Here’s how Week #53 opened up: Trump denied he called Haiti, El Salvador and all of Africa “shithole countries,” then sort of admitted he said shithole, several Senators confirmed he said shithole, a couple of other Senators denied he said shithole, then recanted and said yeah okay he said shithole or shithouse but so what. Week #53 ended with porn star and Ivanka lookalike Stormy Daniels telling the world Trump had her spank him with a rolled up copy of Forbes Magazine with his picture on the cover. That’s just one of the “highlights” of their 11 month affair, which began shortly after the birth of Trump’s youngest son.
And this is where we are as a nation.
In between these two highbrow public discussions, lots of other disturbing things were said and done by Trump and his Republicans. For one thing, the Federal Government is scheduled to shut down on the eve of Trump’s 1-Year Anniversary in office if a temporary spending bill is not passed.
Problem is, Trump destroyed the spending agreement himself by insisting upon unreasonable demands, threatening both the futures of 800,000 young people raised and educated in the USA, and the health care of 9 million poor children, not only a colossal humanitarian failure, but a waste of taxpayer investment in valuable human resources.
After taking the long holiday weekend off to golf and Tweet at Mar A Lago, Trump did re-certify The Iran Nuclear Treaty and lifted the sanctions, but threatened its future by issuing an ultimatum to “fix it.” He was contradicted by the leaders of the major Asian and European signatory nations, who said the treaty was just fine the way it is and will continue to have their support, dismissing Trump out of hand as American leadership diminishes with each asinine pronouncement of our Amateur-In-Chief.
While last week found the President having to defend his sanity, this week found him defending himself against charges of both racism and obesity. He did not help his case by rejecting the usual Martin Luther King Day observances in favor of another day of golfing in his fat guy clothes after having his doctor claim he was taller and lighter than he really is after his first annual White House physical.
At least he didn’t tell any reporters “I am the least obese person you ever interviewed.”
Kentucky passed the first “work for Medicaid” law, to Trump’s delight, and he signed an executive order allowing medical personnel to refuse treatment to transgender patients and others, called “Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty,” violating both their Hippocratic Oath and just about every religion in existence, to say nothing of trashing the Constitution’s picayune insistence on equality and “equal treatment before the law.”
Trump took the time to deny that he said he has a good relationship with Kim Jong Un after telling the Wall Street Journal (on tape) he “probably” had a good relationship with Kim Jong Un, and to invent and repeat numerous lies about other things as well, just for joy of lying.
Then there were results of Trump’s surreal “Fake News Awards,” prompting 2 Republican Senators to compare his attacks on the free press to those of Josef Stalin, and leaving the rest of the nation wondering what took these clueless suit-stuffers so long to wake up and smell the borscht.
While Trump was busy accusing the Democrats of killing DACA and (!) undermining our military, his Chief of Staff John Kelly sought to mollify Latino legislators when he explained that Trump’s views on the Border Wall “had evolved,” and he had been “under-informed” about geographic and political realities during the campaign, a clear signal to Americans that Trump was maturing and learning his job with Kelly’s strong guidance.
Naturally that didn’t last even a single day, since as soon as he heard what Kelly said, Trump dispelled any such notions by angrily denying he has evolved at all, and that “The Wall is The Wall!”
Then The Wall Street Journal unraveled the sham corporation that was used (and promptly closed) by Trump’s personal lawyers to pay $130,000 to buy Stormy Daniels’ silence a month before the election, an amount that would prove to be insufficient since Ms Daniels has been happily providing kinky details to anyone who will listen since the news became public, including Trump’s comparing her to his daughter Ivanka and the aforementioned magazine-spanking episode. His attorneys have adamantly denied Trump’s affair with Ms. Daniels, but not the hush-money payment, for which they had not been so skillful in hiding the digital money trail.
On Wednesday and Thursday Trump’s former ghost president Steve Bannon testified for over 20 hours before a hostile Congressional Committee investigating Russian collusion, with his lawyer all the while taking text messages from the White House instructing him not to answer certain questions due to “Executive Privilege” extended by the president to Bannon, covering his time on the Trump Transition Team and working in the White House, something later denied by Trump.
Robert Mueller’s team also announced that Bannon is going to be interviewed shortly by his team of investigators, where his testimony will be beyond Trump’s power to censor or influence.
Rounding out the week on Thursday, it was announced that Trump’s former aide Omarosa Manigault had tapes of many private and potentially sensitive White House conversations about Russia, Trump was suspected by Congress of laundering money for Russian gangsters, Secretary of State Tillerson warned the American people about the high possibility of war with North Korea, and oh, by the way, the government is almost certain to shut down by Friday at midnight. Trump then announced he was disengaging from all this tedious drama he created and beating it out of town for another 3-day weekend golfing at Mar A Lago, leaving Washington in complete chaos.
Other than that, though, week #53 came off smooth as a porn star’s bottom…