July 31, 2017

Trump has run through 3 Directors of Communication already - 4 if you count Sean Spicer temping

In the position.

This has got to be a record of some kind



https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/07/31/anthony-scaramucci-removed-as-white-house-communications-director/?utm_term=.d350d893d059

The abrupt removal of Scaramucci, a wealthy financier who had backed Trump during the campaign, punctuated a day that began with a Trump tweet declaring that despite the upheaval of the past two weeks, there was “no WH chaos!” in his administration.

No other post in the White House has experienced as much upheaval as the communications director job. It was first given to Jason Miller, a Trump campaign aide who stepped down from the post during the transition before even being sworn in. It was then given to Republican operative Michael Dubke, who resigned in May. In the intervening weeks, Spicer had taken on those responsibilities in addition to his role as press secretary until Scaramucci was named to the position on July 21 over his objections.

July 23, 2017

Anyone else notice that Trump actually had odd 3-way conversation at G20 dinner?

There has been quite a bit of reporting about Trump having a long meeting with Putin at the G20 dinner, deservedly so given Trump's ties to Russia and that he had to go out of his way to do this, first hand signalling down the length of the table to Putin and then later having that 2nd meeting with him.

What I haven't seen reported on and what I noticed in one video of the dinner is that right before Trump did his hand signals to Putin, he had engaged in what looks to be an engaged discussion with the Saudi leader. He then does an exaggeratedly casual stroll to his seat and immediately launches into his hand signals to Putin.

Most of the videos covering this don't show the Trump Saudi conversation. Maybe I'm just feeling overly paranoid these days, but this has been bugging me ever since G20, especially since Trump seemed to very specifically focus on these two encounters at the dinner.


https://m.

July 21, 2017

Trump follows up asking about pardons by unexpected Office Govt Ethics appointment

Schaub resigned early, with an effective date of July 19th and Finlayson was expected to be appointed as acting director.

Instead the White House promoted David Apol to the interim position.

Schaub had some pointed words to say about that.

Hmmm, Trump is going to need a bigger dump truck for the Friday news dump this week.


http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/343121-white-house-chooses-interim-head-of-ethics-agency

July 17, 2017

Seattle mayoral candidate debate tonight, Mon July 17th on King 5

http://www.king5.com/news/politics/seattle-mayoral-debate/456915171


In a Decision 2017 Special co-presented by KING 5 News and KUOW Public Radio, the six leading candidates in the race for Seattle mayor face off Monday night for their only televised primary election debate.

KING 5's Natalie Brand and KUOW's Ross Reynolds will co-moderate the debate held at Impact Hub Seattle. Twenty-one people are running to succeed Ed Murray, who dropped out of the race, but we'll hear from the current leading candidates:

Jenny Durkan
Jessyn Farrell
Bob Hasegawa
Michael McGinn
Cary Moon
Nikkita Oliver

~~~

The debate will air live on KING 5, KONG and KUOW - and streamed live on king5.com, KING 5 Facebook and YouTube on Monday July 17 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. The broadcast will be followed by an online Debate Extra: an informal live Q&A with the candidates streamed on king5.com and Facebook.

July 9, 2017

Add it up. Trump and Putin skip Merkel's meetings about climate change, but meet together

for longer than planned, along with Tillerson: Mr Drill for More Oil, preferably in partnership with Russia.

Even Melania managed to miss the spouse's climate change info tour, being 'kept from going' by protests.

Then, Putin seems to speak for United States on climate policy.

And where is Trump when he's not enthusiastically meeting with Putin? He's alternately spacing out during presentations he did attend or pouting by himself at the table.

Some snippets from a few reports:
http://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/07/melania-trump-donald-trump-vladimir-putin-g20-meeting
Donald Trump had his highly anticipated meeting with Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, on Friday, talking to the Russian leader for two hours and 16 minutes, well over their appointed half-hour. Trump pressed Putin on the topic of Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election, and the two also discussed North Korea, according to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was in the room during the meeting, along with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The two leaders were apparently so engrossed in conversation that First Lady Melania Trump attempted to get them to wrap up the conversation but was unsuccessful.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/g20-hamburg-trudeau-1.4194345
Merkel scheduled a tour of the German climate change centre in Hamburg for G20 spouses. The centre uses supercomputers to model climate change impacts around the world and First Lady Melania Trump was to have been part of it.
However Melania was unable to leave the residence where she was staying Friday thanks to violent protests which have left hundreds injured and required the Germans to call in even more than the 20,000 police initially on hand to try and keep the peace.

Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin weren't part of the Friday afternoon discussion on climate change.
Their much-anticipated first official bilateral meeting since Trump took office was planned at the same time, leaving German officials frustrated and angry.


http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/08/europe/g20-merkel-trump-communique/index.html
Officials had been at an impasse over an increasingly isolationist United States and Trump's climate change and trade policies for most of the summit, and Merkel made it clear the United States had made talks difficult.
"Unfortunately -- and I deplore this -- the United States of America left the climate agreement, or rather announced their intention of doing this," Merkel said as she closed the summit and presented a G20 declaration.
~~~
After the summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin called climate change a "major issue" and said Merkel had reached a "good compromise."
"Although the US will withdraw, they are nevertheless still prepared to carry on now (with) discussions on this subject. It seems to me this is a very positive point and can be chalked up to the successes of Angela Merkel," Putin said.

July 7, 2017

The real reason Melania skipped the tour - it included a climate research center visit

http://www.dw.com/en/g20-underway-in-hamburg-amid-violent-protests-live-updates/a-39589687

14:48 As the world leaders continue their closed-door discussions; their spouses are experiencing some of Hamburg's highlights, albeit with some amendments because of the ongoing protests and tense security situation in the city. The program, hosted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel's husband Joachim Sauer, included a boat trip around Hamburg's harbor and a visit to a climate research center. US First Lady Melania Trump had to skip the boat trip because protests prevented her from leaving her guesthouse. Instead of visiting the research center, the spouses will attend a presentation by climate scientists at a hotel. No word yet on whether Melania Trump will be able to attend that presentation, but she expressed support for those injured in protests via Twitter.



Yes, the media is reporting that she skipped the tour because of the protestors.

And yes, G20 protests can be quite strong and are likely even more intense given Trump's terrible policies.

Yet, Trump made it to his meetings and other spouses made it to the tour.

I would bet that she generally did not want to go on the tour with the other spouses and specifically wanted to avoid what is certainly overwhelming scientific evidence of climate change at that research center.

Question - is that aspect of the tour even being included in most reporting about this?

Update: while I was typing this up, I noticed that info was added about the visit to the climate research center was changed to a climate presentation at a hotel out of security concerns.

Hmm, what are the odds she'll 'be able' to attend that?

July 4, 2017

As Trump and his cronies like Pruitt work to privatize the USA, I say "This Land is Your Land, This

Land is My Land."

And the more they try to funnel ownership from all the people here to the wealthy few, the stronger I say, especially on this day, this 4th of July, that this land is made for you and me, in all of its beauty, in all its complexity, in all of it sustaining generations of healthy diversity.

They can try to seize it from the people, they can try to strip away its natural wealth and hoard it for themselves, they can try to ruin our health and kill our spirit.

In the end, they will not succeed.

https://m.

July 2, 2017

Bernstein: "the nexus of fake news in America is the Trump White House."

https://m.