My observations on the news of the day.
Ah, where’s your translator, Mr. President? (securejam.mediaspanonline.com)
THAT “SECRET” TRUMP MEETING WITH PUTIN rumored by the mainstream press, is absurd. As dessert was being served at the G-20 dinner, the president and a number of other attendees got up to casually speak with others since the long table was not conducive to conversation. The president stopped to speak with others before reaching Vladimir Putin, who was seated next to Melania Trump. The president was criticized for speaking with Putin without his translator present. The accompanying photo of former President Obama speaking with Putin without his translator is one of several on the Internet. But that was okay with the media.
MEGYN KELLY’S VIEWERSHIP SINKS – In my Oct. 27, 2016 post, “Too big for her britches,” I commented on my disappointment in Kelly’s work product and less than professional on-camera dress on Fox News Channel. She soon left Fox for NBC where she went to pursue her desire to be the next Barbara Walters. Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly hit another low on July 16, getting fewer viewers than the previous week. Even a rerun of Dateline that ran during the 4th of July weekend during her absence, had better viewership. She also lost out to reruns of CBS’s 60 Minutes and America’s Funniest Home Videos, according to Breitbart.
SPEAKING OF RATINGS – While President Trump’s overall approval ratings are in the 40 to 36 percent range depending on the poll, a new Bloomberg poll shows that he has a 47 percent approval rating on job creation and a 46 percent approval rating on the economy. The Bloomberg poll reveals that 58 percent of Americans believe they’re moving closer to realizing their own career and financial aspirations.
TRUMPERS STILL FAVOR THE PREZ- A Washington Post/ABC News poll reveals that 72 percent of the respondents “strongly approve of Trump.”
SESSIONS’ DECISION TO RECUSE HIMSELF – Before the president stated his disappointment with Jeff Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from investigations regarding Trump team connections with Russia, I too thought it was a mistake. It appeared to me that he was just mollifying members of the Senate Judicial Committee (Schumer, Leahy and Franken) who were weighing his confirmation as attorney general. “If he was going to recuse himself,” said the president, “he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else.”
PHOENIX POLICE BACK OFF – Just days after Judicial Watch exposed a new policy banning Phoenix police from contacting the feds after arresting illegal aliens, pressure on the city council and chief of police has forced the city to postpone the order. The policy also prohibits officers from asking about suspects’ immigration status.
It could be that the police are worried about getting sued under an Arizona law that states, “No official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state may limit or restrict the enforcement of federal immigration laws to less than the full extent permitted by federal law.”
Judicial Watch has indicated that it will continue to investigate Phoenix’s efforts to provide illegal immigrants sanctuary. Incidentally, the proposed Phoenix policy replaces the term “illegal alien” with “a person unlawfully present.”
FOR THE WANT OF A SPINE headlined the RealClear Politics piece by William Murchison, who hit the nail on the head when he referred to “the near-complete disappearance of the party’s (the GOP) backbone” over the promised repeal and replacement of ObamaCare.
“Meanwhile, a united Democrat Senate bloc watches with Ill-disguised amusement,” wrote Murchison, reminding us how ObamaCare was enacted with the collaboration of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. “No Democrat opted for the discipline of Nancy’s noose.
“Democrats are naturals when it comes to offense; they love to batter down doors and burn down barns to get those things done those things they have decided for one reason or another need doing; such as the creation of a program to federally subsidized health care,” Murchison says.
On the other hand, Republicans, he explains, by temperament, play defense … they try to work out terms that might make the situation a little less disagreeable than it was before.
While “the GOP swore in blood to get rid of ObamaCare,” muses Murchison, “it starts to look as if a number of the oath-takers had their fingers crossed behand their backs.” The spineless Republicans seem to be sabotaging the unrecoverable chance to follow through with what they promised.
In the end, I believe that if the Republicans fail to kill ObamaCare, President Trump will be blamed for the failure, and he’s not going to be happy.
