Trump Damage Report – 4/10/2017
Trump’s guestbook, social security false messiah, Kushner/Bannon counseling, Chinese troop movements, publicity isn’t policy, Gorka’s napkin plans, gay concentration camps, tax plan scrapped, an NRA Lottery, and Admiral Paris Hilton seeks designer boots on the ground. All this and more in your daily Trump Damage Report for Monday, April 10th, 2017. Oh, it gets worse.
- Despite what your deranged uncle may have forwarded you this week via email, Trump did in fact not increase Social Security benefits this week, Factcheck reports. An article and email that has achieved virality among the more gullible (read: Trump supporters of all stripes), has spread like wildfire intimating that Trump single-handedly brought about an increase in Social Security payments to retirees. This is actually a cost of living adjustment that was announced by the Social Security Administration last October, not that facts or sequence of events on the timeline has had an impact on Trumpist faith. The sun has risen today, according to the orange ruler’s will – praise ye, oh Donald.
- Trumpster is almost done with the first 100 days in office, and America is significantly less great than it was when he started. Politico reports that the administration is getting mighty jittery as the 100-day mark approaches with speed and Trump’s list of accomplishments look a lot like the amenities from one of his bankrupted casinos.
- Logs, logs, everyone wants the logs. We’d like to know who it is Trump has had visiting the White House. Three organizations in particular, The National Security Archive, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University are suing the administration for refusing to release logs of White House visitors, The Hill reports. The Obama administration, which was not at any point under investigation for treason with a hostile foreign government, had set the precedent of releasing visitor logs. Trump has not.
- President Steve Bannon and Secretary of Everything Jared Kushner have kissed and made-up, according to an article by The Hill. The Rosie O’Donnell impersonator and literal white nationalist Steve Bannon was under threat of being edged out by the embodiment of nepotism, Jared Kushner. They’ve reportedly buried the hatchet. Whether or not the hatchet was buried in Reince Priebus remains to be seen.
- In totally unrelated news, Breitbart editors tell staffers to stop writing stories critical of Jared Kushner, according to a report by Business Insider. It’s almost as if the propaganda arm of Steve Bannon was still taking orders directly from him. Total coincidence, we’re sure.
- The international markets twitched violently when news that China had deployed 150,000 troops to the North Korean border, Nasdaq reports in an afternoon update. Stocks faltered in the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones dipped. Trump has dispatched a carrier strike group to the Pacific off the Korean coast, and as all lunatic Republicans do after their first military engagement, he is curious what all the buttons in the situation room do.
- Politico interviews Andrea Mitchell on the state of the current administration, particularly on the astounding ability of Trump and Trump spokesmonsters to lie with such wild abandon. “I have never seen anything like this where people just flat-out lie. You know, black is white, white is black, and they mislead you.” We’ve commented before about this odd syndrome taking place among the Trumpists, and maintain that it is in fact the symptom of a reality constructed around faith. If the orange messiah tells you that up is down, rain is not wet, and night is day, you convince yourself to believe him, even if he later he says it is not.
- Kruggers of the New York Times savages Trump in an op-ed that reminds us that publicity stunts are not policy. The infamous Carrier air conditioner deal, the Syrian missile strike, and a host of other laughably inept publicity stunts veil the fact that Trump has no coherent policy set whatsoever.
- The Trump counter-terrorism expert who has avowed loyalty to a Nazi group known as the Order of Vitez, Sebastian Gorka, drew up a plan to partition Libya on a napkin, The Guardian reports. Gorka, who is described as a bloviating idiot by actual counter-terrorism experts in the field, has deeply alarmed foreign diplomats with his view that Libya be divided into provinces based on the old Ottoman empire.
- A TV ad is now targeting Trumpist House Republicans over their support for another attempt at Obamacare repeal, ABC News reports. The ad takes congresscritters like Representative Darrell Issa to task on expressing support for legislation that would eliminate essential health benefits like hospital visits, bring back pre-existing conditions, and create leper insurance groups filled with the very sick who have exorbitant premiums.
- Trump’s Attorney General, Jeff “Klan Keebler” Sessions, is suspending review policy on the National Commission on Forensic Science, a group tasked with raising forensic science standards, The Washington Post reports. This means of course that guilt and innocence will be tougher to determine, and comes on the heels of Jeffrey Beauregard Calhoun Lee Clampett Burnside Buellah Jackson Davis Forrest Sessions terminating review agreements with troubled police forces alleged to have been using undue force in murdering unarmed black men throughout the United States.
- Part-time Secretary of the Hollow State, Rex Tillerson, found himself getting on message with the rest of the Trump administration today in a series of comments made on the subject of Syria, CNN reports. Tillerson, who was previously CEO of the company responsible for producing the toxic ooze that led to the mutation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, said that “We will rededicated ourselves to holding to account any and all who commit crimes against the innocents anywhere in the world.”
- Which is cool, because there are apparently now concentration camps for gay people in Russian-controlled Chechnya, AOL reports. In early April, gay people in Chechnya were rounded up, tortured, and detained by Russian authorities and those that are still alive are being held in a newly established secret prison. Will we be hearing from you, Mr. Tillerson? Mr. Trump?
- The Associated Press reports that Trump has scrapped the tax plan he was working on, and is expected to ask Republicans legislators for help in putting together something truly heinous that they can get behind. Despite not seeing the tax plan which does not yet exist, we can tell you that it will feature gargantuan tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of America, will be catastrophic for the national deficit and national debt, and provide a practically superficial amount of relief to the middle-class and poor. Taxes cut on the poor and middle-class will be fewer dollars than the cuts to health, education, and public safety.
- The winners of today’s NRA Lottery are from sunny San Bernardino, California! Home of one of recent NRA jackpot lottery drawings during a holiday party for those with developmental disabilities, San Bernardino today hosted its drawing of the NRA Lottery at an elementary school. Four winners have been announced so far – as always, thoughts, prayers, etcetera go out to the friends and family of those selected. (Disclaimer: The NRA Lottery is not valid in other developed nations. Void where sensible gun regulation prohibits it.) Two adults and two children were killed in today’s mass shooting, The Washington Post reports. We’ll see if Trump launches a missile strike against the NRA for being responsible for policy that lead to these kids dying.
- Ivanka Trump pushed her dad to strike Syria with missiles, The Independent reports. Which means that we have someone whose primary expertise has been in handbag design and doesn’t know the definition of the word “complicit” who making strategic military suggestions to the person running our military. Do you feel safer? In hopes of balancing out the wisdom of the command staff, we may soon see Paris Hilton as one of the Joint Chiefs.
TAXPAYER COST FOR TRUMP’S LIFESTYLE TO DATE, AS OF APRIL 10TH, 2017: $102,957,142.48
That’s all for the Monday report this week – we hope. Like us to make sure you get the next Trump Damage Report in your feed. Share with friends who ought to know what Trump is up to, and if you enjoyed our report, hit Like and Share.
Above all, and as always, stay vigilant.
