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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / A (Bloated, Orange) Face in the Crowd

A (Bloated, Orange) Face in the Crowd

by Betty Cracker|  September 4, 20209:43 am| 154 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics, Open Threads, Politics, Republican Stupidity, Trumpery

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Donald Trump is a slow-witted bully, and his occupancy of the highest office in the land is more attributable to his dumb luck and others’ bad faith, greed and stupidity than any skill or strategic acumen on the part of Trump or the low-quality hires who surround him. But Trump does possess a certain low cunning. Absent that, it would have been the destiny of some other hate-filled buffoon to become the avatar of the dumb, angry, jingoistic, bigoted horde that comprises 40% or so of our citizenry.

Trump knows how to gin up hate based on the prejudices he shares with the MAGA horde, and he understands the wellspring of their self-righteousness, which is a staggeringly hypocritical and unlearned version of Christianity and a judgmental form of ersatz patriotism. This shallow patriotism exalts “the troops” and “our flag” and “the Constitution” and “the founders” in the abstract, but it exists primarily to exclude undesirables and enforce showy, Lee Greenwood-branded displays of fealty to the horde rather than the country as it actually exists.

I think Trump’s primal understanding of his followers’ shallow, phony version of patriotism is why he’s so threatened by the allegations in The Atlantic that he called America’s war dead “losers and suckers.” President Cornered Rat has never sounded so cornered as he did in these tweets denying the story:

Cornered Rat Is Cornered

It’s a lie — there’s video of Trump calling McCain a loser, and as always, there’s a tweet:

Cornered Rat Is Cornered 1

The bald-faced lies are standard fare. That Trump doesn’t understand the concept of service and is contemptuous of all non-transactional activities isn’t surprising either. Of course he has contempt for soldiers who are willing to risk or lay down their lives for low pay.

He’s contemptuous of his own followers too. They’re extras in his narcissistic drama, good only for providing the public adulation he craves on cue, handing over money to campaign hucksters and voting to keep him in power. Trump would order the strafing of the flag-waving MAGA horde in a New York minute if they dared to show up at Mar-a-Lago for an unscheduled event.

Given all that, the lies and hypocrisy are unremarkable. What is surprising is the tone of desperation in Trump’s response — the offer to swear on “whatever” or “whoever.” It reeks of flop-sweat and conjures an image of his piggy little eyes darting nervously in their pasty, white-rimmed sockets.

It’s axiomatic at this point that MAGAs cannot be moved but can only be outvoted. The scales are not going to fall from their eyes, ever, and waiting for them to finally realize they’ve been conned is as dumb and delusional as waiting for Trump to start acting like a “normal” president.

Still, it’s interesting how rattled Trump seems by these allegations. It’s as close to “A Face in the Crowd” moment as we’ve seen so far from the phony, elitist demagogue.

Open thread.

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Reader Interactions

154Comments

  1. 1.

    RepubAnon

    September 4, 2020 at 9:46 am

    Ask Trump to swear on the Koran… he did offer to swear on anything, right?

    Or, perhaps, swear on a stack of $100 bills, as he worships money above all else.

  2. 2.

    Quinerly

    September 4, 2020 at 9:48 am

    Pentagon shuttering “Stars and Stripes” at the end of the month. Publication dates back to Civil War.

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/09/04/trump-and-stars-and-stripes-attacking-american-icon-column/5706859002/?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4

  3. 3.

    Spanky

    September 4, 2020 at 9:49 am

    I refuse to believe those tweets came from DJT’s fingers. Too coherent, though it looks like there’s sort of an attempt at faux incoherence, if you know what I mean

    ETA as example, can you imagine hearing Trump use the term “quite the contrary”?

  4. 4.

    donnah

    September 4, 2020 at 9:52 am

    There is a sizable block of voters in the military and in our veterans population who have been unwilling to acknowledge Trump’s disdain for their service. This Atlantic article is not the first we’ve heard of his disrespectful attitude. But with further exposure and possibly more corroboration, they may feel compelled to reevaluate their loyalty to Trump. They insult themselves by supporting him.

  5. 5.

    raven

    September 4, 2020 at 9:54 am

    @donnah:  There also is a sizable block of vets who were not enamored with John McCain.

  6. 6.

    Roger Moore

    September 4, 2020 at 9:57 am

    It’s axiomatic at this point that MAGAs cannot be moved but can only be outvoted. The scales are not going to fall from their eyes, ever, and waiting for them to finally realize they’ve been conned is as dumb and delusional as waiting for Trump to start acting like a “normal” president.

    The question, though, is how many of the people who voted for him are true MAGA believers and how many are people who voted for him because he had an (R) after his name. I think some of the people who voted for him because they thought they’d get Generic Republican are probably reachable, though you’d hope they’d mostly have been reached by this point. In any case, we don’t have to turn his entire base against him to win; we only need to flip a few.

  7. 7.

    Betty Cracker

    September 4, 2020 at 9:57 am

    Speaking of campaign hucksters, I know I’ve mentioned this before, but the difference in tone in the fundraising emails from the Biden and Trump teams could not be more stark. It’s just so clear the Trump people think the MAGAs are dumb as fuck (not that they’re wrong).

  8. 8.

    Ken

    September 4, 2020 at 9:58 am

    the offer to swear on “whatever” or “whoever.”

    Couldn’t remember the words “Bible” and “God”, or (like the Devil in legend) can’t say them?

  9. 9.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    September 4, 2020 at 9:58 am

    We’re in the midst of the quadrennial Great Excusening, when millions of mostly white voters who do not consider themselves right wingers search for excuses why they just cannot join Democrats in opposing fascism.

    I know far too many military and ex/retired military who fall into the above category. They excuse themselves by voting glibertarian. Typical Embarrassed Republican abrogating any electoral responsibility for their inability to vote Democratic.

    At least it’s “X” number of votes for the Orange Furby.

  10. 10.

    MattF

    September 4, 2020 at 9:58 am

    It’s not news that Trump is an asshole. The current ‘scandal’ is, though, a spectacular example of that fact. I do get a persistent déjà vu feeling that I’ve heard it before.

  11. 11.

    germy

    September 4, 2020 at 9:58 am

    @Quinerly: 
    Alexander Woollcott and Harold Ross both worked there, over a hundred years ago.

  12. 12.

    MomSense

    September 4, 2020 at 10:01 am

    I listened to Trump’s new Covid advisor interviewed by the BBC.  Holy hell what an arrogant prick.  They are going to do their damndest to kill us

  13. 13.

    Betty Cracker

    September 4, 2020 at 10:01 am

    @Spanky: I agree the “quite the contrary” is a rhetorical flourish that doesn’t sound like Trump. I wonder which genius decided they should explicitly state that McCain’s body was flown “in casket” to the capitol? Did they imagine we’d otherwise assume they’d strapped him to a seat?

    The mind. It reels.

  14. 14.

    Falling Diphthong

    September 4, 2020 at 10:01 am

    The bit about approving McCain’s funeral is striking to me. Who out there is going to go all woobly kneed about Trump letting a funeral proceed? He seems to expect boot-licking thanks from someone for what is normally a very minor rubber stamp in the presidential duties.

    Also I believe he skipped that funeral. In checking that, I came across this: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47642335

    As Trump publicly fumes about the ghost of John McCain not thanking him enough. Not that he cares about that! Which is why it’s the topic of his speech to factory workers.

  15. 15.

    Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    September 4, 2020 at 10:03 am

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:  You mean “-X votes” right?

  16. 16.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 4, 2020 at 10:03 am

    He’s contemptuous of his own followers too.

    of all the metaphorical bricks walls I’ve literally been banging my figurative head against for the last five years (trying to summon Steve from the Wherever), this is one of the thickest. From his contempt for real religion to those moments when he slips in his railing against the elite to brag about how much nicer his apartment is…. When he won, he didn’t go to a diner in Long Island or a union hall on Staten Island, he went to 21 Club (a place I only knew about from old movies and TV shows, and assumed had gone the way of the Stork and the Latin Quarter and Club Babaloo) to promise tax cuts to people eating hundred dollar steaks and bask in their applause.

  17. 17.

    Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)

    September 4, 2020 at 10:03 am

    @Spanky:

    Yeah, that “quite the contrary” struck me as a little off, too.

    He has one thing going for him, and that’s that his voters have a remarkable capacity for willing away reality.  He’ll tell them it’s fake newz, it’s a lie, he never said it, and most of them will believe him.  After all, there were no names in that story!  Unnamed sources!  Unnamed sources!  Unnamed sources are only trustworthy when they get quoted telling us that they’ve seen things in Hawaii about Obama that you wouldn’t believe.  Otherwise, they’re trash.

  18. 18.

    Falling Diphthong

    September 4, 2020 at 10:04 am

    @MattF: Re hearing it before, this is Trump’s version of “Crooked Hillary”–it sticks because it reenforces an existing damaging narrative. His supporters can’t insist that he never said anything like that, because he has done so on tape numerous times.

  19. 19.

    Elizabelle

    September 4, 2020 at 10:04 am

    I woke up more hopeful this morning.  The Atlantic’s story is big and bad for Trump, and it rings true because we have witnessed this kind of behavior previously, over many incidents, with our own eyes and ears.

    Trump and his crew of paid and/or grifting liars know it’s bad.

    The FTF NY Times was slow in getting their story on The Atlantic up and — yes — they went with the horserace aspect in the headline, subhead, and first paragraphs.  Although they also loaded in some well researched Trump greatest hits that I’d kinda forgotten. It’s a pretty good (and damning) story.

    Trump Angrily Denies Report He Called Fallen Soldiers ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’

    The report, in The Atlantic, could be problematic for the president because he is counting on strong support among the military for his re-election bid.

    Cites Trump’s support for the military, and then:

    But he has also clashed with the military leadership by extending clemency to accused and convicted war criminals, seeking to order active-duty forces into the streets of Washington to crack down on demonstrations and trying to block an effort to change the names of Army bases named for Confederate generals.

    Apparently the White House served up a scapegoat for the missed French cemetery visit, at the time, one Zachary Fuentes (more on him in a second comment — he turns out to be notorious, too).

    Several White House officials at the time said the decision that Mr. Trump would not take Marine One to the Belleau Wood cemetery was made by Zachary Fuentes, a deputy White House chief of staff and close aide to Mr. Kelly, without consulting the president’s military aide. Others argued that a motorcade trip by road would have taken too long, at roughly two hours. Administration officials said at the time that Mr. Fuentes had assured Mr. Trump it was fine to miss the visit. Mr. Kelly traveled to the cemetery himself in the president’s place along with Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

    Mr. Trump insisted on Thursday that it was the weather, not disrespect, that forced the visit to be scrapped. “It was raining about as hard as I’ve ever seen,” he said. “And on top of that, it was very, very foggy. And the helicopter was unable to fly.” To go by ground, he added, the motorcade would have had to wind its way through congested areas of Paris for more than two hours. “The Secret Service told me, ‘You can’t do it,’” he said. “I said, ‘I have to do it. I want to be there.’ They said, ‘You can’t do it.’”

    [In TrumpSpeak, this is an outright admission: I didn’t want to go and decided not to. Let’s blame it on the Secret Service.]

    A half-dozen current and former aides to Mr. Trump backed him up with Twitter messages disputing the Atlantic article. “I was actually there and one of the people part of the discussion — this never happened,” wrote Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was then the White House press secretary. “This is not even close to being factually accurate,” added Jordan Karem, the president’s personal aide at the time.

    The reported comments about Mr. McCain, though, were consistent with Mr. Trump’s publicly expressed view of the senator.

    … But speaking with reporters on Thursday night, Mr. Trump insisted that he respected Mr. McCain even though they disagreed.

    “I was never a fan. I will admit that openly,” Mr. Trump said. But “we lowered the flags. I had to approve that, nobody else, I had to approve it. When you think — just thinking back, I had to approve either Air Force One or a military plane to go to Arizona to pick up his casket. And I approved it immediately. I had to approve the funeral because he had a first-class, triple-A funeral. It lasted for nine days, by the way. I had to approve it. All of that had to be approved by the president. I approved it without hesitation, without complaint.”

    He seemed to suggest that The Atlantic’s article came from several former aides that he had in mind. “Probably it’s a couple of people that have been failures in the administration that I got rid of,” he said. “I couldn’t get rid of them fast enough. Or it was just made up. But it’s unthinkable.”

    I think the NY Times somewhat let Trump hang himself with his own words. So kudos there.

  20. 20.

    Hungry Joe

    September 4, 2020 at 10:05 am

    At least one of Trump’s former lackeys is going to have to step out from behind the Unnamed Source curtain if these revelations are to have any effect — i.e., peel away even a small slice of his base or sway any of the mysterious (mythical?) Undecided voters.

    Meantime, the Trump fascist foundry continues to grind the glass, extrude the concertina wire, and strew the leftover LEGO pieces so many of us are willing to crawl over to vote. I’m writing more post cards today. How about the rest of you?

  21. 21.

    Baud

    September 4, 2020 at 10:06 am

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:

    We’re in the midst of the quadrennial Great Excusening, when millions of mostly white voters who do not consider themselves right wingers search for excuses why they just cannot join Democrats in opposing fascism.

    I resemble that remark.

  22. 22.

    Elizabelle

    September 4, 2020 at 10:07 am

    @Falling Diphthong:   Trump was not invited to McCain’s funeral.

    Although, former McCain best friend and current Trump toadie Lindsey Graham made sure to invite Ivanka and Jared to represent the Trump family.  That was kind of gruesome, and it was interesting that it was reported frequently at the time that it had been Graham who issued the invite, not the McCain family.

  23. 23.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 4, 2020 at 10:08 am

    @Elizabelle: . I had to approve the funeral because he had a first-class, triple-A funeral.

    who talks like that about a  funeral? fercrissake

    It lasted for nine days, by the way.

    he can’t help himself, he always gives it away

  24. 24.

    Amir Khalid

    September 4, 2020 at 10:08 am

    @RepubAnon:

    No, not the Quran. I do not want that sorry excuse for a human being defiling with his touch  the holy book of my faith, or indeed of any faith. Make him swear on the one thing he loves and holds dear — a portrait of himself.

  25. 25.

    Danielx

    September 4, 2020 at 10:09 am

    Given his record of blowing off solemn agreements*, offering to swear to not saying something does not mean much.

    *See: business agreements/contracts, marriage vows, oath of office, binding treaties…

  26. 26.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    September 4, 2020 at 10:10 am

    The fact that Trump comes outright and calls vets losers doesn’t surprise me since Trump does Mafia wiseguy LARP and didn’t the mobsters call Micheal a sucker for joining the military in the Godfather? But what is really bizarre is Trump’s obsession with the American Civil War to the point he has a fake Civil War battlefield on one of his golf courses. Trump’s idea of history must be entirely based on movies.

  27. 27.

    raven

    September 4, 2020 at 10:11 am

    @Quinerly: I wonder what they’ll do with the archives? Some years ago I found this picture of my Drill Sergeant, Dallas Pinkney, on their site.

  28. 28.

    MazeDancer

    September 4, 2020 at 10:11 am

    Consider asking people you know if they have made a Voting Plan. Doesn’t take the courage of going on record about Trump, but you might have been hesitant.

    But what if you can help? What if your friends need to talk through their options?

    PostCardPatriots.com has the info you need to help.

    And if you post your Voting Plan in this thread, it will soon be Illustrated and posted in the sidebar here.

  29. 29.

    schrodingers_cat

    September 4, 2020 at 10:12 am

    Do we know who is behind the latest leaks? Or are the anonymous.

  30. 30.

    schrodingers_cat

    September 4, 2020 at 10:13 am

    @raven: How is retirement coming along?

  31. 31.

    Omnes Omnibus

    September 4, 2020 at 10:13 am

    @Quinerly: It wasn’t a very good paper when I was in the army – mostly wire service articles – but it was always available and I read it every day.  The International Herald-Tribune was much better but you pretty much needed to go to a major train station to get it so it wasn’t an every day thing.  The Sunday Times was a big thing pre-brunch.  In the field, S&S was always available and I got my Economist once a week in the mail.  All this was pre-Internet, of course.

  32. 32.

    Baud

    September 4, 2020 at 10:13 am

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Anonymous.

  33. 33.

    JPL

    September 4, 2020 at 10:13 am

    @Quinerly:  trump has nothing but respect for the military,and what better way to show it then by destroying their newspaper.   If MSM reports that story, trump will deny it by the end of the day.

  34. 34.

    Betty Cracker

    September 4, 2020 at 10:15 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    he can’t help himself, he always gives it away

    So true.

  35. 35.

    Patricia Kayden

    September 4, 2020 at 10:15 am

    Yep. Surprise!!!

    The October Surprise is that Donald Trump really is Donald Trump.— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) September 4, 2020

  36. 36.

    Chyron HR

    September 4, 2020 at 10:16 am

    @Spanky:

    ETA as example, can you imagine hearing Trump use the term “quite the contrary”?

    Sure, although he would think it means “a big scam”.

  37. 37.

    JoyceH

    September 4, 2020 at 10:17 am

    I think someone is going to have to go public on this story. It will be someone who has already left the administration, and Trump will claim he was a loser who was fired ‘like a dog’.

    What I want to know is – when can we expect the first ‘Trump paid for my abortion’ story to drop?

  38. 38.

    Leto

    September 4, 2020 at 10:19 am

    “first class funeral” JFC, he can’t stop the shitty business language. So many better ways to describe something but we have President Third Grade Vocabulary Ability and so here we are.

    @Omnes Omnibus: It was invaluable for us deployed because even if we didn’t have internet at a site, someone would always bring us a S&S.

  39. 39.

    japa21

    September 4, 2020 at 10:19 am

    No, this story won’t sway hard core Trump supporters, but think of states that are close with a large military presence.  States like NC, TX and GA. Not just members of the military but their families as well.  This could definitely help putting them in the Biden column.

  40. 40.

    laura

    September 4, 2020 at 10:20 am

    Of all the shit-baggery that MAGA encompasses, the fetishization of the military really chaps my ass. Talking big about the military while doing everything in his power to dismantle the institution has been a daily “in plain sight” occurance and smells kinda russky to me. The base and the entire republican party seem fine with it and that is terrifying – they seem willing to go along with anything he does.

  41. 41.

    rp

    September 4, 2020 at 10:20 am

    @Roger Moore: Exactly. My guess is that…hmmm…maybe 13% of the electorate support him because he’s a republican but aren’t die hard MAGATs. This story only needs to move a few of those types to have a significant impact.

  42. 42.

    Elizabelle

    September 4, 2020 at 10:22 am

    @schrodingers_cat:   Not yet.  There are at least four sources, and The Atlantic said that John Kelly declined to comment for this story.

    … according to sources with knowledge of this visit, Trump, while standing by Robert Kelly’s grave, turned directly to his father and said, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” Kelly (who declined to comment for this story) initially believed, people close to him said, that Trump was making a ham-handed reference to the selflessness of America’s all-volunteer force. But later he came to realize that Trump simply does not understand non-transactional life choices.

    “He can’t fathom the idea of doing something for someone other than himself,” one of Kelly’s friends, a retired four-star general, told me. “He just thinks that anyone who does anything when there’s no direct personal gain to be had is a sucker. There’s no money in serving the nation.” Kelly’s friend went on to say, “Trump can’t imagine anyone else’s pain. That’s why he would say this to the father of a fallen marine on Memorial Day in the cemetery where he’s buried.”

    My guess is that Kirstjen Nielsen might be a source for the Arlington National cemetery visit story; it’s got a lot of detail — although it could just be the unnamed retired four-star.

  43. 43.

    Josie

    September 4, 2020 at 10:24 am

    @MazeDancer:

    I was planning to do a mail-in ballot, but my research revealed that Texas mail-in ballots are not counted until the national day of voting.  I have decided to vote early in person to make sure my vote is reported that night.  The more numbers we can rack up that night, the safer we are.

  44. 44.

    raven

    September 4, 2020 at 10:24 am

    @schrodingers_cat: Yesterday was the one year anniversary. I guess I’ll say it hasn’t been what I envisioned.

     

    I thought of you when I read this in the NYT this morning.
    The Forgotten Colonial Forces of World War II

  45. 45.

    Elizabelle

    September 4, 2020 at 10:25 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:  Meanwhile, Trump did not want the flags flown at half staff for McCain, and had to be pushed to agree to that.

    First class, triple-A funeral.

    That’s both funny and insulting.

  46. 46.

    PaulWartenberg

    September 4, 2020 at 10:27 am

    @donnah:

    What is hurting trump with these revelations is the personal nature of them. trump’s previous attacks on military veterans and top brass could be and were excused away as partisan political gamemanship, his way of signaling to his voting base that he disregards the “experts” in favor of his own “sound judgment and guts”. But this is different: he is openly pissing on the regular troops, the enlistees who sign up for a few years or a whole career, the ones not in the Pentagon offices but the ones on the front lines. His refusal to show up for various veteran memorials was and is contemptible: his trashing of their voluntary dedication and sacrifice is more vulgar and obscene.

  47. 47.

    schrodingers_cat

    September 4, 2020 at 10:27 am

    @Baud: @Elizabelle: Now that the bottom is falling out of the Orange Clown’s campaign effort, rats are leaving the sinking ship.

    My guess is that it is one of the noble generals or their aides who served willingly under the Orangina.

  48. 48.

    schrodingers_cat

    September 4, 2020 at 10:28 am

    @raven: Thanks. I will read it.

  49. 49.

    Amir Khalid

    September 4, 2020 at 10:28 am

    POTUS Trump deals with Russia as if he were Putin’s man. He deals with the pandemic as if he were on the side of the coronavirus. Now, as hefaces the biggest fight of his brief political career, he’s just handed his rivals the Biden/Harris campaign a huge, unexpected gift.

    I’m beginning to sense a pattern here.

  50. 50.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 4, 2020 at 10:28 am

    OT: Stock market averages are down big again today, in spite of not-as-bad-as-expected job numbers. President DJIA is going to have a very angry weekend

  51. 51.

    raven

    September 4, 2020 at 10:29 am

    @Leto: Internet! Ever use a field phone??

  52. 52.

    The Moar You Know

    September 4, 2020 at 10:29 am

    It wasn’t a very good paper when I was in the army – mostly wire service articles – but it was always available and I read it every day.

    @Omnes Omnibus: Largely free of bullshit editorials and op-ed pieces.  In that respect, it’s one of the best papers out there.

    The closing of both VOA and the Stars and Stripes is enraging.   That’s an order that’s obviously come straight from Putin in an attempt to weaken our international standing and media footprint.

  53. 53.

    PaulWartenberg

    September 4, 2020 at 10:29 am

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:

    The greatest trick The Devil Roger Ailes ever pulled was convincing enough White Americans to never vote Democrat.

  54. 54.

    Sloane Ranger

    September 4, 2020 at 10:30 am

    @Quinerly: Has it, perchance, run any articles recently that could be interpreted as critical of the Great Orange One?

  55. 55.

    raven

    September 4, 2020 at 10:30 am

    Here’s the full article on Sgt Pinkney and the Honor Guard.

  56. 56.

    PaulWartenberg

    September 4, 2020 at 10:30 am

    @raven:
    JESUS CHRIST THEY’RE TOSSING POINTY THINGS.

  57. 57.

    Omnes Omnibus

    September 4, 2020 at 10:31 am

    @Leto: Exactly, it was a connection to what was going on elsewhere in the world.  Getting rid of it is a horrible idea.

  58. 58.

    karensky

    September 4, 2020 at 10:31 am

    It seems to me that the cultists are <30% of us. Right on otherwise!

  59. 59.

    raven

    September 4, 2020 at 10:31 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: Sounds rough. :)

  60. 60.

    Ken

    September 4, 2020 at 10:32 am

    @JoyceH: when can we expect the first ‘Trump paid for my abortion’ story to drop?

    Is Cohen’s book on sale yet?  He’s the ones who handled the payoffs for Trump’s affairs.

  61. 61.

    Omnes Omnibus

    September 4, 2020 at 10:33 am

    @PaulWartenberg: It’s really just a complicated version of lawn darts.

  62. 62.

    Omnes Omnibus

    September 4, 2020 at 10:35 am

    @raven: You have no idea.

  63. 63.

    Another Scott

    September 4, 2020 at 10:35 am

    FTFNYT from February 2016 – https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/06/upshot/the-week-in-donald-trumps-twitter-insults.html

    Last week, we published a comprehensive list of the people, places and inanimate objects that Donald Trump has insulted on Twitter since declaring his candidacy for president.

    Mr. Trump’s range of targets is wide. He has used Twitter to mock 17 current or former presidential candidates; nearly 100 other people; more than 20 media organizations, including The New York Times; several sovereign nations; and a potpourri of things that include a Neil Young song, a lectern in the Oval Office and a book about the 1896 presidential election, which was “terrible (and boring).”

    Despite a 15-hour silence on Twitter after his second-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, Mr. Trump has lobbed an impressive number of new insults. We’ve updated our catalog and expect to do so each week.

    […]

    Mr. Trump also slighted voters themselves, a first for him by our count. After failing to win Iowa, Mr. Trump complained: “I don’t believe I have been given any credit by the voters for self-funding my campaign.” (He is almost certainly not self-funding his campaign.)

    […]

    (OMG!! Insulting the New York Times!!11)

    Poor, poor Donnie. Everyone else is so horrible, only He is worth anything.

    Grr…

    We, and the press, have known all this about his character for ages. Yes, The Atlantic piece is good and proper. But we as a country should never have had to put up with him in office in the first place…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  64. 64.

    Calouste

    September 4, 2020 at 10:35 am

    @Baud: Not anonymous, off the record. The writer of the article knows who their sources are.

  65. 65.

    MattF

    September 4, 2020 at 10:37 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Not unexpected. Markets are pricing in Trump’s self-destructive pathology, at long last.

  66. 66.

    Sab

    September 4, 2020 at 10:38 am

    So we put my dad in a nursing home memory care unit. He is an R. I put in a change of address to my house for his mail. Frank LaRose Republican Sec of State sent a letter to us about dad. I didn’t answer.

    We just got our applicatioms for absentee ballots, even though dad didn’t respond to SoS inquiry. Would we have had the same result if dad was D? Why is he even on the voting rolls, and why at the wrong address he never registered at

    ETA: If you move, shouldn’t you have to re-register? A change of address at PO shouldn’t be enough. Anyone can do those. My ex-husband’s ex-wife rerouted our mail for a few weeks twenty years ago.

  67. 67.

    Calouste

    September 4, 2020 at 10:39 am

    I wonder if someone is sitting on a tape of the shitgibbon having a chat with evangelical leaders and commending them on fleecing the suckers while calling Pope Francis a loser.

  68. 68.

    PaulWartenberg

    September 4, 2020 at 10:40 am

    @Roger Moore:

    The question, though, is how many of the people who voted for him are true MAGA believers and how many are people who voted for him because he had an (R) after his name. I think some of the people who voted for him because they thought they’d get Generic Republican are probably reachable, though you’d hope they’d mostly have been reached by this point.

    I had, based on pure anecdotal evidence, figured there was at least 24 percent of Republican voters who knew trump was a monster but still voted the party line (either from loyalty or fear of a Hillary timeline), about 30 percent of Republicans who only cared about profiting from a Republican regime, and about 44 percent who knew trump was a monster and cheered him on just to OWN TEH LIBS.

    You won’t get the 30 percent who profit from GOP misrule, because it’s never in their interests to support a Democratic government that might tax or regulate them to their despair. The 44 percent are obviously gone. That 24 percent are the ones the Lincoln Project and Never Trumpers are trying to reach, with the hope that Biden is friendlier to them than Hillary was.

    There is no guarantee the Democrats and Never Trumpers will reach that full 24 percent. But it doesn’t hurt to try (as long as Biden/Kamala speak well to the Liberal/Progressive factions in their own ranks). What IS as play are the less numerous but more significant Independent voters who favored trump over Hillary (46 to 42 percent) but now hate trump compared to Biden (35 to 53 percent). In the right states – the Midwest MI, IA, WI, even OH and PA, and AZ and FL, maybe even NC and GA – they can flip those places Blue and secure the Electoral College…

  69. 69.

    Leto

    September 4, 2020 at 10:42 am

    @raven: Yes! One of the first things we learned how to do in Block 6, HF fundamentals. Field phone and SATCOM phones. Seriously, ground radio troops were your best friends :)

  70. 70.

    PaulWartenberg

    September 4, 2020 at 10:44 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    The markets are responding to other economic factors (and good employment numbers never make the markets go up automatically). There’s stories about credit crunches and bank debt https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/07/coronavirus-banks-collapse/612247/ that may be causing the markets to pull back.

  71. 71.

    Jersey Tomato

    September 4, 2020 at 10:45 am

    Has Kelly commented yet? A denial from him would go a long way toward derailing this story, but I haven’t seen anything from him yet.

  72. 72.

    Kay

    September 4, 2020 at 10:45 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    OT: Stock market averages are down big again today, in spite of not-as-bad-as-expected job numbers. President DJIA is going to have a very angry weekend

    We’re watching them delude themselves on the covid damage to the economy just like they deluded themselves on covid. There are periods you have to act. Windows. Things won’t always wait around for the low quality, coddled and insulated mediocrities he hired to get some sense of what’s happening in the real world. By the time it breaches the wall of bullshit they’ve surrounded themselves with it’s an epidemic.
    He should have spent the summer ordering the GOP in Congress to get some stimulus out the door. God knows they would have hopped right to it. They’re his employees and Pelosi did all the work. Instead he focused solely on racist appeals to his base.

  73. 73.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 4, 2020 at 10:45 am

    @PaulWartenberg:

    there’s stories about credit crunches and bank debt

    that sounds… familiar…..

  74. 74.

    artem1s

    September 4, 2020 at 10:48 am

    Ellison to close foundation, focus on COVID-19 response

    Well the grifters are lining up to con the US out of our tax money and hopping on Donnie’s promise to produce a vaccine by November 1.  Ellison is well known for pledging big money and then retracting after the media bump is over.  That he is closing shop is a pretty good sign he doesn’t like the legal framework of a registered foundation because it makes it harder for him to renege on pledges.  creep.  also,too Oracle sucks.

  75. 75.

    Omnes Omnibus

    September 4, 2020 at 10:49 am

    @Jersey Tomato: He declined to comment.  Make of that what you will.

  76. 76.

    Betty Cracker

    September 4, 2020 at 10:50 am

    @karensky: I used to think it was less than 30% too, but the fact that 40% or so consistently approve of this presidency in every poll taken despite every calamity that has befallen us on Trump’s watch caused me to revise my estimate upwards. Paul has an intriguing estimate at #68. Hmm.

  77. 77.

    Kay

    September 4, 2020 at 10:51 am

    @PaulWartenberg:

    I keep waiting for auto loans to implode. I have never seen anything like it. They are rolling over the difference between debt and value into new cars with bigger loans and it is just not sustainable. We see 700, 800, 900, 1000 dollar monthly payments and so little value behind them. It must be billions and billions of dollars in unsecured junk. It’s imaginary. It has to fall down.

  78. 78.

    Sab

    September 4, 2020 at 10:55 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: Still lots of brown and black people out there to hurt, so he still thinks he has a purpose in life.

  79. 79.

    Kay

    September 4, 2020 at 10:55 am

    Miles Taylor
    @MilesTaylorUSA
    · 3h
    Mr. President, this is not true. You were angry that DHS notified federal buildings to lower the flags for Sen. McCain. I would know because your staff called and told me.

    Miles is obviously already “out” as someone who won’t cover for the douchebag but that’s a confirmation with a name.

  80. 80.

    SiubhanDuinne

    September 4, 2020 at 10:56 am

    It reeks of flop-sweat and conjures an image of his piggy little eyes darting nervously in their pasty, white-rimmed sockets.

    Need a Betty Cracker portrait of Trump STAT!!

  81. 81.

    Sebastian

    September 4, 2020 at 10:57 am

    @RepubAnon:

    I read on Twitter he should swear on his taxes.

  82. 82.

    Omnes Omnibus

    September 4, 2020 at 10:57 am

    @Sab: Not this time.  This is he doesn’t want to admit that he let Trump slap him around like that, but he can’t deny it since there were witnesses.

  83. 83.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 4, 2020 at 10:58 am

    @Betty Cracker: in the early days of this nightmare, I used to watch Ali Velshi and Stephanie Ruhle’s show on MSNBC. She was fond of saying, “Not all trump voters are racist, my mom voted for trump and she’s not a racist!” One day she had her mom on the show, a well-groomed suburban lady. She said she liked trump’s policies, but “/disappointed mom face/ I wish he would tweet less.” We were well into our policy of torturing children at that point, but it would have been so terribly rude for someone, much less her daughter, to say: “You like babies in cages, you just wish he weren’t so very vulgar about it?”

    I’m sure Mrs Ruhle The Elder has never used That Word, and disapproves of those who do, but I’d bet a kidney she’s used the phrase, probably around the bridge table, or when Chad and Karen from the club come for dinner, “Well, I don’t have a racist bone in my body, but you have to admit…” And with the tax cuts, they can finally put that addition on the house at the shore, or upgrade to the condo on the slope side of the building.

  84. 84.

    Sebastian

    September 4, 2020 at 11:00 am

    @Roger Moore:

    There were also a ton of people in two groups: the ones who thought Hillary had in her bag and wanted to express their protest with “the system” and those who wanted a shakeup in Washington. Might be an overlap between those two, it’s really along a spectrum.

  85. 85.

    raven

    September 4, 2020 at 11:01 am

    @Leto: I guess I’m surprised they still have them.

  86. 86.

    Gravenstone

    September 4, 2020 at 11:02 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: And it gnawed away at him for each and every one of those days that someone else was getting all the attention.

  87. 87.

    Jersey Tomato

    September 4, 2020 at 11:03 am

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Truly, a profile in courage.

  88. 88.

    Omnes Omnibus

    September 4, 2020 at 11:04 am

    @raven: They still have semaphores tucked away someplace.

  89. 89.

    clay

    September 4, 2020 at 11:04 am

    @Betty Cracker: The thing I keep going back to is the fact that Hoover got 40% of the vote in 1932.  Trump having a constant 40% approval rating doesn’t seem odd in that context

    EDIT: And that was without Fox News!

  90. 90.

    TS (the original)

    September 4, 2020 at 11:05 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    This was the early CNN write up

    Stocks were mixed Friday morning after a solid August jobs report. The Dow rose but other major indexes were lower.

    Dow is now at -417 (1.5%)

  91. 91.

    HalfAssedHomesteader

    September 4, 2020 at 11:08 am

    I’ve been seeing a lot of comments elsewhere casting the anonymous sources as cowards.  I’m not so sure.  There’s likely some measure of self preservation to be sure, but I also think it’s a tactic of practicality.  Putting their names out there gives Trump something to demonize and move attention off of the issue.  And it’s an unfortunate fact of our media economics that having a shiny object in hand, they can’t resist chasing after a new one.

  92. 92.

    Elizabelle

    September 4, 2020 at 11:10 am

    Back to Zachary Fuentes, the scapegoat for Trump’s cancelling the 2018 visit to the American cemetery in France.

    Maggie Haberman, December 2018: the knives were out for Fuentes:

    NY Times: A Top Aide’s Exit Plan Raises Eyebrows in the White House

    Mr. Fuentes has become one of the most controversial aides inside the West Wing, earning nicknames like “Zotus” (Zach of the United States) and “prime minister” for his approach to other White House officials. Even before Mr. Kelly was asked by Mr. Trump this month to leave, Mr. Fuentes had been looking for a way out, after the president had begun to sour on him.

    So, he cooked up a plot to escape the White House and ensure a cushy retirement:

    Mr. Fuentes told colleagues that after his mentor, John F. Kelly, left his job as chief of staff at the end of the year, he would “hide out” at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, adjacent to the White House, for six months, remaining on the payroll in a nebulous role. Then, in July, when he had completed 15 years of service in the Coast Guard, Mr. Fuentes — an active-duty officer — would take advantage of an early retirement program.

    The program, referred to as temporary early retirement authority, had lapsed for Coast Guard officials at the end of the 2018 fiscal year …

    Trump signed the budget bill without funding for the Coast Guard program but — surprise, surprise — the Coast Guard retirement program was reinstated “with a list of otherwise noncontroversial technical corrections to the bill,” after the fact, after a late-arriving written request. Inserted by Republicans.

    No dice though, for Fuentes, with the USCG retirement plan. He soon found another source of revenue.

    Pro Publica: The Feds Gave a Former White House Official $3 Million to Supply Masks to Navajo Hospitals. Some May Not Work.

    Zach Fuentes, former deputy chief of staff to President Trump, won the contract just days after registering his company. He sold Chinese masks to the government just as federal regulators were scrutinizing foreign-made equipment.

    “A former White House aide won a $3 million federal contract to supply respirator masks to Navajo Nation hospitals in New Mexico and Arizona 11 days after he created a company to sell personal protective equipment in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

    Zach Fuentes, President Donald Trump’s former deputy chief of staff, secured the deal with the Indian Health Service with limited competitive bidding and no prior federal contracting experience.

    The IHS told ProPublica it has found that 247,000 of the masks delivered by Fuentes’ company — at a cost of roughly $800,000 — may be unsuitable for medical use. An additional 130,400, worth about $422,000, are not the type specified in the procurement data, the agency said.

    What’s more, the masks Fuentes agreed to provide — Chinese-made KN95s — have come under intense scrutiny from U.S. regulators amid concerns that they offered inadequate protection.

    …. Fuentes also benefited from government procurement rules favoring veteran- and minority-owned businesses, the procurement data shows.

    [ProPublica adds that Fuentes retired from the Coast Guard “for medical reasons.” Uh huh.]

  93. 93.

    Matt McIrvin

    September 4, 2020 at 11:13 am

    @Josie: Are in-person early votes counted sooner than mail votes? In Massachusetts, they’re treated essentially identically–I suspect neither are counted until Election Night.

  94. 94.

    LurkerM

    September 4, 2020 at 11:16 am

    @Sab: I recently moved (same state, same county) and had to re-register with the new address.

  95. 95.

    Elizabelle

    September 4, 2020 at 11:17 am

    And, from June 25, 2020, on the ZOTUS Zach Fuentes watch: ProPublica again:

    The Indian Health Service Wants to Return 1 Million KN95 Masks It Bought From a Former White House Official

    The former official, Zach Fuentes, is refusing to take back the masks even though IHS said they did not meet FDA standards. His company’s lawyer says the IHS is trying to cancel the order for “political reasons.”

    The Indian Health Service, which purchased Chinese-made KN95 masks from a former Trump White House official through a $3 million contract, is now trying to return the masks but facing resistance, the agency told ProPublica.

    The contractor, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Zach Fuentes, “refused this request and submitted a certified claim for payment” instead, the agency said.

    Stay tuned.

  96. 96.

    Betty Cracker

    September 4, 2020 at 11:22 am

    @Matt McIrvin: I hesitate to suggest that Florida does anything to do with voting better than another state, but it does count mail-in votes as they come in. I don’t see why any state would wait to tally them up on a single day. Seems like counting them as they arrive would ease the crush after the polls close.

  97. 97.

    Omnes Omnibus

    September 4, 2020 at 11:25 am

    @Betty Cracker: All ballots in one place being counted at one time.

  98. 98.

    Gin & Tonic

    September 4, 2020 at 11:25 am

    @Jersey Tomato: He hasn’t and he won’t. Kelly sold his soul a long time ago.

  99. 99.

    Amir Khalid

    September 4, 2020 at 11:26 am

    @HalfAssedHomesteader:

    If the sources put their names out there, there’s a 200% chance Trump will seek to damage their careers rather than just trade insults with them. They have every right to avoid that, and it’s up to them how many fucks they have left to give.

  100. 100.

    Leto

    September 4, 2020 at 11:27 am

    @raven: AF Comat Communication Teams still have them because they’ll deploy to the more asture/remote sites to help setup bases and still need a way to talk. We’ve gone a lot more towards SAT communications because of security/portability, but they’re still there. The ancient shit never really dies.

  101. 101.

    Kay

    September 4, 2020 at 11:27 am

    It’s also completely believable that he’s terrified of rain because it really would make his ridiculous hairstyle dissolve. You can’t fix that on the fly. It’s a lot of work and product.

    I read the funniest comment of my life from a hairstylist during the ’16 campaign. She does hair for rich men who are trying to deny they are balding, and she described how the “rat tail” of the long piece they have to arrange and lacquer in place collapses and snakes out when she shampoos them. Just the level of specificity and disgust in this recounting. Delightful!

  102. 102.

    piratedan

    September 4, 2020 at 11:28 am

    commented about this last night to a certain extent but for me it seems like the Atlantic article is acting something like a tiny fulcrum piece was removed that was keeping a humongous weight precariously in balance.  What it says isn’t exactly new, the depth and detail and breadth of his disdain for the Military, those who served and his attitudes regarding service and who he thinks is a hero and who is not, is even more revelatory to his warped worldview.

    What struck me as telling was the fact the media is behaving as if this is somehow different.  Same anonymous sources, no one going on the record, but enough clues and breadcrumbs to speculate who the sources were (which is exactly the right type of cheese for certain members of our fourth estate).  It the fact that someone bothered to check and confirm and were “shocked” to find that this was corroborated, with apparently little effort.

    I’m still amazed at the bubble that journalists apparently inhabit themselves, it seems to be that their own inherent informational/professional biases are just as difficult to penetrate as those of our red hat wearing citizenry and that infuriates me for some reason.  Most likely its my own naivete regarding what a journalist actually does and how apparently they really aren’t as informed about what they write about than I am, it’s just that they’re paid to break their delivery of information in small sentences rather than the rambling train of thought that I employ (eschewing the fourth wall breakage that I employ in my parens).

    Seems that we have a LOT of reconstruction to do regarding a great many things in this country…

  103. 103.

    Jeffro

    September 4, 2020 at 11:28 am

    It’s axiomatic at this point that MAGAs cannot be moved but can only be outvoted. The scales are not going to fall from their eyes, ever, and waiting for them to finally realize they’ve been conned is as dumb and delusional as waiting for Trump to start acting like a “normal” president.

    And yet, the scales have fallen from some of their eyes…otherwise he wouldn’t be around 41-42% nationally instead of the 46% he got against Hillz.

    Keep pounding.  Keep asking his supporters, enablers, and his excuse-writers in the media, “How can you support/enable/excuse this?”  Vote by vote, it works.

  104. 104.

    SiubhanDuinne

    September 4, 2020 at 11:30 am

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    He declined to comment. Make of that what you will.

    I make of it that it’s a confirmation, by default. If it weren’t true, or if it were true but he wanted people to think it wasn’t, Kelly would have issued a flat denial.

  105. 105.

    sdhays

    September 4, 2020 at 11:31 am

    @Spanky: Oh, yeah. That stood out to me too. That phrase really isn’t in his current vocabulary.

  106. 106.

    Gin & Tonic

    September 4, 2020 at 11:31 am

    @Leto: Friend of mine was an AF com tech back in the old days. Left Saigon on the second-to-last helo.

  107. 107.

    PAM Dirac

    September 4, 2020 at 11:35 am

    @Matt McIrvin:

     

    Are in-person early votes counted sooner than mail votes? In Massachusetts, they’re treated essentially identically–I suspect neither are counted until Election Night.

    It varies a lot depending on the state. In Maryland we have paper ballots that are scanned and you feed it into a scanner right after you fill everything out, so I assume the counts are available somewhere. They are not released until the polls are closed, but they are released almost as soon as the polls are closed. For mail in ballots, the law is that they couldn’t be opened until the Wed after the election. I’m pretty sure they can match signatures and do other checking when the ballot is received so you can check to see that your ballot was received, but normally it wouldn’t be counted until more than a week after the election. There was a law passed that gave the governor the power to adjust deadlines and dates and now the election officials can start actually counting the mail in ballots on Oct 3, so in Maryland, most of the mail in ballot counts will be posted on election night.

  108. 108.

    catclub

    September 4, 2020 at 11:36 am

    @PaulWartenberg: But this is different: he is openly pissing on the regular troops, the enlistees who sign up for a few years or a whole career, the ones not in the Pentagon offices but the ones on the front lines.

     

    Nope, it is just the same as the Khizr Khan case.  Shitting on dead enlisted.

  109. 109.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    September 4, 2020 at 11:36 am

    We just learned our neighbor across the street died of Covid.  We hadn’t seen much of him, but we never did. He was in his 70s and in poor health, and it was not unusual to see him taken away in an ambulance for some medical incident every once in a while. But we had been wondering about him since the last incident. We just ran into his relatives who had been cleaning out the house, and they informed us he died of Covid a couple of months ago.

    So that’s literally hitting close to home. Because he was such a recluse I can’t imagine how he contracted it.

    I haven’t had much direct contact with military since retiring (I was a civilian employee) in 2017, but I had the feeling that there a number of things that would have caused them to hate him over the last 3 1/2 years. For instance his favoring of war criminals and overriding of the chain of command to pardon them against the pleading of the military.

    I used to work with a couple of retired Army guys (well, more than a couple but these two sat right next to me). One was a master sergeant, the other a captain and West Pointer. They definitely exemplified the political differences between enlisted and officer. The guy who’d been an officer was not exactly a wing nut, but he told me once that he considered himself a libertarian, hadn’t voted in 2016, and probably would have voted for Trump. That shocked me into not talking to him for weeks.

    I would like to think that he’s no longer a supporter, along with the officers who still remember that they swore to protect the Constitution against all enemies.

  110. 110.

    The Pale Scot

    September 4, 2020 at 11:40 am

    Betty,

     

    Take a look at this,

    Pasco’s sheriff created a futuristic program to stop crime before it happens. It monitors and harasses families across the county.

    I don’t have time to read it now, articles that link to this article are getting 404ed

    I got a pdf if that happens

  111. 111.

    Elizabelle

    September 4, 2020 at 11:40 am

    And:  Trump never stops:  a top story on Pro Publica.  Illustrated with a photo of Princess Ivanka — in a mask — delivering a food box.

    THE PANDEMIC ECONOMY

    Now in Government Food Aid Boxes: A Letter From Donald Trump

    Democrats say the letter violates the law against using government resources to campaign. It’s just the latest example of President Trump using his office to boost his reelection hopes.

    Millions of Americans who are struggling to put food on the table may discover a new item in government-funded relief packages of fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy and meat: a letter signed by President Donald Trump.

    The message, printed on White House letterhead in both English and Spanish, touts the administration’s response to the coronavirus, including aid provided through the Farmers to Families Food Box Program, a U.S. Department of Agriculture initiative to buy fresh food and ship it to needy families.

    The letter is reminiscent of Trump’s effort to put his signature on stimulus checks and send a signed letter to millions of recipients. It’s the latest example of the president blurring his official duties with his reelection campaign ….

    “Using a federal relief program to distribute a self-promoting letter from the President to American families just three months before the presidential election is inappropriate and a violation of federal law,” argued 49 House Democrats led by Marcia Fudge of Ohio in an August 14 letter to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, requesting information about the purpose and process behind Trump’s letter. “A public health crisis is not an opportunity for the administration to promote its own political interests. Likewise, a federal food assistance program should not be used as a tool for the President to exploit taxpayer dollars for his re-election campaign.”

    The White House and the USDA didn’t respond to questions from ProPublica. White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has shrugged off Hatch Act concerns, telling Politico last week, “Nobody outside of the Beltway really cares.”

    Past administrations have observed the Hatch Act with strict firewalls between campaign and official events …. The Trump administration, however, has routinely flouted this law.

    FWIW, the letters may not be widespread. Spot checks have found some, but not in all boxes. And some food banks are taking them out of the box prior to delivering it to their customers, since they are not allowed to endorse candidates.

    Further, the COVID avoidance procedures suggested in the Trump the letter do not comply with CDC guidelines. Trump urges food recipients to “consider wearing a mask”, where the CDC is more forceful on the point.

    ProPublica has a copy of the letter. It sure reads like a campaign mailer (without the frantic demand for money). Starts off with lies in the first two sentences.

    Dear Family,

    As President, safeguarding the health and well-being of our citizens is one of my highest priorities. As part of our response to the coronavirus, I prioritized sending nutritious food from our farmers to families in need throughout America.

    His signature is as large as any of the paragraphs of the letter.

  112. 112.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    September 4, 2020 at 11:43 am

    @Baud: I couldn’t remember who I stole it from.

  113. 113.

    Omnes Omnibus

    September 4, 2020 at 11:44 am

    @SiubhanDuinne: That is my conclusion as well.

  114. 114.

    patrick II

    September 4, 2020 at 11:44 am

    @Quinerly:

    I was overseas for 3 years (1968-71) and the Stars and Stripes was our lifeblood to what was happening at home.  To earn such rancor it must have been writing the truth at some point. It will be a loss bigger than Trump understands, or maybe he understands and wants to remove the troops most trusted attachment to reality.

  115. 115.

    Omnes Omnibus

    September 4, 2020 at 11:46 am

    @catclub: Humayun Khan was a captain.

  116. 116.

    Elizabelle

    September 4, 2020 at 11:46 am

    @Kay:   I am really surprised someone has not photoshopped Trump into the opening footage of David O. Russell’s American Hustle.

    Where the Christian Bale character is carefully styling and spraying his big dyed hairdo.

    It takes a lot of time and care.  It shouts out the vanity involved.

    How did that clip get missed?  Wish I had the tech skills.

  117. 117.

    Kay

    September 4, 2020 at 11:47 am

    @piratedan:

    It seems personal to me, in the sense that it isn’t designed to harm him politically but simpler than that, not a tactic. They want to get back at him. Damage him not so much as a candidate but as a person.

    We look at it from political efficiency terms- will it move voters. Maybe they look at it differently. Maybe they don’t care if it moves voters. They just want to reveal what he is.

  118. 118.

    PAM Dirac

    September 4, 2020 at 11:49 am

    @Matt McIrvin:

     

    Are in-person early votes counted sooner than mail votes?

    I found a listing of the rules for each state on when processing and counting can begin. It is quite likely that adjustments have been made in many states (like Maryland) that overrides this listing, but at least it shows what the normal procedure is.

  119. 119.

    catclub

    September 4, 2020 at 11:50 am

    @SiubhanDuinne: I make of it that it’s a confirmation, by default.

     

    Too bad Henry did not think that about Thomas More ( Man for All Seasons), at least for T. More.

  120. 120.

    catclub

    September 4, 2020 at 11:52 am

    @Elizabelle: As President, safeguarding the health and well-being of our citizens is one of my highest priorities.

     

    But WAY below getting re-elected.

  121. 121.

    Kay

    September 4, 2020 at 11:53 am

    @Elizabelle:

    The Never Trumpers say they can’t understand how all these working class tough guys are stomaching the vanity and attention to appearance. They must know different working class tough guys than I do- they’re pretty vain and they spend a lot of time putting together those tough guy outfits. They are as expressive in their clothing choices and as brand-loyal as any emo teen. It often veers into “costume”. I think Harley Davidson makes more on the apparel than the motorcycles and unless I miss my guess, as someone who wears and appreciates a nice heeled boot, many of them are wearing cowboy boots or motorcycle boots because the higher heel gives one a longer leg :)

    The gun is just part of the costume.

  122. 122.

    Just One More Canuck

    September 4, 2020 at 11:55 am

    @Amir Khalid: or one of Ivanka

  123. 123.

    Danielx

    September 4, 2020 at 12:02 pm

    @raven:

    I see what you did there. Field expedient.

  124. 124.

    MazeDancer

    September 4, 2020 at 12:05 pm

    @Josie: Congrats on your Voting Plan!

  125. 125.

    Brachiator

    September 4, 2020 at 12:05 pm

    Coming late to the thread to praise Betty Cracker’s latest take on Trump.

    Given all that, the lies and hypocrisy are unremarkable. What is surprising is the tone of desperation in Trump’s response — the offer to swear on “whatever” or “whoever.” It reeks of flop-sweat and conjures an image of his piggy little eyes darting nervously in their pasty, white-rimmed sockets.

    This is anticipatory misdirection. No one Trump cares about has criticized him or abandoned him. If he cannot get immediate praise for his bullshit, he will settle for sympathy, so he will play act at concern for others, but never offer contrition.

    Just part of his low cunning.

    And about those food box letters:

    “A public health crisis is not an opportunity for the administration to promote its own political interests. Likewise, a federal food assistance program should not be used as a tool for the President to exploit taxpayer dollars for his re-election campaign.”

    It’s free publicity and the Hatch Act is toothless. Of course Trump will continue to violate it. A core part of his re-election strategy is to make the ham-fisted point that anything good that the government has done is directly because of him. Expect to see this obnoxious bullshit intensify as we head to November.

    If Trump suffers a convincing electoral defeat this November, he might not show us a total meltdown, but it will still be fun to see how he reacts. It won’t be pretty.

  126. 126.

    patrick II

    September 4, 2020 at 12:09 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    Mr. Trump insisted on Thursday that it was the weather, not disrespect, that forced the visit to be scrapped.

    For something as important as a scheduled visit to the burial ground of American heroes fallen in war, barring a hurricane, a normal president with the appropriate respect for the fallen, would go on a rainy day. But Trump is not a normal president. He would have been uncomfortable, and most importantly it would have plastered that thin layer of hair to his head and made an image that lasted. He is smart enough to understand the importance of his vigorous image to his followers, it’s really all he has, but not smart enough to buy a broad-brimmed fedora for rainy days.

  127. 127.

    Sasha

    September 4, 2020 at 12:16 pm

    On the subject of cornered rats, I oft refer back to this Doonesbury comic as a reminder of the fight we have on our hands.

  128. 128.

    Elizabelle

    September 4, 2020 at 12:21 pm

    @patrick II:   Even an umbrella would be good.  Or the fedora.  He is in his 70s.  People would be fine with that.

    Had Trump really wanted to go, he would have gone.  It’s not like he was going to have to walk the 30 to 50 miles.  In the rain.  Two hours was too long a drive?  He spends about that length of time every time he flies down to Mar a Loco.  And back.  (On the taxpayers’ dime.)

    He did not want to go to the Belleau Wood cemetery.  So his aides served up a scapegoat at the time, and Maggie Haberman wrote about the scapegoat.

  129. 129.

    Brachiator

    September 4, 2020 at 12:22 pm

    @Jeffro:

    It’s axiomatic at this point that MAGAs cannot be moved but can only be outvoted. The scales are not going to fall from their eyes, ever, and waiting for them to finally realize they’ve been conned is as dumb and delusional as waiting for Trump to start acting like a “normal” president.

    And yet, the scales have fallen from some of their eyes…otherwise he wouldn’t be around 41-42% nationally instead of the 46% he got against Hillz.

    Yep. Trump knows that he has to work harder to wrangle the suckers.

    Keep pounding.  Keep asking his supporters, enablers, and his excuse-writers in the media, “How can you support/enable/excuse this?”  Vote by vote, it works.

    Fortunately, I don’t personally know many Trump loyalists. But here and there I challenge them directly.

    “Trump is corrupt, incompetent and a coward. He hates you and doesn’t care whether you die from the virus. He doesn’t deserve your vote.”

     

  130. 130.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    September 4, 2020 at 12:22 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: Here’s a link to a table that shows when each state counts mail-in or absentee votes. MA does it on election day starting at a time left to each district’s choice

  131. 131.

    Elizabelle

    September 4, 2020 at 12:23 pm

    @Sasha:   That’s a good cartoon.  And it fits for Trump’s henchmen, too.  William Barr.  The Trump family.  Giuliani.  Anyone else who is kind of under Trump protection.

    To the mattresses.

    One weird point:  Fox News might prefer that Trump loses, weird as that sounds.  They can cover the criminal charges, the trials.  They can aim their fire at Biden and Harris; complain incessantly that the Democrats are not doing enough about the virus and the economy.

  132. 132.

    H.E.Wolf

    September 4, 2020 at 12:26 pm

    @Hungry Joe:  […] I’m writing more post cards today. How about the rest of you?

    Postcards, and sorting a big batch of new volunteers for our State Democratic Party, so that the field organizers can get in touch with them. Lots of “phone bank – completed” in the volunteer records: good for them!

    My hands are tired, but my soul is rested.*

    * From the title of a book about the US Civil Rights movement: My Soul Is Rested – interviews with hundreds of participants. If you need something to bring you back from despair, this book is it.

  133. 133.

    opiejeanne

    September 4, 2020 at 12:31 pm

    @MazeDancer:

    Washington state is a “vote by mail” state and has been for years. They will mail out our ballots on October 16, and we will be watching our mailbox for their arrival.  The minute they arrive we will drop what we are doing, fill them out, and drive them to the nearest drop box.

  134. 134.

    Kay

    September 4, 2020 at 12:32 pm

    @Sasha:

    I do feel like time becomes a factor for Trump campaign themes. They went all in on the “scary black looters” theme- they spent a solid month on it. If it doesn’t work as intended they can’t get that month back and it’ll be tough to launch a wholly new justification for keeping them in power in 60 days, less if you count early vote and I do because it may be as much as 40%.

    They’re running out of time. They can’t lie about that. Tick tock.

  135. 135.

    Calouste

    September 4, 2020 at 12:35 pm

    @Elizabelle: When it rains at a wreath laying ceremony, there’s someone standing next to the dignitary holding an umbrella for them (and getting wet themselves). Because it’s kind of hard to hold an umbrella and lay a wreath at the same time. They could have asked Queen Elizabeth for tips, she’s only done it for 68 years.

  136. 136.

    Elizabelle

    September 4, 2020 at 12:39 pm

    @Calouste:   In her marvelous hats with the wide brim, which stand in for a crown, and also keep the royal coiffure dry.

    I love QE2.  You can be sure she and her staff read The Atlantic story, and believe it.

  137. 137.

    StringOnAStick

    September 4, 2020 at 12:48 pm

    @Kay: You’re exactly right on the Harley Davidson overpriced clothing. My late BIL was increasingly into it and my husband would buy him HD t-shirts from the places we vacationed.  I remember paying $45 for a lower end t-shirt over 10 years ago; outrageous for a black shirt and single colour imprint.

    The more he got into, the more solid black his wardrobe became.  He wanted to be buried in his motorcycle outfit but the Jewish mortuary and cemetery explained that the rule is everyone is buried in a white shroud as a symbol that in death we are all the same but they could put his leather vest over it.  The motorcycle buddies who came to the funeral came in their leathers because that is the tribal requirement.  Yuck.  

  138. 138.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    September 4, 2020 at 12:51 pm

    @Kay:

    I paid my last car payment in March – it was chunky, about $600 per month. So happy about that.

    Biden is going to have to pencil whip “paid” on the student loans he controls, y’know. Whole damned market in automobiles, appliances, etc. requires it.

  139. 139.

    tokyokie

    September 4, 2020 at 12:51 pm

    @germy:

     

    Alexander Woollcott and Harold Ross both worked there [Stars & Stripes], over a hundred years ago.

    Ted Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss) and Al Gore are also Stripes alums, as I am as well.

  140. 140.

    SFBayAreaGal

    September 4, 2020 at 12:54 pm

    @raven: I’m one of them.

  141. 141.

    Ella in New Mexico

    September 4, 2020 at 1:18 pm

    Every single G-D time I SWEAR I cannot hate Trump anymore than I already do he proves that yes, my Hatred for Donald Trump Bank Account can see exponential growth.

    I don’t think I’m ever gonna be free from this long 4 years of this “Never Before Dreamed-of Wretchedness He Hath Wrought on America” until I can let my dog take a giant stinking crap on his grave.

  142. 142.

    Ruckus

    September 4, 2020 at 1:34 pm

    The scales are not going to fall from their eyes, ever, and waiting for them to finally realize they’ve been conned is as dumb and delusional as waiting for Trump to start acting like a “normal” president.

    I believe that to his rabid followers, he is what they consider a “normal” president.

    He’s racist as hell, as are they.

    He sees things in a simpleton way, because he is. As are many of them.

    He hugs the flag, acts like it’s worth dying for, although he’d never take actual risk. Again.

    I believe the reality is that there are a lot more trumpian people in this world than anyone is comfortable thinking. These are people who believe their own press releases, the superiority they’ve assigned to themselves, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

  143. 143.

    Ruckus

    September 4, 2020 at 1:50 pm

    @MomSense:

    They perceive that as their job, doing their damndest to kill us. Thin the herd to only their supporters. Their main problem is that they are saying and showing the quiet parts at the top of their lungs. Also most of them are/come from places of privilege, and never really had to do much to live, IOW their competency, whatever level they have is thin. They think they are a valuable and vital asset to the economy but most of them are not. Most of them can’t think outside a narrow box, have little to no real world skills. They pay for real world skills, but perform them? I believe that they think that their supporters will be able to follow their lead and take over the world, so they will be as rich as possible. Except their lead is faulty because it’s not actually leadership, it’s bluster and bullshit. shitforbrains is their leader because he’s all bluster and bullshit. Which can work in the dark, with susceptible people. In the light of day their support for only bluster and bullshit fades. shitforbrains is all bluster and bullshit and won by the narrowest of possibly illegal means and has shown exactly who and what he is since, as well as deteriorate rather a lot from that bullshit start.

  144. 144.

    Ruckus

    September 4, 2020 at 2:04 pm

    @PaulWartenberg:

    And there are a lot more of those people/votes in the lower ranks than 4 star generals who support him. I have no idea what it’s like in the enlisted military today, but if it’s anything like it was 50 yrs ago, those 4 star generals/admirals and their ideals are not the foremost thing in many minds on the posts and within the ships.

  145. 145.

    BlueGuitarist

    September 4, 2020 at 2:10 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    I am really surprised someone has not photoshopped Trump into the opening footage of David O. Russell’s American Hustle.

    Where the Christian Bale character is carefully styling and spraying his big dyed hairdo.

    Yes, exactly!

    And Betty: awesome as always

  146. 146.

    VFX Lurker

    September 4, 2020 at 2:13 pm

    @Hungry Joe: Meantime, the Trump fascist foundry continues to grind the glass, extrude the concertina wire, and strew the leftover LEGO pieces so many of us are willing to crawl over to vote. I’m writing more post cards today. How about the rest of you?

    Hear, hear! My goal is to write as many Postcards to Voters as I can in the month of September and the first two weeks of October. Any postcards I write after that will be “Hail Mary” passes to pick off any procrastinating voters who have not yet cast their votes.

    I’m too shy to phone bank or text bank, but I can write!

  147. 147.

    Elizabelle

    September 4, 2020 at 2:58 pm

    @Ruckus:   Yeah, that is frightening, about the number of trumpian people.  Way too many.  And they are sheep who fall for FB crap.  No question that religion (or what they consider religion)  is a gateway for a lot of them, although a lot of analysts do not want to go there.

    (Apologies to sheep who are actually animals.  They are doing the best they can.)

  148. 148.

    Tehanu

    September 4, 2020 at 3:48 pm

    @Ella in New Mexico: I feel the same way, though my version is more, “I thought the previous outrage was the worst thing ever, and now this…” — from mocking a disabled man to babies in cages to ignoring the Russian bounties to … well, I hate to think what the next stop on the way down will be.

  149. 149.

    MazeDancer

    September 4, 2020 at 3:51 pm

    @opiejeanne: Vigilance is excellent!

  150. 150.

    J R in WV

    September 4, 2020 at 5:31 pm

    @raven:

    There also is a sizable block of vets who were not enamored with John McCain.

    That includes me.

    Read his autobiography, in particular his contributions to the horrific fire on board the Forrestal – wherein he did everything wrong and ran away below deck leaving everyone else to fight the fire. Then the next day cadges a ride back to land for “some R&R”.

    There are many reasons he never made flag rank even though both his dad and grandfather were highly decorated Admirals. Not qualified in any way, really, in his own words.

    He was shot down because he didn’t follow the flight plan for his last bombing run, and flew right into a known SAM base, for another reason.

  151. 151.

    J R in WV

    September 4, 2020 at 5:40 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    It wasn’t a very good paper when I was in the army – mostly wire service articles – but it was always available and I read it every day. The International Herald-Tribune was much better but you pretty much needed to go to a major train station to get it so it wasn’t an every day thing. The Sunday Times was a big thing pre-brunch. In the field, S&S was always available and I got my Economist once a week in the mail. All this was pre-Internet, of course.

    In my hitch from 1970-73 I never saw a copy of Stars & Stripes. Ever.

    ETA… But of course, I was just a swabbie, not an officer. Trying to do my hitch and get out alive and whole.

  152. 152.

    Chris Johnson

    September 4, 2020 at 6:46 pm

    @Ruckus: 
    Yeah, but here’s the thing: they assume that he must love them, because they are fellow haters of the same things. They despise the same stuff. He MUST love them, they are on the same side!

    He despises them too. He really does. He will never love them. They can DIE for him and he will only think they are saps. He’s that broken.

    They need him to be evil. NOT ‘that broken’. That is beyond the pale. They’re thinking he’s basically human, but evil and sharing their hatreds, and of course he IS good at conveying how much he despises the libs. But he despises his own supporters too, and doesn’t love them at all, not one tiny little bit.

    That is the part they can never face or consider. That’s the dealbreaker. To them he would be perfect if only he loved them back. And he’ll happily lie about it, but it is a lie. They need it to be true, and it is not.

  153. 153.

    ballerat

    September 4, 2020 at 11:07 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Spot on, and exactly.

    Whoever wrote that has a tin ear for Trump’s language tics and at the same time tries too hard.

    Why, in casket, no less!

    Like, how the fuck else if not in a casket? Stuffed into an overhead bin? Or zippered into a vietnam-era OD body bag and crammed in the plane’s wheel well?

    Just trying too hard.

  154. 154.

    ballerat

    September 4, 2020 at 11:26 pm

    @laura: Just about everything Trump does seems russky.

    Riddle me this: If Trump was in fact a russky agent what would he do that is different from what he has done?

    If he walks like a russky duck and quacks like a russky duck, he is for all practical purposes and in terms of actual effect a russky duck.

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