He's Basically Useless

 

Trump posted the above impotent whinge on his dreadful Truth Social account, and I suppose someone may have let Putin know about it and if they did, I am sure of one thing. 

Putin would have laughed his ass off.  It's pathetic. It reeks of frustration:

The exchange shined a light on a rising sense of exasperation among the president and his advisers at his inability to mount a successful pressure campaign against Putin to end the war. Trump bristled at a reporter’s suggestion that he had not applied pressure to the Russian leader.

“You don’t know what pressure I’m putting on Russia,” Trump snapped. “We’re putting a lot of pressure on Russia, and Russia knows that.”

Trump then argued that “it takes two to tango, and you have to have Ukraine want to make a deal, too.”

Moscow, he said, has already made a substantial concession by not “taking the whole country.”

“Stopping the war,” he said, is a “pretty big concession.”

Part of Trump's frustration may well be not knowing exactly what a "concession" is. It's possible he only recently abandoned that idea that it meant someone was selling hot dogs and sodas during the negotiations. When Trump says "You don't know what pressure I'm putting on Russia," though, I believe that part--it's just that Russia doesn't seem to be aware of it either. That's why THIS IS NOT WORKING.

TWGB: Would You Buy a Watch from this Man?

 

So, obviously this thing where Trump is selling watches is a part of the "Trump campaign as business plan" ethos that the media doesn't quite know what to do with. It's at least as good as the NFT racket. It's better than the Trump DC Hotel racket, that Trump even found a new way to lose money at. 

We might not be able to really talk about things like the $10 million that flowed to Trump (allegedly) from Egypt in 2016, probably, or even fully investigate his business interests in China. But we could definitely ask why he's got the Mrs. out here pounding her book (which he hasn't read), her jewelry line, and fucking Chreestmas ornaments as a kind of Trump "lifestyle brand". 

Is this what serious people do? Like, if people can't afford bacon and eggs, is this really how you demonstrate solidarity with them? 

So, here's the thing--back in 2017, Trump trotted out a lawyer and like a pallet of blank paper in file folders to pretend he divested from his businesses, and LOL, no he did not do that. But dipstick MAGA  brainwashed cult members will tell you all about what he gave up to be president. That's right MAGA--he never did spend most of his time between Trump Tower, Bedminster and Mar-a-Lago. He wasn't still CEO of Trump Org when he was directing the payment of hush money from the White House. He didn't direct funds to his various properties from the US government whenever possible. 

What Are the Odds He Believes This?

 

Trump: A tariff is a tax on a foreign country. A lot of people like to say it’s a tax on us. No… It’s is a tax that doesn’t affect our country. pic.twitter.com/NNyNthZbKg

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 17, 2024

This isn't how tariffs work. People have been pointing out this is not how tariffs work. The benefits of tariffs are mixed. But if consumers are concerned about high prices, tariffs are not going to do anything about them. Economists say it would result in Americans paying more--it is a tax on us. Trump's concept of a trade war against foreign countries is just not how things in a global economy work. The answer--inflation. 

I'm not 100% Trump understands what his immigration policy would do to supply chains here in the US, and I'm relatively sure that if he hasn't got the tariffs thing right in his head, he definitely doesn't understand how devaluating the dollar is also terrible for consumers.

But you or I might be thinking about things from the point of view of people with "normal" incomes. We do things like work for a living or have a "fixed" income from a pension. We would actually feel those costs--the people who help set Trump's economic policy and the people who can afford Trump country club memberships would not. I don't think it matters whether Trump understands these policies, I think it's that he does not care and will say absolutely anything to be elected.

Clickbait, Context and Code Pink

 

The above picture is a screenshot of a 25 second video that got a lot of clicks--10M views! A lot of well-meaning people had a strong response to it and so did I--just, not the same one they did. See, in light of the comments that Nancy Pelosi made Sunday which I alluded to in my previous post, it's possible for some people to assume Pelosi had become unhinged or something--what is she even talking about?  Russian influence, now "go back to China"? You could forgive someone for assuming that protesters were trying to get commentary out of her just NOW over what she said in the interview. 

As for me, I thought it might be the case. but it's just a 25-second clip with no context. If someone showed up to protest me at my home, after it had been my spouse not so long ago attacked by a madman in my home, I'd be rude as hell to uninvited "guests". "Go back to China" sounded to me maybe like a way to suggest these guys were commies or something. 

But it's from an earlier protest and the protesters are Code Pink, who ARE funded by CCP money. And Pelosi is used to them haunting her lawn--they did it in 2007, and they do it today.  And my humble opinion is they are assholes. 

Kissinger Was a Fortunate Man

 

Other people can heap Pelion upon Ossa regarding Kissinger's various infamies: as for me, I wrote a poem.  The unamusing thing about a person like Kissinger is that people you rather like and respect will have something nice to say about him in an obligatory sort of way. He faced exactly zero penalty other than the disapprobation of people whose opinion he wouldn't have given a fig for, for policies that lead to vast, unnecessary piles of human bodies. And like the stone that wards off tigers, you could be certain that the reason for it was human misery somewhere else was responsible for a correlating lack of it where it mattered. 

It actually shouldn't be very hard to admit that Kissinger's reputation exceeded himself. And in various corners where people could do just that, for the sake of propriety, they won't. And that sort of propriety was why Kissinger lead a very fortunate life. 

Vivek Ramaswamy is Running for Guy with a Book, Or Something

I never heard of Ramaswamy before he decided he was going to run for president, and for a little while there, I kept forgetting who he was. And then I would be like, "Oh yeah! That tech capitalist dude running in the 2024 primary." And then I'd go back to ignoring his existence. That time felt good. But I'm tired of looking at him, now.

See, the GOP is going through some things. Their obvious front-runner for 2024, Donald Trump, is under four going on umpteen indictments for infinity counts, and that feels like a guy who, at what a judge just recently described (Kaplan, in a rejection of a frivolous suit re: his sexual assault of E. Jean Carroll) an "advanced age", might not exactly prosper in a grueling campaign schedule that includes all of his various criminal trials and a campaign fundraising effort that is largely going to legal fees leaving who knows what over for actual campaign stuff. 

Their former number two, previously believed to be formidable challenger Ron DeSantis, turns out to be an awkward and unlikeable stiff whose culture war machinations work well enough in the Free People's Republic of Floridastan, but look fucking quaint and actually shambolic among people who give a shit about politicians who, well, look like they actually give a shit. Ron looks like a man who gives a shit about running for president and has no idea why. It's the killer resume item that prepares him for nothing at all, in the same way Trump wanted to be president to check something off of a bucket list. Neither of them seem to give a fuck about what actually happens to people or making life better for anyone. It's "checking grievances" and "power for power's sake" all the way. 

Whistleblowers Sometimes Fail

 

Whoops. Gal Luft, the GOP's new fake Hunter Biden "whistleblower," was just indicted by the Justice Department for arms trafficking, violating U.S. sanctions against Iran, making false statements to federal agents, and being an unregistered foreign agent for China.

James Comer… pic.twitter.com/cgwcfPbDnE

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) July 10, 2023

You ever lose track of your very important witness to something and it turns out they were actually an agent of a foreign government just cutting deals left and right with what you might call hostile government entities? Because that's what seems to have happened with one of the GOP House Oversight Commitee's really big guns. You wouldn't have thought, right? 

Anyway, this guy was influencing TrumpWorld from 2016. 

 Among other things, in the weeks before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, LUFT and a co-conspirator (“CC-1”), who is a Chinese national and worked for a Chinese nongovernmental organization affiliated with a Chinese energy company, created a written “dialogue” between CC-1 and Individual-1, in which LUFT wrote Individual-1’s responses and included information that was favorable to China.  The dialogue was then published in a Chinese newspaper online and sent to, among others, individuals in the United States, including a journalist and professors at multiple U.S. universities.  When LUFT was writing the dialogue, CC-1 told LUFT that “[i]n these articles, we do not want to spill all the beans yet, just enough to let ‘people’ know he [i.e., Individual-1] is in the corridor of power to be.  Just broad stroke policy consideration that leaves plenty of room for interpretation and imagination to be filled in later.”  After the purported “conversations” were published, LUFT told CC-1 that certain information, favorable to China, had been “tucked between the lines.”  Shortly after the 2016 election, LUFT and CC-1 also discussed possible roles Individual-1 might have in the incoming U.S. administration and discussed Individual-1 taking a “silent trip” to China.  LUFT responded that “[w]e are debating about his role in the new admin.  There are all kinds of considerations . . .We should talk ftf [i.e., face-to-face] as there can be a supremely unique opportunity for china.”

The Individual-1 looks to be Jim Woolsey.  He was in the loop for a little bit of fuckery. But I'm not saying I understand how all of those parts fit. I just know when the House GOP's witness is kind of a spy for China this is very not good for them.

And I had thought it was pretty bad when one of their whistleblowers was just dead. 

Anyway in other news, the Trump-appointed US Atty investigating Hunter Biden's tax things says he was as independent as independent could be, which would have been my linchpin story if not for the China agent thing. Which lets you all know how well the GOP Oversight stuff is going right now. 

Jim Jordan is Defending Putin's Puppet

 

"I could see that he loved it" -- Trump on what Putin said to him about Ukraine in private discussions pic.twitter.com/bn6Frny9Al

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 12, 2023

Donald Trump has always just been a tool for Putin, just a dopey, underinformed somewhat ineffectual businessman who has been handled because of his wealth by foreign influence from the beginning. There is credible reason to believe that if Trump won a second term instead of massively losing, he would have finally "winked" at Putin to do his damnedest with respects to Ukraine.

I don't know why GOP Representative Jim Jordan thinks he needs to protect Donald Trump from all threats as if he was his very own smol bean--but Jordan is a sketchy guy himself. Maybe Trump has dirt on him, maybe not. Maybe he seriously does believe Trump is his smol bean. I never succumbed to whatever charisma Trump is supposed to have, but maybe this is his influence on his supporters, they see him as their hero and also as a small baby who needs to be protected.

MAGA doesn't want us to fool around with their sweetheart, Donald J. Trump. Because he puts America first? Heh! While he's talking up the dictators in China and Russia we are supposed to believe he's strong on. He says the US radicals are the greatest threat--to the whole country, or just to his political future? Anyway, Jordan hasn't got any right to interfere in New York business, and Bragg isn't about to let him.

Alivin Bragg is suing Jim Jordan for using federal US dollars to fuck around with state business to prevent a lawful investigation into a one-time NY citizen. In the meanwhile, Trump's support is cratering because America is tired of his act. 

I'd love to see Trump's dogged supporters go down with their Titanic leader. They seem dead set on putting him, not this country, first.

Dark Brandon Took Down the Bad Balloon

 

Because this was the show you wanted this weekend, the Chinese surveillance balloon made it to the South Carolina coast where it was beyond the debris falling over a populated area, and then it got POPPPPPPPEDDD!  The debris field was seven miles. This is why you don't do this sort of thing over populated areas. That could have been not-great. Also, the US was on it like a bonnet and had been blocking the balloon from surveilling much of anything while trying to study what it was actually here for--so we received some intelligence while it was up there, and China did not receive so much intelligence. 

We might learn more from what we gather from what got downed. 

And anyway it was since Wednesday that Biden said to bring it down and the US military observed when it was safe to do it--and then it got done. You know, while all the critics were suggesting "Do it now!" as if the damn thing was about to cause havoc or whatever.  No havoc got caused, friends. 

Ein "Red" Luftballoon

 

Being a kid of a certain era, of course I thought of the song from Nena when I heard about the Chinese surveillance balloon traversing US airspace. (I also thought of the shooting down by the USSR of Gary Powers' spy plane--a U-2, because this is my brain, this is my Cold War 80's teenager brain, this is my brain on the music of my generation.) Things sure do happen. Sometimes things we know about and sometimes things we don't. The Chinese balloon is supposed to be a weather balloon according to the Chinese, and depending on who you ask, it is both always and never a weather balloon, whether you are talking about spy aircraft or UFOs or anything else. 

I'm a child of the 1980s, but I'm an adult of the 21st century, and I'm like, "how quaint is a fucking balloon"? I'm not talking about how zeppelins are weird since what happened in New Jersey and all, but more like, shit, there are satellites all over the night sky, and I don't know how many dumb MFs got TikTok on their phone. Information gathering has taken some leaps over the decades. What the hell are you all surveilling with a fucking big ass balloon? An obvious large as a couple tractor trailer ass balloon up over the whole continental US?

Could it be our reaction to it? Because that's a fun little test balloon, right there. 

TWGB: Why I Don't Give A Frick About the Fricking Laptop

 

Six months after leaving the White House, Jared Kushner secured a $2 billion investment from a fund led by the Saudi crown prince, a close ally during the Trump administration, despite objections from the fund’s advisers about the merits of the deal. https://t.co/FDlmrzvYdw pic.twitter.com/OHfyPVHsHN

— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 10, 2022

For some damn dumb reason, Donald Trump needed to make his daughter and her husband part of his administration. Just the way his business has always been a family business, one might say. This gave them an extraordinary opportunity to enrich themselves, while carrying out "US policy", which could, given all we know, basically mean using the US as the means to facilitate very profitable and extremely unethical relationships for themselves without respect to actual US interests or even global reputation.

This is because Trump and family don't give a shit about those things.  I have nothing but hollow, mocking laughter for people who pretend otherwise, and I'll append the phrase "And they called it 'America First'!" in the same way comedians have delivered the punchline of the infamous dirty joke: the aristocrats.

Take Don, Jr (please!).  It appears that the boy determined to be too stupid to collude when he actually received an email offering dirt on the opposition that basically said: We are from the Russian government and we're here to help you, was actively passing on methods on how to subvert the lost election and overturn it in his father's favor.  Before the election was actually called, as if he knew (because eveyone did) that his dad would lose and didn't care whether it was "rigged" or not, because of course he didn't.

TWGB: We Said He Wasn't Right

 

President Biden threw his support behind the top U.S. military officer, Mark Milley, a day after a new book said he went around civilian leaders to place secret calls to his Chinese counterpart over concerns about then-President Donald Trump https://t.co/mgr8I1Rd7T pic.twitter.com/0PNUDrO7rx

— Reuters (@Reuters) September 16, 2021

Pause to consider for an instant what happened in a brief span--a leak from Woodward's latest book reveals that post-1/6, Trump was so out-of-bounds that Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley wanted to see to it that there were additional guardrails in place to prevent an international catastrophe from occurring.  The reality seems to be that Milley's actions weren't quite as "mavericky" as the book depicts. And I'm not privileging the insights from one view of his actions over the other, I wasn't there and am no military expert. 

What's fascinating to me is people who seized on whether Milley trying to mitigate the apparent volatility of the CinC was wrong (if not treasonous!) instead of noting that the outgoing president was, in fact, acting as if out of his goddamn mind. After all, it's not a secret that Trump made decisions after his loss that weren't really "America First" but seem like a tantrum made manifest in abrupt foreign policy dictates.  And, as I've regularly indicated here in the blog--the man is not well. Trump has boasted that he is a "stable genius" at regular intervals, and believe me, no one does that unless their intellect and stability were both seriously under question.

But Senator Marco Rubio roared out of the gate to demand that Milley be fired for his temerity.  Which is something that would just mean Biden appoints a new one (although for crying out loud--I guess GOP senators would make a "thing" out of the "advise and consent" deal. After all, blocking State Department picks, or State Department and DOD picks for insincere counterproductive reasons (for a value of counterproductive that includes national security but does not include self-promotion) is apparently the new trifling stunt from the clown shoes brigade that triflingly stunted over the Biden election confirmation. 

I could point out, as I have before, so what good does it do us that someone is telling us this--NOW? But to be clear, any corroboration that TrumpWorld has operated and still does operate around the damaged psyche of a spoiled brat with neither empathy nor loyalty is necessary to keep in view in a world where this guy is still considered a GOP 2024 presidential frontrunner, and not an epically disgraced has-been. It is also good to remind people that the current administration is coping with fall-out of irresponsible choices made by the previous administration.

And it serves to tell us who is still a deluded dupe paddling in The Former Guy's wake, incapable of committing the sin of ever holding Trump accountable for anything.  You can tell who they are, because they blame Trump's failures on the people who tried to curb his foolishness, because in a world where expertise is demonized, mere competence itself is considered suspect. 

Although, IMHO, not too many current GOP officeholders need to be overwhelmingly concerned about being considered "suspect".

TWGB: Chinese Thermometers and Italian Satellites.

 

There is something about TrumpWorld Grab-Bags that starts feeling like an old comfy shoe over time: the mediocrity. Hannah Arendt referred to the banality of evil, and yep. It doesn't fucking startle anyone with its brilliance or beggar the imagination with strategy and insight surpassing the norm. It's just grubby little ambitious motherfuckers going about what they consider their business even if it usurps the rights, comfort, or lives of  millions because they found themselves in the position to do it. It's chastening about the human condition but I drink and write bad poetry so I can handle that. 

So take your Trump Administration attorney, Jeffrey Clark, who had numerous letters in his quiver to different states but most particularly Georgia, who had a theory that that the election was flipped by hackers accessing a thermostat hooked up to the World Wide Web of stuff that shouldn't be hooked up to the internet, and that somehow got them access to the actual voting machines, a thing that is not possible for reasons that are numerous, obvious, and which Clark, upon being informed of them, did not believe because it didn't match his worldview. Which was informed by loyalty to Trump in the assumption this lead to rewards for favors rendered, I pretty much assume. 

I'm not sure myself how much of a pay rise it would take to make me cool with defending rapeor subverting US democracy. But Clark gives us a flavor of how it might just be for some folks. (I will say, there are people on social media fine with doing this for free and they are also in my humble opinion very bad, but lacking in the capitalist spirit.) 

Aspen Turning Time

 

Well, this is a humdinger:

One month before a purported leak of files from Hunter Biden's laptop, a fake "intelligence" document about him went viral on the right-wing internet, asserting an elaborate conspiracy theory involving former Vice President Joe Biden's son and business in China. 

The document, a 64-page composition that was later disseminated by close associates of President Donald Trump, appears to be the work of a fake "intelligence firm" called Typhoon Investigations, according to researchers and public documents. 

The author of the document, a self-identified Swiss security analyst named Martin Aspen, is a fabricated identity, according to analysis by disinformation researchers, who also concluded that Aspen's profile picture was created with an artificial intelligence face generator. The intelligence firm that Aspen lists as his previous employer said that no one by that name had ever worked for the company and that no one by that name lives in Switzerland, according to public records and social media searches.

 I'm going to go with the creation of a cut-out for disseminating the document in question is not actually for anyone's protection from "personal and professional risks" but just a plausible-sounding origin story for ginned-up twaddle. 

In other news, UPS located Tucker Carlson's lost package and while he has an awful lot of questions about the definitely real stuff on the flash drive that was sent in a container that somehow came undone, isn't it really time folks stopped piling on Hunter Biden? 

Because it's not like, worth losing your lucrative gig to keep after a story that is falling apart all around you. Only a total dweeb would do that.

Where Does it All Go?

 

Trump: Four or five months ago when we started this whole thing because you know before the plague came in, I had it made. I wasn’t coming to Erie. I mean I have to be honest, there was no way I was coming. I didn’t have to.... pic.twitter.com/DeTV4jiLmS

— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) October 21, 2020

One of the things Trump fans are clinging to is the possibility that the businessman in Trump is going to pull all of this (gestures wildly at flaming mess) together and do smart things in a possible second term. I don't know why they think that, since he could have done smart things in his first term if he really wanted to. But I also don't know why they still believe that he was a great businessman after the details of, well everything about his business, have been floating around in the--

Oh, that's right. They think it's all "fake news". And I guess Lesley Stahl's interview with him will also be discounted as being somehow rigged against him, just like the debates have been, because Donald Trump is a special little snowflake. (But it really does seem to have gone badly based on White House reactions.) I wonder what could have triggered Trump's ire? I mean, she's a pro. 

It could be anything, but it's probably either COVID or his low polling numbers, I'd say. After all, the news that Trump had a hidden bank account (not mentioned on his financial statements) in China only just dropped, so that couldn't have been it. (Although, wow, that kind of undercuts his claims regarding Biden-related China corruption, in that Trump's fictional $1.5 billion claims are distinctly stupid. The real story is actually Hunter Biden can make his own damn money. Whether Trump can is probably more open to debate.) It also reminded folks on Twitter that a White House advisor claimed he got info on Biden via China, which is just precious because he didn't and it was the same thing Trump was being impeached for when he claimed it, and also Trump basically on the phone to Fox & Friends was trying to coax in public and out loud that Bill Barr should investigate/charge the Bidens with....something just Tuesday morning. (Can we impeach him again? Can we impeach Barr?)

And let's be really clear--it's the Trumps who are rampant with nepotism and grift, really. 

So Trump is apparently experiencing all kinds of flailing and shit-lossage right now. Which is an excellent time to bring up how his campaign money game is being run like a roulette table by a sweaty gambling addict who owes bad people big money and can't keep his shit sorted.

It's not that any campaign is bad with money--it's that Donald J. Trump, Super-Jenius' campaign is dumb with money. The burn rate is amazing, and so much is going to Trump properties and odd LLC's (sure). But Trump the Campaign is strapped, even though his convention was held at the White House (and yes, he's totally using the White House for campaign stuff, let's just admit it, and Hatch Act violations all over the damn place). And all the lawsuits. (Those will be an ongoing thing, for sure, win or lose.)

And maybe his campaign doesn't need anything but love, After all, remember 2016? But this is definitely not 2016. And he might be stiffing some of the wrong people this time. 

I dunno. There are obviously VIPs that could find a way to inject cash into the campaign, I wouldn't be surprised. And let's not forget those who contributed so lushly to his inaugural fund last time either. (Do be a love and follow the links for amusement and a shared theme.) My strong feeling though is that the cash shortage is nothing compared to the credibility deficit. What does he have to believe in?

 

The Chinese Seeds Conundrum

Stephen King could have written this mess, and we'd be only at like, Chapter Five, right now. Still from Creepshow, You Lunkhead.

Human beings are primates, I remind myself, or find myself reminded, on a regular basis--and the thing about your monkey brain is--it's curious. Well, your monkey brain, my monkey brain, the point is, we are more curious than we are smart, but we are also fucking dumb. Case in point: The Chinese Seeds Conundrum:

In late July, America was briefly enthralled with “Unsolicited Seeds from China,” which started showing up in mailboxes in all 50 states. These mystery seeds prompted warnings from the USDA, which said people should not plant them, and should instead alert their state agricultural authority and mail them to the USDA or their local officials.

Many Americans heeded this advice. Many more decidedly did not.

You guys, this is how the horror novel starts out. "Many more decidedly did not." That right there is just negligent, but what did the folks do? They were told not to plant them of course, because, like, lets say it's just some random GMO licensing legal fuckery that takes over your lawn--it's just raw naivete to assume there's anything good in that.  Or who even knows what:

Audrey 2 from the brilliant movie "Little Shop of Horrors"

Yeah, I'm not saying it could definitely be alien man-eating plants, but no. It could be--okay what if it were alien man-eating plants and then you had that on your conscience in your suburban picket-fence tract home somewhere that's green Mr. Man? Is that what you want?

Trump is a Goddamn Cheat

Democrats demand answers from U.S. ambassador after reports saying he asked Brazil to help Trump in 2020 https://t.co/KmGf4ljGtO

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) August 1, 2020

You know, it's bad enough that Trump is a world-class pathological liar, but does he also have to be one of the world's sorriest cheats?

This week, the pitiful business failure who decided to look to politics for love (Snort! he should have stuck to reality tv!) floated a trial balloon on Twitter: "What if the elections happen, but only when I think they wouldn't suck for me?":

With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020

People can say he kids, but I really have my doubts. He got help from Russia (because no, that was never a "hoax") and has never treated it as a joke--he's deadly serious about denying it. If he had tried to brush it off, instead of tweeting "WITCH HUNT!!" all the time, he'd probably seem less like a very guilty little thing. And of course there's the impeachment (trying to get help from Ukraine), and the wink and nod at the camps for Uyghurs in China for the benefit of just a little face-saving trade. (He tried to get Hunter Biden dirt from them. too.) He thinks cheating is completely fine.

I mean, he's alleged to have cheated on the SATs. He basically cheated his way out of the draft. He cheats at golf. He cheats at business (and still loses money!). He has cheated on wives, his charity was a cheat that ripped off vets and kids with cancer, the Trump University scam was a miserable case of cheating and taking advantage of broke people during an economic crisis. His campaign doesn't pay it's bills to municipalities for police security, but it sure is prompt with payments for use of Trump properties--you betcha!

And how does he cover it up? Right. Accusing everyone else of what he's doing. Oh, woe is he! Leaving aside whether or not Trump has the power to change the date of the election, he can fuck with the mail, and seems to be doing so (this should be a thing under congressional purview, yes?) And he can encourage violence amongst his followersm who he keeps pretty whipped up over the possibility that the election wil be "rigged". He may use his cronies to create the impression that a little chaos goes a long way to his favor. He can falsely create doubt that the results of the election will be valid.

He cheats because he does not have what it takes to win honestly. I have never wanted to see anyone lose anything so badly in my life as I want this damn cheat to be out of our White House.

That Was Certainly a....Campaign Event

Fact check: President Trump makes at least 19 false or misleading claims in wild anti-Biden monologue https://t.co/eDlcZCOs6Q pic.twitter.com/lHTQMFtCln

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) July 15, 2020

I'm just not exactly sure who Trump was campaigning for. I mean, he did his level-best to identify his rival, former Vice-President Joe Biden, with any number of smears, but when he's babbling things about how zero-carbon emission buildings means no windows and seems to not exactly understand how infrastructure is funded as a part of the congressional budget process, brings up Hunter Biden (and reminds us all of how his own dumb ass got impeached) and says nakedly race-signaling things like desegregation of the suburbs will destroy them, it does seem to come off as an advert for the candidate who hasn't told twenty thousand lies and counting and who would know better than to use the Rose Garden at the people's house for an attempted campaign rally speech (perhaps to make up for the one that was called on account of very possible rain or maybe probable poor attendance?).

I understand Trump needs to vent a little. He has a tough job that he doesn't seem to do very well, but shamefully, needs to be seen doing well at. Today, I read Mary Trump's book which in some ways explains the psychodrama of Trump's upbringing and just how it is that he came to congratulate himself for even his failures and blame other people for the damage done. Trump wants out from under the responsibility for the poor COVID-19 government response while still being the chief executive of this country, and so warms to the batshit ravings of advisors like Pete Navarro, who has made assertions about the virus being "weaponized" by China that certainly haven't been supported by intelligence or science and has gone out of his way to smear Dr. Fauci.

Peter Navarro. This Peter Navarro? The guy with an imaginary friend, Ron Vara. A goober within his own discipline who has some nerve taking on someone very well-regarded in their own.

Did anyone try to tell Trump this would reflect badly on him? No. Actually, one of the White House's favorite CNN reporters (not!), Jim Acosta, summed up the situation at the White House pretty succinctly:

CNN’s Jim Acosta: Trump White House "down to Kool-Aid drinkers and next of kin" https://t.co/OhHRldMg75

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) July 15, 2020

Trump is surrounded by the worst kind of people--weaklings who can't say shit because their mouths are already too full of it. The only good thing I can find in this kind of shitshow is that hopefully this connivance towards Trump's worst instincts proves his undoing. But oh, the fucking wreckage we have to wade through before this is all going to be over.

UPDATE:

The Peter Navarro op-ed didn’t go through normal White House clearance processes and is the opinion of Peter alone. @realDonaldTrump values the expertise of the medical professionals advising his Administration.

— Alyssa Farah (@Alyssafarah) July 15, 2020

Looong admiring whistle. Yeah, but that op-ed is sure out there in the public view now, isn't it?

Putin's Pup

When a story like this breaks:

WASHINGTON — American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan — including targeting American troops — amid the peace talks to end the long-running war there, according to officials briefed on the matter.

The United States concluded months ago that the Russian unit, which has been linked to assassination attempts and other covert operations in Europe intended to destabilize the West or take revenge on turncoats, had covertly offered rewards for successful attacks last year.

Islamist militants, or armed criminal elements closely associated with them, are believed to have collected some bounty money, the officials said. Twenty Americans were killed in combat in Afghanistan in 2019, but it was not clear which killings were under suspicion.

what else is there to conclude but that, having known about it since March, and having in the meanwhile spoken, presumably quite amiably, with President Putin, having suggested Putin be invited to the G7 summit, other than, among the options considered for dealing with this piece of intelligence, Trump most strongly considered "hoping it never came out" and doing--nothing? After all, wouldn't being pressured to confront Putin during an election year be ever so inconvenient, what with all Trump and Putin have meant to one another?

Just recently, in an interview with CBN, Trump accused former president Obama with treason, without elaborating on what he meant by that. (Although I tend to think it focusses on his wild notion that Obama had Comey "tapp" his phones before the election.) If one were to suggest Trump committed treason, I assure you some people would have to ask "Which time?" Collusion during the election with foreign efforts to destabilize election security (about which more information has recently come to light)? His open support for Putin's denial of that effort in Helsinki, the denial of an act which could be considered an act of cyber warfare, over the honest assessment of the US intelligence community? His interference with aid to Ukraine in a way which would both aid Russia and influence the 2020 election? Or this most recent passive position, this time in the face of Russian efforts to harm our military in an actual war?

Trump's Failed "Mission Accomplished"

The giant banners one either side of Trump's podium proclaiming that "America Leads the World in Testing" were there to bolster the White House message: "We have met the moment. We have prevailed."  In other words, "We're declaring victory even while the invisible enemy has infiltrated the White House and started taking our dudez." 

The banners themselves proclaim more or less the only good thing the administration has got going--the testing. But about that; there is higher per capita testing elsewhere and the levels of testing we have aren't up to what would be needed for a successful reopen. Since it's what Trump has got, it's what's going on the banner, even if Trump still wants to congratulate himself for closing travel from CHYYYYNA, the results of which have been overstated and revised upwards generously. 

They had the damn banners, though, so what was the takeaway from Trump's Rose Garden display? 

Well, Trump has a Plan B if declaring victory over COVID-19 doesn't work (and it won't, because cases are spreading in the heartland even while Trump urges "liberation" and because viruses, like facts, don't care about Trump's feelings) which is OBAMAGATE. Which is? Trump doesn't himself seem to know, but it's genuinely terrible and you can look it up, he says. He feels very genuinely aggrieved that the FBI et als looked into Russian assistance to his 2016 campaign and then completely sandbagged him by very cleverly not actually releasing any information about it before Election Day. 

Look, it's a tactic, not a strategy, so of course it doesn't make sense. Also, Trump doesn't do strategy, or he'd have come up with one for COVID-19 before declaring victory.

Also, the victory talk was dampened by Trump's problem answering simple questions from good reporters. 

"Don't ask me, ask China that question, okay?"

Trump abruptly ended today's press briefing after an exchange with Weija Jiang, a reporter for CBS News who was born in China, asked why he views testing as a "global competition" pic.twitter.com/X1bZXkELLZ

— Bloomberg QuickTake (@QuickTake) May 12, 2020

First--it's a global competition because the White House has to find a silver lining somewhere, and considering the cases and deaths, that's a tough one--but Trump can't admit to that. But as for "ask China that question, okay?" It's pretty clear he needs to escape responsibility at all--to him, China is at fault because the disease started there, even if there is no proof that it was either designed or released in a lab accident, or that the US didn't have significant intelligence to start making preparations to do something right away. Blaming China is his response to claims he could have done more. Taking out the utter weakness of that response on an Asian American reporter is....proof of the extremely bad optics of that choice.

He was supposed to be projecting competence, but it ended with conspiracy theories and racism and annoyance at female reporters. And I'm not at all surprised. He is, despite all the best efforts of all the worst people, what he is.

And it isn't much.