There is a lot to look back on in Donald Land and certainly a lot to anticipate in the coming days. But it all has one big theme. Today’s As The Donald Turns Episode; “Winning.”
We were promised endless winning during the campaign. Donald said there was going to be so much winning we would not be able to handle it. We thought we would check in to see if anyone in Donald Land has been wining lately.
- Devin Nunes is not doing much winning. The chair of the House Intelligence Committee had bi-partisan cooperation for the ongoing investigation into the Trump/Russia issues. And then he dumped it in the trash like an overworked Trump hair comb. Last week he admitted to having been given documents relating to surveillance activity and the Trump folks. He would not reveal the source of the new intel, but he ran and told his boss, Paul Ryan, and then ran to the White House to brief Donald….the subject of the surveillance activities. And he never shared the data with his own House Committee. Nunes claims he knew it was the right thing to do because he has seen so many cop shows where a lead detective runs and tells a crime syndicate leader they are being wire tapped. OK, he didn’t really say that, but it is the only excuse we could think of for doing this. Now, we find out that Nunes did not have the meeting with the secret source in some backroom or underground parking garage. He had it on the White House lawn. Nunes said he needed a place that ensured security. Well sure, except his own building, the US Capitol has a SCIF, (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility). The only reason for being at the White House was that someone inside the White House is his “secret source.”
- Sparkle Pony is not winning. Of course Donald’s Press Secretary has not been winning since inauguration day, but nearly every day is combat-with-the-press-day and some days he gets hit with the heavy artillery. Monday, Sean Spicer was asked about Nunes and the “need” to go to the White House to review these secret documents. Spicer said senior members of congress do not have to be “waved in” to the White House. Of course this is 100% false. Secret Service rules mandate that all visitors must be cleared. Last week, a member of the press corps asked Spicer to justify all of Donald’s golf trips in light of Donald previously sending out these kids of tweets about President Obama:
@realDonaldTrump
“Can you believe that,with all of the problems and difficulties facing the U.S., President Obama spent the day playing golf.Worse than Carter”
5:03 PM – 13 Oct 2014
Of course that was just one of many messages Donald sent about Obama playing golf. And Donald has not spent 1/3 of his White House days at one of his own golf resorts. Sparkle Pony was called to answer for the hypocrisy. He said, “How you use the game of golf is something that he’s talked about.” Oh, well that makes sense. No, actually, not really. Monday, Spicer did most of the press briefing with food in his teeth. The he proceeded to have to talk about Judge Jeanine Pirro and other fake network stuff. More on that later. Every day is a tough day in Sparkle Pony Land.
- Diplomacy is not winning. Anyone ever hear Secretary of State Rex Tillerson say anything? No, of course not. He has pretty much dissolved the state department media pool. He takes one reporter with him on his foreign visits. He says, with regards to media coverage of the State Department, “Doing daily availability, I don’t have this appetite or hunger to be that, have a lot of things, have a lot of quotes in the paper or be more visible with the media.” In other words, the less you know about where I am or what I am doing, the better. No Secretary of State in the last 60 years has been so secretive about their job.
- Daytime TV is not winning. These hearings on the Russia/Trump relationship make for some great stuff, not seen since the likes of the Iran Contra hearings during the Reagan Administration. But Devin Nunes, with a star lineup for this week’s hearings was going to be headline grabbing material. He was to have Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan and Obama’s National Intelligence Director James Clapper. Apparently worried that people might watch it, Nunes cancelled Tuesday’s hearing. The committee was also supposed to get closed door briefings from FBI director James Comey but Nunes postponed that indefinitely. Fortunately the Senate hearings are coming soon and those could include Jared Kushner and all around lunatic Roger Stone.
- Fox News is not winning. First they had to kick “so called judge” Andrew Napolitano to the curb for making up the story that the Brits helped Obama spy on Trump. Then this past weekend they had “so called judge” Jeanine Pirro and her show. Jeanine is best known for being the favorite prosecutor of admitted murderer Robert Durst. Donald was very excited about her show Saturday and did a little Twitter plug for it.
@realDonaldTrump
Watch @JudgeJeanine on @FoxNews tonight at 9:00 P.M.
7:41 AM – 25 Mar 2017
That’s nice when the President of the United States get nothing else accomplished, but does offer to be your personal TV Guide. Nine hours later Jeanine went on air and called for Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to be removed for his failure to get TrumpCare passed last week. Someone had tipped Donald off about Jeanine’s show, but the White House was caught off guard by the actual content and Sparkle Pony had to give big endorsements to Ryan the rest of the weekend.
Of course we also got a dose full of Fox’s Sean Hannity this weekend. He was interviewed as part of a piece by Ted Koppel that aired in CBS Sunday Morning, that discussed the divisiveness of media, particularly conservative radio and TV. Koppel schooled Hannity like he was a misbehaving kindergartener and Hannity had a Twitter meltdown. He apparently did not realize the entire piece was not a profile on his narcissist self and demanded that CBS release the entire 45 minute interview with him because he was not happy with the parts they used. In a battle of journalistic/media ethics between Ted Koppel and Sean Hannity, Sean is not going to be winning.
- Boris Epshteyn is not winning. He has been a hard core Trump surrogate since the campaign and has been one of the tv coordinators since then, deciding which Trumpster goes on talk shows. Problem is every time Kellyanne or someone made a fool of themselves, the TV networks yelled at Boris. He may be reassigned since he got the gig by being Eric Trumps college buddy.
- More people who are not winning based on the failure that was TrumpCare; Paul Ryan, Mike Pence, the GOP House moderates, the GOP House conservatives and Donald. The bill was a disaster and everyday it turned into a Christmas Tree legislation with more and more people hanging amendments and changes on it. Of course Donald is used to not winning, He has been slapped down by judges on two different travel bans and had his landmark legislation thrown back at him like a pair of smelly socks in just six weeks in office. But at least he has taken tons of vacation time. Not winning is so exhausting.
- Is anyone winning? Yes! Because Trumpcare failed in its initial rollout, pregnant mothers are winning as they will continue to get pre-natal care. Also people who need psychiatric care, rehab care, emergency care….basically anyone who is a person between the ages of newborn to deceased won when the bill was struck down. The under-served people in the deep red states also won. They voted for Donald not realizing he was going to gut their government provided health benefits. Fortunately for them, their candidate lost this battle and they get to keep what they almost unwittingly gave away. Donald has sworn he is going to let Obamacare implode, and without tweaks it could. So, it’s nice that we now have a president who seeks vengeance against his own people.
One more winner is me…because I get to report that Sparkle Pony Spicer said over the weekend that Obamacare is “imploding and exploding.” I am not sure something can do both at the same time, but Spicer is becoming more like Wile E. Coyote every day, so I am sure we will soon see.
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