Trump Boxed In, or Bolton Boxed Out?

Not for nothing, but NSA John Bolton was in Mongolia while all this was going down, so it's just possible the entire point was that Bolton not be in the know about everything. Trump foreign policy has a history of one hand not knowing what the other is doing. Also, Trump still calls John Bolton "Mike", so maybe they just aren't that tight.

Anyhow, I just think it's interesting (not amusing, not exactly) to find Bolton sputtering about Trump being boxed-in regarding a diplomatic issue as opposed to being boxed-in over a military one.

In other news, Iran has breached the limit on uranium production, which probably would not have occurred if SOME PEOPLE didn't just tear up the agreement that ensured they wouldn't.

TWGB: Ready Individual One?

One way to set the stage for a busy news Friday is to note that former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently sort of read President Trump for filth by saying things that Trump critics don't even find surprising:

“So often, the president would say here’s what I want to do and here’s how I want to do it, and I would have to say to him, ‘Mr. President I understand what you want to do but you can’t do it that way. It violates the law. It violates treaty,’’ Tillerson said, before reiterating a claim he made before he was ousted on March 13—that “there’s no question” Russia meddled in the 2016 election.

Trump did not take that well, and of course made a Tweet about it. But leaving that specific kind of knee-jerk response to things happening around him, here is a sample of Trump's "Boom" Twitter stylings (the venting Trump seems to do to keep his head from exploding when the pressure is on):

Yeah. I'm not going to bother refuting that hot mess. I'm just pointing it out as a symptom of a person who is not suffering from a case of anything "very legal and very cool" .  This is a person who is actually being sued over his bullshit charity, and over the emoluments clause. New York is also investigating possible tax fraud based on a well-researched report on how Trump got so "rich" (tax evasion, inheritance and super groovy loans!) This is a person who, during the 2016 presidential campaign, settled for millions over Trump University that was an actual scam (a settlement not so long ago approved, by the way).  Even if there is no Trump/Russia collusion, there is the definitely not okay hush money paid to mistresses which are basically illegal campaign donations, and his probably illegal campaign coordination with the NRA. Trump's way of life is experiencing legal jeopardy because of things he does, and then kind of denying that they even happened even though we are looking right at him. It has mostly worked for him, but I don't think he's ever tried to spin so many plates at one time.

Take the response he made to the filings today regarding former lawyer Michael Cohen and former campaign manager Paul Manafort:

I think a Tweet that claims he's totally cleared is pretty weird considering he is basically factually named as "Individual-1" who seems to have suborned perjury and directed campaign fraud, which are crimes. A really good explainer of the Friday filings is laid out at Lawfare. But I'm struck by the idea that  Trump's response to this is a flat-out denial, when we were told by Trump that his lawyer Rudy Giuliani (who apparently occasionally experiences nightmares),  has an 87 page rebuttal to Mueller's claims.  Or, well, maybe there actually isn't anything. 

Tillerson told us Trump doesn't like to read things--is Trump counting on his fan club also not reading the black and white reality that a good part of Trump's 2016 campaign performance was fraudulent and that he really doesn't care what "legal" means even though he gave an oath to uphold the Constitution? 

Well, I guess that is probably close to the truth. As I see it, the unredacted Flynn and Manafort bits of this week's filings are likely disturbing, but the parts that have been made plain as day are well and truly bad enough. And I still think we've only seen the part of the iceberg above water. 

Damn.

BREAKING: President Trump tweets that he is ousting Sec. of State Tillerson, and plans to replace him with CIA Director Pompeo - https://t.co/kdrUxk2XiK

— NBC News (@NBCNews) March 13, 2018

Huh. Wonder how much this had to do with Tillerson's response to the likely Russian assassination attempt on Sergei Skripal in the UK? (Or was he already fired by then?)

Anyway, while he was responsible for hollowing out the State Department and this shouldn't feel like a gigantic surprise, it still seems...sudden.

UPDATE: Mike Pompeo, who is moving from CIA to State, met with sanctioned Russian spies. Gina Haspel, who Trump is putting forward for CIA Director, is connected to torture. In other personnel news, Trump's personal assistant John McEntee was kicked out of the White House for "unspecified" security reasons, and will be joining Trump's presidential re-election campaign, where, apparently, unspecified security issues are less of a big deal.

UPDATE 2: Per Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Steve Goldstein, Tillerson only found out about his firing by Tweet today, contradicting the White House narrative that the decision was made Friday. In a related story, Steve Goldstein is also fired.

So That UN Vote Should Have Been Expected

UN Ambassador Haley says U.S. "will remember this day in which it was singled out" over Pres. Trump's decision on Jerusalem:

"This vote will make a difference on how Americans look at the UN, and on how we look at countries who disrespect us in the UN" https://t.co/SzZcdmrial pic.twitter.com/zv6HLnB3Ye

— NBC News (@NBCNews) December 22, 2017

The Trump Administration doesn't really seem to have any idea about diplomacy or how alliances work or why governments don't just go around saying they will be "taking names" and threatening foreign aid. There have been lots of stories about how Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is a bad fit for a difficult job and the "hollowing out" of the State Department all around. Nikki Haley was a weird appointment as UN Ambassador to the UN because she has no foreign policy background at all. I think that leaves her just articulating what the Trump Administration line is pretty much unvarnished, and it sounds...well, like bullying and an opportunity for other governments to tell the US to stuff it.

And that's what the vote amounted to.  Even countries that received a good bit of US foreign aid had no qualms about voting for a resolution to condemn the US decision with respects to Jerusalem because they well understand that foreign aid grants aren't just for the benefit of the recipient nation. Even countries on good terms with the US either voted to condemn or abstained. I don't know if the "taking names" language necessarily hurt, but it certainly didn't help. And if the Trump Administration cared about such things, they might note they have a very basic problem that really isn't going to make America "great" in the eyes of the world, at all.

Pence and Nonsense

So, VP Pence flew to Indianapolis to show up at a game he had no intention of staying at to make a BS point about "an event that disrespects our soldiers, etc.". I guess that went better than the last culture war-signifying event he "had" to leave.  But I think the grotesque thing about this was how very obvious his display actually was. He even had the press pool wait while he made his little show because he knew he wasn't going to be that long.

Every bit of it was kind of obvious. The Tweeting of a three year old picture like "Whheee, I love some sportsball!"  Being just shocked that the 49ers, who've had players kneeling since the beginning, were still participating in silent protest. And of course, not having enough time on his actual itinerary to stay for the whole game since he had things to do. Like fundraise for Dana Rohrabacher. I mean--I'm sure VP flights don't take as long as commercial flights, but even straight-through commercial:

And this was not a cheap stunt either--think about the taxpayer-funded flight and the Secret Service coverage and all that...

But of course, the real giveaway that this was just some culture war-signifying was that Donald Trump says it wasn't. He Tweeted:

Just marvelous. You can almost imagine wee Donnie playing hide'n'seek as a youngin', crowing from his hiding spot "You won't find me, because I have the best, biggest, most beautiful hiding space!" He thinks this is brilliant political work, and wants credit!

Of course it's a damn distraction from the mutiny over the Bounty towels, the questions arising from the Tillerson not-quite disavowal of calling Trump a "fucking moron", and who know what all else. The health care reform clusterfuck, the bad jobs numbers and crappy polls. Trump and Pence seem to think that if this display gains a news cycle, we will all forget the other stuff (North Korea? Iran?) and just hate on people taking a knee to protest...

Police brutality and racism. Not the flag, not veterans. Police brutality and racism. Screw Pence and Trump for this game. There are real issues out there that should occupy their time. But this trifling is where they prefer to linger. Lying about honest protesters to make up a BS concern of their own as a distraction. 

UPDATE: And apparently, Trump is still very proud of his stunt in the wee hours of the morning:

"Long planned." A stunt. Just remember who to thank/blame!

Just Checking...

So, there really was a story yesterday that focused on whether or not Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had called President Trump a "moron" (or to be more precise, a "fucking moron")? And then Tillerson gave a hurried press availability to not deny he called Trump a moron, and to pretend he never thought of leaving State? And it left people with the impression that he totally called Trump a moron, and might be on the way out, anyway, despite being one of the people responsible for separating "our country from chaos"?

Because I thought that was what happened, but wanted to sleep on it, first. My early-morning opinion: it looks bad because it is bad. (That usually is my opinion with this administration.)