Did we really think the man who couldn’t sell steaks, vodka, or real estate, the man whose business school and nonprofit organization were court-ordered to shut down, the man who bankrupted casinos and apartment houses…did we really think that guy could make decisions that would benefit the world’s largest economy? If we did, we were wrong.
“They’re either not telling the truth or they’re really stupid. Because there’s no way you can afford to cover pre-existing conditions without everybody being in on the deal.”
— Joe Biden, pushing back on claims by President Trump and fellow Republicans that the GOP can protect patients with pre-existing conditions better than Democrats, Politico reports.
If you’ve ever wondered what living in pre-war Germany was like, and how people could turn a blind eye on injustices they must have known their government was committing, wonder no longer.
Norm Ornstein’s nightmare will be yours after you read this.
The magnificent Diane Rehm recently had the very smart Mr. Ornstein as a guest on her podcast. His book with his writing partner, Thomas Mann, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks, was criticized for its lack of false equivalencies in mostly blaming Republicans for obstructionism under Obama, but to many others this only lent him greater credibility.
That’s why I can’t get his nightmare scenario for how Trump could end our democracy out of my head. Here’s what Ornstein said on Rehm’s podcast. You must understand it too. […]
If you find yourself growing immune to the trauma we are inflicting on our southern border, watch this video for a little reminder of how shameful our current president’s policies are.
“It’s like we’re an outbreak, and they are the treatment…”
Average age of the parents of Korean War veterans, who Trump claimed repeatedly came up to him on the 2016 campaign trail, begging him to bring home their sons’ remains. According to Esquire’s Jack Holmes, “…this is a quintessential Trumpian lie: totally shameless, easily verifiable as false, and rooted in the notion that “many people”—who are never defined further, and who you’ll never be able to find—are telling the president something that he just happens to agree with himself. How many times in this troubled period in our nation’s history have we heard how ‘many people are saying’ something about Donald Trump?”
Senior energy analyst: “A lot of the reason for higher prices is the president’s policy on Iran…You’re going to see prices spike.”
The ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce committee traces a line that leads not straight, but up — as in the price of gas — to Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of a plan to help monitor Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
The so-called “Iran deal” also eased previous sanctions in order to encourage Iran to be a world partner.
As we debate whether the numbers of people who were killed when Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in September, 2017 were deliberately under-reported or just badly counted, there’s one thing Trump knew. It was nothing compared to a “real catastrophe like Katrina.”
Even as Trump made that insulting comment the following month, average Puerto Ricans were certain that many more than the 16 people he touted had been lost.
A new study from the New England Journal of Medicine estimates the actual death toll to be closer to 5,000. Even worse, “one third of the deaths were attributed to delayed or interrupted health care.”
Hurricane Katrina, which hit South Florida and Louisiana in August, 2005, resulted in 1,833 fatalities.
Trump made no secret he considered money spent in Puerto Rico to be both unnecessary (since he believed it to be full of non-citizens) and an annoyance. Could his attitude have led to a tightening of the purse strings that contributed to the death toll?
So many members of Trump’s manufacturing advisory council resigned over his support of armed extremists in Charlottesville, Va. that he had to disband the group to avoid further embarrassment. One by one, until Trump cried uncle at eight, leaders of industry released statements of resignation, adding their disagreement with the president’s views on race, anti-semitism, protest, and the circumstances of the loss of life at the white supremacy rally.
But not Trump’s evangelical council. Not a single member has resigned, from former Rep. Michele Bachmann to the Rev. Jerry Falwell to James Dobson.
To hear Trump talk, he’s the only one
Who’s ever stood trial for crimes he’s done.
But instead of courtroom drama,
We get Trump in his pajamas,
That’s how he earned his new nickname: Don Snoreleone.
“Some of the 49 migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard by the state of Florida are now able to legally work in the United States and have temporary protections from deportation — because they are considered victims of a potential crime. … The migrants are eligible for these protections because they applied for a special kind of visa meant for crime victims who are helping law enforcement, after they said they were tricked into taking charter flights from San Antonio to Massachusetts with false promises of jobs and other aid.”
“We care more about the safety of our staff than a name attached to an article.”
In its panning of Taylor Swift’s new album (3.6/10 rating), Paste Magazine chose to put “Paste Staff” as the piece’s author instead of the individual who wrote it. That’s because following Paste’s negative review of Swift’s Lover album in 2019, the reviewer received threats of violence from fans who disagreed. As for its critique of The Tortured Poets Department, Paste Staff said its “mid-ness” was the result of “when the artist making it no longer feels challenged, where she strikes out looking.”
“The House is a rough and rowdy place, but Mike Johnson is gonna be just fine. I served 20 years in the military, it’s my absolute honor to be in Congress. But I serve with some real scumbags. Matt Gaetz, he paid minors to have sex with him at drug parties. Bob Good endorsed my opponent, a known neo-Nazi. These people used to walk around with white hoods at night. Now they’re walking around with white hoods in the daytime.”
“This week has been a howling vortex of suck for the MAGA movement and Donald Trump. Imagine a black hole in the profound interstellar vacuum in the cold emptiness of space, drawing all matter and energy into its brutal singularity, an ineluctable and final journey into nothingness. … That’s the GOP this week. It’s been bad and will get worse.”
A new Siena poll finds that by a 54% to 30% margin, New Yorkers say Donald Trump’s “hush money” trial is “legitimate” — the view of 77% of Democrats and 44% of independents — rather than a “witch hunt,” the view of 66% of Republicans.
A new Marist poll finds Joe Biden leading Donald Trump nationally among registered voters, 51% to 48%. In a multi-candidate field, Biden is up by five percentage points against Trump, 43% to 38% among registered voters, followed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at 14%, Cornel West at 2%, and Jill Stein at 2%.Among those who definitely plan to vote, Biden leads Trump 46% to 39% in this same multi-candidate field.
NBC News poll: “‘Protecting democracy’ is a salient issue for voters. There’s a difference between what voters identify as the ‘most important issue facing the country’ (on that, “inflation and the cost of living’ registers 23%, followed by immigration/the border, at 22%) and what they identify as the issue most important in determining their own vote (on that, ‘protecting democracy or constitutional rights’ was on top with 28%, followed by immigration/the border at 20% and abortion at 19%).”
NBC poll: “RFK Jr.’s support draws more from Trump than Biden. Though the CW is that Kennedy is a bigger threat to Biden than to Trump, the numbers here tell a different story: 15% of Trump supporters and 7% of Biden supporters in the head-to-head matchup break for RFK Jr. when the field expands to include third-party candidates.”