The Difference a Year Makes

McEnany on Feb. 25: "This President will always put America first ... We will not see diseases like the Coronavirus come here, we will not see terrorism come here, and isn't that refreshing when contrasting it with the awful Presidency of President Obama." https://t.co/daZ8kEP5IN

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 7, 2020

After half a million dead in the US of COVID-19 and a domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol inspired by Trump, it's pretty safe to say that McEnany's comments....aged very badly.

No Rehabs

WAIT. When asked about whether Joe Biden will receive access to intelligence briefings, Kayleigh McEnany says, “That would be a question more for the White House."

Kayleigh McEnany IS the WH Press Secretary, though she is appearing on FOX as a Trump 2020 adviser. pic.twitter.com/34gfs72fzE

— The Recount (@therecount) November 12, 2020

I know that people who have significantly elevated profiles never seem to really go away, and often end up on the cable news circuit offering hot refried takes and whatnot, but for the love of gravy, can we just not with these people? She may have two whole faces and a split tongue in each, but she is officially taking a taxpayer-funded paycheck for her WH job, and should not be doing the Trump campaign's dirty work at the same time.

(She also has damaged her credibility with a lot of lying, so, that's gonna be a problem for corporate PR work too. You hate to see it. Or not, depending.)

Memorializing "Virtual Nobodies"

We have now passed a terrible milestone in the US: the official count of 200,000 COVID-19 deaths, which I think can not be memorialized properly without also acknowledging that COVID-19 deaths are preventable. We have the information, and have had the information for some time, that the virus is airborne, which strongly indicates that people should wear masks and socially distance. The current president of the US maintains that everyone knew in February, when he was taped by Bob Woodward warning that the virus was airborne, that this was the case.

Even now, we're only quibbling about how far apart people should be to avoid the spread.

Trump admitted on tape in March that he was purposefully playing down news of the virus, and that he was aware that even children could be susceptible. White House spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany, perhaps unaware that everyone knows she's lying, and that anyway, she's supposed to be working for the White House, not the Trump campaign, says he never plays the virus down and even goes so far as to say he tells the truth. She uses a maximal hypothetical number of 2 million people*, an absurd figure that no one would have predicted for the US by September 2020, as being the number our current death toll should be compared to, instead of the actual death toll of other nations happening right now in the real, not hypothetical world in which we happen to live.

And why does she lie so outstandingly? Because she is hewing to Trump's own "moving goalposts" method of escaping blame. And she's trying to cover for the heinousness of something Trump said recently, like a teen store manager trying to pave over a corporate screw-up:

Trump Knew COVID-19 Was Bad and He Lied to Us

In new tapes, President Trump admits to Bob Woodward he concealed critical details he knew about the coronavirus. "I wanted to always play it down." https://t.co/eICaAx70mY pic.twitter.com/zXNOZtIBx7

— CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) September 9, 2020

And he's been patting himself on the back for the job he's done ever since. That rat bastard.

190,000 dead Americans. Because he wanted to manipulate the press.

UPDATE:

.@PressSec just now: "The president never downplayed the virus."

Trump to Woodward in March: "I wanted to always pay it down."

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 9, 2020

I disrespect Kayleigh McEnany somewhat (her tag on this blog is MAGANinny) but she's really in the position of a disaster PR person more than a press secretary. Of course he downplayed COVID-19 over and over again. He was doing it in big demonstrative ways in trying to reopen the economy and his thing about not liking it when people wear masks. He's pretty much doing right this minute. It's not so much that the press secretary is telling a lie, as that she is signing on to every lie Trump tells. And while I get that this position is a really high-profile one, I begin to have serious doubts about her integrity.

The Bland Man

A number of tonight's false claims at the RNC came from Vice President Mike Pence, CNN's @ddale8 says.

"Pence said again that Biden wants 'open borders' ... It's just wrong. Biden does not support completely unrestricted migration" https://t.co/TnNCUL7WnK pic.twitter.com/J4shr0iOzx

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) August 27, 2020

I'll never understand the folks who thought Donald Trump would replace Mike Pence with Nikki Haley (or anyone else) because, for one thing, Mike Pence looks at him like a dog looks at a man with bacon in his pocket, and for another, Pence is unsweetened porridge. He's dull. He will never, not ever, not on pain of death, not for love or money, upstage Trump. He's an unrepentant liar, but he does it without a single muscle in his shrunken apple-head face betraying him in the slightest. He puts the "bland" in blandishments.

He gently, ever so gently, acts as a figleaf to the normals that the Trump Priapus isn't going to poke their eyes out with any such horrors as the very real sexual harassment and rape allegations, such as the one that Trump right now is refusing to offer his DNA via cheek-swab to refute (because, would it? one might very well ask).

Does he mislead--yeah, of course. He offers a narrative of violence in Trump's America that ignores that a fallen police officer was killed by a right-wing Boogaloo Boi, not by the largely peaceful BLM protesters. He referred to violence in Kenosha, but did not mention that Kenosha Kyle is a MAGA. He lied about the Veteran's Choice act, signed by Barack Obama, even though Trump himself was called on this egregious lie just recently, but in the meanwhile, he had elderly vets in his audience with no masks or apparent social distancing, because, well, I guess their sacrifice for their country should extend even to this?

That's warped.

I've been comfortable telling everyone about what a monster Trump is, because, fuck, low-hanging fruit and all that. But Mike Pence is no less monstrous for being the Invisible Man to Trump's obvious Mr. Hyde.

So anyway, in a bullshit evening populated by bland people who told us stupid things like "Biden/Harris are radicals who would ban farm animals" and that Donald Trump really genuinely cares about human beings because he might have called one of his campaign staff after an operation (which refers to one person, useful to him, only, and not the actual broad swath of persons with pre-existing conditions), Mike Pence showed how he is the clutch person in the Trump Administration, because he excels at mendacity and boringness at once. One could have muted his speech and ignored closed captions, and come away with as much of an impression as having listened. He said a great deal of nothing, and a lot of it was untrue and potentially dangerously so.

He even fixed his mouth to say one of the dumbest things I think could even be made a campaign slogan, "We will make American Great Again, Again."  Like, for a sterling blink if you missed it bit, we were made great, but then the COVID-19, and all the deaths, the job losses, the failed businesses, the unemployment, the evictions and a wave of foreclosures and whatnot (which we are not actually, if one was any competent prognosticator, even barely done with) but forget all the things that happened on Trump's watch including the racial divisions and the carnage and thhhhhaaaaatttttt sort of thing.

I don't care how bland this mofo is, you don't get to recover a fumble, regain a few yards, and ask for infinite downs. The line would be more plausibly delivered by the late, great Leslie Nielsen. Who, I think, would play Pence better than Pence does. For laughs, because taking Pence seriously is a painful business.

The Puppies Weren't Canceled, Kayleigh.

So, for one thing, of course not. And the doggos are not all cops. They do different things. And that's how I know she isn't even a real fan of the show, and isn't excited that there will be a feature movie next year.

Then, why claim cancel culture has taken the scalps of cartoon dogs like some liberal Cruella de Vil come to life? Because cancel culture is the imaginary enforcement arm of political correctness and if the bogeyman doesn't do bad things, how will you know to be scared? She's telling fairytales to kiddies.

Of course, there are real things to be afraid of out there in the real world.  But let's not dwell on that if you can get mad over, really, anything else. Like the images of TRUMP's America that the White House wanted us to see.

This is a White House press briefing. pic.twitter.com/bbzQKEX6MD

— Alexander Nazaryan (@alexnazaryan) July 24, 2020

It Sure Does!

Question: How do you explain that President Trump is trailing his opponent by double digits... with majorities disapproving of his handling of race relations and the coronavirus
Kayleigh: ...His historic COVID response speaks for itself pic.twitter.com/yf00rwcovF

— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) July 16, 2020

I have never, for the life of me, seen anyone try so hard to polish something so positively limp.

TWGB: What a Day Trump is Having

Trump tells Hannity that he "very recently" "aced" a cognitive test: "I took it at Walter Reed, a medical center, in front of doctors, and they were very surprised" pic.twitter.com/CavfF4BdKB

— John Whitehouse (@existentialfish) July 10, 2020

Because Trump speaks in superlatives without any view as to how they might resonate, I just want to ponder for a minute over someone "acing" a cognitive test. He performed baseline mental activities well enough to be considered not impaired (it isn't an IQ test, or the SAT's). And the doctors (plural) were very surprised!

Doctor 1: Say, would you get a load of that: Trump is not actually mentally deficient.

Doctor 2: Well slap my ass and call me a timpani drum.

Doctor 3: I shouldn't have bet the under. Fuck.

Doctor 2: So we're....gonna let him still have the nuclear codes and just scoot on out of here?

Doctor 1: Sadly, yes. It isn't....(puts on sunglasses) brain surgery.

Forgive me, it's been a long day, but maybe not so long for me as for the president, who got a little bit of awkward news in that he doesn't have, contrary to his previous and probably current opinion, absolute immunity regarding subpoenas, in this case for his tax returns, as requested by NY DA Vance. (As for US Congress, they need to clean up their act and figure out why they really want it, but you know. They could probably get them.) Trump took this with his usual grace and equanimity, which is to say: no, he didn't have those things. But Kayleigh McEnany says he actually got a win today. And like, why not? She could have just done a five minute drum solo with a couple of pens and walked away doing finger guns. No one cares.

So, what else happened today--Esper kind of admitted he never got told about "bounties" but like, Russian payments to the Taliban? Yeah, he probably knew about those. (He's pretty concerned this got leaked though, although if it's as much as that it happened, I am super unsure. I know what I'd rather he be concerned about.) Also, he doesn't seem to have protected Lt. Col. Vindman from retaliatory treatment regarding his impeachment testimony at all. (He also says he doesn't know who gave the order to clear Lafayette Park, and you know what? Whatever. Esper knows just about what he should know and makes a job of not knowing what he shouldn't.) Lou Dobbs called Esper "incompetent" today over something quite else, so who knows where Trump will stand regarding that guy's future.

Judge Emmet Sullivan isn't done with Gen Flynn, last seen this holiday weekend pledging to Q, whatever that means. Somehow, the DOJ's determination to not, like, make a federal case out of the actual federal case that Flynn plead guilty to just seems kind of suspect, you know? As if the person running the DOJ was trying to make things comfortable for Trump's associates. So weird!

And while we're so obviously on the topic of Bill Barr (who should be impeached) we also got treated to former US Attorney Geoffrey Berman's take on Barr's really way-out approach to getting his ass fired. It really feels like Barr was using the bait of other job offers as a bribe to get Berman to step down because of possibly some investigation he was involved in (and as I've said, those investigations were considerable and revolved around TrumpWorld).

It's really like Trump doesn't have the best people, but the ones that are around him are covering him like a badly-fitting suit. It's a little like some threads are unraveling. It's a lot like he should be regularly getting a check-up from the neck up if he thinks people don't understand that his White House is corrupted by grift, incompetence and deception. Many of us certainly do.

The revolution against Trump might not be televised on Fox News as being from anyone but "The Left" (and it isn't only us lefties, not anymore), but it will be televised.

TrumpWorld must fall. Orbis Trumpi delenda est.

The Packet

Trump and Kayleigh McEnany are now trying to dismiss the pandemic response plan Obama left for Trump as a mere "paper packet" that paled in comparison to Trump's (nonexistent) plan pic.twitter.com/lsQ8UJUqK7

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 14, 2020

You can all see the problem with that--it was in book form. Trump clearly has always preferred information be given to him in the form of puppet show. (This Edward Luce piece is a must-read on the White House's difficulties in grasping and managing the current situation.)

UPDATE: As an example of the problem, I give you, Trump on testing:

“America has now conducted its 10 millionth test. That’s as of yesterday afternoon. Ten million tests we gave. Ten million,” Trump said from a stage at the warehouse event, which had the trappings of a campaign-style rally. “And CVS has just committed to establish up to 1,000 new coronavirus testing sites by the end of this month, and the 10 millionth will go up very, very rapidly.”

“And don’t forget, we have more cases than anybody in the world,” he added. “But why? Because we do more testing. When you test, you have a case. When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didn’t do any testing, we would have very few cases.”

(Italics mine.) In Trump's jumbled logic, it almost seems like he's implying a kind of causality regarding testing: the patients tested positive for COVID-19, ergo, they have COVID-19, as opposed to, they had COVID-19, and that's why they tested positive. Just imagine the people who didn't get tested, then, going to the hospital and dying of nothing! Of course, people can only test positive because they do have it. And, of course, some people have the virus in their system, and don't test positive, like Katie Miller, who tested negative until she tested positive for some reason. The Abbott COVID-19 test used at the White House is about 50% accurate.