A Day In The Life

A brief, incomplete digest of just one day's worth of Trump's dystopian, brainless authoritarianism.

"Break the law! Take the land!":

President Trump is so eager to complete hundreds of miles of border fence ahead of the 2020 presidential election that he has directed aides to fast-track billions of dollars’ worth of construction contracts, aggressively seize private land and disregard environmental rules, according to current and former officials involved with the project.

He also has told worried subordinates that he will pardon them of any potential wrongdoing should they have to break laws to get the barriers built quickly, those officials said.  (our emphasis)

"Suck on it, hurricane victims!":

The Trump administration is pulling $271 million in funding from the Department of Homeland Security, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Disaster Relief Fund, to pay for immigration detention space and temporary hearing locations for asylum-seekers who have been forced to wait in Mexico, according to department officials and a letter sent to the agency by a California congresswoman.

To fund temporary locations for court hearings for asylum-seekers along the southern border, ICE would gain $155 million, all from FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund, according to the letter from Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Calif., which was seen by NBC News. (our emphasis)

"Clear-cut the motherf*cker!":

President Trump has instructed Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to exempt Alaska’s 16.7-million-acre Tongass National Forest from logging restrictions imposed nearly 20 years ago, according to three people briefed on the issue, after privately discussing the matter with the state’s governor aboard Air Force One.

The move would affect more than half of the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest, opening it to potential logging, energy and mining projects. It would undercut a sweeping Clinton administration policy known as the “roadless rule,” which has survived a decades-long legal assault.

Trump has taken a personal interest in “forest management,” a term he told a group of lawmakers last year he has “redefined” since taking office. (Ed.: by "forest management," he means "raking.")  (our emphasis)

"I'm the best negotiator!":

BEIJING - President Trump may think he’s keeping Chinese negotiators guessing with his whiplash-inducing remarks about the U.S.-China trade war.

But he’s not fooling anyone here.

More than a year into the deepening commercial conflict, Chinese officials and analysts say they’ve got a handle on the tweeter-in-chief and are no longer fazed by his unpredictable initiatives.

“There is a lot of fatigue with President Trump’s ‘art of the deal,’ ” said Wang Huiyao, president of the Center for China and Globalization and an adviser to China’s cabinet. [snip]

Trump’s claim to have the upper hand at the negotiating table does not appear to have convinced the Chinese.

“They’ve decided Trump is a vacillating guy who can’t figure out what he wants and gets spooked every time the stock market goes down or someone accuses him of not being tough,” said Arthur Kroeber, managing director of Gavekal Dragonomics, a consultancy in Beijing. “Although there are problems in China, they believe they have their economy under control, more so than Trump. They think he is more vulnerable to a slowdown and that they can afford to wait him out.”  (our emphasis)

Rest assured, tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, there'll be more because this is the worst reality TV show we've ever lived through.