Conservatives, including Trump, were quick to slam former President Barack Obama in 2012 when it appeared he bowed to then-Saudi leader King Abdullah at a G-20 summit.
Donald Trump Shows Power Of U.S. By Curtsying For Saudi King
Huffington Post
So, the POTUS has honored his vow
not to show that he’s weak with a bow
to a leader or king
but he’s made it a thing
that a curtsy’s acceptable now.
Susan Eckenrode, 5/21/17
Here’s the thing. Donald Trump right now is terrified about what’s happening within his administration. He understands that he can no longer duck and cover from the countless scandals that he has been involved in in the 120, less than 120 days that he has been president. Now he’s freaking out, and so he wants to make it again all about him being persecuted. This isn’t about anything he did wrong. It’s about people just being mean in the eyes of Donald Trump. That could not be further from the truth.
Trump Whines On Twitter
About Being The Most Persecuted Politician Ever
Gary Bentley, Ring of Fire Network
With the sissy-in-chief either whining
or schmoozing world leaders while dining,
self aggrandizing tripe
has gone way beyond ripe
where the spotlight’s perpetually shining.
Susan E. Eckenrode, 5/20/17
That massive spike in American women wanting to run for office following Election Day? It wasn’t a ripple—it’s a wave, says Stephanie Schriock, president of Emily’s List. The organization that supports pro-choice Democratic women is releasing new numbers Wednesday on just how many women have inquired about entering politics following the 2016 election. The results are rather staggering: Since November 8, over 10,000 women have contacted the organization about potential runs for office—roughly ten times as many as reached out during the entire 2016 election cycle, from January 2015 to last November.
Donald Trump Keeps Inspiring Women to Run for Office
Fortune
By blocking the rungs of the ladder,
glass ceilings are harder to shatter.
Those who pull back the reins
to reverse all our gains,
get prepared for a deafening clatter.
Susan E. Eckenrode, 5/19/17
Some Republicans ― including an unnamed White House official ― maintained on Wednesday that Trump was merely joking when he told Comey to lay off of Flynn, who was fired earlier this year over his conversations with Russian officials before the president’s inauguration.
The president must not have thought much about the quality of his joke. According to The New York Times, which reviewed portions of Comey’s memo, Trump instructed others present in the February meeting ― including Vice President Mike Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions ― to leave the room so he could impart his words to Comey alone.
The argument that Trump merely made a casual request to Comey to drop the investigation of Flynn is also suspicious given that Trump later fired Comey.
Republicans Insist Donald Trump’s Request To James Comey Wasn’t Serious
Huffington Post
Some Repubs claim the media’s stoking
the fire, ’cause, well trump was just joking
in suggesting that Comey
should lay off his homie.
One wonders at what they’re all smoking!
Susan E. Eckenrode, 5/17/17
Trump’s tumultuous first months have unfolded like a tape of earlier presidential crises played on fast-forward. […] New controversies routinely crash into the White House before the beleaguered staff has recovered from the previous wave. The master of the accelerated news cycle is now its victim. Democratic leaders, recognizing that dynamic, are deferring talk of impeachment while pushing for an independent investigation.
Events are pressing on Trump so quickly that it’s hazardous to project his current support from his party too far into the future. Congressional Republicans aren’t defending Trump because of deep personal loyalty. Instead the GOP alliance with Trump is rooted in shared political interests. […]
The safe prediction is that congressional Republicans will not mount any serious attempt to force Trump from office before exhausting all other possibilities, such as an imposed staff reshuffle or even embracing demands for an independent counsel as a way to temporarily push the issue off of their plate. But the lesson of Trump’s perpetual turmoil is that further developments, like compelling public testimony from Comey, may disrupt their timetable. An effort to remove him may never coalesce. But it’s no longer impossible to envision that it will—and that alone measures how much damage Trump has absorbed during these tumultuous seven (or so) days in May.
Trump Is Testing the GOP’s Limits
The Atlantic
Since Wednesday is hump-day, there’s time
for a couple more scandals to climb
to the top of the news
for the weekend’s reviews
to give us more limericks to rhyme.
Susan E. Eckenrode, 5/17/17
The president’s appetite for chaos, coupled with his disregard for the self-protective conventions of the presidency, has left his staff confused and squabbling. And his own mood, according to two advisers who spoke on the condition of anonymity, has become sour and dark, and he has turned against most of his aides — even his son-in-law, Jared Kushner — describing them in a fury as “incompetent,” according to one of those advisers.
[…]
The stress was taking its toll. Late Monday, reporters could hear senior aides shouting from behind closed doors as they discussed how to respond after Washington Post reporters informed them of an article they were writing that first reported the news about the president’s divulging of intelligence.
[…]
There is a growing sense that Mr. Trump seems unwilling or unable to do the things necessary to keep himself out of trouble and that the presidency has done little to tame a shoot-from-the-hip-into-his-own-foot style that characterized his campaign.
At a Besieged White House, Tempers Flare and Confusion Swirls
The New York Times
Forty-five wreaks his wrath on his aides,
unrelenting, he tears through tirades,
while creating chaos
just to show he’s the boss
as he plots enigmatic charades.
Susan Eckenrode, 5/17/17
Even without getting to the bottom of what Trump dismissed as “this Russia thing,” impeachable offenses could theoretically have been charged from the outset of this presidency. One important example is Trump’s brazen defiance of the foreign emoluments clause, which is designed to prevent foreign powers from pressuring U.S. officials to stray from undivided loyalty to the United States. Political reality made impeachment and removal on that and other grounds seem premature.
No longer. To wait for the results of the multiple investigations underway is to risk tying our nation’s fate to the whims of an authoritarian leader.
Trump must be impeached. Here’s why.
Laurence H. Tribe, Opinion, The Washington Post
There are reasons aplenty to reach
the conclusion… it’s time to impeach
and convict DJ Trump
and proceed then to dump
every toady and scurrilous leech.
Susan E. Eckenrode, 5/14/17
In one fell swoop, Trump revealed his abject unfitness and exposed McMaster, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and deputy national security adviser Dina Powell — all who personally attempted to knock down the story — as dishonest hacks.
It is not unreasonable to ask whether McMaster, a lieutenant general who was previously seen as one of the few credible voices in the administration, can now serve the country and protect it from an unfit president only by resigning.
McMaster and Tillerson are complicit in Trump’s dishonesty, so must they resign?
Jennifer Rubin, Opinion, The Washington Post
Now McMaster is skewing the facts.
His duplicitous hornswoggling smacks
of trumpian gall
and he’s caught in the thrall
as his stellar integrity cracks.
Susan E. Eckenrode, 5/16/17
Last Wednesday, security experts nearly had a conniption when they realized that President Trump had welcomed Russian state media into the Oval Office. It turns out that was the least of the security breaches that day.
[…]
Trump’s disclosure of the sensitive details, withheld even from American allies, to Russia, an uneasy rival in the Middle East, is yet another jawdropping misstep by a president whose administration thus far is best viewed as a series of errors and gaffes.
Trump Revealed Highly Classified Information to Russian Officials
The Atlantic
While schmoozing two Russians last week,
the POTUS allowed them a peek
at intel on Isis
creating a crisis
of trust among allies we seek.
Susan E. Eckenrode, 5/15/17
President Donald Trump on Friday floated an alternative to his press secretary’s traditional daily press briefings: Himself.
During an interview with Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, to air on Saturday, Trump suggested he moves too quickly for his communications staff. One solution, he said, is “we don’t have press conferences.”
“You don’t mean that,” Pirro responded.
“Well, just don’t have them,” Trump said. “Unless I have them every two weeks and I do them myself, we don’t have them. I think it’s a good idea.”
Trump Suggests He Could Handle Press Briefings Instead Of Sean Spicer
The Huffington Post
He’s a real DIY kind of guy;
he alone gets things done by and by.
He can handle the press
and manage each mess
he creates without batting an eye.
Susan E. Eckenrode, 5/13/17
