Latest Trump administration imbecile, Mick Mulvaney, skewered

The Washington Post did it, a clever writer by the name of Alexandra Petri has thoroughly lanced Donald Trump's new Office of Management & Budget Director, Mick Mulvaney, for the almost absurd new budget introduced by the Trump administration. Although Mulvaney in this case is just the messenger, he is known so far for comments like this in a press briefing last Thursday...

"White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney defended the Trump administration's proposed deep cuts to social welfare programs like free school lunches and Meals on Wheels as 'about as compassionate as you can get" for taxpayers.'"

More...

"'Meals on Wheels sounds great,'" Mulvaney said, adding 'we're not going to spend [money] on programs that cannot show that they actually deliver the promises that we've made to people.'"

From SF Gate...

"Meals on Wheels is a nonprofit group that receives funding from the federal government, state and local governments and private donors. 'We serve more than 2.4 million seniors from 60 to 100+ years old each year,' the organization writes. 'They are primarily older than 60 and because of physical limitations or financial reasons, have difficulty shopping for or preparing meals for themselves.'"

Mick Mulvaney will go down in history as just another one of Donald Trump's peons who signed up to say just what the new monarch tells him to say.

But on now to Alexandra Petri's very creative rendering of just what the new Trump administration budget will accomplish.

Cut the State Department by 29%...

"Right now, all the State Department’s many qualified employees do is sit around being sad that they are never consulted about anything. This is, frankly, depressing, and it is best to put them out of their misery. Besides, they are only trained in Soft Diplomacy, like a woman would do, and NOBODY wants that. There's more here...

 Environmental Protection Agency...

"We absolutely do not need this. Clean rivers and breathable air are making us SOFT and letting the Chinese and the Russians get the jump on us. We must go back to the America that was great, when the air was full of coal and danger and the way you could tell if the air was breathable was by carrying a canary around with you at all times, perched on your leathery, coal-dust-covered finger. Furthermore, we will cut funding to Superfund cleanup in the EPA because the only thing manlier than clean water is DIRTY water.

Here's a summary of more quips. Re. Commerce dept., Budget will make us strong enough to fight all natural disasters on our own; Don't need Labor Dept. Future labor will all be on the backs of the women. Forget Healthcare, just punch disease in the nose. Why should we fund Historic Sites. Trump hates parks he doesn't own. Who needs Public Broadcasting or the Bird? Just listen to "audio footage of a Trump son shooting a rare land mammal." U.S. Institute of Peace: Too "wimpy" for this administration. U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, will just make them tougher.

Okay, you get the idea and you'll be glad if you peruse the whole article at The Washington Post.

In an opinion piece by Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, his headline screams, "Trump budget an exercise in stupidity." The words stupid, idiot, and similar descriptions of the genre of the Trump administration have had a field day, and this is a classic example of being right on target. Since Trump's budget's largest item is defense, this is Bookman's comment...

"We spend more on our military than the next eight countries combined, even though five of those next seven countries are strong U.S. allies such as Britain and France. We spend three times as much as China and nine times as much as Russia. In fact, just the increases in military spending requested by the Trump administration — $30 billion for the current fiscal year, and $54 billion next year — swamp Russia’s total annual military budget of $66 billion."

That paragraph should send any level-headed person into an incredible vertigo of confusion when you look at the slashes to programs designed to help the American public that are being drastically reduced or cut altogether. Bookman summarizes how Donald John plans to get all the money for the $54 billion increase...

"...by gutting scientific research, medical research, foreign aid, the State Department, community block grants that support Meals on Wheels and similar programs. The EPA, which today operates on the same budget it had 15 years ago, and with 2,000 fewer employees, is targeted for 31 percent budget cut."

And here's an outstanding point that is just one in a long line of screw-ups this President has made internationally; what will the rest of the world think? Do we yank the helping hand that so many countries depend on to just survive in the name of building a defense program designed entirely for the purpose of spending money to make the corporate world even richer? It gets more ridiculous and more pathetic with each passing day with the outlook even bleaker.  

Complete disarray as Donald Trump continues to bungle the coronavirus outbreak...

The Oval Office lunatic cannot realize, or if he can, which is most likely, that he and only he is responsible if the coronavirus goes out of control in the United States.

It is Donald Trump's administration that early on fired the pandemic response team in 2018...place the incompetent V.P. Mike Pence in charge of the coronavirus program...His US health department sent unprepared workers to assist Americans evacuated from China...and dating all the way back to 2017, Trump's intelligence team knew about the potential effects of coronavirus in the U.S., but were afraid to tell T-rump because they felt it might upset him. Unconscionable and all preventable.

Further, he is blaming it on the Democrats rather than the complete "bungling" of the problem by his administration. Trump's Twitter comment...

“Low Ratings Fake News MSDNC (Comcast) & @CNN are doing everything possible to make the Caronavirus (sic) look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible. Likewise, their incompetent Do Nothing Democrat comrades are all talk, no action. USA in great shape!”

Should be a permanent addition

This idiot can't even spell the name of perhaps the biggest potential health threat the United States and the world have seen in years...READ MORE...

CDC urgent on spread of coronavirus... The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is putting out the word for all Americans to be prepared for the possible escalation of the Coronavirus outbreak. This goes hand-in-hand with Donald Trump's continued tweeting that downplays the disease, while trying to lay the blame for all this on the Democrats and the media. No longer trying to prevent the virus from entering the country...

“The data over the past week about the spread in other countries has raised our level of concern and expectation that we are going to have community spread here,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the CDC’s head of respiratory diseases, told reporters on a conference call.

What is not known, she said, is when it will arrive and how severe a U.S. outbreak might be. “Disruption to everyday life might be severe” and businesses, schools and families should begin having discussions about the possible impact from the spread of the virus, Messonnier cautioned.

San Francisco has declared a medical emergency in preparedness, even though they don't yet have any cases. "Although the World Health Organization says the epidemic has peaked in China, coronavirus cases have surfaced in about 30 other countries, with some three dozen deaths reported." With the recent U.S. death in Seattle, a man, not a woman as T-rump reported, it isn't time for tweeting, it is time for action...READ MORE...

Trump's "Deep State" hit list...

Trump's MAGA morons still blaming the left's deep state...You know the term: "A deep state (from Turkish: derin devlet), also known as a state within a state, is a form of clandestine government made up of hidden or covert networks of power operating independently of a state's political leadership, in pursuit of their own agenda and goals,"according to Wikipedia. In this case it refers to underground Democrats bent on destroying Donald Trump. Yeah, sure.

Here's the scenario...

As POLITICO’s Ben Shreckinger and Alice Miranda point out, the “evidence” for the theory centers around the fact that an official from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who’s been making public statements on the virus is the sister of Rod Rosenstein, the former deputy attorney general who oversaw the Mueller probe — and who some say suggested removing Trump from office. Now, Dr. Nancy Messonnier’s connection to Rosenstein is even being seized on by right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh and Jim Hoft, who is the publisher of the pro-Trump site Gateway Pundit.

"Shreckinger and Miranda [also] mention that there’s no evidence that federal health authorities are overstating the threat of coronavirus in an effort to undermine Trump."...READ MORE...

Typical Donald Trump headline: "Top expert on viral infections must get Pence’s approval before issuing statements." This as almost as ludicrous as the Oval Office lunatic putting Pence in charge of the coronavirus issue in the first place. I posted on Pence's irresponsible handling of the HIV outbreak as Indiana's governor, and a statement he had made earlier that smoking does not kill. The man is a certified idiot and as Bernie Sanders said, will probably try to pray himself out of the coronavirus dilemma.

George Orwell's totalitarian novel, "1984," has been used repeatedly to describe Donald Trump's administration, and the following statement is continuing proof that the White House maniac is truly a tyrant...

"The New York Times reports that Dr. Anthony Fauci, who serves as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has “told associates that the White House had instructed him not to say anything else without clearance” about the disease."

Fortunately, Fauci, alone, is smarter than the entire Trump administration, thus, we can probably expect leaks to benefit the American public when this becomes necessary.

If your memory of history is as bad as mine, you also do not remember the 1918 flu pandemic that killed millions. It was a new strain of influenza that "hit military camps in Europe on both sides of World War I." It took Spain to finally report the disease accurately so that its crucial nature was realized. Months later a bigger, deadlier wave swept across the globe. So how does that parallel today's dilemma?...

“They [the Trump administration] are clearly trying to put the best possible gloss on things, and are trying to control information,” said John M. Barry, author of “The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History.”

Now, this is beyond frightening. I don't mean to be alarming because this is the last thing we must do in a situation where a Donald Trump is in charge of the U.S. Government. And Moscow Mitch is in control of the Senate. Donald dufus could not handle a panic across this country, so we must be guarded in how re report the problem. And a problem it is. Here's the latest in Kirkland, WA, where the first U.S. death occurred...

"approximately 27 of the 108 residents and 25 of the 180 staff have some symptoms, health officials said during a teleconference with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Authorities report that some among them have pneumonia."

So, the motto today is don't panic, but do practice prevention... READ MORE...

Donald Trump takes a dive in the polls - Democracy wins

Trump has hit the skids in recent polling where "a majority of Americans say he has overstepped his presidential authority," according to Politico. The question of whether he has addressed high prices has come up; I just saw today where food prices are going up, gas is already up there. Here's the scenario...

"Two new polls from CNN/SSRS and The Washington Post/Ipsos show the GOP president’s approval rating underwater (47-52 in the CNN poll, 45-53 in the Post), a shift from polling earlier this year that found voters roughly divided on him, with some surveys even showing a positive approval rating."

The change of heart is a mixture of unrest over the number of executive orders Trump has initiated, along with the areas they effect in terms of their relationship to the public. It comes down to "his attempts to reshape the federal government driven by tech billionaire Elon Musk." But now the Oval Office lunatic is facing obstacles...

"Many of Trump’s most controversial early initiatives, including a sweeping spending freeze, have been blocked in court thus far, but the new administration has still made waves with layoffs of federal workers, cuts to federal contracts and a flood of executive orders."

Here are three positions on Trump's popularity from The Hill... 

"More than half of the respondents (CNN poll conducted by SSRS), 55 percent, say Trump has not paid attention to the country’s most important problems. 

"Another 54 percent said they either feel pessimistic or afraid as they look ahead to the remainder of Trump’s second term.

"Another poll from Reuters/Ipsos published Wednesday showed the president’s approval rating, 44 percent, was slipping amid his recent moves to impose tariffs on the U.S.’s main trading partners and signaling that more are on the way. Some 51 percent disapproved of his work so far, according to that survey."

There are several other figures that represent the unhappiness with the Trump

administration...

'58 percent of respondents opposed laying off large numbers of federal workers 

"Just 34 percent of respondents in the Post poll approved of Musk’s role in the federal government, while 54 percent of respondents in the CNN poll said it was bad for Trump to have given the SpaceX CEO a prominent role in his administration.

"Americans also remain skeptical of Trump’s handling of an issue the public has long said is among the most important: high prices. In the CNN survey, 62 percent of respondents — including 47 percent of Republicans — said the president has not done enough to try to reduce the prices of everyday goods. 

"69 percent of respondents in the Post poll said tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China would make products in the U.S. more expensive."

Trump, however, made the startling claim just last week that he had “the best polling numbers I’ve ever had.” But at this point not many pay attention to the habitual liar anymore. Just last week U.S. news reported "Economic Outlook Worsens as Polls Find Disapproval of Donald Trump’s Economic Policies." The main factor here was a reversal from two months of gains. And next, The Washington Post says "Trump’s honeymoon is over." Here is their take...

"Trump’s win was relatively modest, historically speaking. And while his approval rating upon taking office reached a new all-time high for him — around 50 percent — his “honeymoon” phase still paled in comparison with every modern president not named Trump.

"And now, after one month in office, whatever honeymoon (and mandate) Trump enjoyed appears to be slipping away."

So what is the takeaway from all this? First off, if those poor souls out there who voted for Trump aren't wringing their hands with despair, then they need to seek help. Second, it will be a rough ride to the 2026 midterms, but if we can make it, a left takeover of Congress is a must. Third, during the next four years, the anti-Trump folks must do everything in their power to express their mistrust in and lack of confidence for the Trump administration. Liberals have been quiet lately; they need to wake up and start shouting the news.

Is Donald Trump's presidency biggest scam since Bernie Madoff?

Newt Gingrich, early Trump backer

I spent 35 years in the junk mail industry where a new scam was born almost every day. There was even a selection of mailing lists of names from those who responded to those offers that looked...well, almost too good to be true. We called them the GULLIBLES. That's pretty bad for the consumer when you can target individuals with a product you want to sell, and they don't really need it, but will want it just because of the sales letter you sent them. This, of course, is not as bad as the famous one, The Nigerian Scam, also known as 419.

The 419 was from some Nigerian family to move a lot of money from their country to the U.S. in your name, from which you will benefit in ridiculously large amounts of cash, all for helping in the transaction. As the experts put it...

"They will use your emotions and willingness to help against you. They will promise you a large cut of their business or family fortune. All you are asked to do is cover the endless 'legal' and other “fees” that must be paid to the people that can release the scammer’s money."

Does "using your emotion" sound familiar? There are nine more scams can see here, but that isn't what this post is all about. It asks the question, "Is Donald Trump's presidency biggest scam since Bernie Madoff? The Washington Post thinks so and, after highlighting all the issues promised by Donald Trump in his candidacy, says...

"...little by little, as Trump seeks to make good on his promises, Trumpism — as sold by the man himself — is being revealed as fraudulent to its core."

"Fraudulent to its core," is not like, well, you're falling a bit short of the public's expectations. When you go to the core, you have arrived, described in Dictionary.com: "the central, innermost, or most essential part of anything." So, Donald John has missed the boat on the main issues that affect America. WP continues as an example, the health-care bill that Trump promised the people has been short-circuited by his endorsement of the new House GOP health-care plan...

"The bill, experts said, falls far short of the goals President Donald Trump laid out: Affordable coverage for everyone; lower deductibles and health care costs; better care; and zero cuts to Medicaid. Instead, the bill is almost certain to reduce overall coverage, result in deductibles increasing, and will phase out Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion."

There's more about additional issues you can read in the WP article, above. And there are more signs that Donald Trump is bad for this country. The Associated Press (AP) announced, "...the Trump administration's immigration policies are hurting tourism."

"The nonprofit industry organization said in a statement that there are 'mounting signs' of 'a broad chilling effect on demand for international travel to the United States.'"

Don't watch this on an empty stomach...

Disputed by White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters, "...the non-profit, the U.S. Travel Association's statement added to a growing chorus of concern from the travel industry over the impact of Trump administration policies on tourism." New York city is forecasting 300,000 fewer visitors compared to 2016. Here's another fact...

"The Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau told the Philadelphia Inquirer this week that it had lost out on an international meeting with 3,000 attendees that decided to go to Canada or Mexico instead."

According to Statistics & Facts...

"The travel and tourism industry is one of the largest industries in the United States, making a total contribution of 1.47 trillion U.S. dollars to GDP in 2014."

Here's more...

"A Jan. 30 op-ed piece in the Toronto Star newspaper encouraged Canadians to "boycott vacations to the U.S." until Trump is no longer president."

With problems like this, the tourism industry could bring the country's economy to a screeching halt. The AP also reported that, "Last year, the U.S. Commerce Department predicted a record 78.6 million international visitors would come to the U.S. in 2017. That forecast is usually updated in May." CNN is saying there are...

"...people influential with the most powerful man in the world are publicly raising concerns that there is a cabal of entrenched bureaucrats hidden in the bowels of the nation's government who are intent on his political demise."

Sean Spicer said...

"I think that there's no question when you have eight years of one party in office, there are people who stay in government and continue to espouse the agenda of the previous administration. So I don't think it should come as any surprise there are people that burrowed into government during eight years of the last administration and may have believed in that agenda and may continue to seek it. I don't think that should come as a surprise."
Spicer dismissed the idea that the CIA is working to identify those people and remove them from government.

Translated..."Made in"

But one of Donald John's biggest problems could be our southern neighbor, since a primary campaignThe Huff Post says...
promise was to build the wall between the U.S. and Mexico...and make them pay for it.

"US President Donald Trump, who has relentlessly intimidated and humiliated Mexico since before he was sworn in, evidently enjoys playing the ogre. He has repeatedly demanded that Mexico treat the US “fairly and with respect” while blaming it for “taking advantage” of its northern neighbour."

It's actually the other way around because "President James Polk invaded Mexico in 1846 and stole 55% of its land, including Texas and California." There's more that makes Donald Trump look like a dimwit...

"As recently as July 2015, the US government was praising Mexico as a “critically important” partner in America’s well-being; 14 years prior, George W Bush acknowledged that the US has “no more important relationship in the world” than the one it has with Mexico."

If the Trump administration and its "Trumpism" isn't the biggest scam since Bernie Madoff, then the total White House staff should go to Hollywood. What was that other politically historical play that was one of the biggest hits ever on Broadway. Maybe Donald Trump is another "Hamilton." Nah...you could never put music to this man. Wait though, maybe Kellyanne Conway could fill in.

Will Trump drag his feet on coronavirus until it is out of control in the U.S.?

In this case, these two heads are horribly alarming

Unintelligible, as usual, Donald Trump in a news conference...

"claimed he saved America by shutting down flights, appointed Vice President Mike Pence to lead a coronavirus task force despite having few qualifications to do so, suggesting his public health budget cuts are no big deal because he can just hire more doctors later, and insisting that it was Democrats, rather than the epidemic, that tanked the stock market this week. 

This is beyond unconscionable and borders on the hysterical kind of talk the psychiatrists say he should be committed for.   READ MORE...

Trump fired pandemic response team in 2018...

Cutting budgets, Trump eliminated funding to Obama-era disease security programs and...

"Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer, whose job it was to lead the U.S. response in the event of a pandemic, abruptly left the administration and his global health security team was disbanded."

There's more...

Overall in 2018, Trump called for $15 billion in reduced health spending that had previously been approved, as he looked at increasing budget deficits, cutting the global disease-fighting budgets of the CDC, National Security Council (NSC), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Health and Human Services (HHS) in the process.

And now we are facing a possible worldwide coronavirus epidemic which could turn into a pandemic having already started in the United States and getting worse.   READ MORE...

Larry Kudlow, Trump’s top economic advisor, falsely claimed that the U.S. had successfully "contained" the Coronavirus...

Where does he get these idiots? Kudlow is on a level with Education Secretary, Betsy DeVoss. The CDC had just warned of the deadly virus' spread in the United States. The U.S. had 53 confirmed cases as of last Monday. Kudlow even used the term "pretty close to air-tight" to describe its containment. It is pretty obvious that the Oval Office lunatic ordered Kudlow to make the statement to try and stabilize the stock market.

Larry Kudlow

Another cover-up by the Trump administration, but, the most frightening thing is that the White House maniac is making similar statements while a killer virus spreads throughout the United States. The horror of it all is, now Donald Trump has placed Larry Kudlow on his task force to respond to the coronavirus epidemic.  What will it take?   READ MORE...

Trump says we're very close to a Coronavirus vaccine. Dr. Anthony Fauci says it's a year away...

According to the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci says that a coronavirus vaccine is at least a year away, and that is because the Donald Trump administration has completely dropped the ball. Fauci, on CNN’s ” New Day,” was asked by host John Berman about the fact that Trump had made the statement, “We’re very close to a vaccine." the doctor replied...

“Well, the confusion is we’re close to starting a phase one trial to determine safety,” Fauci explained. “We’re going to do that in about one and a half to two months –but that doesn’t mean you have a vaccine. In order to get a vaccine, that’s practically deployable for people to use, it’s going to be at least a year to a year and a half at best.”

T-rump's confusion is that he is just completely confused, about everything he talks about, evidenced by the gibberish we hear every time he opens his mouth.  And it gets more pathetic every day.

Rachel Maddow exposes Donald Trump's anemic response to Coronavirus and reports on first U.S. case with no foreign source...

Trump silencing White House officials from talking about coronavirus to keep stock market up...

T-rump is scared to death the coronavirus epidemic and potential pandemic in the U.S. could lower his favorability ratings and lose the election for him in November. He doesn't give a shit about the American public and rants and raves from his self-appointed pedestal questioning the seriousness of the virus while we rack up 60 cases at home. And he's put the clamps on people who work for him...

"According to a report from the Washington Post, Donald Trump is trying to rein in officials in his own administration from talking about the spread of the coronavirus over fears that it will impact the stock market — and hurt his re-election prospects."

This idiot keeps saying it has been contained and cases will be at zero soon, as well as the fact--his fact--we will also shortly have a vaccine. All CDC officials have a resounding NO for each of these statements. When you watch the Oval Office lunatic, he appears to have complete belief in what he says. That is even more terrifying than the substance of his comments. It isn't the media's purpose to induce panic in the public, but it is their job to report the news accurately.

 

How I did it...Sabotaged COVID-19 response

It is impossible to compare Donald Trump with any past president - not likely that there will be anything like him in the future...

Always with the mouth open, yet nothing to say.

According to RawStory, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt rank at the top of the U.S. presidents. Lincoln for his handling of the Civil War, Roosevelt for his efforts in the Great Depression, and World War II. George W. Bush comes in at close to the bottom of the list, and Donald Trump, if there is any way to place him under the bottom of the list, well, that is where you would find him. It is hard for one to reconcile how the one running this country could be so appallingly labeled.
The article explains that the only reason Trump has been able to preserve a 40% approval rating is the fact that he is by...

"riding his predecessor’s economic coattails and effectively manipulating the lizard brains of white Republicans, but even before the coronavirus hit, Trump was considered one of the worst presidents in the two surveys of scholars done in 2018."

Trump's delayed efforts on COVID-19...

Trump's first efforts in the coronavirus crisis was on March 13, over two months from when his "administration claims to have first become aware of the virus." There was another alert from Alex Azar, Secretary of Health and Human Services, on January 18. Here's the latest scenario...

"With two thousand Americans dying every day and reported cases in the States increasing by a hundred thousand each week, we are only now beginning to grasp the depths of human misery unleashed by Trump’s inattention to the coronavirus for those ten long weeks."

In most modern civilizations Donald Trump would be classified as a murderer for allowing this to happen. But not in the United States, where the Senate is controlled by Moscow Mitch McConnell with a Republican Congress scared of the Oval Office lunatic. Here's another example of GOP ineptness...

"Ronald Reagan was able to ignore the AIDS crisis for years because it was “a gay disease” and didn’t impact anyone close to him until his old Hollywood acquaintance Rock Hudson asked for—but did not receive—his help in 1985."

Ronald Reagan's absurd response to AIDS epidemic...

 While increasing an "already-bloated defense budget and passed a $1.5 trillion tax cut overwhelmingly tilted to the 1%" in his first budget to Congress, he...

"cut funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the agency tasked with protecting public health in the face of the opiate epidemic, AIDS, flu, and infectious outbreaks."

And then a couple years later along came the COVID-19 pandemic. It was February 1, 2018, that the Washington Post reported the CDC would cut 80 percent of its efforts to prevent a global disease outbreak. And this is one of the major reasons the CDC was so inadequate, and still is, in its efforts to fight the coronavirus in this country. Here's a summation of T-rump's assault on U.S. healthcare...

“Collectively, warns Jeremy Konyndyk, who led foreign disaster assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development during the Obama administration, ‘What this all adds up to is a potentially really concerning rollback of progress on U.S. health security preparedness.’

“‘It seems to actively unlearn the lessons we learned through very hard experience over the last 15 years,’ said Konyndyk….‘These moves make us materially less safe. It’s inexplicable.’”

The entire Donald Trump presidency can be considered "inexplicable," or worse if you can find the words. And here's the next stupid move...

"On May 10, 2018, Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton [just hired in April] “re-organized” the National Security Council (NSC), or more accurately “fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure” which had been set up by the Obama administration after the Ebola crisis, by collapsing the NSC’s Office of Global Security."

There's more...

"In the wake of Bolton’s action, the top official tasked with coordinating a response to a pandemic, Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer from the National Security Council, resigned on the same day that a new Ebola outbreak was reported in the Congo."

Donald Trump hires and fires John Bolton...

It is now evident that Trump has made it his goal to undo all the great programs Barack Obama had put in place during his administration, and the White House maniac continues that course of action today. And there was even more notice of the coming COVID-19 pandemic late last year...

"In September of 2019, a 'study by the Council of Economic Advisers ordered by the National Security Council predicted that a pandemic similar to the 1918 Spanish flu or the 2009 swine flu could lead to a half-million deaths and cost the economy as much as $3.8 trillion.'”

It was that same month that " the Trump administration ended PREDICT, a “pandemic early-warning program aimed at training scientists in China and other countries to detect and respond to such a threat.”  If it is possible to believe, there is so much more and Dan Benbow from Raw Story has done an excellent job of bringing it to you in his opinion piece here...a must read.

Weekend wrap-up of T-rump STUPIDS

It doesn't take much to collect a full body of stupid acts on the part of the Trump administration, but in many cases they are too little for a full-coverage post so I decided to wrap a bunch into a neat bundle and present it to you today. Here they are.

7 of 10 Americans disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling the healthcare situation. The Quinnipiac poll also found that DT, the man, is viewed poorly. He even fares worse on a Fox poll than he does on CNN re. healthcare. Donald John, in taking over the GOP's new healthcare bill, has managed to alienate the Freedom Caucus and other conservatives as well, to the extent that a vote on Thursday, March 23, had to be reschedule for today. There simply weren't enough votes on Thursday. IS OBAMACARE INVINCIBLE?

Sean Spicer doesn't like the press and so far they are returning the favor. That is the worst possible position a President's White House Press Secretary could be in, but, then, it reflects the exact position of the President he works for. In this kind of situation the President loses, but more important, the American people lose. Trump ran his 2016 campaign like a war room, and he and his administration are doing the same with the U.S. government. Following a conglomeration of muddled references to Trump's sources on the wiretaps, Spicer ends by saying Obama was helped in the wiretapping by the GCHQ, initials for the British intelligence finding agency. WHEN CONTACTED, THE BRITS SAID NO FREAKING WAY.

Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos allow student loan companies to gouge students again due to a high rise of defaults. Rather than find the cause of the unpaid loans, Trump/DeVos decided to do away with Obama's Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program, forbidding agencies from charging fees for up to 16 percent of the principal and accrued interest owed on the loans, if the borrower entered the government’s loan rehabilitation program within 60 days of default. But in one case in particular, a loan company had assessed an exorbitant amount for defaulting, after agreeing to work with the student on a reduced payment schedule. PROVING...YOU CAN'T TRUST BUSINESS.

Nepotism is alive and thriving in Donald Trump's White House. Okay, the latest is that Kellyanne Conway's husband will be given a job in the Justice Department. "If confirmed by the Senate, George Conway would lead an office that would handle legal challenges to major Trump administration initiatives, such as the controversial travel ban." It started out with Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump's husband who was made a senior adviser to the President. His first diplomatic venture ended in failure as Great Britain rebuffed his efforts to push back votes on Israeli settlements until after the inauguration, supposedly as a favor to Netanyahu. Then, big daddy's daughter, Ivanka, is set to join daddy's administration as an unspecified, but reportedly influential policy role, and with that comes an office in the West Wing and top secret security clearance. Just what we need, a gang of Trumps out there running around with secrets about this country with no idea whatsoever the importance of what they hold. IN THIS CASE, NEPOTISM SHOULD BE ILLEGAL.

Even the Germans laugh at America's White House buffoon. The Daily Beast reports, "Trump Meets the German Press, and They Laugh At Him," their headline, followed by, "The American President, meeting his German counterpart, keeps taking victory laps, ripping reporters and ignoring the substance of tough questions." You would think the world's top narcissist would back off when going to visit one of the best allies the U.S. has had for years. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel was reserved and it would appear that she might just have been willing to let Donald John hang himself. He did, even appearing "impatient and restless as he stood at the podium." He continued by mocking a German reporter and later put down the U.S. in a statement about this county's trade failures, particularly NAFTA. BETTER KEEP DT HOME CUTTING THE WHITE HOUSE LAWN.

And finally, this huge Trump billboard that was recently erected in Phoenix of a "...menacing Donald Trump... flanked by mushroom clouds and swastikas configured like dollar signs." It is the blog picture today and, surprisingly, the Trump good-ole-boys haven't gone after it. Yet. It's owner, Karen Fiorito, a California resident, says, "I think a lot of people are feeling this way and I'm just trying to express what I think is on a lot of people's minds these days," followed by, "Something that really concerned us was this idea of a dictatorship where things were going in a certain direction." And if you look very closely at Donald John, you'll see a Russian flag on his lapel. She did the same thing for George W. Bush in 2004. By the way, she says the Donald Trump billboard will stay there as long as he is in the White House. UMMM...MAYBE ENOUGH OF THESE AROUND THE COUNTRY?

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

Populism Bernie Sanders:YES-Populism Donald Trump:NO

Steve Bannon

Steve Bannon's populism seems sketchy from his past, so why is he where he is now, leading ring-nosed Donald Trump down the path for his style of populism and nationalism? Both Trump and Bannon have evoked the name of Andrew Jackson because of his populist beliefs, but Jackson also had to deal with sectionalism between the North and the South, due to the stark difference in economies. The North was industrial, the South agricultural. This became highly complicated when Congress passed the Tariff of 1828, favoring the North.

The reason I bring this up is that, although he would tell Congress what he was going to do, then do it, regardless of their concerns, he did things with a background from experience that had led to his first election in 1828. Andrew Jackson won with and governed with a substance neither Donald Trump nor Steve Bannon could ever claim. So why all the comparisons? It is Bannon's obsession with Jackson's populism and nationalism that the White House adviser intends to steer in the direction of his own version that includes white nationalism along with racism and general bigotry.

Andrew Jackson is from Tennessee. I am from Tennessee. Jackson's view on white nationalism and racism does parallel both Trump and Bannon, according to U.S. News...

"...Jackson's belief that democracy and race were inextricably bound together, that whiteness was a prerequisite for self-governance, fits neatly with Trump's own worldview – a worldview that is coming to define not just Trump's administration, but also the Republican Party."

We also know that Andrew Jackson was also a co-founder of the Democratic Party. And Democrats regularly paid tribute to Jackson for years, until the issue of racism came into focus. You see...

"His policy of 'Indian removal,' an act of ethnic cleansing that killed thousands, moved to the forefront of his legacy, as did the fact that he held nearly 300 enslaved people, the source of his significant wealth."

It was then that Andrew Jackson began to tank with the Democratic Party. It was obvious that, "For Jacksonian democracy to work, non-white people had to be subjugated, either through their removal or their enslavement (and, in later eras, through Jim Crows old and new)." But if the Democrats now shun Jackson, Republicans in the present form of Donald Trump and Steve Bannon have picked up the gauntlet and are running with the white nationalism, tinged with racism and feminine hatred. Old Hickory surely had his faults but nothing to compare with the Trump/Bannon debacle.

Concourse tries to explain the insanity of Steve Bannon. The younger Bannon blames it all on the financial hard luck of his father...

"...a hardworking man who spent 50 years working for AT&T, accumulating as much AT&T stock as he could during that time in the belief that it would constitute a safe inheritance for his kids—saw the value of those shares crater during the 2008 financial crisis, and sold them at a loss in a panic."

As an afterthought Stevo contends that he was "outraged" that no one went to jail in the financial community over the chicanery during the Geo. W. Bush administration, Hell, so was I and millions more, but we didn't take it out on people of color nor did we debase women. Hamilton Nolan, the Concourse writer states...

"I am in no position to judge Steve Bannon’s honesty, so I’m willing to assume it’s true that the crash is indeed what spawned his political philosophy. If so, Steve Bannon is an insane man. Has he helped to fix the root causes of the 2008 financial crisis by guiding Donald Trump into the White House? No. He has helped to put in power an ignorant billionaire who has vowed to slash Dodd-Frank and other regulations designed to help prevent another financial crisis, and who has turned the regulation of Wall Street over to a coterie of Wall Street insiders and deregulation zealots."

The Daily Beast reported that Trump's fascination with Andrew Jackson only began in 2013, and there was another short conversation about the former president when there was talk during the 2016 election about removing Jackson from the $20 bill. DB says...

"But the reason Jackson has taken on such a physical and rhetorical presence in the Trump White House is, in fact, primarily because of Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist and the former head of Breitbart. According to officials in the Trump campaign, presidential transition, and administration speaking to The Daily Beast, Bannon would often discuss Jackson’s historical legacy and image with Trump on and after the campaign trail, and how the two political figures were a lot alike."

Bannon even gave Trump a suggested reading list on Jackson. And Trump placed a biography of Andrew Jackson on his desk he frequently pointed out to reporters, but no one could ever confirm that he had read it. All nice window-dressing for an administration in the throes of taking this county back to the dark ages of racist hangings, house burnings, and a Ku Klux Klan that gave rise to the 784 hate groups that now reside in the U.S. Thanks in great part to Donald Trump adviser, Steve Bannon. Let me leave you with this from the Daily Beast...

"The simplest explanation for Steve Bannon’s actual political philosophy is 'He is racist, xenophobic, and has deep-seated resentments and anger issues with origins that we can only begin to explain.'”

God help us all! 

His staff, Ann Coulter and Twitter's Evan Williams all turning on Trump

The Trump-Coulter team

To begin with, here's what a senior administration official who also worked on Trump’s campaign said...

"Every day he looks more and more like a complete moron.”

Another person in the administration commented...

“If Donald Trump gets impeached, he will have one person to blame: Donald Trump.”

It would seem that even Donald Trump's top advisers believe that their idiotic leader's actions portend impeachment. The Daily Beast reports that T-rump had "trash talked" James Comey to Russian government officials. In this meeting "Trump reportedly promised the Kremlin more flexibility in their relationship, with 'crazy' Comey out of the picture." To Russia’s foreign minister and ambassador to the United States, the Oval Office imbecile remarked, "I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job.” Putin must be going into spasms about now.

Everything that comes down seems to be leaked, some saying it comes from within the administration with the hope that it could stop Trump's zany acts. Since we know that will never happen, one just might assume that many of these leaks are meant to point out the sheer desperation of a team whose morale is in the toilet. It's a cry for help with a clueless Congress completely ignoring the fact that Donald Trump is literally destroying our country. And the two most responsible are Senate leader, Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan.

But perhaps one of the biggest blows to the Trump administration is the revelation of Ann Coulter that "...she’s ready to bail on President Donald Trump over his lack of delivery on promises." But that's not all, she does address his outright lunacy with the comment that he is “comically improbable" in the Oval Office. Her downfall is when she blames Congress for "...Trump’s perceived lack of success so far in his presidency." At first I thought she was talking about Barack Obama but obviously Coulter is hallucinating again.

I have a great deal of respect for Ann Coulter because of how she has risen as a top conservative pundit in a man's world. I don't agree with anything she says and believe much, if not all, of her ideology is dangerous. But I will defend her to the end of the earth to be able to say it. Here's one of her quotes: "I love to engage in repartee with people who are stupider than I am." Maybe that is the key to her success. Another example is the fact that she claims Donald Trump's quote, “immigrants are rapists,” was stolen from her.

Here is another example of Coulter quotes...

“We need to execute people like John Walker [Lindh] in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors,”

 Coulter later clarified what she meant;

“When I said we should ‘execute’ John Walker Lindh, I mis-spoke. What I meant to say was ‘We should burn John Walker Lindh alive and televise it on prime-time network TV’. My apologies for any misunderstanding that might have occurred.”

Now, Coulter washing her hands of Donald Trump is a hard hit, but perhaps what Twitter's President, Evan Williams said would dig even deeper into T-rump's psyche. Williams remarked that one of the goals of Twitter is for people to speak freely and exchange information and ideas. He added though, “If it’s true that he [Donald Trump] wouldn’t be president if it weren’t for Twitter, then yeah, I’m sorry,” Whoa, now, you are talking about the great communicator's favorite mode of staying in touch with all the blithering idiots who voted for him.

Apparently his tweeting has toppled since he learned that "... a special prosecutor would investigate his campaign for possible ties to Russia..." And it was back in March that he commented to Tucker Carlson of Fox News...

“I have my own form of media. There's been nobody in history that got more dishonest media than I've gotten. … Twitter is a wonderful thing for me because I can get the word out.”

A Twitter spokeswoman felt the need to qualify Evan Williams' comment...

“Twitter provides a platform for people to engage with and discuss issues of importance, and facilitates a more open exchange of information. We continue to see more leaders, around the world, take to Twitter to communicate with their constituents and engage in a conversation.”

Twitter will never be the same again.

Donald Trump starts war with Barack Obama

There is no doubt who started this war, but there is also no doubt who will finish it considering the two levels of mentality in the skirmish. The mentally confused, inarticulate Trump on one side, the educated, sophisticated and eloquent Obama on the other.

It's Joe Biden who is your competitor in the November election, you idiot, not Barack Obama. Obama is the guy who handily won two terms in spite of the dirty politics of Moscow Mitch McConnell. Obama is the guy who ran a class-act presidency in comparison with the lowlife, classless administration you have given us for almost four years. Obama is the guy who will help Joe Biden win back the White House for the left in November.

According to Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson this is Trump's reasoning...

"Noting that Trump has been presented with internal polls showing him losing to Biden, Robinson stated that Trump appears to have fallen back on the strategy that helped him win in 2016 — appealing to his follower’s racism. And that means going after Obama instead of Biden who is white."

Robinson, who is black, is not playing the race card since Donald Trump has been well steeped in racist activism during his entire administration. With Biden pretty much guaranteed the black vote in November, and with Trump's latest tirades of racism, he is hoping to get somewhere near Barack Obama's 2008 results where the "black turnout actually exceeded white turnout, 66.6 percent to 64.1 percent."

The Daily Show comedic remarks Trump's racism...

Robinson adds, and it is the most pathetic part, there is nothing tactical about these attacks, they are purely personal. Moving on to more personal immaturity on the part of the Oval Office lunatic, he has now refused to host the unveiling of Barack Obama's portrait in the White House. But the former president has publicly said, he would not appear there anyway as long as Donald Trump is still in the building. AlterNet says...

"The message they (the Obamas) want to send is the opposite. No one should try to play nice with this administration or behave as if things are okay. That will give others the courage to do the same."

Before Donald Trump entered the political scene, this kind of thinking would be unheard of. And as you know from me, the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin always knows the right things to say about Donald Trump, although her less than complimentary comments are from a conservative columnist. How's this for starters?...

"It makes zero sense, you would think, for President Trump to attack his predecessor, since President Barack Obama is the most popular politician around (next to his wife) — someone who instills in Democrats a feeling of solidarity, of nostalgia for decent leadership and of hope. Even those critical of Obama’s presidency regard that era as akin to a Golden Age compared with the Trump calamity that brought us the Great Depression 2.0."

Obama criticizes Trump's handling of COVID-19...

Rubin doesn't think this is just to draw attention from "Trump’s meltdown or from the almost 90,000 deaths resulting from the pandemic." She has two other reasons...

ONE: "Trump has been in a juvenile competition with his predecessor since the day he took office. Trump insisted the economy was stronger under him than under Obama. (That was false then and is now, well, self-evidently ludicrous.) Trump tore up the Iran deal and backed out of the Paris accords in part because Obama was associated with them. " (There's more, read the article.)

TWO: "Trump seeks to make Obama out to be a criminal or unfit. It goes back to the original sin of Trump’s political career — birtherism — and to his campaign, which channeled cultural and racial animosity among whites against elites, nonwhites and immigrants."

And if you think the racism has been bad up until now, Rubin projects...

"Should Biden select an African American vice president (as I think he should), the grotesque racism that will ooze from the right will make birtherism seem innocuous. "

This country is doomed beyond comprehension if we don't get rid of Donald Trump, and soon. 

Trump embraces Big Brother again

With coronavirus now deemed a pandemic by WHO, Donald Trump is hiding certain pertinent info on the disease from staff, Americans and the world...

Just when transparency is the most needed, the Oval Office lunatic has decided to classify "top-level coronavirus meetings," where decisions are made and judgments decided that should be known throughout the government structure. It is also information that should be shared with the American public and made available to other world leaders to help contain the virus. Here's the scenario...

"officials said that dozens of classified discussions about such topics as the scope of infections, quarantines and travel restrictions have been held since mid-January in a high-security meeting room at the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), a key player in the fight against the coronavirus."

Reuter's reported, "Staffers without security clearances, including government experts, were excluded from the interagency meetings." An official commented...

“We had some very critical people who did not have security clearances who could not go. These should not be classified meetings. It was unnecessary.”

 Hiding "the scope of infections" from those charged with maintaining control of coronavirus seems unconscionable in light of Donald Trump's completely inept response to the situation from the beginning, just adding more roadblocks to bringing it under control in the United States. According to CNBC it was...

"the National Security Council (NSC), which advises the president on security issues, ordered the classification. “This came directly from the White House.”

Only the "proles" can defeat Donald Trump in November...

By putting a lid on specific information, it could delay response to the crisis. It also illustrates to what lengths Donald Trump will go to protect his favorability rating leading into November. And then an NSC spokesman confused the issue by defending the administration's move but with a mixed reply on...

"transparency across federal agencies and noted that meetings of the administration’s task force on the coronavirus all are unclassified. It was not immediately clear which meetings he was referring to."

Here's CNBC's opinion of the Trump administration on coronavirus transparency...

"Critics have hammered the Trump administration for what they see as a delayed response to coronavirus outbreaks and a lack of transparency, including sidelining experts and providing misleading or incomplete information to the public. State and local officials also have complained of being kept in the dark about essential federal response information."

 

Common Dreams added...

Gregg Gonsalves, a Yale epidemiologist who has been publicly critical of Trump's response to the coronavirus outbreak, tweeted Wednesday that Trump's order to classify coronavirus meetings shows the president is "trying to cover his tracks" as he continues to face backlash over his handling of the outbreak.

 "Yes, Donald Trump has botched the response to coronavirus pandemic," said Gonsalves. "But classifying deliberations makes it harder for health experts in government without security clearances to be in key meetings."

"This is unprecedented, unnecessary, and damages our ability to respond to the pandemic," Gonsalves added.

In George Orwell's 1984, in the beginning, the government would pick and choose what information it wanted the Proles to know. Then it swooped down and they were surrounded by a world of complete disinformation, controlling everything they were to know. 

The Donald Trump collection...DISORIENTED

 

Donald Trump disoriented

It is almost impossible to select one blog post subject these days when talking about Donald Trump. So, here is a selection that should delight even the most radical Republican...

The Trump gang is downplaying the Signal issue, but new polling suggests that the president is facing a growing revolt over it among GOP voters. Read more

Rachel Maddow says "GOP poll numbers 'dropping like a stone.'" 

"New polling from Gallup just out today shows that there's no issue in which the American people like what Donald Trump is doing,"

"On his handling of the economy, Trump is 18 points "under water," Maddow said, and 19 points under water on his relations with Russia.

"He's underwater on his handling of the federal budget, energy policy, on foreign affairs, on the Ukraine war, on the environment. On even his relations with the dreaded news media!"

Read more 

A member of Denmark's parliament has warned the United States: "We cannot be allies with US if Trump tries to take our territory away." Vance is in Greenland while Trump exclaims, "he wouldn't rule out using economic and/or military methods to take over the island. Read more

In his 1949 novel, 1984, George Orwell warned of the Surveillance, Manipulation, and Authoritarianism that t-RUMP's administration has forced on Americans. Orwell's dystopian society is no longer fiction, it has become the reality of today. What we are experiencing is Donald Trump's escalation to the dictatorship he has been string for years. Read more

This headline says it all: "Vaccine skeptic hired to head federal study of immunizations and autism." That's right, RFK Jr. hired a long-discredited researcher and vaccine skeptic to conduct a government study on whether vaccines cause autism. Read more

Are we really getting rid of Elon Musk? He says "he'll 'ditch Trump' and quit Washington D.C. after DOGE purge." DOGE employee said, "President Trump has been very clear, scalpel not hatchet and that's the way its been getting done." Bullshit! Here's what the House Committee on the Budget said just last week: "DOGE's Mass Firings Result in Gutted Services and Higher Costs." Read more

Steve Bannon attacks the courts to keep Trump out of prison. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered President Donald Trump to preserve all records from the "Signalgate" scandal. Bannon's concern is that when [not if] the Democrats come back into power, Trump's track record of dodging prison time for his criminal charges will run out. Read more.

New Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, says 'old relationship' with US 'is over.'

t-RUMP, the White House sham, cowers and plans his next stupidity. Read more

Here is Canada in retaliation: "Canada 'rage room' lets visitors smash Trump, Vance, Musk portraits to release tariff angst." But, "Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney says there may be a limit to Ottawa's ability to escalate a tariff war." Read more

Signal chat won't go away. "U.S. District Judge James Boasberg orders Trump administration to preserve Signal chat on Yemen strikes."  The same judge, earlier this month, temporarily blocked Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport more than 200 alleged migrant gang members to El Salvador without due process. Read more

The New Republic reveals Trump's cluelessness over what he is doing. "The American public knew before Donald Trump that top administration officials had conducted airstrikes on Yemen via a Signal chat, and now it appears that the president has been left in the dark on other intelligence matters too. Read more

Is Trump losing interest in governing? Not that he has ever really governed but AlterNet has concerns...

"over President Donald Trump’s ability, willingness, or even interest in engaging with the most pressing issues facing the country, as he increasingly—and casually—admits to being unaware of critical matters. His repeated declarations of ignorance, often delivered without hesitation or concern, have deepened alarm among critics who warn of a dangerous void in informed leadership in the Oval Office."

Read more 

Here's a headline that is irresistible: "The American Dream is officially over," by Donald Earl Collins of Aljazeera. Collins adds, "All because the rich must always steal from the poor." Sound familiar? Bernie Sanders has been saying that for years. Here's an example...

According to a report from Moody’s Analytics in February, the richest 10 percent of Americans (households with an annual income of at least $250,000) [12.7 million households] drove half of all US consumer spending (about $10 trillion) between September 2023 and September 2024.

Read more 

 RFK Jr.'s vitamin A conspiracy sends kids to the hospital. Here's the scenario...

As the New York Times reports, overuse of Vitamin A — health secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s purported measles cure, alongside cod liver oil, which contains the same vitamin — has led to liver damage and yellowed skin in children infected with measles.

Read more 

And, so much for today...