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This week in Trump’s America: Week 1 by ThinkProgress

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Malyse

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https://thinkprogress.org/trump-week-one-553e77774801#.ca45uo2dz

If there’s one thing we know about President Trump, it’s that he excels at bluster. Often, he creates distractions that crowd out the real news and the issues that impact real Americans. Here at ThinkProgress, we are dedicated to holding Trump accountable and sorting out the signal from the noise — but even just a few days into his presidency, there is already a lot of noise.

So we’re launching a weekly roundup to help you sort it all out. What did the White House do? What important news flew under the radar? Which promises did Trump break while he was busy having his latest tantrum? What lies did the Trump administration tell?

Each Friday, we’ll provide you with a guide to what happened over the past seven days in America under President Trump’s leadership.
The Big News
  • One of Trump’s first executive actions was an order to “ease the burdens” of the Affordable Care Act, which was rather vague. On Thursday, we saw the first example of that, when Trump cut all advertising to encourage Americans to enroll in health insurance before the enrollment period ends on Tuesday.
  • Trump reinstated what’s known as the “global gag rule,” a ban on federal funding for any international group that provides information to women about abortion services. Unlike the previous version, Trump’s order does not include exemptions for hospitals and clinics that don’t actually provide abortions themselves, nor for facilities that treat women with complications from illegal or unsafe abortions.
  • Trump issued executive memorada to move the stalled Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines forward.
  • Trump signed an executive order taking action on issues related to immigration, including initiating plans to build his oft-promised wall with Mexico, threatening “sanctuary cities” with federal funding cuts, building additional detention centers, and publishing a weekly list of undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes.
  • Trump prepared a draft of an executive order halting refugee resettlement and suspending travel to the United States from the Muslim-majority countries Syria, Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen.
  • According to Politico reporting, the executive orders that Trump signed this week — which were spearheaded by senior policy adviser Stephen Miller and chief strategist Steve Bannon — were so hastily prepared that they may be unenforcable or even illegal.
  • Trump removed the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a 12-nation economic agreement that none of the presidential candidates supported.
What you might have missed
  • Trump wasted no time in profiting off the presidency. Initiation fees at Mar-a-Lago are doubling, and his hotel chain announced an expansion to triple the number of Trump-branded hotels across the country.
  • Drone strikes were carried out in Yemen just hours after Trump was sworn in and throughout the weekend, though they were not attacks that he had to personally approve.
  • John Gore, Trump’s pick to serve as deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s civil rights division, has only ever fought civil rights cases as the lawyer defending the people accused of violating civil rights laws.
  • CKE Restaurants, the company overseen by Trump’s Labor Secretary nominee Andy Puzder, received 33 legal complaints from workers on Thursday, including four allegations of sexual harassment, 22 complaints about wage and hour violations, and seven unfair labor practices charges.
  • Trump is already exacerbating one of the world’s biggest conflicts by repeatedly promising to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This week, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) warned they will cease to recognize Israel if he follows through.
Broken Promises
Trump made 663 promises on the campaign trail, and in his first week, he’s already broken quite a few of them:
  • “Day one” promises: Of the 36 things Trump promised would happen on “day one,” he only kept two of them: a federal hiring freeze (that will increase costs and reduce transparency) and a moratorium on new regulations. He’s fulfilled a few more since then, but a week later, his unfulfilled “day one” promises include: cancelling billions in climate change spending for the United Nations, proposing a constitutional amendment creating Congressional term limits, getting “all of the criminal immigrants out,” ending gun-free zones in schools and on military bases, and canceling every “unconstitutional” Obama administration executive action.
  • A diverse cabinet: Trump promised that his cabinet would “absolutely” look like America and definitely include at least one person who is Hispanic. It doesn’t, and most of them are white and male.
  • Pay for play: Despite Trump’s promise not to appoint political donors to negotiate with other countries, he did just that when he selected New York Jets owner Woody Johnson to serve as ambassador to the UK.
This is not normal
The Trump administration has already proven in week one that it will be unconventional — in a lot of problematic ways. Here’s where the United States strayed from its democratic norms this week:
  • War on the press: There’s a difference between not liking the press and being outright hostile to them. Trump’s self-avowed “running war with the media” may be part of a war with facts, but it’s also an attempt to avoid accountability. At his briefings this week, Press Secretary Sean Spicer called on outlets that peddle fake news and praise Trump ahead of the AP and other mainstream outlets, and conspiracy-theorist Alex Jones claimed his site Infowars was offered White House press credentials — at least informally. White House Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon suggested this week the media “should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut.” We politely decline.
  • “Alternative facts”: On Sunday, Kellyanne Conway introduced us to “alternative facts,” which is when reality and all available evidence point in one direction but the Trump administration says something else.
  • “America first!”: In Trump’s inauguration speech, he championed the isolationist concept of putting “America First” in a context all too similar to the eponymous anti-Semitic organization that opposed the U.S. getting involved with World War II.
  • Erasing science: The Trump administration seems particularly interested in applying a political filter to science. In the first week, climate change was erased from the White House website and all Obama-era climate policy was erased from the State Department website. They put a freeze on all EPA grants and contracts, banned various agencies from communicating with the public (including a social media blackout for the Department of Energy’s renewable energy team), and even briefly banned the Department of Agriculture from publishing research.
  • Crackdown on protesters: Prosecutors are pursuing felony charges against 200-plus protesters, journalists, and legal observers after an Inauguration Day round-up, without trying to distinguish innocent bystanders from window-breakers. Republican lawmakers in ten different states also suddenly think it’s a good idea to criminalize peaceful protests.
  • State Department exodus: On Wednesday, the State Department’s entire senior level of management officials resigned en masse. It’s not yet clear why they all left, but it’s the largest simultaneous departure the department has ever experienced, so it doesn’t look good.
Lie, lies, lies
There’s a lot of debate about whether to use the word “lie” to describe the falsehoods Trump and his spokespeople keep repeating, especially because of their insistence that he believes these things to be true. But they seem to be doing something worse than lying, which is intentionally insisting upon falsehoods even in the face of overwhelming evidence — so as to sow confusion.

We want to hold Trump accountable for all of his administration’s lies, even the ones that seem to stem entirely from his ego.
  • 3–5 million illegal votes: Trump’s insistence that millions of votes were cast illegally has no evidence to support it, but it will conveniently help him target cities that voted against him and encourage more states to pass laws that suppress voter turnout, which tend to help Republicans and hurt Democrats.
  • Violence in Chicago: To support his belief that there’s “horrible ‘carnage’” in Chicago, Trump claimed this week that two people were shot and killed somewhere in the city while President Obama was giving his farewell address on January 10. According to the Chicago police, however, there were no fatal shootings on January 10, and no shootings whatsoever while Obama’s speech was taking place.
  • Biggest inauguration turnout ever: This claim was the foundation for the White House’s war on the press this week. Sean Spicer’s claims of both bigger in-person turnout and virtual tune-in are both unsupportable by the available evidence. Nevertheless, Trump boasted, “We caught them in a beauty” — implying journalists’ totally accurate reporting of the event was wrong — “and I think they’re going to pay a big price.” That was apparently after he’d called the acting National Park Service director demanding additional pictures that painted a more flattering impression of the crowd size.
  • “Day one”: At the first White House press briefing on Monday, Sean Spicer said at least twelve times that it was “day one” of the Trump administration, despite the fact that Trump had actually taken presidential actions on Inauguration Day. Monday was, in fact, day four.
  • Standing ovation at the CIA: Trump claimed he got a standing ovation when he spoke to the CIA on Saturday (day negative two?). People standing and clapping only counts as significant if the audience is sitting and is so inspired that they rise to their feet. Trump’s audience at the CIA never actually sat, a point Trump even admitted in his interview with ABC on Wednesday.
 

Metaroo

Member
I really hope we get something like this weekly. I can't possibly keep up the enthusiasm to hate him all day every day, so a weekly hate session would be much more efficient.
 
One of Trump’s first executive actions was an order to “ease the burdens” of the Affordable Care Act, which was rather vague. On Thursday, we saw the first example of that, when Trump cut all advertising to encourage Americans to enroll in health insurance before the enrollment period ends on Tuesday.

I didn't even hear about this before! Orange cheetos looking, baby handed, small dicked, illiterate, insecure fuck.

With any luck, he'll be constantly reminded that his legacy in history books will be as the worst, least liked US president in history
 

olag

Member
Compromise....olive branch....moral high ground.....etc
Although I have to say. Im impressed with the rate of regression he's producing.
 

RPGCrazied

Member
Our first disaster President. He hasn't done anything yet to help this country. Damn sure isn't uniting it. Can we get Bush back?
 

Malyse

Member
I didn't even hear about this before! Orange cheetos looking, baby handed, small dicked, illiterate, insecure fuck.

With any luck, he'll be constantly reminded that his legacy in history books will be as the worst, least liked US president in history

I mean, he hung up that picture of Andrew Jackson, so at least we know he has a goal in mind.
 
Standing ovation at the CIA: Trump claimed he got a standing ovation when he spoke to the CIA on Saturday (day negative two?). People standing and clapping only counts as significant if the audience is sitting and is so inspired that they rise to their feet. Trump’s audience at the CIA never actually sat, a point Trump even admitted in his interview with ABC on Wednesday.

This is too good.
 
I really hope we get something like this weekly. I can't possibly keep up the enthusiasm to hate him all day every day, so a weekly hate session would be much more efficient.

Agreed. We need a tab on the spectrum of bullshit spewing out of this presidency. Hell, a weekly one might be too packed, daily might be more digestible.
 

Beartruck

Member
Big bombshell there is that most of the executive orders are poorly written with huge legal holes, or are illegal or unenforceable. Gee, its almost like a non-politician has no idea how to properly write law!
 

sphagnum

Banned
Toss this on the pile. Trump is so delusional that he thinks he actually won the popular vote and wanted to end the electoral college before McConnell talked him out of it.

President Trump told congressional leaders he was considering getting rid of the Electoral College, only to be talked out of it by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

During a meeting with congressional leadership this week, Trump said he was interested in using a national popular vote to determine the presidency, sources who attended the meeting told the Journal.

McConnell urged Trump not to do so, pointing out the lengthy recount in Florida in the 2000 presidential election and noting that a national recount would take even longer.

Trump eventually agreed and decided not to pursue the change, the report said.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-brief...et-rid-of-the-electoral-college-but-mcconnell
 

ICO_SotC

Member
, Trump’s order does not include exemptions for hospitals and clinics that don’t actually provide abortions themselves, nor for facilities that treat women with complications from illegal or unsafe abortions.

This is just cruel and inhuman.
 

JordanN

Banned
The world seriously can't take 4 years of this guy. Opposing climate change is just not debatable. He's condemning future people to their deaths.
 

mr_nexus

Banned
I don't think I've ever truly hated anyone more than this man. I've disliked people and were annoyed by people but I truly utterly hate Donald Trump. I thoughts I have right now are really unhealthy.
 

UberTag

Member
If Bill Clinton could be impeached over a BJ, certainly there must be something here that can bring Trump down.
Clinton was impeached because the Republicans pretended to care that his conduct upset them when they were really only looking to damage him for political capital and because they controlled all other levels of government.

They won't impeach Trump because they're running the show across the board. It would not be in their best interests so they won't hold Trump to any standard of proper behavior whatsoever... even as he devalues the integrity of the office on a daily basis.
 

Suikoguy

I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
Will this be a weekly feature?

Probably for the first 100 days. Great piece of Think Progress for those who don't have the time nor patience to catchup everyday.
 

sphagnum

Banned
Good first week. Next week SCOTUS and regulations.

How do you feel about Spicer and Trump's "alternative facts" about crowd sizes, the prohibitions on EPA and other government agency employees, the 20% tax, and Trump believing that there were 3 - 5 million illegal votes?
 
How do you feel about Spicer and Trump's "alternative facts" about crowd sizes, the prohibitions on EPA and other government agency employees, the 20% tax, and Trump believing that there were 3 - 5 million illegal votes?

If that's what has to happen to get our tax cuts and save the innocent babies, then by God, let it happen. Jesus is coming for us all soon anyway, so no need to dwell on these earthly matters.
 
Just wait for a "Trump creates 200 jobs" thread. They'll be there to gloat.
None of this had been good for anyone, unless you're anti-abortion, islamaphobic, against first time home biyers, pro-torture, pro-Russian, anti-universal healthcare, anti Mexican and anti-middle class.
 
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