January Fools - No Fairy in the Fairy Tale - Part VI - Trump Remains Dangerous

TRUMP REMAINS DANGEROUS

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“America’s democracy was almost stolen from her.” 

Judge J. Michael Luttig, speaking of events on January 6.

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This part of the story of our country remains to be written, and the blogger will continue to gather evidence as time and motivation allow. The key question being: Could Ex-President Blubber rise again from the political grave? 

It seems he could. 

We know Mike Lindell, the MyPillow dope, and the QAnon tribe still believe in the Orange God of Mar-a-Lago.

PARODY OF MIKE LINDELL.

 

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6/14/22: I think it’s safe to say that in Republican circles it’s now all the rage to claim that any election you lose is “rigged.” 

Now Republicans are eating their own feces. We know ex-President Blubber told his endorsed candidate in the Pennsylvania primary to decide the nominee for an open seat in the U.S. Senate to just say he won before all the votes were counted. That one was fun. 

In Georgia, far-right candidate Kandiss Taylor, came up a little short in her bid to unseat Governor Brian Kemp – a Trump-hated man. Taylor, who got just 3.4% of the total vote, to Kemp’s 73.7%. 

“We have a national data team working on the 2022 primary election fraud. More will be forthcoming,” a spokesperson for the Taylor campaign said. 

“Given that my vote total currently lags my number of volunteers by nearly 20,000, I do not trust these election results and neither should any supporter of either of my opponents or candidates in any other races,” Taylor wrote in a press release. In her opinion, Georgia elections had “become a travesty spearheaded by the corrupt, organized, willful assault” on democracy by Gov. Kemp, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Attorney General Chris Carr, and, for good measure, gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who won the Democratic primary.

 

Then on Tuesday, the hobgoblins struck afresh. In Nevada, the two Joe’s faced off in the GOP primary for governor. On one side you had Joey Gilbert, a COVID-truther and believer in stolen elections, now including his. With votes still left to count, on Wednesday morning, Gilbert cried electoral foul. Joe Lombardo appeared to have won with 38.4% of the vote. Gilbert, at 27.6% wasn’t about to take defeat like a man. 

As Raw Story notes, Gilbert exploded in a Facebook rant, even capitalizing a random word, like Old Blubber used to do when he still had a Twitter account, and dreamed of pardoning himself. “Maybe the establishment and swamp rats forgot who they’re dealing with,” he wrote. “I smell a lawsuit because this STINKS! I will concede nothing. No one likes No Show Joe and he absolutely is not beating me, and will not beat me in a fair fight/race.” 

Love it: “No Show Joe,” a kind of Trumpian insult of his own. And bonus points, I guess. Gilbert added a rat emoji to bolster his point.

 

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6/15/22: What do we know today? We know Mr. Blubber is still claiming he won the last election, even though a herd of his closest advisors just testified under oath and admitted they knew he never did. 

Still, “Blubs” could return in 2024. Today, this blogger checked a few polls. First of all, President Biden’s approval ratings are in the tank. (Unlike Lindell or Trump, this blogger has no problem facing unpleasant truths.) 

If the election were held today, polls show Trump would probably win a rematch against Joe Biden. 

For only the second time in American history, then, we’d have a maniac plunked down behind the Resolute Desk. 

A check of recent polls (May and June) shows Mr. Biden’s average approval rating at 38.7 percent, his disapproval rating at 54.4 percent. 

Small favors, really, but at least he has been mature enough not to howl about “rigged polls,” or blame his low numbers on “Enemies of the People,” working for the free press. You know. Like Trump.

 

What else is worth noting today? This blogger believes in polls, generally, and when averaged, they have rarely been wrong. In the race for an open U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania, Fetterman, the Democrat, vs. Oz, the Republican, the Democrat holds a 9-point lead. 

In the battle for a U.S. Senate seat in North Carolina, Beasley vs Budd, Beasley, the Democrat is up by four points. 

Or down 2; it depends on the poll. 

Interestingly enough, polls in Utah show that Evan McMullin, former Republican (famous for ratting out current House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, when, in 2016, McCarthy said he believed there were two people Putin paid – one of them being Donald J. Trump), now an independent running for U.S. Senate, might have a shot at ousting the incumbent – which would be kind of fun. 

In Ohio, where the blogger resides, J.D. Vance leads Tim Ryan, the Democrat, by 3 points in the only poll taken so far. Both men seem to understand the average American worker better than most, which this blogger considers good. Vance, of course, once said he’d have to think twice about voting for Hillary Clinton, because he didn’t like Trump. In fact, in 2016, he voted for McMullin, running as an independent, instead. 

Five different polls show Gretchen Whitmer, the current Democratic governor of Michigan (once labeled “Half-Whitmer” by then-President Trump) with at least a 34-point lead vs. assorted challengers on the right. Ryan Kelly, thought to have perhaps the “best” chance of beating her in November, was recently arrested for his role in the January 6, 2021, attack on Capitol Hill. 

In Georgia, polls show that Trump could take the state (for real this time), as he sports a 7-point lead in a hypothetical matchup with the current President of the United States. Joe Biden, I mean. 

You have to remind the QAnon bunch occasionally who the actual president really is.

 

In generic ballot polls (where voters are asked which party they would like to control Congress after the next election), Republican have an average 3.8-point lead. 

As for Congress itself, on June 15, 2022, that august body has an average approval rating of 21.6 percent. For a brief period earlier this year (March-August) our lawmakers managed to boost their approval ratings into the 30s, peaking at 36.3 percent on May 8. Previous to that, the last time Congress scored as high as the 30s, was 30.4 percent…on August 29, 2009.

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6/28/22: Lightning doesn’t strike twice in today’s GOP. It strikes every time there’s an election. 

Once again, a Republican has claimed voter fraud in a fraud-free election. This time the man with the bogus complaint is Rep. Phil Lyman, a Utah lawmaker, who called fraud in the GOP primary. This time, there were “reports” in Wasatch County that a machine changed voters’ choices and…oh…the hell with it. 

Lt. Deidre M. Henderson (also a Republican) explained that the problem was “small font size” and every voter had three chances to verify their choice. 

Meanwhile, the search for the Loch Ness monster continues and Bigfoot hasn’t stuck his foot in a bear trap yet.

June 20, 2019: President Trump Decides to Attack Iran - Then Changes His Mind

 

6/20/19: The threat of war with Iran grows after Iran shoots down a $130 million U.S. drone. 

President Trump loves to bluster. Now he must puzzle out what to do. He talks to National Security Adviser John Bolton, a man who has never seen a Middle Eastern country he didn’t want to bomb. Bolton urges Trump to rain down destruction. 

Administration officials tell The New York Times that the president’s national security team is unanimous in favoring a limited strike against Iranian radar facilities and missile batteries. 

Gen. Joseph F. Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warns that escalation may have unforeseen and dangerous results. 

Trump decides to attack!

 

Planes are on the wing. Ships move into strike position. Then, with ten minutes to spare, Trump decides he should really, really think about what “General” Tucker Carlson has said. The Fox News general warns that if Trump goes to war with Iran, he will never be re-elected. 

That clinches it. Trump aborts the mission and wastes millions of dollars of taxpayer money just for fun.

Bombers were on the way to Iran when Trump called them back.

 

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A BIPARTISAN BILL in the U.S. House of Representatives has been introduced. (You thought Congress could never get anything done!) The bill would require cellphone carriers to offer screening and call-blocking technology to customers, free of charge, within 18 months of the bill’s enactment. 

In May, alone, Americans received an estimated five billion robocalls from scammers and telemarketers. 

If the House and Senate can get a bill worked out and passed into law, it may boost the average approval rating of Congress at last. 

That average currently stands at 19.4%. The last time it was as high as 30% was August 29, 2009.

 

 

POSTSCRIPT: Trump later defends his change of mind, regarding the attack on Iran, saying he was not told till the last minute that the attack might kill 150 Iranians. He said the toll would be too high. He didn’t want to kill 150 people. 

(Several military experts say there’s no way the president wasn’t told about the toll up front in any planning session.) 

Then again, this president loves to talk loudly and wave his Big Stick. First, he tweets to all his fans, assuring them the U.S. was “cocked and loaded” and could have attacked if he really wanted. 

Trump was trying to have it two ways. First, he wanted to take credit for caring about Iranian lives. 

Still, he was one tough hombre, ready to kick Iranian ass.

 

General Carlson, however, was perfectly clear about what had swayed Trump. On his Friday night show, Carlson explained: “Bombing Iran would have ended his political career in a minute [emphasis added]. There would be no chance of reelection after that.” In other words, Trump would happily have killed plenty of Iranians if he thought it would make him look good. 

It was poll numbers, not numbers of dead, that convinced him to abort the attack. (See: 6/23/19.)

November 23, 2021: Abraham Lincoln, Joe Biden, and Donald Trump

11/23/21: Has anyone besides Mr. Blogger noticed that Biden’s poll numbers are in the tank – but he hasn’t called the numbers “rigged” yet? 

Well, it’s true. Because, unlike his predecessor, Biden isn’t an egomaniacal baby.

 

In fact, I saw the perfect quote recently to explain who Donald J. Trump was as president and who he remains. It’s a quote from the historian Allan Nevins, about Abraham Lincoln. What Lincoln was, Trump will never be. 

[Abraham Lincoln’s] public utterances…attest [to] a rare intellectual power. The wisdom of his principle public acts, his magnanimity toward all foes public and private, his firmness under adversity, his elevation of spirit, his power of strengthening the best purposes and suppressing the worst instincts of a broad, motley democracy, place him in the front rank of modern statesman.

 

Meanwhile, Rejected-President Trump has been trying to keep in practice in case he runs again in 2024. 

That means he’s insulting people who used to work in his administration or provided him with advice. When former White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah said she had talked with him after Joe Biden was elected – and said Trump admitted to her that he knew he lost – Trump erupted, as you had to expect. He referred to Farah as “a clown,” and a “backbencher,” “who is now a nobody again.” He made a point of saying of former Gov. Chris Christie, after Christie warned Republicans that it was time to move on from the “Big Lie” of the stolen 2020 election, that the man who headed up the Trump transition team in 2106, “left New Jersey with a less than 9% approval rating – a record low, and they didn’t want to hear this from him!” Trump also tagged Sen. Mitch McConnell as a “broken old crow,” after President Biden managed to pass his infrastructure bill.

Trump: In like a Lion, Out like Lamb Stew

It must feel to sensible Americans like ten years. Alas, President Trump has been tweeting and “stepping on his own d---” (an expression I learned in boot camp at Parris Island in 1968) for only ten weeks.

If the man wasn’t such a buffoon, you might feel sorry for him. But he is a buffoon, a sad fact, increasingly clear. Even many supporters think a grown-up should be put in charge to keep the President from tweeting stupid s---. He said he was going to repeal and replace Obamacare and he and the Republicans managed to actually craft a plan only 1/3 as popular as the plan they spent seven years reviling. Not only was their plan less popular than herpes, they couldn’t pass it anyway.

They controlled the House. They controlled the Senate. They had a President ready and able to sign.

They couldn’t even get a vote. And who was to blame for putting a match to their flaming pile of manure?

Trump blamed Democrats.

What else has gone wrong in just ten weeks? Trump agreed to settle fraud charges involving Trump University—which he insisted he would fight to the death while he was running for office—and hoped no one noticed. His travel ban was rolled out with all the skill you might expect if planning was done by the main characters in Dumb and Dumber. Then it got shot down by the courts.

Twice!

His National Security Adviser, General Michael Flynn, warned that Iran “was on notice” after the Iranians fired off missiles in the Persian Gulf. This warning was meant to scare Iran; but the President decided not to tear up the nuclear deal with that country, which he promised would be his first priority in office. Apparently, like health care, it dawned on him that dealing with Iran (and North Korea—which has also tested several long-range missiles) was harder than it looked.

Meanwhile, Flynn turned out to be a liar, and very possibly a tool of the Russians during the campaign. Now the man who chanted, “Lock her up,” in reference to Hillary Clinton is trying to cop a plea.

We can’t know yet what Flynn knows, but indications are that if the FBI or Congress or Judge Jeanine will only grant immunity, he’s willing to spill some beans. As his lawyer put it, “General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it.”

This leaves it to President Trump to keep tweeting in hopes stupid people will believe a sewer is a pristine mountain stream.

Something smells fishy.

If you’re old enough to remember the Watergate Affair, however, you are excused if you are already thinking: “John Dean.”

When a mysterious story about a burglary at the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate Building broke in June 1972, President Richard M. Nixon’s press secretary scoffed at the idea of any link to the White House. “A third-rate burglary,” was all it was. Yet, in weeks to follow the press kept digging, leaks kept coming, including from inside the FBI (where top agents like Mark Felt, of “Deep Throat” fame, had ample cause to suspect a White House cover up).

By spring 1973 the spreading investigation was making headlines daily. Various participants in what would prove to be a giant cover up were sweating ways to save themselves—if nothing else to cut time they’d likely spend in jail. John Dean, Nixon’s White House counsel, was among the first to break. Once he began testifying in front of Congress, the story blew up completely. Dean had participated in, and had direct knowledge of the participation of others, in a wide-ranging effort to hide damning White House ties to the burglars. It was part of a campaign of deceit involving massive destruction of evidence, witness tampering, bribery and perjury on an epic scale.

So, no: There’s no realistic reason to think General Flynn’s willingness to cut a deal is good news for Mr. Trump.

The Tweeter-in-Chief came into March looking like a lion. He’s going out more like lamb stew.

These poll numbers suck! At least people think Congress sucks more than President Trump.