Missed giving thoughts yesterday but lots to think about today.
Nordstrom
Nordstorm made the decision to drop Ivanka Trump's line due to poor sales performance. President Trump, while not crossing a legal line but definitely crossing, big time, an ethical line, tweeted a critical blast at Nordstrom. Spicer and Conway decided to both push the Trump Administration even further across that line, with Conway going on Fox & Friends and saying that people need to buy Ivanka Trump's line. Trump just really doesn't understand it or, perhaps, he doesn't care. Conway has shown herself to just wanting to throw away all of her integrity for simple access power. Spicer has shown himself to be a toady lackey.
Tribalism and Blind Loyalty
Yesterday, a writer for Redstate posted about how we live in an age of tribalism where we root for the person because of the "jersey" they are wearing. While the article was pretty much spot on it did have one fatal flaw, it assigned blind loyalty and praise being due to the letter next to the politician's name as a characteristic of the left when in reality it is a characteristic of all sides. This kind of broad brush stroking is unbecoming and only adds fuel to the fire of tribalism.
Civil Asset Forfeiture
Trump "jokingly" threatened that he would be willing to destroy the career of a politician wanting to reform Civil Asset Forfeiture, which is very much needed. CAF is out of control and will only get worse unless something is done. Trump may say he was joking but given his track record, it is hard to think he was actually joking and not being serious.
A state lawmaker in Pennsylvania dared Trump to come after him and try to destroy his career. He even called Trump a loofa-face shit-gibbon. I, along with many others, will be plagarizing, oops, I mean, borrowing this insult for quite a while.
Getting wealthier at taxpayer's expense
Trump loves to brag about how wealthy he is and how he is not going to accept pay for being POTUS. However, he is going to charge the DoD and the Secret Service a ton of rent to use office space in Trump tower. President Trump can show what a true patriot he is by allowing those two departments to use the space space free or, if necessary for legal purposes, the obligatory $1 per year. If Trump is as wealthy as he says he is then he doesn't need the rent money. Of course, not being able to see his tax returns, which he has yet to release despite his promises, there is no way to know the extent of his true wealth or charitable giving.
SCOTUS nominee Gorsuch
While there are a lot of unknowns about Judge Gorsuch, he does seem to understand the need for an independent judiciary and will not be a toady lackey of Trump. In a closed door session with Senator Blumenthal (D-CT), he called Trump's comments about the judges concerning his EO Travel Ban disheartening and demoralizing. Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) confirmed the authenticity of those comments. Trump, in typical Trump fashion, said Gorsuch wasn't talking about his comments (that is an outright lie by Trump) and lashed out at Blumenthal by referring to how Blumenthal had overstated his Vietnam military service as exposed by the New York Times, the very same publication the Trump has blasted by calling it dishonest and a manufacturer of fake news, except when it suits Trump's aeanda. However, Trump should remember about throwing stones and living in glass houses as he himself had 4, or was it 5, draft deferments due to a sore foot, oops, meant "bone spurs", something his father helped shepherd along.
As an additional note, Chris Cuomo, during his interview of Blumenthal, did bring up Blumenthal living a lie for years concerning his military service, despite what Trump said to the contrary. Cuomo's response was very good in saying Trump was once again wrong on the facts.
White House leaks
As Susan Wright at Redstate points out very well in her post today, Trump is trying to run the government as a business, which is something that you can't do. Businesses tend to have people working to further themselves at the expense of others. Government needs to have people working together for the good of the entire nation, even those who didn't vote for you. However, the Trump Administration seems to have at least 4 power centers: Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, Kellyanne Conway and Jared Kushner. Two power centers is to be expected and is not unusual. However, 3 or or more is not typical and actually detrimental, especially when trying to run the government as a business, which a government is not. As Susan Wright so ably put it, to do so with the multiple power centers, is to have a government working against itself, not as a cohesive unit working for the good of the nation.
G. O. JUB
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