May 7, 2021: Money Bombs Rain Down on MAGA America

 

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 seven points higher than Loser Don ever managed during four years “in office” (three, 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. 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.

 

Figures out Thursday showed an economy in recovery. 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 “only” 266,000 jobs were added. March numbers were also revised downward. Yet, in Biden’s first three months on the job more than 1.5 million 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.)

 

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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 creative 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 Cleaners. 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.

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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.

 

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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. Yet, 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 [emphasis added] 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 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 the Trumplican Party, principles are for chumps. Cheney is likely to be voted out of her post next week.

BLOGGER’S NOTE, 3/20/22: I should note that Team Trump and the Republican National Committee were eventually forced to issue 530,00 refunds, totaling $64 million dollars. That is some major crookery, right there.