Week Three

After three weeks, we start to see the level of incompetence of this new administration.

And no, it’s not just incompetence. Pure notes of corruption and autocratic inclinations are there too.

Trump is using his Mar-a-Lago Club to host Japan PM Shinzo Abe. This is money that’s directly flowing into Trump Org’s pockets from the tax payers. If this isn’t open corruption, what is?

This CNN report “At Mar-a-Lago, Trump tackles crisis diplomacy at close range” has so many maddening nuggets.

Sitting alongside Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, with whom he’d spent most of the day golfing, Trump took the call on a mobile phone at his table, which was set squarely in the middle of the private club’s dining area.

As Mar-a-Lago’s wealthy members looked on from their tables, and with a keyboard player crooning in the background, Trump and Abe’s evening meal quickly morphed into a strategy session, the decision-making on full view to fellow diners, who described it in detail to CNN.

…

Swanning through the club’s living room and main dining area alongside Abe, Trump was – as is now typical – swarmed with paying members, who now view dinner at the club as an opportunity for a few seconds of face time with the new President.

…

“I saw them out on the lawn today,” Trump said of the bride and groom, who were standing nearby. “I said to the Prime Minister of Japan, I said, ‘C’mon Shinzo, let’s go over and say hello.’ “

“They’ve been members of this club for a long time,” Trump said of the newlyweds. “They’ve paid me a fortune.”

Kakistocracy.

NY Times reporting “Turmoil at the National Security Council, From the Top Down”.

Three weeks into the Trump administration, council staff members get up in the morning, read President Trump’s Twitter posts and struggle to make policy to fit them. Most are kept in the dark about what Mr. Trump tells foreign leaders in his phone calls.

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Many of those who remain, who see themselves as apolitical civil servants, have been disturbed by displays of overt partisanship. At an all-hands meeting about two weeks into the new administration, Ms. McFarland told the group it needed to “make America great again,” numerous staff members who were there said.

New Trump appointees are carrying coffee mugs with that Trump campaign slogan into meetings with foreign counterparts, one staff member said.

…

And while Mr. Obama liked policy option papers that were three to six single-spaced pages, council staff members are now being told to keep papers to a single page, with lots of graphics and maps. “The president likes maps,” one official said.

…

Still, Mr. Flynn presents additional complications beyond his conversations with the Russian ambassador. His aides say he is insecure about whether his unfettered access to Mr. Trump during the campaign is being scaled back and about a shadow council created by Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s top strategist

Government of the worst people.

Trump’s Senior Advisor to the President for Policy Stephen Miller went on CBS “Face the Nation” and said this

… we have a judiciary that has taken far too much power and become in many case a supreme branch of government.

The end result of this, though, is that our opponents, the media and the whole world will soon see as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.

Don’t count on it. We will question it, we will so question it.