Freak Out Friday – March 17

When I first started working on this week’s Freak Out Friday, I thought the week was going fairly well for Trump. But it rapidly deteriorated and by the end it has been a crap storm of trouble. Started out okay, though.

1) He Should Send Rachel Maddow a Nice Fruit Basket—Having created a Twitter storm over her statement that she had Trump’s tax returns, it turned out that she had exactly one, from 2005, in which he really did pay a reasonable amount of taxes. This of course was a major kneecap to his foes and a huge “Glory, Hallelujah” to his supporters. Apparently having forgotten Trump’s own assertions during the debate that he didn’t pay taxes, putting yet another lie at his doorstep, the Trumpies declared triumph in the ongoing debate over his refusal to release his tax returns. Of course, the fact that a single return was released proves nothing, and the fact that returns of more recent vintage, including those that might well prove various connections to foreign powers remains hidden away, likewise goes past them. But hey, on train Trump, you seize hold of whatever triumphs you can get.

2) Paul Ryan’s Express—Remember when Trump promised health care for everyone at lower prices? I do. The news media does. But apparently Trump doesn’t, instead expressing his surprise that “who knew” the matter of health care would be so complicated? Well, Hillary did when her efforts to push it through twenty years ago earned her nothing but GOP enmity. And Obama knew it when he got Obamacare passed despite the GOP’s efforts to thwart him at every turn. And, oh yes, so did everyone in the world except Trump. Now, though, after seven years of the GOP declaring they wanted to get rid of Obamacare and Trump’s assertions of the great plan he had, it turns out that—according to the Congressional Budget Office—the current Medicareless act will cause a total of 24 million less people to be covered by the plan by 2026. When Captain America, in Age of Ultron, instructed the Avengers that, if they get killed, “walk it off,” everyone in the audience understood that was a joke. Yet apparently Trump’s GOP believes that that’s genuine medical advice and should be followed by those whose health care will vanish. It appears the entire purpose of this act is the same as the reason for the production of the most recent Fantastic Four movie: to make you appreciate how much better its predecessor was. (Which is true. After the recent Sony fiasco, Rise of the Silver Surfer is looking a damn sight better, isn’t it.) Yet astoundingly Trump, after clearly having spewed more and more lies during his campaign, is not bearing the brunt of the blowback. Instead it’s Paul Ryan who is left trying to sell this thing as he stands there extolling the virtues of a plan that will effectively kill people because they won’t be able to afford health care. Well, not the one percent, of course: they will get a massive tax break. So that’s panning out great for Trump, a man who put his name on lousy steak and a lousy university, but doesn’t want his name anywhere near this sucker which he spent months swearing was going to be the go-to medical plan.

Then it all started to go downhill.

3) This sounds awfully familiar—Several judges have stepped forward and shut down his latest travel bans because it is geared at the Muslim religion. Where did they get that idea, despite claims from the Trumpettes that that’s not so? Probably from Trump himself who, at a Nashville rally (why is he already running again?!) declared that we really need to keep Muslims out and maybe we should just return to the previous draft of the law that was already tossed out by that damned legislative branch. It is a wonder that Trump is able to walk at all considering the number of times he shoots himself in the foot. Between accusing Obama of releasing over a hundred recidivist terrorists that were actually released by W. and this latest reincarnation of his DOA you-can’t-come-in-because-you’re-Muslim ban, Trump continues to do for Muslim hostility what the Boston Strangler did for the gun buying market.

4) Seriously? SERIOUSLY?—And Trump capped off the week with the release of his proposed budget that was astoundingly (well, no, characteristically) targeted at the very people who supported him. While he upped our already massive defense budget so that we could annihilate every other country in the world fifteen times over instead of ten, he targeted for budget cuts pretty much everything you would expect and more besides. The Environmental Protection Agency is being slashed, a possible precursor to it being eliminated next year altogether. The National Endowment for the Arts, PBS, and regional programs aimed at helping the sick and poor, including, astoundingly, even Meals on Wheels. How detached does he have to be from the very people who voted for him to target Meals on Wheels? The Center for American Progress, a left-wing think tank, stated, “The administration’s proposed cuts to nondefense discretionary spending would touch on programs and services that many Americans turn to every day. Everything would be under threat, from Head Start for young kids, Meals on Wheels for seniors, and legal services for low-income families to post offices and funding for victims of domestic violence.” Yet the director of OMB Mike Mulvaney actually had the nerve to describe the cuts as “compassionate” because they wanted to make sure the money was being used in a “proper function.” Apparently it didn’t occur to anyone that if that was a concern, then order a review of the program rather than just cut it to shreds.

For a party that touts itself as pro-life, between destroying voters’ health care and starving them, they’re finding new and interesting means of killing people.

Did he do anything right? Well, they loved him in Nashville. Of course, they may feel differently six months from now when they have no food and no medical care.

PAD