Moscow anger over counter-propaganda initiative
Nahal Toosi, foreign affairs correspondent for Politico, talks with Joy-Ann Reid about why Rex Tillerson is resisting utilizing tens of millions of dollars allocated for countering Russian and ISIS propaganda. Duration: 11:39



IS IT POSSIBLE THAT PRESIDENT TRUMP IS SIMPLY TOO WEAK TO BE A NEO-NAZI AUTOCRAT AFTER ALL? I HOPE SO, BUT PERHAPS HE NEEDS PSYCHIATRIC TREATMENT. IT IS JUST POSSIBLE THAT SOMEONE WITH THAT KIND OF EGO WHEN PLACED IN A POSITION THAT IS UNWINNABLE, COULD BECOME SUICIDAL OR UNRAVEL IN SOME OTHER WAY. I HOPE SOMEONE IN AUTHORITY WILL BE KEEPING A WATCH OVER HIM FOR SUCH THINGS. IF HE IS, ACTUALLY, IN A DANGEROUS CONDITION, HE SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM OFFICE AND NOT BE IN A POSITION TO BE MAKING DEALS, PUNCHING THE RED BUTTON, ETC.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/officials-start-ignore-the-incredible-shrinking-president?cid=eml_mra_20170803
Officials start to ignore the Incredible Shrinking President
08/03/17 08:40 AM—UPDATED 08/03/17 02:45 PM
By Steve Benen

Photograph -- U.S. President Donald Trump casts shadows on the wall as he walks with Poland's President Andrzej Duda at the end of a joint press conference, in Warsaw,... Czarek Sokolowski

Donald Trump hasn’t been shy in recent weeks about publicly slamming his own attorney general, Jeff Sessions, mocking him as “very weak.” Asked whether Sessions would remain at his post, the president was recently non-committal, saying only that “time will tell.”

And yet, new White House Chief of Staff John Kelly reportedly reached out to the attorney general directly over the weekend, reassuring Sessions that his position is safe, Trump’s rhetoric notwithstanding.

We don’t know exactly how Kelly put it, but given the circumstances, it’s likely the retired general told Sessions not to worry too much about what the president says. As CNBC’s John Harwood wrote yesterday, there’s a lot of this going around.

Increasingly, federal officials are deciding to simply ignore President Donald Trump.

As stunning as that sounds, fresh evidence arrives every day of the government treating the man elected to lead it as someone talking mostly to himself.

On Tuesday alone, the commandant of the Coast Guard announced he will “not break faith” with transgender service members despite Trump’s statement that they could no longer serve. Fellow Republicans in the Senate moved ahead with other business despite the president’s insistence that they return to repealing Obamacare. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said, “we certainly don’t blame the Chinese” for North Korea’s nuclear program after Trump claimed, “China could easily solve this problem.” And Vice President Mike Pence said the president and Congress speak in a “unified voice” on a bipartisan Russia sanctions bill Trump has signed, but not publicly embraced.

Harwood noted a recent LawFare piece from Jack Goldsmith, a top Justice Department official in the Bush/Cheney administration, who wrote, “What is most remarkable is the extent to which his senior officials act as if Trump were not the chief executive. Never has a president been so regularly ignored or contradicted by his own officials…. The President is a figurehead who barks out positions and desires, but his senior subordinates carry on with different commitments.”

This isn’t limited to the executive branch. Trump is ostensibly the head of the Republican Party, in addition to being president, working with like-minded allies who control Congress, but on Capitol Hill, GOP leaders also treat Trump’s directives as instructions that are easily ignored.

Trump recently insisted, for example, that the Senate hold no votes, on anything, until it passes a health care bill the White House approves of. Almost immediately thereafter, Senate Republican leaders said they were moving on from health care and scheduled a series of unrelated votes.

Similarly, at a White House event two weeks ago, Trump told Senate Republicans that, as far as he’s concerned, they shouldn’t leave D.C. until the party’s health care efforts come to a successful conclusion. This week, GOP senators decided to wrap up their work early and leave town for a multi-week break.

There was a time – say, before Jan. 20 of this year – when the words of a sitting president of the United States carried real weight, especially among those who serve in his administration and with his partisan allies. But increasingly, as Trump flails, his presidency shrinks, to the point that much of the government finds it more convenient to just ignore the amateur in the Oval Office, who doesn’t really know what he’s doing anyway.

It’s like we’re watching a president become a lame duck just six months after his inauguration.