Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Alternative history is always a weak argument. Always.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

It could be worse. Vance could have said “post-menopausal sows.” Waiting for that audiotape to surface.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

This really is a full service blog.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Consistently wrong since 2002

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

“Let’s not pretend [Trump] wants to engage in high-minded discourse.”

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

We won’t go back.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Trump Crime Cartel / And Another Thing About Trump

And Another Thing About Trump

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Trump is looking like an insane person on tv, and most of you are probably thinking “so no different from normal.” And actually, no. He is looking more insane and more unhinged. And it is going to keep getting worse and worse. And there is a simple reason for that.

This is the first time in his life he simply can not bullshit his way through things. The last 75 years, every single time he has been in a pickle, he has been able to buy his way, bullshit his way, or make a deal out of the mess. He and daddy bought his way into schools and bought his way out of Nam. Daddy’s money got him a start in business. He was able to make deals with the mob and pay lawyers to shed liability on his failed real estate bids, he made deals with the Russians to funnel money to him through Deutsche Bank, he’s was able to bullshit his way through the election and bullshit his way through releasing his tax returns and pay off the women.

And finally, he has made it this far through his Presidency because he made a deal with evangelicals and the Republican base, that in return for some judges, shredding the environment, and throwing money at the rich while hating on minorities, they’d just sit quietly by and wear their MAGA hats.

But Trump can’t make a deal with coronavirus, and he has no control over it. No amount of bullshit or Russian money or ginned up racism is gonna keep people from dying. And he is finally starting to realize it.

Reader Interactions

153Comments

  2. 2.

    MomSense

    I Fucking loathe him.   I don’t think I have ever felt this kind of rage and hatred for another human being.

  6. 6.

    Barbara

    I have stopped trying to analyze the world according to Trump, and I don’t know whether any breakthrough from the real world into his tiny brain should make me feel better or worse.  Resign, Donald, just resign.

  8. 8.

    Elizabelle

    He’s tiring.  He’s falling back on his vocabulary of 15 adjectives.  If that.

  9. 9.

    lgerard

    “like you’ve never seen before”

    “nobody ever thought possible”

    just gibberish

  10. 10.

    joel hanes

    Trump doesn’t care if people die.

    Trump doesn’t care about other people at all.

    But he’s enraged and baffled that he cannot seem to shift the blame for COVID-19 deaths onto someone else.   He’s using all his usual stratagems, and people keep telling him that they blame him.   This threatens his fragile ego, which is really the only thing in the universe he cares about.

    All the rest: the fake wealth, the lifts in his shoes, the orange face, the fake hair, the gold slathered on everything in his homes, the vulgar excess of his resorts, the Presidency, his kids, his wives, the cheating at golf, the bullying, the lies  — all that in service of his ego.

  11. 11.

    Elizabelle

    A reporter, through a mask, wants to ask a question of Dr. Fauci.

    Trump glares and word salads.

    Asked about the anniverary of FDR death, and about Captain Crozier.

    Direct quote:  “He’s not Ernest Hemingway.  He shouldn’t be writing letters.”

    Says he doesn’t know why ship stopped in Vietnam.  And that is actually a good question.  (We know the answer.  It was some higher up in the Navy.  Task and Purpose told us that.)

  14. 14.

    Elizabelle

    I am liking these reporters.  They are asking variations of the same question, over and over, and pushing back at Trump’s assertions and assumptions.

    Three years and a death count that is rising, but they are learning.

  15. 15.

    Elizabelle

    Q about Biden.

    Trump slamming them over swine flu.  Attaches the word failure to Biden about 5 times.

  16. 16.

    debbie

    One of the unusual things here is that Trump and co. are asserting total emergency power to stop states from continuing their emergency measures.— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) April 13, 2020

  18. 18.

    Elizabelle

    Trump keeps riffing on how we have so many beds.

    We do have extra beds.  And that is on the governors for asking for them.

    And needing less beds.  Because of the lockdowns and social distancing.  Which they initiated.

    Trump just wants to hog all the credit.

  19. 19.

    Seanly

    Exactly this.

    Rawstory linked this article about this very same thing

    It’s the way I’ve been feeling. While Trump may have hurt many others & even ruined lives with his constant grifting (not to even begin to think about the impact of his s3xual predation on others), at the end of the day for whatever reason he was able to just keep skating by. And even with his forked up response to Maria & other hurricanes, there was enough of a system remaining to limp along until the media lost interest.

    Now as John said, the coronavirus can’t be bought off or threatened or bullied. Trump has very little control and his second impulse (after protecting himself) is to make money off it. And that just makes it worse (as so much of what he does in any crisis really, but now it leads to people dying). Quack remedies and threatening experts into silence won’t reduce the infections and stop the dying.

  20. 20.

    Ella in New Mexico

    I’m hoping social media and the networks put up pieces in which they contrast today’s asininity fest with the utter decency and seriousness of the Biden-Sanders video.

    Title it “We Can Haz Nermal Now?”

  21. 21.

    Elizabelle

    Says it’s his last question.

    He’s announcing all the committees in formation.  Committee upon committee.  (That’s even the joke on how you deal with something you don’t want to solve or can’t solve.)  It is going to be “the greatest names. … The people who know the best.”

    Maybe one of them will deliver the virus to him.

  22. 22.

    Omnes Omnibus

    OT:  So far the results are looking good in the WI Supreme Court race.  I can’t link right now but Karofsky is leading with larger margins than the last election in the counties she should win and Kelly is getting 2:1 in counties that went 3:1for the conservative last time.  Good signs.

  23. 23.

    RSA

    And he is finally starting to realize it.

    I hope so. For someone like Trump, this strikes me as an appropriate punishment for his crimes. Next to imprisonment, of course.

  24. 24.

    jl

    I agree with Cole, and it’s been going in this direction for months. Reporters can only go so far in making fools of themselves abasing themselves to Trump’s dishonest BS, or viewers will tune out.

    And maybe fact that the reporters probably have one or more friends deadly sick or dead by now might make a difference. Mingling around the country, and DC, and lots of people are part of their jobs. Kind of like professional sports.

  25. 25.

    Elizabelle

    Stanley Scherer, real estate guy, has died.  Q about it, and Trump is praising him.

  26. 26.

    cokane

    Well said Cole. I welcome you doing some more essays on here. I’ve always enjoyed them.

    Trump has been able to bluster his way through pretty much everything in his life — and unfortunately succeeded. Pandemics aren’t a broken capitalist system however.

  29. 29.

    khead

    Bumping this from downstairs:

    I encourage folks out there to tell your friends to watch every coronavirus press conference each day during this crisis.  Your friends are at home and have nothing better to do than watch and learn how our government works.

  30. 30.

    geg6

    @Elizabelle:

    Can’t remember where I read it today, but apparently the WH press corps is very unhappy with current working conditions.  There are some safety issues along with the verbal abuse.  Some seem to have had enough.  And bringing in the OANN bimbo as a guest after the WHCA tossed her didn’t help either.

  31. 31.

    West of the Rockies

    @MomSense:

    I feel the same.  But language fails to adequately express that loathing.  I sputter things like, “loathsome, orange turd… Disgusting, vile, vomitous menace…”  But it doesn’t come close to presenting how much I despise him.  It’s #47 of a long list of Trump-related frustrations.

  33. 33.

    jl

    @Elizabelle: Saw in interview with General Honore. He patiently explained the federal disaster response organization built after Katrina. He said don’t need new committees, don’t need a new Czar, you call up the career people been on the team for years and tell them to work the plan. They are all military and career civil service people. Not flunkies and hacks, and not even competent well meaning newbies (though we wouldn’t get anything near that good with Trump). The system is in place, but no one will trigger it.

  35. 35.

    Tom Levenson

    As many have noted, the true believers believe truly, and won’t give up on him. But GOP party ID (a proxy for kool-aid drinkers) only accounts for about 30% of the total electorate.

    Meanwhile over at GOS, kos had an interesting look at what’s happening with independents. TL:DR–there is measurable movement away from Trump, clearly driven by the accumulating evidence of his failure on coronavirus response.

    That movement isn’t in tidal wave territory yet, and the number of true independents is much smaller than the 35-40% of the electorate that IDs as such. (And many of the genuine indies are low-info, and apathetic type.) But a relatively small shift in that group would be decisive in an election in which strong party ID is pretty evenly balanced, with the balance of pro or anti Trump baked in for both Ds and Rs.

  36. 36.

    Baud

    I’m not watching so I didn’t realize this (from Drum)

     This, of course, is just more of the usual. But in a new low—they just keep coming, don’t they?—Trump used his press briefing to air a campaign video that defended his response and instead laid the blame at the feet of . . . the press:

    This is bad enough. But here’s the weird part: the clips of the media “minimizing the risk” are all from Fox News. And it’s certainly true that Fox dutifully followed Trump’s lead during February by downplaying the pandemic risk. But why pick on Fox? Trump certainly could have found at least a clip or two from the other cable nets as well. This was very clearly a deliberate choice.

  39. 39.

    NobodySpecial

    Half of the one goddamned committee consists of Cabinet members.

    I’m grateful they’re going to sit around in a room and do nothing instead of their actual jobs, where they’d just fuck everything up deliberately.

    Trump defenders should have to tour mass graves, Auschwitz-style. And then beaten with rods for their stupidity.

  40. 40.

    cokane

    @Tom Levenson: FWIW, on elections, it’s also worth trying to follow depressed turnout. This was a major factor in the 2008 landslide — many diehard Republicans couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a Democrat, but they didn’t come out for a party that was failing in such an obvious manner. It was a big factor in the surprise win in Indiana, imo.

    A harder thing to track than independents swinging, but just as important imo, especially in those tight Senate races.

  41. 41.

    geg6

    @jl:

    Mango Mussolini (thanks to Betty!) never had a plan.  He won’t have one even after the dim bulbs on his new “task force” spew out whatever D-minus level undergrad business major term paper they manage to draw up.  He’ll never have a plan because he’s too disorganized and stupid to plan.  Thank the FSM, my governor is a D.

  42. 42.

    jl

    Read an interview with Schwarzenegger. I didn’t know he was the one who got the California multi-catastrophe planning program started over ten years ago. Good thing we’ve had governors who for the most part kept it going.

    Arnold seemed really into it. I can imagine him wanting to think big on giga-disaster planning and really getting into it. Reminded him of his action movie days, maybe. Some fantasy realms can be more constructive than others. And Schwarzenegger is a Newton level genius compared to Trump, which helps.

    I was not a Schwarzenegger as gubernator fan, but that is one good thing he did, and apparently let very competent people handle it, another difference from Trump

  43. 43.

    CaseyL

    I’m not happy that Pence said T* has “plenary powers.”

    If T* actually believes that, and starts exercising them, a million metric tons of shit are going to hit a fan the size of the moon.

    Boyoboy, am I glad to be living on the West Coast.

    ETA: Wisconsin Supreme Court election has been called:  Democrat Jill Karofsky is the winner.  It wasn’t even close.

  45. 45.

    joel hanes

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    results are looking good in the WI Supreme Court race

    Good news indeed, and a tribute to those amazing, stalwart WI Democrats who stood for hours, some of them in rain and hail, at risk of infection, to tell the Republicans that they cannot always steal what is not theirs.

    Thanks for the update; this is a day on which any ray of hope is to be particularly treasured.

  50. 50.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: I gather MSNBC and CNN both cut away from that video, then went back for the full melt-down

    @Omnes Omnibus:

      JR Ross @jrrosswrites· 12m

    BREAKING: @judgekarofsky campaign tells me she’s declaring victory. Full statement expected soon.

  52. 52.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Looking like it’s going to be a progressive blow-out in Wisconsin. Scott Walker’s judges out, a school bond approved for the first time since 1993,…

  54. 54.

    CaseyL

    @jl: Not now.  If the virus surges in late summer, he (or, rather, his handlers) will call it then, and use it as a reason to call for canceling the election.

    Blue states will hold elections anyway.  Biden will win.

    Red states either won’t cancel, or will ensure T* wins.

    Gonna be an interesting autumn.

  58. 58.

    laura

    He’s like a Deepwater Horizon of bs and word salad and contradictions so stacked into a single sentence that I Cant Even. And yet, his base seems more than fine with his handling of the crisis and will never not vote for more.

  59. 59.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Immanentize: I am really tired of that zombie story.  I have posted links to the investigations of the incident multiple times.  The things that have actually happened I WI have been bad enough without people continuing to propagate BS.

  60. 60.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Also this –

  61. 61.

    Elizabelle

    @jl:   I still need to watch that video of General Honore.

    Yes, we have federal experts who are good at doing their jobs.  It’s sad that Trump is dismissing and hollowing them out as much as possible.

    But they persist.

  68. 68.

    Elizabelle

    @jl:   Do you have a link for the Schwarzenegger article?  What publication?

    Had read about Arnold buying so many emergency supplies.  And Jerry Brown sold them off, faced with budget shortfalls.

  69. 69.

    jl

    @Elizabelle: Schwarzenegger was a very mixed bag.. He brought in Dutch health care experts to try to start a serious state level health care reform.

    One problems is that when the usually very good experts gave him news on policy he didn’t like, he’d start wavering and undermining his own efforts behind the scenes, and then, somehow, couldn’t understand why that was a problem, and got frustrated. Like GW Bush, he could never tear himself way from poorly regulated privatization, and voodoo economics supply side tax schemes.

    And CA has a plural executive, and executive departments that have more independence and much longer institutional memory than other states. Governor needs to be team player to get anything done. Arnold was not a good team player.

    So, he sabotaged several of his good ideas, was able to push his many bad ideas too far. A few of his good ideas escape his self-destructive grasp and took on independent lives of their own, maybe.

  71. 71.

    laura

    @Elizabelle: yes, that’s how the jungle primaries came to California. But I’d like to point out that he vetoed healthcare for all twice after it had passed both Senate and Assembly because Insurance Companies. Also, he delayed high speed rail and rebuilding the Oakland Bay Bridge when the funding was cheap plentiful and so many workers aching to work. Finally allowed the Bridge building with imported chinese steel. Watching all that scrap metal come back under the Golden Gate Bridge was something.

  72. 72.

    Elizabelle

    Fauci up about evaluating when it’s safe to reopen ….  Physicians and scientists and public health people — reminds it is not a light switch.  Very large country.  Different impacts.  NY very different from West….

    it will be a rolling re-entry.  It will not be one size fits all.

  74. 74.

    Elizabelle

    Fauci:  “The president will get a lot of input from others, but we will give the honest public health assessment.”

  75. 75.

    jl

    @Elizabelle: I’ll look for it. I think I saw the one you mentioned too. I don’t know Brown sold off all the emergency supply stocks. I think Brown and legislature decided to quite fully funding them. So, I think, more like they sat in warehouses without proper maintenance. Been reports of a lot of CA’s huge disaster supply stash not being in good condition. But I think hasn’t been that long since the budget cuts, so most of it has been usable after some repair and refurbishment.

  76. 76.

    Elizabelle

    Admiral whatever P talking about the Airbridge.  Flying in supplies from overseas.

    (me.  This has proved we need a supply chain right here in the US of A.  Good can come out of this, with a better — legitimate even — POTUS and administration.)

  79. 79.

    laura

    @jl: thank you for the reminder Arnold came for pensions and he came for the nurses. It did not go well.

  81. 81.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24
    “Mid-briefing, a senior Trump campaign official told The Daily Beast that they were already brainstorming ways to fundraise off of the president’s performance at the Monday press briefing.”

    Julia Ioffe @juliaioffe 39m
    Dilemma for us in the press: when the President makes crazy, untrue claims, it is our job to challenge them. But the resulting fight plays right into Trump’s narrative about the press, which energizes his base. Is there a better way or are we locked into this vicious cycle?

  83. 83.

    jl

    @laura: He had a lot of knee jerk reactionary bad ideas. Good on climate change, then horrible for a lot of workers. Couldn’t figure out why his stubborn insistence on his exact mishmash of chaotic good and bad ideas pissed off a lot of people. IIRC, state government kind of ground to halt towards the end, largely because he didn’t know how to be a CA governor who could get either good or bad ideas off the ground. Except for a few that escaped his decompensation.

    He is a Newton level genius only compared to Trump, is one thing.

  85. 85.

    jl

    Some things in WI are getting weird. Is the WI Speaker spending the duration of the pandemic emergency dressed in a hazmat suit hunkered down in the same parking garage, barking insane shit?

    Why?

    @ParkerMolloy

    Here’s Wisconsin Speaker
    @SpeakerVos
    saying that people who didn’t receive ballots they requested can still request e-mailed ballots from their clerk? I… don’t think that’s true? Maybe I’m wrong, though?

    https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/1247599416409759744

  86. 86.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    He is looking more insane and more unhinged. And it is going to keep getting worse and worse.

    Yes, his last tweet about “I will decided to reopen the country, not the governors” sounded like Hitler ranting about Stierner in that scene in Downfall. It’s like Trump and his base are in a parallel reality now.

  87. 87.

    kindness

    I keep reading that Trump keeps trying to transfer responsibility to the states, to the governors so that when the death toll starts mounting and when he can’t run for re-election on The Greatest Economy ever nor the Lowest Unemployment #s ever he’s going to blame the states & the governors.  Of course he will.  He’s already explicitly states he takes no responsibility for anything.  He meant that when he said it too.  Any media worth it’s pixels/ink should roast Trump over open flames for such bald faced bullshittery.  Every day till Jan 21, 2021.

  88. 88.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Chris Hayes just played a clip of Bill Bennet dismissing corona deaths– 23,000 in a month– by comparing them to flu deaths over two years. I had for a long time forgotten about the existence of Bill Bennet. Very Serious Persons kept him on TeeVee for the better part of three years or so, harrumphing about Bill Clinton’s penis.

  89. 89.

    jl

    @kindness: Trump is an idiot savant at some things. Shifting blame for his own malicious incompetence is one of them. He is probably truly puzzled why it isn’t working well this one weird time.

  91. 91.

    Elizabelle

    C-Span says Fauci is going to take questions live.  Will let  you know if that happens.  Press conference is over.

    Yes.  It’s on now.  Some other doctor is speaking first.  Doctor from Alabama who has recovered from COVID

    C-Span.org.  Washington Journal special presentation at night.

  92. 92.

    catclub

    @Tom Levenson: by the accumulating evidence of his failure on coronavirus response.

     

    It will be sweet if ‘The failed Carter presidency’ is finally replaced by an actual failure.

  103. 103.

    Elizabelle

    @lgerard:   You cannot make this up.

    Didn’t John Oliver ask for someone to sell him one of her paintings??  From an earlier thread …

  104. 104.

    Hoodie

    Follow the lead of the sane governors and start ignoring the orange fart cloud. If he cans Fauci, that’s a reason for the media to completely stop covering his daily briefings, because no useful information will be provided. The guy needs to be deprived of the oxygen he steals.

  105. 105.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Brian Stelter @brianstelter
    Jim @Acosta on @OutFrontCNN : “That is the biggest meltdown I have ever seen from a President of the United States in my career.”

    nd from the replies, so granted maybe the most anecdata-ist anecdata ever:

    Patrick @AvgMillennial9
    A staunch Trump supporter friend of mine just texted me that he is staying home in Nov after seeing that presser.

  106. 106.

    Aleta

    The more stress he’s under the more dysfunctional he and his relationships will get.  In the past someone or his lawyers (or the media ) have rescued him.

  108. 108.

    kindness

    @Elizabelle: He did it in last Sunday’s show.  He said they’d pay the person $20 for the picture and donate $20,000 in that person’s name to the food bank of the person’s choice.  Oh he’ll get that picture.

  111. 111.

    catclub

    @kindness: He’s already explicitly states he takes no responsibility for anything. He meant that when he said it too.

     

    Democratic ads cannot wait for the media to repeat this.  Pelosi  and any other Democratic politician should mention it very time a microphone is within a quarter mile. We need to elect a president who takes responsibility.

     

    Trump says he is a cheerleader. We need a leader who takes responsibility.

    Trump says he is not a shipping clerk. he is wrong.

    We won World war II because the US Government was the best shipping clerk in the world.

     

    etc

  112. 112.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @jl: Going by the way Newsome is talking it’s going to be one of these Grandpa pants on the ground thing – the states will gradually ease the quarantine and let Trump believe it’s his idea.

  113. 113.

    Kelly

    Thank you John and the rest of the Jackalariat for giving me these updates on Trump’s public behavior with out my suffering thru watching it.

  114. 114.

    Mousebumples

    My husband and I both voted absentee for Karofsky so good to see her emerge victorious! (#karma)

    We dropped off our ballots at the post office in late March, and I’m not sure if they were among the ballots that were found in a post office bin after the election, last week. I’m planning to follow up with our town clerk, but I think we should use our personal stories to follow up with our State and US reps. (all republicans, except for Tammy Baldwin) Anyone else we should reach out to, to try to get better for by mail options? 

  115. 115.

    lgerard

    @Elizabelle:

     

    I was under the impression the program was for small businesses to help keep their employees on the payroll.

    Does she pay anyone other then herself?

    She and Mrs Mnuchin could form a clueless caucus

  116. 116.

    Aleta

    “There’s nothing wrong with the president’s pandemic.  You people are hypocrites.”

    –Rudy Giuliani  (coming soon)

  118. 118.

    Kent

    @MomSense:I Fucking loathe him.   I don’t think I have ever felt this kind of rage and hatred for another human being.

    Mitch McConnell, perhaps.  But it is debatable whether he is human.

  121. 121.

    Another Scott

    @catclub: The US DoD is the world’s largest employer.  It operates in space, in the air, on the land, on the sea, and under the sea.  It knows how to get things where they need to be.  It’s exactly the type of organization with the logistics experience needed to address a pandemic.

    But Donnie didn’t want to see big numbers, so he blew up the country.

    Grrr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  122. 122.

    Duane

    @kindness: Trumpov took responsibility for it today when he said he had authority over the states. He intends to blackmail them into doing what he says. His claim of authority should help tighten that noose around his neck.

  124. 124.

    Kent

    @Another Scott:@catclub: The US DoD is the world’s largest employer.  It operates in space, in the air, on the land, on the sea, and under the sea.  It knows how to get things where they need to be.  It’s exactly the type of organization with the logistics experience needed to address a pandemic.

    Well, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army is 2.5 million strong which is nearly double the US.  Or are you counting every single DOD employee down to the landscapers and maids working at overseas bases

    But that doesn’t refute your point at all.

  125. 125.

    Brachiator

    My sister watched some of this. Sent me a message saying that Steve Mnuchin standing behind Trump looked like a ventriloquist working his dummy.

  126. 126.

    Duane

    @artem1s: When they finish digging those mass graves they could jump in. Or fall. Accidents happen. Nothing could be done. Thoughts and prayers.  Going to need a lot of those.

  129. 129.

    Another Scott

    In other news, ProPublica vis GovExec:

    Last month, as a deadly new virus swept over the globe, one Canadian defense contractor predicted on an earnings call that it would lead to a big business opportunity in the U.S. Thanks to the White House, that bet paid off just a few weeks later in a $96 million no-bid deal.

    In an unusual move, even in times of disaster, the White House stepped into the federal purchasing process, ordering the Federal Emergency Management Agency to award a contract to AirBoss of America. The Trump administration has rushed through hundreds of deals to address the pandemic without the usual oversight, more than $760 million reported as of this week, but the AirBoss transaction is the single largest no-bid purchase, a ProPublica analysis of federal purchasing data found.

    While FEMA placed the order, it was directed to do so by the White House, ProPublica found.

    It is unclear why the White House chose AirBoss for the protective equipment, which is similar to products made by other vendors.

    “I can’t think of an example of the White House sending FEMA a directive to procure items from a particular company in a particular manner,” said Tim Manning, a former FEMA deputy administrator during the Obama administration.

    The March 31 FEMA contract called for the company to produce 100,000 powered respirators and filters for medical workers treating patients in New York — a critical need that the Trump administration has been slow to address. The contract calls for them to be delivered to New York by July 31, five months after the state’s first reported case.

    A little more than a week after a White House official publicly praised the deal, AirBoss’ stock price has more than doubled on the Toronto exchange.

    […]

    Of course, the White House isn’t saying why it interfered with the procurement.

    Grrr….

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  133. 133.

    Mallard Filmore

    @BBA: Somewhere on the internet:

    “Geez. I mean, out of the crooked timber of humanity and all that, but dear god how did we not get outcompeted by the elephants?”

  135. 135.

    schrodingers_cat

    @mvr: Angular momentum is one of the invariant quantities in physics. It is always conserved. So the formula is etched in my brain. Every time I see your nym that’s what I think.

  136. 136.

    Mnemosyne

    @Another Scott:

    I’ve seen it reported elsewhere that AirBoss helped bail Jared out when he got in over his head with NYC real estate.

    IOW, the usual corrupt bullshit. One mobster helping another one wet his beak.

  138. 138.

    Plain Dave

    @Mousebumples:  On the 6th I was still hearing the absentee ballots could be placed in a drop box at the Grafton Village Hall.  When I got there the next morning a note glued to the drop box told me I had to take my ballot the the polling place instead.   A nice man there only needed to ask which ward I lived in before politely taking my ballot all official-like.   I suspect it may even have been counted.

  140. 140.

    catclub

    @schrodingers_cat: It is always conserved.

     

    In a frictionless, isolated system. My top spins down.

    Like wise, entropy increases in an isolated system, but if you put in energy in the right ways entropy will go down -think sunlight and growing plants.

  141. 141.

    MCA1

    @Baud: He wrote a dumb (redundant, I know) op-ed for Real Clear Politics* last week.  I think that’s the reason he’s shown up out of the woodwork.  Regurgitated a bunch of stupid shit that even Dotard stopped pushing a month ago.  How someone could once have been a respected “conservative” [read: reactionary] thinker at one time, and now cannot grok that the only reason we don’t have half a million dead in this country is because we fucking shut everything down, while he sits in the comfort of his basement away from outside human contact, is beyond me.  “It’s just the flu.”  Key-riced on a popsicle stick.

    *which I like to refer to as “Republican, Clearly, Politics” whenever someone points me to content there thinking it’s some kind of centrist spot

  142. 142.

    Tehanu

    @joel hanes:  Trump doesn’t care if people die.

    Trump doesn’t care about other people at all.

    But he’s enraged and baffled that he cannot seem to shift the blame for COVID-19 deaths onto someone else.

    This, exactly.  I think he moved from mere narcissism into full-blown solipsism quite a while ago.

  143. 143.

    moops

    Trump doesn’t get himself out of any of his problems.  Other people figure out how to make others suffer to keep the conservative dream alive. Trump isn’t defeated.  Trump was never doing any of the winning, and he has no part in whether Trump prevails or suffers.

     

    What is under indictment here is the conservative anti-science agenda and propaganda campaign that brought us Trump.   Can they still keep this shit up while people are literally stacking up in field morgues here while we live like the alternate universe in Counterpart?

  144. 144.

    different-church-lady

    Spot on, John, and in addition: he can’t manipulate a virus. There’s no human nature, no deadly sins, for him to get his hooks into. COVID-19 doesn’t care about the guy’s sociopath skills.

  145. 145.

    TriassicSands

    This is the first time in his life he simply can not bullshit his way through things.

    Sadly, you’re wrong. He’s bullshitting his way through the pandemic and it will absolutely work with his base. Given the ignorance (and short attention span) of the American electorate, it could work for a majority of Americans.

    Never, never underestimate the stupidity and ignorance of the majority of Americans. Yes, it sounds mean and elitist, but facts are facts. You only have to get out and talk to people, and that includes Democratic voters, to realize how little they know and how easily they are manipulated. The big difference between Dem voters and GOP voters is that the former are better people. Not so much smarter or hugely better informed, but definitely more humane values.

  146. 146.

    VOR

    To paraphrase The Terminator: Listen, and understand! That virus is out there! It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop… ever, until we all are dead! Or social distancing.

  148. 148.

    terry chay

    @Tom Levenson: You keep thinking votes need to change. They don’t. Voters become non voters and non voters become voters.

    All that has been happening. 2017, 2018, 2019 each have been worse for them than the previous year. !ovement has been happening and the arrow has only pointed one direction. The only thing that has changed in 2020, is they have kicked it into overdrive.

    Keep that in mind when you think we need to “convince independents” (who, btw are much less than the 20 percent you say.” How do you think this supreme court candidate in Wisconsin can win by 40,000 votes in the middle of a pandemic when most Wisconsin elections during normal ephesus are only decided by less than 40k?

  149. 149.

    Chris T.

    @Duane: Trumpov took responsibility for it today when he said he had authority over the states.

     I can see the ad now: “Trump says he is in charge of everything” (play clip) “and responsible for nothing” (play clip). “We need someone responsible in charge.”

  150. 150.

    SW

    yup.  He’s done.  Its the end of all con men.  Every. Single. One.

     

    But my god this was epic.

  151. 151.

    leeleeFL

    @mvr: I was taught to distrust and dislike him from childhood, so I have you beat there.  My Parents were very open in their opinions, and some things, like loathing the Trump Clan, were Holy Writ.

  153. 153.

    GLEN TOMKINS

    I’m not clear on why presiding over this disaster, even if it gets much worse, costs Trump the election.

    The election will be a choice between his direction of our response, and the claims made by the Ds of how they would have done things differently, and will do things differently if our candidate becomes president.  Well, the Ds, if they actually had any idea how to run the response to this disaster, any ideas they had enough confidence in to risk their political future over, would not have given Trump $2.2 trillion a few weeks ago without making at least partial, if not total, control of that response by House Ds a condition of voting the money.

    You very rightly point out that Trump sure is acting as if he were not of sound mind.  The Speaker, who has had considerable contact with him when the cameras aren’t rolling (politicians say all sorts of fantastical things they don’t really believe, for effect, when the cameras are rolling), has pointed out that he is not of sound mind.  Despite that, the House Ds left him in charge of the response to this disaster, even though the need for an extra $2.2 trillion meant they could force any change in the law governing who directs the response that they wanted to as their price for allowing any extra money.

    Would sane people have acted as the Ds did when they gave Trump $2.2 trillion and left him in charge of the response to COVID-19?  Oh, I mean sane people who have even an ounce of the courage of their convictions.  Why would people vote for a party that has no convictions, no courage, or none of either?

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