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President Donald Trump, Melania Trump and Barron Trump walk to Marine One across the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on June 17 en route to Camp David. | AP Photo

President Donald Trump began Sunday morning as he often does, with a series of tweets.

The Father's Day tweets were clearly addressed at redress, an attempt to counter perceptions of his presidency by reaching out directly to the American people.

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Tweet 1: "The MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN agenda is doing very well despite the distraction of the Witch Hunt. Many new jobs, high business enthusiasm,.."

Tweet 2: "...massive regulation cuts, 36 new legislative bills signed, great new S.C.Justice, and Infrastructure, Healthcare and Tax Cuts in works!"

Tweet 3: "The new Rasmussen Poll, one of the most accurate in the 2016 Election, just out with a Trump 50% Approval Rating.That's higher than O's #'s!"

Presumably, the reference in the third tweet was to former President Barack Obama, though it's not clear what the direct comparison was.

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The president was referring to the daily tracking poll by Rasmussen Reports, which surveys 500 likely voters every night and then produces a rolling average to come up with the president's daily approval rating. The Rasmussen number is higher and, in some cases, much higher than other recent presidential poll results. Gallup's numbers, also the result of a three-day rolling average, most recently had Trump's support at 39 percent approval, and a Quinnipiac poll placed him at 34 percent.

The president and his family were at Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland.

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Trump starts Father's Day with tweets - Politico

Scott Schoettes, Counsel and HIV Project Director at the pioneering LGBTQ legal groupLambda Legal, resigned late last week from thePresidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA), along with five other council members, in protest of Donald Trumps polices or lack of polices to combat the HIV epidemic.

On Friday, Schoettes lambasted Trump as callous, a president who simply does not care, laying out the reasons for the resignationsin a piece on Newsweek.com:

As advocates for people living with HIV, we have dedicated our lives to combating this disease and no longer feel we can do so effectively within the confines of an advisory body to a president who simply does not care. The Trump Administration has no strategy to address the on-going HIV/AIDS epidemic, seeks zero input from experts to formulate HIV policy, andmost concerningpushes legislation that will harm people living with HIV and halt or reverse important gains made in the fight against this disease.

PACHA, created in 1995 during the Clinton administration, advises the Secretary of Health & Human Services, who is now Tom Price, the former Georgia GOP congressman with an abominable anti-LGBTQ voting record. In 2013, Price, on a conference call of far-right activists, responded to a question about the medical health impact of the homosexual agenda by stating that the consequences of activity that has been seen as outside the norm are real and must be explored completely and in their entirety prior to moving forward with any social legislation that would alter things.

Price is now spearheading Trumps and the GOPs efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with Trumpcare, which the Congressional Budge Office estimated would cause 23 million people to lose health care within ten years. This would harm hundreds of thousands of people with HIV across the country as well as many more HIV-negative gay and bisexual men and transgender women at risk who need insurance for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), the drug therapy to prevent HIV infection. And any advances to stem the epidemic could be dramatically halted or reversed.

One of the most ominous signs of Prices and the Trump administrations lack of concern about HIV is that the website for the Office of AIDS Policy was taken down shortly after Trump took office and has not been replaced another reason cited by the six members of PACHA who resigned.

Some activists are wondering why only six of the 21 members of the council in fact resigned, given all the evidence of this administrations willful negligence.

How about the other members of PACHA? Wheres their courage? This should have been a mass protest with ALL members resigning, wrote prominent, long-time AIDS activist Peter Staley, an early organizer in the groups ACT UP and Treatment Action Group (TAG), which successfully pressured government and drug companies to create life-saving drugs for people with HIV in the 90s, on his Facebook page. Its very obvious this administration is not going to use PACHA or do ANYTHING around HIV/AIDS. Protest is the ONLY response we have at this point.

Its a very important point. Ronald Reagan eventually created a presidential AIDS commission as a fig leaf, using advocates and experts to make it seem like he was doing something when in fact their recommendations were ignored and precious time was lost while little was done and thousands died. Activists and experts, if they dont have the ear of the administration and the will from officials for sound HIV policy around treatment and prevention, should not be providing cover, and instead should be embarrassing the Trump administration.

This is a critical time in the epidemic, as the epicenter has in many ways shifted from large gay meccas like New York and San Francisco to smaller cities in the conservative Deep South, where HIV continues to disproportionately affect black gay and bisexual men and transgender women (as it does all over the country), and where efforts at treatment and prevention have always terribly lagged. As Linda Villarosa reportedin a piece for the cover of the New York Times Magazine two weeks ago, Americas Hidden H.I.V. Epidemic, a stunning 50 percent of black gay and bisexual men will be infected with HIV over their lifetimes:

Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, using the first comprehensive national estimates of lifetime risk of H.I.V. for several key populations, predicted that if current rates continue, one in two African-American gay and bisexual men will be infected with the virus. That compares with a lifetime risk of one in 99 for all Americans and one in 11 for white gay and bisexual men. To offer more perspective: Swaziland, a tiny African nation, has the worlds highest rate of H.I.V., at 28.8 percent of the population. If gay and bisexual African-American men made up a country, its rate would surpass that of this impoverished African nation and all other nations.

Thats horrifying and unacceptable. With an administration that is literally content to allow people to get sick and die, the only response is to make as much noise as possible, as Ive noted previously, and point to the callous disregard. Protest takes many forms, and resigning from this administrations panels and councils as expert advisors to the EPA did after the Trump administration dsmissed half of the members of an important science committee sends a powerful message. All of the members of PACHA should follow the brave lead of the six who resigned last week, and speak out loudly about this administrations brutal policies.

Read more here:
Six Top Experts Resigned From Donald Trump's HIV/AIDS Advisory Panel - HuffPost

In response to President Donald Trumps announcement on Friday that he is reversing the Obama administrations lifted restrictions with Cuba, the Castro government released a lengthy statement saying the U.S. is in no condition to lecture them, especially given the sorry state of race relations in the U.S.

We have deep concerns by the respect and the guaranties of the human rights in that country, where there is a large number of cases of murder, brutality and police abuse, particularly against the African Americans; the right to live is violated as a result of deaths by firearms, the statement read.

On Friday in the anti-Castro stronghold of Miami, Trump listed a litany of purported abuses administered by the Castro regime, including the harboring of Assata Shakur, saying, The Castro regime has shipped arms to North Korea and fueled chaos in Venezuela. While imprisoning innocents, it has harbored cop killers, hijackers and terrorists. It has supported human trafficking, forced labor and exploitation all around the globe.

CNN reports that the letter fired right back listing laundry list of U.S. not-so-niceness including: racial discrimination, salary inequality between genders, the marginalization of immigrants and refugees from Islamic and other countries, Trumps proposed wall on the southern border, his decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord, the imprisonment of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, the killing of U.S. and foreign citizens in drone attacks, the preface for and conduct of the wars in Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries, and estimates that the Republican health care bill would cause 23 million people to lose medical insurance.

On Friday afternoon, Donald Trump spoke before an audience in Miami, Florida, to announce the

The missive (the whole of which I cannot find) continues, The US President, ill-advised once again, takes decisions that favor the political interests of an extremist minority of Cuban origin in the state of Florida, who driven by petty motivation, do not desist from their objective to punish Cuba and its people for exercising the legitimate and sovereign right to be free and for having taken the reins of their own destiny.

It would be good for the U.S.especially under Trumpto remember: when you point the finger, there are three that are pointing right back atcha.

Read more at CNN.

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Cuba Calls Out Donald Trump, US: Don't Get Hincty With Us, Racist Hypocrites - The Root

Relaxed, smiling broadly, President Donald Trump likely had no idea what Rhode Island teacher of the year Nikos Giannopoulos was doing just behind his back the moment a special Oval Office photo was snapped. Giannopoulos, sporting a rainbow pin in his lapel, posed with a lacy fan to make a point. Now the photo with him and both Donald and Melania Trump is drawing scads of views on his Facebook page.

Giannopoulos, who teaches 11th and 12th graders at Beacon Charter High School for the Arts in Woonsocket, visited the White House with other teachers of the year in April. He received the photo of his moment with Trump this week and immediately posted it.

He said he wore the pin to represent my gratitude for the LGBTQ community that has taught me to be proud, bold, and empowered by my identity even when circumstances make that difficult. He brought the fan that day tocelebrate the joy and freedom of gender nonconformity.

When I met the president as Rhode Islands state teacher of the year, I did not know what to expect, he wrote on Facebook after the photo was taken. After a lengthy security process, we were welcomed into the Roosevelt Room where we each met Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Shortly thereafter, we walked into the Oval Office. The man seated at the desk read prepared remarks from a sheet of paper and made some comments about CEOs and which states he loved, based on electoral votes that he had secured. He did not rise from his seat to present the national teacher of the year with her much-deserved award, nor did he allow her to speak.

Giannopoulos wanted to speak to the president, but none of the teachers got the chance(though Trump did tell him that he was very stylish with his fan as the teachers gathered around the president, Giannopoulos told Yahoo). He had wanted to tell Trump that queer lives matter and anti-LGBTQ policies have a body count. Giannopoulos said he also wanted to tell the president how the LGBTQ community is hurt by politicians callously attacking our right to love or merely exist.

He said now when he thinks of the day he will not remember the person seated at the desk. Giannopoulos said hell remember the students he has taught and the other teachers with him that day, including one who presented Trump with letters from her refugee student, pleading with him to hear their voices.

Read more here:
Bold, Gay Teacher Of The Year Photo Bombs Donald Trump With Fan - HuffPost

Im starting to suspect that Donald Trump may not have been right when he said, You know, Im like a smart person. The evidence continues to mount that he is far from smart so far, in fact, that he may not be capable of carrying out his duties as president.

There is, for example, the story of how Trump met with the pastors of two major Presbyterian churches in New York. I did very, very well with evangelicals in the polls, he bragged. When the pastors told Trump they werent evangelicals, he demanded to know, What are you then? They told him they were mainline Presbyterians. But youre all Christians? he asked. Yes, they had to assure him, Presbyterians are Christians. The kicker: Trump himself is Presbyterian.

Or the story of how Trump asked the editors of the Economist whether they had ever heard of the phrase priming the pump. Yes, they assured him, they had. I havent heard it, Trump continued. I mean, I just I came up with it a couple of days ago, and I thought it was good. The phrase has been in widespread use since at least the 1930s.

Or the story of how, after arriving in Israel from Saudi Arabia, Trump told his hosts, We just got back from the Middle East.

These arent examples of stupidity, you may object, but of ignorance. This has become a favorite talking point of Trumps enablers. House Speaker Paul Ryan, for example, excused Trumps attempts to pressure FBI Director James Comey into dropping a criminal investigation of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn on the grounds that the presidents new at this and supposedly didnt realize that he was doing anything wrong. But Trump has been president for nearly five months now, and he has shown no capacity to learn on the job.

More broadly, Trump has had a lifetime 71 years and access to Americas finest educational institutions (hes a graduate of the University of Pennsylvanias Wharton School, he never tires of reminding us) to learn things. And yet he doesnt seem to have acquired even the most basic information that a high school student should possess. Recall that Trump said that Frederick Douglass, who died in 1895, was an example of somebody whos done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more. He also claimed that Andrew Jackson, who died 16 years before the Civil War, was really angry that he saw what was happening in regard to the Civil War.

Why does he know so little? Because he doesnt read books or even long articles. I never have, he proudly told a reporter last year. Im always busy doing a lot. As president, Trumps intelligence briefings have been dumbed down, denuded of nuance, and larded with maps and pictures because he cant be bothered to read a lot of words. Hed rather play golf.

The surest indication of how not smart Trump is that he thinks his inability or lack of interest in acquiring knowledge doesnt matter. He said last year that he reaches the right decisions with very little knowledge other than the knowledge I [already] had, plus the words common sense, because I have a lot of common sense and I have a lot of business ability.

Hows that working out? Theres a reason why surveys show more support for Trumps impeachment than for his presidency. From his catastrophically ill-conceived executive order on immigration to his catastrophically ill-conceived firing of Comey, his administration has been one disaster after another. And those fiascos can be ascribed directly to the presidents lack of intellectual horsepower.

How could Trump fire Comey knowing that the FBI director could then testify about the improper requests Trump had made to exonerate himself and drop the investigation of Flynn? And in case there was any doubt about Trumps intent, he dispelled it by acknowledging on TV that he had the Russia thing in mind when firing the FBI director. Thats tantamount to admitting obstruction of justice. Is this how a smart person behaves? If Trump decides to fire the widely respected special counsel Robert Mueller, he will only be compounding this stupidity.

Or what about Trumps response to the June 3 terrorist attack in London? He reacted by tweeting his support for the original Travel Ban, rather than the watered down, politically correct version under review by the Supreme Court. Legal observers including Kellyanne Conways husband instantly saw that Trump was undermining his own case, because the travel ban had been revised precisely in order to pass judicial scrutiny. Indeed, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in refusing to reinstate the travel ban on June 12, cited Trumps tweets against him. Is this how a smart person behaves?

You could argue that Trumps lack of acumen is actually his saving grace, because he would be much more dangerous if he were cleverer in implementing his radical agenda. But you can also make the case that his vacuity is imperiling American security.

Trump shared code-word information with Russias foreign minister, apparently without realizing what he was doing. In the process, he may have blown Americas best source of intelligence on Islamic State plots a top-secret Israeli penetration of the militant groups computers.

Trump picked a fight on Twitter with Qatar, apparently not knowing that this small, oil-rich emirate is host to a major U.S. air base that is of vital importance in the air war against the Islamic State.

Trump criticized Londons mayor, Sadiq Khan, based on a blatant misreading of what Khan said in the aftermath of the June 3 attack: The mayor had said there was no reason to be alarmed about a heightened police presence on the streets not, as Trump claimed, about the threat of terrorism. In the process, Trump has alienated British public opinion and may have helped the anti-American Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, win votes in Britains general election.

Trump pulled out of the Paris climate accord apparently because he thinks that global warming a scientifically proven fact is a hoax. His speech announcing the pullout demonstrated that he has no understanding of what the Paris accord actually is a nonbinding compact that does not impose any costs on the United States.

Trump failed to affirm Article V, a bedrock of NATO, during his visit to Brussels, apparently because he labors under the misapprehension that European allies owe the United States and NATO vast sums of money. In fact, NATO members are now increasing their defense spending, but the money will not go to the United States or to the alliance; it will go to their own armed forces. Trump has since said he supports Article V, but his initial hesitation undermines American credibility and may embolden Russia.

Trump supporters used to claim that sage advisors could make up for his shortcomings. But he is proving too willful and erratic to be steered by those around him who know better. As Maggie Haberman of the New York Times notes: Trump doesnt want to be controlled. In [the] campaign, [he] would often do [the] opposite of what he was advised to do, simply because it was opposite.

The 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that if the vice president and a majority of the cabinet certify that the president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, he can be removed with the concurrence of two-thirds of both houses. That wont happen, because Republicans are too craven to stand up to Trump. But on the merits perhaps it should. After nearly five months in office, Trump has given no indication that he possesses the mental capacity to be president.

Photo credit:Tom Pennington/Getty Images

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Donald Trump Is Proving Too Stupid to Be President - Foreign Policy (blog)