Month: April 2020

There are arguments that have been made contending Donald Trump is the anti-Christ.  I must admit, that’s a little outside of my realm of expertise.  But based upon this past week…indeed, this past year…I can certainly see the reasons for the contention.

He’s certainly opposed to life.  That’s a given.  His constant ignoring of the early warnings which, had he heeded them could have prevented thousands of deaths.  His touting of unproven medicines which, as they are scientifically tested, are proving lethal.  His recent suggestion that injecting people with bleach might help, which he is now desperately trying to walk back as being “sarcastic” which is his typical response when called on his idiocy, even as we concern ourselves that some Branch Covidians (as Wil Wheaton has termed them) will embrace the concept.  His spending two hours every day taunting and baiting reporters (because he is a master baiter), insulting other politicians, or throwing them under the bus as he just did with Governor Brian Kemp.  Kemp was stupid enough to take Trump at his word and reopen Georgia.  When that resulted in a ton of negative backlash, Trump immediately turned around and said that Kemp should not do what Trump had been saying for two weeks he SHOULD do.  Basically he threw Kemp under the bus, drove the bus over him, then backed up and ran over him again for good measure.  

Honest to God, if Trump were Jesus, Judas would be the only one he would trust because he’d understand Judas’s motivation.  How can any reasonable person turn down thirty pieces of silver, after all?  Give Trump thirty pieces of silver, he’d betray all the disciples in a heartbeat and then kick back with some Kentucky Fried.

You think you’re bored sitting around in your studio apartment?  Trump, according to the New York Times, is going stir crazy trapped in the White House.  Even this numbskull knows that he can’t go golfing, short of playing eighteen holes in a mini golf course.  (Great, now I’ve got a mental image of Trump slamming a little windmill with his golf club while shouting, “Stupid giant!  Give me cancer, will you?!”)  

The solution to his problem is obvious:  Resign.  If he wants to get out of the White House, turn the presidency over to Pence, get the hëll out of Washington and go wander Mar-a-largo and spare us two hours of tortured syntax, taunting, misinformation and lies every day.  

Which he won’t do.  Instead he is going to continue to try and take whatever underhanded step he can to skew the election in his favor, even as his decisions turn swing states against him and the Coronavirus accelerates its gains in Red States.  He’s currently trying to dismantle the postal service to remove the threat of mail-in votes which would give greater access to people who the GOP is currently working on disenfranchising.  Can’t blame him for being concerned.    Remember when the right wing dismissed it as a Democratic problem because crowded Blue cities were the only ones suffering?  Not anymore.  More remote areas are getting hit now; all those rural folks who thought they were off the hook are suddenly having major problems breathing.  And you just know that Georgia and surrounding states are going to experience major spikes as Kemp invites the virus to have another go and wipe out people who were lucky enough to avoid it the first time.

But don’t worry, America, because Mitch McConnell has your back.  As the GOP continues to prove that even life and death situations are secondary to politicizing everything, McConnell suggested that if states are having financial problems, well heck, they should just declare bankruptcy.  Why should anything be done to help New York says the Senator of a state that ranks forty-six out of fifty states on the range of financial metrics, according to the Mercatus Center of George Mason University.  

Of course, there is a reason states can’t declare bankruptcy:  it’s against the law.  This was pointed out by Governor Cuomo who was so sick of McConnell’s BS that today he challenged McConnell to send a global message of financial distress by crafting a law that states can indeed declare bankruptcy.  “I dare him,” said Cuomo several times, although he stopped short of double dog daring him.  He dared McConnell to craft the law and Trump to sign it, asserting that they should if they had the courage of their convictions.

Which, naturally, they don’t.  They’re bullies and thus intrinsically cowards.  Of course, if they disagree, they can show Cuomo up and do exactly what he challenged them to do.

Betting they won’t.

PAD 

The GOP has traditionally stood for Grand Old Party.  

I think in the age of Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell, the initials should be changed.  The alteration should be made to reflect what the party has become.  Because the modern state of the Republicans would not be recognized by Ronald Reagan, although Richard Nixon would doubtless be envious of it.

GOP should henceforth be changed to Guardians of Power.

Thanks to everything from gerrymandering to voter suppression, the majority of representation in the government belongs to the minority of voters.  Hillary Clinton’s three million vote triumph, which to this day Trump absolutely refuses to acknowledge as legitimate, is just the tip of the iceberg.  There are states such as Wisconsin where Democrats vote in the majority but the Republicans rule thanks to disproportionate representation.

Indeed, let us focus briefly on Wisconsin.  The state where voters were forced to make a choice between fulfilling their civic responsibility and risking their lives.  Voting places in heavily Democratic areas disappeared, resulting in lines that were reportedly three miles long.  While the Democratic governor attempted to push back election day, the GOP united in overturning that ruling and pushing the matter all the way to the SCOTUS, where Trump’s majority insanely supported the notion that voters who had not yet received their absentee ballots had to have them postmarked by election day.  How nice that they were able to rush through that ruling in time to screw over tens of thousands of mostly Democratic voters while delaying the cases about Trump’s tax returns.

Meanwhile the GOP as a whole and Trump in particular continue to exploit the Coronavirus for all it’s worth.  While Republican governors outlaw abortion, dismissing an extremely time sensitive procedure as not being a medical necessity, Trump is busy declaring that mail in voting should not be allowed because—and for once he admitted the truth—you’ll never see a Republican win an election.  Yet again he said aloud the part that you’re only supposed to think.  For once, he was truthful, although not for the reason he supposed.  My assumption is that he believes that voting by mail will ensure cheating, even though there is no proof on record of mail-in voting being used fraudulently. It’s right up there with his ludicrous assertions that people would vote, then go out to their car, change clothing and walk back in to vote again.

Yes, the GOP aggressively does everything it can to block voting, particularly for the poor, students, Hispanics and people of color, since those groups all tend to vote Democratic.  Because they are no longer interested in governing; they’re interested in retaining power and will do everything they can to hold onto it.

Donald Trump is both a product of this mindset and also its leader.  In the past several weeks, he fired Michael Atkinson, the inspector general who did his job by bringing the whistle blower complaint to congress, and Glenn Fine, the inspector general who was tasked with overseeing the $2 trillion slush fund that Trump is undoubtedly going to steer toward people he likes and quite probably himself.  

So let’s see where we are in our democracy.

The GOP continues to rule the Senate with an iron fist, ignoring their oaths and letting Trump off in the impeachment trial while doing everything they can to stymie voters from removing either Trump or them from office.  Meanwhile the Supreme Court does whatever Trump wants, the four member minority helpless to convince their associates to attend to, or even remember, the rule of law.  The founders created our government to be three co-equal branches.  That is no longer the case.  The legislative and judicial branches are now completely subservient to the desires and whims of Donald Trump, a man who openly and aggressively courts and admires and envies dictators.

Let’s check the definition of a dictator, shall we

Dictator:  1) A ruler with total power over a country, typically one who has taken control by force.  2). A person who behaves in an autocratic way.

Autocrat:  Someone who insists on complete obedience from others; an imperious or domineering person.

That pretty much settles it, folks.  With his systematic dismissing of people from office whose job was to provide oversite and control, and with his party doing everything they can to steal the next election just as they stole the one in Wisconsin, Trump is no longer on his way to becoming a dictator.  By every demonstrable measure, he IS a dictator.

Welcome to North Korea.  Welcome to Russia. Welcome to Nazi Germany.

PAD