Due Process Takes Too Long?
If you’re a fan of both President Trump and the second amendment, you might be feeling like the victim of a cheating spouse this morning. Used, manipulated, betrayed… I’m sure the NRA feels the same way you do. Yesterday, the president sat down with Congressional Democrats and Republicans to discuss ideas on how to prevent more mass shootings. Let’s see, how do I describe what proceeded? IT WAS A NIGHTMARE.
Trump took such an extreme hard left turn against the Second, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments that it would have made President Obama look like Calvin Coolidge. This is an actual quote from the meeting: “Take the guns first, go through due process second.”
The president then proceeded to dump on the NRA AND shoot down the idea of national concealed carry reciprocity. If you’re a gun owner, or if you’re just a fan of the constitution, this was the absolute worst thing you would expect a US president to say. You probably expected it coming out of the mouth of Obama, but he would have NEVER even dreamed of saying this in a public forum. You know why? Because every single person in the conservative media, AND every Republican Congressman would have called for his impeachment.
Some people are already making excuses for what the president said. They’re saying things like “yeah but he was talking about the mentally ill!” Remember when we all went went to bat for the President when liberal headlines started saying things like this: “Trump Just Made It Easier For Mentally Ill People To Buy Guns.”
What they were referring to was an Obama era regulation mandating that people receiving disability payments from Social Security, and receiving assistance to manage their benefits, would have to be reported to the federal gun background check system. It locked out tens of thousands of elderly people from buying guns, not based off of their mental capacity but on the basis of being classified by the government in a certain way. Now, I don’t think that was the original intention, but you can see how handling the issue of, who is mental ill and who isn’t, is a very slippery slope.
Mike Pence was absolutely right. We HAVE to figure this issue out, but eliminating due process and neutering the constitution is not the way to do it. Forget, just for a second, that this is about guns. Replace guns with literally any other issue and read back the words “Take action first, go through due process second.” That right there is how tyranny is born.
The good news is that Trump has said strange things in the past, like wanting a clean DACA bill, but it never materialized. So either Trump is pulling off some extreme master negotiating strategy combining The Art of War with his own book The Art of The Deal, OR he was just giving the Democrats in the room what they wanted to hear. Either way, we probably won’t see anything come from this. Due process can’t be waved, and the second amendment isn’t going anywhere. Everyone should be calling the President out on this today. Support him when he’s right, but call him out when he’s wrong. Yesterday, he was very very wrong.
Trump vs. Sessions Part II
President Trump is criticizing Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, again.
Yesterday, Trump wrote a memo – sorry, make that a Tweet – calling it “DISGRACEFUL!” that Sessions is using the Justice Department’s Inspector General to investigate the “potentially massive FISA abuse” in the Russia investigation.
Trump apparently did not like that Justice Department lawyers were not used for the probe instead. The Inspector General is looking into whether FISA standards were abused when the FBI first started investigating Trump campaign associates and their possible ties to Russia. The Nunes memo alleges that the FBI misled the FISA court to obtain a warrant to monitor Carter Page.
Referring to the Inspector General, Trump wrote, “Isn’t the I.G. an Obama guy?”
Later, House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy released his own statement defending the Inspector General. Gowdy says he has, “complete confidence in him and hope he is given the time, the resources and the independence to complete his work.”
Trump has taken issue with Jeff Sessions on and off almost the whole time he’s been in office. Rumors that Sessions will be fired seem to surface at least once a month. Usually, Sessions just keeps his mouth shut and absorbs the blow. But not this time. He issued a statement saying:
“We have initiated the appropriate process that will ensure complaints against this Department will be fully and fairly acted upon if necessary. As long as I am the Attorney General, I will continue to discharge my duties with integrity and honor, and this Department will continue to do its work in a fair and impartial manner according to the law and Constitution.”
You can hear a little irritation in there, like maybe Sessions is finally getting tired of the abuse.
Ever since Sessions recused himself from heading the Russia-collusion investigation, he has been Trump’s punching bag. It’s strange, because Sessions has been a staunch Trump supporter from the very beginning. It’s also weird because Sessions has even offered to resign before, but Trump hasn’t taken him up on it. Yet.
At this point in the marathon Russia investigation, what President Trump thinks he stands to gain by tweeting criticism of Sessions and the Inspector General is anyone’s guess. Regardless, it’s not helpful.
The White House Is All out of Hope
She was never a “Washington” girl.
She didn’t even care for politics.
And yet, she was one of the most powerful people in DC.
Hope Hicks, Trump’s communications director, was one of the longest-serving advisers and arguably Trump’s most trusted aide.
She often had the challenging job of talking him down from an angry tweet, redirecting his attention elsewhere.
She corralled the press department to get on message, even when they were at odds with each other—which was all the time.
And many of the staff viewed her as a protector against Trump’s outbursts…like a child shielding her little brother from her father’s wrath.
But yesterday, Hicks appeared to have enough.
She told the President that she was resigning.
Her resignation came a day after she testified for eight hours before the House Intelligence Committee. She told the panel that in her job, she had “occasionally” been required to tell “white lies” but had never lied about anything connected to the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
Her revelation to the panel is not shocking. And I don’t think it was the impetus for her leaving the White House.
She’s a 29 former model who wanted to work in fashion.
I doubt she ever had aspirations of becoming the communications director.
By all accounts it sounded like she took the job in stride, but it just didn’t seem like it was her dream to be there.
The limelight and scrutiny of the House Intelligence Committee and her relationship with Rob Porter made public, appears to have pushed her to end something she really never wanted to start.
When she leaves the White House in a couple weeks, she is going to escape relatively unscathed. She did a good job and didn’t stay to see her reputation get dragged through the dirt like so many before her.
Trump has stated that Hicks is very smart many times.
I believe he is telling the truth.