A few stories from yesterday:

First up comes the fact that despite being given a memo which, in all caps, warned “President” Trump DO NOT CONGRATULATE Vladimir Putin for his election, our fearless leader did just that in a phone call to him.  This caused a mini-furor because details of the “do not congratulate” memo and what Trump said on the call were leaked to the press some two hours afterwards and clearly involved some of Trump’s very closest staff.

Over on CNN.com, Chris Cillizza offers the following fascinating article regarding this latest brew-ha:

The real problem for Donald Trump in the DO NOT CONGRATULATE story

It is Mr. Cillizza’s opinion that:

I think the real motivation for the leaks is that some within particularly the national security apparatus have decided that leaking things to the media is the only way to a) get the President’s attention and b) possibly change his mind.

Mr. Cillizza goes on to say this is no way to run a White House.

Huh.

Tell me something I don’t know! 😉

*****

Second story: Joe Biden, in a speech, stated that if Trump and he were in High School, he’d have “beaten the hell” out of him.  This was in relation to his many sexist statements and alleged sexism.

Sigh.

Look, I like Joe Biden.  I do.  He seems like a decent guy and all.  But, come on Joe.  The line might be good to rouse the crowds before you but the sentiment is at best silly and at worst the type of reaction that feeds a ghoul like Donald Trump.  Witness this article, by Lee Moran and found on Huffingtonpost.com:

Donald Trump taunts Joe Biden: “He would go down fast and hard, crying all the way.”

Sheesh.

It was a dumb line by Biden -and an expected response by Trump- and Mr. Biden should know better.   As they say online: Don’t feed the trolls.

*****

Finally, over at Fox “News”, Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters, a longtime Fox News analyst, is leaving the network but not quietly.  As Oliver Darcy notes on CNN.com…

Fox analyst blasts network as “propaganda machine” while announcing departure

For those like me (there are a few of you out there, I hope?!), this is hardly news.  Fox “News” IS propaganda, a place where you can find two consistent things: Praise for all things/people Republican and scorn for all things/people Democratic.

However, Lt. Colonel Peters is a very prominent, very conservative voice, one that is at times incredibly strident against anything Democratic (he was once suspended for two weeks from the network for saying President Obama was a “pussy”).

For someone as fiery as he to leave the network and to leave it with such accusations suggest something that’s been brewing for a while: There are conservatives out there, rabid or not, who are deeply uncomfortable with the “Presidency” of Donald Trump.

Peters’ criticism is directed at the fact that Fox’s opinion arm is too effusive in their praise of Donald Trump and, he clearly feels, this is hurting the country and many of the institutions that Trump and his underlings are trying their best to slam.

This is also, apparently, exposing a rift within the walls of Fox, as noted Oliver Darcy also notes in this subsequent article for CNN.com:

Behind the scenes: Fox News Analyst’s note hit the network “like a bombshell”

The point of this second article is that there are employees at Fox who genuinely want to be “news” reporters (who knew?) and don’t want to engage in the opinion game.  They take reporting seriously even if they do skew right and try to present the news fairly.

However, there is a large (very large) part of Fox “News” that is clearly opinion based and this section of the network has fawned on Trump’s reign so far as if it were the greatest thing evah.

Will this split become more pronounced?  Will it lead to further problems?

Stay tuned!