Background: Trump as Liar in Chief
Trump posted a Tweet stating that mail-in ballots will be ‘substantially fraudulent’. Two points here: first there is no evidence that mail-in ballots are any more or less fraudulent than in-person voting. Second, the last time an election used mail-in ballots for a special election, the Republican won. It truly is remarkable how quickly Trump can utterly contradict himself. Vote by mail is totally fraudulent but the Republican won. Amazing. This is analogous to his 2016 claims that the electoral college was a disaster for democracy – when it looked like he would lose.
Category: Trump
The Pulitzer-winning cartoonist Nick Anderson has described Donald Trump as an “adolescent wannabe authoritarian”, after the US president’s re-election campaign failed to pull one of Anderson’s cartoons mocking Trump’s inaccurate suggestion that injecting disinfectant could protect against Covid-19.
A victory over Trump and the GOP in November does not translate by itself into the kind of change we need. Nor does it provide any guarantee that advocates of a racist authoritarian state cannot roar back down the road. But only by preventing a Trump second term can the immediate threat Trumpism poses be averted. Only a Left that brings its determination and its vision of structural change to the fight that millions believe is priority number one — beating Trump — can come out of 2020 with sufficient strength and alliances to drive further toward our long-range goals.
“Those excessive practices have been again and again shown to disproportionately impact racial and language minority communities.”
Judicial Watch, which focuses on the courts and is funded primarily by large grants from conservative foundations, is suing Pennsylvania’s chief election official, along with county legislators and election officials in three of the state’s six counties with the most registered voters. Pennsylvania was critical to Donald Trump’s win in 2016. He won by less than 1 percentage point, losing only 11 counties, including the three suburban Philadelphia counties being sued by Judicial Watch. It was the first time Pennsylvania went red since 1988. Democrats almost certainly need to win the state — where former Vice President Joe Biden was born, and where his campaign is headquartered — to take back the White House.
via Right-Wing Group Aims to Purge 800,000 Voters in Pennsylvania
One man’s step closer to a Fascist State. Twitter didn’t block or stop Trump’s Tweets (ODT)
via Trump Signs Social Media Executive Order | HuffPost Australia
The World’s dirtiest President Making America Dirtier Again MADA (ODT)
Trump is smashing China and needs a war (ODT)
via Trump’s ‘Uncreative Destruction’ of the U.S.-China Relationship
This is our “Friends for Life” we go to war and die for (ODT)
When US propaganda overtakes any notion of necessary truth America is on the path of war no matter the cost. Trump is the man to take them there.(ODT)
When it comes to foreign policy, Pompeo’s penchant for undermining America’s credibility is top-notch
via Mike Pompeo is the number one evangelist of Trumpism in the world | Mike Pompeo | The Guardian
President Donald Trump over the weekend used his massive platform on Twitter to again spread the outrageous and unsupported insinuation that Joe Scarborough — one of his most vocal critics on TV —murdered someone.
via Trump Spreads Baseless Conspiracy Theory Accusing MSNBC Host Of Murder | HuffPost Australia
Quid Pro Quo and the real America raises its imperialistic head with a threat.(ODT)
There’s one way out, by the way, if you’ve followed me closely. Give people money. No strings attached, no questions asked, now, on a large-scale, more or less permanently, forget how much needs to be borrowed to make it happen. So people can fund a working society again. Or else. That’s the big question for America. The rest is noise. Until something along those lines begins to take shape — my answer is simple: Americans made themselves too poor to now afford to have the luxury of a functioning, civilized, modern society. Or is all that a necessity?
Golf , TV, Twittering, Campaigning, the Presidency = HE’s YOUR PRESIDENT AMERICA
via Trump Plays Golf As Coronavirus Death Toll Nears 100,000 In U.S. | HuffPost
Ukraine Repeated Domestically- Voter Suppression,(ODT)
As Jack Holmes of Esquire pointed out, Trump is threatening two U.S. states in exactly the same way he threatened Ukraine: Claiming he will withhold funds authorized by Congress if the recipient doesn’t help him cheat in the 2020 election. This is election fraud and blackmail, but this time directed at Americans.
Not only are these tweets an effort to blackmail the states, but they are also a direct effort to scare ordinary citizens out of voting.
As political analyst Judd Legum pointed out in his newsletter, Popular Information, “Telling someone that an absentee ballot application they receive was sent to them ‘illegally’ could dissuade them from voting.”
Indeed, the tweets themselves are arguably voter intimidation, since Trump is literally trying to scare people into thinking they may be prosecuted if they fill out an application for a mail-in ballot. Voter intimidation is a federal criminal offense that could lead to jail time — except that Trump is hiding behind “executive privilege,” which has been used to argue against legal punishment for all his criminal behavior.
via Trump Moves Openly to Steal the Election: Democrats Should Impeach Him Again | The Smirking Chimp
A study published Friday in a prestigious medical journal found that the anti-malarial drug President Donald Trump claims he is currently taking—and has repeatedly urged others to take—is not effective for treating Covid-19 and could increase risk of heart problems and death in coronavirus patients.
China’s “incompetence” didn’t cause mass spread and deaths due to the disease 30% of the world’s current condition America’s and in particular is a result of DJ Trump’s personal and blind stupidity in not acting like other more responsible nation’s leaders did. Trump’s attempt at a pathetic excuse simply doesn’t hold water.(ODT)
via Donald Trump says China’s ‘incompetence’ on coronavirus led to ‘mass worldwide killing’ – ABC News
The Quid Pro Quo President and another “Perfect Call” (ODT)
Disaster Lurks
Another wave of COVID-19 infections is on the horizon and Trump is hastening its arrival. He views human lives as “embers” in what may develop into “fairly big fires.” With his inflammatory rhetoric, Trump is stoking those fires.
Lose a loved one in the inferno? Blame the governors — they’re the ones who decided to reopen.
via It’s Not MY Fault — The Governors Did It | The Smirking Chimp
Sloganeering is a slog on hearing the worst of what America has been reduced to (ODT)
Trump’s campaign people are already talking about holding rallies as Trump blackmails the states by pushing his “open up” madness. “Lock her up” chant doubles down on hatred for Hillary Clinton, or these days for Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden, for those in love with Trump, by loudly calling for his political opponents to be imprisoned without trial for unspecified crimes. If you don’t believe me, listen to the chant the next time he holds a rally. Trump’s followers are both swearing allegiance and saluting him. “Lock her up” is Trump’s “Heil Hitler.”
via “Obamagate” And “Lock Her Up”: Pointing the Way Toward “Heil Trump” | The Smirking Chimp
Couple Trump’s Kim Jong-un Style mine’s bigger than your’s threat with the clowns that lie on his behalf and you have Dr Strangelove being played out before your very eyes. HE’S YOUR PRESIDENT AMERICA. (ODT)
Trump doesn’t care because the DEAD DON’T VOTE (ODT)
Against all of this background, are you now convinced about the dangerous mental state of the POTUS? What is the Trump Dx? Have recent events been a ‘clincher’ for you too?
If you still harbour doubts, read this article in Salon. Are you alarmed? Is the whole world in peril with this man at the helm?
What can be done?
via The Trump Dx – Have we seen the clincher? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
and
A company that offered to make life-saving protective masks as the coronavirus began its spread across the U.S. in January was snubbed by government officials.
Michael Bowen, the owner of medical supply company Prestige Ameritech, told the Department of Health and Human Services that he could begin producing 1.7 million N95 masks a week, only to be denied, The Washington Post first reported.
“We still have four like-new N95 manufacturing lines,” Bowen emailed a top HHS official on Jan. 22, the day the first coronavirus case was detected in the country. “Reactivating these machines would be very difficult and very expensive but could be achieved in a dire situation.”
Laura Wolf, director of the agency’s Division of Critical Infrastructure Protection, responded that the government wasn’t “anywhere near answering those questions for you yet” in response to Bowen’s offer.
“We are the last major domestic mask company,” Bowen emailed the next day. “My phones are ringing now, so I don’t ‘need’ government business. I’m just letting you know that I can help you preserve our infrastructure if things ever get really bad. I’m a patriot first, businessman second.”
The new revelation is part of an 89-page whistleblower complaint from former federal vaccine chief Rick Bright, who alleges he was removed from his position as retaliation for his early warnings about the pandemic and his refusal to make “potentially harmful drugs” to combat the virus.
Imperial over-reach was on full display this week as the US government demanded that a pair of US citizens — former Special Forces soldiers leading a 60-man invasion of Venezuela with the goal of fomenting a coup and/or capturing or killing that country’s elected president — be released from arrest and returned to the US.
Bad enough that the US almost certainly knew in advance about this invasion which involved multiple simultaneous border crossings and beach landings by mercenary forces, many of them reportedly sketchy former Venezuelan soldiers involved in the drug trade, who were on a payroll as soldiers-for-hire. But how about the gall to also claim that when the effort fails, the intended victim of the coup, Venezuela, has no legitimate right to punish the perpetrators, but must release them to their home country, the US — a country that has for years been trying to oust Venezuela’s elected government?
A majority of Americans are today wary of unlocking the economy and opening up the nation. Yet, each week, more and more people are demanding that it be done. And each week, more and more governors, reflecting the views of their constituents, are moving up the dates for partial reopenings.
By midsummer, the country will have caught up with Trump. That is the idea that animates the pivot.
Behind Trump’s Strategic Pivot, by Pat Buchanan – The Unz Review
Now, sure, you may read Daniels’s piece and wonder: yeah, what’s the point of looking back and holding people accountable?
Well, for one thing, we want a deterrent: we want public officials to fear that if they break laws, act unethically, or otherwise harm the public during a lethal pandemic, they will face some form of justice in the future from those looking back on their actions. That justice can be meted out in all kinds of ways — prosecution, firing, or at least public shaming in front of a national commission that has subpoena and discovery power.
But beyond deterrence, we should also want accountability in order to learn and grow as a society.
A country that doesn’t hold accountable those who lied us into the Iraq War is a country that effectively says it is fine with being lied into any war in the future.
A country that doesn’t hold accountable those corporate executives who created the financial crisis is a country that tells those executives they can continue fleecing us without fear of punishment — just as they have.
In short, a country that lets demands for bipartisanship create a cover-up is a country that refuses to learn from history — and then is doomed to repeat it.
via David Sirota: A Bipartisan Effort to Prevent Accountability for the Coronavirus Response Is Underway
Division for division sake is a political act. (ODT)
via Deconstructed Podcast: Are Trump and the Anti-Lockdown Militias Itching for Violence?
Now another person close to Trump has tested positive, this time a member of the U.S. Navy who serves as a personal valet to Trump inside the White House and is responsible for serving Donald Trump his meals. (Side note: How weird is it there is an elite Navy unit dedicated to being the president’s butlers?)
CNN reports Trump was “upset” at the news and things were “hitting the fan” inside the White House. Unlike some of the earlier exposures, this member of the U.S. Navy was said to be symptomatic when tested.
White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said both Pence and Trump have since tested negative. The rub is the rapid tests for COVID-19 have 14.8% rate of false negatives. So, a negative test today does not necessarily mean a negative test tomorrow.
via Trump’s Personal Valet Has Tested Positive For COVID-19 | Crooks and Liars
Trump just admits he’s not a multi-tasker (ODT)
President Donald Trump once again deflected blame for his administration’s response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic that has infected more than 1.2 million people across the country, saying he had been too busy with probes into his conduct as president to ensure the federal stockpile of medical supplies was prepared for a pandemic.
“Well, I’ll be honest, I have a lot of things going on,” Trump told ABC News anchor David Muir on Tuesday. “We had a lot of people that refused to allow the country to be successful. They wasted a lot of time on Russia, Russia, Russia. That turned out to be a total hoax. Then they did Ukraine, Ukraine, and that was a total hoax. Then they impeached the president of the United States for absolutely no reason.”
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