AUGUST 2018 IGNOMINIOUS ABUSRDITY AWARD: THE IGGY

1. President Trump’s Lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. As the most public member of Donald Trump’s legal team, Giuliani’s assigned role is apparently to make what seem to be “slips”—incidents in which he reveals jaw-dropping information that appear to undermine Trump’s position concerning Michael Cohen, Stormy Daniels, and Russian collusion— appear to be misstatements. But in each case, the shocking things that Giuliani lets drop quickly become the standard position for Trump. Giuliani is Trump’s ice breaker.

In an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, Giuliani appeared to be caught out in another lie, and to drop another in his series of bombshells. Asked about Trump’s request to former FBI director James Comey that he “give a break” to former national security advisor Michael Flynn, Giuliani at first claimed there had never been such a conversation.

Jake Tapper: So you’re saying that President Trump and James Comey never discussed Michael Flynn?

Giuliani: That is what [Trump] will testify to if he is asked that question.

Then, reminded that he had already discussed the conversation he was claiming never happened, Giuliani attempted to deny that conversation.

Giuliani: I never … I never told ABC that. That’s crazy. I never said that.

Which is when CNN went to the tape. However, while forced to admit—after watching himself discuss it—that he had previously accepted the reality of the conversation between Trump and Comey, Giuliani this week shifted his claim to say that was only “talking about their version of it.”

But the Rudy-man wasn’t done with his absurdities. He made waves on NBC's "Meet the Press," responding to a New York Times report that the president's outside legal team was not aware of the extent to which White House counsel Don McGahn cooperated in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation during the 30 hours of interviews he sat for. Giuliani told "Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd that the president should not sit for an interview with Mueller because he could end up trapped in a lie and charged with perjury.

Giuliani: “When you tell me that, you know, he should testify because he’s going to tell the truth and he shouldn’t worry, well that’s so silly because it’s somebody’s version of the truth. Not the truth,” Giuliani told Todd.

Todd: “Truth is truth,” Todd responded.

Giuliani: “No, no, it isn’t truth,” Giuliani said. "Truth isn't truth."

His words, taken in the vein of counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway's much-mocked "alternative facts" argument from last year, quickly caught fire online. A day later, Giuliani sought to clear the air.

"My statement was not meant as a pontification on moral theology but one referring to the situation where two people make precisely contradictory statements, the classic 'he said, she said' puzzle. Sometimes further inquiry can reveal the truth other times it doesn’t," Giuliani wrote on Twitter.

Giuliani often acts as a surrogate for the president, appearing on television in his capacity as Trump's lawyer to counter news reports about Mueller's probe. The president has long complained about the special counsel's investigation, branding it a "witch hunt" stacked with "angry Democrats," even though Mueller himself is a registered Republican.


2. Ryan Zinke, Sec. of the Interior. Leave it to the Trump Administration to blame the devastating wildfires in the West not, of course, on global warming-caused draughts, but on tree-hugging environmentalists. Secretary Zinke knew exactly where to point the finger of blame: those damn environmentalists.

“America is better than letting these radical groups control the dialogue about climate when it should be about management. Environmentalists are only making it worse.”

Zinke claims environmentalists are preventing us from thinning-out forests, hence leaving more fuel to burn. He believes that thinning-out forests would not only impede the spread of fires but would also provide a stockpile of timber for post-fire reconstruction. Maybe the timber could also be used to make boats that would help people escape from massive floods. Think of all the arks we could build.

As long as the climate change deniers in the Trump Administration continue to keep their heads deeply buried in the sand, we can expect more floods, more fires, and more human misery. This is of little concern to Trumpians, not when they have an opportunity to play partisan politics. Will Americans ever wise up?

3. Rep. Duncan Hunter, Jr (R-CA). Every single day, Rep. Hunter finds a new way to disgrace himself. You’d think a criminal indictment would humble the California Republican, but no. He took to Fox News to make a public defense of the charges that he used $250,000 in campaign funds on items like a family trip to Italy, flying his pet rabbit across the country, sporting events, and most grotesquely, buying shoes and clothing and then disguising those as donations to the Wounded Warriors Foundation.

So, what was his primary defense? That he himself disclosed this inappropriate spending (he didn’t), that these are Justice Department Democrats out to get him (they aren’t) and that his wife is to blame for all of it (she isn’t.)

The Hunters pleaded not guilty in federal court in San Diego Thursday afternoon. Hunter blames "pure politics" and the "Democrats' arm of law enforcement" of the Justice Department for the charges against him. In the Fox interview, Hunter said his wife has long handled the finances, and worked as his campaign manager.

"When I went away to Iraq in 2003, the first time, I gave her power of attorney," Hunter told Fox News. "She handled my finances throughout my entire military career and that continued on when I got into Congress. ... She was also the campaign manager so whatever she did, that'll be looked at too, I'm sure, but I didn't do it." 

No wonder they reportedly sat four seats apart in the courtroom this week as they heard the charges. Something tells me these two will be meeting again in a different courtroom in the not-too-distant future—a divorce court.

Of course, there is another big problem with Hunter blaming his wife, Margaret: his own campaign treasurer repeatedly warned him directly about the illegal use of funds, and it is all documented in the 47-page indictment.

As if this ignominious action wasn't enough, the indicted Hunter made more headlines late in the month when in a conversation with constituents he suggested reducing the national debt by raising Social Security’s retirement age to 72.

The Hunter family (his father preceded him in office) has been a extremist partisan plague for too many years now. It’s possible that no other father-son team has done more damage to truth, justice, and humanity that this despicable duo. Time to go.

4. President Trump. (Try as I do, I just can’t seem to leave the certified ignominious Donald Trump off my monthly IGGY award candidates. This month I had no choice but to include two.)

The delusional machinations of the mind of Donald Trump are getting more distant from reality on an hourly basis. And what he just told Reuters White House correspondent Jeff Mason will surely make eyes roll into heads of Americans everywhere.

Trump has not been shy about slandering special counsel Robert Mueller as corrupt, conflicted, disgraced, discredited, and most recently as a thug. He calls the investigation a "witch hunt" and makes thinly veiled demands that his Attorney General, Jess Sessions, should bring it to end. But now he's gone further than ever before.

Now Trump tells Mason he had chosen not to be involved in Mueller probe but is "totally allowed" to be if he wanted to. "I've decided to stay out. Now, I don't have to stay out, as you know. I can go in and I could... do whatever, I could run it if I want."

If Trump thinks that he can "run" an investigation into himself, he's more disturbed than anyone thought. Even if there were a legal scenario wherein he could assume such control, the Congress would have to finally get off their butts and introduce Articles of Impeachment. It would be the final straw in what most people recognize as Trump's campaign to obstruct justice. It would be a descension into a totalitarian dictatorship that America would not tolerate.

Just suggesting that he could do such a thing is reflective of Trump's diseased and un-American mindset. These remarks should not be underplayed by the press. They should be given the exposure warranted to a deranged leader asserting his right to become a tyrant.

5. More Trump. Not only is Donald Trump an idiot, but it is almost impossible to concisely categorize all the myriad ways he is an idiot. The Donald believes that California wildfires are being magnified and made much worse by bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilized. It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. He also thinks we must tree clear to stop fires from spreading. He has the solution for California:

“Governor Jerry Brown must allow the Free Flow of the vast amounts of water coming from the North and foolishly being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Can be used for fires, farming and everything else. Think of California with plenty of Water - Nice! Fast Federal govt. approvals.”

Well, let’s see. There is no "massive amount" of water in California to be diverted to the Pacific Ocean; that is the whole point. There are more claimants for water than there is water to be claimed. The Central Valley aquifer has been dropping precipitously due to farmland pumping; water battles between farmers and urban areas continue to worsen, and rationing is commonplace after any winter with a less-than-average snowpack.

But forget all that, because water diversion doesn't have a damn thing to do with these wilderness fires. Does the Donald think we irrigate our currently burning grasslands and forestlands? Does he imagine that we water each tree and mountain—or would, if only the water wasn't being "diverted" to the ocean instead? Is he sincerely stupid enough to think so? It is possible, but for the record: the places water is "diverted" to consist of farmland and major California cities, not brush lands and forests. You could stop up every California river tomorrow and the weather (and the fires) would remain the same.

As for the reference to "tree clearing,” the fires are not being caused by too many trees. The current Mendocino Complex fires did not start in forests. It spread rapidly through brush and oak-scattered grasslands before reaching anything that could be plausibly considered timberlands. Never mind that, though: there were a great many more trees in California a century ago. It would stand to reason, then, that the fires back then would have been worse. Instead, nearly every one of the state's largest wildfires has occurred in the last 20 years. The evidence suggests there is something going on here more complex than the White House complaint that there are now too many trees.

If Donald's "tree clear" claim makes any more sense than his why-aren't-we-taking-more-water claim, it is only because of ambiguity. We can argue there should be more controlled burns to thin out brush lands, but this practice has been hindered by population expansion into rural areas and by more dangerous fire seasons that provide less opportunity for such thinning. We can argue that we should simply strip the trees surrounding rural towns entirely, but you will not get much support for that. Even if we allowed timber companies to clear-cut thousands of acres, the resultant scrub and brushland would burn more readily than the forests they replaced.

It was far better when he did not acknowledge our California fires at all. At least then there was ambiguity; at least then we could pretend that even if he was the stupidest man or animal to ever wander through the White House, he was at least too busy watching his morning programs and implicating his son in crimes to do anything worse to us. If this unfathomably stupid jackass sets his mind to a new program to strip our rivers of water and forests of trees as his only response to California's worsening fire seasons, it would have been so much better for him to have forgotten our state existed.
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And the winner is…..

With due respect to Duncan Hunter, Jr., this month’s IGGY goes to the ice-breaking, moral philosopher, Rudy Giuliani. What a piece of work