Britons' revulsion of President Trump knows few bounds. Fortunately they seem to have drawn a distinction between him and the country he represents:
But despite the sense of (bad) business as usual, two things are already becoming clear that both highlight the particularly disturbed nature of current British politics, and the U.S.’s general loss of global standing under Trump. Firstly, the president’s popularity in Britain is so low that attacking him has become an easy way for local officials to build political capital. And secondly, that even among potential allies, Trump is now mainly seen as an agent of chaos.
A few pro-Brexit words from Trump might help this future leader sell the process to a doubtful and divided electorate—or at least the small part of it that will vote for a new Conservative leader—but so far, they’re not getting it. Indeed, on Sunday, U.S. ambassador to the U.K. and Trump ally Woody Johnson did the exact opposite. In an interview with the BBC, Johnson said “all aspects” of the U.K. economy would be up for negotiation during a post-Brexit U.S./U.K. trade deal—including healthcare. By this he meant opening up Britain’s National Health Service to tenders from U.S. health companies, a move that could well presage the break-up of the system as we know it. Whatever party they support, this kind of talk turns most British people’s blood to ice.
Yes, that's right. And the president doubled down on putting NHS "on the table" in his news conference today with soon-to-be-ex PM Theresa May.
But this is Trump. Protests? What protests?
11:27 a.m. EDT: Trump dismissed a news conference question about London protests during his trip. “As far as the protests, I have to tell you… yesterday we left the prime minister, the queen, the royal family,” he said. “There were thousands of people on the streets cheering.”
“Even coming over today, there were thousands of people cheering, and then I heard that there were protests. I said, ‘Where are the protests? I don’t see any protests.’ I did see a small protest today when I came. Very small. So a lot of it is fake news, I hate to say.”
“You saw people waving the American flag, waving your flag. I was tremendous spirit and love. There was great love. It was an alliance.”
Washington Post London correspondent Karla Adam has been out in the streets with demonstrators all day. She writes: “A giant blimp of a diaper-clad “baby Trump” and a talking “Trump robot” sitting on a toilet were among the most vivid props on Tuesday as protesters descended on central London to register their disapproval of President Trump.” Read her full report.
Oh, dear.
Britain, on behalf of the majority of voters in the U.S., I apologize.
I mentioned earlier that President Trump had insulted the Mayor of London. Here's what Khan wrote to make Trump so angry:
Praising the “very fine people on both sides” when torch-wielding white supremacists and antisemites marched through the streets clashing with anti-racist campaigners. Threatening to veto a ban on the use of rape as a weapon of war. Setting an immigration policy that forcefully separates young children from their parents at the border. The deliberate use of xenophobia, racism and “otherness” as an electoral tactic. Introducing a travel ban to a number of predominately Muslim countries. Lying deliberately and repeatedly to the public.
No, these are not the actions of European dictators of the 1930s and 40s. Nor the military juntas of the 1970s and 80s. I’m not talking about Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong-un. These are the actions of the leader of our closest ally, the president of the United States of America.
I am proud of our historic special relationship, which I’m certain will survive long after President Trump leaves office. The US is a country I love and have visited on many occasions. I still greatly admire the culture, the people and the principles articulated by the founding fathers. But America is like a best friend, and with a best friend you have a responsibility to be direct and honest when you believe they are making a mistake.
History teaches us of the danger of being afraid to speak truth to power and the risk of failing to defend our values from the rise of the far right. At this challenging time in global politics, it’s more important than ever that we remember that lesson.
Spot on.
The president, only slightly less popular than Nigel Farage, called London's mayor a "stone cold loser" and berated accurate news sources before HM The Queen hosted him at a state dinner this evening. Huzzah:
However, by the time the president’s helicopter, Marine One, landed at Buckingham Palace for his long-desired ceremonial visit, he was wreathed in smiles, with his arrival marked by two 41-gun salutes, a guard of honour and a white-tie-and-tiara banquet.
More than 100 protesters demonstrated outside the gates of Buckingham Palace against the US president being handed “the red-carpet treatment” and more than 250,000 protesters are expected to take to London’s streets on Tuesday, when the Trump baby blimp is expected to appear once again.
The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who will address the protesters in London, tweeted: “Tomorrow’s protest against Donald Trump’s state visit is an opportunity to stand in solidarity with those he’s attacked in America, around the world and in our own country – including, just this morning, @SadiqKhan”.
The Queen presented him with a first edition of The Second World War by Winston Churchill and a three-piece pen set bearing the royal cypher.
What an odd gift for an illiterate.
Meanwhile, the Economist believes that Brexit will cause a constitutional crisis in the UK, despite the constitution's inherent, ah, flexibility. Maybe they should write it down?
If you haven't discovered Randy Rainbow, here you go:
He was in Chicago last night, at Thalia Hall in Pilsen, and I got a chance to hear him live. And today, he's on the cover of the Washington Post Magazine:
In a topsy-turvy era, is it surprising that a political commentator should dress in sequins, feather boas and pink cat-eye glasses? Because that’s Randy Rainbow (yes, it’s his given name). In real life, the 37-year-old leads a solitary existence in an orderly apartment adorned with oversize photographs of Audrey Hepburn, Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand. But millions share his splashy, over-the-top digital life: Since 2016, Rainbow, a Broadway hopeful who fled from cattle-call auditions, has found his own spotlight through the Internet, emerging as a YouTube sensation who dispenses musical-comedy salve for a divided nation.
Hundreds of thousands watch the short videos he produces every 10 days or so, featuring show tunes and pop songs he has refashioned with biting new lyrics. These DIY productions are funny and oh-so-topical and include clever video manipulation of news footage to create sassy mock interviews with prominent political players — mostly of the Trumpian variety — topped off with costumes ordered online.
A sampling of Rainbow’s hot takes includes “Desperate Cheeto” (a take on Luis Fonsi’s “Despacito”), “Border Lies” (Madonna’s “Borderline”), “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Korea?” (“Maria” from “The Sound of Music”) and “GOP Dropout” (“Beauty School Dropout” from “Grease”). Actor-comedian Steve Martin told Rainbow that “A Very Stable Genius” — a takedown of you-know-who sung to Gilbert and Sullivan’s “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General” — is a favorite ditty in the Martin household.
(Note that Tom Lehrer famously also adapted "Major General" but with, shall we say, fewer politics.)
As Chicago finishes the wettest May in history, Bloomberg points out that all the rain has caused serious problems with Illinois agriculture:
Rabobank is predicting an unprecedented number of unplanted acres of corn, the most widely grown American crop. A Bloomberg survey of 10 traders and analysts indicates growers could file insurance claims for about 6 million corn acres they haven’t been able to sow, almost double the record in 2013.
Corn futures surged more than 20% to a three-year high over the past few weeks on fears farmers wouldn’t be able to get seeds in the ground ahead of crop-insurance deadlines. So-called prevented plant claims reached 3.6 million acres in 2013, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency.
Field conditions deteriorated over the past few weeks, indicating significant corn acreage loss was a risk, according to Gro Intelligence, a New York-based analysis firm that uses satellites among other data sources. Areas with the biggest risk of acreage loss were in central Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, and the region around the borders of South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska.
Of course, no one knows for sure how much land will remain unsuitable for planting. But simple physics (higher air temperatures lead to more moisture in the air which leads to more precipitation) underpins a lot of climate-change thinking.
Meanwhile, the Administration plans to form a committee to obfuscate climate science. Because of course it will. How's that helping farmers?
Today's Daily Parker flash of inspiration will memorialize my update to an obsolete proverb.
Instead of "a stopped watch is right twice a day," substitute "a dead mobile gets no bad texts."
On second thought, they're not orthogonal. But in my defense, I was thinking of the president at the time.
Just a few things in the news:
And hey, summer begins in three days.
Burger King's brand implosion aside, other, more important news came out in the last couple of days:
- This morning, UK Prime Minister Theresa May announced she would step down on June 7th, having lost the confidence of the right-wing crazies holding her majority together. The likely outcome of this will be Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is actually less popular than May, forcing a general election through incompetence by the August bank holiday.
- The heads of NOAA and NASA have raised the alarm that the proposed 24 GHz frequency band proposed for 5G wireless will mask the existing 23.8 GHz frequency of passive microwave energy which weather forecasting systems need to actually forecast weather.
- Since February 2017, when he took his first of over a hundred golf trips as president, Donald Trump has cost us more than $100 million playing golf.
- San Francisco's KPIX-TV Broadcast Operations Manager Eliot Curtis apparently gave himself an LSD trip while repairing a 1960s-era synthesizer.
Must be Friday.
In a move that surprised no one but disappointed millions anyway, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin told Congress yesterday that the Treasury has put on hold plans to replace Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman on the $20 note until President Trump leaves office:
Plans to unveil the Tubman bill in 2020, an Obama administration initiative, would be postponed until at least 2026, Mr. Mnuchin said, and the bill itself would not likely be in circulation until 2028.
Until then, bills with former President Andrew Jackson’s face will continue to pour out of A.T.M.s and fill Americans’ wallets.
Mr. Mnuchin, concerned that the president might create an uproar by canceling the new bill altogether, was eager to delay its redesign until Mr. Trump was out of office, some senior Treasury Department officials have said. As a presidential candidate in 2016, Mr. Trump criticized the Obama administration’s plans for the bill.
When Republicans and other propagandists say that the "media" frame perfectly innocuous behavior such that it makes President Trump look like a racist asshole when in fact he isn't, things like this remind us that the facts have an anti-Trump bias.
So, to recap, the administration won't go through with plans to change the portrait on the $20 note from a slave-holding, genocidal, ignorant hick who cheated his way into public office, to a former slave who led hundreds of other slaves to freedom and helped drive slavery off the continent. And the best reason Mnuchin can give for the decision is that Treasury "was now focused on enhancing the anti-counterfeiting security features of the currency."
Let's all do what we can to make sure the President and Mnuchin all leave office in January 2021.
Federal judge Amit Mehta could not believe the arguments the president's lawyer, William Consovoy, made on Monday:
Consovoy, a beefy former law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, offered two related points:
(A) Congress can’t issue a subpoena or otherwise probe a president unless it is doing so for a “legitimate legislative purpose.”
(B) Any “legitimate legislative purpose” Congress could conceivably devise would be unconstitutional.
As a result, Consovoy argued, Congress can’t investigate to see if a law is being broken, can’t inform the public of wrongdoing by the executive and can’t look for presidential conflicts of interest or corruption, because that would be “law enforcement.”
I can't believe these arguments either. Dana Milbank suggests that Consovoy expects to drag out the appeals process and essentially run out the clock on Congress's ongoing investigations.
This may explain why Democratic activist Tom Steyer released this ad yesterday:
Pretty damning stuff. And it gets to the frustration that many of us feel.
I'm willing to give the House Democrats more time. But just a little. Because we need to get the facts out there before the next election.