20) The Trump Administration reported the budget deficit rose at a whopping 17% in fiscal year 2018. Spending jumped dramatically and tax revenue only increased slightly, this after the Administration promised the Trump tax cuts would lead to massive tax revenue. It's also a good time to remind you most Republicans screamed at the top of their lungs when the deficit under former President Obama wasn't nearly as bad as Trumps. #FACT! (10/15)
19) In Robert Mueller investigation news, Mueller is now focusing on conservative activists and their contact with Wikileaks, the likely go between for Trump and the Russians. Reports are Mueller has obtained evidence against Trump BFF Roger Stone, a man who long bragged about his relationship with Wikileaks and it's founder Julian Assange. Right wing celebrity Jerome Corsi, former Trump campaign staffer Sam Nunberg and New York conservative radio host Randy Credico have also been questioned by Mueller. Meanwhile Paul Manfort appeared in court in a wheelchair as he apparently is having some health issues in regards to his confinement. One investigator mentioned how many times he's seen guilty criminals all the sudden get health issues which require a wheelchair as they get closer to their sentencing, a ploy for leniency. (10/19)
18) CNN's Jim Acosta recalled the bizarre crowd response to Trump praising Montana Rep. Greg Gianforte, the man who proudly body slammed a reporter who asked him about healthcare. Thursday night, Trump praised him for body slamming the reporter, calling him "my kind of guy." Acosta described how the crowd roared at the idea of assaulting journalists, with people in the crowd making body slam gestures. One person looked at the press pool and ran his finger across his throat to imply he was going to hurt them. It's clear Trump will not stop encouraging violence. (10/20)
17) Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is in trouble again, this time for a recurring problem within the Trump Administration, violating travel policies. Zinke and his wife Lola were faulted for numerous violations. Zinke sought to have his wife designated as an 'agency volunteer' in order to obtain free travel for her, and he often brought her along with him in agency vehicles, a direct violation of agency policy. (10/19)
16) Trump made up a whopper of a lie at a rally in Nevada. Attacking California for it's sanctuary cities policy, Trump stated: "A lot of people in California don't like them either. They're rioting now, they wanna get out of their sanctuary cities." Trump completely fabricated domestic riot(s) just to vilify immigrants and California. (10/20)
15) Trump is going to name handbag designer Lana Marks to be the Ambassador to South Africa. Not only does Ms. Marks have ZERO diplomatic experience, and not only does Ms. Marks have a history of lying about her past, but after reviewing the nomination, it seems the only reason Ms. Marks is getting this Ambassadorship is that she's a member of Mar-A-Lago. (10/21)
14) Trump has made a claim he has no financial interactions with Saudi Arabia "(or Russia, for that matter)." The truth is the Saudis are pouring money into his properties, according to reports released in August. In 2015, Trump bragged about how the Saudis "buy all sorts of my stuff. They pay me millions and hundreds of millions." (10/16)
13) Talking to reporters, Trump is promising a new tax break for middle-income earners, a tax break which will be installed prior to the election. Putting aside the massive hole which is the deficit under Trump, a deficit which is only getting worse because of his last tax bill, a deficit which makes any new tax cuts grossly irresponsible at best, Congress is out of session until after the elections, meaning there's no possible way a tax bill would be passed prior to the election. (10/20)
12) A profanity laden shouting match occurred in the White House between Chief of Staff John Kelly and National Security Advisor John Bolton. Apparently the shouting match had to do with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, a person Bolton was viciously berating as incompetent. Kelly was defended her. The fight was so bad, there's speculation one of the two men might resign. (10/18)
11) Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, a man who has quite a few investigations going on in regards to his conduct, has come up with a less than brilliant idea. Zinke is actually getting rid of the Interior Department's Acting Inspector General Mary Kendall and replacing her with a political appointee, Suzanne Israel Tufts, who's currently an assistant Housing and Urban Development secretary. This potentially would wipe the slate clean in regards to the numerous investigations into Zinke's bizarre behavior since he took office. On Friday, Tufts resigned, as reports emerged Interior had no idea she was coming over, and HUD claimed there here multiple issues with her conduct while in their department. As opposed to push for the transfer, she decided to leave government altogether. (10/17, 19)
10) Trump is making more excuses for the Saudi's likely assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Trump backed the Saudi's excuse that the Saudi's were not involved, that it was "rogue killers" who were responsible for the murder. The overwhelming amount of evidence points to the Saudis being behind it. Turkey apparently has found evidence at the Saudi Embassy pointing to Khashoggi being murdered there. By the end of the day, the Saudis were floating a "we accidentally killed him" excuse. (10/15,16)
9) A new disturbing report emerges about the death of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. There seems to be an audio recording of the assassination, in the Saudi Embassy, an assassination done at the hands of Saudi officials. It's a brutal piece of audio which should warrant immediate condemnation. Trump and his Administration are still trying to figure out how to defuse this situation, as reports are Trump son in law, Senior White House Advisor, and point person for the Administration in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, Jared Kushner is either wittingly or unwittingly helping the Saudis manage the official response on the international stage. Trump's refusing to say if he'll send the FBI to help in the investigation into the killing. (10/17)
8) Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is giving Saudi Arabia a few days to get their story straight in regards to the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Reports are Pompeo has heard the alleged audio recording of the journalist's murder, an audio the Turks possess. Trump son in law and Presidential Advisor Jared Kushner is comforting Trump, telling him outrage over the murder (which he referred to as "errors") will pass, just like the outrage over the Saudis kidnapping the Prime Minister of Lebanon, and the Saudi's killing a busload of children in Yemen (I'm still pretty pissed about both of those). Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has decided against attending a Saudi Arabian investor conference. He'd been planning on going, but pressure finally made him do the right thing. (10/18)
7) Rep. Joaquin Castro was on CNN when he brought up a previous story about Trump son in law and Presidential Advisor Jared Kushner. The Daily Mail published a story in April in which the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, bragged about key US intelligence he had received from Kushner about his supposed enemies. Castro reminded people the crown prince bragged about getting the intelligence and using it to purge certain princes and businessmen. One of the sources for the story stated that Jared "took out a list of the people who had been trashing [the crown prince]...stating these are the ones who are your enemies." It's unknown if Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, recently murdered by the Saudis, was on the list. On Friday, it was revealed an interrogator from within the crown prince's inner circle was part of the murder of Khashoggi. The Saudis have finally admitted Khashoggi is dead, but insist he died during a fist fight...apparently with a bone saw... (10/19)
6) A new report shows Trump himself played a major role in preventing the FBI headquarters from moving to a new office in the Washington DC suburbs. CNN reported the FBI not moving benefited Trump directly, as one of his hotels is located near the current FBI headquarters. The House Oversight and Government Reform committee also called out General Services Administrator Emily Murphy for misleading of Congress on the issue of who was involved in the decision to not move the FBI. (10/18)
5) As an immigrant caravan moves closer to the US southern border, Trump threatened to send the US military to the border to deal with the unarmed immigrants. He then went on to claim the immigrant caravan was a plot by Democrats working with certain Central American governments. He then ordered Mexico to stop the immigrant caravan. Trump then threatened the caravan with a closing the border if the caravan didn't do what he said. Then he threatened to scrap the entire revised NAFTA trade deal he just agreed to if the Mexican government failed to stop the caravan. WOW! (10/18)
4) Trump decided to do a victory tweet the day after a defamation lawsuit against him, brought by porn star Stormy Daniels, was dismissed by a judge. Trump pledged to go after "Horserace" (Daniels) and "her 3rd rate lawyer" (Michael Avenatti). There's a lot to unpack here. First, this is so beneath the office it's astounding. Trump said this to a woman he slept with, one of multiple affairs he was having as his wife, First Lady Melania, was home recovering from giving birth. At what point Trump thinks he has ANY high road, I'm not sure. Both Avanatti and Daniels lashed back at him, with Daniels getting very personal. Trump's tweet also threw away any validity to his wife's complaints about a new music video from hip hop/rap artist T.I., a video where Melania is portrayed as a stripper. If your husband just called a porn star he had an affair with "horserace," you can't accuse anyone else of being in the gutter. So much for Melania's anti-bullying campaign. Some pundits are reporting he said it just so he could see himself covered on cable news. Others are pointing to this as a frantic attempt to pull the Saudi Arabian assassination scandal off the front pages. Later it was revealed Trump was testing out the "horseface" line for weeks, before finally deciding to use it. (10/16)
3) Trump has announced he's undoing a Reagan era nuclear weapons treaty we had with Russia. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty from 1987 required the elimination of short-range and intermediate-range nuclear and conventional missiles from both the USA and Russia. This looks like Trump doing Russia's bidding. Russian despot Vlad Putin has long wanted to get rid of the treaty, even thought Russians are currently pretending to disapprove of Trump's proposal. The Russians are believed to be developing a ground-launched missile system in breach of the treaty, a system the Russians would be able to develop fully if the treaty no longer exists. Russia wants to use this weapons system in a potential first strike capacity with Europe, Iran, Pakistan and China. (10/21)
2) Trump still has 66 immigrant kids, including at least one who us under the age of 5, in baby/child prison. This four months after Trump supposedly halted the evil and disastrous policy. Of the 66 kids, 50 of the kids are ineligible for reunification with their parents because the US has already deported the parents and the US Government has no idea where they're at. (10/16)
1) The Trump Administration is planning to put new rules in place which would allow businesses with federal contracts to be able to fire LGBTQ workers just for being LGBTQ. Trump is specifically putting these new regulations into place under certain circumstances which will make the rules far harder to undo in the future. The plan is not finalized, but it feels like a policy directly from Vice President Mike Pence. Trump's also moving to remove all rights for the transgender community, as the Administration is trying to establish a legal definition of gender as 'a biological condition determined solely by genitalia at birth.' The report from the New York Times is citing a memo from the Department of Health and Human Services to establish these new definitions "on a biological basis that is clear...and administrable." (10/19, 21)
The Republicans will eagerly and gleefully undo any advances the LGBTQ community has made in the last 40 years. There's a large portion of the extreme right who want to go back to the days were people with non-hetero sexual orientation were jailed, and executed.
Don't tell me this election doesn't matter. Get registered to vote and get to the polls, either early if your state has early voting, or on Election Day!
What are you doing to make the #BlueWave happen? #2018IsEverything!
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