The Trump Administration: A Clusterfuck in the Making

[jsc1953]

Fascinating article by NPR on Where is the CDC?

Bottom line: yet another Trump administration fuck-up.

[not_what_you_d_expect]

I really hate living in a country where one man (an evil one at that) gets to withhold funds and life saving equipment from the citizens he swore to protect.

I just don’t know how this is being allowed to continue. I feel so infuriated and I don’t know what to do about it.

[asahi]

Trump’s priorities should be on fighting a pandemic.

Here’s where the real focus is:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/25/white-house-dhs-heather-swift-loyalty-148856

White House abruptly transfers DHS official amid loyalty purge

Heather Swift, the deputy assistant secretary of public affairs at DHS, was moved to a senior post at the National Endowment for the Arts.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/17/opm-chief-resigns-134541

OPM chief Dale Cabaniss abruptly resigns

The move comes as the Presidential Personnel Office, headed by John McEntee, seeks to stock the administration with officials loyal to Trump.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/21/doj-coronavirus-emergency-powers-140023

The Justice Department has quietly asked Congress for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies — part of a push for new powers that comes as the novel coronavirus spreads throughout the United States.

Republicans Abandon Election Security

To make matters worse, Republicans have signaled that they don’t even plan to hold a single hearing on election security legislation—despite a growing list of bills introduced in recent weeks to block foreign interference on multiple fronts, many of them bipartisan.

I’m honestly, not hyperbolically, beginning to have serious doubts about whether we will have legitimate elections this year.

The transition from democracy to plutocracy is in full-on now.

[Monty]

The jackass still doesn’t comprehend what is happening now (or anything else, really):

“I think Easter Sunday and you’ll have packed churches all over our country, I think it would be a beautiful time. And it’s just about the timeline I think is right,” he said in an interview with Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer, even though his own public health officials have warned the outbreak might spread, leading to hundreds of thousands of infected Americans by year’s end.

He thinks? Well, that’s just another lie about the twerp. Anyway, that announcement from him is enough to get his lemings to huddle together, defying rational advice from actual intelligent authorities.

ETA: The US just had 130 people die in one from this virus; Italy just had 683 people die in one day. A national leader (God help us; that’s what Trump is sadly.) telling people to flock to churches in less than a month is not only irresponsible. It’s downright criminal. (Numbers taken from worldometers web site.)

[Snowboarder_Bo]

In “No Surprise At All” news today:

@Rep. Katie Porter

As a consumer protection attorney who fought big banks, I know to read the fine print—so that’s what I did when the President said he was invoking the Defense Production Act. Turns out the Administration never finalized the rules for ordering emergency medical supplies. (1 /2)

@Rep. Katie Porter

The Administration says it’s placing orders under the Defense Production Act, but it seems that @HHSGov doesn’t have policies in place to execute those orders or coordinate them with agencies like @FEMA. @RepSpanberger, @RepAndyLevin, @RepSherrill, and I are want answers. (2 /2)

Katie Porter totally fucking rocks!

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@Monty

He thinks? Well, that’s just another lie about the twerp. Anyway, that announcement from him is enough to get his lemings to huddle together, defying rational advice from actual intelligent authorities.

[Willie Wonka]Stop. Don’t. Come back.[/Willie Wonka]

[Monty]

@Monty

ETA: The US just had 130 people die in one from this virus; Italy just had 683 people die in one day. A national leader (God help us; that’s what Trump is sadly.) telling people to flock to churches in less than a month is not only irresponsible. It’s downright criminal. (Numbers taken from worldometers web site.)

That should be “The US just had 130 people die in one day” in that post.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

The day isn’t over yet, eh.

[eschereal]

@Monty

That should be “The US just had 130 people die in one day” in that post.

No, that should be “The US just had 202 people die in one day”, according to WHO’s most recent situation report (small pdf) – which is nearly a 33% increase over yesterday’s total.

(Check this page daily to obtain the global situation reports.)

[Monty]

@eschereal

No, that should be “The US just had 202 people die in one day”, according to WHO’s most recent situation report (small pdf) – which is nearly a 33% increase over yesterday’s total.

(Check this page daily to obtain the global situation reports.)

I went with the latest numbers at the time of posting. Sadly, those numbers continue to increase.

And what is the US president’s plan on helping out Americans?

I do… we are doing very well with almost all the governors… [but] it’s a two-way street, they have to treat us well also.

There is literally not a damn thing that clown can consider without having a quid pro quo* as the foundation point.

*Or as Trump calls that expression: “The three most beautiful words in the English language”.

[Sherrerd]

@Snowboarder_Bo

In “No Surprise At All” news today:Katie Porter totally fucking rocks!

I think she’s one of those rare politicians who’s actually incapable of spouting empty rhetoric. She’s all to-the-point action.

If only we could clone her!

[asahi]

Republicans are still at it, determined to stuff in provisions that allow Mnuchin to wave restrictions on corporations, including the provision that was initially inserted to ensure Trump’s companies can’t take benefits from the stimulus. They just can’t stop.

[Little_Nemo]

@Monty

There is literally not a damn thing that clown can consider without having a quid pro quo* as the foundation point.

*Or as Trump calls that expression: “The three most beautiful words in the English language”.

And as usual, Trump was lying when he said that.

He’s never shown any interest in a quid pro quo. His guiding philosophy has always been taking care of himself and ignoring the needs of everyone else.

[eschereal]

@Little_Nemo

And as usual, Trump was lying when he said that.

He’s never shown any interest in a quid pro quo. His guiding philosophy has always been taking care of himself and ignoring the needs of everyone else.

Lots of quo for him, for quid that he got (“borrowed”) from someone else.

[Mike_Mabes]

I don’t even know which thread to put this in so I’ll put it here.

Objecting to a provision in the Senate coronavirus bill providing unemployment benefits for people in financial trouble, Sen. Lindsey Graham says nurses are “going to make $24 an hour on unemployment” which he claims would incentivize “taking people out of the workforce.”

Just when I thought these motherfuckers couldn’t get any lower. I read today that three senators were going to oppose the bill because it “incentived people to be unemployed.” As if most people would rather be unemployed than work. But fucking nurses, in the miiddle of this crisis, who are risking their lives to help people? What the fuck is wrong with these people? Fuck you, Lindsey Graham, I don’t usually wish death on people, I hope you get the virus and die a long slow painful death waving around money trying to get a nurse to wipe your pathetic fucking ass and clean up your blood you have spitted upon your chest. But of course, you will not be able to get your fucking tongue out of Trump’s ass long enough to even beg them for it.

https://breakingnewsusa.com/2020/03/25/lindsey-graham-complains-nurses-getting-too-much-money-from-coronavirus-bill/?fbclid=IwAR2xmbBSz4g1z3V1t7ivnjJ0EdQisGG2CCdVD5wt-YsZhq3iiMMp3zQdNNc

[asahi]

@Mike_Mabes

I don’t even know which thread to put this in so I’ll put it here.

Objecting to a provision in the Senate coronavirus bill providing unemployment benefits for people in financial trouble, Sen. Lindsey Graham says nurses are “going to make $24 an hour on unemployment” which he claims would incentivize “taking people out of the workforce.”

Just when I thought these motherfuckers couldn’t get any lower. I read today that three senators were going to oppose the bill because it “incentived people to be unemployed.” As if most people would rather be unemployed than work. But fucking nurses, in the miiddle of this crisis, who are risking their lives to help people? What the fuck is wrong with these people? Fuck you, Lindsey Graham, I don’t usually wish death on people, I hope you get the virus and die a long slow painful death waving around money trying to get a nurse to wipe your pathetic fucking ass and clean up your blood you have spitted upon your chest. But of course, you will not be able to get your fucking tongue out of Trump’s ass long enough to even beg them for it.

https://breakingnewsusa.com/2020/03/25/lindsey-graham-complains-nurses-getting-too-much-money-from-coronavirus-bill/?fbclid=IwAR2xmbBSz4g1z3V1t7ivnjJ0EdQisGG2CCdVD5wt-YsZhq3iiMMp3zQdNNc

They can get lower -much lower.

[ThelmaLou]

Not news, but well-summarized.
The President Is Trapped
Trump is utterly unsuited to deal with this crisis, either intellectually or temperamentally.

For his entire adult life, and for his entire presidency, Donald Trump has created his own alternate reality, complete with his own alternate set of facts. He has shown himself to be erratic, impulsive, narcissistic, vindictive, cruel, mendacious, and devoid of empathy. None of that is new.

But we’re now entering the most dangerous phase of the Trump presidency. The pain and hardship that the United States is only beginning to experience stem from a crisis that the president is utterly unsuited to deal with, either intellectually or temperamentally. When things were going relatively well, the nation could more easily absorb the costs of Trump’s psychological and moral distortions and disfigurements. But those days are behind us. The coronavirus pandemic has created the conditions that can catalyze a destructive set of responses from an individual with Trump’s characterological defects and disordered personality.

We are now in the early phase of a medical and economic tempest unmatched in most of our lifetimes. There’s too much information we don’t have. We don’t know the full severity of the pandemic, or whether a state like New York is a harbinger or an outlier. But we have enough information to know this virus is rapidly transmissible and lethal.

The qualities we most need in a president during this crisis are calmness, wisdom, and reassurance; a command of the facts and the ability to communicate them well; and the capacity to think about the medium and long term while carefully weighing competing options and conflicting needs. We need a leader who can persuade the public to act in ways that are difficult but necessary, who can focus like a laser beam on a problem for a sustained period of time, and who will listen to—and, when necessary, defer to—experts who know far more than he does. We need a president who can draw the nation together rather than drive it apart, who excels at the intricate work of governing, and who works well with elected officials at every level. We need a chief executive whose judgment is not just sound, but exceptional.

There are some 325 million people in America, and it’s hard to think of more than a handful who are more lacking in these qualities than Donald Trump.
…

…a former White House adviser who has worked on past pandemics told me, “This fool will bring the death of thousands needlessly. We have mobilized as a country to shut things down for a time, despite the difficulty. We can work our way back to a semblance of normality if we hold out and let the health system make it through the worst of it.” He added, “But now our own president is undoing all that work and preaching recklessness. Rather than lead us in taking on a difficult challenge, he is dragging us toward failure and suffering. Beyond belief.”

The thing to understand about Donald Trump is that putting others before self is not something he can do, even temporarily. …

This president does not have the capacity to listen to, synthesize, and internalize information that does not immediately serve his greatest needs: praise, fealty, adoration.
…

As the health-care and economic crises worsen, Trump’s hallmarks will be even more fully on display. The president will create new scapegoats. He’ll blame governors for whatever bad news befalls their states. He’ll berate reporters who ask questions that portray him in a less-than-favorable light. He’ll demand even more cultlike coverage from outlets such as Fox News. Because he doesn’t tolerate relationships that are characterized by disagreement or absence of obeisance, before long we’ll see key people removed or silenced when they try to counter a Trump-centered narrative. He’ll try to find shiny objects to divert our attention from his failures.

All of these things are from a playbook the president has used a thousand times. Perhaps they’ll succeed again. But there’s something distinct about this moment, compared with every other moment in the Trump presidency, that could prove to be utterly disorienting and unsettling for the president. Hush-money payments won’t make COVID-19 go away. He cannot distract people from the global pandemic. He can’t wait it out until the next news cycle, because the next news cycle will also be about the pandemic. He can’t easily create another narrative, because he is often sharing the stage with scientists who will not lie on his behalf.
…

Some of us were saying this-- screaming it!– about trump from DAY ONE, but “N-o-o-o… he’ll turn Presidential any minute now! Just wait!”

He cannot change or stop himself, and NO ONE WILL STOP HIM. The only hope for this country is if he drops dead at the podium (or somewhere else) very soon. The pandemic would/will get worse even with good leadership, but with NO leadership, we are doomed. I will put a curse on the first person who tells me I’m exaggerating or overreacting. :mad:

And fuck everyone who voted for him, ever defended him, or plans to vote for him again!

[enipla]

@Mike_Mabes

I don’t even know which thread to put this in so I’ll put it here.

Objecting to a provision in the Senate coronavirus bill providing unemployment benefits for people in financial trouble, Sen. Lindsey Graham says nurses are “going to make $24 an hour on unemployment” which he claims would incentivize “taking people out of the workforce.”

Just when I thought these motherfuckers couldn’t get any lower. I read today that three senators were going to oppose the bill because it “incentived people to be unemployed.” As if most people would rather be unemployed than work. But fucking nurses, in the miiddle of this crisis, who are risking their lives to help people? What the fuck is wrong with these people? Fuck you, Lindsey Graham, I don’t usually wish death on people, I hope you get the virus and die a long slow painful death waving around money trying to get a nurse to wipe your pathetic fucking ass and clean up your blood you have spitted upon your chest. But of course, you will not be able to get your fucking tongue out of Trump’s ass long enough to even beg them for it.

https://breakingnewsusa.com/2020/03/25/lindsey-graham-complains-nurses-getting-too-much-money-from-coronavirus-bill/?fbclid=IwAR2xmbBSz4g1z3V1t7ivnjJ0EdQisGG2CCdVD5wt-YsZhq3iiMMp3zQdNNc

Holy Fuck. Or perhaps Wholly Fucked.

There is a place in the county that I work that is basically a Doggie Day care center. I take my dogs there once a week or so. They are now just taking dogs of nurses and doctors so those people can work double shifts and not be as concerned for their pets. I am not a religious person at all, but bless them.

My Wife and I work for county government. Now we can work from home, but our telework is still getting set up. My Wife ‘got up’ at 1:48 am (I looked at the clock) to go get stuff from work. I am taking a break in between of setting up home offices. I have a conference call every other day with 16 people. I have one in two hours with my own smaller group.

My Wife and I are the lucky ones.

It is at the point where I can’t figure out if people like Trump and Graham are more stupid than evil, or more evil than stupid. It’s sort of a toss up.

Just what kind of dirt can Trump have on Graham? Seriously, how can one turn a corner like Graham did unless it’s dead girl / live boy type of stuff?

[Ann_Hedonia]

@Mike_Mabes

I don’t even know which thread to put this in so I’ll put it here.

Objecting to a provision in the Senate coronavirus bill providing unemployment benefits for people in financial trouble, Sen. Lindsey Graham says nurses are “going to make $24 an hour on unemployment” which he claims would incentivize “taking people out of the workforce.”

Just when I thought these motherfuckers couldn’t get any lower. I read today that three senators were going to oppose the bill because it “incentived people to be unemployed.” As if most people would rather be unemployed than work. But fucking nurses, in the miiddle of this crisis, who are risking their lives to help people? What the fuck is wrong with these people? Fuck you, Lindsey Graham, I don’t usually wish death on people, I hope you get the virus and die a long slow painful death waving around money trying to get a nurse to wipe your pathetic fucking ass and clean up your blood you have spitted upon your chest. But of course, you will not be able to get your fucking tongue out of Trump’s ass long enough to even beg them for it.

https://breakingnewsusa.com/2020/03/25/lindsey-graham-complains-nurses-getting-too-much-money-from-coronavirus-bill/?fbclid=IwAR2xmbBSz4g1z3V1t7ivnjJ0EdQisGG2CCdVD5wt-YsZhq3iiMMp3zQdNNc

I’m pretty sure “nurses” is dog whistle language for another word that starts with “n”.

[asahi]

@ThelmaLou

Not news, but well-summarized.
The President Is Trapped
Trump is utterly unsuited to deal with this crisis, either intellectually or temperamentally.Some of us were saying this-- screaming it!– about trump from DAY ONE, but “N-o-o-o… he’ll turn Presidential any minute now! Just wait!”

He cannot change or stop himself, and NO ONE WILL STOP HIM. The only hope for this country is if he drops dead at the podium (or somewhere else) very soon. The pandemic would/will get worse even with good leadership, but with NO leadership, we are doomed. I will put a curse on the first person who tells me I’m exaggerating or overreacting. :mad:

And fuck everyone who voted for him, ever defended him, or plans to vote for him again!

I’ve got elder family in Florida and I’m feeling bad vibes that Ocala and Panhandle shitkickers are going to get them killed. Fuck Trump. Fuck Desantis. Fuck the assholes who voted for them just so they could scroll through “librul tears” Instagram memes.