The Screaming Moderate - Blog

Who can break the news to Trump? No one needs to

11/23/2020

Since Election Day, since the world’s population minus one, has known the result of the presidential election, reporters and pundits keep writing, “Who has the standing to tell President Trump that it’s time to concede?”

I’m going to assume they were serious when they wrote those articles and columns but, as we’ve gotten to know, the real Donald Trump is what we’ve seen.

Meaning, if his favorite president, Andrew Jackson, came back to life leading a delegation of Abraham Lincoln, Marlin Luther King and John F. Kennedy, he would not listen to them.

So, quit kidding about “if only Sen. Mitch McConnell” would go to the White House and deliver the news,” and stop arguing about who is today’s Barry Goldwater who can march down and deliver the news. There is no one Donald J. Trump would listen to save, maybe, for his father coming to him.

Nobody.

And, by the way, President Trump knows it’s over. He’s not stupid. And he certainly doesn’t believe that millions of votes were changed by voting machines or illegal mail-in ballots came in that gave the election to Joe Biden. Please, he may be far from the best president we’ve ever had but he is not a stupid man. He just does stupid things.

I don’t know why he’s following this “strategy” of challenging everything rather than conceding. Maybe he's: 1) demonstrating to his base that he will fight for them against all odds; 2) maintaining the persona he’s used for five years so he can run again four years from now; or, 3), just doing what Donald Trump has always done when backed into a corner – sue, sue sue.

Who knows?

You have to hand it to President-elect Biden though. He didn’t take Trump’s bait during the campaign and he’s not taking it now. He is just moving on putting together an administration. Whenever the General Services Administration head Emily Murphy “ascertains” the vote, whether Donald Trump ever concedes, the certain thing is that Biden will be sworn in on January 20.

Will Trump attend the inauguration? Highly unlikely. Will he counter program it with a rally of his own? Who knows?

But we do know that on January 20 at 12:05 p.m. the country’s problems and challenges will fall to Joe Biden to solve. Lock, stock and coronavirus.

The Clown Car is unloading everything

11/20/2020

The clown car is emptying to give one last theater of the absurd performance.

Lawyers for the President of the Red States of America held, well, I’m not sure what they held yesterday. They said it was a press conference but it played more as a not-the-situation comedy.

Putting aside Rudy Giuliani’s hair dye cascading down his face, because that’s just too easy a laugh line to use (oh, sorry), the big claim by Attorney Sidney Powell was so convoluted, it is difficult to reproduce here. Let’s just say it involved a voting machine manufacturer, George Soros and Joe Biden (among others) and millions of election workers across the country conspiring to defeat President Donald Trump.

Even Tucker Carlson didn’t believe it.

That’s because Powell produced no evidence. Giuliani said, “Give us an opportunity to prove it in court and we will!”

He neglected to say Trump’s lawyers have been in many courts since the election and failed every time, and, by the way, produced no evidence of fraud. Remember, if a lawyer produces “evidence” that he knows is false before a judge he or she can lose their licenses to practice. That’s why Rudy, the lead keystone cop in this endeavor, makes all kinds of claims in alleged press conferences but has nothing to produce in court.

Giuliani also said, “I can prove to you that (Trump) won Pennsylvania by 300,000 votes. I can prove to you he won Michigan by probably 50,000 votes. When I went to bed on Election Night, he was ahead in all those states.” I guess his earlyl-to-bed schedule is evidence of Trump winning.

Of course, that’s before the mail-in votes were counted because of rules set by the GOP-controlled legislatures in those states. And, remember that Trump spent months imploring his supporters to avoid mail-in ballots and go to the polls on Election Day.

And, don’t forget that in Arizona on election night, Biden had a lead of more than 130,000 votes with 750,000 paper ballots to be counted. There, though, the remaining votes leaned Republican so by the time all votes were counted, Biden’s lead had fallen to just 10,000.

I haven’t heard Trump’s lawyers asking to throw out the mail ballots in Arizona.

Among the dumbest, though so far they are all dumb, allegations being made is, according to Giuliani, “Joe Biden told us a few days before the election that he had the best voter fraud team in the world.”

Of course that isn’t true. The former mayor of America referred to a manipulated video that started with a tweet from a Republican National Committee official, spread by First Son Eric Trump, White House Press Secretary/Advisor to the Trump Campaign Kayleigh McEnany and others. What Biden actually said was his campaign had a strong effort to fight against voter intimidation, not an organization to commit voter fraud.

But, what- the-hey, facts do not matter in this post-election effort by Trump to steal the 2020 election.

Oh, and then there’s Rudy’s, “They made significant mistakes, like all crooks do. And we caught them. One of them was pushing out Republican inspectors.”

Judges in Pennsylvania and Michigan rejected this claim and Trump’s own lawyers said in court that his campaign was granted access and observed the process. They also admitted, it may have been Rudy himself (I forget), that they were not alleging fraud in the court case in Pennsylvania.

Today, like the mob boss he wants to be, the President has summoned to the White House (to use all the intimidation he can) Michigan Republican elected officials, to try to strong arm them into ensure the Michigan results – those would be voters’ votes – are not certified as he tries to get the election results put in the hands of politicians to upend. Trump’s press secretary responded when asked about this meeting that the President meets with state legislators all the time.

Trump’s press secretary, who also is a formal advisor to the campaign in an apparent effort to do an end-around the Hatch Act, was asked government questions when she was on campaign business and referred those to the White House. Just now, in her first press briefing since Oct. 1, she referred a campaign question to the campaign. Ping. Pong.

She also: said no instructions have been given to political appointees not to have conversations with the Biden transition team and took an obviously pre-planned question from an OAN (Very Trump Friendly) “reporter” to end her press conference on another one of her partisan rants so she can make points, walk off, and face no question on her diatribe.

People are dying and the Trump White House is still saying they “saved lives because they originally were told two million people would die” from the virus. McEnany said..

This entire cartoon show is ludicrous.

Ladies and gentlemen, Trump is not a mob boss. He is a public servant elected by the voters four years ago, and un-elected this month.

Our democracy is not one to be put in the hands of partisans to resolve, other than partisan voters who have that power in this country. And those voters have spoken.

If Trump lost, why am I sad?

11/10/2020

The election results are sadder than I thought they’d be but not for the reason I thought they’d be. And it’s not totally President Trump’s fault. Not entirely anyway.

Trump’s true supporters are nothing but loyal. Yesterday I posted on my Facebook page an article reporting that a sex offender attended Rudy Giuliani’s, the President’s personal attorney, press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia.

I posted no comment, just the article. At least two folks posted comments claiming it was fake news, pointing out that was Hunter Biden next to the President-elect at his acceptance speech, the “ever chaste” Vice President-elect Kamala Harris at the microphone and “Joe the guy who can’t think or speak straight.”

Where to begin? Not that I thought the election would end the vileness that our political process has become. But I had hoped things might begin to get more civil. Just a little bit.

But this apparently is the state of our nation for the foreseeable future.

It can be calmed a bit, I hope, in time. President-elect Biden is trying to do his part, so far. And, so far the right-wing media isn’t buying it. The leading conservative site Town Hall ran this headline today, “Biden is Hitler and needs to be impeached.” I guess maybe that’s a supportive headline for Biden because to be impeached in this context, you must be President.

But I digress, maybe.

The Trump Administration may be within the law by refusing to recognize Biden as the winner of the election because results aren't yet certified but that also opens the country up to major national security risks. What better time for terrorists to attack again? I guess the only better time would be if the Secretary of Defense also was fired. What? Oh.

By refusing to agree to a transition, the Administration seriously slows down and blocks a “peaceful transition” by not allowing Biden transition team members access to briefings about the agencies Biden’s people are going to be running in January. It also keeps Biden from seeing the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) that goes to the President, even if the current President refuses, reportedly, to read it. That close-hold document informs those authorized to read it the hot spots in the world.

Back when President Nixon couldn’t read the writing on the wall that he had to resign as President, Republican leaders from the Congress visited him and delivered the news it was time.

We are seeing stories now in major publications that basically ask, “Who will tell Trump it’s over.” Well, first, he knows because he is a major consumer of cable news and, despite claiming he doesn’t read the “Amazon-owned Washington Post” or the ”failing New York Times,” that he is their biggest consumer. So he knows it’s “time.”

What the stories are saying, I guess, is who will tell him that it truly is time and your support in the Congress is dissipating. Instead, GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, who knows better, is backing up the President’s false claims. Loyalty to a man cannot go farther than loyalty to country.

How do I know there is no proof to Trump claims that voting was fraudulent? Because no proof has been presented by Trump’s people. None. You can’t just wish it was there any more than you can wish away the coronavirus pandemic. What? Oh.

Also if the Democrats are so smart that they can fix a national election, why aren’t they smart enough to steal themselves a bigger majority in the House of Representatives or a majority in the Senate?

I can’t let the “chaste Kamala Harris” comment go either. American Spectator ran an article this summer headlined “Why It Should Matter To Women that Kamala Harris Slept Her Way to the Top.” I mean, really? In 2020?

And, of course, whatever the right-wing media publishes becomes a talking point for Trump supporters, true or not.

Uniting the country doesn’t mean everyone has to agree with what a president wants to do, it means accepting that democracy, so far, still works and we respect the results of an election, just as we have for centuries.

So, while I’d hoped I’d be happy if Trump lost, I’m quite sad that our country doesn’t seem to want to be healed.

Things that make me go hmmmm

11/9/2020

When CNN announced that Joe Biden was the projected winner of the presidential race Saturday something changed in the universe. Some people said they exhaled. Some said the sun got brighter. Me? I felt lighter, relieved. All of a sudden certain things didn’t matter as much as they did 10 minutes before.

For example, I didn’t go rushing to check Twitter to see what President Trump said. I really didn’t care. Other thoughts went through my head:

Nero fiddled. Trump was playing golf when resolution of his re-election attempt was announced.

Of course you knew that when Trump’s campaign announced it would fight for every last legal vote and against illegal votes, you also knew the emails asking for money for his defense fund were right behind. (By the way, half the money from the legal defense fund can be moved to the retire-the-campaign debt fund. That would be the fund that Trump said he’d likely lend money to when it ran low. There was about enough chance of that as there was for Mexico paying for the wall.)

Rudy Giuliani, in doing his due diligence for lawsuits claiming the election was stolen, tweeted out, “Tweet me your guess, while I go prove it in court.“ This is the President’s personal lawyer alleging election fraud against the President-elect and he is asking folks to “tweet me your guess.” And he’ll take that to court. Which is apparently what he did because so far every judge has thrown out his suits for lack of any evidence. Thus, America's Mayor, facts aren't evidence.

Which may explain holding the press conference about the “fraud” being held at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, a truly great landmark for the history books on this one. Such serious events require a serious location. Appomattox, Gettysburg, Four Seasons Total Landscaping.

The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York is free=er to pursue any investigations it may be working on. Uh, whatever those may be.

I will not miss Rudy Giuliani, but I will miss Kate McKinnon playing him.

While I always thought the only candidate Donald Trump could beat was Hillary Clinton, the only candidate who could beat Donald Trump was probably Joe Biden.

President-elect Biden’s speech Saturday night was about us, not him.

I won’t miss Donald Trump Jr. either. Saturday night he tweeted, “70 million pissed off Republicans and not one city burned to the ground.” You can read that a couple of ways.

Kamala Harris, a black woman who is Indian American and the daughter of immigrants, is the vice president-elect.

Donald Trump is leaving the White House but he isn’t going to go away. The first part of that sentence is good enough for me.

Each presidential candidate received more than 70 million votes, an astonishing number especially in the middle of a pandemic. It’s a demonstration that democracy works and we should look for ways to make it easier, not harder for people to vote in the future.

Within the first 24 hours of news organizations projecting a winner in the presidential race, the President of the United States had played golf twice and has yet to speak a word publicly. Joe Biden gave a national speech in his first official effort to unite the country and visited the grave of his son.

Trump’s supporters, who would have grabbed the win if any news organization called the election for Trump argued news organizations don’t pick presidents. But I do recall them accepting the news organizations calls four years ago.

I worry about the next two months if Trump continues behaving as Trump behaves.

I do feel much lighter, though!

It's all over but the whining

11/6/2020

President Trump’s performance from the White House briefing room last night was … well, I’m not sure I have the appropriate word for it. Atrocious. Mind-bending. Crazed. Crazy. Beyond the pale. Out of control.

I’d like to say I’ve come to expect it of him but this time – I literally couldn’t go to sleep after watching him. He sullied this country's standing as a model of democracy. He not only stepped on the Constitution, he stomped it into oblivion. The same Constitution he took an oath to defend and protect. One more lie from Donald J. Trump.

I know, I know. But the judges. As our next President likes to sway, “C’mon, man.” No policy agreement overtakes respect and following the Constitution. And to my friends who disagree, I have nothing more I can say to convince you. I'm not even going to try anymore.

When I joined the Republican Party way back when, it stood for honoring the Constitution, lower deficits, lower taxes, free and fair trade, honesty. None of those values exist in this president. He does whatever suits him. He has no such set of values or beliefs. None other than whatever benefits him is good.

I know, I know, but the regulations! C’mon, man! He doesn’t care about those either. He cut them with no regard for the protections some did provide. None. If this was a movie, I’d figure he was on the take to do things because, well, he has no soul. None. He only asks “what’s in it for me.”

Remember “suckers” and “losers” and why did they die on the battlefield?

Going to the White House briefing room to whine, lie and lie some more. I mean, really? Can’t you even leave office with dignity?

At some point in the next 24 hours, I expect Joe Biden will be called as the winner of the election by the various entities that do such calling.

I’ve had friends from my active GOP days ask me why I’m “such a turncoat,” how I could be so disloyal to the party. Well, my friends, I thought of that four years ago which is why, the day after Trump won enough primary votes to secure the nomination that I left the party. I’ve been a hypocrite before in my life, but I couldn’t be that much of a hypocrite.

In May 2016, the day after he won the primary that gave him the votes to be the GOP nominee I left the party. I wrote here at that time, “I cannot be a member of a party whose presumed nominee is ignorant of the Constitution … He will not all of a sudden become presidential – it’s not in the head of a narcissist to change who he is.”

Today, I am, in Massachusetts registration parlance, “unaffiliated.”

I decided then that I wouldn’t be a hypocrite over him. I also decided that staying in the party to fight for what I thought was right wasn’t the answer either. That party is gone.

I’m not proud that I was proven correct. I wish he was different. But he’s not. He’s who he is. A man who takes an oath and then marches all over that oath, because oaths mean nothing to him. The GOP means nothing to him. It was an act of convenience that he joined it to run for President, never expecting to win. But he did.

And that didn’t change him either other than, I think, after a few months in the job, realizing that he didn’t have to change his ways at all and that he wasn’t overwhelmed by the office. He wasn’t overwhelmed because, to this day, he doesn’t understand what the job really is. He has no idea the responsibility he holds to protect the American people and the Constitution. Neither means anything to him.

He listened to his gut in the private sector, leading to bankruptcy after bankruptcy, and he listens to his gut as President, leading to, well, leading to what we have today.

He has claimed voter fraud with no proof. How can he even think there’s fraud when there’s no evidence? Because Donald Trump projects on others what he believes of himself. He knows that if he could cheat to win, he would. He’s trying right now, in fact.

He’s also in for a rude awakening, if he knows what that is. He is relying not only on the courts but “his” Supreme Court to call the election for him. But you need proof for that to happen, even his three appointees need proof. And there is none. They won’t save him. They can’t and be true to their oaths of office. And if they do, this country is gone.

He will complain after that, if it happens, that his court appointees double-crossed him just as Jeff Sessions did as “his” attorney general.

He points fingers at the media for being “fake news” and then points to the media for evidence of his voter fraud claims. He tweeted, “plenty of proof. Just check out the Media. WE WILL WIN! AMERICA FIRST!”

Maybe the right wing media he reads on line has “proof’ but no legitimate media outlet has any. How do I know? Because if they did it would be a fabulous story and they’d run it, despite Trump’s sometime belief that the media are against him. The mainstream media just love a good story – one they can prove.

Two pieces of “good news” from the election. One, even former GOP Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania could be seen deflating on air after the President’s press room performance. He couldn’t and wouldn’t defend it. He did predict GOP elected officials would raise the same complaints. So far, not so much.

Second, the American people voted. It’s what they do in a democracy. They said time to remove Trump but they also said keep the Senate a Republican majority and the House a Democratic majority.

And let’s try that.

Ding, dong the warlock is (almost) dead

11/2/2020

While the huge crowds President Trump continues to draw say his supporters are enthusiastic and will turn out to vote, he has done nothing during his four years to expand his base. It’s hard for me to believe he can win with just his base, no matter how they turn out.

So, I believe former Vice President Joe Biden will win this election and it won’t be close. We likely won’t know that result for a while, not because the exit polls will be wrong but because this year not only will there be patience in waiting for states to count their votes but because Trump will never concede. Never.

In fact, he will sue. He’s already said he’ll go to court, before any vote is counted. That’s what he does when he doesn’t get his way. He will sue to try to have votes tossed out or to claim political bias by “Democratic governors” or whatever other reasons he can come up with.

If we haven’t learned by now, failure is never his fault.

At some point in the time between Election Day and Inauguration Day, when Trump isn’t focused on mucking up the federal government more than he has, he may even resign. Why? So that when Vice President Pence takes over, Pence can pardon Trump from any federal crimes he may have committed. Also, I cannot picture Donald Trump sitting and smiling while Biden takes the oath of office. If Trump isn’t the focus of attention, then how can he attend someone else’s inauguration?

You can read the pundits, experts and academicians on the why and how Trump wins – I’m not that expert at the specifics. But I don’t think there’s another surprise for Trump, who never expected to be elected the first time. He didn’t realize he was up against the only candidate he could have beaten then, though.

Also, Trump will scream and cry that certain votes shouldn’t be counted because we must know the results tomorrow. But the fact is that no election is officially decided on Election Day.

Trump, who gets any and all of his information from watching TV, may think that the election is decided Election Day because in the past networks also projected each state’s outcome almost immediately after the polls close. Mr. President, that is not how it’s done. Each of the 50 states counts its own votes. It will take longer this year in many states because of the overwhelming number of mail-in ballots.

During that time Trump may think he can sue everybody but it’s hard to sue a state before that state even counts its vote. Indeed, Mr. President, there are rules and laws as to how elections are conducted. Those laws, by the Constitution, are set by the states.

And those rules are, day to day, overseen by local Democratic and Republican election officers. Folks who are very good at their jobs.

The fact that we head into Election Day and Georgia is in play as is Arizona has to say something about how this election is breaking. While those and other states were expected to, thanks to changing demographics, at some point go Democrat, Trump has sped up that process.

In any event, there’s no reason not to believe that the aftermath of this election will be every bit as ugly and chaotic as have been the last four years.

It’s also likely that Democrats will pick up at least 7 to 12 seats in the House and will take over the Senate.

If I’m right, it means the Republican Party has a lot of thinking to do when this is over. Republicans have bowed at the feet of Trump, given up their decades-long values and principles and, after this election, will be trying to figure out how to come back.

And that will be with Trump sniping from the outside because he’s not about to give up the cult of followers he has created for himself. These are not Republicans, they are Trumpists. The GOP will need to find itself again if it is to survive. Whether it can break away from Trump will tell the story though.

In the meantime, I imagine millions of Americans will be toasting the new President-elect, celebrating that the warlock is dead and looking forward to a government that will control the pandemic and bring back calm.

The return of the Yos! and Oys!

10/26/2020

The Yos! Oys! have been absent from this space a while. They’rrrrre back!

A big Yo! to President Trump who must be a very happy camper lately because at his rallies he’s letting his hair down, so to speak, and started dancing! It’s a sight to behold, and then to try to wipe from your memory as he’s not exactly Fred Astaire.

An equally big Oy! to President Trump for his song selection. I mean they are all great songs but some artists have requested his campaign cease and desist using their songs because they don’t support the President’s re-election. There go songs like Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down,” John Fogerty’s “Fortunate Son:” and Neal Young’s “Rockin’ the Free World.” But lately the campaign has been playing the President off stage and into his dance mode with “YMCA,” by the Village People. I’m guessing the President doesn’t know what the song is about nor do his supporters or they might try to find another tune.

An Oy! for almost turning “60 Minutes into “50 Minutes. Last week “60 Minutes” interviewed President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden for its quadrennial show featuring both candidates close to the election. Trump apparently didn’t like the questions Leslie Stahl was asking so he stormed out of the interview before it ended and skipped the normal joint walk-and-talk his Vice President Mike Pence. The Oy! though is for what the President did after he walked off. He sent his press secretary back into the room to hand Stahl with a thick notebook that the press secretary said the President wanted her to have beause it contained his long-promised-in-two-weeks health care plan! But, it didn’t. It contained a few executive orders and some Congressional actions on health care. Did he think they wouldn’t open the book?

A Yo! to the Mainstream Media doing their job and not publishing stories based on Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon passing a hard drive off as Hunter Biden’s. The right win media and the President for months have been trying to make a big issue out of allegations that the Vice Preisident’s son took “millions of dollars from China” and they presented the alleged Hunter hard drive as proof. The only place that’s published the story is Rupert Murdock’s New York Post. Interestingly the “story” was first offered to the Murdock owned Wall Street Journal but the Journal passed when they found they couldn’t verify the story. The Posts”s standards are lesser than the Journal’s.

Another Yo! to the mainstream media for doing a terrific job covering the Trump Administration. The Washington Post and The New York Times especially have done some of their best work during this Administration. And reporters from all outlets that cover Trump have done excellent work while being pointed at during Trump rallies, singled out during Trump press availabilities and other places, called Fake News by the President of the United States and for the mostly women and Black women who Trump has called dumb or worse.

A Yo! to Kristen Welker for maintain control over the final debate between Trump and Biden. Admittedly, her job was a tad easier than Chris Wallace’s at the first debate because Trump adopted a different approach that didn’t involve him yelling and interrupting Biden’s answers. The introduction of a “mute button” for the first two minutes of the candidates’ answers helped also. Welker though did maintain control and asked the question about Black parents giving The Talk to their children on what to do if they are stopped by police.

A mish mash of mush

10/21/2020

Hippocratic/hypocrite oath. Dr. Anthony Fauci takes his Hippocratic Oath seriously. Most folks in his position, working his experienced backside off and enduring hateful, demeaning attacks from the President of the United States would resign. He’s too committed to do that and, if you listen to him closely, he gets his anger out in a very adult and diplomatic manner. On the other hand, President Trump apparently took a hypocritical oath when he swore to protect and defend the American people, and he has abdicated that oath in furtherance of his re-election campaign. Dr. Fauci, who has served Democratic and Republican presidents for decades, is a gem. He is known the world over as The Expert on infectious diseases. He breaks down complicated medical info into something we all can understand. With one exception.

Profiteering from the Presidency. One thing Trump and his family are good at, though another abdication of his oath of office and traditional ethics, is his making a personal monetary profit from serving as president. The Washington Post, New York Times and other outlets have been trying to nail down financial information on the President since he won’t release his taxes as has every recent President. The Post filed a Freedom of Information request for the facts on how much the Trump Organization has been paid by the federal government. The State Department, which was to respond by a date certain, didn’t. They did release two unhelpful pages of data and said they’d get back to the newspaper…after the election. Of course. The taxpayers deserve and are owed that information…before the election. Every time Trump visits one of his facilities, which is quite often, the staff, Secret Service and others stay there too. And get charged for it. Trump’s sons say it’s at cost, but it isn’t. That’s what’s called profiteering. For those Trump supporters who believe he’d never profit from his position (which is illegal), demand the numbers be released and let the numbers prove that. To quote the President, “what have you got to lose?”

Chinese Chess. Another trick of the President is to go after Joe Biden’s son Hunter on the money he allegedly profited from in China when his father was vice president. Among the claims is that Hunter was paid $1.5 billion (with a B). No facts have been presented to that (uh, really a Billion dollars?) though what has been presented over the years drove Biden to say his son made a mistake in judgement though did nothing illegal. The President’s people claim among other transgressions, Hunter has bank accounts in China. Lo and behold, so does the President. The tax information obtained (legally) by the Times shows Trump International Hotels Management LLC, paid $188,561 in taxes in China while pursing licensing deals there from 2013-15 and maintained a bank account there. Which is a tad more taxes than the $750 Trump was paying the United States. The President never divested himself of his relationships or earnings from the many entities he created. He owns their success, failure and records.

New Names to be Enemies. In a political campaign, you try to name the enemy so you can focus the public. Trump's efforts at making that enemy Joe Biden have not worked so well, outside of Trump's loyal base. So, this week, the President is making Fauci an enemy, making the good doctor the name (brand) for many of the restrictions in society as we battle the coronavirus. Now there’s a name to go after. Oh, and to continue his demonizing the “elites” his base so hates, he’s adding Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes and Kristen Welker of NBC, the moderator for tomorrow night’s debate. Trump is setting up to blame Welker for what he’ll call an unfair debate. He skips working the refs and goes right for the kill. And he threatens to post the Stahl interview he did yesterday to the White House platform so he can get ahead of what he thinks will be a bad story Sunday. He knew what questions would be asked, and was asked them. He didn't like the question. Thus, Stahl is the enemy. Lovely.

Remember those immigrant children taken from their parents by the Trump Administration? Lawyers appointed by a federal judge to identify migrant families who were separated by the Trump Administration, according to NBC, say they have yet to track down the parents of 545 children. About two-thirds of those parents were deported to Central America, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Children have been permanently taken away from their parents by this Administration. Digest that and explain to me how that's "right?"

Polling. Was 2016 an aberration? Every professional, from pollster to reporters to pundits, are hedging their bets this year on the presidential election. Wise, yes. But because Trump’s victory in 2016 was such a shock, no one wants to make the same mistake twice. Fact is, the polls weren’t really wrong in 2016. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by about 3 million votes, which was basically what the polls predicted, but lost in the Electoral College, which is the ball game. Unless there’s an even bigger shock this year, Biden is heading for a landslide victory and a Democratic takeover of the Senate. Uh, so it looks.

Trump's closing argument. Really.

10/7/2020

President Trump is either a 74-year-old man who has reacted to the coronavirus in a way no other of his vintage has, is very sick but very good at putting on a happy face, or pulling off the best gas lighting of his career.

Who knows?

Oh, right, his doctors do. And his docs are either reporting limited but accurate information on his illness, telling us only what their patient wants told or, as befitting their military rank, following the commander-in-chief’s orders.

Who knows?

Oh, right, his doctors do. And so does he.

Anyway, we do not. And that is not only unfair to the American people but the ultimate lie that Trump has told, which is a mouthful.

If Trump had let the disease run its course, and then said as his advisors reportedly wanted, that he now fully understands the effects of this horrible virus he might have actually turned around his failing campaign. Humility and truth.

But, no -- all in one sentence he could have accepted what health experts have been telling him for months (and fully accepted what he told Bob Woodward months ago) and admitted a mistake about the biggest threat our countrymen face right now. And, he would have saved lives.

I play golf with a few guys, all retired, a couple veterans, and I said to them the other day, “Trump really makes it difficult for us to root for him, doesn’t he?” Two immediately responded, in effect, “No, he doesn’t. I’m not rooting for him.” Another Facebook friend said “no” when I suggested she be nice when talking about this deadly disease and Trump.

These are not callous people. These are good people and loyal Americans.

It was just a week ago that the New York Times reported that Trump hasn’t paid taxes or paid an amount less than most middle-class Americans in years. It was just over a week ago, we think, that he was diagnosed positive with Covid-19. It was just a few days ago he helicoptered to Walter Reed to be cared for, given the most cutting edge (and not yet formally approved) drugs in existence; just a couple of days since he skipped the quarantine he was under to joy ride to wave to supporters, and just a couple of days ago he, apparently, ordered his doctors to release him from the hospital.

It was just two nights ago he stood, like Evita or Mussolini, on a White House balcony and, breathing heavily, dramatically ripped off his mask in defiance of medical advice and saluted, uh, Marine One apparently. That was akin to signing blank documents for the cameras while at Walter Reed to show he was sick but taking care of business.

Now it appears his closing argument in his re-election campaign is, “The coronavirus isn’t so tough. I beat it. You will too. Don’t let it dominate you. I didn’t.”

Whether he wins or loses his battle with Joe Biden, this clearly is the nuttiest closing argument in history. As if a human being can, by will, fight off a deadly, infectious SARS virus as if it’s easier than beating back the common cold.

"Stand with me. Don’t wear masks. Get close to others. You too can beat this.”

Quite a message. Such leadership.

The Joint Chiefs are under quarantine after being exposed to the virus. More than a dozen White House staffers have tested positive for the virus since Trump did. (Taiwan, the self-ruled island home to 23 million people – has reported just eight cases of covid in the last week. The White House has more than a dozen in the same period.)

But fear not! If you get it, you can beat it. Just ask the families of the more than 200,000 who have died from it or the 7-plus million who have contracted it, many of whom will suffer lifelong damage from it even if they recovered.

Is it possible for a 74-year-old man who is obese and has other complicating conditions to beat the coronavirus? Of course. I have an 80-year-old friend who survived it even after being in the hospital for months and begin intubated much of that time. I call him, “The Beast,” not because he defeated it by sure will, but that he outlasted it, somehow thanks to excellent medical care, thank goodness. But Trump is saying he's beaten it even before he knows if he has. He is still infectious.

Still this is not the closing argument for a campaign to be re-elected President of the United States.

Is this the desperate last gasp (no pun intended) of a President trying to win an election? Are his actions a side effect of the not-fully tested drugs he is taking? Or a result of the steroid which is known for its side effects that could be the reason for his odd decisions such as calling off negotiations with Democrats for financial relief that is desperately needed by Americans? And just four weeks from an election? Is either option something you want in a President?

The vice presidential debate is tonight. It may be, because of the age of both presidential candidates, the most important veep debate in history. The two camps have battled over having appropriate health measures put in place to avoid covid spread. This is a battle? “I want us all to be safe,” says one camp. “You are safe,” says the other. It is a battle of machismo not a discussion about appropriate precautions to be taken.

Which kind of sums up the last nine months.

So many more questions as virus hits Trump

10/2/2020

The President contracting the coronavirus is, as you’ve seen watching the news, a big deal that raises many questions.

First, when I worked at the White House the most challenging briefings we did was when the President was ill or undergoing a procedure at the hospital. Why challenging? The media has a lot of questions, which means you need a lot of answers, and the credibility of the briefer is essential. This White House has an understandable problem with credibility. So it will be difficult to trust any information the press secretary or others give.

Second, how widespread now is the virus in the White House and beyond? Contact tracing on this will be next to impossible because many folks were potentially exposed to the President and his aide, Hope Hicks. The President famously and unapologetically seldom wore a mask. People in contact with the President rarely wore a mask because he didn’t like the image it sent to the country. He’s been downplaying the virus and no masks fit into that. This means, obviously, many were possibly exposed (the wearing of a mask, remember, protects you and others from spreading the virus).

Third, I wonder if Ms Hicks got the virus first or the President got it first. We likely will never know.

Fourth, spread in this case is potentially to his Cabinet members, his staff and others who have been in touch with him or people in touch with him or Hicks. That means leaders in the Congress, the people who attended his fund-raising events which were held in smaller rooms and he wore no mask and I’m guessing there was a lot of hand-shaking. The same goes for others who were in contact with him. Also, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who was among those preparing Trump for the debate, said no one in the small room those briefings were held wore a mask. There were, he said five or six people in the room and one can assume they were major players. One was Hicks.

Fifth, how does it affect the campaign? The election will be held Nov. 3, there is no changing that. Should former Vice President Joe BIden suspend his campaign while the President deals with the disease? No. I doubt the President would if the situation was reversed plus the American people are voting right now and others are still deciding who to support. The debates are a different question because obviously the President can’t attend if his condition continues.

There are many more questions, of course. Most importantly is the President and Mrs. Trump’s health – and, whatever I may think of his conduct in office, I hope he makes a full and swift recovery.

Next, is how we get accurate information on his condition. His record on reporting his health has been poor so far – from the letter he wrote and his doctor signed pre-taking office to that more recent trip to the hospital for which a reason was never given.

The people have a right to know the health of their President.