Month: March 2020

Categories
Corruption Donald Trump Elections

Trump’s Campaign Advisers Are Warning Him He’ll Likely Lose In November

With each news cycle, Donald Trump draws closer to being a failed one-term president who was unable to rise to the greatest challenge of his presidency: The national crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.


Consider some of the headlines that have been burned into the public mentality:

  • Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, said on the “Today” show that the final death toll from the virus could be as high as 200,000 even if we all “do things almost perfectly.”
  • An official with the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis warned that the unemployment rate could soon skyrocket to 32.1 percent.

Now let’s fast-forward to November 3, when voters cast their ballots for who they want to lead them for the next four years. You have an incumbent who has been in charge when 200,000 people died and the jobless rate is almost 10 points higher than it was at the height of the Great Depression. Does that sound like the incumbent will be reelected?


Inside the Trump 2020 war room, there is palpable fear, with aides being described as “terrified” with what they’re seeing as the president’s chances of a second term trickle away with each new development, according to the Los Angeles Times:

“One former White House official said Trump’s reelection campaign advisors are terrified that the coronavirus outbreak, which so far has hit largely Democratic coastal cities hardest, will soon scythe across the rural areas that remain deeply loyal to Trump.”

That’s already happening, with new hot spots springing up in Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana, three states that are crucial to Trump if he hopes to have a chance in November. Just losing Florida, along with one or two key battleground states such as Arizona, Michigan, Ohio, or Pennsylvania, would spell doom for Trump. He could even be facing a loss of historic proportions that would humiliate both him and the Republican Party, which is already reeling as it attempts to hold the Senate despite overwhelming odds against that transpiring.


But perhaps the most telling canary in the coal mine for the Trump faithful is something his top campaign officials are telling the president as COVID-19 reduces the nation to a hollowed-out shell of its former self, consumed with fear and mourning. According to a former official, Trump was told point blank:

“Pay attention. You’re going to lose the election.”

That was a warning staffers gave Trump when he was thinking about ending the national shutdown before May, but it could just as well be a prophecy for what will be writ large when voters mark their ballots seven months from now.

Categories
Coronavirus Donald Trump Economics Elections

The Bad News Keeps Rolling In – And Over – Donald Trump

Donald Trump has failed miserably when it comes to any number of the things he was elected to accomplish.


Trump promised the economy would boom under his leadership. But coronavirus has the nation on the verge of an economic depression, with 3.3 million Americans filing for unemployment last week and the overall unemployment rate possibly reaching 32.1 percent, with 47 million people jobless. That number comes from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, CNBC notes:

“The projections are even worse than St. Louis Fed President James Bullard’s much-publicized estimate of 30%. They reflect the high nature of at-risk jobs that ultimately could be lost to a government-induced economic freeze aimed at halting the coronavirus spread.

“’These are very large numbers by historical standards, but this is a rather unique shock that is unlike any other experienced by the U.S. economy in the last 100 years,’ St. Louis Fed economist Miguel Faria-e-Castro wrote in a research paper posted last week.”


Does anyone think Trump will be reelected if the unemployment rate is above even 8 percent on Election Day? It seems highly unlikely, especially when you consider a new Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll which shows Trump already trailing likely Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden by a full 10 points, according to The Hill:

“Former Vice President Joe Biden leads President Trump by 10 points nationally in a new poll, bolstered by an advantage with independents.

“The poll also shows pessimism about the economy growing, a factor that could help Biden and hurt Trump in the poll.

“The latest Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll finds Biden getting 55 percent support, versus 45 percent for Trump. Biden has 96 percent support from Democrats, while Trump has 89 percent support from Republicans. Independents break for Biden by a 54 to 46 percent margin.”

But the key figure isn’t the 10-point lead enjoyed by Biden. Instead, it’s that Biden has 96 percent support from Democrats and Trump stands at only 89 percent among GOP voters. Also, Biden leads by a full 8 points among independents, who will be key, especially in battleground states such as Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Those states were the main reason Trump defeated Hillary Clinton four years ago.


Additionally, respondents are growing very pessimistic about the American economy, with 55 percent saying the economy is on the wrong track. Only 41 percent said that a month ago. 55 percent also said they expect a recession in the very near future.

How ironic that the one thing Trump was counting on to help him win in November may be the weakest link in his armor. That alone suggests that karma is indeed real and about to take one hell of a bite out of this president.

Categories
Coronavirus Donald Trump WTF?!

Trump Sent Tons Of Badly Needed Medical Supplies To China After COVID-19 Appeared In The U.S.

As the U.S. death toll rises to nearly 2,400 and 135,000 Americans are reported to have contracted coronavirus, one of the biggest problems facing medical professionals in the United States is a lack of equipment needed to treat patients with COVID-19, including gloves, masks, and ventilators.


But according to the U.S. State Department, we now know that three weeks after the first case of coronavirus was reported in the state of Washington, the Trump administration sent tons of badly needed medical supplies to China, Mother Jones reports:

“In a press release from the State Department dated Feb. 7, the agency announced it was prepared to spend up to $100 million to assist China as the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths continued to rise there. The day the press release went out, Trump tweeted that he spoke with China’s President Xi Jinping and that China would be ‘successful especially as the weather starts to warm & the virus hopefully becomes weaker and then gone.'”

Not long afterward, Donald Trump declared that coronavirus was a “new hoax” that had been cooked up by Democrats to harm him politically as he kicked his campaign for reelection into high gear and began trying to blame every problem he faced on others.


Ironically, on Wednesday of this week, the White House began begging the international community to donate whatever medical equipment they could to help fight the virus here at home:

“Including N-95 masks, gloves, respirators, and hand sanitizer. But even as his officials ask for foreign aid, as CNN points out, Trump has a very different public message. As he boasted during Tuesday’s coronavirus briefing at the White House: ‘We should never be reliant on a foreign country for the means of our own survival.'”

Had we not been so eager to send supplies to China, perhaps we wouldn’t now be reliant on others for our survival. But Donald Trump’s shortsightedness and lack of preparation has now brought the country to the brink of a medical emergency which could claim that lives of as many as 200,000 Americans, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.


What are we to make of all this information which shows yet again that the current resident of the Oval Office is unfit to provide to the safety of the country he supposedly leads? The answer was provided Sunday by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday:

“His denial at the beginning was deadly. (His delay in) getting equipment to where it’s needed, is deadly.”

Donald Trump has blood on his hands. And and yet he still hasn’t apologized or even acknowledged that he has failed miserably in keeping this country and its citizens safe.

Categories
Elections

Demented ‘Trumpstock’ Attendees Call For ‘Civil War’ If Donald Loses The 2020 Election

In Golden Valley, Arizona, they held something they call “Trumpstock,” a ragtag collection of those who consider Donald Trump to be their political savior.

Those who showed up for the event say they don’t appreciate the tags that get attached to them as supporters of a controversial president, the New York Times reports:

“They label us white nationalists, or white supremacists,” volunteered Guy Taiho Decker, who drove from California to attend the event. A right-wing protester, he has previously been arrested on charges of making terrorist threats.

“There’s no such thing as a white supremacist, just like there’s no such thing as a unicorn,” Mr. Decker said. “We’re patriots.”


But some of these so-called patriots are just a bit too eager to suggest they would do anything — even commit violence — to make sure that Trump remains in office, even if he happens to lose in 2020.

Take, for example, Mark Villalta, who admits he’s been stockpiling arms in case Trump isn’t reelected:

“Nothing less than a civil war would happen. I don’t believe in violence, but I’ll do what I got to do.”

Lose an election, start a civil war. That’s the way these Trump faithful see their duty to their leader. Sounds a bit like a cult, doesn’t it?


There was also plenty of racism and xenophobia on display at Trumpstock.

Angus Smith, an Arizona resident who attended the gathering, offered this bit of Trumpian wisdom:

“I don’t have a problem with Muslims, but can they take the rag off their head out of respect for our country?”

And then there’s Brian Talbert, the founder of Deplorable Pride, who had this to say about Hillary Clinton:

“I think she should be hanging at the end of a rope for treason.”


What these  Trump acolytes seem to forget is that if indeed Trump does lose the 2020 election, their predicted “civil war” will be short-lived and end badly for them. The police and other law enforcement agencies who have sworn allegiance to the Constitution are not going to just let a bunch of yahoos decide who gets to be president.

The folks at Trumpstock have delusions of grandeur, much like the president they’ve sworn allegiance to. They think their 35 percent of the population can decide what happens to the other 65 percent. But they’re about to find out that their deeply flawed math isn’t worth a damn.

Categories
Coronavirus Donald Trump Media in America

Rachel Maddow Burns Trump Down For His Monumental Incompetence

Donald Trump hates all media except the outlets that praise him, i.e. Fox News or other right-wing propaganda shills that are only too happy to carry water for the administration and tell the president what a great job he’s doing.


So it was more than a bit uncharacteristic of Trump to tweet out praise of MSNBC host Rachel Maddow recently, even going so far as to include a video of her interview with the commanding general of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Lieutenant General Todd Semonite, who explained how his team is building field hospitals to care for those who have contracted coronavirus:

No matter how you cut it, that’s a surprisingly positive pat on the back from a man who frequently refers to MSNBC in derogatory terms.


And Maddow was quick to acknowledge the tweet from President Trump, but she also took the time to remind him that he’s still not providing everything needed to fully battle COVID-19 in the states, where many doctors and nurses cannot get equipment such as sterile gloves and protective face masks.

Make no mistake, Maddow burned the president to the ground, but she did it with class, aplomb, and the proverbial velvet glove. Take a look:

No matter what he says, no matter what statistics he refers to, and no matter how much he tries to conceal his own massive incompetence, Donald Trump has repeatedly bungled the federal response to the pandemic that is sweeping across this country with devastating effects. People have died as a result of his refusing to take the virus seriously when it was first discovered in the United States.

Leaders lead and don’t do so seeking praise. Selfish, impotent little men seek flattery at every turn, and all they accomplish with their preening is compounding the suffering of the powerless.