Tag: trump

South Korea, China

  By

“Trump’s inartful retelling of Sino-Korean history sparked widespread outrage among Koreans, who are particularly sensitive to the U.S. president’s rhetoric amid heightened tensions between North and South Korea. Leaders across the political spectrum criticized Trump’s characterization, calling it a clear distortion of history and an attempt to undermine Korean sovereignty.”

 

Trump’s claim that Korea ‘actually used to be a part of China’
Fact Checker, The Washington Post

 

 

To be perfectly clear from the start,
South Korea was never a part
of China… who knew?
Not the POTUS… no clue.
He’s honed ignorance into an art.

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

 

To be clear (2-link limerick chain)

  By

“That business has become more responsive to public outcry than elected officials isn’t anything to celebrate, but it is an opportunity for activists.”

 

Sadly it was money – not morals – that forced Fox to boot Bill O’Reilly
Lucia Graves, The Guardian

 

“We know whose back you have [Mr. President] and it’s not our half of the population’s. But hey, thanks for proclaiming April as National Sexual Assault Prevention Month. It helps draw attention to the widespread phenomenon of sex abuses in our cities, villages, schools, work places and homes.”

 

We know whose back you have, Mr. President: Not ours
Rehka Basu, The Des Moines Register

 

 

To be clear, so there’s no more confusion,
Fox’s settlements smack of collusion
but when sponsors pull out
and the star’s lost his clout,
then O’Reilly-dom spins to conclusion.

As O’Reilly-dom spins to conclusion,
will the POTUS promote his illusion
that “Bill’s a good guy
and both he and I
are just victims of women’s delusions.”

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

 

Ode to the Odious O’Reilly

  By

“More than 50 advertisers had abandoned his show, and women’s rights groups had called for him to be fired. Inside the company, women expressed outrage and questioned whether top executives were serious about maintaining a culture based on ‘trust and respect,’ as they had promised last summer when another sexual harassment scandal led to the ouster of Roger E. Ailes as chairman of Fox News.”

 

Bill O’Reilly Is Forced Out at Fox News
The New York Times

 

 

I’d like to say we’ll miss you, Bill
But, truth be told, we never will
The way you paw the women-folk
Suggests you’re one repulsive bloke
(Though Donald Trump may think that’s cool
His moral sense is miniscule)
Farewell, O haughty baritone
TV is now a “no-Bill zone!”

© 2017 Dan Letwin

 

He’s wolfish and wicked and wily.

  By

“The governing irony, of course, is that in the world according to O’Reilly and other cultural scolds, everyone else is wrong and they alone are the uncorrupted. Their spin is no-spin; their truth is the Truth. They promise their followers: Do as I say (but not as I do), and America will be its own best self again, whatever you perceive that to be. Moral certainty is their armor, and it allows them at times to be immorally cruel. It takes a very smug kind of meanness to watch Representative Maxine Waters speak passionately on race in the Trump era and only be able to crack a joke, as O’Reilly recently did, about her ‘James Brown wig.’ A very white kind of meanness, too.”

 

The O’Reilly factor that mattered? Hypocrisy.
Ty Burr, Commentary, The Boston Globe

 

Graphic by Rafael Barker

 

He’s wolfish and wicked and wily.
He treats women rudely and vilely.
He’s up to no good,
And we wish that he would
Go down like his pal Bill O’Reilly.

© 2017 Colleen Anderson

 

How I hope I’m alive on the day

  By

“The tactics that have always served him will not work here. You can fool some of the people all of the time and you can fool all of the people some of the time. But good luck fooling the feds any of the time.

 

Heaven only knows where this will end up. Maybe the campaign will be exonerated. Maybe we will discover the Russian meddling was plotted by Trump and Vladimir Putin over drinks in a hot tub at Mar-a-Lago.

 
Either way, there is something to be said for the simple fact that the investigation is underway, that Trump and his team will finally be forced to answer serious questions from serious people who will not be impressed by alternative facts and brazen deflections. It’s the kind of knowledge that renews your faith in the system. And in karma.”

 

Leonard Pitts, Jr., Columbia Daily Tribune

 

 

How I hope I’m alive on the day
that his carcass is carted away
to the furthermost reaches
of his scurrilous breaches
where Karma’s demanding her pay

© 2017 Lily Beth Baker

 

Another judge rules he must pay

  By

 

A judge rules Trump may have incited violence … and Trump again has his own mouth to blame
The Washington Post

 

Did Trump and military get it wrong about San Diego warships rushing to North Korea?
The San Diego Union Tribune

 

Trump’s Mar-a-Lago kitchen slapped with 13 health violations
CNN

 

Graphic by Rafael Barker


 

 

Another judge rules he must pay,
His warships go badly astray,
And his gaudy resort
Gets a bad health report—
It’s a typical Trump kind of day.

© 2017 Colleen Anderson

 

The election of President Trump

  By

“Trump’s success has demonstrated the potential for an illiberal democracy predicated on denial of unwelcome truths. Liberal democracy cannot endure if such denial goes unchallenged. But first we must reckon with our own denial. We refused to believe that this could happen. We too were blind; disaster has forced us to see. To cope with this catastrophe, we will need an amazing grace, which I am not at all sure we are capable of mustering. For all our misgivings, we believed that, in the end, truth would overcome. It did not.”

 

Can Truth Survive Trump?
Democracy Journal

 

 

The election of President Trump
is America’s latest speed bump.
Hit the pedal too hard
and we’re bound to be jarred
and perhaps even towed to the dump.

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

 

Most presidents share their return

  By

“But it is Mr. Trump’s own taxes that have provided the crucial leverage for his opponents. More than 100,000 of his critics took to the streets over the weekend in marches around the country, demanding that the president release his returns. Tax legislation, they say, could be a plot by Mr. Trump to get even richer.”

 

Trump’s Unreleased Taxes Threaten Yet Another Campaign Promise
The New York Times

 

Graphic by Rafael Barker


 

 

Most presidents share their return,
Reporting the income they earn,
But Donny cops out,
Because, without doubt,
He’s hiding some crimes we would learn.

© 2017 Colleen Anderson

 

The Donald’s a-frayed by the fuss

  By

“Thousands of Americans turned out in cities across the country Saturday — April 15, the traditional deadline for filing federal tax returns, even though this year’s deadline is actually Tuesday, April 18 — calling on President Trump to do something every president has done going back to Gerald Ford: release his individual tax returns. As a candidate, Trump said he wouldn’t release his tax returns because he was being audited by the IRS. When pressed on the issue as president, he’s said he doesn’t think most Americans care.”

 

Protesters Use April 15 To Demand Trump’s Tax Returns
NPR

 

 

The Donald’s a-frayed by the fuss
from the voters, you know: most of us.
Alternative facts’s
no-see-um on taxes.
Let’s go for BLOTUS interruptus!

One promise on which he campaigned

  By

“Trump’s election is likely to feed the swamp monsters. For an industry premised on dealmaking, the return of one-party rule in Washington offers the welcome end—at least temporarily—to political gridlock. That means major policy changes are in the works, which promise to fundamentally alter billion-dollar industries. And precisely because so few people or companies had anticipated a Trump White House, there is all the more need for trusted guides to help navigate these murky waters.”

 

THE ‘SWAMP’ DONALD TRUMP PROMISED TO ‘DRAIN’ IS GROWING AGAIN
Newsweek

 

“President Trump is populating the White House and federal agencies with former lobbyists, lawyers and consultants who in many cases are helping to craft new policies for the same industries in which they recently earned a paycheck.”

 

With Trump Appointees, a Raft of Potential Conflicts and ‘No Transparency’
The New York Times

 

 

One promise on which he campaigned
insisted the swamp would be drained.
That was then, this is now
and he’s buried that vow
while he’s mucking about unrestrained.

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode