A summary look at hot news issues surrounding Trump during the past week
Everything on this week’s list appeared on prior lists. New news brings updates:
Where Trump’s initiatives should succeed:
Neil Gorsuch | The question is not whether he will be confirmed but how he is confirmed. This battle is much bigger than Trump; it’s more about how the legislative branch will function for all appointments going forward including subsequent administrations. Trump did his part by selecting an honorable candidate. If he has the opportunity to appoint one or two other justices of similar caliber during his term, the Supreme Court will run conservative and less activist for an entire generation. In the minds of the Trump base and other flexible parties with which I identify, this will substantially justify his tenure.
The wiretapping | I suggested before and will repeat again, I believe Trump is right on this one. Even by Trump standards, very few uproars have been as unanimous against Trump as this one, but based on a profile of how this has gone down, which I previously described, I’m in rare agreement. So then just today, some details start to emerge. Expect more to come out.
Where we should take a wait and see approach to Trump’s initiatives before we get the pitchforks:
The wall | The need for a wall is a political problem, more so than a physical problem. Just enforcing the laws already on the books has already significantly reduced illegal immigration traffic. While the threat of a wall possibly helped this effect, actually building it may have unintended consequences far into the future. Just on principle, when you prohibit something, it makes your opponents more creative. Bricks and mortar goes obsolete very quickly these days. Trump should use his bully tactics to challenge the government policies within Mexico that create the fleeing class.
James Comey and the renewed Russian influence investigation | If Trump sat down and conspired with Russia to influence the election, he should pay the consequences. The bombshell news that Comey is investigating this should not be taken as evidence that team Trump did so. None of us are privy to any first hand facts here but lets just say what this really means: James Comey, who couldn’t find the balls to set up charges against Hillary for plain felonies, widely detailed, publicized and which have sent lesser mortal civil servants to ruin or jail, the same Comey that jerked the investigation train to start stop start stop up until election day – he is the real circus show to watch. The announcement that he’s investigating Trump is the shtick. Here’s what to expect: Comey will be investigating Trump for the entirety of his term. Whenever he wants attention or wants to exert some pull on Trump, some further scintillating but inconclusive announcement will come out. This is all about Comey.
Trump Care | On one level, Trump was right to outsource ‘his’ health plan to congress. Buying into the Ryan plan maybe not so much. If we take an incremental approach and just say, lets start here and make it better later, this is not so bad. If that’s where it sits, no one will be happy. ‘Lets just say that we did something’. That’s how Obama approached it and look how well that’s gone over.
Where Trump’s initiatives should fail:
The second travel ban | I am not sure of the technical legal merits of the version-2 travel ban by which it ultimately must be judged. The judge cited the Islamic religious components of the travel ban that propelled the ruling. Obama changed the basis of arguments for dealing with Islamic terrorism by ignoring the Islamic pretenses that create Islamic terrorism. Sane reasonable people everywhere disagree with that addled thinking. So here we have a judge using that flawed reasoning as the basis for knocking out the travel ban. We have a constitutional obligation to respect the Muslim beliefs of US citizens. We have no such obligation in the case of other nationals. I’m not sold on the functional wisdom of the travel ban. It may have been initially justified to get control of possible gaps from the prior administration but as an ongoing policy, it may invite work-a-rounds that are even harder to control. I do not expect to see a third version released. At this point, a better permanent vetting system should be up and running.
Commentary by Lee Jones