The New York Times published this editorial for its Sunday edition, accompanied by articles detailing the multiple failures of Donald Trump. This is my favorite line: “the lesson of the last four years is that he cannot solve the nation’s pressing problems because he is the nation’s most pressing problem.” The title of the editorial is: “End Our National Crisis: The Case Against Donald Trump.”
Donald Trump’s re-election campaign poses the greatest threat to American democracy since World War II.
Mr. Trump’s ruinous tenure already has gravely damaged the United States at home and around the world. He has abused the power of his office and denied the legitimacy of his political opponents, shattering the norms that have bound the nation together for generations. He has subsumed the public interest to the profitability of his business and political interests. He has shown a breathtaking disregard for the lives and liberties of Americans. He is a man unworthy of the office he holds.
The editorial board does not lightly indict a duly elected president. During Mr. Trump’s term, we have called out his racism and his xenophobia. We have critiqued his vandalism of the postwar consensus, a system of alliances and relationships around the globe that cost a great many lives to establish and maintain. We have, again and again, deplored his divisive rhetoric and his malicious attacks on fellow Americans. Yet when the Senate refused to convict the president for obvious abuses of power and obstruction, we counseled his political opponents to focus their outrage on defeating him at the ballot box.
Nov. 3 can be a turning point. This is an election about the country’s future, and what path its citizens wish to choose.
The resilience of American democracy has been sorely tested by Mr. Trump’s first term. Four more years would be worse.
But even as Americans wait to vote in lines that stretch for blocks through their towns and cities, Mr. Trump is engaged in a full-throated assault on the integrity of that essential democratic process. Breaking with all of his modern predecessors, he has refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, suggesting that his victory is the only legitimate outcome, and that if he does not win, he is ready to contest the judgment of the American people in the courts or even on the streets.
[Kathleen Kingsbury, acting editorial page editor, wrote about the editorial board’s verdict on Donald Trump’s presidency in a special edition of our Opinion Today newsletter. You can read it here.]
The enormity and variety of Mr.Trump’s misdeeds can feel overwhelming. Repetition has dulled the sense of outrage, and the accumulation of new outrages leaves little time to dwell on the particulars. This is the moment when Americans must recover that sense of outrage.
It is the purpose of this special section of the Sunday Review to remind readers why Mr. Trump is unfit to lead the nation. It includes a series of essays focused on the Trump administration’s rampant corruption, celebrations of violence, gross negligence with the public’s health and incompetent statecraft. A selection of iconic images highlights the president’s record on issues like climate, immigration, women’s rights and race. And alongside our judgment of Mr. Trump, we are publishing, in their own words, the damning judgments of men and women who had served in his administration.
The urgency of these essays speaks for itself. The repudiation of Mr. Trump is the first step in repairing the damage he has done. But even as we write these words, Mr. Trump is salting the field — and even if he loses, reconstruction will require many years and tears.
Mr. Trump stands without any real rivals as the worst American president in modern history. In 2016, his bitter account of the nation’s ailments struck a chord with many voters. But the lesson of the last four years is that he cannot solve the nation’s pressing problems because he is the nation’s most pressing problem.
He is a racist demagogue presiding over an increasingly diverse country; an isolationist in an interconnected world; a showman forever boasting about things he has never done, and promising to do things he never will.
He has shown no aptitude for building, but he has managed to do a great deal of damage. He is just the man for knocking things down.
As the world runs out of time to confront climate change, Mr. Trump has denied the need for action, abandoned international cooperation and attacked efforts to limit emissions.
He has mounted a cruel crackdown on both legal and illegal immigration without proposing a sensible policy for determining who should be allowed to come to the United States.
Obsessed with reversing the achievements of his immediate predecessor, Barack Obama, he has sought to persuade both Congress and the courts to get rid of the Affordable Care Act without proposing any substitute policy to provide Americans with access to affordable health care. During the first three years of his administration, the number of Americans without health insurance increased by 2.3 million — a number that has surely grown again as millions of Americans have lost their jobs this year.
He campaigned as a champion of ordinary workers, but he has governed on behalf of the wealthy. He promised an increase in the federal minimum wage and fresh investment in infrastructure; he delivered a round of tax cuts that mostly benefited rich people. He has indiscriminately erased regulations, and answered the prayers of corporations by suspending enforcement of rules he could not easily erase. Under his leadership, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has stopped trying to protect consumers and the Environmental Protection Agency has stopped trying to protect the environment.
He has strained longstanding alliances while embracing dictators like North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, whom Mr. Trump treats with a degree of warmth and deference that defies explanation. He walked away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a strategic agreement among China’s neighbors intended to pressure China to conform to international standards. In its place, Mr. Trump has conducted a tit-for-tat trade war, imposing billions of dollars in tariffs — taxes that are actually paid by Americans — without extracting significant concessions from China.
Mr. Trump’s inadequacies as a leader have been on particularly painful display during the coronavirus pandemic. Instead of working to save lives, Mr. Trump has treated the pandemic as a public relations problem. He lied about the danger, challenged the expertise of public health officials and resisted the implementation of necessary precautions; he is still trying to force the resumption of economic activity without bringing the virus under control.
As the economy pancaked, he signed an initial round of aid for Americans who lost their jobs. Then the stock market rebounded and, even though millions remained out of work, Mr. Trump lost interest in their plight.
In September, he declared that the virus “affects virtually nobody” the day before the death toll from the disease in the United States topped 200,000.
Nine days later, Mr. Trump fell ill.
The foundations of American civil society were crumbling before Mr. Trump rode down the escalator of Trump Tower in June 2015 to announce his presidential campaign. But he has intensified the worst tendencies in American politics: Under his leadership, the nation has grown more polarized, more paranoid and meaner.
He has pitted Americans against each other, mastering new broadcast media like Twitter and Facebook to rally his supporters around a virtual bonfire of grievances and to flood the public square with lies, disinformation and propaganda. He is relentless in his denigration of opponents and reluctant to condemn violence by those he regards as allies. At the first presidential debate in September, Mr. Trump was asked to condemn white supremacists. He responded by instructing one violent gang, the Proud Boys, to “stand back and stand by.”
He has undermined faith in government as a vehicle for mediating differences and arriving at compromises. He demands absolute loyalty from government officials, without regard to the public interest. He is openly contemptuous of expertise.
And he has mounted an assault on the rule of law, wielding his authority as an instrument to secure his own power and to punish political opponents. In June, his administration tear-gassed and cleared peaceful protesters from a street in front of the White House so Mr. Trump could pose with a book he does not read in front of a church he does not attend.
The full scope of his misconduct may take decades to come to light. But what is already known is sufficiently shocking:
He has resisted lawful oversight by the other branches of the federal government. The administration routinely defies court orders, and Mr. Trump has repeatedly directed administration officials not to testify before Congress or to provide documents, notably including Mr. Trump’s tax returns.
With the help of Attorney General William Barr, he has shielded loyal aides from justice. In May, the Justice Department said it would drop the prosecution of Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn even though Mr. Flynn had pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. In July, Mr. Trump commuted the sentence of another former aide, Roger Stone, who was convicted of obstructing a federal investigation of Mr. Trump’s 2016 election campaign. Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, rightly condemned the commutation as an act of “unprecedented, historic corruption.”
Last year, Mr. Trump pressured the Ukrainian government to announce an investigation of his main political rival, Joe Biden, and then directed administration officials to obstruct a congressional inquiry of his actions. In December 2019, the House of Representatives voted to impeach Mr. Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors. But Senate Republicans, excepting Mr. Romney, voted to acquit the president, ignoring Mr. Trump’s corruption to press ahead with the project of filling the benches of the federal judiciary with young, conservative lawyers as a firewall against majority rule.
Now, with other Republican leaders, Mr. Trump is mounting an aggressive campaign to reduce the number of Americans who vote and the number of ballots that are counted.
The president, who has long spread baseless charges of widespread voter fraud, has intensified his rhetorical attacks in recent months, especially on ballots submitted by mail. “The Nov 3rd Election result may NEVER BE ACCURATELY DETERMINED,” he tweeted. The president himself has voted by mail, and there is no evidence to support his claims. But the disinformation campaign serves as a rationale for purging voter rolls, closing polling places, tossing absentee ballots and otherwise impeding Americans from exercising the right to vote.
It is an intolerable assault on the very foundations of the American experiment in government by the people.
Other modern presidents have behaved illegally or made catastrophic decisions. Richard Nixon used the power of the state against his political opponents. Ronald Reagan ignored the spread of AIDS. Bill Clinton was impeached for lying and obstruction of justice. George W. Bush took the nation to war under false pretenses.
Mr. Trump has outstripped decades of presidential wrongdoing in a single term.
Frederick Douglass lamented during another of the nation’s dark hours, the presidency of Andrew Johnson, “We ought to have our government so shaped that even when in the hands of a bad man, we shall be safe.” But that is not the nature of our democracy. The implicit optimism of American democracy is that the health of the Republic rests on the judgment of the electorate and the integrity of those voters choose.
Mr. Trump is a man of no integrity. He has repeatedly violated his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Now, in this moment of peril, it falls to the American people — even those who would prefer a Republican president — to preserve, protect and defend the United States by voting.
This is an email that I received from a Trump supporter. The public is being scammed by this pathological liar.
……………………………………….
ELECTION FRAUD: Pennsylvania Rejects 334,000 Duplicate Ballots Already – Kentucky Reports Bins of Ballots Discarded
By Joe Hoft
Published October 17, 2020 at 8:15am
241 Comments
Democrat election fraud is already in the works.
Pennsylvania and Kentucky report incidences of destruction and duplication of hundreds of thousands of ballots.
Pennsylvania has rejected hundreds of thousands of applications for mail-in ballots ahead of the 2020 election.
As reported by ProPublica on Friday, about 372,000 ballot applications were denied, mainly because many of them, about 90 percent (334,000 ballots) were duplicates. Overall, according to the publication, one out of every five requests for mail-in ballots were refused. The state predicts that a record number of ballots would be submitted by mail.
Meanwhile, Kentucky reports that bins of ballots were found discarded in a dumpster.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/10/election-fraud-pennsylvania-rejects-334000-duplicate-ballots-already-kentucky-reports-bins-ballots-discarded/
“Democrat election fraud…” is wrong on 2 counts. These right wingers would rather die than say Democratic, they have purged Democratic from their vocabularies. Most of the GOP and all right wingers will not say Democratic, they use Democrat when they should say Democratic. It’s a form of insult and put-down. It would be like saying Republic party instead of Republican party. Democratic party is proper and correct usage. The Democratic party is not committing election fraud. The Repulsican party is committing vocabulary fraud amongst other crimes against humanity.
Thanks, Carol, for exposing the right wing liars with their own words.
In Illinois, people say “I’m Democrat” all the time. “Nobody” says “I’m Democratic”. 😐
The real fraud of 2016 was The Electoral College. “We” voted for electors to elect Hillary, not Donald. The popular vote clearly shows this. Who were those electors that selected Donald? 😮
If you live in a sparsely populated state, your vote counts more in the electoral college than those who live in states with large cities.
Hi dianeravitch. 🙂 Yes of course, but that (sorta) defeats one person, one vote. 😐
AP FACT CHECK: Trump’s falsehoods on virus, taxes and Bidens
By HOPE YEN, CALVIN WOODWARD and JOSH BOAK
today
…ELECTION FRAUD
TRUMP: “When I see thousands of ballots dumped in a garbage can and they happen to have my name on it? I’m not happy about it.” — Miami forum.
THE FACTS: Nobody has seen that. Contrary to Trump’s repeated, baseless attacks on voting security, voting and election fraud is vanishingly rare. No cases involving thousands of ballots dumped in the trash have been reported in this election.
Trump has cited a case of military ballots marked for him being thrown in the trash in Pennsylvania as evidence of a possible plot to steal the election. But he leaves out the details: County election officials say that the seven ballots, along with two unopened ones, were accidentally tossed in an elections office in a Republican-controlled county by a single contract worker and that authorities were swiftly called.
The Brennan Center for Justice in 2017 ranked the risk of ballot fraud at 0.00004% to 0.0009%, based on studies of past elections.
In the five states that regularly send ballots to all voters, there have been no major cases of fraud or difficulty counting the votes….
Find AP Fact Checks at http://apnews.com/APFactCheck
16 more days.
Donald Trump is enough to make Diane Ravitch curse.
That’s bad.
The Idiot’s campaign is running a spot with Ivanka Trump saying that her father’s quick, decisive action saved millions of American lives from the pandemic. Bizarre. But what’s most weird about it is her Melania-like affectlessness, as though she were shell shocked or on drugs or one of those characters in a 1960s/1970s movie about brainwashing or robot wives. Maybe it’s just that psychosis runs in the family.
Or like one of those people in a hostage video, reading a script prepared by her captors. There is this very odd, distant, faked-emotion quality to it. Uncanny. Survivor trauma?
This wasn’t a campaign spot after all but, rather, a piece in a news report about her stump speech in support of dear old bad Dad.
It’s probably the botox. (Said by one who is scared of shooting poison into her face, especially when it wouldn’t help! :))
speduktr: I was visiting regularly a doctor in KL months after having been brutally attacked and having received many wounds on my face.
One time when I went in he told me that he had just mixed up some botox and the person who wanted the treatment hadn’t showed up. He would give it to me for free.
[Turns out I’m allergic to it and had headaches for 2-3 weeks constantly.] The reason I’m bringing this up is to say that under botox, you cannot move any muscles in your forehead. It is frozen.
So if Princess Sparkle does regularly get botox, she would find that she wouldn’t be able to move any muscles in the forehead.
One has to look perfect to be a woman in the Trump orbit. Beware, Melania, the next Mrs. Trump will be younger than you.
Trump is getting very frustrated at the thought of losing this election. His fury is going in all directions.
……………………….
Trump turns his ire toward Cabinet members
10/18/20 07:00 AM EDT
…The president’s latest criticisms of his top allies began last week, when he called on Barr to indict Obama-era officials for their role in the Russia investigation as part of U.S. Attorney John Durham’s probe. Trump consistently derides the Russia investigation, which dogged his first two years in office, as a “witch hunt” and a “hoax” at his campaign rallies, claiming his first presidential campaign was spied on by the Obama administration.
“Unless Bill Barr indicts these people for crimes, the greatest political crime in the history of our country, then we’re going to get little satisfaction,” Trump said on Fox Business. “This was the greatest political crime in the history of our country, and that includes Obama and it includes Biden. These are people that spied on my campaign.”
Trump piled on with his grievances this week after it became apparent that an investigation into requests by Obama administration officials to “unmask” names of Americans in intelligence reports had concluded without findings of wrongdoing.
“Personally, I think it’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. It’s a disgrace,” Trump said in an interview with Newsmax TV on Wednesday. “They’re guilty as hell.”…
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/521508-trump-turns-his-ire-toward-cabinet-members
I would rather for Trump’s ire to fall on the shoulders of his own horde of horribles. I relish the infighting because it distracts the deplorables from further crushing democracy and lining their pockets.
I really hope that if Trump loses, this ends the practice of people telling their favorite outspoken celebrity or big businessperson,”You should run for president.” That includes people on the other side like Oprah Winfrey and Mark Cuban too.
No. You need to test yourself in smaller arenas before you take the highest office in the land. There’s the mayorship of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and even the possibly soon to be the 3rd largest city Houston. There’s the governorship of large states like New York, Florida, Texas, and California even if Albany, Tallahassee, Austin, and Sacramento aren’t as big and vibrant as the places where these people currently live. I live in one of these states or cities and would cringe if Trump started here, but that would be better than him jumping straight to the White House. Sacrificing a major city or a state for 4 years if it ends up being a train wreck is better than potentially sacrificing the COUNTRY for 4 years.
The reality is that when you say that you wish such and such prominent person should run for president, you’re saying so because of their views on a single issue. You may like so and so’s views on the social issues, but what about their economic and foreign policy? Another person may be a successful business person, but how will they respond to media scrutiny and to people on opposing sides that they HAVE to work with unlike in their businesses? You may like a certain personal finance expert’s views on the economy, but you know nothing about how he would deal with other countries.
Experience matters for traditional jobs, well, apparently except in education nowadays with some people. Experience matters in politics too. Let’s stop making it a bad thing.
LOL. Truman nuked civilians in two major Japanese cities. Eisenhower started the Vietnam War which Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon all escalated resulting in upwards of 3 million deaths. Numerous presidents supported Kissinger and the “Chicago Boys in their quest to “open markets” in the Southern Cone, Indonesia, Iran and numerous other countries that we have violently “regime changed”. Reagan ignored the AIDS crisis, fired striking air traffic controllers and unleashed right-wing death squads in Nicaragua Clinton bombed medicine factories in Sudan. Bush illegally invaded Iraq resulting in the deaths of at least a million and the wounding and displacement of tens of millions more
Obama turned the most functional country in Africa into a literal slave state and loosed right-wing death squads in Honduras. He bombed wedding parties, funerals, first responders, hospitals and children and grandmothers. He also normalized the idea that presidents have the unilateral right to assassinate anyone, anywhere without due process, including American citizens (something he carried out numerous times).
All presidents for the last 40 years have engaged in systematic deregulation and privatization resulting in the largest upward flow of resources in history now leaving tens of millions of Americans now unemployed, uninsured (during a pandemic, no less) and facing hunger and homelessness. And I’ve only barely skimmed the tip of many, many icebergs. There’s not enough bandwidth to cover all of America’s atrocities over the last 60 years or so, both at home and abroad, but you can start with THE SHOCK DOCTRINE by Naomi Klein or pretty much anything by Malcolm X.
But somehow Trump is the worst American president in modern history. SMH, you people are seriously propagandized with a serious case of TDS.
Is that functional African country Libya? 😐
Sen. Bernie Sanders says: “Trump is the most dangerous president in the modern history of our country and we must defeat him by the largest margin possible on November 3.”
dienne77 says: “But somehow Trump is the worst American president in modern history. SMH, you people are seriously propagandized with a serious case of TDS.
Yes, we are actually at the point where desperate Trump defenders would actually claim that Bernie Sanders has Trump Derangement Syndrome and is crazy!
What’s interesting are when these people used to deceptively claim that they supported Bernie Sanders, when deep down we know they trust the word of Donald Trump far more than Bernie Sanders. Who is really the deranged ones? The people who trust Trump over Bernie Sanders.
You might have missed the part where we were at war with two fanatical, evil, vicious and ruthless totalitarian dictatorships, (Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany), during WWII. Japan refused to surrender, was still fighting the war vigorously (Battle of Iwo Jima) up to the dropping of the A-bombs. Japan did attack us first and then Germany declared war on the US a few days later. If we had not dropped the A-bombs, then we would have ultimately had to invade Japan and fight a city by city campaign to subdue Japan (which meant more US soldiers killed, not to mention Japanese civilians who were ready to fight to the last man, woman and child). If Truman had not used the bombs, he probably would have been lynched because they did save American lives. It was a world war not a war of choice as were Vietnam and the Iraq war. Sorry for the digression and being off topic. Adding, US soldiers were quite thankful that they did not have to invade Japan and fight the Japanese on their home turf.
I have been watching the Ken Burns’ series on World War 2.
It was a very brutal war, both in Europe and Asia.
Burns has footage of the Battle of Saipan, where Americans forces were ultimately victorious.
Japanese soldiers preferred death rather than surrender. Japanese civilians—women and children—jumped off a cliff to their deaths rather than be captured. This was the reason that American military strategists concluded that an invasion of Japan would lead to massive deaths of Americans and Japanese. In hindsight, dropping atomic bombs seems horrific, cruel, and barbaric. At the time, it shortened the war and led to Japan’s surrender.
Adding-
The Marshall plan may have had a self serving motive but, it’s doubtful the receiving peoples would have preferred no economic help, which is the common outcome after being vanquished by an opponent.
Germany and Japan can be thankful America didn’t ram its religion down their throats. That was kept for our own people under Trump’s presidency.
Well, Dienne assumes that we are all a bunch of idiots who are not aware of the things she mentioned in her comment. The big difference between Trump and all those other presidents is that Trump has signaled that he will not accept defeat, that he will litigate the election all the way to the SCOTUS because he is saying, now, as we speak, that the election is rigged, corrupt and bogus against him. At least those other presidents either resigned, refused to seek re-election or accepted the results of the election. Trump wants to be an authoritarian ruler for the remainder of his putrid life, a la Putin or Erdogan. Trump is a serial liar and fabricator on a massive scale, he makes those other presidents look like amateurs. They all lied and yes, some of them lied us into avoidable wars, but their total lie output pales in comparison to Trump’s Mt. Everest of lies, made up fables and just mindless blatherings. By the way, the election is not Truman versus Trump, it’s Biden v. Trump. I voted for Biden because I am not insane, yet.
I admired Truman. I still do.
Before Eisenhower, France was involved with Vietnam. The US never won Vietnam and Korea. 😐
Eisenhower was 2 term limited. Kennedy was murdered. 😐
Yeah, we even tricked those redcoats who marched to protect the colonies (only about a third of the colonists were for revolt originally). Why we hid in bushes and ambushed them rather than standing in neat little rows like gentlemen! You are no doubt right that we should acknowledge our “faults.” I know that is too mild a term. However, you never put things in the context of the situation or time. It doesn’t excuse the abuses, but it explains a whole lot that you just ignore. If we are to learn from our past, we have to understand it, too.
Yes, we have had horrible presidents who did horrible things. I agree.
But when I read “Trump is the worst president ever,” I suspect that the author is actually reacting to the personality of the man–thinking, as Michael Flynn recently said of Trump, that “He is the most flawed human being I’ve ever met.” That’s undeniably true. Trump is a psychotically narcissistic, deranged, ignorant, amoral, criminal, loud-mouthed, avaricious, vindictive, racist, sexist, dangerous, divisive, fascist moron whose only concern is for Trump. One thing for sure: Putin got his money’s worth.
The United States has long been a schoolyard bully that didn’t play nicely with others. The difference between most of our previous presidents and Donald Trump is, that Don the Con thinks that that’s how it ought to be in everything, and this makes him potentially the most dangerous president ever, for he wants to see the end of democracy and believes, with Nixon, that whatever a president does is not a crime.
cx: no comma before “that,” ofc
After the election and fears of religious tribalist backlash are in the rear view mirror, it’s not likely but may be possible that NYT editorial writers will be able to find Trump’s enablers and identify what they believe. Newspaper readers might learn about the drive that led to the success of Leonard Leo and Neil Cockery (his wife in an interview identified herself as an Opus Dei member and her husband as a one-time member) in putting Catholic cultist, Amy Barrett, on SCOTUS. Readers might learn that Reince Priebus, who has been essential to Trump’s campaigns is a member of a men’s Christian group, Argons, whose goal is similar to the Catholic and evangelical goal of “religious freedom for the Mother church”, which means for America, prohibitions on women choosing what to do with their own bodies, women in 2nd class status and gay people returning to the closet. Readers might learn that the first thing that gets Priebus through the day is the Greek Orthodox Liturgy and the 2nd, is the Republican Party Platform.
“The Service Book of the Orthodox Church states that no women may enter the sanctuary at any time. This does not exclude women from entering the altar to clean.”
Mum’s the word.
GOOD FOR HIM!!!! I remember when Pritzker hired an airplane to fly to China to get PPE for Illinois and didn’t say anything about it because he was afraid that the government would confiscate his order.
…………………………..
Illinois Gov. Pritzker Rails Against Trump Administration’s ‘Sick ‘Hunger Games’ ’ During COVID-19 Pandemic
July 8, 2:19 p.m. CT
Testifying before a Congressional panel, Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Wednesday called for a national mandate that everyone wear a face covering while in public as part of a broader federal strategy to help stem the spread of COVID-19.
In continuing his criticism of Republican President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, Pritzker presented a five-point national strategy in his testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security on Examining the National Response to the Worsening Coronavirus Pandemic.
Pritzker’s comments focused on the struggles his administration faced in securing personal protective equipment such as ventilators, gowns, gloves and face coverings for medical professionals and essential workers — particularly in the early days of the pandemic. Pritzker has repeatedly called on the president to enact the Defense Production Act, which would force private sector companies manufacture supplies and distribute them to the Americans most in need.
What played out instead, Pritzker told the members of Congress, was a system in which his administration competed with other states and countries for the same supplies.
“In the midst of a global pandemic, states were forced to play some sort of sick Hunger Games game show to save the lives of our people,” Prtizker said. “This is not a reality TV show. These are real things that are happening in the United States of America in the year 2020.”
Pritzker recalled to the committee one instance in which a manufacturer told him that if Illinois increased its order for supplies, the state would move ahead of another potential customer who was also waiting on personal protective equipment.
“In an environment in which we have a pandemic, people are dying, I’m having to make decisions based on some businessperson’s desire for a greater profit,” Pritzker testified. “So that was very troubling.”
Pritzker also called for the federal government to increase its support of testing for COVID-19 and contact tracing, and even suggested that could mean the feds impose other public health guidelines and restrictions that every state must follow, though Pritzker didn’t list specifics.
He also called on Congress to approve more money for state and local governments’ budgets to address the dramatic revenue shortage and increased health spending that has occurred since the beginning of the pandemic. Pritzker said that money would help stave off layoffs of first responders and essential services that are needed as the pandemic continues…
https://www.wbez.org/stories/illinois-gov-pritzker-rails-against-trump-administrations-sick-hunger-games-during-covid-19-pandemic/2847c104-828d-4a92-9b91-23d102150f7b?utm_source=email&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Web-Share
The administration does seem to ignore how much individual states were forced to spend because the federal government failed to act. Their stupidity has led to the dire circumstances we face today, and yet we are penalized for their mismanagement.
Pritzker is still protesting. Wish Gov. Holcomb in Indiana would do something besides declare Stage 5 where everything is now normal even though the numbers are now highest since the pandemic began.
…………………………
Chicago Tribune
OCTOBER 18, 2020
BREAKING NEWS
Gov. J.B. Pritzker blames President Trump and his allies for coronavirus spike in Illinois
Facing a resurgence of the coronavirus in Illinois, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said in an interview with CNN on Sunday that President Donald Trump and his local allies are in part responsible for rising case numbers and positivity rates in the state.
“He’s modeling bad behavior. He doesn’t wear a mask in public. He has rallies where they don’t encourage people to wear masks in public,” Pritzker told “State of the Union” host Jake Tapper. “Truly, this is now rhetoric that people understand, particularly in rural areas in my state, ‘Well, the president doesn’t wear a mask; we don’t need to wear a mask. It’s not that dangerous.’ The truth of the matter is that it is very dangerous.”
Did you know that most of the readers who subscribe to Diane’s blog are really communists and satanic people who need Biblical help? My brother mainly gets his news from Hannity and Rush L.
Unbelievable that there are others in the country who think the same thing. My brother wouldn’t create this gem by himself.
Here is my brother’s response to what Pritzker is doing:
You’re a nut job, go get some Biblical help, sad you support satan and his demons.
If you were up with the news, Joe Biteme and his son Hunter are in trouble because of their money scam with China, now I hear Russia too. You really know how to pick them. I pray to God that your people don’t win, I’d hate to see this great nation turned over to a bunch of communist and satanic people. What a winner you are!!
Carol,
By my reckoning, your brother thinks that every president except Trump was a Communist and Satanist.
Biden is a centrist Democrat, always has been.
Carol-
Did your brother read the Intercept article about the son of former Indiana Gov. Branstad (currently ambassador to China) who got rich in China thanks to the Trump swamp?
But, then, as you said, he doesn’t read.
Listening to Fox, your brother hears a repetitive message that appeals to him, Democrats hate Christians. The crowd that believes it aren’t thinkers. They are too lazy to think, incapable of compartmentalizing their faith-based beliefs (unable to separate them from the political activity sector) and/or, are kool-aid drinkers.
Linda: My brother believes he is an expert on the bible and that everyone who doesn’t think like he does will be burning in hell for an eternity after Jesus comes the second time. He once put down Obama because he was sure Obama couldn’t quote the bible as well as he can. [Obama was the anti-Christ who was going to destroy the U.S. He was running FEMA camps to kill everybody.]
He just sent me an email video about bible prophecies. I couldn’t watch it.
If I send him anything that doesn’t praise Trump it is ‘fake news’, not worth reading.This is true of all Trump supporters, however.
Does he know that Trump has no religion and never read the Bible?
Can anything and/or anyone in The Bible be proven? 😐
Eddie.. When you look at the Bible from an historical lens much can be proven. When you add faith to that lens it becomes an undeniable guide to live by.
“to live by”, mortal men used the Bible as a means to codify subjugation of women.
“undeniable guide to live by.” Maybe for some people it is a way to live but for others it justifies horrors.
How many cultures have been destroyed by Christians who believe they must spread the one true religion? How many lives were destroyed in ‘holy wars’? How many trans, gays, bisexuals and lesbians have been castigated because the bible says they go against the will of God?
Isn’t it interesting that we are willing to go by the word of men passed down from thousands of years ago ignoring the times and context? It sounds suspiciously like the originalist/textualist argument for how to interpret the Constitution. People who take the word of the Bible literally get around that by calling it the word of God. If so, God was one confused dude who couldn’t manage to get his stories or his ethics straight. We would do well to look for the message “between the lines” in both documents.
Here is more far R ‘news’ and this time it comes from my brother.
……………………………………
Establishment media buries Hunter Biden story with 9 minutes, 47 seconds of coverage over 2 days
By Kipp Jones, The Western Journal
Published October 17, 2020 at 10:03am
As Twitter worked overtime this week to suppress the bombshell New York Post reporting about emails allegedly linking Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden to his son’s shady business dealings, network and cable news broadcasts cumulatively gave the story fewer than 10 minutes of air time over two days.
Birds of a feather flock together.
NewsBusters evaluated news coverage on Wednesday and Thursday from ABC News, CBS News and NBC News, and the results are about what you’d expect….
https://www.wnd.com/2020/10/establishment-media-buries-hunter-biden-story-9-minutes-47-seconds-coverage-2-days/
Senator Bernie Sanders:
“In this, the most important election in the modern history of the United States, it goes without saying that during the next 17 days we have got to do everything possible to see that Donald Trump is defeated and Joe Biden is elected as our next president. Trump is the most dangerous president in the modern history of our country and we must defeat him by the largest margin possible on November 3.”
dienne77:
“…somehow Trump is the worst American president in modern history. SMH, you people are seriously propagandized with a serious case of TDS.”
Does anyone really still believe that this poster ever supported Bernie Sanders, a person who she believes is “seriously propagandized with a serious case of TDR”.
dienne77, I issue you a challenge. Does Bernie Sanders suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome as you have implied over and over again as you did above?
Only a Russian troll would call Bernie Sanders “deranged” because he knows the importance of this election. But that is the narrative that dienne77 has pushed over and over again.
OMG! Here is a chance to purchase an ankle gun holster because ‘we want to take care of our fellow Americans’. Gee, I wonder if that is what we all need when Trump loses the election? Just think, 1000 will be FREE!!
I think “Mad Patriot News” refers to the mental state of anyone who believes anything this far right mess publicizes.
……………………………………
Mad Patriot News
Please find below a message from our advertising sponsor. Our email report is a free service to you with the help of our sponsors.
Willis here from TacticalUSA.
Wanted to let you know that we’re giving away 1000 FREE Double-Strap Ankle Holster to hard working Americans.
It has an ambidextrous design and will fit most hand guns.
This FREE Ankle Holster fits all of these handguns – see here:
It’s nearing the presidential election and we want to take care of our fellow Americans.
If you don’t confirm soon we’ll have to send your gifts to someone else who might want them…
Enter your preferred shipping address here.
I’ll send you an email with shipping confirmation as soon as I see your name in the system.
Mad Patriot News
10428 Bluegrass Parkway
Suite #572
Louisville Kentucky 40299
United States
Click here to modify your preferences or unsubscribe.
Sadly, Trump has a lot of competition in the “worst” POTUS category. There hasn’t been an “excellent” POTUS in my lifetime.
I have lived longer than you.
FDR was excellent.
Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Obama (except for education, which was a disaster).
This was posted on Patriotic Times but comes from Breitbart and was reported on Fox. There is knowledge in knowing what ______________ is being spread and believed.
………………………………….
Mail-In-Voting Fraud Escalates Just Before The Election
by Joshua Caplan
2 days ago
Two Pennsylvania postal employees face federal charges following the discovery of piles of mail in the garbage in recent days.
FOX News reports:
Sean Troesch, 48, and James McLenigan, 29, have been charged in two separate criminal complaints with delay or destruction of mail by a postal employee, according to U.S. Attorney Scott W. Brady. No mail-in ballots were found among the discarded mail, but two requests for mail-in ballots were recovered.
If convicted, each man could face a maximum term of imprisonment of five years in prison, a fine of $250,000, or both.
“During this election season, the integrity of the mails is more important than ever,” a statement by Brady reads. “When any public employee, including a mail carrier, violates the law, we will respond quickly. These carriers each attempted to destroy mail, including both political advertisements and an application for a mail-in ballot. Anyone who would obstruct or delay United States mail that includes election-related materials should know that the Department of Justice will take quick, efficient action against them.”
Troesch and McLenigan have been suspended from their jobs without pay.
Earlier this month, a U.S. Postal Service mail carrier was arrested for allegedly dumping mail, which included nearly 100 election ballots set to be delivered to voters in West Orange, New Jersey.
The issue of mail dumping has sparked concerns regarding the safety of voting by mail as millions cast their vote via mail-in ballot in the upcoming presidential election. Leading Republicans, including President Donald Trump have repeatedly sounded the alarm on potential voter fraud.
“The 2020 Election will be totally rigged if Mail-In Voting is allowed to take place, & everyone knows it,” the president has tweeted. “So much time is taken talking about foreign influence, but the same people won’t even discuss Mail-In election corruption.”
Reblogged this on Lloyd Lofthouse and commented:
“The lesson of the last four years (and the recorded history of his always failing businesses) is that Trump cannot solve the nation’s pressing problems because he is the nation’s most pressing problem.”
Unfortunately, Trump supporters and those who are still “undecided” don’t have the intellectual fortitude to read past the headline. They will say disparaging things against the NY Times, because the far Right has effectively brainwashed them.
Our nation is in danger. Growing up I witnessed the confrontations during the Civil Rights and anti- Vietnam war protests. This, I fear, is much more dangerous. This is akin to the birth of the KKK and the terror that reigned in the South. I fear, these ultra Trump groups will unleash a terror campaign nationwide.
I pray I am wrong. We need a landslide… get out and vote
Interesting fact:
In the September debate, Trump interrupted Biden 71 times, compared with Biden’s 22 interruptions of Trump.
Comparing Trump to Jesus, and why some evangelicals believe Trump is God’s chosen one
Dec. 18, 2019
Perry, an evangelical Christian, shared his conviction with Fox News’s Ed Henry that Trump and his authority come from God.
“God uses imperfect people through history. King David wasn’t perfect. Saul wasn’t perfect. Solomon wasn’t perfect. And I actually gave the president a one-pager on those Old Testament kings about a month ago. And I shared it with him and I said, ‘Mr. President, I know there are people who say that you say you were the chosen one.’ And said, ‘You were.’ I said, ‘If you are a believing Christian, you understand God’s plan for the people who rule and judge over us on this planet in our government.’ ”
The declaration attracted quite a bit of pushback from Christians and others who are skeptical that Trump was chosen by God to lead the country…
“I think evangelicals have found their dream president,” Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, told The Washington Post’s Sarah Pulliam Bailey months after Trump’s inauguration. “I’ve never seen a White House have such a close relationship with faith leaders than this one.”…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/11/25/why-evangelicals-like-rick-perry-believe-that-trump-is-gods-chosen-one/
If Sasse’s observation about trump is correct, after Perry left, Trump mocked him.
Evangelicals are a distraction. The political power which Trump doesn’t mock is the Koch alliance with Catholic power brokers in D.C., the Catholic universities in Washington e.g. Catholic University of America and Georgetown and, the flagship in South Bend Ind., Notre Dame.
This comes from RenewedRight.com
……………………………………
Rush Limbaugh was asked one question that was the biggest insult of his life
Rush Limbaugh has attracted his fair share of unhinged left-wing critics over the course of his 32 year career.
But with just three weeks remaining until the election, the Left is losing their mind.
And Rush Limbaugh was asked one question that was the biggest insult of his life.
On Thursday’s program, Rush reported to his audience that one of the biggest names in the Fake News Media called for a request to conduct a five minute interview with Limbaugh.
Limbaugh revealed that all she wanted to talk about was if Rush would urge his listeners to remain calm and not riot on Election Day.
“I said, ‘Would you find out? I don’t want to take a phone call without knowing what the hell . . .’ So, what it was, the elitist member of the Drive-By Media wants to ask me — I didn’t talk to her — she has a question for me. Will I urge my listeners to remain calm while the vote returns are being counted on election night?” Limbaugh told his listeners.
The Fake News Media knows that because large numbers of Democrats are voting by mail, Election Night results may show a Trump landslide that Democrats hope will be overturned by weeks of counting mail-in ballots long after Election Day.
Limbaugh found this line of questioning insulting and said so.
“I mean, what an insulting question. Will you urge your listeners to remain calm? How about you? What the hell are you doing to keep people calm now? You people are raising holy hell out there right now in the Drive-By Media. You guys are doing more to keep this country at a fevered pitch of unrest than at any time I’ve ever seen. You guys are zeroing in on the Trump campaign, on Donald Trump personally. You have got a search-and-destroy mission underway. You have shown you’re not going to let up on this,” Limbaugh added.
Limbaugh pointed out that it was the Left – Black Lives Matter and Antifa encouraged by Democrat Mayors and Governors – who are burning down cities.
“When in fact who is raising hell? It’s the Left. It’s the Black Lives Matter wing of the Democrat Party, the Antifa wing of the Democrat Party. Who is it that’s burning down Democrat cities? Who is it that’s looting Democrat-owned-and-operated businesses?” Limbaugh added. “Who is it that is destroying the private property of citizens in their own cities and towns? It’s Democrats. It’s Democrat mayors encouraging it. It’s Democrat governors. You are not engaging in any of this. You’re not on the protest march. You’re not carrying molotov cocktails. You’re sure not throwing smoke or stink bombs at anybody,” Limbaugh added.
The reality is that it is the Left who are planning nationwide riots and street mobilization if it looks like Donald Trump is ahead on Election Night.
But the Fake News Media wants to scare liberals who may not like Joe Biden to turn out and vote in the hopes that it sparks a landslide win for Biden that hands Democrats the Senate as well.
Renewed Right will keep you up-to-date on any new developments to this ongoing story.
Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported this morning: 219,674.
Total COVID-19 cases worldwide exceed 40 million, with more than 1.1 million fatalities.
TRUMP, speaking in a state where COVID-19 cases are surging: “We’re rounding the corner. We got the vaccines, all that, but even without it, we’re rounding the corner.” — Wisconsin rally Saturday.
THE FACTS: Rising cases and his own government health experts tell a different story.
Infection has been increasing in the vast majority of states and deaths are rising in 30. This as the flu season approaches, another layer of risk to health.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious diseases expert, has repeatedly made clear that he disagrees with Trump’s assessment based on the data and has cautioned that people should not underestimate the pandemic. He says Americans will “need to hunker down and get through this fall and winter because it’s not going to be easy.” Fauci and other health experts, such as Dr. Robert Redfield of the CDC, have warned of a potentially bad fall because of dual threats of the coronavirus and the flu season.
Trump spoke in Wisconsin, which broke records last week for new coronavirus cases, deaths and hospitalizations. Confirmed virus cases and deaths are also on the rise in the swing states of Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin.
The president, who was treated for the coronavirus this month, continues to shun wearing masks and to hold campaign rallies at which face masks are not required. Many attendees don’t wear them.
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former head of the Food and Drug Administration under Trump, said even if a vaccine becomes available late this year, the first group of people who get vaccinated probably won’t see the full effects of protection until February or March.
“The next three months are going to be very challenging,” he said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “There’s really no backstop against the spread that we’re seeing.”
The fall surge is upon us. The US is averaging more than 55,000 new coronavirus cases a day, and 10 states reported their highest single-day case counts last Friday. Now, only two states, Hawaii and Vermont, are seeing a significant improvement in their numbers.
Evangelicals Made a Bad Bargain With Trump
“However, [Trump’s] attempt to hijack our faith for votes, and the evangelical leaders’ silence on his actions and behavior, has presented a picture of what our faith looks like that’s so erroneous, it’s done significant damage to the way people view Jesus.”
“Those fucking evangelicals,” the president, smiling and shaking his head, told GOP lawmakers, according to Tim Alberta’s book, American Carnage.
Trump “mocks evangelicals behind closed doors,” Republican Senator Ben Sasse recently told his constituents.
“Can you believe people believe that bullshit?” Donald Trump said after a 2012 meeting with pastors who laid hands on him, according to Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and confidant.
…………………………………………………………………………………………….
People of faith should embody moral and intellectual integrity.
OCTOBER 18, 2020
Peter Wehner
Contributing writer at The Atlantic and senior fellow at EPPC
in public, donald trump has spoken in glowing terms about his evangelical supporters, calling them “warriors on the frontiers defending American freedom,” people who are “incredible” and “faithful,” a bulwark against assorted moral evils.
But behind the scenes, as The Atlantic’s McKay Coppins recently reported, “many of Trump’s comments about religion are marked by cynicism and contempt, according to people who have worked for him. Former aides told me they’ve heard Trump ridicule conservative religious leaders, dismiss various faith groups with cartoonish stereotypes, and deride certain rites and doctrines held sacred by many of the Americans who constitute his base.”…
Read More:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/the-evangelical-movements-bad-bargain/616760/?utm_source=atl&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=share
No one should believe anything coming out of the mouths of a person associated with the Ethics and Public Policy Center. At this late date, some of their “senior fellows” are apparently trying to salvage their influence similar to Sasse.
Sourcewatch has plenty to say about EPPC- first neocon institute to target secular humanists. Allegedly, they were in the first wave hijacking the GOP. Robert P. George is on their board. They are against progressive theology. The
organization was created to whitewash corporations’ bad behavior.
IF we are wondering why Republicans are so adamant about how great their party is in helping average people, this article probably gives the answer.
……………………………………………..
As Local News Dies, a Pay-for-Play Network Rises in Its Place
A nationwide operation of 1,300 local sites publishes coverage that is ordered up by Republican groups and corporate P.R. firms.
…Maine Business Daily is part of a fast-growing network of nearly 1,300 websites that aim to fill a void left by vanishing local newspapers across the country. Yet the network, now in all 50 states, is built not on traditional journalism but on propaganda ordered up by dozens of conservative think tanks, political operatives, corporate executives and public-relations professionals, a Times investigation found.
The sites appear as ordinary local-news outlets, with names like Des Moines Sun, Ann Arbor Times and Empire State Today. They employ simple layouts and articles about local politics, community happenings and sometimes national issues, much like any local newspaper.
But behind the scenes, many of the stories are directed by political groups and corporate P.R. firms to promote a Republican candidate or a company, or to smear their rivals…
The network is largely overseen by Brian Timpone, a TV reporter turned internet entrepreneur who has sought to capitalize on the decline of local news organizations for nearly two decades. He has built the network with the help of several others, including a Texas brand-management consultant and a conservative Chicago radio personality…
While Mr. Timpone’s sites generally do not post information that is outright false, the operation is rooted in deception, eschewing hallmarks of news reporting like fairness and transparency. Only a few dozen of the sites disclose funding from advocacy groups. Traditional news organizations do not accept payment for articles; the Federal Trade Commission requires that advertising that looks like articles be clearly labeled as ads….
Who is the Worst President?
The question “Who is worst?”
Speaks volumes ’bout the office
It says that “we are cursed”
To tolerate the ‘awfuls’ ”
The question “Who is best”
Would give a different frame
The frame that says “the rest
Are really not just lame”
Singapore is a city-state located south of the mainland of Malaysia. It is much smaller than the U.S., but look at the different mind set of its rulers compared to the Orange Carrot with white eyes that we live with. “Social gatherings of 8 people may be allowed by the end of this year.”
Malaysia is doing something to control COVID-19 from being spread.
The numbers of infected in Malaysia are increasing due to some politicians who went to the Bornean state of Sabah. They returned to KL and spread COVID-19. Now there is an official ‘lockdown’ [Conditional Movement Control]. There are 9 districts in the state of Selangor where KL is located. Nobody can cross over into another district. For medical emergencies, the police have to be notified. For work you will need to show your work pass or have a letter from your employer to cross district lines or go to a different state. To get to the airport [Kuala Lumpur International Airport] permission has to be granted by the police. No interstate movement is allowed. The purpose is to have people stay home. Working from home is encouraged.
…………………
What is the U.S. doing…NOTHING! Over 219,000 Americans have died and we are supposed to be happy to ignore it.
CNN:
Trump argued Monday that the American people were no longer interested in taking precautions to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
“They’re getting tired of the pandemic — aren’t they?” Trump said at a rally in Arizona. “You turn on CNN. That’s all they cover. Covid, covid, pandemic. Covid, covid, covid. . . . They’re trying to talk people out of voting. People aren’t buying it, CNN, you dumb bastards.”
The crowd was packed shoulder to shoulder outside, with few masks in sight.
…………………
Singapore could enter phase 3 by end-2020; social gatherings of 8 people may be allowed
SINGAPORE – Singapore may enter phase three of its reopening by the end of this year, should community cases remain low as the country intensifies testing and contact tracing, said the multi-ministry task force handling Covid-19.
As part of phase three, the size of gatherings outside homes could be increased from five to eight people. Similarly, eight visitors could be allowed on home visits, allowing larger families to congregate.
In addition, capacity limits in venues such as museums, places of worship and wedding receptions may be increased, with multiple zones of 50 people permitted.
But to enter phase three, Singapore will have to keep its guard up and meet several key conditions, Education Minister Lawrence Wong said on Tuesday (Oct 20) as he laid out the country’s road map to the final phase of its reopening amid the coronavirus pandemic.
First, Singaporeans will still have to stick to safe management measures, including small group sizes, safe distancing, and exercising social responsibility.
Next, testing will be carried out on a larger scale to allow more activities to resume. For starters, a pilot scheme will see people tested for Covid-19 before they are allowed to attend events. Rapid tests with lower accuracy will be used for these events, meaning that safe-management measures are still needed and false positives could result…
https://str.sg/J6W5
…………………..
Malaysia:
To curb growing number of Covid-19 cases in the past week, the Klang Valley goes into Conditional Movement Control Order from October 14 – 27, 2020
UPDATED 19 OCTOBER, 2020
Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and Putrajaya went into CMCO [Conditional Movement Control] at midnight on October 14 and will last until October 27. City dwellers are predictably anxious about what they can or cannot do during this restricted movement period. Here’s what we know so far:
Unlike the last CMCO which banned travel between states, this time the restriction applies to travel between districts. To put it into context, the state of Selangor comprises nine districts—Gombak, Klang, Kuala Langat, Kuala Selangor, Petaling, Sepang, Hulu Langat, Hulu Selangor and Sabak Bernam. Under the new guideline, you cannot travel from the urban hub of Petaling to Sepang where KLIA and KLIA2 are located. Kuala Lumpur is considered one district, as is Putrajaya.
Going by this rationale, it also means no inter-state movement; for instance, you cannot go from Taman Tun Dr Ismail, which is in KL, to Damansara Utama, which is in Selangor, even though they are practically next to each other.
If you have to cross states or districts to get to the office, you need to show your work pass or letter from the employer should you be stopped at a roadblock. That said, the purpose of the CMCO is to have people stay home so employers are encouraged to implement work-from-home routine.
Travel between states or districts in an emergency like medical is allowed but the police has to be notified. If you’re catching a flight at KLIA or KLIA2, permission has to be obtained from the police.
That said, all public transportation are operating as normal. But e-hailing service can only allow two passengers at one time, and can only operate between 6am and 12 midnight
One Trump lover told me this morning that we can wait for herd immunity. I replied that 1 to 2 and a half million people would die before that could happen.
Brain dead and still living seems to be the thoughts of these people.
………………………….
How Does a Nation Best Deal With a Leader Who Intentionally Kills Its Citizens?
Oct. 19, 2020 5:22 pm
Thom Hartmann
Covid infections now represent the third leading cause of death in America. This is an extremely contagious, crippling and deadly disease.
On top of that, there’s a growing legion of people who call themselves “long haulers,” who have been seriously disabled by Covid and are unable to live a normal life because of severe chronic fatigue, screaming nerve pain, and other chronic conditions.
And that doesn’t mention all the COVID survivors who’ve had strokes, heart attacks, and permanent heart, lung, kidney, and brain damage.
Facing this simple reality, every developed country in the world is encouraging social distancing and the use of masks to reduce the number of people who are injured, disabled, or killed by this disease. Every country, of course, except America.
The coronavirus has spread heavily across the American Midwest, and new epidemiology shows that much of that spread came from a half-million bikers gathering in South Dakota two months ago.
Now the President of the United States is encouraging the further spread of this disease with his rallies, bringing untold pain, misery and death to tens of thousands of Americans. All because he wants his ego massaged and he thinks somehow this bizarre and deadly behavior will help him win an election.
Some psychologists speculate that Trump might be purposely exposing his followers to this deadly virus because deep down inside he hates anybody who trusts him. They point to his behavior against his three wives, and the thousands of people in business who have sued him for breaking agreements and contracts as examples of this.
Others suggest that he’s simply so lazy that his new pitch for “herd immunity” is just a rationalization for doing nothing so he can continue to spend most of his days watching television and playing golf.
And some political cynics think Trump is simply trying to make the national level of infection as severe as possible so he can hand off a screaming disaster to Joe Biden, and then spend four years criticizing him for how he handles it. Trump recently attacked his opponent, saying if Biden is elected the former Vice President “will listen to the scientists,” which gives more credibility to this theory.
Regardless of his motivations, though, Trump is engaging in and encouraging behavior that is killing and disabling Americans by the millions. We’ve lost more people to Covid than all the Americans who have died in every war since World War II.
That, in and of itself, would instantly disqualify any normal politician from holding elective office in any normal time: inciting people to die or kill others could even land most Americans in prison.
American history is filled with stories of presidents and their cronies getting away with immoral, stupid, and even criminal behavior. But nothing has ever risen to this level.
Whether America ends up with a Truth and Reconciliation Commission like South Africa did, or we simply put Trump and his enablers on trial for their crimes and all the deaths they caused, we must hold these people accountable.
In the madness of the election and its aftermath, let us never forget this. We must decide soon the best way to make sure this never happens again.
-Thom