Category Archives: President
Distractions from Covid in the Middle East
A lot of distractions are out there – forest fires, molotov cocktail fires, pandemics and bad hair days. And now the final insult: President Trump signs peace deals in the Middle East! What will he steal next, President Obama’s Nobel Prize?
Snatching Power of the Purse with Executive Orders
Six years ago President Obama went around Congress and snatched its power of the purse. He announced “We’re not just going to be waiting for legislation, I have a pen and a phone… and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions.”
So I drew this Obama cartoon:
Snatching Power
And now President Trump is messing with the same purse. He used an executive order to go around Congress and cut off stimulus talks.
So, a foolish consistency being the hobgoblin of a small mind, I drew the Trump cartoon above.
Delaying the Election Trial Baloon
President Trump launched a trial balloon about delaying the election. That would require acts of Congress and state legislatures which are unlikely.
And even if it did happen the 20th Amendment to the Constitution evicts the the president at high noon January 20th. So you’d need somebody to fill the vacancy by then.
And hope the mail-in ballots get delivered in time.
Speaking of mail-in-ballots:
Six weeks after New York’s primary election on June 23, the final vote tally in the 12th Congressional District remains a mystery. On Monday a federal judge ordered the counting of certain mail ballots that arrived after Election Day but without a postmark to prove when they were sent. Imagine this kind of mess 45 days following Nov. 3.
WSJ Editorial Board, August 8-9, 2020
Cognitively Certified and Proud of it
President Trump is cognitively certified and bragging about it. Not only did he test negative for Covid-19, his brain tested positive on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, or MoA.
As achievements go the test is a low bar. Passing it simply means you don’t have dementia. For now. But Trump seems to think Joe Biden couldn’t pole vault over the the bar and he’s trying to provoke him out of his basement to take the test.
Joe’s Cognitive abilities may serve him well. He said he didn’t know anything about the Michael Flynn investigation. But former FBI agent Peter Stzrok’s notes from a Jan 2017 meeting say Biden recommended prosecuting Flynn under the Logan Act.
Obama deputy AG Sally Yates says she doesn’t remember if Biden brought up the Logan act but she testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he didn’t influence the Flynn Investigation.
As far as I know she hasn’t been tested either.
Russian Bounty Hunters in Afghanistan
The last big bounty scandal in the news involved the New Orleans Saints. But there are no saints in this story. The NYT reported that Russian President Putin paid the Taliban to kill American soldiers. A WSJ editorial questioned the need for bounties, considering the Taliban already whacks Americans for the religious thrill of it. But considering Putin’s record killing journalists in his own country it sounds plausible.
And inquiring minds want to know what Trump did about it. Nothing. Though he did kill a couple hundred Russians in Syria in 2018, but that was before the story broke.
Or maybe 1980s are calling to get back their Stinger missiles that President Reagan gave to the Taliban to shoot down Russian helicopters.
Anyway, Catherine Herridge at CBS says the CIA and NSA are split on the bounty story, and the president claims he was never briefed.
