Today’s media was consumed with news of the spread of coronavirus to the president and First Lady, as well as concern over the degree to which it has spread to other people associated with the White House. A number of those who attended the Rose Garden announcement of Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court have tested positive. That number includes the Trumps, Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), and Fr. John Jenkins, president of Notre Dame. Also infected are Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee, and at least three journalists who have attended White House events in the past week.
Tonight Steve Schmidt of The Lincoln Project tweeted this call to the Biden campaign to seize the moment with a take-no-prisoners mindset. I wholeheartedly approve! What do you think?
I wish Trump and Melania an expeditious recovery and hope very much that they will be in good health as they face electoral humiliation, repudiation and the harsh judgement of the American people on Election Day. Trump’s lying has become one of the most lethal events in our nation’s history. If US mortality rates were what they are in Germany, more than 150,000 Americans would still be alive. Trump’s cruel disregard for the American people has ravaged our economy, our kid’s educations and fundamental elements of the American way of life.
There is no person in America that has done more to spread Covid than @realDonaldTrump and no one has tried harder to catch it. Trump couldn’t have been more personally reckless than if he went to Sturgess and licked the doorknobs on the porta-johns. He politicized mask wearing and thus sentenced tens of thousands to cruel and lonely deaths. He has let loose a national insanity that manifests itself in the lunacy of antimask protesters storming Walmart’s and supermarkets in spasms of idiocy and craziness. His political rallies are dangerously delusional events where the advice of public health experts and MD’s is stupidly ignored. Each gathering spreads a disease that kills. It kills here more than anywhere else.
This week has stripped bare the rotting and vile roots of Trumpism. It began with the revelation that the great conman and tax cheat paid $750 in Federal taxes and owes more than $400 million to undisclosed lenders, much of it personally guaranteed against no discernible income. The debate was a moment of national humiliation that disgraced the Presidency, the United States and the American people. At the end of the debate Trump incited extremist militia groups by delivering what they interpreted as a weapons ready order from the Commander in Chief. Heavily armed fascist Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and dozens of white supremacist Groups heard a lock and load order. Ask them. Believe them. Take them seriously. Trump has threatened the peaceful transition of power and intimated violence should he lose. He has made clear that his loss would be THE evidence of a stolen election.
He has made up false and wild stories about corrupted ballots for the purpose of underming faith in our election’s integrity. These are unpardonable actions for an American President and they desecrate the sacrifice of every patriot from the fields at Lexington and Concord to Gettysburg, Normandy and the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Trump has lied to the country on more than 25,000 occasions, assaulted the rule of law, assailed our institutions, stoked racial animus and been spectacularly corrupt. He is singularly responsible for one of the great tragedies in American history. His campaign is imploding. Paschal, Miller, Guilfoye, Melania, all of them have disgraced themselves and stained the Presidency. They are a wretched, corrupt and self interested gang of incompetents and malicious people who have done profound damage to this country in four short years. There should be no political mercy shown towards Trump and Trumpism in this moment.
Mr. Vice President, your duty requires you to order your campaign to put its ads back on the air. @JoeBiden Trump is out of money. Spend him into the ground. Georgia is close. @MikeEspyMS is close in Mississippi. The Kansas Senate race is close.
Trumpism is an authoritarian and UNAMERICAN ideology that teems with menace and intimations of violence. It is a cult of personality led by a lethal liar who lacks intelligence, grace, empathy, and competence. Trumpism is a scourge. It is a metastic cancer. We need to crush it. Should Trump be disadvantaged in this moment, then we should rejoice. Pour it on. Vote him out. No let up. The pace and intensity of attacks should be increasing and should not stop until he is humiliated and sent home to face the judgement of history and in hopefully a good long time, his maker.
When his zero-co-pay, taxpayer-funded, world-class treatment at Walter Reed hospital has healed him, Donald Trump will redouble his efforts to avoid paying income tax and to strip healthcare coverage from millions of ACA enrollees. As the cliché has it, "You can't make this stuff up."
I guess I'm in the minority. I do not wish the Trumps a speedy recovery. This is not an illness that came out of the blue. Their infection is their own doing. They have made a political statement out of eschewing mask wearing, and consequently have encouraged others to not wear masks, endangering themselves and the people around them. A speedy recovery will just show their followers that there is nothing to worry about. It will make Trump look strong. That is not good for this country or planet Earth.
If we espunged from our history all the politicians, including Presidents, who have lied to us some of the time, there wouldn't be many left to write history about. That they do not tell all the truth, all of the time is essential sometimes to governing in these complex times. That they lie from time to time to protect the people or the security of the nation, that can happen and we should be able to understand. However, when a systematic effort is to made to eradicate any notion of the importance of observable facts and to impose an ideologically based invention in the place of reality, it is clear that we are no longer just talking about a "loss of confidence", we are witnessing a calculated effort to deprive the people of any frame of reference for their lives or any contact with that very necessary sense of reality. This is the antithesis of history, the imprisoning of the people in fictional world and the end of freedom for all but for he who is imposing this nightmare. There are no easy ways to save society from such people, they would give you no quarter in return and they should be driven to the Wall and permanently removed from any further contact with society.... no mercy and no letting up on Nov 3rd, Jan 20th and well beyond. These people are a plague to be erased from the earth before they kill any more people.
I sure hope this would put a stop to the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett who will cause the deaths of so many people by taking away their healthcare. If just a few Republican Senators come down with COVID-19 and can't vote Majority Leader McConnell won't have the votes to get her confirmed.
I wonder if those balance sheet minded campaign donors in Bedminster NJ have made the calculation that they paid up to $250,000 to trump for the privilege of being exposed to a life threatening virus.
Anyone who contracts COVID-19 would likely say they'd pay anything to go back in time and not get this disease.
Heather, thank you for this concise wrap up of what is perhaps the most contemptible day of this Presidency. You have taken the high road in your commentary and I applaud you. I stayed off of Facebook yesterday because I know my Irish temper would have gotten the better of my common decency and upbringing. My temper yesterday was also defused by listening to Joe Biden take the route he did in conveying calmness and positivity. We all need to take a collective breath and do what we need to do to remove this horrendous Administration. The expression vote as if your life depends on it has never been so apparent as it is right now. Take care.
Joseph Nye Welch, in 1954, said to Joseph McCarthy, “At long last, have you left no decency?”. This is how I feel about Trump and Company. Selfish, self-serving elitists who think like they are superior and the little people, us, are subservient. It is obnoxious behavior by adults. What’s worse is that children are affected by their actions.
Is it awful that I do not feel sympathy for this fake president?
Let’s start spreading some fake news of our own. Why not? It seems to work for the other guys.
The President actually went to the hospital for a brainectomy, but finding the space to be a cavernous void, they had to call in a team of spelunkers to consult. Animatronic Mike Pence is standing by to read his scripts and squint at the cameras like the Marlboro Man. Melania Trump is finally able to relax.
I swear all of this is true. It’s at least as true as 95% of the shit the Trump admin says.
"Reporter Chris Wallace of the Fox News Channel, who moderated Tuesday’s debate and so was one of those the Trumps’ entourage endangered, revealed today that Trump arrived too late on Tuesday for a COVID-19 test, as the venue required. Instead, there was an 'honor system.'"
Seriously? SERIOUSLY??? trump too late to be tested, ergo dependence on 'honor system'???
Pop quiz: trump, Fox, COVID, honor. Which of those words does not belong?
My friends, I am full of sound and fury, signifying SOMETHING. Verklempt. Talk among yourselves.
The president of the United States is a super spreader, and his best-known victim is himself. Trump has put into sharp relief his failure to protect the nation and everyone in his circle. Even his supporters can't dispute it. And unless they're comatose, they also know they too are culpable.
If he succumbs, he avoids the humiliation of what's now an inevitable defeat at the polls. If he survives, he will lose in a landslide but face criminal charges after leaving office on Jan. 20 and the prospect of financial ruin and prison.
If it's the latter scenario, how much damage will he inflict on the nation before Jan. 20?
$250,000 may be chump change (pun intended) to some of Trump's donors, but it's real money to many of his 'street level' supporters. I can't help but wonder how many of his die-hard followers in my county, people who can't pay their rent or gas for their car, feel now? I doubt they recognize that if Trump will screw the people who shelled out that kind of cash, why should they expect he'll treat them any differently?
Of course, the Trump campaign didn't pull its negative ads. I'm sure they think that doing so on the Biden campaign's part just proved what 'losers' they are. In Trump world, nice guys don't finish last - they don't finish at all, because Trump turns them into roadkill.
The sweet irony; he can’t blame anybody else. There is, and can only be, one culprit in the downfall of Donald J. Trump. It’s unspinnable, untwistable, un-“Fake news!”-able. Putin can’t save him with his army of internet trolls, hackers, and bots, including and especially QAnon.
Those well-heeled campaign donors ar Bedminster thought they were buying close access to the president, and they got exactly that. Go ahead, try to get your money back. It’s already spent.
Trump is poison, and it’s his own poison that brings him down.
My thoughts and prayers go out to Trump and his close, maskless White House and campaign staff. You bet they do.
October 2, 2020
Tonight Steve Schmidt of The Lincoln Project tweeted this call to the Biden campaign to seize the moment with a take-no-prisoners mindset. I wholeheartedly approve! What do you think?
I wish Trump and Melania an expeditious recovery and hope very much that they will be in good health as they face electoral humiliation, repudiation and the harsh judgement of the American people on Election Day. Trump’s lying has become one of the most lethal events in our nation’s history. If US mortality rates were what they are in Germany, more than 150,000 Americans would still be alive. Trump’s cruel disregard for the American people has ravaged our economy, our kid’s educations and fundamental elements of the American way of life.
There is no person in America that has done more to spread Covid than @realDonaldTrump and no one has tried harder to catch it. Trump couldn’t have been more personally reckless than if he went to Sturgess and licked the doorknobs on the porta-johns. He politicized mask wearing and thus sentenced tens of thousands to cruel and lonely deaths. He has let loose a national insanity that manifests itself in the lunacy of antimask protesters storming Walmart’s and supermarkets in spasms of idiocy and craziness. His political rallies are dangerously delusional events where the advice of public health experts and MD’s is stupidly ignored. Each gathering spreads a disease that kills. It kills here more than anywhere else.
This week has stripped bare the rotting and vile roots of Trumpism. It began with the revelation that the great conman and tax cheat paid $750 in Federal taxes and owes more than $400 million to undisclosed lenders, much of it personally guaranteed against no discernible income. The debate was a moment of national humiliation that disgraced the Presidency, the United States and the American people. At the end of the debate Trump incited extremist militia groups by delivering what they interpreted as a weapons ready order from the Commander in Chief. Heavily armed fascist Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and dozens of white supremacist Groups heard a lock and load order. Ask them. Believe them. Take them seriously. Trump has threatened the peaceful transition of power and intimated violence should he lose. He has made clear that his loss would be THE evidence of a stolen election.
He has made up false and wild stories about corrupted ballots for the purpose of underming faith in our election’s integrity. These are unpardonable actions for an American President and they desecrate the sacrifice of every patriot from the fields at Lexington and Concord to Gettysburg, Normandy and the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Trump has lied to the country on more than 25,000 occasions, assaulted the rule of law, assailed our institutions, stoked racial animus and been spectacularly corrupt. He is singularly responsible for one of the great tragedies in American history. His campaign is imploding. Paschal, Miller, Guilfoye, Melania, all of them have disgraced themselves and stained the Presidency. They are a wretched, corrupt and self interested gang of incompetents and malicious people who have done profound damage to this country in four short years. There should be no political mercy shown towards Trump and Trumpism in this moment.
Mr. Vice President, your duty requires you to order your campaign to put its ads back on the air. @JoeBiden Trump is out of money. Spend him into the ground. Georgia is close. @MikeEspyMS is close in Mississippi. The Kansas Senate race is close.
Trumpism is an authoritarian and UNAMERICAN ideology that teems with menace and intimations of violence. It is a cult of personality led by a lethal liar who lacks intelligence, grace, empathy, and competence. Trumpism is a scourge. It is a metastic cancer. We need to crush it. Should Trump be disadvantaged in this moment, then we should rejoice. Pour it on. Vote him out. No let up. The pace and intensity of attacks should be increasing and should not stop until he is humiliated and sent home to face the judgement of history and in hopefully a good long time, his maker.
When his zero-co-pay, taxpayer-funded, world-class treatment at Walter Reed hospital has healed him, Donald Trump will redouble his efforts to avoid paying income tax and to strip healthcare coverage from millions of ACA enrollees. As the cliché has it, "You can't make this stuff up."
I guess I'm in the minority. I do not wish the Trumps a speedy recovery. This is not an illness that came out of the blue. Their infection is their own doing. They have made a political statement out of eschewing mask wearing, and consequently have encouraged others to not wear masks, endangering themselves and the people around them. A speedy recovery will just show their followers that there is nothing to worry about. It will make Trump look strong. That is not good for this country or planet Earth.
If we espunged from our history all the politicians, including Presidents, who have lied to us some of the time, there wouldn't be many left to write history about. That they do not tell all the truth, all of the time is essential sometimes to governing in these complex times. That they lie from time to time to protect the people or the security of the nation, that can happen and we should be able to understand. However, when a systematic effort is to made to eradicate any notion of the importance of observable facts and to impose an ideologically based invention in the place of reality, it is clear that we are no longer just talking about a "loss of confidence", we are witnessing a calculated effort to deprive the people of any frame of reference for their lives or any contact with that very necessary sense of reality. This is the antithesis of history, the imprisoning of the people in fictional world and the end of freedom for all but for he who is imposing this nightmare. There are no easy ways to save society from such people, they would give you no quarter in return and they should be driven to the Wall and permanently removed from any further contact with society.... no mercy and no letting up on Nov 3rd, Jan 20th and well beyond. These people are a plague to be erased from the earth before they kill any more people.
I sure hope this would put a stop to the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett who will cause the deaths of so many people by taking away their healthcare. If just a few Republican Senators come down with COVID-19 and can't vote Majority Leader McConnell won't have the votes to get her confirmed.
My lord.
We knew it was going to be a rough month, but this is a wild card I couldn’t have imagined. So many wild cards in this deck of debauchery.
Thank you leaving us with Biden’s words, and as always, thank you for your dedication. Hope is at a premium right now.
I wonder if those balance sheet minded campaign donors in Bedminster NJ have made the calculation that they paid up to $250,000 to trump for the privilege of being exposed to a life threatening virus.
Anyone who contracts COVID-19 would likely say they'd pay anything to go back in time and not get this disease.
Heather, thank you for this concise wrap up of what is perhaps the most contemptible day of this Presidency. You have taken the high road in your commentary and I applaud you. I stayed off of Facebook yesterday because I know my Irish temper would have gotten the better of my common decency and upbringing. My temper yesterday was also defused by listening to Joe Biden take the route he did in conveying calmness and positivity. We all need to take a collective breath and do what we need to do to remove this horrendous Administration. The expression vote as if your life depends on it has never been so apparent as it is right now. Take care.
Joseph Nye Welch, in 1954, said to Joseph McCarthy, “At long last, have you left no decency?”. This is how I feel about Trump and Company. Selfish, self-serving elitists who think like they are superior and the little people, us, are subservient. It is obnoxious behavior by adults. What’s worse is that children are affected by their actions.
Is it awful that I do not feel sympathy for this fake president?
I just was reminded of a delightful irony: Donald Trump was diagnosed with Covid19 on China Day, October 1.
I bet they are in hysterics in Beijing.
Let’s start spreading some fake news of our own. Why not? It seems to work for the other guys.
The President actually went to the hospital for a brainectomy, but finding the space to be a cavernous void, they had to call in a team of spelunkers to consult. Animatronic Mike Pence is standing by to read his scripts and squint at the cameras like the Marlboro Man. Melania Trump is finally able to relax.
I swear all of this is true. It’s at least as true as 95% of the shit the Trump admin says.
"Reporter Chris Wallace of the Fox News Channel, who moderated Tuesday’s debate and so was one of those the Trumps’ entourage endangered, revealed today that Trump arrived too late on Tuesday for a COVID-19 test, as the venue required. Instead, there was an 'honor system.'"
Seriously? SERIOUSLY??? trump too late to be tested, ergo dependence on 'honor system'???
Pop quiz: trump, Fox, COVID, honor. Which of those words does not belong?
My friends, I am full of sound and fury, signifying SOMETHING. Verklempt. Talk among yourselves.
The president of the United States is a super spreader, and his best-known victim is himself. Trump has put into sharp relief his failure to protect the nation and everyone in his circle. Even his supporters can't dispute it. And unless they're comatose, they also know they too are culpable.
If he succumbs, he avoids the humiliation of what's now an inevitable defeat at the polls. If he survives, he will lose in a landslide but face criminal charges after leaving office on Jan. 20 and the prospect of financial ruin and prison.
If it's the latter scenario, how much damage will he inflict on the nation before Jan. 20?
The debate organizers used the "honor" system? He and his sycophants have no honor, no decency, no respect, no compassion, etc. etc.
$250,000 may be chump change (pun intended) to some of Trump's donors, but it's real money to many of his 'street level' supporters. I can't help but wonder how many of his die-hard followers in my county, people who can't pay their rent or gas for their car, feel now? I doubt they recognize that if Trump will screw the people who shelled out that kind of cash, why should they expect he'll treat them any differently?
Of course, the Trump campaign didn't pull its negative ads. I'm sure they think that doing so on the Biden campaign's part just proved what 'losers' they are. In Trump world, nice guys don't finish last - they don't finish at all, because Trump turns them into roadkill.
The sweet irony; he can’t blame anybody else. There is, and can only be, one culprit in the downfall of Donald J. Trump. It’s unspinnable, untwistable, un-“Fake news!”-able. Putin can’t save him with his army of internet trolls, hackers, and bots, including and especially QAnon.
Those well-heeled campaign donors ar Bedminster thought they were buying close access to the president, and they got exactly that. Go ahead, try to get your money back. It’s already spent.
Trump is poison, and it’s his own poison that brings him down.
My thoughts and prayers go out to Trump and his close, maskless White House and campaign staff. You bet they do.