I must confess that I find the Google news feed on my phone a not always welcome distraction, the way it treats the conspiracy claptrap of Fox News with the same “dignity” as news from legitimate sources, and the fact that if you care anything about this country, every hour it just one goddam thing after the another in Trumpworld that infuriates. Trump and his familiars just cannot leave people who actually give a damn alone. Sure, his supporters aren’t worried, because like Wisconsin Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy--oops, Ron Johnson--just being “contrary” to common sense and the facts is the only thing that makes “sense.” Johnson--who has been warned by the intelligence community that the information he has been gathering concerning Joe Biden’s connections in the Ukraine are unsubstantiated conspiracy yarns from pro-Russian elements, and some of his Republican colleagues have warned him that his “investigation” could be seen as collusion with Russian agents in their continuing interference in our elections--on Tuesday still confidently predicted that the questionable “evidence” he and Rudy Giuliani have collaborated on will convince voters that Biden is not the “chosen one” to take down Trump.
It should be no wonder that Trump’s desperate supporters are resorting to desperate measures to save his reelection chances. I mean, this is a man who can’t keep out of his own way, typically saved by his base of supporters who can only be excused if we assume that they are as stupid as Trump is. Outside his Fox News and campaign rally bubbles, he was visibly piqued from questions by incredulous voters during the ABC town hall meeting. Along with other claims in his lie-fest, they were not buying his line that it is Democrats who are ending coverage for preexisting conditions; he was not only attempting to do that by supporting a Republican-sponsored attempt to kill the ACA in the U.S. Supreme Court, but as Vox reported this past June, Trump had already instituted a new health care “plan” that was having catastrophic effects on vulnerable people:
In August 2018, the Trump administration issued new regulations that would make short-term plans and other similar products more accessible and superficially appealing. Such plans don’t have to cover preexisting conditions, and they don’t have to provide comprehensive financial protection from major medical bills. People being sold these plans are often told they are not only cheaper than Obamacare-compliant coverage but will also provide the same level of financial benefits.
While the ACA allowed such plans to continue to exist, it limited them to only three months in order to give people time to reconsider their poor decision. Trump’s regulations, however, allowed people to sign-up for a full year with these plans. Trump claimed six weeks ago that he was preparing an executive order to mandate coverage of preexisting conditions--but he still has not done so, because of its questionable legality. And sorry, Kayleigh--we know that the only “work” that’s ever done in the White House is trying to get around doing any real work. But telling such stories is easier than “explaining” why Chad Wolf ignored a subpoena to testify before a House committee and answer questions about female prisoners at an ICE facility in Georgia having unneeded hysterectomies performed by some Dr. Mengele wannabe, just maybe to prevent them from having children born in this country, and why privately-run ICE facilities were turning into COVID-19 petri dishes.
Meanwhile, the ongoing joke-a-thon that is the next round of stimulus money continues. In August, after failed negotiations, Trump announced that he was mulling over another executive order for another round of individual stimulus checks that he could put his name on. That was then; today, he is at it again, except that after being informed that he did not have the authority to make such payments, he is trying to bully recalcitrant members of his own party into passing a more generous stimulus package than the paltry one that Mitch McConnell last put on the floor, which had no chance of passing the House. A bi-partisan bill more than doubled the Senate bill, but even though it was still only half of what of the House proposed, many Republicans in the Senate still oppose anything over $500 billion. Of course the only reason why Trump even suggested a more “generous” amount was because it was a useful campaign stunt, but I wonder if any of his supporters are taking note of the fact that Trump doesn’t seem to have control over members of his own party.
During the ABC town hall, Trump was asked about his position on face masks, and he claimed that “not everyone” likes them. Well, nobody really “likes” having to wear masks, but moderator George Stephanopoulos incredulously asked him who those people were. The obvious answer were people like billionaire Trump donor Liz Uihlein, one-half of the “power couple you never heard of” that owns the packaging company Uline (you know, that cut-rate company that sells cheap boxes that get crushed before they even get out the door). Uihlein has been a vocal critic of any kind of protective measures against the COVID-19, and the Canadian government is currently under fire for allowing her to travel to Canada to attend a large meetings of executives without the required 14-day quarantining. The Guardian reported that workers at the location where Uihlein was attending these meetings summoned police to report that those in attendance were creating unsafe conditions for them by not wearing the required face masks.
But no, it wasn’t those “live free or die” types who didn’t like masks, it was “waiters,” and Trump proceeded to concoct an incomprehensible rationalization for why one waiter told him he doesn’t wear a mask. More likely Trump made it all up, because he doesn’t like people to wear masks around him, because it makes him feel like a dangerous idiot. I mean, he told us that a vaccine would be ready just in time for the election. He’s probably been told that is unrealistic, but he couldn’t help but say it was CDC director Robert Redfield who was “confused” about when a proven vaccine might be readily available, perhaps not even until next summer. Trump also complained about Redfield saying that until then mask-wearing was the most effective way to hold-off the virus. Trump then went on about how there would be hardly any deaths from the virus if you subtracted the death total from “blue” states--ignoring the fact that the states with currently rapidly increasing death totals, like Texas and Florida, have been controlled by Republicans for years.
It’s not all about Trump, of course. A whistleblower report states that a summary of domestic threats by the Department of Homeland deliberately downplayed Russian interference in the election, and downgraded the threat from far-right extremist groups, while “upgrading” the alleged “terrorist” threat of groups like Antifa, which unlike far-right groups has no recorded incidences of deliberate hate crimes and targeted killings. William Barr, meanwhile, was reported to be attempting to find a crime to charge Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan with for allowing the CHOP zone, and calling on federal prosecutors to charge protesters with “sedition”--which is akin to committing “treason.” I don’t know about you, but I think Barr is mentally ill.
An argument could be made that Fox News’ Tucker Carlson is also mentally ill. Carlson interviewed a Hong Kong-based virologist named Li-Meng Yan, who claimed that the COVID-19 was created in a lab and deliberately released into the public, a claim which Carlson predictably swallowed whole. When he posted this on his Facebook page, it was flagged as false information that was a danger to the public. Carlson naturally confessed “outrage” at this attempt at “censorship,” but Fox News didn’t do him any favors with a “news flash” about a report about a study by Nature Microbiology, which seemed to confirm that bats were the most likely origin of the virus.
Back to Trump. His aides are now trying to figure out how to blunt Biden’s new campaign ads charging that Trump is endangering Social Security funding. As one may recall, he recently issued one of his executive orders that deferred payroll taxes--the taxes that fund both Social Security and Medicare. Trump had promised seniors that he would protect these benefits, but Trump can’t resist destroying something if there is a (very) short-term benefit for himself; for him, its just a cheap campaign ad that taxpayers will be paying for with their lives, and the “billionaire” Trump couldn’t care less because he doesn’t need it himself.
And this is what was happening in Trumpworld over the course of one day, and it wasn’t even the half of it. Remember the “good old days” when most of the news was actually meant to inform and not be the cause of daily outrage at the latest crimes being committed by this White House?
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