The Commentariat -- September 7, 2020
Presidential Race, Etc.
Alexander Burns, et al., of the New York Times: "A presidential campaign long muffled by the coronavirus pandemic will burst into a newly intense and public phase after Labor Day, as Joseph R. Biden Jr. moves aggressively to defend his polling lead against a ferocious onslaught by President Trump aimed chiefly at white voters in the Midwest. Private polls conducted for both parties during and after their August conventions found the race largely stable but tightening slightly in some states, with Mr. Trump recovering some support from conservative-leaning rural voters who had drifted away over the summer amid the worsening pandemic. Yet Mr. Biden continues to enjoy advantages with nearly every other group, especially in populous areas where the virus remains at the forefront for voters, according to people briefed on the data."
Matt Viser & Annie Linskey of the Washington Post: "In an urban church near looted downtown buildings in Kenosha, Wis., Joe Biden told the diverse group in the pews that President Trump was the accelerant for the country's burning racial divide. An hour later, in a leafy Milwaukee suburb that is 90 percent White, Biden discussed the challenges of going back to school when districts are struggling to reopen -- a problem they wouldn't have, he said, if Trump hadn't bungled the coronavirus response. The next day, Biden said in a nationally televised speech that the nation's recovery would be racing ahead if not for one man, Trump, whose coronavirus response he said cratered the economy.... Biden has settled on a through line meant to appeal to everyone: Trump is the reason for all of America's most pressing ills, no matter which one matters most to a specific audience." Mrs. McC: That works for me. Because it's true.
Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post: "Vice-presidential nominee Kamala D. Harris said she believes Russian interference could cost the Democratic ticket the White House, when paired with President Trump's attacks on the credibility of the voting system. Harris, in a CNN interview that aired Sunday, said she is certain that Russia is actively trying to interfere, as U.S. intelligence officials have said. 'I am clear that Russia interfered in the election of president of the United States in 2016,' the senator from California said. 'I serve on the Senate Intelligence Committee. We have published detailed reports about exactly what we believe happened. And I do believe that there will be foreign interference in the 2020 election, and that Russia will be at the front of the line.'"
Amazing Grace. Ann Colwell of CNN: "Anita Hill never pictured herself voting for Joe Biden. But given the political reality the nation is facing, she's not only going to vote for Biden -- she's also willing to work with him, should he become president. 'Notwithstanding all of his limitations in the past, and the mistakes that he made in the past, notwithstanding those -- at this point, between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, I think Joe Biden is the person who should be elected in November,' Hill told CNN's Gloria Borger. But it's not just because he's running against Donald Trump, she adds. 'Its more about the survivors of gender violence. That's really what it's about.'" (Also linked yesterday.)
Trump & the Lying Liars Who Lie. Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "For President Trump and his allies, it was a week spent spreading doctored and misleading videos. On Aug. 30, the president retweeted footage of a Black man violently pushing a White woman on a subway platform under the caption, 'Black Lives Matter/Antifa' -- but the man was not affiliated with either group, and the video was shot in October. White House social media director Dan Scavino shared a manipulated video that falsely showed ... Joe Biden seeming to fall asleep during a television interview, complete with a fake TV headline.And Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the second-ranking House Republican, released a video splicing together quotes from activist Ady Barkan ... to falsely make it sound as if he had persuaded Biden to defund police departments. For the president and his top supporters, it was a campaign push brimming with disinformation -- disseminating falsehoods and trafficking in obfuscation at a rapid clip, through the use of selectively edited videos, deceptive retweets and false statements.... Trump has built a political career around falsehoods...." Parker cites many, many more instances of Trump's campaign lies & deceptions. ~~~
~~~ John Harwood of CNN: "From the outset of Donald Trump's presidency, Americans have told pollsters they consider him dishonest. That makes his re-election campaign entirely on-brand. In ways large and small, in targeted advertising and public remarks, Trump has made deceit the hallmark of his bid for a second term.... Trump uses outright fabrications against Democratic rival Joe Biden.... Trump falsely describes the conditions he inherited and presides over today.... On the core 2020 campaign issues -- coronavirus, the economy, and racial justice protests -- he offers fables.... Some falsehoods have grown ... familiar.... Trump says his border wall with Mexico 'will soon be complete' (just five miles of all-new border barriers have been built), that his tariffs bring billions into the US Treasury from China (American purchasers of Chinese imports pay them) and that he 'essentially' kept his promise to kill Obamacare (seven states have expanded Medicaid under Obamacare provisions during his presidency)." And so forth.
Peter Baker of the New York Times Gets Real: "Not in generations has a sitting president so overtly declared himself the candidate of white America.... After a summer when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets protesting racial injustice against Black Americans, President Trump has made it clear over the last few days that, in his view, the country's real race problem is bias against white Americans. Just days after returning from Kenosha, Wis., where he staunchly backed law enforcement and did not mention the name of Jacob Blake, the Black man shot seven times in the back by the police, Mr. Trump issued an order on Friday to purge the federal government of racial sensitivity training that his White House called 'divisive, anti-American propaganda.' The president then spent much of the weekend tweeting about his action, presenting himself as a warrior against identity politics. 'This is a sickness that cannot be allowed to continue,' he wrote of such programs. 'Please report any sightings so we can quickly extinguish!' He reposted a tweet from a conservative outlet hailing his order: 'Sorry liberals! How to be Anti-White 101 is permanently cancelled!'" ~~~
~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Sorry, President* Racist. You can't make me fear people who don't look like they might be my first cousins.
Alayna Treene of Axios: "House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy is privately encouraging voting by mail and warned President Trump the party could be 'screwed' by his fight against mail-in voting.... McCarthy [told me] the party can't afford for Republicans to sit home, afraid of getting COVID-19, while Democrats flood the field with mail-in ballots. McCarthy is particularly worried about deterring senior citizens. McCarthy said he's spent hours telling Trump that this preoccupation will hurt the president's own re-election, as well as Republicans running for Congress."
All the Best People, Ctd. Ewan Palmer of Newsweek: "A man who received thanks from Donald Trump for organizing boat parades showing support for the president is accused of using anti-Semitic language and sending threatening messages to a Florida resident. Carlos Gavidia, 53, was charged with sending a written threat to kill or do bodily injury after surrendering himself to police on Tuesday morning.... The 53-year-old received national attention for organizing a number of Trump boat parades.... Gavidia's Instagram page also shows him attending the president's RNC nomination speech on the White House lawn last week, as well as pictures with Trump at Admirals Cove and with the president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, taking part in one of his boat parades." --s (Also linked yesterday.)
Thanks to RAS for the link.Most Hilarious Weekend News Report:
Trump Skipped Cemetery Visit to Swipe Art Forgeries, Smuggle Them on AF1. Daniel Politi of Slate: "After Trump's cemetery trip was canceled, the president suddenly had a few hours to kill inside the U.S. ambassador's historic residence in Paris and it seems that during that time he took a particular liking to a few pieces of art. The next day, he ordered a Benjamin Franklin bust, a Franklin portrait and a set of figurines of Greek mythical characters be loaded on Air Force One to go back to Washington with him, reports Bloomberg.... 'The President brought these beautiful, historical pieces, which belong to the American people, back to the United States to be prominently displayed in the People's House,' White House spokesman Judd Deere said in response to questions from Bloomberg News.... But the truth is that they were fakes and replicas. The figurines that now sit in the Oval Office are from the early 20th century by an artist who was trying to claim they were from the 16th or 17 centuries. The figurines have little value and are really '20th century fakes of wannabe 17th century sculptures,' according to an art dealer.... White House officials ended up borrowing the original portrait [of Ben Franklin] from the National Portrait Gallery and hanging it up in the Oval Office rather than the replica Trump brought back from France." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump may think American soldiers fighting & dying in France were "suckers" & "losers," but when it comes to art appreciation, Trump is a sucker AND a loser. How perfect that he shirked his official duty to the American military so that he had time to pick out art forgeries to redecorate his own office. Yo, Donnie, I have the actual portrait of the Monna Lisa and it's bigger than that little fake in the Louvre. (This is 100% true, if you switch the words "actual" and "fake.") You can have my painting for $10mm, and if you want to use your campaign haul to pay for it, I'm good with that. Cash only.
Remembering Cadet Bone Spurs. Michael Kranish of the Washington Post: "Long before Trump's views of the military would emerge as a flash point in his 2020 reelection campaign ... Trump had a long track record of incendiary and disparaging remarks about veterans and military service. Many of his remarks are memorialized in television interviews and the tapes of radio conversations with shock jocks, dating to his years as a private citizen and businessman.... The roots of Trump's view of the military were formed at an early age, according to friends and family. Growing up in a mansion in Jamaica Estates in Queens, Trump heard the family criticize those who joined the military instead of going into business. Trump and his father, Fred Trump Sr., were especially harsh in criticizing the decision by Donald's older brother, Fred Jr., to join the U.S. Air National Guard, according to Fred Jr.'s daughter, Mary L. Trump."
Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Top administration officials on Sunday said they've never heard ... Donald Trump make disparaging remarks about veterans or the military, a subtle attempt to dispute a report in The Atlantic. But the president's top defender was the president himself.... Trump's defense of himself Sunday was to go on the attack. The president accused news organizations of partnering with the Democratic Party on 'a massive Disinformation Campaign' and urged his 85 million Twitter followers to let the magazine's owner [-- Laurene Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs --] 'know how you feel!!!'" (Also linked yesterday.)
Alexis Benveniste of CNN: "Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, said his magazine's story about Trump calling Americans who died in battle 'losers' and 'suckers,' was just the tip of the iceberg. 'I would fully expect more reporting to come out about this and more confirmation and new pieces of information in the coming days and weeks,' Goldberg told CNN's Chief Media Correspondent Brian Stelter on 'Reliable Sources' Sunday.... 'We all have to use anonymous sources, especially in a climate where the president of the United States tries to actively intimidate,' Goldberg said of his editorial decision to cite nameless people. 'These are not people who are anonymous to me.'" (Also linked yesterday.)
DeJoy Gained Influence via Illegal Straw-Donor Contributions to GOP. Aaron David, et al., of the Washington Post: "Louis DeJoy's prolific campaign fundraising, which helped position him as a top Republican power broker in North Carolina and ultimately as head of the U.S. Postal Service, was bolstered for more than a decade by a practice that left many employees feeling pressured to make political contributions to GOP candidates -- money DeJoy later reimbursed through bonuses, former employees say.... Two other employees familiar with [DeJoy's company] financial and payroll systems said DeJoy would instruct that bonus payments to staffers b boosted to help defray the cost of their contributions, an arrangement that would be unlawful.... Another former employee with knowledge of the process described a similar series of events, saying DeJoy orchestrated additional compensation for employees who had made political contributions, instructing managers to award bonuses to specific individuals.... Between 2000 and 2014, 124 individuals who worked for the company together gave more than $1 million to federal and state GOP candidates." Thanks to Ken W. for the link. (Also linked yesterday.) Mother Jones has a summary report here. A Hill summary report is here. ~~~
~~~ The Gentleman Doth Protest Too Much, Methinks. Catie Edmondson, et al., of the New York Times: "At a hearing last month, [Louis] DeJoy angrily denied a suggestion by Representative Jim Cooper, Democrat of Tennessee, that he had reimbursed his employees' political donations. 'That's an outrageous claim, sir, and I resent it,' Mr. DeJoy responded. 'What are you accusing me of?'... 'These are very serious allegations that must be investigated immediately, independent of Donald Trump's Justice Department,' Senator Chuck Schumer of New York ... said in a statement.... Josh Stein, North Carolina's attorney general [D], said in a statement that 'it is against the law to directly or indirectly reimburse someone for a political contribution' and that 'any credible allegations of such actions merit investigation by the appropriate state and federal authorities.'"
The Trumpidemic, Ctd.
The New York Times' live updates for coronavirus developments Sunday are here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Sarah Watson, et al., of the New York Times: "... [at] about 100 college communities around the country ... [coronavirus] infections have spiked in recent weeks as students have returned for the fall semester. Though the rate of infection has bent downward in the Northeast, where the virus first peaked in the U.S., it continues to remain high across many states in the Midwest and South -- and evidence suggests that students returning to big campuses are a major factor. Despite the surge in cases, there has been no uptick in deaths in college communities, data shows. This suggests that most of the infections are stemming from campuses, since young people who contract the virus are far less likely to die than older people. However, leaders fear that young people who are infected will contribute to a spread of the virus throughout the community.... The result often is an exacerbation of traditional town-and-gown tensions...." (Also linked yesterday.)
Brian Dunleavy of UPI (Sept. 3): "Vitamin D deficiency increases a person's risk for catching COVID-19 by 77% compared to those with sufficient levels of the nutrient, a study published Thursday by JAMA Network Open found." Mrs. McC: I found several reputable new organizations that published this study's findings. See remarks by Victoria & Linda in yesterday's Comments. For years, I've been taking 4000 IU ((100 mcg)/daily of Vitamin D3, an inexpensive over-the-counter, supplement recommended by more than one of my doctors. I'm not a doctor, and I'm not advising anyone else to do the same, but it might be a good idea to ask your doctor what s/he advises for you on this. Taking a Vitamin D supplement seems far less wacky to me than anything Trump & the My Pillow guy have suggested.
Black Lives Matter
Jessica Wolfrom of the Washington Post: "Jacob Blake, the Black man who was shot by a police officer in Kenosha, Wis., in late August, spoke from a hospital bed, describing his physical pain and appealing to others to 'change y'all lives' in an emotional video released by his lawyer Saturday night. It was Blake's second public appearance since being shot seven times in the back in late August by Rusten Sheskey, a Kenosha police officer. The shooting left Blake paralyzed from the waist down. 'Every 24 hours, it's pain,' Blake said. 'It hurts to breathe. It hurts to sleep. It hurts to move from side to side. It hurts to eat.'" The Hill's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Ben Matthis-Lilley of Slate: "When an incident of police brutality against a Black person in the United States is captured on video, the aftermath follows a pattern. Activists, members of the community, and certain writers say that American policing and police discipline are fundamentally flawed.... In response, elected officials, police chiefs, and certain other writers say that most police officers are decent people doing a tough job to the best of their ability.... Which side are the police on? Do they favor the candidate [Biden] who believes law enforcement basically means well, as long as it keeps working to 'root out the bad apples' in police departments? Or the candidate [Trump] with a record of supporting criminal behavior, extrajudicial violence, and racism -- and of celebrating the bad apples? The country's largest municipal police union (the Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York) picked ... [Trump]; its leader, Patrick Lynch, spoke at the Republican convention. On Friday, the largest national police organization, the Fraternal Order of Police, announced that it was endorsing Trump on behalf of its 355,000 members as well. The police say that they want members of minority communities to believe the officers patrolling their neighborhoods are motivated by the principle of upholding the law.... Those officers also keep choosing to endorse Donald Trump." (Also linked yesterday.)
Cindy Boren of the Washington Post: "The college football season has begun and, during an era of protests and a coronavirus pandemic, ESPN's first Saturday telecast was anything but usual. []Link fixed. The hosts were far apart, broadcasting from their homes rather than appearing before a boisterous, sign-loving crowd on a campus somewhere, and 'College GameDay' devoted time to the protests of systemic racism and police brutality that have taken place across the country. Kirk Herbstreit broke down in tears as he spoke of the need to change.... '[Benjamin Franklin] said, 'Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.' The Black community is hurting. ... How do you listen to these stories and not feel pain and not want to help?' Herbstreit asked, weeping." Mrs. McC: Herbstreit is white. It doesn't seem Trump can scare him, either.
Erica Werner of the Washington Post: "Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Sunday that he and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have agreed to work on a short-term spending bill to avert a government shutdown Oct. 1, weeks before the election. 'The speaker and I have agreed we don't want to see a government shutdown,' Mnuchin said on 'Fox News Sunday.' Mnuchin said his expectation is that this so-called 'continuing resolution' would extend government funding into December -- although the date has not yet been agreed on. Without action by Congress, agency funding would expire at midnight Sept. 30, and the government would begin to shut down.... Mnuchin's comments appear to suggest that the White House is not girding for a clash over this spending deadline, though White House officials have in the past tried to negotiate deals with Democrats in Congress, only to have President Trump announce that he is opposed at the last moment.... Lawmakers will return to the Capitol on Tuesday, and leaders in both parties say they hope to reach agreement on a new coronavirus relief bill. But they remain far apart, and it's unclear whether a deal will be possible."
Owen Bowcott of the Guardian: "The WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, is due to appear at the Old Bailey in the latest stage of his legal battle against extradition to the US, where he faces a prison sentence of up to 175 years. The hearing, which is scheduled to last four weeks, will hear allegations from the US Department of Justice that Assange tried to recruit hackers to find classified government information. A US grand jury previously indicted Assange on 18 charges, 17 of which fall under the US Espionage Act. They cover conspiracy to receive, obtaining and disclosing classified diplomatic and military documents."
Beyond the Beltway
California. Neil Vigdor, et al., of the New York Times: "... about 200 people -- many of them unaware that a rapidly growing wildfire was closing in on a popular campground area in the Sierra National Forest -- found themselves suddenly trapped while trying to flee Saturday night into Sunday morning.... It took a treacherous rescue operation by military helicopters to evacuate them from the Mammoth Pool Reservoir area, the authorities said. Others posted videos on social media showing themselves escaping by driving through a labyrinth of fire and ash.... Dozens of evacuees were packed into the helicopters. Two UH-60 Black Hawks and a CH-47 Chinook transported them to Fresno Yosemite International Airport, said Brad Alexander, a spokesman for the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services. About 20 people were injured, he said, and some were taken to hospitals. Two people remained in very serious condition from burns, Daniel Lynch, the director of emergency medical services for Fresno County, said on Sunday."
Way Beyond
U.K./E.U. A Bitter Divorce, Ctd. Luke McGee of CNN: "The EU's chief [Brexit] negotiator, Michel Barnier, has warned that the UK must abide by the terms of the Brexit deal it agreed last year, after reports that the British government was planning new legislation that would undermine elements of it. The Financial Times, quoting three people familiar with the plans, reported that sections of a market bill slated for publication Wednesday, are expected to 'eliminate the legal force of parts of the withdrawal agreement' in areas including state aid and Northern Ireland customs. This 'could undermine the agreement on Northern Ireland that Boris Johnson signed last October to avoid a return to a hard border in the region,' one person with knowledge of the plans told the FT. The report has inflamed tensions between London and Brussels as post-Brexit trade negotiations enter their eighth round this week. 'The withdrawal agreement has been signed and ratified by the UK and the EU, it is in force,' one EU diplomat told CNN, speaking on condition of anonymity. 'If the UK chose not to respect it, then theoretically the EU would have to take legal measures,' the diplomat added."
News Ledes
Hill: "The National Weather Service (NWS) said Los Angeles County saw its highest temperature on official record Sunday after a high of 121 degrees Fahrenheit was recorded in the San Fernando Valley earlier in the day. The federal agency said the temperature was recorded around noon in Woodland Hills at Pierce College, which runs one of the country's oldest cooperative weather stations." ~~~
~~~ KGO San Francisco: "Records were smashed all across the Bay Area Sunday as a heat wave impacting millions of Californians intensified. More than 10 cities in the Bay Area set new records. San Francisco hit 100 degrees for the 1st time since 2017. Concord, Livermore, Gilroy, Napa and Santa Rosa had high temperatures between 110 and 112, all records for this date." Mrs. McC: San Francisco broke a same-day record set in 1904. ~~~
~~~ Washington Post: "California just witnessed one of its hottest weekends in memory, which intensified destructive wildfires that erupted. The scorching temperatures forced the National Weather Service to issue heat alerts for nearly the entire state. Many areas were also under red-flag warnings for high fire danger as the heat worsened blazes already burning and helped fuel new ones. Numerous locations in California experienced their hottest September day on record Sunday. A few spots saw their highest temperatures ever observed in any month.... San Luis Obispo, just 10 miles from the Pacific Ocean, reached a sweltering 120 degrees. This may be the highest temperature ever measured so close to the ocean in the Americas."
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Reader Comments (13)
From my daughter-in-law doctor:
"Epidemiologic data re Sturgis.
Hope people are smarter this weekend ...
STURGIS-RELATED CASES WERE RELATED TO 19% OF COVID IN US COUNTIES FOR 1 MONTH AT A COST OF $12.2 BILLION
"An update for those of you interested in the Sturgis Bike Rally...
A team of economists estimated that, in the month following the start of the rally, 19% of total US COVID19 cases was due to the rally. Specifically, "counties that contributed the highest inflows of rally attendees experienced a 7.0 to 12.5 percent increase in COVID-19 cases relative to counties that did not contribute inflows." The estimated public health cost is $12.2 billion.
This white paper was published yesterday by four scientists at the Center for Health Economics and Policy Studies at San Diego State University and University of Colorado, Denver."
https://drewmcnichols.github.io/Contagion_Externality_Sturgis_Motorcycle_Rally_9-5-20_Dave_et_al.
How to spell "responsibility" her father-in-law asks again.
Maybe "stupid?"
And this from the Whitey House, now inhabited by a George Wallace with fewer morals and more money:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/sethcohen/2020/09/06/call-trumps-attacks-on-the-1619-project-what-they-are---censorship-of-american-history/#68f0f5084c4f
@Ken Winkes: "Whitey House" is excellent. Will steal.
I am surprised by the Sturgis rally numbers. Last week I linked to a WashPo story that said scientists had traced 260 cases to the rally. But "Epidemiologists believe that figure is a significant undercount, due to the resistance of some rallygoers to testing and the limited contact tracing in some states. As a result, the true scope of infections stemming from the rally ... is unlikely to ever be known."
I got a 404 error when I tried your link. But I found the paper here:
https://cheps.sdsu.edu/docs/Contagion_Externality_Sturgis_Motorcycle_Rally_9-5-20_Dave_et_al.pdf
I read the abstract only, and it does claim an astounding estimated $12.2BB cost. Nothing about that 19% number. So I did searches in the body of the paper for "19%" (found nothing) & "19 percent" and found this: "... brings the total number of cases to 266,796 or 19 percent of 1.4 million new cases of COVID-19 in the United States between August 2nd 2020 and September 2nd 2020. If we conservatively assume that all of these cases were non-fatal, then these cases represents a cost of over $12.2 billion...."
Obviously, that 266,796 figure is about 1,000 x the 260 cases the WashPo story cites. So, um, as much as I'd like to slap around some bikers, & as uninformed as I am on the reliability of the researchers' methodology (which I didn't even try to fully understand), I'm still skeptical.
Interesting info on Vitamin D: As far as calcium supplements JAVA reported their study on this some years ago: that it has no effect on women over fifty. The tests we took for bone density was a joke (our dear Marvin reported on this)–-after a certain age of course your bones are going to be less dense which is a natural process and those pills we were told to take did terrible harm–-I know two women whose femurs were broken. I've watched through the years ads for these treatments––first it was Fosamax (they had to take it off the market) and then three others until they too have disappeared. Now we hear of some kind of injection two times a month or something like that (and still we hear the contraindications include BONE FRACTURES.
So when BIG Pharma slithers around regarding efficacy we need to pay close attention to studies actually conducted by those we trust and the problem nowadays is whom CAN we trust?? FDA? CDC?
Bea,
Thanks for doing my thinking for me. I just passed it on, said something stupid at the end, (should have been "How to some folks spell "responsibility?").....and went to bed.
I'm sure there will be more data and conclusions drawn from them about the Sturgis rally down the (vroom, vroom) road.
In the meantime, as we often say here, skeptical is good.
Here's something from 2019 that I posted but is now even more relevant now:
Within Fintan O'Toole's review on "Vile Bodies"–a book on military metaphors re: sexual diseases he had this:
In May 1998 Trump and Howard Stern discussed on the radio the threat of sexually transmitted diseases to promiscuous heterosexual men. Trump agreed with Stern's suggestion that he might tell a woman, "Look, you've got to take a medical test before I do you."
(Neither man seemed to imagine the possibility that he would take a test himself plus the "before I do you" smacks of a hairdresser's plea for a cup of coffee before he cuts your hair) Here's the exchange:
Trump: The problem is that sometimes your own chemicals take over and you can't wait. [oh, those pesky chemicals–- like having to go wee wee when you are indisposed]
Stern: So you'll just have straight intercourse with a rubber with them, right?
T: Well, I don't know, you know there's lots of different ways of doing it. It's a very complicated subject. They say [and here we have the usual "they say" or "people tell me" or "many have said] that more people were killed by women in this act than killed in Vietnam, ok?
Later in the interview, he repeated the comparison :
T: It's Vietnam. It is very dangerous. So I'm very, very careful.
S: "You're braver than any Vietnam vet because you're out there screwing a lot of women.
T: Yeah–-getting the Medal of Honor, in actuality.
O'Toole says the exchange between these two self-regarding alpha males took the lid off a strange stew of preening and paranoia of terror and lust, of claims of both to exemplary courage and to hyper-vigilant caution. He later compares Trump to the cowardly Pistol (Shakespeare's character)––Trump never did any actual fighting in any war yet he claims to be braver than any real vet, for he has faced the dangers of the bordello and the bedroom. His imagery is, of course, totally misogynistic. Even Pistol lays claim to his part in infecting his poor Nell who dies. But for Trump infection is a one- way process–-it is women who do this to men. In this vein he is not alone as O'Toole points out in his piece about connecting women's bodies as the sole vectors of disease and how it got connected in wars.
PD,
Something the Orange Menace leaves out of any personal PR problem, vide his broad insults directed at men and women who have served in uniform as losers and suckers, is that his penchant for self promotion, his overwhelming narcissistic need to be seen and heard and admired for qualities he never possessed, means that he has left an easily followed trail in his wake, like Theseus’s thread. But unlike Theseus, Trump’s threads lead him straight back to the Minotaur (Trump brags that he killed the beast with his bare hands,another lie; the Minotaur still waits to gore his fat ass).
Nonetheless, his early mentor’s advice (the execrable Roy Cohn) to never admit anything, and instead to lie, lie, lie, cheat, steal, and attack anyone who calls you on your schemes and scams, is still in full force. The Fat One has no problem stating that he never said what he actually did say (even stuff that’s on tape). He gets away with it.
But that Minotaur is still out there in the labyrinth of Fatty’s sordid past. And he’s hungry. Wingers scream that Trump’s Minotaur is fake news and doesn’t exist. Like racism, police violence, income inequality, global warming, the coronavirus...
There are plenty of threads out there, with Minotaurs at the end of each one.
Have a good Labor Day, All.
E. J. Dionne's Labor Day message:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-forgot-his-promise-to-the-forgotten-men-and-women/2020/09/06/f56dd96c-eedf-11ea-b4bc-3a2098fc73d4_story.html?
Turns out that central Pretender promise was also a hoax.
Bad Limerick Time (again)
So, I haven't been feeling very limericky of late, as you might expect. But the recent revelation of Trump's making off with faux artwork from the American embassy in Paris, and the delicious denouement to that episode, is an example of the unique mix of Trumpian rapaciousness and ignorance too perfect to pass on.
To wit:
There once was an eejit named Don
Who on ostentation did fawn
He had zero yen
For art acumen
So off with gilt fakes did abscond
Talk about a loser.
And while we're on the subject, here's a video of the security guard at the Paris embassy trying to cure the Orange Menace of his predilection for pillaging. But note how much better his wig looks here...
I have gone to San Luis Obispo several times in the last few years. The first year, our hotel didn't have air conditioning because "it never gets hot for very long here." Nevertheless, it got rather hot during our stay where "rather hot" meant upper '80s. The next year we stayed in a different hotel, and the previous one had installed AC in the "creek view" rooms. We barely used the AC the second year, but it was nice to know it was available.
But 120 degrees as cited above? That is 40 degrees above the average high temperature in September. Beyond crazy.
I was driving across the flat countryside yesterday and decided to listen to what the RWNJs were saying on the radio. I caught the first segment of some guy's show where he said some familiar words, but applied them (without supporting specific complaints during the opening rant) about the second term D mayor, re-elected with 70% of the vote.
He used phrases like "Who could imagine one man could do so much damage to our city in so short a time." Sound like words we have heard about anyone else?
When the talker finally got to his beef of the day, I actually think he had some merit. I believe restaurants in the city are not allowed to sell carry-out alcoholic beverages, and bars have been closed or highly restricted. On the first part, I would be happy to pay for an expensive beer to support the restaurants we have been getting take-out from. But the guy's rant about bars, saying it was unprofitable for them to open in the near future at only 25% capacity, ignores the fact that bars have been a prime source for spread since they have been allowed to open in other places. He didn't address the issue of spread at all in that segment, and I couldn't take any more so I turned him off at the commercial.
ps. I discovered this radio station the other day, waiting in the car for my colleague. A woman was on saying "And 'Black Lives Matter,' I would think that would be offensive to the blacks. Really. How awful is that phrase?" That's as much as I could take that day.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/07/trump-open-to-investigating-dejoy-409527
Says the embattled Pretender with no sense of irony.
What's next? Self-dismissal?