Tag: Medal of Freedom

What Trump’s picks for the Presidential Medal of Freedom – like Rush Limbaugh and Antonin Scalia – say about him

President Donald Trump awarded his 15th Presidential Medal of Freedom to conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh on Feb. 4.

This award was notable for two reasons. First, it was controversial because Limbaugh is a polarizing political figure. And second, this marked the first time that any president awarded a Medal of Freedom during a State of the Union address.

Typically, Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremonies occur once or twice per year and provide Americans with an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of various people who have made an important contribution to U.S. culture. Because the president selects recipients with total discretion – American or otherwise, living or dead – this award also says a lot about the president himself. Continue reading.

‘Dangerously uninformed’ Trump ‘toyed with’ awarding himself the Medal of Freedom: book

AlterNet logoOne of President Donald Trump’s most widely ridiculed assertions is that he is a “very stable genius,” and that line is used in an ironic way in the title of the forthcoming Philip Rucker/Carol D. Leonnig book, “A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump’s Testing of America” — ironic because the book depicts Trump as being the opposite of stable during his time in the White House.

The Washington Post has obtained a copy of the 417-page book, which has a Tuesday, January 21 release date on Amazon — and according to the Post’s Ashley Parker, “A Very Stable Genius” is full of “vivid details from Trump’s tumultuous first three years as president, from his chaotic transition before the taking office to Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation and final report.”

Rucker and Leonnig reveal in their book that Trump toyed with the idea of awarding himself the Medal of Freedom. Yet when it came to foreign policy, Trump was “at times, dangerously uninformed,” according to the long-time Washington Post reporters. Continue reading.