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Sunday, August 27, 2017

When the going gets tough the tough get going.

This link.
Is there a Bekah Mercer model, with diamond studded eyeglasses?
A Robert Mercer model, pull a string, it says nothing.

Vanity Fair. Mid-item excerpt [links omitted]:

It is fair to see these well-timed getaways as a chicken-egg situation—whether the scandal prompted the vacation, or the vacation prompted the scandal. As one person close to the couple explained to me soon after inauguration, the president tended to get in most trouble on Saturdays, when the couple was observing Shabbat, and couldn’t advise him away from his more self-destructive tendencies.

By now, though, it is clear that they don’t have nearly as much sway as anyone had assumed. They do, however, deserve credit for perfect timing and honoring their real-estate scion roots and birthrights to a spring break in March and a subsequent August vacation regardless of the fact that they are now in charge of Middle East peace and job creation.

While their absence always draws a certain amount of attention, it was particularly felt on Tuesday. Infrastructure, after all, is under Kushner’s vast West Wing portfolio. Ivanka Trump had been the highest-ranking White House official besides her father and member of the Trump family to publicly denounce hate groups. Still, they decided to go ahead with a two-day trip, just up north to Vermont, while the country was raging on an issue that touches the parents of three Jewish children directly. The two are worth as much as an estimated $740 million. They can foot a late cancellation fee. Vermont will still be there in the fall, and it happens to be quite lovely that time of year. (There is a Vermont Teddy Bear Factory bear modeled after the First Daughter "ready to head out to business meetings with her briefcase and pearls.”)

Many believed that this moment in Trump’s presidency may be the final straw for the more rationally minded members of the administration. Cohn told a person close to him that he was disgusted by the president’s comments, and two of the president’s business advisory panels disbanded Wednesday as a growing number of C.E.O.s resigned.

But to think that this is the moment that may send Ivanka and Kushner back to New York misses the mark. The administration has already crossed so many moral lines that many believed should have had them packing that it is hard to imagine that any such line exists for them at this point. (For what it's worth, Cohn, not a family member, also has not resigned, despite his disgust.)

Perhaps there was a moment in which this could have happened, when Kelly first arrived and was praised as a general who would run a tight ship.

Ah, yes. Generalissimo Kelly.

Vs. kids on break?