Reporters are Starting to Probe Trump’s Covidgate and the Questions are Disturbing

Trish Ponder

Although the word has been used in other contexts, “Covidgate” is now the suspicion that the White House could be covering up that Pres. Trump himself is the one who spread the disease to so many in his inner circle, at Republican fundraisers, and countless numbers of those people’s contacts. The facts remain to be proven but reporters, who have also been exposed, are investigating.

There is no question that Trump continued to expose others after he had the virus.* The only question is did he mean to? When did he know he had COVID and how many lives did he choose to put at risk?

CNN’s Jake Tapper posted a Twitter thread that asks repeatedly when Trump last tested negative. This is a question the White House, and Trump’s medical team, including his osteopath, Navy Commander Sean Conley, is refusing to answer. It’s an alternate way of asking when Trump tested positive.

We know Trump arrived for the first debate too late to be tested before taking the stage with Biden. Was this on purpose to cover up because they already knew what the test results would be, or was it simply typical of his chaotic movements? And why is the White House refusing to do contact tracing after the superspreader event for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett? Is it because they already know who the results will trace back to?

Trump had famously been tested multiple times a day, as had those allowed to enter his airspace at the White House. Why did this abruptly stop? Check out Tapper’s musings on the subject.

[…]

Trump Got the Debate He Wanted, But Will it Help Him?

Trish Ponder

The day after the debate
Does it feel like something changed at that first presidential debate of 2020? Putting aside that it was exactly the kind of debate that the year 2020 deserved, it felt like during all that bellowing, bullying, heckling, and lying, Trump pushed a few more voters away.

I’m not a pollster. My observations are just that: the most elemental of research, what I see and hear around me.

The day of the debate, I heard Trump supporters talking about recording the show like it was a ball game their team was likely to win. I heard laughter about Biden. On a neighborhood walk, I saw mostly Trump/Pence signs. They appeared early and continued to outnumber Biden signs.

The day after the debate, I heard no chortling about how well Trump did. In fact no one mentioned the debate at all, the subject just too painful. When I came home, it seemed that my neighbors’ yards filled with Biden signs overnight. No matter where my eyes fell, there was a Biden/Harris sign in view.

The official polls reflecting post-debate sentiment won’t be out for awhile. But I’m cautiously optimistic they’ll back up what I’m seeing and show that Trump is sliding just a bit, losing support every time he opens that tight, pursed mouth to let all that anger out.

Watching Trump live-tweet Biden in person was hard. But it might be what it takes to turn enough Americans away from his nightmare presidency.

Trump in 2016: Us Against Them. Trump in 2020: Us Against Us.

Trish Ponder
Thanks to Janine Robinson for sharing their work on Unsplash.

It took almost four years but here we are.

Trump used to rally his base with innuendo about shadowy others who threatened America: Mexicans are rapists and members of obscure, violent gangs. A Muslim travel ban would keep out terrorists. Orphaning the children of parents fleeing Central America by locking them away and concealing them from their families would ensure that only Americans would receive benefits from paying taxes.

Where we are now was a gradual and incremental shift but it’s easy enough to look back and see it coming. After all, Trump made his mark on the political scene by questioning Pres. Obama’s legitimacy and refusing to acknowledge that Obama was born in Hawaii, not Kenya.

We know the cascading inflection points ever since. Good people on both sides. Pardoning Sheriff Joe Arpaio before he could be sentenced for what the U.S. Dept. of Justice called “sadistic punishments” of Latino inmates. Trying to shut down the NFL because Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem in response to police killings of Black people. Calling Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas. Labeling a free press the enemy of the people. Saying the members of “The Squad,” four Democratic congresswomen, should go back to their countries although all but one were born in America. Calling Jews who vote for Democrats “disloyal.” Retweeting white supremacists. The list is endless and neither of us has that much time.

Now, as Poltico’s Michael Kruse, Renuka Rayasam, and Myah Ward note, Trump is no longer talking about us versus them. He’s ginning up the base by making it us against us. […]

A Picture Is Worth …

Buck Banks


Outside the White House, just after President Trump concluded his speech accepting the Republican presidential nomination.

Vox: “It’s a moment that encapsulates what amounted to a week of gaslighting on Covid-19 by Trump and the Republican convention — an attempt to make America think that a president who had so clearly failed was in fact a victory for the US.”

The Real Republican Platform Is too Scary to Publish

Buck Banks


David Frum has a brilliant piece in the Atlantic that outlines in 13 points the actual platform of the Republican Party and explains why the GOP won’t be rolling it out during its convention. It’s red meat for a minority and too scary and cynical for a majority of Americans.

The points are all discoverable in the behavior of Republican politicians and the titular head of the party — Donald Trump. We’ve seen them implemented over the past 3.5 years on the border, in the environment, on Capitol Hill, in the White House and on the Supreme Court.

Five of the Biggest Falsehoods of the First Night of the Republican Convention

Buck Banks


Au contraire, mon frere, they do have a platform. It’s called LYING.

    From Forbes:

    On the first night of the GOP Convention on Monday, Republicans warned of dark, dire consequences should Democrats assume power, and sought to portray President Trump’s record as one of unalloyed success in ways that seemed to rewrite history, including claiming that his response to the pandemic was swift and effective.

    And what was going on with Don Jr.’s eyes?

Fox News and the Drudge Report praised Biden’s ‘barn burner’ DNC speech, despite attacks from Trump

Buck Banks


From Business Insider: Joe Biden is winning rave reviews for his speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday night — even from usually critical pundits in conservative media.

After Biden’s speech aired on the final night of the Democratic National Convention’s first virtual conference, Fox News anchors, hosts, and analysts delivered their verdict, and it was one likely to rile President Donald Trump.

The “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace described the speech as “enormously effective.”