I have come around to thinking this entire Trump presidency has been, and is, far more than a grift.
I’m not one who buys into conspiracy theories. And I’ve not seen this one circulate anyway so maybe it’s just the result of five years of focused attention on Donald J. Trump.
I’m beginning to believe, though, that the last four years have not been a rambling, unfocused presidency led by a moron but an ever evolving conspiracy at taking over this country by Trump and other forces.
I doubt the Russians were involved because I don’t think Putin is stupid. But he’s smart enough to go along to watch the damage Trump would do to our institutions and norms. For Putin, that would be more than enough.
But what if you believe that pushing Mark Esper out as defense secretary was necessary to be sure no one would block Trump attempting to stop the National Guard from being deployed during a planned charge against the U.S. …
Yesterday’s display of attempted revolution by Donald J. Trump’s supporters was about the most frightening, disgusting and horrible things we have witnessed in our country.
And that covers a lot of ground.
We should not be surprised though.
Trump, if it wasn’t clear enough before, is a dictator wannabe. He is a narcissist who is never wrong and will never be the worst thing in his limited vocabulary — a L-0-S-E-R.
Indeed, though, that’s what he is and always has been.
Other politicians (hello, Sen. Mitch McConnell) used him to achieve their own ends. …
The next 48 hours or so will be the most consequential political hours in the nation’s history.
First, we have the two special elections in Georgia that will determine control of the U.S. Senate and, largely, how successful legislatively President-elect Joe Biden will be.
Then, Wednesday we have the Republican challenge of electoral votes. That challenge will fail to change the election results.
The Georgia election, as they say, is what it is. Who wins is up to the voters in Georgia. And as the state’s election officials have demonstrated, they know how to run a fair election.
The Wednesday challenge is in the hands of senators and House members who will debate and vote. There is no way the November vote will be overturned but it will be indicative of what the Republican Party views itself as — at least in the minds of the current elected congresspeople — for years go come. …
I have a friend who recently lost his father to COVID.
His dad followed all the government guidance. He wore a mask, socially distanced, washed his hands, stayed inside his family pod. Yet, he caught the virus obviously from someone who didn’t follow the guidance and who went about his or her carefree way denying the science and ignoring that part of the guidance is to wear a mask, etc., to protect others from you giving them the virus. As with hundreds of thousands of others, his dad died for no good reason. Government leaders and many fellow citizens have mishandled the virus. …
I’m not all that old. I mean, I turned 70 on my last birthday and in the crazy year that is 2020, they tell me 70 is like the new 50 or some nonsense. Fact is, I am 70.
Heck, couple of weeks ago my 26-year-old grandson and his partner had a baby making me a great-grandfather. At 70.
How can that be, you ask? I’ll tell you: I had kids when I was young and my kids had kids when they were younger. …
As President Trump’s term ends, let’s talk just for a moment about one of the two things that drives him. No, not ego…that’s the other thing. This thing is money.
Trump is leading the grifter’s dream right now. Since mid-October he has raised nearly $500 million. Since he lost the election, he has raised more than $200 million of that for his “defense fund.”
But there is no defense going on.
His people are going around the country screaming “fixed election,” but so far they have gotten traction exactly … well, nowhere, including states run by Republicans who voted for him. …
It isn’t only Trump coming up with ideas that seem crazy to most of us over the last four years. I mean, creating a Schedule F to get rid of career employees you don’t want or who represent the “Deep State,” or to cripple the Biden Administration when it comes in and finds fewer experts on the payroll? Trust me, Donald J. Trump didn’t come up with that. But …. who did?
Trump’s future plans are … what? I’m not sure he knows, or should know, at this juncture. He could run in 2024. He could create or buy or join a cable network to have a platform for the next four, or 20, years. He does like attention. And he’s sure gotten it. For a guy who impersonated his own spokesman when he was in the private sector just to plant gossip items in New York City tabloids extolling the virtues of himself, to a guy who commanded the world stage just by waking up … it will be hard to settle for something in between. …
Since Election Day, since the world’s population minus one, has known the result of the presidential election, reporters and pundits keep writing, “Who has the standing to tell President Trump that it’s time to concede?”
I’m going to assume they were serious when they wrote those articles and columns but, as we’ve gotten to know, the real Donald Trump is what we’ve seen.
Meaning, if his favorite president, Andrew Jackson, came back to life leading a delegation of Abraham Lincoln, Marlin Luther King and John F. Kennedy, he would not listen to them.
So, quit kidding about “if only Sen. Mitch McConnell” would go to the White House and deliver the news,” and stop arguing about who is today’s Barry Goldwater who can march down and deliver the news. There is no one Donald J. Trump would listen to save, maybe, for his father coming to him. …
The clown car is emptying to give one last theater of the absurd performance.
Lawyers for the President of the Red States of America held, well, I’m not sure what they held yesterday. They said it was a press conference but it played more as a not-the-situation comedy.
Putting aside Rudy Giuliani’s hair dye cascading down his face, because that’s just too easy a laugh line to use (oh, sorry), the big claim by Attorney Sidney Powell was so convoluted, it is difficult to reproduce here. …
The election results are sadder than I thought they’d be but not for the reason I thought they’d be. And it’s not totally President Trump’s fault. Not entirely anyway.
Trump’s true supporters are nothing but loyal. Yesterday I posted on my Facebook page an article reporting that a sex offender attended Rudy Giuliani’s, the President’s personal attorney, press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia.
I posted no comment, just the article. At least two folks posted comments claiming it was fake news, pointing out that was Hunter Biden next to the President-elect at his acceptance speech, the “ever chaste” Vice President-elect Kamala Harris at the microphone and “Joe the guy who can’t think or speak straight.” …
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