A new episode of my brand new Podcast called The Podcast of Evil is up on Youtube. If you’re interested please give it a listen and let me know what you think, I am of course always looking for ways to improve the show. This episode is broken into 2 10 minute segments. The first being a breakdown of news items that all seem to point to Trump’s general incompetence, the second part is the Archive of Evil section where I break down the actual acts and misdeeds thrust upon our nation by President Trump and rate their level of Evilness.
Transcript below:
Welcome to The Podcast of Evil. I'm your host Pat Riot. Today is Sunday, January 29th, 2017 which means we have only 1,451 days until the end of the Trump Presidency. His time in office, like my faith in humanity is slowly slipping away.
Today's theme is incompetence. I didn't really plan on having a theme for this episode but after reading through the reports since last weeks episode I couldn't help but notice a common thread. Incompetence. And really it shouldn't surprise me considering Donald Trump is the most unqualified person to ever serve as President of the United States.
That is not an opinion. That is not just a sense I get when I watch him. It is a fact.
Simply go through the lists of underqualified Presidents. You can find these on Google some are just simple click bait articles but others are professional essays written by Presidential historians. These lists all contain the same Presidents and some of them like Abraham Lincoln ended up being great despite their inexperience at the time they took office.
The reason these Presidents were underqualified and Trump is straight up unqualified is that most of the Presidents on these lists were single term Governors or Senators or Congressmen. Some were military generals who had no experience dealing with civilian affairs let alone national politics. You'll remember Republicans criticized Obama for having only served in the Senate for a short time before running for President. The basic idea is that the less experience a person has as a public servant the less qualified they are to be President.
Now recall if you will, the debates between Donald Trump and Secretary Clinton.
It was the first time in my lifetime that one of the two major party candidates for President didn't have an official title. But it was also the first time in American history. When candidates debate they often address each other as Senator, General, Governor, Mayor, Doctor, Congressmen, Vice President, whatever. They have all held some position of authority or political power. Donald Trump was just Donald Trump. He hasn't even held a ceremonial figurehead type position. Even George W. Bush served as Governor of Texas a position many have said was mostly that of a ceremonial figurehead with few actual responsibilities. But it was something.
This is Donald Trump's first job in the Public Sector. His first job as a public servant. Hell, it's the first job he has had that commands respect or admiration by simply obtaining the title.
Most first-time politicians seek a city council seat or run for mayor of their small town. Donald Trump ran for and won a spot in History as President of the United States with zero prior experience.
This is amateur hour in Presidential politics.
Now some will point to his businesses and say that counts as executive experience. The Trump organization is huge and he apparently ran it. They'll say that makes him qualified. But I disagree.
First put aside the reputation the Trump organization has, unpaid contractors, multiple bankruptcies, failed business ventures, I could go on. All of that is what Trump might have called during the campaign "Bad Experience" But let's ignore all that and just get back to what it means to be President of the United States versus the CEO or owner of your own business.
If you're the head of a business, you are the boss. You are in charge. You answer to no one except maybe board members or investors if that's the way you've structured your company. As President, you are not the boss. You are the Public servant. The people, we the citizens of this great country are the boss. We're the ones who for some reason hired Donald Trump as President and we can fire him in 2020.
He answers to us, not the other way around. Always remember that.
This dynamic is the polar opposite of running your own business. Where businesses can quickly change and adapt to new challenges and realities, The Government is a slow lumbering giant. The President is by design practically powerless when it comes to making broad sweeping changes.
The Presidency is not the Job Donald Trump thinks it is. Nor is it one he is particularly well equipped to manage. Instead of barking orders like a dictator, the President is forced to play a game of political chess.
This often means forging alliances with those you disagree with on areas where your interests overlap. It means always walking that fine line of doing what you can for your constituents, while not alienating the people he needs to get things done.
Delicate nuanced decisions made with long term plans in mind and the ability to keep a cool head on issues people are passionate about are not character traits I associate with Mr. Trump.
Hell the ability to make concessions and come to a compromise for the sake of building relationships that will come in handy when even larger and more complex issues arise seems to be beyond our new Presidents skill set. Not to mention understanding the delicate balance of economic policies that even when written by scholars in the field seem to always have unintended consequences.
For instance, Mr. Trump recently proclaimed quite matter of factly that the US cannot default on its debts because we print our own money. This is a dangerous level of incompetence.
As stupid as he was, at least George W. Bush understood that there were many things he did not understand.
Trump's lack of experience is already starting to show in the actions he's taken.
He issued a gag order to the HSS disallowing the HSS employees to speak to public officials. Essentially a gag order. But before I could even get to a microphone congress pointed out the stupidity of the order and Trump had to walk it back. The same thing happened with the USDA. 2000 scientists were told not to post any information to the public. Another gag order. But again the President had to walk it back rescinding the order. Another gag order was sent to the EPA and has also been walked back.
Then there was the order to initiate a hiring freeze on all federal employees with exceptions for security and military personnel. Of course, Trump forgot to exclude the VA. The one place MORE employees are desperately needed. Trump literally forgot about the veterans. And then they tried to claim that hiring more people wasn't the answer to fixing the VA's problems despite the fact that veterans have to wait in many cases MONTHS for an appointment because there just aren't enough doctors to meet the demand.
They, of course, had to walk that back as well and include the VA in their list of exemptions.
The Trump Administration is already flip-flopping like a fish named John Kerry wearing flip flops.
Before we get to the archive of evil I do want to touch on the news a little bit.
Trump issued a few executive orders regarding sanctuary cities this week, basically demanding government employees notify the federal government of the presence of undocumented immigrants. This proposal will also end the so-called "catch and release" policy, which allows some people who are caught crossing the border without documentation to appear in court at a later date.
I'm not sure what to rate this one as he's clearly planning some kind of registry or database for use in mass deportations at a later date. But so far nothing has actually happened, so take note of this as it may become very important at a later date.
Another piece of news was Trumps order to push the Xl Keystone and Dakota Access Pipelines despite the legal cases that are still impeding those projects. Not to mention the fact that the Dakota Access Pipeline alone according to Gizmodo would produce the annual equivalent of 30 coal mines worth of CO2 each year,"
If and when those pipelines get the green light to continue their construction under Trump I will evaluate and rate their level of evilness.
Another big part of the week was dedicated to Trumps executive order to build the wall. You know. The big, expensive, ineffective, waste of time money and resources border wall.
He issued an executive order which basically amounted to a heads up to congress to get on that because Presidents can't just order border walls like takeout. Congress has to find a way to pay for the wall and pass a law that details the way the wall will be built, to what specifications and with what funding. Then he has to sign that bill. And then there is the issue of actually doing it which will be nearly impossible.
Why? Because the border between the US and Mexico is almost 2,000 miles and spans multiple states. This includes land that is owned by private individuals and companies. California and its Governor Jerry Brown are against the wall and are also one of the most important places to build the wall if you want to create a solid barrier between the US and Mexico. Immigrants enter California more than any other state. So if Jerry Brown refuses to allow the feds to build in order to slow down any and all progress with environmental testing and public meetings and every other delay tactic he can come up with, the wall will go over budget and past its deadline. Meanwhile, Texas, another very important piece of this wall is unlikely to cede hundreds of miles of it's land to the federal government. The feds are going to go into texas and try to take a chunk of land for themselves. Good luck with that.
Let's not forget that patrolling a 2,000-mile wall will be nearly impossible making it an inconvenience at worst, and by some estimates, up to 40% of undocumented immigrants enter the US via airplane. Making a wall pretty useless. And as we now know it's not legal to ban immigration based on country of origin.
But as a result of this executive order, the President of Mexico has canceled his meeting with President Trump. Trump then, of course, claimed it was a mutual decision to cancel the meeting. This is nonsense.
One last piece of stupidity before we get into the evil deeds, let's talk about Trumps official Presidential Photo. Oh my god. I'll put it on screen. This is just bad. When I saw this I laughed out loud. What a fucking joke. Let's compare this to President Obama's first photo in 2009. Quiet Confidence. Now, look at trumps. He's trying so hard to look aggressive it's ridiculous. This looks like a promo photo for the apprentice.
The problem is that he's one of those washed-up salesmen who still relies on old, outdated, tactics that don't work. I would say he operates from some old cheesy guide to negotiation written back in the 80s, but he WROTE the old cheesy book. The art of the deal is that guidebook full of techniques that are so old and ineffective they're laughably bad.
He thinks this aggressive look will set some kind of tone when foreign leaders see it but all it does is broadcast his insecurities. Obama looked at ease, and that's scary. When you have a President who will hunt you down with predator drones and send in an elite squad to finish you off for a crime you committed before he was even President, all with a smile on his face. That's intimidation. That's strong. Even George W. Bush. Here's his photo. Looks like a guy who is just happy to have the job. He will invade your country pre-emptively and kill hundreds of thousands of your people, but he doesn't look like it.
Trump is trying so hard to look intimidating he just comes off as a scared old man.
Another fun fact about these two photos. Obama's 2009 photo on screen was the first digital photo of a President and it was taken using a camera that was state of the art for the time. Trump's photo was taken on a Camera from 2007. We know this because they forgot to scrub the EXIF data from the photo. Incompetent. I'm surprised it didn't say the camera was taken on a Motorolla Razr.
Now let's get to the good stuff. Or rather the bad stuff. Again the theme is incompetence. So let’s open up the archive of evil and grade Trump’s actions as we run through them one by one.
The biggest piece of news sine our last Episode was the Immigration Ban. Trump stressed that this was not a Muslim ban despite the countries affected by the ban being mostly Muslim. I am sure he thought that claiming it was not about religion would protect him from constitutional challenges. That, of course, is nonsense. The countries affected were Sudan, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Libya Somalia, and Syria. Countries not included in the ban were oddly enough Saudi Arabia, The United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Lebanon. All of which were involved in some way or another in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, also not on the list were Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Of course, this comes on the heels of a new Pentagon report that reveals 20 terrorist groups, including ISIS, are now operating in Afghanistan, mostly along the Pakistan border. It notes that “the Taliban and other insurgents have gained territory over the past two years,”
So there's your incompetence angle, but incompetence is not the same as evil. I could argue that instituting a ban and then forget to ban the countries where the terrorists came from puts American lives at risk, but I don't even have to make that stretch.
To add further fuel to the fire we have a conflict of interest. Trump's company which I guess we'll call Trump Co, for now, has business dealings in The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. And of course keeping his business contacts from entering the US would cause a lot of headaches for Trump Co.
So not only is this total incompetence and stinks of a Muslim ban and a complete conflict of interest but it also goes against everything America is all about.
Already talented people such as Samira Asgari have been denied entry into the United States Ms. Asgari is a doctor from Iraq who was supposed to arrive in Boston over the weekend to begin research on a cure for diabetes at Harvard University. These are the people who make America Great. America attracts the brightest minds from around the world and lures them in with a promise of freedom and liberty and financial reward for their brilliance. Donald Trump and his broad brush of bigotry are now cutting us off from the world's geniuses. Which means the best and brightest will go elsewhere.
Thankfully this story at least for the time being has a happy ending The ACLU successfully stopped the ban late Saturday getting a federal judge to issue a stay of the order. And here is where the incompetence comes in. The ban violates a 1965 law that prohibits discrimination in immigration based on national origin. So we have Trump writing Executive Orders that violate federal law.
As I said in the first episode ignorance and idiocy are not the same as evil, however trying to ban innocent people based on a hatred of their country and most likely their religion, while undermining the fabric of America earns Donald Trump his first full skull of evil. What an asshole.
Also in the news this past week was Trumps executive order to reinstate the Mexico City Policy a policy Democratic Presidents always eliminate and Republican Presidents since Ronald Reagan have always reinstated. Basically, it restricts foreign family planning providers that receive US money from performing abortions, advocating for a woman's right to an abortion, referring women to other health clinics that do provide abortion care or providing any information at all related to abortion to women who ask for it.
But this is far worse than simply dealing with Abortion, for instance when this policy was reinstated under George W. Bush in 2001 shipments of donated contraceptives—including condoms—were completely stopped from the United States. This left 20 developing countries without much-needed contraceptive supplies. In addition, abortion rates increased to more than twice the rate prior.
Christopher Hitchen once famously said:
"There is a cure for poverty and it's called the empowerment of woman. If you allow woman some control over their cycle of reproduction so that they're not chained by their husbands or by village custom to annual, animal type pregnancies, early death, disease and so on. If you will free them from that, give them some basic health care like that and if you're generous enough to throw in some seeds and a bit of credit, the whole floor culturally, socially, medically and economic of that village will rise."
To go out of his way to reinstate this ban is just plain evil. It will have far-reaching consequences that extend far beyond abortion. This act by Trump is designed to keep foreign nations down by handicapping woman in these countries and that will earn him yet another full skull.
But the story doesn't end there. No no no. In keeping with the theme of incompetence in this week's episode, this executive action is also unconstitutional. You see In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Government could not force anti-HIV/AIDS groups to explicitly denounce prostitution in order to receive grant money. The court ruled this was unconstitutional as it violated the First Amendment. Chief Justice John G. Roberts wrote "The problem with the second part of the rule was that it didn't just put limits on "the activities Congress wants to subsidize" but sought "to leverage funding to regulate speech outside the contours of the program itself."
So basically you can’t tell groups that are receiving Federal money that they can’t say certain things.
In response the Obama administration stopped requiring US-based groups to denounce prostitution but continued to apply the anti-prostitution pledge to international groups, prompting yet another round of legal battles. These culminated in a 2015 Supreme Court case stipulating that the rule couldn't be enforced domestically or internationally.
Trump is essentially trying to do the same thing. The Mexico City Policy requires health care providers in foreign nations to pledge they will not discuss abortion services before they can be allowed to accept federal funding. It's just a matter of time before this executive order is tossed to the side.
And then, of course, there was the surprise order he issued on January 20th after the Podcast had already been recorded. Trump's attempt to destroy The Affordable Care Act also known as Obama Care. So a lot of people kind of rolled their eyes when they heard Trump directed the Secretary of Health and Human Services and other federal officials to “waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay” implementation of the law so it doesn’t “burden” individuals, families, states, health care providers, and insurers.
The HHS has also stopped all advertising of the ACA in the final days of enrollment which could lead to uninsured Americans staying uninsured but the truly evil thing about this executive order is its intent. The main target of the order is the individual mandate, a fee or tax that if you paid attention during the 2008 campaign and the health care debate, President Obama was against. The basic idea is that in order to get healthcare costs down, everyone has to have coverage. Emergency Room visits are expensive and people who don't have coverage don't get preventative care and eventually end up hospitalized costing the whole country a lot more than if they simply saw a doctor now and then.
Obama's way of covering everyone was the Public Option. The GOP killed that idea calling it socialist medicine and instead opted for the individual mandate. A tax that basically allows people who don't want health care to opt out so long as they pay a fee, the idea being the collected money from the tax will help cover the cost of these people getting hospitalized down the road.
Trump's executive order basically strips the Governments ability to collect that tax. Which puts a big hole in the affordable care act. Certainly, some percentage of people signed up for Obama Care because they didn't want to pay the fee. Now they can opt out without any repercussion, they no longer have a financial incentive to buy insurance. This will result in an underfunding of the ACA and the whole program will likely begin to falter as a result.
This is the same reasoning behind their attempt to stop advertising for the affordable care act in the last days of enrollment. Basically, they think that fewer people enrolled is good for repeal. They, of course, had to walk back that policy as well.
The idea is death by a thousand cuts as they say. This is of course just setting the stage for the congressional repeal of the law. Obama Care under Obama was working and people loved it, so Trump's plan is to break Obama care so that Congressional Republicans can point to rising health care costs, caused by Trump's executive order, as proof that the law is broken and needs to be repealed.
The end goal being a repeal of the Affordable Care act and with it, an end to the tax increase on the rich Congress put in place to pay for the Affordable Care Act. As a result, millions of people, many seriously ill and otherwise unable to pay for healthcare will be kicked off of their insurance plans and probably die. Many of these people will go bankrupt, many will die from illnesses that under Obama were being treated, and millions of others will never get diagnosed with the treatable disease that will eventually kill them.
Seeing as this is just the first half of Trumps overall plan to kill Obama care and with it millions of Americans, at the moment it only earns him half a skull. But we will monitor this situation as it develops.
Before we go I want to answer a comment I got on the last episode, Randy Elliott commented:
"Pretty weak headline. Trump didn't "hike" MIP rates. He just canceled the upcoming cut in the rate. Meaning, the rate will remain where it is now. So, NO hike. :-/ "
I couldn't disagree more. President Obama had set in motion a cut in mortgage insurance rates, just because nobody had the chance to experience the cut doesn't mean the cut wasn't taken away from them. If you order a TV from Amazon and after the UPS guy drops it off, it gets stolen from your porch is that not stealing? Technically you never had the TV.
Lower Middle-Class Americans were set to pay less had Trump done nothing, thus Trump is the cause for their rates being higher. This was apparently such a high priority for him that it was among his first acts as President. Cut the bootstraps Americans are using to pull themselves up. What a guy.
That's all the time we have for this week's podcast. Be sure to subscribe so you can be alerted when the next episode goes up. If you have any comments or questions leave them down below and maybe I'll respond. If you want to send me any death threats or hate mail
you can send those to PO BOX 1158 Go Fuck Yourself
I'm Pat Riot, and this is the Podcast of Evil.