Cleanup on Aisle 45: A Fond Farewell to President Trump

THE REJECT-PRESIDENT ARCHIVE. 

(Post-Biden inauguration.)

____________________ 

“The stench of treason, sedition, malfeasance, misfeasance, nepotism, corruption, and general fecklessness lingers on.” 

Paul Motz, friend of the blogger, summing up the Trump administration

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AS WE BID “GOODBYE” to Rejected-President Trump, we consider his final acts, or non-acts. For example, we never did see that great healthcare plan he promised he was going to have ready. 

Someday. 

We also note that in a recent poll, 58% of Americans believed Don deserved to be convicted in his second impeachment trial.

Trump is destined to go down in history as one of our worst presidents.

On a Mt. Rushmore of losers, he will join Warren G. Harding.

Also joining Trump on the Mt. Rushmore of "losers.

The fifteenth President of the United States.

Only four presidents, including Trump, can be on the Mt. Rushmore of losers.

Johnson deserves his granite spot.

1/20/21: GOOD RIDDANCE, DONALD J. TRUMP! Zero days left. At noon, Joe Biden takes office as the President of the United States. 

QAnon hearts are breaking, as reality strikes.

 

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“There is always light, if only we are brave enough to see it, if only we are brave enough to be it.” 

Amanda Gorman, poet

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His predecessor leaves office with the same lack of class he entered, having failed to concede an election he lost 78 days ago. 

The 46^th President of the United States gave an inaugural speech worth remembering, calling on the nation to heal. There was no big crowd in person. Washington D.C. was a heavily-armed camp, lest the same despicable elements that rampaged through the halls of Congress on January 6 return and do additional, perhaps fatal damage to the republic, which has stood for 232 years. 

The 45^th president, cowardly as ever, skipped town three hours before, sent off by a small crowd of family and what few “friends” he had left. Even VP Pence chose not to show up to see Reject Don off, choosing to accept an invitation to attend Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s swearing in instead. 

So, as the nation has done, once every four years, since 1789, and several times suddenly, when leaders have died, we watched a new leader take charge.

 

After four years, it was time to wash a stain away. Mr. Biden reminded us that “democracy is precious,” and “democracy has prevailed.” (See his full speech below.) 

And if you missed the performance of the young poet, Amanda Gorman, 22, rectify that at for your pleasure. It was exuberant, optimistic, and a call to move forward, undaunted, imperfect as our nation’s progress has always been and always shall be. “We shall not march back to what was,” she boldly predicted, “but move to what shall be, a country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free.” 

For “there is always light,” she said, “if only we are brave enough to see it, if only we are brave enough to be it.”

___ 

 

 

1/21/21: According to the CDC, on Rejected-President Trump’s last weeks in in office a record number of citizens whom he had failed to protect died from a virus he once insisted was no worse than the flu. On January 6, January 7, January 12, and January 13, more than 4,000 Americans died each day. 

Like four 9/11’s. 

And then, on his last day in office, another 

4,029 Americans died.

 

Yet, Trump never once expressed sympathy for the hundreds of thousands of families who lost loved ones. 

Nor did he ever mourn the dead.

 

* 

____________________ 

“It’s obvious now we’ve been had. No plan, no Q, nothing.” 

Disappointed QAnon believer

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So ended the bizarre circus act that was the single-term presidency of Donald J. Trump. For one sizeable lump of Americans, this was a sad day. QAnon folks learned a harsh truth. That Santa can’t fit down the chimney on Christmas Eve (or any other night). That the Easter Bunny doesn’t bring chocolate eggs. That leprechauns don’t guard pots of gold. That there aren’t any leprechauns to begin. And “Q,” whoever he or she might be, is a modern-day phrenologist. 

Trump did not magically appear to claim a second term. No righteous angels swept the inaugural stage clear of Joe Biden, and Dr. Jill Biden, and the lovely young poet, Amanda Gorman. 

As one white supremacist moaned, the outgoing president failed to pardon “middle class whites who risked their livelihoods by going to ‘war’ for Trump” on January 6. Instead, what QAnon believers had been calling “national popcorn day” turned out to be a grand fizzle for fools. No one came to stop the Satan-worshipping, cannibalistic, child-molesters from taking over.

 

Not to be denied their delusions, a few put forward the preposterous proposition that Trump had switched faces with Biden. 

He was still in charge! 

Other believers wiped away tears, dabbed at snot on their upper lips, and turned to the calendar. The original Constitution set March 4 as Inauguration Day. Ah ha! Trump was biding his time. He would be back on that date, rising like Orange Jesus, from the political grave. 

Still, some had tasted the bitter medicine and had admitted it was nasty. “Been played for fools,” one wrote on social media. Another believer expressed the general feeling of disappointment even more vehemently. “It’s obvious now we’ve been had. No plan, no Q, nothing.” 

 

* 

As for Mr. Biden, we cannot know whether he will succeed or fail at his job. He may turn out to be a good president, a fair president, or a poor president. Greatness is rarely achieved.

 

This blogger is confident that “46” will not be a terrible and a dangerous president, as was his predecessor.

 

We know, as Joe Biden takes charge, that he has “inherited a mess.” We remember when Trump complained that he had, even though he hadn’t. We know thousands of friends, relatives and neighbors are dying daily from coronavirus. We know millions are struggling to pay bills.

 

The weekly employment report out today has 900,000 additional workers filing for regular unemployment.

 

Worse still, 423,734 individuals filed for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, marking a worrisome three-week trend:

 

1/2:     161,159

1/9:     248,886

1/16:   423,734

 

So, the spread of the deadly coronavirus continues to eat at the vitals of the U.S. economy.

 

*

 

Nor is there any sign the pandemic is abating. Today, on the first full day of Mr. Biden’s term in office, another 3,373 Americans perish from COVID-19.

 

That pushed the total to:

 

443,997 dead.**

 

That figure easily tops the number of soldiers, sailors, air personnel and Marines killed during all of World War II: 407,316.

 

American killed by German sniper.

 

*

 

Defining the nature of the Trump presidency.

 

A handful of Americans are having a good week, having been pardoned by Loser Don as he lumbered off stage. Steve Bannon, accused of defrauding suckers who donated to a private project to build the border wall, received a pardon.

 

Elliott Broidy, who raised money for Trump’s 2016 campaign and pled guilty to selling influence to foreign individuals got a coveted pardon, very possibly on the understanding that he would henceforth keep his mouth shut about any criminal behaviors he had witnessed.

 

Most news outlets have focused on Bannon and the rapper Lil’ Wayne since their names are more recognizable.

 

This blogger would suggest that Broidy is dirty for a number of reasons, and a key actor in a much seedier tale in the end. (See: 7/21/21.)

 

Another little known name, Paul Erickson, also looms larger in this writer’s view. Erickson plead guilty to fraud and money-laundering charges. His “claim to fame” was sleeping with Maria Butina, a Russian foreign agent. Butina, an attractive redhead, had odd connections with some of the top people at the N.R.A. She was also on good terms with former Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a GOP congressman so chummy with Russians, that he was sometimes tagged “Rep. Rohrabacher (R-Moscow).”

 

Equally worthy of mercy, in Trump’s gimlet eyes, was former Rep. Robin Hayes of North Carolina. He and several others were arrested after they tried to bribe a state official. In return they expected preferential treatment of an insurance business in which they had an interest. To get what they wanted, they were offering an illegal payment of $1.5 million. The price of business, as it were.

 

Even more inexplicable was the pardon of Robert “Bob” Zangrillo, a Miami real estate dealer. Zangrillo was one of a number of high-rolling parents busted after a scheme to bribe college coaches and officials to get their children into prestigious schools was revealed. Alone among parents charged in “Operation Varsity Blues,” Zangrillo caught a Trumpian break.

 

According to a White House press release dad avoided jail because daughter Amber was doing well in her studies at the University of Southern California. She was “currently earning a 3.9 GPA.” Team Trump claimed that Amber’s pop deserved the slack because Amber “did not have others take standardized tests for her.”

 

I suppose that makes Ms. Zangrillo unique among millions of high school seniors who also didn’t have ringers take their SATs for them last year. 

At any rate, Amber is enjoying her time at college, despite the fact her parents bought her a spot at the expense of some other individual who probably deserved to be attending USC more. 

We also know that Rejected-President Trump rose early on the morning of January 20, and with 45 minutes left in office, decided…hey…why not cut the ex-husband of Judge Jeanine Pirro, his staunchest fan on Fox News, a break! Al Pirro, famous for cheating on his taxes, made the pardon list with little time to spare.

 

Pardons went to such luminaries in crookery as Michael Liberty, convicted of making illegal campaign donations, Drew Bronstein a former hedge fund manager, and Aviem Sella, friend of GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam – who now has her own Presidential Medal of Freedom. More than one hundred assorted felons got pardons in Don’s last 24 hours in office. 

As might have been expected, the president’s final acts of “justice” fit a pattern that has been constantly revealed these last four years. People who lied to investigators, but lied to protect the president, got pardons. To wit: Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Gen. Michael T. Flynn, and now Bannon and Broidy. 

People who didn’t lie for Trump but cooperated with investigators, did not get pardons. To wit: Michael Cohen and Rick Gates.

Benjamin Ginsberg, a Republican election lawyer who has worked on several previous presidential campaigns, but not Trump’s, was pained by what he witnessed. “The granting of even more sleazy crony pardons as the clock ran out on his one term,”  Ginsberg said, “will define the nature of his presidency.”

Several other men, indicted for the same crime as Bannon got no pardon.

___

1/22/21: Now that Reject-President Trump has escaped to Mar-a-Lago, it might be time to revisit the “Stages of Grief.” 

Unfortunately, poor Donald is having a hellish time getting past denial, and nowhere close to “acceptance,” normally, the final stage. 

Today, we feel compelled to insert a few extra stages since we last compiled a list. The original six are in bold:

 

The Twenty Stages of Grief

Denial

Tweeting

Golfing

Grifting

Anxiety

Envy

Hiding out

Desperation

Bargaining

Stupidity

Hallucinating

Lying

Anger

More Lying

Incitement

Rioting

Depression

Impeachment

QAnon silliness

Biden Inauguration

Acceptance

 

Still no sign he is moving any closer to the final stage. (See: 11/25/20, 12/15/20 and 12/16/20 for previous iterations of this list.)

 

* 

On the other hand, not everyone is sad to see the 45^th President of the United States waddle off to Mar-a-Lago. Peter Wehner, a lifelong Republican (until the rise of the Orange Buffoon), who served in the Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 administrations has a great deal to say in a New York Times essay:

 

This is a text I received from a prominent conservative Christian minutes after President Biden’s Inaugural Address: “I broke down sobbing. It’s been a long five and a half years.”

 

Shortly after that, Scott Dudley, senior pastor at Bellevue Presbyterian Church in Bellevue, Wash., emailed me a note that said, “I never thought I would be moved to tears watching a Democratic president get sworn in, but I was. It just felt so good to hear someone who understands and loves this country and Constitution, and is an honorable person, take the oath. I’m praying for healing.”

 

Wehner lists a number of Trump’s most egregious sins, then adds:

 

But the most dangerous and unsettling thing about President Donald Trump was his sociopathic tendencies. It should have been obvious to everyone that Mr. Trump was unstable, impulsive, compulsively dishonest and staggeringly narcissistic. 

 

One prominent Republican who has served in Congress told me recently, “Trump sunk much lower than I thought he would.”

 

* 

In his first interviews since the departure of the President Who Hated Science, Dr. Anthony Fauci seemed almost giddy to be able to appear at a press conference and speak freely. Asked how he felt, now that Trump was gone, and Biden was in charge, he answered, “It’s obviously a very different situation. It’s complete transparency. Nobody is telling you what to say, at all. They are just saying go out there and let the data guide you on what you are saying.” 

Was this different than when President Trump was in charge, a reporter asked the infectious disease expert? 

“There were things that were said, be it regarding things like hydroxychloroquine and other things like that, that really was an uncomfortable thing because they were not based on scientific fact,” Fauci admitted. “I can tell you, I take no pleasure at all being in a situation with contradicting the [previous] president.”

 

“When you deal with a global pandemic, you have to have global connectivity, cooperation, collaboration and solidarity. That was one of the first things that the [new] president wanted to make sure happened,” he continued. For example, Dr. Fauci was glad that the U.S. had reentered the World Health Organization. 

In an interview on CNN, Fauci was asked if he believed a lack of candor on the part of some in the Trump administration cost lives? 

“You know, it very likely did,” he said. 

He went on to say, “Particularly when you’re in the situation of almost being in a crisis with the number of cases and hospitalizations and deaths that we have – when you start talking about things that make no sense medically and no sense scientifically, that clearly is not helpful.” 

He added, finally, that it’s “not helpful” when “you’re starting to go down paths that are not based on any science at all.”  

Like this guy:

___

 

 

1/23/21: It is reported that President Biden and the new First Lady will share a bedroom in the White House. 

Rejected-President Trump and the former First Lady did not. This may explain why the last president was always so cranky. 

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“So it’s just one of those things that is chilling when you see it happen.” 

Dr. Anthony Fauci

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Say what you want, regarding your preference in presidents. But you cannot logically say, “All politicians are alike.” 

If nothing else, some are left-handed. Hahahahahahahaha, this left-handed blogger amuses himself.

 

* 

We have already seen several important changes with Mr. Biden taking over for Reject Don. U.S. policy in regard to refugees will be reformed. In the last year of the Obama presidency, 100,000 individuals qualified for admittance to this country under refugee status. The Trump administration slashed that to 15,000 last year. People who might qualify under the Biden administration: Reporters who have criticized Putin or Chinese communist leadership. Kurds facing attack in Syria (after Trump deserted them, despite the fact they played a central role in defeating ISIS) and Afghans who aided U.S. forces in the fight against the Taliban might also be eligible. 

In other moves, of which the blogger approves: the Biden administration will restore ties with the Palestinians. This blogger is sympathetic to both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian debates. 

It also seems wise, that Mr. Biden has already talked with Mr. Putin. They have agreed to extend the New Start Treaty, which would have expired on February 5, had Trump gained a second term. That treaty limits both sides to 1,550 nuclear warheads, which should be enough, if war ever erupts, to wipe out an impressive percentage of humanity. Biden has also announced that the federal government will award no more contracts to for-profit prisons. Their safety record is abominable.

 

* 

Dr. Anthony Fauci makes it clear that he expects the Biden administration to handle the threat of COVID-19 differently. You know he’s relieved. Appearing on Rachel Maddow’s show, on MSNBC, he’s blunt but polite. Under Trump, he explains, you had “a situation where science was distorted and/or rejected.”

 

He explained further:

 

I didn’t want to be at odds with the president because I have a lot of respect for the office of the presidency, but there was conflict at different levels with different people and different organizations and a lot of pressure being put on to do things that just are not compatible with the science.

 

…It’s a real aberrancy. This is my seventh administration, Rachel, and I’ve been advising administrations and presidents on both sides of the aisle, Republicans and Democrats, people with different ideologies, and even with differences in ideology, there never was this real affront on science. So it really was an aberrancy that I haven’t seen in almost 40 years that I’ve been doing this. So it’s just one of those things that is chilling when you see it happen.

 

That might be the epitaph for the Trump presidency.

___ 

 

1/24/21: The dust has barely settled at the White House, with the Trump folks moving out and the Biden folks moving in, but at least one member of Team Trump is already kicking dirt on the boss’s legacy. 

 

“I saw the president presenting graphs that I never made.” 

Dr. Deborah Birx, once a key member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, was asked if she had ever considered leaving the team. “Always,” she remarked, without hesitation. 

“I saw the president presenting graphs that I never made,” Birx explained. “So, I know that someone — or someone out there or someone inside was creating a parallel set of data and graphics that were shown to the president.” 

Trump showed one graph that looked like it was prepared for third graders.

 

Birx said she wrote 310 detailed daily reports, but didn’t know if her boss read them. “I had very little exposure to President Trump,” she said. “There was no team, full-time working in the White House on coronavirus.” So she had to recruit her own help. Birx, a former colonel in the U.S. Army, had 41 years’ service in government and called on people she knew from previous work. 

She told host Margaret Brennan that she believed her science-based guidance was being censored by the White House. She was eventually blocked from appearing on the news. Instead, she went out on the road, to speak to state and local healthcare providers. “That was the place where people would let me say what needed to be said about the pandemic, both in private with the governors and then in following up, doing press to talk to the people of that state.”

 

* 

In an interview published in The New York Times today, Dr. Fauci went into even more detail in describing what it was like to work in the Trump White House. 

Excerpts follow: 

I would try to express the gravity of the situation, and the response of the president was always leaning toward, “Well, it’s not that bad, right?” And I would say, “Yes, it is that bad.” It was almost a reflex response, trying to coax you to minimize it. Not saying, “I want you to minimize it,” but, “Oh, really, was it that bad?”

 

That much might be expected, with any president wanting to put the best face on a problem, and convince the American people that the crisis was in hand. Trump was different than any of the other seven presidents Fauci had worked for. As this blogger might put it, he was incredibly ill-informed. 

Fauci explained: 

And the other thing that made me really concerned was, it was clear that he was getting input from people who were calling him up, I don’t know who, people he knew from business, saying, “Hey, I heard about this drug, isn’t it great?” or, “Boy, this convalescent plasma is really phenomenal.” And I would try to, you know, calmly explain that you find out if something works by doing an appropriate clinical trial; you get the information, you give it a peer review. And he’d say, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, this stuff really works.”

 

He would take just as seriously their opinion — based on no data, just anecdote — that something might really be important. It wasn’t just hydroxychloroquine; it was a variety of alternative-medicine-type approaches. It was always, “A guy called me up, a friend of mine from blah, blah, blah.” That’s when my anxiety started to escalate.

 

Even worse, the president surrounded himself “with people saying things that didn’t make any scientific sense.” 

Eventually, White House aides, if not the president himself, began to see Dr. Fauci as the problem, not so much the virus. He didn’t like contradicting the president. “But I made a decision that I just had to. Otherwise I would be compromising my own integrity, and be giving a false message to the world. If I didn’t speak up, it would be almost tacit approval that what he was saying was OK.” 

White House aides soon turned to “nefarious” methods to try to damage his reputation, he said.

 

After that, Trump brought in Dr. Scott Atlas, a heart surgeon, to give him advice. He and Fauci often clashed. Fauci was asked, did this make his job worse? No, he offered, his “day job” was still director of N.I.A.I.D. He did not have to go to the White House every day. He felt bad for one colleague, who did. “Debbie Birx had to live with this person in the White House every day,” he said, “so it was much more of a painful situation for her.” 

Still, he never really considered quitting the Task Force. 

When people just see you standing up there, they sometimes think you’re being complicit in the distortions emanating from the stage. But I felt that if I stepped down, that would leave a void. Someone’s got to not be afraid to speak out the truth. They would try to play down real problems and have a little happy talk about how things are OK. And I would always say, “Wait a minute, hold it folks, this is serious business.” So there was a joke — a friendly joke, you know — that I was the skunk at the picnic.

 

He and his wife discussed his leaving his post, but ultimately agreed, “If I did walk away, the skunk at the picnic would no longer be at the picnic.” It was better to remain. If he couldn’t change any minds, the least he could try to do was make others realize “that nonsense could not be spouted” without his pushing back. 

“I think in the big picture, I felt it would be better for the country and better for the cause for me to stay, as opposed to walk away.” 

And so it was. The experts were ignored, even vilified by the likes of White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnaney. 

The MyPillow guy gave Trump the kind of advice Trump wanted to hear. And every day more Americans died. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: Dr. Robert Redfield, head of the Centers for Disease Control during the Trump administration, was also asked this week what his “greatest disappointment” was in not being able to better mitigate the spread of COVID-19. 

“My greatest disappointment was the lack of consistency of public health messaging and the inconsistency of civic leaders to reinforce the public health message.” (You can read between the lines what that means –  “civic leaders.”) 

Dr. Redfield continued, “I’m very disappointed that some civic leaders decided to make this issue of mitigation a political football, rather than embracing the public health measures.” 

You know. Mask-wearing, for example.

 

Certain “civic leaders” seemed to think masks were an abomination. Redfield was asked how he had been traveling, back and forth between Washington D.C. and Atlanta during this period. “You know,” he told a reporter, “I believe if I wear my mask, wash my hands and social distance, I can fly safely.” 

Simple message. Who would disagree with that? 

Certain “civic leaders.”

___ 

 

1/25/21: In a procedural vote today, five Republican senators side with Democrats to advance the impeachment of Reject-President Trump. 

The other 45 Republican senators insist that impeaching a president who is out of office is unconstitutional. 

Also, if they had to vote on the matter, they would know he was guilty of inciting a riot; but they would be terrified to convict him and face the wrath of Trump’s loyal supporters.

 

* 

I think it’s safe to say that most historians are unlikely to look back on the Trump presidency kindly. The New York Times gathers a few early takes from leaders in the field. 

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“He has tarred and feathered himself, and I think it will blemish him for a long, long, long time.” 

William J. Cooper Jr., professor emeritus of history at Louisiana State University

____________________ 

 

“I already feel that he is the worst,” said Ted Widmer, professor of history at the City University of New York, noting that as bad as [James] Buchanan was — and he was very bad indeed — he was “not as aggressively bad as Trump.” 

“Andrew Johnson and Nixon would be the two others in the worst category, and I think Trump has them beat pretty handily, too,” he added. “He has invented a whole new category, a subbasement that no one knew existed.” 

“I would say that before the election it depended on one’s political outlook,” with conservatives applauding his tax cuts, deregulation policies and judicial appointments, said William J. Cooper Jr., professor emeritus of history at Louisiana State University. “But from the election forward, I don’t see how anyone could feel that Trump’s behavior was anything but reprehensible or that he hasn’t completely destroyed any legacy he would have left.” 

“He has tarred and feathered himself, and I think it will blemish him for a long, long, long time.”

 

Douglas G. Brinkley, professor of history at Rice University and a member of the advisory panel for C-SPAN’s Presidential Historians Survey, said that Mr. Trump “was a bad president in just about every regard.” 

“I find him to be the worst president in U.S. history, personally,” Mr. Brinkley said, “even worse than William Henry Harrison, who was president for only one month. You don’t want to be ranked below him.” 

Mr. Brinkley brought up Richard Nixon, the only president ever to resign in disgrace. “At least when Nixon left, he put the country ahead of himself at the last minute,” Mr. Brinkley said. “Now he looks like a statesman compared to Trump.”

 

Sean Wilentz, a professor of American history at Princeton University, said that Mr. Trump was the worst president in history, hands down, citing “the brazen, almost psychedelic mendacity of the man.” 

(For more on Trump’s likely rating in history, see: July 1, 2021.) 

FUN FACT: On the other hand, Rejected-President Trump will always have the four-foot tall replica of Mt. Rushmore given to him by South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem. At a cost of $1,100 (paid for by private donations), Gov. Noem presented the bust to Mr. Trump during his visit to her state. If depicts the four giants, but makes room for a pygmy: President Donald J. Trump.

___

  

1/26/21: Cleanup on Aisle 45 continues. Having been slammed with a $1.3 billion lawsuit for defamation, Rudy Giuliani, says he’s ready to fight back. He calls it a “hate-filled” legal move by Dominion Voting Systems to “censor the exercise of free speech.” All he did was claim fifty times that their machines were rigged to cheat Trump out of a second term in office. 

Rudy’s case won’t be helped by the fact that the F.B.I., the Department of Justice, the cybersecurity unit at the Department of Homeland Security, and investigators for the State of Georgia all say the Dominion systems were not rigged. 

Rudy, sweating badly, and hair dye running.

___

 

* 

Also having a lousy month: Mike Lindell of MyPillow. Apparently, calling on a president to march troops into various states to re-run their elections was not popular with other business leaders. His brand has been dropped by Bed, Bath & Beyond, Kohl’s and Wayfair. 

Mr. Pillow has apparently never heard what happens when governments gain too much power and start warping elections. 

Consider the “good old days” of the Soviet Union, when elections were held, but with one communist candidate for each office. Victory margins tended to be large, 96% of the vote going to the only person on the ticket. 

You might argue that Fidel Castro devised an even better system, essentially managing to rule Cuba for almost fifty years.

 

More recently, Saddam Hussein was known for clearing a path to victory by shooting political opponents. 

Xi Jinping first came to power in China when the National People’s Congress voted 2,952-1 (with three abstentions) to make him president. Five years later a new law was passed, eliminating term limits, allowing him to serve as “President for Life.” Trump said he loved it. Complaints were muted as a result of strict government censorship of all news media and the internet. 

In Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni just won his sixth term in office after 35 years in power. At the time of the vote, his leading rival was under “effective house arrest,” say supporters of the opposition. 

Mr. Museveni’s officials scoffed at that terrible idea and said they were merely providing “security.” 

 

POSTSCRIPT: Just a quick note on the “censorship” of Mr. Giuliani. If Mr. G. would like to pen an editorial today and submit it to The New York Times, outlining specific examples of voter fraud, in specific locations, citing specific names of fraudulent “voters,” and then prove his accusations in court, he could do so. He could appear on Fox News or show up as a guest on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show. He could call a press conference and say that he believes Trump was the greatest president ever and the hero of all the people. He’s not being “censored.” 

He’s getting sued for “defamation.”

___ 

 

1/27/21: In a poll out today, by Hill-Harris, Joe Biden gets a 63% approval rating. That mark is higher than any single approval rating Reject-President Trump achieved in his four years in office. 

The best he ever scored was 57%, in a Rasmussen poll taken after four days in the White House. A week later, Trump was down to 53% and would never again have an approval vs. disapproval rating in any poll better than +6. 

Apparently, for now, most Americans are satisfied just to have a president who acts like a normal person. 

Rep. Greene helped spread the myth that the election was stolen.

* 

“A crime punishable by death is what treason is.” 

By contrast, in crazy-person news, a close study of the Facebook page of recently elected GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene indicates that as recently as 2019, she favored execution of select Democratic lawmakers. 

As CNN reports, 

In one post, from January 2019, Greene liked a comment that said “a bullet to the head would be quicker” to remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In other posts, Greene liked comments about executing F.B.I. agents who, in her eyes, were part of the “deep state” working against Trump.

 

In another Facebook post from April 2018, Greene found fault with the Iran Deal, worked out by President Obama three years earlier. A commenter asked Greene, “Now do we get to hang them?? Meaning H & O ???.” 

Greene, who has insisted since running for office that she isn’t really a QAnon believer, responded as if she were. Would Hillary Clinton and Obama soon meet their maker at the end of a rope? “Stage is being set,” she replied. “Players are being put in place. We must be patient. This must be done perfectly or liberal judges would let them off.” 

In right-wing nutjob land, anything CNN says will be challenged as “Fake News.” Yet, when reached for comment, Greene did not deny the accuracy of their report. She simply claimed that over the years she had had many aides “manage” her Facebook account. 

If aides were the problem, you had to think Greene needed better aides. Or at least glasses to see what they wrote.

 

Media Matters also did a search of Greene’s social media accounts. In 2018, we know she called the Parkland High School massacre a “false flag.” She suggested that David Hogg, who became the face of student protest against gun violence in the wake of that bloodbath, was “a bought and paid little pawn” and a “#littleHitler.” 

Then you had a video that Greene posted. In this case, you could watch Greene’s lips move and hear words spill out. Stupid words, true. Unless she wanted to claim that she had an aide who was a ventriloquist, this was what Greene believed should happen to Speaker Pelosi: 

She’s a traitor to our country, she’s guilty of treason. She took an oath to protect American citizens and uphold our laws. And she gives aid and comfort to our enemies who illegally invade our land. That’s what treason is. And by our law representatives and senators can be kicked out and no longer serve in our government. And it’s, uh, it’s a crime punishable by death is what treason is. Nancy Pelosi is guilty of treason.

 

* 

In really-crazy person news, the Department of Homeland Security has issued a Terrorism Advisory Bulletin, to remain in effect until August 1, 2021. DHS believes this threat, 

will persist in the weeks following the successful Presidential Inauguration. Information suggests that some ideologically-motivated violent extremists with objections to the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition, as well as other perceived grievances fueled by false narratives, could continue to mobilize to incite or commit violence.

 

Or another way to put it, Rep. Greene’s kind of people, threatening harm to the rest of us.

___ 

 

1/28/21: It is Donald Trump’s contention that he leaves the nation he led for four years in fantastic shape, far better than it was when he first took the oath of office and then started to ignore it. According to the Department of Agriculture, however, another eight million Americans ended up on food stamps last year, bringing the total to 44 million. That means one of every 7 or 8 persons in this country lacks enough money for food. 

Sometimes, it’s “fun” to look back and see what Candidate Don used to say about Barack Obama. On July 21, 2016, in a speech to supporters, he lambasted Mr. Obama for his failures. 

And for once, the numbers he used were partly correct! 

“President Obama has almost doubled our national debt to more than $19 trillion,” he groaned, “and growing. Yet what do we have to show for it? Our roads and bridges are falling apart, our airports are in third-world condition, and 43 million Americans are on food stamps.”

 

So, four year later – and no progress on food stamps. 

  

Also no big infrastructure plan was ever enacted, as Candidate Don promised. Part of the problem was that Team Trump never got around to putting together a plan at all, until July 2020, when Trump really wanted to get re-elected. Unfortunately, by that time the pandemic was squeezing the life out of the economy and we were already sinking in a sea of red ink. 

When I checked, a little after 11:00 p.m. this evening, our roads and bridges were four years older and still not fixed. The “Federal Deficit Clock” registered more than $27.8 trillion. Under Mr. Trump’s “guiding hand” the deficit rose almost nine trillion dollars in one term. 

Plus, he bungled the COVID-19 crisis and as of January 27, the CDC reports that 462,435 Americans are dead. (Death toll updated and based on a check of CDC numbers on 9/4/21.)

 

Last, but not least, the Commerce Department reports that the U.S. economy shrank by 3.5% last year. 

That’s the worst decline since 1946.

___ 

 

1/29/21: Reject Don is gone – we hope for good. President Biden has been in office eight days and hasn’t insulted anyone. 

Biden has also made it clear that taking on the threat of climate change will loom large on his agenda. 

 

NASA calls 2020 the hottest year ever. 

You can argue about plans, and our leaders should. You cannot truly argue that the issue isn’t real, as Rejected-President Trump always did. The British have just announced moves to ban sales of all new gasoline- or diesel-powered cars starting in 2030. As the growing threat becomes clearer (except to members of the Trump cult, and the High Priest, himself), nations are reacting. 

The British had planned to put that restriction in place, starting in 2040, but thought better of delay in the light of growing evidence of danger. 

NASA, for example, just reported that 2020 was the hottest year, globally, ever. 

NOAA (look the agency up if you don’t know what the initials stand for) has slightly different numbers. Their list of the ten warmest years on record, however, should give pause: 

2016

2020

2019

2015

2017

2018

2014

2010

2013

2005

 

Their prediction is also grim: that the next ten years will almost surely end up the globe’s ten warmest. 

Japan has also announced plans to ban new gasoline- and diesel-powered automobiles by 2035. Hybrids will be allowed. 

The Province of Quebec and the State of California have announced bans for 2035. The deadline in Norway, where 60% of automobiles sold are already all-electric, will go into effect in 2025. 

General Motors has announced that it will stop selling gasoline- and diesel-powered cars by 2035. The company hopes to be carbon-neutral by 2040. 

The European Union has voted on a legally binding agreement, that all members must achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. 

The Chinese estimate that by 2035, at least 50% of all automobiles sold in that country will be NEV models, “New Energy Vehicles.” 

Change is going to be forced upon us. We just have to hope we handle the challenge better than the Mayans, the people of Kush, and the people of Angor Wat. 

 * 

In other news, parents of victims of the Sandy Hook and Parkland school massacres protest the decision by Republicans to place Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on the House Education and Labor Committee. 

Putting her in such a position, they say, “is an attack on any and every family whose loved ones were murdered in mass shootings that have now become fodder for hoaxers,” the parents said. 

Mark Barden, whose son Daniel was cut down by bullets at age six, during the bloodbath at Sandy Hook, released this statement from the group today: “We’re grateful for people like Rep. Jahana Hayes, who understand that hateful conspiracy theories and suggestions that our children’s’ violent deaths never happened have no place in our society, much less the United States Congress.” 

Greene has repeatedly stated that both these shootings were staged. But Jewish-controlled space lasers zapping forests and starting conflagrations in California? Yeah. Rep. Greene believes that’s real. 

(Hayes is a Democratic member of Congress, and represents Connecticut, the state where the Sandy Hook shooting occurred.) 

 

BLEEPING POSTSCRIPT: Rep. Lauren Boebert, one of the few members of Congress capable of challenging Greene for the title of “Biggest Lunatic in the House of Representatives,” gets into a Twitter fight with David Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland shooting. 

After he criticizes Greene and Boebert, she responds dismissively in a tweet of her own, “David, please. We all saw how tough you were when questioned face to face. Give your keyboard a rest, child.” 

She refers to an incident where Greene chased the teenager down a Washington D.C. sidewalk, talking about how she was carrying a gun, and why was he trying to take her gun away? 

Something akin to a man chasing a rape victim down the street, and telling her all about his penis.

 

Boebert, of course, has been accused of encouraging the rioters on January 6, and another Twitter user responds by posting screenshots of her tweets from that day, and the day before.

 

 A second Twitter user then posts another set of Boebert tweets, all of which support the idea of “fighting for freedom” (if you don’t like the outcome of the free election which was just held):

 

In another tweet, from last summer, Boebert says simply, “I am the militia.” Which is technically incorrect – since the National Guard is today’s militia. And you get the feeling, Rep. Boebert would be happy to start shooting other Americans, to ensure that she and her like-minded friends get their way.

___ 

 

1/30/21: David Millage, longtime conservative activist and member of the Iowa Republican Party, has the nerve to say that Trump deserves to be impeached for his role in stirring up the mob that attacked the Capitol. 

____________________ 

“They were provoked by the president, and other powerful people.” 

Sen. Mitch McConnell

____________________ 

 

In today’s version of the Grand Old Party, he gets swamped by nasty phone calls, emails and social media posts. 

One calls him, simply, “Traitor.” 

Millage’s sin: speaking his mind to a reporter on the evening of January 6. “I think they ought to impeach” him, he said, answering a question the reporter didn't ask. “For the president to egg them on is just atrocious conduct,” Millage added.

 

Millage, 67, had voted for Trump twice, but the president’s anti-democratic tendencies proved too much. First, he had cozied up to dictators. Now the riot. “That he would rather have state legislatures and judges appoint our president rather than the voters, and then what he did on Jan. 6 was just over the top,” Millage told the Associated Press.

 

He is soon forced to resign his positions in the party.

 

*

 

Jacob Monty, another life-long Republican and a major donor, saves the Trumpophiles the trouble of casting him out. “If you stay in the Republican Party, you have to pay homage to Trump and I don’t do that. I don’t pray to any man,” he explains.

 

When asked if he thought the GOP was now the party of QAnon, he replied, “Absolutely. Trump owns the party and Trump has always loved the conspiracy theories and this is Trump’s party now.”

 

Mr. Monty quits the party.

 

* 

Any fool (Sean Hannity comes to mind) can find members of the Republican Party willing to attack Democratic leaders, and it’s equally easy to go to Democrats to attack Republicans. It’s different when members of a party speak out against their own. Today, Sen. Mitch McConnell made his feelings clear on the floor of the Senate. “The mob was fed lies,” he said of the Capitol Hill rioters. “They were provoked by the president, and other powerful people.”

 

* 

In other news, protesters at Dodger Stadium in Anaheim, California blocked traffic at a vaccination site for COVID-19. 

The geniuses in this case carried signs like: “99.96% Survival Rate,” if you catch the virus. So we know they don’t get math. 

One carried a placard that read, “Save Your Soul Turn Back Now.” They don’t get theology, either. 

Another demonstrator, determined not to wear a mask, held a sign that read: “I Only Like Muzzles in the Bedroom.” It had hearts to set off the word “Bedroom.”

 

“You’re a lab rat,” one anti-vaxxer screamed. 

And there’s still more of this right-wing gibberish. Even the BBC takes note of this gathering of idiots. 

A post on social media called the protest the “Scamdemic Protest/March”.

 

“This is a sharing information protest and march against everything COVID, Vaccine, PCR Tests, Lockdowns, Masks, Fauci, Gates, Newsom, China, digital tracking, etc.” it said.

 

People waiting in their cars, in line, were held up for an hour before police showed up and chased away the loonies.

___

 

 

1/31/21: Rep. Marjorie Greene Taylor continues to make the kind of news that makes you think the lady should never have been elected to a seat in Congress, and definitely not to a place on any school board.

 

 

Faked school shootings? With fake funerals?

 

Various media outlets continue to dig deeper into the trail of feces that Rep. Taylor has left scattered along the path of life. It turns out that in 2018 she suggested lasers from space had been used to start forest fires in California. And somehow, rich Jewish persons were behind it all.

 

Once reporters find gold flakes of ignorance, they keep panning. So the free press (no longer known in White House circles as “the Enemy of the People”) keeps looking. Another nugget from 2018, has Greene agreeing with a comment on her Facebook page, that the 9/11 attack was an inside job by our government. The Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012 was faked, and the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018 was a “false flag.”

 

If there’s a goofy conspiracy theory out there, Greene has fallen for it, like a sap. She believed the Pizzagate story, about children trapped in a D.C. joint where they were sexually molested by liberal scum. She said, when pipe bombs were mailed to several news organizations and leading Democrats in 2018, that the story was a hoax. She said that Obama and the Clintons had a young staffer named Seth Rich killed.

 

Greene even went so far as to say that there was no evidence a plane slammed into the Pentagon on 9/11, other than maybe that giant smoking hole in the wall.

 

Finally, she floated an original of her own. “I am told that Nancy Pelosi tells Hillary Clinton several times a month,” Greene reported, “that ‘we need another school shooting’ in order to persuade the public to want strict gun control.” 

 

Now that the media has been digging up all these absurdities, Rep. Greene has had to claim that it’s all a part of a plot by horrible human beings on the “left” who want to silence all Republicans, and if this is allowed to happen to her, well, freedom as we know it will cease to exist.

 

She also said she has talked to Reject-President Trump and he supports her all the way. So life is good.

 

*

 

Or: Maybe not. The coronavirus refuses to go away.

 

1/30/21:  2,884 Americans die from COVID-19.

1/31/21:  1,920 die.

 

The blogger adds the daily totals for January. It’s the worst month yet, with:

 

95,478 dead.

___

 

February 1, 2021: We all know the Republicans aren’t going to show any guts, once the second impeachment trial of Rejected-President Trump starts. Still, it’s a telling detail that the president’s first team of five lawyers up and quit.

 

He wanted them to base his defense on the “stolen-election myth.” They refused. He had a hissy fit.

 

*

 

Driving a wedge between the government and the Afghan people.

 

In one of the least surprising developments possible, the Pentagon announces that final withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan may not go forward. The holdup is the failure of the Taliban to adhere to the agreement worked out under the brilliant, guiding hand of Art of the Deal Don.

 

Again, diplomacy is always hard, even though the Reject-President never managed to grasp that fact. He’s not to be blamed for all or even most of the failures of the agreement, or the bloody path the Taliban tracks. It’s fair game, however, to mock him for his boasting about how he made America “respected again.”

 

The new Pentagon press secretary, John Kirby, announced last week that the U.S. was still committed to the agreement, which would bring our last troops home in May. “The Taliban have not met their commitments,” however, he explained. “Without them meeting their commitments to renounce terrorism and to stop the violent attacks on the Afghan National Security Forces, and by dint of that the Afghan people, it’s very hard to see a specific way forward for the negotiated settlement.”

 

Examples of mayhem abound. A NATO report found that between October 1-December 31, Taliban-inspired terror attacks killed 810 civilians and wounded 1,776. Afghan special forces were forced to increase their ground attacks as last year drew to a close. U.S. airstrikes also increased in support of their efforts. On January 17, two female judges were ambushed and shot dead in Kabul. Saturday, January 30, a suicide bomber drove a vehicle into a base for Afghan security forces and blew him- or herself up, along with eight security officers.

 

On a more positive note, only four U.S. servicemen were killed in hostile action in Afghanistan in 2020. Five more died in accidents. The last two U.S. soldiers killed as a result of hostile action were shot by a member of the Afghan forces who turned on them. Sgt. First Class Antonio Rey Rodriguez and Sgt. First Class Javier Jaguar Gutierrez, both died last February 8.

 

Again, you can’t blame Trump for this mess, but you can for his cluelessness. The Taliban is still the Taliban, and still has ties to Al Qaeda. The Afghan government might not be as blood thirsty; but money sticks to corrupt official’s fingers like burrs on a horse’s tail. As the Associated Press notes, “Corruption is rampant…driving a wedge between the government and much of the population, frustrating international donors, and contributing to a poverty level in the country of more than 72%, according to the World Bank.”

 

*

 

Where do we stand on the international stage today? The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, called the Capitol Hill riot a “strong blow” to U.S. democracy. “I could not imagine that something like this was possible in the United States of America,” he said in an interview this week.

 

In the wake of the events on January 6, he told a reporter, “I believe it would be very difficult for the world to see the United States as a symbol of democracy in the world.”

___

 

 

2/2/21: If you are a liberal, like this blogger, or an American with an undamaged frontal lobe, you realize Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has no more business serving in the U.S. House of Representatives than a Golden Retriever.

 

Greene has plenty of nutty theories – lasers from outer space started California forest fires, for example.

 

It’s her special brand of intolerance, however, that make her stand out. And let’s be honest. Golden Retriever’s are sweet-tempered dogs.

 

____________________

 

“The right of personal freedom recedes before the duty to preserve the race.”

 

Adolf Hitler

____________________

 

 

Greene has suggested that those fire-starter lasers were controlled by Jewish bankers, which gives you a hint where she’s been coming from with her conspiracy theories. In 2018, she shared a video on her Facebook page from a Holocaust denier. Need a good reason to build that big border wall Trump always wanted? “Zionist supremacists,” warned the denier, “have schemed to promote immigration and miscegenation.”

 

So, Jews – when not busy zapping trees with lasers – wanted us to mix races? Where have we heard that before? 

Ah, yes! Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Racial purity, the Nazi dictator once insisted, was the root of human progress. 

Individual freedom, he argued, mattered little. “The right of personal freedom recedes before the duty to preserve the race.” When others talked of equal rights, he mocked such nonsense. “There is only one holiest human right, and this right is...to see to it that the blood is preserved pure.”

 

Race-mixing was “the original sin.” It led to creation of monsters – creatures “halfway between ape and man.” 

Sadly, in this country, in the time of Donald J. Trump, Greene’s stock took off with the rise of QAnon in 2016. In the believe-anything world of the modern Republican Party, Greene was a snug fit. 

 

Greene had apparently failed to read the founding document.

When President Trump attacked the four Democratic members of “The Squad,” all by some odd “chance” women of color, and two of them Muslim Americans, Greene was ready. She called the results of the elections in 2018 proof of “an Islamic invasion of our government.” She was Trump in a skirt. 

At one point, Greene argued that every elected official should be required to swear an oath on the Bible and promise to uphold the U.S. Constitution. This was interesting, if for no other reason, than that Greene had apparently failed to read the founding document herself (see: Article VI, clause three.) 

That is: “No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

 

You don’t have to swear an oath; and you don’t need any religious book if you do. You can “affirm” that you will uphold the Constitution and you’re done.

 

Greene proved to be almost as adept at hating individuals and groups as her hero, Donald J. Trump. She attacked survivors of the Parkland high school massacre. She insisted the bloodbath at Sandy Hook had been staged. More recently, she talked to the British racist, Katie Hopkins, who once compared dark-skinned immigrants sneaking into Europe to “cockroaches.” (That sounds like Nazi talk, too.) Greene and Hopkins had a lovely, racist chat, and Greene told her, “I would love to trade you for some of our white people here that have no appreciation for our country.”

 

Not one known for standing up strong in most situations, even Mitch McConnell had had enough. Worried about the viability of the Republican Party in years to come, he made it clear. “Somebody who’s suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11,” Sen. McConnell explained, “that horrifying school shootings were pre-staged, and that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr.’s airplane is not living in reality.” He called Greene’s ideas loony and said she was a “cancer” on the party.

 

Well leave it at that.

Anyone likening human beings to cockroaches is not someone we should be listening to.

___

2/3/21: How insane are some Republicans? This week the Oregon chapter of the GOP passed a resolution saying that the attack on Capitol Hill was a “false flag.” That is, an “operation designed to discredit President Trump, his supporters, and all conservative Republicans,” and provide the “sham motivation to impeach” the god-chosen President Trump.

 

You know the Trump version of the GOP is bonkers when the MyPillow guy shows up on Newsmax, spouts off his usual conspiracy theories and forces the newscaster to walk off the set. You know – because the newscaster realizes if he listens to Mike Lindell talk nonsense, he too could be sued for defamation.

 

Those who know the facts know that Mr. Pillow is being sued and he’s going to get hit upside the head with more than a few legal pillows.

 

 

 POSTSCRIPT: While we clean up the wreckage in Trumpistan, I would encourage you to read a report by Jonathan Swan, a writer for Axios. He describes the “craziest meeting of the Trump presidency.”

 

Another nutty company CEO figures in the story.

 

* 

Proof once again: The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a snow shovel or a syringe. Or a therapist. On February 3, after a snowstorm blanketed Plains Township in Pennsylvania, trouble erupted when two neighbors started shoveling snow off their property. A neighbor accosted them and said they were shoveling their snow onto his land. Angry words followed. Then gunfire. James Spaide, 47, killed James Goy, 50, and Lisa Goy, 48. Then he killed himself. 

The Goy’s sound like fools, themselves, but as ABC reports, after profanities flew, and Mr. Goy threatened Mr. Spaide with a fist, Spaide went inside, grabbed one of his guns, and “allegedly opened fire on the couple, shooting both of them multiple times. Officials said Spaide then went back into his house and retrieved another firearm, which he reportedly used to shoot them again.” 

Six days later, another angry old white guy, George Ulrich, 67, took a gun to a health clinic in Buffalo, Minnesota, and opened fire. One person was killed, four others wounded, three seriously.

 

“We are very familiar with the suspect,” Police Chief Pat Budke told reporters. “There is a history of him being unhappy with health care – with the health care he received,” the chief said. 

Gun sales in 2020 reached new highs, with 39.7 million people completing background checks to purchase pistols, rifles, and shotguns. That would surpass the old yearly record by almost ten million. 

In the early 2000s, the F.B.I. processed under nine million background checks per year. Then, in 2008, the NRA began warning that Barack Obama and the Democrats were going to take away all our guns. Sales permit requests surpassed 14 million in 2009 and kept climbing, to 27.5 million in 2016. The panic to buy guns before all the guns were gone dissipated in 2017, when Donald J. took the helm. Then they rose again, to 28.4 million in 2019, and to a new record last year.

 

From January 1, 2000, to January 1, 2021, Americans filed requests to buy 362,660,000 guns. 

Or more than 1 gun for every 1 person in the land. 

Meanwhile, murder rates in 2020 skyrocketed in America’s cities. President Trump had taken credit when rates fell to a fifty-year low in 2019. Now he blamed “Democratic mayors” for a huge rise in gun killings. Christian Science Monitor notes that Democratic-run cities were in fact hit hard (Madison, Wisconsin, for example, saw a 400% increase, Boston 54%, Memphis 45%). But so were Republican-led cities (Omaha 120%, Lubbock, Texas 100%, Jacksonville 20%).

___

 

 

2/4/21: Do you believe in simplicities? Do you believe government is always the problem and never the solution?

 

Then you are a chump.

 

Today the consulting firm McKinsey and Co. agreed to pay $573 million in damages to more than 40 states. The company had consulted with Purdue Pharma and suggested ways to “turbo-charge” sales of oxycontin, the drug responsible for a huge increase in opioid-related overdose deaths.

___

 

 

2/5/21: The jobs report for January 2021 was released today. Even if we credit Trump with every job added for the month, he goes out not with a bang, or even a whimper, but a moan.

 

Jobs added under President Trump:

 

2017:   1,924,000 (February-December)

2018:   2,314,000

2019:   2,133,000

2020:      469,000 (January-February)

2021:        49,000 (January)

 

Total:  6,889,000 jobs added, counting all the good months of his first and only term in office.

 

Then we count the jobs lost as the coronavirus (which Trump said was only a flu) spread health and hiring havoc: 

-22,362,000 jobs. 

Then we count jobs recovered as businesses began to reopen and the pandemic seemed to die down (May-November of last year): 

+12,648,000. 

Then we subtract jobs lost in December 2020 (that figure is still subject to slight revision in February): - 227,000.

 

The tally of jobs “added” during Reject-President Trump’s watch comes out to …WTF… a negative number. 

Barring slight revisions for his last two months in charge, he created: 

- 3,052,000 jobs.

 

That’s right, Trump fans. No jobs gained in four years, despite a boom market for impeachment defense lawyers. 

The unemployment rate ticks downward in January 2021 to 6.3 percent, or 1.6 points higher than when Obama left office. 

The Labor Participation Rate fell to its lowest point ever, at 61.4 percent, again, lower by 1.4 points than on the day Trump took the oath of office – which he also promptly started to ignore. According to one estimate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics more than 4,000,000 Americans dropped out of the labor force during 2020. 

Last, but not least, if you are a coal miner, Trump’s brilliant leadership in the imaginary “War on Coal” saw employment in the coal mines drop from 50,900 to 42,400 to start President Biden off. 

A grim picture, overall.

___ 

 

2/6/21: One year ago today, the U.S. suffered its first known death from COVID-19. The toll now stands at 

489,463 dead.

 

*

____________________ 

“Why not just say we’re not going to accept the results of this election? It’s outrageous.” 

Lou Dobbs, Fox Business

____________________ 

 

IN OTHER NEWS, longtime Trump suck-up Lou Dobbs has been canned by Fox News. The top-rated host on the Fox Business channel ran into trouble when he claimed, with 100,000 already dead from COVID-19, that President Trump was “arguably the greatest president in our history.” 

Okay, no, that wasn’t it. 

How about when he said Trump was setting a standard for presidential stamina “that most mortals won’t be able to meet?” 

Or his prediction that Trump would be “unbeatable at the polls?” 

Nope. 

Well, then, perhaps it was too much when Dobbs fulminated nightly about how the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. Was Fox Business worried, for example, when Dobbs gave listeners the wrong idea on November 14?  “You know, the president doesn’t want a statue erected to him,” Lou observed. “What he wants is a free and fair election and honest results.”

 

“What I’d like to know,” Dobbs fumed, “is what in the hell is the Republican Party doing to defend and to, I mean — why not just say we’re not going to accept the results of this election? It’s outrageous.”

 

No. Fox still did not care.

 

Was Fox worried when Dobbs said repeatedly that the election was rigged and named names in the rigging? The Smartmatic company, he claimed, had screwed with the software in voting machines and helped steer millions of votes for Trump to Joe Biden. God damn it! Lou was pissed! His guests were pissed. His viewers were even more pissed. Fox was not worried.

 

Then something odd happened. Lawyers representing President Trump filed dozens of legal challenges to the election results, repeatedly claiming the voting machines were rigged. But they couldn’t present any evidence that judges considered credible. Finally, Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems, both repeatedly accused by Dobbs and others of having rigged the machines decided to sue.

 

Claim: Defamation. Damages sought: $2.7 billion.

 

Suddenly, Fox cared.

 

Also named in the suit: Fox Corporation, and two additional Fox News hosts, Maria Bartiromo and Judge Jeanine Pirro. (See: 1/26/21, where Rudy Giuliani also gets sued for the same reasons.)

___ 

 

2/7/21: Remember when Rejected-President Don said he was going to work out so many great trade deals that we’d all get sick of winning and start vomiting? 

The final numbers, except for January, are in for his presidency. In President Obama’s last year in office, that “loser” couldn’t work any deal-making magic at all. The trade deficit in goods and services was $481 billion. 

Then came Trump! And we did get sick of…what the hell…The deficit in 2020 rose to $679 billion. 

That means when we consider all the trade deals Reject Don worked out, and all the magic he had in his orange fingertips, the deficit grew by: 

41.2%.

 

That’s right, Trump fans. It got worse.

Trump fan reacts to the news.

 

* 

Speaking of getting worse: It can be amazing to see how many members of Team Trump like to spend their free time attacking other members of Team Trump, who they believe have proven insufficiently loyal. Today, former White House aide Peter Navarro took a whack at former Attorney General Bill Barr, citing Barr’s failures to investigate all of Rejected-President Trump’s political enemies and push forward his agenda in the dying days of his presidency. 

Navarro labels Barr as Joe Biden’s “first attorney general.” He insists Barr was part of a “deep state coup” to bring down the Orange God.

___ 

 

2/8/21: Has President Biden insulted any opponent, reporter, random citizen or entire racial or religious group this week? Nope. 

It’s a refreshing change. 

Meanwhile, the stock market is going up, which Rejected-President Trump warned would not, could not, happen. If Biden were elected, Donald boldly predicted, “the stock market will crash.” 

The Dow-Jones stood at 28,323 on Friday, November 6, 2020. The next day, the election was called by almost every news outlet and normal human being, in favor of Joseph R. Biden Jr. 

When the markets opened again on Monday, November 9, investors panicked. The socialists were coming for their bank accounts. 

The Dow rose 835 points on the day.

 

At the close this afternoon, the Dow finished at 31,148. So, using the Trump Rule,ˆˆ where you claim any stock market gains even while your predecessor is in office, as he did in 2016, the Dow is up a shade under 10% thanks to Uncle Joe. 

Call it the Biden Bump!

 

* 

On a grimmer note,  Americans keep dying from COVID-19, which RPT also said would never happen. 

Fortunately, new cases of the coronavirus are finally falling. According to CDC, we had only 86,706 new cases today. It’s still a fearsome number, but down by two-thirds in recent weeks. 

The death toll is still steep, and has been for months. Deaths recorded in the U.S. so far this month: 

2/1:  1,876

2/2:  3,433

2/3:  3,756

2/4:  5,189

2/5:  3,553

2/6:  2,820

2/7:  1,455

2/8:  1,622

 

Remember when Rush Limbaugh said, don’t worry, this virus is the same as a “common cold?” 

That’s how you won the Presidential Medal of Freedom under now-Rejected-President Trump.

 

* 

In other news, now ousted White House resident, Donald J. Trump, has helped manage to get a bunch of right-wing idiots sued. 

Day in, day out, since the election, Trump has claimed that a second term was stolen just inches from his fingertips. By rigged voting machines. And, lo, his sycophants did agree. Rudy Giuliani agreed. Rudy was sued. Lou Dobbs agreed. Lou got sued; plus, the Fox Business Network kicked him off the air. The MyPillow guy said the machines were rigged. When he tried to say it again, on Newsmax, the host for the right-wing station walked off the set mid-show. He didn’t want to get sued. Sidney Powell, and Maria Bartiromo and Judge Jeanine Pirro all talked up the “rigged machines” tale. Sidney got sued. Maria got sued. Judge Jeanine got sued too. 

Fox News got sued along with them, for $2.7 billion.

 

Who was doing all this suing? Two plaintiffs. Smartmatic, a voter technology company, was one. Dominion Voting Systems was the other. 

More lawsuits, they claim, are “imminent.” The MyPillow fool, Mike Lindell, is definitely going to get hit in a legal pillow fight soon. 

Fox News and other purveyors of the “rigged machines” myth are clearly worried; and if anyone knows “getting sued,” it’s Fox News. Think: Bill O’Reilly and sexual harassment; and Roger Ailes, and more sexual harassment. And Lou Dobbs (again) and Sean Hannity, too. 

The last two helped peddle the conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton had a young staffer named Seth Rich bumped off after he – not the Russians – leaked her emails during the summer of 2016. Hannity had so much fun pushing the theory that he and his guests pushed it, on TV and radio, several days in a row. The story they were selling, however, quickly fell apart. Police in Washington D.C., where the young staffer was murdered, announced there is “nothing that we can find that any of this is accurate.” A source Fox News relied on said he had seen an F.B.I report about Rich and his dealings with Wikileaks, the outlet that broke the email story. The F.B.I. blew up that tall tale, after searching its investigative reports, and finding nothing of import.

 

So Joel and Mary Rich, the murder victim’s parents decided to sue. According to The New York Times, Fox News agreed to pay “millions of dollars” to put the case to bed. For some odd reason, the case was settled in October 2020; but one provision of the settlement was that the agreement could not be announced until after the November 3 election. Because. You know. 

Fox News.

 

BONUS NUTS: You don’t have to be a liberal blogger to think Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is bonkers. Sen. Todd C. Young (R-Ind.) went on the record today, calling her “nutty,” and “an embarrassment to our party.” 

Sen. John Thune, speaking in more general terms, warned that House Republicans faced a simple choice: “Do they want to be the party of limited government…or do they want to be the party of conspiracy theories and QAnon?” 

Rep. Matt Gaetz came to Rep. Greene’s defense, which is kind of like Clyde backing up Bonnie. 

ˆˆThe Trump Rule was always pretty much BS; and the market often goes up or down for reasons having little to do with presidents. 

It’s fun to mock Reject Don, though.

___ 

 

2/9/21: Let the impeachment begin! The preliminaries are complete. Senate Majority Leader-at-the-Time Mitch McConnell suggested that Donald Trump incited the attack on Capitol Hill, and he thought impeachment might be a good idea. Then he decided it wasn’t. Democrats sent the Reject-President a letter asking him to come testify at his trial. Don said – as he also said during the Mueller investigation – Nah. No thanks. Not gonna happen. 

Then most Republican senators decided that the best way to handle the mess was to pretend they couldn’t do anything about it. Impeachment? Of a person no longer in office? Why that would be unconstitutional! 

So, let’s look at two clauses in the U.S. Constitution that apply. First, Article II, Section 4: 

____________________ 

“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

____________________ 

 

The first time Trump was impeached, Republicans decided that having the President of the United States pressure the President of Ukraine to find dirt on Hunter and Joe Biden (or else, no military aid for Ukraine) was not a “high Crime” or “Misdemeanor.” It was simply Trump putting his interests first and U.S. national security interests second. Since Mitch McConnell was in control of the Senate at the time, it was decided that no witnesses would be necessary. 

This time, the clause that may pertain (since the voters have already “removed” Trump from office) may be Article I, Section 3, Clause 7: 

____________________ 

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

____________________

 

 

So, for example, had Reject Don shot and killed a CNN reporter (which we all know he would have loved to have done), he could have been impeached, but the Senate could have done no more than remove him from office. He could, however, have faced trial for murder in the courts. 

(Unless, Trump had pardoned himself, which he insisted he could.)

 

Clearly, then, the Founding Fathers believed that a person impeached could be punished after leaving office. 

That includes being barred from holding any position of trust in the U.S. government in the future.

 

* 

“Trump is the victim of the never ending hate fueled witch hunt.” 

In any case, today is Impeachment Day! Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is up bright and early, tweeting in defense of poor, aggrieved Donald J. Trump. 

Which means? 

Stupidity, and lots of it. 

First, Greene insisted (again) that Trump couldn’t have stirred up the rioters on January 6, because the rioters weren’t Trump supporters. 

“If the #Jan6 organizers were Trump supporters,” she wondered, “then why did they attack us while we were objecting to electoral college votes for Joe Biden? The attack RUINED our objection that we spent weeks preparing for, which devastated our efforts on behalf of Trump and his voters.” 

Okay: That’s an easy one. The rioters didn’t think you had the votes in Congress to stop the certification. Trump said Vice President Pence had screwed him. So? Time to riot! (See, for example: 2/11/21.) 

(Cue the “Hang Mike Pence” chants.)

 

Greene then tweeted about being scared, herself, during the riot and how thankful she was that GOP colleagues prepared to defend the House floor, whereas we can assume she thought Democrats were cowards because they left the House chamber. I mean, come on! Just because rioters had made it clear they wanted to kill Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. 

Which, of course, Greene had once suggested might be a good idea. 

Greene then insisted that President Trump could not be blamed for the attack. Instead, he was a victim. “The Capitol attack was planned and organized, NOT incited in the moment by President Trump, and NO Republican Member was involved,” she insisted. “We were ALL victims that day. And once again, Trump is the victim of the never ending hate fueled witch hunt.” 

There was a mob, however. And Greene made it clear she hated every diabolical member of that mob. 

Because they attacked with microphones, notebooks, and pencils. “This impeachment trial [is] a circus for the Democrat media mob to entertain the masses that they have brainwashed and addicted to hate,” she tweeted, “so they don’t see the Dem policies being rapidly forced into place that are destroying our lives, stealing our freedoms, and putting America last.” 

 

*

 

The presentation of cases for and against impeachment fills the afternoon. The Democrats lay out a strong argument, and present video evidence of a compelling sort. Trump’s lawyers agree. The rioters were horrible, despicable, and contemptable. Everyone was shocked, outraged, and horrified.

 

Still, Trump’s defense team insists you can’t impeach him anymore, because he’s already out of office, and the fact he is accused of impeachable offenses while he was in office no longer matters.

 

People died in the riot. Scores of police officers were injured, many of them badly. The electoral process was nearly overturned.

 

Doesn’t matter.

 

Trump is hunkered down at his safe spot in Mar-a-Lago.

___

 

 

2/12/21: Today, Trump’s defense team has a chance to lay out their case for why the now Reject-President should not be impeached.

 

 

“Mary Had a Little Lamb”

 

It’s a foregone conclusion that not enough GOP senators will vote to convict Donald John Trump, so that if his team’s entire argument involved reciting “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and then sat down, that would suffice.

 

Sen. Ted Cruz and the other craven GOP cowards would declare themselves convinced. Mary did have a lamb, and its fleece was white as snow.

 

Vote to acquit!

 

*

 

We also learn that Team Trump was less than honest back in October when President Trump was infected with coronavirus.

 

Relying on four sources, The New York Times notes that the president was much sicker than doctors and aides admitted at the time. Two sources told the Times there had been discussion about putting the president on a ventilator. His blood oxygen level dipped into the 80s at one point, a dangerous level.

 

(This blogger’s blood level dropped to 89 when he was infected in November. His daughter, a nurse practitioner trained at Yale, insisted that unless it rose again the following day, he would have to report to a hospital for a chest X-ray and perhaps a stay.)

 

Twice, while still at the White House, Trump was given oxygen. He was also cleared to receive emergency doses of a drug called Regeneron, not then available to ordinary Americans.

 

When he continued to display dangerous symptoms, he was taken to Walter Reed Medical Center. There “he began a regimen for a steroid, dexamethasone, which is usually recommended only for Covid-19 patients who have severe or critical forms of the disease, often those who need mechanical ventilation or supplemental oxygen.”

 

Yet, when he returned to the White House, he sent out exactly the wrong signal to the American people. He told us “don’t be afraid” of the virus. He said he felt better “than twenty years ago.” As always, it was all about him. “And now I’m better and maybe I’m immune, I don’t know,” he said. “But don’t let it dominate your lives.” He wanted us all to get out and shop and spend and keep the economy rolling and insure he served a second term. 

By chance, on that Monday, October 5, only 361 Americans would be reported dead from COVID-19. 

There had been worse days already, with 1,158 succumbing on September 23; but Trump felt fine. And that was enough for the President of the United States to say, “Don’t be afraid.” 

On October 16, the U.S. lost another 1,001 persons to the virus. On November 19, the death toll hit 2,045. On December 9, we hit 3,411. On January 7, the number of Americans who should have been afraid, and died, topped 4,000. Had the president been more open about his own close call, undoubtedly more Americans would have taken the threat seriously.

 

When Trump told us not to be afraid, Kristin Urquiza, who had lost her father to the coronavirus, responded on Twitter. “At this point, “she wrote, “the only thing we should be afraid of is you.” 

She was right, of course. 

(We will have to cover the impeachment in detail in a separate post; the story is too massive.)

___ 

 

2/13/21: Democratic House managers complete their case for impeachment of President Trump. 

Impartial “jurors” like Sen. Lindsey Graham have already shown their true selves by conversing with Trump’s defense team and offering suggestions on how to win an acquittal vote. 

Michael van der Veen, the lead defense lawyer for the president, insists that Democrats hate Trump and that’s the only reason they impeached him again. 

What about the riot?

 

He admits that it was a “violent insurrection,” and the rioters should be punished to the “full extent of the law.” But no, no, no. Trump didn’t incite them. In fact, van der Veen’s not even sure the rioters were Trump fans. 

Democrats consider calling witnesses to determine what Trump knew, in the hours the rioters were rampaging, as if anyone with a TV set, an internet connection or phone, and a passing interest couldn’t tell by turning on Fox News or CNN or even C-SPAN, if nothing else. 

Republicans just want to get the trial over with. When it comes time for a vote, it’s 57 in favor of impeachment, including seven Republicans, 43 against.

___ 

 

2/14/21: Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump spend Valentine’s Day tweet-celebrating their dad’s “great win” in his second impeachment trial. 

A few of the senators who voted to acquit, quickly make it clear. They did so while pinching their nostrils, or on the lame pretense that Trump could no longer be impeached once he was out of office. 

____________________ 

“The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president.” 

Sen. Mitch McConnell

____________________ 

 

Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is strongest in condemnation, albeit weakest in performance: 

There’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking. No question about it. The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president. And having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.”

 

This was an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories orchestrated by the outgoing president, who seemed determined to either overturn the voters’ decision or else torch our institutions on the way out.

 

Sen. Shelly Moore Capito emphasized that her vote was “solely” on the constitutional question, while adding: “The actions and reactions of President Trump were disgraceful, and history will judge him harshly.” 

My own Ohio senator, Rob Portman, explained: “I have said that what President Trump did that day was inexcusable because in his speech he encouraged the mob, and that he bears some responsibility for the tragic violence that occurred.” 

Sen. Dan Sullivan: “I condemn former president Trump’s poor judgment in calling a rally on that day, and his actions and inactions when it turned into a riot. His blatant disregard for his own Vice President, Mike Pence, who was fulfilling his constitutional duty at the Capitol, infuriates me.” 

John Thune: “My vote to acquit should not be viewed as exoneration for his conduct on January 6, 2021, or in the days and weeks leading up to it. What former president Trump did to undermine faith in our election system and disrupt the peaceful transfer of power is inexcusable.”

 

You could argue that those five Republican senators could have easily, and should have surely voted to convict. 

A second group of Republicans also found fault with Trump’s behavior in the wake of the November 3 election: 

Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota admitted, “The Jan. 6 attacks on the Capitol were appalling, and President Trump’s remarks were reckless, but based on the evidence presented in the trial, he did not commit an impeachable offense.” 

So he voted to acquit. 

Sen. Charles E. Grassley said House managers failed to prove Trump incited the riot. Still, “This does not excuse President Trump’s conduct on and around January 6 of this year.” 

(So, Trump did incite the riot? Or he didn’t?) 

 

Sen. Tom Cotton is a wimp. 

Sen. Tom Cotton, who dreams nightly about running for president in 2024, offered a notably wimpy response: “It was ill-advised to have a large rally on the day that Congress was meeting to certify electors after so much contentious litigation and controversy about the election results.” 

Yes, I think the family of Officer Sicknick who was killed by rioters will agree that it was “ill-advised” to stir up thousands to storm the Capitol Building. 

(Disgusted by the comments of people like Rep. Greene, that the rioters on January 6 were really not Trump supporters, I began looking up the records of the people who have faced arrest. As of September 1, I have examined information on just a little over 500 cases. As anyone with a brain might have guessed, these people were Trump supporters and proud to say.)

___ 

 

2/15/21: A powerful winter storm slams Texas and large swaths of the Great Plains. Temperatures plunge. Numbskulls insist that a few record-cold days prove climate change is a hoax. 

Someone should point them to the list of the ten hottest years recorded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for help. 

One of the numbest skulls belongs to first-term Republican congresswoman, Rep. Lauren Boebert. With winter weather slamming the Plains, she figures out what has happened, tweeting: 

Rolling blackouts from ND to TX have turned into lengthy power outages in freezing conditions.

 

Biden needs to lift his oil & gas ban as we need reliable energy sources.

 

The Green New Deal was just proven unsustainable as renewables are clearly unreliable.

 

This is particularly dumb, even for Boebert, who habitually sounds dumb, because: 

A.    Zero elements of the Green New Deal have been enacted.

B.     She might just as well have blamed the outages on Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

C.    Heavy snow and ice storms like the one that just hit tend to knock out power lines.

D.   Downed lines are the problem. The current outages have little to do with how much power is available.

E.     The U.S. achieved “energy independence,” broadly defined, a few years ago. So we don’t lack energy.

F.     We became a net exporter of natural gas in 2017.

G.    President Trump (speaking of numbskulls) bragged in  2019 about his success in this regard, saying, “We are independent and we do not need Middle East oil.”

 

In scrolling through Twitter, however, I discover that Texas Sen. John Cornyn sounds equally numb in the cranium. 

His tweet on the storm reads: “Rolling blackouts in Texas and spiking gas and power prices amid a cold snap show the folly of eliminating natural gas – and coal.” 

In the real world, where this blogger tries to live, it is factually correct to say that no one has eliminated natural gas production at all; plus, coal production has fallen because prices for natural gas and even wind and solar have dropped below the cost of mining coal. So the blackouts in Texas have nothing to do with what President Biden or the Democrats might eventually do. (See: 2/24/21.) 

 

POSTSCRIPT: You may recall President Trump’s promise to end the “War on Coal” and save tens of thousands of coal mining jobs. 

During his four years in office, the number of jobs in the mines continued to decline. Coal production was lower in 2019 than in any year since 1978. This decline was not the fault of Mr. Trump. Then again, neither was the decline under his predecessor, although Trump said it was.

 

Remember when Trump said windmills caused cancer? 

___

 2/17/21: One of the great failures of Donald J. Trump relates to his incompetence in handling the growing federal debt. 

Last week, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the deficit for Fiscal Year 2021 would hit $2.3, without additional stimulus spending. 

So, we’re going to give the Trumpster a break. Normally, on this blog, we would put all of FY 2021 on his tab since most policies are already set when a new president comes into office. 

So, for example, we counted all deficit spending in FY 2017 to President Obama’s “account.” 

That means we can now total up Trump’s deficits, and we won’t count any new spending that may occur as Biden policies kick into place. 

FY 2018:  $   779,000,000,000

FY 2019:  $1,004,000,000,000

FY 2020:  $3,140,000,000,000

FY 2021:  $2,300,000,000,000

 

Even worse, the federal deficit is expected to swell to more than $35 trillion in 2031, the largest debt-to-GDP ratio in U.S. history. 

And that’s essentially before Biden blows his nose.

___

  

2/18/21: There was a time, not so long ago, that now Rejected-President Trump liked to claim credit for every positive development that occurred in this country, if not around the world. 

For example, on January 13, last year, he was crowing because deaths from cancer had fallen 2.2% from 2016 to 2017. 

Dr. Don immediately took credit. “U.S. Cancer Death Rate Lowest In Recorded History!” he tweeted. “A lot of good news coming out of this Administration.” 

Now we should note, in the same spirit, giving Trump credit for every development in regard to U.S. health outcomes. In the first six months of 2020, life expectancy in the U.S. dropped by more than a year, to 77.8 years for all Americans. That was the lowest mark since 2006.

Using Dr. Don’s own standard, to claim credit for how the U.S. health care system does, he now becomes “Doctor Death.”  

 * 

The decline is likely to be accelerate once the full numbers for last year and the early months of 2021 are compiled. As of February 16, the CDC reports that 486,466 Americans have succumbed after being infected with the coronavirus. 

(CDC keeps adjusting the numbers, and I started adjusting them, as well. From here on, I will keep the numbers I posted originally, and catch any adjustments as we give totals and go along.) 

2/9:    2,806

2/10:  3,645

2/11:  3,589

2/12:  5,520

2/13:  3,317

2/14:  1,317

2/15:  1,217

2/16:  1,396

 

That brings the February total, so far, to 46,511. 

Too bad Trump can’t still tweet about how COVID-19 is going away, and not to sweat. It’s just another flu.

POSTSCRIPT: The Department of Justice announces that Imaad Zuberi, accused of a multiplicity of crimes, including funneling foreign money to the Trump Inaugural Committee, and then having plead guilty, has been sentenced. 

He will spend a maximum of twelve years in jail, pay a fine of $1.75 million, and pay $15.7 million in restitution. 

Playing off connections with members of Team Trump, Zuberi had turned selling influence to foreigners and foreign nations into a lucrative, albeit illegal business. 

(See also: Thomas Barrack, 7/21/21.)

___ 

 

2/23/21: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that Congress may indeed sneak a peek at Loser Don’s taxes. 

____________________ 

“That’s fascism, not justice - and that is exactly what they are trying to do with respect to me, except that the people of our Country won’t stand for it.” 

Loser Don

____________________

  

Rejected-President Trump reacts as only he can. In an email statement so nutty, we provide it (annotated) in full below, he howls: 

This investigation is a continuation of the greatest political Witch Hunt in the history of our Country, whether it was the never ending $32 million Mueller hoax, which already investigated everything that could possibly be investigated, “Russia Russia Russia,” where there was a finding of “No Collusion,” or two ridiculous “Crazy Nancy” inspired impeachment attempts where I was found NOT GUILTY. It just never ends!

 

At least a dozen members of the Trump 2016 campaign were convicted of lying about contacts with Russians. They include Paul Manafort and Roger Stone, both of whom Trump for some reason pardoned. Don Jr. also met with Russians, then “forgot” the meeting for over a year, until the free press broke the story. 

So now, for more than two years, New York City has been looking at almost every transaction I’ve ever done, including seeking tax returns which were done by among the biggest and most prestigious law and accounting firms in the U.S. The Tea Party was treated far better by the IRS than Donald Trump. The Supreme Court never should have let this “fishing expedition” happen, but they did. This is something which has never happened to a President before, it is all Democrat-inspired in a totally Democrat location, New York City and State, completely controlled and dominated by a heavily reported enemy of mine, Governor Andrew Cuomo. These are attacks by Democrats willing to do anything to stop the almost 75 million people (the most votes, by far, ever gotten by a sitting president) who voted for me in the election – an election which many people, and experts, feel that I won. I agree!

 

The U.S. Supreme Court is not controlled by Democrats; so Trump should quit whining. And he already lucked out once, after being named an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the same case that sent his personal lawyer Michael Cohen to prison. 

Plus, any numbskull should be able to figure out that if Trump is cheating on his taxes, that doesn’t have anything to do with stopping all the people who voted for him in the last election. They got to vote. 

That ship has sailed. 

The new phenomenon of “headhunting” prosecutors and AGs – who try to take down their political opponents using the law as a weapon – is a threat to the very foundation of our liberty. That’s what is done in third world countries. Even worse are those who run for prosecutorial or attorney general offices in far-left states and jurisdictions pledging to take out a political opponent. That’s fascism, not justice – and that is exactly what they are trying to do with respect to me, except that the people of our Country won’t stand for it.

 

Really? The guy whose rallies consistently featured chants of, “Lock her up!” and “Lock him up!” is going to complain about headhunting prosecutors? 

In the meantime, murders and violent crime are up in New York City by record numbers, and nothing is done about it. Our elected officials don’t care. All they focus on is the persecution of President Donald J. Trump.

 

I will fight on, just as I have, for the last five years (even before I was successfully elected), despite all of the election crimes that were committed against me. We will win!

 

I think we can assume that on his tombstone, someday, Trump will include the line, “I won the 2020 election by millions of votes.” 

He lost because turnout across the country was high, and because Joe Biden got 81.3 million votes, which is more than the 74.2 million Trump received. (Trump can’t even get the number of votes he received right.)

 

* 

Right-wing media types are so desperate for ways to disparage the new president that they have been forced to insult one of the Biden family’s dogs. Greg Kelly, a host on Newsmax TV, decided that Champ, a 12-year-old German Shepard looked dirty, and uncared for, and “like a junkyard dog.” 

 

Biden’s dog is terrible! His marriage sucks! 

He didn’t mention the Biden’s other dog, Major, the first rescue animal ever to live in the White House. Still, he wanted viewers to believe Joe and Jill Biden were neglectful owners and probably deserved to be impeached. 

Since Newsmax beat him to the puppy punch, Tucker Carlson realized he would have to go even lower to make his point – that Joe Biden was a terrible president and a loathsome human being – and focus on the Biden’s 44-year-long marriage. Apparently, Tuck was bummed because the media couldn’t “get enough of Joe & Jill’s love story,” as the banner headline for his show read. 

Scoffing at the idea of a loving couple in the White House, he explained: “The Bidens’ affection is totally real. It’s in no way part of a slick PR campaign devised by cynical consultants determined to hide the president’s senility by misdirection,” Carlson claimed cynically. With a smirk on his face (pretty much one of only two expressions that ever register on Carlson’s smarmy mug), he added, “No, not at all. Their love is as real as climate change.”

 

Ha, douche bag! Both NASA and NOAA believe that climate change is real. So, Tuck, once again you prove you are an idiot; and watching your show makes viewers dumber every single night. 

As NASA’s own website clearly says, “Scientific evidence for warming of the climate is unequivocal.” 

And the probability is 95% or greater that the warming is human-caused. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: Commenting on another U.S. Supreme Court decision, terminating his last-ditch challenges to the 2020 election result, Trump insisted again that he was the true winner of the contest. He did not wish to say, exactly, how victory was stolen from him, however, because the companies that his toadies insisted had rigged the vote have been suing those toadies left and right. 

Latest to be called to account: Mike Lindell, of MyPillow-right-wing-nut-send-in-the-troops-to-change-the-election results infamy. Lindell is looking at a damage suit for $1.3 billion. But he’s so delusional, he insists he has been hoping he’d be sued, so he can prove in court how right he has been all along.

___ 

 

2/24/21: New research from Germany supports the idea that climate change is here and that many changes are going to be problematic. 

According to a study in the journal Frontiers in Allergy (light reading for any bathroom) certain pollen species have begun their seasons as much as two days earlier, per year, over the last three decades. 

This meshes with studies in the U.S. and Canada, which indicate that the pollen season has been extended by as much as twenty days over the same period. Or, as Dr. Rita Kachru, a specialist at UCLA Health in California explained, pollen season “used to start in March, now we’re finding it’s starting in mid-February and it can go all the way to May. That spring season, which is predominantly tree pollen, often will go even longer. It’ll go to even early June.”

 

* 

A costly, deregulated power system in Texas. 

The Wall Street Journal reports that Texas consumers have paid an extra $28 billion in the last twenty years, for electricity supplied to homes and businesses under the deregulated system preferred in that state. 

Then, when a storm knocked out much of the state’s power grid, the companies and politicians tried to blame the failure on Democrats and the Green New Deal. 

They didn’t offer to give the extra $28 billion back, however.

___

  

2/25/21: Cleanup on Aisle 45 continues. If you remember the “kids in cages” days, when Team Trump decided to separate young children from their families, as those families tried to sneak across the border, the previous administration soon woke up to two terrible realizations. First, most people with beating hearts believed this was an inhumane policy. Second, when Team Trump was forced to reverse course, the cruel geniuses responsible for the separations were unable to find many of the parents and return at least 628 children. It’s hard to lose that many parents, but President Trump and his team of soulless incompetents managed to do so. 

President Biden has established a task force to work, specifically on reuniting the children with their lost parents. 

As of today, the number still not returned has dropped to 506.

 

* 

McConnell now says he would back Trump in 2024. 

Even Fox News is surprised. Today, Sen. Mitch McConnell makes it clear. He can’t quit Donald J. Trump. 

In a breathtaking turnabout, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday on Fox News that he would “absolutely” back Donald Trump for president in 2024 if he becomes the Republican Party’s nominee.

 

The startling support came less than two weeks after McConnell’s angry slam of the former president as “practically and morally responsible” for inciting last month’s deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol. “There’s no question,” McConnell said. “The people that stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president.” He called Trump’s actions “a disgraceful dereliction of duty.”

 

So. Sure. Let’s give him a chance to finish the job. Let’s elect Trump to be the 47^th president and dismantle democracy.

 

* 

CDC figures show that the United States passed the 500,000 mark for deaths from COVID-19 on Tuesday. As of February 23, 501,181 lives had been lost to the disease Rejected-President Trump once called “just a flu.” 

Daily death tolls since we last checked: 

2/17:  2,560

2/18:  2,384

2/19:  2,507

2/20:  2,075

2/21:  1,238

2/22:  1,571

2/23:  2,130

2/24:  2,407

2/25:  3,240

The toll for the month, to this point, is 66,623 dead.

___ 

 

2/26/21: One year ago today, now Reject-President Trump reported that the U.S. had only fifteen cases of COVID-19 and no one had died. 

He said we were “headed for zero” soon. 

Naturally, he bragged about what an awesome job he and his administration (but mostly just he) were doing handling the annoying new kind of flu. 

As of today, the U.S. leads the world by a margin of more than 2-1 in cases, over the next most infected nation (India) or the third (Brazil). According to CDC, we had racked up 28,285,554 cases. 

Not headed for zero at all. 

We also led the world, by a wide and depressing margin in most persons killed by the coronavirus, and that despite conservatives’ claims to have the best medical system in the world (not counting Obamacare). 

We also have the most expensive care of any industrial nation; and still, CDC notes, a total of 508,949 Americans have died. Still, many Trump fans continue to ignore the danger. (See: 2/27/21.)

 

* 

We also seem to be raising a healthy crop of right-wing nuts (see: 3/2/21). Ryan Holzer, an avowed white supremacist, is sentenced to 19 ½ years in prison for plotting to blow up a Pueblo, Colorado synagogue. 

 

FUN FACT: United Airlines has agreed to pay a $49 million fine for scamming the United States Postal Service. 

No cop chokes out any United Airlines’ executive, until they die, as happened with Eric Garner. The African American gentleman died after police tried to arrest him for selling single cigarettes out of packs without tax stamps. 

 

FUN FACT #2: In 2019, Congress passed a law, ordering the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to release a report on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist for the Washington Post. 

Everyone with any brains understood that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman must have approved the killing, although the killers may have come up with the idea of cutting up their victim with a bone saw on their own. 

The Trump administration ignored the law. And we know the president never once considered human rights when shaping U.S. relations with other countries. He didn’t want to make the Crown Prince look bad, when he and MBS were so good at working out deals. 

The long-suppressed report came out today. And you’ll never guess. U.S. intelligence can now officially say: “We assess that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.”

___ 

 

2/27/21: Cleanup on Aisle 45 may turn out to be harder than at first it appeared. At the Conservative Political Action Convention this week, the nuts were falling from all kinds of trees. Pecans. Walnuts. 

Anti-Semites for sure. 

____________________ 

“Denying truth, denying fact, denying reality.” 

Rep. Mickey Edwards, on the current state of the Republican Party

____________________ 

 

We even had a “golden calf” sighting, which you might think would freak the Christian Evangelicals out. 

First, the anti-Semites (including an alarming percentage of the QAnon nuts). The right-wing media star Young Pharaoh got the axe even before he could appear, after social media posts showed he had labeled Judaism a “complete lie” and a religion “made up for political gain.” Ironically, conservatives at CPAC were going to discuss, among other topics, left-wing “cancel culture.” Now they had to cancel one of their own. Young Pharaoh responded, in a Trump-like, all-caps post that he still did not “BELIEVE IN THE VALIDITY” of Judaism. 

All the kooks came out to play. You had Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, believer in Jewish banker-controlled lasers firing at redwood trees from outer space. Alex Berenson, famous for insisting that the threat of COVID-19 was overblown (see: 2/26/21), was a featured speaker. In the spirit of Trumpian conservatism, when reminded to wear masks, many in attendance jeered and hacked up phlegm in sixteen compass directions. Representatives Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs of Arizona, both organizers of the ill-fated “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6, were members of important panels. Even better, there was much gnashing of teeth (and plenty of threats of civil war) in regard to the imaginary theft of the November election. 

I think Trump spoke, as well. To be honest, I don’t care. The level of toxic stupidity that prevailed at CPAC was epitomized when someone rolled in a golden image of the Rejected-President himself.  

 

 

The former chair of CPAC, Rep. Mickey Edwards, offered up this obituary for the GOP that once there was. As he explained to CNN:

 

The Republican party really no longer stands for any kind of principles, conservative or otherwise. The party seems now to be completely following the lead of one man wherever he goes, which is the definition of a cult. Now all that matters is, “Trump is for this, we’re for this.” And that includes denying truth, denying fact, denying reality. It’s such a disconnect from what’s really happened in the world.

 

 

POSTSCRIPT: The Nebraska Republican Party voted today to express displeasure with U.S. Senator Ben Sasse. Thirteen grievances were included in a resolution, including supporting Trump’s impeachment, but also failing “to take any meaningful action” to repeal and replace Obamacare.

 

This is surprising, since Trump and the rest of his sycophant pals had four years to come up with their own healthcare plan.

 

And never did.

 

An early draft of a proposed censure vote, which was later withdrawn also complained that Sen. Sasse “has persistently engaged in public acts of ridicule and calumny against President Donald J. Trump.” 

 

Again, rather ironic – since ridicule and calumny were just about the only tools in Trump’s toolbox for the last five years.

___ 

 

3/2/21: F.B.I. Director Christopher Wray testifies before Congress. He calls the attack on Capitol Hill on January 6 “domestic terrorism.” When Republican lawmakers try to hint at the possibility that left-wing types were really to blame, Director Wray says, in the tone you might use to tell a needy girlfriend that it’s over, that there is “no evidence” Antifa played any role. 

____________________

 “Tolerating it would make a mockery of our nation’s rule of law.” 

F.B.I. Director Christopher Wray

____________________ 

 

“I was appalled that you, our country’s elected leaders were victimized right here in these very halls,” Wray continued. “That attack, that siege was criminal behavior, plain and simple and is behavior that we, the FBI view as domestic terrorism. It’s got no place in our democracy and tolerating it would make a mockery of our nation’s rule of law.” 

Pressed for more detail, he said most of the attackers could be categorized as militia extremists, including some the F.B.I. would place in the “racially motivated extremist bucket.”

___

  

3/5/21: I woke up late today, tugged at the curtain and peaked outside to see if Trump fans were partying in the Glendale streets. The sun was shining gloriously; but revelers were absent. 

I stayed up late last night, myself, waiting for Donald J. Trump to come riding back on a golden moonbeam. The QAnon folks promised he would come again, like Jesus, only fatter, and without the positive message for humankind. 

According to “Q,” Trump was going to return on March 4, the old date for presidential inaugurations. 

____________________ 

Trump will not be returning in the nick of time to save Mr. Potato Head’s potato penis.

____________________ 

 

So I kept vigil till midnight. Nothing. I thought maybe “Q” meant Pacific Coast Time. I drank coffee and waited until 3 a.m. here in Ohio. 

More nothing. 

I thought: Well, maybe “Q” meant Hawaiian time…or American Samoa time…but even the coffee failed. 

I drifted off to sleep.

 

* 

Now, it’s morning, on March 5, and the QAnon believers have got to be feeling glum. Joe is still in the White House. He didn’t spontaneously combust. 

That means America is doomed, at least by “Q” standards. For example, let’s consider what the right-wing talking heads have been insisting is a current critical issue. If you missed the story, Hasbro decided to get “woke” and pretend Mr. Potato Head was no longer a “Mr.,” and his lovely spud spouse, Mrs. was no longer a “Mrs.,” and our children would all have to grow up playing with Lesbian Potato Head. Now we know the bitter truth. Trump will not be returning in the nick of time to save Mr. Potato Head’s potato penis. 

It was bad enough to learn that Mr. Potato Head had lost his manhood. It got even worse for the Q Crew this week when the estate of Dr. Seuss decided not to print any more copies of six of his works. 

A close scrutiny of the imagery and captions in several of Dr. Seuss’s works revealed biases that no longer seemed acceptable. To be frank, this blogger had never heard of five of the six titles dropped from publication, and shall not therefore mourn the loss of McElligot’s Pool. What I do know, however, is that every talking head on Fox News and Newsmax – speaking of potato heads – was flipping out this week over the loss of the possibly racist literature. Tucker Carlson actually swore that if we lost Dr. Seuss, we would “lose America.” That seemed hyperbolic to me. 

In fact, we were not “losing” Seuss, even. We were “losing” select Seuss books, possibly with good reason. 

I know many of Dr. Seuss’s works hold up brilliantly. At least one book dropped, The Things I Saw on Mulberry Street, my children all enjoyed. But I had a vague memory of a possibly racist drawing of an Asian person in that book; and the Seuss estate cited that drawing as reason for dropping publication of that work. I had also seen cartoons of Japanese Americans done by Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss before he became Dr. Seuss) after the attack on Pearl Harbor. 

If you wanted to stir up fear – and then lock up 110,000 people, including 77,000 U.S. citizens – a few racist cartoons never hurt. 

In any case, when I heard Tucker howl it struck me that Carlson was having a hard time coming up with new and ever more absurd ways to scare and distract his avid fans. In fact, the right, generally, is having a hard time looking for stories to petrify the Trump base. That meant they had to resort to attacking the Biden family dog (see the entry for: 2/23/21). And whereas Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Green New Deal have been good for a thousand days of right-wing rage, that story down in Texas, that the whole power grid froze solid because of the Green New Deal didn’t hold up any better than the Texas power grid in a deep freeze. Even Gender Neutral Potato Head could have told you – for starters – that the Green New Deal has never been implemented. So to blame Ocasio-Cortez would be akin to saying the Cat in the Hat did it. In fact, when this blogger bothered to check a few facts, he readily discovered that wind turbines can be winterized to work in much colder weather than Texas suffered recently. In Canada, for example, which is, I believe, farther north than Texas, wind turbines actually work harder in winter when strong Arctic winds sweep across the country. 

So, did liberals with their climate change agenda cause the Texas fiasco? Or was it Texan politicians and poor planning and preparation? I’ll give you a hint. It wasn’t Sam I Am who did it, either.

 

* 

In fact, there are much bigger concerns to address than the question of Gender Neutral Potato Head’s genitalia. Climate change would certainly deserve more coverage at Fox News and Newsmax and on Rush Limbaugh’s daily radio hour from Hades. Not the “it’s a hoax” kind of attention, I don’t mean. I mean the “handwriting’s-on-the-wall” biblical kind of shit. If you missed the real news, because you spent an entire day listening to Fox News rail about the left-wing “cancel culture,” we had more proof this week that the Green New Deal, or something akin to it, may soon be forced upon us by reality. Even the American Petroleum Institute is preparing to endorse a proposal which would tax carbon emissions. You can argue the merits of a tax on carbon all you want; and the devil is in the details. What you can’t argue is that this is an admission that the science is (and has been) clear. 

Climate change has arrived. It’s human-caused. And we are going to have to get off the fossil fuel track at some point, and soon. 

Reality is sinking in across the world. Volvo became the latest automobile manufacturer to announce it was pushing faster in the all-electric-car direction. By 2025 the company promises at least half of new vehicles will be electric-powered. The rest will be hybrids and it will have at least a million electric vehicles on the road by the end of that year. By the end of the decade, the Swedish manufacturer will be producing nothing but electric vehicles.

 

By the time this blogger’s new twin grandsons (now one month old) are big enough to drive, the gasoline-combustion-powered auto will be as much a memory as the Stanley Steamer. 

Or? Or else. 

Climate experts have already pointed out the dangers of accelerating changes to human life on Planet Earth. Alterations in the jet stream, for instance, have allowed colder Arctic weather patterns to drop farther south into the U.S. in recent years. 

Think: Texas Deep Freeze 2021.

 

Now we have a climate change effect you may have never heard or worried about, but should. The biggest “river” in the world is actually the Gulf Stream current, which sweeps out of the Caribbean, passes along the eastern shore of the U.S., and then bends across the North Atlantic. This warm current helps keep Great Britain, and large swaths of Europe warmer than would be normal at such latitudes. And if the current fails, the ramifications would be huge. Now scientists warn that increasing melting of the Greenland ice cap is altering the balance of the waters of the North Atlantic. The “river” is being slowed, its flow disrupted. A complete failure could ruin a country like Scotland, which sits on a latitude as far north as the southern tip of Greenland, and Ireland, which might end with a climate more like Newfoundland.  

Someone should explain this to Tucker Carlson. 

POSTSCRIPT: Before some right-wing numbskull interjects, “Oh ho, so now you claim parts of the world are going to get colder because the climate is warming…” let’s stick to the simplest possible facts. NOAA reports that the ten hottest years in recorded history have been, in order: 

2016

2020

2019

2015

2017

2018

2014

2010

2013

2005 

(So, the top ten hottest years include all eight years since my granddaughter Ellora was born.)

 

As for Rejected-President Donald, he was worse than Mr. Potato Head when it came to the matter of climate change. He was an active menace in the policies he pursued. For starters, he couldn’t tell the difference between “weather” and “climate” and was too ignorant to realize how profoundly ignorant he was. 

This is opinion, but I’m going to predict that he’ll go down in world history as a central villain in the story of how mankind either failed or succeeded in addressing the premier challenge of the twenty-first century. And I’m going to suggest that the right-wing types trying to delude us by focusing on plastic genitalia, and offering up years of parlor trick propaganda have served as willing enablers. The real issue isn’t liberals who want to take away farting cows or liberals waging gory war on coal, or liberals wanting to snatch good light bulbs from your grasp. Windmills won’t wipe out the birds or cause you to get cancer. Nor will the Green New Deal lead us all to our doom in a socialist hellscape. Change is going to come. If we don’t handle it correctly, we’re going to have way more to worry about than which Dr. Seuss books we can or can’t find on the shelves in bookstores and libraries.

___ 

 

3/6/21: Donald Trump’s last Secretary of Defense, in an “acting” capacity, Christopher Miller, has harsh words for his former boss. Which we add to the harsh words his first Secretary of Defense, Gen. James Mattis, shared, and the less-than-flattering words offered up by his second Sec. of Defense, Mark Esper, and we have what you might call a “historical trend.” 

In a recent interview with Vice on Showtime, Miller posed this question: “Would anybody have marched on the Capitol, and overrun the Capitol, without the president’s [Jan. 6] speech? I think it’s pretty much definitive that wouldn’t have happened.” 

“It seems cause-and-effect,” he added. “The question is, did he know he was enraging the crowd to do that? I don’t know.” 

Did Trump care, if he did? 

Nope. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: Perhaps you have forgotten. In June 2020, Trump’s first Secretary of Defense, condemned his old boss as a threat to the U.S. Constitution. This came after the man in the Oval Office ordered a peaceful protest broken up in front of the White House and talked about unleashing active duty U.S. military forces on protesters across the land. 

Esper, who had replaced Mattis by that point, also broke with the president over his threat to invoke the Insurrection Act to quell Black Lives Matter protests. Trump had to be talked out of firing him on the spot. He waited until after the election and then canned Esper, mainly for the sin of standing up to him, and standing up in support of the Constitution. 

(See also: “Hang Mike Pence.”)

___ 

 

People who “would never do anything to break the law.” 

3/14/21: Speaking of hanging Mike Pence, Sen. Ron Johnson has looked at the footage from the January 6 riot, and concluded that the rioters didn’t worry him. “I knew those were people who love this country,” he said during a recent n interview, “that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, so I wasn’t concerned.” 

The question we must ask, as a result: Was Sen. Johnson ingesting drugs when he made this astonishing claim?

___ 

 

3/15/21: The most recent U.S. intelligence assessment discounts the idea, pushed by former President Trump, that China interfered in the 2020 election in an effort to help sway a Biden win. 

Russia, however, did interfere on Trump’s side. 

Again. 

If it’s any consolation for Trump fans, Iran did what it could, spreading misinformation in hopes Mr. Biden would win.

 

* 

“You can see how extraordinarily uncomfortable I was.” 

Meanwhile, Dr. Deborah Birx comments on one of the great moments of the pandemic: the day Trump said we should drink disinfectant to protect ourselves from the virus. As a member then of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, she admits now that she was stunned. 

As she explains, “Frankly, I didn’t know how to handle that episode. I still think about it every day.” 

“You can see how extraordinarily uncomfortable I was,” Birx says. 

Trump’s comments were idiotic. But how could she say that during a press conference on national TV? “Those of you who have served in the military know that there are discussions you have in private with your commanding officers and there’s discussions you had in public.” 

She couldn’t just say, “That is the stupidest idea I ever heard of.” 

But it was.

 

Dr. Birx went on to say she and Dr. Anthony Fauci talked “all the time” about “how to correct the record.” That record was being constantly warped by Mr. Trump.

 

“I can’t tell you how many discussions we had on, how do we get the message out realizing what’s happening at the most senior levels of the White House,” she said finally. 

*

 

In another throwback moment, the U.S. Army announces Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman is set to be promoted to full colonel. His promotion was blocked when his brother testified in the first impeachment of Donald J. Trump.

 

Vindman filed a complaint last August with the Pentagon inspector general. He claimed he  was retaliated against by his former White House counsel’s office bosses, John Eisenberg and Michael Ellis, for reporting misconduct by the president.

 

Eisenberg and Ellis filed what could have been a career-ending evaluation of Vindman last year, saying he lacked judgment and had lost the trust of senior NSC leadership, according to the complaint Vindman filed. The promotions board first met roughly two months after the negative evaluations, according to the two people familiar with the matter.

 

But Maj. Gen. Michel Russell, an assistant deputy chief of staff in the Army, conducted an investigation and found the evaluations to not be objective, according to the people.

 

Previously, Eisenberg had described Vindman as “a top 1% military attorney and officer.” He said “he can do any job in the legal field under unusual and constant pressure and scrutiny. Select now for SSC [Senior Service College] and promote immediately to COL. Absolutely unlimited potential!”

 

Moral of the story: Don’t cross President Trump. Because Eisenberg will start lying about you.

___ 

 

3/17/21: Happy St. Patrick’s Day, especially to those 31.5 million Americans who have Irish roots for the family tree. 

Be grateful that rules of immigration were lax in the 1840s, when your ancestors fled starvation in hopes of finding a better life in this country. As one immigrant of that era explained, “There was but one hope: America.” 

Be glad your ancestors weren’t turned away to starve. In Ireland, in those bleak days, observers noted dead and dying people along the roadsides, faces stained green from eating grass in vain attempt to stay alive. 

When you hear about the 4,200 children, unaccompanied by adults, currently piling up on our southern border, and hoping to gain refuge, call it something besides a crisis “on the border.” We’ve rescued people from around the globe before. We took in nearly four million Irish. They were originally feared for their religion.

 

We took in three million Italians, supposedly Mafia types. 

We took Russian Jews, who spoke no English on arrival. 

We took in Cubans, Iranians, and Vietnamese, fleeing brutal oppression at home. 

We enticed millions of undocumented workers to breech our borders, with a promise of jobs, low-paying as they might be. 

Don’t forget your ancestry when you think about the “crisis” on the border; because it’s almost a certainty that someone in your family fled poor conditions in distant lands and risked all to reach the land of the free.

 

 

* 

Also, if you are a Trump fan worried about dangerous criminals traipsing across the border and killing you in your sleep, don’t forget Rejected-President Don’s prediction. He insisted that if Biden took office the media would quit talking about COVID-19, because all the media really wanted to do was talk about the virus to make him look terrible. 

Even now, loyal, science-averse Trumpophiles tell pollsters they are reluctant to get the vaccine. In one recent poll, 56% of white Republicans said they were either unsure about or opposed to being vaccinated. 

So here is where we stand. The U.S. continues to lead all the nations of the world in total deaths. 

Second place in a contest no one wants to win is Brazil, led by another virus denier, Jair Bolsonaro. According to Worldometers, as of March 17, Brazil had suffered 285,136 deaths from the virus. 

That meant President Bolsonaro was looking hard for scapegoats to explain his nation’s problems, having fired his third healthcare minister and appointed his fourth since the pandemic began. 

According to Worldometers, the United States has suffered 1,656 deaths per million population. To our north, Canada has managed the crisis far better: 594 deaths per million. To our south, Mexico, with its less advanced medical system, has also fared better: 1,502 deaths per million.

 

Almost every other nation in the world has done better – because they have not been led by virus-deniers, and fans of the virus-deniers have not been fed a steady diet of BS, by virus-deniers like Rush Limbaugh. France, hit hard by the first wave of disease, has rallied, and held losses to 1,399 per million. At one point, we were tied with Ireland at 350 dead per million. Ireland has lost 917 per million and done a better job. South Korea took the threat seriously from the first. That nation has lost 33 per million. Finland, a socialist country, has lost 145. Germany, led by a trained scientist as president, has lost 889. The death toll in Israel is 659 per million. Sweden, another country where medicine is socialized, first tried for “herd immunity,” then realized that was a mistake. Still, their losses are lower than ours, at 1,304 per million. Japan also took the virus seriously from the beginning. No leader in Japan claimed COVID-19 was “just a flu,” as did Trump. 

The death toll in Japan: 69 per million. 

The bottom line is clear. The U.S. has some of the most expensive healthcare in the world. Virus-denier Trump downplayed the threat; and hundreds of thousands of Americans died needlessly, as a result. 

Worst-performing nations in the world, measuring deaths per million: 

Gibraltar:                   2,791 (94 total deaths)

San Marino:               2,266 (77 total deaths)

Czechia:                      2,229

Belgium:                     1,942

Slovenia:                     1,899

Montenegro:              1,861

United Kingdom:      1,847

Hungary:                    1,807

Bosnia

  and Herzegovina:    1,739

Italy:                           1,712

Bulgaria:                     1,695

United States:       1, 656

___

 

3/18/21: If you binge on news, like this obsessive blogger, you may remember Richard Hopkins. 

Right-wing news couldn’t get enough of Richard. Richard drove a truck for the United States Postal Service. For a few weeks, leading up to the November election. Said he had been asked to deliver strange boxes of mail. Thought: Hey, I bet these are full of fake ballots! 

Right-wingers congratulated themselves. The steal had been discovered!! Trump was orgasmic. 

(Not really an image I want to have in my head.)

 

Hopkins claimed that he had heard his postmaster talking about backdating ballots received late and counting them as valid. He signed a sworn statement. He washed up on television, as I recall; because I remember watching and thinking his story was fishy. Sen. Lindsey Graham cited Hopkins’ claim as proof that the Orange God had been cheated out of a second term in the White House. 

The Department of Justice opened an investigation. Then, what do you know! Hopkins recanted. He admitted he hadn’t heard a conversation about ballots. According to federal agents, when grilled, the creative mailman “revised his initial claims, eventually stating that he had not heard a conversation about ballots at all — rather he saw the Postmaster and Supervisor having a discussion and assumed it was about fraudulent ballot backdating,” the report states. 

I am therefore going to make a similar kind of assumption. I once saw two mailmen talking at the post office, and I think they were talking about mailing tuna fish sandwiches to Joe Biden. 

Tell me I’m wrong! 

When the Washington Post asked Sen. Graham’s office if he would like to comment, aides said he would not, and (again, I am assuming), added that he was too busy eating a tuna fish sandwich.

___ 

 

3/19/21: In news you can’t make up, Loser Donald’s club at Mar-a-Lago is partially shut down, due to an outbreak of coronavirus. 

Politico notes: 

A person familiar with club operations said that, out of an abundance of caution, the club had partially closed a section “for a short period of time” and quarantined some of its workers. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the situation by name.

 

The extent of the outbreak, what portions of the club were closed or how it was affecting the former first family weren’t immediately clear. 

In other words, Rejected-President Trump was still covering up the extent of the threat from COVID-19.

___ 

 

3/20/21: Did you know Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, wears a mesh mask to show his disdain for science and the safety of others? 

Now you do. 

I bet the 1,517 Americans who died on Thursday are getting a good laugh in heaven. Also, I bet their loved ones can see the humor of Sen. Lee’s stance. 

Also getting a chuckle: the people who died on: 

3/11:                          1,538

3/12:                          1,387             

3/13:                          1,040

3/14:                             586

3/15:                             706

3/16:                             995

3/17:                          1,118

 

Lee has already had the virus and survived. So he doesn’t believe he needs a mask and he’s happy to sow a little confusion. 

Then we have Sen. Rand Paul, who also survived a bout of COVID-19, and likes to argue about mask wearing with Dr. Anthony Fauci. Dr. Fauci is the nation’s leading expert in infectious diseases. 

Sen. Paul used to be an ophthalmologist. 

Now his specialty is idiocy. 

I bet all those dead Americans are up in heaven right now, saying, “Well, we don’t need masks here now that we’ve passed through the pearly gates. And thank god, Sen. Paul and other leaders of the Republican Party are focused on what really matters in the land where we once lived.” 

Such as: Saving Mr. Potato Head! (See: 3/5/21.)

___ 

 

3/21/21: The death rate from COVID is declining, in large part because the Biden administration has taken the threat seriously. 

The seven-day average when Mr. Biden took over was 3,062 deaths per day. Thankfully, that average has since been reduced by two-thirds. New reported cases daily have been reduced by almost 75 percent. According to the CDC, weekly hospitalization rates have declined by 80 percent from a January peak. 

Reject Don did emerge from hiding this week to tell his loyal band of science-doubting fans to get vaccinated, as he and Melania were secretly… in January! No telling why he delayed letting his fans know about his treatment, and let them continue to run unnecessary risks for months. At any rate, in a visit to Fox News fantasyland, Trump admitted, “I would recommend it and I would recommend it to a lot of people that don’t want to get it and a lot of those people voted for me, frankly.” 

Yes, they did. 

When Trump said this virus was just like the flu, they believed that lie. Untold thousands died needlessly.

 

___

  

3/22/21: Apparently, more guns continue NOT to make us all safer in America. Monday afternoon, a gunman at a Boulder, Colorado supermarket opened fire, killing six. That included one police officer. “This is a tragedy and nightmare for Boulder County,” one official noted. 

The Denver Post described the scene: 

Two roommates who live near the King Soopers told The Denver Post they were at the self-checkout buying a pizza for lunch when a gunman entered the store.

 

“He didn’t say shit,” said one of them, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid national media attention. “He just came in and started shooting.”

 

The other witness said the gunman “let off a couple of shots, then was silent, and then he let off a couple more. He wasn’t spraying.”

 

The two men were able to escape out the back of the store.

 

James Bentz said he was inside the store when the shooting happened. He said he was in the meat section when he heard what he thought was a misfire, then a series of pops.

 

“I was then at the front of a stampede,” he said.

 

Bentz said he ended up jumping off the back loading dock to escape. He said younger people in the store were taking care of older people, helping them off the dock.

 

“It seemed like all of us had imagined we’d be in a situation like this at some point in our lives,” he said.

 

This is not to be confused with the shooting at several massage parlors in Atlanta, where eight were killed.

___ 

 

3/23/21: The death toll from the shooting at the Colorado supermarket rises to ten. No known motive for the shooter, Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, has been offered. His “Muslim” name, however, is likely to rivet the attention of the right-wing nuts who will suggest again that we cannot trust: 

Muslims

Immigrants

People with dark skin. 

Naturally, he used an AR-15 variant, the weapon of choice for psychotic individuals bent on mass murder.

 

* 

Sadly, the misfit shooter in Atlanta on March 16 was a 21-year-old white man and a member of a Christian Evangelical church. That would mean we can’t trust: 

Christians

Native-born persons

People with white skins. 

As CNN also notes, in just seven days there were seven shootings with four or more killed and wounded. Five were shot and wounded by a drive-by shooter in Stockton, California. Four were shot and wounded in Portland, Oregon. Five were shot inside a Houston club, with one victim, shot in the neck, left in critical condition. An unknown assailant shot and killed one person in Dallas and wounded seven. A hundred and fifty people were attending an illegal party in Philadelphia when at least one shooter opened fire, killing one partygoer, and injuring five. (See: 3/25/21 and 3/29/21.)

___ 

 

3/24/21: You may remember how Fox News howled about rigged voting machines and a stolen presidential election in November. 

And December. 

And January.

 

____________________ 

“No reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact.” 

Lawyers for Sidney Powell

____________________ 

 

Not only has Fox been sued for defaming the voting machine companies, one of their favorite conspiracy theory nuts has also been sued. Sidney Powell, famous for claiming she had massive evidence of fraud and would soon “unleash the Kraken” of truth, has been sued and tattooed. In court, however, her lawyers have offered an ingenious defense. “No reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact,” they insist. Although we might note, then-President Nitwit and many of his most loyal, riot-prone fans did.

___ 

 

3/25/21: Rico Marley, 22, enters a Publix store in Atlanta, carrying an AR-15-style weapon, five other guns, a knife, and ammunition. He is also wearing body armor. A customer sees him enter a restroom, notifies the store manager, and police are summoned and quickly respond. 

Marley gets arrested, without incident. “Open carry,” is legal in Georgia. So Marley may not have broken any laws. 

Meanwhile, as the Washington Post notes, Republicans are fighting any and all attempts to restrict access to guns.

 

One South Carolina state senator this week proposed making every state resident over 17 a member of an “unorganized militia,” which could be called up at any time by the state’s governor, to circumvent federal gun rules. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) on Tuesday called the push for new gun control regulations “ridiculous theater.”

 

So, if you do get shot down like a dog while trying to decide which frozen pizza brand to buy, rest easy, knowing the more guns we all have, the safer we will all be if and when the Redcoats and Hessians make an appearance.

 

* 

Speaking of potential violence, Michigan GOP Chairman Ron Weiser had some interesting thoughts regarding his political opponents. In a speech to the North Oakland Republican Club, he highlighted his desire to remove the three top Democratic lawmakers in the state in 2022. 

“Our job now is to soften up those three witches and make sure that we have good candidates to run against them,” he suggested thoughtfully, “that they are ready for the burning at the stake.” 

Asked about two Republican members of Congress who voted to impeach now-Rejected President Trump, Weiser couldn’t resist another questionable analogy. How, a member of the club wondered, could the GOP get rid of the two? Weiser first said we live in a democracy. So, we could vote them out. 

When the woman persisted, and others in the gathering started grumbling, Mr. Weiser responded further. “Ma’am,” Weiser added, “other than assassination, I have no way of voting out, okay.”

___ 

 

3/27/21: Anytime you think you have family problems, remember the Joyner clan. Dad, Rev. Rick Joyner, is a fire-breathing evangelical preacher. He’s convinced that civil war is coming to this country. On one side are liberals – in league with Satan –intent, he says, on “criminalizing Christianity.” On the other side are the forces of God, led by Donald J. Trump. President Biden, by comparison, is in league with the devil and the 2020 election was stolen. 

____________________ 

“I hope my kids don’t get involved in the violence, but it’s coming.” 

Rev. Rick Joyner

____________________ 

 

Also: Climate change talk is part of a Communist plot; and journalists are “the worst terrorist threat” today. 

The problem for Rev. Joyner, however, is that all five of his children are Democrats and even various shades of…liberals! He can only tell a reporter, “I hope my kids don’t get involved in the violence, but it’s coming.” 

(The blogger wonders: Should I rush out and purchase guns and ammo?)

 

Listing the children by age, the oldest and most outspoken is Anna Joyner, 36, a climate change activist. “He talks about Democrats being evil, forgetting that all five of his kids vote Democratic,” she told The New York Times. “Who is he asking his followers to take up arms against? Liberal activists? That’s me.” 

Anna worries that her father’s “far-right rhetoric may get people killed, so she feels a responsibility to challenge him. ‘I think it’s completely possible that some of my dad’s followers could pick up guns and cause violence because they think they’re defending the country’ she said.” 

(Maybe Anna should buy a bazooka.)

 

Aaryn Joyner, 34, says she’s disappointed by what her father says, but adds, “I’m not willing to sacrifice my relationship with him to call him out.” 

(Still, it might be wise to start packing some heat.)

 

“There is a responsibility to hold those you love accountable,” say Amber Grace Joyner, 30, a musician. 

(Also: to stock up on ammo?)

 

“I think what he does is morally wrong, but I love him,” says Ben Joyner, 28. “I don’t want to hurt him, but when he’s spreading dangerous ideas, it gets complicated.” 

“At what point can I no longer go home for Thanksgiving and watch football with my dad?” he wonders. “By doing so, am I condoning his behavior? It can be hard to draw that line in the sand, especially when you love this person.” 

(Don’t go over to watch the game unless you go heavily-armed?)

 

Sam Joyner, 26, a ceramic artist, doesn’t mince words. “He’s causing harm in my view,” he says of his father, “and he’s being incredibly irresponsible.” 

(Ask mom for an AR-15 at Christmas, just in case?)

 

Anna asks the question she and all of her siblings have had to ask in one variation or another. “Is it OK to just talk about movies and dogs with someone who’s trying to incite civil war? I don’t know.”

___ 

 

3/28/21: Once again, Nashville is dealing with serious flooding. For the second time in a little more than a decade, the city has been swamped by torrential rain. Flooding in 2010 set records. The flooding in 2021 is the second worst in history. 

This is what scientists warned would happen with climate change. Warmer air holds more moisture. When it dumps, it dumps record amounts of precipitation. (By the way, climate change-deniers like Rev. Joyner (see 3/27/21) are a special brand of blind, deaf and dumb imbeciles.)

___ 

 

3/29/21: Fox News has announced it will hire Lara Trump as an on-air contributor. The daughter-in-law of now Rejected-President Trump will offer her expertise on what Eric likes for dinner, what Halloween candy is passed out at Mar-a-Lago, and … how to get those pouty lips she sports. 

If you wonder how “fair and balanced” Fox is, Lara makes it clear. On a call to Fox & Friends, she admits, “I sort of feel like I’ve been an unofficial member of the team for so long. Over the past five years, I would come there so often that the security guards were like, ‘Maybe we should just give you a key.’” 

Fox News. Family Trump. Same team.

___ 

 

3/31/21: It’s a tough day for Trumpophiles. One of the heroes of their crowd, Rep. Matt Gaetz, is under investigation for carrying a minor across state lines for the purposes of sex. 

 

“I say we change Florida’s welcome signs to this.” 

He may of course be innocent. 

We of the liberal persuasion do not chant, “Lock him up,” until there has been a trial, if necessary, and a guilty verdict if merited. 

But if ever anyone looked like the type who might resort to enticing a minor across state lines for sex, Matt is the man. 

In fact, a number of old tweets from Gaetz have not aged like Dom Perignon. My least favorite comes from August 2019. Someone named Bebe Rexha tweeted: “There’s no age that you can’t be sexy.” 

Gaetz retweeted, saying, “I say we change Florida’s welcome signs to this.” 

This one isn’t a whole lot better, although you could see where it might be completely innocuous.

 

Anyway, no chanting, “Lock Matt up!” until all the facts are known and his case, if any, adjudicated. That’s the American way, even if Gaetz’s favorite former president and his favorite former president’s fans never could figure that out. 

I am reminded, however, of his previous comments regarding Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose ideas he called “dangerous for America.” In a pervy kind of way, he also said she was “attractive,” and said he’d swipe right – a la Tinder – to do a bill with her. There was also his comment, in regard to her tweet on helping communities ravaged by the War on Drugs. 

Dear, weird Rep. Gaetz thought an appropriate response was to reply, “You had me at hello.” 

Finally, as an official older person, I learned in checking up on Gaetz that – at least according to a hip young writer –the fire emoji, is “the universal symbol for ‘u + me = yes, tonight?’” 

Eight days after her dad got thumped in his bid for a second term, Matt slapped that emoji on a picture posted by Tiffany Trump. He tossed in a heart emoji, a face emoji with hearts for eyes, and a thumbs up emoji. 

I’m old and too lazy to copy and paste the proper emojis to my text. So here’s a link to the story. 

And here’s the picture: 

 

* 

Speaking of creepy: The Supreme Court of New York has rejected Tiffany’s dad’s appeal to terminate a defamation lawsuit brought by Summer Zervos. Dad stalled it out while president. Now his claim that defending himself in a trial would take away from his time to defend America, work on a healthcare plan, which we never saw, and go golfing all the time, no longer pertains. 

Zervos is one of nearly two-dozen women to accuse then-Citizen Trump of sexual abuse and harassment of varying kinds. Zervos is the one then-Candidate-for-president Trump singled out by name and called a liar. 

Chances are good that Citizen-again Trump will have to provide a deposition. If you’ve ever read his comical responses to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s questions, where he was allowed to have a lawyer help him write them, and filled them out like a take-home test in college, you know he’s going to have almost zero chance of avoiding a stinging civil case loss. 

Plus, a bunch of other accusers are likely to be deposed by Zervos’ lawyers to support her claims.

 

* 

Finally, in other court-related news, two police officers injured in the Capitol Hill riot have sued Donald. 

Their story is worth a read. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: Tucker Carlson invited Rep. Gaetz to come on his show and explain his side of the story. Gaetz, who could be innocent, flubbed his chance so badly even Carlson said afterward, that was “one of the weirdest interviews I’ve ever conducted.” 

Gaetz did claim the Department of Justice and F.B.I. have tape of an individual trying to extort money from his family, by lodging a bogus sexual misconduct claim against him. So, he could be…yes…innocent. 

And then there’s that guy he allegedly brought to the White House in 2019, to meet that other guy who ran the place, who was definitely the porn-star-banging type. The guy he brought, Joel Greenberg, was indicted last summer on a range of charges…including sex-trafficking a child, and supporting others in exchange for sex. 

Other highlights of Gaetz’s career in Congress include wearing a gas mask to show how “concerned” he was about mask mandates in a time of coronavirus. He also brought a Holocaust denier to hear the 2018 State of the Union address. In 2017 he was the only member of the House or Senate “to vote against a law that gave the federal government more power and money to fight human trafficking.” 

Still. Still. There’s no smoking gun! Gaetz could be innocent! There’s just that general air of creepiness.

­­­___ 

 

April 1, 2021: Here’s your joke for today. A state legislature decides to ban yoga in gym class in public schools because practicing yoga might lead good Christian students to turn to…Hinduism! 

No, wait. That’s true. 

The Alabama legislature first passed the ban against pagan flexibility twenty-eight years ago. In this period of great stress for all of us, including students, a move was afoot to allow yoga in grades K-12.  

But no. That move has now been halted.

 

* 

Yesterday, our topic was “creepiness.” Which reminds me. Tucker Carlson was fired up again last night. 

He wanted to warn viewers that Canada was taking steps toward “legitimately dangerous authoritarianism.” How so? The Trudeau government was advising Canadian citizens and other travelers that they would have to be tested for COVID-19 if they intended to fly to that country. If they tested positive, they’d have to quarantine immediately in designated government facilities. “This is not optional,” Prime Minister Trudeau explained on Twitter. Even those testing negative would have to quarantine for three days. 

That was it for Carlson! 

Trudeau, he warned, was creating “internment camps.” For…fourteen days? Maybe just three???? 

Somehow, I was not getting the feeling Tucker was getting, because I do not earn millions annually ginning up fear and outrage to support a certain kind of Fox-approved political agenda.

 

Instead, as a former history teacher, when I thought about internment camps, I found myself conjuring up Nazi gas chambers, barbed-wire prisons for all Japanese Americans in 1942, frostbitten prisoners in frozen Siberian wastelands and North Korea’s starvation of political prisoners today. 

Not Carlson, Carlson was outraged and wanted his fans to be outraged, too. “Suddenly,” he continued, “Canada is a flagrant violator of the most basic human rights” in the world. He compared Trudeau to Mussolini. He threw in an attack on liberalism, in general. He even managed to squeeze in a snide remark about “identity politics.” He grimaced and predicted that in these camps there would be “shortages of food and water, you could be sexually assaulted.” Eventually, he wondered: Would the U.S. consider internment camps if Dr. Fauci suggested the same? 

I decide to check out these Canadian “internment camps.” It turns out we’re talking “government-authorized hotels.” In fact, travelers must make their own quarantine plans, which may include staying in places of their own choosing, so long as their plans meet certain requirements. 

For example, many Canadians could make plans to quarantine…in their own…homes. Oh, the inhumanity.

 

You must also submit your plan to ArriveCan before entering or re-entering the country. So, if you feared a shortage of food, you might bring along fourteen packages of Oreos in your carry-on luggage. Or your plan could be to have room service bring food to your door if you were in one of the authorized hotels. 

To avoid shortages of water, you should not plan to stay at authorized hotels or other places of your choosing unless they had…. 

Indoor plumbing. 

In other words, Tucker was being Tucker. 

A giant ass.

 

(Other recent Carlson horror stories include President Biden’s “fake” loving marriage; President Biden’s junkyard dog; the “cancel culture” attack on Dr. Seuss, transgender individuals invading girls’ sports, and a female reporter from The New York Times writing about her experience with online harassment. That last horror story took Tucker two entire shows to work out of his system.)

___ 

 

4/3/21: The vaccination program for COVID-19 is picking up momentum; but Americans spent last month dying in large numbers, sometimes in bursts of gunfire (see: 3/22/21 and 3/23/21), sometimes sick with coronavirus in hospital beds. Meanwhile, Rep. Lauren Boebert, who loves guns and thinks everyone should carry one every day, has a plan to save us all from tyranny. 

She is trying to get Congress to pass a law to stop the Biden administration from instituting a mask mandate on all federal properties. 

Deaths from COVID-19 in March: 

3/1:                1,282

3/2:                2,124

3/3:                1,960

3/4:                1,835

3/5:                2,198

3/6:                1,673

3/7:                   865

3/8:                   861

3/9:                1,382

3/10:              1,530

3/11:              1,538

3/12:              1,387             

3/13:              1,040

3/14:                586

3/15:                 706

3/16:                 995

3/17:              1,118

3/18:              1,521

3/19:              1,505

3/20:                768

3/21:                 442

3/22:                 971

3/23:                 786

3/24:              1,290

3/25:              1,403

3/26:              1,283

3/27:                 871

3/28:                560

3/29:                592

3/30:                 807              

3/31:              1,041 

 

The U.S. death toll for March from coronavirus: 36,920. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: Maybe socialized medicine isn’t such a bad idea. A recent article in The New York Times notes that Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan billed at least sixteen patients more than $3,000 each, for a coronavirus test. Ana Roa provided a copy of her bill to reporters, and admitted, “It was shocking to see a number like that, when I’ve gotten tested before for about $135.” 

The cost of a routine nasal swab at Lenox Hill (apparently requiring a gold swab) for Roa: $3,358. 

Or: Nearly 25 times as much as for her testing previously. 

The Times notes other examples of price-gouging, including, the case of a family which “accrued $39,314 in charges for 12 tests this winter, all taken to fulfill requirements for returning to work or school.” 

(This blogger and his wife both had nasal swab tests recently at a nearby Urgent Care. Cost: $102 each.)

___ 

 

4/4/21: I doubt Trump fans have noticed – but President Biden is off to an excellent start, in terms of job creation. 

In March, 916,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy.** 

It is a sad reality, if you are a Biden-hater, but if you count the jobs added in Biden’s first two months in office (numbers are preliminary, but as of now: 1,384,000), those are more jobs than Trump added to the U.S. economy in four years. 

As we have noted before, Trump ended up in negative jobs territory (minus 3,000,000) when he left office.

 

**The Bureau of Labor Statistics revises job numbers one and two months later. In May, the final gain for March was lowered to 785,000.

___ 

 

4/5/21: Last week, I wrote that Rep. Matt Gaetz might soon be accused in an investigation involving sex trafficking of minors. I said that it was too soon to start chanting, “Lock him up!” 

Now it might be time to clear our throats. 

CNN has reported that the Florida lawmaker and Trump-suck-up enjoyed showing colleagues – on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives – pictures of naked women he had slept with. 

No class. 

Not illegal. 

The New York Times has also added details to an increasingly sordid story; and reporters say they’ve seen text messages and receipts. 

Investigators believe Joel Greenberg, a pal of Matt’s, who was indicted last year, “met the women [involved in this story] through websites that connect people who go on dates in exchange for gifts, fine dining, travel and allowances.

 

Dates? Okay. 

Still legal. 

Greenberg is alleged to have introduced the women to randy Matt, who also had sex with them. In fact, one of the women allegedly agreed to have sex with a third associate of the two. 

Kind of like prostitution? 

The Times has seen plenty of documentation, it would appear, although what it will prove is a separate matter: 

In encounters during 2019 and 2020, Mr. Gaetz and Mr. Greenberg instructed the women to meet at certain times and places, often at hotels around Florida, and would tell them the amount of money they were willing to pay, according to the messages and interviews.

 

One person said that the men also paid in cash, sometimes withdrawn from a hotel ATM.

 

Some of the men and women took ecstasy, an illegal mood-altering drug, before having sex, including Mr. Gaetz, two people familiar with the encounters said.

 

In some cases, Mr. Gaetz asked women to help find others who might be interested in having sex with him and his friends, according to two people familiar with those conversations. Should anyone inquire about their relationships, one person said, Mr. Gaetz told the women to say that he had paid for hotel rooms and dinners as part of their dates.

 

Thursday night, Rep. Gaetz’s office issued a complete denial: 

“Matt Gaetz has never paid for sex,” the statement said. “Matt Gaetz refutes all the disgusting allegations completely. Matt Gaetz has never ever been on any such websites whatsoever. Matt Gaetz cherishes the relationships in his past and looks forward to marrying the love of his life.”

 

It didn’t help when Congressman Gaetz’s spokesperson suddenly resigned and told at least one reporter he did so “out of principle.” 

Since at least one of the girls Greenberg and Gaetz are said to have paid was 17, you can see the Two G’s might be getting nervous. Gaetz is a lawyer by training. So he should know going in that penalties may be stiff. Offering anyone under age 18 items of value in exchange for sex is a violation of federal child sex-trafficking laws. That would include providing anything of value: such as fancy meals, hotel rooms, drugs, alcohol, and even cigarettes. Conviction means a mandatory prison sentence of ten years. 

We have also learned that Greenberg was indicted again on additional charges this week. He is accused of submitting fake claims to receive pandemic relief aid. Then he allegedly tried to bribe a government official. 

Mr. Greenberg is a scofflaw. He goes on trial in June; but he was sent to jail in March for violating the terms of his bail. 

Other odds and ends to the story: 

Did Gaetz divert campaign funds in order to pay women for sex? 

Were fake IDs provided for some of the women? 

Even Gaetz’s denial of wrongdoing, delivered during an appearance on Fox News, rang hollow. “Providing for flights and hotel rooms for people that you’re dating who are of legal age is not a crime,” he said. 

Guilty? Not guilty? We’ll wait and see. 

Sleazy? Yeah. Definitely sleazy – which, if you have been following Gaetz’s political career, is no surprise.

___

 

4/6/21: In news you might have missed, the U.S. and Iran are talking again, at least through intermediaries. 

The goal is to reinstitute the deal they worked out in 2015, which halted Iran’s nuclear weapons program. 

 

Utterly incapable of working out a “better” deal, or any deal at all. 

Rejected-President Trump called that the “worst deal” ever made and withdrew from it, over our allies’ objections. Then he proved utterly incapable of working out a “better” deal, or any deal at all. Iran naturally started gearing up its weapons program. In other words, Trump’s inability to broker any deal was kind of like his healthcare plan – in four long years no one ever saw. It was the Sasquatch of healthcare plans, purely mythological. His Iran deal was like the Yeti.

 

* 

In terms of myths, you have surely heard that President Biden intends to raise taxes on Big Business. That means you may have heard the hosts on Fox Business howling that raising taxes will kill the U.S. economy and our favorite corporations will have no choice but to move offshore and dodge taxes like a Trump family member dodging service in the U.S. military. 

It turns out Bristol Myers Squibb has already moved its money offshore and dodged some serious taxes. The I.R.S. said this week that the company moved profits to an offshore entity in Ireland and paid zero federal taxes in 2012. The bill they sent the company claims BMS owes $1.38 billion. 

And can we all agree: We can’t raise the minimum wage to $15, because underpaid CEOs like Dr. Giovanni Caforio, who runs Bristol Myers Squibb, might have to take pay cuts themselves. Can we really expect Dr. Caforio to get by on less than the $18,767,253 he made in 2019? 

At $15 per hour, a BMS janitor could make that much in only 1,251,150 hours and 12 minutes. 

Let me see: 8,760 hours in a year (plus 24 in leap years). Yeah, a janitor could rake in all that dough in roughly 142 years, assuming no sleep or off days.

 

* 

You can broaden the picture, and find that 55 large U.S. companies made $40 billion in profits and paid zero federal taxes last year. Those corporations included Nike, purveyor of overpriced tennis shoes (made by foreign workers!), FedEx and Dish Network. Nearly half those companies, including Duke Energy, paid zero in taxes for the last three years, since the Trump Tax Cuts were implemented. Also tap-dancing around the tax code and paying less to I.R.S. than – for example – this happy blogger – the agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland. 

A quick check shows that J. R. Luciano, CEO of Archer Daniels, pulled down $18,047,123 in salary and compensation in 2019. 

Then again, 2019 was a “down year” for Mr. Luciano, who earned $19, 603,616 in 2018. But it was better than the starvation wages he received in 2017, when he and his family had to skimp on $15,798,876. Think of the struggle involved in getting by on a mere $43,284.59 per day. 

Even Fox Business can’t resist doing a story on America’s highest paid CEO, Paycom Software Inc.’s Chad Richison. Last year, he pulled down a cool $211 million or as much as 13,938 individuals earning $7.25 per hour ($290 per week, $15,080 annually, with an extra chunk of change – $58 during a Leap Year!), the minimum wage in Oklahoma, where Paycom is headquartered. 

(To his credit, Richison has signed the Giving Pledge, created by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, promising to give away at least half of his wealth.)

 

* 

And let’s hear it for food banks. In 2020, food banks passed out 50% more food than in 2019, as need surged. By year’s end, fifty million Americans were relying on food banks to get by; and 1 in 4 American children were in families dependent on food banks. Just as God intended!

___ 

 

4/7/21: Did you know that 37 percent of the population of New York City is foreign-born as of today? 

Plus, the city has a Democratic mayor. 

 

Maybe Democrats and immigrants aren’t the problem. 

We all remember how then-President Trump enjoyed talking about killers and rapists sneaking across the border, and Democratic mayors who failed to keep their cities safe. Never doubting a single syllable that escaped from our former president’s mouth, like methane gas from a broken sewer, I had to assume people in New York City must be getting murdered at a phenomenal rate. The city had to be a veritable ghost town at this point.

 Actually, the city suffered 289 murders in 2018. (I used that total, because in a story about the most dangerous states, USA Today used crime statistics for that year.) 

Sure enough. Alaska, a Republican-dominated state, had only 47 murders – proving that people who think Democrats fail the “law and order” test may not be able to perform simple division. 

The city has 8.7 million people. That would mean your chances of being murdered by dangerous immigrant gang members, or anyone else, would be 1 in 30,104. Alaskans would have to take their chances at…1 in 15,557. Tennessee – about as red a state as you can find – had 498 murders, for a rate of 1 in 13,829. Alabama, redder still, had 607 murders, or 1 per 8,108. In other words, immigrants might not be the problem, nor the fact most cities are run by Democratic mayors.

 

Case in point: This weekend a customer at a Burger King in Memphis got mad when her order at the drive-thru window took too long. As Fox News explained, the irate woman stepped out of her car. 

Burger King surveillance video showed the woman pull out a black handgun from her car, lean into the drive-thru window and open fire.

 

Luckily, none of the employees were hit and the workers took off running through a backdoor, police said.

 

This is not to be confused with the shooting in Orlando last August, also at a Burger King, also due to a customer’s anger over a delayed order, in which one employee was killed. Nor do we mean the murder of another young drive-thru worker at a McDonalds in Elko, Nevada last November. Nor do we mean the incident in Milwaukee that month, where an irate customer broke the drive-thru window on purpose – only to have an employee at the Golden Arches come outside, pull a gun, and pistol whip the customer. Or the incident in October where an employee at a McDonalds in Kansas City, Mo., ended a dispute with a drive-thru customer by shooting and nearly killing him. 

For “variety,” you have the Oklahoma City customer who became upset when informed the McDonalds dine-in room was closed. She, too, “fired multiple shots,” according to police. That assault last May left three workers bleeding from various wounds, although none were life-threatening.

 

* 

A contract worth $628 million – and zero doses delivered. 

Since the topic is danger, it turns out Emergent, the company tasked with making America’s coronavirus vaccines, has botched the job. So far, their factory in Baltimore has produced 150 million doses of vaccine which is good. Emergent has also been accused of violating safety and sanitation protocols and 15 million doses had to be destroyed. Which is not good. So far, not a single dose produced has been deemed safe enough to ship. 

Definitely NOT good. 

Emergent’s auditors reported last July that errors made at the factory “are not investigated to determine root cause, or are not investigated adequately.” Even worse, “Investigations are terminated without sufficient cause.” Mold was repeatedly discovered in one laboratory. The company conducted “essentially no investigation” and all workers did was wipe down the wheels of one cart. 

Since Team Trump awarded the company a contract worth $628 million you might have thought officials would have been more diligent. 

And, of course, President Trump might have asked for regular updates to ensure Emergent was doing its job. 

But he was too busy tweeting to do his job at all.

___ 

 

 

4/8/21: Good news: The U.S. vaccinated four million people in a single day, this past Saturday.  

We should note that the Biden administration targeted May 1 as the day on which all adults in all fifty states and Washington D.C. would be eligible for vaccination. Now the date has been advanced to April 19. 

The death toll remains high, but declines steadily, even as cases have kicked back up slightly. 

CDC reports: 

4/1:    773 deaths from COVID-19

4/2:    817

4/3:    691

4/4:    368

4/5:    344

4/6:    708**

 

** I had not originally realized CDC adjusts their totals as additional information is reported. On April 10, I had to alter every one of the daily totals above to reflect more current numbers. 

(The seven-day average for fatalities is the lowest since July 6 – that also had to be adjusted – when the Orange Buffoon was still a lump in the Oval Office.) 

Some states lag others when it comes to addressing the threat. According to Becker’s Hospital Review, as of today, New Mexico leads, having vaccinated 26.14 percent of its population. Most other states at the top of the ratings are low-population places like South Dakota, Vermont and Alaska.

 

Interestingly enough, the bottom ten states are all Republican-controlled, with D.C. sandwiched in between Texan and Tennessee. 

41. Florida

42. Missouri

43. Mississippi

44. South Carolina

45. Texas

46. Arkansas

47. District of Columbia

48. Tennessee

49. Alabama

50. Utah

51. Georgia (last at 13.22 percent of its people)

___ 

 

4/8/21: April has been the “cruelest month,” so far, for Trump-lovers and Biden-haters. First, Mr. Biden has managed to do something repeatedly that his predecessor never achieved. That is, to post an average approval rating of 50% or above. As of this morning, approval is 56%. 

____________________ 

President Trump “incited that bloody insurrection for nothing more than selfish reasons, perpetuated by the bullshit he’d been shoveling since he lost a fair election the previous November.” 

Former Republican House Speaker John Boehner, in a new book

____________________

 

* 

Second, the Dow Jones average is up more than 5,000 points since the day Biden was declared victor in the election, which Sore Loser Donald absolutely did not predict was going to happen.

 

* 

Third, the vaccination program is gathering speed – in part because Mr. Biden takes the health threat seriously – and in part because he listens to actual scientists. 

Trump-lovers, of course will shout angrily: “TRUMP GETS ALL THE CREDIT FOR THE VACCINES! NOT JOE BIDEN!!” They may even break into one of their favorite chants, “Lock him up!” Or, possibly, “Hang Mike Pence.” 

This vaccine argument might be valid, save for the fact that Trump convinced most of his fans they would never need to worry about a vaccine. Because the COVID-19 was no worse than flu. 

Also, the coronavirus story was a hoax. The number of people dying from the coronavirus was wildly inflated. 

And masks were for sissies. 

So deeply did Trump-lovers come to believe in the baseless science claims of their Orange Guru, that even today, a full third (34%) say they do not plan to get vaccines. A second poll puts that figure higher, with 41% of Republicans saying, “No thanks, I’ll take my chances with the virus.”

 

* 

Fourth, science-deniers (a massive percentage of all Trump fanboys and fangirls) took a fresh rap on the noggin’ when the NOAA reported that carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere has reached levels not seen in 3.6 million years. 

Climate change is not a hoax, another one of Rejected-President Trump’s flagrant lines of horse manure.

 

* 

Fifth, Trump and his sycophants continue to run into well-deserved legal problems. The New York Supreme Court has ruled that a defamation suit filed against Trump by Summer Zervos, a contestant on The Apprentice, who accuses Trump of sexual harassment, can go forward. Meanwhile, two Capitol Hill police officers have sued the ex-president for injuries sustained in the Jan. 6 siege of Congress. Throw in the tax evasion case going forward against the Trump Organization. We also learned today that Trump’s company has hired a criminal defense attorney.

 

* 

Sixth: Former Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner has a new book out this week. 

To say he’s not a fan of his party’s last president is an understatement. The New York Times provided excerpts: 

Mr. Boehner writes that Mr. Trump’s “refusal to accept the result of the election not only cost Republicans the Senate but led to mob violence,” adding, “It was painful to watch.”

 

At another point, he writes, “I’ll admit I wasn’t prepared for what came after the election — Trump refusing to accept the results and stoking the flames of conspiracy that turned into violence in the seat of our democracy, the building over which I once presided.”

 

He adds: “Watching it was scary, and sad. It should have been a wake-up call for a return to Republican sanity.” Nodding to the divisions between the parties in Congress now, he writes, “Whatever they end up doing, or not doing, none of it will compare to one of the lowest points of American democracy that we lived through in January 2021.”

 

Mr. Trump, he goes on, “incited that bloody insurrection for nothing more than selfish reasons, perpetuated by the bullshit he’d been shoveling since he lost a fair election the previous November.” Mr. Boehner writes, “He claimed voter fraud without any evidence, and repeated those claims, taking advantage of the trust placed in him by his supporters and ultimately betraying that trust.”

 

* 

Seventh, and last for today, Matt Gaetz, possibly the former president’s most loyal spear-carrier, has been outed as a possible child sex trafficker. (See my posts for 3/31/21 and 4/5/21 for detail.) 

There are also reports that Gaetz spoke to people in the White House, before his orange hero got booted by the voters, and asked about a pre-emptive, blanket pardon for any crimes he or his pals might have committed while simultaneously kissing Trump’s posterior. 

Gail Collins, writing a humorous opinion piece for the Times, noted today that while Rep. Gaetz never managed to pass a single bill of his own during his first two terms in Congress, he did manage to appear on Fox News at least 179 times.

___

 4/9/21: With tax season upon us, wouldn’t you love to pay your bill like a multinational corporation! 

You know you would! 

Now, the Biden administration has proposed that the nations of the world join together to impose a minimum 15% tax on these giant corporations. This would mean, for example, that the tens of thousands of companies “headquartered” in the Cayman Islands would have to start forking over some cash, just like the owner of the Bluebird Bakery, here in Glendale, Ohio, or Cliff’s Hardware in nearby Sharonville. 

Did you know there are more corporate headquarters in the Cayman Islands (100,000) than there are…actual people (61,944). 

No doubt the owner of the Bluebird Bakery pays taxes.

 

In fact, in 2017, 366 of the Fortune 500 companies had created “subsidiaries” in at least one of the world’s notorious tax havens. Goldman Sachs alone had 511 subsidiaries in the Caymans. You remember Goldman Sachs? The rest of us, the actual taxpayers of the United States, helped bail their ass out in 2008, when a housing bubble burst and the stock market imploded. 

Other tax havens: 

The British Virgin Islands – rated in 2019 as the #1 tax haven for superrich individuals. 

The Isle of Man – with a  0% corporate tax rate, instituted in 2006. 

Lichtenstein, a nation 62 square miles in size, but home to more registered companies than people, at least in 2018. 

And that’s just a sampling.

 

* 

So! Good idea for the governments of the world to go after the Big Guys who don’t pay their share! The International Money Fund has announced support for the Biden proposal. The G-20 announced support and said they hoped to have an agreement in place by mid-year. Also onboard: The European Union. 

I mentioned the local Glendale bakery above. No doubt the owner pays her share of taxes. As for me, I patronize the Bluebird because they offer fantastic cookies, pastries, and, on Fridays, sticky buns that I would crawl down the street to purchase. 

I like Cliff’s, previously mentioned, because when I go there, I can find American-made products bigger stores fail to stock. My last shovel purchase, for instance, was made in Iowa and came from Cliff’s Hardware. 

Same with my steel dustpan. 

Unlike the plastic garbage offered at Lowe’s or Menard’s, that dustpan is going to last for at least three generations of my family. 

I should also note that I hate paying for Chinese-made products, and wish we could organize a boycott to force the Communist government to start allowing meaningful civil and political rights to their people.

American made.

I think every time we buy Chinese products we support their military.

By the way, knock off the anti-Asian American crap, too.

___

4/10/21: Red Alert! No, ORANGE ALERT! We have a Donald J. Trump sighting. 

Down at Mar-a-Lago, speaking to a group of fat cat Republican donors, Trump went off script in a speech. 

Does he ever not go off script? 

We’ll keep it simple since Loser Donald (a.k.a. “Loser D”) is now the GOP’s biggest problem. 

Classy, as always, “Loser D” called Sen. Mitch McConnell a “dumb son of a bitch.”

He insisted (for the ten thousandth time) that the November election was “rigged,” although he has been careful never to mention any of the voting machine companies that he believes did the rigging by name. Yes. We know he’s stupid. But he’s also cunning enough not to cite Dominion or Smartmatic by name. Should he do so, he’d end up sitting beside the other right-wing fools in court, after they claimed repeatedly that those two companies jimmied millions of votes.

 

Like former Fox Business host, Lou Dobbs, now jobless, and one of several defendants in a $2.7 billion defamation suit. 

According to various sources, Trump also called McConnell “a stone cold loser,” and mocked his wife, Elaine Chao, for quitting as Secretary of Transportation on the day of the Capitol Hill riot. “I hired his wife,” Trump told his audience. “Did he ever thank me?” 

Sources also told the Washington Post that Rejected-President Trump bragged about tossing aside the “boring” speech prepared and riffing on all his grievances. He attacked Republican Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia for not doing more to help him win that state’s electoral votes. Only three lousy counts to check tallies? Not enough! That election was “bullshit.” Trump said most Democrats knew he won, but they didn’t want to admit it. 

In another “penis-size” comment, he insisted the crowd for his January 6 rally, which he incited to riot, numbered a million. He said he was “disappointed” in his former VP, Mike Pence, because he lacked “courage” to overturn the Electoral College vote and send the mess back to the states, where Republican-controlled legislatures might have made up the kind of results Trump wanted.

 

Finally, he turned on Dr. Anthony Fauci, and tried to blame his former advisor for the whole COVID-19 mess. Dr. Fauci, he grumbled, at first said the public did not need to wear masks. That was on March 8, 2020, just eight days after the first reported death from coronavirus in this country was announced. And this has been explained almost as many times as Trump has falsely claimed that the election was stolen. Dr. Fauci was worried – at that early stage – that there would not be enough masks for doctors and nurses to go around. 

Trump then mocked the doctor wearing five masks, an exaggeration, and mused, “Have you ever seen anybody that is so full of crap?” 

Loser D should look in a mirror. 

Finally, just to keep in practice, the former leader of the Free World in Reverse, decided to denigrate an entire group of immigrants. Mexicans? Nope. Not this time. But the desire to stoke irrational fear. Yeah. The same. “They’re coming in from the Middle East,” he said for variety. “They’re not sending their best people. You have murderers, you have rapists, you have drug dealers.” 

We’ve heard this before.

___ 

 

4/11/21: Additional excerpts from former GOP House Speaker John Boehner’s book are released. The lifelong Republican bemoans the fact that under Trump, the party has morphed into a “clown car.” 

What is the destination of the car? 

 “Crazy town.” 

____________________ 

“What struck me, especially after the election, was, here’s all these people loyal to Donald Trump, and he abused them. He stepped all over their loyalty to him by continuing to say things that just weren’t true.” 

John Boehner

____________________ 

 

The riot on January 6 left him the former Speaker feeling nothing but “disgust” for what the Republican Party had become. As USA Today explains, Boehner sounded a warning on January 7. 

“I once said the party of Lincoln and Reagan is off taking a nap,” he said on his @SpeakerBoehner account. “The nap has become a nightmare for our nation. The GOP must awaken. The invasion of our Capitol by a mob, incited by lies from some entrusted with power [emphasis added], is a disgrace to all who sacrificed to build our Republic.”

 

Now he elaborated:  “I don’t think it was just about him showing up at a rally on Jan. 6^th…The comments that were made all summer about the election was going to be stolen from him, all the follow-up noise that occurred after the election – I kept looking for the facts.” 

(Blogger’s note: So did I.)

 

USA Today noted, “There has been no credible evidence to support Trump’s repeated allegations of election malfeasance.”

 

“What struck me, especially after the election, was, here’s all these people loyal to Donald Trump, and he abused them,” Boehner said. “He stepped all over their loyalty to him by continuing to say things that just weren’t true.”

 

In the book, he describes Texas Sen. Ted Cruz as “Lucifer in the flesh.” Freedom Caucus members as “political terrorists” and “far-right knuckleheads.” Former Alaska governor and vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin as “one of the chief crazies.”

Rep. Matt Gaetz, innocent until proven guilty.

But not a man you want hanging around your daughter.

4/12/21: Pastor Rick Wiles has scuttled out from behind his pulpit to offer up argument that Dr. Anthony Fauci should be “waterboarded” until he admits that he has been working with China to create and spread COVID-19. 

 

If you’re against Trump, Pastor Wiles wants to kill you. 

Rev. Wiles has a proclivity for “waterboarding” people with whom he disagrees….and for making hateful, inflammatory comments, generally. 

In fact, he seems to believe that violence would clean up a lot of problems for his idol, President Trump. Jesus, I suppose, said “turn the other cheek, but shoot and waterboard those m****r-f****rs first. 

In 2019, Wiles was all gung ho for Donald J. Trump, fuming, 

Former FBI Director Andrew McCabe and former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — should they be taken to Guantanamo Bay and waterboarded? This was an ongoing coup, and so there’s another two names that need to go to Guantanamo Bay — the two members of the Cabinet. Now we don’t know who these people were because he’s not disclosed it. I mean we could — we can speculate, I mean it could be [former Secretary of State] Rex Tillerson. It could have been, may have been [former Attorney General] Jeff Sessions. It could have been [former U.N. Ambassador] Nikki Haley. We don’t know! But there were, according to McCabe, two people in the Cabinet who were willing to overthrow the President of the United States. That means the President of the United States was holding Cabinet meetings, and he had snakes sitting around him. Hissing snakes!

 

In fact, the “virtue” of torture is that you can get people to admit anything, and there you go. You have the confessions you want. 

And bullets might also work, Wiles has suggested. Upset last summer by the riots in Portland, he had a plan: 

“Mr. Meadows [White House Chief of Staff], please tell President Trump that he is now in possession of Obama bullets — 2 billion ‘Bama bullets. You’re in possession of them now,” Wiles said. “You got the ‘Bama bullets and you can put down the [insurrection] … you can put it down. You have the ‘Bama bullets in your hands.”

 

Where did these bullets come from? According to Wiles, they were “hoarded” by Obama “to round up Christians and constitutionalists under a President Hillary Clinton.”

 

As Newsweek reported: 

Wiles has a history of making incendiary remarks. In March 2020, he claimed that God was “spreading” COVID-19 in synagogues as punishment for Jews opposing “his son, the Lord Jesus Christ.” 

“You’re a liar!” Wiles said, directing his remarks at Fauci in the episode last Thursday. “You know what you did, Fauci. You worked with the Chinese Communist Party for years. And you used our own taxpayer money to work on a coronavirus with bats. And you did it behind our backs, deceiving the American people, and you participated in the creation of this virus.”

 

Wiles said that Fauci “should be taken to Guantánamo Bay and waterboarded” until he coughs up “the truth.” Fauci must also give the names of “the other traitors who have helped China damage the United States of America with this virus,” the pastor said.

 

Wiles also offered up a few thoughts on “election reform.” 

“They’re gonna have a bunch of traitors. They’re gonna line ’em up against the wall and start shooting them. Because that’s what they deserve,” the pastor said at the time.

 

“The Democrats, the news media – if  the leftists, if scientists, professors have been working secretly with the Chinese Communist Party,” Wiles continued, “then line ’em up against the wall and shoot them. That’s what you do with them.”

 

Wiles finished up (a few days later) with an anti-Semitic diatribe, somehow conflating communism (adamantly anti-religious) with Zionist Jews and even tipping his cap to QAnon in the process: 

“The reason the ruling deep state of America hates the Russian people and wants to destroy them? It is the satanic Zionist power that overthrew the Russian government in 1917, did a human blood sacrifice of the Romanov family – a satanic ritual where they slaughtered the Romanovs, it was a satanic blood sacrifice – that same group of satanists that overthrew the Russian people in 1917, that’s what controls America today. That spirit right there is what is destroying the United States of America, destroying our freedom, destroying our culture – that spirit right there.

 

Ah, yes, the message of Jesus. (See: 6/2/21.)

Raising money for ammo?

___ 

 

4/15/21: In Conservative Fantasyland, government regulations are always a curb on honest businessfolk trying to make capitalism function efficiently. And if we leave the business types alone? 

We all gain! 

This fantasy gets punctured daily, when we read about various forms of crookery by the Captains of Industry. The latest example comes from Denmark, where the CEO of Danske Bank has had to step down after he was named in an investigation into money laundering at ABM Amro, the lender where he used to work. 

Chris Vogelzang left Amro in 2017, and took over Danske in 2019, after they had been accused of laundering $239 billion through a branch operation in Estonia. As for Amro, they have agreed to pay a penalty of $574 million for their own money-laundering escapades. 

Thinking of George Floyd, on whose neck a police officer felt compelled to kneel because he passed a counterfeit $20, you wonder how these bankers don’t end up behind bars, or face down in the street with cops on their backs. (See also: 4/7/21.)

 

* 

A felon cheating on his taxes? 

Also, we have another Roger Stone sighting. The Department of Justice has filed civil suit against him and his wife, Nydia, accusing them of failure to pay almost $2 million in income taxes. 

As Axios explains, Mr. and Mrs. Stone used Drake Ventures, a commercial entity, to “shield personal income from enforced collection and fund a lavish lifestyle despite owing nearly $2 million in unpaid taxes, interest and penalties,” according to the lawsuit. “They used Drake Ventures to receive payments that are payable to Roger Stone personally, pay their personal expenses, shield their assets, and avoid reporting taxable income to the IRS,” DOJ officials allege. 

Again, a liberal blogger is quick to say, “Innocent until proven a tax chiseler,” but is there any wonder that Stone and Rejected-President Trump liked to pal around? Since these charges are new, Mr. Stone’s pardon for his other felonies, granted last Christmas Eve, will not provide any legal cover.

 

* 

A handful of right-wing members of Congress are working to set up an “America First Caucus,” which will devote itself to protecting and fostering “Anglo-Saxon political traditions.” 

As an American with Irish ancestors, I wonder: Will someone come and take my land away and leave me and my family to starve on potatoes? That’s what the Anglo-Saxons did to my ancestors. Also worried: Italian Americans, Slavic Americans, Japanese Americans, Chinese-Americans, African Americans, Cuban Americans, Native Americans, Mexican Americans, etc. 

Best of all, if you’re a humorist, Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene will be involved. (So add Jewish Americans to the list of worried.) 

Louis Gohmert is also going to join forces! 

And reportedly, Rep. Paul Gosar is involved. You could call it the “Clown Car Caucus” just as easily.  As NBC explains: 

A seven-page organizing document that includes the group's name and a logo, first reported by Punchbowl News, says: “America is a nation with a border, and a culture, strengthened by a common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions.”

 

It adds that “societal trust and political unity are threatened when foreign citizens are imported en-masse into a country, particularly without institutional support for assimilation and an expansive welfare state to bail them out should they fail to contribute positively to the country.”

 

The document also backs infrastructure projects — a topic currently being debated in Congress — as long as they befit “the progeny of European architecture, whereby public infrastructure must be utilitarian as well as stunningly, classically beautiful, befitting a world power and source of freedom.”

 

Not everyone was happy that news of this caucus aborning leaked. Nick Dyer, Rep. Greene’s spokesman, confirmed that a platform was being written but complained about “dirty backstabbing swamp creatures” who leaked the document. Dyer would not confirm or deny its authenticity. 

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE: This sounds a lot like the platform of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s, when the Klan decided immigrants, African Americans, Jews, and Catholics were threats to the purity of the…Anglo-Saxon race…and the Anglo-Saxon way. 

In fact, this blogger is not the only one who thinks this caucus might end up as a blot on our nation’s history. Even Republicans are alarmed. “America is built on the idea that we are all created equal and success is earned through honest, hard work,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy responded late Friday. “It isn’t built on identity, race, or religion. The Republican Party is the party of Lincoln & the party of more opportunity for all Americans – not nativist dog whistles.” Rep. Liz Cheney, one of the few Republicans who still has a soul, and tries not to forget it, tweets: “Racism, nativism, and anti-Semitism are evil. History teaches we all have an obligation to confront & reject such malicious hate.” 

Rep. Tony Gonzales, a member of the party, but with Hispanic genes, tweets a “what the f---” meme.

___ 

 

4/17/21: If you don’t think humankind has the capacity to screw up the environment, you aren’t considering the evidence. 

This week we learn, via robotic submersible, that as rumored, barrels of toxic waste, laced with DDT, litter the ocean floor at 3,000 feet, between Long Beach and Catalina Island. DDT, as you may know, is listed by the EPA as a “probable human carcinogen,” and has been banned in the U.S. since 1972. Now we know, up to half-a-million barrels may be corroding and leaking contents into the ocean. 

And…hey…who would like some delicious fish! 

As CBS explains, 

The largest DDT manufacturer in the U.S., Montrose Chemical Corporation, was located along the Southern California coast in the city of Torrance. From 1947 through 1982, Montrose manufactured and distributed DDT worldwide. In doing so, a byproduct mix of toxic sludge made up of petrochemicals, DDT and PCBs was produced.

 

For decades, that hazardous waste was disposed of in two ways. Some of the toxic pollution was dumped into storm drains and the sewer system, which was then pumped out to sea through outflow pipes, 2 miles offshore of the city of Rancho Palos Verdes.

 

The rest of the waste was disposed of in barrels which were loaded onto barges and floated 10 to 15 miles offshore to waste dumping sites off Catalina Island and then jettisoned into the ocean.

 

So, the toxic sins of a previous generation may live on in the cancers of our grandchildren in years to come. 

Montrose and other companies involved in the dumping agreed to pay a penalty of $140 million in 2000, and a 34-mile square dumping ground closer to shore was declared a Superfund cleanup site.

___ 

 

4/18/21: Imagine that you could pay your federal income tax today and give only 1% of your earnings (legally) for the year to IRS. Would you be pleased? Would you be getting a fat refund? 

Imagine that you are single and earned $52,000 for the year. Your bill from Uncle Sam would normally be $4,617.50, plus 22% of income over $40,125. So 22% of $11,875, or another $2,612.50. 

You would normally pay $7,230. 

Unless you were a giant corporation with white shoes lawyers! For example, you could stash cash in the Cayman Islands and pay zero dollars. Or you could be a little more aboveboard and incorporate in Lichtenstein, where the corporate tax rate is so alluring that there are (on paper) more corporations than people. 

That would mean Corporation-R-You might fork over as little as one percent of profits. Wouldn’t that be great! 

Then the taxpayer earning $52,000 would cough up $520. 

When President Biden talked about being tired of seeing ordinary Americans “fleeced” at tax time, this is what he meant.

 

You. Yes, you. You undoubtedly paid more in taxes to the federal government this year than, for example, Nike. In 2018, the first full year under the new Trump Tax Cuts, we know Nike managed to avoid all federal income taxes. Amazon had $11.2 billion in profits and paid 0. Amazon paid that same amount in 2017: 

0.

 

A few other big names in Big Business also joining the Zeros Club in 2018: 

Chevron: 0. 

Delta Airlines: 0. 

General Motors: 0 

Netflix: 0. 

“I’m not trying to punish anybody,” Mr. Biden said, in defense of his plan to raise corporate taxes. “But damn it, maybe it’s because I come from a middle-class neighborhood, I’m sick and tired of ordinary people being fleeced.”

 

* 

In related, nutty right-wing news, Pearson Sharp, a correspondent for One America News (sometimes referred to as “Trump TV”) opines, “There’s still serious doubts about who’s actually president.” True. Fools who fall for all the ridiculous right-wing propaganda still have their doubts. 

Yet, there he is in the White House. 

Joe Biden. 

More than two months after the inauguration – which the network refused to air live – the folks at OAN still refer to President Biden only as “Biden,” or “Joe Biden.” Former President Trump, or Rejected-President Trump, as we like to call him here, is still “President Trump” in terms of One America reporting. 

In fact, on OAN, the perpetrators of the Jan. 6 riot on Capitol Hill are still described as Antifa types, spurred on by Democratic voices. 

This is proof that the people who report for OAN are lazy ignoramuses, unwilling to dig for facts. (See: 6/22/21.) 

 

POSTSCRIPT: When reporters from The New York Times talked to eighteen former OAN employees, sixteen said the channel had broadcast reports that they considered misleading, inaccurate, or untrue.

___ 

 

4/20/21: These have been difficult times for the QAnon crew; but there’s new “hope” for delusional conspiracy theorists. 

Now that we know Trump isn’t coming back anytime soon, QAnon believers have focused instead on vaccine conspiracies. 

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­____________________ 

A few drops of science will often disinfect an entire barrel full of ignorance and prejudice.   

Hendrik Van Loon

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­____________________ 

 

Before we dive into the story of QAnon, we should go back a few centuries to a period when people subscribed to witchcraft conspiracies. The historian Paige Smith describes the delusion of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when “witchcraft broke out like a terrible epidemic.” 

The madness of persecution, flaring up early in the fifteen hundreds blazed like a raging fire for the next hundred and fifty years. Witches suddenly began to swarm through all of Europe, burning hayricks, holding witches Sabbats, consorting with the devil, working mischief and destruction everywhere. The most learned theologians and scholars recorded their comings and goings and affirmed their authenticity. Thousands of old women, lubricating themselves with devil’s grease made out of the fat of murdered infants, slid through cracks and keyholes to make their airborne journey to a witches’ Sabbats. Specialists in witchcraft located eight hundred meeting places in the province of Lorraine. Twelve thousand witches were believed to have assembled for meeting in southwest France; often they came to such gatherings with their demon-lovers in attendance.

 

At the gatherings the devil himself appeared, sometimes in the form of a bearded man, sometimes as a goat or a toad. The witches danced to music made from bones and skulls, enjoyed sexual orgies with their demons or ate meals that might consist of boiled children, corpses, bats, and other tasty bits. Bizarre and horrible as witchcraft persecutions were it is notable that they were directed primarily at women. Not a few men, priests and civil officials, were charged and burned as witches, but the vast majority were women and a very considerable number confessed, without torture, to being members of that dark sisterhood.

 

(Daughters of the Promised Land; pp.31-32)

 

If that sounds absurd, compare with the tenets of QAnon. Last Christmas Eve, a Milwaukee-area pharmacist named Steven Brandenburg destroyed 500 doses of Moderna vaccine. He told authorities he feared the drug would alter the DNA of anyone who received it. He also warned his wife that the government was “planning cyberattacks and plans to shut down the power grid.” 

If you threw in a few bats, and witches entering homes through keyholes, you had the same baseless paranoia in 1692. 

Mass meetings of devil-worshippers in the sixteenth century. It was all imaginary. A “cabal” of cannibalistic pedophiles in 2021? And for political purposes, conveniently all liberals! Imaginary. 

Not to say pathetic.

 

In an article on how antivaxxers and QAnon have recently combined, Rolling Stone sums up current conspiracy thinking in language similar to Smith commenting on the witchcraft hysteria. 

“The core of Q is familiar,” writes Tim Dickinson: 

It posits that the surface world of respectable politicians, well-intentioned government institutions, and the media seeking to hold them accountable, is an illusion. The real power in the world is wielded by shadowy power brokers in the government, Hollywood, and the media called “the cabal” or the “deep state.” QAnon takes this conspiratorial boilerplate to wild extremes. The “deep state” is alleged to be insatiable in its thirst for power, and willing to do anything – from launching wars to spreading pestilence – to move closer to global domination. The Q ideology has no room for subtlety. The conspirators are believed to be the embodiment of evil, actual “luciferins” and pedophiles.

 

The theory may sound lunatic, but Q Anon is no longer relegated to the fringe: A Civiqs tracking poll finds that even after the attack on the Capitol, 10 percent of Republicans describe themselves as “supporters” of QAnon. Tenets of the Q belief system are even more widely held: An NPR poll released at the end of 2020 found 17 percent of Americans rated as true the statement that: “A group of Satan-worshiping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media.”

 

The good news, you can argue, is that we no longer hang or burn witches. 

The bad news: delusional thinking is still delusional thinking. 

Consider the poor fool who shot up a Washington D.C. pizza parlor in the belief that Hillary Clinton and other pedophiles were holding children in the basement and feasting on their flesh and blood. All he got for his heroic attempt to save imaginary victims was a lengthy stay behind bars. 

 

Our ancestors had some excuse. We should know better. 

On a grander scale, the deluded do not benefit from their delusions and society suffers harm. In the past witches dangled from scaffolds. QAnon dupes decide to riot on Capitol Hill and five people are killed, and dozens of police injured. The more anti-vaxxers there are, refusing to get shots in order to “protect their DNA,” the more potential hosts remain in which the virus may find harbor. Our ancestors had some excuse. Science was severely limited in the 1600s. So, our forebearers could believe the devil might appear in the shape of a toad. We should know better. COVID-19 enters our cells, somewhat like flu or herpes. Only it’s far more deadly. 

Unfortunately, “The larger the group of unvaccinated individuals, the more chance the virus can mutate to pose a danger, even to the already vaccinated.” We’re seeing that already, with several new strains. As one medical expert tells Dickinson, “Large outbreaks anywhere can give rise to variants that can escape vaccines everywhere. It’s the nightmare scenario of a never-ending pandemic.” 

Trump fans love them some Q.

POSTSCRIPT: Speaking of idiots, Ted Nugent has revealed that he contracted COVID-19, and a bad case, too. “I thought I was dying,” he said in a Facebook live video. “I literally could hardly crawl out of bed the last few days,” adding, “so I was officially tested positive for COVID-19 today.” 

This came after he grumbled in the past that the virus was “not a real pandemic.” 

He does note that he won’t be getting any vaccines, because no one knows what’s in them. 

Still stupid, in other words. For more details on what an ignorant fool Nugent is, check this link.

___ 

 

4/21/21: Loser Don shows up on Sean Hannity’s show to talk about plans for the future. Among other claims, the ex-president says eight Republican U.S. senators would have lost their seats if he hadn’t worked to save them. He says, “I’m not going to name them, because I don’t want to embarrass them.” But one was Mitch McConnell, who was “headed south” before Trump says he saved his ass. 

____________________ 

“I loved doing it because I loved helping people. And I’ve helped them more than any president.” 

Rejected-President Trump

____________________ 

 

Trump expresses his love for Kentucky and Kentuckians, and adds, “and they love me.” Then he says Mitch won by more than he had ever won before. 

I decide to check it out. 

McConnell won with 57.8% of the vote in 2020. 

In 2002, Mitch was elected with 64.7% of the vote, which is clearly (except to Trump, and to Hannity, who is too lazy to check) more than 57.8% 

Finally, Loser Don explains what he misses most about being president – not counting subverting the U.S. Constitution.

 

“I miss the most, helping people,” Trump tells his host. “That’s why I did it. Look, this has been very traumatic. I had a great life, great company, great business, no problems and now all I do is, people go after you. It’s vicious, it’s horrible but you know what? I loved doing it because I helped people. And I’ve helped them more than any president.” 

Yes, all Washington did was create a great nation. All Lincoln did was end slavery and hold the nation together. All Franklin D. Roosevelt did was defeat Adolf Hitler and smash the Japanese. Trump still thinks he did the most. 

Hannity lets Trump’s boast pass.

___

 

 4/23/21: Former President George W. Bush reveals a dirty secret. He couldn’t stomach a vote for Donald J. Trump in 2020. 

Instead, he wrote in the name of Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State from 2005 to 2009. 

Trump fans immediately announced that Bush was a RINO and a commie and hated America.

 

* 

Also a bummer for Trump fans, CNN offers brief follow up to the tale of a “stolen” 2020 election. This whopper is still being trumpeted by Loser Don whenever his fat-cat pals gather at Mar-a-Lago to listen to the former president reminisce. 

Six days after votes were cast, then-President Don tweeted: “Nevada is turning out to be a cesspool of Fake Votes.” When the truth was out, he predicted, results, “will be absolutely shocking!” 

Sadly, this week, Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, a Republican, announced that her office had found zero “evidentiary support” for claims of fraud in the Silver State’s election results. As the Secretary of State explained in a letter to the Nevada Republican Party:  

“While the [party] raises policy concerns about the integrity of mail-in voting, automatic voter registration, and same-day voter registration, these concerns do not amount to evidentiary support for the contention that the 2020 general election was plagued by widespread voter fraud.”

In other words, there’s nothig “absolutely shocking,” or even mildly upsetting, about the results of the Nevada vote. 

Trump is a loser. 

That’s all.

___ 

 

4/24/21: As noted earlier, April has been the “cruelest month” for ex-president Trump and his band. 

We know, for starters, that Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin continues to get dumber the longer he serves as a member in Congress. Last week, in a radio interview with Vicki McKenna, a conservative talk show host, he wondered aloud why anyone would care about other people getting vaccinated, asking rhetorically, “What do you care if your neighbor has one or not?” 

Sen. Dumbbell went on to say, “For the very young, I see no reason to be pushing vaccines on people. I certainly am going to vigorously resist any kind of government use or imposing of vaccine passports. ... That could be a very freedom-robbing step and people need to understand these things.”

 

Yes. People like Johnson. For example, Young Person A, 15, does not get vaccinated and catches the virus. Young Person A is asymptomatic and heads for school where Teacher B is soon infected. Teacher B is also asymptomatic, but goes home and infects Husband C. Husband C spreads COVID-19 at work, and then develops a high fever and has trouble breathing. Husband C ends up hospitalized, but recovers. Persons B and C get whopping medical bills, as a result. 

Unfortunately, at C’s place of employ, Co-Worker D is also infected. Person D visits Grandma E and Grandpa F. Both catch the coronavirus. Grandma E recovers quickly. But Grandpa F has several underlying conditions and dies in the intensive care unit at the local hospital. 

See, Sen. Johnson, how easy this is to figure out. As of April 23, CDC reported that COVID-19 had killed 

575,758Americans.

 

That would be equivalent to wiping out almost the entire population of the State of Wyoming. 

Since we last checked the numbers, unvaccinated individuals have helped spread the disease, with deadly effect. 

Daily death tolls (subject to changes as new numbers are tallied by CDC) show that on 

4/7:    776 Americans died

4/8:    928

4/9:    899 

4/10:  734

4/11:  332

4/12:  576

4/13:  714

4/14:  838

4/15:  832

4/16:  905

4/17:  696

4/18:  358

4/19:  682

4/20:  733

4/21:  875

4/22:  775

4/23:  860 died (but Sen. Johnson was too clueless to figure the danger out.)

___

 4/25/21: Lest we forget, Rejected-President Trump could be a dick on any topic you might choose, including nursery rhymes and recipes for pie. 

In the early months of his presidency, he blamed President Obama for an increase in drug overdose deaths. He claimed his predecessor “ignored” the crisis. “So they looked at this scourge and they let it go by,” Don bragged, “and we’re not letting it go by.” As a garnish on his dickishness, Trump delivered his attack from the comfort of Trump National Golf Course. 

Do we all remember his attacks on Golfing Obama? 

So, what happened with Trump at the helm? According to CDC, the U.S. set a record in 2020. The nation suffered 87,000 drug overdose deaths, with Trump steering the ship of state – and also trying to run it into the rocks on January 6. It would be stupid, really, to blame all those deaths on Trump. Just remember, he did blame all those previous overdose deaths on his predecessor. 

Because he’s a dick.

 

* 

Americans might be dying left and right from drug overdoses, and COVID-19, but you cannot put anything past the Republicans. They are in full freak out mode. Joe Biden is coming for the hamburgers. 

Apparently, any attempt to address climate change (which Republicans insist isn’t real, but scientists insist is) will mean that red-blooded American will never be able to visit Wendy’s again.

That means the nuts are out in force. Rep. Lauren Boebert warns her Twitter followers that if Biden has his way, we’ll all be limited to four pounds of beef per year (an imaginary threat so stupid only really stupid people could believe it). 

You had to figure the Space Laser Lady would check in, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene did. “Why doesn’t Joe stay out of my kitchen?” she fumed, almost as if the president were watching as she boiled a pot of spaghetti. 

Idaho’s Republican governor came up with what he no doubt thought was a clever line, saying, “Idahoans also have a beef with this agenda and for dinner.”

 

And Gov. Greg Abbott assured the people of his state, “Not gonna’ happen in Texas.” 

Fox News viewers got a steady diet (bad pun) of scary stories, and Sean Hannity claimed liberals had a plan to confiscate the A-1 Sauce. 

(Okay, I made that last one up.) 

All we need now is a cool, right-wing kind of bumper sticker, reminiscent of those bumper stickers regarding guns. Something like: YOU CAN PRY MY COLD DEAD HANDS OFF MY CHEESEBURGER AFTER I BLOW YOUR COMMIE HEAD OFF WITH MY AR-15.

___

 

 

4/27/21: A group of Republican members of Congress, who also happen to be health professionals, release an advertisement encouraging people to get vaccinated. In it, Sen. Roger Marshall, a freshman from Kansas and a doctor, and others wear “white coats with stethoscopes draped around their necks.” Marshall urges viewers to get vaccinated, “So we can throw away our masks, and live life as free as before.” 

This message, correct as it is, is necessary because over the last year countless other GOP voices have been raised in anger, devoted to downplaying the threat from the virus, insisting masks are symbols of oppression, and vaccines will change our DNA. Right-wing voters have been inundated with stupidity; and now the Republican medical people were doing their little part to bring light. 

It didn’t help recently, when Alex Jones insisted on his show that people who get vaccinated would be “dead within a year.”

___ 

 

4/28/21: Not all politicians are the same, as we often note at this blog. The U.S. Senate has voted 52-42 to reinstitute stricter rules to control methane gas emissions. Methane is many times worse when it spews into the atmosphere, related to climate change, than carbon dioxide. 

President Obama first passed rules to curb methane emissions. Naturally, Donald J. Nitwit had to wipe them from the books. 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced this spring that methane emissions had spiked higher in 2020 than in any other year since careful measurements were taken. 

So, thank you, Donald J. Nitwit.

 

Even BP and Royal Dutch Shell back the move to restore Obama-era rules, which require companies to check for methane leaks in pipelines, storage tanks and other equipment every six months. If leaks are found, they must be fixed within 30 days. 

Today, the House of Representatives also cleared the way for repeal of the repeal of the Obama-era rules. 

On a vote of 229-191, with a dozen Republicans voting with Democrats, the move to cut methane emissions passed. 

Again. 

(The Washington Post cites a figure of 80 times: that is how much more heat can be trapped by methane than carbon dioxide, though this blogger has seen estimates as low as 25 times.) 

A separate U.N. report this spring said cutting methane would be “the strongest lever we have to slow climate change over the next 25 years.”

___ 

 

4/30/21: As we noted previously, April has been the “cruelest month” for Team Trump. In the waning days of April, it only got crueler. 

____________________ 

“No evidence that such allegations were true.” 

Newsmax apology

____________________ 

 

First, Newsmax, the right-wing television network, has been forced to settle a defamation lawsuit – and pony up an undisclosed pile of cash – for lying about Dominion Voting Machines and  one of its employees, Dr. Eric Coomer. Newsmax had claimed that they helped rig the last election. 

By legal standards, Dr. Coomer got almost instant relief. He filed his suit on December 22. Newsmax promptly  crumbled. 

Among other absurdities, the cable channel had reported that Coomer took part in an “Antifa conference call” to make sure Biden and not Trump won in November. The network has withdrawn its claims and offered abject apology: 

[We] subsequently found no evidence that such allegations were true. Many of the states whose results were contested by the Trump campaign after the November 2020 election have conducted extensive recounts and audits, and each of these states certified the results as legal and final.

 

The network also added, “On behalf of Newsmax, we would like to apologize for any harm that our reporting of the allegations against Dr. Coomer may have caused to Dr. Coomer and his family.” 

(That would include having to live in hiding for the last six months and fielding multiple death threats.) 

Sadly, a recent poll by CNN shows that 70% of Republicans still don’t believe Biden had enough votes to win the election, and 50% still believe there’s “solid evidence” to support that myth. We know a fat chunk of the Republican base still believes in QAnon conspiracy theories. So you figure they’re suckers for any right-wing brand of BS.

 

* 

A pardon priced at $250,000 in bitcoin? 

If sleaze is more your style, Rep. Matt Gaetz, one of Rejected-President Trump’s top cheerleaders, is facing potential indictment on a variety of charges, including sex-trafficking a minor. New evidence keeps piling up against him. 

The Daily Beast is in possession of a damning letter and emails sent by Gaetz friend Joel Greenberg. 

If you’ve never heard of Joel, he’s facing an impressive array of 33 charges. In the waning days of the Trump administration, knowing he was in jeopardy, he wrote Roger Stone (seven-time felon, and pal of the president) and asked Stone about a pardon for himself and Rep. Gaetz. 

Of the 17-year-old, who was the alleged victim of sex trafficking, he said: 

On more than one occasion, this individual was involved in sexual activities with several of the other girls, the congressman from Florida’s 1st Congressional District and myself. From time to time, gas money or gifts, rent or partial tuition payments were made to several of these girls, including the individual who was not yet 18. I did see the acts occur firsthand and Venmo transactions, Cash App or other payments were made to these girls on behalf of the Congressman.

 

Even better, according to the Orlando Sentinel, Greenberg is alleged to have offered Stone $250,000 in Bitcoin if he could convince his pal Donald to grant him and Gaetz a pair of pardons. 

In a separate email, Greenberg informed Stone that he and ditched his legal team. “My lawyers that I fired, know the whole story about MG’s involvement,” he explained. “They know he paid me to pay the girls and that he and I both had sex with the girl who was underage. So naturally they think that is my golden ticket.” 

That is: to flip on Gaetz and get some of the 33 charges thrown out. But he promised he wasn’t going to flip. 

Stone, of course, got his own pardon – mainly because he didn’t flip on the president – and  no doubt Greenberg figured birds of a felonious feather flock together.

Stone, Gaetz and Greenberg.

___

 Stone suggested that Greenberg play up his support for the president in a letter to the White House, asking directly for pardon. 

Greenberg replied: 

And while I haven’t had any communication with MG he absolutely has to know that the sex charge they hit me with would be what they would hit him with. All he has to do is explain to POTUS the situation and his exposure, and it would be very easy to do.

 

MG is like a son to POTUS. MG is like a brother to me.

 

Honestly, I would have thought MG would have reached out to me or tried via a third party. One conversation with POTUS and he can get this done and it all goes away.

 

Yes, indeed. Who deserves a pardon more than a couple of Trump buddies, involved at the very least in paying young women for sex! 

Basically, soliciting prostitution.

 

* 

Speaking of sleazy dudes, Rudy Giuliani woke up at six a.m. one recent morning to hear federal agents shouting, “Open up, search warrant.” 

Apparently, Department of Justice officials believe Rudy should have registered as a foreign agent, back when he and Donald were working to dig up dirt in Ukraine on the Biden family. 

So far, details are murky. Rudy may be innocent, as we always note before trials begin. Still, it doesn’t help his case to know that Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two close associates who were working with him in Ukraine, have long since been indicted. And they were indicted when Trump was still in office. So when Sean Hannity tries to convince viewers that the Biden team is going after Rudy unfairly, Hannity is, as he so often is, full of hot air that smells like elephant dung on his breathe.

 

One particular area of interest involves Rudy’s efforts to get the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Maria Yovanovitch, fired. DOJ suspects that Rudy put national interests aside and had her axed because a couple of Ukrainian pals, known for their own corruption, wanted her gone. We also know that Rudy, Lev, and Igor were paid handsomely by a variety of shady Eastern European characters. Part of Rudy’s work involved trying to save Ukrainian businessman Dmitry Firtash from being extradited to the U.S. on bribery and conspiracy charges. 

Rudy claimed at the time that he was only interested in Ukraine because he and President Trump were anxious to cleanup corruption in foreign lands– and while he was at it, he would earn a few hundred thousand dollars representing corrupt Ukrainian business leaders.

 

* 

Having had his Twitter megaphone knocked from his grip, Trump has been reduced this spring to howling about the Oscars in an official press release. The ratings were way down, he grumbled. Format was terrible. They needed go back to calling the show “The Academy Awards.” They needed a real host. 

More importantly, the former president wanted to drum up hate for Hollywood among his base. “These television people spend all their time thinking about how to promote the Democratic Party,” he moaned, “which is destroying the County, and cancel Conservatives and Republicans.”

 This blogger, for one, would have thought Mr. Trump might have issued his long lost healthcare plan, instead.

 

* 

Last, but not least, the U.S. is advancing steadily in the battle to tame COVID-19. Trump would love to claim credit. Say he invented the vaccines himself. Handed them out with his own bare hands to 200 million Americans. 

Only he has a few issues in this regard that no rational human being can deny. He said the coronavirus was no worse than the flu. He said not to worry. It was going to go away. He scoffed at those who wore masks. Later, he advanced a series of ludicrous “cures.” Even now, Democrats who want to “destroy the country” are rushing to get vaccinated, and independents, too. 

Yet, the program to protect us all is beginning to stall. Trump would love to blame “Sleepy Joe.” (Ah, who can deny, Don is the master of juvenile insult). The death toll remains high, and tens of thousands are hospitalized every day. But he can’t blame Mr. Biden. The people who are refusing to be vaccinated – risking the continued spread of COVID-19 – are the Trump base.

 

Now the battle is to get the skeptics to be vaccinated – those skeptics being pretty much the Trump base. 

The death toll remains high: 

4/24:  647

4/25:  286

4/26:  438

4/27:  626

4/28:  876

4/29:  812

4/30:  822

 

According to the Centers for Disease Prevention, the death toll for the U.S., at the end of April, stands at: 

580,008.

 

POSTSCRIPT: In other odds and ends of sad news for Team Trump: Brendan Hunt, 37, a big supporter of Rejected Don, has been convicted of threatening to kill members of Congress. Hunt missed out on a chance to riot in the Capitol on January 6. But he made up for it two days later by posting a video online, titled: “KILL YOUR SENATORS: Slaughter them all.”

It took a jury only three hours to decide that Hunt was serious and dangerous and ought to cool down in jail. 

Also arrested: Robert Chapman, after bragging on Bumble, a dating website, that he had been part of the Capitol Hill riot. One woman he contacted about a date replied, “We are not a match.” Then she called federal authorities.

 

Finally, Don Wagner, a Republican official in Orange County, California got the kind of reaction he deserved when he asked the county health director a stupid question. “In the vaccine, we heard about an injection of a tracking device. Is that being done anywhere?” he asked Dr. Clayton Chau. 

Dr. Chau hesitated to answer for several seconds, then couldn’t help himself and started laughing. 

He quickly apologized, adding, “There is not a vaccine with a tracking device embedded in it that I know of exists in the world. Period.”

___ 

 

5/3/21: The Biden administration continues to make clear: For the next four years the U.S. will join the battle against climate change. The first step was to reenter the Paris Climate Accord. The second was the president’s decision to hold a virtual summit regarding the crisis, involving forty world leaders. The third was to reinstitute rules to control methane admissions – controls put in place under Mr. Obama. These rules were swept aside by Mr. Trump, who, in his profound ignorance, doubtless did more harm with his climate policies and idiot rhetoric than any human being in the history of the world. 

This week, as noted by The New York Times, the EPA announced an important fourth step. New proposals to regulate hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, “a class of man-made chemicals that are thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide at warming the planet,” were announced. 

The move is also the first time the federal government has set national limits on HFCs, which were used to replace ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons in the 1980s but have turned out to be a significant driver of global warming. More than a dozen states have either banned HFCs or are formulating some restrictions.

 

Meanwhile, the forces of ignorance – that is, Republican leaders and their right-wing media allies – remain strong. Struggling to find ways to damage President Biden, they have tried fake rage. 

We’ve seen this before. Don’t have a healthcare plan? Attack Obamacare and insist there will be “death panels” for granny. Other scare tactics in recent years have included, the “War on Christmas,” which involved liberals beating up people who dared go caroling, the “War on Wedding Cake,” with gays ruining marriage by getting married, the “War on Coal,” which was going to reduce us all to lighting homes with tallow candles, the “War on Potties,” involving transgender folks standing around watching us pee, and now, the “War on Hamburgers.” 

Since two-thirds of Americans believe government should do more to address climate change – because they are not ill-informed dimwits like Rejected-President Trump – and since Republicans have no plan – it was time again for Scary Stories: Chapter XX. On one recent show Fox News claimed that Biden’s climate requirements would “cut 90% of red meat” from the American diet,” to a “max four pounds per year,” or “one burger per month.”

 

“To meet the Biden Green New Deal targets,” Larry Kudlow, of Fox Business said, “America has to, get this, America has to stop eating meat. No burger on July 4. No steaks on the barbecue.” 

You could almost hear his viewers loading their guns at the news – and not even noticing that the Democrats had never actually come for those guns, or anything else, including poor granny. 

Politico gave these kinds of claims the worst possible “Pants on Fire” rating. 

And this blogger cannot resist noting that when Kudlow was working as a White House advisor in the last administration, he insisted in February 2020 that Team Trump had the coronavirus almost totally under control. 

____________________ 

“We have it contained…I won’t say airtight, but it’s pretty close to airtight.” 

Larry Kudlow

____________________ 

 

Nice call, Larry, you fool.

 

* 

In other goofy, right-wing news, Tucker Carlson goes on another one of his nightly rants, yowling that if anyone sees children wearing masks outdoors, they should call the police. 

Carlson’s point has something to do with the fact that outdoors, most of us are relatively safe from COVID-19 or even the flu. But for some reason we should be furious if parents try to be extra careful, regarding their kids. Forcing children to wear masks outside, he grumbles, “should be illegal.” He adds that if you see these masked youngsters, “Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different than your response if you see someone beat a kid in Walmart.” You should call the police. Or you should call child protective services. 

He went on to say, of people in masks, 

They’re the aggressors. It’s our job to brush them back and restore the society we were born in. So the next time you see someone in a mask on the sidewalk or on the bike path, do not hesitate. Ask politely but firmly, “Would you please take off your mask? Science shows there is no reason for you to be wearing it. Your mask is making me uncomfortable.”

 

And on this day, May 3, another 467 Americans die from COVID-19. Tucker doesn’t care about that.

___ 

 

5/4/21: Speaking of fools: How about all those climate deniers! Like Donald J. Trump, his lard ass self. 

NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, released its “new normals” report today. Data from thirty year segments are analyzed, with this new report covering the years 1991-2020.  Compared to the last report, covering 1981 to 2010, we know that much of the country is hotter by at least 1.25 degrees compared to the twentieth century average. 

Most of the country is also significantly wetter, with particularly heavy rains in the Midwest, just as scientist predicted. Warmer temperatures = more evaporation of water from oceans, lakes, rivers and streams. More water vapor in the atmosphere = greater precipitation = more flooding events = more torrential rains during hurricanes. 

Trump? He still thinks climate change is a hoax and he still thinks he won the popular vote in two elections. 

He remains as uninformed as ever – no more likely to read than a puppy – with no more grasp of the science than a head of cabbage.

___ 

 

 5/6/21: As a liberal in good-standing, I know our side produces a healthy crop of idiots, just as the conservative side does. I am happy to say our leaders are rarely racist idiots, and I cannot think of any conspiracy theory on our side as absurd as the QAnon movement, an absurdity from first claim to last. 

____________________ 

“Foxmania” and “Foxitis” made a rioter ill.

____________________ 

 

In any case, the Republican Party has coughed up another hairball in the form of idiot Ohio State Sen. Andrew Brenner. 

During a recent Zoom call he wanted it to look like he was working from home, not driving somewhere, endangering other drivers and random pedestrians he might squash. The “giveaway?” 

See if you can guess.

* 

Four months have elapsed since the Capitol Hill riot and the search for all the Antifa types who supposedly led the attack continues. In Right-Wing Fantasyland, these imaginary figures carried out all the cop-killing, did all the “Hang Mike Pence” chanting, swung all the door-window-and-skull-busting baseball bats and hockey sticks, and launched a left-wing assault on the U.S. Constitution. 

Since that fateful day, however, you could have read more than 400 indictments and kept tally of how many rioters have left-wing loyalties (one, maybe two, out of the records I’ve checked). 

Or you could keep a list of those who have acknowledged fealty to Rejected-President Don (scores) and to various right-wing extremist groups (dozens). Throw in the dupes and dopes who believed in QAnon (scores again), and those who insisted they came to Washington D.C. to “Stop the Steal” (more suckers), and you have a cross section of the Trump base. Ill-informed and able to swallow almost any nonsense, the most rabid rioters convinced themselves that anything the Liar-in-Chief said was true. 

The lawyer for at least one arrestee has now offered up a novel defense in court – with a germ of truth at heart. As the Washington Post explains: 

In the six months leading up to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Anthony Antonio spent his days watching Fox News — a habit that actually made him ill, his attorney told a D.C. federal magistrate judge on Thursday.

 

His ailment? “Foxitis,” his attorney said. “He became hooked with what I call … ‘Foxmania.’”

 

In the virtual hearing, which went awry when another alleged Capitol rioter interrupted with obscenities, Antonio’s attorney, Joseph Hurley, claimed that Fox News’s decision to regularly air then-President Donald Trump’s false claims of mass election fraud contributed to Antonio’s decision to participate in the insurrection.

 

Hurley went on to say that Antonio “started believing what was being fed to him.” An unhealthy diet of empty calories, heavy with cholesterol-causing half-truths, covered in fattening rage. 

As the Post noted, his client’s hearing, via Zoom, was repeatedly interrupted by yet another defendant. 

Landon Copeland, 33, who is charged with several federal offenses including assaulting officers and throwing a metal fence at law enforcement, went on several obscene and belligerent tirades.

 

When Hurley mentioned “Foxitis,” Copeland yelled, “I object.” The Utah native later said, “F--- all of you,” “I don’t like you people” and “You can’t come get me if I don’t want you to,” according to the Daily Beast. The judge ordered Copeland evaluated for mental competency.

 

Mr. Copeland is, of course, a right-wing type, himself, allegedly captioning pictures he posted on social media the day of the attack with the phrase: “the beginning of the libertarian right.” 

As for Mr. Antonio, he can be seen in video from the day of the riot, garbed in a bullet proof vest, carrying a “Three Percenter” patch, and shouting, “You want war? We got war. 1776 all over again.”  

A far-right type all the way. 

A second story about Copeland notes that he is a veteran and served in Iraq, where he was apparently wounded. He may suffer from Post Traumatic Shock Disorder as a result, and may deserve a break. 

Currently out on bail, he proved defiant during the call, shouting at the judge, 

I’m going to tell you what you’re going to do. You’re going to give me what the (expletive) I want! You’re going to do what the (expletive) I tell you to do! I’m in the middle of the desert! You can’t (expletive) find me! You can’t (expletive) come get me! You’re going to give me what the (expletive) I want.

 

What he wanted was to remain free on bail. What he did was make the case that he should be locked up and quick. The judge was kind and scheduled a hearing on May 18, to assess Copeland’s mental condition.

___ 

 

5/7/21: April was a difficult month for Rejected-President Trump. May hasn’t started off any better. First, his nemesis, Joe Biden, remains popular with the American public, with a 54.1% average approval rating. That would be nearly seven points higher than Loser Don ever managed during his four years “in office” (three, really, if you deduct more than a year spent playing golf and hanging at Mar-a-Lago). 

The stock market, which Trump screamed would collapse if he weren’t given a second term to work his magic, has not collapsed. Instead, Biden’s magic looks stronger than Trump’s magic ever did. 

Yesterday, the Dow Jones average closed at a record high, 34,538.53, and Mr. Biden didn’t even brag about it. 

New figures out Thursday also showed new filings for state unemployment benefits had fallen to their lowest level since March 2020. Job cuts by U.S. companies were the lowest since June 2000. Consumer confidence rose to its highest point in thirteen months. Some experts had hopes that nearly a million jobs would have been added to the U.S. economy in April, but a Bureau of Labor Statistics report out today shows that “only” 266,000 jobs were added. March numbers were also revised downward. Yet, in Biden’s first three months on the job a total of 1,572,000 jobs** have been revived or added. We can do even better once more people get vaccinated.

 

Republicans, of course, would like to take credit for this boom and blame Biden if vaccinations slow and the virus blows up again. But they can’t blame Biden if COVID-19 explodes and the economy hits a rough patch, because Republicans are basically the only people in America who don’t want to get vaccinated because they believe vaccines include computer chip tracking devices. 

Plus, they are too busy loading their guns, and stocking up on frozen hamburger patties for when the liberals come for their meat. (See: 5/3/21.)

 

* 

Taken to the Make America Great Cleaner. 

The hammer blows continue to fall on Team Trump. The F.E.C. is now moving to ban prechecked donation boxes whenever political campaigns solicit funds. Leading up to the 2020 election several pro-Trump groups solicited donations from supporters in a new and unusual way. 

Suppose you agreed to donate $100 on June 1. You would have to hack through a jungle of legalese to find the proper box and uncheck it, or you’d end up “donating” that sum multiple times before the election. 

The bipartisan F.E.C., which includes three Democrats and three Republicans (all appointed by Trump) unanimously agreed that such “money bombs” should be banned, following an exposé by The New York Times. 

By then, however, it was too late to help countless MAGA fans. The Times cited the case of Stacy Blatt. He was in hospice care last September when he heard a pitch from Rush Limbaugh. The Trump campaign was in dire need of money. Blatt, 63, decided he could afford $500. Like countless other Trump fans, Blatt was taken to the Make America Great Cleaner. In his case he donated that one time. But “another $500 was withdrawn [from his checking account] the next day, then $500 the next week and every week through mid-October, without his knowledge — until Mr. Blatt’s bank account had been depleted and frozen.”

 

When his rent and utility payments bounced Blatt had to ask his brother Russell for help. Together they contacted his bank. Stacy said he believed he was the victim of fraud. At that point, he had “donated” $3,000 (a princely sum for a man living on disability payments of $1,000 per month). 

Russell said he felt like it was “a scam.” 

But what the Blatts believed was duplicity was actually an intentional scheme to boost revenues by the Trump campaign and the for-profit company that processed its online donations, WinRed. Facing a cash crunch and getting badly outspent by the Democrats, the campaign had begun last September to set up recurring donations by default for online donors, for every week until the election.

 

So, “Screw you, Trump fans,” and that simple message is brought to you by the Trump campaign itself. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: Then, at last, a “victory” for Loser Don. The GOP is prepared to ignore its own principles and oust Rep. Liz Cheney from her leadership post in the U.S. House of Representatives. Her crime: Warning her party not to continue to back the lies of Donald J. Trump. 

In other words, a victory for fabrication, mendacity, and deceit. 

 

No other American president has ever done this. 

On Wednesday, Rep. Cheney noted that only last week Trump had again claimed to be rightful victor in the 2020 election. In an opinion piece in the Washington Post, she responded forcefully. 

His message: I am still the rightful president, and President Biden is illegitimate. Trump repeats these words now with full knowledge that exactly this type of language provoked violence on Jan. 6. And, as the Justice Department and multiple federal judges have suggested, there is good reason to believe that Trump’s language can provoke violence again. Trump is seeking to unravel critical elements of our constitutional structure that make democracy work — confidence in the result of elections and the rule of law. No other American president has ever done this.

 

…

 

The question before us now is whether we will join Trump’s crusade to delegitimize and undo the legal outcome of the 2020 election, with all the consequences that might have. I have worked overseas in nations where changes in leadership come only with violence, where democracy takes hold only until the next violent upheaval. America is exceptional because our constitutional system guards against that…

 

In the short term, Cheney writes, there may be political gains, but to support Trump’s lies risks, “profound long-term damage to our party and our country.” She continues:   “Trump has never expressed remorse or regret for the attack of Jan. 6 and now suggests that our elections, and our legal and constitutional system, cannot be trusted to do the will of the people.”  The party must once more “stand for genuinely conservative principles, and steer away from the dangerous and anti-democratic Trump cult of personality.” 

The party can recover, she suggests, but not if it follows a man with only one guiding principle – what’s good for him: 

History is watching. Our children are watching. We must be brave enough to defend the basic principles that underpin and protect our freedom and our democratic process. I am committed to doing that, no matter what the short-term political consequences might be.

 

In Party Trump, principles are for chumps. Cheney is likely to be voted out of her post next week. 

**The Bureau of Labor Statistics reevaluates job numbers one and then two months later. The number for April was revised upward in May, to 278,000. As of June, the gains since Mr. Biden took over are now listed as: 

February:        536,000

March:            785,000

April:              278,000 

Total:          1,599,000

___ 

 

5/10/21: Remember when President Trump used to tell everyone that climate change was a hoax, and ill-informed individuals believed him? 

Melting glaciers in the Italian Alps have now revealed long hidden front line positions and buildings from World War I. The good news: historians have compared it to finding “a time machine.” Cups, letters, old tin cans, ammunition boxes, a perfectly preserved lantern and even weapons have been found. The bad news? More proof that climate change is threatening the globe. First, nearly a century of snow and ice built up at more than 10,000 feet above sea level, burying everything. Rising temperatures in recent years have uncovered the site. 

For more evidence that the globe is warming, feel free to read about various finds of wooly mammoth remains, as bodies frozen for up to 50,000 years are revealed. The permafrost layers in large parts of Siberia are thawing – after 50,000 f**king years! Good news for archaeologists. Bad news for humanity.

 Unless you are a big wooly mammoth fan. 

___ 

 

5/11/21: Team Trump keeps taking a beating. In court news, we learn that John Lambert, co-founder of “Students for Trump,” has been sentenced to thirteen months in jail. Crime: creating a fake law firm to bilk the unknowing. Lambert was ratted out by co-operating witness, fellow co-founder of “Students for Trump,” and unindicted co-conspirator Ryan Fournier. 

Court documents show that Fournier began providing information to prosecutors in April 2018, in hopes he might avoid charges “for his role in the wire-fraud conspiracy.” 

So Fournier – one crook – slides – and still has 375,000 followers on Twitter, if you’d like to check it out. 

The other crook – Lambert – goes to the slammer.

___  

 

 5/12/21: During a Wednesday hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives, several GOP lawmakers tried to make it sound as if the attack on Capitol Hill wasn’t as terrible as it looked on camera. 

“It was not an insurrection,” Rep. Andrew Clyde from Georgia barked. “If you didn’t know that TV footage was a video from (Jan. 6), you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.” 

Not sure what video he was referring to. Was it the one where one rioter was shot dead by Capitol police? Or the one where an officer was dragged down the steps by the tourists and beaten? 

And what group of tourists ever chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!” forcing the vice president, his wife, and daughter to flee for safety? (See: 5/14/21.)

___ 

 

5/14/21: Rep. Liz Cheney responds to comments by Republican colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives, regarding the attack on Capitol Hill. “The notion that this was somehow a tourist event is disgraceful and despicable,” she tells Jonathan Karl, of ABC News. (See: 5/12/21.) 

“I won’t be part of whitewashing what happened on Jan. 6. Nobody should be a part of it and people ought to be held accountable.” 

The Republicans in the House show their total lack of courage and kick Cheney out of her leadership position.

 

* 

Voter fraud! At last! 

Well, finally! We have a likely case of voter fraud and Colorado authorities have their man, Brian Morphew, in custody. 

No doubt, some scumbag liberal…. 

Check that. Morphew is charged with murdering his wife and using his wife’s mail-in ballot to cast an extra vote for Trump. 

As CNN reported (relying on court records – so, not “Fake News”), when F.B.I. agents showed up to interview the suspect, he admitted he cast the extra ballot and explained his thinking. “Just because I wanted Trump to win. I just though, give him another vote. I figured all these other guys are cheating” and “I know she (his missing wife) was going to vote for Trump anyway.” 

Only: She’s dead.

 

* 

“Cuz we followed this guys lead and never questioned it.” 

Morphew isn’t the only Trump fan likely to spend a long time in prison. For instance, we have John Lambert facing serious prison time (see 5/11/21, above). And Rep. Matt Gaetz is facing a serious investigation. Now throw in Ethan Nordean, a leader of the Proud Boys and avid participant in the January 6 attack on Capitol Hill. In happier times, Nordean was ready to fight to the finish for his Orange Idol, and maybe kill a few liberals in Congress for pleasure. Now, he’s engaging in profane tirades aimed at his old hero, Rejected-President Donald. 

It’s bad enough that many members of Team Trump refuse to admit that the riot on Capitol Hill was led by…other members of Team Trump. But so it is. As noted by USA Today, “Proud Boys leader Ethan Nordean lashed out at President Donald Trump, accusing him of misleading his supporters and then deserting them despite their unwavering loyalty. 

“We are now and always have been on our own. So glad he was able to pardon a bunch of degenerates as his last move and s--- on us on the way out,” Nordean said in an expletive-laden message about the former president. “F--- you trump you left us on [t]he battle field bloody and alone.”

 

Nordean actually began questioning the Orange Idol soon after taking part in the assault on democracy. 

According to court documents, on January 20, in a message to other Proud Boys, he grumbled, 

I’ve followed this guy [Trump] for 4 years and given everything and lost it all. Yes he woke us up, but he led us to believe some great justice was upon us...and it never happened. Now I’ve got some of my good friends and myself facing jail time cuz we followed this guys lead and never questioned it.

 

Guess he should have questioned it.

 

* 

Another fun story involves a recently revealed plan by unknown individuals inside the Trump administration to spy on President Trump’s second national security advisor, Gen. H. R. McMaster. 

And let’s not forget that his first NSA leader, General Michael T. Flynn, was indicted for perjury and had to be handed a blanket pardon for “any and all possible offenses,” by President Trump. 

So that, had it turned out Flynn had murdered a babysitter – or solicited children for sex – he would have been pardoned for that, too. 

Next, we should remember that John Bolton, Trump’s third national security advisor, wrote an entire book, The Room Where It Happened, about what a numbskull the president was, and how Trump undermined U.S. security interests in Ukraine for his own personal benefit. 

In any case, the best part of this new story comes, when a young woman with a hidden camera, using a fake name, visits a restaurant where McMaster is known to dine. The plan is to catch him making intemperate remarks about the boss. 

Why? 

Because Trump allies believe that in pervious conversations, McMaster has told companions that Trump is an “idiot” with a grasp on national security equal to that of a “kindergartner.” 

Chew on that for a moment. Trump pals believed that the national security advisor had said the boss had the same understanding as a six-year-old. 

A second woman was allegedly offered $10,000 dollars to go under cover and help trap McMaster, but apparently refused. 

 

Did Gen. McMaster say Trump had the understanding of a kindergartner?

White House aides feared he did.

 

POSTSCRIPT: Since we mentioned people not going to jail because they got pardons, and people going to jail because they didn’t, let’s throw in an associate of General Flynn. Bijan Rafiekian, also known as Bijan Kian, has been convicted by a jury on the same charges (basically) that Flynn pled guilty to – and then reneged on his plea – and held out for a pardon. So, like John Lambert’s co-conspirator pal, Flynn gets to skate, while Rafiekian is sure to spend time behind bars.

___ 

 

5/16/21: If you’re into comedy, Rep. Matt Gaetz is the gift that keeps on giving. During a speech in Ohio, the Republican lawmaker from Florida, tells an audience he’s a little lamb of innocence if you think about it. 

Sure, federal prosecutors are after him, as Gaetz puts it, for “exchanging money for naughty favors.” But he didn’t do it. 

Plus, if he did, that would be no worse than other members of Congress bringing back the practice of including earmarks in various bills, “and everybody knows that’s the corruption.”

Earmarks, if you’ve forgotten, allow a legislator to add a request to some bill that is about to pass, asking for money to be earmarked, or set aside, for example, to repair the Brent Spence Bridge, over the Ohio River. Or a Florida lawmaker, like Gaetz, might request federal funding to help clean up the red tides that have blanketed that state’s beaches so often in recent years. 

Those are earmarks. 

Gaetz has allegedly paid for sex with a minor and may have been part of a sex-trafficking operation run by a friend. (That friend, Joel Greenberg, just so happened to have pled guilty to six charges the day before; so you could understand why Rep. Gaetz might have been on edge a little.) 

Several Republican candidates for various offices had been scheduled to attend the same meeting as Gaetz. They backed out after they realized he was coming.

___ 

 

5/18/21: The pandemic is waning and most Americans credit President Joe Biden for the improvement, because: 

1.     He never claimed the coronavirus was going to go away, or that it was no worse than the flu, so no one needed to worry.

2.     He never put forward a series of numbskull “cures” or took advice from the Demon-Sperm Lady, and her ilk.

3.     He listened to medical experts. As soon as he took over, he pushed for a vaccination blitz and made the program work.

 

In fact, 71% of Americans approved of Biden’s handling of the crisis, including 46% of Republicans.

 

* 

In other news, Trumplicans continue to banish anyone with principles from their party.

 

____________________ 

“I don’t think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election. I think that is all over with.” 

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy

____________________ 

 

After Rep. Liz Cheney voted to impeach Trump for inciting the January 6 riot, and then kept criticizing colleagues for amplifying the “Big Lie,” that the election was stolen, the sycophant crew had no choice but to give her the ax. Last week, the Trumplicans voted to oust her from her leadership post. 

But they did so by voice vote. 

They didn’t have the courage to vote individually, because that would have exposed a rift in the party, and exposed those who supported Cheney to continued attack from Rejected-President Don. 

Cheney might have been ousted – and men like Rep. Jim Jordan, who have no more principles than a barnacle, might have been thrilled – but she remained defiant. The New York Times noted: 

In an unrepentant last stand minutes before Republicans voted to strip her of her post, Ms. Cheney urged her colleagues not to “let the former president drag us backward,” according to a person familiar with the private comments. She said that if the party wanted a leader who would “enable and spread his destructive lies,” they should vote to remove her, because they had “plenty of others to choose from.”

 

“I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office,” Ms. Cheney told reporters afterward. “We have seen the danger that he continues to provoke with his language. We have seen his lack of commitment and dedication to the Constitution.”

 

After Cheney was ousted, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy marched out of the meeting and assured reporters that she had not been punished for refusing to accept the “stolen election” lie. “I don’t think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election,” he insisted. “I think that is all over with.” 

Meanwhile, Rejected-President Don was issuing a statement that read: 

The major Michigan Election Fraud case has just filed a bombshell pleading claiming votes were intentionally switched from President Trump to Joe Biden. The number of votes is MASSIVE and determinative. This will prove true in numerous other states. All Republicans must UNIFY and not let this happen. If a thief robs a jewelry store of all of its diamonds (the 2020 Presidential Election), the diamonds must be returned. The Fake News media refuses to cover the greatest Election Fraud in the history of our Country. They have lost all credibility, but ultimately, they will have no choice!

 

So, sure. No one is disputing the election results. Except the loser. And the Cyber Ninjas, down in Arizona. (See 6/26/21 for the resolution of the Michigan case – which does not go well for Donald.) 

In that state, a private, pro-Trump group, called the Cyber Ninjas, are counting all the ballots from Maricopa County, but not from other counties in the state – because – well, election integrity! 

The group only wants to find voter illegalities in a county that went Democratic last November, but not in any counties that went for Trump in the same election. 

Among other claims the Ninjas are hoping to prove: That China shipped 40,000 bogus ballots to the state, all of them votes for Joe Biden. Rumor has it that these ballots will contain bamboo mixed in the paper.

 

As the Arizona Secretary of State, a Democrat, noted recently, the Cyber Ninjas have never conducted a voter audit. The founder of the Ninjas is an advocate of the “Stop the Steal” lie. So, now we add bamboo to space lasers and QAnon theories about satanic pedophiles, and mix in some Trump lies. 

Speaking of which: Trump was at it again, issuing another absurd claim on his new blog. Now Trump was claiming that the entire voter database of Maricopa County had been “deleted” in the midst of the Cyber Ninjas recount. Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer – a Republican – just couldn’t take it anymore. “Wow. This is unhinged,” he responded on his personal Twitter account. I’m literally looking at our voter registration database on my other screen. Right now,” he wrote. “We can’t indulge these insane lies any longer. As a party. As a state. As a country. This is as readily falsifiable as 2+2=5. If we don’t call this out…” 

Richer trailed off, one assumes, in disgust. 

Nor was he the only Republican with a soul to speak out. After Arizona Senate President Karen Fann (Trump fan, no soul) wrote an open letter, insisting that she had “serious issues” regarding two previous official recounts of the Maricopa County votes, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jack Sellers (Republican, but still possessed of a conscience and a soul), felt compelled to respond. 

“After reviewing the letter with County election and IT experts,” Sellers explained, “I can say the allegations are false and ill-informed.” Fann’s claims (and Trump’s) were “completely baseless.” 

He went on to say, “Moreover, the claim that our employees deleted election files and destroyed evidence is outrageous, completely baseless and beneath the dignity of the Arizona Senate. I demand an immediate retraction of any public statements made to the news media and spread via Twitter,” Sellers added. 

Sellers and Richer now join other decent Republicans who have refused to say the election was stolen, when multiple recounts have proven it was not. For example, Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona, Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: Here’s Trump’s full statement, which as usual is crammed with lies and half-truths. Or maybe quarter-truths. 

(For example, Newsmax isn’t just “intimidated” by lawsuits. They’ve already paid an undisclosed settlement for lying about the “rigged election.” And “weak Republicans” aren’t afraid. Honest Republicans are fed up.) 

The entire Database of Maricopa County in Arizona has been DELETED! This is illegal and the Arizona State Senate, who is leading the Forensic Audit, is up in arms. Additionally, seals were broken on the boxes that hold the votes, ballots are missing, and worse. Mark Brnovich, the Attorney General of Arizona, will now be forced to look into this unbelievable Election crime. Many Radical Left Democrats and weak Republicans are very worried about the fact that this has been exposed. The DELETION of an entire Database and critical Election files of Maricopa County is unprecedented. Many other States to follow. The Mainstream Media and Radical Left Democrats want to stay as far away as possible from the Presidential Election Fraud, which should be one of the biggest stories of our time. Fox News is afraid to cover it—there is rarely a mention. Likewise, Newsmax has been virtually silent on this subject because they are intimidated by threats of lawsuits. One America News (OAN), one of the fastest growing networks on television, and the “hottest”, is doing a magnificent job of exposing the massive fraud that took place. The story is only getting bigger and at some point it will be impossible for the weak and/or corrupt media not to cover. Thank you to OAN and other brave American Patriots. It is all happening quickly!

 

As usual, Trump is full of sh**.

 

* 

In this regard, it can be fun to check out the Heritage Foundation’s lists of voting fraud cases that led to convictions in various states, since we are now told by Republicans (some with souls, some without, but all desirous of being reelected as many times as possible) that voter fraud is rampant. Arizona prosecuted one man in 2020, for voting twice…in the 2016 election. The last fraud conviction in Georgia was in 2018, and involved questionable votes in a Republican primary. Pennsylvania has indicted one person in 2021, none in 2020. Wisconsin had one conviction in 2020, when a felon voted, although he was ineligible. And so far, this year, Michigan has caught a fraudster who filled out an extra ballot and voted for his daughter. Nevada had no cases in 2020, 2019 or 2018, and only one in 2017 and one in 2016. Those are the six states, where Loser Don tried to say he was cheated out of millions of votes last November. 

For fun, you can keep right on going. A few more examples should suffice. And if you don’t trust my accuracy, check the story out yourself. 

South Dakota: No convictions since 2015. 

Kansas: One case this year, involving a former Republican congressman, who provided a false address for purposes of voter registration. Two cases in 2017, and a crime wave in 2016, with seven cases, six for “duplicate voting.” (This is particularly telling, because Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach was later tasked by President Trump with finding the “millions” of illegal voters the president insisted had voted for Hillary Clinton in November 2016. 

Ohio: Two convictions in 2019, four the year before. 

North Carolina: No convictions so far this year and none in 2020. In 2019, one of the biggest cases of fraud prosecuted in recent years involved a Republican running for a seat in Congress. The results of that particular election had to be overturned and a new election was held. 

Rhode Island: No results listed. 

New York: No cases since 2018, and those two cases involving fraud in local elections. 

Wyoming: One case of ineligible voting…in 2014

 

Mississippi: One election overturned this year, in the Democratic primary for the First Ward alderman of Aberdeen. 

Texas: Last conviction, for fraudulent use of absentee ballots, came in 2019. Also interesting, since Attorney General Ken Paxton once claimed that 93,000 undocumented immigrants were registered to vote in his state…and 58,000 had done so…and so the search was on…and then fizzled. 

Colorado: Jan Wilson was found guilty of voting twice in the November 2020 election. She said she wanted to help out two Republicans running for local office. Wilson is a resident of Teller County, which uses the supposedly rigged Dominion Voting Machines; but one official noted during her trial that Teller County used the same machines in 2016 and Trump carried the county. 

California: With 44 million people, the Golden State has two convictions, so far, in 2021, on top of a “massive” eight cases in 2020. Four of those involved vote-buying. In one case, a man named Richard Howard offered homeless people cigarettes and money in return for their signatures on petitions and voter registration forms. 

Florida nailed one man in 2018, for filling out five stolen absentee ballots and sentenced the six-time voter to 154 days in jail and a fine of $468. Nothing since. Like the knuckleheads who run Texas, Florida authorities once claimed that something like 200,000 non-citizens might be voting in the state. Right-wing panic ensued. The search was on! The “list” of illegal voters shrank and shrank again. One “non-citizen” famously turned out to be a World War II veteran, and very much a U.S. citizen. In the end, only 85 individuals were wiped from the voting rolls. 

So, Florida officials were only off by 199, 915. 

New Jersey had one serious prosecution in 2020, involving, possibly, hundreds of mail-in ballots, but for a local race, not a presidential contest. Three Patterson City Council members have been charged with felonies. And a second conviction last year, in a case of vote buying, also for a city election.

___ 

 

5/19/21: The State of New York has notified the Trump Organization that it has opened a criminal investigation into its operations, expanding a probe that involved possible violations in civil matters.

 

____________________ 

“Wait for investigation.” 

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL.)

____________________ 

 

“We have informed the Trump Organization that our investigation into the organization is no longer purely civil in nature,” a spokesperson for the office of the Attorney General of New York said in a statement. “We are now actively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan DA.” 

Innocent until proven guilty is the rule; but I won’t deny it would be fun to go to a rally like Trump fans, and shout, “Lock him/her up!” before all the evidence has come in. Likely areas of legal jeopardy for the Rejected-President and his kids: tax evasion, conspiracy to commit various crimes, and fraud. 

(Barron is innocent.)

 

* 

Speaking of investigations, Republican leaders in Congress, and Loser Don made it clear yesterday that they preferred not to have a 9/11-style commission investigate the January 6 attack on Capitol Hill. This was  a surprise, since Loser Don and a host of GOP lawmakers and right-wing media types spent the days following the attack howling that the people involved were wicked left-wing types. 

Rep. Matt Gaetz said it was Antifa. Said he read all about it in the right-wing Washington Times. 

Rep. Paul Gosar said the attack had all the “hallmarks of Antifa provocation.” He said it on Fox News. 

Rep. Mo Brooks told Lou Dobbs he had a hunch about who was doing all that cop-clubbing: “there is some indication that fascist antifa elements were involved, that they embedded themselves in the Trump protests.”

 

Later, he sent out a series of tweets, claiming that he had received information before the attack, that Antifa types were planning violence on January 6. And you couldn’t fool Old Mo, not after all those windows got smashed and five people were killed. “Please, don’t be like #FakeNewsMedia,” he tweeted, “don’t rush to judgment on assault on Capitol. Wait for investigation. All may not be (and likely is not) what appears. Evidence growing that fascist ANTIFA orchestrated Capitol attack with clever mob control tactics.”

 

Yes, wait for investigation. Ferret out the “fascist ANTIFA” folks. Get the “evidence.” That would be excellent advice.

 

You could dredge up any number of Republicans who insisted that “patriots,” namely, Trump fans, “don’t act like this,” as one California state lawmaker suggested. So, it had to be leftists.

 

In fact, you could turn on any of the right-wing news outlets and hear the same brain-dead refrain. Our people wouldn’t do this! Mark Levin said so on Fox. Greg Kelly on Newsmax was equally certain. Having looked at the same video images as the rest of us, Kelly proved – if nothing else – that he needed to learn braille. “These people don’t look like Trump supporters,” he told the gullible Trump supporters who tuned in to listen to his show. “Trump supporters don’t do these things.” Brian Kilmeade, and Tucker Carlson, and Laura Ingraham, and Sean Hannity insisted, thumping the same drum. “I’d like to know who the agitators were,” Hannity exclaimed. Those “who truly support President Trump…do not support those who commit acts of violence.”

 

Donald J. Trump, chimed in during his second impeachment trial, and sent his lawyers out to argue that he couldn’t be blamed for inciting a riot, because the rioters were liberals and Democrats and Antifa types.

 

So he had to be innocent.

 

Going on five months later, here we are. The House of Representatives holds a vote. Will a 9/11-style investigation be held to find out who these attackers were? President Trump makes it clear beforehand that an investigation will be a “Democratic trap.” That is: An investigation might prove who the rioters really were. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy tells his colleagues to vote “no.” Yet, just one week after the attack McCarthy knew exactly who the attackers were. Trump fans. Trump fans, stirred up by Trump himself.

 

“The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters,” McCarthy said on January 13. “He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. These facts require immediate action by President Trump.”

 

(Not has ever been forthcoming.)

 

Today, McCarthy would like everyone to forget that the rioters showed up dressed in full MAGA regalia. The vote in the House today went as you might expect if you expected one party to show abject cowardice. There were 252 votes in favor of an investigation, including 35 Republicans, and 175 against finding out who attacked the Capitol. Unfortunately, Sen. Mitch McConnell has made it clear that he doesn’t want any of the 50 GOP senators voting in favor of such an investigation. Someone called Mitch “spineless,” as a result. But at this point you wonder if Mitch has femurs and patellas. He’s more like a cup of vanilla pudding in a suit.

 

It’s also worth noting that the bill would create an investigating panel made up of five people chosen by Democrats and five by Republicans. The bill would require that all “should be prominent United States citizens, with national recognition and significant depth of experience in at least two of the following areas” –  governmental service; law enforcement; the armed forces; intelligence; counterterrorism; cybersecurity; technology; law; or civil rights, civil liberties and privacy.

 

Trump might change his mind on setting up a commission, but only if Democrats would agree to compromise, and let him pick all ten members of the panel. Here are ten names he would accept:

 

Donald Trump Jr.

The MyPillow Guy

The Demon Sperm Lady

Sean Hannity

Rudy Giuliani

“Q”

Rep. Mo Brooks

Roger Stone

Rep. Matt Gaetz (assuming he hasn’t been indicted)

 

—and—

 

Rep. Andrew Clyde, who said recently that it was a “bald-faced lie” to call the riot an insurrection, adding that the people who came to the Capitol on January 6 looked to him like people on a “normal tourist visit.”

 

It did not help Rep. Clyde’s defense of the “tourists” when a photo surfaced of him helping push a large piece of furniture in front of the doors to the House chamber on that fateful day.

 

Worst tourist group ever!

 

 

*

 

But wait! There’s more! The Cyber Ninja outfit hired to conduct an “audit” of the votes in one Arizona county (but not in any county where Republicans piled up more votes) has admitted it was bullshitting when the claim was made that Maricopa County officials deleted voting records.

 

Rejected-President Donald made the same claim a few days ago; so let’s see if he backtracks. (Ha! He won’t. The man is as clueless as a goat.)

 

And did we mention that the Board of Supervisors in Maricopa County has five members, including four Republicans? Those five have unanimously agreed that the audit by Cyber Ninjas is a “sham.”

 

We should add that since various right-wing media outlets and individuals have accused Board members of participating in criminal acts, the chance that they might file defamation suits may have had something to do (besides ineptitude) with the admission by Cyber Ninjas that, okay, we’re sorry. We found the “missing” information. The records we accused the Board of deleting. They were right there. On the Maricopa County website. So, can someone please notify the Orange Goat?

___

 

 5/20/21: Remember when Rejected-President Trump used to like to bark about climate change and how it was all “a hoax?” 

 

An iceberg the size of Delaware. 

It was great fun for right-wing fools, who, like the jackass in the Oval Office, proved incapable of discerning the difference between weather and climate. Meanwhile, the four years of Trump in office, turned out to be four of the hottest, globally, in history. Even major automobile manufacturers started to realize: The days of gasoline-powered vehicles were numbered. 

This week, Ford announced plans to market the Lightning, starting at $39,974, an all-electric version of its most popular model, the F-150 pickup. And this isn’t your granny’s Prius. As Ford CEO Jim Farley promised buyers, the new model “hauls ass and tows like a beast.” 

Nor is that all the new pickup truck can do: 

Ford is emphasizing what the Lightning can do at a standstill — namely, run a work site or power a home during an emergency.

 

Eleven built-in outlets allow drivers to run multiple power tools at a work site or kitchen appliances at a campsite. (The new hybrid F-150 offers a similar feature.)

 

And when it’s plugged in at home and the power goes out, the Lightning can automatically send electricity back into your home, keeping the lights on for days, Ford says.

 

In related news, the largest iceberg in the world has broken off an ice sheet on the Antarctic coast. At 4,320 sq. kilometers, or 1667.961 square miles, that makes the berg, named, unimaginatively, A-76, only a little smaller than Delaware. 

A-76 now knocks A-68, which broke off from the ice sheet last year into second place, since that berg was “only” a little larger than Rhode Island. Scientists say that the breaking off of A-76 may have nothing to do with climate change – but go on to warn that climate change is definitely causing damage to ice sheets along the Antarctic coast; and that means humanity will pay a price. 

Garbage may seem to be only tangentially connected to the saga of A-76. But do you ever ask yourself, “Where does my old toaster go when one set of slots stops toasting my bagels?”

The toaster doesn’t disappear, although you might think it does. It goes into a landfill with all the other dead toasters, and we need to remember that all human activities leave marks on the environment.

 

  

For example, the New York City Sanitation Department estimates that it hauls away 12,000 tons of trash daily. 

You can’t pile it up forever. 

Nor can you spew unlimited amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere with absolute impunity.

___ 

 

5/21/21: Your humble blogger is well aware that our side of the political divide produces its share of imbeciles, crooks, and miscreants. But it’s always more fun to make fun of the pious, “family-value” type Republicans. Case in point: Wyoming state Sen. Anthony Bouchard. 

Bouchard has high hopes of knocking off Rep. Liz Cheney in a primary, and taking her seat in Congress, after she committed the unpardonable sin of calling Donald J. Trump what he is: A menace to the U.S. Constitution. 

Bouchard’s chances took a hit today when he admitted that when he was a lusty 18-year-old he got a 14-year-old girl pregnant. Bouchard compared it to Romeo and Juliet, whereas law enforcement authorities might compare it to statutory rape, since the age of consent in Wyoming at the time of impregnation was definitely not fourteen. As an added bonus, Bouchard claimed he was a victim of “the establishment swamp,” when you might have thought the girl was the victim. In order to head off a trip to jail, Bouchard married the young woman, went through “kind of a bitter divorce,” and says his ex-wife committed suicide at age 20. 

At least Bouchard didn’t ask the girl to get an abortion, and a son was born, who the candidate admits is now almost his “estranged son” because he’s made some “wrong choices” in life. 

But: VOTE BOUCHARD 2022! 

 

FUN FACT: Since January 20, Rejected-President Trump has been charging the Secret Service every night for rooms at Mar-a-Lago, so agents can sleep in comfy beds at the resort and keep him safe. 

The tab, so far, is just over $40,000.

___ 

 

5/22/21: If you watch right-wing news for amusement, you have no doubt heard of the big Arizona vote audit. According to the zany crew at One America News and other far-right media outlets, this recount of one county is going to blow the lid off the conspiracy to cheat Donald J. Trump out of 300 million votes, give or take a few. In other words, back that moving van up to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Joe Biden is leaving. Don and Melania are back, baby! (See: 5/19/21.)

 

____________________ 

“I feel like we’re in this fantasy land. I still have yet to see any evidence [of voter fraud], and I don’t think it’s coming.” 

State Senator Paul Boyer, Arizona Republican

____________________ 

 

Unfortunately, as The Hill reported this week, even Arizona Republicans are growing weary of the antics of the Cyber Ninja crew, the organization hired to audit the vote in Maricopa County. 

First, the recount has dragged on longer than the Ninjas promised, and they’ve only counted a fourth of the votes. 

Second, they’ve been mocked mercilessly for their efforts to find bamboo in the ballot paper – which would “prove” that ballots were fake and shipped from China. Now former Arizona governor Jan Brewer, a Republican, has chimed in. “I think they should maybe just call it quits. I don’t think that it’s going to serve any purpose. It’s not going to change the election,” she said. “The votes have been certified. Biden is the president. It’s not changing. I say move on.” 

Apparently, Brewer doesn’t believe in bamboo bamboozling. Neither does current GOP governor Doug Ducey, who has also insisted that the vote count in Arizona was accurate all along. 

Even one Republican state senator, Sen. Paul Boyer, told The Hill he believes the audit has become an albatross for his party. 

“Who wouldn’t support an audit?” he asked rhetorically, while failing to mention that Maricopa had already conducted two official recounts. “But the way they’re doing it, it’s embarrassing,” he added. “It makes me embarrassed to be a state senator at this point. I feel like we’re in this fantasy land. I still have yet to see any evidence [of fraud], and I don’t think it’s coming.” 

Senate Leader Karen Fann, who initially insisted on the Cyber Ninja recount, has been forced to waltz away from her brainchild. 

This is partly due to the fact that the five members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors – which includes four member of her Republican party – have been threatening to file defamation suits against anyone who says the county vote was fixed or that they conspired to break the law. Fann now lamely admits, “I have said from the get-go I am relatively sure [we] weren’t going to find anything of any magnitude that would imply that any intentional wrongdoing was going on,” she told GOP lawmakers in a closed session earlier in the week. “I believe that we were going to find what we’ve known all along and some of the things is we could do a better job.” 

According to The Hill, this lame-ass recount idea is likely to cost the taxpayers of Arizona $3.3 million. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: Speaking of lame-ass, can we insist that all Republican lawmakers take at least a basic course in U.S. history? 

In just the last few days, Rep. Madison Cawthorn has asked right-wing believers to imagine, when General George Washington asked the British to “capitulate” at Yorktown in 1781, if he had been wearing a mask. Well, said Rep. Bonehead, “that’s not who we’re descended from.” 

Apparently, Rep. Bonehead was not aware that a large French fleet had chased away a British naval force protecting the supply lines of the 7,000 Redcoats penned in at Yorktown. Nor did he seem aware that Gen. Washington might not have had a mask, but did have more than twice as many men as the British commander and had the enemy surrounded on the land side. George could have shown up dressed as Martha and demanded that the British surrender and they would have had to raise a white flag. 

Meanwhile, we had another Marjorie Taylor Greene sighting. The imbecilic lady from Georgia appeared on the Christian Broadcasting Network to say that Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s rule, requiring members of the U.S. House of Representatives to prove they had been vaccinated before appearing on the House floor, brought to mind the Holocaust. “You know, we can look back at a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star,” Greene babbled, “and they were definitely treated like second class citizens, so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany. And this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about.” 

Yes, exactly! Minus the psychotic dictator, the crammed trains, the gas chambers and furnaces for bodies, the sadistic guards, the summary executions, the towers and barbed wire, the mass starvation, the use of slave labor, the tattoo numbers, medical experiments on twins, forced sterilization of gays, and the death on an industrial scale.

 

Not to be denied a place in the limelight, Sen. John Cornyn decided to weigh in on news that Loser Don, while president, had made a habit of spying on reporters that had the nerve to criticize his policies and/or personal behavior. The new team at the Department of Justice released records this week to show that Team Trump gathered phone records and emails from reporters at the Washington Post, CNN, and other news outlets considered unfriendly. 

That meant President Biden felt the need to address the matter and go on record to say that he would never spy on news outlets while he was president. Not even news outlets that allowed Rep. Taylor Greene to spread her numbskull ideas. 

Missing the simplest of possible points – that we do not want our government leaders spying on practitioners of the free press, no matter who those practitioners work for or what they say, because the free press helps keep check  on our leaders – Sen. Cornyn offered up this snarky tweet. 

___ 

 

5/23/21: At this blog, we rarely criticize presidents for foreign policy failures. Such “failures” often have more to do with other nations’ intransigence and/or come as a result of daunting complexity. It is, however, amusing and painful to look back on some of Rejected-President Trump’s greatest foreign policy brags.

 

____________________ 

Diplomacy is always a bitch.

____________________ 

 

First, we had his claim that he could get North Korea to give up its nukes, because Kim Jong-un was his chunky pal. According to an article in The New York Times this week, the best estimate is that the North has doubled its arsenal in the last four years, to 45 nuclear weapons. That would be roughly the same as Pakistan. (U.S. presidents were never able to convince Pakistan to disarm either.) 

The BBC estimates that there are currently 14,000 nuclear weapons held by nine nations (United States, Russia, Great Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel), down from 70,000 in 1986. 

Progress? 

Israel has as many as 90, experts believe, and material to produce another hundred if need should arise. 

Trump’s second brag was that he and Jared Kushner had created the framework for a lasting peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Or, as Jared told the Wall Street Journal, two months ago, “We are witnessing the last vestiges of what has been known as the Arab-Israeli conflict.” 

Jared was pumped, because 130,000 Israelis had visited Dubai since the United Arab Emirates was one of the first Arab nations to recognize Israel’s right to exist in August 2020. Jared was thrilled because wealthy jet-setter types – people just like him – were headed to the Las Vegas of the Arabian Peninsula. For the perpetually clueless Mr. Kushner, that was a measure of phenomenal success. 

The only problem was that the plan for peace he helped craft gave Israel a free hand to kick ordinary Palestinians out of neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and boot them off even more land in the West Bank. The anger of the Palestinians only increased, and they never even bothered to show up for discussions with Jared and the U.S. negotiating team. 

We freely admit on this blog that diplomacy is always a bitch. The Trump approach was no more nor less successful than, say, the approach of the Obama administration. Or even the Truman and Eisenhower approaches. We merely fault Jared for his naivete in failing to recognize the complexity of the issues. 

And Loser Don for his ridiculous bragging. 

The massive destruction from bombs and rockets and the heavy loss of life in recent days indicates that the Biden administration will have to try to untie the same Gordian knot that has baffled a bakers’ dozen of presidents (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, Obama, and Donald J. Trump).

___ 

 

5/24/21: Scientists are warning that the West may be in for an even worse fire season than in 2020. (Last year featured record burns.) 

 

“It’s like having gasoline out there.” 

Soil is drier right now than in any other year on record, for the date. Vegetation in some areas is drier than experts have ever seen, at any time of year. And fuel for flames is everywhere, especially in the Southwest. Dead juniper trees, needles brown, are like giant torches, 20, 30, 40-feet tall, waiting to ignite. “It’s like having gasoline out there,” Brian Steinhardt, forest fire zone manager for Prescott and Coconino national forests in Arizona, tells ABC News. Almost three-quarters of California is in an “extreme drought” condition, compared to 3% last year at this time. 

Conditions of extreme or exceptional drought exist across much of the region. In Utah, 90% of the state is ready to burn. The same can be said of 86% of Arizona and 75% of Nevada. One worried scientist struggled to find cause for hope, finally settling on this: “All we have going for us is dumb luck.” 

This is likely evidence that climate change is upon us; and addressing the challenge is certain to be complicated. If nothing else, at least President Biden isn’t calling climate change a “hoax,” or focusing on how much water he gets out of a showerhead, like his astonishingly unenlightened predecessor. (See: 6/16/21.) 

Instead, he’s focused on getting people vaccinated and bringing the pandemic to an end. Today, he tweeted: “More than 20,000 pharmacies coast to coast are now offering walk-in vaccinations with no appointment necessary.” 

Find a location near you at http://vaccines.gov. 

(It is possible for a President of the United States to tweet without insulting anyone or bragging about how great they are.) 

 

FUN FACT: Asked by Dana Bash, on CNN, if he thought President Trump was to blame for the events of January 6, former GOP Sen. Scott Brown, who served as Trump’s ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa, didn’t blanch. “Absolutely, I mean he bears responsibility. I think his presidency was diminished as a result of this, and I think he’s paying a price. He’s been impeached twice. He was impeached for those actions.” 

 He also told Bash he supports the call for an independent commission to look into events surrounding the attack on Capitol Hill. “To have a commission like this to find out who was responsible, what went wrong, to make sure it never happens again, it should be a no-brainer.” 

 

FUN WITH AMBASSADORS: We also learn that former ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, is suing Mike Pompeo and the State Department. At issue: $1.8 million in legal expenses incurred when Ambassador Sondland testified as part of President Trump’s first impeachment. 

Sondland alleges that Pompeo reneged on a promise to pay after Sondland told lawmakers that Trump had indeed proposed a quid pro quo. He would give Ukraine military aid they requested – but only if the President of Ukraine agreed to tell the world that Hunter and Joe Biden were involved in corruption in his country. 

After he testified to that effect (under oath), Sondland was asked to resign his post. As the Washington Post explains, 

“Ambassador Sondland confirmed he would not resign because he did not do anything improper. After that, everything changed. Ambassador Sondland did not receive his attorneys’ fees, notwithstanding the promises from the State Department that the attorneys’ fees would be paid,” the suit alleges.

 

Sondland joins former Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and several others as casualties of the first impeachment hearings. 

All of whom told the truth, as best they could. 

Under oath. 

(See: 3/15/21 for an update on the fate of Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, twin brother of the key witness against the president.)

___ 

 

5/26/21: Another vote audit, this time in New Hampshire, ends without producing evidence of widespread voter fraud. In this case, a tangible gap in vote tallies in a race for the state legislature prompted a check of vote totals. 

 

Yes. “Seeing things,” is correct. 

A bipartisan team of three auditors finds no sign of tampering, and rules that the mistake was due to human error. 

Naturally, “Loser Donald” isn’t buying such results. In a plaintive statement, he wonders, “Why aren’t Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republicans doing anything about what went on in the 2020 Election? How can the Democrats be allowed to get away with this?” 

You mean get away with nothing, according to New Hampshire auditors? 

It turns out voting machines were confused by improperly folded ballots, which left a crease running through a bubble, making it appear a vote had been cast for one candidate, when none was intended. 

Corey Lewandowski, who lives in Windham, and served as Trump’s campaign manager for part of 2016, has seized on the audit as proof that there are voter discrepancies elsewhere.

“This isn’t just about the town of Windham,” Lewandowski exclaims. “We’re seeing things take place across this entire country.” 

Yes. “Seeing things,” is correct. 

Auditors point out that no results were changed in the end. The four Republicans who were elected were still elected. 

It doesn’t matter. Evidence isn’t the issue. Trump supporters continue to believe that the New Hampshire audit proves their Orange God could have been cheated out of millions of votes, even though this audit had nothing to do with mistakes in the presidential race. 

Or in any other states.

___ 

 

June 1, 2021: Today: Fun with racists. Once upon a time, President Trump thought it would be a great idea to appoint retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor to be the U.S. ambassador to Germany. That idea got shot down after some of Col. Macgregor’s offensive comments were made known. Instead, the retired officer got a place on the West Point advisory board. 

Now it comes to light that during an April radio interview, Macgregor went all in on the racist “great replacement” idea. That is, the belief that there is a plot to inundate the white populations of the world in a sea of black and brown faces. 

As MSNBC reported, Macgregor claimed that the, 

Biden administration officials intend to “bring in as many people as they possibly can, as quickly as possible, from anywhere in the world, frankly. But preferably from Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and some, some portions of Asia, but not many.”

 

He added, “The idea is that they have to bring in as many non-Europeans as possible in order to outnumber the numbers of Americans of European ancestry who live in the United States. That’s what it’s all about. And I don’t think there’s any point in questioning it. That is the policy. ... It is a deliberate policy to enact demographic change.”

 

Racists.

 

Kind of a recurring Trump Team theme. 

(And should we ask: Was Christopher Columbus part of some “great replacement” plot in 1492?)

___ 

 

6/2/21: Pastor Rick Wiles, who said vaccines for COVID-19 were part of Satan’s plot, gets COVID-19 and ends up hospitalized. 

When people make fun of the poor man, a church spokesman warns that mockers are paving their path to hell. (See: 4/12/21.)

 

* 

Speaking of mockery, if you have $525 (or more) you can pay Donald J. Trump Jr. to create a personalized video for you or a loved one. 

For example, “Happy birthday, Marge. You don’t look a day over 40. Dad and I wish you many more.” 

Cha-ching. That will be $525. 

Don Jr. also promises that a portion of the loot he rakes in will go to charity; but we already know what happens when Trumps run charities. 

We also learn that Hunter Biden is hoping to sell paintings he’s been doing for high prices. Normally, the right-wing types are all in favor of capitalism. If the people who own Walmart have billions, and pay workers minimal wages, that is exactly how the system was meant to operate. But Hunter Biden cashing in? This outrages Jason Chaffetz, at Fox News, and all the other folks who sell outrage as a staple of right-wing “news.” In fact, you can’t cram all the outrage into one show. So you need a second. Then a third. Then, for fun, you can mix in a story about how Hunter’s dad is senile. 

My liberal heart tells me: Don’t be a dope. Don’t buy Hunter Biden’s art, even if the price is cheap. In fact, if someone is willing to pay $500,000 for a work the president’s son painted, in finger paints, leftover house paint, or whatever, I might argue this is more proof we need to raise taxes on the Top 1%. I’d also say, don’t pay Don Jr. to record your birthday greeting to your wife. 

(Also, don’t make Secret Service agents pay to stay at Trump resorts while they guard the ex-president.) 

 

FUN FACT, IF YOU ARE A CEO: According to the Economic Policy Institute, during the pandemic, CEO compensation at 350 major corporations increased nearly 16%. Did you get a 16% raise in the last year? 

I am betting you did not. The average worker’s pay “shot up” 1.8%. Just as God and the Republicans and Fox News intended.

___ 

 

6/4/21: The governor of Utah asks people to pray for rain – and maybe throw in a rain dance or a rain polka. 

Utah and large parts of the West are suffering through an epic drought, exacerbated by climate change. 

“I’ve already asked all Utahns to conserve water by avoiding long showers, fixing leaky faucets, and planting water-wise landscapes,” Gov. Spencer Cox tells reporters. “But I fear those efforts alone won’t be enough to protect us. We need more rain and we need it now. We need some divine intervention.” 

You know what else might help? Having leaders who realize we need to address the threat of climate change; not pretend it’s not happening. (See also: 6/10/21, 6/16/21, 6/17/21 and 6/20/21.) 

Ninety percent of Utah is suffering from “extreme drought.”

 

FUN FACT FOR UNINFORMED TRUMP FANS: Fox News is excited to run a story about how the Washington Post gave President Biden “four Pinocchio” for a claim that in the future our hospitals will be filled with Alzheimer patients. 

First, let me mention that the Washington Post previously tallied up all Loser Donald’s lies and misstatements, and the total came to… 

30,573 

…during four years in office. 

And that doesn’t count lying to the First Lady about how he banged a porn star and a Playboy bunny while they were married. 

As of November 3, 2016, even before taking office, the Post had catalogued 59 “four Pinocchio” claims made by Candidate Trump. 

By January 20, 2021, the paper had had to invent a new “Bottomless Pinocchios” category for ordinary “Four Pinocchio” statements that Trump had repeated twenty times or more. 

Fox News could easily look this up.

6/5/21: Fox News manages to dig up a “Stanford epidemiologist” who tells Laura Ingraham, on her totally objective program, that Dr. Anthony Fauci’s credibility is “entirely shot.” 

That means Donald J. Trump was…somehow…right about everything during the pandemic, even though we find ourselves approaching 600,000 dead. And he said, back in February 2020, that we were headed toward zero cases “soon.” 

And this virus was no worse than the flu. 

And a slug of bleach might cure it. 

Etc.

 

Ingraham was too excited to have her preconceived notions validated to press her guest. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford, assured her, “There are emails you can find in the treasure trove of emails that have been released where he acknowledged the virus has been aerosolized – well the cloth masks people have been recommending, they’re not particularly effective against aerosolized viruses.”  

Yes. Dr. Fauci said that – and a bit more (see below). 

“I really don’t understand his back and forth and his answer made absolutely no sense,” Bhattacharya adds. 

Yes. Dr. Fauci said that. Ingraham didn’t care about context. Because she’s intellectually lazy, and paid to shill the proper right-wing narrative. So here’s the full text of the email Dr. Fauci sent: 

Masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection. The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material. It might, however, provide some slight benefit in keep [sic] out gross droplets if someone coughs or sneezes on you. I do not recommend that you wear a mask, particularly since you are going to a vey (sic) low risk location. 

 

See. It does make sense. If you are infected, the masks prevent you from spreading infection to others. 

Duh. 

The typical mask bought in a drugstore might not be that good; but there are better masks you can find, which any nincompoop, even a Fox News guest from Stanford or host, should have pointed out. 

Your mask might not protect you. It might help a little, however, and it would protect others. 

See how easy that was to explain? I should go on Fox News. I could explain the obvious to the dolts who work there.

___ 

 

6/6/21: If April was the “cruelest month” for Team Trump, and May was truly awful, perhaps June will be… 

Even more embarrassing?

 

____________________ 

“We’re going to take back the White House, and sooner than you think.” 

Rejected-President Trump

____________________ 

 

It was another sad day for Rejected-President Trump when he had to shut down his blog, “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump.” That exercise in literature lasted 29 days before suffering an ignominious death. 

Traffic to the site was minimal. As Forbes magazine noted, fewer people checked out what Loser Don had to say on any given day than visited such internet sites as Eat This Not That or the adoption site Petfinder. 

Petfinder.com. where you can find “personalized pet matches,” including cats, dogs and “other pets.” 

(I think I am going to get on that site later and try to find a weasel. I will name it Rep. Gaetz.)

 

* 

In other news, Trump comes out of his Mar-a-Lago bunker long enough to show up at a Republican gathering in North Carolina and blame Dr. Fauci for getting everything about the coronavirus wrong. 

Did he bear any responsibility for the debacle? Why no. He was only President of the United States. 

As Reuters explains, “Trump called Fauci ‘not a great doctor but a great promoter’ for his frequent television appearances. ‘But he’s been wrong on almost every issue and he was wrong on Wuhan and the lab also.’” 

Loser Don, who apparently believes he got everything right, said China should pay $10 trillion in damages for unleashing the virus. 

That’s not going to happen. So why not just suggest that China pay $10 gazillion and surrender its entire supply of fortune cookies. The former president was talking total nonsense.

 

* 

Next up. Bad predictions. 

Trump insisted that if  Joe Biden were elected the stock market would implode and we’d be facing a Second Great Depression. The market has not crashed. It has not even slumped. On Friday, the Dow Jones closed at 34,756. 

As we like to say, we use the “Trump Rule” on this blog. That is: If a man is elected president, he or she (someday) is allowed to claim credit for all market gains from the moment he or she is announced as victor, even though another person (Obama, in Don’s case) is still in charge at the White House. 

It’s a stupid rule; but Trump came up with it; and who are we to deny such Trumpian logic? 

On Friday, November 6, 2020, the Dow closed at 28,323. It was announced on November 7, that Biden was our next president. (Don refused to believe it; but it was true.) So the market gain, so far, if we use the Trump Rule, would be 22.7 percent under Sleepy Joe. 

We can also use the more realistic, non-Trumpian measure: Dow-Jones gains from the day of inauguration. 

At this point in his presidency, Don had the Dow up 7.5%, way better than that “bum” Obama (5.6%, for comparison). 

Biden has the Dow up 15.9%. 

One might also kick sand in Trump’s orange mug, and note that Mr. Obama substantially out-performed him over the course of his first term vs. Trump, and did it again in a second. Don did not get a second chance. 

But wait…

 

* 

Next inauguration? August 13? 

…Maybe he will. At this point, we must admit: Trump fans will believe anything. Cannibalistic, pedophile liberals ruling the world? Check. Jewish-controlled space lasers? Check. Italian satellites used to switch votes in the presidential election? Check. Bamboo in the Arizona ballots? Yes! Biden’s inauguration will be halted, and Trump will be reinstated on January 20, because a mysterious internet figure named “Q” promised? Or reinstated on March 4? 

Check and double-check. 

Now we learn that Trump fans believe their Orange Idol is to be returned to office on August 13. 

Sydney Powell, America’s goofiest lawyer, says it’s true. So does Mike Lindell, of MyPillow fame. In fact, during an appearance on Steve Bannon’s radio show recently, Lindell said there was a “clear path” ahead…and a domino effect was coming…and the U.S. Supreme Court would be so impressed with the evidence of a stolen election…which would soon magically appear…that they would vote 9-0 in favor of Trump and set a new inauguration date.

 

* 

Are there any other lunatics out there, who don’t have a grip on how the U.S. Constitution works? 

Why, yes. There is. Namely Rejected-President Trump, himself. There have been several recent stories highlighting Don’s sad belief that he will be returned to the White House later this summer. Lindell says he gave his Orange Idol the idea, which is kind of like bragging that you gave a sexual partner chlamydia. Daughter-in-law Lara Trump pushed back on the idea, but not with force, saying that “as far as she knew” her father-in-law hadn’t reserved a moving van yet. Last night, in one of his first big public appearances since Biden thumped him in November, Don told a crowd of admirers that now was not the time to despair. Or to think lucidly. 

“We’re going to take back the Senate, take back the House,” he assured his audience, adding, “we’re going to take back the White House, and sooner than you think. It’s going to be really something special.” 

(Has this man had a drug test recently?)

 

*

 

Birds of a crooked feather. 

Finally, we would like to note that the old cliché, “birds of a feather,” clearly applies where members of Team Trump are concerned. We know that Girl Scouts hang out with other Girl Scouts and sell cookies. Heroin addicts tend to hang with other addicts and shoot up to get high. Young men who call themselves  “incels” (involuntarily celibate) commiserate online and stoke their toxic anger toward women. 

Crooks – as in Team Trump – tend to cluster. 

Take Steve Bannon. He got a pardon from President Trump. His business partner in a scam to dupe people into helping pay for the famous border wall, was recently indicted on fresh fraud and tax evasion charges. 

AMI, which publishes the National Enquirer, and is run by a Trump friend, just got fined $187,500. The Federal Elections Commission ruled that AMI “knowingly and willfully” violated the law to protect Don during the 2016 campaign. Remember? The company paid to kill a story about Don’s unfaithful behavior in his marriage with Melania Trump. Not to be confused with his unfaithful behavior in marriage #1. 

And also, marriage #2. 

We might also note that for his role in covering up stories of Don’s peccadillos, his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, got sent to jail. 

Or we might add: Trump’s other lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, recently had federal agents seize his phones and electronic devices. 

“Birds of a feather,” as they say. The investigations continue. Louis DeJoy, Trump’s choice for postmaster general, also finds himself under a cloud. At issue: Whether or not, at his previous business, he pressured employees to donate money to Republican candidates. Federal investigators are also looking into whether or not Rep. Matt Gaetz, Trump’s biggest fanboy in Congress, obstructed justice in a phone call involving his former girlfriend and a witness in a possible criminal case against him. Both the ex-girlfriend and the witness on the call were friends with a 17-year-old girl, who was allegedly sex-trafficked. Possibly by Gaetz. Definitely by Gaetz’s feathered friend – and recently convicted felon – Joel Greenberg. 

Is it possible Rep. Gaetz is innocent? It is. And we never resort to chanting, at this blog, “Lock him up!” Or in other cases, “Lock her up?” Or in transgender situations, “Lock zim up!” We are big, big fans of evidence.

 

That is why we anxiously await results of investigations into the Trump Organization. After all, we already know that legal standards were low wherever Trump or members of his family were involved. Trump University? A scam. And a fine of $25 million. The Trump Foundation? The charity was fined $2 million for misusing funds and his three oldest children were banned from further charitable work. So, when we hear that the Attorney General of New York and the District Attorney for New York City are studying the tax records of the Trump Foundation, we do perk up and take notice. A grand jury has already required testimony from Jeffrey McConney, a top finance officer at the Trump Organization for the last 35 years. 

Also under increasing scrutiny: Allen H. Weisselberg, the top officer for the Organization. He and his son may have been offered lavish fringe benefits, including free apartments, and school tuition payments, which should have been taxed, but which were likely not. And then you have Donald J. Trump himself, a peacock among the birds, accused by his former lawyer, Cohen, of cheating in multiple ways to avoid paying his fair share of taxes. 

Any other legal news on the Team Trump front? Well, we know Sidney Powell and Mr. MyPillow are getting sued for defamation. And Rudy! Jason Miller, Trump’s loyal spokesman, has suffered defeat in court, as well. He twice tried to sue Gizmodo Media Group for defamation. He twice lost. Now he has been ordered by one judge to pay Gizmodo’s $41,868.23 legal fees. Miller was angry in 2018, when a story was posted under this headline: “Court Docs Allege Ex-Trump Staffer Drugged Woman He Got Pregnant With ‘Abortion Pill.’” 

The story went viral, Miller got mad, and Miller went to court – only to have another judge rule that the story had been accurately reported. 

As summarized by the website, TheWrap, 

The story laid out the details of Miller’s divorce from ex-wife A.J Delgado, who he met during the campaign in 2016. Delgado’s legal team alleged that Miller had an affair with a woman he met at an Orlando strip club and when the woman found out she was pregnant, Miller dosed her with an abortion pill without her knowledge, leading to the termination of the pregnancy, and almost killed the woman.

 

Miller’s “good name” was further tarnished in 2019 when he admitted to extramarital affairs, hiring prostitutes in multiple cities, and visiting “Asian-themed” massage parlors where he paid for hand jobs. 

Now, he’s back in court, fighting his ex-wife, Delgado, in a case involving child support, custody and alleged harassing and threatening emails and other communications to her from him. Miller is also accused of hiding several sources of income, including payments as a spokesman for Mr. Trump, in order to cut any potential child support payments he might have to make.

 

Jason Miller.

___ 

 

6/7/21: If you missed this story, the Biden administration has won support from the other members of the G-7 for a proposal to set a minimum tax of 15% on multinational corporations. Many of these giants use offshore tax havens to avoid hundreds of billions in taxes – the kind of taxes all the mom and pop businesses you have ever patronized pay year after year. 

If the G-20 agrees to go along with the idea in a meeting later this summer, we may close off a route by which the largest companies in the world manage to shelter, by one estimate, $36 trillion in cash, gold and securities. 

According to an estimate by the conservative-leaning Tax Foundation, global giants dodged $700 billion in taxes in 2017 alone. 

According to the Tax Justice Network, the U.S. currently ranks second (on an index where you don’t want to finish first) for “Financial Secrecy.” That is, institutionally, and in terms of government policy, we make it easy to cheat. 

The top ten nations complicit in this fraud: 

1.     Cayman Islands (population: roughly 65,000, yet “home” to more than 100,000 corporations.)

2.     United States

3.     Switzerland

4.     Hong Kong

5.     Singapore

6.     Luxembourg

7.     Japan

8.     Netherlands

9.     British Virgin Islands

10. United Arab Emirates 

Other pipsqueak offshore tax havens include Guernsey (#12), Jersey (#16), Malta (#18), The Bahamas (#22), Bermuda (#40) and the Isle of Man (#43). 

If nothing else, I would like to see President Biden send the U.S. Navy to blockade the Cayman Islands until the leaders of that tiny nation agree to surrender all their banking and tax records, and we are allowed to hold their crooked tax lawyers and corporate cheats in a POW camp.

Can't we just invade?

___

 6/10/21: Alternately making fun of Rejected-President Trump and warning that all Americans should be terrified of what he would like to do has been my mission for five long years. 

As a former American history teacher, a veteran, and a relatively decent human being, as well as a man who likes to chase down facts, let me say it again. 

Trump is an ill-informed fool. 

Trump, in power, is also an incredibly dangerous man.

 

____________________ 

“He is not fit to be president of the United States.” 

Jack Ciatterelli

____________________ 

 

Today, let’s begin by making fun of buffoons! Trump announced last week that he and Bill O’Reilly would be going on a three-city tour to talk about his presidency and policies and set the history right. The “History Tour,” as Trump promised, “will be fun, fun, fun for everyone who attends!” 

I think it should be called the “Sexual Abusers’ Tour,” myself, since O’Reilly got canned at Fox News after being accused by multiple women, whereas Trump got accused by two dozen. Both men paid handsomely in an effort to keep their victims out of the news. In fact, I thought the idea for the tour was so bad, that two such men would go out together and not realize how terrible the optics are, that I assumed the first story about the plan had to be a parody. 

I checked. It’s real. And it’s going to be “fun, fun, fun.” Too bad Harvey Weinstein couldn’t join them.

 

If only Harvey Weinstein could join them.

* 

When it comes to buffoonery, it can be nearly impossible to match Texas Republican Congressman Lou Gohmert. 

Famous for once suggesting that President Obama had a secret plan to invade the Lone Star State, involving hidden tunnels under closed Walmart stores, Rep. Gohmert today topped even that level of absurdity. 

In a talk with officials from the National Forest Service, he wondered if, to fight climate change, the agency might not figure out how to change the moon’s orbit. Better yet, maybe the earth’s orbit. Couldn’t we do that? 

No, you poor dolt, we cannot.

Less humorous, but way more authoritarian, was Trump’s reaction to the President of Nigeria’s decision to shut down Twitter in his entire country. This came after Twitter deleted one of his posts. 

Trump loved that f***ing idea! 

Why didn’t he ever think of that? (Well, actually he did. He just didn’t have the legal right. Maybe next term.) 

Here’s how it might hypothetically work. Trump gets elected in November 2024, and we start following the China model, where Twitter is totally banned. From the lead to a story in The New York Times in January 2019:

 

SHANGHAI — One man spent 15 days in a detention center. The police threatened another’s family. A third was chained to a chair for eight hours of interrogation.

 

Their offense: posting on Twitter.

 

Just change “Shanghai” to “Fort Wayne,” or “Akron,” and there you are. President Trump, 2.0. 

Next, let’s check in on stand-up comedian and U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham for a bit of humor. Now that there is renewed talk the coronavirus escaped from a Chinese lab, Sen. Graham thinks this could be great news for his Orange Idol. Speaking with fellow comedian, Sean Hannity, he crowed, “If Trump was right about the lab leak, it would change the image the public had of President Trump regarding the coronavirus!” 

Um…noooooooooo.

 

Unless you have the power to make people forget Trump spent almost a year telling us not to worry (even if the virus leaped out of Joe Biden’s back pocket), because he had it under control (he didn’t), and it was no worse than the flu (it has proven at least ten times as deadly), and you could cure it by injecting bleach or imbibing hydroxychloroquine (you can’t). According to CDC records, 

599,034 Americans have now died from COVID-19. 

That toll is approaching the 620,000 Americans who died during our entire Civil War, our nation’s bloodiest war. You’d think Senator Graham, from South Carolina, where the first shots were fired, might remember that.

 

* 

Speaking of the pandemic, there’s both good news and bad. Hundred are still dying every day, but not thousands. As of this morning, 63.9 percent of U.S. adults had had at least one vaccination, and cases are falling dramatically. 

Not such good news? Trump fans are reluctant to get vaccinated. One lady we can put in the “no” category is Dr. Shirley Tenpenny, who recently testified before Ohio lawmakers after Republicans invited her – and then listened as she babbled on for three-quarters of an hour. Dr. Tenpenny, you could say, did not earn boffo reviews, after insisting that those who took the vaccine would find themselves connected somehow to the 5G internet. Also, their heads would be magnetized. “You can put a key on their forehead, it sticks,” she warned. “You can put spoons and forks all over and they can stick because now we think there is a metal piece to that.” 

“Later, there was some show-and-tell,” as the Columbus Dispatch reported. “Joanna Overholt, a registered nurse from Strongsville, defended Tenpenny’s testimony and placed a key and a hairpin against her chest and neck.” 

Nurse Overholt demanded an answer from lawmakers, saying, “Explain to me why the key sticks to me. It sticks to my neck too. So, yeah, if somebody could explain this, that would be great.”  

 

But when she tried to demonstrate, the key failed to stick to her neck!

 

Explain THAT!

 

* 

In other news, Jack Ciattarelli defeated three other Republicans in a primary, and will be the GOP nominee for New Jersey governor in November. We make note because Ciattarelli knocked out two Trump-loving sycophants, and once correctly referred to Trump as a “charlatan.” 

“The fact is, I’m an Abraham Lincoln Republican,” he announced, after his primary victory, “one who believes in tolerance, mutual respect and the power and beauty of diversity.” 

Or: not Trump. 

When I do a little extra checking, which I always try to do, I turn up a story from December 10, 2015, in the New Jersey papers. After Trump suggested during a GOP presidential debate that all Muslims should be banned from entering the United States, Ciattarelli sent out an email, warning members of his party. “Sitting silently and allowing [Trump] to embarrass our country is unacceptable,” he wrote. “He is not fit to be president of the United States.” 

Here, we should also remember what Sen. Graham said about Trump before Lindsey was neutered. This is the U.S. Senator who once described Donald as a “race-baiting, xenophobic bigot.” 

And a clueless one, at that. 

 

“I don’t think he has a clue about anything.” 

As Graham explained that same December, “You know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.” 

“He doesn’t represent my party. He doesn’t represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for. … He’s the ISIL man of the year.”

 

Graham said Trump’s rhetoric benefits ISIS in helping them recruit people to their cause. He said having traveled to the Middle East 36 times as a lawmaker and in the Air Force reserve, he knows the troops and diplomats on the front lines are very concerned.

 

“What Mr. Trump is doing – and I don’t think he has a clue about anything. He’s just, just trying to get his numbers up and get the biggest reaction he can,” Graham said. “He is helping the enemy of this nation. He is empowering radical Islam. And if he knew anything about the world at all, you would know that most Muslims reject this ideology.”

 

Ah, the good old days, when truth mattered to Republicans. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: Allow me to tack on a story I missed earlier. It appears, where the topic of climate change is concerned, Loser Don has less capacity for growth than a Cocker Spaniel. After Mr. Biden mentioned that during his time as vice president, he was told by top military leaders that climate change would be the biggest threat we faced, Loser Don felt compelled to weigh in – with one of his typically uninformed insults. (See: 6/29/21.) 

In a statement Thursday, the former president complained: “Biden just said that he was told by the Joint Chiefs of Staff that Climate Change is our greatest threat. If that is the case, and they actually said this, he ought to immediately fire the Joint Chiefs of Staff for being incompetent!” 

First, poor Donald missed the fact that the Joint Chiefs of Staff from back when Biden was VP have already moved on. Second, he still has no clue, where the matter of climate change is concerned. 

Four years in the White House and he learned nothing. (See: 6/17/21.)

___ 

 

6/11/21: Earlier this week, ProPublica published documents it received, revealing how much some of America’s wealthiest individuals paid in taxes. The documents were leaked illegally. But if you are a taxpayer in good standing, you should definitely take note of what records show. 

Which is: if you were a billionaire, you’d be paying way less in taxes, percentage-wise, than you are now!

 

____________________ 

How would you like to pay only 3.3% in federal income taxes? If you were a billionaire, you could. And 0% would be even better.

____________________ 

 

Among those whose records were exposed, we have such luminaries as Jeff Bezos, about to shoot himself into space on his own private rocket, named “Blue Origin,” Bill Gates (did he really hang out with Jeffrey Epstein), and Rupert Murdoch (who has his own network dedicated to running stories about how we can’t raise taxes on the rich because that would lead to communism). Between 2006 and 2018, for instance, Mr. Bezos’ wealth increased by $120 billion. On that increase he paid 1.09 percent in federal income tax. 

As a reporter for The New York Times explained, “In 2011, Bezos reported so little income that he qualified for — and claimed — a $4,000 child tax credit.” In both 2016 and 2017, another billionaire, Carl Icahn, paid no federal income taxes. The records in ProPublica’s hands show that the 25 richest Americans paid, during a five year period, 2014-2018, $13.1 billion in taxes on $401 billion in wealth gained. That comes out to a little more than 3.3 percent. 

I check my records. Last year, my wife, a retired speech therapist, and I, a retired teacher, paid 9.1 percent in federal income taxes.

 

A giant dildo?

POSTSCRIPT: Republicans in Congress react with fury at news of billionaires not paying any taxes. 

And aim their fury at the I.R.S. 

They demand an investigation into the leak of tax documents, but seem untroubled by the idea that the superrich are using a warped tax code to get out of paying their fair share. Or any share at all.

___ 

 

6/15/21: Nuts. I totally forgot Donald J. Trump’s birthday. Flag Day. That’s irony, for you. 

Happy belated birthday, Loser Don. You’re 75 years old, with the physique of an Idaho potato. 

 

____________________ 

That is: break the law and help obstruct justice. As Trump desired. Or resign.

____________________ 

 

On this fine June day, you will be perplexed to know that your successor, “Sleepy Joe,” as you like to call him (because every day of the year you love insults) is keeping his approval rate well above fifty percent. This morning his average stands at 52.6%. Can you remember when your approval rate was that high? 

It never was, Loser Don. 

You never cracked 50% at any time during your impeachment-marred four years at 1600 Pennsylvania. 

And on your final day in office you had a 41.1 percent average approval rate.

 

* 

We know you’re SAD! these days, even though you’ve got the “most beautiful chocolate cake” anyone has ever seen to console you in exile at Mar-a-Lago, as you once assured your pal, Xi Jinping. We know you got mad last week, and told Mike Lindell, Mr. MyPillow, that Mitch McConnell lost you the election and cost Republicans control of the U.S. Senate. That means you haven’t lost your ability to bend basic math. You said, if it weren’t for you, Democrats would have 60 U.S. senators, “Because I made teleconference calls – they call them town hall calls – speaking to tens of thousands of people, for congressional candidates and senators.” In reality, the last time the Democrats had that many Senate seats was 1967. 

When you were busy dodging the draft.

 

* 

Did you also know who is far more popular than you were among the citizens of our major allies? 

It’s “Sleepy Joe” again! 

According to Pew Research, a sizeable majority in 16 publics surveyed, had confidence in President Biden “to do the right thing in world affairs.” 

Looking at just the twelve nations where people were surveyed in 2020, your last year in office, and asking people about Mr. Biden, he scored a 75% average. Your last year you scored 17%, because the rest of the world was wise to your lunacy.

 

   

* 

McGahn finally has a chance to testify before Congress. 

Meanwhile, former White House Chief Counsel Don McGahn finally had a chance to testify before Congress. You kept him from doing so for three years. And even now your toadies in the U.S. House of Representatives made sure McGahn answered questions only in closed-door session. 

You know what McGahn said. He said you did ask him to fire Robert Mueller. Repeatedly. 

You said you never. 

(Note to Trump fans: trying to get a special counsel fired in the middle of an investigation would be the essence of obstruction of justice.) 

Asked how he felt about being pressured to do something illegal, McGahn told lawmakers, “After I got off the phone with the president, how did I feel? Oof. Frustrated, perturbed, trapped. Many emotions.” He “felt trapped,” he explained, “because the president had the same conversation with me repeatedly, and I thought I conveyed my views and offered my advice, and we were still having the same conversation.” 

McGahn said he refused to call Rod Rosenstein, at the time the acting attorney general, and ask him to fire Mueller. “If the acting attorney general received what he thought was a direction from the counsel to the president to remove a special counsel, he would either have to remove the special counsel or resign.” That is: break the law and help obstruct justice. As Trump desired. 

Or resign.

 

* 

Speaking of law-breaking, Mr. Trump, it has come to light that while you were in charge the Department of Justice conducted secret investigations, looking for leakers in the Russia investigation – and gobbled up phone and email records and data from various members of the free press – from two top Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee – and at least ten other people with roles in that committee. Also: the records of…Don McGahn! 

This sounds so Nixonian, so illegal, right from the top, that as soon as the story broke, your former Attorney General Jeff Sessions began assuring friends that he knew nothing about such investigations. 

Mr. Sessions can sniff an attack on the free press. And he does not want the scent on his clothes. 

In edition former Attorney General Bill Barr got on the phone and told Politico, Scout’s honor, he could not recall ever having agreed to such searches, or having talked to Trump about them. 

(The New York Times has three sources that say Barr did know.)

 

* 

The Putin Way. 

No one who ever listened to Trump whine at press conferences, yelp during rallies, or rant about enemies on Twitter, should be surprised that he targeted members of Congress and the free press who criticized him. It’s not quite Vladimir Putin poisoning critics, but it tends in that direction. 

Who did Trump have targeted? 

McGahn, as already noted, in part because he wanted to figure out a way to stifle the Russia investigation. 

Also: 

Rep. Adam Schiff, head of the House Intelligence Committee

Rep. Eric Swalwell, member of the HIC

Don McGahn’s wife

CNN Pentagon reporter, Barbara Starr

Washington Post reporters, Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller, and former Post reporter Adam Entous 

New York Times reporters, Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eric Lichtblau and Michael S. Schmidt. 

None of this is hard to grasp. Trump was willing to commit obstruction of justice, to warp the Fourth Amendment, which guards against “unreasonable searches and seizures,” and to torch the First Amendment protection of a free press. 

Still, we know Rejected-President Trump has one big fan. Asked recently about him, Vladimir Putin responded, “Well even now, I believe that former U.S. president Trump is an extraordinary individual, talented individual, otherwise, he would not have become U.S. president.” 

When a reporter for NBC asked Putin about the untimely deaths of so many of his critics, and wondered if he was truly a “killer,” the Russian leader laughed and said he wasn’t. But, in fact, he is. 

Even Russian security agents have admitted they managed to spread a highly toxic poison on the seams of Mr. Navalny’s underwear last August. When that assassination attempt failed Navalny was arrested instead. According to the Putin Way, he was dragged into court and placed on trial, convicted as everyone including Navalny knew he would be, and bundled off to a Siberian prison. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: Not only was Trump channeling his fascist instincts while in office. We have new video from the January 6 riot. 

As one exceptionally dumb Republican member of Congress described these kinds of folks: Just a bunch of tourists. 

Fascist ones, apparently.

6/16/21: June is more than halfway over, and Team Trump continues to take fresh lumps from all compass directions. 

First, prosecutors in Alaska bring fresh charges of voter fraud against…okay…another Republican lawmaker. Former Rep. Gabrielle LaDoux faces four felony counts,  her legislative aide two.

 

* 

­­­____________________ 

It was so bad, Hill said, that she considered faking a health emergency or pulling the fire alarm, if it would just shut Trump up.

­­­____________________

  

Second, former Trump advisor, Fiona Hill, makes it clear, with President Biden set to meet Vladimir Putin, how she felt in July 2018. That was the last time she watched a president at a summit meeting with the Russian autocrat. 

When Trump told amazed onlookers, and a worldwide audience, that he took Putin’s word over U.S. intelligence, and said he didn’t see why the Russians would have interfered in the 2016 election, Hill was stunned almost into inaction. “I couldn’t come up with anything that just wouldn’t add to the terrible spectacle,” she admitted on CNN recently.

 

“It was one of those moments where it was mortifying, frankly, and humiliating for the country.” 

It was so bad, she said, she considered faking a health emergency or pulling the fire alarm, if it would just shut Trump up. 

She compared it to the sinking feeling Dr. Birx has said she had during the Orange Buffoon’s bizarre press conference, where he touted the curative powers of injected bleach in the fight against coronavirus. (See: 3/15/21.)

 

* 

“If we want to avoid catastrophic climate change.” 

In other news, climate change continues not to be a hoax. It is, in fact, so clearly not a hoax, that Loser Don no longer claims it is – because almost everyone with a thimbleful of brains has come to grips with a threat that is stunningly real. 

Consider various data points, indicating where we’re headed: 

Miami, Florida is considering a $6 billion proposal from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to construct a sea wall up to 20 feet high, and six miles long. At issue, rising storm surge, as oceans of the world warm. 

Climate change.

 

At the same time, a “megadrought” grips most of the American West, another result of climate change. Lake Mead, the main reservoir on the Colorado River, which supplies water to Las Vegas and surrounding states, is at its lowest level since 1937, when the Hoover Dam was finished. Water is down 140 feet. With snowfall last winter abnormally low across the region, the lake is certain to fall lower. 

The governor of Utah is so concerned that he has asked the people of his state to pray for God to send rain, calling this the worst drought in Utah since 1956. And his state is far from alone. 

Most of the West is now primed for a terrible fire season.

 

“This is like a different world,” Pat Mulroy, former head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, told CBS recently.

 

No single day, no single summer, no single year “proves” that climate change has humanity by the gonads. Yet the evidence accumulates, year by year, with the eight hottest years on record the last eight. This week, record temperatures are expected across much of the bone-dry West, with highs from 15 to 30 degrees above normal. The Las Vegas Valley may see temperatures hit 127° and as far north as Billings, Montana, the mercury is expected to rise to 107°. 

Meanwhile, the NOAA reports that the level of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere reached its highest level in 4,000,000 years. Every reputable scientist in the world knows we’ve got work to do – as a human race – to address the monstrous threat posed by climate change. 

“We are adding roughly 40 billion metric tons of CO2 pollution to the atmosphere per year,” Pieter Tans, a senior scientist with NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory, said in a statement. “If we want to avoid catastrophic climate change, the highest priority must be to reduce CO2 pollution to zero at the earliest possible date.” 

That’s the warning. Nobody denies meeting it will be a challenge. But if you are a QAnon freak, a Trump fan, or singularly uninformed (there’s a lot of overlap in those categories), the loudest voices you are hearing on the right are still dedicated to filling your heads with hippo poo.

 

For example: Joe Biden is going to take away your hamburgers! Fox News was forced to admit that that story, which it was peddling in April, was nothing more than a bit of hocus pocus. 

And, if you missed the point, again, that would be more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than at any time in the last: 

4,000,000 years.

 

Let us pause, finally, to remember how President Trump and the rest of the Republican Party “dealt” with this crisis. You had Sen. James Inhofe show up in January in Washington D.C. with a snowball. He insisted existence of that handful of carefully packed snow disproved climate change. Trump himself called climate change a hoax, and made much of the fact that the terminology had morphed, from “global warming,” to “climate change,” as if that was the main issue. 

Or any issue, really. 

As for husbanding our resources, he ordered the federal government to relax the rules limiting how much water came out of showerheads, because, as he explained, keeping his hair looking “perfect” took a lot of water.

 

I also fondly remember the “eloquent,” miss the main point argument Sen. Rand Paul made in favor of old-fashioned high-capacity flush toilets and personal choice.

 

In any case, that’s the entire plan Republicans have for addressing this crisis. It’s like their “new” healthcare plan. 

Which no human has ever seen. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: This humble blogger did not realize until later that at the time of the snowball stunt, Sen. Inhofe was chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. 

Even the aide (below) is clearly thinking along these lines: “This guy is a vacuous old codger. Since I’m young I’m going to have to deal with the fruits of his failure to understand simple science. 

If I only had a snowball of my own, I’d bean the fool.”

___

6/17/21: June still isn’t going well for Republicans. Today the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a challenge filed by the Trump administration and various GOP-controlled states, asking for the Affordable Care Act to be repealed. This was their third try to kill the 2010 law. The vote went 7-2, against them. 

In a way, a good liberal such as this blogger can feel almost wistful about the Republican defeat – because if they had killed Obamacare, they would have had to trot out the plan Rejected-President Trump said they would have shortly after the November 2020 election. 

They don’t have any plan at all; and it would be nice for the American people to be able to see that.

 

* 

This week, Congress got something right! First, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a bill to make June 19 a federal holiday, “Juneteenth” being the day in 1865, when the last roots of slavery were ripped up in Texas. In the House, the vote was 415 for, against 14. All opposed were Republicans, including Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama and Rep. Chip Roy of Texas. Other “no” votes came from South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Kentucky, and a couple of other states. 

I think some of these GOP lawmakers miss slavery.

 

* 

Also, Rep. Paul Gosar – a dependably nutty member of Congress from Arizona – decided to vote “no.” 

He was busy insisting that the name of the Capitol Hill police officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt during the January 6 riot be released. “It’s disturbing,” Gosar said, claiming Babbitt was “executed.” 

“The Capitol Police officer that did that shooting appeared to be hiding, lying in wait and then gave no warning before killing her.” 

Yeah, he should have just yelled loudly enough for the mob that was right behind Babbitt to hear, even though they were howling about killing House Speaker Pelosi and hanging VP Pence.

 

* 

Company officials get bonuses; taxpayers get stiffed. 

We also learn today that Emergent, the manufacturer which signed a $628 million no-bid contract in May 2020, to produce coronavirus vaccines was so excited when it got the federal government’s business, that it awarded five company officials $8 million in cash and stocks. Emergent proceeded to botch production, spoil 75 million doses, and produce…so far…exactly 0 usable vaccines. 

I think in the Land of Trumplicans that this proves we can always trust Big Business, but never Big Government, and we can never raise taxes on people like those who run Emergent and get fat payoffs.

 

In related news, the Department of Education has decided to cancel $500 million in student loans owed to ITT Technical Institute, a for-profit college which profited greatly, mostly by defrauding students. This brings the total value of loans forgiven to $1.5 billion and covers 90,000 young Americans who were chiseled by for-profit operations, that specialized in profit, not education. 

The Department of Education has also announced that it will interpret provisions of Title IX as protecting transgender students from discrimination. This will no doubt enrage right-wing fans of discrimination.

 

* 

Finally, in “climate-change-is-still-not-a-hoax” news, General Motors sees the handwriting on the thermometer. They announce for the second time this year that they will increase spending and speed production of electric vehicles. GM will now commit $35 billion to that task. (See: 6/10/21, for Rejected-President Donald Trump’s most recent numbskull take on climate change.)

___ 

 

6/18/21: Former VP Mike Pence showed up Friday to give a speech at a Faith and Freedom Coalition event. 

Mike really wants to run for president in 2024, but he was greeted with boos and shouts of “traitor” from members of the audience. But at least they didn’t start chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.”

 

* 

If you can’t get enough of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and her special brand of madness, Republicans have another nut running for Congress. William Braddock would really like to represent Florida in the U.S. House of Representatives…even if it means killing Anna Paulina Luna, one of his primary opponents. 

In a secret recording, Braddock can allegedly be heard suggesting that a Russian-Ukrainian hit squad could finish the job. 

What is it with these Republicans? Can’t they even hire Americans? (See also: Donald J. Trump.)

 

“I really don’t want to have to end anybody’s life for the good of the people of the United States of America,” Braddock is allegedly heard saying in a recording exclusively obtained by Politico. “That will break my heart. But if it needs to be done, it needs to be done. Luna is a f---ing speed bump in the road. She’s a dead squirrel you run over every day when you leave the neighborhood.” 

Luna promptly files a petition for an injunction.

___ 

 

6/19/21: One man who is definitely not celebrating the new federal holiday is GOP Congressman Ralph Norman of South Carolina (State Motto: “We started the American Civil War and we’re still sad we lost.”) 

One of only 14 members of the House of Representatives to vote against making June 19, “Juneteenth,” a federal holiday, Rep. Norman grumbled in an interview Thursday, “How many holidays do we want? What’s the magic number? This would put it to eleven. Do we want twenty? Are we going to do one for the Native American Indians? I mean, where does it stop?”

 

Yeah. Where does it stop? Just what the Native Americans had to be thinking when the first white guys showed up in 1492. 

So: Columbus Day, a holiday for a white explorer? No problem, as far as Rep. Norman can see. 

July 4^th: Great document, the Declaration of Independence, but written by a slave owner (who was also having sex with one of the women he owned). Yeah. No problems here, either. 

But a holiday to celebrate the END of slavery? Or, horrors, a holiday to celebrate the people Columbus helped separate from all the lands they previously owned? Terrible, according to this fool. 

Some holidays Rep. Norman enjoys.

 

It’s fun to note, by way of comparison, that South Carolina shuts down state offices to celebrate “Confederate Memorial Day” every year. This year the celebration was held on May 10, marking the anniversary of Stonewall Jackson’s death in 1863. Something tells me Rep. Norman partied hard and waved his favorite flag on that day. 

___ 

 

6/20/21: On Father’s Day we are treated to another quick glimpse into the dark mind of Rejected-President Trump. 

____________________ 

Sadly, it’s Trump just being a dick, or Trump being Trump.

____________________ 

 

For some bizarre reason, Sunday morning he decides to send out greetings to the fathers of this great country. 

“Happy Father’s Day to all,” he writes in an official statement, “including the Radical Left, RINOs, and other Losers of the world. Hopefully, eventually, everyone will come together!” 

So heartfelt! And so weird, hoping that everyone will “come together!” This liberal blogger almost got tears in his loser eyes. 

This message was so crazy, I first thought it had to be some kind of prank. Sadly, it’s Trump just being a dick, or Trump being Trump.

___ 

 

6/22/21: Large swaths of the United States are currently frying under blistering June heat and every day makes a growing megadrought crisis worse. We have said repeatedly on this blog, that specific weather events, a week of unusual highs, or record lows, or a particularly bad June do not prove or disprove climate change. 

____________________ 

“It’s just a little bit warmer than it would have been last year. And if we have this next year, it’ll be just a little bit warmer again.” 

Alison Bridger, professor of Meteorology and Climate Science

____________________ 

 

The cumulative effect, however, is at this point impossible to ignore. Unless you are Donald J. Trump. 

Or a QAnon supporter. Or some other kind of nut. 

A “heat dome” has settled over large stretches of the American West, a weather event usually not seen till later in the summer. “It’s not only unusual for June, but it is pretty extreme even in absolute terms,” Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability tells NPR. “It would be a pretty extreme event for August.” 

Record high daily temperatures are being set in hundreds of places – record highs for any day, not just in June, including in places where records go back 150 years. “That’s a pretty big deal,” the climate scientist added.

 

Palm Springs, California hit 123° last week, tying its all-time single day record. Las Vegas set a daily record of 114° on June 17. Phoenix hit 118°, breaking the daily record by four degrees. The city had never hit such a high temperature in late spring. Sacramento, California saw the mercury touch 109°, also a daily record. Denver topped 100° for three days in a row, something that had never occurred this early in the year. A meteorologist noted that all the three-day-plus-100° streaks in Denver have occurred in the last thirty years. The Great Plains states were also baking in the heat, with Omaha, Neb. seeing a record high of 105. 

Alison Bridger, a professor in the Meteorology and Climate Science department at San Jose State University, explained that this heat dome, “fits with climate change ideas, global warming, meaning that it’s just a little bit warmer than it would have been last year. And if we have this next year, it’ll be just a little bit warmer again.” The heat dome is also blocking any precipitation, and drying out entire states.

 

Swain is equally convinced of the danger. “There’s a crystal clear human fingerprint on extreme heat and extreme heat events ... climate change is making these sorts of things worse,” he warns. 

You can find plenty of evidence to support Swain’s and Bridger’s concerns. Kathleen Johnson, an associate professor of Earth system science at the University of California, tells The Guardian, a British newspaper, “This current drought is potentially on track to become the worst that we’ve seen in at least 1,200 years. And the reason is linked directly to human-caused climate change.” 

Water levels at Lake Oroville, California’s second largest reservoir have fallen so low, that hydroelectric power, generated by the dam there, may soon fail, and leave 800,000 homes without electricity.

 

On June 18, an estimated 40 million Americans saw temperatures where they live top 100°. Salt Lake City hit 107°, a record for any day, going back to the heyday of Brigham Young and Church of the Latter Day Saints polygamy. “The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the summer of 2020 was one of the hottest ever seen in the US,” the Guardian adds, “with August, in particular, being especially ‘dry and destructive.’” Now the summer of 2021 looks like it will be worse. 

Maybe, much worse. 

Tucson, Arizona suffered through eight straight days of temperatures above 110°, making last week the hottest on record.

 

Phoenix had six straight days of 115°, another record, and one you would not expect to be set in June. Overnight lows were in the 90s, almost assuring that the next day highs would top 115 again. 

On June 15, Billings, Montana saw the mercury rise to 108, tying the hottest temperature ever recorded in the city. Sheridan, Wyoming hit 107, also the hottest ever recorded. 

Hot dry weather has led to multiple outbreaks of fire in California, Oregon, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona. Ground fuels, in many areas, are already at record dry levels. Experts now say there is no “fire season” in the West. 

It’s always fire season now.

 

Michael A. Crimmins, a professor in the department of environmental science at the University of Arizona, warns that this may be the future for the entire Southwest. This heat wave, “may look similar to other heat waves on a weather map, but the magnitude, intensity and duration of the event is larger because of climate change.” 

In other words: climate change is not “a hoax,” as Donald J. Trump always – cluelessly – liked to say. 

FUN F**K-THE-ENVIRONMENT FACT: If you think human activity can’t mess up the environment, you might be happy in your ignorance to learn that crayfish are less depressed than they were. 

That’s because antidepressants are washing into the nation’s rivers and lakes, by way of human urine. (Speaking of urine, 1 in every 8 Americans is taking some kind of mood-enhancing medicine.) 

Experiments show that crayfish exposed to serotonin, found in many medications to fight depression, made the creatures bolder. 

And, we hope, more cheerful in their relations with others. 

 

FUN LEGAL FACT: Innocent till proven guilty we like to say. Still, it’s interesting to know Rejected-President Trump’s former bodyguard, Matt Calamari, and his son, have been advised to lawyer up, as part of the investigation into possible tax shenanigans at the Trump Foundation. 

So sayeth the Wall Street Journal. At issue: did father and son fudge, taking free cars and free housing from their employer, but not claiming said benefits for tax purposes, as would be required by law? 

Would an organization run by and for Trump break the law???? 

History leaves little doubt. 

 

DICTATOR-WANNABE FACT: Two sources inform the Daily Beast that in 2018, President Trump began asking if the Department of Justice could clamp down on Saturday Night Live and various late night shows – because comics were mocking him mercilessly. When an aide told Don the Department of Justice didn’t handle such matters, the president inquired, “Can something else be done about it?” 

The source responded with some version of “I’ll look into it.” Then this source said he/she figured Donald would eventually forget all about it. I mean, the guy was busy tweeting 55,000 times as president. 

Right? 

 

FUN FAN-OF-DICTATOR-WANNABES FACT: One America News’ Pearson Sharp offered up a stunning argument in a segment that aired tonight. As Mr. Sharp sees it, “hundreds of thousands” of Americans were involved in a “coup” against former President Donald Trump.

 

“What happens to all these people who are responsible for overthrowing the election?” he asked viewers. Well, “in the past, America had a very good solution for dealing with such traitors: Execution.”

 

Yeah! Execution for “hundreds of thousands” of Americans. Go right-wing fascist news commentator! 

___

 

 6/25/21: Additional data points, indicating that climate change is coming – and coming with a vengeance – continue to pile up. 

Like felons in a Trump business operation. 

 

Sold out of room air conditioners. 

Extreme heat conditions that have blanketed most of the West in recent weeks, now move north. Temperatures in Portland, Oregon are forecast to hit 108° on Sunday, which would set a record. Seattle, which has topped 100 only three times in city history, is expected to do so again this weekend.  

“If you’re keeping a written list of the records that will fall, you might need a few pages by early next week,” the National Weather Service warned. 

Stores across the Northwest, where extreme heat events are rare, were sold out of room air conditioners. 

As ABC noted, “The Portland Pickles, the city’s semi-professional baseball team, offered weekend tickets for $1.11 — the possible high on Sunday.” 

___ 

 

6/26/21: If Rejected-President Trump has been watching the news lately, he has to feel like he’s getting punched repeatedly in his tangerine-tinted face. 

____________________ 

“There’s almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.” 

Former Vice President Pence

____________________ 

 

Speaking at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Thursday, former Vice President Mike Pence did a little slut-shaming, without directly naming the slut. Once again, he described January 6 as “a dark day in our nation’s history.” 

Then he added: 

Now, there are those in our party who believe that in my position as presiding [Senate] officer over the joint session, that I possessed the authority to reject or return electoral votes certified by states. But the Constitution provides the vice president with no such authority before the joint session of Congress. And the truth is, there’s almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.

 

Especially when that “any one person” with the “un-American” notion was Donald J. Trump. 

That’s one shiner eye for Trump. Then he gets another. A Republican-led Michigan Senate committee completes its investigation into accusations of voter fraud in the 2020 election. The top-line conclusion: “This committee found no evidence of widespread or systematic fraud in Michigan’s prosecution of the 2020 election.”  

Second: The committee report suggests that the Michigan attorney general, a Democrat, “consider investigating those who have been utilizing misleading and false information about Antrim County to raise money or publicity for their own ends.” One typical conspiracy theory, pushed to the max by Trump-nut fans, was that a mistake in transposing numbers in Antrim County, quickly rectified, was proof of widespread voter fraud.

 

Third: The right-wing Voter Integrity Project had claimed that 289,866 illegal votes were cast in Michigan. The committee selected 40 at random from the list of those who had supposedly received absentee ballots without asking. Let’s see how VIP did. 

o   38 said they did request absentee ballots, and everything was cool 

o   1 said he or she did not (but happened to be on Michigan’s permanent absentee ballot list 

o   1 said he or she voted absentee in the 2020 primary election, and may or may not have  checked the box to request an absentee ballot in the general election 

Meaning, VIP had an impressive 95% error rate, at least, and very possibly an unbeatable 100%.

 

Conclusion four: Yes, there was chaos at one large vote-counting center in Detroit. That chaos was the fault of…Trump supporters, who tried to storm the location. “The Wayne County Republican Party and other, independent organizations, ought to issue a repudiation of the actions of certain individuals that created a panic and had untrained and unnumbered persons descend on the TCF Center.”

 

Five: The committee examined the claim by Jovan Pulitzer, who said he had access to manipulate vote tallies on Dominion Voting System machines. Mr. Pulitzer’s testimony, the Republican-led committee found, 

has been demonstrated to be untrue and a complete fabrication. He did not, at any time, have access to data or votes, let alone have the ability to manipulate the counts directly or by the introduction of malicious software to the tabulators. Nor could he spot fraudulent ballots from non-fraudulent ones.

 

Six: A widely-circulated photo of “bogus ballots” being “secretly” delivered to a vote-counting center in the dead of night turned out to be a picture of…a “WXYZ-TV photographer hauling his equipment.”

 

Seven: Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy and Trump supporter most in favor of having the U.S. military overturn the November vote – let’s just say the report labels him “ignorant.”

 

Eight: Speaking of ignorant, Rejected-President Trump’s claim, repeated multiple times, that more people voted in Detroit than people living there was amazingly false. Not only did more people not vote in the city than lived there, only 50% of eligible voters cast ballots in 2020. 

Of course, Mr. Trump read the report and took his medicine like a man… 

Oh, hell, no. 

He insisted the Republicans in charge were carrying out a “cover up.” They were doing everything possible to “hide the truth.” They were all “RINOs” and he would make them pay in the 2022 election. (See: 5/18/21, for Trump’s claim that Michigan’s investigation was going to blow the lid off the “Stolen Election Coverup.”) 

(With luck, if he could get a second term in 2024, we wouldn’t need to bother with any further elections.)

 

* 

So: we need to be perfectly clear. No loser in any presidential race in U.S. history – and let’s say this loud – no loser except

 

LOSER DON

 

has ever had the audacity to claim that he was cheated out of victory by members of his own party, and in multiple states. (See also: Georgia and Arizona.) 

The man is nuts.

 

* 

Exactly that kind of sleazebag administration. 

The punches to the faces of members of Team Trump kept coming. Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s favorite attorney, has had his license to practice law in the State of New York suspended, as punishment for his efforts to spread falsehoods about the “rigged” election in November. (See, for example, the above list.) 

Former Trump appointee, and EPA Chief of Staff Ryan Jackson is alleged to have made sure two other Trump appointees were paid, back in 2017 and 2018, even after they were terminated from their posts. 

Total payout: $14,181.38 to one. 

And $23,731.85 for the other. 

Or to put it another way: Your taxpayer dollars and cents at work for people no longer at work. 

(This is not to be confused with the story of former Trump bud, Scott Pruitt, his first choice to head the E.P.A., who resigned from the Cabinet in the face of thirteen federal inquiries into questionable spending and management practices. Even Fox News couldn’t avoid reporting on that mess.)

 

The parade of allegations continues. This week Anthony Scaramucci, who worked on the 2016 Trump campaign and severed, albeit briefly, as White House head of communications, testified in a bribery case. According to Mr. Scaramucci, during the 2016 campaign and shortly after, Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign head, pushed to get Chicago banker Stephen Calk a top post in the incoming administration. 

Why was Manafort so keen on helping Calk (there was hope he might land a place as Treasury Secretary or Secretary of the Army)? Calk had made $9.5 million in loans to Manafort. Who was in hock to a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska. The guy who had previously boasted about having a rival murdered. 

And then Manafort colluded with a Russian agent, Konstantin Kilimnik, who got indicted, but fled the U.S. just hours before he could be arrested.

 

Then Manafort got convicted by a jury of, like, 100 felonies, and got sentenced to spend seven-and-a-half years in prison, but then-President Trump said he wouldn’t take pardon off the table. 

Which was weird, because Manafort was a prime target at the time of the Mueller investigation. 

Which meant Manafort never spilled the beans about what Trump might have known about all his campaign’s Russian connections. 

So, on his way out the White House door, Trump did pardon Manafort. Because it was exactly that kind of sleazebag administration.

___

  

6/28/21: With only two days left, so far, June has been brutal for Donald J. Trump (a.k.a. “Rejected-President Trump.”) 

First, sources tell the Washington Post that the Trump Organization was given till this afternoon to make final arguments as to why criminal charges should not be filed against it, and likely at least one individual. 

____________________ 

New nickname: “Felon Don?”

____________________

  

Well, innocent until proven guilty, as we always say here at this most excellent blog. Trump may not have cheated on his taxes, like he cheated on his wives. 

We are not like Trump fans who love to shout, “Lock her up!” or “Lock him up!” even during sex.

 

* 

Second, transgender students will still be allowed to use the bathroom of their choice, which, according to right-wing types, means civilization as we know it will soon collapse. Just like in 1954, when the Supreme Court ruled Jim Crow laws violated the Constitution. And then ruled, in 2015, that gay marriage was legal. Now transgenders will poop in stalls right next to us! 

On a 7-2 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a series of lower court decisions. And judges in those lower courts have ruled that transgender students enjoy equal protection under the law. 

Even Trump’s three picks for the highest court in the land sided with the liberals in the majority.

 

* 

Meanwhile, the search for proof of a “Stolen Election” continues to be as hard as finding proof of Bigfoot playing high school basketball. Former Attorney General Bill Barr came out this weekend (not that way, we don’t mean) and said what every sensible human being has long since deduced. Trump’s claims of widespread fraud in the November election were “bulls---.” 

In the face of Loser Don’s non-stop attacks on the integrity of the vote, following the November election, Barr lost patience. “My attitude was: It was put-up or shut-up time. If there was evidence of fraud, I had no motive to suppress it,” he told Jonathan Karl, a reporter for The Atlantic. But my suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there. It was all bulls---.”

 

Trump then provided further evidence that he hates everyone he ever picked to join his Cabinet, and that he has terrible judgment. 

“Bill Barr was a disappointment in every sense of the word,” Trump replied in a weekend screed. “Besides which, Barr, who was Attorney General (lawyer) shouldn’t be speaking about the President.” 

(Trump also hated his first pick for AG, Jeff Sessions, his first pick for Sec. of Defense, James Mattis, his first pick for Sec. of State, Rex Tillerson, his Secretary of Transportation, Elaine Chao, his longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, his second and third National Security Advisors John Bolton and Gen. H.R. McMaster and White House aide Omarosa, to name a few.)

 

“Instead of doing his job,” Trump howled, Barr 

did the opposite and told people within the Justice Department not to investigate the election. Just like he did with the Mueller report and the cover up of Crooked Hillary and RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA, they don’t want to investigate the real facts. Bill Barr’s weakness helped facilitate the cover up of the Crime of the Century, the Rigged 2020 Presidential Election!

 

Trump also got in a few shots at Sen. Mitch McConnell, “another beauty,” the man who helped him pack the Supreme Court and push massive tax cuts for the wealthy through Congress. Don accused Mitch of pushing Barr to lie about the defeat of two Republican candidates running for the U.S. Senate in a special Georgia election, and blame their loss on Don. 

Trump wasn’t about to take the blame for the double defeat. He said it was all McConnell, not him. 

“What really damaged the Senate Republicans,” Trump fumed, “was allowing their races to be rigged and stolen, and worse, the American people to no longer believe their vote matters because spineless RINOs like Bill Barr and Mitch McConnell did nothing.” This claim of “rigged and stolen” elections, which elections took place on January 5, when Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue were defeated by Democratic challengers, is interesting. Neither Loeffler nor Perdue has ever claimed their elections were “rigged,” nor their seats in the U.S. Senate “stolen.” 

(Anyway, someone – Melania, maybe – should look into treatment for delusional disorder for the former president.)

 

* 

Loser Don has even taken a few belated lumps on the world stage. Remember when he said Kim Jong-un was going to hand over all his nuclear weapons, and insisted that the brutal dictator really cared about his people? Kim still won’t give up his weapons. And recently he showed how much he cared about his people, warning that anyone in North Korea caught listening to K-Pop, music popularized in South Korea, would be humming along to the newest songs in a labor camp. 

For fifteen years. 

As for Don’s other friend, Xi Jinping, the head of the Chinese Communist Party has pushed authorities in Hong Kong to arrest the editor of the largest pro-democracy paper in the city and shut the paper down. 

Trump reportedly asked loyal aide and closet neo-Nazi Stephen Miller to look into the matter and see, if he gets “reinstated” in August, if maybe he could do that himself. 

(Okay, I made that up. But admit it. You know Trump would love to lock up the editors of The New York Times and Washington Post.) 

Two pals with authoritarian instincts.

Finally, President Biden reacted to a series of Iranian provocations by ordering a series of punishing air strikes against bases on the Syria-Iraq border, favored by Iran-backed militia forces. 

Even Fox News had to admit that “Sleepy Joe,” as his predecessor likes to call him, was “sending a message.” 

Don’t mess with us.

___ 

 

6/29/21: This past weekend, and to start the week, we know Trump’s oft-repeated insistence that climate change is a “hoax” has looked incredibly stupid. 

____________________ 

“Climate change is making the impossible not only possible, but probable.” 

Jeff Berardelli, CBS News meteorologist and climate specialist

____________________

  

After the Southwest broiled in record heat earlier this month, the Pacific Northwest and western Canada are now cooking under a “once-in-a-millennium” heat dome. Typical of weather conditions blanketing the region, Portland, Oregon blistered Saturday in all-time record-high 108° heat, then blistered again on Sunday at 112°, and melted Monday, with temperatures hitting 116°. 

The previous record was 107°, set in 1965. 

According to Reuters, “Bars and restaurants,” in Portland, “closed because kitchen vents could not keep up with the rising temperatures, creating dangerous conditions for cooks.”

Farmers watched crops wilt in the fields.

 

Jeff Berardelli, CBS News meteorologist and climate specialist, explained the map above on Monday: 

To put climate extremes into perspective we measure against the average. The sigma is the standard deviation of a normal distribution of expected values. In this case the heat dome sigma max is 4.4 - that means it’s outside of 99.99% of expected values or a 1/10,000+ chance (1/2).

 

Berardelli also tweeted, “Climate change is making the impossible not only possible, but probable.” 

Loser Don will never get it right. So I start checking to see if Berardelli’s claim holds up. It turns out records have been shattered in all directions (Tuesday is not expected to be much better.) Meteorologists have described the current situation as “bonkers,” “insane” and “disconcerting.” 

“F***ing hot!” might suffice.

 

Salem, Ore., reached 113 degrees on Sunday, topping a record 108, tied three times in 1927, 1941, and 1981. That new record for the state capital lasted until Monday, when the thermometer topped out at 117. 

The Dalles, Ore., reached 114 degrees on Sunday, topping the 111° mark set in 1992 and tied in 1998. Monday the city hit 118. 

Roseburg, Ore., reached 113 degrees Sunday, topping 109 in 2020 and 1946. 

Troutdale, Ore., set an all-time record on Saturday at 109, topped it Sunday at 112, and topped it again Monday at 115. (The previous record was 108 in 1977).

 

McMinnville, Ore., reached 114 degrees, topping 111 Sunday. (Before this stretch, the max was 110 in 1926 and 1925.) 

Eugene, Ore., reached 111 degrees, topping 108 from 1981. 

Hillsboro, Ore., reached 109, topping 108 in 2006. 

Shelton, Wash., reached 107, topping 104 from 2009. 

Olympia, Wash., reached 105 degrees on Sunday, tying the mark from 2009 and 1981. Then on Monday, the mercury touched 110.

 

Fort Lewis, Wash. saw a new record Sunday (104), breaking the old record (103) from 2009. The new all-time high Monday: 110. 

Renton, Wash. hit 109 degrees on Monday, breaking the previous record set two years ago by four. 

Shelton, Wash. also hit 109, topping 107 Sunday. (Before this stretch, the record was 104 from 2009.) 

Thermometers at the Seattle-Tacoma airport hit 108 on Monday, breaking the “old” record set Sunday.

 

Quillayute, Washington hit 110, breaking the previous all-time high, set in 1981, by eleven degrees. 

Olympia, Washington hit 105 on Monday, breaking the old record set in 2009 by one degree. 

Lytton, Canada, a town of only 300 people, broke an 84-year-old record – by three degrees – for the entire country at 46.6 Celsius (or 115.9° F) 

Vancouver hit 112 on Sunday, setting an all-time, any-day-of-the year record. The previous record, 108, was set in 2009, and tied on Saturday.  “This is a complete shock to a Canadian — this feels like Las Vegas or India — not Vancouver,” said Chris Johnson, a suffering city resident. 

Even pets were suffering, as a Vancouver newspaper noted: “Sign of heatstroke in animals include heavy panting, glossy eyes, lack of coordination, vomiting and collapse,” they reported. “If your pet is overheating, the Humane Society says to get them in the shade or air conditioning and to put cool — but not ice-cold — water-soaked towels on the pet’s head, neck or chest.” 

All but six of the forty-eight record temperatures, above, were set during this blogger’s 72 years on earth. Of those other six, five were set in the lifetime of his father, born in 1915. One was set during the blogger’s grandfather’s time. 

More ominously, 31 records were set in the last eight years, within the lifetime of this blogger’s oldest granddaughter. 

And the eight hottest years, globally, match up with the eight years she’s been riding around on this globe.

Born in 2013, she has seen the eight hottest years in history.

FUN FACT: Now that it looks like President Biden and Republicans in the Senate have agreed on a bipartisan infrastructure deal, Loser Don wants everyone to know he doesn’t like it. As opposed to the deal he could never work out during four years in office, including two when Republicans controlled both the House and Senate. 

Jealousy, no doubt. 

In a statement released today, The Loser grumbled, 

So sad to see certain RINO Republican Senators go back and forth to the White House and continually get nothing for infrastructure or anything else. When will they learn that they are being played with, and used by, the Radical Left — and only bad things can happen. Should have never lost the Senate in the first place, thanks Mitch! New leadership is needed, and fast!

___ 

 

6/30/21: At a Chamber of Commerce luncheon, Sen. Mitch McConnell is asked, if he had only one choice, who would he want to be stranded with on a desert island: Joe Biden, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, or Barack Obama? 

“Biden and I did four bipartisan deals during the Obama administration,” McConnell replies. I consider him a personal friend.”

So it would be Joe. 

“I was the only Republican who went to his son Beau’s funeral. So that would be an easy choice. I think Biden is a first-rate person,” McConnell adds. 

And a crack in the universe appears.

___ 

 

July 1, 2021: July begins with President Joseph R. Biden Jr. sporting a 52.7% average approval rating. 

That means during his first 162 days in office, his average approval rating has been higher than his predecessor ever managed in four years. 

____________________ 

Ratings are in and Trump is not the worst president in U.S. history! He’s better than three other losers. Party-time at Mar-a-Lago!

____________________

 

* 

“Rude, nasty, and totally biased.” 

Now, a new month begins and….WTF! The Trump Organization is about to get slapped with an indictment. At 6: 20 this morning, Allen Weisselberg, Chief Financial Officer for the business, turned himself in to authorities. 

Trump, himself, has already responded, in a perfectly Trumpian way, calling prosecutors in the case, “rude, nasty, and totally biased.” He insists that his company’s actions were “standard practice throughout the U.S. business community, and in no way a crime.” The problem with his denial is that we already know he cheats on golf scores, on wives (serially), and customers. In this case, he and his minions allegedly cheated the government – that he led – out of the kind of tax dollars you need to fund the military. Or dare we say, money to build the wall!

 

* 

What else is going wrong for Don? He won’t get this because he knows about as much U.S. history as a cicada; but C-Span has released its Historians Ranking of Presidential Leadership survey, which it does every time there’s a change at the White House. Forty-four men have held the highest office in the land (Grover Cleveland had two terms, but not consecutively, so counts twice.) 

Trump ends up ranked 41^st. 

(Can you guess the names of the three losers that Loser Donald beat? 

42. Franklin Pierce (admit it, you didn’t even know he was a president) 

43. Andrew Johnson (took over when Lincoln was assassinated, first president ever impeached) 

44. James Buchanan (left a mess for Lincoln to inherit; our only bachelor president; he couldn’t even get a wife)

 

Poor Trump. His overall score was dragged down because of his rating on “administrative skills,” where he finished #44. He also finished last in the category of “moral authority.” He did better in the “public persuasion” category (#32), but when you think about it, he was mostly good at persuading people to believe idiotic crap. Mexico will pay for the wall. Healthcare reform will be easy. North Korea is going to give up all its nukes. COVID-19 is like flu. And the clincher: The election was stolen! Let’s all go attack Capitol Hill.

 

Finishing in the top ten: 

1. Abraham Lincoln 

2. George Washington 

3. Franklin D. Roosevelt 

4. Theodore Roosevelt 

5. Dwight D. Eisenhower 

6. Harry S. Truman 

7. Thomas Jefferson 

8. John F. Kennedy 

9. Ronald Reagan 

10. Barack Obama (that’s right, Trump fans, historians rate Obama 31 spots higher than the Dolt King of Mar-a-Lago)

 

* 

What else might be troubling Loser Don? Suddenly, he hates Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley – who holds that post because some numbskull gave him the job. 

Oh, wait. That was Trump.

Gen. Mark Milley.

 Milley’s sin? Insisting that it was good that officers in the U.S. military be taught to understand racism in American history. Trump was furious. Milley should resign and “be replaced with someone who is actually willing to defend our military from the leftist radicals who hate our country and flag,” said Don. He also called Milley “sad” and “pathetic” and a liar. 

(Has there ever been a president who has accused more people of lying? In that presidential ranking, Trump finishes first.) 

Among others who have come to Gen. Milley’s defense, we have his predecessor as Joint Chiefs chair, Gen. Joseph Dunford, and Trump’s former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.

 

On the other hand, Tucker Carlson is on Trump’s side. He said of Milley, he’s “not just a pig, he’s stupid.” 

Imagine what Carlson would say if some liberal person called a man who has worn the uniform for more than 40 years a “pig.” 

Whereas Tucker has 0 days of service, tying his Orange King, who also has 0 days in uniform.

 

For fun, let’s take a trip down Memory Lane – still unpaved, since Trump never did get an infrastructure deal.  Trump picked Gen. Milley to head the Joint Chiefs in December 2018. With Dunford stepping down, and Milley stepping in, the then-president tweeted, “I am thankful to both of these incredible men for their service to our Country!” 

He called Milley “a friend.” He “never had a doubt” about his choice. In fact, he went out of his way to choose Milley and not an officer recommended for the job by his then-Secretary of Defense, Gen. James Mattis. Trump loved “Mad Dog” Mattis, once upon a time, but came to hate him too. 

And he can’t stand his old White House Chief of Staff, Gen. John Kelly, either. 

And, of course, Trump now hates Sen. Mitch McConnell and his former Attorney General, Bill Barr. (See 6/28/21.) 

Trump might have been a terrible president, but you can’t deny that man was good at hate. 

 

NOT-SO-FUN FACT #1: We have already highlighted the record high temperatures set in the final days of June. But one deserves special mention. On Tuesday, Lytton, Canada, a tiny village in British Columbia, recorded a high of 121°, the hottest temperature ever in that country. 

The old record was set on Monday – in Lytton (118°) – and that broke an older record, still – set Sunday – in Lytton (116°). 

That high Tuesday was nine degrees hotter than Baghdad the same day. That was also the highest temperature ever recorded, anywhere in the world, north of 45 degrees latitude. 

Or as all but the numbest skulls would admit: More evidence of the growing threat posed by climate change.

 

NOT-SO-FUN-FACT #2: Axios offers an update on the heat wave gripping the Pacific Northwest. 

Based on “normalized data,” climatologists estimate that this kind of heat could be expect in the region no more than once in every 4,776 years. Or as one Twitter user notes, “Once in recorded history.” 

This means multiple states and provinces in Canada are seeing temperatures 25 to 50 degrees above normal. In Portland and Seattle, streets buckled, as pavement expanded and cracked. Seattle had only three recorded days of 100 degree or higher temperatures in its recorded history. 

Now, the city had three in a row.

___

 

7/3/21: The Fourth of July weekend should be a pleasant one, despite the fact the Delta variant of the virus still threatens. 

First, the jobs report Friday was excellent. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics preliminary numbers show that 850,000 jobs were added in June. Figures for May were adjusted upward, which means in Mr. Biden’s first five months in office, 3,023,000 jobs have been added or recovered. 

That’s more jobs than were added during Donald J. Trump’s three years in the White House (subtracting one for all the time he played golf) – which is not a mark all that hard to beat. In fact, this blogger added more jobs to the U.S. economy in the last four years than Rejected-President Trump, that number being (1), the teenager who sometimes cuts my lawn. I also gave the economy a boost by having a heart attack and juicing the healthcare industry.

 

If you are a Trumpophile you can read the numbers, as card players say, and weep. While Don sat on his tangerine fanny in the Oval Office, the U.S. economy suffered a net loss of just over 3,000,000 jobs. And you can look it up and savor that fact if you’d like to quibble about this blogger’s math. Remember when Trump said any good jobs numbers when President Obama was in office were “phony,” but any good job numbers when he took over were suddenly real? 

Well, the Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers have always been the same. If you like Trump, and can add and subtract, check the math. 

(I don’t include January 2017 under Trump, since he split the month with Obama; and the same for January 2021, for Biden.)

 

 

* 

What else has been happening on the economic front? Trump fans will tell you gas prices have surged and Joe Biden is senile. 

According to NPR, regular gas was selling for $2.79 per gallon on June 5, 2019, before the pandemic. Two years later, that average was $3.05, or up 9.3%. Prices were also expected to continue rising. Trump lovers will tell you that Biden hates American drivers and wants us all to be forced to drive Toyota Priuses. 

Or pedal bicycles.

 

On the other hand, the price of oil has gone up, which is excellent news for oil producers. Which means, assorted Republicans will claim they have saved the oil industry by standing up and blocking all efforts to address climate change, including battling against cancer-causing windmills. 

Also, they will insist that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one vote out of 435 in the U.S. House of Representatives, will somehow ban the production, sale, or consumption of beef in any form whatsoever. Plus, they will get confused and say the socialist Democrat from New York is a “little communist,” which is akin to looking at a pineapple and saying you see an apple. 

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez promptly points out that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who gave her that label, is shorter. 

Fortunately, she refrained from making insensitive comments, such as labeling the “Jewish-space laser lady” from Georgia a “fascist midget,” which would be an insult to all Little People.

 

You can always play with economic numbers to prove almost anything you want; but you can count on Republicans to hammer Mr. Biden because of rising gas prices, while denying him any credit for the booming sale price on homes in this country. (Biden is not really to blame, nor does he deserve credit, for either). Anyway, home sellers should be pumped. According to Fortune magazine, the median asking price for a home for sale increased, from January to April by 8.3%. And here’s one number sure to make Rejected-President Trump instinctively reach for his iPhone and try to log on to Twitter. The Dow-Jones average closed Friday at: 

34,786.

 

We have made note of the fact before: That on November 6, 2020, the Dow closed at 28,323. The next day, a Saturday, rational news people declared that Biden had defeated Trump and would be the next president. 

That means we divide 34,786 by 28,323, using the Trump Rule (invented by someone with lunatic tendencies), and discover that the Dow is up 22.8% over the last eight months, all thanks to Joseph R. Biden Jr.ˆˆ 

A more realistic figure would be to start from January 20, the day the new president was inaugurated, and QAnon believers learned they were a bunch of suckers. On that day the Dow finished at 30,931. Same math, more realistic: 34,786 divided by 30,931 = an increase of 12.5%. 

The Stock Market Crash of 2021, as predicted repeatedly (again, by someone stupid, named Donald), has not transpired. 

 

FUN FACT: Saturday night, Donald J. Trump did the only thing he was really good while he was president. He held a rally. 

Among other topics, he brought up the recent indictment of the Trump Foundation and CFO Allen Weisselberg – who prosecutors allege failed to pay taxes owed on hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of fringe benefits. 

In this tape from the rally, Trump seems to admit that’s exactly what was going on at his old Foundation: 

ˆˆ THE TRUMP RULE: This blogger continues to amuse himself by using the Trump Rule. That rule allows you to claim all credit for stock market gains that occur from the moment you are elected to lead the country, even though someone else is still in charge and in office – which rule Donald J. Trump invented on November 3, 2016, as soon as he was declared victor. 

(If the man had tried to claim credit for all stock gains from the moment of his inception, no one would be surprised by his narcissism.)

___ 

 

7/5/21: The Biden administration continues work on a major agreement with other nations. Mr. Biden does not resort to insulting allies, nor does he suck up to bloodthirsty dictators, as did the leader of the previous administration. 

 

Make international corporations pay a minimum tax of 15%. 

So far, 130 countries have signed on to a plan to stick it to the international corporations, and make them pay a minimum tax of 15%, wherever they happen to be hiding their profits. Only nine countries involved in the talks have held out, including Ireland, Hungary, and Estonia. Those three members of the European Union have helped screw other members by offering lower corporate tax rates to attract more corporations to plunk down in their countries. 

And pay minimal taxes.

 

According to Reuters, “German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz told reporters after a meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen that he expected rapid implementation of the global tax deal by the EU despite the refusal of several members to sign the deal.” 

In the meantime, this liberal blogger is calling for a series of dramatic steps to crack down on the tax cheaters. 

First: The British Navy blockades the Isle of Man, home to trillions of dollars of tax-sheltered loot and cut off food shipments to bankers.

 

Second: European Union forces mass along the Austrian border with Lichtenstein. Offer an ultimatum. Surrender your corporate tax records or we invade your crappy little 62-square mile tax-haven/country. 

Third: President Biden sends in the Marines. We conquer the Cayman Islands (home to 65,000 people, headquarters, for tax-evading purposes, to a nice round 100,000 corporations).

Fourth: U.S. marshals go in on Tuesday and slap the cuffs on all the top executives working at the Trump Organization. 

The Caymans: Home to 100,000 corporate headquarters.

After all, if you are going to kneel on the neck of George Floyd for passing a bogus $20, or choke to death Eric Garner, for selling untaxed single cigarettes, you should be tough on guys like Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, now indicted for his role in what prosecutors have called “a sweeping and audacious illegal payments scheme,” which led to  Mr. Weisselberg evading taxes by local, state and federal governments on an estimated $1.7 million in perks that should have been counted as income. 

And that’s by no means the last shot of the investigation into the Trump Organization’s operations. That’s the first shot, and a warning to others.

___

  

7/6/21: J.D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy, is running as a Republican for a soon to be open U.S. Senate seat in Ohio. 

Back in 2016, he proudly noted that he had voted for Evan McMullen, not for Trump. Vance went to Yale. So he’s no dope. 

As for Trump’s anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant views, Vance described them at the time as “reprehensible.” 

(Word for the day, Trump fans!”) 

Now he wants to win a GOP primary; so he’s lavishing Rejected-President Trump with all kinds of praise.

 

(Rep. McMullen is the guy who caught Rep. Kevin McCarthy on tape, saying he thought there were two people Putin paid: Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and…Donald J. Trump. McCarthy, now Minority Leader in the House of Representatives, at first denied he said any such thing. Then, when reporters told him they had tape, he said, okay, I did, but I was only joking.)

___ 

 

7/7/21: In talking to my wife, I mention something Rejected-President Trump has said recently. 

She replies succinctly: “I don’t even know why anyone quotes him anymore.” 

Wisdom from the lady of the house.

___ 

 

7/8/21: The Delta variant of the coronavirus is spreading across the United States. The worst outbreaks generally are in states where vaccinations lag, and where people enjoyed voting for Trump. 

If we consult a list of the top jurisdictions for vaccinations, and cut the list off where rates fall below 50%, we have nineteen states that voted for Biden, Washington, D.C., which also went for Biden, and Maine, which splits electoral votes (so Trump got one) but also went for the challenger. 

Not the Orange Chump.

 

* 

And if you wonder why vaccines might be lagging among Trump fans – even though Trump got one months ago – think: Idiots. 

Think: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Co.). Greene was at it again this week, comparing vaccinations to death squads, after making previous comparisons between mask mandates and Nazis. And then apologizing. And saying that a trip to the Holocaust Museum had opened her eyes. 

And then forgetting. 

As a former history teacher my rule is not to make Nazi comparisons unless there are gas chambers involved. 

Greene, however, sees Nazis lurking behind every parked car, mailbox, and shrub. Politico explains: 

Greene (R-Ga.) on Tuesday called efforts by the Biden White House to vaccinate more Americans against Covid-19 a “political tool” and likened the administration’s on-the-ground push to a Nazi paramilitary wing, the Sturmabteilung [or “SA”], often referred to as “brownshirts.”

 

People have a choice, they don’t need your medical brown shirts showing up at their door ordering vaccinations,” Greene wrote in response to a video of President Joe Biden describing a plan to offer vaccines door-to-door. “You can’t force people to be part of the human experiment.”

 

First, let’s pass over Rep. Greene’s glaring inability to differentiate between “order” and “offer.” 

In my role as former history teacher, let me explain who the “brownshirts” were. Here I will simply quote from “Hitler’s Black Harvest,” a reading I prepared for my seventh grade students. 

I believe Rep. Greene might have learned something by sitting in my class: 

“Force is the first law,” Hitler once said. … Long before he came to power, he organized the “Sturmabteilung” or “SA,” his own private army. These brown-shirted “storm troopers,” as they were called, were assigned one task. They must beat, silence, and even kill Hitler’s political opponents.

 

One infamous night, they went to work, stirring up the mobs and showing them how to murder Jews: 

Widespread violence exploded in November 1938 after a Jewish student attacked and killed a German official in Paris. In the dark hours of November 9-10, known since as Kristallnacht, or “Night of Glass,” German mobs attacked Jewish homes, shops, and synagogues. Thousands of businesses were looted. Two hundred homes were destroyed. Every synagogue in Germany was vandalized. Dozens of Jews were murdered, including one young boy who was thrown from a third-story window. In days to come the Gestapo arrested 26,000 Jewish men, women and children and carted them away to prison.

 

* 

Not to be outdone by Rep Greene’s boneheaded comments, Rep. Boebert cracked her knuckles this morning, and began wailing away on her iPhone. And out popped a tweet. And it was idiotic. Like her clueless colleague, Boebert decided to pull out the Nazi card to make a comparison. 

Out came a gem: 

Biden has deployed his Needle Nazis to Mesa County.

 

The people of my district are more than smart enough to make their own decisions about the experimental vaccine and don’t need coercion by federal agents.

 

Did I wake up in Communist China? 

(You woke up ill-informed and clueless, that much we know.)

 

Let’s go back to the assignment my students were tasked to read. Boebert might have gained from sitting in my class, too. 

First, we’ll ignore the comparison to “Communist China” she tries to make. For the 3,300 individuals who hit the “love” button on her tweet, allow me to direct them to the story of Tiananmen Square. 

For fun, we could even consider the time Donald J. Trump said it was cool that Xi Jinping had worked a little communist magic to ensure he could serve as “president for life.” Don thought that was great. 

Anyway, for Boebert, a little bit of information about Nazis and doctors: 

Soon no one was safe, whether Jew or not. The mentally ill were granted “mercy deaths” under a secret plan known as T-4. Handicapped German children were also marked for destruction. One SS doctor preferred to slowly starve such children to death. Most were taken from families and sent to government “hospitals.” There they were secretly gassed and their bodies buried. Homosexuals were also among the victims. Arrested and sent to prison, they wore pink triangles on their uniforms, just as Jews wore yellow stars. Terrible medical experiments were tried to “cure” them. Many died as a result. Most were simply eliminated. One victim was SS Commander Heinrich Himmler’s gay nephew.   

He was gassed by order of his own uncle.

 

And: 

Terrible medical experiments were carried out by SS personnel. (“Black murderers in white doctors’ coats,” as one survivor labeled them.) There were tests to see how much cold a man could stand, so the German air force might design better jackets for pilots. Naked Russian prisoners were left outside in bitter cold. Others were submerged in icy water to see how long they survived. When body temperatures fell to 82.5 F, one doctor reported, death was certain, “despite all rescue attempts.”   Other experiments measured the effects of flying at high altitude. Careful notes show what happened to one Jew. Tested, without oxygen, at the equal of 29,400 feet, he “began to perspire and roll his head” after four minutes. After five minutes spasms began. Ten minutes: unconsciousness. 

 

Thirteen. Death.  

 

In fact, madness had no limits. SS doctors attempted bone transplants on prisoners, hoping new techniques might save wounded German soldiers’ lives. Jews were infected with malaria to test experimental drugs. Dr. Josef Mengele, known as “The Angel of Death,” was interested in blood transfusions. He often used twins in experiments. Once he sewed two together, connected their veins, and studied their combined circulation. Others used x-rays and drugs to cause sterilization of prisoners. Such methods, one researcher claimed, might provide Germany with “a new and extremely effective weapon” in the battle against “inferior peoples.”

Jews being rounded up.

 

Above, we have Nazis rounding up innocent victims. 

Below, we have nurses vaccinating people to protect them from COVID-19, and medical people getting the shot themselves. 

Only complete numbskulls would compare nurses and Nazis.

SPECIAL AWARD FOR NUMBSKULLS: 

We would be remiss if we failed to mention Rep. Madison Cawthorn and Fox News commentator Tomi Lahren in regard to this idea that Nazis are coming to give us vaccines or force us to mask up on planes. First, Cawthorn decides to add a special twist, claiming that the people Biden sends out will visit our homes and…take away our Bibles! 

The idea that medical people might go door-to-door, offering vaccinations for protection freaks out the simple-minded lawmaker. “The thing about the mechanisms they would have to build to be able to actually execute that massive of a thing — and then think about what those mechanisms could be used for,” he hints darkly to a reporter for the Right Side Broadcasting Network.” 

Yeah. Think. They could come and give you a shot. 

Not as he envisions it. “They could then go door-to-door to take your guns,” Rep. Cawthorn suggests. “They could then go door-to-door to take your Bibles.” 

And since Cawthorn is gazing into the future and imagining what could happen in theory, let me try my hand. They could come to your house and take your dental floss. They could come to give you a shot, and take all your cans of baked beans. They could barge into your garage and take you hedge clippers. In reality, all they’re going to do is offer you a damn shot.

 

As for Lahren, she’s outraged over the idea that people on planes should have to wear masks. “There are so many good flight attendants out there, but there are some flight attendants out there that take their job as the mask police to extremes, becoming almost Nazis of the air. And it’s ridiculous,” she fumes. 

So, one final time, let’s go to the reading that I prepared for seventh graders who still had open minds, not just open mouths. 

Real Nazis made lampshades out of tattooed human skin. Real Nazis cut off the testicles of gay men to see if it would “cure” them of being gay. Real Nazis tried to get a suspect to give information by cutting off his mother’s head and carrying it into his cell. Real Nazis shot down thousands of prisoners during mass executions, and complained when their shoulders hurt from shooting all day. That’s what real Nazis were like.

___ 

 

7/16/21: Rochelle Walensky, the Director of the CDC, warns that cases of coronavirus are

up 70% in a week, deaths are up 26%, and hospitals are facing a fresh surge in patients needing care.

 

____________________ 

“This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated.” 

Rochelle Walensky, Director of the CDC

____________________ 

 

“This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated,”  she says. She explains that 97% of the people entering hospitals in the United States with COVID-19 are unvaccinated. And on July 15, CDC reports 39,014 new cases in one day. This rise in numbers is similar to September 2020, when we were headed straight into the jaws of the worst six months of the pandemic. 

For the day, 285 new deaths were reported. That brought the toll for the first half of July to 2,887. 

And no need for almost any of those unfortunates to have died. 

Speaking for the medical profession, in general, Dr. Mark Rosenberg, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians, likens the situation to a war, with the soldiers of medicine battle-weary and worn down. “I really think of it as a war and how long can you stay on the front line,” he says. “And how many times do you want to go back for another tour of duty. Eventually you just don’t want to do it.” 

In Springfield, Missouri and Jacksonville, Florida, hospitals have been overwhelmed once again. In Jacksonville, discussions are ongoing about setting up tents in hospital parking lots to handle the overflow of newly infected (and unvaccinated) patients. Chad Nielsen, director of infection prevention at one Jacksonville facility, explains that during the first three waves of the pandemic hospitals pushed back all kinds of other surgeries –and had just begun to bring back patients who had delayed care. Now his hospital is discussing canceling procedures again.

 

“To be telling someone, ‘Sorry, we have to delay your hip surgery or your procedure because we have too many COVID patients who are largely unvaccinated,’ it is just not what we signed up to do in health care,” he said.

 

 

SPECIAL AWARD FOR NUMBSKULLS #2

 

You may have heard Rejected-President Trump talk about voter fraud in Arizona. It was massive. It was historic. Joe Biden got 15 million extra votes in the state that he didn’t deserve.

 

Even cacti voted for Joe Biden!

 

Having heard Loser Donald’s incessant whining, the Associated Press set out to find all the fraudulent voters in that state.

 

County election officials, the AP found, have so far identified 182 possible cases out of three million actual votes cast.

 

Of those, four cases have led to charges.

 

FOUR.

 

So, a Numbskull Award goes to Loser Don, greatest political crybaby in American history, rated forty-first best president in a recent survey by historians. (See entry for July 1, 2021, below.)

 

(There have been zero convictions.)

___ 

 

NUMBSKULL AWARDS:

Climate deniers and QAnon dupes

 

7/17/21: What have we learned in the first half of July about the orange outcast, Donald J. Trump?

 

* 

Perhaps, most importantly, in the grand scheme of life, Republicans have awakened to the naked fact that climate change is real.

 

____________________ 

Loser Don remains as clueless as a beaver in a forest fire.

____________________ 

 

Well, not all Republicans, of course. Loser Don remains as clueless as a beaver in a forest fire. 

Meanwhile, Sen. Ron Johnson of Illinois had this to say at a recent GOP gathering. “I don’t know about you guys,” he told a group of lunkhead supporters, “but I think climate change is — as Lord Monckton [a British climate change denier] said — bulls***.” According to witnesses, Sen. Johnson mouthed the last syllable. 

“By the way,” he added, “it is.” 

Since this is a liberal blog, we will start with what we of a liberal proclivity call “evidence.” This week, The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that June was the hottest June ever recorded in the Lower 48. That would be the hottest in 127 years of record-keeping. 

(Has Sen. Johnson even heard of the NOAA??)

 

To add a little Tabasco sauce to that unfortunate record, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service noted that June 2020 was the hottest June on record for all of North America. 

That meant you could believe that leading scientists on two continents were telling the truth. Or you could be a Trump supporter and listen to Sen. Johnson and all the QAnon fools. Who are you going to believe? People with science on their side? Or people posting anonymously on the internet! According to the Q-crew, John F. Kennedy Jr. is alive and posting on 4chan as “Q” himself. 

In fact, according to QAnon gospel, JFK Jr.’s dad was killed by liberals. Ronald Reagan was wounded by the same bloodthirsty crew. Only three modern U.S. presidents, including those two, were not in on the “fix.” That fix being control of society by satanic pedophile liberals. Can you guess who the third president was, not to have been part of the fix? You will never…. 

Okay. It was Donald J. Trump! 

Stupid liberal scientists, measuring temperatures with thermometers! “Q” has the scoop! JFK Jr.’s plane was shot down by a C.I.A. missile! This was part of the plot to make way for Hillary Clinton to advance her career! But even though the missile blew his plane out of the sky, JFK Jr. survived! This makes perfect sense!! In fact, this may be where QAnon-loving Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene learned about Jewish space lasers!!! Which she says were used to spark California forest fires!!!! 

We need more exclamation points!!!!! 

Now JFK Jr. is sending messages from the grave. Only he’s not f***ing dead! He’s been in hiding for almost 21 years. Anyway, July 17 is the anniversary of the day he nearly died. But didn’t!! And in blackjack, “21” wins. Unless the dealer also has “21.”  But we don’t care about that. 

Let’s follow this story to a QAnon-style conclusion. Which means we’re just making sh*t up!  Jr. returns on the twenty-first anniversary of his fake death. He turned 60 last November 25. Which was the day before Thanksgiving! Amazing! But true!! So, QAnon believers, Thanksgiving is coming. With a second helping of Donald J. Trump!!! He’s going to be resurrected, like Jesus, only politically, which isn’t as cool. And he’s going to be back in the White House, on the morning of August 13. 

Who says? Constitutional experts? 

F*** those guys. What do they know! 

Mike Lindell says. The MyPillow guy!!! In a dream, he visited Pillow Land. And the White House was orange. And the front door popped open. And out came Melania!! Then there was a parade of pardoned felons: Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Gen. Michael T. Flynn. The whole gang was there. Not Mike Pence though. He had been replaced by John F. Kennedy Jr., himself. 

OMG! I got so excited telling this tale, which I made up, I forgot. After Flynn, Trump himself emerged from the White House! Victorious at last! He had his Twitter Powers back! And he was followed by Sen. Ron Johnson. 

Who was carrying Joe Biden’s head on a platter! 

“Bullshit,” Sen. Johnson shouted. This time he didn’t mouth the word. Then he took Biden’s head and punted it across Pennsylvania Avenue. It landed on a Black Lives Matter supporter, exploded, and killed her dead. 

See? Who needs evidence!! It’s going to happen!!! August 13!!!! In a recent interview, Mr. Lindell said Donald’s return will be “the talk of the world!!!!!” 

In fact, “down-ticket senators” on the GOP side will magically prevail, and oust Democratic imposters from their seats in the U.S. Senate!!!! 

This liberal can hardly wait!!!!!!

 

* 

Well, before we got excited and started spraying exclamation points in all directions, we noted that some Republicans are now admitting that we (as in “humanity”) might need to address climate change. 

As Politico explains, Rep. John Curtis from Utah wants to lead his party to the negotiating table in search of solutions to the climate challenge – which the head of his party, Donald J. Dunce has always called a hoax. Curtis has announced formation of a “Conservative Climate Caucus,” which has the backing of nearly a third of House Republicans. With a little bit of luck he hopes to get the rest of his party comfortable talking about the issue. Which is a hoax! 

And bulls***!!! 

Anyway, Politico asked why he decided to step forward now?  

Rep. Curtis explained: 

If I had a magic wand, we would have done this sooner. I think the main reason that we didn’t is I’ve been on a personal journey myself for several years, trying to get my climate feet underneath me. Of late, I feel like I better understand the science — although I still don’t completely understand it — but I better understand it. I understand solutions.

 

Ha, ha, what a dope! What does JFK Jr. say about climate change? That’s what QAnon folks want to know.

 

* 

13,925 scientists from 158 countries. 

In reality, only a complete dunce would miss all the signs of a growing climate emergency at this point. California suffered through an historically bad fire season last year. The state is on track to burn up at an even more alarming pace in 2021. Two fires northwest of Reno, Nevada  have turned 157 square miles to ash. Sprague River, Oregon, in southern Oregon, is in the path of a conflagration that has already consumed 377 square miles of forest. 

With intense heat having fried the Southwest and then the Northwest for months – what any scientist would tell you is evidence of climate change – and drought squeezing the region ever more tightly – conditions are ripe for another catastrophic fire season. Palm Springs, California has hit 120° four times this year. Las Vegas saw the thermometer top out at 117, only the fifth time it has ever touched that mark. Four of five marks were recorded in 2005, 2013, 2017 and July 2021. (See any trend?) In Death Valley, the hottest place on earth, temperatures were averaging eight degrees hotter than normal. St. George, Utah hit 117 last Saturday – if confirmed, the hottest temperature ever recorded in that state. A fire in Washington has charred 60 square miles. The governor of Idaho has mobilized the state’s National Guard to combat blazes touched off by lightning striking tinder-dry forests there. Lake Mead, which supplies essential water to 25 million Americans, and helps irrigate farmland in California, Arizona, Nevada, and parts of Mexico, is at an all-time low in its 85-year existence.

 

As Reuters explained this week, 

Scientists have said the growing frequency and intensity of wildfires are largely attributable to prolonged drought and increasing bouts of excessive heat that are symptomatic of climate change.

 

Nearly 70 National Weather Service stations across the West have posted all-time high temperatures this summer, and several hundred record highs for specific dates have also been set, Lawrence said.

 

Fire season has come early again in 2021, and the National Interagency Fire Center warns that we are already at Level 5, the highest, with all firefighting resources committed. As of July 16, there were 70 active blazes, which had so far burned up 1,061,516 acres. That’s like burning up 1,659 square miles, equal to reducing all of Rhode Island to ash. 

So, here’s a choice. You can stay up late on August 12, and party like it’s 2016, as you get psyched for the return of President Donald J. Trump. 

Plus, JFK Jr.! 

Or you can look at facts. As of today, 13,925 scientists from 158 countries, have signed a warning to humanity that reads, in part: 

We scientists have a moral obligation to clearly warn humanity of any catastrophic threat. In this paper, we present a suite of graphical vital signs of climate change over the last 40 years. Results show greenhouse gas emissions are still rising, with increasingly damaging effects. With few exceptions, we are largely failing to address this predicament. The climate crisis has arrived and is accelerating faster than many scientists expected. It is more severe than anticipated, threatening natural ecosystems and the fate of humanity.

 

And if you can’t grasp the danger, that is some bullshit for sure. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: We haven’t even mentioned, but Greenland has decided to ban all new exploration for oil. The days of fossil fuels, in the opinion of their leadership, are numbered. 

Germany has just experienced historic flooding, according to one meteorologist unlike anything that country has seen in 500 or even 1,000 years. And if you don’t know (this blogger didn’t), for every one degree Celsius of temperature rise, the atmosphere can hold 7% more moisture. 

So: Rising temperatures = more frequent “freak” rainstorms. 

Even worse, scientists believe that a decrease in temperature differences between high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, and lower latitudes in North America and Europe has slowed the flow of the jet stream, which has historically moved weather systems along. That means storms stall and hover and dump unheard of amounts of rainfall in one spot. 

That’s a simple explanation of the science; and none of what scientists are saying of late is in anyway good.