Ladies and gentlemen, s*** the president said during the previous week:
- “Greatest Witch Hunt in the History of our Country! NO COLLUSION! Border Coyotes, Drug Dealers and Human Traffickers are treated better. Who alerted CNN to be there?” 1/25/2019 Trump tweet. As we’ve mentioned here before, ours is the country that had the actual witch hunts, so call me a traditionalist but I still rank those at the top. This tweet was in reference to another Trump campaign official being hauled in and charged with a bunch of felonies (that makes six), this time his old friend Roger Stone. I know, it’s crazy to think a guy with Richard Nixon’s face tattooed on his back was up to no good. As to who alerted CNN, here’s to hoping it was Chad Ochocinco!
- “If Roger Stone was indicted for lying to Congress, what about the lying done by Comey, Brennan, Clapper, Lisa Page & lover, Baker and soooo many others? What about Hillary to FBI and her 33,000 deleted Emails? What about Lisa & Peter’s deleted texts & Wiener’s laptop? Much more!” 1/26/2019 Trump tweet. This is what throwing poo at the wall looks like, because none of these folks actually lied to Congress or the FBI, including Hillary. Trump and his team, on the other hand, told us over and over for a whole year no one on the campaign had any contact with any Russians. We now know at least 17 people on his campaign had over 100 such contacts. Six are now charged or convicted of felonies for lying to cover this up, including Stone’s now famous text to his friend about covering up ties to Wikileaks: “Anything to save the plan.” What plan?
- “WITCH HUNT!” 1/27/2019 Trump tweet. Nothing projects calm quite like shouting “WITCH HUNT!” into Twitter in all caps.
- “We have turned away, at great expense, two major Caravans, but a big one has now formed and is coming. At least 8000 people! If we had a powerful Wall, they wouldn’t even try to make the long and dangerous journey. Build the Wall and Crime will Fall!” 1/26/2019 Trump tweet. If you read this column every week, first of all, bless you, but you may be getting a strong sense of deja vu. It’s not your imagination – Trump makes this point constantly. Every time he does, we point out that caravans are people seeking asylum through legal ports of entry, so a wall wouldn’t stop any of them. Moving on.
- “BUILD A WALL & CRIME WILL FALL!” 1/26/2019 Trump tweet. Whoa! He’s shouting now. He must really like this new slogan. Crime rates wouldn’t fall though, since illegal immigrants commit crime at lower rates than U.S. citizens. If Trump is really worried about crime, he should’ve built a wall around his campaign team.
- “BUILD A WALL & CRIME WILL FALL!” 1/27/2019 Trump tweet. Again? Repeating something doesn’t make it true.
- ” “I like the fact that the President is making the case (Border Security & Crime) to the American people. Now we know where Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer & the Democrats stand, which is no Border Security. Will be big 2020 issue.” Matt Schlapp, Chair, ACU. Bigger than anyone knows!” 1/26/2019 Trump tweet. Odds are you’ve never heard of Matt Schlapp. He is a conservative lobbyist and so was his wife until she took a job in the White House (drain the swamp!), so it’s not clear why we should take his word for this any more than the president’s. Alas, he has it backwards: Democrats are for pretty much all border security except a wall, because a wall is the least effective, most expensive solution. It would be a colossal waste of taxpayer money. This is one more example of how “conservative” is a misnomer.
- “The reason Sarah Sanders doesn’t go to the “podium” much anymore is that the press covers her so rudely & inaccurately, in particular certain members of the press. I told her not to bother, the word gets out anyway! Most will never cover us fairly and hence, the term, Fake News!” 1/28/2019 Trump tweet. If playing straight video of someone answering questions is wrong, I don’t wanna be right. Also, weird use of parentheses around “podium.” No, the reason Sanders doesn’t go to the “podium” is because she cannot “truthfully” or “accurately” answer “questions” from “reporters” with “independence” from the “White House.” Donald Trump is a tornado of incoherence, and Sanders has stopped trying to predict the weather.
- “Great earnings coming out of Stock Market. Too bad Media doesn’t devote much time to this!” 1/28/2019 Trump tweet. Everyone in media talks about the market. I’ve heard them. There are entire cable TV channels and news magazines devoted to nothing but the market. If you’d watch these channels, you’d know the Dow Jones is down 5% over the past year. The aptly named ‘Market Watch’ just issued President Trump a 2-year market scorecard. The result? Bad, with a good chance of worse to come.
- “58,000 non-citizens votes in Texas, with 95,000 non-citizens registered to vote. These numbers are just the tip of the iceberg. All over the country, especially in California, voter fraud is rampant. Must be stopped. Strong voter ID! @foxandfriends” 1/27/2019 Trump tweet. Here’s the deal. States are constantly looking to make sure their voter rolls are legitimate, as they should. They’ll occasionally issue preliminary reports showing thousands of “potential” illegitimate voters. Invariably, further checks whittle the number to almost zero. In this case, the initial 95,000 were just people who weren’t yet citizens when they got a Texas driver’s license. That’s it. If they were naturalized afterwards, they’re fine. I’ll stay tuned into this one, but it’s worth noting that Texas has been looking pretty hard for criminal voter fraud over the past year and has prosecuted all of 33 people.
That’s our report for this week. As always, thanks for reading, and tune in next week for more tales of how the WALL will keep out terrorist immigrants, bears, mosquitoes, and telemarketers.
