Monday, June 29, 2020

The Nerve

What does it take for a very demonstrably incompetent, corrupt, criminal, hateful and traitorous president to be forcibly removed from office?
Is it enough that he openly breaks several laws regulating the appropriate conduct of a US president, and even brags about it? Apparently not. Does it matter to his enablers that he tells childish, transparent lies every time he speaks? No. Is it a problem that the supposedly "Christian" president is a sexual predator who has had numerous extramarital affairs during all of his marriages, and has been accused of rape by several credible witnesses, including minors? Sadly, no. Is he in trouble because he separates children from their asylum-seeking parents at the Mexican border, places them in concentration camps under inhumane conditions and "loses" track of who their parents are? Apparently not.
Do people care that he tanked the US economy by overspending on tax reliefs for those who dont need it, and that he is trying to dismantle the best attempt the country has ever seen to create some kind of universal health care insurance? Not by the look of it.
Is it bothering his voters that he is a racist? No. That he sucks up to foreign dictators and compares domestic political opponents to terrorists? Again, no. Is there any sign of Republicans maybe not wanting a president who is an illiterate complete idiot, one who believes his own "hunches" over expert advice based on scientific evidence? No. They seem to be just fine with that.
Do people want him out of office for his catastrophic and lethal mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic? It doesn't seem that way.
How about if it becomes known that Russia has offered a bounty on US troops in Afghanistan, that Trump and his administration knew about it since March but kept silent about it, and that he then still decided to try to convince other countries to once again include Russia in the G7 meetings?
For some reason, that appears to have struck a nerve.
I will never quite understand what makes Republican-voting Americans tick, and why this particular story may be what swings the opinion irrevocably in Trump's opponents' favor. It's weird that this kind of situation could even occur, but I won't look a a given horse in the mouth. Keep up the work, Donald Trump, and you will be out of office soon! I'd rather have you thrown out forcibly by impeachment or by an invocation of the 25th amendment to the Constitution, landing in utter humiliation on your ass on the way out, but I can wait a few months to see you voted into oblivion. Let's just hope that the United States will survive the blows until you are gone. This is a gauntlet for democracy, and even though it now finally seems like the good guys are winning, every good person in the United States needs to stay vigilant, oppose all the stupidity, and vote.

Sunday, June 21, 2020

Running on Half Empty

The rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma that was supposed to lift Donald Trump's mood and make him put his head back in the game will probably have the opposite effect. In a state that is deeply red, in a city of almost one million people, in an arena that seats 19,000 people, he drew a smallish crowd of 6,200 spectators, according to the official Fire Department head count. The lower sections of the arena were reasonably full, but most of the balcony seats were empty. As an ironic reminder of where the polls are pointing, all those empty seats were blue.
The organisers had prepared a large overflow area outside, with a stage that had scheduled speeches from both Trump and Pence, but it was never used, and it ended up being dismantled even before the event was over.
The Donald Trump reelection campaign blamed the poor attendance on protestors blocking people from entry, but there were no protestors to speak of, police stopped what few there were from interfering with those seeking to enter, and it appears that nobody was turned away or prevented from attending.
Donald Trump threw a rally, and nobody cared. Now we just have to wait and see how many new cases of Covid-19 that will result from 6,200 supposedly adoring Trump fans gathering without masks or proper distancing for several hours. Attendees even had to sign a waiver and promise not to sue if they get sick.
Add to this that Trump managed to sound completely incoherent and out of touch with reality during his speech, and you have a disaster. This will drive his approval rating even lower, making him the most unpopular US president in history.
This is all a big farce, of the kind that isn't funny but just leaves you with a bitter taste in your mouth. I prefer not to watch those, but this is real, and I can't look away.

Friday, June 19, 2020

Stochastic Terrorism

These horrible & politically charged decisions coming out of the Supreme Court are shotgun blasts into the face of people that are proud to call themselves Republicans or Conservatives. We need more Justices or we will lose our 2nd. Amendment & everything else. Vote Trump 2020!
This ia an authentic tweet from @realdonaldtrump, the account belonging to the person who pretends to be the president of the United States. It is disgraceful and appalling on so many levels that it stands out even among his many other idiotic and shameful tweets.
The unbelievably violent graphic language is in response to a decision on immigrants rights, and it is a thinly veiled encouragement for right wing gun nuts to murder a "liberal" judge on the Supreme Court.
This has to end. November is too late.

Saturday, June 13, 2020

Both Hands

A small but potentially significant detail: at his recent West Point commencement address, a totally pointless stunt where we saw Donald Trump stumble through a lethargic speech, we also saw him using both hands to grab a glass of water. He has done it before, with glasses as well as bottles. Who does that? A person who has considerable motor problems, that's who. His increasingly weird body posture, his constant fidgeting, his strange gait and his bad balance tell a story of a person who is losing control of his body. But considering that he is also rapidly losing his mind, perhaps it's not surprising.

Last Legs

It's becoming increasingly clear even to Donald Trump's handlers that he is now more or less mentally incapacitated. The "campaign rally" now scheduled for June 20 in Tulsa, Oklahoma is nothing but a desperate attempt to inject some energy into his failing mind. We can only hope that his cognitive decline has gone far enough for the event to be a total embarrassment even to his mouth-breathing base of faux-Christian racists. The rats are already starting to leave the ship, and we are getting closer to the tipping point.