If Trump loses his re-election bid, we can reasonably count on the period from Election Day until Inaugaration Day (Nov. 3, 2020 to Jan. 20, 2021) to be one of the most perilous, corrupt and weird periods in U.S. history. One thing that seems certain is that Trump will attempt to pardon himself. It is an open legal question (maybe)…
Category: Politics
The Hidden Genius In The Democrats Unemployment “Bridge” Payments
The problem with any natural disaster, whether it be wildfire, tornado, hurricane, or global pandemic, is that the immediacy of dealing with the disaster obviously commands all attention. And the longer the disaster persists, the longer attention is focused solely on the disaster. And things that would have been obvious at the time, if only…
We need to find a new word for “Orwellian.”
Just a short note on Trump’s latest threat to veto a defense spending bill because it calls for renaming certain military bases named after Confederate Civil War generals. The White House put out a statement defending the threat: “President Trump has been clear in his opposition to politically motivated attempts like this to rewrite history…
The Mutiny Of “The Bounty”
When the history of the 2020 election is written, it is the story broken by the New York Times, chronicling the scheme hatched by Vlad the Imp to pay a bounty for the lives of US soldiers in Afghanistan that may well have been the final nail in the Trump reelection coffin. For generations now,…
How will Trump's rallies be covered the second time – now that they are also a public health threat?
Trump is pressing to resume shortly his regular “rallies” — with thousands packed in an arena despite the Covid pandemic. This brings to mind the wide, post-mortem soul-searching among the press for giving so much uncritical, long broadcasts of Trump’s rallies in the 2016 election. As just one example in “My Shared Shame: The Media Helped…
WTF is wrong with the White House press corps?
On the one hand, this is a bizarre, inexplicable story. On the other hand, it is probably the most revealing story about the failure and obsequiousness of the White House press. In short, looking to fuel their fantasy propaganda that the Covid pandemic is over, White House aides at Trump’s Rose Garden appearance today moved the…
Trump is a dumpster fire. But have any of your Republican friends admitted that to you?
Trump’s unfitness for office, and his destruction of government institutions and norms, is positively cartoonish in its obviousness and threat. But — three years in — have any of your Republican friends admitted that to you? It is a really important question because as bad as Trump is, the long term threat to the country consists of…
We are in deep trouble as long as 35% to 45% of the country remains committed to idiocy
I clicked on the below Super Bowl halftime interview of frmr. President Obama by Bill O’Reilly because I remembered that it got some notice at the time for how often O’Reilly interrupted and talked over Pres. Obama. But watching it is also both a time capsule and a time machine. Particularly after the Republican silence regarding Trump’s malfeasance,…
Paul Waldman states the obvious: Trump isn't doing anything to address the economic crisis either
Paul Waldman at The Washington Post notes the obvious thing to say, yet no one says it. Trump has no economic recovery plan either: [Trump] kept searching for a “miracle,” either that the virus would just vanish or that something like hydroxychloroquine would solve the problem and take it off his hands. Now that it’s clear…
Mitch McConnell is actually proposing the most massive tax increases in U.S. history
In “Why Mitch McConnell’s State Bankruptcy Idea Is So Stupid,” Josh Barro makes a very important and elemental point about Mitch McConnell’s proposal to let states go bankrupt. Bankruptcy is only available to those who are insolvent – and no state is even close to insolvency because they have the power to tax. Right? A bankruptcy court cannot…
Do Recent POLITICAL Decisions and Protests Negate IHME Coronavirus Model?
Do political decisions by Trump allies, protesters, and red state governors like Brian Kemp of Georgia and Ron DeSantis of Florida negate the IHME model for the coronavirus? For those not into the weeds of coronavirus modeling, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington produced a model for the coronavirus…
The People Count
I spoke to my brother this morning by phone because he is currently recovering from COVID-19 related pneumonia and I cannot visit him. My nephew is in the last four days of his quarantine in Georgia where he serves as a member of the U.S. Army. My sister works as a cardiac telemetry tech in…
Trump's vaunted “travel ban” accomplishment also isn't true.
Anyone who has spent even a few minutes watching Trump at one of his daily Coronavirus press briefing campaign rallies has undoubtedly heard Trump crow about his singular supposed achievement: courageously imposing a travel ban on passengers traveling from China. It is his all-purpose answer to a question on any subject. And in Trump’s telling,…
Sound The Horn. Saddle Up. Ride Into Battle.
I seldom do this. Politizoom, and our sister site Daily Sound And Fury give me a nice little megaphone, and as most of you have noticed, I seldom run out of things to say. But something has come up, and this time I need your help. A few days ago, I wrote an article in…
Things really important to me
First an apology. My post yesterday on my decision to vote for Warren (which I did at about 9:45 AM) and to contribute to her campaign ($100 online) was my first posting here in more than a month. Some may remember that in mid-November I suffered a stroke, later had surgery to relieve the stenosis…
So I've finally made my choice
It is late for me to “decide.” It is even later than usual for me to to vote. I can and usually vote absentee in person on the first day possible — I live in Virginia but work in Maryland so I have no trouble qualifying for the privilege to to do so legally. Normally…
Let’s take a deep breath, and (cringe) admit that Ross Douthat is right – just defeat Trump.
Actually, the NYT’s Ross Douthat is one of the least objectionable “conservative” columnists and someone generally worth giving a listen to. His last column, “The Only Way to Remove Trump,” is entirely right in its simplicity. As he frames the point, through repetition: All you have to do is beat him. This is obviously true….
The two questions that Republican Senators and House members must answer from now on
It has been shocking to watch Republican House members and Senators uniformly condone President Trump’s act of seeking foreign interference in our election to his benefit. An obvious explanation, yet somehow undiscussed, is that many of the same Republican House members and Senators themselves have also sought or participated in foreign interference in our elections. That is such…
The blockbuster bad faith reveal: Trump can’t be impeached, but Joe Biden should be impeached
After a 16 hour question and answer period, it took until the second to last question for the issue to be fully realized and the Republicans’ bad faith to be nakedly displayed in its full contempt. What we heard was that President Trump could not be impeached and removed for attempting to interfere with foreign help in the…
The hugely damaging ramifications of the Republicans’ impeachment position is simple to understand.
President Trump has been impeached for asking and pressuring a foreign country to interfere in our next election in his favor. Many Republican Senators have made it clear that they want to acquit Trump and further to exonerate him by saying that Trump did “nothing wrong.” Much of the Democratic opposition and some in the press rightly…
