The Commentariat -- July 8, 2018
Afternoon Update:
Patrick Greenfield of the Guardian: "A woman who was exposed to the nerve agent novichok in Amesbury, Wiltshire, has died in hospital. The Metropolitan police have launched a murder investigation after Dawn Sturgess, 44, from Durrington, died after handling an item contaminated with the nerve agent on 30 June. Her partner Charlie Rowley, 45, who was also taken ill after being exposed to the nerve agent, remains in a critical condition in hospital." Mrs. McC: And Donald Trump is having a friendly tête-à-tête with Vladimir Putin this week.
** Words Fail. Andrew Jacobs of the New York Times: "A resolution to encourage breast-feeding was expected to be approved quickly and easily by the hundreds of government delegates who gathered this spring in Geneva for the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly.... Then the United States delegation, embracing the interests of infant formula manufacturers, upended the deliberations.... When [efforts to water down the resolution] failed, they turned to threats.... If Ecuador..., which had planned to introduce the measure..., refused to drop the resolution, Washington would unleash punishing trade measures and withdraw crucial military aid. The Ecuadorean government quickly acquiesced.... In the end, the Americans' efforts were mostly unsuccessful. It was the Russians who ultimately stepped in to introduce the measure -- and the Americans did not threaten them." Read the whole story. Mrs. McC: The irresponsibility & corruption of the Trump administration is so deep and broad, it boggles the mind. See Akhilleus's comment below.
Shane Harris of the Washington Post: "Rudolph W. Giuliani ... said Sunday that he has counseled the president against granting a pardon to his longtime fixer Michael Cohen, at least for now. 'I have advised the president, which he understands: no discussion of pardons,' Giuliani said in an appearance on ABC News's 'This Week.' But he seemed not to rule out that the president might change his mind. 'You can't abridge your power to do it. That's something you can decide down the road, one way or the other,' Giuliani said."
Amy Wang of the Washington Post: In Austin, Texas, a 41-year-old white man murdered a young black man in cold blood in the early morning hours of the 4th of July because the young man, Devonte Ortiz, was setting off fireworks. The white guy "was arrested Friday and charged with first-degree murder, police said. He is being held at the Travis County Jail on a $250,000 bond...."
*****
Jesse Byrnes of the Hill: "President Trump on Saturday floated the idea of Twitter dumping major national news publications including The New York Times and The Washington Post as the social media platform removes 'fake' accounts. 'Twitter is getting rid of fake accounts at a record pace. Will that include the Failing New York Times and propaganda machine for Amazon, the Washington Post, who constantly quote anonymous sources that, in my opinion, don't exist - They will both be out of business in 7 years!' Trump tweeted." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Sadly, Twitter will never dump Trump, at least while he's president*, despite all the untruthful & incendiary remarks he makes on the platform. The company has given him a "world leader" exemption from the rules that apply to the rest of us.
That Went Well. Gardiner Harris & Choe Sang-Hun of the New York Times: "North Korea accused the Trump administration on Saturday of pushing a 'unilateral and gangster-like demand for denuclearization' and called it 'deeply regrettable,' hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said his two days of talks in the North Korean capital were 'productive.' Despite the criticism, North Korea's Foreign Ministry said the country's leader, Kim Jong-un, still wanted to build on the 'friendly relationship and trust' forged with President Trump during their summit meeting in Singapore on June 12. The ministry said Mr. Kim had written a personal letter to Mr. Trump, reiterating that trust." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Idrees Ali of Reuters: "A joint military exercise between the United States and South Korea scrapped after ... Donald Trump griped about 'tremendously expensive' military drills would have cost around $14 million, U.S. officials told Reuters on Friday.... The $14 million price tag compares with a recent contract awarded to Boeing Co ... for nearly $24 million for two refrigerators to store food aboard Air Force One, the presidential plane. The contract has since been canceled due to possible delivery of an updated Air Force One aircraft.... U.S. officials have long insisted military exercises with partners are important for readiness and reassuring allies. Trump's announcement baffled allies, military officials and lawmakers from his own Republican Party."
MEANWHILE. "A Pathetic Weakling." Dexter Filkins of the New Yorker: "A humanitarian disaster is unfolding in southern Syria, where hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing heavy fighting and finding borders locked tight.... During the 2016 Presidential campaign, Donald Trump criticized [President] Obama's [hands-off] Syria policy, but since becoming President he has more or less continued it.... When the [Assad] offensive [on Dara'a] began, two weeks ago, Russian officials, unleashing waves of air strikes, said they had decided to help the Syrian army crush 'terrorists.' There was no mention of the 'de-escalation zone' that Trump and Putin had agreed to a year ago.... The 'de-escalation zone' was inaction disguised as action;... President Trump ... has made it absolutely clear that he intends to stay out of Syria, even at the price of allowing Putin to make him look like a pathetic weakling."
Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration took another major swipe at the Affordable Care Act, halting billions of dollars in annual payments required under the law to even out the cost to insurers whose customers need expensive medical services. In a rare Saturday afternoon announcement, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said it will stop collecting and paying out money under the ACA's 'risk adjustment' program, drawing swift protest from the health insurance industry. Risk adjustment is one of three methods built into the 2010 health-care law to help insulate insurance companies from the ACA requirement that they accept all customers for the first time -- healthy and sick --; without charging more to those who need substantial care. The other two methods were temporary, but risk adjustment is permanent.... The five-paragraph statement plus a timeline issued on Saturday justified the latest maneuver by tying it to a legal dispute over the fairness of the risk-adjustment formula." ...
... Robert Pear of the New York Times: "Trump administration officials said they decided to suspend payments under the program because of a ruling in February in Federal District Court in New Mexico. The judge tossed out the formula used to calculate payments, finding that it was flawed.... Supporters of the Affordable Care Act said the move was the latest example of the Trump White House's efforts to undermine the health law.... The Trump administration blamed President Barack Obama on Saturday, saying, 'This aspect of the risk adjustment methodology was promulgated as part of a regulation first issued by the Obama administration in 2013.'" Emphasis added.
The administration stole these babies and children, then destroyed the records needed to return them. When they miss the deadline, the court should hold Secretaries Nielsen and Azar in contempt. Jail them until their agencies prove that every last child has been returned. https://t.co/VllBrCYmQ4
— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) July 6, 2018
Adolfo Flores of BuzzFeed: "... a court hearing Friday in San Diego made evident the extent of the breakdown between the Department of Homeland Security, which separated the children from their parents under the Trump administration's 'zero tolerance' policy, and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), whose Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) houses the children at dozens of sites around the country. At the hearing, Justice Department attorneys acknowledged that the government is uncertain it knows the whereabouts of all the parents of 101 children under the age of five who the government has been ordered to reunite with their parents by Tuesday." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Let's just bear in mind that these are Trump's idea of "the best people" -- Jeff Sessions, Kirstjen Nielsen, Alex Azar -- yet it never occurred to them to get their staffs together to set up something as fundamental as a tracking system to locate their own prisoners. They don't even know who the children are if the kids are too young to reliably ID themselves. Either they're too cruel to care (most likely) or their incomprehensibly inept. Or a combination thereof. ...
... The United States of America v. Johan. Hey, at Least This Infant Got a Lawyer! Astrid Galvan of the AP: "The 1-year-old boy in a green button-up shirt drank milk from a bottle, played with a small purple ball that lit up when it hit the ground and occasionally asked for 'agua.' Then it was the child's turn for his court appearance before a Phoenix immigration judge, who could hardly contain his unease with the situation during the portion of the hearing where he asks immigrant defendants whether they understand the proceedings. 'I'm embarrassed to ask it, because I don't know who you would explain it to, unless you think that a 1-year-old could learn immigration law,' Judge John W. Richardson told the lawyer representing the 1-year-old boy." The baby's attorney "said the father, who was now in Honduras, was removed from the country under false pretenses that he would be able to leave with his son." ...
... Washington Post Editors: The Trump administration is practicing "Third World-style government dysfunction that combines the original sin of an unspeakably cruel policy with the follow-on ineptitude of uncoordinated agencies unable to foresee the predictable consequences of their decisions -- in this case, the inevitability that children and parents, once sundered, would need at some point to be reconnected. Now, faced with the deadline for reuniting parents and children set June 26 by Judge Dana Sabraw of U.S. District Court in San Diego, hundreds of government employees were set to work through the weekend poring over records to fix what the Trump administration broke by its sudden and heedless proclamation in May of 'zero tolerance' for undocumented immigrants, and the family separations that immediately followed. [HHS Secretary Alex] Azar, following the White House's lead, insisted any 'confusion' was the fault of the courts and a 'broken immigration system.' In fact, the confusion was entirely of the administration's own making." ...
... Dave Philipps of the New York Times: "A growing number of foreign-born recruits who joined the United States military through a special program created to recruit immigrant troops with valuable language and medical skills are being terminated before they can qualify for citizenship. Lawyers for the recruits say at least 30 have been discharged in recent weeks and thousands more are stuck in limbo -- currently enlisted but unable to serve -- and may also be forced out. They are being cut even as the Army has been unable to meet its 2018 recruiting goals.... 'There's no explanation for this except xenophobia,' said Margaret D. Stock, a retired Army Reserve lieutenant colonel and immigration lawyer who helped create the program.... The layers of clearance have grown so complex that a backlog of several thousand cases has piled up. A Defense Department official testified in a recent deposition that it would take 10 years to clear those currently waiting to serve." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Matt Zapotosky & Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein "seems to be getting used to the constant controversy and criticism that comes from overseeing [Robert] Mueller. Rather than walking on eggshells, he's starting to fight back.... Those who know him say Rosenstein is playing the long game. He doesn't put too much stock in any single daily development, they say, but is mindful about what his place in history will be." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) in a Washington Post op-ed: "Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is under assault, and that is wrong.... As a party, we [Republicans] can't let the president or his allies erode the independence of the Justice Department or public trust in the vital work of law enforcement.... When Trump talks about firing the special counsel or his power to pardon himself, he makes it seem as though he has something to hide.... The special counsel's investigation is not about Trump. It is about our national security.... Congress must never abandon its role as an equal branch of government. In this moment, that means protecting Mueller's investigation." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Eric Tucker & Chad Day of the AP: "Lawyers for ... Donald Trump unleashed a blistering attack on former FBI Director James Comey in a confidential memo last year to the special counsel, casting him as 'Machiavellian,' dishonest and 'unbounded by law and regulation' as they sought to undermine the credibility of a law enforcement leader they see as a critical witness against the president. The letter, obtained by The Associated Press, provides a window into the formation of a legal strategy currently used by Trump's lawyers as they seek to pit the president's word against that of the former FBI director. Comey's firing in May 2017 helped set in motion the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller, and one-on-one conversations with Trump that Comey documented in a series of memos helped form the basis of Mueller's inquiry into whether the president obstructed justice." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... AP: Here are the texts "of two letters written by lawyers for ... Donald Trump regarding former FBI Director James Comey. One was sent to special counsel Robert Mueller, and the other was sent to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein."
Victoria Guida & Katy O'Donnell of Politico: "CFPB Deputy Director Leandra English will drop her months-long legal challenge to Mick Mulvaney for the leadership of the embattled agency, saying on Friday that she will leave the consumer watchdog early next week. In a statement, English said she was stepping down in light of ... Donald Trump's nomination of a permanent director, Kathy Kraninger, to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau."
Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Senator Mitch McConnell ... told President Trump this past week that Judges Raymond M. Kethledge and Thomas M. Hardiman presented the fewest obvious obstacles to being confirmed to replace Justice Anthony M. Kennedy on the Supreme Court, according to Republican officials briefed on the conversation. While careful not to directly make the case for any would-be justice, Mr. McConnell made clear in multiple phone calls with Mr. Trump and the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, that the lengthy paper trail of another top contender, Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, would pose difficulties for his confirmation." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Apparently his decision to deprive President Obama the right to appoint a Supreme Court justice has emboldened Mitch to the point that he now thinks he can name the justice he prefers. Maybe we're going to find out that the Trump presidency is a massive charade & Mitch has been running the country all along. ...
... Darcy Costello of the Louisville Courier Journal: "A group of protesters confronted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ... in Louisville Saturday, calling out 'Abolish ICE.'... McConnell was out to lunch with Kentucky's outgoing House Majority Floor Leader Jonathan Shell, who was upset in his May primary. Shell ... call[ed] the protesters 'a small group of extremists.'... In [a video], someone asks McConnell, 'Where are the children? Where are the babies, Mitch?'... 'What are you doing to get the babies back?' someone asks in the clip. McConnell ... isn't shown reacting or responding to the protesters.... Before [McConnell] gets into the car, someone can be heard saying, 'We know where you live.' Shell called the remark a 'not-so-subtle threat right out of the Maxine Waters playbook,' adding that it was 'very distasteful.'" Mrs. McC: Whereas kidnapping babies is not "very distasteful," I guess. Includes video.
Elise Viebeck & Alice Crites of the Washington Post: "A seventh former Ohio State University wrestler said Saturday that he believes Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) knew about inappropriate behavior that allegedly took place in the school's athletic department three decades ago, as two more former team members came to Jordan's defense. David Range, who wrestled for Ohio State in the late 1980s, said Jordan had to have known about alleged sexual misconduct by Richard Strauss, an athletic doctor whose behavior is under investigation by the school, because it happened regularly to team members and people talked about it. Jordan has denied he knew, saw or heard about any inappropriate behavior while he was an assistant wrestling coach from 1987 to 1995. 'Jordan definitely knew that these things were happening -- yes, most definitely,' Range told The Washington Post. 'It was there. He knew about it because it was an everyday occurrence.'... He said Jordan was present during group conversations in the locker room about Strauss's behavior." ...
... Bob Brigham of the Raw Story: "House Republicans are refusing to publicly defend Tea Party firebrand Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) as more details come to light about the congressman's role in the Ohio State University sexual assault scandal." ...
... Sarah Westwood, et al., of CNN: "Rep. Mark Meadows, who chairs the House Freedom Caucus, called on members to support Jordan, an Ohio Republican who's one of the founders of the conservative voting bloc.... CNN reached out to the offices of conservative members -- including those in the Freedom Caucus -- on Friday and received only a few responses.... In the wider House Republican conference..., some say Jordan has few allies willing to defend him against the scandal. House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, has said he supports a full investigation of the allegations, and Jordan's office has confirmed he will cooperate with investigators. 'He's made a lot of enemies over the years. The knives are going to be out for Jim Jordan after these allegations,"'said a senior GOP congressional aide. "He has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way through his tactics with the Freedom Caucus. So don't expect a lot of goodwill towards him in this situation."
Congressional Race. Dan Merica of CNN: "A Republican congressional candidate in a Kansas race Democrats are targeting in November told an audience at a party meeting this month that 'outside of Western civilization there is only barbarism.' The comments from State Sen. Steve Fitzgerald, a candidate seeking the Republican nomination in the race to replace retiring Rep. Lynn Jenkins, came at a July 2 meeting of the Leavenworth County Republican Party. During his more-than-30-minute speech, Fitzgerald lamented the fact that people believe 'Western civilization is the problem,' argued that Christendom is 'under attack' and doubled down on his previous statement that Planned Parenthood is worse than a Nazi concentration camp." Mrs. McC: Oh, we know who the "real barbarian" is here.
Danielle Ohl of the (Annapolis, Maryland) Capital Gazette: "Janel Cooley, a survivor of the shooting that killed [Wendi] Winters and four others, said she watched from under her desk as [Winters, a] 20-year newspaper veteran, rose to meet her attacker. Winters charged forward holding a trash can and recycling bin, said Cooley, a sales consultant. Winters shouted something like, 'No! You stop that!' or 'You get out of here!'... Winters' colleagues agree she saved their lives. Of the 11 employees in the office during the attack, six survived."
Good Enough for Trump; Not for Northrup. A.C. Thompson & Ali Winston of ProPublica: "Defense contractor Northrop Grumman said it will investigate an employee identified as a member of a violent white supremacist group in a recent report by ProPublica and Frontline. The employee, Michael Miselis, a 29-year-old aerospace engineer, works at the company's facility in Redondo Beach, California, and holds a government-issued security clearance.... Outside of his professional life, Miselis belongs to the Rise Above Movement, a racist Southern California group whose members have physically attacked their political foes in at least four different cities.... ProPublica and Frontline were able to establish Miselis' membership in RAM and verify his role at the center of melees last year in Charlottesville, Virginia, and an earlier pro-Trump event in Berkeley, California.... Update...: One day after [the report] exposed ... Miselis..., company spokesman Tim Paynter told ProPublica and Frontline that Miselis 'is no longer an employee of Northrop Grumman.' Paynter did not say whether Miselis was fired or resigned from his position."
Beyond the Beltway
Toothless in Lexington. Deborah Yetter of the Lexington Courier Journal: "Two advocacy groups on Thursday called on the administration of Gov. Matt Bevin to ensure children and pregnant women are not affected by the state's abrupt decision to cut dental and vision benefits to nearly a half-million Kentuckians. The Kentucky Oral Health Coalition said in a statement it has received about a half-dozen reports directly from dentists that the cuts were resulting in 'denial of routine dental care of eligible children and pregnant women.' 'Though these populations were supposed to be protected from coverage changes, errors have meant that children who show up for a dental visit have been turned away with unmet dental needs unnecessarily,' the statement said."
Way Beyond
Carole Cadwalladr of the Guardian: "Brexit's biggest funder, Arron Banks, met the Russian ambassador at least 11 times in the run-up to the EU referendum and in the two months beyond, documents seen by the Observer suggest -- seven more times than he has admitted. The same documents suggest the Russian embassy extended a further four invitations but it is not known if they were accepted. It is the third time the number of such meetings has been revised upwards. For two years, Banks insisted his only contacts with the Russian government consisted of one 'boozy lunch' with the ambassador. After the Observer revealed a month ago that he had had multiple meetings at which he had been offered lucrative business deals, Banks told a parliamentary inquiry into fake news he had had 'two or three' meetings. Last week, when pressed by the New York Times, he admitted a fourth meeting."
News Ledes
Weather Channel: "Data from a hurricane hunter flight investigating Chris early Sunday found sustained winds had increased to tropical storm strength (40+ mph), allowing this system to be upgraded from Tropical Depression Three to Tropical Storm Chris. Additional intensification is likely over the next few days, and Chris could become a hurricane as early as Monday. Chris will remain stalled off the Carolina coastline the next few days. High surf and dangerous rip currents are expected along parts of the Carolina and mid-Atlantic coasts through early week."
Reuters: "The death toll from torrential rain and landslides in western Japan rose to 81 people on Sunday, with dozens still missing after more than 2,000, temporarily stranded in the city of Kurashiki, were rescued. Evacuation orders were in place for nearly 2 million people and landslide warnings were issued in many prefectures. In hard-hit western Japan, emergency services and military personnel used helicopters and boats to rescue people from swollen rivers and buildings, including a hospital."
New York Times: "After a temperate early summer and a balmy Fourth of July, Southern California residents abruptly found themselves in a caldron of triple-digit temperatures and wildfires this weekend. Firefighters across the region battled several blazes through the night Friday into Saturday, as an unseasonable heat wave set records in some places and knocked out power to tens of thousands of homes in Los Angeles." ...
... The Los Angeles Times currently has links on its front page to a number of stories about specific fires.
Guardian: Operations are underway to save Thai soccer players and their coach trapped in an underwater cave. The Guardian is liveblogging developments.... Four of the boys have been rescued from the Tham Luang caves in Chiang Rai province, with nine people still trapped underground. All four boys safely reached a hospital in Chiang Rai, the nearest major city. The operation is scheduled to resume at around 8am local time (0200 BST) with officials and volunteers buoyed by the success of their chosen method. ...
... New York Times updates are here.
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Reader Comments (5)
"In a sane and sound political system, threats to blow up governments and force new elections are reserved for the truly momentous disputes; small things are resolved through compromise. That’s how Germany worked for decades...
This logic no longer applies. It has been replaced by the logic of escalation. The sentiment of crisis is perpetuated rhetorically in an attempt to whip up public opinion to then point to public opinion as a justification for radical solutions. And not just by the fringes, but by mainstream politicians. Populism needs an outer threat to function. It requires a sense of urgency to justify its policies. Populism can’t let crisis go. It is both its fuel and its outcome."––[from a piece in Der Tagesspiegel.]
And we are seeing these same politics of fear and menace from the time Trump came down that elevator. That this kind of thing undermines the foundations of democracy doesn't seem to faze this administration. Through the politics of artificial crisis, minorities take the system hostage and when a real crisis (like the immigration situation) they blame everyone but themselves. They create policies redeeming fictional problems for fictional majorities.
I can't help again to think of how this chipping away of regulations, protections, the press (And Trump would eagerly and gladly shut down the Wash Po and the Times if he could) and the disparagement of the "others" even to the point of fucking up the whole refugee problem has a terrifying similarity. In Nazi Germany, too, there was this chipping away, a gradual immorality took hold and suddenly what was happening hit you in the gut.
But good to read what happened in Chicago––massive protests (against nothing being done about gun control) stopped traffic for hours. It's the people again who speak the loudest and in this era our voices and our bodies need to be front and center as much as possible.
And when Bill Frist finally speaks––well then.....
When Bill Frist Speaks...
Yeah. Things are too bad even for one of the Senate’s great panderers to the mob.
During the invented crisis (another made up right wing crisis designed to distract from larger issues, in that case the Decider’s made up War of Choice...so a phony distraction to draw attention away from another distraction, the Iraq War, initiated as a cover up of the Bush Administration’s incompetence and indifference prior to and after 9/11...Republican malfeasance and “gut” policy decisions are not new to The Party of Traitors) around the Terri Schiavo family situation, Frist helped whip up the ravenous Christianist horde by throwing fuel on the fire lit by Bush.
Claiming to have performed an examination of Schiavo simply by watching her for a few minutes on a videotape, Frist pronounced her doctors’ diagnosis of persistent vegetative state to be 100% wrong. This, despite the fact that he never actually examined her and wasn’t a neurologist in the first place. He didn’t care. It was red meat for the howling mob.
But now Frist, who played a big role in pushing that mob even further down the Crazy Road, is wagging his finger at them for electing Trump, a guy whose road to power was paved by cynical stunts exactly like Frist’s.
There is a lot of blame to go around on the right for the current fascist administration. Now guys like Pontius Pi..er, I mean holy man Bill Frist, are trying to wash their hands of the whole thing. “Out, damned spot” didn’t work for Lady Macbeth, Billy, and it won’t work for you.
PD: This piece, new to me, summarized this a.m. in our local weekly, published more than 20 years ago, both prescient and fresh, came to mind as I read your comments.
Thanks, Whyte, for the link.
Skimmed it but see it's meaty enough to deserve/demand a very careful read, which I intend to afford it.
And this breast milk thing: More of the art of the bully. Pick on Ecuador; then instantly cave to the Russian Bear.
Why would Kim Jong Un (or anyone else) take this bully/lickspittle seriously?
Additional thought: Does Putin really give a rip about breastmilk?
More likely, a clear pre-summit message to the Pretender.
Undermining the health of babies around the world. Kidnapping and torturing small children trying to find safe harbor in the United States, then caring not a jot of a way to reunite them--per court order--with their imprisoned parents; canceling joint military operations with a long-time ally in order to appease a murderous dictator even though the total cost would be millions of dollars less than a refrigerator on the president*'s plane to keep his frozen fried chicken fingers cold.
Declining to lift a finger to aid hundreds of thousands of human beings trying to escape punishing and murderous assaults by the dictator Assad in Syria in order not to piss off the murderous dictator Putin in Russia.
Pulling the plug on paying for billions of dollars in healthcare payments, inflicting lasting, perhaps lethal damage on Americans in order to stick it to a black guy who dared to president of Trump's Amerika (and who once made a joke--well deserved--at his expense).
Dumping US military personnel because (and unlike Trump, who never served at all), they are serving while not being white--and Right-Wing Christian.
Maintaining a running attack on the FBI and the Justice Department in order to get better treatment when the investigation of his treason is complete; smirking his way through a Supreme Court nomination process in which he is considering frighteningly partisan, litmus test passing, Confederate rubber stamps for authoritarianism, racism, misogyny, and the selective (happily for the goosestepping mob) abridgement of the rule of law at the highest level of the nation.
Backing a liar and a coward who has decided to attack former athletes under his care for daring to mention, in his presence, that he had a hand in the sexual attacks on thousands of students.
All of this is just a record of the malfeasance, hatred, incompetence, insouciance, ignorance, racism, inhumanity, and dismissive attitude toward American democracy of the Trump Administration over the last few days.
Got that? The LAST FEW DAYS.
It's hard to say which of his many malevolent, unconstitutional, illegal actions is worse, especially when the choice comes down to kidnapping some children, and guaranteeing a diminished healthy existence to others in order to help his donor class make money.
Perhaps the worst of all is the immense radio silence from large swaths of the media and congress. Not just silence, but active participation in the goals of a smug, evil, inhuman criminal.
And don't forget the ongoing defiance of anyone daring to call him on his collusion with a foreign power to ratfuck an American election for his benefit and his looking the other way in hopes that they will help him out again in the upcoming midterms.
John Milton, the Marquis de Sade, Charles Dickens, and Stephen King could not, between them, dream up a character as abusive, evil, and repulsive.