10/14/20: We know the president has been
spooked by recent polls, showing him trailing Joe Biden.
____________________
A
trillion trees and a problem Trump says doesn’t exist.
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Tuesday, he signed an executive order – to set up an interagency board – to move forward with an environmental project that does not involve gutting clean air and water protections, drilling for oil in pristine wilderness, or attempting to hold back time by propping up the flagging coal industry. Essentially, Trump is hoping to stick a fig leaf over his anti-environmental nuts. Some months back, he reluctantly said he might participate in the One Trillion Tree Initiative. This program was announced at the World Economic Forum earlier this year and is intended to combat climate change
Which, according to Trump, isn’t real.
It’s a transparent move. The president doesn’t care about the environment. He’s only out to bamboozle undecided voters, who might not watch or listen to much news, but do vaguely care about a livable planet. His campaign is also hoping to pick up votes from citizens who have just awakened from comas after four years. Because no one who has been following even fragmentary news can think that Trump is not the worst president in history for the environment.
The idea behind this Initiative is for governments of the world to plant a trillion trees in the coming decade. That is: to reforest the earth and start sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Most world leaders realize we need to act before it’s too late and the planet heats like a kiln.
Which, again, Trump has said for four years is not happening.
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Trump wants to plant trees to fix a problem he claims doesn't exist. |
*
ALSO NOT HAPPENING, gaining control of the spreading coronavirus. We are, to be fair, not the only country having trouble. We are, however, one of the countries doing the worst.
According to the Centers for Disease Control – which government agency Trump fans no longer believe – new cases are still trending high:
October 8: 54,887
October 9: 58,302
October 10: 53,363
October 11: 46,069
October 12: 46,614
October 13: 47,459
October 14: 59,761
Meanwhile, the president is off to the races,
holding super-spreader pep rallies in an attempt to rally the faithful and garner
a second term. Then he can screw up democracy and get a third term, and later crown
his oldest son King Donald Jr. I.
Even Dr. Anthony Fauci, once the voice of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, has been shunted aside and trampled. First, he complained because the Trump 2020 campaign had used his words in a misleading advertisement. He called the decision of the campaign to use a statement he made (but in a way designed to trick voters) “really unfortunate and really disappointing.” That was a polite way of saying the campaign was lying.
In an interview with CNN, Fauci made it plain that he has never been “a
political person.” Still, the short phrase used in the ad: “I can’t imagine that
anyone…could be doing more,” was not his true assessment of the president’s handling
of this crisis. “And I have never – either directly
or indirectly – endorsed a political candidate,” he says now.
“And to take a completely out of context statement and put it in which is
obviously a political campaign ad, I thought was really very disappointing.”
We know Dr. Fauci said just this week that Trump’s decision to start holding campaign rallies again, where the faithful almost universally refuse to wear masks and social distancing is impossible, was “asking for trouble.”
Yet, there was Trump, in Florida on Monday, boasting
to a crowd and telling them all how “powerful” he felt, after recovering from
COVID-19. Good for him. Irrelevant for the rest of us.
The virus continues to spread and by his words
and deeds he undercuts our best hopes for gaining control. Tuesday night
a group of a dozen or so young people, doubtless fans of the president, invaded
a Ft. Lauderdale Target store. Marching proudly and
stupidly down an aisle, they shouted, “Take your masks off!” and,
“We’re not going to take it anymore.”
“We’re not in Saudi Arabia,” one geography expert
was heard to shout, potentially spreading germs in all directions.
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Lots of MAGA hats, nary a mask in use. |
*
“Wait for my orders.”
WHAT ELSE should we worry about, besides
idiots surrounding us while we shop for LOL dolls with our granddaughter at
Target?
We also have video of a member of the
Proud Boys, at a recent Trump rally in Staten Island, New York. The
“Boy” tells an interviewer that if Trump is not reelected, he and his crew are
ready for “civil war.” (I am hoping he doesn’t take the results of school board
elections with the same degree of seriousness.)
He and his combat-ready wannabes don’t want
to “start” the shooting, but he assures his questioner, “We’re like the Marines,
we’re the first to come in.”
Asked how he interpreted the president’s
statement during his debate with Joe Biden, to “stand back, but stand by,” he replies
that he and his pals also take orders from “Q,” of QAnon fame. He said Trump
was telling them to “wait for my orders. And that’s exactly what we’re waiting
for.”
“If Trump doesn’t get reelected, there’s going
to be a riot. If he doesn’t get elected, this is when you’re going to see a
civil war. My recommendations to anyone stock up on ammo, get your guns.”
Like the Marines at Iwo Jima!
Assuming you were attacking fellow citizens for
voting in a way you didn’t like, and not the Japanese on Mt. Suribachi.
*
WE ALSO LEARN that the Wolverine Watchmen, a
right-wing extremist group that was planning to kidnap the governor of
Michigan, had eyeballs on Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia.
That means it’s time to check Trump’s Twitter
feed. As expected, a word-search turns up 49 mentions of
Antifa. Trump hates Antifa and blames them for all kinds of riots
and even murders that local
police say are not their handiwork. He even suggested that celebrating Lakers
fans – and these people are chuckleheads – who threw bottles at police cars after LeBron James led the
team to its first championship in a decade – were Black Lives Matter and Antifa people.
One “murder” in Denver, cited by Trump as Antifa’s work, seems, as far as an article in the Denver Post indicates, not to have anything to do with the group and may even have been a matter of self-defense.
As for Lakers supporters rioting, you can look at a few clips and
see if you think it was anything but inebriated fans acting like fools. In one
clip you can hear them chanting, “Kobe, Kobe, Kobe,” in memory of the late Lakers
great. Another shows a man, dressed as one of the Mario Brothers, on a go-kart
with a team pennant, zooming down the street. In other clips police cars back
up to give revelers room…and then more cruisers show up and the fans disperse.
Regardless, we know the F.B.I. has clearly stated
that right-wing extremists are the greatest domestic terror threat at
this time.
Let’s check Trump’s Twitter feed again to be sure. There are two mentions
of “right-wing extremists,” both retweets. One seems to indicate that the
president is commending them;
but it’s not clear. In a second retweet both right- and left-wing extremists
are mentioned equally but what Trump really seems to like about the tweet is a
chance to bash the mayor of
Portland.
In a sense, you can “read the president’s mind” if you have the
fortitude to follow him on Twitter.
On Monday, for example, he tweeted a film clip of
protesters tearing down statues in Portland, and yowled, “These are Biden fools. ANTIFA RADICALS.
Get them FBI, and get them now!”
Then a second yowl:
“The FBI and Law Enforcement must focus
their energy on ANTIFA and the Radical Left, those who have spent the summer
trying to burn down poorly run Democrat Cities throughout the USA!”
I keep checking. “Proud Boys?” No mention. “Wolverine Watchmen?” No. The plot to kidnap Gov. Northam? Nada.
We’ve also said this many times before. Trump tweets and retweets a
lot! Yesterday he pounded away at the buttons on his iPhone 95 times. Almost
half of those tweets came before six a.m. Highlights included a dehumanizing retweet
referring to the mayor of Denver as a “DemocRat.” There’s a false claim
that Biden has promised to “abolish fracking.” There’s an absurd claim about
how Trump will protect Americans with “pre-existing conditions” while Biden and
the Democrats won’t. You have to be impervious to facts to believe that. Trump
also attacked members of the free press, describing them as “very bad (and sick!) people.”
He
retweeted a claim saying, “Barack Obama was the
most corrupt President in US history,” and, most bizarrely of all, another
claiming, “Biden and Obama may have had Seal Team 6 killed!”
Even by the normally low
standards for conspiracy theories, this particular theory is lunacy.
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