Author: Jon Ponder

The Ad Trump Doesn’t Want You to See

Jon Ponder

In this hard-hitting ad released earlier this month by Priorities USA, a Democratic super PAC, a graph showing the rise in confirmed Covid-19 cases is superimposed over video clips of Trump repeatedly downplaying the spread of the pandemic.

In an apparent effort to help publicize the ad, a pro-Trump group is suing Priorities USA, claiming that the ad is “patently false, misleading and deceptive.”

Their quibble is a clip of Trump at a rally in South Carolina on Feb. 28 in which he says, “The coronavirus … this is their new hoax.”

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Rules for Engaging with the Right Wing’s Political Cult

Jon Ponder

1. Don’t use his name;
2. Remember this is a regime and he’s not acting alone;
3. Do not argue with those who support him–it doesn’t work;
4. Focus on his policies, not his orange-ness and mental state;
5. Keep your message positive; they want the country to be angry and fearful because this is the soil from which their darkest policies will grow;
6. No more helpless/hopeless talk;
7. Support artists and the arts;
8. Be careful not to spread fake news. Check it;
9. Take care of yourselves
10. Resist!

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Trump Fired the Entire U.S. Pandemic Response Chain of Command in 2018

Jon Ponder

Dr. Nancy Sullivan of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases briefs President Barack Obama on Ebola research, Dec. 2, 2014. NIH, CC

The longer Donald Trump is in office, the greater the risk that the corruption and incompetence at the top of the U.S. government will cause or contribute to a large-scale disaster — something like a Category 5 hurricane that hits the mainland, a 7.0 or greater quake in the West or on the New Madrid Fault in the East, or, as seems to be increasingly likely, a coronavirus pandemic that could affect every state in the Union.

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