The Washington Post offers tips on how to keep your EV battery running in frigid temperatures. The link at the end of this graf is supposed to be a "gift link" (from me, Marie Burns, the giftor!), meaning that non-subscribers can read the article. Hope it works: https://wapo.st/3u8Z705
Monday
May112020
The Commentariat -- May 11, 2020
Afternoon Update:
The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Monday are here. The Washington Post's live updates for Monday are here.
Illinois. Tina Sfondeles of the Chicago Sun-Times: "A member of Gov J.B. Pritzker's senior staff has tested positive for COVID-19 and all staffers -- including the governor -- will now work from home for an 'appropriate isolation period,' the governor's office said Monday. The staff member was asymptomatic and tested positive late last week. That staffer was also in close contact with Pritzker and other staff members, the governor's office said. All staffers were tested last week. The Democratic governor and all other senior staffers have tested negative, and Pritzker was tested once again early Sunday and tested negative, his office said."
** Jonathan Kravis is a Washington Post op-ed: "Three months ago, I resigned from the Justice Department after 10 years as a career prosecutor. I left a job I loved because I believed the department had abandoned its responsibility to do justice in one of my cases, United States v. Roger Stone.... Last week, the department again put political patronage ahead of its commitment to the rule of law, filing a motion to dismiss the case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn -- notwithstanding Flynn's sworn guilty plea and a ruling by the court that the plea was sound.... In both cases, the department undercut the work of career employees to protect an ally of the president [right after the president* complained about the prosecutors].... Indeed, the department chose to assign these matters to a special counsel precisely to avoid the appearance of political influence. For the attorney general now to directly intervene to benefit the president's associates makes this betrayal of the rule of law even more egregious.... Department lawyers are ethically bound to protect the confidences of their client. Barr's decision to excuse himself from these obligations and attack his own silenced employees is alarming. It sends an unmistakable message to prosecutors and agents -- if the president demands, we will throw you under the bus." ~~~
~~~ ** DOJ Alumni Statement: "... Attorney General Barr has once again assaulted the rule of law, this time in the case of President Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn.... The Department's purported justification for [dismissing the case] does not hold up to scrutiny, given the ample evidence that the investigation was well-founded and -- more importantly -- the fact that Flynn admitted under oath and in open court that he told material lies to the FBI in violation of longstanding federal law.... We thus unequivocally support the decision of the career prosecutor who withdrew from the Flynn case, just as we supported the prosecutors who withdrew from the Stone case. They are upholding the oath that we all took.... We urge Judge Sullivan to closely examine the Department's stated rationale for dismissing the charges -- including holding an evidentiary hearing with witnesses -- and to deny the motion and proceed with sentencing if appropriate." Nearly 2,000 former DOJ attorneys have signed the statement. ~~~
~~~ Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "The letter, organized by the nonprofit group Protect Democracy, was signed by Justice Department staffers serving in Republican and Democratic administrations dating back to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The vast majority were former career staffers == rather than political appointees -- who worked as federal prosecutors or supervisor at U.S. Attorney's Offices across the country or the Justice Department in downtown Washington."
Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times looks back on "Joe Biden's time in Sarah Palin's shadow."
Farnaz Fassihi of the New York Times: "For the second time this year, Iran appears to have fired a missile at the wrong target with deadly consequences, fueling public disillusionment with the government and undermining faith in its military. On Sunday, a missile from an Iranian Navy frigate struck another Iranian naval vessel during a military exercise in the Sea of Oman, killing at least 19 sailors, the navy said. In January, Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps shot down a Ukrainian Airlines passenger plane with two missiles, killing the 176 passengers and crew onboard. Iran blamed the shooting on human error. Official details of the accident were scant on Monday. It was not immediately clear whether it was the result of human error or faulty equipment."
~~~~~~~~~~
The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Sunday are here. The Washington Post's live updates for Sunday are here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Joe Biden in a Washington Post op-ed: "... instead of unifying the country to accelerate our public health response and get economic relief to those who need it, President Trump is reverting to a familiar strategy of deflecting blame and dividing Americans. His goal is as obvious as it is craven: He hopes to split the country into dueling camps, casting Democrats as doomsayers hoping to keep America grounded and Republicans as freedom fighters trying to liberate the economy. It's a childish tactic -- and a false choice that none of us should fall for.... Governors from both parties are doing their best to make [re-open America], but their efforts have been slowed and hampered because they haven't gotten the tools, resources and guidance they need from the federal government to reopen safely and sustainably. That responsibility falls on Trump's shoulders -- but he isn't up to the task.... Governors from both parties are doing their best to make that happen, but their efforts have been slowed and hampered because they haven't gotten the tools, resources and guidance they need from the federal government to reopen safely and sustainably. That responsibility falls on Trump's shoulders -- but he isn't up to the task."
Michael Shear & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "The Trump administration is racing to contain an outbreak of the coronavirus inside the White House, as some senior officials believe that the disease is already spreading rapidly through the warren of cramped offices that make up the three floors of the West Wing. Three top officials leading the government's coronavirus response have begun two weeks of self-quarantine after two members of the White House staff -- one of President Trump's personal valets and Katie Miller, the spokeswoman for Vice President Mike Pence -- tested positive. But others who came into contact with Ms. Miller and the valet are continuing to report to work at the White House. 'It is scary to go to work' Kevin Hassett, a top economic adviser to the president, said on CBS's 'Face the Nation' program on Sunday. Mr. Hassett said..., 'I think that I'd be a lot safer if I was sitting at home than I would be going to the West Wing.' He added: 'It's a small, crowded place....'... Late Sunday, the White House put out a statement saying that Mr. Pence would not alter his routine or self-quarantine.... Mr. Trump continues to reject guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to wear a mask when meeting with groups of people. But a senior administration official said the president was spooked that his valet, who is among those who serve him food, had not been wearing a mask. And he was annoyed to learn that Ms. Miller tested positive and has been growing irritated with people who get too close to him, the official said." ~~~
~~~ CNN has a related story on pence's refusal to self-quarantine here. Newsweek has a related story on Kevin Hassett's "scary" remarks here. ~~~
~~~ ** Robert Mackey of the Intercept: Here's what mike pence did shortly after learning his press secretary Katie Miller had tested positive for the coronavirus. "... a live video stream of the second event Pence attended on Friday, a roundtable discussion with food industry leaders in Des Moines, showed that all five of the invited guests arrived wearing masks but were asked to remove them shortly before the vice president joined them on stage. Two of those executives, Ken Sullivan of Smithfield Foods and Noel White of Tyson Foods, run meatpacking plants where hundreds of workers have contracted Covid-19, including a Tyson plant in Waterloo, Iowa where more than a third of the workforce -- 1,031 people -- has tested positive and at least three workers have died. The Tyson plant in Waterloo was reopened on Thursday following an executive order from ... Donald Trump.... Although the vice president appeared to follow social distancing guidelines during the discussion, he did not wear a mask, nor did any of the officials who accompanied him on Air Force Two from Washington[.]... Video of the earlier event attended by the vice president, a meeting with Iowa faith leaders to discuss the planned reopening of places of worship, showed that just one participant, Rabbi David Kaufman, wore a mask." Thanks to unwashed for the lead.
Jonathan Swan of Axios: "President Trump's aides plan to hold several events to try to persuade the public that they're ready for a likely second wave of the virus this fall. In particular, they'll focus on testing capacity and access to personal protective equipment.... Many parts of the country still lack the testing capacity that public health experts say is needed to safely reopen. But [the Trump administration has] scaled up capacity substantially in recent weeks." Mrs. McC: Uh, see Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker's assessment, linked below. ~~~
~~~ Matt Stieb of New York: "While the administration reportedly intends to emphasize its ability to test Americans for the coronavirus, the government's report card on testing so far suggests that it could be another example of the president mistaking the announcement of a project for its execution. Despite the son-in-law-led task forces and the comically-botched mobilization of the private sector, as of two weeks ago, the federal government only had enough tests to diagnose two percent of the U.S. population.... The most poetic example of the White House's failure to handle the first wave of the outbreak is the outbreak currently inundating the White House[.]... And as the president provides comments in which it's clear that he still doesn't understand how testing works, CNN reports that over the weekend, he worried that White House aides contracting the coronavirus would undermine his current message that the outbreak is easing." ~~~
~~~ Here's the video Stieb links on Trump's comments Friday that show he doesn't understand coronavirus testing. Trump is mystified that Katie Miller "for some reason ... all of a sudden" tested positive after she had recently tested negative for a coronavirus infection, and this is why "testing isn't great":
Jennifer Senior of the New York Times: "The president has contempt for expertise. During a national emergency, President Trump's top economic adviser is a former television host; his supply-chain coordinator is his son-in-law, who majored in nepotism and prioritizes the leads and needs of cronies; the chief of staff at his Department of Health and Human Services is a former breeder of Australian labradoodles..., though at least the man is well versed in the behaviors of lapdogs.... Trump never took staffing the federal workforce seriously. The executive branch is riddled with vacancies, especially at the top. Vice President Mike Pence may speak about a 'whole-of-government approach' to the pandemic, but what we truly have is a government of holes.... From the very beginning, Trump was incapable of grasping the value of civil servants.... In an alternate universe, the president's cabinet would deem him unstable, invoke the 25th Amendment, and give us an acting president. We'd still have Pence, it's true. But for once -- for blessed once -- an acting official would signal a modicum of stability."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Joe Lockhart in a CNN opinion piece: "By the height of the Watergate scandal in 1974, virtually every major newspaper in America had called for President Richard Nixon's resignation. During the investigation and impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998, more than 100 newspapers called for him to resign. But ... Donald J. Trump? He could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody... and not a single major daily newspaper would call for his resignation.... After three years of political and actual carnage under Trump, including Robert Mueller's description of acts that amounted to, he told Congress, obstruction of justice; Trump's 'fine people on both sides' reaction to a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville...; his rampant conflicts of interest and credible accusations of his violations of the emoluments clause of the Constitution; his close to 17,000 false statements; a travel ban that primarily targets mostly Muslim-majority countries; impeachment for alleged extortion of a foreign government..., and the gross mishandling of a deadly pandemic, you'd think somebody on an editorial board might say it's time for the President to leave." Lockhart goes on to discuss theories of why editors are so reluctant to urge Trump's resignation. ~~~
~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: One possibility Lockhart does not discuss: Nixon & Clinton, for all their failings, had a familiarity with commonly-held moral precepts. They could be shamed. As for Trump, the answer to Joseph Welch's question, "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" is absolutely not. Why bother urging Trump to resign when there's no chance he could understand he had done something wrong, much less consider paying for it?
Heads, the Rich Win; Tails, You Lose. Jesse Eisinger of ProPublica: "Ten weeks into the worst crisis in 90 years, the government's effort to save the economy has been both a spectacular success and a catastrophic failure. The clearest illustration of that came on Friday, when the government reported that 20.5 million people lost their jobs in April. [MEANWHILE,] The S&P 500 is now up 30% from its lows in mid-March and back to where it was last October, when the outlook for 2020 corporate earnings looked sunshiny.... Asset holders like Apollo and Blackstone -- disproportionately the wealthiest and most influential-- have been insured by [Federal Reserve,] the world's most powerful central bank. This largess is boundless and without conditions.... Many aspects of the coronavirus bailout that assist individuals or small businesses, meanwhile, are short-term or contingent.... It's a bailout of capital. 'If the theory is: Let's make sure companies are solvent and the workers will be OK, that theory could work. But it's a trickle-down theory,' said Lev Menand, a former New York Fed economist who now teaches at Columbia Law School." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Hope Yen & Michael Balsamo of the AP: "The Senate's top Democrat on Sunday called on the Department of Veterans Affairs to explain why it allowed the use of an unproven drug on veterans for the coronavirus, saying patients may have been put at unnecessary risk. Sen. Charles Schumer of New York said the VA needs to provide Congress more information about a recent bulk order for $208,000 worth of hydroxychloroquine.... Donald Trump has heavily promoted the malaria drug, without evidence, as a treatment for COVID-19.... VA Secretary Robert ... Wilkie in recent weeks has denied that veterans were used as test subjects for the drug and that it was instead administered at government-run VA hospitals only when medically appropriate, with mutual consent between doctor and patient. Still, Wilkie has repeatedly declined to say how widely the drug was being used for COVID-19 and whether the department had issued broad guidance to doctors and patients on the use of the drug." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Melanie Zanona of Politico: "A growing list of House hard-liners say they have reached their breaking point with the stay-at-home orders.... In recent weeks, Republicans have been angrily lashing out at the media, local and state officials and House Democratic leadership over the continued shutdown -- and are now actively encouraging the fired-up protesters swarming state capitols across the country.... Yet for all the heated protests taking place -- and as several states begin to wind down restrictions -- the desire to immediately end the lockdowns remains a minority opinion. According to new polling, most Americans do not feel comfortable with their states reopening salons, gyms, movie theaters and other businesses."
Illinois. Maya Parthasaranty of Politico: "Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, whose state has the fourth-most coronavirus cases in the country, said on Sunday he's confident Illinois can safely reopen without relying much on federal support. 'I have not been counting on the White House because there have been too many situations in which they have made promises, not delivered,' the Democratic governor said on CNN's 'State of the Union.' 'We're going it alone, as the White House has left all the states to do,' he said, explaining that Illinois is working to grow its testing rate to 64,000 tests a day. And while the number of people who test positive for Covid-19 is increasing, it's because Illinois has increased testing for the virus to 20,000 a day, he said.... The governor also hit back at an editorial in the Chicago Tribune that criticized his reopening efforts as overly cautious. 'If the Chicago Tribune thinks that everything is going to go back to completely normal without us having a very effective treatment or a vaccine, they're just dead wrong,' he said."
Nick Perry & Nomaan Merchant of the AP: "The difficulty in trying to reopen economies without rekindling coronavirus outbreaks was highlighted on Monday as concern grew in South Korea about a second wave of infections that was spread through newly reopened nightclubs. South Korea's government had felt confident enough to reopen much of its economy after several weeks of seeing cases increase by just a handful each day. But on Monday, new cases jumped by at least 35 after the outbreak in the nightclubs, which have been temporarily closed down again. China also saw a second day of double-digit increases, with five new cases in the city of Wuhan, the original epicenter of the pandemic where a strict lockdown was lifted last month. The government reminded people to step up personal protection against the virus. A balancing act continues to play out the world over, with leaders starting to loosen lockdowns that have left millions unemployed while also warning of the threat of a second wave of infections."
Mark Sherman of the AP: "... Donald Trump is hoping to persuade a Supreme Court with two of his appointees to keep his tax and other financial records from being turned over to lawmakers and a New York district attorney. The justices are hearing arguments by telephone Tuesday in a pivotal legal fight that could affect the presidential campaign, even with the coronavirus outbreak and the resulting economic fallout. Rulings against the president could result in the quick release of personal financial information that Trump has sought strenuously to keep private." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Axios: "Senate Health Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) expressed disapproval on Sunday of the Trump administration's decision to continue backing a lawsuit seeking to strike down the entire Affordable Care Act. 'I thought the Justice Department argument was really flimsy,' Alexander said on NBC's 'Meet the Press.' 'What they're arguing is that when we voted to get rid of the individual mandate, we voted to get rid of Obamacare. I don't know one single senator who thought that.' The lawsuit by a coalition of Republican states is set to be heard by the Supreme Court this fall, with major implications for November's election."
@RealUnstableLoon. Axios: "Between late Saturday night and early Sunday morning, President Trump tweeted or retweeted more than 50 times about the investigations by the FBI and the House Intelligence Committee into his campaign's alleged ties to Russia. The tweetstorm shows the degree to which Trump is still consumed by what he believes to be an illegal attempt to end his presidency by Democrats and intelligence officials from the Obama administration." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: Donald Trump continued to fume over the Russia investigation on Sunday..., three days after the justice department said it would drop its case against Michael Flynn.... 'The biggest political crime in American history, by far!' the president wrote in a tweet accompanying a conservative talk show host's claim that Barack Obama 'used his last weeks in office to target incoming officials and sabotage the new administration'. The tweet echoed previous messages retweeted by Trump, which earned rebukes for relaying conspiracy theories. On Sunday afternoon the president continued to send out a stream of tweets of memes and rightwing talking heads claiming an anti-Trump conspiracy. One tweet by Trump simply read: 'OBAMAGATE!' Trump fired Flynn ... in early 2017, for lying to Vice-President Mike Pence about conversations with the Russian ambassador regarding sanctions levied by the Obama administration...." Emphasis added. ~~~
~~~ John Bowden of the Hill: "Trump spent much of his Mother's Day tweeting and retweeting various accounts, with many of the posts aimed at his predecessor.... In [one] post, in which he retweeted a supporter's declaration that Obama was 'the first Ex-President to ever speak against his successor,' Trump wrote, 'He got caught, OBAMAGATE!'" Mrs. McC: And you thought Trump was going to spend Mother's Day with Melanie, or whatever her name is, thanking her for being such a good mom to their son. ~~~
~~~ Aris Folley of the Hill: "President Trump called for Chuck Todd, host of NBC's 'Meet the Press,' to be fired after the program issued an apology for 'inadvertently and inaccurately' cutting short a clip of remarks made by Attorney General William Barr about former national security adviser Michael Flynn. In a tweet blasting Todd late Sunday, Trump wrote: 'Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd should be FIRED by "Concast" (NBC) for this fraud.'... [DOJ spokesperson Kerri] Kupec said she was 'disappointed' by what she referred to as the 'deceptive editing/commentary' by Todd and the NBC show in her tweet on Sunday. 'Not only did the AG make the case in the VERY answer Chuck says he didn't, he also did so multiple times throughout the interview.'..." The story explains how Chuck, in remarks made following the clip, misrepresented Barr's remarks. Mrs. McC: Kupec's "disappointment" is warranted, IMO, which is not to suggest that Barr isn't a flaming A. ~~~
~~~ Mary McCord, a former DOJ acting assistant AG, writes in a New York Times op-ed that Bill Barr's "Justice" Department twisted her words in order to come up with a bogus excuse for dropping charges against Michael Flynn. "... the report of my interview is no support for Mr. Barr's dismissal of the Flynn case.... In short, the report of my interview does not anywhere suggest that the F.B.I.'s interview of Mr. Flynn was unconstitutional, unlawful or not 'tethered' to any legitimate counterintelligence purpose." Mrs. McC: It is kind of perfect that Barr, via his lackey Timothy Shea, had to essentially lie to the court in order to drop charges against Flynn for lying to pence & others.
Presidential Race
Gabriel Debenedetti of New York: Joe Biden, "the self-conscious man in the Democratic middle -- mocked by the activist left throughout the primary campaign as hopelessly retrograde -- considers the present calamity and plots a presidency that, by awful necessity, he believes must be more ambitious than FDR's.... The heart of his [nomination] pitch, when he delivered it clearly, was status quo ante, back to normal, restore the soul of the nation. But in the space of just a few months, COVID-19 and the disastrous White House response appeared to have ... changed his perception of what the country would need from a president in January 2021...." ~~~
~~~ ** Mrs. McCrabbie: Well, crap. New York -- like nearly every other media outlet, now has begun to disallow readers to sneak around its paywall by opening stories in private windows. Ergo, the story above is firewalled, and I've reached my limit. If you haven't, it looks to be worth reading. The magazine is still allowing free access to stories that are specifically about the coronavirus, so we nonsubscribers will be able to read those, but we're out of luck on regular content. I'm sure gonna miss Chait & Frank Rich.
Ben Kesslen & Tim Stelloh of NBC News: "Georgia's attorney general asked the U.S. Justice Department on Sunday to investigate how local authorities handled the killing of Ahmaud Arbery. Attorney General Chris Carr said in a statement that local prosecutors had not informed his office that they had advised police on whether Gregory McMichael, 64, and Travis McMichael, 34, should be arrested after Arbery was killed Feb. 23 in Brunswick. Arbery, 25, who was black, was shot to death after being chased by white men in a pickup truck. Arbery was unarmed and on a jog at the time of his death, his family says. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation took the McMichaels, who are father and son, into custody Thursday after the release of a video showing Arbery's killing sparked nationwide protests. The men face charges of felony murder and aggravated assault." A Washington Post story is here. Mrs. McC: If you think Bill Barr's "Justice" Department is going to do a thorough job of investigating a hate crime, I've got a plantation called Tara to sell you.
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Reader Comments (28)
The Supreme Court, controlled by the Party of Traitors and ☠️ Is going to hear arguments this week for and against releasing financial information that the Traitor-in-Chief has been hiding for years, everything from tax returns and money laundering schemes to a fourth grade IOU he beat feet on. My sense is that while they’ll all hear the arguments, only some of them will actually listen to both sides.
So whadaya say, kids, how many think Little Johnny and the Dwarfs, featuring Trump choices Neil (Die for the Man) Gorsuch and Bart (Rapeboy) O’Kavanaugh, will side with transparency and fairness that could seriously impact the chances of their Glorious Leader to continue their collective goal of returning the country to Gilded Age rapacity, rapine, and revanchist racial and economic disparity?
Yeah. What I thought.
Fifty rage tweets in a few hours? Seriously, no dispassionate examination of this kind of behavior could return a verdict of sane, never mind “stable genius”. This is like the loony neighbor who shouts to passersby that aliens have been coming down to his yard at night to whiz on his geraniums. People who exhibit these sorts of signs have the car keys taken away and sharp objects locked up. But millions of other loons want to send this idiot back to the White House?
Wonder who’s whizzing on their geraniums?
Jeeeezus.
Sorry, Kevin Hassett that it is "scary" to go to work. I bet the 20 million Trump Unemployed Americans, from just the month of April, feel pretty scared, too. Inside the sinking ship Kevin Hassett is scared. How should we feel? I go with terrified.
Treatise on Geranium Whizzing:
Perhaps we could say, and why not, that throughout this charade the constant stench of whizzing and dumping of foul smelling debris has been the modus operandi of this administration and its head honcho who should have been removed soon after he put his fat ass into that oval office leather chair. But our system seems to stymy many reasonable executions. I am reminded of something Jill Lepore wrote some years ago:
"Polarization in Congress maps onto one measure better than any other:economic inequality. The smaller the gap between rich and poor. the more moderate our politicians; the greater the gap, the greater the disagreement between liberals and conservatives; the greater the disagreement between liberals and conservatives, the less Congress is able to get done; the less Congress gets done, the greater the gap between the rich and poor."
It's too bad that half-pence doesn't want to wear a mask, but to make others take off theirs so he doesn't look like the only fool is...
Akhilleus,
The only hope I hold out for the Court is that they ARE a political animal and will do the expedient thing.
Of course, at least three (or four) of them have decided that the only real American citizens are those who have had the fortune to have been incorporated--the only birth certificate that counts--and one of them values contrarianism above sense, but they do have this legacy thing to consider.
Do they want to hand more power to the office of the president than it has ever had, more than all the other branches combined, including themselves? To give their approval to his bald arguments that the office and the person who occupies it is wholly above the law?
I don't think so--and believe they will decide accordingly.
But they will decide politically, too, and not issue any opinions on these matters until late in the campaign season, so that any revelations that might come from revived investigations won't interfere with their guy's chance to be re-elected.
Of course, were he to be, now with the high court's blessing, term two would be a very rocky ride for the Pretender and the nation, indeed.
I can hear/see it now: one "hoax" after another.
If you think the Great Recession of 2008 represented a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the rich, hold on to your hats. You ain't seen nothin' yet.
Brazil. We are turning into Brazil.
Both the Orlando Sentinel and Tampa Bay Times have come out with a theory that the reason Florida has escaped more damage is that citizens stayed home before they were ordered to do so. Our "Open Up" movement is also subdued.
I'm surprised at the way it's played out so far as I expected Orlando/Orange County with Disney and Universal to be the major hot spot in the state. As it has played out, Central Florida is far behind South Florida, both in number of cases and deaths.
My slightly revised comment on the Jennifer Senior (whom I have come to like) op-ed aubmitted last night when I was apparently too tired to type, still in NYTimes internet limbo:
"All true, but it's likely that Trump supporters are interested in only three or four things, none of which requires that he know much of anything, and he effortlessly provides them with exactly what they want.
The greedy rich want the gravy, and that's what they're getting, in reduced taxes, in a rapid decline in the prosecution of white collar crime, in gifts of public lands and resources, in the recent recovery act that funneled money to those who did not need or deserve it.
By my reading, his greed matches theirs.
He cozens many of his other supporters with remarks and tweets that encourage their racist tendencies. He gives them permission to be who they are.
That part of the Trump dish is genuine, too.
Others (the categories are are not all that distinct), like his support of certain aspects of what they think or would like to believe to be their rights: untrammeld gun rights and permission to use their religious beliefs (Christian, of course) to control other people.
Here, he's faking it.
Finally, for purposes of this post, he appeals on a deeply emotional level to the resentful and envious who are suspicious of everyone who knows more than they do. To them his ignorance, his infacility with words, the middle finger he presents to knowledge is a tasty brew they eagerly lap up.
The narcisissm and the resentment that Trump displays against those who know more than he does is also genuine.
In short, Trump doesn't have to know anything, and that works out very well for the fundamentally lazy guy he is."
Just wondering: Has anyone here ever posited on what Trump would be today if he hadn't won the birth lottery?
FYI
You can subscribe to the NY mag “Daily Intelligencer email” for $5/month. IMO it’s well worth it. You get Chait and Rich plus the other regulars. About 6-8 commentaries per day.
My first post but I have been a follower for 5 years.
Bobby Lee,
My guess would be that he'd be a nicer guy whom we would not even know existed.
Because he won that lottery, though, he was well positioned and even better trained to beome the unparalleled pestilence he is.
South Korea donating and sending two million surgical masks to the U.S. Granted, it's been a long alliance but Trump and MAGA now have us in the position of recipients of foreign aid,
@Bobby Lee Re:
<< Just wondering: Has anyone here ever posited on what Trump would be today if he hadn't won the birth lottery? >>
Diseased or Deceased . . .
from tons of anonymous, unprotected sex and needle sharing during the seventies with zero access to health care.
@Bobby Lee: If Trump hadn't been born with a silver foot up his ass, he would be working for Lev & Igor.
Jennifer Senior "Trump never took staffing the federal workforce seriously."
It is not just Trump. None of the Republicans around him took staffing the government seriously. Trump would have been happy to hand off staffing to anyone who wanted it as long as they brought people buy every now and then to kiss Tang's ass. Donald doesn't care who is working at the CDC or FEMA as long as they keep their head down and don't catch the ire of Hannity or Ingraham. Instead we have college kids making staffing decisions for the federal government.
If he hadn’t won the silver spoon lottery, Trump would be the drooling idiot at the end of the bar screaming at the TV.
Oh, wait. He IS that drooling idiot at the end of the bar screaming at the TV.
Non-wealthy DiJiT would have died in a training accident at Ft Bragg in Basic in 1968. A draftee, he would have failed to "listen up" and paid the price.
@Patrick: You're right. He would not have had the money to get a doctor to diagnose bone spurs. Instead, rich Donald scored a date with Candace Bergen, who was very much the "it" girl back in the day. Of her blind date with Donald, Bergen said, “He picked me up. He was wearing a burgundy three-piece suit with burgundy patent leather boots, and he was in a burgundy limousine, so it was very color-coordinated. I was home by nine.”
@Bobby Lee: I don't think I'd trust Florida Man Ron DeSantis' numbers. Almost every state is probably undercounting the number of cases, but DeSantis seems to be making an effort to undercount case.
Ms Bea: No fear. There's no agreement on numbers. Even the top two investigative papers in the state, the Tampa Bay Times and the Miami Herald, post different death totals. But between Reuters and my little local paper I'm comforted to see we've had no more deaths in the past month.
@Bobby Lee: Say what? According to today's Orlando Sentinel, "With 342 fatalities reported between May 3-10, Florida reported the most deaths due to COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and the fourth week in a row the state has reported at least 300 deaths."
Just commenting on stories in both papers, Mrs Bea. Seriously though, I'm surprised it wasn't worse with the international tourist industry.
Between April 15 and May 5, Florida's Rt number stayed at .91. No perceptible decline, which means each carrier is infecting close to one more person. Hence the near-steady state of transmission.
Here's a worthwhile endeavor, the national weather service is looking for a replacement name for the letter "D", as the name Dorian will be retired.
Reckon a bunch of folks like us could start a movement to replace Dorian with Donald?
The truncated Barr quote got all the attention on Chuck Todd's show, which is unfortunate, because right after that, Peggy Noonan delivered her interpretation of the Flynn matter, and it was the sweetest, most empathetic, most generous explanation imaginable:
"...my read on this whole thing is that a fellow, General Flynn, who was early on new at a job, rather hapless, perhaps out of his depth, made a terrible mistake. He told a lie. An overexcited government agency or parts of a government agency essentially pushed him around after that. It became a mess.
My feeling is, you know, this absorbed a lot of people, was very interesting for a long time. But we are in another point in history, baby. We've got a pandemic and an economic collapse. So whatever on that."
That should convince the hardest hearts among us to put to rest this whole messy affair. And while we're at it, let's let go of the Mueller matter, too. And the Schiff storm. Chalk it all up to being new on the job. And hapless.
Forgive and forget! (And calm down.)
@Monoloco: Thanks. I agree with Trump. NBC should fire Chuck Todd. For having Peggy Noonan as a guest again.
And then there's Sweden, the Right's (how 'bout that!) no lockdown sweetheart.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/5/7/1943379/-Sweden-never-shut-down-now-their-death-rate-AND-economy-is-worse-than-their-neighbors?