DAY 71: The Emperor Has No Clothes!

Welcome to SPLINKERNEWSMAX, the news blog that isn't afraid to say what others have said, after making sure no one got in trouble for saying it.  SplinkerNewsMax is not owned by any major media corporation, although we are willing to entertain offers.

Keep your eyes open for my upcoming book "144k: The first 144,000 Fun-Filled Minutes of Trump." (Title a work in progress and copyrighted, patent pending;  reuse of this title or anything contained herein may result in tiny twinges of guilt.)

DAY 71: 

Trump still has not released his tax returns. One reason? Maybe it has to do with the President's financial ties to Russia, the fact that Trump says he has none, and the fact that Trump's son said the exact opposite.  We'll see. 

 At this point, if he actually makes it 144,000 minutes without resigning, I think we might see a subpoena demanding those records. 

THE EMPEROR HAS NOT CLOTHES! (and we are clawing our eyes out)

"FAKE MEDIA WON'T TALK ABOUT MY CLOTHES. SAD!"

Holy shit. He's Naked!

As scandals fall upon Trump like the sands through an hourglass, I am reminded the old adage: "Remember, everything Trump says and does is done to distract us from Russia."

But it looks as if Trump's evil super power of distraction is over.  In fact, he now stands a good chance of being the first president to resign in disgrace because of a tweet.  By now, we all know one of the major scandals arising out of Trump's attempt to distract.

Weeks ago the president tweeted that Obama wiretapped him, and that the action was both McCarthyism and Watergate. (WARNING! WARNING! IRONY OVERLOAD IMMINENT).  Then he went on Fox and said wiretapping means something else and just wait a few weeks. Then Devin Nunes meets with the White House in the dead of night, pretends a whistleblower provided him with disturbing information, and then goes back to the White House to tell Trump all about the information that either Trump or Bannon gave him in the first place.  

FUN FACT: If this is true, and it is, it seems as though the Trump has been spying on the intelligence committee. How else could he have gotten the info.?

I'm not going to go too deep into any one scandal today.  What is interesting, to me, is while candidate Trump really did have a superpower of distraction and controlling the media narrative, President Trump is impotent.  As the scandals continue to pile on, Trump's tweets do nothing to distract the nation.  In the last 24 hours alone, Trump tweeted that he was going to war with the GOP's Freedom Caucus, that libel laws should be changed so he can sue the failing New York Times, that the FBI is conducting a witch hunt and that Flynn should seek immunity.  

At one time, any one of those nutjob tweets would have been enough to occupy the main stream media for a week, easy.  Now, they are hardly a footnote.  The emperor really does have no clothes, but that may change.  It's looking more and more likely that Trump will soon be wearing tar and feathers.

THE MINION SCANDAL SHEET 

"Bannon, Spicer, Nunes! To me!"

We have entered two scandal a day territory.  So it isn't surprising that some of us have difficulty keeping track of everything.  Between watching "The Americans," and binge watching "House of Cards," it's hard to switch to the news and understand the really crazy stuff.  Here's a scandal cheat sheet for Trump's minions:

Mike Pence: The Vice President seems content to hide in the shadows, biding his time until Trump explodes and he can step up, make a sacrifice to the children of the corn, and assume the presidency.  Still, the whiff of scandal clings to the Quaker Oats poster child. Pence's excuses for his lack of knowledge about the Russia scandal doesn't hold water.  Pence was the head of Trump's transition. As a great president once said, "Come on!"

From oil to snake oil.

Rex Tillerson:  Sec. of State.  As the Exxon CEO, Rex used a fake e-mail address to send and receive information related to climate change and other matters. The New York Attorney General explains that  “Exxon’s top executives, and in particular, Mr. Tillerson, have made multiple representations that are at the center of [attorney general’s office] investigation of potentially false or misleading statements to investors and the public.”

FUN FACT: Exxon stands to gain billions if the Trump administration lifts sanctions against Russia for their illegal annexation of Crimea. 

Steven Mnuchin: Treasury Sec.  Before joining the Trump trainwreck, Mr. Mnuchin was known affectionately as "the Foreclosure King."  When he was in charge of West One Bank, Mnuchin engaged in "robo-signing." That's when mortgage companies have their employees falsely sign hundreds of affidavits per week attesting that they had reviewed and verified all the business records associated with a foreclosure — when they never read jack shit.  A lot of those records were prepared improperly and should have prevented foreclosure,  but the foreclosures went ahead anyway because of the fraudulent affidavits.

At his confirmation hearing, Mnuchin was asked: “Did OneWest ‘robo-sign’ documents relating to foreclosures and evictions?” Mnuchin replied that “OneWest Bank did not ‘robo-sign’ documents, and as the only bank to successfully complete the Independent Foreclosure Review required by federal banking regulators to investigate allegations of ‘robo-signing,’ I am proud of our institution’s extremely low error rate.” That's a lie.  Even the biased review he referenced found that 6% of OneWest's foreclosures were improper. That review, btw, was the result of a consent order which stated that OneWest filed affidavits  “in which the affiant represented that the assertions in the affidavit were made based on personal knowledge or based on a review by the affiant of the relevant books and records, when, in many cases, they were not.”

Bottom line: Mnuchin lied under oath at his confirmation hearing. 

Jeff Sessions: Attorney General.  Also lied under oath about having conversations with the Russian ambassador.  This, plus his intimate involvement in the Trump campaign, forced Sessions to recuse himself from any investigation involving Russia or Trump. 

Jeff.                                      "Jethro!"

You know what, this is exhausting.  I'll finish the scandal sheet later. 

We have Wilbur Ross (Sec. Commerce), connections to Russian oligarchs, chairman of a bank responsible for laundering Putin cash - a bank that hired the president of Deutsche Bank (currently paying around 600 million in fines for laundering 10 billion of Putin cash).  

We have Tom Price (Sec. Health & Human Services), who, as a congressman, invested in various medical companies days before passing legislation that caused his stock to shoot up.

We have Ben Carson (Sec. of HUD), who is apparently still waiting for a prince to appear and wake him up with true love's first kiss. 

We have Rick Perry (Sec. of Energy), a man who campaigned on dismantling the department he now heads, and knows so little about the his job, that he forgot it's title in a debate, and didn't understand that he's in charge of our nuclear weapons. Rick has told everyone they can't use the words "climate change."  So problem solved!

We have Betsy DeVos, (Education).  She is known for giving Trump a lot of money and crusading to establish religious charter schools at the expense of public education.  During her confirmation hearing, Ms. DeVos demonstrated a spectacular lack of knowledge when it came to education, and stated that some schools might need guns to defend against bear attacks.  Because, why not?

We have Scott Pruitt (EPA), who In one week, was sued by  own state’s ACLU, defied oversight requests from Senate Democrats, and rode roughshod on his own state’s public-records law. That is, he his emails and records from the public until someone sent out FOIA requests and dragged his ass to court.  If memory serves, Mr. Pruitt also received legislation written by energy companies/oil lobbyists, typed his name on the letterhead and said "Look Ma!  I made a law!"

The list goes on.  And on.  Tomorrow, maybe we'll look at Bannon, Spicer, and Priebus a bit.  Right now, I'm just exhausted.

It's 8:46 a.m.

Good morning!

#144k

#flynnghazi

#IvebeenDeader