By Jon Bauer
Herald staff
A look at the week that wasn’t:
Birds of a feather: The trial of Paul Manafort, President’s Trump’s former campaign manager, on bank and tax fraud charges began. Among the initial revelations were descriptions of some the things Manafort spent with his largess, including a $15,000 ostrich leather bomber jacket.
If you’re wondering why ostrich, it’s all the rage among those Trump supporters who spend so much time with their heads in the sand.
Lie back and think of England: President Trump, displayed some confusion over the makeup of the United Kingdom at a Pennsylvania rally last week: “I have great respect for the UK. United Kingdom. Great respect. People call it Britain. They call it Great Britain. They used to call it England, different parts.” For the record, they still call it England. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland comprise the U.K. Britain refers to England, Scotland and Wales.
When the president visited both England and Scotland less than a month ago, we’re guessing he passed on buying Donald Jr. and Eric the T-shirts that read, “My dad went to England and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.”
Don’t leave home without it: In making a call to require that all voters show identification at polling stations, President Trump, at a Florida rally, stated that ID is already required when “you want to buy groceries … You go out and you want to buy anything, you need ID and your need your picture.”
The White House press secretary later clarified that it, of course, is not necessary to show ID when buying groceries; President Trump was reading from a briefing paper on an executive order planned for 2019.
It’s comfy and you get a coffee cup: President Trump recently has stepped up his attacks on “the enemy of the American people,” by punishing journalists, barring specific reporters from open-media events because they had shouted questions at the president.
To avoid such questioning during “press scrums,” the president will now only take questions from reporters sitting at the “Fox & Friends” couch.
And it’s depressing cheez doodle sales: A new report show that Oregon growers of legal recreational marijuana have overestimated demand, leaving about 70 percent of cannabis produced unsold, while in Colorado, growers are planting less than half of what they are allowed.
This is what happens when you rely on pot-smoking slackers to support an industry.
Why a duck? New projections of sea-level rise in Washington state have detailed expected changes at 171 sites along the state’s coastal areas as the ocean warms and glaciers and ice sheets melt. By 2100, Seattle’s sea level is projected to rise between 1.7 and 3.1 feet.
In reaction to the news, work has begun to replace Seattle’s new Highway 99 tunnel with a viaduct above Alaskan Way.
Making American cars great again: The Trump administration announced that it was rolling back fuel-economy standards for the nation’s cars and trucks, freezing them after 2020, and would move to end California’s authority to set its own higher standards that are used by Washington state and other states, rationalizing the heavier vehicles are safer than lighter, more fuel-efficient ones.
The nation’s automakers, celebrating the announcement, began making plans to add more weight to their vehicles, including a return to tailfins and metal dashboards that you can just hose off after an accident.
Jon Bauer: jbauer@heraldnet.com.
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