These are the 20 most boneheaded things coming from Trump, Giuliani (SPOILER!) and his Administration for this week. All the things on this list should be the lynchpin for investigations, committee hearings, firings, resignations and even one or two impeachment charges. Instead, as the Trump cesspool fills up around us, we have to keep reminding ourselves NONE of this is normal!
On with the countdown!
20 - Secretary of Education Betsy Devos was hammered by the 50 'Teachers of the Year' in a private meeting where there was a recurring theme. Many of the teachers, including teachers who support Trump, told Devos her policy of dispersing public school education funds to charter schools and private school via a vouchers system are making the public school system FAR worse. Devos tried to point out some kids getting out of the bad schools as a plus, but the teachers quickly pointed out she doesn't seem to care at all about the the majority of students who are left behind in the subpar school, which is now grossly underfunded. (5/1)
19 - Admitting something we all knew, Trump's former personal doctor, Harold Bornstein, admitted that Trump dictated the now infamous one page letter from 2016 which stated that Trump was the healthiest person ever elected. (5/2)
18 - Eighteen Republicans have proudly submitted Trump's name to the Nobel Peace Prize committee for the Korean Peninsula Peace treaty, a peace treaty which doesn't even exist yet. They base part of their recommendation on the comments from the South Korean President Moon Jae-in who was reported to have implied Trump should receive the prize. THAT was a mis-translation. He actually stated how he (Moon Jae-in) didn't deserve the Nobel prize, only the prize of 'peace with the North.' One other slight problem with the Republican's submission; the deadline to submit nominees to the Nobel Peace Prize committee was in February. (5/2)
17 - On the now infamous March 20th phone call where Trump congratulated Russian evil dictator Vlad Putin on his fixed election victory, something Trump was told repeatedly NOT to do, Trump also stunned everyone, including Putin, by inviting Putin for a one on one meeting at the White House. What's remarkable is at the time he did this, the US and our European allies were in the process of ejecting Russian diplomats from the respective countries in response to the Russian nerve agent attack on British soil. The White House didn't release Trump's Putin invite at the time of the call. The Russian's believe Trump is just trying to get Putin to the White House in an effort to impress him. (5/4)
16 - At the NRA Convention, Trump comments if you ban guns, like they did in England, bad guys will just find other ways to attack each other. He went onto imply there's an unnamed London Hospital which has been turned into a "war zone" with "blood all over the floors" from knife attacks. He seems to be referring to a story of a hospital where the lead surgeon was referring to knife attacks in general, not that there are hourly patient dumps with thousands of knife wounds. It's also incredibly confusing where exactly Trump was going with this. Would he rather these people shoot each other? Is he applauding knife attacks? Seriously, I have no idea what Trump was thinking. Many in the British medical system quickly condemned Trump's comments, saying guns are not a viable solution to stabbings. (5/5)
15 - Senator John McCain 's thoughts on Trump are coming to light as he nears the end of his fight with cancer. McCain's autobiography is "The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights and Other Appreciations," and in it he pulls no punches. Referring to Trump: "His lack of empathy for refugees, innocent, persecuted desperate men, women and children is disturbing. The way he speaks about them is appalling as if welfare and terrorism were the only purposes they could have..." "He has showered with praise some of the world's worst tyrants." "The appearance of toughness, or a reality show facsimile of toughness, seems to matter more than any of our values." (5/6)
14 - One month after a judge threw out a lawsuit claiming Trump was guilty of using the office of the Presidency for financial gain from foreign governments (violating the Emoluments Clause), the government of Qatar suddenly shelled out 6.5 million dollars for a condo in the Trump World Tower in Manhattan. The purchase also took place as the Qatari Government is lobbying heavily in Washington for a positive solution to the regional crisis they were having with Saudi Arabia and the UAE. (5/5)
13 - Chief of Staff John Kelly has apparently had it with Trump. He feels as if he is the only barrier between Trump and a catastrophe, often commenting that Trump is an "idiot." In a meeting with National Security Advisors, he referred to Trump as "unhinged." Of the 8 sources who commented on this story, most of them feel that Kelly will not be in the position past July. (4/30)
12 - Somehow, someway, Presidential Advisor and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner has been found to have made MORE mistakes on his federal ethics disclosure forms. It was discovered he misstated the financial information on two Brooklyn loans, the latest in a string of mistakes he's made on these forms. The question now is how much of his forms were actually correct? (5/4)
11 - Dr. Harold Bornstein, Trump's longtime doctor, said his New York City office was raided by a top White House thug, Trump's longtime personal bodyguard Keith Schiller and another "large man," in early 2017. Also present was Trump Organization Chief Legal Officer Alan Garten. Apparently Trump was furious at Bornstein's admission that Trump had been taking Propecia, a hair growth medication, for years. The thug crew claimed Bornstein had violated the doctor patient privacy code, and not only did they confiscate all of Trump's medical files, they also ordered him to remove a private photo from the wall which featured Trump and Bornstein together. It's not clear if the Trump thug crew had any legal documentation which was needed for them to remove the files. (5/1)
10 - It seems everyone in the White House is an idiot. After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put on the dog and pony show, power point presentation designed to scare Trump out of the Iranian Nuclear Agreement, the White House put out a press release stating "Iran has a robust, clandestine nuclear weapons program..." They made this claim even though the Iranian Nuclear deal completely shut down their nuclear program. When it was discovered Netanyahu was using incredibly dated information for his presentation (information from 1993-2003), and that the US's press release was inflammatory to many different countries and groups, the White House attempted to quietly change the press release, changing the word 'has' to 'had.' (5/1)
9 - The Trump Administration has decided to end temporary protections for immigrants in the US from Honduras, a total of 57,000 people. Most of these people could now potentially be deported, even after living and working legally in the USA for 20 years. For many Hondurans, the reason they asked for safety in the US was because of threats to their lives back in Honduras, and/or because natural disasters destroyed everything they had in Honduras. (5/5)
8 - The question of who leaked the Mueller Trump interview questions to the New York Times is taking some interesting turns. On Monday, the Times ran a story featuring 'questions' Mueller was looking to ask Trump, but it doesn't appear the questions actually came from Mueller. Grammatical errors point to the questions coming from the Trump camp, something backed up for a former Mueller aide, Michael Zeldin. Zeldin points to the grammatical errors, and the methodology of the questions, to suggest these questions were actually written by someone from the Trump legal team writing down part of a conversation while talking to Mueller. Later, the Washington Post reported Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow, after getting the Mueller team to supply the Trump team with an idea of the subjects Mueller was interested in talking with Trump about, took those generalized ideas and complied a list of 49 questions the team believed represented Mueller's questions. Trump has claimed the list of question points to Mueller admitting there's no collusion, something virtually every legal expert disagrees with Trump on. Most people point to the vagueness behind the subject of the questions as being introductory at best, meaning these questions are meant to be followed up with more question. (5/1)
7 - Both Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and White House Spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway refuse to deny if there have been other Trump financial payouts to women to keep quiet about affairs they had with Trump. Giuliani states "I have no knowledge of that, but I would think if it was necessary, yes." Conway stated she didn't know of any other payments, outside of the one to Daniels (another admission?) but then added the important caveat; "they didn't cross my desk as campaign manager." (5/6)
6 - Trump puts his foot on the trade war accelerator with demands that China cut their trade surplus with the US by $200 billion, end subsidies on advanced technology and sharply cut import tariffs to the US's standards. Considering Trump is currently only threatening $150 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods, but wants China to cut their trade surplus by 50 billion more, without adding in China's cost of ending of subsidies and cutting of tariffs, this could be one of the dumbest opening salvos in the history of trade negotiations. It's reported China has stopped ordering all American soybean and soybean products, in any of their forms, making purchases from other countries instead. So far the White House has had no response (5/4)
5 - As Senator John McCain's battle with cancer has taken a turn for the worse, his spokespeople have let the White House know that Trump will not be welcome at his funeral or memorial. This on the heals of former First Lady Barbara Bush's family asking for Trump not to come to her funeral, and the Royal family in Britain laughing at the idea of Trump getting an invite to their royal wedding. I can't remember a president ever being told to not show up for funerals or weddings to the extent Trump has been told to stay away. (5/5)
And this week we have a four way tie for first place. All of these stories involve Rudy Giuliani and his nightmarish week, but because each story was it's own unique elements, I decided against combining them, and will treat them as a four way tie!
1 Trump's new legal representative Rudy Giuliani has stated Trump now has paid Michael Cohen back the $130,000 for the Stormy Daniels payment. "It's going to turn out to be perfectly legal; that money was not campaign money." Not only does this contradict the previous statements made by Trump in regards to his knowledge of the alleged payout, it acts as a pseudo-admission from Giuliani that Trump did have an innapporprate relationship with Stormy. Rudy Giuliani also has created chaos with other admissions from the Wednesday night interview. Republicans and former FBI director James Comey are taking issue with his calling the FBI agents who raided former Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort Nazi 'stormtroopers,' something Giuliani has doubled down on. Reports are the White House is 'gobsmacked' at Giuliani's description of Trump son in law Jared Kushner as "a fine man," but "disposable." Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, she herself having lied repeatedly about the Stormy Daniels affair and payout, now says she can't even answer why she's been lying the entire time, because it involves a legal matter. Republican Rep. Charlie Dent has said enough is enough and is wanting hearings on Stormy Daniels, stating they'd already be well underway if it was President Obama's scandal. Giuliani also strongly implied there were other payouts similar to Stormy Daniel's. On Thursday morning, along with doubling down on the "stormtroopers" reference, Giuliani contradicted himself AGAIN. After saying the payments had nothing to do with the election, Giuliani stated the payments were there to help prevent the Stormy Daniels story from coming out before the election, hence avoiding the scandal from hurting Trump's political chances. Reports are the White House is in full blown panic mode over the Rudy Giuliani interview. (5/2-3)
1 Continued - Trump seems to be backing up Rudy Giuliani's admission from Fox News on Wednesday night. He now admits there was a payment, but that it was legal and not via his campaign dollars. In tweets which definitely read like his lawyers wrote them, not Trump, he carefully words the admission and defense. Reminder: Trump has lied dozens of times about this payout and the affair. (5/3)
1 Continued - Now Trump seems to be trying to walk back Rudy Giuliani's statements from Wednesday night; the statements about Stormy Daniels, about how the payout was from Trump, and whether or not the payout had to do with the election. Trump mentioned that Giuliani "started yesterday" and that he would "get his facts straight." Trump then mentioned the Mueller investigation is a pure witch hunt. A friend of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen (referring to a private conversation with Cohen) states Rudy Giuliani "doesn't know what he's talking about." Cohen mentioned there was a reason Rudy Giuliani was passed over for a White House position back when Trump took office. Later in the day, Giuliani released a press statement, walking back his comments from Wednesday night, and saying he misspoke and that Trump was (now) correct. (5/4)
1 Continued - Just when you didn't think Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani could get any worse at representing Trump, he went on ABC Sunday morning. Now he's saying Trump has no idea the 130K payment was for Stormy Daniels. He adds the payment had nothing to do with the campaign. Giuliani claimed Trump repaid the loan over time, and it was AFTER paying lawyer Michael Cohen did Trump bother to find out what the money was for (???). He said the Trump team did not leak the proposed Mueller interview questions, then suddenly suggested it was indeed a former Trump attorney who leaked the questions. He went onto to say no one has discussed a Cohen pardon, before saying "it wouldn't be illegal to talk about it." He added Trump would take the 5th Amendment if subpoenaed. Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniel's lawyer, appearing right after Rudy Giuliani, asked "Did that interview just happen? I mean, I'm not being spoofed, right?" After it was confirmed that was indeed a serious Giuliani interview, Avenatti stated "It was an absolute unmitigated disaster...a train wreck." (5/6)
For goodness same, how can Trump keep sending Rudy Giuliani off to do interviews on his behalf?!? Stunning!
More Nazis, racists, KKK members and white supremacists are running to be Republican candidates. Most of the time, the local Republican party doesn't seem care. Whose side are YOU on?
#2018IsEverything! Get registered to vote! Know the candidates! Know the issues! Know where you vote! Make sure five of your friends are registered and know where they vote! Help your local Democratic candidates! Then pick five Democrats in Republican leaning districts and vow to help them sometime this summer!
One seat shy of controlling the Minnesota House or the US House is failure. Remember that. There is no second place trophy this time around.
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