Peter David's Blog, page 2

FREAK OUT FRIDAY – September 25, 2020

I remember the days when a week could go by and you wouldn’t even register the fact that we had a president, much less be aware of some stupid thing that he had said or done.  Unfortunately the past four years that hasn’t happened.  It seems not a week has gone by where Trump hasn’t found a way to lower the bar or one of his enablers has made an argument that just leaves you scratching your head and saying, “What?”

For instance, just today, Trump’s lawyer appeared before an appeals judge, trying to prevent the Manhattan DA from getting his hands on years of Trump’s financial records.  He contended that the DA’s warrant was overbroad.  At one point the judge reasonably asked, “Is there (any) request for documents that would not, in your view, be overbroad?” This was of course the attorney’s opportunity to present an argument as to what he considered permissible.  Instead he replied, “I think the answer is probably no, your honor.”  He literally would not tolerate or endorse ANY probe into Trump’s financial background:  not his tax returns, not his business records, nothing.  All the stuff that you and I would have to turn over if we were being investigated, Trump’s representatives believed Trump did not have to accommodate.

Meanwhile Trump has leftists and anyone who actually enjoys living in a democracy freaking out because he seems to be making it clear that he has no intention of relinquishing office.  His reluctance to do so certainly makes sense; there are enough investigations into his malfeasance to basically assure that he will probably end up in jail…something that I am convinced will never happen.  I am positive that if he winds up losing on November 3, and holding onto power seems hopeless, at some point in the next sixty days he’s going to head off to visit Saudi Arabia or Russia along with his entire family and will never return to the United States again.  Hell, he might even leave Melania and Barron behind.  That could make it simpler, be less obvious.  

But so far he’s not the slightest bit interested in conceding that such a thing could happen.  When asked Wednesday if he would acknowledge that he had lost to Biden should the election skew  that way, he took a pause from his unsupported claims of voter fraud to state, “We’re going to have to see what happens.”  He then went on to say, “Get rid of the ballots and we’ll have a very peaceful..there won’t be a transfer frankly.  There’ll be a continuation.”  

“Get rid of the ballots.”

Once again, as he so often has before, Trump said the quiet part out loud.  Just as he did that time when he admitted that if we had genuine election reform and there was no voter interference, we’d never see another Republican voted into office.  Just as when he specifically said that his intention was to prevent the post office from doing its job and delivering properly mailed ballots. He admitted it out loud:  If we can just get rid of those annoying ballots that wanted to put Biden into office, he wouldn’t have to worry about the transfer of power because there wouldn’t be any.

Meanwhile Trump, six weeks out of election, is trying to bribe seniors by claiming he’s going to be sending out cards that will get them $200 off prescription drugs.  The $7 billion dollars required to pay for this undertaking is supposedly to come from savings that will come from Trump’s “most favored nations” drug pricing proposal.  Except it hasn’t been implemented yet, so the $7 billion doesn’t exist, and I’m reasonably sure that since Congress controls the purse strings, this is simply yet another empty Trump promise 

We are indeed so used to the unfulfilled promises that he makes that I think we’ve forgotten that he doesn’t really stick to anything he says.  That’s why, unlike many of my brethren, I do not give the slightest of damns over his reluctance to say that he won’t follow the wishes of the American public.  Because there is one truth about Trump that we must keep in mind:  He’s a bully.  And when faced with a genuine threat, a real fight, bullies always back down and run.

The election in Wisconsin some months ago, I think, put forward an indisputable truth:  Democrats have had enough and more than enough.  The GOP did everything they could to impede Democrats voting months ago and the Democrats STILL carried the day.  I think that’s what’s going to happen this time as well.  I think the will of Democrats is going to be so overwhelming that TV news is going to have no problem calling the votes.  I think it’s going to be a freaking landslide.  I think Biden is going to be elected by the largest majority in history, so much so that it won’t be necessary to count the mail-ins.  That Trump will be reduced to praying that the mailed ballots which he has been disparaging for the last year will save him, except they won’t.  I think, believe it or not, that Moscow Mitch McConnell spoke the absolute truth when he dismissed concerns that there wouldn’t be an orderly transition of power.  The reason he’s steamrolling forward with replacing RBG is that he’s convinced Trump will not remain in office and this is his last opportunity to stock the SCOTUS with a super majority, which has been his goal all along.  Indeed, he sold out democracy, his party, and his soul in order to achieve it.

I think we’re going to be rid of Trump.  Let’s just hope we’ll still have a country when he’s gone.

PAD

Mike Bloomberg can hand Florida to Biden if he spends his money correctly

The state of Florida has historically been a place that has exhibited an undue influence on the rest of the country.  Most memorably it began with the election in the year 2000, where the entire presidency came down to a recount of the state’s dubious hanging chads that was suspiciously halted by the United States Supreme Court in an oddly reasoned decision that was designed to apply solely to that circumstance and none other.

From that point on, it seems that every odd story that comes to national attention has originated in Florida.  Whether it’s the stand-your-ground law that cost a hooded black teenager his life or, most recently, the state’s GOP governor transforming into the mayor of Amity Island and assuring the beaches would be open in the face of a pandemic/shark attack, something about Florida sparks disbelief and incredulity.  And what’s truly insane is that this state that seems populated by suicidal psychos is one of the half dozen states that’s going to decide who’s president this year (thanks to the Electoral College which mandates that a vote by someone in Florida or Wisconsin has more importance than someone in New York or California.)

To that end, Michael Bloomberg has pledged $100 million to the Joe Biden campaign to try and swing Florida solidly into the Biden camp.  Bloomberg is someone whom Donald Trump despises because he is in real life what Trump only pretends to be:  a successful billionaire businessman.  Bloomberg’s abortive attempt to run for the presidency came to a quick and ugly end, but Bloomberg has solidly pledged his support to Biden and is willing to fork over in one month more than most of us will probably earn for the entirety of our lives if it means depriving Trump of another four years and the country of a probably death knell. 

Nevertheless, although Bloomberg has more money than God, I’m reasonably sure he doesn’t have to spend that much and in such an amorphous way.  There is in fact something very specific that he can spend his money on which will doubtlessly kick Florida into the Biden column and hopefully seal the deal.

You see, in 2018 three quarters of the Florida electorate voted to overturn a law that prevented ex-felons from voting for the rest of their lives.  That is a pretty sizable majority; the voters clearly made their wishes known.  But Florida being Florida, voters making their voices heard is never enough, especially when the GOP controls the legislature.  Consequently, they instituted a new wrinkle by passing a law the following year requiring ex-felons to pay their court costs before being allowed to register to vote.  Opponents declared that it amounted to a poll tax, and initially the lower courts agreed.  Then the 11th Circuit court of appeals—populated by six Trump appointees—refused to lift the ban, and subsequently the United States Supreme Court—with two Trump appointees—followed suit.  What it boils down to is that there are already 85,000 ex-felons registered who could be prosecuted if they vote and still owe court costs and fines.  And the ex-felons who owe the money are too poor to pay it.

Gee…if only there were someone with a lot of money around who could handle the costs involved.  Someone who was ready, willing and able to donate millions of dollars to pull it off.

Hey, I know.  How about Michael Bloomberg?

Of course the Florida legislature, being GOP-run, didn’t actually provide any system or mechanism to determine how much money was owed.  They stated that it would take them six years—halfway through Trump’s proposed third term—to get that done.  Because of course the purpose wasn’t to get the money, it was to suppress votes, which is something the GOP excels at.

But Bloomberg has the money to thwart this.  He’s got a hundred million to spare?  All he needs to do is set up a fund designed to do one thing:  Pay the outstanding debts of the felons.  His money would serve as a $100 million guarantee.  “Let these guys vote and send me the bill.”  Done.

That would immediately free up 85,000 voters.  Voters who would be indebted to the Democratic party.  Voters who are all too well aware that the GOP passed a law specifically to stop them from voting.  Do you seriously believe they would vote for Trump?  Bush took Florida from Gore with 327 votes.  Those 85,000 voters would hand the state to Biden in a walk.

Which is what Bloomberg wants.

Why spend $100 million randomly for possible results when you can spend it directly and get exactly what you want?

PAD

FREAK OUT FRIDAY – September 18, 2020

Trump loves to compare himself to Barack Obama.  Actually he prides himself on endeavoring to undo everything that Obama accomplished, whether it involves removing all the protections that Obama put in place for the environment, terminating the DACA program, or going to court to try and do away with the Affordable Care Act in general and the abolishing of preexisting conditions in specific, while simultaneously claiming he’s doing the exact opposite.

Yet it’s worth comparing the publishing history of the two gentlemen when one wonders the following:  How many books are there by relatives of Barack Obama that called him a lying sociopath?  How many books are there by people who formerly worked for Obama and are now trashing him?   How many books are there about Obama by Bob Woodward which depart his studied journalistic impartiality and instead conclude, “When his performance as a president is taken in its entirety, I can only reach one conclusion:  (he) is the wrong man for the job.”  The answer is, of course, none.  No one is arguing that Obama did everything right, but everyone understands that he had genuine reasons for all that he did, most of which applied to the betterment of the American people.

Trump, on the other hand, does everything for one reason and one reason only:  to get reelected.  He didn’t downplay the pandemic to avoid panic; he loves panic.  Embraces it, runs on it.  He did it because he didn’t want to alarm the stock market, hurt the economy, and damage his reelection desires.  Yet amazingly he is so detached from reality that he told a woman questioner during a townhall meeting several days ago that he didn’t downplay the pandemic; that he in fact “up-played” it (yeah, that’s a word) even though less than a week ago the audiotape of him specifically telling Bob Woodward that he was downplaying it unspooled on national news.

Indeed, it’s been an interesting couple of weeks for Trump books.  A week ago Tuesday gave us “Betrayal” by Michael Cohen, Trump’s former chief fixer who once stated he would take a bullet for Trump.  Apparently the only Trump book not being published by Simon & Schuster, “Disloyal” gives us Cohen’s story, a fascinating tale that provides us a genuine point of view tale told by someone who was once a key member of the Trump cult.

Certainly Cohen makes ample use of a thesaurus.  Nothing can be overdescribed.  Early on he states “Reaching for a seat, I started to cry, a flood of emotions overwhelming me:  fear, anger, dread, anxiety, relief, terror.”  There’s constant examples of him trotting out a string of adjectives; why use one or two when nine will do?  Yet one must admit it is compelling reading.  Most people who have associated themselves with Trump and are now out of the loop are obsessed with providing excuses as to why they did what they did.  Cohen takes the opposite approach.  What might be instructive is the tale of his youth where, growing up in Brooklyn, he worked as a lifeguard in a club and made the acquaintance of mobsters.  That aspect of his youth is what drew him to Trump, who conducted himself just as the professional criminals of Cohen’s fondly remembered adolescence did.

Cohen makes no excuse for his bullying behavior, for his cover-ups, for his kowtowing to Trump.  Ignoring the pleadings of his siblings, his wife and children, he checked his morality at the door and did whatever was required to cover for Trump.  Whether it involved shutting down failing businesses, paying off Stormy Daniels, or fixing an MSNBC poll of top businessmen so that Trump would finish in the top ten rather than where he was initially tracking (#178), Cohen completely bought into the Trump brand and was willing to set aside everything from common sense to his soul in order to accommodate his boss.  He attributes it to Trump’s personal magnetism but also to his own weak will.  He knew what he was doing was wrong; he just didn’t care.  Not until he outlived his usefulness and Trump showed him to the door.  Even now, despite the fact that Trump’s people tried to make sure he stayed in jail so that he couldn’t promote his book, he admits that he still loves Trump.  It really does give us an inside look at the sort of personality that inspires the same type of devotion that Jim Jones was able to command of his followers, even though it cost them their lives.

Bob Woodward’s “Rage” is a book that plays in the other direction.  Trump obviously thought that he would be able to use that magnetism of his to get Woodward to produce a book that extolled his self-proclaimed virtues.  Over the course of eighteen interviews, we see Trump trot out a host of his untruths and dissembling, which Woodward then fact checks and finds are lies in the very next sentence.  Over and over Trump says something that’s not true and Woodward immediately states the actual fact. Trump obviously believed he could convince Woodward to set his ethics aside, just as he was able to convince Cohen and countless others to do.  Naturally he underestimated Woodward, who has written about every president since Nixon.  Trump thought he could get Woodward to knuckle under and was, of course, wrong.  Instead he was stupid enough to spend hours talking to Woodward on tape, saying what he really thought and sticking his head into the noose.  Woodward consistently pulls that noose tight.  He doesn’t do it vindictively or judgmentally until the very end when he states, as I quoted above, that Trump isn’t fit for office.  Which, of course, is indisputable.  As near as we can tell, the editorial process on this book must have been done with lightning speed, because the manuscript goes up until May of this year.  

Although the details of the men who tried to work for Trump and rein him in, only to be dismissed and humiliated on Twitter, are certainly fascinating, the most interesting sequences are the Woodward/Trump chats.  Woodward keeps trying to ask him thoughtful, meaningful questions while Trump constantly attempts to stick to the public declarations and fake claims (“I’ve done more for blacks than anyone since Lincoln!”) that we have heard incessantly in his “press conferences” and rallies. Woodward keeps trying to get Trump to look inward and Trump absolutely will not do it.  He admits no fault, will not acknowledge that any of the downward spiral of his presidency is his responsibility, and blames Democratic mayors, governors, protestors, Obama and Joe Biden for everything.  He presents his ban of travel from China as his stellar (and only, really) attempt to thwart the pandemic, claiming sole credit for the decision even though half a dozen scientists and experts in the room insisted that he should do it and he had to be talked into it (his subsequent recounting was that there were twenty people in the room all opposed to it and he was the only one who advocated it.). Let’s remember something:  Canada has banned Americans from entering their country, and while we’re clocking a thousand deaths a day, in the past week they’ve had zero.  Obviously there’s more to restraining the pandemic than forbidding entry.  It boils down to leadership, and Trump has provided none.  That is the conclusion that Woodward comes to, and that indeed anyone reading the book would come to.

Except for Trump himself, who declared the book was boring.  

You know what?  We could use a little boredom these days.

PAD

FREAK OUT FRIDAY – September 11, 2020

As I stated earlier this week, it’s hard to wrap oneself around the tragedy of September 11 anymore, since the three thousand people who died that day in the World Trade Center attack is the equivalent of three day’s worth of Covid fatalities.  In a quote attributed to Joseph Stalin, one death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.

So it’s somehow appropriate that this week we were presented with absolutely indefensible, indisputable, undeniable proof that Trump flat out lied to the American public during the first six months of the year.  In what is the ultimate validation of the oft asked question “Is Trump insane?” this week we got the definitive answer of “Yes.”  Because we learned that back in February he was nuts enough to speak on tape to Bob Woodward.  That’s right, Bob Woodward, one of the two reporters in the world who has “Brought Down a President” on his CV.   Trump wouldn’t speak to Robert Mueller, but sitting down with Woodword for a convo (one of eighteen, we’re told) has certainly got to be the PR equivalent.  

In that conversation, sounding astoundingly honest and sincere, Trump sat there and said the exact opposite of what he then went out and told the American people.  While informing reporters that it was no worse than the flu, he told Woodward that it most certainly was.  That he was downplaying the severity because he wanted to avoid panicking the American people.  It was easily the most laughable claim he’s ever made.  He rules entirely by fear, and is incessantly trying to induce panic, whether he’s asserting that a caravan of criminal rapist refugees are heading toward the border or that Democrats want to allow people of color to move into your neighborhood (horrors!).   Of all the literally unbelievable things he has ever said, this tops the list.  

Of course, it could be argued that he was referring to a stock market panic.  That is his greatest concern, after all.  But no, on Wednesday he held a press conference (actually a mini-rally) in which he emphasized that he was worried about the state of mind of, well, you and me.

“When Hitler was bombing London, Churchill, a great leader, would oftentimes go to a roof in London and speak.  And he always spoke with calmness.  He said we have to show calmness.  No, we did it the right way.  We’ve done a job like nobody.”  That was Trump’s defense, which of course totally missed the point:  To behave as Trump did, Churchill would have had to say to the British people, “The bombing is going to go away.  Don’t bother turning off your lights and huddling in the dark.  Keep everything lit up, go about your business, and if you hear an air raid siren, just ignore it.”  Trump, a sociopathic liar, openly admitted that he felt the best way to deal with the virus was to lie to the American people about it.  To tell them to do the exact opposite of what was required in order to stem the tide of the disease.  To him, this was a strategy.  Deny, deny, deny, and wait for it to go away.

He can’t help himself.  He literally can’t help it.  Talk was finally starting to cool on the “Atlantic” article which detailed his disdain for people in military service, and on Monday he held a press conference where he brought the whole thing up again.  Indeed, he made it worse.  First, he claimed the rank and file soldiers love him (I’m betting they don’t) and then went on to say, “The top people in the Pentagon probably aren’t (fans) because they want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the plans and make everything else stay happy.”  Yes, that’s right, in the world of Trump, the infantrymen who lay down their lives are suckers, unless they get caught—then they’re losers—and their bosses are all warmongers, dedicated to lining the pockets of the military industrial complex.  I mean, I get that he only cares about appealing to his base, but what is it about his psychosis that requires him to try and make everyone who isn’t in his base revile him all the more?  Doesn’t he understand that there are independents out there who might still be swayed to his side.  Why actively try to turn them off?  Does this man who was raised in an atmosphere of “win at all costs” actually want to lose?

Indeed, he’s hurting himself so badly that his campaign is running short on funds and he is ostensibly considering forking over up to $100 million of his own money.  I can absolutely guarantee you that won’t happen.  Never.  Trump stiffs everyone.  Doesn’t matter if it was contractors for his properties or city police forces that provided protection; Trump is a cheap bastard who never pays his bills.  

Meanwhile as all this was happening, the Justice Department has stepped into the defamation suit filed by E. Jean Carroll, the woman who stated that Trump raped her decades ago in a Manhattan department store.  In a demented conflict of interest, the JD has declared that Trump’s denials of a crime he is accused of committing in the previous century somehow is relevant to his current status as president.  What that boils down to is that you and I, as taxpayers, are now footing the bill for Trump’s defense.  And if Carroll wins, whatever money she is paid winds up coming from tax dollars.  So basically Bill “Lower the” Barr has taken his boss off the financial hook.  Indeed, for all we know, Trump wasn’t paying his lawyers and they were ready to bow out, so Barr stepped in to save the day because that’s what a patsy does.  

Just ask Michael Cohen. 

I’ve read his book.  I’ll write about it next week.

PAD

FREAK OUT FRIDAY – September 4, 2020

Here’s what you need to understand about Trump:  He cares about looking tough.  That’s all that matters to him.  We saw that back when he was stupid enough to stare directly into a solar eclipse despite scientists historically warning that’s a bad idea.  To him, toughness is all that matters.  If you’re a soldier who winds up getting captured, he has no respect for that; to him, John McCain wasn’t a war hero precisely because he was a POW.  Tough guys don’t get captured.  Tough guys get killed, although even that he doesn’t really understand.  He sees people who get killed in a war as losers.  He doesn’t understand the notion of sacrificing your life for your country.  Then again, he comes from a family that has zero participation in the military stretching back generations.  He was so personally tough that he got out of Vietnam by claiming non-existent bone spurs, so it’s clear that although he values the idea of LOOKING tough, he isn’t really himself.  It’s all about appearances.  

That’s why this Thursday he was busy mocking Joe Biden for wearing a mask.  Biden is doing exactly what medical experts are recommending that he do, and thus, to Trump, proving that he isn’t actually tough because tough guys don’t wear masks.  Indeed, polls show that eighty percent of Democrats and seventy percent of independents always mask up when going out as opposed to forty percent of GOPers.  They take their lead from their bad-ass, tough-as-nails president who is busy running on a law and order platform.  He and his GOP cohorts are holding up the protests that are currently happening in Trump’s America and are blaming it on Joe Biden.  Apparently he’s gotten bored with blaming everything that’s gone wrong on Obama, and so instead has taken to blaming everything that WILL go wrong on Biden.  The fact that it is Trump’s America that is falling apart doesn’t seem to register on anyone proclaiming themselves part of the Right wing.

Instead he aggressively tries to play a political angle on all the rioting and disorder…while simultaneously claiming that Biden’s visiting with Jacob Blake’s family was “politicizing” the situation.   Despite the fact that most everything that turns violent is the result of white supremacists, he continues to foist blame onto the Democrats.  He has claimed this week that he intends to withhold federal funds from key Democratic cities where the most violent rioting is occurring, something that he legally cannot do.  

Then again, legality doesn’t mean much to a tough guy.  That’s why in North Carolina this week he urged citizens to attempt to vote twice.  This is the same guy who over the past months urged policemen not to try and protect the physical safety of arrestees, and told people attending his rallies to beat up protestors, assuring them he’d pay their legal bills.  Now he’s instructing voters to commit a class one felony for which, if they’re caught, they will do jail time.  

Except no, he’s not.  The White House quickly tried to rewrite his specific instructions and insisted that he was just saying that voters who mailed in their votes should then verify their votes were counted.  

Well, gee, let’s see what he said in North Carolina:

“So let them send it in and let them go vote, and if their system’s as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote.  If it isn’t tabulated, they’ll be able to vote.  If it’s as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote.  If it isn’t tabulated, they’ll be able to vote.  So that’s the way it is.  And that’s what they should do.”

So he is instructing his people to attempt to vote twice with the assertion that someone should be able to stop them if the system works.  The fact that they will then be arrested for trying to vote twice, that doesn’t seem to factor in.  Even Attorney General Bill “Low” Barr states that he isn’t sure telling people to vote twice is illegal, which it indisputably is.  So is encouraging people to try and do it, which is why Trump is now desperately trying to walk it back.

He is not, however, walking back his support of squads of gunmen roaming the streets of cities already in turmoil and taking the law into their own hands.  Yes, Joe Biden condemns violence, but Trump criticizes him because he’s not singling out left wing perpetrators of violence.  Yet Trump himself simultaneously not only doesn’t condemn right wing violence, but defends it.  You want to fire paintball guns and pepper gas at protestors? Trump has your back.  You want to kill two people, as Kyle Rittenhouse did?  Turns out Rittenhouse killed them in self-defense.  At least that’s what his defense attorney claims, and he couldn’t possibly be biased.  

The fact is that Trump endorses right wing violence and right wing militias.  Except they’re not really militias.  Samantha Bee said it best:  “Let’s call white militias what they are:  gangs.”  She is absolutely right.  A “militia” is supposed to be a supplement to the army.  This is white guys wandering around heavily armed, serving as self-governing supplements to the police, doing exactly the things that protestors are currently trying to stop the cops from doing.  If they were black, they would be called “gangs” and the cops would shoot them on sight.  But because they’re white, the cops thank them for their service, turn a blind eye to their murders, and give them water.  Perhaps the Bloods and Crips should change their names to the East Los Angeles Militia and the West Los Angeles Militia and that will put an end to gang violence.  

Why does Trump think this way?  Because to his mind, anyone who holds views opposed to his and is involved with violence is a thug, a trouble-maker, an anarchist.  But anyone who commits violence or even murder but shares his views is just a tough guy.

Come November, we need to tough him out.

PAD

FREAK OUT FRIDAY – AUGUST 28, 2020

The contrast between the Republican National Convention and last week’s Democratic National Convention could not have been more stark.  The DNC focused on hope.  On a view for the future in which Amerians would come together and remind ourselves that there is much more that unites us than divides us.

The RNC, on the other hand…

In his 1933 inauguration speech, Franklin Roosevelt notably said that, as a country, we had nothing to fear but fear itself.  In a country where the economy is tanking, the death toll from the Coronavirus is likely going to be a quarter million before the end of the year, private militias dispatched by the White House are patrolling urban centers where unrest is rife and tossing random people into unmarked vans, police are undeterred in shooting and murdering people as riots rage, as everything is going to hell in a handbasket, the RNC realized that they had nothing to run on but fear itself. 

After all, Trump’s accomplishments have almost uniformly been negative.  Whether he fired the US pandemic team in 2018, spent months downplaying or ignoring Covid, did away with rules protecting the environment, stole money from the military in order to pay for the unnecessary wall that he swore Mexico would cover, he has done almost nothing to help the country. He has damaged our standing with foreign countries, catered to the whims of dictators like Kim Jong un and Vladimir Putin, mired us in a trade war with China for which American citizens are paying, and gave the medal of honor—the highest award the government can bestow—to Rush Limbaugh as part of a publicity stunt during the State of the Union speech.  He dismissed black-populated nations as shithole countries.  He literally has nothing that he can truly boast of, “truly” being the key word here.

So instead he has to run on fear.  Which is of course exactly what the RNC did.  Fear of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.  Fear of the Democrats.  The Democrats are out to destroy the country Why?  What advantage is there to us destroying the nation where we live?  I’m reminded of the exchange in “Guardians of the Galaxy”  between Rocket and Quill when Rocket demands, in terms of saving the galaxy, “Why would you want to save it?” to which Quill replies, “Because I’m one of the idiots who lives in it!”  That’s the simple truth that the RNC completely lost sight of.  It’s not like we’re out to torch the place because we’re all moving to Argentina and so we won’t be affected.  We want things to improve because we will feel safer and do better financially along with everyone else.

But Trump can’t embrace that simple truth.  Because he’s not the president of the United States, he’s only the president of the minority of people who are his base.  And so the RNC, emulating the lack of truthfulness by which their cult leader operates, spent the week spewing nothing but lies. They acted as if the Coronavirus is in our rear view mirror, even as it continues to throttle the country.  They pretended that Trump, whose reactions ranged from saying it would vanish in April to that we should inject bleach into ourselves, has handled it well.  They claimed that Biden wants to defend the police (he doesn’t.).  They claimed that he’s defending Medicare and Social Security (his proposed payroll tax cuts would deplete them in two years.).   Trump stated that plasma therapies will save thousands of lives (scientists say otherwise).  He continued to condemn Bided as a socialist, even though (a) Biden isn’t and (b) he has no idea what socialism is.  He put forward the lie that Democrats endorse late-term abortions (no we don’t.).  He stated, “If the left gains power, they will demolish the suburbs, confiscate your guns, and appoint justices who will wipe away your Second Amendment and other constitutional freedoms.”  He says these things even though the left HAS gained power in the past and done exactly none of those things.  The whole “demolishing the suburbs” thing is new.  Is he aware that We live in the suburbs?  Why would we want to demolish our own homes?  “Obama is going to take away your guns” was a popular GOP meme twelve years ago, and apparently the fact that he never did isn’t deterring the lie from being refused.  And the man who wants to stop protestors from using their First Amendment rights doesn’t get to claim that the Democrats are interested in doing away with constitutional freedoms. 

And he said all this standing in front of the White House as he and his people blithely ignored the Hatch Act (as they did all week) before a crowd of people sitting too close together and not wearing masks.  So, y’know, that sent a nice Covid message:  break the law and spread the virus in one outing.  Who says he can’t multitask?

Trump’s entire presidency has been rife with lies.  Yes, it’s standard that not all politicians are always honest, but his 20,000-plus lies underscores the fact that he doesn’t just distort the truth to serve his own ends; he ignores the truth, doesn’t care about it, sees no point in it.  He doesn’t care about facts, he doesn’t care about serving his country, he doesn’t care about anything except for winning.  Winning is all that matters, and if you have to lie, throw people under the bus, do what’s wrong, all in the interest of winning, then that’s what’s important. He had this drilled into his skull by his father and he never grew past it.  We are trapped in his indefinite state of retarded growth, and we need to get him out of here in November.  Because we may not have a country left if we have to endure four more years.  

Why do we care if we’re out to destroy it?  Because we’re among the idiots who live in it.

PAD

DNC–The Last Night–The Live Blog

9:00–Welcome to the DNC liveblog. I’m tuned to PBS at the moment, although I will switch to CBS at 10 PM. I’m looking forward to listening to the Dems talking about how we need to come together as a nation and then tomorrow listening to the right wing dissing and dismissing them just to underscore the challenge that continues to face us.

9:07: Julia Louis-Dreyfus is speaking. Honestly, she should be at the RNC convention. Watching the Trump presidency is like watching a real-life “Veep,” as was evidenced with his recent Axios interview.

9:11: The newly named Chicks singing the Anthem. Sound great. Oh, I switched to CNN because PBS kept yakking rather than just play the convention.

9:16: So apparently much of the purpose of this gentleman’s speech is to underscore Biden’s faith, in direct contrast to Trump’s baseless assertions that Biden hates religion and is opposed to God.

9:10: “Remember, Joe Biden goes to church so frequently that he doesn’t need tear gas to clear his way to get there.” Louis-Dreyfus wins.

9:27: You just know that if John Lewis were still alive, he would be a featured speaker at the DNC this year.

9:34. Oh my God, Louis-Dreyfus is just ROASTING Trump. I wish they’d stop cutting away and just do a straight half hour of her laying into him.

9:36: The thing is, all the bashing of Trump is based on things he’s said and done (or promised to do and never did) whereas Trump’s attacks on Biden are rooted in total bullshit, lies and fabrications. We realize that. Why doesn’t the right?

9:44: Every time I hear them saying “Text to 30330” I keep hearing Louis-Dreyfus saying, “That would be Donald Trump’s golf score if he didn’t cheat.”

9:45: Just curious. Anyone reading this?

9:48: I love that we are seeing all of Biden’s former competitors coming out in support of him, while some former competitors of Trump’s are also endorsing Biden. Thanks, Cory Booker.

10:00: “Or as Donald Trump will call me tomorrow, a washed-up, low ratings TV has been. Well, it takes one to know one. Louis-Dreyfus should host ALL the Democratic gatherings.

10:08: “The coward in chief.” So says Tammy Duckworth, who knows what she’s talking about. Gee, I wonder if Trump will complain that she didn’t say enough nice things about them as he did with Michelle Obama.

10:20: Brilliant. ALL of Biden’s competitors forming a United front. Best five minute so far.

10:21: But Bloomberg gets to talk by himself. Yeah, okay, I guess.

10;25: The problem is that we’re not going to be able to do ANY of those things–remove the millionaire tax breaks, rebuild the infrastructure, job training, dealing with the environment–if we don’t manage to regain control of the Senate along with the White House. If we don’t, they’ll just block everything Biden wants to do.

10:28: Brilliant. Having a kid who stammers speaking on behalf of Biden. Absolutely brilliant.

10:37: Joe…please…DON’T HIRE YOUR KIDS TO WORK IN THE White House. I’M BEGGING YOU. I mean, I’m sure they’re nice but we don’t need that grief.

10:48: We’re getting Biden’s entire backstory. We need it because, unlike Trump, there aren’t dozens of books about him describing his upbringing.

10:49: “An ally of the light, not the darkness.” I like that. Very Star Wars.

10:50: Yup I called it. He’s talking about being united, about coming together as one. Something that the right will immediately reject.

10:56: The sad thing is that yes, that is the America that the right wing wants. They want it because it upsets liberals, and that is ALL they are interested in. We want Biden to save the country; they want Trump to anger the libs.

11;05: Talking up Kamala. Good move. Remind voters she’s on the ticket.

11:07: Just watch. The right will accuse Biden of trying to “cash in” on the memory of his son in order to seem sympathetic.

11:08: God it’s so great to see someone preaching the notion of unity instead of attempting to preach division. Of trying to appeal to the best of us rather than the worst.

11:12: He meant to say, “Nothing we HAVEN’T been able to accomplish together.” A minor glitch; I wonder if they’ll play it up tomorrow.

11:13: GREAT SPEECH.

FREAK OUT FRIDAY – JULY 31, 2020

This is the amazing thing about Donald Trump:  every time he has a bad week, you figure that he’s hit rock bottom.  That it could not possibly get any lower.

And then he has a week like the one just past that sets a new, lower bar for bad news, misjudgment and failure.  

First, it should be noted that, unlike previous presidents, he declined to pay his respects to a late congressman lying in state:  He decided not to visit the late, great John Lewis, probably because Lewis spent his life fighting against, well, people like Donald Trump.  Indeed, he fought on behalf of the voting rights of the very people that Trump and his allies have been aggressively trying to disenfranchise through everything from purging millions of voters from the rolls, to closing up four out of five polling places particularly in lower income or minority neighborhoods, to crippling the post office in order to slow down, hamper or even eliminate mail delivery.  

But not to worry, because three living ex-Presidents showed up for the actual funeral services, including George W. Bush, the man who owes Trump a tremendous debt because Trump’s imbecilities have served to get W. off the hook of being the worst president in recent memory.  Obama then delivered a forty-minute eulogy which is being lauded as a brilliant presentation that reminds us of what it was like to have a real man of intelligence in the White House.  Of course, some criticized him for bringing up political issues like voting rights being challenged at a funeral, but considering it was a subject that the deceased spent his whole life fighting for, it actually made perfect sense. 

In the meantime Trump attempted to counterprogram with a press conference that was largely ignored.  He continued to make no mention of Lewis, but he did mourn the passing of Herman Cain…without bothering to note that Cain likely contracted the Covid-19 that killed him at Trump’s own Tulsa gathering which he specifically attended unmasked at Trump’s urging.  So basically Trump killed his friend, but he failed to acknowledge that.  He also failed to present any actual plan to deal with the Coronavirus, although he continued to insist lives should be endangered by schools opening.  

Meanwhile a report was released that the economic output has tanked worse in the last quarter than anytime in the history of the United States.  Not even the great depression had a downward spiral like this.  Now it is often said that Trump is a master of distracting attention by doing one outrageous thing to draw attention away from something that’s indefensible.  Personally I don’t subscribe to that because I don’t think he’s that smart.  I think he just can’t pay attention to one thing and is already on to something else because he has no follow through and no plan to attend to it.  But I think that in this instance he did do exactly that:  within minutes after the grave economic news was released, he threw the entire news cycle into a tizzy by suggesting that this year’s election be postponed, EXACTLY as Biden claimed he would three months ago.  The timing simply cannot be ignored.

He must have been stunned at the reaction as regular allies such as Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham, who traditionally move heaven and earth to find ways to either support him or at least not contradict him, immediately came forward and dismissed the idea.  In an op-ed piece in the New York Times, Steven Calabresi, the founder of the conservative Federalist Society, stated that Trump’s suggestion to delay the vote was itself an impeachable offense.  When freaking Moscow Mitch says “no way” and a conservative Northwest University Law professor says you should be thrown out of office,  how far off the reservation must Trump have gone?

And then there’s Trump once again attempting to bring up hydroxychloroquine (hey, that word was in my Spellcheck!  Cool!) as a non-existent cure for Covid by furthering the ramblings of a demented spiritual “doctor” who claims that women’s medical conditions are caused by women having dream sex with a succubus.  That’s the same as a doctor consoling a grieving mother because her infant has died of crib death by saying, “If only you’d sung a lullabye to keep Lilith from coming and taking the child in the night.”

It should be noted that barely a week ago, the gullible news media claimed that Trump was changing his tone.  That he was acknowledging the devastating lethality of Covid, that he was admitting “it will get worse before it gets better.”  That after three and a half years of stupidity he was finally growing into the position.  And as predicted by many, including me, that lasted for a couple of days before he went right back to his idiocy.  I mean, what does it say when we have a president who says something correct and scientifically accurate AND THAT’S CONSIDERED NEWS?!  We’ve become so accustomed to his routine stupidity that his endorsing a woman who believes some people in the government are secretly lizards to be the normal state of things.

We are left wondering when Trump’s supporters are finally going to wake up and join the rest of us in the waking world.  Interestingly, the Lincoln Project appears to be wondering the same thing.  Check out this latest ad from them:

FREAK OUT FRIDAY – JULY 24, 2020

As Trump’s presidency crumbles all around him, it is fascinating to watch how his pathology to seek approval from racist, anti-American Covidiots is causing him, without fail, to land on the wrong side of every major issue facing this country.  His tricks are no longer working and even his attempts to try and do the things that he should have done six months ago are falling flat.  Why?  Because those who oppose him don’t believe him, and those who support him figure that he’s just saying what he thinks he needs to say to satisfy the dumbass libtards, so they’re ignoring him as well.  They’re too brainwashed by half a year of bullshit to be dissuaded from believing in anything else.  

Peaceful protests about police brutality?  Pretend that random, scattered acts of violence are the norm and send in your own troops.  Masks?  Claim that people should mask up, and then be photographed at a function standing there with no mask.  Black Lives Matter?  Tear gas them in order to have a photo op.  The Yankees and the Nats take a knee?  Decry them for it (God, I’m hoping they all take a knee at the game August 15 that the Yankees unwisely invited him to come throw out the first pitch.  I wonder if they’ll have recorded boos blasting over the loudspeaker.). People are worried about sending their kids to school?  Ignore their concerns and threaten to financially punish schools that don’t open fully.  As we hit four million Covid cases, admit on one hand that “it will get worse before it gets better” but then double and triple down on magical thinking by declaring, “Sooner or later, it’s going to go away.  I’ll be proven right.”  He seriously still believes that one day you’ll be able to dispatch the Coronavirus by claiming that you don’t believe in it, maybe under the impression that it’s being spread by fairies from Neverland.  (Which I guess makes sense, actually, since it generally spares children.).  

Under the impression that they were doing him some good, he has reinstituted the insane 5 PM mini-rallies disguised as press conferences.  Devoid of the presence of anyone who actually knows anything about viruses, he tries to reinvent himself and the idiot press is actually playing along, declaring that Trump has taken a new attitude.  We all know that’s nonsense; he’s done this half a dozen times in the last three years, attempting to reinvent himself.  The press dutifully reports the endeavor as if it means something and within a couple of days—hell, sometimes the same day—he reverts to his previous persona.  He’s not going to change because of the old saying:  The first step in solving a problem is realizing that you have one.  And Trump is psychologically incapable of doing that.  He absolutely cannot admit anything that he’s done wrong, ever.  He has literally said he takes no responsibility for the shambles that the US has made of the Coronavirus, although he is happy to take credit for the fact that Northern states, temporarily at least, have the virus under control.  Why do they? Because they ignored his orders to open the states too soon.  The states that followed his instructions are now Coronavirus hot spots.  Of course they are.

Now people are hailing his decision to cancel the GOP conference in Jacksonville as part of his maturation process in realizing how dangerous it would be to have it occur.  No, that’s not the reason at all.  He’s doing it because a sizable number of representatives made it clear they had no intention of entering the vast Covid petri dish that that assemblage would have represented.  He wasn’t worried about people getting the disease because he NEVER worries about that.  He was concerned he was going to have a replay of Tulsa.  In the US state that he switched to because the previous venue wouldn’t allow him to pack a convention center to the rafters, he was clearly worried that he was once again going to be standing on a stage facing thousands and thousands of empty seats.  Tulsa was bad enough.  If he failed to pack out the damned GOP convention, it’s game over.  THAT was the risk he didn’t dare take.  So Trump now has a month to scramble and pull together a virtual convention while the Democrats have been planning theirs for four months.  So, y’know, good luck with that.

Meanwhile he’s busy wishing well Jeffrey Epstein’s handler for underage girls.  Brilliant.  Freaking brilliant.  I wonder if the same bozos who have tried to paint Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton as pedophiles have taken note.  I doubt it.  I’m sure they’ll be as aggressive about this as all the NRA members who claimed they needed their weapons to stand against the US government if it ever dispatched goon squads to round people up…and have vanished into the woodwork as those squads invade Portland and are being threatened to be turned loose on New York, Chicago and Philadelphia.  All Democrat-run cities.  I’m sure that’s just coincidence.

One thing is becoming clear:  getting him out of office will require a massive, indisputable showing at the polls.  Because any races that are close, Trump and the GOP will find some way to flip it to their side, no matter what.

PAD

FREAK OUT FRIDAY – JULY 17, 2020

Trump has had a busy week of denial.  He loudly proclaims that the polls are rising and everything is great, even as his standing in the polls continue to dwindle while he lays off his campaign manager and replaces him with the guy Chris Christie fingered over Bridgegate.  Meanwhile, in the best style of a dictator in a banana republic, the Banana Republican dispatched unidentified soldiers to Portland, Oregon, to perform the vital task of arresting people who were walking home from a peaceful protest or just shooting them in the head.  Let’s keep in mind that the party that is supposed to strongly advocate state rights is siding with Trump while the mayor of Portland and the governor of Oregon want these anonymous fatigue-clad kidnappers to stop running0 wild, grabbing people at random and throwing them into the backs of unmarked grey passenger vans.  There are rumors that Portland is a test case for this parade of neo-Nazi thugs who, in supposedly showing up to defend American landmarks, are trampling all over the civil rights of Americans who committed the foul crime of complaining.

But let’s take a break from that to focus on the release of a brand new book, “Too Much and Never Enough,” written by Mary Trump who has come to despise her surname because of who it is associated with.  This book broke S&S records, proving the ultimate example of the Streisand effect as the Donald’s attempts to shut down the book’s release kicked interest in it through the stratosphere.  I reserved a copy at my local Barnes & Noble and received a confirming email that said they would hold it for three days.  As we were driving there on the Tuesday of its release, they called to inform me that they had changed their minds and would only hold it for 24 hours, screw the email.    At 950,000 copies sold, it set a new record for Simon & Schuster for day-of-release sales, topping the snooze-fest from John Bolton that only came out a few weeks earlier.

Although the news has been focused mostly on what Mary (I’m just going to refer to her by her first name to avoid confusion; it’s not like I know her) has said about her uncle, the book is largely not about that.  It begins and ends with talking about “the world’s most dangerous man” (whom I could have sworn was James Bond, but okay)  yet much of the book focuses on Donald’s older brother, Freddy Trump, and his absolutely horrendous relationship with Fred, the pater familias of the Trump family, whose demeanor and personality was the absolute prototype for Donald.  A real estate developer with no record of army service and an aversion to paying taxes, Fred Trump expected his son Freddy to follow him into the family business.  When Freddy developed an interest in flight and became a pilot for TWA, his father continued to relentlessly denigrate him, dismissing him as a bus driver in the sky.  It drove him to drink, which eventually killed him.

Meanwhile Donald learned from his example.  Seeing that his older brother’s actions got him into trouble with his father, Donald did everything he could to do the exact opposite.  He was also a relentless bully, taking his younger brother’s toys and hiding them or threatening to destroy them, behaving like a total slob and routinely ignoring everything his mother instructed him to do.  Indeed, Trump was so accustomed to being on top all the time, that during one dinner when he was being overwhelmingly obnoxious, his younger brother dumped a bowl of mashed potatoes on his head.  The family roared with laughter; it was the first time in his life that Trump had ever been humiliated.  It wounded him so deeply that years later, when the family reconvened at the White House to celebrate an aunt’s birthday, references was made to the mishap and President Trump sat there with his arms folded and scowled deeply like a wounded child.  Six decades had passed and he still hadn’t gotten over it.

An entire book of psychological essays have been written about Trump, but Mary—a doctor of advanced psychological studies—has known him literally her whole life and has seen him behind the scenes and unguarded.  So she may well be the most qualified individual to analyze the (dare I use the word) mind of the president.  She notes that he does indeed display the nine classic symptoms of narcissism, but she believes his diagnosis goes far deeper than that.  That indeed the only way to determine just how screwed up he is is to subject him to a battery of tests, which naturally he would never sit still for.

The book was written recently enough to include observations about the pandemic and Trump’s overall inabilities.  Toward the end she writes:

“Though Donald’s fundamental nature hasn’t changed, since his inauguration the amount of stress he’s under HAS changed dramatically.  It’s not the stress of the job, because he isn’t doing the job—unless watching TV and tweeting insults count.  It’s the effort to keep the rest of us distracted from the fact he knows nothing—about politics, civics, or simple human decency—that requires an enormous amount of work.  For decades, he has gotten publicity, good and bad, but he’s rarely been subject to close scrutiny, and he’s never faced significant opposition.  His entire sense of himself and the world is being questioned.”

Even more enlightening was this observation which goes back to Trump’s very core:

“Donald continues to exist in the dark space between fear of indifference and fear of failure that led to his brother’s destruction.  It took forty-two years for the destruction to be complete, but the foundations were laid early and played out before Donald’s eyes as he experienced his own trauma.  The combination of those two things—what he witnessed and what he experienced—both isolated him and terrified him.  The role that fear played in his childhood and the role it plays now cannot be overstated.  And the fact that fear continues to be an overriding emotion for him speaks to the hell that must have existed inside the house six decades ago.”

It is made clear in the book that the trauma of his relationship with his loveless father and witnessing the tragedy of his older brother destroyed whatever sense of caring or empathy Trump may have had.  If that lack of empathy were not literally costing tens of thousands of Americans their lives, we could look upon Trump distantly as a sad, tragic tale of how bad parenting can completely annihilate someone’s hope of a happy life.  The depressing truth is that Trump is someone who has spent his entire life never being loved because he has no idea how to love someone else.  That’s because the first rule of love is simple:  the other person’s welfare has to be more important than your own.  For Trump, that feeling is an impossibility.  He puts himself above everyone and everything else, and therefore cannot feel love the way most of us do.

If he weren’t running the country into the ground—if he were just somewhere on the outside living in misery—we could afford to feel sorry for him.

But we can’t.

PAD