Feb 16, 2017: Puzder | Reince | Isreal |Oroville Dam | Always Soros

1. A Minor Concession: Puzder Was an Easy Loss to Swallow

The Washington Post and other mainstream media painted news of Andrew Puzder’s withdrawal from Labor Secretary as more evidence of the expanding divide between the White House and Capitol Hill, where bipartisan support is growing for a broader investigation into ties between Trump and Russia officials. The mainstream media also noted Puzder’s ex-wife’s appearance on The Oprah Winfrey show, discussing the domestic violence she experienced.

However, even before the recent scandals hit, Republicans had been skeptical of Puzder, something also acknowledged by The New York Times. Back in December, Breitbart ran a critical headline, “Trump Expected to Tap Labor Secretary Who Prefers Foreign Labor to Workers,” referring to news that he once hired an undocumented immigrant as a housekeeper. And yesterday morning, National Review took a strong stance against him:

“Puzder has long been one of corporate America’s most high-profile advocates of Gang of Eight-style 'comprehensive immigration reform' — or, put another way, one of the most high-profile advocates of precisely the approach to immigration policy that Donald Trump opposed during his campaign.”

And yet, while Puzder’s resignation wasn’t necessarily a huge surprise, even some on the Right agreed the timing couldn’t be worse. Said Charles Krauthammer, in a special report with Bret Baier:

“The timing is bad — it adds to the sense of disarray.” He continued, “But in the scheme of things, it is very minor.” Ultimately, Puzder’s bid was “...too heavy a lift for too small a payoff."

A trickle of Republicans also downplayed the withdrawal on Twitter last night. For example, roswell2001:

Republicans on Twitter followed up with this warning: the next selection will be worse for liberals. @Ten- GOP got nearly 1k likes for this tweet: 

Liberals will melt down like the cheese when they see Andrew Puzder's replacement. I guarantee.💯

— Tennessee (@TEN_GOP) February 15, 2017

Meanwhile, all eyes on the Right are now on Peter Kirsanow, a commissioner on the U.S. Civil Right Commission.

Ann Coulter tweeted:

Trump's Labor nominee Puzder to withdraw! Maybe someone who doesn't want to replace US workers w/ foreign workers, like PETER KIRSANOW!

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) February 15, 2017

A Breitbart article from March 16, 2016 about Kirsanow also began to circulate on Twitter last night. Its headline: “Illegal and low-skilled immigration disproportionately harms the job prospects and wages of black Americans, Peter Kirsanow, a commissioner on the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, told a Senate panel Wednesday.”

2. The Blame Game: Reince Watch your Back

While Trump unleashed a furious barrage of tweets blaming the national security agencies for leaks involving Gen. Flynn and Russia connections, members of the Red Media had their knives out for others:

• In what could be a sign of a coming civil war in the Trump administration, InfoWars.com, the organ of Alex Jones, pointed the finger squarely at Reince Priebus:

The purge of Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn engineered by White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, formally the head of the Republican National Committee in Washington, is the “Pearl Harbor” for Trump loyalists – a devastating attack that determines for Trump supporters that Priebus, an elite GOP Washington insider, must go.

The concern among Trump loyalists is that now that Priebus has succeeded in getting rid of Flynn, his next targets will be Trump top advisors Steve Miller, Steve Bannon, and Kellyanne Conway – all of whom D.C. insiders are planning must go if Priebus is to succeed in sabotaging Trump’s revolutionary agenda.

• Rush Limbaugh went on at length yesterday expounding on what is a very popular theme on the right: “Barack Obama’s Shadow Government.”

Obama’s not on TV. His embedded employees are doing the dirty work, and they are leaking to people in the media. But they’re not leaking to people in the media. They’re leaking to friends. They’re leaking to compatriots. The people in the media are the neighbors and the friends of (and in some cases having affairs with) the people in the intel community that are doing the leaking. It is a symbiotic, incestuous relationship within the Washington establishment. And they are all aligned. They do not like the result of an open and free election.

What we are watching: Not nearly all conservatives are buying into the Trump-as-victim theory of the Truth. In its Morning Jolt newsletter, National Review took a swipe at both Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn, saying that their “Finely Worded Denials Don’t Pass the Smell Test.”

3. Let’s Change the Subject: Israel Loves Trump

The Red Media got a happy break from the relentlessly bad news with a visit to the White House from Israeli Prime Minister:

“Benjamin Netanyahu Has High Hopes For Israel Under A Trump Presidency,” announced The Daily Caller, which had more than 128k people watch the presser through its web feed.

Asa J, a popular personality among conservatives on Twitter, got 1.5k likes for noting that Trump took the first question at the Netanyahu presser from David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network.  

Trump takes first question at Netanyahu presser from David Brody, Christian Broadcasting Network. 🤗👍

— Asa J 🇺🇸 (@asamjulian) February 15, 2017

Why It’s Important:
According to Pew Research, 82 percent of white evangelicals believe that God gave Israel to the Jewish people. (Only 40 percent of Jews actually believe this.) Trump is speaking to his base on its terms.

4. Oroville Dam Disaster: Politics and Infrastructure

The New York Times presented the Oroville Dam disaster as an example of aging infrastructure incapable of withstanding severe weather patterns in California caused by global warming. But for the Right, the situation was an indictment of liberal California government. The Federalist Papers cited a Mercury News article, which revealed that the Friends of the River, the Sierra Club and the South Yuba Citizens League all urged federal officials to require the dam’s emergency spillway to be armored with concrete, rather than remain as a hillside back in October 2005.The request was rejected by the Federal Emergency Regulatory Commission, when the state’s Department of Water Resources and other agencies said it was unnecessary. (The Washington Post and other mainstream media outlets also reported that the government was warned but didn’t listen.) Says the writer:

“But hey, go ahead and become a sanctuary state, California — then you can divert even more scarce resources from such “unnecessary” things like dam safety and infrastructure to illegal immigrants. Oh, and good luck with that secession movement — looks like California’s got things all figured out.”

Other articles from the Right, like this one from The Political Insider, even suggest that the liberal media conspired to cover up the the government’s fault in the collapse. The author writes:

“Arnold, along with the Democrat-dominated state, didn’t take the issue seriously. Now, countless Californians are in crisis. When Trump talks about the need for serious infrastructure repair, he means it. This is a clear example of what can happen after years of neglect and mismanagement.”

5. This Day in Soros

Meanwhile, as divisions grow among White House Republicans, a small contingency on the Right, disgruntled with the lack of unity, began to message yesterday that a number of top Republicans are in George Soros’s pocket. Many on Twitter voiced the same.

Separately, Alex Jones of Infowars, claimed Soros is now investing in Google to help step up its “Fake News” campaign in a conspiracy to negatively impact the votes in France for the National Front candidate, Marine Le Pen.