September 23, 2020: Trump Making It Easy for Russia to Interfere in Coming Election

 

9/23/20: Gen. H. R. McMaster, Trump’s second National Security Adviser, said yesterday that Dictator Don (my term) is “making it easy” for Russia to interfere in the November election. 

“It’s just wrong...it’s just really important for our leaders to be responsible about this.” Putin, he said, is our enemy and wants to sow division. 

Okay. We need responsible leadership...annnnnnnnnnnd…….we are screwed.

Russia, if you are listening....

 

For the third election in a row Trump is screaming it’s rigged, and all his patriotic fans should be prepared to rise up and slaughter anyone who votes against him, or refuses to wear a MAGA hat while taking a dump. 

Here’s the score. Trump has had four National Security Advisors. The first lied about meeting with Russians and got slapped with a felony. H.R. McMaster, the second, says the president is making it easy for Russia to interfere again. His third National Security Advisor, John Bolton, wrote an entire book about how Trump put U.S. national security at risk in an effort to ensure his reelection. 

And my conservative friends think I’m not a patriot, because I keep posting evidence that their Orange God is a menace. 

 

FUN WITH FASCISTS: Today, Mr. Trump was asked, if he lost the election, would he commit to a peaceful transfer of power. 

His answer: 

“Well, we’re going to have to see what happens,” Trump said. “You know that I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots, and the ballots are a disaster.”

 

Pressed further, Trump said: “We’ll want to have — get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a very — we’ll have a very peaceful — there won’t be a transfer, frankly. There’ll be a continuation.”

 

That’s a “no.”

 

EVEN MORE FASCIST FUN: Today, a judge sentenced Brandon Higgs to up to 25 years in prison. 

Anti-fascists had uncovered evidence that Higgs was busy posting on white supremacist websites, before the day he yelled, “Go back to Africa,” and then shot Elvis Smith, his African American neighbor.

 

FUN WITH BOOKS: It is well-known that President Trump has wanted to stop publication of John Bolton’s book, The Room Where It Happened. Ellen Knight, a longtime National Security Council official, reviewed the former National Security Advisor’s work. She found there was no classified material included. Publication could go forward. 

Ah, not so fast. “Political appointees,” she now says through her lawyers, took charge of her review for “political purposes.” 

Suddenly, the review said there was classified information in the book. So no publication allowed. 

Knight has now gone to court to fight for her right to tell the truth.

Who else likes to silence critics? This guy.

September 24: Make America Great Again - 1861 Version

 

9/24/20: Dictator Don said yesterday that he couldn’t commit to a peaceful transfer of power on January 20. This is because Dictator Don has fascist instincts. If he wins, the election will be fair! If he loses, all MAGA forces should lock and load! Make America Great Again, 1861 style. 

Now you can understand why Dictator Don doesn’t want those Confederate statues coming down.

 

____________________ 

Not “up to the enormous responsibilities of his office.” 

489 former U.S. intelligence leaders

____________________

  

Did we also notice that 489 former U.S. intelligence leaders, including nearly two dozen retired four-star officers, signed a letter endorsing Joe Biden for president? This is because they realize Trump is a crazy person. 

They are polite former intelligence officials, however, and do not refer to Trump as a lunatic. They merely state that our “current president” is not “up to the enormous responsibilities of his office.” 

Signatories include Gen. Peter Chiarelli, who served as the Army’s second-ranking officer before retiring in 2012. Until now, he tells NPR, he has never been involved in politics; but this election is different. 

“I believe the current administration is a real threat to the republic.” He cites the president’s “attacks on institutions” and his “failure to lead,” especially on a coronavirus response. It “makes me ill,” he adds, to see that the president has politicized the wearing of masks to prevent the spread of virus. “I believed I had to stand up and be counted,” he gives as a reason for signing the letter.

Others who added their names: Trump’s former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired Air Force General Paul J. Selva, retired Navy SEAL Vice Admiral P. Gardner Howe, III, who served as CIA’s director of military affairs, and retired Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Paul Zukunft. 

Miles Taylor, who served as Gen. John Kelly’s chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, is perhaps the bluntest of all. The young Republican says he’ll vote for Biden in November and gives his reasons. “I’ll take him – and left-leaning policies – over Donald Trump – and the republic-breaking danger he poses – any day of the week.”  

Naturally, Trump calls Taylor a “lowlife.” 

Reporters for Time magazine also note: 

One former senior official who regularly briefed the President is considering speaking out against his former boss, too. “Everything, every decision, was made based on his re-election as opposed to what’s good for the country,” the official says of Trump. “There is no bottom to this guy … There is no level so low that he will not stoop to. And his sycophants will support him every step of the way.”

 

That official, however, is afraid that if he speaks out, Trump supporters might endanger his family.

 

* 

TODAY, a wide variety of Republican lawmakers had to come out and say, sure, we will have a peaceful transfer of power. Even Milksop Mitch McConnell agreed that civil war is a poor option. 

Well done, Milksop!

September 25, 2020: Scientists, Doctors Warn against Politicization of Science

 

9/25/20: The happy blogger and his equally happy spouse are no longer traveling in Trumpistan. They are hunkered down in Dickinson, North Dakota, awaiting results from their COVID-19 tests.

 

Bad day for vacation.

Getting a COVID-19 test - swab up the nostrils!

 

Not as bad as Mr. Tenpenny’s day, however. Tony Tenpenny, a big Trump fan, and a big foe of masks has passed on to a better place. The former Nashville Counsel member was hospitalized for a month after contracting the coronavirus. He was placed on a ventilator earlier this month and leaves his bereaved loved ones with a hefty pile of medical bills to remember him by.

 

A check with CDC shows the USA racking up 301,923 new cases of COVID-19 in the last week. We should hit seven million this weekend. Trump fans don’t care, because 51% of Republicans believe Trump more than they believe the CDC. If Dictator Don says Obama caused COVID-19, smallpox, and leprosy, they will gnash their teeth and say, “I never trusted that Muslim fella.”

 

Cogitation is not their strong suit.

 

Did we mention that the National Academy of Scientists and the National Academy of Medicine both warned, “We find ongoing reports and incidents of the politicization of science, particularly the overriding of evidence and advice from public health officials and the derision of government scientists to be alarming.”

 

Currently, Trump is mad at the Food and Drug Administration, most of the scientists on the White House Coronavirus Task Force, and everyone who works at CDC, including the night watchman.

 

He still has the MyPillow guy he can talk to for advice, though.

 

As for Trump’s level of trustworthy-ness, earlier this week, at a rally in Michigan, he insisted:

 

o   Every nomination for a seat on the Supreme Court during an election year has gone forward. 

o   Voters in Michigan should pour out onto the presidential gridiron and tear down the goalposts of a Trump victory, come November, because in one day ...  yes, one day ... he convinced the Japanese prime minister to build FIVE new auto plants in their state!

 

The only problem with that claim of five new plants is that four are like “imaginary friends” of the president and don’t exist. And the fifth is like the X-ray of Trump’s bone spurs, which has never been seen.

 

No new plants have been built.

 

As for the Supreme Court claim, surely even a Trump fan could Google “Merrick Garland” by name.

Merrick Garland, left, never even got a vote.

 

September 26, 2020: Trump Is No Teddy Roosevelt

 

9/26/20: Still waiting to hear if we test positive for COVID. Spent the day at Theodore Roosevelt National Park. In case you don’t know, Teddy was deeply interested in protecting the environment, unlike Trump. He took on the “malefactors of great wealth,” as he called the superrich. Trump wouldn’t know what “malefactors” meant. Also, Teddy fought for this country.

 

Trump is a blustering sissy-boy.

At Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

 

And, since we’re on the topic of the environment, we should note that a federal judge has ousted William Perry Pendley from his job. President Trump appointed Pendley to be the acting head of the Bureau of Land Management more than a year ago. He just never bothered to get Pendley okayed by the U.S. Senate. A mere formality – as in the U.S. Constitution and U.S. law require it.

 

Not to mention, that the Bureau of Land Management under a Trump presidency has been pretty much a rubber stamp for whatever Big Business wants to do. As NPR explains, “Pendley has long been polarizing. Prior to coming to the bureau, he called for the sale or transfer of federal public lands to the states. He also spent much of his career as an attorney challenging the agency he now leads.”

 

There was no way Pendley would ever have been confirmed; and so there was no way to go forward except to do what Trump did.

 

Ignore the Senate.

 

Also the Constitution.

 

Not for nothing, have the leading environmental groups backed Mr. Biden in the coming election. (See: 9/8/20.)

 

*

 

MEANWHILE, Dictator Don is trying to buy a second term. Three years after Puerto Rico was smashed by a hurricane, he finally wants to send $13 billion to the island. He also wants to send every senior citizen a $200 debit card to use in purchasing prescription drugs. The only problem with that idea is that Congress hasn’t allocated the money and we have a massive federal deficit for the year. Trump would spend ten trillion to win a second term if that’s what it took.

 

R.I.P., Tea Party folks. Your ship has been torpedoed and sunk by your own navy.

 

Olivia Troye, who worked for VP Pence until recently, says White House officials often discussed what would have to be done if Trump lost in November and refused to leave office. 

 

(I, for one, would suggest luring him out with cheeseburgers and a couple of scantily-clad porn stars.)

September 27, 2020: The Blogger Paid More in Taxes than President Trump

 

9/27/20: The New York Times is reporting that they have documents to show that the year Trump ran for president, he paid a measly $750 in federal income taxes.

 

Did you pay more, MAGA-hatted truck driver? Did you, Antifa Starbucks barista? Did you, retired speech therapist? Did you chip in more to pay for that border wall, Tea Party loyalist?

 

Mr. Blogger, did you cough up more in taxes to support the U.S. military????

 

Yes, you did!

 

And guess how much Trump paid in 2017! 

 

Again: $750.

 

As Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, notes, she paid thousands more, as a bartender, before winning a stunning upset for a seat in Congress. An undocumented worker in construction, down Texas way (where the undocumented often find work in the building trades), would pay more than Dictator Don.

The blogger, making it clear: He's miffed.

September 28, 2020: Trump Pays Zero Taxes

 

9/28/20: Back in 2012, when Citizen Trump hated everything that President Obama ever did or said, it angered Trump to learn that in a year when the president earned “$790k salary,” he paid only “20.5%” in taxes. 

“Do as I say not as I do,” Donald tweeted, on April 13, just two days before the filing deadline that year. 

By that standard, the humble blogger will claim $70k, like our current president, for hair care in one year. The blogger will call it a business expense because a blogger has got to look good for the readers! I will pay no more than $750 in federal income taxes this year, and the next. Then I will pay ZERO for ten of the next fifteen years, should I live so long. I will do as Trump do. 

And I promise my hair will look better.

 

Any other news? The head of the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. Robert Redfield, was overheard on an airplane saying, “Everything he says is false,” in reference to COVID-19. Dr. Redfield has admitted he made the comment. Fortunately, Trump fans, he was not talking about your president! 

He was talking about Dr. Scott Atlas, now your president’s favorite person to get terrible advice from on defeating the coronavirus. 

First, Trump listened to Rush Limbaugh, who said the virus was no worse than the flu and we should all get out there and build some herd immunity. 

Then Trump had the MyPillow guy give advice. 

Then came the Demon Sperm Lady. (See: 7/28/20.) 

Now he’s listening to Dr. Atlas, who, as a radiologist, knows about as much about infectious diseases as a radiologist would about installing a sewer line to your home. Different field of expertise. But Trump saw Atlas on Fox News, where he kept showing up to say we had nothing to fear from this disease and Trump was doing A++ work handling the crisis.

 

Meanwhile, the blogger is on his way to Portland, Oregon to visit his daughter Sarah and husband Logan. Both work in healthcare. Both believe this virus is serious. At age 71, for example, the blogger could find himself in a world of hurt if he were infected. And I am happy to say, my test...taken in North Dakota a few days ago…came back negative. (I was exposed, I feared, by way of my granddaughter, by way of her mother, who did have an infection.)

 

So: On to Portland, where I will either be killed by Antifa (according to Trump) or massacred by white supremacists who hanker after a race war. I love my friends and relatives who support Trump, but I wish they would consider why it is that our current president has almost 100% support from the white supremacist clan/Klan. Also big in his base: believe-anything QAnon fools, people bad at math, and billionaire advocates of pussy-grabbing and paying no federal income taxes.

 

Paying taxes is for suckers, kind of like when Trump said only “suckers” went to fight in Vietnam.

 

 

POSTSCRIPT: Out here, where the buffalo roam, and masks are for sissies and bandits, the coronavirus is spreading. Last week, North Dakota had 30% of its tests come back positive. South Dakota had 26%. This past Sunday, Montana had a 20% positivity rate.

 

As has been true all along, COVID-19 doesn’t care who you vote for or if you never vote at all. It just wants to infect you, and anyone else you may know or love.

September 29, 2020: Trump on Taxes, Tucker Carlson on Facts

 9/29/20: President Trump is warming up for tonight’s debate by practice-lying. For example, he just told reporters that the IRS “does not treat me well. They treat me very badly.” 

Yes. He really said that.

 

I am going to see if I can pay no taxes next year, like Trump, ten of the last fifteen years.

 

Then I will pretend to be a Trump fan. I will bitch about how the U.S. military has no money. I will howl about how awful the deficit was when Obama was in charge and how Congress should give President “No Taxes for Me” Trump more dough to slap up his big, beautiful border wall.

 

*

Buffalo "chip" in honor of Tucker Carlson.

 

“Mere bloviating.”

 

IN OTHER LIAR NEWS: Tucker Carlson triumphed in court today, in a slander case, but not in the way a real news person would hope to triumph. His lawyers defended him against slander by saying no reasonable viewer would ever believe the “facts” Carlson was sharing nightly.

 

U.S. District Court Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil issued an opinion in line with that argument. The “‘general tenor’ of the show,” she wrote, “should then inform a viewer that [Carlson] is not ‘stating actual facts’ about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in ‘exaggeration’ and ‘non-literal commentary.’”

 

Otherwise known as slinging shit.

 

Vyskocil continued: “Fox persuasively argues, that given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer ‘arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism’ about the statement he makes.”

 

She suggests that the court might have even called what Carlson does “mere bloviating.” But whatever it was she called it you couldn’t really take Carlson seriously. Karen McDougal, the Playboy bunny with whom Donald J. Trump had an affair, had sued after Carlson said she and Stormy Daniels, with whom Trump had also slept, despite being married to Melania at the time, were extorting Candidate Trump in the summer of 2016, when their stories broke.

 

In introducing a story on the topic, Carlson told viewers, “Remember the facts of the story. These are undisputed.”

 

Then he set the scene: “Two women approach Donald Trump and threaten to ruin his career and humiliate his family if he doesn’t give them money. Now that sounds like a classic case of extortion.”

 

Although we do know Trump had his personal lawyer pay hush money to both women, and then his lawyer lied about paying. Then lied about whether Trump knew he paid. And then went to jail for lying.

 

Anyway, now we know. For Tucker Carlson, star of Fox News, facts are malleable and not facts at all.

September 30, 2020: Trump Shatters Debate Norms - Also Claims He Won

 

9/30/20: What did I miss while driving south from Mt. Rainier, to Underwood, Wash., over the worst road I’ve ever been on?

 

*

 

“Stand down but stand by.”

 

ACCORDING TO MOST PUNDITS, the Trump-Biden debate was the worst presidential debate in history. Naturally, Trump insists he won. The debate commission is so appalled, they plan to change the rules and may include a mute button when a candidate interrupts the other during any future debates.

 

Naturally, Trump objects to changing the rules, unless he’s picking a Supreme Court judge. (See: 9/20/20.)

 

A writer for Time described the televised contest as “like nothing I’d ever seen or imagined” and said the president had “shattered” debate norms.

 

Asked about the disaster, moderator Chris Wallace said the president “bears the primary responsibility for what happened.” Speaking to colleague Bill Hemmer, Wallace cited a Fox News analysis, that Trump interrupted Biden 71 times, and Wallace 74. That would be 145 interruptions in 130 minutes.

 

Did I mention Trump thought he won? Well, there were those who agreed. Sean Hannity, for one. And the Proud Boys, for sure. Asked to denounce white supremacists during the debate, Trump couldn’t do it. He insisted the real threat in America is Antifa, then fumed, that the Proud Boys “should stand down but stand by.” You know. In case he lost the election.

 

Then: gunfire, maybe?

 

His former National Security Adviser, H.R. McMaster, said the president’s failure to condemn white supremacy was like blowing a wide open layup in basketball. Or, to use a sports metaphor of my own: It was as if Trump were cheering for the racists who tried to keep Jackie Robinson from playing for the Dodgers. You know. In 1947. When America was “great.”

Jackie Robinson rounds first base.

 

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE (1/20/21): On this last day of Trump’s tenure, I am editing my blog for clarity, and polishing punctuation. My joke about the Proud Boys, above, has turned out not to be a joke, as authorities begin arresting individuals responsible for the mayhem on January 6, 2021.

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE (6/27/21): Chris Wallace later tells students participating in a George Washington University webinar, that in his earpiece he could hear his director admonishing him to get the debate under control. “And I’m thinking, what does he expect me to do? Does he expect me to hit a trap door and have the president of the United States go down? You know, there’s not much you can do in that situation.”