In the debut episode of his new series, “The Closer,” GQ’s Keith Olbermann tallies the most outrageous of Donald Trump’s offenses in what is now his 15-month assault on American democracy.
Every few generations, we Americans are called upon to defend our country. To defend it not so much from foreign dictators or war or terrorism, but from those here who have no commitment to progress or democracy or representative government—no commitment to anything except their own out-of-control minds and the bottomless pits of their egos.
Our society has thrown up these people before: Joseph McCarthy. George Wallace. Father Coughlin. Jefferson Davis. Aaron Burr. The Know-Nothings. The Blacklisters. The America-Firsters. And we have always thrown them out.
And now our generation has its own: the most dangerous individual ever nominated by a major party for the highest office in this country.
President Donald Trump this week issued a thinly veiled threat of violence against his opponents, saying that members of the police, military and biker gangs could “play it tough” if they “reach a certain point.”
It was a disturbing remark, but even more disturbing is the fact that its part of a long history of Trump encouraging his supporters to engage in violence. Largely unchecked by his party’s leadership, Trump’s rhetoric has become normalized despite its real-world ramifications.
“I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of Bikers for Trump,” Trump told Breitbart in the interview, which he later tweeted. “I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad.”
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The Washington Post via Getty Images
President Donald Trump regularly encourages violence from his supporters.
Comedian Michelle Wolf took the bold route during the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday night.
She roasted those in ― and out ― of the room, focusing on President Donald Trump’s questionable wealth, slamming Democrats for not doing anything, and going after Trump administration officials who attended.
Kellyanne Conway, a target of Wolf’s jabs, was expressionless as the comedian suggested journalists stop bringing Conway on their news shows.
“If you don’t give her a platform, she has nowhere to lie,” Wolf said. “It’s like that old saying: If a tree falls in the woods how do we get Kellyanne under that tree?
“I’m not suggesting she gets hurt,” Wolf clarified. “Just stuck.”
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Comedian Michelle Wolf
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President Donald Trump’s decision to strike Syrian facilities in response to Syrian President Bashar Assad’s reported use of chemical weapons against civilians fulfills Trump’s promise of being tougher than President Barack Obama.
But it’s unlikely to have much impact beyond that ― and will likely be historically judged as a failure on Trump’s own terms.
Trump’s military response alongside France and the U.K. is ostensibly an attempt to deter Assad’s murderous behavior and demonstrate American toughness to Assad’s patrons, Iran and Russia. It won’t serve either of those goals.
Former U.S. ambassador Joseph Wilson, a man whose family was turned upside down by Scooter Libby and other President George W. Bush administration officials, sharply criticized President Donald Trump for pardoning Libby, saying it showed his disregard for America’s national security.
“It has nothing to do with Libby, and it has nothing to do with me,” Wilson told HuffPost Friday. “Libby’s problem was with the Justice Department. He was indicted, tried and convicted on obstruction of justice and perjury charges for basically violating the national security of the United States of America.”
“Now he’s being pardoned for it, which suggests of course that Mr. Trump is willing to allow people to violate the essence of our defense structure, our national security, our intelligence apparatus and essentially get away with it,” he added.
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Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Valerie Plame’s cover at the CIA was blown by the Bush administration. Her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, helped show that the administration fabricated intelligence to invade Iraq.
The news can often be hard to follow, but this week in particular has been a doozy.
There’s the seemingly endless staff changes in the Trump administration, the reported privacy breach and misuse of millions of Facebook users’ data, the death of the bombing suspect in Austin and the police shooting in Sacramento. It’s been a lot.
Here’s a rundown of some of the biggest news that happened in the last seven days.
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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Protesters march in Sacramento, California, on March 22, 2018, after two police officers shot and killed Stephon Clark, an unarmed black man.
President Donald Trump on Thursday said he believes he holds ultimate authority to direct the Department of Justice as he sees fit, while noting the ongoing inquiry into Russian intervention in the 2016 presidential election has made the country “look very bad.”
Trump, speaking in an impromptu interview with The New York Times from his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, said more than a dozen times that no collusion had been uncovered during the sweeping probe by special counsel Robert Mueller. While he noted that the sooner the inquiry was completed, “the better it is for the country,” Trump also broke with his most ardent supporters and said he believed Mueller would treat him fairly.
“I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department,” he told the Times. “But for purposes of hopefully thinking I’m going to be treated fairly, I’ve stayed uninvolved with this particular matter.”
Republican Roy Moore faced serious accusations of sexual misconduct in his bid to become Alabama’s next senator. But instead of bowing down and backing out, he stayed in the race and went on the attack ― just like Trump did in last year’s presidential race. He accused the media and the establishment of orchestrating a conspiracy against him, and cast the race as pitting good against evil, Christians versus everyone else.
Both Trump and Moore bet that their conservative base would stick by them and push them to victory.
But on Tuesday, Alabama sent a message that this time it wouldn’t work, not even in a conservative state that Trump won by 28 percentage points in 2016.
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Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
It’s been difficult to watch the Christian community embrace a person like Donald Trump. Evangelicals have had to perform mental gymnastics to pretend Donald Trump felt about religion anything close to what they claim to feel. This was supposed to be the “family values” party. Mike Pence, who won’t even have dinner with a woman other than his wife, suddenly doesn’t mind that Trump had babies with three different women and said on tape that he liked to grab women by the p***y.
Trump might be a lying, scheming, narcissistic con-artist but he doesn’t pretend to be religious. Sure, he faked it a couple of times by holding up a Bible with pages looking like they’d never been opened. He also tried quoting some scriptures but that went horribly wrong when he said “Two Corinthians” instead of “Second Corinthians.” But he doesn’t claim to consult God before making decisions.
As for family values, Trump’s been married three times, dumping each wife for the woman he was having an affair with. His wives raise his kids for him. On the Howard Stern show, Trump said “I mean, I won’t do anything to take care of them. I’ll supply funds and she’ll take care of the kids. It’s not like I’m gonna be walking the kids down Central Park.” Other than his adult children who run his businesses, we never see Trump spending time with his kids. There are a couple of photo-ops with his 10-year old, Barron. But instead of golfing at his resorts, shouldn’t Trump spend time with his, um, you know, 10 year old? He also has another daughter who is around so infrequently most people don’t remember her name. Obviously, Trump will never be mistaken for the dad from Leave It To Beaver.
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