January 21, 2021: The Bizarre Circus Act that Was the Trump Presidency is Ended

 

1/21/21: According to the CDC, during Rejected-President Trump’s last weeks in office a record number of citizens whom he had failed to protect died from a virus he once insisted was no worse than 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.

 

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____________________ 

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

Disappointed QAnon believer

____________________

  

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.

Phrenologists believed you could know what a person was like by studying

the shape of their head.

 

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 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.” 

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

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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 it came with 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 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 surely 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.

 

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, 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.”