Contributors

Wednesday, October 28, 2020

Trump Strands Hundreds of Supporters in Freezing Cold, Seven Sent to Hospital

In a situation emblematic of his entire tenure, dozens of supporters at Donald Trump's rally in Omaha required medical attention after standing in the cold for hours:

By the time President Trump finished speaking to thousands of supporters at Omaha’s Eppley Airfield on Tuesday night and jetted away on Air Force One, the temperature had plunged to nearly freezing.

But as long lines of MAGA-clad attendees queued up for buses to take them to distant parking lots, it quickly became clear something was wrong.

The buses, the huge crowd soon learned, couldn’t navigate the jammed airport roads. For hours, attendees — including many elderly Trump supporters — stood in the cold as police scrambled to help those most at risk get to warmth.

Thirty people needed medical attention over the course of the rally, Omaha police spokesman Michael Pecha told The Washington Post on Wednesday. Seven were taken to hospitals “with a variety of medical conditions.” It was not immediately clear how many of those were related to the wait outside the venue.
 
Could it be any clearer? He holds a rally in a city that's got a 20% COVID positivity rate, which means hundreds of people at the rally are likely contagious, and even though the rally's outside, hundreds more will be infected because they were huddled together for hours waiting for buses and the virus is airborne.
 
How do you think he reacted when he heard about this?

"I don't take any responsibility. What a bunch of suckers and losers, freezing their asses off and exposing each other to COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID."

By the time Trump is gone we're going to have half a million dead from COVID, we will have spent trillions on medical treatment for the virus, our foreign policy will be in total disarray, our allies will have deserted us, we will have lost all gains we made in Afghanistan because Trump is surrendering to the Taliban, our farming and manufacturing economies will be in a shambles because of his moronic trade wars, and the positions of North Korea, China and Russia will all be strengthened because Trump is constantly kowtowing to dictators and cutting our allies loose and sending them to our enemies.

How Rich People Are Doing

 


Tuesday, October 27, 2020

Sunday, October 25, 2020

Corona Mike Is Coming To Town!

Wow. The level of sheer incompetence is mind-boggling.

At least five members of Mike Pence's staff, including the chief of staff, have come down with the coronavirus. This is the man Trump put in charge of the country's response to the pandemic, and now they're all infected.

To make it worse, Pence -- who has been exposed to these clowns -- is not quarantining. He's still running around the country, spreading the disease to aged Republican supporters at rallies.

Remember Typhoid Mary? Now we've got Corona Mike.

Now Trump's chief of staff tells us, "We’re not going to control the pandemic." Jesus Christ! Trump has just given up. The virus has beaten him. He's making no attempt whatsoever to prevent vulnerable populations -- that is, elderly white people who vote for Trump -- from being infected.

COVID-19 is at least 10 times more lethal than the flu. In nine months it has killed 224,000 Americans, while 8,000-20,000 die from the flu. By comparison about 40,000 people die per year in car crashes.

Remember when Trump told us that it would disappear like magic? That there would be no second wave? That only the big cities were going to be hit by the disease. Now North Dakota is a no-go hot zone for the coronavirus.

These are the same people who pretend to be pro-life. They are opposed to abortion. They are opposed to assisted suicide for people with terminal cancer. But they're just fine with Pence running around the country, spreading the coronavirus to supporters at fundraisers and rallies.

Trump and his cronies have all got high-priced doctors and access to the best health care and most advanced treatments in the world. So what if the suckers who attend the rallies, and the Secret Service personnel and waiters and janitors and security guards and drivers who make it all possible, get infected?

The Trump White House has nothing but contempt for the well-being of the people of this country. Countries like Taiwan and Japan are practically back to normal just through the "magic" of wearing masks. 

But Trump would rather egg on the militias to kidnap governors because they don't want to wear masks than do the simplest thing to slow down the spread of a potentially deadly disease.

Friday, October 23, 2020

The Cultish Descent Into Madness

I'm hoping that someone is doing a study somewhere on the cultish descent into madness that we are seeing with conservatives in this country today. It reminds me a lot of what happened to my grandmother when she developed dementia in the last years of her life. Everything was someone else's fault, never her own. A great example of all of this is Kevin Baker's latest posts over at his blog. 

Today he has a post up that is full-on Russian propaganda which he easily laps up.  He also mentions "plots" by Facebook and Twitter to suppress it. Sorry, Kevin, those are private companies. They can do whatever they want, right? It's a good thing that they are finally acting responsibly in the weaponization of information. 

Wednesday he had something up about "Obamagate" which has made so little sense that it's not even being investigated. 

Then there was a post about how the right is actually peaceful and it's the left that is violent. That lie has recently been torpedoed with this arrest as well as the ADL's ongoing investigations

But the most shocking of all is a full-on embrace of an Islamic fundamentalist merely because she is saying bad things about liberals. I supposed I shouldn't be surprised given that he and his other cult members now embrace totalitarian states like Russia. 

Folks like Kevin and his crew have feared deprogramming for years. But maybe that's just what they need. A steady diet of fact-based media like Reuters, AP News, and the Christian Science Monitor for a few months. I think a ban or out and out blocking of all batshit crazy web sites that specifically weaponize information and turn people into cult members is also in order.  

The only demons out there are the ones they have made up. And Americans are literally paying with their lives for it. 



Wednesday, October 21, 2020

Trump's American Carnage Hits His Own Supporters the Hardest

When Donald Trump ran for president he campaigned on the idea of "American carnage," that eight years of Obama had wrecked the country.

Yeah. Right. The stock market was at record highs. Unemployment was at record lows. Under Trump things just kept going in the direction that Obama had set them. Trump's economic successes were all built on the recovery made possible by George Bush's decision to bail out big business and Obama's careful stewardship of the country despite endless obstruction by Republicans in Congress.

The carnage started with Trump's endless trade wars. Thousands of businesses are struggling and millions of farmers are on the precipice now, holding on solely because of government aid they've been forced to take to survive. Trump thinks this will buy their votes, but how many farmers relish the idea of living on government hand-outs for another four years?

But this year the carnage has hit America with full force. Because of Trump's incompetent and malicious leadership, the coronavirus has killed 221,000 Americans, and eight million have been infected. The toll is more likely about 300,000, if you compare the excess deaths this year, direct and indirect from COVID-19.

For the people who made Trump's election possible the carnage started much sooner than that. The list of those who have been convicted or charged with all manner of crimes is very long: Trump's campaign manager, Paul Manafort, for numerous tax evasion and money laundering scams. Trump's national security advisor, Michael Flynn, for lying to the FBI about the Russians. Trump's campaign advisor, Roger Stone, for lying about Russia and Wikileaks. Trump's campaign advisor, Steve Bannon, for defrauding contributors to the private wall on the Mexican border. Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, for lying to Congress and lying about paying off Trump's former mistresses. Trump campaign operatives Rick Gates, George Nader and George Papadopoulos, for various other crimes. Trump fundraiser, Elliot Broidy, who pleaded guilty to illegally lobbying for Chinese and Malaysian interests.

The list of for Trump appointees who have been fired or left in disgrace numbers literally in the hundreds, from Jeff Sessions, three chiefs of staff, the Mooch, John Bolton, Rick Perry, to Tom Price, etc., etc., etc. This administration has been the most unstable and chaotic in American history.

And we can't forget Herman Cain, one of Trump's few black supporters, who caught COVID-19 campaigning for Trump and promptly died.

But it's not just Trump's direct hires and surrogates who have crashed and burned. Many of Trump's loyal followers, regular Americans, have committed crimes either in Trump's name, or prompted by his rabble rousing. 

There was Cesar Sayoc, a big Trump supporter, who sent pipe bombs to Trump critics. There was Patrick Crusius, who killed 22 people in an El Paso Walmart. There are literally dozens more documented cases of attackers citing Trump directly as the motivation for their assaults and crimes. On a less deadly note, there was Cheryl Hall, a big Trump supporter, who was charged with voter registration fraud in Florida.

Then there's the recent high-profile conspiracy in which 14 men were arrested for plotting to kidnap the governors of Michigan (Gretchen Whitmer) and Virginia (Ralph Northam). Trump has tweeted numerous times against measures these governors had taken to limit the spread of the coronavirus, broadcasting to the world his support for attacks on these governors. After the arrests Trump did what he always does: tried to pin his own crimes on his enemies by claiming Whitmer was the one inciting terrorism.

It's like a mob boss accusing the FBI of murder when he kills their informant. "Hey, if you hadn't gotten him to squeal he'd still be alive!"

Then there's case of Randal Thom, who is a living metaphor for the disaster of the Trump years:

A southwestern Minnesota man whose passionate support for President Donald Trump took him to dozens of political events around the country and recently to the White House was killed in a highway crash while returning from a political celebration in Florida.

Randal J. Thom, 60, of Lakefield died in a collision shortly before 4:30 p.m. Monday on Hwy. 169 north of St. Peter, the State Patrol said. Thom was driving his minivan south and hit a pickup truck that also was heading south, the patrol said.

Evidence of recent alcohol use by Thom was detected at the scene, according to the patrol. Thom was not wearing a seat belt, the patrol added.
 
The other driver, James A. Mollenhauer, 67, of nearby Le Sueur, survived his injuries and was taken to a Mankato hospital. 
 
This guy was driving drunk down the highway, practically hollering "I don't need no fucking seat belt!" and he got himself killed, almost killing another man.

Donald Trump has been holding meetings at the White House and rallies across the country, yelling, "I don't need no fucking face mask," and he got himself infected with the coronavirus along with hundreds or thousands of others at his meetings and rallies. Eight million Americans have been infected because of his stupidity, and hundreds of thousands are dead, and in the end the bill for this disaster will be over $16 trillion.

Meanwhile, countries like New Zealand and Japan have basically to returned to life as normal.  
 
In Japan a movie opened in theaters to the biggest box office in history. All because the Japanese government and people took the coronavirus seriously, acted quickly and decisively and together, and wore -- and continue to wear -- masks in public.

Thursday, October 15, 2020

Trump's Coronavirus Immunity Is Another Lie

Donald Trump makes a habit of getting other people to do his work for him. His supporters claim he's a genius for his tax avoidance scams, but he didn't actually do his own taxes. He hires guys (usually short ones wearing yarmulkes) to do his taxes. 

According to his own sister, Trump had someone else take the SATs to get him into Penn.

And Trump has a long history of getting other people to finance shaky projects, like his casinos, when he declared bankruptcy and left his investors holding the bag while he earned millions.

That's not smart. That's criminal.

Trump has been parading around the country after his bout with the coronavirus, claiming that he's immune even as the virus was still in his system, exposing everyone he came into contact with. 

And it's not even true that being infected with the coronavirus makes you immune: viruses mutate (which is why there's a new flu vaccine every year), and there are already numerous cases where people have been reinfected with the coronavirus.

Trump's idolators think he's got some kind of god-like immune system. Needing oxygen to breathe and being rushed to the hospital in a helicopter doesn't sound very god-like. But like everything with Trump it's a lie: he got someone else to do the work.

He announced his diagnosis early on Oct. 2, and a test did not pick up any antibodies in his blood, according to a report released by his physician, Dr. Sean Conley.

The lack of antibodies that early in the course of illness is not unusual. It can take from 10 days to three weeks for powerful antibodies to surface.

“If he had tested positive, then we would know for sure that he has his own antibodies,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, a virologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

“Since he was antibody-negative, it is less likely but not ruled out,” he added. “He could have been in the early stage of generating his own antibodies.” (Dr. Barouch is an investigator for Regeneron’s trial of the cocktail for preventing coronavirus infections.)

On Oct. 2, Mr. Trump received eight grams of a cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies made by Regeneron. These antibodies are infused into people — like those of Mr. Trump’s age, sex and weight — who may struggle to produce an immune response of their own.

A test on Oct. 5 confirmed the presence of the antibodies, according to Dr. Conley.

But Dr. Barouch noted that “the antibodies detected in the bloodstream are not his antibodies. They’re antibodies that were administered. Those antibodies will wane over time.”

“If you get the antibodies early on, and you either prevent or rapidly treat infections,” Dr. Barouch said, “then you probably will actually inhibit the generation of your own body’s antibodies.”

Mr. Trump was also treated with dexamethasone, a steroid that is known to suppress the immune system. And he received it much earlier in the course of his illness than usual. 
 
That means Trump is likely not immune to the coronavirus, and since he's taking steroids, he's more susceptible to being infected again.

Trump supporters, take note: the guy did not take hydroxychloroquine when he got infected, even though he kept hawking that as some kind of miracle treatment, nor did he inject bleach or ram a tube down his trachea to irradiate his lung tissue with UV. He did what the experts said to do, ignoring all the nonsense advice he spouted before he got hit by the virus because of his rank stupidity.

Also of concern: more than half of all coronavirus patients suffer long-term neurological effects from the disease, which means Trump's already tenuous grasp on sanity has a 50-50 chance of slipping even further.

Why would anyone trust this clown with their health, when he can't even protect himself, his staff, his visitors, the supporters at his rallies, his wife, or his son Barron?

They Die

 


Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Quote of the Year

Donald Trump has been the worst president this country has ever had. And, I don't say that hyperbolically. He is. But he is a consequential president. And, he has brought this country in three short years to a place of weakness that is simply unimaginable if you were pondering where we are today from the day where Barack Obama left office. And, there were a lot of us on that day who were deeply skeptical and very worried about what a Trump presidency would be. But this is a moment of unparalleled national humiliation, of weakness.

When you listen to the President, these are the musings of an imbecile. An idiot. And I don't use those words to name call. I use them because they are the precise words of the English language to describe his behavior. His comportment. His actions. We've never seen a level of incompetence, a level of ineptitude so staggering on a daily basis by anybody in the history of the country whose ever been charged with substantial responsibilities.

It's just astonishing that this man is president of the United States. The man, the con man, from New York City. Many bankruptcies, failed businesses, a reality show, that branded him as something that he never was. A successful businessman. Well, he's the President of the United States now, and the man who said he would make the country great again. And he's brought death, suffering, and economic collapse on truly an epic scale.

And, let's be clear. This isn't happening in every country around the world. This place. Our place. Our home. Our country. The United States. We are the epicenter. We are the place where you're the most likely to die from this disease. We're the ones with the most shattered economy. And we are, because of the fool that sits in the Oval Office.

---Steve Schmidt, GOP Strategist. 

Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Will a Barrett Confirmation Doom Trump's Reelection?

I grew up on the West Side of St. Paul. Most of my friends were Catholic and went to "parochial school," as we called it. A lot of them were Mexican. They all went to church every Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning, though I never did.

My mom had been a Jehovah's Witness, and the battles between her and my dad over religion convinced me that religion was basically a scam, a way to control people and extract money from them.

If Barrett is confirmed, pro-life Catholics can vote for Biden with a clear conscience, knowing that the future of abortion will rest in the hands of seven Catholics on the Supreme Court.

My first girlfriend was Catholic. I went to mass with her because I was over at her house on Saturday afternoons. It was kind of funny because Father Esterka, the priest who gave the mass (he was Czech), sounded like Bela Lugosi when he said the words "the bahdy and blahd of Christ." Even back then the whole ritual vampirism and cannibalism of the eucharist seemed kind of creepy to me.

My best friend in high school and college, and best man, is Catholic.

My wife was raised a Catholic and we were married in a Catholic church. The priest who married us didn't care that I wasn't baptized, and I found out years later that he left the priesthood and married a former nun.

When I was a kid all my friends' families had five or six kids. It wasn't just a Catholic thing, my family had six kids too: birth control was just coming out in the Sixties. My wife's brothers and sisters, all good practicing Catholics, have zero, two or three kids in their families. Which is to say that all of them practice birth control, completely ignoring the dictates of the Catholic Church.

My step mother-in-law is an even more devout Catholic than my father-in-law was. But when they left their house for an assisted living facility, they gave their house to her gay grandson and his partner. Even though the Church itself still preaches against homosexuality it's an open secret that perhaps half of all priests are gay, and this has been the case for a thousand years.

This is all to say that pretty much everyone I knew growing up was Catholic, so I know Catholics. The reality is that the average Catholic is just an average American. That is, they're just like Joe Biden.

They probably wouldn't have an abortion if they got pregnant unexpectedly, but they also don't want to force anyone else to have an unwanted child. Like Joe Biden. But there are Catholics who have a much more doctrinaire stand on abortion.

Which brings us to Amy Coney Barrett, Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court seat vacated by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Specifically, Barrett was a member of a fringe Catholic group called People of Praise, where she held the creepy title of "handmaid." More disturbingly:

Also, while in law school, Barrett lived at the South Bend home of People of Praise’s influential co-founder Kevin Ranaghan and his wife, Dorothy, who together helped establish the group’s male-dominated hierarchy and view of gender roles. The group was one of many to grow out of the charismatic Christian movement, which sought a more intense and communal religious experience by embracing such practices as shared living, faith healing and speaking in tongues.
 
When Republicans claim that Democrats are demonizing Barrett for her religion they imply that Democrats are anti-Catholic. Which is false. The Democratic party platform, with the exception of reproductive rights, tracks much more closely with Catholic teaching than the Republicans, especially on questions such as the death penalty, guns, social justice, immigration, etc., etc., etc. Republicans are mostly Old Testament reactionaries who completely disregard Christ's moral teachings, while most Catholics are New Testament Christians who embrace tolerance.

It is Barrett's relationship with this man Ranaghan that brings up the question of undue religious influence of this fringe group on the judge, not Catholicism in general. The Supreme Court currently has five Catholic justices, one Episcopalian/Catholic justice and two Jewish justices.

Which brings up an interesting question: why aren't there any Protestant justices? (Episcopalians are basically Catholics with the serial numbers filed off.) You'd think that all the Baptist Trump supporters in the South and would be asking this question. Why should there be seven Catholics on the Supreme Court? Especially since Baptists like major Trump supporter Robert Jeffress think Catholics are Satanists.

According to Pew Research, Catholics are evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. But as I mentioned above, the teachings of the Catholic Church are much more in line with the Democrats than the Republicans on everything except abortion. 
 
Abortion is the single issue that I think convinced a sufficient number of Catholic voters in states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio, which Trump took by only a few tens of thousands of votes, to hold their noses and vote for Trump on the promise that he would appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade.
 
Now, imagine you're a pro-life Catholic. If Barrett is confirmed, a six-to-three conservative majority will be ensconced on the Supreme Court, which could spell doom for Roe v. Wade.
 
Catholics will have no further use for Trump. The man clearly has no use for religion: he just uses it as prop. Remember Trump's Two Corinthians debacle, his religious tests for refugees, how he secretly mocks his religious supporters, and how Trump sicced the military on protesters so he could cynically stand in front of church with a Bible?

As police sirens blared in the background, Mr. Trump, his lips set in a thin line, stood with his back to the boarded-up, graffiti-laden facade of the buttermilk yellow church.

He cradled a Bible, bouncing it in his hands as if testing its weight.

“Is that your Bible?” a reporter yelled.

“It’s a Bible,” Mr. Trump responded, and hoisted up the book so reporters could see. 

Trump's racism, immorality, selfishness, greed, mendacity, vengefulness, arrogance, hubris and vulgarity are the antithesis of everything that the Catholic Church -- and every other church -- stand for.
 
If Barrett is confirmed, pro-life Catholics can vote for fellow Catholic Biden with a clear conscience, knowing that the future of abortion will rest in the hands of seven Catholics on the Supreme Court.
 
It would be irony of ironies if Trump sabotaged his own reelection bid by actually carrying out a campaign promise. Especially since it's the only one he's kept.

Sunday, October 11, 2020

Trump Has Lost the Suburbs

One of the things that is mostly unchanged during the pandemic is going on walks and bike rides. No one ever wears masks, including us, and there's really no reason to. The main difference is that we step into the street when we meet people on walks, and we ride more on streets than bike trails.

We live in a second-tier suburb west of Minneapolis, an area that was reliably Republican 20 years ago. Our representative for the longest time was a decent, moderate Republican, who was replaced by a toady Republican, who was replaced by a Democrat a few years ago.

Riding around the western suburbs you see a lot of campaign signs in people's yards. The most common yard signs are for local races -- city council and school board. The next most common signs are for state legislative races. Then Black Lives Matter signs. Then federal House and Senate candidates. Then signs for the presidential campaigns. (Higher state office elections are in two years, so there are no governor or attorney general races.)

Now, this is a fairly wealth area, with mostly white residents, a fair number of Asian Americans, but few African Americans. But there are a lot of Black Lives Matter signs in the yards, and most of those homes are owned by whites.

The majority of campaign signs are for Democrats, with a smaller number of Republicans. The most common sign for a Republican is the sacrificial lamb they put up to run for the House of Representatives: that living oxymoron, a Black Republican. I can imagine how he pitched his candidacy at the convention: "Hey," he must have said. "We got to at least pretend Republicans aren't racist. So pick me!"

I've seen a large number of Biden signs, far too many to count, often in a yard along with one or two signs for local Democratic candidates. I've even seen half a dozen punny "ByeDon" signs. But I've only seen two or three Trump signs in all my travels through the western suburbs, even to the western-most suburbs, which are semi-rural and often very wealthy with giant estates and horse farms.

One of those suburbs I ride through is Shorewood, where Trump held a fundraiser and exposed rich Minnesotans to the coronavirus the day Hope Hicks was symptomatic and the day before he announced he was infected.

Now why are there so few Trump signs? I assume that a lot of the signs for Republican city council and the House candidate are in front of houses owned by Republicans. But they don't have Trump signs. That's not the case for Biden: most Biden signs are in yards with other Democratic signs.

Now, usually supporting a Republican for the House or city council means you'd vote for the Republican presidential candidate, and usually that would mean putting that candidate's sign in your yard. That's how it was in 2012, with Romney, and even 2016, with Trump's first go-around. But not this time.

Why not? It can't be that Trump has written Minnesota off: he's come to Minnesota twice, one a while back and again a couple weeks ago, right before he came down with COVID. 

By the way, nine COVID cases have been traced to that Trump rally in northern Minnesota, and as of two days ago one of Trump's victims was still in the ICU.

I think three things are going on with the signs. 

First, Republicans are ashamed to show their support for Trump. They know what a scumbag he is, how horribly he has botched pretty much everything in this presidency, from his tax giveaway to fatcats like himself, to foreign policy giveaways to Putin and Kim Jong Un, to the trade war fiasco, to his attempted shakedown of the Ukrainian president that resulted in his impeachment, to his insults to the military (calling service members suckers and losers and saying that Gold Star families infected him while bragging about how much they hugged and kissed them), to the cataclysmic failure of his coronavirus response.

Second, Republican candidates don't want their signs next to Trump signs. They don't want their names to be associated with the dumpster fire in the Oval Office. They're hoping to squeak by anonymously based on how normal their name sounds.

Third, a lot of these Republicans just aren't going to vote for Trump. They have grown tired of the antics and the outrage. They know the outrage and unrest in Minneapolis is in large part because of Trump.

Now, there's definitely some support for Trump in rural Minnesota, and support on the Iron Range because of his support for expanded copper and nickel mining there. But it's not clear how widespread that support is -- the Boundary Waters Canoe Area will be ruined if those mines go forward, and a lot of people's livelihoods depend on tourism in that pristine area.

Foreign companies are behind the mining proposals, and they'll bail as soon as they've ripped all the metal out of the ground, leaving the BWCA a toxic waste dump. 

What Trump won't tell you is that in 2017 Ivanka and Jared got a sweetheart deal on a house in the Kalorama neighborhood in Washington, DC, which was owned by the Brazilian billionaire who was suing the US government over the Minnesota mine.

Again and again, the Trumps are guilty of one huge conflict of interest or another. The guy is a giant security risk who is just not fit to be president. 

And I think that fact has finally sunk in with suburban voters.

Tuesday, October 06, 2020

Did Trump Try to Infect Biden at the Debate?

The first thing Donald Trump did when he got back to the White House from Walter Reed, where he'd been hospitalized with COVID-19, was take off his mask.

By doing this he shows that he doesn't give a damn about the people that he is closest to, the people who work at the White House day in and day out: his staffers, his aides, the cooks, the maids, his own family.

We already knew that he doesn't care about the health of his donors and supporters. He went to a fundraiser last Thursday at his Bedminster golf club after he knew that Hope Hicks had tested positive. By this time Trump certainly knew he was infected, but he needed the money for his campaign, so he went anyway.

It became obvious that Hicks was infected during Trump's trip to Minnesota on Wednesday. That means the Trump campaign exposed hundreds of people to the virus.

It is also likely that Trump knew he was infected before the debate with Joe Biden on Tuesday: he arrived too late to be tested, so they let him in on the "honor system." Huh? Since when does Trump have any honor?

The White House has given incomplete and inconsistent details about Trump's COVID testing history in the days leading up to his hospitalization.

Which brings up the question: did Trump intentionally try to infect Joe Biden at the debate?

The White House has been hit by a flurry of coronavirus infections, including Trump, Melania, Hope Hicks, Kayleigh McEnany, various staff members, etc.

The cluster of infections appears to have come from the superspreader event that Trump held for Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court. Several attendees have tested positive for the disease since then, including three Republican senators, Kelly Anne Conway, Chris Christie and Rev. John Jenkins, the president of Notre Dame.

Ironically, these infections may derail a Senate vote on Barrett's nomination.

Now, if Trump cares so little for the people that work directly for him on a daily basis, and his allies in the Senate, and the people who fork over millions of dollars to his campaign, and the rabid supporters who come to worship him at his rallies, how much does he care about the average American who's still on the fence about whether to vote for Biden or Trump?

Trump does not give a flying fuck about you, your kids, your grandmother or your grandfather. He wants everything back to normal so that people can go to his golf clubs and hotels and spend tons of money there because he is going broke

He only cares about himself, and with his resistance to wearing masks at large public events, you gotta ask: is this whack job suicidal?

Has there ever been a more worthless piece of garbage sitting in the Oval Office?

Friday, October 02, 2020

Is Trump Really Infected with COVID? Or Is It Another Trump Lie?

The hallmark of Donald Trump's presidency is the constant stream of lies. He spews forth dozens of lies a day: by July of this year he had uttered 20,000 falsehoods in his presidency.

Last night the White House announced that Hope Hicks tested positive. This morning they announced that Trump was infected.

When Trump said that he was taking hydroxychloroquine to prevent infection, many people did not believe he was taking it. He supposedly took a two-week course of the drug and then stopped. Hydroxychloroquine doesn't work too well, now does it?

So, we gotta ask: is Trump really infected, or is this just another of the thousands of lies this guy tells day in and day out?

Is this the "October surprise" that Trump promised us?

Now you might ask, why would Trump lie about this? It exposes him to ridicule and a nation-wide chorus of "I told you so" from Democrats. 

Here's why: if he's not really infected, he won't show any symptoms, and he won't get sick. Then he can continue to claim that the disease is harmless, it's just a hoax, no worse than the common cold. Even though it kills completely healthy 19-year-old college kids.

Then he would claim that his superior genetics saved him, or that the prayers of the evangelicals and divine intervention saved his life so he can carry on the Lord's work and kick all the Mexicans out of America. All these precautions against the disease are a waste of time and invasion of our privacy and an attack on our freedom.

Given Trump's record on denying embarrassing things, like paying off two mistresses before the last election, why would he announce he was infected before he was showing any symptoms? It only invites an avalanche of scorn.

If it is a lie and the Democrats fall for it and heap the ridicule that Trump so richly deserves upon him, he can play the victim. "Oh, they're so mean to me, they just want me to die!"

And when he comes out unscathed, because he was never infected in the first place, he can claim moral superiority because of all the vitriol the Democrats unleashed on him. 

He can claim to be the victim and get the sympathy vote from the millions of Americans infected by COVID. It's an ever-growing demographic!

This is the problem with having a con artist in the oval office. You can't believe anything that comes out of there. They're always working some angle, spinning one lie or another, changing their story. 

That's gotta take a toll on you. Like it did on Trump's former campaign manager, Brad Parscale, whom police tackled when he threatened to commit suicide.

Nope. You just can't trust a man who cheats at golf.