3 Stories You Should Read 2/22/2019: The Report, Idai, Trump

March 22, 2019 Confluence

Reading Time: 2 minutes

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In the category of: History in the making is an unstable process at the moment.

Can Trump Survive Mueller?

People predict the president will collapse under the stress of the Mueller investigation. But Trump has teetered on the brink before and never succumbed.

Perhaps his past escapes are the reason he appears oddly calm as most of the country leans forward, awaiting word of bombshells from Mueller. Over the weekend, when outsiders perceived mounting anxiety in Trump’s Twitter barrage, people who spoke to Trump by phone told reporters that “he seemed to be in good spirits.” The volume of tweets, they surmised, was just a product of too much time on his hands in the White House.

His bravado and bluster can’t mask, his critics say, the true jeopardy he faces. The stakes now are too high, the arena too large, the political currents too strong, for Trump to expect the same results. But if he does fail, pinned to account by the weight of evidence uncovered by Mueller, one thing is certain: It will be the first time.

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In the category of: Devastation.

Harrowing scenes after Cyclone Idai with inland ocean visible from outer space

As many as “300 to 400” bodies line the banks of a road out of the city of Beira in Mozambique, according to an eyewitness account, and flood waters have formed an inland ocean that is visible from outer space.

The harrowing scene, described by Zimbabwean Graham Taylor, suggests that the human toll of Cyclone Idai is likely to far exceed official estimates. It follows reports from aid agencies on the ground detailing how entire villages and towns have been completely flooded in the wake of last Thursday’s high-end Category 2 storm.

Taylor said the bodies were located on a 6 kilometer (3.7 mile) track of highway, where floodwaters had created an inland ocean, submerging entire villages around a “densely populated” sugar-cane plantation. The area is a mere fraction of the land in the southeast African nation left flooded after two major rivers burst their banks in the days following the storm.

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In the category of: Anxiety.

Fever Pitch: Speculation Rampant That Mueller Report Will Drop At Any Minute

“Can you just feel the tension?”

Speculation is running rampant on social media that special counsel Robert Mueller is about to file his report on Russian interference in the 2016 election and allegations of collusion with the campaign of President Donald Trump.

“Can you just feel the tension?” asked CNN’s Don Lemon late Thursday. “The White House, Congress, all of us, on pins and needles with the Mueller report expected to drop at any time now.”

“I just don’t see a wrap on it at this time,” John Dean, a central figure in the Watergate scandal that brought down President Richard M. Nixon, said on CNN.

Dean also speculated that the White House itself could be generating rumors that the report was about to come out. Then when it doesn’t, it’ll seem like the investigation is being dragged out.

“I think more indictments are coming,” he predicted.

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