The Beginning of Trump Financial?

The world has not been idle in the face of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and in particular, various sanctions have  resulted in a nosedive in the value of the ruble.  Given the history of the Iraqi dinar revaluation scam, conspiracy theory expert Mike Rothschild sees potential scams up ahead:

It's gonna be weird when I wake up in the morning and the Russian ruble is worth less than the Iraqi dinar.

— Mike Rothschild (@rothschildmd) February 28, 2022

In the responses, Jessica mentions the GESARA scam, which has led multiple QCumbers to max out their credit. believing that a worldwide 'reset' would wipe their slates clean.

With the possibility of a ruble revaulation scam being probable, I can't imagine Vulgarmort not trying to fleece the rubes... how soon before he incorporates Trump Financial?

Taking the Scam to the Next Level

MAGA is a scam.  There is a pantheon of grifters ranging from the dangerous, powerful Vulgarmort to s host of lesser luminaries of varying malevolence.  Among these lesser luminaries is one Vincent Fusca, a kinda grubby guy in a silly hat who has become a minor celebrity among the lunatic fringe of the MAGA movement:

Many QAnon believers think this man, Vincent Fusca, is JFK Jr in disguise. Now he’s here at CPAC! Fusca says he’s approached “all over the place” by people who believe he’s JFK Jr. pic.twitter.com/9hsTsfr5qi

— Will Sommer (@willsommer) February 27, 2020

Well, he DOES look like he's been through a plane crash...  He's mostly harmless, though he did crash his special Trump van and tried to grift 50K from the rubes.  His real schtick is going to Trump rallies and trying to score with MAGA Mamas of a certain age:

Vincent Fusca, whom some QAnon followers believe is the living JFK Jr, spent his Independence Day at the Trump International Hotel in DC getting his picture taken with QAnon followers.

Men have spun lots of lies to meet women, but "I'm the resurrected JFK Jr" might be the GOAT. pic.twitter.com/nL2GZY1mDW

— Travis View (@travis_view) July 6, 2019

I can't blame a guy with trying to get some action, as long as everybody is a consenting adult.

Now, Fusca has decided to throw his stupid, ubiquitous hat into the ring as a state senatorial candidate in his native Pennsylvania:

We are now up to 𝟓𝟑 current or former congressional candidates for 2022 who have endorsed/given credence to/promoted QAnon at some level. The newest addition is Vincent Fusca, a PA Senate candidate, seen here at a QAnon conference saying the QAnon slogan https://t.co/vjEl7q4Xzf pic.twitter.com/cqjgUItBHD

— Alex Kaplan (@AlKapDC) January 31, 2022

I don't think he'll get very far because he's a mush-mouthed, mush-brained hobo, but there's always a chance- I mean, the US elected a doughy, mush-brained carnival barker as president.  Here's to you, Vincent Fusca, for taking the grift to the next level.  If I had a stupid hat, I'd tip it to you.

A to Z, Soup to Nuts... Oh, Just Nuts

I've been working graveyard shifts all week, so I've been doing my sleeping in the daytime,  Today, I woke up and decided to check in on coverage of Vulgarmort's rally in Arizona.  I'm not interested in the headliner, who I know will merely repeat his mantras about fake news and a stolen election (with an occasional new bit of mind-numbing nonsense), my real interest lies in the weirdos and morons who decided to brave the omicron surge in order to attend a superspreader event in which their idol will play the greatest hits.  I can't say these people let me down.

One of the intrepid reporters covering this event is Dallas-based Steven Monacelli, who is covering the rally for Rolling Stone magazine.  When told the press area was full, and he had to leave, he simply walked in the general entrance, which I imagine had a sign reading lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate over it... I feel his pain, but look forward to reading his coverage.

As is typical Acyn Torabi and Aaron Rupar are doing a bang-up job covering the speeches, such as this return of a crowd-pleasing theme of Trump rallies since 2016.  

Several QAnon researchers are also on the case.  The anonymous Hot Tub Twin caught an opener in full Q-mode, talking about a psy op using black op operation and black out information.  I'm going to have to incorporate 'black op operation' into my everyday vocabulary.  He also caught an interview in which a MAGA drone said Gavin Newsome had been executed at Gitmo and replaced by a clone.  Podcaster Julian Feeld caught a Hotep weirdo talking about Trump being a 'good European gentile' and a reincarnation of King Cyrus.  His cohost Travis View highlighted the second weird Trump statue I've seen at a right-wing event.  Australian QAnon watcher 2022 Karma is keeping tabs of the weirdos who have been awaiting JFK's arrival in Dallas since November, who road-tripped out to see their God Emperor.

The weird thing about today is that this rally isn't the only right-wing event taking place in Arizona this weekend... the intrepid woman behind the Arizona Right Wing Watch account covered an anti-vaccine Reawaken America rally in which attendees harassed students at an adjacent school.  She is also covering the Trump rally.

Looking at this coverage, I have to say that the MAGA rank-and-file, the remnant of True Believers, actually appear to be getting more crazy in their devotion to a counterfactual narrative.  I'd like to believe their numbers are shrinking, and I imagine some of the unvaxxed attendees of these superspreader events will be vexed sorely by omicron, but they are still capable of mischief.  As I noted, I'll be working the graveyard shift in a little over an hour-and-a-half, and I have some weird horror videos to watch in the quiet pre-dawn hours.

A Perfect Metaphor

Thankfully, Vulgarmort won't have any official role to play in the memorials for the upcoming 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.  New Yorkers have roundly rejected him, his reactions to the attacks were always disgusting, and there's nothing he could possibly add to the solemn proceedings.  Luckily, he has another commitment that night, he will be offering color, by which I mean off-color, commentary to a sad boxing match between two past-their-prime fighters.

I can think of no better metaphor for Trump's presidency that having the dunce deliver uninformed comments about a no-stakes boxing match between a never-quite-was and a has-been, whose entire participation in the affray is due to another boxer being out sick with COVID-19.  What could be more appropriate?

A-Hole Memory Hole

 The redoubtable Driftglass often says that the liberal superpower, and curse, is memory... we remember details from decades ago, which makes us particularly difficult to gaslight.  Movement Conservatives, however, love shoving inconvenient facts down the Memory Hole, to the extent that the Republican Party should change its symbol from an elephant to a mayfly.

Via Tengrain, we have a particularly grotesque example of this memory holing in action, as Vulgarmort attacks President Biden's COVID response (any failures of which are completely due to anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers):

Trump: Could you imagine if I were President right now and we had this massive attack from the Coronavirus. You know they like to call it the, they have new names and they’ll have other new names but it’s exactly what we had. pic.twitter.com/HwAqce3S60

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 8, 2021

Fuck, I was around in 2020, I know that over 500,000 people died on this asshole's watch.  Friends of mine died, other friends were laid up, sick, for over a month- one guy I know called 911 with a 103-degree fever and was told not to even bother going to the Emergency Room unless he had trouble breathing.

"Could you imagine if I were President right now and we had this massive attack from the Coronavirus?"  Imagine?  I was there, you were President, and you screwed up royally, and more than a half-million people died.  I'm not even sure this asshole is gaslighting the Fox audience, or if his brain has finally turned into mush, but this will probably be the most disgusting thing I'll read all week.

Who am I kidding?  It's early!

MLB More Sensitive, Racists Rage

The big culture war story today is the coming name change of the Cleveland Indians to the non-racist Cleveland Guardians.  If anyone has any doubt that 'Cleveland Indians' was a racist moniker, one look at their logo should disabuse them of this notion.  As an added bonus, the new non-racist name is a callback to locally famous statues, giving it an actual cultural resonance.  The only more significant name I can think if would have been the Cleveland Ubu Rois.

Naturally, Native American groups support this change.  Not everybody is thrilled, though, as certain high ranking right-wingers are upset.  A whacko Arizona senator has weighed in in spectacularly stupid fashion, with added bonus stupidity about Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson NOT being traitors.  Not to be outdone, Vulgarmort registered his outrage at the change from a racist name:

Former President Trump slams the Cleveland Indians' name change.

"Can anybody believe that the Cleveland Indians, a storied and cherished baseball franchise since taking the name in 1915, are changing their name to the Guardians? Such a disgrace.."

More: https://t.co/4hSGalNICQ pic.twitter.com/i6Ju5VxfNt

— KUSI News (@KUSINews) July 23, 2021

 

It's here where I note that Trump has long hated Native Americans, attacking Northeastern nations as criminals when they were gaining approval for opening casinos.  His vile attacks were insufficient to save his own casino business.

It's a good thing that the name was changed, and that racists are upset.  Society changes slowly, the reactionaries are losing, with this change forming a one-two punch with last year's name change for the Washington Football Team... in that case, I would have been okay the team keeping the name but changing their logo.

A Brand-New Social Media Sewer

 One of the tenets of Right-Wing grievance culture is a nonsensical claim that Conservatives are routinely silenced on social media platforms.  While high-profile righties like Vulgarmort have been ejected from Twitter and Facebook, it is because they routinely violated the Terms of Service... it's not censorship, the users merely broke the deal.

In the face of such purported deplatforming, a Con-friendly social media platform to rival Twitter in particular is the holy grail of the right-wing tech bro.  We've seen Gab, which probably only has about one-hundred thousand active users, and Parler, which has been on-and-offline... both platforms are hotbeds of racism, antisemitism, and general whackaloonery.  Now, there's a new right-wing Twitter 'alternative', GETTR, run by super creepy former Trump adviser, deadbeat dad, and failed freelance abortionist Jason Miller, using funds from Guo Wengui, fugitive billionaire and Steve Bannon associate. Predictably, GETTR has been a gutter from the get-go:

I have had a #Gettr account for maybe ten minutes, and pic.twitter.com/AwakP7FRp5

— Caleb Kintzlaw (@BirdRespecter) July 1, 2021

Ah, yes, who did not see that coming?  Apparently, even the most die-hard Trump supporters, the QAnon set, are upset at the amount of lewd and scatalogical material on the site.  Even the grifters in that cohort are upset at the way the site's being used by amateurs:

“Bad words” Sather’d delicate sensibilities can’t deal with such uncouth talk. pic.twitter.com/kvurpMWL4V

— Poker and Politics (@PokerPolitics) July 1, 2021

It's getting so that a guy can't even make an honest buck selling bleach to rubes as a panacea without Anime Nazis eating up all the bandwidth!

The biggest trolls on the internet all seem to have flocked to the new platform:

Right-wing extremists, including Laura Loomer, Jan 6th organizer Ali Alexander, and Capitol rioter Anthime Gionet have all flocked to Jason Miller's new "GETTR" social network platform. pic.twitter.com/SQZbCz22AW

— Zachary Petrizzo (@ZTPetrizzo) July 1, 2021

That being said, there are a select few who turn out to be too toxic even for the cesspool.

It's not clear if Trump himself will join the site, though Trump doppelgängers have already made an appearance.  It's even less clear how long the site will last, because it is a buggy security risk.  As the Good Professor said, the Shadow can only mock, it cannot make.  I don't think it gave life to GETTR, it only ruined and twisted Twitter.

Performative Outrage

The latest right-wing outrage concerns a tweet by Kamala Harris telling Americans to enjoy the long weekend.  Of course, this is all performative outrage, as conservative news outlets aren't exactly commemorating the solemnity of Memorial Day:

C'mon. pic.twitter.com/TETPKZS45p

— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) May 30, 2021

Also, none of the idiots lambasting VP Harris made a big deal about Vulgarmort actually wishing people a happy Memorial Day, leading me to believe that they operate on a double standard. 

I don't begrudge people having a good time on Memorial Day weekend, paid days off are a rare occurrence for American workers. If the authorities wanted people to spend the day in solemn reflection, they should move it to January or February, when the westher is more conducive for somber occasions. The day has pretty much lost its significance for anyone who hasn't lost a loved one to war- it's now a day for the opening of the beach season, and for sales at home goods stores. 

The attacks on Vice President Harris are cynical, and unconvincing... yet they aren't nearly as stupid as the current criticism of President Biden.

Social Media for Sociopaths

 Being aware of the dozens of failed Trump businesses, I am tickled pink by the idea that the Former Guy wants to start his own social media platform:

"I do think that we're going to see President Trump returning to social media in probably about two or three months here, with his own platform," Trump senior adviser Jason Miller told Fox News' "#MediaBuzz" on Sunday. "And this is something that I think will be the hottest ticket in social media, it's going to completely redefine the game, and everybody is going to be waiting and watching to see what exactly President Trump does."

Besides the fact that he failed at selling vodka and steaks, running airlines, football teams, modeling agencies/escort services, and operating casinos, Vulgarmort isn't exactly tech-savvy, so, if he's not just blowing smoke,  he would probably outsource any coding to some Russian outfit which will lard it with all sorts of malware.  Being greedy, I imagine any 'social media' company run by him would operate on a subscription basis, offering much worse service than the free platforms out there, but also selling users' personal data.

The prognosis for a Trump-owned social media platform is pretty bad, for reasons other than the guy's incompetence.  While right-wingers love their epistemic closure, their raison d'etre is to antagonize liberals.  In a closed system, without 'libs', their trolling would be impossible- it's not like these people would use a 'right-only safe space' to debate each other over marginal tax rates and the role of the federal government in an idealized 'Reaganite' republic.  If Trump manages to pull it off, it'll last six months, maybe a year.

Trump was actually offered a 40% stake in Parler if he agreed to use the platform exclusively, but nothing ever materialized, and Parler is a disaster.  This is probably as good an offer he'll ever get from an existing social media platform, but Trump being Trump, he muffed it.

The Last Days of Dicko

We're in the home stretch as a nation, with Vulgarmort passing his last night in the White House, and CNN reports that he is bitter and aggrieved... well, moreso than usual.  Trump has been in a state of rage ever since the failed coup at the Capitol on January 6th, as his staff deserted him.  As a final rebuke, apparently, nobody wants to attend his farewell ceremony tomorrow morning... why would anyone want to see a traitor and, in Trump parlance, a loser, take his final Walk of Shame?

It's clear that Trump has been the worst president in US history (a year ago, I would have said that Dubya was worse, having started unnecessary wars that killed millions), but 2020 saw the nadir of American presidentin', marked by mass death, authoritarian proclamations, and a mob attack on the bedrock of our democratic institutions.   

In his farewell speech, Trump listed a bunch of fake accomplishments, but his true legacy will be a half-million dead Americans and a failed coup by a bunch of racist whackaloons.  Even Trump's vaunted economic accomplishments are BS, as the unemployment rate rose dramatically because of his incompetent pandemic response.

I always pictured Trump's last days in office like the ending of Werner Herzog's gorgeous horror film Aguirre: The Wrath of God, with  Trump playing the role of a bloated, partially melted Klaus Kinski (Trump even calls to mind the incest subtext of the film).  The private meltdowns must be rather grotesque.  It's the last days of dicko, and all that's left now is for him to dance off into a senescence marked by derision and despond:

 

 

Post title taken from this dramedy, which I confess I've never seen.

Someone's Having a Bad Christmas

Today is Boxing Day, a day traditionally occupied by giving small presents to the neighbors and public servants (such as letter carriers), after the big family celebration on Christmas Day is over.  I made sure I gave out presents to the neighbors on Christmas Eve, preparatory to submerging into a weekend of work.  It's also the Feast of St Stephen, the first Christian martyr, which in my neighborhood, with its many Irish immigrants, is a big pub day.  I have to be at work at midnight, but in a normal year, I wouldn't pass up an opportunity to meet with friends for a hot toddy before having to get ready to go in.  This year, that's just not an option... maybe tomorrow would be a good whisky day.  I do plan, though, on making some 'virgin' eggnog tonight on the job to see what the fuss is about (I can spike the leftovers tomorrow when I get home).

It's been a 'blah' Christmas, pretty much spent hunkered and bunkered at home or at work, but I've heard from family and friends, so I can't complain.  Via Tengrain, though, we learn that Vulgarmort has spent this festive season complaining about being a loser.  Even with his large family and his vaunted, flaunted wealth, the guy is miserable.  He has a teenage son and a passel of grandkids, one would think he'd put down his goddamn phone and live for once.  I'm glad he's in a blue funk, though, because through his incompetence and venality, millions of Americans have had their Christmases (and Hanukkahs, and Diwalis, and Thanksgivings, and... you get the picture) ruined.  He's even worst than Scrooge, old Ebeneezer only immiserated a handful of people, and had a redemption arc at the end.

I sure hope he spends the rest of the year simmering... like a pot of water made fragrant with the addition of cinnamon and clove, ready to be added to a small glass of whisky with lemon and honey.  I hope his digestion is off all week, maybe from a bit of underdone potato.  I don't foresee a redemption narrative for the guy, no Scrooge or Grinch he, so his running chronicle of angst all week has been balm for me... since Weihnachtsfreude is in short supply this year, I'll settle for Schadenfreude.

Gonna Be a Long Night

 Tonight is going to be a weird one... a night of anticipation, like Christmas Eve, but with the possibility that there's a small chance that Santa Claus might leave a biological weapon under the tree.  I believe that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will win- it's hard for an incumbent to run on his record when he's got a six-figure body county on his tiny, reddened hands.

I have the alarm set for 6AM.  I don't have to be at work until 9AM, but I plan on voting before heading out on the road.  I had planned to vote early last week, but the lines to the early polls were wrapped around two sides of the local library.  For the record, I've never had to wait more than ten minutes to vote in my usual polling place, two and a half blocks away.

I don't know what to expect tomorrow- I imagine many of the voters either voted by absentee ballot or voted early.  I don't expect any shuttle buses from the local assisted living community near work this plague year.  

I really should try to get some sleep, but it's not that easy, given the sense of anticipation, and for many people, of dread.  I will vote for the Biden/Harris ticket to ensure that fewer people have sleepless nights.  Maybe Vulgarmort is onto something when he calls Joe Biden 'Sleepy Joe'...it's just not Joe who's sleeping.

Mute the Mutant

 Ugh, it's debate number two between Biden and Trump.  I just tuned in in time for Trump to blame Biden for the H1N1 flu response... in an outbreak which claimed 12,000 lives, compared to the current 220K plus.  It'll be interesting to see how Vulgarmort responds to the post two-minute mic mute.  Already, Trump is using the 'basement Biden' crack that the right-wingers love so much.

It's going to be a slog, a long night of idiocy and mendacity.  I'm at work, so I can't drink while watching this.  So far, the one bright spot is Kristen Welker's moderation, so much better than Chris Wallace's low-effort moderation.  I have to confess that Miss Welker's attractiveness is also a welcome distraction from Trump's scowling mug.

At least Biden is on the attack, calling out Trump's ineptitude, and his 'fiddling while Rome burns' golf outings.  I hope he keeps it up, enough with the malarky.

UPDATE: She really needs to use that mute button on that asshole.  I do like fiery Biden, though.

Tish Versus the Grifters

The big local news story of the day was New York State Attorney General Letitia James announcing a suit to dissolve the National Rifle Association. In a stroke of genius, AG James couched the suit as an effort not to regulate gun ownership, but to eliminate a corrupt organization:  

“The NRA’s influence has been so powerful that the organization went unchecked for decades while top executives funneled millions into their own pockets. The NRA is fraught with fraud and abuse, which is why, today, we seek to dissolve the NRA, because no organization is above the law.” 

The NRA defrauds and abuses its members, whose membership fees serve to enrich such scumbags as former CEO Wayne LaPierre. By pursuing a civil suit, AG James has neatly sidestepped the issue of gun control, though the right-wing propaganda machine has conveniently ignored that. Predictably, Vulgarmort claimed that she is waging a war on the Precious Second Amendment:

Just like Radical Left New York is trying to destroy the NRA, if Biden becomes President your GREAT SECOND AMENDMENT doesn’t have a chance. Your guns will be taken away, immediately and without notice. No police, no guns!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2020

I'm more inclined to agree with this assessment by an independent investigative journalist:

You'd think people passionate about gun rights would prefer to have a non-corrupt organization defending them.

— Travis View (@travis_view) August 6, 2020

I doubt that Leticia James is a Sex Pistols fan, but I immediately thought of John Lydon when I heard that she was initiating this lawsuit: “You don’t sue the NRA because you hate the law-abiding gun owners. You sue the NRA like that because you love them, and you’re sick of seeing them mistreated.” 

I just wish that our Attorney General would have been a bit more calculating from a political perspective... this lawsuit is going to be cited in Republican political ads for the next three months, and Biden (a centrist Democrat who shouldn't scare middle-of-the-road, middle-of-the-country swing voters) will be portrayed as a gun-grabbing Maoist. The subtleties of going after the organization for abusing gun-owners will be buried under a deluge of bad-faith arguments. Put succinctly, I think she should have waited until mid-November to announce this lawsuit.

He's Going Full-On Jonestown

Today's atrocity is Vulgarmort's assertion that he is taking a medication which a guy in his condition really shouldn't be taking:

"I happen to be taking it ... right now, yeah" -- Trump claims he's taking hydroxychloroquine, a drug he's touted as a potential coronavirus treatment despite a lack of evidence that can lead to potentially fatal heart problems pic.twitter.com/zxiNxlyfEs

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 18, 2020

I don't believe that he's telling the truth, primarily because he's a serial prevaricator. The real 'tell' though, is his anecdote about a doctor in my home county who hasn't lost a single patient that he's treating for COVID-19:

Trump says he is taking hydroxychloroquine, a drug FDA has cautioned about using for COVID-19. He started "a couple weeks ago"
"I think it's good. I've heard a lot good stories. And if it's not good, I'll tell you right, I'm not going to get hurt by it" https://t.co/Nj065CIsxp pic.twitter.com/eFPC0g1Vns

— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 18, 2020

A one-hundred percent success rate strains credulity. I suspect that Trump's 'Westchester Doctor' is actually Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, the psycho from across the Hudson who made a similar claim back in March. As for Trump's motive, I think it's mainly desperation, seasoned with 'magical thinking'... he needs a cure, or his goose is cooked, and HCQ is the one item in the pharmacopeia that he's clinging to. Dad isn't around to save his bacon, so he needs the miracle he's been hoping for since February.

I've gotten to the point where I'm just past caring. If Trump's supporters, many of whom have co-morbidities, want to pop hydroxychloroquine tablets at the behest of their Dear Leader, they should go for it. The MAGA cult looks to be entering the Jonestown stage, all we need is for a Trump-branded sugary drink to wash the tablets down with. I doubt he's taking it himself, but if he's pushing it, it's the second most dangerous drug he's selling, the first of which is hate.

Another Volume in the 'We're so Boned' Narrative

The Dipshit in Chief went to the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, and all I got was a freakout... The craziest thing about this visit is that Trump's obsession with his phone call with Ukraine's president bled into his speech about coronavirus test kits, which he dubbed 'beautiful':

AZAR tries to explain that more tests are coming, but Trump waves him off to jump in.

TRUMP: “Anybody that needs a test gets a test…. the tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good.” pic.twitter.com/A3hgYOJLUt

— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) March 6, 2020

The man has always been subject to weird obsessions, such as his decades long feuds with Graydon Carter and Rosie O'Donnell. His spite seems to be second only to his greed. Even worse, Trump's assertion about test kits is a lie.

Vulgarmort DID provide a moment of comic relief, when he suggested that he could have become a research scientist because of his Big League Brain:

Trump muses that he could’ve become a research scientist instead of president.

TRUMP: I like this stuff. I really get it… every one of these doctors said, ‘how do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. pic.twitter.com/9ppWsjwN2v

— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) March 6, 2020

Trump is a perfect exemplar of the Dunning-Kruger Effect at work- he is simply too stupid to realize that he is stupid. This would be dangerous at any rate, but the danger is compounded by his maladministration's efforts to downplay the danger of the outbreak in order to obfuscate their lack of preparedness. The world is burning, by which I mean coughing, and Trump is trying to blame the situation on Obama. We need someone serious to handle this outbreak, and there's not a single competent individual in Trump's orbit. I don't think he'd be able to coordinate a competent response even if there were an outbreak among Mar-a-Lago members.

PotUS Is Going to Get People Killed

It was a weird day today, getting a text message from my coworker reading 'I have the flu and will need to take the next five days off' and thinking 'that's good news!' He's a responsible guy, he doesn't want to get anyone sick, so he will stay home, rest, and get plenty of fluids. Unfortunately, the Occupant of the White House is not acting in a responsible fashion:

In this clip, Trump:
1. Denies WHO's coronavirus death rate based on “hunch"
2. Calls coronavirus "corona flu"
3. Suggests it's fine for people w/ Covid-19 to go to work
4. Compares coronavirus to "the regular flu," indicating he doesn't get the difference pic.twitter.com/uC9c03zX31

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 5, 2020

He's making up mortality rates that contradict WHO estimates and telling people to go to work sick. Meanwhile, CDC officials don't seem to be aware of the statements the president is making about the outbreak:

Q: Is it helpful to get your message out when you're being countermanded by the president on TV?

NIAID DIRECTOR FAUCI: I don't think I'm being countermanded

Q: He was on TV last night suggesting people w/ Covid-19 could go to work

FAUCI: I haven't heard that

AZAR: Me neither pic.twitter.com/uv7jLDXe3U

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 5, 2020

Vulgarmort is citing poll results (from about two weeks ago) to suggest that his response to the outbreak is adequate:

Gallup just gave us the highest rating ever for the way we are handling the CoronaVirus situation. The April 2009-10 Swine Flu, where nearly 13,000 people died in the U.S., was poorly handled. Ask MSDNC & lightweight Washington failure @RonaldKlain, who the President was then?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 5, 2020

During a 'town hall', he also suggested that an outbreak which causes people to eschew international travel benefits the US economy:

Trump tries to find a silver lining to the coronavirus during Fox News town hall: "I have to say, people are now staying in the United States, spending their money in the US -- and I like that." pic.twitter.com/lbERhrSq6t

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 5, 2020

Trump's rhetoric is incoherent, his advice is horrendous, and the response of his administration consists mainly of obfuscating infection rates and virus virulence. We need smart people running the country in a situation such as that which we are facing, and smart people are in short supply in Trump's kleptocracy. Hat tip to Vox journalist Aaron Rupar for covering this topic in such detail.

Now, excuse me while I juggle the work schedule because one of my key colleagues will be recuperating at home for the better part of a week.

They Call the Wind Antifa

Today, in Tales of the New West, we have to sorry story, via Tengrain, of a not-quite-gale-force-wind blowing down a section of Vulgarmort's Wall. A thirty-seven mph wind was sufficient to huff and puff and blow down the big bad moron's personal monument to racism. Personally, like Barack Hussein Obama, I believe that Trump is probably a fascist, and is at best fashcurious... the fact that winds blew it down suggests that Nature itself is antifascist, so may as well call the wind Antifa, a reference to the signature song from the musical Paint Your Wagon, which has passed into the status of a standard:





Even joking, the Smothers Brothers had a better grasp of windmills than Trump does. My introduction to the song was the Kingston Trio's rendition from the indispensible ...from the "Hungry i" album:





Getting back to the wall, it seems to be a shoddy piece of work, like most of Trump's gaudy death traps. I would love to know how many millions of taxpayer dollars went to which well-connected fly-by-night contractors, and what kind of kickbacks Trump was getting. The guy may be racist, but his greed exceeds even his hate.

A Contradiction in Terms

It looks like the current occupant of the White House was having a meltdown today in the face of the impeachment proceedings. My schadenfreude receptors were firing non-stop when I read the all-caps cri de cul of this self-described stable genius:

SUCH ATROCIOUS LIES BY THE RADICAL LEFT, DO NOTHING DEMOCRATS. THIS IS AN ASSAULT ON AMERICA, AND AN ASSAULT ON THE REPUBLICAN PARTY!!!!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 18, 2019

Vulgarmort has a real problem with consistency here: if the radical left is engaged in an assault on America and the Republican Party, how can the Democratic Party be described as 'do nothing'? He's not the smartest guy, but even a third-grader, upon reflection, would find the inherent contradiction in terms in this missive.

Plutocrats Don't Do 'Omertà'

I don't know what Trump expected Gordon Sondland to say during his testimony on Capitol Hill, but Sondland is a billionaire, so the very notion that he would chance going to jail for Vulgarmort is laughable. Sondland donated a million dollars to Trump's inaugural committee, suggesting that he was buying Trump, or at the very least what was supposed to be a cushy ambassadorship. One does not make a million dollar payment to someone in order to be their lackey.

I get the distinct idea that Sondland is not happy to be the one forced to answer questions. He's a wealthy man, not the sort of guy to be called out on the carpet. I am actually enjoying the discomfiture of people who aren't used to self-doubt or fear for their future. Whatever Sondland expected he'd get for his million dollars, he just didn't count on getting screwed by Trump, like a common construction worker, or small New Jersey contractor. He's not going to go down with the Trumptanic, though, that's the sort of thing only a coffee boy would do.