100 Days of Trump
* w e e k 4 * by d.bird
Week 4. As Moses parted the sea, so 2
goes dinner tables, work places, car pools and some marriages nationwide. One guy, causing a painful, itchy reaction in some people while others just want to roll around in it.
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Netanyahu visiting from Israel anticipated a different
paragraph from Trump in relation to his spreading settlements, embassy location and the long awaited “when do we get to keep Jerusalem for us” question. Maybe Trump was rattled post “Flynn” or he was winging it unencumbered by details or policy history. There were several moments of perplexed if not mortified silence until a din of tweets blew out. 4
I n the presser, Trump continued in his Exorcist inspired
monologue, bullying the BBC and spewing acid sentence fragments at anyone attempting to engage him. He launched into a self congratulatory faux history of his electoral win, padding numbers upwards and writing the story as he went. It was a train wreck in slow motion for most, but some Trump supporters found it profoundly inspiring. 5
It had been a tough week, firing or forcing Flynn to resign, then some
other generals didn’t want to join the team when Trump called them at 2am. Hardly any of his cabinet had gotten to waltz through to their party favor positions just because of serious conflicts of interest, possible criminal behavior or a total lack of experience for the position. (Of the 696 official positions in the Trump Administration, 661 have yet to be filled.) “The administration has had thousands of resumes, but very few are qualified, and there aren’t enough staff members to review applications with any real efficiency.” Heat Street . heatst.com 6
Russia was not being very nice either, now the whole “don’t worry
about the sanctions” thing had imploded with Flynn’s firing. Putin flashed a big missile he wasn’t supposed to have, sent a scary warship chugging up the east coast and told three of his fly boys to buzz our boats in the Black Sea. Members of congress decided to dig deeper into the Russia connection and asked Trump to get a play date with our Allies instead. 7
In other news, several other elections in Europe are threatened
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with hacking from Russian Bots. External Security (DGSE) believes that Russia will help far-right candidate Marine Le Pen by way of bots that will flood the internet with millions of positive posts about Le Pen — and by publishing her opponents’ confidential emails. This sounds familiar. foriegnpolicy.com
Two unfortunate young women; thinking they were in a reality
prank show dosed a businessman in the face with “perfume” in the airport, except that it was deadly poison and he was North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s estranged half brother, Kim Jong Nam. heatst. com Reality shows (and their stars) are way stranger than fiction. 9
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fter a full week of watching icebergs the size of New Jersey b Scott Pruitt, hater of all things environmental had his nomination of Secr released containing incriminating emails of
break away from the ice sheet in Antarctica on the evening news, retary of the Environment get pushed through just before all the files were of his long and sordid affair with oil and gas.
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“The ability to measure with precision the degree and extent of
that impact, and what to do about it, are subject to continuing debate and dialogue, and well it should be,” said Pruitt. thehill.com Meanwhile US scientists race to preserve research, while finding funds to continue and share important environmental research as Trump signs policy to stifle the EPA and reverse Obama’s pro-environment legislation. Weird, because Trump owns a ton of waterfront. 12
Trump’s choice to lead the EPA transition team, Myron Ebell,
works for the industry-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute, which runs a website, SafeChemicalPolicy.org, that exists to downplay the health and ecological impacts of chemicals. Just before leaving office, the Obama administration’s Fish and Wildlife Service placed the rusty patched bumblebee on the endangered species list—the first bee species to gain that status in the continental United States. The Trump administration has “temporarily reversed” that decision. Mother Jones Magazine 13
Bannon let Pence out of the pet carrier to make all the NATO
Allies feel warm and fuzzy about the new administration. Press reports noted all the Allies were polite, pretending everything was just peachy. Once again it is possible that the Vice President is out of the loop. 14
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At weeks end, The Donald gets his duck on and heads back down
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to Florida. Yes, some folks wonder if he has gone a little unhinged. Online petitions (1)24,000 signatures calls for Trump’s removal because he “manifests a serious mental illness.” (2) 36,000 signatures declares that “Trump appears unable to control his compulsion and displays characteristics of all nine criteria to officially diagnose an individual with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.” newrepublic.com
His doctor: Harold Bornstein, said “unequivocally” that Trump “
will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” Dr. Steven Beutler, an expert in infectious disease, lists several potential syphilis symptoms that he has observed in Trump, including irritability, insomnia, delusional thinking, grandiosity, squinting and patchy hair loss. Neurosyphilis. As we have seen neither Trump’s medical records (nor tax returns), speculation mounts. 17
Trump seems religiously promisculous, raised Presbyterian and
recently interested in the new Jewish world of his daughter Ivanka with Jared Kushner and the grand kids. Politically Trump sits on the shoulders of the Christian far right, like Cleopatra drifting up the Nile on the murky waters of facisim. 18
Trump and the Republicans Are Redefining “Religious Freedom” to
Favor Christians. They want to turn religious belief into a license to discriminate, and to tear down the wall separating church and state. What they’ll really be arguing for, though, is the right to use religious beliefs as a license to discriminate, and to provide special protections for Christians that fly in the face of the First Amendment. newrepublic.com
We may get a dose of this in week 5. thanks for reading. earlier weeks are available: week 1 and 2
https://issuu.com/dbird7/docs/trumpzine_issuu
week 3
http://issuu.com/dbird7/docs/trumpzineweek_3_issuu
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*Feb 14- 21*
100 Days of Trump Book three History in a tasty gummy pill. Copyright 2017 Dana Simson
No part of this book may be copied without expressed permission, but hey, just ask and get decent jpegs. salisbury . md . usa