Sunday, August 27, 2017

Week 78: "Arizona Madness" (August 27, 2017)

Dear Readers,

It has been an eventful week. For all past newsletters (and more), make sure to go to the blog at http://www.electreport.blogspot.com

Afghanistan

This week opened with a speech Trump gave regarding Afghanistan policy. The speech was awkward and, while he stayed calm and on-script for once, it was boring. But the content was the important part: Trump announced he will continue efforts in Afghanistan, including an increase in troops. He has announced very few specifics of his plan but would like to win the war and stabilize Afghanistan... somehow. This has displeased some of his supporters and represents a difference from his rhetoric against foreign entanglements during the campaign.

Personnel Changes, Yet Again

-Trump assistant Sebastian Gorka, who has been linked to Nazi groups in Hungary, resigned from his post and returned to Breitbart

-Eight of the 28 members of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council, which deals with cybersecurity, resigned this week.

Arizona Madness

Trump headed to Phoenix, Arizona this week to make a speech. Said speech was unhinged, rambling, and over an hour. I’m not going to choose the “highlights” but I will note the CNN article listing the 57 “most outrageous” quotes, which should give you a sense of how the speech went. He yet again defended his remarks on Charlottesville, insulted members of his own party, and bragged about his crowd size.
His attention then turned to Joe Arpaio, former sheriff of Maricopa County, containing Phoenix, Tempe, Mesa, Scottsdale, and other near suburbs. If you need a refresher on Sheriff Joe, here’s a nice long article about all the terrible things he did. He was finally ousted from office after 24 years and six elections, losing re-election by 13 points while Trump won the county by 3. Trump decided now would be a good time to pardon Sheriff Joe from his conviction for criminal contempt of court after he failed to stop racial profiling in accordance with the court order of Melendres v. Arpaio and rule 5 on the list of “how to be a decent human being.”

Harvey

And Trump did all this as Hurricane Harvey headed toward Texas, where five are now reported dead, dozens are injured, and the downtown of Houston is severely flooded. Trump has already tweeted several dozen times on the matter and has yet to offer any advice for those affected. I’ll keep it brief, as I’m not a meteorologist and don’t want to delve into this area too much, but it should be noted that both of Texas’ Senators, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, voted against relief funding for Hurricane Sandy.


Thanks for reading! As always, feel free to reply or comment.

Sunday, August 20, 2017

Week 77: "Charlottesville" (August 20, 2017)

Dear Readers,

My apologies for disappearing for two months without notice! It had become increasingly difficult for me to write a paragraph about current events without descending into a string of expletives. I am finally calmer, and so here is the next edition! For all past newsletters, make sure to go to the blog at http://www.electreport.blogspot.com

Charlottesville

On Saturday, August 12th, in Charlottesville, Virginia, a far-right “Unite the Right” rally consisting of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and other awful and radical groups was held to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee. I’m sure you’ve heard about the events of the rally thousands of time by now, so I’ll summarize. Counterprotesters gathered, and 2o-year-old Ohioan James Alex Fields Jr., a self-proclaimed white nationalist, drove his car into a group of counterprotesters. More than 30 people were injured, and one person, Heather Heyer, was killed.
In response, President Trump “[condemned] in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, many sides” a statement that neo-Nazi publication The Daily Stormer considered a victory. Their live-blog said “Trump comments were good... [He] implied that there was hate on both sides, so he implied the antifa are haters. There was virtually no counter-signaling of us at all. He said he loves us all. ... God bless him.” Similarly, Richard Spencer, president of a white supremacist think tank, happily tweeted that Trump denounced antifa (a militant, fringe, far-left group present among the counterprotesters).
Two days later, Trump finally spoke out against racism and racist groups, declaring “those who cause violence in [racism’s] name are criminals and thugs, including the K.K.K., neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.” That lasted all of a few hours, because the next day, at a press conference to present infrastructure plans, Trump said “You had a group on one side that was bad. You had a group on the other side that was also very violent. Nobody wants to say that. I’ll say it right now.” He also equated Robert E. Lee to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and said their statues would come down next because they were slave-owners. In case you think for a second that this wasn’t bad, David Duke instantly tweeted out praise for Trump’scomments: “Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists in BLM/Antifa.”

After all this, there was a lot of fall-out. First, four CEOs resigned from the American Manufacturing Council. The Manufacturing Council was then disbanded, as well as the President's Strategic and Policy Forum, another collection of CEOs, which also saw several resignations. The President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities also all resigned, sending the president a letter where the first letter of every paragraph spelled out “Resist.” Now, these councils don’t have very much power, but the image of three councils disbanding because of one event does not inspire confidence in the administration.
In addition, Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, faced criticism from fellow Jews and his classmates at Yale for failing to denounce the president. In response, Mnuchin denounced neo-Nazis but insisted “the president in no way, shape or form believes that neo-Nazi and other hate groups who endorse violence are equivalent to groups that demonstrate in peaceful and lawful ways.” Mnuchin and Gary Cohn, also Jewish, stood on the stage on Tuesday as Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides,” and yet neither have resigned or even criticized the president.

Scary Steve Steps Down

Speaking of hate groups, Trump’s longtime advisor Steve Bannon -- known before his role with Trump for being the executive chair of Breitbart -- stepped down this week. He instantly returned to Breitbart and was praised by the president, who tweeted“fake news needs the competition.” Following this news, a cheer broke out on the floor of the stock exchange. Bannon had given a strange interview a couple of days earlier, calling out some of Trump’s cabinet officials, criticizing Trump’s actions regarding North Korea, and dismissing the far right as “losers.” Read it here, I highly recommend it. Bannon claims that he had resigned two weeks earlier, which would mean that this interview was not the reason for his stepping down, but it’s not entirely clear. Since returning to Breitbart, Bannon has said he’s “going to war” for the Trump agenda, and the site published an article today going after national security adviser H.R. McMaster as weak on terrorism. Bannon’s influence will still be felt, whether he has an official title or not, and only time will tell what may happen.

Thanks for reading! As always, feel free to reply or comment.