In the Cold Light 0f Reason

 

               In the Cold Light of Reason

    Now that (many of us hope) the Trump era is truly over and done, it might be useful to examine with data and reason, not emotion, the results of four years of the most morally challenged man to hold the office of POTUS (It’s actually probably a three- way tie Buchanan/Harding/Trump, but Trump’s open support of insurrection on his behalf gives him the edge in my opinion)

        Rather than rehash the several poor character issues, which are common knowledge, even if his acolytes ignore them, I will analyze those actions which can be evaluated with data or by analyzing the reactions of others affected by them.

Border Security:

 “Mexico will pay for the wall!”  No, just no, they haven’t, and they won’t. Period.

          In terms of detaining attempted undocumented crossings, the Trump years have seen an increase over the four years span, but the fact is that 86% of U.S. adults believe it also very or somewhat important to increase the number of judges handling asylum cases, and 82% said it is important to provide safe and sanitary conditions for asylum seekers once they arrive in the country. This same survey was very critical of fragmenting detainee families.

        While the raw numbers of detainees are high, it must be noted that coincident with the first Trump year and continuing throughout his term there was a huge increase in families from below Mexico, seeking asylum from violent and corrupt regimes. Even so, here is some raw data: The peak “Trump year”, 2018, saw 337,281 “removals” by both ICE and Border patrol. In 2013, under the Obama administration, 432,281 removals were enacted by those same agencies. In a single sentence, the border was more effectively, and at the same time, humanely policed during the Obama administration. 

        While Trump has seemed to glory in splitting families, the Obama administration did not, and in fact, for families remaining here until asylum hearings, more than 90% were present for those hearings; those with attorneys were present more than 95%. I cite these stats because Trump, as he is prone to do, stated in a debate with President elect Biden, that “less than 1 percent” of undocumented immigrants showed up for their hearings, He continued with: “When you say they come back, they don’t come back, Joe. They never come back. Only the really — I hate to say this — but those with the lowest IQ, they might come back.”  This has been proven blatantly false by every study ever conducted. It is, in short, a typical Trump lie.

Economic Policy:

One has to wonder that Trump actually graduated from a university which prides itself on having one of the nation’s premiere business schools. Trump, who once described himself as having graduated with “One of the highest GPAs ever”, in fact just “graduated”. Period. No honors. And definitely no MBA (advanced degree).

        In considering economic policy, context is important.  In saying that, I mean that events which are outside the control of POTUS can, and do, influence economic conditions such as Budget deficit and policy decisions. In considering the Trump record it is not only fair, but essential, to disregard a significant portion of the 2020 deficit due to the pandemic. It is, however, certainly germane to consider Trump’s reactions to it later in this op-ed9.  

        Budget: While campaigning as a deficit hawk, Candidate Trump said:  "We’ve got to get rid of the $19 trillion in debt. ... Well, I would say over a period of eight years. And I’ll tell you why.” He then made several generalities re: debt/deficit. During the 2016 primaries, he was again asked about the national debt, this time by Bob Woodward:
 Trump: “I think I could do it fairly quickly, because of the fact the numbers —”.    Woodward: “What’s fairly quickly?”    Trump: “Well, I would say over a period of eight years.”

In fact. When Trump made this statement, eliciting raspberries from every credible economist in the nation, the federal debt was, as he said, about 19 trillion, much of which was the result of extended federal stimulus during the great recession. This alone should have been the trumpet call signifying that Trump was an economic dunce. In fact, the debt service (interest payment) alone on the national debt then was over 11% of annual federal spending and, naturally increases as the debt does. Four years later, while admittedly partially due to the global pandemic, the US federal deficit is 29.5 trillion, an increase of almost 50%. Factoring out COVID-19 related spending it is still over 25 trillion.   

        I mention context earlier because the president in large measure “inherits”, the economy as it is when he is elected. As an example, Barack Obama was inaugurated and handed the housing bubble collapse, along with economic recession, 9.5% unemployment which would eventually reach 10%, and a bailout package signed by his predecessor. The great Recession, as it came to be known, brought with it, housing foreclosures, bankruptcies, even the failure of one of America’s largest commercial banks. Unemployment remained above 8% well into 2013, when the slow recovery began. In the interim, Congress had passed, and Obama signed into law, the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. This legislation was aimed at reforming and/or limiting those practices which had either led to or exacerbated the housing bubble collapse and subsequent almost 5-year recession.

        By contrast, when Donald Trump was inaugurated in January 2017, the economy was on a continuous rise which began in the second Obama term and unemployment was 4.7%. In simplest terms, Trump inherited a healthy economy, yet he has overseen the fastest increase in the debt of any president—almost 36% from 2017 to 2020. Trump has not fulfilled his campaign promise to cut the debt. Instead, he's done the opposite. 

        Job growth had been remarkably consistent since the end of the recession in 2010. The 3.6 million jobs added in the period since Trump took office were roughly comparable to the 3.9 million added in the previous 19 months under Obama. Likewise, unemployment steadily declined, and wages rose up at a slow and fairly constant rate. On a graph of any of these metrics, the period before Trump took office is virtually indistinguishable from the period since.  I point this out only because Trump constantly (until COVID-19) trumpeted the “world’s strongest economy” from 2017-2019.

        Almost immediately, Trump pushed for erosion of Dodd -Frank, especially lending limitations in commercial banks, citing that he had “Friends with ‘nice’ businesses who can’t borrow.”   This, by the way is, and was, false, as at the time there was no lack of available business funding and no one who had legitimate creds was denied.

       To understand this paradox, understand Trump via this quote: “I’m the king of debt. I’m great with debt. Nobody knows debt better than me. I’ve made a fortune by using debt, and if things don’t work out, I renegotiate the debt. I mean, that’s a smart thing, not a stupid thing.” When asked by Norah O’Donnell on CBS to explain “How do you renegotiate the debt?” he responded, “You go back and you say, hey guess what, the economy crashed, I’m going to give you back half.”  Apparently, we are to believe that China, Japan and the UK as well as our own holders of US government debt are expected to “take half” and shut up?  Now we can understand why Trump the “tycoon” has been essentially cut off from borrowing by US commercial banks and, finally, even Deutsche bank. Trump’s cavalier attitude towards debt may explain his apparent lack of concern for the deficits he has run in a strong economy.

         The World Bank compares countries based on their total debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio. It considers a country to be in trouble if that ratio is greater than 77%. Although the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the U.S. federal debt held by the public would reach 98.2% of GDP, or $20.3 trillion, by the end of 2020, the figure is actually slightly higher, at essentially 100%. In laymen’s terms, the nation owes as much as the combined economic output in that same year! 

Economic Policy decisions:

           Tax Cut:  Trump’s tax plan to significantly reduce business and personal taxes: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) reflecting President Trump's plan went into effect on Jan. 1, 2018. While many economists warned that this act would increase the deficit, the Trump planners were apparently following the line used by other tax cutters, all proven wrong, in the flawed assumption that tax cuts lead to a dollar for dollar (or more) economic and federal revenue growth because those “saved” dollars are returned into the economy at a greater than 1 to 1 ratio as increased spending of saved revenue, This is actually one of the oldest economic fallacies extant, on a par with “trickle Down” theory and Supply Side fantasies. In fact, numerous studies show that only about half of the saved (untaxed) money makes its way back as federal revenue. Again, in simplest terms, $50 saved in tax can mean a $25 decrease in the next year’s federal revenue. So far, the Trump tax cut hasn’t decreased federal revenues to that extent (yet), but its proponents fail to mention that neither have they increased, as GDP has grown, revenues remain essentially flat. If supply side theories are relevant as Dr. Laffer, himself, postulated, it is only (as he also postulated) when the highest marginal rate is over 50%. When the Trump corporate tax cuts were enacted the rate was just 37%, but apparently learning nothing from the Reagan cuts and following recession, the Trump tax plan lurched onward. 

        "After eight straight years of slow growth and underperformance, America is ready to take off," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said when the tax cut passed two years ago. He was, as usual, lying and Obama shaming because he failed to mention the effects of the Great Recession. He also was wrong in that real GDP growth in 2015 was higher than any Trump year before or after the tax cut. Hampered in part by the president's trade war, the economy grew only about 2% in 2019. That's below the average growth rate since 2010.

        So, in summary, how has Trump economic policy affected the deficit? Remember, we’re looking only at those things not COVID-19 related. Considering the Great Recession, it is unsurprising that Obama had some large deficit years, and Republicans scathingly chastised him for all of them. By the last 2 years of his administration and the first of Trump’s (still an Obama budget) the deficit averaged $807 trillion, a large (too large) number. However, while supervising the “greatest economy ever”, from 2018 to 2020 (minus COVID-19 impact) Trump deficits ran half again as high, at $1.22 trillion. This doesn’t factor in the COVID-19 cost, which will make the 2020 deficit $ 4.226 trillion!!!

        Simply put, Trump policies did little or nothing for the US economy except deregulate in some areas which was largely to satisfy Trump’s cronies and contributors in industry and finance, and especially Energy.

Trade: Trump’s simplistic view of trade deficits was a driving force behind his derisive attacks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which, in fact, had supporters and detractors in both parties. What was not really in question was that TPP would have a strong positive effect on the economy over time. TPP negotiations were initiated in the Bush 43 years and completed in the Obama years. While there was some debate regarding if there would or might be manufacturing decreases in the US as a result, what was certain was a significant gain for the US in the areas of intellectual property and drug patent rights, formerly almost ignored by major Asian players. What Trump has proudly proclaimed as an improvement has resulted in a non-US participation version of the same treaty, encompassing the other original parties, minus all the intellectual and drug protection verbiage. Meanwhile nothing is better, just different. Trump floated the idea of rejoining TPP briefly, in 2018, but caved to pressure from interest groups.         

        Trade Policy: Most high school Economics students understand tariffs far better than Donald Trump, whose statement that “China will pay the Tariffs!” should have gotten an immediate gong and a hook from offstage. The importing nation’s consumers pay tariffs. Always. Period. Amen.

         Simple example: a BMW x7 Xdrive 40i costs (in the USA) $74,900 (the base model!) the tariff portion of that price is about $1800. Germany doesn’t pay it. The importer (BWM USA) does, and then they add it back into the price so you, the US purchaser, pay it.  Thus, it is, and always has been, whether tobacco, TV sets, soybeans, cars, cotton, or whatever. At least that’s how it was when nations still went to war over trade. Now those wars are economic and we’re losing.

         In more recent years the US has had essentially free trade and few, if any, tariffs for either party with China in most areas. Trump’s ill- advised tariffs on various Chinese products predictably resulted in corresponding tariffs levied by China. American farmers, traditionally huge exporters of soybeans to China were slammed because China simply found new, tariff free, sources (such as Brazil). It’s childishly simple: “If you make it harder for your guys to buy our products (as in adding tariffs to the cost), we’ll retaliate by doing the same.  As a result, American farmers, the original welfare class, got even more farm subsidies as their crops became unsaleable, as China shopped elsewhere.

         In this area alone, Trump’s tariffs have cost the rest of us tens of billions more in Farm aid (subsidies) than usual in each of the last two years. To the individual non-farmer this is usually of little notice, since farm subsidies aren’t generally voted on in Congress, however the Trump tariffs have also cost the average American household an extra $852 annually over the last two years in increased prices on Chinese products. Only $852? Multiply those two years ($1704 total per household) by 128.45 million households and, to date, Trump’s ill-advised tariff war has cost US consumers about $219 billion, not including farm bailouts.

Foreign Relations:  Reading former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s book is illuminating in this area, not for his opinions, but for the factual descriptions of Trump behavior. Bolton, like so many others in the administration, originally on the Trump Train, finally could stand no more of Trump’s incompetence, demonstrated almost daily. It essentially a tale of a, man who knew little or nothing about word affairs yet ignored advisors who do. After coaxing two such honorable men out of retirement, he largely ignored them both and finally fired both SecState Rex Tillerson and SecDef Jim Mattis.

        Per Bolton’s eyewitness accounts (seasoned by his previous experience in the Bush 43 administration); whereas the normal procedure for national security briefings is for the President to listen to advisors present current situations, Trump did most of the speaking, many times on topics of which he had no understanding. Along the way he: glossed over a Saudi correspondent’s assassination, almost certainly at the behest of a Saudi Prince, had a love affair on paper with the insane North Korean head of state, and characterized Vladimir Putin as “nice,” refusing to allow any investigation of charges that Putin sanctioned bounties for dead US soldiers in Afghanistan.

        On the other hand, after charging that Obama made a “terrible deal” and gave Iran billions of “our” money (it was already theirs, seized/frozen decades earlier) and blasted the US signing onto an agreement which would have limited Iran’s ability to produce weapons grade enrichment of Uranium, Trump withdrew us from said agreement to the great concern of our allies in Europe. In fact, Trump began a series of reversals of Obama executive orders related to the environment and other topics, many of which were aimed at lessening regulations on some of the greatest US polluters.

        As a result of withdrawing from both the Iran agreement and the Paris Accords, related to reducing greenhouse gasses to combat global warming, our European allies drew farther away. Stripped of US involvement, Iran has announced intentions to markedly increase Uranium enrichment, previously limited by agreement.

         Both the tariffs discussed earlier and the Trump attempts to blame China for the current pandemic, which, while starting there, was already destined to spread world-wide by the time he began shaming them, further damaged relations with a market critical to world and US trade. Meanwhile, China and the other original signatories to the TPP (minus, of course, the US) have forged a new trade agreement which is very like the TPP except it deletes the two cardinal concessions critical to the USA – intellectual property protection and drug patent protection. Additionally, these nations haver extended feelers to the UK and Europe, which if accepted could further isolate the US in a widening trade limbo. Trump fails to understand this, as he failed to properly face the facts of Covid-19.

        I cannot recall any time since I’ve been politically aware, (60 years or so) that our relations and general “sameness of purpose” with Western Europe allies have been at such a low ebb. This becomes even more depressing, considering the high esteem and political concert of the Barack Obama era. Having been in the vast majority of western European nations and in North Africa during that period, I can attest to that high regard, having actually had locals start conversations to tell me that. 

In a recent interview, former SecState, Rex Tillerson, summed it up in a statement elegant in both content and brevity: “His  (Donald Trump’s) understanding of global events, his understanding of global history, his understanding of even U.S. history was really limited. It’s really hard to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t even understand the concept for why we’re talking about this.”

Domestic Policy: 

        Following the events of January 6^th, 2021, it is almost unnecessary to expand on Trump’s role in the polarizing of America. So, I’ll do it quickly.

        Race: Donald Trump’s “race problem” was inbred by a father who openly discriminated in housing which he built with Government loans. It was obvious in Trump’s insistence that persons of color be “cleared” from parts of his Atlantic City casino when he and the wife du jour were there. It was clear when he said to a reporter that “Blacks are genetically lazy” (a paraphrase of a longer rant.) Events in Charlottesville, Va., when he refused to condemn white supremacists even when one ran his car into a crowd, along with his relationship with Steve Bannon, left no doubt in a rational mind. He was certainly aware, of yet has failed to speak out about, the facts related to unarmed black shootings by police at three times the rate of whites under similar circumstances. Maybe the most damning comment was his statement during the Housing discrimination trial: “You know you don’t want to live with ‘them’ either.”

        Gender:  While proclaiming his apparent love and respect for women (just like he has been the “best President” for persons of color since Lincoln.) He has body-shamed women in public, paid off a porn star to keep shtum about an affair while his wife was pregnant, and publicly used his favorite epithet “nasty” (it was his father’s, too) to condemn women who dare to disagree with him. The rest of Trump’s relationships with women including his serial wives is in the public record.

        The Military:  While bragging about military pay raises, which he falsely claimed were the “highest ever,” Trump has denigrated the leaders of all branches of service. He has (per John Bolton and at least one other who was there) berated the Joint Chiefs of staff en-masse for daring to urge caution in matters in which he, himself has zero real world experience. This has included showboating about pulling US forces from Syria against advice from those who actually understood the situation, and then, when that fuckup became evident, ordering them back. He has interfered in the Military Justice System several times, not for justice’s sake but for political reasons. (SEAL assassin, Eddie Gallagher, Capt. Brett Crozier). 

Personal attacks included George W. W Bush:

At least twice since becoming president, according to three sources with direct knowledge of his views, Trump referred to former president George H.W. Bush as a “loser” for being shot down by the Japanese as a Navy pilot in World War II.

On the Joint Chiefs (eyewitness account):

 “Trump by now was in one of his rages. He was so angry that he wasn’t taking many breaths. All morning, he had been coarse and cavalier, but the next several things he bellowed went beyond that description. They stunned nearly everyone in the room, and some vowed that they would never repeat them.

“I wouldn’t go to war with you people,” Trump told the assembled brass. Addressing the room, the commander in chief barked, “You’re a bunch of dopes and babies.”

On a visit to France:

        “Why should I go to that cemetery? (US cemetery at Normandy) It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 Marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed. … Later, (on that same trip), he asked aides, “Who were the good guys in this war?” (An American President who doesn’t know who our WWI allies were?!!)

        “I would have been honored” to serve, Trump has said, “but I think I make up for that right now. Look, $700 billion I gave last year, and this year $716 billion. (“He” gave nothing, we all did)) And I think I’m making up for it rapidly, because we’re rebuilding our military at a level it’s never seen before.”

         The first lie is that he believed his defense budget was an all-time peacetime high. Accounting for inflation, Obama’s 2010-11 budget of $711.34 billion, in today’s dollars is $855 billion. He lies because he can. Unbelievably, this man conflates signing a bill authorizing military spending with personal sacrifice.   Likewise, total force strength is actually lower than any time since 1960, with the exception of the Marine Corps which has remained relatively constant.

Overall leadership:

While most of what has preceded this portion reflects in some fashion on leadership, the Corona Virus pandemic has been an almost constant display of how not to lead a nation.

        First, as admitted to Bob Woodward (preserved on audiotape, at that) and recounted in Woodward’s book “Rage” we have the real Trump contradicting his public comments. In public comments, Trump minimized/downplayed the coronavirus threat, asserting the virus would “go away quickly”, “vanish” when it warmed up, and compared it to a mild flu, emphasizing the need to reopen the country to try to get the economy going again.

         To Woodward, however: Trump warned about the risks of the virus in frank and scary terms, calling it “the plague,” acknowledging it’s deadlier than the flu, and saying it could spread by air. This was deliberate. As Trump also told Woodward on March 19, “I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”

        “It goes through air, Bob. That’s always tougher than the touch. You know, the touch, you don’t have to touch things, right? But the air, you just breathe the air, and that’s how it’s passed. (is this the speech of a college graduate?) And so, that’s a very tricky one, that’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than your — you know, your, even your strenuous flus. … This is more deadly. This is five per — you know, this is five percent versus one percent and less than one percent. You know? (Say Whaat??) So, this is deadly stuff.”  April 13, to Woodward: “This thing is a killer if it gets you. If you’re the wrong person, you don’t have a chance. … So this rips you apart. … It is the plague.”

    This was definitely not what he was telling America at the too numerous photo-op briefings where Dr Anthony Fauci and other real medical persons were shoved aside while Trump ranted about his “ratings” and touted unproven and, in some cases, unsafe treatments. At times he even gave undeserved credibility to pillow salesmen and witch doctors, and the gap between Trump’s actions and good public policy widened to an abyss. What he was saying was:

February 26, at a press conference: “When you have 15 people [infected by the coronavirus in the US], and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”

February 27, at a White House meeting: “It’s going to disappear. One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”

March 9, on Twitter: “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down; life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!” (As of today, there are 392,000 dead and counting. This is 10 times the flu toll in an average year, and it ain’t over.)

         As avid as Trump’s acolytes are, if he had personally urged masks, and enforced social distancing, it would have become a religious obligation to most of them. Instead, he threw several Governors (Democrats, of course) under the bus for trying to do what he should have done. While impossible to foresee, it is reasonable to conclude that maybe 50,000 Americans might still be alive, had Trump led, vice lied. This is not simply hindsight, since all the signs and warnings were there, but ignored.

         Capable leaders choose good people to do important tasks. Trump, the master of nepotism, chose son-in-law Jared Kushner to over-see mask acquisition and, what ensued was a barrage of dead ends and Kushner associates benefitting from some of them. This tragedy is amplified by the fact that the Obama transition team had provided a hands-on pandemic simulation 3 years earlier, in early 2017, for several incoming Trump cabinet members, including the recently resigned Transportation Secretary, Elaine Chao (also known as Mrs. Mitch McConnell). McConnell would later, as he has done until it became politically unattractive to continue doing so, allege that the Obama administration left no “playbook” for a pandemic. In 2019, the Trump administration conducted a second pandemic simulation which they dubbed ‘Crimson Contagion.” This run- through was not publicly released during early part of the Trump COVID-19 response because doing so would have revealed just how much of a leadership failure was occurring: 

        The simulation is so close to the later reality as to be almost indistinguishable.   The New York Times reported it thus: “The outbreak of the respiratory virus began in China and was quickly spread around the world by air travelers, who ran high fevers. In the United States, it was first detected in Chicago, and 47 days later, the World Health Organization declared a pandemic. By then it was too late: 110 million Americans were expected to become ill, leading to 7.7 million hospitalized and 586,000 dead.” That scenario, code-named “Crimson Contagion” and imagining an influenza pandemic, was simulated by the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services in a series of exercises that ran from last January (2019, 13 months before COVID-19) to August. The simulation’s sobering results — contained in a draft report dated October 2019 that had not previously been reported — drove home just how underfunded, underprepared and uncoordinated the federal government would be for a life-or-death battle with a virus for which no treatment existed.”

        Presented with this, the Trump administration did, literally, nothing. Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell’s “non-existent" Obama playbook, used in the simulation, had been further refined.

        Again, while it is impossible to determine what might have been, it’s certainly arguable that a concerted effort to prepare the nation might have helped a bit. Imagine if all states had immediately received the results of the simulation and were urged, regardless of partisan concerns to prepare on the local level.

        Governors trying to do as the CDC recommended have had to fight the Trumpists who, like their leader, believed that it was overhyped and really not all that bad.  Trump even contradicted his own administration’s recommendations to push a rosy image of the country’s fight against Covid-19, demanding that states reopen quickly, before they met his administration’s recommendations, and getting parts of the public to think (wrongly) that masking is unhelpful or unnecessary, as his administration recommended, but failed to mandate, public use of masks. (a recommendation he largely ignored).    

        In the final analysis, Donald Trump’s failure to lead, in the face of overwhelming good advice to the contrary, is unsurpassed in my 60 years as a follower of US politics. This, alone, should cement his position as one of the worst presidents in our history. There never was a Wizard behind the curtain, but simply an incompetent, and not really very bright, reality television star, who has mastered the “big lie” school of   public relations. The nation is worse off because of it and far too many of us are dead. If there was a heaven and, in that heaven, a Bad Presidents Club, Trump would be met at the door by James Buchanan and Warren Harding, both grateful to no longer be tied for last.

"But Whaddabout?"

 

                                       But Whaddabout?

"Whaddabout": An attempt to divert attention from reality by attempting to shift focus to another and usually hugely irrelevant subject. (Example: "the assault on the Capitol building was abhorrent and Trump encouraged it by his comments,"  Response: "But whaddabout that black guy in the crowd? It was all BLM's fault.")  

        I'm really sick and tired of the "Whaddabouts" circulating about the recent Capitol riot and the election leading up to it. The general theme seems to be that if anyone Black was visible in the crowd, then BLM had "infiltrated" the mob and bore responsibility for the whole thing. The fact that there even are actual Black Trump supporters is a mystery to me, but there are, but they are a micro minority, and primarily media whores, like Stacy Dash and a few others who have fashioned a career of being a rarity, like a virgin in a brothel. There are several categorical truths re: this mess.

        First, consider the comments that Congressman Jim Jordan (R, Ohio) made in the weeks before the riots which stoked the fire, He alleged that Trump won because, “He got more votes than in 2016”, while failing to mention that Biden also got even more than Mrs. Clinton did in the same election which Trump won in the Electoral College. He also specifically stated “I’ve never said that this election was stolen,” a claim easily disproved by an article that covered his appearance at the Pennsylvania “Stop the Steal” rally. “President Trump got 11 million more votes than he did in 2016, and House Republicans won 27 of 27 toss-up races,” said Jordan. “But somehow the guy who never left his house wins the election?  Eighty million Americans, 80 million of our fellow citizens, Republicans and Democrats, have doubts about this election; and 60 million people, 60 million Americans think it was stolen.”(This last is a run-on "whaddabout." What is missing is the fact that even if Trump did get 11 million more votes than 2016, Hillary Clinton received 2.8 million more in that same 2016 race. Trump who, after criticizing the Electoral college all through the race, won only because of it.

        Fact:   In 2020, Joe Biden polled 15.2 million more than Clinton did in 2016 and, in the final analysis, 7 million more popular votes than Trump in 2020. By any metric, Biden won handily, and every single state and, even those with Republican supervisors of elections and secretaries of state, has validated the vote. Voter turnout percentage was the highest since 1900.    

        Fact: No state election official, Republican or Democrat actually questions the election results. This has been the most closely scrutinized election in our history and baseless Republican allegations stem from the fact that Trump supporters simply can’t face the fact that their icon lost. This disappointment has been systematically inflamed by Trump’s own inability to admit that he lost. Statements by Trump, Giuliani, and a cast of complicit sycophants, in and out of government, have led the Trump faithful, never really good at critical thinking anyway, to believe blatant lies. More than 50 Federal Judges, several of them Trump appointees, have unanimously rejected every single allegation of impropriety and several states even performed extra hand counts of ballots to certify the validity of their results. Yet, the Jordans, Cruzes and Giulianis, et al, continued stoking the fires as Trump, consummate liar that he is, did the same. We have seen the result. The majority of American voters rejected Donald Trump, and the ironic part is that Trump, himself a malignant narcissist, will never understand, or at least be able to acknowledge, that he is the problem.  

        Fact: The mob that met at the Capitol was/were not organized lucid individuals with focus or beliefs other than that Trump was, somehow, “their guy” and that they were, in some alternate reality, “On the side if the angels.”  In truth, Trump wouldn’t touch the majority of them or allow them on the premises of any of his properties. It is a possibility, although not one these folks will acknowledge, that if you have failed to avail yourself of opportunities provided during your formative years or if you are suffering from some sort of personality disorder which has resulted in your adulthood being less than you would like it to be, you may actually be responsible for your own circumstances. If you feel it a better option to blame persons of color, LGBT folks, immigrants, successful women or just political liberals in general, then we have identified the problem, and it isn’t in Washington DC.

        Add to this, political ignorance and borderline mental illness and you might, like the unfortunate Ashli Babbitt, find yourself as a former, often disciplined, mediocre ex-military member, failed and deep in debt small businessperson, desperately clinging to the false belief that your problems are someone else’s fault and that Donald Trump somehow will make your life better. As a result, half a continent away from home, you find yourself in a mob storming the US Capitol building which, tragically, you won’t leave alive. Truth told, you  were fatally scammed by an, also deep in debt, businessman whose history of bankruptcies, stiffing workers and small business like yours should have been a warning rather than a siren song.     

         A real and, I feel, under realized yet significant part of the Trump saga is that some of the major corporations in America who benefitted from Trump’s pandering to their ceaseless pleas for deregulation, made obvious by his systematic dismantling of Dodd-Frank and systematic cancelling of Obama executive orders related to environmental protection, have, by their acquiescence, encouraged his actions right up until it became expedient to sense the sea change in opinion caused by the Capitol assault.  Then, in a flurry of patriotic fervor, some of them have suddenly become righteously indignant and vocal about how much they loathed the actions of the man they had quietly enabled for four years by massive campaign contributions. I am sometimes reminded (and I’ll close with this) of a song in the rather mundane Broadway musical “L’il Abner.” The ditty was entitled, “What’s Good for General Bullmoose is Good for the USA.”  Its hard to shake the feeling that many US corporate heads whistle that while they work.      

Post postmortem

 

                             Post Mortem

 

        Even when he’s caving in, he’s lying. Below are three snippets from a WaPo article. They are not Op-Ed, but rather quotes from Trump’s “canned,” flat affect, video speech of Tuesday night. My comments are below each item  

“President Trump promised a smooth transition in a video message posted on Twitter Thursday night, saying that his supporters had “pursued post-election challenges in good faith, but “now tempers must be cooled, and calm restored.”

        Any actions which might be called “good faith” were nullified by the decidedly mob violence aspect of the assault on the Capitol by what seemed, in large part, more like a drunken, meth fueled, weekend at Sturgis than any sort of orderly protest. It resembled the worst costumed amateur production of Les Mis ever staged. The “good faith” remark undoubtedly refers to Trump’s continued delusion (strike that, he doesn’t believe it either)…continued blatantly false claim that the most rigorously examined election in our History was somehow hijacked so cleverly that 50 separate federal judges, some appointed by Trump, himself, were all duped into denying every single phony suit brought by his sycophants.

“Trump claimed he immediately deployed the National Guard to help secure the building and expel the intruders. Other officials have disputed that account. Trump also claimed his attempts to overturn the election results were simply his efforts to “ensure the integrity of the vote.”

        As stated above, the integrity of the vote has been affirmed ad nauseum. Vague claims have failed to reveal any irregularities on a scale such as Trump has claimed. In fact, in one district in Michigan where Giuliani had vaguely claimed “illegal voting” it turns out he was right, there had been three verified instances of illegal voting but, (wait for it) all three cases involved registered Republicans. Every single such allegation has failed to stand the smell test, the data test and the truth test. And no, he didn’t call out the guard. The DC mayor asked, and the Army Secretary responded. "Yesterday was a horrible and shameful day here in the capital, and the nation at large," Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said on the call. "The Mayor of the District of Columbia asked the Army for help, and our National Guard responded. No other requests were made."

 “Trump released a statement pledging “an orderly transition,” even as he continued to falsely claim the election was riddled with fraud. The statement was tweeted by White House social media director Dan Scavino as Trump remained locked out of his account. “Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th,” Trump said.”

        Of course, he disagrees. Not because he knows anything we all don’t, but because, as a man who has played with a stacked deck all his business life and even then, failed six times, he simply cannot allow himself to admit that he is the problem. His toxic narcissism simply won’t allow it. Sadly, three of his four adult children are cast from that same mold. There are no, repeat no “Facts which bear me (him) out.” In the classic “big lie” tactic he apparently has convinced himself that the big lie, told often enough with sufficient vitriol in the delivery, will become fact in the minds of those preconditioned to believe it. It’s difficult to evaluate which is more pitiful – the failed narcissist, driven by failure to get his own way and going to extreme lengths to avoid confronting it, or the numbers of equally deluded unhappy conspiracy theorists ever ready to blame others for their own personal failures. Either is pathetic. Both are dangerous.  

The Final Insult?

 

                               The Final Insult?

“The devil called down to Georgia,

He was looking for some votes to steal.

He was in a bind ‘cause he was way behind.

and was lookin’ to make a deal!”

                   (With minimal apologies to Charlie Daniels, a great fiddle player but a Trump fanatic)

        I had planned to write only positive things for the rest of the Trump reign of stupidity, but sometimes an individual does something so incredibly venal, yet poorly though out, that one simply cannot help but react. I have analogized a great many of Trump’s attempted power grab/criminal activities as worthy of a mob boss, but I now realize than not even John Gotti, the “Teflon Don” would ever have been stupid or brazen enough to state the request for election fraud that Donald Trump made personally over an (apparently) unsecure and recordable communications connection.

        Extortion is unworthy of the office of POTUS, yet this marks a second attempt by Trump to solicit illegal actions by another and doing it himself! You’d think after the first time, (the Ukraine phone calls, followed by impeachment), he’d either have figured out the folly of his actions or had it explained to him.  No self-respecting (or at least marginally) bright underworld figure would be as blatantly stupid as to personally expose themselves in such a manner. That’s what a consigliere is for, and the fawning Rudy Giuliani has proven numerous times that no lie is too outrageous, no scam too risky, and no threat so empty that he won’t make it. I’ve likened Trump to a mob boss, as I stated up front. This, however, makes the Mafia look like Mensa by comparison!  

        I guess the one real difference is that even though an underworld Czar may have disdain for the law, they realize that they are still culpable if proven to have violated it. Donald Trump, however, seems to feel as if that simply doesn’t apply to him. The ego required to actually think and act like that is off whatever scale, if any, by which malignant Narcissism is gauged.

        On a parallel note, unless the several Senators who planned to disrupt the formal announcement of the Electoral College vote are as stupid (or ego/partisan driven) as their icon has shown himself to be, they might want, or ought, to rethink their plans for creating a scene, even if they think their constituents would like it. I can almost imagine some Texas Republican Good Ole Boy, a bit embarrassed by Raphael Cruz’s planned obstructionism, deciding, “That right there, that’s a bunch of shit; screw him.” Probably not, but hope springs eternal.

This story broke after I posted the above. being lazy I'm just appending it.

Let's get this straight. Sen Perdue (R Ga) calls the fact that the Georgia Secretary of State recorded the President attempting to get him to commit election fraud "disgusting?" Perdue, who was a guest on "The Next Revolution," said he was "shocked" that a member of the Republican Party would tape a sitting president and leak it to the media. "It’s disgusting in my view," he said.

How far up Trump's ass can his head reach? We're waaaay past "brown nose" here. First of all, Secretary Raffensberger had previously made it clear to those around him that he hesitated to take such a call, probably because of precisely what happened. Fearing the President might do exactly as he DID do, he recorded it.

This is simply following in the footsteps of every President since LBJ. Without this recording Trump would have been free to slander and debase Raffensberger in a "he said/ he said" arena. Raffensberger was protecting himself, which in a sane world he shouldn't have had to do, but Trump proved the wisdom of the decision to tape the call.

    

Mr. Raffensberger is a man of caution and of character. Sen. David Perdue is neither. He's fine with POTUS committing election fraud, just don't record it.

Unparalleled Ignorance

 

 Unparalleled ignorance

        A recent letter in the local rag's OPED section hit a new low for rational discussion regarding climate change. After conceding that somewhere around 97% of the scientific community agrees that human activities are responsible for most of the current global warming trend, the writer says, "Ignore that, even if true, because reducing carbon emissions might be expensive." I'll save the really insane comments for later. read on, it's worth the wait.

        I've concluded that there are basically three separate schools of thought, if indeed actual thought has occurred, in the climate change denier community, which are in some ways about as grounded as Holocaust deniers and “flat earthers.” They are:

        a: Climate change can't be “real” (they really mean caused by humans) because if we admit it is, our wealthy Corporations which make money on energy and utilities will have to spend more and profit less. We're here, we want cheap gas and electricity, so fuck the next generation(s). The reality is that most of this group don't really care if climate change is real or, for that matter, strenuously deny it; they just don't want to act on it. The current Lame Duck POTUS actually said this in 2020 during a debate with President-elect Biden: “The fumes coming up, if you’re a believer in carbon emission … for these massive windmills is more than anything we’re talking about with natural gas which is very clean”. (Blatantly insane word salad! Windmills produce zero emissions.)

        b: Since many major corporate donors to far right causes and candidates are deniers (or ignorers) the sycophant candidates they own are also rabid deniers. It's in their financial interest to be so, and those who blindly listen to and parrot the rhetoric of the Gohmerts, Jindals, Perrys, Pences and Trumps become, reflexively and without critical analysis, global warming deniers, even to their own potential detriment. It's politics, not principles.

        c: The third and, in many cases, the most vociferous group of deniers seem to be the Far-Right evangelical fundamentalist Christians.  I believe that this knee jerk anti-global warming bias stems from their belief that 1. God made the Earth 2. God can do anything he/she/it wants, and therefore:  3. It borders on apostasy and sacrilege to believe that insignificant, puny mankind could ever have that same impact. (note: If they truly believe that, then they are forced to believe that all natural disasters are just God’s way of “thinning the herd”, right?)

     This is convenient for the Far Right since most Evangelicals lean that way. This quote from American Family Association director Bryan Fischer is self-explanatory: “That’s (climate change denial) kind of how we’re treating God when he’s given us these gifts of abundant and inexpensive and effective fuel sources, God has buried those treasures there because he loves to see us find them.”  OK, Bryan, now I get it; your God wants us to foul the air and pollute streams because it makes him/her/it happy?

        Now for the truly astounding wrinkle introduced by the writer:  In an act of hubris blended with equal portions of sheer gall and stupidity beyond anything I've ever even heard, the following assertion was made. I'll paraphrase to give it more flow and form. "Even if all these scientists around the world agree that Global warming is a real issue, that is relatively meaningless, since, after all Galileo and Einstein, both were going against the established beliefs of their day."  The assertion here apparently being that Global warming deniers are analogous to Galileo and Albert Einstein!

         What the person obviously didn't think through, or more likely understand, is the fact that in Galileo's case, he wasn't arguing against science, he was using science (you know, hypothesis, observation, data accumulation, etc.) to refute Christian dogma "the earth is the center of the universe because we humans are God's creation, ergo more important than everything else." This is the diametric opposite of what he thinks he said!

        In the case of Einstein, he wasn't arguing against science, he was using higher math to explain and amplify some physics concepts that science hadn't yet explained.  Far from being opposed by the scientific community, Einstein was awarded the Nobel in theoretical Physics in 1921. Of course, the aforementioned Galileo was threatened with excommunication and forbidden to write.

        Seldom, if ever, has anyone been so drastically and diametrically incorrect and ill informed.  Hopefully, 2021 will bring serious change to US climate actions.       

This Isn't the First Time!

 

It Isn’t the First Time

 

        In 1772, Daniel Dafoe wrote an alleged eye-witness account of the great Bubonic plague which ravaged England in 1664 and 1665. In fact, he was just 5 years old at the time, so most of the book, A Journal of the Plague Year is secondary sourced, vice eyewitness. Told as a narrative by an imaginary Londoner, it was written to be readable, and was successful in its time.

        Closer to the bone is the first person (ergo more accurate) A Diary of the Plague Year, which consists of selections from the diary of Samuel Pepys. During the same pandemic, Pepys, a 17th-century British naval administrator fastidiously kept a diary from 1660 to 1669 – a period of time that included the same severe outbreak of the bubonic plague in London.

 Pepys wrote:

[1665-08-12] The people die so, that now it seems they are fain to carry the dead to be buried by daylight, the nights not sufficing to do it in. And my Lord Mayor commands people to be inside by nine at night that the sick may leave their domestic prison for air and exercise.

And: [1665-08-31] Up, and after putting several things in order to my removal to Woolwich, the plague having a great increase this week beyond all expectation, of almost 2000 - making the general Bill 7000, odd 100 and the plague above 6000 .... Thus this month ends, with great sadness upon the public through the greateness of the plague, everywhere through the Kingdom almost. Every day sadder and sadder news of its increase. In the City died this week 7496; and all of them, 6102 of the plague. But it is feared that the true number of the dead this week is near 10000 - partly from the poor that cannot be taken notice of through the greatness of the number, and partly from the Quakers and others that will not have any bell ring for them. As to myself, I am very well; only, in fear of the plague, and as much of an Ague, by being forced to go early and late to Woolwich, and my family to lie there continually.

        In truth, there was no singular plague which came and went never to resurface, but more like three centuries of intermittent waves of diseases which ravaged Europe to varying degrees from the 1300s to the Great Plagues (the Black Death/Bubonic Plague) which ravaged European cities in the mid-1600s. Reconstructing from contemporaneous records, such as survive, it is likely that multiple Italian cities had at least 50% death figures!)

        American parallels to this were played out over several centuries and included:

1633-1634: Smallpox from European settlers (half the population of Boston was infected and about 9% of the city died!)

1793: Yellow fever from the Caribbean (refugees fleeing a yellow fever epidemic in the Caribbean Islands sailed into Philadelphia, carrying the virus with them. Estimates of fatality range as high as 10%. Others fled the city to avoid it, and did)  

1832-1866: Cholera in three waves between 1832 and 1866. (the pandemic began in India and swiftly spread across the globe through trade routes. New York City was the first U.S. city to feel the impact. Between 5 and 10 of the total population died in large cities.)

1918: H1N1 flu. (In 1918, it was the type of flu behind the “Spanish” influenza pandemic, though it didn’t actually from come from Spain. Lasting from February 1918 to April 1920, it infected 500 million people – about a third of the world’s population at the time – in four successive waves. Killing 50 million worldwide and 675,000 in the US.)

1921-1925: Diphtheria epidemic, peaking in 1921  with 206,000 cases.

        So why the history lesson? I guess it stems from my frustration from reading all the false data and allegations related to the current pandemic. Looking backward at previous global and/or continental pandemics, several factors emerge:

Etiology: the great plagues of the 1600s might as well have been caused by lightning as far as anyone knew. The isolation of germs and their relationship to disease causality was 200 years away. Even more distant was the 1892 recognition of viruses, and, even then, they were not immediately identified as causative factors in human disease.

        Conversely, the viral causative factor in the current pandemic was identified early on. It was also immediately apparent that transmission reflected the type of contagion we had seen 100 years earlier in the 1918 flu pandemic.  

Response: Even though the agents of transmission were a mystery and would remain so for some time, those who called themselves doctors came to realize that no matter what was tried, it was futile, be it bleeding, purging, or, for the Black Death, such “cures” as: Rubbing onions, herbs or a chopped-up snake (if available) on the boils or cutting up a pigeon and rubbing it over an infected body (yuck). Drinking vinegar, eating crushed minerals, arsenic, mercury (a really bad idea!) or even ten-year-old treacle were other, also useless, treatments.

        About the same time, smallpox treatment was almost as bizarre: Bloodletting (as much as 20 ounces at a time!), Purging (induced vomiting), Confinement to bed, no heat allowed in the room, windows constantly open, bed clothes no higher than the waist. Also prescribed was “12 bottles of small (low alcohol) beer, acidulated with Spirit of Vitriol (diluted Sulfuric Acid!), every twenty-four hours.”

        Yellow fever treatment was simpler. You either died, or you didn’t. No one had yet identified the mosquito as a disease vector. However, even that disease gave hints regarding acquired immunity. In New Orleans, where yellow fever was frequently epidemic in summers, White society evolved into two strata, those who had survived the disease and were “acclimated” and those who were “unacclimated”. Rich whites frequently went north of Lake Pontchartrain to (only slightly) higher and dryer ground through the worst summer months, even though the mosquito as vector wouldn’t be identified until 1900.    

        However, in every single one of these, save the mosquito borne illnesses, one early response was apparent – get away from those infected. Yeah, Social Distancing. As early as the 1600s, Londoners who could afford to do so went to the country and avoided crowds because, even though they had no idea what caused the plague, they on some level, apparently invisible to a sizeable portion of US Conservatives, realized that removing oneself from close contact with potentially infected individuals was a good idea. Sadly, for poor Londoners (most of the population) that simply wasn’t an option. Second, although less effective, don’t share fluids with a sick individual, because their cooties can make you sick, Even wear a mask!

        It was in England in 1665 during the Great Plague/Black Death that Cambridge University sent students home as a precautionary measure. One of them returned to his family estate 60 miles northwest of Cambridge, where he then thrived. The year 1666, which he spent away from Cambridge at his family’s estate, is when and where Isaac Newton began work on his discoveries in the fields of calculus, motion, optics and gravitation. The mathematical papers he wrote during this time went on to form the early foundations of calculus. He experimented with prisms, going so far as to punch a hole in his shutters for a small light beam to come through. This led to his theories in optics. Outside his window was ‘the apple tree’ that (allegedly) led to the discovery of gravity. While Newton practiced Social Distancing, 100 miles to the southwest, a quarter of London’s population perished in the Great Plagues of 1665 and 1666.

Treatment/prevention: While some early efforts at treatment of pandemic communicable diseases seem like “witch doctor specials” there were some who made several observations which laid the groundwork for later immunological advances. One seemingly inexplicable statistic was that the urban rich seemed to suffer and die in greater numbers from Smallpox than the poor in the countryside. It was also common knowledge that survivors of smallpox became immune to the disease. As early as 430 BCE, survivors of smallpox were called upon to nurse the afflicted. Although the exact dates are unknown, it is now generally accepted that variolation (the act of taking matter from an existing pox sore and inducing it into another via small incision) was practiced in India and China long before it was ever heard of in England. It came to the attention of the Royal Society in London in a 1714 letter from a diplomat in Istanbul, but English doctors were resistant to the idea.

          In 1717, Lady Mary Montague's husband, Edward Wortley Montague, was appointed ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. She had been facially disfigured by smallpox two years earlier and upon hearing of variolation at the Ottoman court, asked that her young son be variolated by the embassy surgeon. Although most of the world reveres the name Edward Jenner as the “discoverer of vaccination” it was embassy surgeon, Charles Maitland, who performed the first known immunological procedure on a European, a 5-year-old boy, Lady Montague’s son. Returning to England, Lady Montague became an advocate whose experience reached the royal family. In 1722, Maitland was allowed to perform vaccination on six prisoners all of whom became immune to smallpox.

          In fact, the first actual statistical analysis of the effects of variolation, was performed in Boston, not England. When a ship with active smallpox cases landed in Boston in 1721, Cotton Mather, a Harvard grad and interested in medicine although a  pastor by vocation, recommended immediate variolation of the entire populace. Some of the residents violently resisted and, in a prelude to the incredibly ignorant anti-vaxx movement of today, a bomb was thrown at Mather’s house. But, as the plague burnt out, analysis of the effects of variolation showed that untreated citizens had a death rate 700% higher than those who had been immunized. It is significant that this was accomplished with scrapings from active smallpox victims.

        It was English doctor Edward Jenner who, in 1796, noted that milkmaids who contracted cowpox (a minor rash generally limited to hands and arms and not fatal) were immune to smallpox. On May 14, 1796, using scrapings from cowpox lesions, he inoculated an 8-year-old boy, James Phipps. The lad developed very mild fever. Nine days after the procedure he felt cold and had lost his appetite, but on the next day he was much better. In July 1796, Jenner inoculated the boy again, this time with matter from a fresh smallpox lesion. No disease developed, and Jenner concluded that protection was complete Since this immunity was apparently obtained from cowpox (Vacca is the Latin for cow) Jenner called his process of intentional transmission “Vaccination.”  

        Yeah, I know, that’s a lot of verbiage, so what? Well, Jethro, because what those early inoculators discovered, although the reasons remained to be discovered, was the concept of acquired immunity. While the vaccine delivered today is far more sophisticated and less likely to cause side effects, the principle remains the same. All the plagues described earlier are non-existent in most of the world where vaccination is common. If travelling to regions less developed where Cholera or Yellow fever are still to be found, vaccines are available.    

        Obviously, Voodoo priestesses, pillow salesmen and Presidents notwithstanding, there is, as of yet no curative for COVID 19. There are medically therapeutic treatments for symptoms, but the only “cure” is don’t get sick, and by far the best way to do that is remain masked and/or distanced until you can get the vaccine. That also means, in plain speak, get vaccinated when possible or shut the hell up. Ignore the science bashing gobbledy-gook and help relegate COVID 19 to the same status as Smallpox. If you choose to still believe that vaccination is unwarranted, look at the childhood measles clusters in those anti-vaxxer strongholds in Oregon, where pre-public school vaccinations are not mandatory. (A 30 year high!) As of Tuesday, April 23^rd of last year, 680 cases of measles had been reported in the U.S. This was the highest level of measles infections in 25 years, and the resurgence is largely attributed to misinformation turning parents against vaccines, according to the Associated Press.

  

Get the Nets!

 

The sole reason I have posted this is that it is only available in this verbiage (although most real news sources have something analogous) and needs to be seen as conclusive proof that our lame duck dictator is off the rails. He is now attacking the credibility of essentially the entire intelligence community and State Department including Mike Pompeo who has been his toady and generally complicit in supporting Trump’s stream of lies since he fired Rex Tillerson for being competent and moral. (italics are mine)

Washington Post

Trump contradicts Pompeo in bid to downplay massive hack of U.S. government, Russia’s role

Ellen Nakashima and

Josh Dawsey

Dec. 19, 2020 at 4:43 p.m. EST

        President Trump addressed the ongoing cyber hacks of the U.S. government for the first time on Saturday, seeking to turn blame away from Moscow in defiance of mounting evidence while downplaying how devastating the intrusions appear to be.

        In a bizarre outburst on Twitter that Trump’s critics condemned for its alarming disconnect from the facts, the president contradicted his top diplomat, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who on Friday pinned the breaches that have afflicted at least five major federal agencies “clearly” on Russia. Rather, the president baselessly suggested that the true culprit “may be China”

        Trump’s aversion to calling out the Kremlin for its malign activities in cyberspace and his deference to Russian President Vladimir Putin has become a hallmark of his presidency. He has repeatedly trusted the word of Putin over the assessments of his own intelligence community, including its conclusion that Russia waged a sophisticated campaign to interfere in the 2016 presidential election — a verdict Trump believes calls into question the legitimacy of his victory four years ago.

        His tweets Saturday raise fresh concerns that he will seek to shrug off what may turn out to be a cyber hack of unprecedented scale, and that Russia will not be held to account. The president has complained to advisers, who believe Russia is culpable, that the intrusions are a fake narrative meant to damage him politically.

        “The Cyber Hack is far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality,” Trump tweeted, despite a federal alert in recent days that called the widespread cyber espionage campaign “a grave risk to” government agencies and the private sector.

        “I have been fully briefed and everything is well under control,” he said, while agencies are scrambling to investigate and contain major breaches at agencies including the State, Treasury, Energy, Homeland Security and Commerce departments — an effort that is likely to take months.

        He also speculated, with no evidence, that the hacks may also have included “a hit on our ridiculous voting machines during the election, which is now obvious that I won big.” Twitter flagged that assertion, saying that “multiple sources called this election differently.” There is no evidence that November’s election was undermined by significant or widespread fraud, despite Trump’s insistence otherwise.

        Trump had, until Saturday, studiously avoided the topic, reluctant to address publicly an issue that has bedeviled him since he took office: Russia’s hacking of U.S. targets. He broke his silence only after he was criticized publicly by lawmakers from both parties for an apparent unwillingness to confront Putin.

        White House officials had drafted a statement to be released Friday accusing Moscow of carrying out the cyber intrusions in a months-long campaign, but they were blocked from doing so, said a senior administration official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity. (end of WaPo article)

It is time for the men in white coats. If you still believe Donald Trump fit to govern, call a cab and have yourself committed as well.