The following article by Nash Jenkins was posted on the Time website December 22, 2017:
More than six in ten Americans believe the various allegations of sexual misconduct raised against President Donald Trump, according to a new CNN poll released Friday morning.
The following article by Aaron Rupar was posted on the ThinkProgress website December 19, 2017:
The press secretary wants you to believe Trump will take “a big hit.” Don’t be fooled.
During a White House news briefing held immediately after the House passed the Republican tax cut bill on Tuesday, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was peppered with questions about why the White House won’t be straightforward about how the bill directly benefits President Trump and his family.
The following commentary from the Editorial Board of USA Today was posted on their website December 12, 2017:
A president who’d all but call a senator a whore is unfit to clean toilets in Obama’s presidential library or to shine George W. Bush’s shoes: Our view
With his latest tweet, clearly implying that a United States senator would trade sexual favors for campaign cash, President Trump has shown he is not fit for office. Rock bottom is no impediment for a president who can always find room for a new low.
Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office “begging” for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump. Very disloyal to Bill & Crooked-USED!
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Tuesday dismissed the president’s smear as a misunderstanding because he used similar language about men. Of course, words used about men and women are different. When candidate Trump said a journalist was bleeding from her “wherever,” he didn’t mean her nose.
And as is the case with all of Trump’s digital provocations, the president’s words were deliberate. He pours the gasoline of sexist language and lights the match gleefully knowing how it will burst into flame in a country reeling from the #MeToo moment.
A president who would all but call Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand a whore is not fit to clean the toilets in the Barack Obama Presidential Library or to shine the shoes of George W. Bush.
This isn’t about the policy differences we have with all presidents or our disappointment in some of their decisions. Obama and Bush both failed in many ways. They broke promises and told untruths, but the basic decency of each man was never in doubt.
Donald Trump, the man, on the other hand, is uniquely awful. His sickening behavior is corrosive to the enterprise of a shared governance based on common values and the consent of the governed.
It should surprise no one how low he went with Gillibrand. When accused during the campaign of sexually harassing or molesting women in the past, Trump’s response was to belittle the looks of his accusers. Last October, Trump suggested that he never would have groped Jessica Leeds on an airplane decades ago: “Believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you.” Trump mocked another accuser, former People reporter Natasha Stoynoff, “Check out her Facebook, you’ll understand.” Other celebrities and politicians have denied accusations, but none has stooped as low as suggesting that their accusers weren’t attractive enough to be honored with their gropes.
If recent history is any guide, the unique awfulness of the Trump era in U.S. politics is only going to get worse. Trump’s utter lack of morality, ethics and simple humanity has been underscored during his 11 months in office. Let us count the ways:
He is enthusiastically supporting Alabama’s Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore, who has been accused of pursuing — and in one case molesting and in another assaulting — teenagers as young as 14 when Moore was a county prosecutor in his 30s. On Tuesday, Trump summed up his willingness to support a man accused of criminal conduct: “Roy Moore will always vote with us.”
Trump apparently is going for some sort of record for lying while in office. As of mid-November, he had made 1,628 misleading or false statements in 298 days in office. That’s 5.5 false claims per day, according to a count kept by The Washington Post’s fact-checkers.
Trump takes advantage of any occasion — even Monday’s failed terrorist attack in New York — to stir racial, religious or ethnic strife. Congress “must end chain migration,” he said Monday, because the terror suspect “entered our country through extended-family chain migration, which is incompatible with national security.” So because one man — 27-year-old Akayed Ullah, a lawful permanent resident of the U.S. who came from Bangladesh on a family immigrant visa in 2011 — is accused of attacking America, all immigrants brought to this country by family are suspect? Trump might have some credibility if his criticism of immigrants was solely about terrorists. It isn’t. It makes no difference to him if an immigrant is a terrorist or a federal judge. He once smeared an Indiana-born judge whose parents emigrated from Mexico. It’s all the same to this president.
A man who clearly wants to put his stamp on the government, Trump hasn’t even done his job when it comes to filling key government positions that require Senate confirmation. As of last week, Trump had failed to nominate anyone for 60% of 1,200 key positions he can fill to keep the government running smoothly.
Trump has shown contempt for ethical strictures that have bound every president in recent memory. He has refused to release his tax returns, with the absurd excuse that it’s because he is under audit. He has refused to put his multibillion dollar business interests in a blind trust and peddles the fiction that putting them in the hands of his sons does the same thing.
Not to mention calling white supremacists “very fine people,” pardoning a lawless sheriff, firing a respected FBI director, and pushing the Justice Department to investigate his political foes.
It is a shock that only six Democratic senators are calling for our unstable president to resign.
The nation doesn’t seek nor expect perfect presidents, and some have certainly been deeply flawed. But a president who shows such disrespect for the truth, for ethics, for the basic duties of the job and for decency toward others fails at the very essence of what has always made America great.
The following article by Eric Boehlert was posted on the Share Blue website December 11, 2017:
With a non-existent list of legislative accomplishments, the Trump team claims nearly 1,000 regulations have been wiped off the books. They’re lying.
Under pressure to name any of Donald Trump’s accomplishments as the calendar winds down on his first year in office, and unable to point to any bills passed or agenda items completed, the White House has of late begun to point to rolling back regulations.
The following article by Aaron Blake was posted on the Washington Post website November 29, 2017:
Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
President Trump’s controversial campaign against the threat he says Muslim extremists pose to the United States hit a new pitch Wednesday, when he retweeted a series of unverified videos of alleged Muslim violence from the account of a far-right anti-Muslim activist in Great Britain.
That was objectionable enough. But the White House’s response carves an even deeper bunker.
In response to questions about the veracity of the videos Trump retweeted, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders offered this to CBS News’s Major Garrett: “Whether it’s a real video, the threat is real. His goal is to promote strong border security and strong national security.” Continue reading “Sarah Huckabee Sanders just tacitly endorsed using anti-Muslim propaganda”
The following article by Rebecca Savransky was posted on the Hill website November 28, 2017:
GOP strategist Rick Wilson, a frequent critic of President Trump, said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders knows she is lying, but continues to do it.
“Her job is contingent upon her being a serial congenital liar in defense of Donald Trump’s latest outrages,” Wilson said during an appearance on CNN.
“I mean, she probably has some like tiny, shriveled husk left in her soul where she realizes this is the wrong thing to do. But she does it anyway because otherwise they’ll replace her.”
Wilson made the comments as part of a conversation about Trump’s latest “Pocahontas” jab at Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Trump called Warren “Pocahontas,” a reference to her claimed Cherokee heritage, during an event honoring Navajo Code Talkers.
After the comments, Sanders defended Trump, saying the term isn’t a racial slur and what people find offensive is Warren “lying about her heritage to advance her career.”
Wilson, who has repeatedly denounced Trump and his supporters, said during the appearance on CNN that few presidents go out and “crap on the dignity and legacy of people like these Code Talkers … and then send their press secretary out to answer questions in a way that isn’t saying, ‘Wow the president regrets what he said today, he made a mistake.'”
“Instead, she goes out and she tries to bury people in an avalanche of horseshit everyday, because this is her job,” he said, referring to Sanders.
Wilson said he understands it is Sanders job to defend the president.
But, he added, there have been few other cases where the White House press secretary has had to defend “somebody … slinging stuff that is demonstrably racially charged.”
The following article by Melanie Schmitz was posted on the ThinkProgress website November 20, 2017:
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ plan to ring in the holiday season by making reporters look uncomfortable largely went off without a hitch during Monday’s press briefing — with one notable exception.
After opening the briefing with a Q&A session, courtesy of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Sanders dove into her usual canned press statement by noting that it was the “last press briefing before the Thanksgiving holiday.” As such, she said, she would be sharing “a few things” that she was thankful for — and she expected each reporter with a question to do the same.
“Obviously, you probably know…that I’m clearly very thankful for all of you here in the room. I think that goes without saying,” she joked, before listing off a few things she was actually thankful for, including law enforcement, firemen and first responders, and the military.
For some reason, most reporters played along. Several reporters proceeded to share a laundry list of things for which they, too, were thankful — like their children, the military, policemen and women, faith and religion, and spouses who finally said yes to their proposal on the fourth try.
Then there was Cecilia Vega, ABC News’ Senior White House Correspondent.
“I’m thankful for the First Amendment,” Vega said when called on, before launching immediately into a question about the official White House stance on the Roy Moore controversy. The statement drew audible “ooh”s from the rest of the press corps.
Sanders responded quickly, “I think we all are.”
“Yeah, we’re part of it though,” American Urban Radio Networks correspondent and CNN contributor April Ryan countered.
Vega wasn’t the only reporter to cite the First Amendment (though there certainly should have been more). Also jumping on the train to Constitutionville was Bloomberg White House correspondent Margaret Talev, who said that she was “thankful for the First Amendment” but also for the opportunity to partake in the gratefulness “exercise.”
White House reporter Zeke Miller of the Associated Press dodged the “exercise” altogether before being called out for his party foul.
“Zeke, you did break the rule of not offering anything you were thankful for,” Sanders joked, implying that he should course correct.
Thankfully for everyone in the room — and America — Miller declined the suggestion.
The Trump administration, of course, has been notoriously anti-press since day one. Trump himself has labeled any outlet that refuses to kowtow to his agenda “fake news” and has frequently incited violence against reporters at both his campaign rallies and on Twitter.
The White House, too, has publicly waffled on whether to continue the tradition of a regular, on-camera press briefing and has regularly shot down journalists’ questions by implying that they’re somehow acting inappropriately by asking for comments on high-profile news stories. Occasionally, officials have utitlized the White House press briefings to trot out manipulated stories or all-out falsehoods that support their agenda.
It’s curious, then, that majority of the White House press corps would overlook their constitutional right to report the news and speak freely when considering the things for which they should be most grateful in 2017 (while those rights still exist).
Then again, maybe they just really, really wanted to get this over with.
The following article by Nicole Lewis was posted on the Washington Post website November 8, 2017:
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders argued that Democrats have often historically stood in the way of big changes in the tax code. (Reuters)
“While arguing over President Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts, Democrats claimed it would only benefit the rich. The Democrat speaker of the House at the time, Tip O’Neill, called them royal tax cuts, because he claimed they favored the wealthiest Americans. What really happened was more than 14 million new jobs were created over five years; incomes grew by over 22 percent for the next seven years; and the economy grew by over 3.5 percent, on average, for the rest of the decade.”
— White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, during a press briefing, Oct. 31
On Nov. 3, House Republicans unveiled a tax plan that aims to cut taxes on corporations and individuals. During a press briefing on Oct. 31, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders preempted Democrats’ criticism of the plan as a giveaway to the rich, claiming that Democrats also criticized the first round of Reagan-era tax cuts back in 1981 on the same ground. Yet ultimately, according to Sanders, the cuts were a boon for the economy, creating millions of jobs and boosting incomes. Continue reading “Did Ronald Reagan’s 1981 tax cut supercharge the economy?”
