The Commentariat -- August 10, 2020
Afternoon Update:
@about 5:55 pm ET, the Secret Service just rushed Trump out of the press room while he was giving a so-called press briefing. The White House is on lockdown. CNN says there's some kind of commotion going on outside. Update: Trump just returned @6pm ET. He said, "There was a shooting outside of the White House.... The shooting was done by law enforcement.... Reporter John Roberts reported that he heard shots."
Quint Forgey of Politico: “... Donald Trump on Monday accused Sen. Ben Sasse [R-Neb.] of being a 'RINO' who had 'gone rogue' by scolding the White House for a recent collection of executive actions meant to provide assistance to Americans amid the coronavirus pandemic. 'RINO Ben Sasse, who needed my support and endorsement in order to get the Republican nomination for Senate from the GREAT State of Nebraska, has, now that he's got it (Thank you President T), gone rogue, again,' Trump wrote on Twitter. 'This foolishness plays right into the hands of the Radical Left Dems!'... 'The pen-and-phone theory of executive lawmaking is unconstitutional slop,' Sasse said Saturday night. '... President Trump does not have the power to unilaterally rewrite the payroll tax law. Under the Constitution, that power belongs to the American people acting through their members of Congress.'"
Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "President Trump is increasingly trying to run against a Joe Biden of his own making. Rather than look for campaign ammunition in the former vice president's long track record of politically vulnerable votes and policy proposals, Trump has instead chosen to describe Biden as a godless Marxist bent on destroying the country with a radical agenda that would make Che Guevara blanch.... To hear Trump tell it, the former vice president and longtime U.S. senator is 'the most extreme left-wing candidate in history.' Biden is going to 'abolish the police' and 'abolish the suburbs.' Biden is even 'against God.' In lobbing such extravagant attack on Biden, Trump has concocted a profile of the presumptive Democratic nominee at odds with much of Biden's personal and professional life -- a cartoonish depiction so distant from the reality of Biden that the hits don't always resonate." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: It looks to me as if Trump decided some while back that he would be running against Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, but he is so inflexible that he can't adapt to the reality of his actual presidential opponent. So while Ron Johnson & Bill Barr are still planning to play the fake Ukraine card, Trump -- perhaps because of the pain of impeachment -- abandoned that tack & adopted the nonexistent Radical Joe.
Betsy Swan of Politico: "Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) has issued the first subpoena of his Senate probe into the origins of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation: to FBI Director Christopher Wray. The subpoena, which Politico reviewed, demands documents but not testimony. Specifically, it asks for 'all documents related to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation' -- the FBI's counterintelligence probe into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. That probe scrutinized Americans close to then-candidate Donald Trump for their links to Kremlin officials. Mueller took over the probe in May 2017."
AP: "Puerto Rico on Sunday was forced to partially suspend voting for primaries marred by a lack of ballots as officials called on the president of the U.S. territory's elections commission to resign. The primaries for voting centers that had not received ballots by early afternoon are expected to be rescheduled, while voting would continue elsewhere, the commission said."
Reid Wilson of the Hill: "California's top public health expert quit abruptly Sunday afternoon amid questions about the accuracy of the number of coronavirus cases the state had reported in recent weeks. In an email to staffers, California Department of Public Health Director Sonia Angell said she would leave her position, effective immediately. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) will appoint ... [a new] acting director of the Department of Public Health .... [and a new] acting public health officer.... The leadership shakeup comes just days after data glitches delayed processing of up to 300,000 records related to the virus. The Los Angeles Times reported that two separate errors held up the reporting of test results, potentially leading to a significant undercounting of new coronavirus cases in one of the hardest-hit states in the country."
Don Babwin of the AP: "Hundreds of looters descended on downtown Chicago early Monday following a police shooting on the city's South Side, with vandals smashing the windows of dozens of businesses and making off with merchandise, cash machines and anything else they could carry, police said. When police shot a man after he opened fire on officers Sunday afternoon, the incident apparently prompted a social media post hours later urging looters to converge on the business district, Police Superintendent David Brown told a news conference. Some 400 additional officers were dispatched to the area after the department spotted the post. Over the next several hours, police made more than 100 arrests and 13 officers were injured, including one who was struck in the head with a bottle, Brown said. Brown dismissed any suggestion that the chaos was part of an organized protest of the shooting, instead calling it 'pure criminality' that included occupants of a vehicle opening fire on police who were arresting a man they spotted carrying a cash register."
Hannah Denham of the Washington Post: "Eastman Kodak shares plummeted 40 percent at the open Monday after a federal agency paused its deal to help produce generic drugs until 'allegations of wrongdoing' are resolved[.] Last month, under an agreement aimed at reducing U.S. reliance on China, the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, or DFC, announced it would give the photography pioneer a $765 million loan that would allow it to retrofit its factories to make the ingredients.... Last Tuesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch an insider trading inquiry, citing the unusually high volume of trading activity the day before the deal was announced. On July 27, day before the loan was announced, more than 1 million shares of Kodak stock exchanged hands, more than quadruple its daily average, she said in a letter to SEC Chairman Jay Clayton. Its stock price jumped 20 percent that day, she wrote, and more than 200 percent on July 28, when the loan was announced. Warren also noted that shortly before the announcement, Kodak Executive Chairman James Continenza bought about 46,700 shares."
Hannah Denham of the Washington Post: "McDonald's Corp. is suing its former chief executive to recover his severance and compensation package, alleging he lied about multiple sexual relationships with employees. The fast food giant made the announcement in a Monday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Steve Easterbrook was terminated on Nov. 3, 2019, after the company's board found he violated policy with 'a consensual relationship with an employee,' McDonald's said. His compensation, benefits and stock were potentially worth nearly $42 million, the Wall Street Journal reported." A New York Times story is here.
Sergei Kuznetsov of Politico: "Protests broke out across Belarus on Sunday evening after an exit poll predicted an overwhelming victory for authoritarian incumbent President Aleksander Lukashenko. Independent Belsat television showed large crowds being attacked by police in Minsk, amid reports that a few local polling stations were saying that in their counts opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya was doing better than Lukashenko."
Bassem Mroue of the AP: "Lebanon's government resigned Monday amid widespread public fury at the country's ruling elite over last week's devastating explosion in Beirut. The move risks opening the way to dragged-out negotiations over a new Cabinet amid urgent calls for reform. Prime Minster Hassan Diab headed to the presidential palace to submit the Cabinet's group resignation, said Health Minister Hamad Hassan. It follows a weekend of anti-government protests in the wake of the Aug. 4 explosion in Beirut's port that caused widespread destruction, killed at least 160 people and injured about 6,000 others. The moment typified Lebanon's political dilemma. Since October, there have been mass demonstrations demanding the departure of the entire sectarian-based leadership over entrenched corruption, incompetence and mismanagement."
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The Trumpidemic, Ctd.
How Trump Killed Tens of Thousands of Americans. William Saletan of Slate: "On July 17..., Donald Trump sat for a Fox News interview [link fixed] at the White House. At the time, nearly 140,000 Americans were dead from the novel coronavirus. The interviewer, Chris Wallace, showed Trump a video clip in which Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned of a difficult fall and winter ahead. Trump dismissed the warning.... 'Everybody thought this summer it would go away,' said Trump. 'They used to say the heat, the heat was good for it and it really knocks it out, remember? So they got that one wrong.' Trump's account was completely backward. Redfield and other U.S. public health officials had never promised that heat would knock out the virus. In fact, they had cautioned against that assumption. The person who had held out the false promise of a warm-weather reprieve, again and again, was Trump.... He had gotten it from Xi Jinping, the president of China, in a phone call in February. The phone call, the talking points Trump picked up from it, and his subsequent attempts to cover up his alliance with Xi are part of a deep betrayal.... Trump collaborated with Xi, concealed the threat, impeded the U.S. government's response, silenced those who sought to warn the public, and pushed states to take risks that escalated the tragedy. He's personally responsible for tens of thousands of deaths.... This article ... documents Trump's interference or negligence in every stage of the government's failure: preparation, mobilization, public communication, testing, mitigation, and reopening." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: This is why I've been calling the U.S. epidemic the "Trumpidemic" for some while. Like you, I've been watching. Saletan argues that this "truth, unlike Trump's false narrative, is scattered in different places. It's in emails, leaks, interviews, hearings, scientific reports, and the president's stray remarks." That's why he attempts to put the evidence all together in one story.
The Washington Post's live updates of coronavirus developments Monday is here: "The number of coronavirus cases reported to date in the United States topped 5 million on Sunday, meaning that more than a million cases have been reported in the past 17 days alone. The tally has doubled since late June, and now accounts for approximately a quarter of all cases reported worldwide."
Ron Lieber & Stacy Cowley of the New York Times: "President Trump, in announcing his executive measures on Saturday, said he was bypassing Congress to deliver emergency pandemic aid to needy Americans. But his directives are rife with so much complexity and legal murkiness that they're unlikely, in most cases, to bring fast relief -- if any. Because Congress controls federal spending, at least some of Mr. Trump's actions will almost certainly be challenged in court. They could also quickly become moot if congressional leaders reach an agreement and pass their own relief package. Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California on Sunday dismissed Mr. Trump's actions as unconstitutional and said a compromise deal was still needed. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he would be open to further talks with Democratic leaders: 'Anytime they have a new proposal, I'm willing to listen.'" ~~~
~~~ Heather Long of the Washington Post has a pretty good overview of what is actually in -- and what is not in -- Trump's executive actions. ~~~
~~~ Deal-Maker? How about Muckmaker. Tony Romm, et al., of the Washington Post: "... Trump's attempts to circumvent the partisan logjam on Capitol Hill instead may be illustrating the limits of executive power — and the costs that can come from invoking it. In this case, a more long-lasting legislative solution may have been delayed with the White House deciding to act on its own, said Daniel Hemel, a law professor at the University of Chicago, in an interview Sunday.... 'Unfortunately, the president's executive orders, described in one word, could be paltry, in three words, unworkable, weak and far too narrow, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Sunday on ABC News. In response to the expiring aid, Trump on Saturday signed an order that would offer $400 a week in federal unemployment benefits. To pay for the program, the president said he would tap $44 billion in federal funds that are allocated for natural disaster.... But states would have to contribute $100 a week to each worker's check.... Beyond the legal questions surrounding the maneuver, many states are facing severe budget deficits..., and several economists and lawmakers said governors may be unlikely to sign onto the program." ~~~
~~~ Scott Lemieux in LG&$: "Trump's memo purporting to extend unemployment benefits is an awful program on the merits that is also entirely outside the president's legal authority[.]... The purported extension of the eviction moratorium, meanwhile, is a joke -- it is to protecting tenants what Susan Collins is to oversight of the Trump administration, a mildly sternly worded letter to HUD suggesting that it would be neat if tenants had some kind of eviction protection maybe. He wasn't even willing to take actions that were plausibly within the scope of executive power[.]... Trump's offer to people about to be devastated by his failure to deal with a historic pandemic is 'nothing,' and any reporter who portrays it as anything else is either malicious or incompetent." Lemieux extensively cites a blogpost by Jack Balkin, who describes the charade at Bedminster thusly: "President Trump's effort to relieve the pressure he and Senate Republicans have been feeling over the expiration of enhanced unemployment benefits is a failure on every level. It provides too little in aid. It will miss many families in need. It will expire very soon. It likely cannot be implemented in some states. And it is transparently unlawful.” Lemieux also cites a portion of Heather Long's analysis, linked above. ~~~
The Lord and the Founding Fathers created executive orders because of partisan bickering and divided government. -- White House economic adviser Peter Navarro, on NBC News on Sunday, explaining God's hand, one supposes, in Constitutionally-murky presidential orders
It should be noted that on Saturday Trump signed only one executive order, which itself was a directive that "the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Director of the CDC shall consider whether any measures temporarily halting residential evictions of any tenants for failure to pay rent are reasonably necessary to 'prevent the further spread of COVID-19.'" The other actions were "memoranda." I don't know if the Lord created memoranda, too. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie ~~~
~~~ He First Rode Down upon the Stair, the Big Fat Man Who Wasn't There. Again. Toluse Olorunnipa & Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "Already largely absent from intense negotiations for a coronavirus stimulus package, President Trump fully distanced himself from the thorny legislative process by leaving Washington on Thursday for a weekend at his private golf resort in New Jersey. After talks on Capitol Hill collapsed, Trump assembled some of his dues-paying club members to watch him complete the final step of what has become a familiar routine in his turbulent presidency: signing a legally dubious executive order after failing to reach a deal with Congress.... He has frequently relied on showmanship and pageantry to try to turn negotiating failures into victories.... The four documents the president signed Saturday were neither 'bills' nor 'acts,' despite his comments referring to them as such, and their effectiveness and legality are already being called into question by Democrats and some Republicans in the Congress he is attempting to bypass."
Nicole Winfield & Lisa Pane of the AP: "With confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. hitting 5 million Sunday, by far the highest of any country, the failure of the most powerful nation in the world to contain the scourge has been met with astonishment and alarm in Europe.... Health officials believe the actual number is perhaps 10 times higher.... Much of the incredulity in Europe stems from the fact that America had the benefit of time, European experience and medical know-how to treat the virus that the continent itself didn't have when the first COVID-19 patients started filling intensive care units.... Mistakes were made in Europe, too, from delayed lockdowns to insufficient protections for nursing home elderly and critical shortages of tests and protective equipment for medical personnel." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Nancy Altman of Social Security Works: "Donald Trump once promised that he would be 'the only Republican that doesn't want to cut Social Security." We now know that what he meant is that cutting Social Security doesn't go far enough for him: He wants to destroy Social Security. Donald Trump's executive order, which seeks to defer Social Security contributions, is bad enough. But his promise to 'terminate' FICA contributions if he is reelected is a full-on declaration of war against current and future Social Security beneficiaries.... Every American who cares about Social Security's future must do everything they can to ensure that Trump does not get a second term." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Oh, but Ms. Altman, you are so wrong. Here's how Steve Mnuchin explained to Chris Wallace how the payroll tax deferrals would be paid for, via David of Crooks & Liars: Wallace asked Mnuchin if Trump's action would reduce Social Security benefits. "'That's not the case,' Mnuchin said without evidence. 'There would be an automatic contribution from the general fund to those trusts funds....' 'We're already running huge deficits,' Wallace observed. 'So how are you going to pay for it from the general fund?' 'You just have a transfer from the general fund,' Mnuchin insisted. 'We'll deal with the budget deficit when we get the economy back to where it was before.'" Right.
Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "More than 3½ years into his presidency, Trump increasingly finds himself minimized and ignored -- as many of his more outlandish or false statements are briefly considered and then, just as quickly, dismissed. The slide into partial irrelevance could make it even more difficult for Trump as he seeks reelection as the nation's leader amid a pandemic and economic collapse.... Biden, meanwhile, has made a core theme of his campaign the argument that Trump's lack of credibility is eroding the presidency, as well as the relevancy of the United States on the world stage.... At times, Biden has tried ignoring Trump altogether -- or, when he does engage, doing so with a tone of exasperated mockery. 'I can't believe I have to say this, but please don't drink bleach,' Biden wrote on Twitter in April.... '[Trump's] problem is that there's also a collective shrug when he attacks Joe Biden,' [Biden's pollster John] Anzalone said. 'He attacks, attacks, attacks, but people don't believe his attacks. They kind of eye-roll and they shrug.'... A Republican Senate aide likened the president to a sleeping grizzly bear. 'If you woke up the grizzly bear, he could destroy anything -- but now he's just hibernating,'..." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
This is the hardest working president in history. He works 24/7 in Bedminster, Mar-a-lago, the Oval Office or anywhere in between. -- White House economic adviser Peter Navarro, on NBC News on Sunday ~~~
~~~ Delusions of Grandeur: The Hardest-Working President* at Work. Jamie Ehrlich of CNN: "White House aides reached out to South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem last year about the process of adding additional presidents to Mount Rushmore, the New York Times reported. According to a person familiar who spoke with the Times, Noem then greeted Trump when he arrived in the state for his July Fourth celebrations at the monument with a four-foot replica of Mount Rushmore that included his face. Noem has noted before Trump's 'dream' to have his face on Mount Rushmore, the Coolidge-era sculpture that features the 60-foot-tall faces of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. According to a 2018 interview with Noem, the two struck up a conversation about the sculpture in the Oval Office during their first meeting, where she initially thought he was joking. 'I started laughing,' she said. 'He wasn't laughing, so he was totally serious.'... 'I said, "Mr. President, you should come to South Dakota sometime. We have Mount Rushmore." And he goes, "Do you know it's my dream to have my face on Mount Rushmore?"' Trump also toyed with the idea of adding himself to Mount Rushmore in 2017 at a campaign rally in Youngstown, Ohio." ~~~
~~~ The New York Times story, by Jonathan Martin & Maggie Haberman (August 8) is here. ~~~
~~~ Peter Wade of Rolling Stone: "Adding to the already odd ask is the fact that the federal government is in charge of such matters, not the state, and the National Park Service has addressed the subject several times with a hard no, citing instability to the structure making it impossible to make additions." Mrs. McC: On the other hand, maybe Trump isn't as dumb as he seems (tho he probably is). As Martin & Haberman note, "Some of [Noem's] allies believe she'd also be open to the interior or agricultural secretary roles in a second Trump term ahead of the 2024 race." The National Park Service is a unit of the Interior Department. Do you suppose Trump would make Noem Secretary of the Interior in exchange for her carving his fat face on Mount Rushmore -- or at least "acting" Secretary? Uh, yeah.
This Is Not Believable. Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post (at 12:18 pm ET): "White House national security adviser Robert C. O'Brien said Sunday that Trump 'has told the Russians many, many times not to interfere' in U.S. elections, but he declined to specify the substance of those conversations or when they had taken place." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Presidential Race
Mario Nicholais of the Lincoln Project: "In fifteen years practicing election law, I have never seen anything as craven and shameful as the Kanye con job Donald Trump and his sycophants have attempted in Wisconsin. After combing through two challenges to Kanye West's nomination signatures at the behest of The Lincoln Project, I have come to two conclusions: not only should Kanye be kept off the ballot, but law enforcement should investigate and prosecute several individuals involved in the effort. Trump and his supporters have spent recent days attempting to place the music mogul on presidential ballots across the country. They believe that a black celebrity on the ballot will pull votes from Joe Biden, who enjoys overwhelming support from Black Americans, and help a flailing Trump campaign in November. Nevermind that West's family and friends issued a public plea for him to seek mental health help just two weeks ago. Nevermind that West cannot qualify for enough state ballots to actually win the presidency. Nevermind that the fundamental assumption -- that black voters will vote for a black man based solely on the color of his skin -- is a profoundly racist position." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Beyond the Beltway
A Real-Life Crime Story. Unfinished Business. Allyson Waller of the New York Times: Nearly 50 years after Luis Archuleta shot now-retired Denver police officer Daril Cinquanta, Cinquanta tracked down Archuleta, living under an assumed name in Northern New Mexico. "An F.B.I. affidavit [which, sadly, is not reproduced here] tells a sweeping story of Mr. Archuleta's return to Colorado, and later, his second escape from confinement."
Way Beyond
Austin Ramzy & Tiffany May of the New York Times: "The Hong Kong police on Monday arrested seven people, including Jimmy Lai, the media tycoon and critic of the Chinese Communist Party, on charges of violating the territory's new national security law, making him the most high-profile target of the sweeping legislation imposed by Beijing. Mr. Lai's arrest highlighted concerns by activists and opposition figures that the new security law would be used to silence critical voices and curb the city's freewheeling press as part of a broader move against democracy advocates." An AP report is here.
News Lede
Washington Post: "One woman is dead and others are injured after an explosion in Baltimore on Monday morning. The 'major gas explosion' that involved three houses at Labyrinth and Reistertown roads has left multiple people, including children, trapped according to the Baltimore Fire Department." An AP story is here.
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Reader Comments (33)
Speaking of the Lord's creations.....
From Friedman, quoting the Pretender:
The other day Trump told a G.O.P. audience in Cleveland that, if Biden won, he would “hurt the Bible, hurt God. He’s against God, he’s against guns, he’s against energy, our kind of energy.”
(https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/09/opinion/trump-beirut-politics.html?)
Against God? Against….our kind of energy”
Lotsa choices here, but looking back to Christendom’s origins, I would have thought God would have been partial to the sun (which He created before anything else, along with the rest of the heavens), and as I suspect many “suburban housewives" believe these days, maybe olive oil.
Regarding the Slate article at the top - I couldn't find a link to it above, so here it is.
Why am I not surprised by MOOM? Though I am repulsed.
Biggest Inauguration crowd ever? Better President than Lincoln? Deserves the Nobel Prize? Should have puss on Mt, Rushmore?
All this and more from a very stable genius, who by all the signs really is nuts, isn't he?
And at least five excruciating months to go. This is not good.
Raising the question. Can the office of presidency alone make you crazy if you didn't start out that way?
That's a very interesting question, Ken. I think Obama said something like the job of president has a way of showing you who you really are. I've certainly known people who live with their concept of themselves, never learning about their actual faults, warts, and all.
And we know Trump does not tolerate any exposure to his own imperfections. It makes sense to me that the breakthrough of the reality of his utter failure, now being openly displayed and derided, could lead him to a total mental breakdown.
His delusions have suggested psychosis for quite a while now in any event.
“Hurt god”?
Can Biden really do that? He must be working out pretty intensively on the side. What would he use? A baseball bat? A blackjack? Maybe just a good ol’ upper cut.
If you’re a true believer, what would you think about someone who says a mere human can harm the supreme being, all knowing, all powerful, the entity responsible for the creation of the universe?
You would, unless you were a hypocritical fraud, think that person daft. Or a slimy con artist trying to sell a load of crap.
But what if, instead, you applauded, loved that con artist, would sell your kids to get a chance to vote for him again, and again, and again?
You might be a little daft yourself. OR— as Occam reminds us, The simplest answer is probably the best—a hypocritical fraud.
So much for you vaunted belief system. The one by which you condemn everyone who doesn’t believe exactly as you do, to eternal damnation.
I think I’ll vote for the guy who can kick your god’s butt.
Here's a bit about the Kodak deal– why Kodak would receive a $765 million Federal loan to start up a drug company––something that I found bizarre to begin with, and it appears we still don't know the particulars except some would reap the benefits and that "some" ain't you and me. There's a stinky smell of three day fish about this.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kodak-loan-hold-up-trump-administration_n_5f2f7944c5b64d7a55f471a2
On another matter: If you were a president fearful of losing votes would you then make it extremely difficult for people of slender means to pay their rent thereby leading to eviction, hence, they wouldn't have an address thereby would not be able to register to vote? And if many of those kinds of people were black or brown, usually voting democrats, then...?
It's only Monday and already we learn that God himself has put his finger in this pile of dung we call The Trump Administration. Peter Navarro, that economic Wizard of Oz., tells us that the Lord (otherwise known as God) and the founding fathers created executive orders. Yep, sometime back in those founding times a group of guys got together with this Lord person and came up with this thing called Executive Order. Simple as that. Peter tells us this because, like the President he serves, he doesn't know jack shit about the constitution. And in this same category of ignorance is Peter's Lord–––way before his time, I'd say––he was still grappling with those evil money changers in the village square.
Ken,
As FDR once said, it’s no good calling Hitler a nut. He’s got real power and can do a lot of damage. He did. And so is the current nut. Lucky for us he’s a whiny, not very smart nut. But people are still dying in droves because of that nut.
I wish the Current Occupant WOULD go to whichever Dakota it is (why do we have two? With senators and reps?) and sit for the sculptor of mountains as he chips away at the "fat face" being created, and it awakens the earthquake gods, who bring down the mountain on his fat head. So many people dead and he isn't one of them-- there is no justice in the world. (Sorry-- feeling VERY angry this morning--)
Akhilleus.
Agreed. As a stable genius said just the other day, it is what it is.
Raised the question more out of curiosity (still miss Dr. Marvin whoso accurately foretold the presidential train wreck we're witnessing) than anything else.
But it does lead to two others.
What do those who live and work close to him think about his mental stability? And if they do think he's as nuts as I do, why have they done nothing about it? From the safety of my armchair, I don't understand how a buffoon can be that scary, even if he's the president. Are they all that weak?
Surely some of those who have left his circle and are beyond his immediate reach could and should be more forthright about his mental condition.
And, second question, how can we avoid repeating this awful electoral mistake?
(A possible third of the chicken and egg variety: Does a broken country invite broken leaders, or....?)
When I visited Mount Rushmore during a cross country trip with a couple of college classmates, driving back east for the start of our junior year, I was sorely disappointed to find that the very cool fifties restaurant, very Frank Lloyd Wrightish, featured in the Hitchcock film, “North by Northwest”, where Cary Grant gets shot, was nothing but Hollywood fantasy. They did have a crummy hot dog stand, though.
But the thing I found fascinating on that jaunt (in addition to the monument) was the herd of wild burros we encountered on the winding mountain road leading up to the Rushmore viewing site. (They were in no hurry to move out of the way). Along the road we saw great piles of donkey dung. And now, as a service to our great nation (getting less great by the hour), I suggest that Fat Donald’s smirking visage be molded in a huge pile of burro excrement. It would save a pile of dough, and Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt, wouldn’t have to wish that Borglum had carved them some blinders so they wouldn’t have to see Fatso grinning stupidly next to them.
No charge for my idea, by the way.
And just as an aside, just think of what kind of incredible narcissist states that his dream is to shove four real presidents off to the side so his fat face can be added to a national monument.
Even the burros would run away. And burros ain’t big on running.
@ Jeanne - The senate & reps are exactly why we have two Dakotas.
Ken,
Funny you mentioned our old friend Marvin. I was going to reference him in my comment about NPD boy. He had this fraudulent faker pegged from the get go.
@Rockygirl
Thanks for the history lesson.
@PD
You raise an interesting question of your own with the Kodak bit. It's hardly the only such connivance we're heard about. I'm thinking of the similarly cozy border wall contract to the North Dakota construction firm, among many others.
The question: Can an administration in this demographically diverse and economically unequal America ensure its perpetuation by funneling money to its rich patrons while ignoring the needs and desires of the masses?
Even with the egregious Citizens United decision that encouraged and made such seamy relationships lawful?
I guess we'll soon see how all this warp speed corruption works out.
Akhilleus,
You prompt memory of my visit to Troy (the site thereof) in the fall of 1966, then a mostly bare if not desolate place which sported only a few paths through the site, a gift stand and a ramshakle "Helen and Paris" casino.
Look on ye mighty and despair....
@unwashed: Thanks for correcting my "missing link."
Ken,
Your reference to "warp speed corruption" brings up a concern I've been sitting on for a bit. Fatty's Operation Warp Speed, this extremely dangerous sounding "plan" (if you can call anything initiated by these jamokes an actual plan) to rush a largely untested vaccine into national distribution (I make a motion right now, since it's highly unlikely that Dr. Fatty will allow the necessary clinical trials, that the first victims, er, recipients, of the Drumpf Vaccine--you know he will insist on his name being attached to this thing, at least until people start dying; then it will be Obama Vaccine--be Fatty, his grifter family members, and his inner circle of morons and vacuous sycophants) has all the hallmarks of a historic tragedy. Like Trump himself.
Seriously, what can you say about a project named for something that doesn't exist? Warp speed is a science FICTION concept. Like everything else about this fat fuck, it's fantasy. And the idea of a vaccine being produced at "warp speed" offers the same level of confidence you might find in drive-through surgery. "Right this way folks, liver out before you know it! Triple bypass in 15 minutes or your money back."
Yeah. Sign me up.
He didn't write his big book (prob'ly never read it). He didn't make his own money. He became stupidly famous by appearing in a fake TV show. He suggests drinking bleach. He calls on weirdos who believe aliens and demons are invading our personal space to invent medical cures. He's a dangerous fraud.
But sure. Warp Speed vaccines.
What could go wrong? Except there is no warp speed. And there are no instant vaccines. Not any that I'd take, anyway.
Warp speed? No. Warped brain? Absolutely.
Ken,
Ahhh...Troy. I remember it well. Things got a bit testy between me and the bosses (cheatin' bastids).
It seems you got there too late. Heinrich Schliemann made off with all the good stuff a hundred years before you got there. Otherwise you could maybe have brought home Agamemnon's Mask. Good to have these days.
@Ken: You mention our good friend Marvin having insight into the golden era of Trumpism and Trump himself. It's certainly true Marvin nailed him early but so did we. I don't recall anyone here not pegging this dolt early on for the scam artist that he is.
@Marvin: It doesn't seem to matter what negatives are hurled at Trump––he perseveres despite. He's like that insect you try to slap down multiple times, think it's a goner, but it starts crawling away, seemingly unharmed. There is that audience that craves the kinds of messages he's delivering and until that audience finally wakes up to the fact the man is fucking with them, they'll continue voting for him.
February 21, 2016
Thanks Rocky. As long as I've lived hereabouts, I didn't know that bit of history. I would add a couple things about the flyovers as the Dakotas etc. may be called. My county is half owned by the Federal government. Under a different Electoral scenario, the 8 states with half the US population could/would marginalize my valid concerns about my home area out of relevance by force of sheer numbers. The NYC boroughs have more population than the Rocky Mountain states including the Dakotas all combined. As is demonstrated regularly by urbanites and Ivy Leaguers even though they think they know best for everyone else, they don't know what's best in Mandan any more than they do at Standing Rock.
Then, there is the issue of water. There is the book "Cadillac Desert" which has more to do with California and the Colorado river basin water politics than elsewhere in the West, but it's a start. As mentioned in these pages several days ago, we are involved in a low moisture, warming time in the Rocky Mountain states. Hereabouts, the Mormons and their church have bought huge amounts of water rights anywhere around Utah, Idaho, Wyoming. Their temples are from here to Minnesota and down to Mexico. Without smaller states, I contend the Mormons would own most of the water rights in the Rocky Mountains from St George, Utah and Arizona through the Dakotas. What they didn't own, the ultra rich like Forrest Mars and Jeffery Epstein would own. The LDS are organized, wealthy, sexist, racist, and love guns. Think Cliven Bundy with a better haircut and fewer cuss words.
Troy, huh? That's about how I experienced the Acropolis in Athens. Most of the artifacts left are fake, the real ones having been long ago removed to the museum, both to preserve what is left of them, and to stop the pillaging by outfits with $$ in their eyes. British Museum, I'm talking about you... It was a complete disappointment. (If you want to see the Parthenon, go to Nashville. Having seen that, with my KY latin class many many years ago, it was a visual much better than the leftovers in Athens.) I think my grownup self thought there was much more left than I saw there. Also, Pompeii has no signage-- you have to hire a guide to find out anything about the ruins. I can't wait to tour Mt. Rushmore when Fat F***'s face is featured. New horizons in tourism.
Thanks, rockygirl. It seems that the shenanigans put forth by the repugnicans are not something "new" -- they have always done it, and it is simply much improved these days. Never much cared for or voted for repugs in the old days, but now I can't even bear to live next door to one. The sign down the street accusing us of being "leftist liberal socialists" says it all. No wonder Schumer and Pelosi have neither spoken to or dealt with "compromise" with these lunatics. It's impossible.
NYT has a story headlined "After Falwell Stumbles, His Hometown Sees a Leader in Need of Redemption"
Redemption, huh? Wonder if we'll see a sobbing Jimmy Swagger moment.
A side of thighs from Thigh-land
Sometimes stupid is dangerous. Sometimes, it's just, well, stupid.
Mr. Smartest Man in the World strikes again. And idiot simpleton winger troll backs him up.
In a rant about blah, blah, blah (who the fuck ever knows what this eedjit is on about?), Fatty sez something about businesses moving to THIGH-LAND.
I am not even kidding. THIGH-land. A little later he tries to recover by saying something that might sound more like "Thailand", but THIGH-land it is!
He wasn't content with mispronouncing a site in the United States, now he had to fuck up the pronunciation of an entire country.
But, oh, wait! He wasn't wrong. Why, Fatso Trump is NEVER wrong. According to well known criminal and ignorant winger troll Dinesh D'Souza.
D'Douchebag squatted on his Twitter toilet seat
to spew ridiculously outlandish blather about how THIGH-land is the correct pronunciation for the country everyone else in the world (except D'Douchebag, Trump, and crommy moronic types) pronounces Tie-land. Including Thai natives!
But that's not good enough for D'Douchebag. He rambles on about how smartypants liberals all pronounce it incorrectly. When he is corrected (by about a million people, including people from THAI-land), he tries to backtrack.
"Oh, I didn't mean people in Thailand call it that. English speaking people call it THIGH-land!" This quickly became "Um...um..um...I mean English speaking people in Australia and Britain". When this bullshit was flushed by English speaking people from Australia and Britain, he tried another tack. "Well....well, I meant...I MEANT....English speaking people in India!"
What's next? The sole English speaking person living on the postage stamp island of Bongo-Bong? And remember, Fatty tried to correct himself by saying something vaguely resembling TIE-land. So what does D'Douchebag say about that? Hmmm? Nothin'.
These idiots just can't give it up. Whatever the Dear Leader sez is not only fine by them, it's gospel. It has to be. Because for them, it's all zero-sum. They can't ever be wrong about anything, because if they are, then the godless libruls MUST be right about....about....EVERYTHING!! Aiiieeeee! This is why they are incapable of negotiations. Because a true negotiation, a true DEAL, requires give from both sides. They find this completely unacceptable. This is why THIGH-land MUST be correct.
I want Trump to refer to D'Souza as Diney Doucha. Will D'Douchebag then claim that his ancestors have gotten it all wrong for the last century or so?
Once all the restaurants open up again, I'm gonna take the wife and kid out for a nice dinner at the local THIGH restaurant.
Jesus, these people are too fucking stupid to live.
@Jeanne: For great Greek ruins, try Italy. Agrigento in Sicily is particularly stunning, and gets relatively little tourism. Another good site is Paestum, south of Salerno. When I dragged my husband there in the late 1990s, we had the grand temples to ourselves. As for Greek art, well, yeah, it got carried away to places all over the world. And, yes, shame on the Brits.
Thanks for the tip about Nashville's Parthenon repro. For me, reproductions don't hold the same "magic" ruins hold, but it would be kind of fun to see what the Parthenon looked like back in the day, more or less. But maybe I should rush to Rushmore before somebody starts chiseling the face of the big chiseler into mountainside. Can Trump Rushmore Golf & Country Club be far behind?
As for defunct Roman cities, an alternative to Pompeii is Herculaneum, north of Pompeii, which receives relatively few visitors, in my experience. It has quite a few somewhat preserved buildings, but Herculaneum was not as big as Pompeii, so you don't have to walk as far to see them!
Bea,
I see the Pretender's over the top and misdirected attacks on Biden as symptoms of his increasingly nutty and desperate flail as he feels himself circling the November drain. It's that combination of desperation and lunacy that has me worried.
@citizen625
If you are given to wasting your life with trash, as I am, I'd recommend this novel:
https://www.npr.org/2015/05/28/408295800/the-water-knife-cuts-deep
....in which "Cadillac Desert" (I'm giving a plot device away, but don't feel too badly about it as I saw it coming) plays a part.
@Akhilleus: I am very off-put by your discussion of Thighland and especially Thigh restaurants. When I was a girl, my mother would not serve chicken thighs. Rather, they were "second joints." She said her mother felt that the term "thighs" was too erotic. I cannot recall what Grandma called chicken breasts. "White meat"?
As for Trump's mispronunciation, it's just another example of his "I really don't care" attitude about his job. Except in cases of great emergency, I'm sure almost all public speakers take the time to read the words their speechwriters expect them to say. And usually they know what they're talking about.
If Fatty does weasel his fat face onto the side of a mountain, will it be known thereafter as Mount Rushless? I guess then Limbaugh would want his fat face on it too.
But just for shits and grins, what if he was able to screw up a national monument and have his puss pushed onto the mountain? What face should the sculptors use?
Here we have Trump Smirk Face. Then we have Beaver Tooth Fatty
followed by Beaver Tooth Fatty with Finger Point
. Then, of course, there's the Make Fun of the Handicapped Face. The Let's Look Right at the Eclipse Because I'm a Fucking Moron Face
. And finally, Low Energy Barely Awake Fatty Face.
Decisions, decisions, decisions.
I think the Sasse tweet might have been in response to another Pretender mis-statement.
He said he'd make those payroll tax cuts which he has ordered permanent, which he cannot do.
But he can "forgive" the deferrals made in the case of an emergency. I'm guessing that what he was supposed to say but didn't.
It could also have been just another lie from the I can do anything fellow.
On yet another hand....who knows what the Pretender's remaining synapses are saying to him?
So, Sasse is a fake Republican. But he also got the endorsement of Trump for Senate. Makes one wonder why Trump is always endorsing RINOS? How come Donald, with his big brain, is so easily fooled by these fakes, and why is Donald always highlighting the fact that he keeps getting fooled?
Let's hope the FBI hired people who know how to write. Sen* Johnson's request for documents but no testimony strikes me as a chance to quibble of poorly phrased statements with no opportunity to add context and understanding.
https://sports.yahoo.com/president-donald-trump-advocates-for-college-football-to-be-played-in-the-fall-173457999.html
To the Pretender, everyone is a meatpacker....or just meat.
As for Trumps teasing of holding his acceptance speech either in the White House or Gettysburg I hope he chooses the latter. I've a perfect spot outdoors for him; Near the crest of Cemetery Ridge there's a marker labeled "High Water Mark of the Confederacy".
@Bobby Lee: Either place is "inappropriate." Both are federal properties, and any federal employees besides Trump & pence are prohibited by the Hatch Act from conducting political activities on federal properties. By law, that would mean that no elected or appointed officials who worked fro the government could attend Trump's speech, but since he doesn't care about breaking the law, I'm sure the gang will all be there.
Brave, brave Sir Donald!
Shots outside the Blight House? And what does Brave Sir Donald do? He skedaddles. What happened to the He-Man superhero who chided elected officials about school shootings, sniffing that HE, Brave Sir Donald, would charge a heavily armed shooter without any weapons or protection. “Wouldn’t you?” he demanded, knowing that no one would do that, except, of course for Brave Sir Donald.
But when he has the chance?
He’s waddling off to Dickless Cheney’s hidey hole, as fast as his fat ass can wiggle.
What is it about all these right wing, big shot, bragging preeners?