1. Designated Trump Liar Rudy Giuliani. The self-promoting Giuliani told CNN that the statement regarding Donald Trump’s involvement in dictating an excuse for why his campaign staff met with Russian operatives in Trump Tower was just a “mistake.”
“He wasn’t involved. He knew, but he didn’t write it. He weighed in, but he didn’t dictate it. He dictated it. "I swear to God, it was a mistake."
What Giuliani appears to be claiming is not that Trump made a mistake in dictating the letter, or that previous White House officials and Trump surrogates made a mistake in covering up Trump’s connection to the statement. What Giuliani is disavowing is a statement included in the letter sent by Trump’s legal team to special counsel Robert Mueller.
That letter, contents from which were released by the New York Times over the weekend, included an admission that Donald Trump had dictated, while on Air Force One, the excuse that Donald Trump Jr. provided when the story broke. But Giuliani didn’t just deny that Trump was involved in drafting the statement originally released by his son, Giuliani denied the letter drafted by members of Trump’s legal team—a team to which he supposedly belongs.
Giuliani also said he only agreed with "about 70, 80%" of the letter from Trump's team in January, before Giuliani was brought on.
There’s a reason why the Trump Tower meeting between the top tier of Trump’s campaign officials and a set of Russian operatives remains a focus of the Mueller investigation. And a reason why even Rudy Giuliani, whose first appearance as Donald Trump’s lawyer included an admission that Trump had “funneled” money through Michael Cohen’s shadow corporation to pay off Stormy Daniels, feels compelled to continue covering up Trump’s involvement with the Trump Tower statement.
Not only do the actions of Donald Trump Jr. Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner represent a textbook case of conspiring with a foreign power to interfere in a U.S. election (regardless of whether or not the meeting led to further action), but the letter covering up the purpose of that meeting is textbook obstruction. And as many times as Trump’s team may say he’s immune to any charge, they’re in no great hurry to fight Robert Mueller in court.
2. Tennessee Rep. Diane Black. It is now customary, after each new mass shooting in America, for Republican lawmakers to blame the shooting on absolutely anything in the nation except for widespread access to guns. We have therefore learned that shootings are caused by abortions, by Ritalin, by video games, and by having too many doors. Rep. Diane Black ramps up the absurdities with her explanation: the real culprit is … pornography.
“It’s available on the shelf when you walk in the grocery store. Yeah, you have to reach up to get it, but there’s pornography there,” she continued. “All of this is available without parental guidance. I think that is a big part of the root cause.”
Black's claim raises many, many questions, none of which she seems eager to answer. Porn is available in grocery stores now? Why would seeing pictures of naked people cause someone to commit mass murder? Why do the citizens of other nations in which pornography is available not commit mass shootings? Does Diane Black know what "pornography" actually is?
Is Diane Black, to use the customary term for these things, stupid? And is this now a prerequisite for Republican officeholders, or merely a side effect of culling anyone from the party who is not willing to adhere to an increasingly ridiculous list of required conspiracy theories and inside-out policy pronouncements?
The problem here is that we, the general public, are supposed to take Diane Black seriously despite her giving us no evidence why we ever, ever should. And nuts to that, because if Diane Black wants to say that pornographies, or videogames, or marijuana or Obama, lead to mass shootings, then she should either back up her argument or shut the F*** up.
But fine, let's play! And, since it has been a depressing month with family separations, there’s no reason to sugar-coat things: Is it not equally possible that the reason for mass shootings in America today, when all is said and done, is Diane Black?
Not her alone, of course, but Republican lawmakers in general. You can draw a direct correlation between escalating NRA rhetoric and escalating gun violence. Perhaps the willingness of our politicians to back the premise that every American has the "right" to murder 20 people quickly if on any given morning they decide, over breakfast, that today's the day such an act is needed has a lot more to do with eager murderers taking them up on the offer than all of the nation's pornographic magazines, excessive door construction, or liberal permissive and Democrat policies combined.
We don't know, because Republicans barred any research that would even ask the question. It could just as easily be because she does not keep her lawn green and mowed. One or the other, maybe both, and if she's not willing to take the deaths of her fellow Americans seriously than we're not in the slightest bit obliged to pretend she is. Just go away, Diane Black. Just leave already.
3. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The self-styled religious zealot cited Romans 13in the Bible to defend the Trump administration's "zero-tolerance" prosecution policy on illegal immigration, a policy that has resulted in family separations. In a speech addressed to his "church friends," Sessions said:
"I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order."
Roman 13, reputedly written in 57 AD by the Apostle Paul, says
"Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established," the passage says. "The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves."
Romans 13 is a notorious biblical passage. It has been cited by Nazi sympathizers and apartheid-enforcers, slave owners and loyalists opposed to the American Revolution. Modern Christians have wrestled with how to apply the passage to issues like abortion, same-sex marriage and taxes. In the Trumpian interpretation, Christians should obey all human-made laws the president endorses, regardless of their constitutionality, legality, or morality.
Many of the "church friends" to whom the attorney general addressed his speech had quoted scripture to criticize current immigration policies, particularly the separation of children from their parents. The Southern Baptist Convention, for example, passed a resolution Tuesday that cited Scripture six times to make the case for immigration reform. (Some Southern Baptists also cited Romans 13 in the controversial decision to allow Vice President Mike Pence to address their annual meeting.).
Unfortunately for Sessions, the Methodist Church, to which he belongs, wasn’t so generous in its response his religious rationale. Some 600 fellow Methodists sent a formal complaint to the attorney general’s pastors in Alabama and Virginia saying the Trump administration’s practice of separating families at the border would be considered “child abuse” under church law.
In addition to “child abuse,” the complaint outlines four “chargeable offenses” against Sessions as prescribed by Methodist law: “immorality” for the separations, “racial discrimination” (whites have a far better chance to be granted asylum), and “Dissemination of doctrines contrary to the standards of doctrine of the United Methodist Church (UMC).” The formal notice starts a process that could in theory ultimately led to Mr. Sessions’s termination from the church.
Kudos to the UMC dissidents for separating themselves from evangelicals who preach piously about family values yet stand with the anti-family Trump. Family values, my ass.
The Trump administration might want to back off on pointing to the Bible as their moral code, especially since the president himself with his history of violating the Lord’s Commandments against adultery, making himself a false idol, coveting of his neighbor’s goods (a probably his wife as well), and bearing false witness, is hardly a pillar of biblical virtue.
4. Corey Lewandowski, President Trump’s Former Campaign Manager. When the Mexican foreign minister told a heartbreaking story about a 10-year old girl with Down Syndrome who was taken away from her mother in South Texas, Lewandowski, when he heard about the girl while appearing on Fox News, reacted not with a tear, but by offering a “womp womp,” simulating a sad trombone sound effect.
Should we expect an apology from Lewandowski for his mocking noise regurgitation? No way! Trumpians don’t apologize. Instead, they deflect criticism by lying and scapegoating . In Lewandowski’s case, he said that criticism for family separations should be directed at parents who crossed the border illegally and added that it was families of Americans killed by undocumented immigrants who were owed an apology.
Lest you still harbor any doubt about whether the Trump/GOP team is completely incapable of compassion, their “zero tolerance” fixation puts the last nail in their inhumanity coffin. The entire team is ignominious in the extreme.
5. President Donald Trump. Chalk up yet another Trump misrepresentation of reality. This time on North Korea. Trump has been effusive in praising his remarkable, and unprecedented, success in negotiating with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, boasting on twitter that “there is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.” “Everybody can feel much safer” now. He even mused that he deserved a Nobel Peace Prize.
Well, as with most Trump boasts, this one is not quite factual. There is no deal with North Korea, at least not yet. There is a vague expression of goals with no details. The “deal” is akin to a deal to sell parts of Trump Tower without setting on a price, date, inspection or financing. The so-called agreement, at this point, has achieved far less than what was accomplished previously by Presidents Clinton and Bush, both of which ultimately collapsed. It pales in comparison to the Iran nuclear agreement that Trump abandoned.
As with so many of President Trump's bombastic pronouncements, his rhetoric doesn’t square with political realities. North Korea is a case in point. U.S. intelligence believes Pyongyang is boosting nuclear fuel production at secret sites and proceeding to make more nuclear bombs despite the talks. The White House took notice of the real situation when on June 22 it announced it would extend a decade-old executive order declaring a national emergency over the nuclear threat from North Korea. The announcement, delivered through the press secretary, stated:
“The existence and risk of proliferation of weapons-usable material on the Korean Peninsula and the actions and policies of the government of North Korea continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”
Facts, of course, never deter Trump from offering his version of reality, especially when a useful photo-op presents itself. It doesn’t take much to sell his version to his largely uninformed base. Yes, he did break new ground in meeting with Kim, but much of the credit for the historic meeting rests with South Korea and China.
Efforts to point out the reality of what has been achieved so far with North Korea? Fake news, of course.
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And this month’s winner is . . . .
There are a number of worthy winners this month, but the most ignominious, evil human has to be Attorney General Jeff Sessions, with Lewandowski and Black running close for second place.
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