The Conversation

I will NEVER take a vaccine from Putin.

I certainly don't trust it. Do you?

Another Week, Another Batshit Trump Interview

Posted by Rude One

Everyone's got their line that pushed them over the edge from resident Donald Trump's interview with Jonathan Swan of Axios (motto: "When USA Today is too complex, you've got Axios"). Mine occurred when Swan asked Trump about why he didn't bother to ask Russian dictator Vladimir Putin about the reports that Putin had put a bounty on the heads of American soldiers in Afghanistan. Trump could have shimmied his hands around as he answered, "Well, he's my dom and when master tells me not to ask questions, I can't ask questions or he spanks my ass with the splintery switch." That would have made sense. I could have thought, "Well, I guess he's gotta do what a sub's gotta do. No one wants splinters in their ass. I assume. Better google that later." (Note: Of course there are people who want splinters in their ass.)

Instead, Trump harrumphed around the idea that the intelligence was real and then said that his recent call with Putin was about "nuclear proliferation." Trump said, "If we can do something with Russia in terms of nuclear proliferation, which is a very big problem...A much bigger problem than global warming in terms of the real world, that would be a great thing."

Putting aside that it's Trump who is allowing the New START treaty to expire and could extend it for five years with no difficulty at all, only someone whose brain, such as it is, is stuck around 1980 could actually say that nuclear weapons, in 2020, are anything approaching the shit-inducing threat that the growing fuck storm of climate change poses. It's like Trump just saw The Day After, and he's thinking about how he might get stuck in a bunker with Melania and that kid she always has with her. In terms of the real real world, not the fake real world that Trump has forced us all to live in like that demented telepathic little shit on that Twilight Zone episode, climate change is the massive problem that Trump and the GOP insist on denying, like, you know, they did with the coronavirus pandemic, and that's worked out so fucking well.

This was how the whole thing went. There was Trump bumble fucking through every lie and delusion. There was the sociopathic denial of any hint of human empathy despite, as Greg Mitchell points out, the many chances that Swan gave Trump to show that he gives a jolly pig fuck about anyone other than himself. Swan's face multiple times looked like he was seriously worried if he was going to get out of the interview unharmed. He confronted Trump again and again with facts, but Trump would wave them off like someone was offering him a plate of broccoli with his well-done steak, either not acknowledging them or questioning whether it was a fact, like when Trump accused South Korea of lying about its coronavirus cases. 

The most appalling moment wasn't Trump's blithe dismissal of the over 150,000 dead from his seemingly proud refusal to act on COVID-19, given the now forever carved on his political tombstone "It is what it is." No, for me, it was that he obviously has no idea about anything to do with American history. I mean, we knew that, but it's always just pathetic when we see him flunk basic shit again and again. First, Trump had no idea who John Lewis was beyond the transactional, "the fuck he ever do for me" basis by which he measures everyone. Seriously, check out this exchange: 

Swan:  John Lewis is lying in state in the U.S. Capitol. How do you think history will remember John Lewis?

Trump: I don’t know. I really don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know John Lewis. He chose not to come to my inauguration. He chose… I never met John Lewis, actually, I don’t believe.

Swan: Do you find him impressive?

Trump: I can’t say one or the other. I find a lot of people impressive. I find many people not impressive. But no, but I didn’t go-

Swan: Do you find his story impressive?

Trump: He didn’t come to my inauguration. He didn’t come to my State of the Union speeches, and that’s okay. That’s his right. 

That's the shit you say when you don't know something. While everyone is praising Swan for simply doing real interviewing (which, admittedly, is tough to do with an Adderall-snorting, syphilitic hog beast), he should have asked Trump, "Do you know anything else at all about John Lewis? Do you even know what the Edmund Pettus Bridge is?"

But prior to that was just Trump's blatantly racist, insidious fucking attempt to ass fuck American history until it is contorted around his deformed goddamned image. Trump was once again lying about how "I did more for the Black community than anybody with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln, whether you like it or not," and Swan asked him: 

Swan: You really believe you did more than Lyndon Johnson who passed the Civil Rights Act?

Trump: I think I did, yeah.

Swan: How? How possibly did you-

Trump: Because I got criminal justice reform done, I got prison reform-

Swan: Lyndon Johnson-

Trump: I’ve done things. Well-

Swan: He passed the Civil Rights Act.

Trump: Ask. Ask. How has it worked out? If you take a look at what Lyndon Johnson did?

Swan: You think the Civil Rights Act was a mistake?

Trump: How has it worked out? 

There's so much to say here that it's almost impossible to articulate it. First, Trump has no fucking clue what's in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, let alone the Voting Rights Act or the 1968 Civil Rights Act, all signed by LBJ (although he might know the last one since it prohibited the very race discrimination in housing that he and his shitbird father engaged in). More importantly, Trump looks at his minor adjustments in laws as huge triumphs, not giving a damn that whatever African Americans have accomplished during his residency comes from a long fuckin' line of struggles and triumphs involving more presidents than just him. But as far as Trump is concerned, African American history goes from Lincoln freeing the slaves, which he allows is possibly more important than Opportunity Zones, to him.

In a rational nation, this kind of embarrassing stupidity in a leader would cause an upheaval that would force them to run for freedom before the pitchforks and torches caught up with them. And while those of us who already despise Trump more than the dictionary has words to express are justifiably nauseated by the interview, in MAGA world, this was Trump just givin' it to the fake news who were trying to set him up to fail. 

You have to choose your reality in this America. And there are still tens of millions of people who want to live in the one filtered through Donald Trump's anus-mouth. Fuck them.

The Self-Destruction Of Donald J. Trump

Thousands of Americans are dying because Trump can’t even help himself.

• 

  David Corn

  Washington, DC, Bureau Chief
  If the current numbers hold, sometime in mid- to late-September, the United States will likely reach the horrific marker of 200,000 people dead due to the coronavirus crisis. No doubt, the media will widely report on this artificial but significant milepost. If, tragically, the trend ticks up slightly after some schools reopen in late summer and after flu season begins in October, this grim headline could appear shortly before Election Day: “COVID-19 Death Count in the US Tops a Quarter of a Million.” One puzzle is why resident Donald Trump does not seem to realize that these nightmarish statistics—and the news stories they will generate—could spell doom for his reelection prospects.
  
  By now it’s damn clear that Trump is a narcissistic sociopath who cannot express an ounce of regret over the deaths caused by the virus. He has boasted about the swell TV ratings of his pandemic briefings; he has said almost nothing of those Americans killed by the pandemic. “It is what it is,” he nonchalantly and ghastly observed the other day. Since the start of this epidemic, Trump has gushed out a series of idiotic and false remarks: The virus is no big deal. It will go away. This is a hoax. We will have a national testing program within days. We will have a vaccine within months. Try hydroxychloroquine. Maybe injecting bleach will help. Case numbers are high because of testing. I take no responsibility. I’ve been right all along. We’ve done an amazing job.
  
  He has pushed to reopen state economies and schools before guideposts established by US government experts were met. He has politicized and, thus, discouraged the most basic practice to arrest the pandemic: wearing masks. Imagine being able to prevent tens of thousands of deaths of your fellow Americans with one easy action—and not taking that step. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the president of the United States. In recent days, yes, Trump has begrudgingly shifted his stance on masks. His campaign sent out an email to supporters telling them that it is “patriotic” to wear a mask. Yet during his latest White House briefings, when he reads his opening statement that includes encouraging the use of masks, Trump hurries his way through this one line and hardly highlights the point. It’s as if he is swallowing a bitter pill. And this reluctant about-face may have come too late to persuade his live-maskless-or-die followers. The damage has been done.
  
  Trump’s self-obsessed behavior, his dismissal of expert advice, his attacks on news media outlets that report the awful truths of the pandemic, his focus on the positive economic indicators that exist within an economic calamity (look at the Dow Jones!)—none of this is shocking. But what is surprising is that Trump, perhaps the most self-interested man ever to reside in the White House, cannot see that his own and much-cherished personal interests—notably, getting re-elected—are aligned with the public interest of curtailing the pandemic.
  
  Do Trump and his campaign minions believe that he can be reelected as the number of COVID deaths top 200,000 or 250,000? Shouldn’t he be doing whatever he can to prevent these headlines in the final weeks of the campaign? What the hell gives?
  
  The responsible course for the resident was not tough to discern. Follow the recommendations of public health experts. Model the appropriate conduct. (Wear a mask!) Assist front-line medical workers. Seek to help the economically dislocated. Mourn the dead and address the national fear and anxiety. Yet Trump’s own inner compass is so broken that he could not even fake concern for his own political benefit. His deep-rooted pathologies—I know best, I can bullshit through anything—blocked him from adopting simple measures that would actually advance his own personal agenda.
  
  One small example: In the early weeks of the pandemic, Trump picked a fight with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat. She is a popular pol in the Wolverine State. She was elected 53 to 43 percent in 2018. And she was doing a good job responding to the crisis.
  
  Michigan is (or, now, maybe was) a key state for Trump. It was part of his “beautiful” electoral map in 2016, and he could well need it again to win. Yet he appeared more eager to feud with Whitmer than to help the state acquire equipment it needed to combat the coronavirus. “Don’t call the woman in Michigan,” Trump said he told Vice President Mike Pence. Why piss off Michiganders when you desire their votes? It’s in Trump’s nature. (See the story of the scorpion and the frog.) He placed his love of revenge over his own political survival.
  
  Consider Trump’s treatment of Dr. Anthony Fauci. This highly esteemed scientist is much-respected by the public. About two-thirds of Americans trust what he says about the pandemic. (Only 30 percent have confidence in what Trump utters about the crisis.) Trump was fortunate to have Fauci on the White House coronavirus task force. He should be riding the Fauci wave.
  
  Instead, the Trump White House has been backstabbing—and front-stabbing—this acclaimed public servant. Recently, Trump whined about Fauci’s high-approval ratings and complained, “Nobody likes me.” He declared that Fauci’s analysis about the ongoing coronavirus surge is “wrong.” (Trump also turned on Dr. Deborah Birx, the ever-loyal coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, tweeting “Pathetic!” at her.)
  
  Trump has the LeBron James of public health on his team, and he only wants to dump on him.
  
  That’s not a winning strategy.
  
  Neither was Trump’s me-first insistence on holding me-me-me political rallies while the virus wildfire raged. Herman Cain—the co-chair of the president’s Black Voices for Trump outfit—sadly died of COVID-19 weeks after attending that indoor rally in Tulsa, where he and thousands of others sat shoulder-to-shoulder and, emulating Trump, did not wear masks. It’s unclear when and where Cain contracted the virus, but the episode suggests a basic lesson: Insisting on a premature return to normal can yield deadly results and cause serious political embarrassment. Yet for Trump, there are no teachable moments.
  
  Trump cannot stop himself from lying. (Last month, the Washington Post‘s database of Trump’s false statements hit the 20,000 mark.) Trump cannot stop himself from self-aggrandizing. (Trump at the Centers for Disease Control in March: “Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability.”) Trump cannot throttle back on his racism (“the China virus”), his ignorance (“supposing you brought the light inside the body”), or his egotism (“we had a lot of people watching, record numbers watching…in the history of cable television, there’s never been anything like it”).
  
  But the former reality TV celebrity, who became famous by exploiting the tabloid press, does know a thing or two about PR. So is it that difficult for him to comprehend that this continuing march of death threatens the only thing he cares about: his own standing? Grasping this simple notion should compel him to take immediate and extensive action to limit the number of lives lost to this killer virus—not for the good of others, but for his own sake.
  
  Yet Trump’s demons are in control. He is fueled by spite and by self-glory. Moreover, he appears incapable of peering into the future and considering the effects of his statements and actions. Last month, Trump publicly vowed that he would sign and enact a comprehensive health care plan within two weeks. The fortnight came and went; there was nothing. This was yet one more sign that Trump is 100-percent situational. He says whatever he thinks he needs to say at the moment to gain whatever advantage he seeks, without an iota of regard for later being held accountable. It sure sounds swell to promise everyone a signed, sealed, and delivered health care package within 14 days. Why not say that? So what if there is no new national health care program in two weeks? Trump will deal with that then. Or not. It doesn’t matter to him. Neither present truth nor future consequences hold much reality for him.
  
  Perhaps this explains Trump’s inability to fully fathom the threat he faces. The appalling body count of the present doesn’t move him toward empathy or effective policy, and the prospect of hideous headlines to come also doesn’t motivate him. Not even when his own political career is in jeopardy. Maybe he figures that he will BS his way through all this or rig the system somehow to retain power. Or that he will just get dumb-lucky via an external incident (a vaccine!) that changes the now-dark landscape. But Trump’s inability to make a simple calculation—I should heed the experts and implement the counter-pandemic fundamentals to save lives and (also!) win reelection—is stark and disturbing. It shows Trump cannot perceive or escape the vortex of his own self-destruction. The immense tragedy is that thousands of Americans have died and will continue to die because Trump cannot help even himself.

Ways To Reassure Americans

The Unbelievable Trump

AOC Fucks The Patriarchy's Shit Up

Posted by Rude One

The line from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's calm evisceration of Rep. Ted Yoho yesterday on the floor of the House of Representatives that will likely be the one that is remembered is something that shouldn't need to be said: "Having a daughter does not make a man decent. Having a wife does not make a decent man. Treating people with dignity and respect makes a decent man." Too many terrible men have tried to use the fact that they're related to women as a defense for their shit behavior.

Ocasio-Cortez was done with that, as we all should be. Ted Bundy had a mom. Bill Cosby has a wife and daughters. Donald Trump has had three wives and two daughters. Their proximity to women did nothing to ameliorate their hideous acts towards women.

Ocasio-Cortez said that she wasn't speaking so much because Yoho had called her a "fucking bitch" on the steps of the Capitol but because, the day before, Yoho had offered the fake apology of a fucking bitch. Yoho has long been a fucking bitch. He rode into DC on one of the racist Tea Party waves in 2012, representing a district in Florida that's 75% white. He's been a loyal gobbler of Koch money, the kind of piece of shit Republican who votes to defund Planned Parenthood, won't say if the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is constitutional, and refuses to vote for a federal anti-lynching bill because that would be "overreach." What had so upset Yoho that he felt he had to confront Ocasio-Cortez? The Democrat from NYC had said a month ago that poverty leads to crime, something that we've fucking known since at least Les Miserables. But that set off Yoho because if there's one thing a Republican doesn't want to hear, it's that you might need to actually help people.

Then, proving that he's one of the littlest fucking bitches in the bitch-filled GOP caucus, Yoho went to the mic in the House on Wednesday to say, in essence, "Sorry if what I said upset you. Oh, and I didn't say it. Oh, and I might have said it but I didn't intend for her to hear it. Oh, and I only said the thing I didn't say because I love my country and God and my wife and daughters and I'm gonna hide behind all that because I'm a fucking bitch." More or less, that was it. 

Sure, one way to read and watch Ocasio-Cortez's response is that she ripped off Yoho's little nutsack and showed it to him, laughing as he looked at his torn scrotum in her clutched hand while he bled to death. It is more than gratifying to see it that way. "I want to be clear that Representative Yoho’s comments were not deeply hurtful or piercing to me, because I have worked a working class job," she said, adding, "I have tossed men out of bars that have used language like Mr. Yoho’s." And you totally know she could. It was cathartic, but it was so much more.

More importantly and more incisively on her part, Ocasio-Cortez universalized the insult to show how it's simply part and parcel of the patriarchal world that women have been forced to negotiate and, really, fuck that shit. Fuck this male-dominated institution and fuck all the men who fuck up women's lives and fuck them that they do it without consequences. Or, in her words, "I want to thank him for showing the world that you can be a powerful man and accost women. You can have daughters and accost women without remorse. You can be married and accost women. You can take photos and project an image to the world of being a family man and accost women without remorse and with a sense of impunity. It happens every day in this country. It happened here on the steps of our nation’s Capitol. It happens when individuals who hold the highest office in this land admit, admit to hurting women and using this language against all of us."

Yoho's pathetic little slap at Ocasio-Cortez is just another of the last gasps of a white patriarchy that has been on oxygen for at least a decade, kept alive by unholy medical procedures and the force of pure racist and sexist fear, like Sheldon Adelson or the thankfully dead Strom Thurmond, that their day may finally, at long last, after so much delay, be over. And it's going to be women like Ocasio-Cortez and the dozen-plus women in Congress who stood with her, as well as the daughters and granddaughters of soon-to-be extinct creatures like Yoho. 

Goddamn, it can't come soon enough. Please take the keys away from men, whether in Congress or in other positions of power and hopefully the presidency one day soon. God knows people like Ted Yoho have fucked this nation he supposedly loves for everyone, including wives and daughters. No, the people who really love the United States know it must change or it will die. Ocasio-Cortez and Pramila Jayapal and Ayanna Pressley and Mikie Sherrill and Rashida Tlaib and so many more will keep giving the patriarchy a beat down in the Congress and elsewhere until it's finally yielded to the hope of progress.

Enemy

Joey, a 30 year Navy vet, comes to grips with his 2016 Trump vote and gets emotional talking about his fellow vets being assaulted in the streets. "We gotta help him pack up."

"Do not let all those who have gone and died on battlefields for our democracy go in vain."

Are you a Republican, ex-Republican, or Trump-voter who won’t support the resident this November?

Share your story here: https://rvat.org/tell-your-story
 

Re-Election Strategy

R.I.P. Rep. John Lewis

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213769533

Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III Goes Out With A Whimper

Former Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III failed in his bid to reclaim his old Senate seat after losing to former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville in the Alabama GOP runoff on Tuesday. 

 Tuberville was leading Sessions 63 percent to 37 percent with 35 percent of precincts reporting, according to The Associated Press. 

The former football coach will go on to face Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) in November. Jones is considered the most vulnerable Democrat facing reelection in 2020 in a race The Cook Political Report rates as "Leaning Republican." 

Hosts: John Iadarola, Benjamin Dixon 

 Cast: John Iadarola, Benjamin Dixon

Donald Trump - RUSSIAN SPY TRAITOR IN A MASK

To invoke the 25th Amendment to remove this Russian spy traitor Donald Trump from office, sign here 👉 http://odaction.com/btc25th

Over The Cliff

The MOST EMBARRASSING Trump Story Yet

Trump brags about "acing" the world's easiest test. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss on The Young Turks.



https://www.rawstory.com/2020/07/his-dementia-is-obvious-internet-mocks-trump-for-bragging-he-aced-a-cognitive-test/ 

"Back in November resident Donald Trump was rushed to Walter Reed Medical Center. The White House never told the American people the real reason, claiming he was having a portion of his annual physical done early because he was going to be busy the following year."

 Hosts: Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian 

 Cast: Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian

Republicans Worried That Trump's Stupidity Will Cost Them The Election

The open bigotry coming from Donald Trump is worse than it has ever been, but that's not the main concern of Republicans right now. 

According to senior Republican officials in Washington, D.C., the main concern of Republicans seeking election this year is that Trump doesn't have a coherent campaign message that they can all run on in November. 

They had one in 2016, but this year there is no common enemy other than their own party. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's happening. 



https://www.rawstory.com/2020/07/worried-republicans-told-by-white-house-theyll-have-to-live-with-trumps-focus-on-race-wapos-costa/ 

Whispers

Mistakes Were Made

Schmidt: Trump's Betrayal To U.S. Troops Is Impossible To Overstate | The Last Word | MSNBC

Steve Schmidt speaks to Lawrence O’Donnell about Donald Trump and reports that Russia paid bounties to Taliban members to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Aired on 7/2/2020.

Betrayed