Articles chosen with care. Comments welcomed. Linked articles in bold purple
◆ Trump’s twitter fury, aimed at MSNBC’s Morning Joe and its hosts, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski
The Washington Post headline says, quite accurately: ” Trump and ‘Morning Joe’: How a long and ugly feud just got even uglier”
Comments:
- Yes, Scarborough and Brzezinski have said outrageous, hyperbolic, defamatory things about Donald Trump
- Many other media outlets have done the same
- Far more show consistent partisan bias, damaging their reputations, hurting the President, and eroding trust in media
No, that is absolutely no excuse for the President of the United States to respond with noxious, personal attacks
- Trump’s response would be objectionable, but not so different from many Twitter spats, if he were merely a private citizen
- But he is not a private citizen and should not be held to those standards. As President, he is not only a political figure, he is the head of state. One requirement of that office is to maintain dignity and decorum consistent with the office.
Politically, this is self-inflicted damage to Trump. Few approve it except for his most avid supporters. And it takes him off-message, at a time when Americans want results on healthcare and taxes.
But the worse damage is to our public life and discourse, which had already sunk so low, and to trust in our institutions, which are crucial to our democracy.
◆ Far Different from the first time: “Trump travel ban takes effect to minimal disruption“ (Fox News)
The revised order, which the US Supreme Court approved in part (with some aspects reserved for future decisions), covers 6 countries and does not block foreign individuals with strong personal ties to the US.
A scaled-down version of President Donald Trump’s travel ban took effect at 8 p.m. ET Thursday, with none of the dramatic scenes of protest and chaos that greeted the original version of Trump’s executive order five months ago.
The Departments of Homeland Security, State and Justice went ahead with the implementation after the Supreme Court partially restored the order earlier this week. –Fox News
Comment on Media bias:
The Fox report was straightforward. Others, not so much.
It was almost impossible to find a news report that actually gave the news instead of an editorial. The news is that the revised ban went into effect, worked smoothly (so far), and met with only modest demonstrations at airports, far different from the bureaucratic mess and large demonstrations that surrounded the initial order.
Kudos to the BBC for this neutral headline: “Trump travel ban comes into effect for six countries.”
Bronx cheer for many others. CNN headline makes no mention of the smooth rollout and modest demonstrations. It does mention further court challenges, even though the main one will come in the autumn at SCOTUS. The challenges are from Democratic state AGs, such as Hawaii, and they mainly ask for clarification. A nothingburger.
Most of the headlines looked like this. Others emphasized the demonstrations.
◆ Major legal victory: Jury decides US can seize a major Manhattan skyscraper, owned by Iran (New York Times)
The jury . . . found that the Alavi Foundation, which owns 60 percent of the 36-floor skyscraper at 650 Fifth Avenue, violated United States sanctions against Iran and engaged in money laundering through its partnership with Assa Corporation, a shell company for an Iranian state-controlled bank that had owned the remaining 40 percent. . . .
The [US] government has agreed to distribute proceeds from the building’s sale, which could bring as much as $1 billion, to the families of victims of Iranian-sponsored terrorist attacks, including the Sept. 11 attacks. –New York Times
Comment: The same foundation has made donations to Columbia University (link here). The stench runs deep.
◆ Washington football team will remain the Redskins. Native American groups and DOJ drop lawsuit after Supreme Court ruling. (Washington Post)
◆ Major lawsuit again San Francisco State University over its systematic anti-Semitism, including violent suppression of Jewish speakers, shouted curses, calls for an “intifada,” etc. The suit alleges the university administration was indifferent to repeated complains and actively protected the disrupters. (Newsweek)
The lawsuit has been filed by a pro bono organization, the Lawfare Project. The suit
calls SFSU “among the worst of the worst offenders and is largely recognized as being among the most anti-Semitic campuses in the country.”
The heckling of Barkat is one of several incidents that the suit argues contributed to an atmosphere hostile to Jewish students, one that was created with the alleged complicity of the school’s administrations. –Newsweek, reporting on Lawfare Project’s suit against SFSU
Comment: Long overdue. The SFSU administration actually blamed the Israelis for one disruption against them, saying the only reason the mayor of Jerusalem (Nir Barkat) came to speak at SFSU was that he knew the Palestinians and the leftist allies at SFSU would riot to prevent it–and that’s just what Barkat wanted.
So, this is the logic: the mayor of a large city comes to speak at your university; your students riot and prevent him; you blame the mayor; and then, after promising citizens the rioters would be punished, you do nothing at all.
Those administrators should be held fully and personally accountable. Their next jobs should be flipping burgers until they are replaced by robots.
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Stick with me as I explain why.
The bad news stories never stop. Ivanka’s husband, Jared Kushner, the golden boy and presidential favorite—Trump’s senior advisor–could face, thanks to the FBI investigation, public humiliation and, worse yet, indictment. A back channel communication with Russia? What was Jared thinking and why wasn’t he fully forthcoming about his meetings with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S.
Trump, my hunch, is back to asking himself, “Who knew that being president would be so hard? So complicated? So much boring work?”
Take the 2018 midterms: The Democrats take back the House, Nancy Pelosi becomes Speaker, and impeachment proceedings commence.
And the Oval Office? The thrill is gone. It’s not CEO-sized and I miss gazing at my Trump Tower office walls festooned with framed magazine covers featuring me. I miss my unfailingly discreet secretary. I miss not having to obsess over leaks. And leave it to Time to report that I insist on two scoops of vanilla ice cream with my chocolate cream pie while everyone else gets one, and that my boy scout vice president requests a fruit plate.
The only potential conflict is that Comey was a senior aide to Mueller. But I don’t think that will affect Mueller one iota.
My guess is that his lack of discipline, hubris, and inexperience led him to think that he was dealing with roughly the same problem (and people) who handle garbage removal and concrete in Manhattan.
Increasing concern for unstable, chaotic “leadership” from the White House, which means
Comey claims to have written a memo-to-self after the meeting. He held it secretly for three months and then had friends leak it to the press on Tuesday. The anonymous friends read excerpts from the memo and did not release it to the press. They kept their own identities secret, as well. 
But there are problems with interpreting the information we currently have as an attempt to obstruct justice, which is how the Democrats and their favorite media are spinning it.
But there is a huge irony here. The media’s main claim is that Trump endangered the US with his leaks.
At least three of the wanted North Koreans caught an Emirates flight to Dubai from Jakarta late on the same day, an immigration office official in the Indonesian capital told Reuters. Malaysia’s Star newspaper reported that all four had returned to Pyongyang.
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