The policy of separating illegal border crossers parents from children is the current hot topic. It appears that this is essentially a by-product of of the "zero tolerance" policy with regards to illegal border crossing, so what happens is parents are charged with a crime and placed in a separate detention center from their children. Trump has stated before, and continues to declare that this is a result of laws passed by the Democrats, and that any changes to the law(s) that cause this to happen have to be changed by the Democrats, apparently since Republicans are unable to write legislation on the matter, or that democrats would never pass legislation that Republicans wrote, or, well, because Trump says so. Most sources that discuss the matter in any depth believe that this simply isn't true, and can find no law that mandates this sort of separation (although there is no law that prohibits it either). It's also not clear to me what "zero tolerance" means though, it would seem to me that under a "zero tolerance" policy, children should be charged with the same crime as their parents.
Yesterday a report regarding actions of the F.B.I. during the election, with some emphasis on James Comey came out as well, and it did a few things, only one of which Trump cared much about. There were some statements made by agents that were clearly anti-Trump, although from what I can tell, the report says that while such statements were made, they didn't affect the integrity of investigations. Comey himself was said to have acted with insubordination based on how he made his announcements into the Clinton e-mail investigations, but found him to be unbiased when it came to Trump. This one is the one that Trump has seized upon. Finally, they also concluded that Comey's actions with regards to the Clinton e-mail investigations helped the Trump campaign (whether that tipped the election was not addressed, but then how could that finding be made?).
Trump commented on Scott Pruitt today, Pruitt has been embroiled in ethics questions regarding his actions while director at the EPA. At this stage of things, Trump says he is "not happy with certain things," but that Pruitt's performance (i.e. rolling back many Obama-era regulations) "is very overriding." Apparently finding someone that is ethical and would do that sort of work would be difficult for the administration.
Survivor White House watch.
Giuliani still there as Lawyer
John F. Kelly still there as Chief of Staff
Jeff Sessions still there as Attorney General
Sarah Huckabee Sanders still there as Press Secretary, rumors continue to be denied.
Mike Pompeo - Secretary of State
John Bolton - National Security Advisor
Marc Short - White House Legislative Affairs Director - no denial of plans regarding his departure prior to the 2018 midterms.
Marc Short - White House Legislative Affairs Director - no denial of plans regarding his departure prior to the 2018 midterms.
No comments:
Post a Comment