It was another bad week for our Fearless Leader.
After flailing about trying to make political hay out of the police brutality protests (i.e. throwing his support behind the police perpetrators), and proclaiming his “law and order” credentials, President Trump issued an Executive Order on the systemic racism in law enforcement controversy. However, like many of his Executive Orders, it was all for show: a few suggestions to local police that are far weaker than Congress and local government are proposing. In other words, the President got some publicity for appearing to do something.
Mr. Trump also moved his upcoming rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma back one day so that it wouldn’t conflict with “Juneteenth” (June 19th), which is the day that, for 150 years, Black Americans have celebrated the freeing of the last slaves in the United States (in 1865). Always looking to claim credit for things he had nothing to do with, the President boasted that, moving his rally, he had “made Juneteenth famous”.
(Interestingly, his Administration has issued a proclamation celebrating Juneteenth in each year of his Presidency. If the unofficial Black holiday was unknown, why was it celebrated by the White House?)
Donald Trump is also the blowhard who has claimed, on several occasions, that he “has done more for Black people than anyone since Abraham Lincoln”.
(Then why is it that he can’t get African Americans to vote for him?)
While he was high-fiving himself over his imagined successes with Black people, the President fought a rear-guard action against his former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, whose tell-all book is about to hit bookstores nationally.
Evidently, President Trump is not pleased that Bolton is about to reveal “the Wizard behind the screen” and is pulling out all the stops to keep Bolton’s book from being published. He’s threatened civil lawsuits and criminal charges and has proclaimed that “anything he says to anyone” enjoys Executive Privilege, as in it cannot be repeated without his approval.
“Executive Privilege” isn’t even mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, and court decisions which have invented this legal concept from whole cloth have never taken it this far. However, we’ve never seen a President like this one, who says a lot of things without thinking, says stupid things after being advised not to, and insists that people close to him sign Non-Disclosure Agreements to protect him from himself.
I’m guessing that John Bolton didn’t sign a N.D.A.
A few things have leaked from the proposed Bolton book: Trump seeking China’s help in his 2020 re-election effort; the President being unaware that Great Britain is a nuclear power; that the Commander in Chief gets briefed several times a week by his National Security team but often does more talking than listening; that Secretary of State Pompeo called the President a “dumb shit”; and, that Bolton resigned his position, whereas Trump claims he fired him.
John Bolton’s credibility is somewhat suspect, as he has long been known in Washington D.C. as a conservative “hawk/nut job”, and has perhaps the largest ego in town next to President Trump. Bolton only got the NSA job when Trump got desperate and plucked him from his talking head commentary job at Fox News.
Bolton declined to testify about Trump’s extortion against foreign governments when Congress was engaged in impeachment hearings, but now, with millions of dollars awaiting him when his book is published, Bolton wants to bad-mouth the President.
Actually, the tit-for-tat between Trump and Bolton that we’re now hearing about is not surprising. They are both narcissistic blowhards who couldn’t get along. I’m not buying the book or reading it because, based upon the parts that have been leaked to the Press, Bolton’s “scoops” include information that informed Americans already knew about Donald Trump: he’s a piece of shit, now attested to by another Administration scoundrel.
In other news this week, the President applauded news that some effective treatments for Covid-19 have been discovered by British medical teams, and then when on to ad-lib that these same people had been successful in developing “the AIDS vaccine”.
As most intelligent adults know, there is no AIDS vaccine.
Hard to believe, but this was not the most embarrassing thing that our President said this week. The Supreme Court made two rulings that got Trump riled, the first on sexual preference and the second on the so-called “Dreamers”, i.e. children of illegal immigrants that have grown up in the U.S.A.. Both rulings went against 2016 Trump campaign themes.
First, the Court ruled that employees could not be fired for being Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transsexual, etc. This sent shock waves through the President’s religious base which expects “zero tolerance” in such matters. Trump was livid that “his” Court, the one which he has packed with two hard-line Conservative judges, had the temerity to rule against “him”.
In the second case, a 5-4 majority ruled against the Administration, which was trying to end the Obama-era “Dreamers” program which has permitted children of illegal immigrants to live, be educated, work and thrive in the United States. President Trump has long promised to end this program.
Trump was furious with the Court decision. He described it as a “shotgun blast into the face of people who are proud to call themselves Republicans or Conservatives”, added that, “We need more Justices or we will lose our 2nd Amendment and everything else”, and finally, “Do you get the impression that the Supreme Court doesn’t like me?”
The President and his party were annoyed by this turn of events because they wanted the Supreme Court to make immigration law, rather than having to do it the old-fashioned way (i.e. according to the Constitution) by working with Congress. The problem with that approach is that Congressmen, Senators, and Presidents have to face the voters, who might hold them accountable for laws which they enact. The President, in particular, doesn’t want to alienate any more people than necessary in an election year.
He doesn’t mind killing people, though.
Tomorrow is the big campaign rally in Tulsa that the President has been looking forward to for several months. It will be held in an arena that holds about 20,000 people.
The rally violates virtually every one of the guiding principles for gatherings issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Social distancing almost certainly will not be possible in the crammed arena. Attendees will be yelling and chanting (and expelling droplets farther and faster than if they were speaking quietly. There might be pressure to not wear masks, as many Trump supporters have mocked the use of masks during the pandemic (as has the President). Trump told the Wall Street Journal that he thinks some people wear them to signal disapproval of him.
That’s right: with highly contagious, inhalable, invisible, deadly germs floating about, Americans are wearing uncomfortable and unattractive face masks not for health reasons (as his own Coronavirus Task Force has recommended) but, rather, to make a political statement.
How did this narcissistic buffoon ever get elected in the first place?
Meanwhile, the President and his Fox News cheerleading section continued to mount an offensive against the supposed “antifa” threat to the Nation. This anonymous group, which has no leaders and has proven to be quite elusive at demonstrations and protests (i.e. law enforcement is having trouble finding any of these terrorists), is but the latest supposedly subversive entity threatening America.
Previous boogeymen identified by the Trump team include: journalists; Never Trumpers; Democrats; liberals; the Dark State; George Soros; Bill Gates; Jeff Bezos; Mexicans; Muslims; the Chinese; the United Nations; the World Health Organization; ex-Cabinet officials who don’t like the President; and, of course, Black Lives Matter folks.
Interestingly, “antifa” means anti-fascist. The United States fought World War II in an effort to defend people from fascists (i.e. far-right, authoritarian ultra-nationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, as well as strong regimentation of society and the economy).
It would be expected that every U.S. citizen and politician, living in our democratic country, would be against fascism, because it’s un-American.
Evidently, Donald Trump and his supporters don’t agree.
Why is that?
In other bad news, the President evidently decided that the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District Federal Court was getting close to bringing charges against a couple of Trump lawyers (Cohen and Giuliani) for corruption and obstruction of justice. So, out of the blue, Attorney General Barr announced that the U.S. Attorney (Berman) would be resigning his post, to be replaced by a Trump bootlicker.
Berman announced the next day that he had no intention of resigning and intended to continue his investigations. The next day, Attorney General Barr announced that the President had fired Berman.
When asked about the turn of events, Mr. Trump denied having fired Berman, saying that he leaves matters like this in the hands of the Attorney General.
What a circus!
UPDATE: The big Tulsa rally was held on Saturday night. The President claimed before the event that “we’ve had more than one million requests for tickets”. Alas, the rally was a dud; the Tulsa Fire Marshall said afterward that actual attendance was less than 7,000.
(President Trump was disappointed, exasperated, and angry. I’m glad I wasn’t in Air Force One on the return flight; the language was likely very colorful.)
BTW, the President said to supporters at the rally that “I told my people not to do so much testing” of Covid-19, because “the more you test, the more people turn up positive”.
Gee, what a surprise! (Actually, this attitude/policy was predicted several months ago when Trump was insisting that tests were available, people could get them anytime they wanted, and his Administration was flooding the country with test kits. As he spouted off this horseshit from the press conference podium, his Coronavirus Task Force medical experts blushed in embarrassment.)
(By the way, has anyone seen Drs. Fauci or Birx or Surgeon General Adams lately? I think they may have succumbed to the Covid-19 virus. Or, maybe the President doesn’t want them talking to the public anymore?)
After making his anti-testing gaffe at the Tulsa catastrophe, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McAnany was quick to insist that her boss was only kidding about cutting back Covid-19 testing. Trade Negotiator Peter Navarro made the same claim later that day. When reporters got the chance to question President Trump about it, he declared that he wasn’t kidding.
Can someone in the Administration get the story straight?
The Covid-19 pandemic is full-bore spiking in many states, deaths are now above 120,000 and our President…has moved on to more important matters like organizing rallies and bad-mouthing BLM protesters as “thugs” and “terrorists”.
