Every little bit of this sounds as guilty as hell. An investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election didn't necessarily need to have anything to do with Donald Trump to be worthy of investigation, and since nothing really did leak to discredit Trump during the campaign, he sounds a bit pouty over the results of the election that he won.
Also, given that we know full well that his campaign was outreached by Russians claiming to have dirt on Hillary Clinton (via George Papadopoulos and Don Jr.), it's more troubling that the Trump campaign knew it was happening and never mentioned it. Which means they were benefitting from Russian rigging and did not care.
The paradox here is that investigating the Russian meddling was not nothing, and telling Putin to stop meddling was not nothing. That Trump's own administration is doing nothing, however, and that Trump is still so touchy about the Mueller investigation that is happening? Is proof of how very disingenuous this Twitter poutrage really is.
There's President Donald Trump, signing an executive order to, despite his happy-talk about the circumstances, re-open the market to insurance companies to offer plans that are low-cost, but offer basically nothing of any utility whatsoever. He also decided the time was right for the federal government to stop paying subsidies to insurance companies to pay for plans to low-income people, even though those plans still, by law, need to be subsidized. His reasoning is that the insurance companies are benefitting from this incredible largesse from the government (as if no services were provided, such as managing payments for health care), but his rationale for health care deregulation is that health insurance companies were being squeezed by the vise placed on the market.
It's pretty incoherent, right? NV Gov. Sandoval makes a great point--Trump's ACA changes are sabotage and hurt everybody. What Trump is doing costs low income and working class families more because their premiums will go up, and even for people who get their plans through their employer, their contributions will surely go up. The insurance companies get less, but still and all, the government is still paying more.
But this is just Trump following through on his election promises to undo Obamacare. He didn't promise to make anything better, and he definitely isn't going to. But it's a promise fulfilled, right? And since Congress can't, won't, and don't know how? Hah! He is teaching the GOP leadership how it gets done--executive privilege. In your face, pretend Republican-leadership!
Now, you could counter that Trump is, in the photo-op he tried to make, almost walking out the door without signing. Problem? Nope. He wants that applause that he nearly exited to. He doesn't care how he gets it. But if he has to sign--also awesome. He doesn't realize that his name is now all over how Obamacare dies. This is Trumpcare now. Or "Trump Doesn't Care". Anyway--he doesn't. Surprise!
We also were made aware this week that some of the national security "old hands" were trying out a plan in case Trump wanted to go for "the football"--that is to say, in case he wanted to start a nuclear war. Sure. Why wouldn't that be norm...no. We cannot call this normal.
Trump also this week threatened the licenses of news organizations who might have spilled a story that he wanted to increase the nuclear arsenal tenfold. Which I can totally see him doing. Both the 10X nukes thing and the outlawing news thing. Because he does not get the Constitution and of course the First Amendment thereof, and also he sort of thinks that the president with the most toys, wins.
No wonder Steve Bannon says there's only a 30% chance of Trump completing this term in office. He is really bad at all of this. And I didn't even get into Iran--which is my next post for sure.
I'm sure so many of us were waiting with bated breath to know whether or not President Trump was making an allegation from an understanding of facts revealed to him upon taking office, or just blowing off steam to keep his head from exploding. Maybe the FBI has looked into very interesting things happening under that roof, but it doesn't seem that President Obama was turning ears on the Trump campaign to "rig" things for Clinton.
My history regarding covering Senator John McCain has been one of serious criticism, and that is not something I easily set aside--as a public servant, he has long been about diminishing what government does for one domestically, and expanding what government does on the international stage. I have found him at times a diffident and biased actor--not always following through on political claims for what I have assumed was partisan reasons. But there is one thing about him I will say, especially in light of his recent diagnosis with glioblastoma, a difficult, aggressive, and generally tragic form of brain cancer--
Senator McCain is a hero and does have a code of honor. It isn't something he telegraphs, but something he just lives. I disagree with him politically, but especially in light of certain recent political events, I have come to find his occasional equivocations and arguments more honest than what I see from people boasting the same party label at times today. This isn't to praise nor bury him. I just wish him an easy time of it, because cancer is a son of a bitch of a disease and he's got a rotten one. And no one deserves what it can do.
(Which, in keeping with my traditions, is why I endorse keeping Obamacare alive, because this sort of shit happens to humans less fortunate than Senator McCain, who don't deserve it either, and who have families and lives and loved ones and jobs to do. Fuck cancer. Also, fuck Trumpcare, repeal and replace, or even just repealing. Because this happens to fathers, and grandfathers, and respected elder statespeople. And yes, I am using McCain's diagnosis to raise a point. I don't know that he would go so far as to use it, politically, himself. But of the people I know who have had and survived cancer-- care matters, treatment matters, and access is a matter of human welfare--fully in the purview of Congress. I would like to see him have an understanding now of what less-privileged folks already know--they utterly need access, affordability, regulations that protect them and their pre-existing conditions, and how. But what I like is not McCain's problem. His own bout with serious disease is. )
There's something a little weird about watching President Trump and House Republicans celebrate the vote to repeal and replace the ACA: there really is still the Senate vote to go, which isn't actually a done deal, and this bill wasn't rated by the CBO and is pretty likely a dud when it comes to lowering premiums for all but the young and healthy, and will likely result in un-insuring about 24 million folks, and raising premiums for some older and sicker people, and making it all but impossible for many people with pre-existing conditions to get insured. They can pop cheap beer and have a Rose Garden chuckle over handing a Republican president a little victory--but it's kind of grim.
Now, I don't doubt that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell might just take Trump up on one of his tweets and do away with the 60 vote legislative barrier, just as he did for confirming Neil Gorsuch to the SCOTUS, and get this mangy dog of a health care bill pushed through the Senate with a bare majority. Why is it that I don't doubt that?
Because they can. Not because it's great legislation or better for their constituents. But because they probably promised X number of donors and can count on y number of voters to forget about this issue before their election comes up.
And they can also count on people not realizing that the ACA really did get more people covered, and for less money than it might have taken. I've never been certain that policy coverage in the media did the best job of explaining how the ACA worked-and plenty of the language against the ACA led me to suspect that many Republicans don't really get how insurance works, or what a pool is and how costs are distributed in a larger pool of healthier-trending people.
What will especially suck, if the current AHCA passes, is that pre-existing conditions will create a kind of second-class citizen for health purposes. Things like pregnancy, C-Section, domestic violence, rape, heavy periods, acne, could cause higher premiums or coverage denials for many people (quite a lot of them female-bodied). This doesn't sit well with me--it seems prejudicial. Things like asthma, allergies, high blood pressure, can affect certain (ethnic/racial) groups and certain regions more decidedly--which also seems prejudicial.
It bothers me that this might be viewed as a "win" for Donald Trump--can you believe he's even president, and this gets passed in the kind of Tea-party GOP House? Should Paul Ryan be smiling because he won one, and won't get a challenger to his Speakership anytime real soon--or does this vote for an unpopular change in health care law bode poorly for him come 2018?
We'll just have to see. But it sticks in my craw that so many of the "pre-existing conditions" that will drop women from coverage under the "grab'em by the pussy" POTUS' watchful eyes, stem from their victimization--DV, sexual assault, even certain reproductive health care treatment. Does he even see us as people--not the sum of our confusing lady business? Who knows--to me he is always a groper.
It's sort of hard for me to fathom the kind of steadfastness to a meme that conservatives have for the notion of an "apology tour". Admitting that former US administrations have done things that did not sit well with other nations, or even with populations within the US, is not to apologize for them, but to acknowledge the truths of the broad sweep of history. It is an adult thing that President Obama does in his speeches (which are intended not for a specific, home-based audience, but for the world, which is something the PEOTUS might want to learn is necessary), and an honest thing, but what it is not is a puling offering of apologies for things hat happened outside of the scope of his administration.
So it is even harder for me to see how even the conservative hindtitterati (is that pageview thingie in the upper right hand corner for real even?) or the 2008 GOP VP candidate's Twitter feed, can somehow imply that President Obama is apologizing for Pearl Harbor--which is, um, something the Japanese did and that Japan PM Shinzo Abe came as close as we'll get to an apology for (previous attempts by former Japanese governments having been denied the opportunity to apologize--as we deemed it inappropriate). Which I pointed out when I noted that Obama had not actually apologized for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.(In the comments.)
What seems to actually rankle is the idea that Obama had the audacity to note that "We must resist the urge to demonize those who are different." Because that, even for conservatives, has to be a reference to Trumpism, no? After all, who else was on about Mexicans being rapists and Muslims being terrorists and African-Americans being violent and unemployed and living in ghettos, right?
Well, if you want to see it that way, okay--he was pointing out that a future Trump administration would probably be all about discrimination and that's really regrettable--thanks, conservatives for pointing it out! Why did you vote for the guy? (Ha ha! Kidding!) But no, he was pointing out that FDR--our liberal hero, singled out totally innocent Japanese-Americans on the basis of what another nation did, and that that thing was pretty damn unfair. Preconceptions about whole peoples get in the way of treating them fairly. Dunno why it would be read some other way.
Anyway, this is just a reminder that Trump isn't some weird asteroid that crashed into the middle of the GOP and made everyone go all "pod people" in some 1950's B-movie fashion. He is the end result of viewing history through a very smudgy lens.
GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump hit on a pretty good, or at least, reliable, Republican talking point by hitting on the news regarding expected premium rises on the ACA exchanges, but because Trump is Trump, he sort of had a message for the GOP faithful, but he eated it:
"I can say that all of my employees are having a tremendous problem with Obamacare," he said with scores of workers at the resort clustered behind him. "What they are going through with their health care is horrible because of Obamacare, so we'll repeal and replace it."
The statement raised several questions. Since the law requires any business with 50 or more employees to provide health insurance or pay a fine, why would "all" of Trump's employees be getting their insurance through Obamacare and having problems with it? Does he not provide health insurance?
Right. So he introduces people who he gives a paycheck to and has them freely and enthusiastically praise Great Leader Trump, and then sort of doesn't know whether in His Munificence he gives them healthcare or not, or whether they are at the mercy of a cruel and absurd iteration of Big Stupid Government. Way to go, you! So Trump has either revealed he does not exactly know what an Obamacare is or how it works, whilst simultaneously signaling he hasn't the shakiest consideration of what's up with his employees' pay-packet. (Does he know what his businesses do?) Maybe both. Or maybe he's just lying his face off about the whole shebang--let's face it, the joy of Trump is that he'll "keep you in suspense".
I dunno. Maybe it's just my relentless notion that politics should be about ideas, but isn't it kind of fuckery to make a speech about Obamacare in response to sort of bad news about how ACA premiums in fact are going up (albeit not in an unpredictable way, nor a way that wouldn't be a "tweak" as far as regulating the insurance companies goes--if you even think they need to have their asses regulated at all goes--and I say we sure do)--
But Trump didn't go after the policy argument. He just lets us understand he will take down the whole thing (which has increased the percentage of covered people in this country saving who all knows how many lives?) and replace it with something amazing to be determined later in probably a haphazard and dumb way like this hotel/destination advert pretending to be a political rally. Because his campaign is a dumpster fire, and his administration would not be better run, because why would he even bother?
Sometimes, when someone uses a metaphor, they are taking a little poetic license, dressing up things a bit, just adding a dash of color to their wording. And on the other hand, especially in politics, metaphors remind us that words mean things. For example, when IL Senator Mark Kirk, who is challenged by Rep. Tammy Duckworth in a contest for his US Senate seat, compares President Obama to a drug dealer in a contorted metaphor about the Iran deal, it might be necessary to wonder what the hell he meant. Do drug dealers regularly pay ransoms for hostages, I wonder? Is there anything about securing the release of Americans from a hostile government that is particularly drug-dealerish? There isn't really any valid reason for his metaphor as such, except to paint the President as some kind of "thug" (hmm) because he doesn't care for his policies. I don't know how one pays hostage-takers ransom with their own money. That's not how ransom works is it?
This isn't a metaphor that is new with Kirk, anyway. AR Senator Tom Cotton described President Obama as behaving like a drug cartel. There's a lot wrong what Tom Cotton says about the Iran deal as there would be . Not sure how conducting foreign policy is a drug-dealing thing, but ok. I get that they feel some kind of way about the deal--but what the hell is up with calling Obama a drug-dealer?
Maybe they have an Obeezy for Sheezy problem with him. I don't know. Except maybe I do. This line of criminalizing, Un-Americanizing, Un-Christianinzing, has been going on for too long for observers not to gather what, exactly, is up with those kinds of comments.
But it is the jig, damn it. The jig is up. It's more than dogs that heard that one. Mark Kirk, if that is what you have left, it is a terribly bad raft to cling to.
Rep. Tammy Duckworth better win the hell out of this Senate race--because metaphors can hurt. They also reveal how one looks at things. And he's got this thing very wrong.
One of the things that bothers me about Obama criticism is that the dismissal of what Barack Obama has done as president seems to rest on an idea that one president, in one or two terms, can unfuxxor a Great Recession, while trying to win assorted foreign conflicts aginst terrorism, and get nothing but good press and approbation along the way. Despite opposition to things he might have been able to do to help more. Although the success of the recovery isn't an absolute success--many good things have happened. The rebound of full-time employment, while part-time jobs stayed stable--is part of the picture. Full-time jobs are awesomesauce, they have bennies and security--and that they are the jobs gained in the economy as opposed to a boost in part-time employment is significant--but again--that's just part of the picture--I want to tell a whole story in numbers.
I can't blame the media and the GOP for saying things like "Obama secretly sent money to Iran" at this point in the news cycle--hell, there has to be some break from 24-7 Trump coverage. But in case folks missed it, and as I pointed out back in January, there was an awful lot of Iran news happening at once, the Obama Administration was pretty open about the first payment of $400 million from a legal settlement being sent to Iran.
It "looks like" something. That doesn't mean it is something. This might be delightful to the ears of people who want a scandal around the Iran nuclear deal, but I'm kind of with the folks who don't want worldwide proliferation and first use nuke strategy (unlike He Whom I've Already Named.)
Despite my known predilection for Italian men of known fitness, and my appreciation for such things as Melrose Place and Janet Jackson videos, the idea that a hunky piece of has-been can mislabel my president's religion with the intent of both dismissing Obama and insulting all the people who practice Islam is totally not hot.
What I'm saying is, I no longer would like to get between you and your Calvins.
The thing we all know is that we are mortal, but some know it in the intimate way of knowing--that life is not only precious and fleeting, but can be stolen. The survivors of loved ones whose lives were taken by another share a knowledge that it should not be this way. How does taking any life enhance that of another? The memorial in Dallas for the five fallen officers whose lives were stolen are a remembrance of their lives, but also a discussion of the context for these deaths, and the deaths of the people who brought about the protest at which their lives were taken.
It's contentious, certainly. Partisans will have their say, and that's not unexpected. But I don't care what partisans have to say on the subject. We are all, ultimately, mortal, and the time we have here to experience the one life we have is precious.
It is too precious to stay in hater mode. Too precious to waste. If any speech today pissed you off, be more pissed at the reality that, so what? You are going to die. And you aren't the only one. But you don't need to be an actuary to know all deaths aren't so equal, and that some are on society. How we do what we do to other people.
And what was said about the job cops face--that they are not so much a thin, blue line as a thin, blue bandage we place on a society that is bleeding out because the rest of us don't pick up the slack? True. Very true. And true also that not all the decisions they have to make are fair or without racial bias. And true that it's human to mourn the police slain, and those slain by the police. These understandings aren't exclusive of one another.
I don't know how any of that is problematic, but here we are. Here we are.
When politicians mistakenly insist that we need to identify the rise of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh, al-Qaeda, and other militant groups that formed within majority-Muslim nations as "radical Islam", they are using a framing that reinforces the claims those groups make towards being genuine practitioners of their faith and in some respects "disappears" the reality that these groups largely prey on Islamic populations.
But when radicalized people make their assaults within Saudi Arabia, and particularly at the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina, then it becomes a little harder to say these are people who revere the culture and holy places of Islam. When we look at the actions of ISIS-claimed attacks in Istanbul, in Dhaka, and in Baghdad, it becomes harder to say that the war ISIS is waging is particularly against "the West". The problem doesn't seem to be merely geographical or religious--it is political and it is based in hate.
This comment by writer Xeni Jardin pretty much sums up what is incredibly wrong with the claim that ISIS is simply "Islamic":
Dude ISIS is bombing Muslim people in Muslim communities during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan how is ISIS Muslim no they're psychopaths
All of these events during this holy month of Ramadan probably have their own political loci--but the character of their being heinous and also directed at Muslims suggests clearly, to me, that categorizing such terrorism as "radical Islam" is woefully incomplete. While it might be useful to address regional issues to some extent, the diversity and range of ISIS-claimed attacks makes understanding why they are happening basically useless in any religious context whatsoever.
These attacks are "radical" in the sense of being abnormal and violent, and "Islamic" in the sense of being carried out by people professing (for what it's worth) that religion. But they might as well be anarchists, nihilists, fascists, or any other-ists. To create such misery, their worldview is obviously trash, whatever they want to call it.
This page is very apropos to my comment, so let me just explain that this 8th investigation onto the Benghazi event has been one of the longest Congressional investigations in US history, and one of the least necessary. I'm saying that even though the Select Committee on Benghazi's very own report claims that it "Fundamentally Changes the Public’s Understanding of the 2012 Terrorist Attacks that Killed Four Americans". It does not. What they have produced is an 800 page report that is largely duplicative of earlier efforts that on balance has, as some of its weightiest criticisms, that politics played a part in statement the White House and other federal agencies made after the event, and that nothing was done to stop the tragic attacks--even though it is acknowledged that nothing could really be done in the time that elapsed and there is no real evidence that any prior concrete warning existed that such an attack would occur.
If there's any question about the part politics played in the statements made post-Benghazi attack, I'd like to point out that there's a timeline showing when this became politicized, and the answer is it happened right away, and it wasn't the Obama Administration doing it. Look at the date. Mitt Romney, the GOP candidate for president, was condemning the Obama Administration for a statement that came out of the Cairo Embassy prior to the Benghazi attack, when Secretary of State Clinton's immediate response was to condemn the perpetrators:
I condemn in the strongest terms the attack on our mission in Benghazi today. As we work to secure our personnel and facilities, we have confirmed that one of our State Department officers was killed. We are heartbroken by this terrible loss. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and those who have suffered in this attack.
This evening, I called Libyan President Magariaf to coordinate additional support to protect Americans in Libya. President Magariaf expressed his condemnation and condolences and pledged his government’s full cooperation.
Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.
But 800 pages all on its lonesome is a major read, and gosh dang it, who reads anymore? So partisans are liable to just depend on the opinions they had before. And if your opinion was RW conspiracy-theory trash, like Trump lawyer Michael Cohen's opinion, well, you'll stay ignorant.
I almost can't be disgusted by crap like this Trump Tweet:
If you want to know about Hillary Clinton's honesty & judgment, ask the family of Ambassador Stevens.
I hope this puts the travesty of trying to make political hay out of these dead patriots behind us, but as Steve M. documents here, some folks have even made this their bread and butter. I don't really expect it to end.
So, take the examples in American history of the Middle Passage, slavery, segregation, lynching, Native American genocide, Japanese internment camps--
And actually see the only really racist thing as being that part of American history when a non-white person actually became president;
and yet also, imagine looking at all Barack Obama ever brought to the table or accomplished as president, and only be able to see that he was a black guy.
Well, yes, he took the bait. He decided to call her "Pocahontas" with one side of his face, and call her "very racist" with the other side. And he calls on former Senator Scott Brown (will travel for senate elections) to offer his suggestion that Warren could get a DNA test.
Uh huh. She should show her papers proving her pedigree. Neat trick, you guys.
Tell me--how well did this:
Work for the former Senator from New Hamp---shit, I meant Massachusetts? Not at all?
And yet regardless of what a DNA test would reveal, Elizabeth Warren is still a Senator and way popular with her base. I don't know who Brown is popular with. Trump from the looks of things.
Just like attacking Clinton for her religion, or Ted Cruz for his, or Obama's birth certificate, Trump goes right to that identity politics thing and attacks people for who they might be. It's kind of weird. Is Elizabeth Warren pretending she's a tribal leader--no. She's just a Senator from Massachusetts doing a pretty good job of knocking his privileged selfish ass whenever she gets a chance.
But you can see how his attacks are just what a conspiracy theorist useless-ass birther would do. Of course. Of course!
As you all probably know, Senator John McCain is facing his second re-election race since Obama beat him in the 2008 race for the White House. It hasn't been easy. And it might not get better. The fact of the matter is, the top of a national ticket matters, and if the AZ Sen race seems to be close (or has his opponent, Ann Kirkpatrick, with a slight lead) the reality is, a fairly unpopular, not to say unqualified, GOP 2016 presidential candidate like Donald Trump--the man who got something like five Vietnam deferments and had the nerve to question McCain's own war hero status--could have a negative impact on his re-election chances.
But that doesn't mean the long-time Senator, with an underserved record of consistency and "Straight Talk", can't try to capitalize on Trump-sounding rhetoric. What McCain tried today was a bit of a Muslim-bait and switch--he blamed President Obama personally for the Orlando attack, calling him "directly responsible" for the murders. Then, before everyone had the chance to work out that the roots of ISIS started with the Iraq War and that the SOFA Obama was adhering to was for total withdrawal by 2011 and was signed by President George W. Bush, McCain tried to backpedal and explain. In a way that basically reinforced why what he was saying was bullshit. But as I linked to back in my 2008 criticism, there's a precedent for that kind of weasel-y Muslim-baiting.
Which is all just my round-about way of pointing out that while some Trump comments appear unique--they have a solid GOP lineage. McCain has been part of the problem long before the "Trumpening" of the GOP. Heck, he damn-near prepared the way.
"There are a lot of people who think maybe he doesn't want to get it. A lot of people think maybe he doesn't want to know about it. I happen to think he just doesn't know what he's doing. But there are many people who think he doesn't want to get it, he doesn't want to see what's really happening."
Trump is implying that a US President, for any reason, would want an attack. As if Trump didn't go around congratulating himself for it having happened. Sickening.
It makes a kind of sense that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton gave speeches to two very different groups this Friday--they are two very different candidates and they do not substantially share a worldview. Donald Trump spoke in front of the Faith and Freedom Conference, where he was protested (because I think he might actually being paying protesters at this point to attract cameras and further the idea that he is an exciting and dangeous candidate, if you want to know what sort of things I think about this weird Potemkin campaign) Hillary Clinton spoke in front of Planned Parenthood, the embattled reproductive health provider that has faced actual existential threats from the very sort of people who attend the Faith and Freedom Conference.
That right there strikes me as very different! For what it's worth, the Faith and Freedom shindy is an event at which a sitting US Senator who isn't even especially known as a firebrand suggested that it was funny to pray for President Obama's death--a joke which isn't even especially new. It's also a nice place for small-child hijacker and fetal snuff porn aficionado Carly Fiorina to assert that she is a feminist--in what way I guess we just have to imagine--who does not support Hillary Clinton. Well slap my ass and call me cynical! I could have called that one, Carly Obvious. (She can go sit next to Jill Stein and they can chat about how Hillary is a bad mother.) Trump made people wait for his insubstantial Telepromptered speech, where he mostly avowed how he would support Christian Americans and appoint pro-life judges.
On the other hand, Hillary Clinton gave a speech in front of Planned Parenthood, and talked about how reproductive justice is a part of human rights. She understood the economic, social, and government policy implications of women taking charge of our bodies and reproductive rights. That means a lot to me. She understands that the personal is political. She represents a part of that movement where we as women came of age knowing that our very bodies were not assumed to be our own, but the possessions of men, or government, or churches. And where women were raised to accept that decisions should be made on our behalf for us, because our lady-brains shouldn't be trusted with making the choices that as adult women, we needed to make for our very own survival and for the success of our own children. The ideas, after all, that were expressed by folks at the event Trump spoke at. She is keeping score of how our rights as women and our ability to access reproductive justice is regularly clipped by religious right haters.
She gets it--Trump never would. He gives his lip service to the religious right as an obligation to his party--but I think Clinton opposes it as I do--because it is specifically harmful to me and the people I love. This matters. It matters an awful lot.
The meeting that took place with Donald Trump and a handful of Republican lawmakers was partially billed as a meeting between Trump and Paul Ryan--part of the process I've been calling "getting Ryan to 'yes'". While Speaker Ryan didn't endorse Trump (yet) I'm pretty sure I heard the strains of the traditional wedding march "Momma Brought a Shotgun and Daddy Brought a Jug" composed in G minor for the world's smallest fiddle playing in the background.
It was a positive meeting. They are very convinced that Trump is so conservative enough for the likes of the GOP establishment. Which comes just in time for the revelation that Trump's former butler is a racist conspiracy theorist who called for President Obama's lynching.
Now, I'd would say a man can't be blamed for what an employee does with his private social media, but it certainly is an uncomfortable reminder that the main objection a lot of people would have regarding Trump isn't his conservative resume. He's not being protested everywhere he goes because he's an acceptable conservative to the establishment--it's because he's a racist conspiracy theorist. And he fully intends to continue using being a bottom-scraper in his campaign.
So while it's very nice that Trump can sometimes put on big-boy manners, I think it's appalling that his "charm offensive" is being read as anything other than offensive, period. But it certainly tells me something I already know that the GOP establishment is willing to work with it if it's all they've got.
