This is a daily or weekly record of the Trump presidency so hopefully future generations will learn what happens when you elect an narcissistic, thin skinned, racist, xenophobic, misogynistic unqualified buffoon in a position of power where he has access to nuclear codes.
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https://horroroftrumpaspotus.blogspot.com/
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Saturday, July 1, 2017
June 29, 2017 - June 30th, 2017. 232-233 days since the Nov 8, 2016, election and 160-161 days since the Jan 20th inauguration of No45
Jared Kushner kept texting Joe Scarborough, demanding he apologize to his father-in-law
Amid claims that President the rich asshole was threatening to bash “Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski with the help of his cronies at the National Enquirer, Scarborough said that he had texts from senior aides demanding he apologize to the president in exchange for the story to go away. According to NY Mag, one of those aides texting Scarborough was the rich asshole’s adviser-in-law Jared Kushner.
Reporter Gabriel Sherman spoke to three sources familiar with the back and forth between the MSNBC hosts and the rich asshole administration. The sources confirmed that in April, Kushner texted Scarborough demanding he personally apologize to the president for running unflattering commentary in exchange for the rich asshole telling his buddy and Enquirer owner David J. Peck to squash the story outing the fact that the hosts both left marriages to be with each other. Scarborough and Brzezinski’s affair has been well known in media circles for years, but only recently have the two gone public with their relationship.
Kushner was just one of three aides Scarborough said texted him to kiss the president’s ring, we can only guess at the other two.
White House officials speaking to The Daily Beast claiming that this wasn’t a hostile attempt to shake down Scarborough, but a friendly conversation.
“This is getting blown up on Twitter and elsewhere as some kind of blackmail operation,” one of the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak freely, said. “The truth is far more mundane. In this case, Joe was talking to Jared about his [bad] relationship with the president and a Enquirer hit piece he was uneasy about.”
It’s true that Scarborough, Brzezinski, and the rich asshole were friends before the MSNBC hosts began to rightly point out the troubling aspects of the president’s temperament and policies. Scarborough and Kushner also used to enjoy a mutual admiration, which likely soured when the tone with which the “Morning Joe” hosts used to discuss the rich asshole changed. Although White House staffers are saying that the exchange between Scarborough and Kushner doesn’t amount to blackmail, there’s a quid pro quo aspect that makes the conversation troubling on behalf of an already ethically failed administration.
Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann (R) said Friday that President the rich asshole's voter fraud commission can "go jump in the Gulf of Mexico."
Hosemann's state joins more than 20 others in refusing to turn over voter roll data to the commission, which on Thursday sent letters to all 50 states asking for voters' names, birthdays, the last four digits of their Social Security numbers and their voting history dating back to 2006.
Hosemann said in a statement that he hadn't yet received such a letter, but when he did his response would be: "They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi is a great State to launch from."
"Mississippi residents should celebrate Independence Day and our State’s right to protect the privacy of our citizens by conducting our own electoral processes,” his statement continued.
Hosemann is one of the first Republican secretaries of state to refuse the commission's request.
Democrat officials in New York, California, Massachusetts, Kentucky and Virginia had said they would not turn over any of their voter data to the voter fraud commission, while more than a dozen other states said they would only offer up public parts of their state's voter rolls.
the rich asshole established the commission in May to “promote fair and honest federal elections.”
24 States Stand Up To the rich asshole In The Best Possible Way And It’s Glorious
While some rich asshole may claim that the media is “fake” and that the American people are by his side, over 20 states just told him to go jump off a cliff.
In fact, twenty-four states have defied the rich asshole’s request for sensitive voter information data, as they are refusing to turn over personal information to the unstable president.
According to Politicus, the panel which was born out of the rich asshole’s false belief that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote because of people voting illegally has turned into another black eye and a complete disaster for this White House.
The the rich asshole administration has failed to comment, but my guess is that this swamp of an administration will probably go after the states that refuse to turn over the voter data, and then the rich asshole will get his tiny little fingers on Twitter to rant about how horrible these states have been over the past years, etc. After that, he’ll have his little stooge of a spokeswoman, Kellyanne Conway, (who can’t even keep up with his lies) go on T.V. and gripe over how poorly the president is being treated. And the saga continues….
Kellyanne Conway Goes On GMA To Defend the rich asshole’s Mika Rant & Gets Humiliated
Kellyanne Conway went on ABC’s Good Morning America today to defend President the rich asshole and his recent sexist tweets. Yesterday, the rich asshole went on an early morning, completely over-the-top Twitter rant attacking Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezkinski. Here is what he tweeted:
‘…to Mara-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!’
@itsdickenstime@realDonaldTrump Why? It is in his own best interest to act adult. He is embarrassing himself and our nation acting this base and immature.
@itsdickenstime@realDonaldTrump He's just trying to distract from GOP eliminating voting commission & the request for all voter data for the nation today.
Conway went on to blame the media, saying that the rich asshole has a right to respond to attacks against him. She continued to paint the president as a victim. She said:
‘The toxicity both ways… uh, coming to the president is terrible.’
Next, she had the gall to say that it wasn’t the rich asshole’s sexism doing real harm to women in this country but the media. She said:
‘The idea that the media, large parts of the media anyway, are covering personal insults about the president, this invective, and really denying America’s women their rightful knowledge of what he’s doing for them on taxes, on health care, and infrastructure.’
Host George Stephanopoulos then quickly reminded her that the media would not be talking about the rich asshole’s sexist tweets if he hadn’t posted them! Also, the media can’t really report on the rich asshole’s tax reform plan because he hasn’t really come out with a concrete plan yet.
Twitter responded immediately to Conway’s appearance:
Sadly, there are people who completely believe the Kellyanne routine and all of the garbage. She can’t trick most of America though. The President of the United States really does tweet and perpetuate extreme sexism.
Washington lawyer Debra Katz talked to the Washington Post about how her clients feel sidelined because of their age and gender. There was more to this tweet than sexism. Katz, who handles workplace discrimination lawsuits, said:
‘In one tweet, he hit on the vulnerability that many women feel as they age. It has nothing to do with their ability to do their work. It has everything to do with how they look.’
Many women encounter harassment at their jobs as they begin to age because of how they look. The issue is real and the fact that the President of The United States puts it up on a social platform for all to see speaks volumes to these women. Katz said:
‘What is terrible about this kind of messaging from the president is that other people repeat it — “If the president can say it, I can say it.” I’m afraid it makes things worse.’
NY Post Destroys the rich asshole With 3-Word Editorial After Brzezinski Twitter Attack
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When it comes to his tweets, President the rich asshole has completely gone off the rails over the last few days. He had one of his most frightening meltdowns on Thursday morning when he attackedMorning Joe hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, causing even prominent conservatives to call for him to stay off social media.
The New York Post joined those calling for the rich asshole to stop tweeting when they published a 3-word editorial on Friday morning titled “The Post’s Take On the rich asshole’s Tweet.” Their brief message to the president was:
‘Stop. Just stop.’
CNN’s Brian Stelter shared a photo of the editorial on Twitter, and many of the people who commented on the tweet made it clear that they agree with The Post‘s message.
In the online version of the editorial, The Post also included a link to a story about the many Republicans who have also criticized the rich asshole for the tweets he posted on Thursday, in which he claimed that Brzezinski — whom he referred to as “low I.Q. Crazy Mika” — had been “bleeding badly from a face-lift” when he saw her in January.
House Speaker Paul Ryan said that the rich asshole’s tweets were not “appropriate” and don’t “improve the tone” of politics in the U.S. He added during a press briefing on Thursday afternoon:
‘What we’re trying to do around here is improve the tone and civility of the debate — and this obviously doesn’t help do that.’
Meanwhile, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) told the rich asshole that his tweets represent “what is wrong with American politics.”
‘Mr. President, your tweet was beneath the office and represents what is wrong with American politics, not the greatness of America.’
Sen. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) had a similar message about the rich asshole’s tweets doing nothing to help move the country forward.
‘The President’s tweets today don’t help our political or national discourse and it does not provide a positive role model for our national dialogue.’
Senator Ben Sasse (R-Nebraska) encouraged the president to “please just stop.”
Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) echoed the message from Sasse and The Post when she said:
‘This has to stop — we all have a job — 3 branches of gov’t and media. We don’t have to get along, but we must show respect and civility.’
Unfortunately, the calls from a prominent newspaper and many Republicans for the rich asshole to stop tweeting have clearly fallen on deaf ears. The president was up bright and early this morning ranting and raving about health care reform and proving for what seems like the millionth time that he has no interest in changing his ways.
Did the rich asshole admit to breaking the law by boasting about Morning Joe blackmail scheme?
President some rich asshole arrives at the Memorial Amphitheater during the 149th annual Department of Defense (DoD) National Memorial Day Observance. (DoD Photo by U.S. Army Sgt. James K. McCann)
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President some rich asshole apparently admitted to taking part in a scheme to intimidate MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski by confirming some elements of the “Morning Joe” host’s allegations.
The co-hosts, who recently announced their engagement after taking pains to hide their relationship, revealed Friday morning in a Washington Post column that top White House staffers urged them to grovel before the president or else a tabloid owned by a the rich asshole ally would publish a negative story about them.
Scarborough and Brzezinski, who’ve known the rich asshole for years, claimed reporters called their friends and family — including their children — and staked out their homes as the calls came from three White House officials repeatedly pleading with them to apologize to the rich asshole for negative coverage.
The “Morning Joe” hosts said they refused, but the rich asshole claimed that Scarborough had actually called him to stop the National Enquirer article — although the MSNBC host claims he’s got evidence to prove the president is lying.
the rich asshole, at the very least, seems to have acknowledged that he’s able to kill stories before they appear in the supermarket tabloid, which has “embraced the president with such sycophantic zeal,” as the New Yorker put it.
But did he admit to a crime?
Blackmail and extortion statutes all hinge on the definition of a “thing of value” — which, in this case, would be an apology by Scarborough and Brzezinski for their critical coverage of the president.
Under the U.S. code for interstate communications, which could apply if top administration officials called Scarborough in New York from the White House, a person can be charged if they intend to extort a thing of value by threatening to injure the property or reputation of another.
The National Enquirer published a story June 2 on the “TV couple’s sleazy cheating scandal,” although it’s not clear from their account or the rich asshole’s whether the threatened story was ever published.
An impeachment trial would hinge on proving the TV hosts’ apology was valuable enough to the rich asshole that he was willing to threaten their reputation to obtain it.
The value of money or property are easy enough to substantiate, but an apology or some other ego-stroking gesture could potentially meet that standard — especially if narcissistic personality disorder or some other mental disorder could be shown, according to one federal prosecutor.
If Scarborough’s claims are true, those three senior White House officials — which reportedly includes the rich asshole son-in-law Jared Kushner — could potentially face conspiracy charges to deprive the “Morning Joe” hosts of their First Amendment rights.
That statute would require prosecutors to prove those White House officials conspired to threaten or intimidate Scarborough or Brzezinski to prevent them from speaking out against the president.
Scarborough’s account of those conversations suggests those officials begged him to make the call to keep the president from pestering them about the issue, and the “Morning Joe” host claims he’s got text messages and phone records to prove his allegations.
The officials could also potentially face abuse of office charges, which prohibits government officials from denying or impeding others from enjoyment of their constitutional rights.
The co-hosts could pursue a civil suit, where a different standard of proof applies, and allege the president and his top administration officials intentionally inflicted emotional distress in retaliation for their critical coverage.
However, presidents are immune from civil suits in federal court — although not in state courts.
Did the rich asshole admit to breaking the law by boasting about Morning Joe blackmail scheme?
President some rich asshole arrives at the Memorial Amphitheater during the 149th annual Department of Defense (DoD) National Memorial Day Observance. (DoD Photo by U.S. Army Sgt. James K. McCann)
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President some rich asshole apparently admitted to taking part in a scheme to intimidate MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski by confirming some elements of the “Morning Joe” host’s allegations.
The co-hosts, who recently announced their engagement after taking pains to hide their relationship, revealed Friday morning in a Washington Post column that top White House staffers urged them to grovel before the president or else a tabloid owned by a the rich asshole ally would publish a negative story about them.
Scarborough and Brzezinski, who’ve known the rich asshole for years, claimed reporters called their friends and family — including their children — and staked out their homes as the calls came from three White House officials repeatedly pleading with them to apologize to the rich asshole for negative coverage.
The “Morning Joe” hosts said they refused, but the rich asshole claimed that Scarborough had actually called him to stop the National Enquirer article — although the MSNBC host claims he’s got evidence to prove the president is lying.
President some rich asshole enlisted a media ally to intimidate MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, the “Morning Joe” hosts revealed Friday after the president hurled personal attacks against them on Twitter.
The co-hosts revealed in a Washington Post column that top White House staffers urged them to grovel before the president or the National Enquirer would publish a negative story about them.
“I think we have to talk about it now, because it explains the relationship and his really strange obsession with this show and in particular, his really disturbing obsession with Mika,” Scarborough said. “We got a call that, hey, the National Enquirer is going to run a negative story against you guys, and Donald is friends, the president is friends with the guy that runs the National Enquirer, and they said, ‘If you call the president up and you apologize for your coverage, then he will pick up the phone and basically spike this story.'”
Scarborough said three of the top officials in the the rich asshole administration made the calls, but the TV host refused to call the president and apologize.
“The calls kept coming, and kept coming, and they were like, ‘Call — you need to call, please call, come on, Joe — just pick up the phone and call him,'” Scarborough said.
Brzezinski said the tabloid sent reporters to harass her family and friends as White House officials begged them to call the president to apologize, and MSNBC contributor Donnie Deutsch described the situation as “blackmail.”
“Let me explain what they were threatening,” Brzezinski said. “They were calling my children, they were calling close friends. They were pinning the story on my ex-husband, (but) I knew he would never do that. So I knew it was a lie and they had nothing. These calls persisted for quite some time, and then Joe had the conversations that he had with the White House, where they said, ‘Oh, this could go away.”
Scarborough said the rich asshole called him during the campaign and boasted that he was friends with Enquirer publisher David Pecker, CEO of American Media, and suggested the tabloid was planting stories to attack his political enemies.
“What makes it even worse for them is some rich asshole called me during the campaign and bragged about his friend who ran the National Enquirer,” Scarborough said, “and he’d say, ‘Have you seen the Ben Carson story? Have you seen the Ben Carson story? Have you seen the story in the Enquirer,’ and then he’d talk about it.”
The tabloid also published stories suggesting Sen. Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and that Jeb Bush was involved in the drug trade.
“There were all these stories planted in the National Enquirer for people that some rich asshole wanted to attack, and then he would talk about it on the campaign trail,” Scarborough said. “So when we heard it, I said, ‘Oh, so we’ve gone from campaign mode to now trying to attack us.'”
National Enquirer tries to cash in on salacious ‘Morning Joe’ story after the rich asshole admits blackmail attempt
n Friday morning, Morning Joe co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski revealed that the rich asshole White House had told them that a negative story about them would run in the National Enquirer unless they personally apologized to President some rich asshole for their negative coverage of his presidency.
Just hours later, the Enquirer has promoted a salacious story on its homepage about the couple that contains alleged details of past infidelity to their former spouses.
The story — which is headlined “Joe & Mika: TV Couple’s Sleazy Cheating Scandal” — was published back on June 2, and was given fresh prominence in the wake of the couple’s revelations about the White House’s role in the story.
“This year, top White House staff members warned that the National Enquirer was planning to publish a negative article about us unless we begged the president to have the story spiked,” they revealed. “We ignored their desperate pleas.”
the rich asshole responded to the allegations on Twitter by saying that Scarborough was the one who called the rich asshole on his own initiative to beg him to kill the story — but the rich asshole refused.
Scarborough quickly shot back and said that he had copies of the text messages sent from White House aides to back up his case.
For its part, the Enquirer on Friday denied that it coordinated with the rich asshole White House while it was reporting its story.
“At the beginning of June, we accurately reported a story that recounted the relationship between Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, the truth of which is not in dispute,” the publication wrote. “At no time did we threaten either Joe or Mika or their children in connection with our reporting on the story. We have no knowledge of any discussions between the White House and Joe and Mika about our story, and absolutely no involvement in those discussions.”
‘Wouldn’t that be fun?’: Listen to the rich asshole rally Republican donors with threats to sue CNN over Russia
some rich asshole speaking with supporters at a campaign rally at Veterans Memorial Coliseum at the Arizona State Fairgrounds in Phoenix, Arizona. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
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President some rich asshole drew enthusiastic applause this week from Republican donors when he threatened to sue CNN for negative reports about his administration.
The Intercept obtained a recording of Wednesday night’s event, which cost $35,000 per person, at the rich asshole International Hotel in Washington, D.C., where the president singled out CNN as part of a broader attack on the media.
“Boy, did CNN get killed over the last few days,” the president said, referring to a report that was retracted by the network on the rich asshole associate’s ties to a Russian bank.
Three reporters also were forced to resign over the story, but the rich asshole zeroed in on a CNN employee who was not involved in that retracted report.
“Van Jones — you see this man?” the rich asshole said. “These are really dishonest people. Should I sue them? I mean, they’re phonies. Jeff Zucker, I hear he’s going to resign at some point pretty soon. I mean these are horrible human beings.”
Zucker, the former head of NBC Entertainment, is hugely responsible for the rich asshole’s fame after hiring him as host of the “Apprentice” reality show, and the current CNN boss credits the rich asshole with improving the news network’s ratings.
“It’s a shame what they’ve done to the name CNN, that I can tell you,” the rich asshole told Republican donors. “But as far as I’m concerned, I love it. If anybody’s a lawyer in the house and thinks I have a good lawsuit — I feel like we do. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
During the presidential campaign, the rich asshole threatened to loosen libel laws so he could sue newspapers for unfavorable coverage.
“One of the things I’m going to do if I win, and I hope we do and we’re certainly leading,” the rich asshole told supporters during a February 2016 rally in Fort Worth, Texas. “I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money. We’re going to open up those libel laws. So when the New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they’re totally protected.”
the rich asshole’s failure to acknowledge Pride in June really matters
My president appeared on the cover of OUT, a gay magazine I used to flip through in Barnes & Noble as a curious little boy.
He officially proclaimed June as Pride month throughout his two terms in office—my entire adult life—to recognize and celebrate those of us considered to be "other." My president was the first president to push for marriage equality, which eventually happened under his watch.
For a young American man coming to terms with their own identity in a society that stresses heteronormativity, these acts genuinely mattered. For the first time in this nation's history, queer folks saw their commander-in-chief embracing them, supporting them and bringing their community's voices to the forefront. President Barack Obama made the fight for tolerance his fight, implementing a series of federal policies over the course of eight years to defend marginalized groups. My president seemed to genuinely care about us—the others.
Then came along my next president, who promised to "defend and protect our LGBT Americans" along the campaign trail. Donald Trump offered an alternative to the traditional Republican candidate: despite numerous concerns over statements he made about women, minorities, his apparent enemies and the left, the New York business mogul seemed to boldly embrace the LGBTI community, at one point unfurling a rainbow flag at a rally and posing for photographs while holding it.
"Trump made history," gay conservative strategist Chris Barron wrote of that October night in 2016. "He's the most pro-LGBT [presidential] candidate ever nominated by either party."
Leading up to Inauguration Day, I was cautiously optimistic a Trump presidency may not completely derail the many leaps forward my community has been fighting for in this country for decades. But a few months into his tenure in the White House, Trump has steadily rolled back many of the freedoms we’ve only just recently begun enjoying.
During the campaign, Trump said states passing controversial "bathroom bills" like North Carolina, which restricted a person’s restroom use based on their sex, should instead allow transgender people to "use the bathroom they feel is appropriate."
Just one month into his presidency, Trump revoked federal guidelines for the nation’s schools stating exactly that: transgender children should be allowed to use a bathroom that matches their gender identity. He did it with the help of his Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, who yields zero experience in academia yet believes LGBT students don't need the department's help defending against discrimination. She's just one of many Trump picks to oversee the federal government who have presented no interest whatsoever in defending and protecting LGBTI citizens.
In fact, many of the people the president surrounds himself with have unabashedly denounced the LGBTI community. Ken Blackwell, domestic policy chair of Trump's presidential transition team, very poignantly stated: "I believe homosexuality is a compulsion that can be contained, repressed, or changed...that is what I’m saying in the clearest of terms." He also openly discussed his own theory that homosexuality could be changed in someone, and that it's a choice similar to "kleptomania" or arsonism.
This was one of the people guiding Trump into life as a politician, alongside Vice President Mike Pence, whose strong opposition to gay marriage and track record of anti-LGBT measures speak for themselves.
And, through it all, he never once recognized Pride month. That should cause anyone to question whether Trump's campaign promises for an entire community were nothing but falsities.
As hate crimes rates are increasing across the country amongst virtually all marginalized groups, the United States needs a president who is truly willing to stand up for the beliefs he says he holds.
"We know that the normalization of violence, particularly against marginalized people, creates a culture of complicity and acceptance of hate-based violence," Sarah McBride, national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign, told me in a wide-ranging conversation on Trump, the election and fake news playing into a spike in violence throughout the nation. "We also see that the political climate fosters violence. As anti-transgender measures are introduced across the country and the rhetoric is turned up, we are hearing from the community an increased vulnerability of harassment in their daily lives."
That isn't to say there has not been some effort to confront the crises the community is facing in Trump's America. It was announced Thursday Attorney General Jeff Sessions would begin reviewing the murders of transgender Americans after at least 14 were killed since January, speeding toward 2016's total of 22 trans deaths—the most in any year on record. His statements were just about the strongest defense of the LGBTI community any Trump Cabinet appointee has stated since the president took office.
"I personally met with the department’s senior leadership and the civil rights division to discuss a spate of murders around the country of transgender individuals," Sessions said Thursday. "I specifically directed that the files of these cases be reviewed to ensure that there is no single person or group behind these murders, or to what extent hate crime motivation lies behind such murders. I receive regular updates on the status of that review."
Queer outlets applauded the Justice Department’s move to publicly tackle the emerging crisis head-on. And rightfully so: to take a string of nationwide murders seriously from the top down should be the Justice Department's exact job, regardless of anyone's sexuality or political beliefs.
But in a time where it seems that there’s been so much rapid progress made in advancing tolerance, the idea of being queer is just as taboo as ever. LGBTI citizens throughout the country feels as though they no longer have a seat at the table—one that was only just provided to us after decades of battling for equality. And now, just seven months into a Trump presidency, it seems the community that’s finally been brought to the forefront of politics and the national conversation is once again being erased.
And when your president doesn’t even speak about Pride month, it’s hard to feel that progress is being made at all. Perhaps Trump could learn something from Sessions by using his office to address and advance LGBTI causes.
Or perhaps instead of solely attacking him on Twitter, my president could learn a thing or two from his predecessor.
Now, I worry for the young kids growing up as "other" under President Trump. Hate, fear and a wind of division seems to be sweeping over the globe; who will be their ally in the Oval Office? An American child growing up in 2017 should not have to wonder whether their president even recognizes their existence.
the rich asshole and Bannon threaten global trade war — as horrified Cabinet officials beg them to stop
President some rich asshole has reportedly cast aside his Cabinet’s international trade plan and is mulling a move to out-and-out economic warfare with the rest of the world, including current trading partners like China and Germany.
Axios.com said Friday that a tense Monday meeting in the White House’s Roosevelt room saw the president’s team divided into factions, the larger more moderate group and a small cabal of “America First advisers” who demanded that tariffs be placed on all imported products, including steel.
These tariffs — taxes or “duties” paid on items imported from other countries — could extend to include crucial manufacturing materials like aluminum, semiconductors, paper and household appliances like washing machines.
Among around 25 officials, the vote count was “22 against and 3 in favor — but since one of the three is named some rich asshole, it was case closed,” wrote Mike Allen and Jonathan Swan.
No decisions have been made, Axios said, but the president is firmly convinced that he needs to impose tariffs on imports and refuses to let it drop, against the vast majority of his Cabinet members’ advice.
“In a plan pushed by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, and backed by chief strategist Steve Bannon (not present at the meeting), trade policy director Peter Navarro and senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, the United States would impose tariffs on China and other big exporters of steel. Neither Mike Pence nor Jared Kushner weighed in either way,” wrote Allen and Swan.
The vast majority of the meeting’s attendees argued strenuously against imposing tariffs on imports, saying that the plan is bad politics and would result in economic turmoil on a global scale — impacting not just China, but U.S. relations with a number of key economic and military allies like Canada, Germany, Japan, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
“At one point, the rich asshole was told his almost entire cabinet thought this was a bad idea. But everyone left the room believing the country is headed toward a major trade confrontation,” said Axios.
the rich asshole’s reasoning, a source said, is that the measure probably won’t pass, but the president’s supporters will love the idea and enjoy the stagecraft of the resulting battle.
The resulting decision is expected to be announced in the days ahead.
The White House has spent the last 24 hours in a PR tailspin over Pres. the rich asshole’s hateful, personal attacks on the hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” That story that took on new dimensions of ugliness on Friday with the revelation that the rich asshole White House tried to “blackmail” the hosts into publicly groveling before him or see themselves smeared in the pages of The National Enquirer.
the rich asshole accidentally confesses to blackmail scheme against Morning Joe hosts
resident some rich asshole on Friday fired back at the hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe program.
Specifically, the president responded to allegations that the White House asked co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski to apologize personally to the rich asshole for their negative coverage of him in exchange for him telling the National Enquirer to back off of a negative story planned about the couple.
“Watched low rated Morning Joe for first time in long time,” the rich asshole said. “FAKE NEWS. He called me to stop a National Enquirer article. I said no! Bad show.”
Joe Scarborough quickly shot back at the rich asshole on Twitter — and claimed that he had a paper trail to back up his version of events.
“I have texts from your top aides and phone records,” he wrote. “Also, those records show I haven’t spoken with you in many months. Why do you keep lying about things that are so easily disproven? What is wrong with you?”
“This year, top White House staff members warned that the National Enquirer was planning to publish a negative article about us unless we begged the president to have the story spiked,” they revealed. “We ignored their desperate pleas.”
The New Yorker trolls the rich asshole for his fake Time Magazine covers
After the bizarre revelation that a doctored TIME Magazine cover featuring a photoshopped image of President the rich asshole was hung at four of his golf clubs, The New Yorker fired off a cartoon mocking the rich asshole for what many see as a childishly sloppy tactic to boost his image.
The cartoon, drawn by artist John Mavroudis, features an imaginary New Yorker cover vandalized by a child with a crayon — presumably the Commander in Chief.
This Tuesday, The Washington Post published a story revealing that at least four the rich asshole-owned golf clubs were displaying the fake covers featuring the rich asshole with the headline, “some rich asshole: The ‘Apprentice’ is a television smash!” Now, the magazine is asking the rich asshole Organization to have them removed.
From WaPo:
There was no March 1, 2009, issue of Time magazine. And there was no issue at all in 2009 that had the rich asshole on the cover.
In fact, the cover on display at the rich asshole’s clubs, observed recently by a reporter visiting one of the properties, contains several small but telling mistakes. Its red border is skinnier than that of a genuine Time cover, and, unlike the real thing, there is no thin white border next to the red. The rich asshole cover’s secondary headlines are stacked on the right side — on a real Time cover, they would go across the top.
…
The cover seems to fit a broader pattern for the rich asshole, who has often boasted of his appearances on Time’s cover and adorned his the rich asshole Tower office with images of himself from magazines and newspapers. the rich asshole has made claims about himself — about his charitable giving, his business success, even the size of the crowdat his inauguration— that are not supported by the facts.
“I can confirm that this is not a real TIME cover,” Kerri Chyka wrote to the Post in an email. According to reports, the fake cover was displayed alongside real covers in at least one location.
the rich asshole has only been featured on the magazine’s cover once, back in January of 1989, long before he entered politics.
Political Reporter at ThinkProgress. Contact me: klerner@thinkprogress.org
Jun 29
the rich asshole’s voter fraud commission is ‘laying the groundwork for voter suppression’
Vice chair Kris Kobach plans to use Kansas’ disastrous voter purge as a national model.
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, right, carries paperwork as he is greeted before a meeting with then President-elect some rich asshole at the the rich asshole National Golf Club Bedminster clubhouse in Bedminster, N.J. CREDIT: AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach confirmed in a letter Thursday that the single objective of President some rich asshole’s commission on voting is to find evidence to corroborate the president’s lie that voter fraud impacted the 2016 election.
Kobach, who serves as co-chair of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, asked all 50 secretaries of state to provide him with “publicly-available voter roll data” including voters’ full names, addresses, dates of birth, political party, last four digits of social security numbers, voter history, felony convictions, and other identifying information.
The letter does not say how Kobach or Vice President Mike Pence, the commission chair, plan to use the information or how they will keep it secure.
In Kansas, the secretary of state’s office has used an arsenal of intrusive methods to find alleged non-citizen voters, according to an internal document obtained exclusively by ThinkProgress in April. In one case, Kobach’s office compared voter rolls to a list of temporary drivers licenses issued to non-citizens. It also commissioned two outside firms to poll non-citizens about their voting habits using drivers’ license information and other data, and it asked the Department of Homeland Security to compare a list of suspected non-citizen voters against its list of naturalized citizens.
The extensive voter data Kobach is now requesting from secretaries of state across the country raises the possibility that the commission will use those same methods to probe these voter rolls for suspected non-citizens or for people registered in more than one state, with huge potential to disenfranchise many legitimate voters.
Connecticut Secretary of State Denise Merrill (D) raised those concerns on Thursday, saying her state would share the requested information but would withhold protected data. In return, she asked Kobach to share any memos or additional information from commission meetings because the group has not been open about its mission.
“This lack of openness is all the more concerning, considering… Kobach has a lengthy record of illegally disenfranchising eligible voters in Kansas,” she said in a statement. “The courts have repudiated his methods on multiple occasions but often after the damage has been done to voters. Given Secretary Kobach’s history we find it very difficult to have confidence in the work of this Commission.”
In his May executive order, the rich asshole said the commission would be bipartisan and would look into both voter fraud and suppression. But major voting groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, urged Democrats not to participate in a body they claim will turn into a witch hunt for fraud with the goal of passing more suppressive voting laws.
Instead of enlisting prominent Democratic election experts, Kobach and the commission found low-profile people, like a West Virginia county clerk and a former Arkansas state legislator who told ThinkProgress he wasn’t sure himself why he was chosen.
Other Democratic commission members, including Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap and New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner, said they hoped the group would also examine Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. The letter makes no mention of those plans.
The letter also makes no mention of the large and growing number of voter suppression laws that have swept across the country since the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013. Groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center have warned that the commission will be a distraction from these laws, which they say are the biggest voting-related problem of our time.
Kobach has been called a chief architect of those laws. He is the only secretary of state in the country with the power to prosecute people for committing voter fraud. He also enacted a system in Kansas in 2015 that suspended tens of thousands of eligible voters from the rolls.
By requiring states to provide the commission with examples of voter fraud, Kobach will be able to push the false narrative that fraud is prevalent. Once he sends that report to the president, he will push for a federal voter registration system similar to the one that disenfranchised voters in Kansas.
It’s a plan he’s been working on for years, but has not had the opportunity to act on until now.
UPDATE: On Wednesday, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division sent election officials in some states a request for policies and procedures about how they maintain their voting rolls—part of its enforcement of the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act:
There’s no indication the DOJ request is related to the separate request from the Election Integrity Commission, but the National Voter Registration Act is at the heart of two federal lawsuits challenging a Kansas law, drafted and championed by Kobach, that requires residents to show proof of citizenship before they can complete their voter registration.
In one of those cases, Kobach has successfully fought to keep drafts of proposed changes to the National Voter Registration Act confidential.
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