The Political Page, T+28 -- February 17, 2017

Chicago: screenshot from The Drudge Report today:

Boeing: no union at Charleson, SC, facility -- employees overwhelmingly defeat effort to unionize. President Trump will visit the facility later today. After he signs an EPA executive order that will suck the air out of the room -- Fox News. 

Lied to our faces. a talking head responding to New York Times says folks should have done a psychiatric analysis of President Obama -- telling us "he lied to our faces." I wrote that years ago; someone must be reading the blog -- "The Obama legacy: knowing that you lied straight-faced while I cried, still I look to find a reason to believe." (see first comment)

Reason To Believe, Rod Stewart

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Can't We Just Get Along?

Dead. Broke. Dead-broke: Michigan utility withdraws plans for electric vehicle charging network. 

A Michigan utility has withdrawn its plans for a $15 million statewide electric vehicle infrastructure network following concerns raised over the past several months by state officials, clean energy advocates and the private sector.

Filed in March 2016, Consumers Energy’s plan was the first significant proposal by a Michigan utility to promote EV adoption. It called for 810 fast-charging and standard AC-charging stations in major metro areas across Consumers’ Lower Peninsula service territory. The proposed capital costs were $6 million for 60 DC fast-charge stations and $9 million for 750 AC stations, to be funded by ratepayers.

When I first read this article, I thought this initiative failed because the state was broke, but I was surprised that the environmentalists seemed to be the least cooperative. This suggests that the three parties involved each wanted a bigger cut of the financial pie. When the parties could not accept other parties getting a bigger share of the pie, they were unable to come to a compromise. If a relatively small state like Michigan can't get this done -- does anyone really think California can do this?

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Delay: obstruction by the alt-left; cabinet still not in place -- a full month has now gone by. Nothing like this has ever been seen. Political theater. The big news today: anti-climate-change Scott Pruitt will be confirmed for EPA today. 

Rolling Away: if you don't subscribe to Rolling Stone you probably have not noticed that the magazine is going the way of the Cheshire Cat. The magazine has shrunk in size (width x length), and is incredibly thin. It also has very, very few ad pages; I think it's in trouble. This week issue is a double issue RS 1281/1282 and this is Rolling Stone's 50th Anniversary year. The double issue has fewer pages than any issue I've seen. Big story: another multi-page look at Bob Dylan. Must be a really, really slow news period in music. Thinking about it, I did not even see anything in the entire issue regarding the biggest music story of the decade: Apple. If there was an Apple iTunes ad (and I'm sure there was) I missed it. The lead story: Bruce Springsteen takes on Donald Trump. Okay. That will sell a lot of issues.

Poll. Rasmussen daily presidential tracking poll. 55% approval rating. "Higher than President Reagan at same point in his presidency." Just saying.

Press conference: "everyone" loved it -- even those who don't particularly like President Trump. I was fortunate enough to have had a very, very close friend during graduate school who was from New York City, and then, again, an incredible USAF commander friend, who was also from NYC. One really needs to know the pugnaciousness of a typical alpha male from NYC to understand that press conference. I believe the president when he says he was having a lot of fun. He only appeared angry and serious because he "was an actor on the Presidential stage." I am surprised that The New York Times couldn't figure this out.

Among Republicans: 87% approval. Highest ever for a Republican president. Gallup. 9% approval rating among the opposition party.

Kidding? Kid Rock and Ted Nugent are both considering running for the US Senate. As Republicans in a Democratic state.

WSJ vs CIA: the former says intelligence agencies are withholding vital intelligence from the president; the latter says that's not true. The intelligence agencies are simply "routing" all vital intelligence through the press in the way of leaks. So, both sides are correct. After the "intel" failures during the Obama administration, the spooks want journalists to vet their reports before the president sees those reports.

CNN: "fake news" is now "very fake news" -- President Trump. This one was great. Less than 24 hours earlier, WH CNN reporter said the fix was in -- that the president would no longer call on CNN or any other "mainstream media" outlets. Yesterday, President Trump called on CNN and let the journalist ask as many questions as he wanted -- and was completely owned by the president. Afterwards, the reporter said he loved the "give and take." Mostly he "gave," Trump "took."