Trump's being attacked in the US as well.
In the latest episode of the Simpsons a character that closely resembles the American President tries to bribe Robert Mueller who's investigating his ties to Russia. Silly, as always, but definitely funny. And it makes you think.
Valentin Bogdanov will report to us on the other weekly news from the US.
A scene from Forrest Gump, director Robert Zemeckis: "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."
Forrest Gump, the most famous character from Alabama used to say these words.
For a quarter-century real Alabamians have always voted red — the Republicans won. The Democratic blue was added to the state's political life with a surprising victory of the former attorney Doug Jones at the Senate elections.
Jones didn't just knock the conservative Roy Moore out of his stride, but also stole one seat from the Republicans in Congress. The current balance is shaky — 51 to 49. That means, in order to block a law that's important to Trump only two Republicans need to disagree.
"This is a huge defeat for President Trump. He was counting on Alabama and the candidate that was following his Trump-scenario in order to win the case. He was aggressive and denied everything but it didn't work out".
CNN draws spiteful parallels. Trump's candidate Moore openly opposed gay marriages and abortions, but was destroyed by a sex scandal. The liberal Washington Post discovered that he allegedly harassed teenage girls in the 80s.
Trump was also accused of harassment when he was running for president. Building on their success, three of Trump's female attackers are now demanding for Congress to investigate the issue.
Rachel Crooks, former Trump Tower employee: "Nothing shocks me or surprises me about Trump anymore. Supporting Roy Moore is something this person would do. Previously, he used to simply deny all accusations and quite easily became the President. So it's like passing the torch for Roy to do the same”.
Trump's Republican ally and the US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley expressed her female solidarity with those overwhelmed by the memories of their youth. It made Trump really mad: "Despite thousands of hours wasted and many millions of dollars spent the Democrats have been unable to show any collusion with Russia so now they are moving on to the false accusations and fabricated stories of women who I don't know and/or have never met. Fake news!"
7 million dollars was spent on special counsel Mueller's investigation. that bore no results. Instead, they discovered that the investigation team that's supposed to be objective is full of partisan parties.
The extracts from the text messages of two FBI investigators, agent Peter Strzok and lawyer Lisa Page, who had an affair during the elections and then joined Mueller's team, were punished by Politico. "God Trump is a loathsome human... OMG he's an idiot." "He's awful".
Strzok and Page are not working with Mueller anymore. But there are still a lot of Clinton and Obama supporters among those who are continuing to search for Trump's mythical ties to Russia. That's why Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller, had a hard time at the congressional hearings.
Lamar Smith, Republican congressman:
- The special counsel has hired at least eight employees that had direct contacts with the representatives of Obama and Clinton. Don't you think that has an appearance of impropriety?
Rod Rosenstein, Acting Attorney General:
- I'm not aware of any impropriety. We have our internal regulations. The special counsel follows all internal rules of the Department and is controlled by the Attorney General."
- So you don't see any misconduct here?
- Misconduct is in the eye of the beholder, we're following our rules and regulations.
At least both parties fully agree on the military budget
Donald Trump: "I won't be showing all of it, it has a lot of pages".
2018 activities that are worth the record sum of 700 billion dollars from the military budget were drafted by the Senate Armed Service Committee chaired by John McCain. Trump signed the budget using the opportunity to credit America with the victory over ISIS.
Donald Trump, President of the US: "As you know, we've won in Syria, we've won in Iraq. They fled but we'll find them as fast as they're fleeing. During the last eight months, we've achieved more than the previous administration did during its entire term".
And not a word about Russia playing the key role in eliminating the terrorists. Instead, our country is listed as the main threat to the US National Security. One of the paragraphs literally mentions spending 4,600 million dollars on the deterrence against the Russian aggression in Europe. 350 million will be sent to Kiev.
The US is going to train Ukrainian soldiers. The law on defense budget ties Trump's hands making him report to Congress any possible arrangements with Moscow regarding the settlement process in Syria.
The level of absurdity was only increased after Trump commented on his phone conversation with the Russian president: "He said very nice things about what I have done for this country in terms of the economy. And then he also said some negative things. But the primary point was to talk about North Korea because we would love to have his help on North Korea. China is helping. Russia is not helping. We’d like to have Russia’s help — very important."
So whatever Washington does it can't escape the geopolitical reality where Russia plays quite a different role than the one imagined by the US.
It's much easier to do political maneuvers in space. 45 years after the Moon-mission of Apollo 17 Trump orders NASA to create a new plan of a piloted flight to the Earth's natural satellite.
Returning to the Moon program was a co-erced choice. Most of his promises regarding the affairs on Earth still remain unfulfilled, a year after his victory.
Analysts believe that this is the reason Trump's rating is constantly declining. Supported by the 32% of the population — his new anti-record.
Valentin Bogdanov, Ivan Utkin, and Denis Lisitsyn Vesti News of the Week, the USA
