FROM THE MOUTH OF THE TOTUS

Much has been said about the guy in the oval who said to George Stephanopolous during an ABC Town Hall: "you'll develop a herd mentality...." But that is not the whole quote. 

You can find the video and hear it for yourself. This is exactly what The Don said: "...and you'll develop turd - like a herd mentality...." That's right, he dropped the t word. 

We can chalk this up to confusion, senior brain, a Freudian slip, or simply that the man doesn't know what he's talking about. Or, more likely, all of the above. In my humble opinion, he was telling us something we already know, Donald Trump has shit for brains - a turd mentality. He is the Turd of the United States (TOTUS).  

There is, however, a serious point here. As Rachel Maddow explained last night, the people The Don has surrounded himself with to give him "expert" advice about coronavirus are not experts, but charlatans. His latest "expert", Dr. Atlas - a Faux (pronounced "fox") News regular, advocates not doing anything, and letting millions of Americans contract the virus so we will develop herd immunity. A conservative calculation tells us that this would result in anywhere from 1.5 million to 6.5 million dead Americans from COVID-19. BUT - the theory of herd immunity is not accepted by the vast majority of real experts. 

And there is now evidence that the Trump Admin is actually telling state governments, including those experiencing major outbreaks of coronavirus, that wearing masks and closing bars and restaurants is not a recommendation! Mass murder? I think so. 

How do you make a turtle disappear? Vote for Biden and the turd'll disappear! 

full stop

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"IT'S GOING TO GET COOLER. YOU JUST WATCH. I DON'T THINK SCIENCE KNOWS, ACTUALLY."

And that was the response by the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, to a plea by the Secretary of the California Natural Resource Agency to work from a base of science, including climate change science, to address forest and wildfire management. 

Anyone who pays attention and has at least half a brain knows that Trump is a climate change denier as well as a science denier. This has been part of his M.O. since taking office and has resulted in major decisions that have made the world a worse place to live (climate, pandemic, etc.).

There is more to this topic that every American needs to understand, however. The issue is not the stupid things Trump says, it is the destructive things his administration does. The most public examples are: pulling the United States out of the Paris climate accords at a critical time in climate action, defunding and then pulling out of the World Health Organization in the middle of a global pandemic, and totally bungling the pandemic in the United States - the "China Hoax" pandemic. But there is more, much, much more.

Trump has placed people in key positions in every federal agency. The main assignment of these people is to deconstruct government in ways that will benefit big business and very wealthy people. In regards to the environment, the Trump administration has rolled back many key environmental regulations (many of which were put in place by the Obama administration). In a recent article, the New York Times lists 100 - and counting - environmental regulations targeted by the Trumpsters, and 68 of these roll-backs have already been completed. The article lists all 100 regulations, and is worth scrolling through. Below is a summary table from the article.

So, yes, we can scoff and laugh at what an ignoranus Donald Trump is, but we need to be really pissed off about what is happening behind his clown characterization performance. This is serious, and the effects will plague us for a long time. 

Trump must be stopped. Every citizen, not just the usual 40+ percent, needs to vote, and every citizen with at least half a brain should understand that another 4 years of Donald Trump could be the end of America as we know it. Seriously. 

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WE SHOULD BE CONCERNED ABOUT THE 2020 ELECTION

The election of 2020 is under attack by those who want to unfairly influence the outcome. This danger is unprecedented in our lifetimes, and should concern every American. Free and fair elections are the bedrock of American democracy, and the right to vote for all women and non-white men was won through hard struggle and sacrifice. 

The dangers we face for the 2020 election are:

• a concerted campaign by Donald Trump and his minions to undermine faith in vote-by-mail processes using a false claim that it is rife with fraud (he recently suggested to his supporters that they vote by mail, and then try to go and vote in person to test the system—-in other words try to confirm fraud by committing fraud);
• attacks by Trump and his minions on the U.S. Postal Service, with claims that it will not be able to handle the expected volume of mail-in ballots;
• cyber attacks by Russia and other state actors (China, Iran) against the U.S. election system and the dissemination of false information to voters using social media;
• orders by the Trump White House to U.S. intelligence agencies not to disseminate information gathered about Russian cyber attacks to other federal and state agencies (U.S. intelligence agencies are warning that Russian attacks against our election this year are worse than in 2016, and favor Donald Trump);
• voter disenfranchisement efforts by Republican-controlled state legislators and governors targeting BIPOC and Democratic voters;
• efforts by Republican state and local officials to make voting more difficult in majority Democratic districts and districts with majority BIPOC voters (limited polling locations, long waiting times, elimination of voters from voting rolls, use of provisional ballots that are not counted, and other methods);
• apparent efforts by the Justice Department, under Attorney General William Barr, to favor and assist the candidacy of Donald Trump;
• attempts by Donald Trump and his minions to get foreign governments to assist the Trump campaign by spreading negative information about Joe Biden and his family;
• using false claims (outright lies) about Democrats, liberals, and Joe Biden in campaign literature, video commercials, and social media posts;
• possible violations of campaign laws by the Trump campaign (as in 2016);
• and—-strangely—-Donald Trump is in a sense committing mass murder of his supporters and possibly many thousands of other Americans by holding mass campaign rallies during a pandemic at which most people are not wearing masks and are violating every recommendation by public health experts about avoiding crowds.

Am I forgetting anything? Yes, what does Trump do if he loses? This is a scenario many people are thinking about. All of the items above are ways that Trump and his minions are trying to swing the election his way by enlisting the help of foreign powers and by keeping Democratic voters from voting. He is also setting up the scenario for his loss by putting forward the idea that the election could be fraudulent or "rigged" against him, and therefore not a valid election. The Trump MO, after all, is: tell a lie often enough and it becomes a truth. So if Trump loses, will he go gently into that good night? There is a good probability that he will not. And he has set up his more militant supporters---you know, the ones who refuse to wear masks (COVID) and carry AR-15s and drive big trucks with American, Confederate and even Nazi flags flying---to defend him when he refuses to leave the People's House (a.k.a. the White House). Civil war? Yes.

We know, based on the past 3-1/2 years of Trump, that his sole objective is to make himself great again, again. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the people of America. And he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about free and fair elections, as long as he wins again, again. So how do we stop him?

Other than divine intervention (not likely in my opinion), it is up to us, we the people, to run the crime family patriarch out of the White House. Have a plan for voting. If you can vote early and/or by mail, do it as soon as you have your ballot. Talk to others about voting, and help people who need assistance to register and/or vote. Talk to anyone you know who might not vote because they don’t see a reason to, and convince them about the critical nature of this election. Let’s give Donald Trump the thing he craves the most, the biggest thing ever in the history of this country—-the biggest landslide loss of any previous election! 

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Note: this post has been edited on Sep. 13, 2020, to add the third from last paragraph.

    

THE REPUBLICAN CONGRESS IS NOW PART OF THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH

A thought occurred to me recently after watching a news report about the negotiations between Democrats and Republicans for a second pandemic relief bill. The negotiators came out of a meeting and spoke to the press. The two Democratic negotiators were the party leaders of the two arms of the Congress; Senator Chuck Schumer, and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. The team for the Republicans was Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. In other words, the Republican Congressional leadership was nowhere in sight while the president’s men ran the Republican side. 

During the Senate impeachment hearings of Donald Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell let it be known that he was coordinating with the president’s legal team regarding how he would run the hearing. In other words, Mitch and his Republican gang were simply window dressing for an operation being run out of the White House.

In the House of Representatives, the Democratic majority committees investigating the president issued subpoenas for data and testimony from parts of the executive branch. These were mostly ignored, leaving the House committees with little recourse. Once again, the executive assumed more power than the legislative branch.

The role and powers of the President, at the head of the Executive Branch of government, has been debated for as long as the United States has existed. Some legal scholars, politicians, presidents and others have argued that the power of the president should be larger; others have argued that it should be less. Trump, and the people with brains who work in the White House shadows, think the president should have absolute power, perhaps dictatorial. Trump’s Attorney General, Bill Barr, is of that opinion, and his actions have clearly demonstrated that. Mitch McConnell appears to be of that opinion, also. Donald Trump absolutely thinks that he should be able to rule with absolute and legally protected powers. 

This is a bad turn for the United States. This trend increases the power of the executive while decreasing the power of the legislative branch. It also changes the role of the judicial branch, as the president appoints or nominates federal judges, and the senate approves them. Obviously, if the executive rules the senate, the judicial bends to the will of the executive. 

This precedent has now been set by Trump. If he is elected for a second term, the power of the executive will only grow stronger. Under Trump, this road leads to authoritarianism. Even if he is not re-elected, this new imbalance of power will exist, and future presidents might want to take advantage of that. 

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