Donald Trump

Trump began slashing public health funding in 2018, diverting millions of dollars from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), cut over $1 billion from the Prevention and Public Health Fund (PPHF), and the cuts have been deeper with each budget since.

Trump sees the protection of Americans from a pandemic as "a worse choice" than having a weakened economy that denies him re-election. So he is bravely winding up for a pitch to demand that "nature be allowed to run its course" in the killing of 11 million Americans by COVIC-19.

In the President's speech during the White House coronavirus response meeting yesterday, and especially in the prepared statement, I saw something that I had never seen before in a human being. And I came to realize that every monster I've ever known was just a story in a book, no matter how real-seeming or frightening.

Based on a 1988 law that followed the "Black Swan event of '87," the Prez is empowered to stop the stock market, or limit prices, "in an emergency." I'd bet that your broker never told you that this is a very real possibility.

In the first place it's not a rule, but a state of being. Of a society. But, moreover, it is the achievement of an acceptably stable and successful state of existence where the law is trusted and consulted. Where people "have faith" in law. Where a substantial majority believe in the virtues of living in a law-abiding society, and the responsibilities entailed. "The Rule of Law" is an achievement. Of a People.

Donald Trump is willing to destroy lives, and allow who knows how many unnecessary deaths, because to tell the truth, would end his presidency and destroy his chances for re-election.

Of the debates I have watched, I was not impressed. The message must be around how they will defeat Trump* restore and shore up our democratic process by making sure our election process is strongly resistant to foreign interference.

Trump has smashed through on all the established norms 44 other presidents followed. He’s told Congress, a co-equal branch, to go pound sand. With Attorney General William Barr — his Roy Cohn — whispering the sweet melody of “unitary executive” in his ears, Trump is doing his best imitation of The Hulk, as goes about smashing and shredding all things Constitutional.

Evangelicals are protecting something, but it isn’t Christianity! It is a Frankenstein monster that they have created mostly over the last forty years, out of a disjointed lie about Jesus Christ’s message (prosperity); and reactionary political beliefs. Out of despair, rage, and a natural isolationism.

If, as one of the excellent jobs of writing in today's news posits, Criminal William Barr is the "hitman," then Oathbreaker John Roberts must be the "wheelman," who drove the getaway car.