Timeline of Fucked Up News: April 2018

In 2018 I began keeping a log of fucked up news stories in an effort to avoid becoming accustomed to how fucked up everything is. This is the log for April.

You may also be interested in the log for March.

April 2

• Stock markets are hit by a significant sell-off. The S&P 500 closes down more than 2.2%, its worst April start since the Great Depression.
• Amazon’s stock drops after Trump makes false accusations about the company on Twitter. Trump is reportedly obsessed with damaging Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and owner of The Washington Post.
• The Trump administration will impose a quota on U.S. immigration judges. Judges will be required to clear at least 700 cases a year in order to receive a “satisfactory” performance rating in their annual reviews, and judges who refer more than 15% of certain cases to higher courts will be penalized.

April 3

• A woman shoots three people at YouTube’s headquarters in San Bruno, California, then kills herself. Trump offers thoughts and prayers via Twitter.

April 4

• Facebook says Cambridge Analytica may have harvested the data of up to 87 million users. They also disclose a vulnerability that may have allowed the public profile information of most of Facebook’s 2 billion users to be harvested.

April 5

• Trump says he’s considering imposing an additional $100 billion in tariffs on China. S&P 500 futures drop on the news.
• Trump denies knowing about the $130,000 payment his lawyer made to porn actress Stormy Daniels and says he does not know where the money came from, lending credence to Daniels’ lawsuit, which claims that the confidentiality agreement she signed is invalid because Trump was not a party to it. These are Trump’s first public remarks on the matter.
• Trump tells various lies during a speech in West Virginia. Perhaps the most egregious is a claim that “millions and millions” of people in California voted multiple times, which is not even close to true.

April 7

• A fire on the 50th floor of Trump Tower leaves one man dead and six firefighters injured. Trump’s only comment is a tweet bragging about the building’s construction, sent before the fire is even under control.
• In the 90s, Trump lobbied against fire sprinkler laws in New York City. Residential units in Trump Tower — including those that caught fire today — do not have sprinklers.

April 9

• The FBI raids the office and hotel room of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. Trump calls the raids an “attack on our country” and implies that he may fire special counsel Robert Mueller.
• The Congressional Budget Office projects the federal budget deficit will exceed $1 trillion in 2020. By 2023, interest costs will exceed the entire U.S. military budget, and by 2028 U.S. public debt will reach 96% of G.D.P.

April 10

• After becoming angry while watching Fox News over the weekend, Trump told advisers he wanted to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
• Trump wanted to fire special counsel Robert Mueller after reading erroneous news reports in December. It’s the second time, as far as we know, that Trump has sought to fire Mueller only to eventually back down. The first was in June.
• White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders says Trump believes he has the legal authority to directly fire special counsel Robert Mueller.
• Homeland Security Adviser Thomas Bossert resigns suddenly, forced out by incoming National Security Adviser John Bolton.

April 11

• Trump threatens military action against Russia on Twitter, promising that U.S. missiles “will be coming” toward Syria.
• A Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School teacher who said he’d be willing to carry a gun at school left his handgun in a restroom. A drunk homeless man found it and fired a bullet through a wall.

April 12

• The Senate confirms Andrew Wheeler, a climate change skeptic and former coal industry lobbyist, as Deputy Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
• The publisher of the National Enquirer, American Media, Inc., paid former Trump Tower doorman Dino Sajudin $30,000 in 2015 to keep quiet about a relationship he says Donald Trump had with a housekeeper in the late 80s that resulted in a child. Regardless of the veracity of Sajudin’s claims, the payment itself could be a violation of campaign finance law.

April 13

• The U.S., Britain, and France carry out coordinated air strikes against Syria in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack. Trump ordered the strikes without seeking Congressional approval, claiming they were necessary to save lives. Yet the U.S. has only admitted 11 Syrian refugees so far in 2018.
• RNC deputy national finance chairman Elliott Broidy resigns after reports that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen arranged a $1.6 million settlement with a former Playboy model Broidy impregnated. She later had an abortion.
• A Justice Department Inspector General report alleges that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe inappropriately authorized the disclosure of sensitive information to a reporter and then misled former FBI Director James Comey and lied to investigators.

April 14

• A day after Trump body man John McEntee was fired from his White House job due to a Secret Service investigation into his involvement in “serious financial crimes”, the Trump campaign hired him. Within two weeks the campaign had already paid him an astonishing $22,000.
• Philadelphia police officers arrested two black men in a Starbucks after staff called 911 because the men hadn’t ordered anything. The men were waiting to meet a friend, who showed up as the officers arrested them. At least one eyewitness says nobody asked the men to leave before police arrived.

April 15

• Vice President Mike Pence’s pick for his national security advisor, Jon Lerner, withdraws his name from consideration. Two days earlier Trump had ordered Chief of Staff John Kelly to stop Pence from hiring Lerner and was later calmed down by Pence over the phone.

April 16

• Trump halts plans for new economic sanctions on Russia a day after U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced new sanctions would be imposed. The Trump administration claims Haley’s announcement was an error.
• Court proceedings reveal that Fox News host Sean Hannity is one of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s clients. Hannity denies ever having paid for Cohen’s services, but claims he still expected their conversations to be confidential. Hannity had not disclosed his professional relationship with Cohen despite frequently reporting and opining on news involving him.

April 17

• Trump signed off on plans for new sanctions on Russia days before Nikki Haley announced them. When Trump later saw Haley’s announcement on TV, he angrily insisted he had never authorized the plan. The White House then claimed Haley had made a mistake.
• The Trump administration wants to remove domestic abuse as a legal justification for immigrants seeking asylum in the U.S.

April 18

• ICE officers storm a dairy farm and arrest a worker without presenting a warrant. When the owner of the farm tries to take photos of the officers, an officer throws his phone into the road and handcuffs him.

April 20

• The Trump administration has separated more than 700 immigrant children from their parents, including more than 100 children under the age of 4.
• A 19-year-old man shoots and injures a student at Forest High School in Ocala, Florida shortly before a planned nationwide student walkout to protest school shootings.
• The DNC files a lawsuit against the Russian government, the Trump campaign, and WikiLeaks alleging a conspiracy to disrupt the 2016 election in favor of Donald Trump.
• In 1984 Donald Trump, posing as “John Barron”, lied to a Forbes reporter about his real estate holdings to try to get onto the Forbes 400 list.

April 21

• More than 208,000 students have experienced gun violence at school since Columbine. During that time, 131 people have been killed and 272 have been injured in school shootings.

April 22

• A gunman kills four people with an AR-15 style assault rifle and injures four others in a Waffle House in Nashville. Last July the gunman was arrested by the Secret Service after crossing a security barrier at the White House. His guns, including the one used in the shooting, were confiscated but were later returned to his father.

April 24

• The Senate indefinitely postpones the confirmation hearing for Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Veterans Affairs, White House doctor Ronny Jackson. There are concerns about Jackson’s lack of experience and his past behavior, including incidents when he was allegedly too intoxicated to perform his duties during official White House travel and drunkenly banged on the hotel room door of a female employee.
• Trump is increasingly using his personal cell phone to contact advisers, raising concerns about security and accountability.
• During a joint press conference in the Oval Office, Trump makes a show of brushing imaginary dandruff off the shoulder of French President Emmanuel Macron.
• Interim Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Mick Mulvaney told banking executives that when he was a congressman he refused to meet with lobbyists who hadn’t contributed to his campaign.

April 25

• White House Doctor Ronny Jackson allegedly self-prescribed and misused prescription drugs.

April 26

• The Department of Health and Human Services has lost track of 1,475 migrant children who were placed with sponsors in the United States. Some of the children may have become victims of human trafficking or forced labor.
• In an interview on “Fox & Friends”, Trump admits that Michael Cohen represented him in the Stormy Daniels deal. He had previously denied any knowledge of the deal Cohen negotiated with Daniels.
• Trump threatens to withdraw U.S. “support” from countries that oppose the U.S. bid for the 2026 World Cup.

April 27

• The Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner in 2016 had close ties to the Kremlin.
• The Trump administration plans to dramatically weaken vehicle fuel economy and emissions standards.

April 28

• At a rally in Michigan, Trump asks if there are any Hispanics in the room. His supporters boo loudly.

April 30

• Stormy Daniels sues Trump for defamation over a tweet in which he claimed she fabricated the story of being threatened by a man in a parking lot who told her to “leave Trump alone”.