April 1-4, 2017: Trump Donates His Paycheck - Syrian Launches Poison Gas Attack

 

April 1, 2017: April Fools. Trump is still president. No, we mean it. America, the joke’s on you!

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4/2/17: Trump declares this World Autism Awareness Day. No way of knowing if he mocks people with disabilities in the privacy of the Oval Office. Would anyone be surprised if he did?

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4/3/17: The president donates his first paycheck ($78,333.32) to the National Parks Service. Conservatives are furious when environmental groups don’t praise him highly enough. 

This could have something to do with the fact the Trump administration plans to cut $1.5 billion from the budget of the Interior Department…which operates the National Parks. 

If Trump will give up his next 19,490 paychecks, we’ll be able to cover the entire cut to Interior.

Who needs national parks! Grand Teton N.P., Wyoming.

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4/4/17: The Assad regime in Syria apparently decides President Trump is not concerned with all the killing and launches a poison gas attack which wipes out dozens, including many children. (See: 3/30/17.)

April 23-26: President Trump Says the "Dreamers" "Can Rest Easy."

 

4/23/17: Trump suggests that Dreamers, young immigrants brought to America as children, and who remained through no fault of their own, “can rest easy.” He doesn’t want to deport them. Attorney General Sessions, however, says that they, like “everyone that enters the country unlawfully,” are “subject to being deported.” 

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“The United States is my home, and I don’t know any other.” 

Jaime Rangel, on why DACA is important to her

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Take Jaime Rangel. She was brought to the U.S. at six months of age. Now attending college in Georgia, she explains,  

I was brought here…before I could walk, before I could talk, and long before I had any rights to make legal decisions of my own. I love America. I work hard, follow the rules, and because I grew up in Georgia, I speak with a southern accent. The United States is my home, and I don’t know any other – which is why it is so frightening to think that I could be facing possible deportation to a country I have never known.

 

You must be nuts to think deporting Ms. Rangel makes sense. Oh, wait. This is the Trump administration.

Protest in favor of DACA protection.

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4/24/17: With tensions on the Korean Peninsula rising, the president decides to meet with members of the U.N. Security Council over lunch at the White House. Meanwhile, the North Koreans detain a third American citizen. The situation is more complicated than healthcare and just as complicated now as it was when George W. Bush and Barack Obama had to wrestle with similar issues. 

In Trump’s more simplistic days – that is, five weeks ago – he regularly bashed the U.N. and promised to cut funding to the organization. 

Now he wants U.N. assistance.

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4/25/17: Trump says he isn’t worried about an “arbitrary” framework, measuring him by a “first-100-days” standard. He’s the best president ever. Every foreign leader loves him. He has great chemistry with them all. He’s not going to fire Press Secretary Spicer because the man has higher TV ratings than soap operas. 

The unintended irony is impossible to miss. 

Turning from stupid to sickening: The president is too obtuse to realize that saying he’s helping CBS (and other networks) to their best ratings “since the World Trade Center came down,” might strike Americans as grotesque. It’s like claiming to be a great driver after you rear-end another vehicle and cause a fiery crash that kills ten children. Your story is going to make the nightly news. 

You still killed those poor children.

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4/26/17: Tough day for Trump fans. Congress isn’t going to fund the big, beautiful wall, and it’s not going to get “ten feet taller” every time the president is in a snit. Will Mexico ever pay for it? Sure they will! Kind of like Trump has an imaginary friend in the White House. 

Also, guess who might be going to jail! General Michael T. Flynn! Wouldn’t that be something! Guess who reported this “fake news.” CNN, the “failing” New York Times…and Fox News.

 

Also, Ivanka got booed while speaking in Germany.

May 8-12, 2017: Trump Fires F.B.I. Director - but Not Because of Russia - Uh, Check That

 

5/8/17: The president wakes up constipated. He lets rip in another angry, early morning tweet: “The Russian-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end?”

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5/9/17: In a bold move to end the “taxpayer-funded charade,” not to mention cover his lard ass, Trump fires F.B.I. director James Comey. White House aides are at pains to point out that the president “acted based on the clear recommendations” of two men, Attorney General Jeff Sessions (who later pisses Trump off; see: 7/20/17) and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (see again: 7/20/17).  

 

“This has nothing to do with Russia.” 

White House officials insist Comey lost control of the F.B.I. Kellyanne Conway tells Anderson Cooper that evening: “This had nothing to do with Russia, as much as somebody must be getting $50 every time the word is said, I’m convinced, on TV. This has nothing to do with Russia.” 

“Nada.” (See: 5/11/17.)

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5/10/17: At a morning press gathering Sarah Huckabee Sanders assures reporters and anyone listening, including Vladimir Putin, that Trump fired Comey only because of letters he received. These letters said Comey had lost the confidence of rank-and-file agents at the Bureau. 

Sanders adds that she, personally, has talked to all kinds of F.B.I. agents who told her they had lost confidence in the Director. 

BLOGGER’S NOTE: In April 2019, Sanders finally admits that was a lie. She hadn’t talked to a single F.B.I. agent at all.

 

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THE PRESIDENT has an afternoon meeting  with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. This meeting is kept secret for two days, in large part because the “fake news” folks are banned from attending. Also, because the White House decides not to mention it. 

Even after the news leaks, White House aides decide to release photos, but crop Kislyak out of the scene. (See: 5/12/17.)

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5/11/17: In an interview with Lester Holt of NBC, Trump explains his rationale for the Comey firing. Holt wonders: How much of a factor were those recommendations by Sessions and Rosenstein? 

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“Oh, I was going to fire regardless of recommendation.”

 

President Trump, referring to James Comey

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“Oh, I was going to fire regardless of recommendation,” Trump replies. “I was going to fire Comey, knowing there was no good time to do it. And, in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story.’” 

That’s right. Comey was fired because of the Russian investigation. Who says so? The fool in the Oval Office.

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5/12/17: The Russians prank the president, releasing photos of his meeting with Kislyak, and a variety of other Russians, including representatives of the Russian media. Everyone in the photos appears to be having a great time. 

Part of the fun involves Trump telling the Russians he fired Comey because he was “crazy, a real nut job.” 

A week later, The New York Times acquires a leaked document outlining what was discussed at the meeting. “I faced great pressure because of Russia,” Trump told his foreign pals. “That’s taken off.”

May 20-24, 2017: President Trump Visits Wimps Out During Visit to Saudi Arabia

 

5/20/17: The president hops a jet and flees from investigators. He lands in Saudi Arabia, where his gaudy tastes are perfectly matched by the Saud royal family. 

(Who wants a $549 million yacht?) 

On his first overseas trip Trump makes nice with the Saudis, purveyors of Wahhabism, a fundamentalist brand of Islam. This is the brand that inspired Osama bin Laden and can be seen reflected in the ideals of ISIS. 

It goes without saying that neither Trump nor most of the Trump base will have a clue about this topic.

Trump enjoys himself in Saudi Arabia.

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5/21/17: In a speech in Riyadh, before dozens of leaders from across the Muslim world, Trump wimps out, at least according to one of his harshest critics, Candidate Trump. “This is not a battle of different faiths, different sects or different civilizations,” he tells his audience. “This is a battle between barbaric criminals who seek to obliterate human life and decent people, all in the name of religion, people that want to protect life and want to protect their religion. This is a battle between good and evil.”

 

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“I think Islam hates us. There’s something, there’s something there, that, that’s tremendous hatred.”

 

Candidate Trump

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This is not the same as saying, as did Candidate Trump, that you saw a video of thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the Twin Towers’ fall. The rhetoric in Riyadh isn’t as stirring as riling up supporters by explaining in an interview, “I think Islam hates us. There’s something, there’s something there, that, that’s tremendous hatred…there…there’s a tremendous hatred there. We have to get to the bottom of it. There is an unbelievable hatred of us.” 

Nor does Trump employ his “magic phrase” in speaking to Muslim leaders. Candidate Trump, seconded by Fox News, insisted we could never defeat ISIS unless we chanted: “radical Islamic terrorism.”

 

President Obama was a pansy because he wouldn’t. Now, with a chance to lay it on the Saudis, Trump chokes. 

He fails to utter his favorite phrase. 

You can go to the White House website and read the entire text of his speech if you don’t believe me. 

For Obama haters it must have sounded like Obama Lite, with one stark exception. Where Mr. Obama focused on human rights and democracy in talking to Middle Eastern potentates, Trump professed not to care. America wants “partners, not perfection,” he opined. If the Saudis want to stone adulterers and arrest women who walk down the street in skirts or dare drive, or torture political opponents, it’s of no concern to the United States. 

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5/22/17: It’s on to Israel, where Trump has to deal with the same problems that have vexed the following U.S. presidents, in order: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, Obama and now, Donald J. Trump. 

 

“Not as difficult as people have thought.” 

One might give him a pass in this regard, save for the fact he acts like he has solutions where none of his predecessors did. Trump insists son-in-law and jack-of-all-administration-trades Jared Kushner (who definitely never talked with any Russians) can bring peace to the Middle East. 

The president explained in a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas earlier in the month, “It is something that I think is frankly, maybe, not as difficult as people have thought over the years.”  

(It will be nearly three years before Team Trump can craft the “deal of the century” to bring peace to the Middle East. Even Fox News will admit the plan is “unapologetically pro-Israel.” Abbas will reject it within hours. See: February 1, 2020.)

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5/23/17: Trump reveals his budget for Fiscal Year 2018 and promises everything will balance in the end. Defense spending will increase 10%. A cool $1.6 billion will go to build the Great Wall of Trump. Social Security and Medicare, the biggest drivers of federal debt, remain untouched. 

Over the next decade $192 billion will be cut from nutrition programs for children, because – hungry kids – no big deal!

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5/24/17: The New York Times reports that U.S. intelligence agencies collected information during the 2016 campaign “revealing that senior Russian intelligence and political officials were discussing how to exert influence over Donald J. Trump through his advisers.”  

Sources are three current and former officials familiar with the sensitive intelligence. The names of General Michael T. Flynn and Paul Manafort had both been mentioned. There was also “information about direct communication between Mr. Trump’s advisers and Russian officials.” 

Trump and his toadies start complaining about leaks. Fox News amplifies the message. Sean Hannity insists no Russians have been seen within a thousand miles of anyone named Trump or Kushner or anyone else. “If there ever was any effort by Russians to influence me, I was unaware, and they would have failed,” Manafort insists. 

(For comparison purposes, see: May 1, 2019.)

May 25-27, 2017: President Trump Bombs at NATO Summit

 

5/25/17: At a NATO summit in Brussels, Trump shows his class by shoving aside the Prime Minister of Montenegro so he can get his scowling mug in every photo. 

He then refuses to commit to Article 5, which holds that an attack on any member of the NATO Alliance is considered an attack on all and all signatories will come to that nation’s aid.  

That provision has been a foundation of U.S. policy since 1949.

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5/26/17: Appalachian Power, the lead utility in West Virginia, says it will increase reliance on wind, solar and other renewables and natural gas. Since 2012 the company has reduced reliance on coal from 74% to 62% of energy production. It has closed three coal-fired plants, which maybe you can blame on President Obama, but also converted two to natural gas, which you can’t. 

 

Eighty solar panels on the roof. 

Almost half of all Fortune 500 companies have in place clean-energy goals, including 23 that expect to run on 100 percent renewable energy in the future. That includes Walmart. 

At a recent meeting, Chris Beam, president of Appalachian Power admitted he was in talks to buy, build or lease as many wind and solar farms as possible across Virginia and West Virginia. 

Even the Coal Museum in Kentucky recently installed 80 solar panels on its roof to cut costs.

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5/27/17: Former GOP Speaker of the House John Boehner tells an audience he supports Trump on some aspects of foreign policy. Otherwise, “Everything else he’s done has been a complete disaster.” 

Hearing this report, Paul Ryan nods in agreement from the safety of a secret bunker hideout beneath his Janesville, Wisconsin home. 

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5/28/17: In the wake of the NATO meeting (see: 5/25/17) Angela Merkel, leader of Germany, takes the measure of Mr. Trump. She warns that European nations should “really take our fate into our own hands.” 

She continues: “The times in which we could rely fully on others – they are somewhat over. This is what I experienced in the last few days.” 

Trump is poised to renounce American leadership of the Free World.

July 18, 2017: Another Russian Jumping on the White House Bed!

 

7/18/17: The nine lives of the Republican healthcare bill are still being squandered. Once again, a GOP plan dies in the Senate when four Republican senators announce they won’t vote to allow debate on the merits. 

 

Trump promised 68 times to repeal and replace Obamacare. 

The bill is that bad. 

Some insist this marks the end of a seven-year-long run, during which Republicans voted dozens of times to “repeal and replace” Obamacare. And need we remind anyone that “repeal and replace” is what Candidate Trump promised to do 68 times while running for office? 

He would kill Obamacare on Day One. 

He would make “repeal and replace” look like child’s play (assuming the child had no pre-existing conditions). Tweeting in February 2016, Trump promised: “We will immediately repeal and replace ObamaCare – and nobody can do that like me. We will save $’s and have much better healthcare!” 

With Republican majorities in House and Senate and rules changes to make it possible to pass the “carefully crafted” plan by a 51-vote margin, Trump manages to accomplish … nothing.

 

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WELL, THEN, how’s the “witch hunt” going? How many people with ties to the Russian government were in the meeting with Don Jr. Okay, not one, not two, but three! Even Fox News can’t ignore the story. It turns out the eighth participant in the meeting which Donald Jr. completely forgot about was a Russian-American, Ike Kaveladze, an expert on adoption and babies! 

Hahaha. No. 

Kaveladze works for the Russian oligarch Aras Agalarov, a man worth $1.96 billion and known for close ties with President Trump, a man worth $3.5 billion, and Vladimir Putin, who has spent his time in office wisely, saving his rubles. One source estimates Putin may have a secret stash of $200 billion. 

Anyway, according to a story in Newsweek, Kaveladze was investigated in 2000, when he was: 

…found by investigators with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to have helped move more than $1.4 billion on behalf of a large number of Russian and Eastern European clients through accounts with Citibank in New York and Commercial Bank in San Francisco.

 

Technically, his actions turned out to be legal. But investigators found he filed papers to open 2,000 shell corporations and U.S. bank accounts in Delaware, “all on behalf of Russian operators that were used to launder offshore cash coming into the United States.”

 

As you can see no sensible person would imagine Kaveladze went to the meeting with Jr. for any other reason except to talk about babies.

Everyone in the meeting forgot the meeting ever occurred. 

September 9-11: 2017: Republican Party Now a "Cult of Personality."

 

9/9/17: Trump spends the day rattling the GOP establishment. Angered by “disloyalty” on the part of lawmakers who fail to do his bidding, he pushes for primary challenges in 2018. 

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“It’s a cult of personality. He’s fundamentally, at the core, about Donald Trump.” 

Rep. Mark Sanford

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Three moderate GOP members of the House of Representatives decide serving time in the time of Trump isn’t worth the misery and pain. They announce plans to retire. Mark Sanford, a fourth, describes the dilemma his party faces. “It’s a cult of personality.” Trump doesn’t care about party or principles. “He’s fundamentally, at the core, about Donald Trump.” 

True that.

BLOGGER’S NOTE: As far as that “cult of personality goes,” it’s not even a good personality. (See: Narcissistic Personality Disorder, 10/25/17.) 

White House Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly will later describe Trump as the “most flawed” person he ever met. 

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9/10/17: Hurricane Irma flattens the Florida Keys. It moves north slowly, pulverizing homes and bringing storm surge and flooding all the way up the coast to Jacksonville. Damage estimates range from $50 billion to $100 billion. (See: 8/31/17.) 

At one point, Irma is 420 miles wide, more than twice as wide as Ohio.

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9/11/17: The United States marks sixteen years since the attacks on New York and Washington and the downing of Flight 93 near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Trump speaks at a memorial service and manages not to insult anyone.

Trump vs. Jemele Hill.

 

Meanwhile, ESPN host Jemele Hill excoriates him in a series of tweets. “Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/other white supremacists,” reads one. 

“Trump is the most ignorant, offensive president of my lifetime. His rise is a direct result of white supremacy. Period,” she tweets again. 

“He is unqualified and unfit to be president,” a third reads. Well, at least we still live in a country that honors free speech. (See: 9/13-14/17.)

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