These are the 20 most boneheaded things coming from Trump and his Administration this week. If this was a Democratic Administration, EVERYTHING on this list would have triggered investigations, committee hearings, firings, resignations and even one or two impeachment charges. Instead we have a man who might have been running a shakedown of corporate America and foreign businesses, funneling money through his lawyer, with the leverage the Presidency of the United States as the catalyst, and the Republican Congressional leadership doesn't even bat an eye.
On with the countdown!
20. Trump wished his mother a Happy Mother's Day with a nice tribute. What was surprising is that he failed to mention ANY of the mother's of his children, not even current First Lady Melania Trump. (5/13)
19. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke has ordered National Park police officers, a group of people hired to specifically patrol the US Park system, to the US-Mexico border to work border patrol duty, in a show of support for the Trump agenda. The ranks of the US Park police force were already grossly understaffed prior to this announcement. This is not helping. (5/9)
18. Melania Trump, in an effort to promote positive online experiences for kids, unveiled a booklet as part of her "Be Best" campaign. The only problem (outside of the name "Be Best" and ignoring her husband's atrocious online behavior), is she basically copied an Obama era phamplet the FTC published. Besides her introduction, it's exactly the same pamphlet, with the same headers and graphics. (5/7)
17. In what might be the shortest Administration term yet, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen actually drafted a letter of resignation after Trump was unnecessarily brutal to her in a cabinet meeting, where he accused her of failing to secure the US border. Trump's lengthy tirade was part of an overall demand that more needs to be done to stop non-white immigrants, with Trump viciously singling out Nielsen. (5/10)
16. National Security Advisor John Bolton snapped an the inference the US is going it alone on Iran, stating Israel is on our side. Table for two then... He also put forward the US will attempt to sabotage the remaining Iranian Nuclear Deal countries from continuing with the agreement without the US, threatening sanctions against companies based in European countries, countries which are supposedly our closest allies. It should be noted one country who makes out like a bandit with the US leaving the Iranian Nuclear Deal is Russia, whose companies are already planning on massive expansions into the country. Trump states Iran WILL negotiate with him, or else "something will happen." It's not clear on what he's implying, and White House officials are playing coy, but the implication is armed conflict with Iran. (5/10-13)
15. Our supposed European allies, befuddled by Trump's withdraw from the Iranian Nuclear Deal, have revealed the Trump White House never once produced an alternative plan to the current deal, only that he didn't like the current plan. This seems to add more validity to the theory the only reason Trump dumped the deal was because it was completed under the Obama Administration. (5/9)
14. One way to deal with bad news you don't want to believe is to pretend it doesn't exist. NASA has cancelled a program which tracks carbon and methane gases, the Carbon Monitoring System. Carbon and Methane gases cause greenhouse effects. They cancelled the program under direct orders from Trump. The total program cost per year was only 10 million dollars, and the program was delivering impressive, workable scientific data. (5/11)
13. Politico has the story of the Pentagon's evaluation of Presidential Advisor and Trump son in law Jared Kushner's VA health care initiative, a program meant to make the VA healthcare system more streamlined, with better coverage. The Pentagon's review labeled the first stage "devastating," with the report detailing 156 'critical' or 'severe' problems in the first stage alone. To give you an idea of how bad this plan is, usually the Pentagon considers a program having significant problems with 5 'critical' or 'severe' problems. (5/12)
12. Trump's pick to run the CIA, renowned torturer Gina Haspel, testifying to the Senate at her confirmation hearing, pinky swears she would never restart the torture...er, enhanced interrogation program ever again (wink). To understand what she really thinks about torture, look at her questioning at the hands of former criminal prosecutor Senator Kamala Harris. Harris repeatedly tried to get her to answer whether she thought torture was immoral. Haspel refused repeatedly to answer the question. For a human being with a soul, any human with any humanity, or for a Christian, this shouldn't be a tough question to answer. (5/9)
11. North Korea has released three American political prisoners (which is a good thing!) but leave it to Trump to take the credit for other's people's work, and then fumble the photo op. From all accounts, the Chinese and South Koreans had far more to do with the release of the prisoners than any negotiations from the USA, something Trump even mentioned when he says he was happy North Korea released the prisoners PRIOR to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meeting with Kim Jong-un. When the prisoners appeared with Trump on the tarmac in the early morning, he credited North Korea with treating the political prisoners "excellent"(???), and then bragged about how good the TV ratings were for him at 3 in the morning, with the prisoners standing right behind him. (5/10)
10. Trump's FCC Chair Ajit Pai announces net neutrality will end on June 10th. (5/10)
9. More scrutiny is on Trump in regards to the 1.6 million dollar payout from Trump lawyer Michael Cohen to former Playboy model Shera Bechard, who allegedly had an affair with top Republican donor Elliot Broidy, an affair which ended with a pregnancy and an abortion. Research into the arrangement is pointing to the possibility this affair was never with Broidy, but rather with Trump. The non disclosure agreement was signed by the fake names "David Dennison" and "Peggy Peterson," both of which were the same exact names used in the non-disclosure between Trump and Stormy Daniels. Trump was close friends with Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner, a friendship which came to an abrupt end in 2016, the same time as the alleged pregnancy. Bechard and Hefner were at one time an item and remained friends. Brody had potential advantages for taking the fall on this issue too. He's trying to get the Justice Department to drop a probe of an investment deal he made with Malaysia. If the probe is dropped, Broidy could make tens of millions personally. And Broidy has a history of bribing public officials. (5/8)
8. Proving this White House has absolutely nothing to do with Christianity, White House Staffer and Trump special assistant (?!) Kelly Sadler decided to mock Senator, tortured POW, decorated war veteran and man in the last stages of his fight with cancer, John McCain. Criticizing McCain for saying he won't vote for CIA nominee and noted torturer Gina Haspel, Sadler made the attempt at what she labeled as 'humor.' "It doesn't matter, he's dying anyway." Sadler has attempted to, privately, apologize to the McCain's for this incredibly insensitive comment. For some inexplicable reason, she's still employed by the White House, as they seem far more upset the media found out about the joke. Sadler, apparently promised Meghan McCain, the Senator's daughter, a public apology for her comments. So far she hasn't publicly apologized. It seems there isn't going to be a public apology. (5/11-13)
7. Chief of Staff John Kelly is supposed to be one of the few sane people in Trump's Administration, but his latest comments show how low that bar really is. Kelly stated the vast majority of undocumented workers who come into the US illegally are unwilling or unable to "assimilate into the United States into our Modern society," going onto state the vast majority are "rural people" where "4th, 5th and 6th grade educations are kind of the norm." He says he's for ending the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for people from Haiti, El Salvador, Nepal, Nicaragua, and the Sudan. Nothing from Kelly on white Europeans illegally in the US. (5/12)
6. Trump, to pay for his massive government handout to the ultra wealthy and largest corporations via the Trump Tax Bill, is sending budget cuts to the Congress for approval. Included in the budget cuts are 7 BILLION(!!!) in cuts to the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), meaning he is paying for billionaire tax cuts by removing healthcare for sick needy kids! (5/8)
5. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has now made it an official Trump Administration policy to separate parents from their children as they cross the US border. To prove how cold hearted he is, Sessions then went to Tennessee where he addressed this new policy, as well as the arrest of 97 workers picked up in a Tennessee raid. "I'm not shedding tears about them." Reminder: Sessions claims to be a devout Chrisitan. (5/11)
4. In shocking news, Stormy Daniels lawyer, Michael Avenatti, released stunning information which claims Trump's lawyer Micahel Cohen, in the months after the 2016 election, received $500K in money from a Russian oligarch with ties to Putin. It's quite possible this money reimbursed the Stormy Daniel payment. This is the same Russian Oligarch, Viktor Vekselberg, who has already been questioned by the Mueller investigation. This story so far has been substantiated by AT&T, another company who paid Cohen's private company, Essential Consultants LLC, although they insist their payments were not suspicious, rather just seeking insight and understanding into Trump (BY PAYING TRUMP'S LAWYER!!!). The New York Times and NBC News have also validated elements of Avenatti's claim, with one source to The Daily Beast stating "how the F*** did he ever find out about this?" To recap, major corporations and Russians were paying hundreds of thousands of dollars into a company whose sole purpose was to pay off Stormy Daniels. The company doesn't seem to exist in ANY other capacity. The evidence points to people paying Cohen for access to Trump. (5/8)
3. Stormy Daniels lawyer, Michael Avenatti, appearing on MSNBC brings more fire to the Michael Cohen Essential Consultants LLC story. He explains many companies were paying Cohen a lot of money for his 'expertise' in fields he has no expertise in, including medial advice, accounting and real estate. Avenatti also poked more holes in the story that Cohen paid for GOP strategist Elliot Broidy to settle a legal matter he was having with a Playboy playmate he was sleeping with, and who Broidy allegedly got pregnant. The financial arraignment seems to imply something else was going on, as legal matters of this nature are almost always billed hourly, not in lump sum amounts. (5/9)
2. The amount of money Michael Cohen received for 'consulting' work is astounding. Novartis admits having given Cohen 1.2 million dollars, and they have outright stated they gave Cohen this money because he was promising access to Trump. Novartis perviously had stated their donation to Cohen was only $300K. They had one meeting with him, determined he was useless to them, and never met with him again, but they still gave him the money. It's also looking like AT&T lied about how much money they funneled to Cohen. Their totall 'investment' was likely three times more than the 200K they initially reported. (5/9)
1. Because he's a major idiot, Trump decided to pull the USA out of the Iranian Nuclear Deal, a deal which had effectively shut down Iran's nuclear program. He seemingly did so solely because it was former President Obama who signed the deal. During his announcement, Trump repeatedly boldfaced lied to the American people. Even Trump Administration and Military officials loyal to Trump were telling him not to rip up the deal, advice Trump either ignored, or eliminated by removing pro-Iranian Nuclear Deal advisors, such as former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. When asked the simple question "How does this make America safer?", Trump was quiet for a few seconds, stated "This keeps America safer," and then wandered away without really answering the question. Every major country on the planet condemned Trump's ignorance, outside of Israel, who wants the US to fight their war with Iran for them. The rest of the world has committed to trying to work around the US's withdraw, meaning the US is becoming less important to the international community. It also implies no one can trust the US when it comes to peace deals (North Korea). White House officials have admitted part of the reason Trump did this was to watch "experts freaking out on CNN." (5/8)
At this point we have to realize the damage Trump has done to the US' standing worldwide. Not only has he screwed up our trade relations in stunning fashion, not only has he ripped up successful peace initiatives and global treaties, not only has he stoked the fires of war in the Middle East, he has tied all of us to 'Trump,' whether we worship him or despise him (as most of us do). It will take decades for the United States to get even close to where we once stood in this world, IF we ever do return to that level.
On the funny side, 200 Presidential Historians have all chimed in and after only a year and a half, EVERY ONE OF THEM has placed Trump as the worst President of all time. Finally some relief for the Harrison, Buchanan, Harding, W. Bush and Camacho Administrations.
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