"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis
Thursday, October 15, 2020
Midnight Meme Of The Day!
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by Noah
The White House tells us he's fine. Nothing to worry about. But republicans have always been known for calling things the opposite of what they really are. You know, like their "Healthy Forests Initiative" which, once translated, meant "Forests Reduced To Sawdust For Profit." Or "Right To Work" which means "No Worker Rights" and "Right To Work For Less." Or how about "Racism is over" or "Trump is 'good at business' so I'll give him a shot." So it is with their Dear Leader himself. Every day, his physical and mental health is fading in more ways than one. Put the COVID to the side for a second. That right eye hasn't looked normal to me for many months, maybe since that mysterious quick trip to Walter Reed eleven months ago. I've known both stroke victims and pill addicts that looked the same way. Fortunately in the cases of the ones I've personally known, they're usually generally moral people who still have their intelligence. But what about people who were lacking in those areas to begin with and are also mentally wacked out? Just asking for a few friends.
Remember this clown? Dr. Harold Bornstein? Do I really even have to ask if he has any credibility? Would you believe him or any Trump doctor who told you anything about any subject at all? Bornstein is the quack who, during the 2016 campaign, signed his name a letter to America which stretched the boundaries of hyperbole in stating that Donald J. Biohazard was a perfect specimen in top physical health; a gold standard specimen if you will! Not only was that a bigly obese lie but it's tragic that no one in the korporate media had the smarts, will, or courage to address the biggest elephant in the room, aka Donald J. Biohazard's obvious poor mental health. Dr. Bornstein later admitted that he was "compelled" to create the letter while his psychotic patient dictated it. Then, in a total mobster thug move, his patient sent over a lawyer and a "bodyguard" to ransack his filing cabinets and take the Trump medical files because Trump feared the public revelation of the information they contained. It's no small surprise that they didn't just tie Dr. Bornstein to his chair and set fire to the place.
Before that, Trump's father had another nutball doctor, Dr. Larry Braunstein, write a letter to the draft board stating that Trump could not serve his country in the military because he had fake bone spurs, and, I suppose also because he didn't see himself as a "loser" or "sucker." Then, in January of 2018, there was the official White House doctor named Ronny L. Jackson who disgraced himself and his Navy uniform by announcing that President Trump had passed a cognitive test and then listed his height and weight at 6'3" and 239 pounds, conveniently putting his body mass index at 29.9, one tenth below the number that would officially label the obviously very obese president as obese. That set off an internet firestorm as Americans posted pictures that compared athletes with the same height and weight stats in a side by side format which showed that Trump appeared closer to 289 than 239.
Are you sensing a pattern here? This behavior has led to where we are today and where we are today is that everyone in the White House, led by Trump and White House physician Dr. Sean P. Conley is eagerly soiling what's left of their already suspect reputations by refusing to tell America when their mass-murdering boss last tested negative for coronavirus. Was it before he went to Minnesota to hold one of his freakshow rallies on September 18th? Maybe before one of his more recent rallies such as Dayton, Ohio on the 21st? Maybe right before his maskless September 26 Super-Spreader Amy Coney Barret nomination party on the White House lawn which was followed by guest receptions inside the White House? Maybe right after? The Barrett nomination party was just three days before his bizarro debate with his rival Joe Biden. Had he already tested positive at that point? Right before the infamous debate, Donnie Biohazard was doing his debate prep with former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and New York's biggest jackass Rudy Giuliani. Christie has been in the hospital with COVID-19 ever since. Giuliani isn't saying whether he's been tested or not but he was coughing so much on a recent Sean Hannity appearance that he could barely talk at all.
Here's Dr. Conley doing his best Joe Izuzu used car salesman imitation. Conley, like anyone who has worked in the Trump White House now has Zero credibility left; Zero with a capital Z. They might as well go hide in the bushes like Sean Spicy Spicer did. It's all about "alternative facts." Conley is probably already practicing his dance steps for Dancing With The Stars.
Rest assured I expect the president to continue carrying out his duties without disruption while recovering, and I will keep you updated on any future developments.
Trump was rushed to Walter Reed the next day. White House personnel such as Dr. Conley and Deputy Press Secretary Brian Morgenstern (see clip below) have been twisting themselves into the ground when asked when Trump last tested negative but if the president was negative at the points I just mentioned, there would be no reason to hold back on telling us. That leads to the reasonable conclusion that the fact that the White House personnel refuse to tell us when Donnie Biohazard last tested negative most likely means that he tested positive well before his positive test was announced on Friday, October 1st just two days after the infamous debate. Will it surprise you if, someday, it comes out that he knew he had the virus before the debate and did that debate anyway? That he risked his health and the health of everyone in the studio, those wearing masks and those not wearing masks, including the two people he was standing closest to for over 90 minutes? Is he knowingly "Typhoid Donnie" as he continues to expose himself? We know Trump is a psychopath so you decide what you think. I think the answer is obvious and those who remain silent could be taking part in negligent homicide at best and are at least complicit in any illness or deaths to come as a result of their blatant immorality and abdication of responsibility. They are who they are.
A Mind-Boggling Indictment Of Trump And His GOP Enablers From, Among Others, The New England Journal Of Medicine
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I'm not an epidemiologist but I watch the COVID numbers every day and it looks like Wave II has kicked in. It's worse in the U.S. than anywhere but the only countries where nothing much is happening are the countries where people have no problem with wearing masks. yesterday there were more than 4,000 new cases reported in each of 16 countries:
• India +78,809 (4,939 cases per million residents) • USA +48,715 (23,493 cases per million residents) • Brazil +29,741 (23,482 cases per million residents) • France +18,746 (10,006 cases per million residents) • Argentina +16,447 (18,561 cases per million residents) • UK +14,162 (8,006 cases per million residents) • Russia +11,615 (8,479 cases per million residents) • Colombia +7,875 (17,200 cases per million residents) • Spain +6,645 (18,654 cases per million residents) • Netherlands +4,989 (8,748 cases per million residents) • Mexico +4,828 (6,146 cases per million residents) • Ukraine +4,753 (5,482 cases per million residents) • Indonesia +4,538 (1,151 cases per million residents) • Israel +4,455 (30,604 cases per million residents) • Iran +4,019 (5,741 cases per million residents)
In the U.S., some states have started stabilizing but others are being hit hard, some for the first time but, alarmingly, some states that had stabilized are slipping back into pandemic hell, particularly Illinois and New York. Right from the start, I said it would take a million or 2 million deaths before right-wingers start taking the pandemic seriously-- or a few very high profile deaths, not Herman Cain, but Trump on a national level and governors and senators in states. As I sat down to write this post, rumors were starting to circulate from some members of the White House domestic staff that Trump, who hasn't been seen in almost 45 hours, is in the family quarters in what now amounts to an at-home top of the line ICU (intensive care unit) and is getting oxygen therapy several times an hour.
Among the states that haven't had bad outbreaks until now but that are now experiencing the horrors of what Trump is still saying is "like the flu," include these 5 with their new cases from yesterday:
• Missouri +1,522 (23,294 cases per million residents) • Wisconsin +2,319 (23,821 cases per million residents) • Tennessee +2,080 (30,378 cases per million residents) • Oklahoma +1,006 (23,845 cases per million residents) • Kentucky +926 (17,142 cases per million residents)
Meanwhile, USA Today noted that U.S. coronavirus cases surpassed 7.5 million on Wednesday with most states seeing a rise in cases-- nine months into the pandemic-- and a startling nine states setting ominous, seven-day records for infections. A USA Today analysis of Johns Hopkins data through late Tuesday shows Alaska, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Utah and Wyoming all set state records in the seven-day period. In all, 39 states reported more coronavirus cases in the last week than they had in the week before. More than 210,000 Americans have died, and Wisconsin and Hawaii reported record numbers of deaths in their states for a seven-day period.
Trump's assertion that Americans need not worry because "some really great drugs and knowledge" have been developed under his administration has prompted dismay for many in the medical community.
Lucy McBride, an internal medicine physician at Foxhall Internists in Washington, D.C., said that more than nine months after the virus was discovered in China, no treatments are available for patients suffering mild to moderate illness from the virus.
"We only have treatments for our sickest, hospitalized patients," she told USA Today. "Currently there is no proven (treatments) for the majority of patients with COVID-19.
"Our best and only defense against viral transmission," she adds, "is our own behavior. Masks, distancing, avoiding crowded spaces, and hand-washing as we buy time for drug development."
Trump's treatment: President's COVID-19 treatment is similar to the average American hospitalized with coronavirus. Only faster.
In Wisconsin, which set a seven-day record for fatalities, indoor bars and restaurants were capped at 25% of capacity starting Thursday. The state is struggling with some of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in the country, and Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, ordered the limits despite repeated legal challenges from Republicans to such measures.
"We’re in a crisis right now and need to immediately change our behavior to save lives," said Evers. "There's no other way to put it, we are overwhelmed."
Cases in Wisconsin have more than doubled over about a month, with outbreaks spreading to college campuses but also to rural areas. In northern regions of the state, hospitalizations quadrupled in that time.
"I believe limiting indoor public gatherings will help slow the spread of this virus," Evers said. "The sooner we get control of this virus, the sooner our economy, communities, and state can bounce back.”
In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear extended the statewide mask mandate for another 30 days and said the state would be "stepping up the enforcement." Businesses that serve customers not wearing masks face the possibility of being fined and shut down for a period of time, Beshear said.
The state has now seen 74,194 positive cases since the start of the pandemic, including record weekly totals three weeks in a row.
"It's going to be a hard month with all the cases we've seen," Beshear said. "It's going to be a hard October, and it's going to be a hard November, too, because deaths trail cases."
New York state, once the global hotspot for the virus, is working to smother flareups with Gov. Andrew Cuomo's "Cluster Action Initiative." Some areas will see schools and nonessential businesses and even houses of worship shut down as soon as Friday. Others face limits on indoor restaurant capacity and other gatherings.
The plan immediately drew fire from the Orthodox Jewish organization Agudath Israel of America, which issued a statement saying it "intends to explore all appropriate measures to undo this deeply offensive" action by the governor.
"We establish clear limits for areas where we see high positivity," Cuomo said on Twitter. "The severity of the problem will determine the response."
Cases in the United States have been rising for the last three weeks, the USA Today analysis revealed. The country has been adding about 44,000 cases per day lately, more than double the low seen in June and halfway between that mark and the worst of July's devastating peak.
..."COVID-19 is still very much a threat today," said Ogbonnaya Omenka, an associate professor and public health specialist at Butler University. "If it seems otherwise, then that is mainly (because) we have implemented public health measures and improved our capabilities regarding mitigating the threat of the virus."
But the unprecedented editorial in the brand new New England Journal of Medicine is shocking: Dying in a Leadership Vacuum. "COVID-19," they wrote, "has created a crisis throughout the world. This crisis has produced a test of leadership. With no good options to combat a novel pathogen, countries were forced to make hard choices about how to respond. Here in the United States, our leaders have failed that test. They have taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy. The magnitude of this failure is astonishing. According to the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering, the United States leads the world in Covid-19 cases and in deaths due to the disease, far exceeding the numbers in much larger countries, such as China. The death rate in this country is more than double that of Canada, exceeds that of Japan, a country with a vulnerable and elderly population, by a factor of almost 50, and even dwarfs the rates in lower-middle-income countries, such as Vietnam, by a factor of almost 2000. Covid-19 is an overwhelming challenge, and many factors contribute to its severity. But the one we can control is how we behave. And in the United States we have consistently behaved poorly.
We know that we could have done better. China, faced with the first outbreak, chose strict quarantine and isolation after an initial delay. These measures were severe but effective, essentially eliminating transmission at the point where the outbreak began and reducing the death rate to a reported 3 per million, as compared with more than 500 per million in the United States. Countries that had far more exchange with China, such as Singapore and South Korea, began intensive testing early, along with aggressive contact tracing and appropriate isolation, and have had relatively small outbreaks. And New Zealand has used these same measures, together with its geographic advantages, to come close to eliminating the disease, something that has allowed that country to limit the time of closure and to largely reopen society to a prepandemic level. In general, not only have many democracies done better than the United States, but they have also outperformed us by orders of magnitude.
Why has the United States handled this pandemic so badly? We have failed at almost every step. We had ample warning, but when the disease first arrived, we were incapable of testing effectively and couldn’t provide even the most basic personal protective equipment to health care workers and the general public. And we continue to be way behind the curve in testing. While the absolute numbers of tests have increased substantially, the more useful metric is the number of tests performed per infected person, a rate that puts us far down the international list, below such places as Kazakhstan, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia, countries that cannot boast the biomedical infrastructure or the manufacturing capacity that we have. Moreover, a lack of emphasis on developing capacity has meant that U.S. test results are often long delayed, rendering the results useless for disease control.
Although we tend to focus on technology, most of the interventions that have large effects are not complicated. The United States instituted quarantine and isolation measures late and inconsistently, often without any effort to enforce them, after the disease had spread substantially in many communities. Our rules on social distancing have in many places been lackadaisical at best, with loosening of restrictions long before adequate disease control had been achieved. And in much of the country, people simply don’t wear masks, largely because our leaders have stated outright that masks are political tools rather than effective infection control measures. The government has appropriately invested heavily in vaccine development, but its rhetoric has politicized the development process and led to growing public distrust.
The United States came into this crisis with enormous advantages. Along with tremendous manufacturing capacity, we have a biomedical research system that is the envy of the world. We have enormous expertise in public health, health policy, and basic biology and have consistently been able to turn that expertise into new therapies and preventive measures. And much of that national expertise resides in government institutions. Yet our leaders have largely chosen to ignore and even denigrate experts.
The response of our nation’s leaders has been consistently inadequate. The federal government has largely abandoned disease control to the states. Governors have varied in their responses, not so much by party as by competence. But whatever their competence, governors do not have the tools that Washington controls. Instead of using those tools, the federal government has undermined them. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was the world’s leading disease response organization, has been eviscerated and has suffered dramatic testing and policy failures. The National Institutes of Health have played a key role in vaccine development but have been excluded from much crucial government decision making. And the Food and Drug Administration has been shamefully politicized, appearing to respond to pressure from the administration rather than scientific evidence. Our current leaders have undercut trust in science and in government, causing damage that will certainly outlast them. Instead of relying on expertise, the administration has turned to uninformed “opinion leaders” and charlatans who obscure the truth and facilitate the promulgation of outright lies.
Let’s be clear about the cost of not taking even simple measures. An outbreak that has disproportionately affected communities of color has exacerbated the tensions associated with inequality. Many of our children are missing school at critical times in their social and intellectual development. The hard work of health care professionals, who have put their lives on the line, has not been used wisely. Our current leadership takes pride in the economy, but while most of the world has opened up to some extent, the United States still suffers from disease rates that have prevented many businesses from reopening, with a resultant loss of hundreds of billions of dollars and millions of jobs. And more than 200,000 Americans have died. Some deaths from Covid-19 were unavoidable. But, although it is impossible to project the precise number of additional American lives lost because of weak and inappropriate government policies, it is at least in the tens of thousands in a pandemic that has already killed more Americans than any conflict since World War II.
Anyone else who recklessly squandered lives and money in this way would be suffering legal consequences. Our leaders have largely claimed immunity for their actions. But this election gives us the power to render judgment. Reasonable people will certainly disagree about the many political positions taken by candidates. But truth is neither liberal nor conservative. When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent. We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs.
As long as I'm doing lists, these are the east Asian countries where the pandemic began and where there is no mask-phobia-- with their new cases yesterday (and their cases per million residents).
• Japan +496 (685 cases per million residents) • Malaysia +489 (431 cases per million residents) • South Korea +114 (475 cases per million residents) • Thailand +15 (52 cases per million residents) • Hong Kong +11 (685 cases per million residents) • Singapore +10 (9,866 cases per million residents) • China +7 (59 cases per million residents) • Taiwan +2 (22 cases per million residents) • Vietnam +1 (0.4 cases per million residents) • Cambodia- no new cases (17 cases per million residents) • Laos- no new cases (3 cases per million residents)
Would have it been different-- more like east Asia-- if Trump wasn't president and McConnell didn't control the Senate? Absolutely... There is a problem, of course, with the paranoid and crackpot right-wing mindset, but without Trump encouraging them... imagine 475 cases per million residents in South Korea instead of Florida's 33,649 cases per million or Mississippi's 34,353 cases per million or North Dakota's 32,618 cases per million.
Trump Is Mentally Unbalanced-- Where Are His Doctors When He And The Country Desperately Need Them?
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Before moving to L.A., I had lived in New York, Amsterdam and San Francisco. In L.A. I discovered something unique to this city. People ask you to invest in their films. It's insane because "invest" is the wrong word. It means you give them money for the film and then you write it off as a tax loss. I avoided that ugly world for the whole time I lived here. Then I got cancer. The doctor takes care of fighting the cancer. The patient takes care of fighting the side-effects. One of the side effects, it turns out, is that you become extremely impaired in every day, including mentally. Some unscrupulous hustler/movie producer figured out I was suffering from the side effects and tricked me-- easy in my state of mind-- into investing a very large sum of money in his absurd film, Cold Moon. I'm listed as a producer. Needless to say, I lost all the money. Lesson: Don't make important decisions when you're on strong drugs.
Guess who's on very, very strong drugs after his treatment in the hospital for COVID? Hint: Donald Jr, Thinks Sr. is acting insane. Gabe Sherman on Monday: "Trump's erratic and reckless behavior in the last 24 hours has opened a rift in the Trump family over how to rein in the out-of-control president, according to two Republicans briefed on the family conversations. Sources said Donald Trump Jr. is deeply upset by his father’s decision to drive around Walter Reed National Military Medical Center last night with members of the Secret Service while he was infected with COVID-19. 'Don Jr. thinks Trump is acting crazy,' one of the sources told me. The stunt outraged medical experts, including an attending physician at Walter Reed. According to sources, Don Jr. has told friends that he tried lobbying Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, and Jared Kushner to convince the president that he needs to stop acting unstable. 'Don Jr. has said he wants to stage an intervention, but Jared and Ivanka keep telling Trump how great he’s doing,' a source said. Don Jr. is said to be reluctant to confront his father alone. 'Don said, I’m not going to be the only one to tell him he’s acting crazy,' the source added. One area where the family seems united is over the president’s manic tweeting early Monday morning. After Trump sent out more than a dozen all-caps tweets, the Trump children told people they want Trump to stop. 'They’re all worried. They’ve tried to get him to stop tweeting,' a source close to the family told me. The Trump family’s private concern about Trump’s behavior could raise questions about his fitness for office. Trump has been prescribed drugs that medical experts say can seriously impair his cognitive function. Last night the New York Times reported that steroids, which Trump is reportedly taking, specifically dexamethasone, are known to 'affect mood, causing euphoria or a general happiness.'"
Uh... yeah... to put it mildly. The state Trump is in now is what the 25th Amendment was passed for. And the insane tweeting has only accelerated. Yesterday Michelle Goldberg tweeted that Señor Trumpanzee's "Twitter feed is always nuts but right now it really seems like he’s suffering some sort of psychological implosion." Well, yes, he clearly is. Earlier, Wisconsin Republican icon Charlie Sykes tweeted "Trump’s Twitter feed is extra-deranged tonight." That super-derangement spilled over into the next day, when the whole country-- world-- could watch Trump falling apart mentally and emotionally. He should be aware from electronics and in the care of physicians-- and I have nothing against osteopaths at all.
What if he decides to order the U.S. military to attack someone? Who's going to stand up to him? Certainly not Republicans! When he ordered them to break off negotiations with Democrats on the desperate needed pandemic relief package that he has held up, McConnell and McCarthy both said, "Yes, Your Highness," screwing over the country-- and their own constituents. "Trump pulled the plug on ongoing bipartisan coronavirus relief talks in an abrupt move that jolted Wall Street and surprised lawmakers of both parties," reported the Wall Street Journal but hours later called on Congress to approve a bill providing another direct check to many Americans." Hours later he was tweeting that Congress must pass the package IMMEDIATELY. The Washington Post: "First, he says he won’t pursue a package until after election. Then he demands Congress immediately pass bills." No one knows what to make of his erratic behavior-- other than scholars of King George III and fans of Hamilton.
And... Judd Legum who's Wednesday morning newsletter was devoted to a close look into Trump's Drugs. He wasn't treated by a quack he's been pushing, Stella Emmanuel, and he didn't take hydroxychloroquine, Legum wrote about what he did take:
• Regeneron's antibody cocktail, a promising experimental drug that has been made available to fewer than ten people outside of clinical trials. • Remdesivir, a drug administered by IV that was found to shorten hospital stays for patients with serious cases of COVID-19. • Dexamethasone, a steroid that was found to increase survival for patients with severe cases of COVID-19 and require supplemental oxygen.
Legum pointed out that "hydroxychloroquine is not an effective treatment for COVID-19 [and that] Trump foisted an unproven and potentially dangerous treatment on the American public for months. But when his own health was on the line, Trump unwilling to follow his own advice." (No one know if he drank any bleach or shoved a UV light up his ass, though.)
Despite the overwhelming scientific evidence, hydroxychloroquine boosters are disappointed that Trump has abandoned the drug. Dr. Emmanuel, the conspiracy theorist that Trump promoted in May, said whoever convinced Trump to stop taking hydroxychloroquine should be "punched in the face."
She offered to prescribe hydroxychloroquine to White House staffers.
Steve Jalsevac, a hydroxychloroquine fan who co-founded the far-right website LifeSite News, urged readers to "contact the White House to ask why the president and Melania are not immediately being given this well-proven-in-practice medication protocol for COVID infection.”
Others, like former White House staffer Sebastian Gorka, were in denial. "I’m sure he’s taking his hydroxy this morning just like I did this morning," Gorka said.
Most people who have heard of Mona Charen, I suspect, know her as an outspoken, partisan and very conservative Republican. She's written 3 books and you can figure out from the titles, who she is: Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First (2003), Do-Gooders: How Liberals Hurt Those They Claim to Help (and the Rest of Us) (2005) and Sex Matters: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense (2018). She worked as a speechwriter in the Reagan White House and for Jack Kemp. I gather she's not supporting the fascist candidate next month but the institutional conservative: Joe Biden. About a month ago she wrote The Coming Biden Landslide for the #NeverTrump site, The Bulwark. In her mind, Biden is the Republican saint, Ronald Reagan, and Trump is 2020's Jimmy Carter, detested by Republicans to this day.
Yesterday another Bulwarker, #NeverTrump Republican Tim Miller, wrote that when he looks at Trump’s "Twitter-centric negotiation over the possibility of a second COVID-19 stimulus package in the past 24 hours, I just gotta say, I think he might be fouling this up. He is the Great Negotiator. He 'wrote' a whole book on the subject, you may have heard of it. And here I am, a liberal arts major. A person who did not not go to Wharton Business School while pretending that I did... But speaking as a novice, this stimulus negotiation looks like an epic self-own on par with bankrupting a casino or selling steaks in a home electronics store. For those who aren’t juiced up on steroids or slamming dexamethasone, it might be hard to keep up...
For the last few months, Democrats and Republicans have been-- slowly, distractedly-- fighting over the details of a supplemental COVID stimulus package that would address the severe economic hardships brought upon many families and businesses by the pandemic. On Tuesday, the president, who had been largely absent from these discussions previously, crashed through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man in an attempt to demonstrate his mediation prowess.
First, around 2:30 p.m., he executed one of his patented gambits straight out of Art of the Deal:
The “economic populist” timed this power move on the heels of a conversation with Austerity-for-Thee Cocaine Mitch, blindsiding his own advisers (element of surprise!) in a series of tweets announcing that he will end negotiations on the stimulus package until after the election. As part of the tweetstorm, he also kindly ensured that people are aware that Nancy Pelosi wanted to pass a munificent $2.4 trillion in aid for people still struggling through a once-in-a-century pandemic.
Here-- within half an hour after his tweeting began-- is how the stock market responded to his announcement:
So, as an opening bid, it left a little bit to be desired, I would say. Jonathan Chait, another non-businessman mind you, called it “the worst political blunder in history.” A tad dramatic maybe, but not a great sign.
Regardless, it seemed like the dire reaction in the markets left Trump in a bad negotiating position vis-à-vis Speaker Pelosi-- and she agreed, firing off a single tweet about how the president’s ploy exposed his heartlessness.
This sense was confirmed five hours later when the president took a new/old tack, recanting his earlier contention that Pelosi’s offer was overly generous and adding a dollop of his trademark schoolyard misogyny:
With balance restored to the negotiating table, you might think he would wait to see how Pelosi would respond.
Not this president.
No he needed to further demonstrate his position as the alpha.
So in between IVs, presumably during commercial breaks from the shows, possibly wearing his preferred nightgown, he began to unleash a torrent of tweets negotiating against himself like a person suffering from a bout of psychosis due to a corticosteroid therapy.
First he did a complete 180 on his earlier position that Congress should pass no stimulus legislation, retweeting a news story about the Federal Reserve chair that implied Congress should spend even more!
Then he retweeted the esteemed Paul Sperry of Investor’s Business Daily-- not once, not twice, but twenty-two separate times-- on matters ranging from #Obamagate to the “disgraceful” moderator of the debate that Trump totally won to a not-all-that-veiled attack on Joe Biden for being concerned about health care when his wife and child died in a tragic car accident.
Trump followed that up with eight retweets of Fox News analyst Gregg Jarrett, calling for the jailing of his former opponent Hillary Clinton and disparaging Speaker Pelosi’s looks.
He then tweeted a meme depicting the late Chris Farley—in character as the thrice-divorced homeless motivational speaker Matt Foley from the classic SNL sketch-- berating Attorney General Bill Barr for not arresting enough political opponents.
It’s unclear to me if any of these missives were part of the gamesmanship of the ongoing negotiations but I wanted to make sure that everyone had a clear picture of the state of play.
Around 10 p.m., on day five (we think) of the experimental drug regimen he is taking for combating the coronavirus, the president then launched back into the stimulus negotiations that at this stage are taking place only between himself and his earlier tweets.
No longer wanting to walk away completely, the president demanded that Congress pass two pieces of standalone legislation, the first bailing out the airline industry, the second sending a round of $1,200 stimulus checks out to our “great people.”
In the final tweet at the time of writing, he tagged Nancy Pelosi-- whose visage he had insulted hours earlier and who has been silent as he dickered for hours-- presumably in an attempt to reopen the line of communication with his counterparty.
Whew.
Given that I have never been “in a boardroom” for a high-stakes parley like this and that I cannot take the full measure of Donald Trump since he spent the day hiding from the cameras as the novel coronavirus infection consumed him, I can only turn to a celebrity negotiator for his expert analysis on what transpired:
"The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you’re dead."
—Donald J. Trump.
I get it. And I understand it... It's been a very interesting journey. I learned a lot about COVID. I learned it by really going to school.
- President Donald J. Biohazard, in a message to his batshit crazy supporters, shortly before taking his Sunday joyride.
Damn! Never give a psychopath steroids! But that's what they did at Walter Reed. It was Dexameth aka Dexamethasone. Look at those Hannibal Lecter eyes. Just look at them! The mask even adds to the effect. I see you've got your Halloween costume all set, Donnie! Or was your little Sunday ride around the block just a funeral procession rehearsal?
Keep all sharp objects, bottles of Chianti, and nuke codes away from Donnie Psycho. The latter was a horrific idea to begin with. He's really hyped up now. Now he's back at the 1600 compound. Here comes the Adderall! The first thing he did was whip off his mask so he could infect as many of the staff as possible. He's barricaded in the cult compound like he's the Jim Jones or David Koresh he's always wanted to be. He's not serving grape juice, he's serving COVID-19. Here come ol' orange top, you can feel his disease. He's the super spreader, but, hey Kayleigh, hey Stephen Miller! Watch your livers!
Shame on Walter Reed. No, not for saving his life or just delaying the inevitable oh happy day. No. Shame on Walter Reed for not insisting that our president be heavily chained to his bed. Instead, they let him out to shed his viral spores like cyanide to anyone within striking distance. They let him be put into a hermetically sealed, armored SUV to infect all those good, patriotic Secret Service people with him. No doubt one or all of the insane Trump family had a lot to do with it, or would have it even ever came down to that. A man that is so infected that he has to spend time at one of the most advanced hospitals in the known universe needed to be isolated in a kind of leper colony not be taken outside for a cheap publicity stunt. "Don't be afraid of COVID," he says. "Don't let it dominate your life," he says. He talks about new drugs and new knowledge "developed under the Trump Administration" as if he was responsible for that when he did everything he could to slow that down while he was telling us to drink bleach, inject Lysol and jam light bulbs up our ass. "Don't be afraid of COVID." Yeah, Donnie, like we all have access to the care you just got. Tell that to the 212,000 dead and counting. None of the 850 Americans who died the day you took your joyride got your special antibody cocktail. Tell them and their loved ones not to be afraid of COVID. Fuck you, Asshole!
Calling the ride around the block "insanity," Here's what Dr. James P. Phillips, one of Donnie Biohazard's Walter Reed doctors had to say about the president's ego-stroking joyride:
Every single person in that vehicle now has to be quarantined for 14 days. They might get sick. They might die. For political theater. That presidential SUV is not only bulletproof, but hermetically sealed against chemical attack. The risk of COVID-19 transmission inside is as high as it gets outside of medical procedures. The irresponsibility is astounding. My thoughts are with the Secret Service forced to play.
One of Donnie Psycho's guards was heard to say:
He's not even pretending to care now.
And still America tolerates this. Bring on the flatbed trucks! Park them around the Hot Spot White House; playing "Highway To Hell" at jet engine level around the clock.
-by Dorothy Reik
California state Democratic Executive Committee
RBG had a simple final wish-- let the newly INSTALLED president nominate her successor. But while her body was still warm Trump announced that HE would name her successor and have that nomination confirmed even before the election could take place. As her earthly body lay in repose at the Court and in state at the Capital, her heavenly spirit had other ideas.
As the COVID-spreading Trump gathered his worshipers in the Rose Garden to announce his nomination of the anti-RBG to the court, upstairs other plans were being made. RBG was angry. The gods were angry. A dying wish was not to be defied-- let alone defiled! The heavenly court was in session and justice would be served.
And so it came to be that they fell, one after another. Trump's closest friends and advisors, who had gathered to celebrate the appointment of a justice who would strike down health care, were themselves struck down by the very virus Trump had labeled a hoax. Poetic justice! The first to fall was third daughter, Hope Hicks, best known for steaming the wrinkles out of Trump's pants while he was wearing them! Trump himself was next along with Melania as they returned from spreading the virus to the most important people in their lives-- their donors!
But by Thursday no members of the Senate Judiciary Committee had been infected. Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Tom Tillis (R-NC), both members and attendees at the would-be coronation, had to fall next. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) fell victim too-- collateral damage.
Just for good measure Trump's debate coaches, Chris Christie and Kelly Anne Conway were hit along with Bill Stepien, the latest campaign manager and Ronna MacDaniel Romney, head of the Republican National Committee. There goes the campaign mused RBG. Brad Parscale was gone already having succumbed to madness after Tulsa and locked away.
Amy Coney Barrett, the source of all the suffering, had already been infected so her Notre Dame mentor, Reverend John Jenkins took her place among the sickened.
Yesterday, Press Secretary Kaleigh McInerney tested positive after attempting to infect the press corps by not wearing a mask-- but the press corps fooled her-- they did wear masks. It was if Trumpsters were all under the same evil spell as always-- not caring whom they infect or kill. But now they were infecting each other! RBG smiled. McConnell, under the same spell, called for Senate hearing although many of the Senators needed to be in quarantine, so desperate was he to see this already damned appointment confirmed. As RBG looked down from her heavenly perch to survey the damage she noted that more work needed to be done. Republican members of the Judiciary Committee were still standing as was Mitch McConnell, who would carry out the wishes of a president laid low-- or was he already infected? He refused to say. RBG reached for the lightening.
All That Was Missing Was The Gilded Royal Carriage
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No one needed to have any special powers to know what a Trump presidency was going to do to America. Putin, after all, is too savvy a player to have bet on a pig in a poke. Now me... since inauguration day I've hoped against hope that there were a pair of Secret Service agents like Satwant Singh and Beant Singh waiting to do their duty to protect our country. All day Sunday and when I woke this morning there were dozens of stories about Trump's condition. I only want to read one: that he's dead (well... or dying).
I know it's politically incorrect, but I really don't want Trump to survive COVID. I mean it's up to God, not me, but if it were up me... He's an evil and dangerous cancer and he will keep poisoning the world until he's dead and rotting in the ground. The sooner the better-- and his inner circle along with him. A few hours ago, I asked my Twitter followers what they think. Most disagree; they'd rather see him in prison. I'm fine with that too-- as long as he never gets out.
First hour's results
But I was heartened yesterday to read about the anger Secret Service agents feel about his little stunt to entertain his Proud Boys and MAGA-monkey followers Sunday-- the SUV drive around Walter Reed so he could wave. Reporting for the Washington Post, Josh Dawsey, Carol Leonnig and Hannah Knowles wrote that current and former Secret Service agents and medical professionals were aghast Sunday night at Señor Trumpanzee's trip outside the hospital, saying the disgusting orange lummox endangered those inside his SUV for a publicity stunt. "As the backlash grew, multiple aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations also called Trump’s evening outing an unnecessary risk-- but said it was not surprising. Trump had said he was bored in the hospital, advisers said. He wanted to show strength after his chief of staff offered a grimmer assessment of his health than doctors, according to campaign and White House officials."
A growing number of Secret Service agents have been concerned about the president’s seeming indifference to the health risks they face when traveling with him in public, and a few reacted with outrage to the trip, asking how Trump’s desire to be seen outside his hospital suite justified the jeopardy to agents protecting him. Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis has already brought new scrutiny to his lax approach to social distancing, as public health officials scramble to trace those he may have exposed at large in-person events.
“He’s not even pretending to care now,” one agent said after the president’s jaunt outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to wave at supportive crowds.
“Where are the adults?” said a former Secret Service member.
...Trump wore a mask as he waved from the back of his vehicle, after announcing he would “pay a little surprise to some of the great patriots that we have out on the street.” But the face covering was little comfort to doctors, who took to Twitter to criticize the trip as irresponsible. Masks “help, but they are not an impenetrable force field,” tweeted Saad B. Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health.
Among critics was a doctor affiliated with Walter Reed.
“Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary Presidential ‘drive-by’ just now has to be quarantined for 14 days,” tweeted James P. Phillips, who is also a professor at George Washington University. “They might get sick. They may die. For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is insanity.”
Phillips said the risk of viral transmission inside the car is “as high as it gets outside of medical procedures.” Jonathan Reiner, a professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University, noted people inside a hospital wear extensive protective gear-- gowns, gloves, N95 masks and more-- when they will be in close contact with a coronavirus patient such as Trump.
“By taking a joy ride outside Walter Reed the president is placing his Secret Service detail at grave risk,” he tweeted.
Frank Schaeffer suggested that "It is time to liberate the Secret Service detail. Let Trump hire suicidal Proud Boys to guard him and catch COVID as he indulges in reckless ego-driven stunts." I like that idea too.
Also writing for The Post, Dr. Leana Wen asked "If the president was brought into the hospital for closer monitoring, what sense does it make to discharge him just before the time period that’s potentially the most fraught?" Her tweet Sundat afternoon was more enlightening:
Mary McNamara is a culture columnist for the L.A. Times. She may have reached the same conclusions about Trump's joy ride-- even if she never even considered the Satwant and Beant solution-- but her perspective... well, it comes from a different space: Trump’s dangerous Sunday drive-by recalls the madness of a monarch. But he’s not one. As Trump's mendacious doctors had the press scrambling with timelines, oxygen levels and the significance of certain drugs prescribed during his treatment for COVID-19, all she could think of was the scrutiny of the royal stool and urine in The Madness of King George: "I cannot inquire after His Majesty’s symptoms until he chooses to inform me of them." The Trumpian spectacle Sunday drove McNamara to re-watch the 1994 film, adapted by Alan Bennett from his award-winning 1991 play, The Madness of George III. "And you know what? The parallels are highly disturbing," she wrote.
Much of The Madness of King George deals with the difficulty of attempting to treat a ruler who is incapable of recognizing reality and his own relationship to same, a ruler known to punish ruthlessly those who dare presume even to look at him, much less attempt to advise or to heal him.
Which sounds a tiny bit familiar; Mark Meadows reportedly faced the president’s wrath after he informed reporters that Trump was not sailing along as blithely as Conley had indicated.
But the most disturbing parallel came just as I finished watching the film’s climactic scene. The king-- realizing that his son is about to have himself named regent-- pulls it together enough to get in a carriage and appear before the cheering throngs, and I glanced at social media to find that President Trump was in the process of doing the very same thing.
For reasons known only to themselves and whatever gods they worship, doctors at Walter Reed allowed a man with full-blown COVID-19 to get into an SUV filled with the requisite sacrificial victims-- er, Secret Service agents-- so he could wave to his supporters (many of them maskless, few of them social-distancing) as they clamored to wish him well in fighting this highly infectious and deadly disease.
Honestly, all that was missing was the gilded royal carriage.
This prophetic juxtaposition between art and life left me freaked out in a way I hadn’t been since, well, Friday. Which is when we learned that the Rose Garden ceremony to announce Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, held a mere week after the passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, had been a COVID-19 super-spreader event.
I may be a recovering Roman Catholic, but the “And then God said: ‘Nope’” overtones of that situation seem pretty darn clear.
To see a president rewarding supporters, in his own special way, for doing the same sort of things that put him in the hospital in the first place?
Who’s the mad king now?
Actually, the comparison isn’t fair. George III, now perhaps best known for providing the comic relief in Hamilton, had apparently returned to a state of wellness by the time he presented himself to his loyalists. Also-- and this is important-- he was at no point encouraging his subjects to make themselves vulnerable to the highly infectious disease from which he himself was suffering.
(And before you hit me with “But what about the risks involved in the Black Lives Matter protests?” Please. People take to the streets to protest only when other means of achieving justice have failed; that millions did so in the middle of a pandemic is simply a gauge of how complete and devastating those failures have been.)
I understand the desire of Trump supporters to show up for the ailing president, just as I understand the president wanting to thank them, as he said in a video he tweeted to tease his little journey. (Had he been feeling better, he could have just sung the Hamilton King George bit about “for your love, for your praise and I’ll love you ‘til my dying days...” which honestly would have been super fun).
But God Almighty, you would think he might have urged the people he claims to love so much to take steps to ensure their own safety. None of those folks are going to get airlifted to Walter Reed if they test positive and turn feverish. None of them are going to get all the COVID-19 drugs and treatments available in a 48-hour (or however long it has actually been) span.
If Trump suddenly felt that Twitter was no longer the best way to engage with his supporters, couldn’t he have just waved from the window like Ronald Reagan did? As far as I know, Vice President Mike Pence was not scheming to have the 25th Amendment invoked (although given the insanity of this particular Sunday drive, maybe he should).
No matter what Trump may think, this is not a monarchy. The president is not anointed by God to rule. He is elected to serve the American people with the understanding that if, for whatever reason, he is incapable of serving, the vice president will step in. That is why we have a vice president!
The demand for an accurate account of the state of Trump’s health is not about the man; it’s about the presidency. If nothing else, he should respect the office enough to put all his effort into getting well, not taking a smile ‘n wave lap.
One hopes that the president is indeed on the mend-- because there are still a hell of a lot of questions he needs to answer. Questions about his taxes and outstanding loans, about continued Russian interference with the election and about accusations against Kimberly Guilfoyle.
Not to mention the timeline of his diagnosis and his lack of basic social precautions.
Like whatever afflicted King George III, who continued to suffer from bouts of “madness,” COVID-19 is a tenacious disease; even on the way to health, there is a pretty good chance that Trump will continue to be affected by symptoms. Suffering from this disease can be debilitating and terrifying, which is why the Biden campaign suspended its negative ads and the press has put aside the many issues facing the Trump campaign in favor of a minute-by-minute focus on the president’s condition.
Still, it’s hard to see his heedless Sunday drive as anything but permission for the many questions and criticisms raised about his financial situation, his handling of the pandemic and the scandals affecting so many of his inner circle to resume.
As my mother used to say, if you’re well enough to go out and play, you’re well enough to go back to school. Though in this case, please do it remotely.
President Super-Spreader Won't Be Making An Already Stricken Green Bay Worse With His Poxy Presence Today
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Murder/Suicide by Nancy Ohanian
Wisconsin is pandemic-central right now. Thursday, the state reported 2,887 new cases, third most in the country after Texas and California, both with far bigger populations. Friday, while the media was reporting on the Trump family's COVID-ity, Wisconsin reported 2,745 more cases, bringing the state's total to 127,906-- a very rapidly rising 21,968 cases per million residents. And the center of the contagion, Green Bay, where Trump's rally was scheduled for today. He had also scheduled a rally in La Crosse today, but Mayor Tim Kabat told him to fuck off and he moved the rally to Janesville, Paul Ryan's hometown, where the mayor also asked him not tp come. Late Thursday Wisconsinites breathed a sigh of relief when Trump's disease announcement and quarantine caused all his appearances to be cancelled.
Rich Republican donors in New Jersey Thursday weren't as lucky. I wonder how many will be joining Herman Cain now. Reporting for the Daily Beast, Jamie Ross wrote that "Just hours before President Trump announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19, he was mingling with fundraisers at an event held at his New Jersey golf club—and even posed for personal photo-ops with supporters. The event went ahead after the White House learned that one of the president’s closest aides, Hope Hicks, had tested positive for the disease, according to multiple reports... Trump reportedly delivered a droplet-spraying speech. According to the Washington Post, Trump didn’t wear a mask at the golf club, or on the plane back to Washington, D.C. The president then tested positive after he had returned to the White House."
The White House had plenty of time after learning of Hicks' diagnosis on Wednesday night to cancel or postpone the Bedminster event but all they did was reduce the size of the staff that would be attending and left the wealthy New Jersey Trumpists to their fates. (This was around the time they learned that RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel is also sick with COVID.) Ross reported that "The event may have exposed dozens of people to the virus and adds to a long list of people who have had recent contact with Hicks or Trump who may now need to isolate. They include a large contingent from Trump’s family who traveled to Tuesday night’s debate in Ohio together. Hicks was also seen boarding Marine One on Wednesday with President Trump and senior White House advisers Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller.
The fact that the Bedminster event went ahead despite Hicks’ symptomatic case has been met with stunned disbelief. CNN anchor Anderson Cooper said: “The fact that the president still went, knowing he’d had very close contact with somebody who’d tested positive, is irresponsible.”
Reporters also voiced their incredulity at the fact that press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who has also been in contact with Hicks, held a news briefing at the White House on Thursday and didn’t wear a mask. Neither Hicks’ symptoms or rest were mentioned at the briefing.
CNN correspondent Kaitlan Collins asked: “Why did the president still go to New Jersey, knowing that he could potentially put these people at risk, these donors and fundraisers? And of course, why did the press secretary still hold a briefing despite knowing she had come into contact with somebody who had just tested positive for coronavirus?”
Although a Trump rally scheduled for Friday in Florida was canceled after his positive test result, some events are still being pushed as if there’s a chance of them going ahead. Early Friday, an email went out to Trump supporters for a Texas rally next week which touted a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to enter to win a trip to meet your favorite president.”
Jonathan Martin, Maggie Haberman and Matt Stevens reported for the NY Times that the conornavirus diagnosis "upended the presidential race in an instant, inviting significant questions about his cavalier attitude toward the pandemic and the future of his campaign just 32 days before the election... [H]is personal indifference toward the virus could threaten his own health, the stability of the country and his already dimming hopes for re-election... 'It’s hard to imagine this doesn’t end his hopes of re-election,' said Rob Stutzman, a Republican consultant, pointing to Mr. Trump’s 'flouting of obvious precautions.'"
It’s almost certain that the remaining two debates between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden will be canceled or drastically changed. The next one is scheduled for less than two weeks from now, on Oct. 15, and medical guidance would most likely keep the president isolated until then.
And after having gone forward with the rallies he craves, despite rules against large gatherings in many states, Mr. Trump will not be able to leave Washington during a final, crucial stretch of the campaign.
Moreover, one of his central arguments against Mr. Biden, that the 77-year-old former vice president is enfeebled and unfit to lead the country, has now been undermined by questions about the president’s own health.
“Trump is now in the position of becoming exhibit No. 1 for the failure of his leadership on coronavirus, and he runs the risk that his supporters will feel misled by his dismissiveness of the virus and the need for precautions,” said Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster.
...[I]n private conversations, members of his staff were also candid that the president has comorbidities that could make him more susceptible to a severe bout of the virus.
...On Tuesday, at his first debate with Mr. Biden, Mr. Trump ridiculed his opponent, a fellow septuagenarian, for his precautions.
“I don’t wear masks like him,” the president said. “Every time you see him, he’s got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from it. And he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.”
Even on Thursday, after his close aide Hope Hicks was showing symptoms of the virus, Mr. Trump delivered remarks from the White House for the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in which he insisted falsely that “the end of the pandemic is in sight.”
Alex Gibney's new documentary, Totally Under Control, focusses on Donald's completely, dosgracefully failed response to the pandemic and how it didn't haveto be that way. It comes out in mid-October. Here's the trailer:
