Acting Attorney General Sally Yates Fired
Apparently Sally Yates is just another protester resisting the Trump presidency. Except that she’s the Acting Attorney General. Or was. President Trump fired her when she refused to carry out his immigration law revisions.
Sally Yates Profile
Senator Chuck Schumer immediately tried to compare the firing to Nixon’s Saturday night massacre. The wily crying senator even worked in a Kennedy allusion, calling Yates “a profile in courage”. Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz was having none of it. He said, “Yates was an Obama holdover who made a serious mistake by making a political decision rather than a legal one.”
Carl M. Cannon in Real Clear Politics says Yates is more a “profile in partisanship.” He says that Yates “shouldn’t still be in that job at the Department of Justice. Jeff Sessions should be, and Chuck Schumer is the reason he’s not.”
Great Wall of Chihuahua
I’m not sure why President Trump seems determined to make Mexico pay for the great wall on the border. We don’t expect Mexico pay for our duck penis studies. So shy should Mexico pay for our walls?
Maybe Trump enjoys insulting President Enrique Peña Nieto. He invited the Mexican president for a visit, but then told him not to come if he’s not going to pay for the wall. So he’s not coming.
Great Wall of Honor
Jonah Goldberg in National Review says this is a serious blow to Mexico’s honor. And wars are fought over honor. Peña Nieto is probably back in Mexico City right now sharpening his saber.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump just hung Andre Jackson’s portrait in the Oval Office. In 1806 Charles Dickinson accused Jackson of welching on a horse bet. Not only that, he called Jackson’s wife Rachel a bigamist.
So Old Hickory killed him in a duel.
We may be onto something here.
Hitler Unhinged
Some on the unhinged left are confusing President Trump with Hitler. Chris Matthews joined the party, calling Trump’s inaugural speech Hitlerian. At least he didn’t draw a mustache on him.
Unhinged
When Dan Quayle compared himself to JFK during the 1988 vice presidential debate his opponent Senator Lloyd Bentsen dissed him by saying, “I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, You’re no Jack Kennedy.”
Trump’s Brief Inaugural Speech
Two things I liked about Trump’s inaugural speech. He only used the word “I” three times. And it was short – 16 minutes.
John Kass in the Chicago Tribune wrote, “This wasn’t a smooth-talking politician inviting us to climb aboard his fancy word ship for a voyage beyond the stars. He did not call upon the angels. Instead, he spoke in dark tones to the forgotten man.”
It was that beginning that was astonishing, his declaration of war on the establishment, especially as they all sat there with him, with former Presidents Carter and Bush and Clinton and Obama looking on, outgoing first lady Michelle Obama frowning, Hillary Clinton icy and distant.
Bush bobbed his head and smiled as if in pain. Bill Clinton’s eyes were two frozen blue grapes, locked in a thousand-yard stare. But what he was looking at inside his own head, I wouldn’t ever want to know.
Inaugural Speech
Kass, among others, called the speech Jacksonian. But large parts of it could have been given by Bernie Sanders, “Why go to war when we can use that money building freeways at home?”
As they stood together on the capitol steps, I was struck by Barack Obama’s elegance. Maybe it was the crease in his pants, but it stood in contrast to Trump’s, um, Trumpian appearance.
BBC (click image for link)
But Obama was no match for Melania.
Should be an interesting four years.
Democrat Better Messaging
The Democrats need more than better messaging. Politico sums up their predicament in a piece called “Democrats in the Wilderness“:
They were counting on a Clinton win to paper over a deeper rot they’ve been worrying about—and to buy them some time to start coming up with answers. In other words, it wasn’t just Donald Trump. Or the Russians. Or James Comey. Or all the problems with how Clinton and her aides ran the campaign. Win or lose, Democrats were facing an existential crisis in the years ahead—the result of years of complacency, ignoring the withering of the grass roots and the state parties, sitting by as Republicans racked up local win after local win.
