Days 141 and 142: Fallout from Comey

Today's (and yesterday's) coverage was mostly dominated by repercussions of Comey's testimony on Thursday. Diving straight into it:

• Trump's response to Comey's testimony: "He's lying!" Who do we trust more? Trump or Comey? The question is rhetorical.
• Trump has offered to speak under oath in response to Comey's testimony. Not sure where this will go. Nobody trusts a word he says anyway.
• Sessions will also speak under oath in response to Comey's testimony. Also not sure what Sessions plans to achieve with this. Also don't trust a word he says.
• Add to this that Congress is asking the White House if any taped recordings of conversations exists (like Trump suggested). That could be a gold mine, if they do.
• In a piece of amazing mental gymnastics, Paul Ryan has insisted that Republicans would be AOK with a Democrat president trying to do what Trump has been doing.
• On the growing diplomatic crisis in Qatar, Trump and his State Department have issued completely opposite statements within hours of each other. No wonder the rest of the world has stopped trusting the US!
• Under obvious pressure from his advisors, Trump made a statement committing the US to their responsibilities under NATO. That said, nobody trusts Trump anyway, so it's not clear that that statement actually provides any allies any sense of relief.
• This week was supposedly "infrastructure week" (it was really overshadowed, wasn't it?). Apart from the air control tower privatization scheme, there really hasn't been much else announced. There was a bit on Friday about "permit reform", but given that the past three presidents also focused on this, I'll be surprised if much will be done (other than relaxing standards). There was the announcement of a couple of councils that were originally introduced under Obama. Let's not forget that Trump's entire infrastructure plan is a scam.
• The White House Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has claimed that Trump isn't violating the emoluments clause, because George Washington made money on a side business too. Honestly, the OLC is really stretching a lot of their work recently. I'm rather disappointed that their lawyers aren't taking a principled stand.
• Despite previous claims that they would write their bill properly, Mitch McConnell has invoked a procedural step to fast-track the senate Obamacare repeal bill, without any committee hearings or discussions. This continues to be incredibly shady, and this news is getting lost under all of the other smoke. Please call your senators and ask them to oppose the secret monstrosity!

Not strictly regarding the administration, but related to the rising autocracy:

• A journalist is facing up to 75 years in prison for doing their job, covering protests against Trump.
• ICE has detained a high school student who was due to graduate next week for deportation.

Both of these stories lead one to worry about the abuse of power for no benefit other than to quell opposition and dissent that this administration seems to pride itself upon.