Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

U.S. Rep. Steve King told the Westside Conservative Club Wednesday that humanity might not exist if not for rape and incest throughout human history.

"What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled out anyone who was a product of rape or incest? Would there be any population of the world left if we did that?" he said in Urbandale, Iowa. "Considering all the wars and all the rapes and pillages that happened throughout all these different nations, I know that I can't say that I was not a part of a product of that."

The Kiron Republican was discussing his defense of not allowing exceptions for rape and incest in the anti-abortion legislation he tried to pass in Congress. Republican leadership had prevented bills he sponsored on banning abortions from advancing through the House, despite GOP support for the measures, King said.

Just because a conception happened in bad circumstances doesn't mean the result isn't a person, King, who is Catholic, argued.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

"I think my rhetoric brings people together," he said last week, four days after a 21-year-old allegedly posted an anti-immigrant screed online and then allegedly opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 and injuring dozens of others.

But a nationwide review conducted by ABC News has identified at least 36 criminal cases where Trump was invoked in direct connection with violent acts, threats of violence or allegations of assault.

In nine cases, perpetrators hailed Trump in the midst or immediate aftermath of physically attacking innocent victims. In another 10 cases, perpetrators cheered or defended Trump while taunting or threatening others. And in another 10 cases, Trump and his rhetoric were cited in court to explain a defendant's violent or threatening behavior.

Seven cases involved violent or threatening acts perpetrated in defiance of Trump, with many of them targeting Trump's allies in Congress. But the vast majority of the cases -- 29 of the 36 -- reflect someone echoing presidential rhetoric, not protesting it.

ABC News could not find a single criminal case filed in federal or state court where an act of violence or threat was made in the name of President Barack Obama or President George W. Bush.

The 36 cases identified by ABC News are remarkable in that a link to the president is captured in court documents and police statements, under the penalty of perjury or contempt.

In many cases of assault or threat, charges are never filed, perpetrators are never identified or the incident is never even reported to authorities. And most criminal acts committed by Trump supporters or his detractors have nothing to do with the president. But in 36 cases, court records and police reports indicated some sort of link.

The perpetrators and suspects identified in the 36 cases are mostly white men -- as young as teenagers and as old as 75 -- while the victims largely represent an array of minority groups -- African-Americans, Latinos, Muslims and gay men.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

A mural of the Statue of Liberty, handcuffed and slammed on the hood of a police cruiser, is drawing attention in downtown Las Vegas, a day after a top Trump administration official in charge of immigration suggested the statue’s famous inscription be amended to include a test of means.

Under the pseudonym Recycled Propaganda, artist and British immigrant Izaac Zevalking painted the image on a wall late last month, before citizenship and immigration services director Ken Cuccinelli – jokingly – suggested amending Emma Lazarus’s sonnet inscribed on the statue to read: “Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge.”

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Our constitutional system of government relies on the basic assumption that our elected leaders will put country over party when it matters the most. Instead, my former party has spent the past few years covering for Trump’s incompetence. Instead of telling the president his behavior is unacceptable, even crazy, Republican leaders have chosen ambition, hate, greed, fear, lies and winning their next election over their country.

We will be defined by what we do in this moment. Because of my former party’s intransigence, we are likely stuck with an inept, emotionally unstable president until the next election in 2020. Who shows up to vote matters, so please treat voting like our country’s future depends on it. A low turnout election will lead to four more years of escalating chaos and depravity.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Finally, the US stock market - ruled by fanatical republicans - is coming to its senses about Trump's madhat economic policies. Virtually everything is wrong from any economic point of view.

1. Trade wars are not "easy to win" but lose-lose and always wrong. Trump is bringing down with global economic by reducing global trade, which is closely related to global growth, even if the US economy might be the last shoe to fall.

2. Trump's crony capitalism of exemptions for iPhones & Barbies (Apple & Matel) in Chinese tariffs & US sanctions for Kushner friends Roman Abramovich & Alisher Usmanov makes the swamp worse.

3. Trump also floods the swamp by supporting lobbyism for agriculture to compensate for Chinese tariffs, not to mention Rusal aluminum exemptions for Kentucky Pro-Putin diehards Mitch McConnell & Rand Paul.

4. As Fred Bergsten has emphasized, Trump's tariff policy is a war on US exports. Trump's War on US Exports

5. Trump's naming specific companies, foreign or American, in speeches & tweets for sanctions or benefits is nothing but unacceptable crony capitalism characteristic of undemocratic kleptocracies. Why does the US Congress accept that? Prohibit it!

6. The US has currently full employment with an unemployment of only 3.7% of the active labor force. This is not the time for the US to have the largest budget deficit in the developed world. This is not only unprofessional but madness. Why do former fiscal conservatives agree?

7. Having grossly mismanaged the nation's fiscal & trade policy, Trump also attacks the US Fed, the last economic institution standing, in the crudest fashion calling for its abandoning sound monetary policy as well.

8. Eventually, the basic laws of economics will prove themselves, which will be costly to the US because of the madhat policies of the Trump. It might be now or slightly later.

Thread by @anders_aslund: "Finally, the US stock market - ruled by fanatical republicans - is coming to its senses about Trump's madhat economic policies. Virtually ev […]"


Anders Åslund
@anders_aslund
Anders Åslund (@anders_aslund) | Twitter

Economist & author. Russia, Ukraine & Europe. Atlantic Council & Georgetown University. Read my latest book: "Russia's Crony Capitalism" Russia's Crony Capitalism | Yale University Press

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]