Word of the Day: The world is in an uproar over President Trump’s use of a certain word in reference to Haiti and African countries. “Shithole countries” is what he called them. Virtually the entire continent of Africa and Haiti have denounced his words.

The president woke up yesterday and tweeted a vague denial … “this was not the language used.”

Two Republicans at the Thursday meeting in the White House, Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue, said they don’t remember the President saying that specifically, but Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said, “He said those hateful things, and he said them repeatedly.” Durbin said, “shithole” was “the exact word used by the president not just once, but repeatedly.”

He went on, “I use those words advisedly. I understand how powerful they are. But I cannot believe in the history of the White House in that Oval Office that any president has ever spoken the words that I personally heard our president speak yesterday.”

Republicans, even those who heard the words, have been reluctant to condemn them. House Speaker Paul Ryan, who was not present, merely described the President’s words as “Very unfortunate, unhelpful.”

The incident has reopened the debate about whether the President of the United States is an outright racist. Trump signed a Martin Luther King Day declaration yesterday, surrounded by civil rights leaders. At the end of the ceremony reporters shouted questions, “Mr. President did you refer to African nations as ‘shitholes’” and “Mr. President, are you a racist?” He kept his back turned and didn’t answer.

The Word and the Press: The national press also crossed a big line yesterday, almost the equivalent of when they first labeled President Trump a liar. The NY Times and Washington Post used Trump’s exact words and they were repeated all day yesterday on CNN by both hosts and guests. CBS News beeps it out.

Some viewers and readers have complained about usage of the word.

On “Good Morning America,” George Stephanopoulos said “ABC News policy is not to repeat the profanity,” but then said he disagreed. “I think that’s probably a mistake,” he said, “because I don’t think it’s right to censor the president or to sugarcoat the racist sentiment revealed by how he used that word in the meeting.”

Martin Baron, executive editor of The Post, was quoted in his own paper saying, “When the president says it, we’ll use it verbatim. That’s our policy.” He said, “We discussed it, quickly, but there was no debate.”

We use the word for the same reason. The word and the context in which the President used it reveals his crudeness and racism.

President and the Porn Star: The Wall Street Journal, of all outlets, has released a story saying a porn star who went by the name “Stormy Daniels” was paid $130,000 just before the 2016 election to stay quiet about a 2006 sexual encounter with Donald Trump.

The Journal, citing sources familiar with the matter, reports that that Michael Cohen, who was a top lawyer at the Trump Organization, arranged the payment to the woman whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. The report specifically names the bank that received the payment funneled through Clifford’s lawyer.

The Journal says Clifford told other people the encounter with Trump took place in July 2006 after a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe. There is a picture of the two of them together at the event.

Trump married his wife Melania in 2005.

In a statement to The Journal, Cohen said that “President Trump once again vehemently denies any such occurrence as has Ms. Daniels.” He added, “You have attempted to perpetuate this false narrative for over a year; a narrative that has been consistently denied by all parties since at least 2011.”

Get Him Rewrite: In what otherwise was a totally crazy day, President Trump yesterday issued a demand that European leaders rewrite the Iran nuclear deal to make it stricter within 120 days or he will pull the US out of the agreement. It’s a big order on a short timeline with the State Department understaffed and in disarray.

He’s Healthy: Doctors have declared the President in “excellent health” after Trump’s first presidential medical examination. It did not include a mental evaluation.

The Obit Page:  Edgar Ray Killen, a former Ku Klux Klan leader who was convicted in the infamous 1964 murders of three civil rights workers, has died in prison at the age of 92. He was serving a 60-year prison sentence for manslaughter.

Killen was convicted 41 years to the day after James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, all in their 20s, were ambushed and killed by Klansmen. The three bodies were found 44 days after the men disappeared, buried in a red-clay dam in rural Neshoba County, Mississippi.

The three Freedom Summer workers had been investigating the burning of a black church near Philadelphia, Mississippi. The slayings shocked the nation, helped spur passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The Darwin Report: The latest craze to sweep the teenage world is chewing on laundry detergent pods then posting video of the unpleasant results. The pods contain ethanol, polymers and hydrogen peroxide. Enjoy!

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