On December 21, Congress passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, a $2.3 trillion bill that pulled together a number of different pieces of legislation, including a $900 billion coronavirus relief bill and a $1.4 trillion appropriations bill (which included 12 separate annual appropriations bills). Today’s news is that Trump is refusing to sign the bill into law.
I have looked at DT’s Twitter feed a handful of times, but I wanted to hear his objections to the measures passed by Congress so I bit the bullet. His remarks were standard Trumpian propaganda but the comments – well, the comments were something else again.
The comments defending, lauding, or continuing to support Donald Trump were a toxic mix of the last wails of a dying breed of disgruntled cranks, terribly misinformed individuals who cannot conceive of the possibility they have been misled – not just by Trump, but by the Conservative movement that Trump hijacked - and hired guns in the employ of Putin’s army of internet assassins.
Those in Putin’s employ will be rewarded by their master for their mischief. Those who continue to sing the praises of Donald Trump will eventually find themselves on the dustheap of history, either ridiculed for being so thoroughly fooled by a delusional demagogue or scorned for supporting the man who did more to undermine the United States than any person in its history.
My concern: Although the comments themselves may be the work of lunatics, ignoramuses or bots, the thousands of “likes” they received are from folks who may not feel comfortable posting such things but harbor the same sentiments.
It is difficult to resist lashing out but resist we must because they derive pleasure from the scorn. It empowers the worst of them, and I refuse to empower them any more than I would pass ammunition to a lunatic on a school playground wielding a weapon. It may give some satisfaction in the short run, but it does not address the root problems.
There is work to be done. We cannot ignore the millions of people who followed Trump and think that by electing a Democratic President everything will work out fine – it won’t.
The good work I expect a Biden administration will attempt, is vital. Changing the conditions under which people live for the better, is a start in the right direction.
However, unless people have a workable alternative narrative, unless there is an information intervention that can succeed in breaking through the decades of lies many people have come to believe, we will remain a divided nation and those divisions will become even more rigid. And, it will be our children who pay the price.
I've convinced that Trump isn't just striking back at McConnell and Thune but also intentionally weakening the economy for Biden and the nation. It's hard not to conclude that for Trump, hurting people is a source of perverse pleasure, a pleasure that eases the pain and anger of a humiliating loss. And he's not done yet.
Would be very interested in your insights on another aspect of the bill. I've read that it contains a clause requiring shell corporations to make funding sources transparent. Obviously, the Trump empire does not want this to pass into law. Could the fights with Senate Majority Leader and Whip be a smokescreen? When the negotiations are all final, it would be interesting to see if this remains in the final bill he signs. My personal belief is that all of his people-oriented attacks are distractions to draw attention away from how he is increasing his personal revenue.
Here's the piece I didn't get at all - this comment from a WH aide - "One person in conversation with White House officials talked with Jeff Stein of the Washington Post about Trump’s scuttling of the bill and said, “He’s just angry at everybody and wants to inflict as much pain on Congress as possible.” Excuse me! Inflict as much pain on Congress as possible??? How about the American people, and the whole of government, the whole military, you know the ones doing the work, soldiers, sailors, their families - not getting the help they deserve. I'm so sick of the Republican party's political ploys and pure laziness, I could scream. But to no effect, alas.
It's been a whole four years of screaming into the wind about the enablers of Trump's sitting coolly in their Senate splendor, yucking it up with their Russian oligarch counterparts. Sick of the whole game they are playing with American lives. I can hardly wait till 2022 when I get a chance to donate to every Democrat running for Senator and get these fools and Grifter Oligarchs and suck-ups to our Russian agent president out of office.
As HCR alluded, for Republicans, the 800 lb gorilla isn't Trump, it's his base; the MAGA Mob, the Red Hat Battalions, the idolatrous throng that will turn out en masse to unelect any Republican who isn't as blindly loyal to Trump, and only Trump, as they are. For the last four years what is now the party of Trump has played and encouraged Trump's mob.
Now, on his way out the door, Trump is playing them.
The elites in Germany thought, in the end, they could control Hitler....
The wrath and stubbornness 45 is exhibiting simply reinforces the reality that he is incapable of leadership! No human being could possibly continue this deadly game of Russian roulette when so many lives are at stake! People will be penniless, homeless and in states of desperation during the coldest months of the year! I can't even bear to think of the consequences of his actions! My heart aches for our country and our people. More children will be on the streets starving -- the poor innocent children! It's unbearably heartbreaking!
One self-centered sociopath is destroying hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. Are our hands completely tied? Is there nothing to be done from a legal perspective? I feel utterly useless, sitting here, watching the destruction of a nation by one vengeful, soulless individual.
I posted here few weeks ago I was willing to take bets that trump would get on board and start hyping up his supporters to win the GA runoffs for the Republicans. I'm kind of glad no one took me up on it. I still think he's going to try and turn out his base for a win, but I'm a whole lot less certain now. He's really playing it close to the line! I have a hard time believing he'll take down his party just because they put down his kool-ade for a brief, refreshing swig of reality.
What would otherwise be an enjoyable spectacle of Republicans being eaten by a monster of their own creation is sadly tempered by considering the chaos and hardship he is also inflicting on millions of desperate Americans who should be able to expect better of their government. The Republican party is now a joke, and a sad excuse for representative democracy.
As Adam Serwer, a columnist for The Atlantic, once said "the cruelty is the point".
When he was running for president in 2016, I remember Trump, the newly-minted "pro-lifer", being asked, regarding abortion, whether the woman having the abortion should be prosecuted in addition to the doctors performing it. "Yes. There has to be punishment." was his reply. I remember reading a reaction to this on Facebook (when I still was on FB): "He is a monster." At the time I thought: well, he is an idiot, and a proto-fascist, but a monster, probably not, because he never means what he says anyway. I was wrong, stupidly wrong. As the journalist Masha Gessen said upon Trump's election: when the tyrant speaks, believe him. He means it. He IS a monster.
I am wondering if Trump's malfeasances -- wow that's too weak a description! -- can be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague? 330,000 dead through depraved indifference certainly counts as mass murder, if not on the scale of Pol Pot, then at least of Idi Amin who slaughtered 500,000 Ugandans. Add to this his evil antics at his end-of-term, and you are seeing a crime against humanity.
Looking at the Wikipedia definition of a Crime Against Humanity, it's clear that Trump meets SEVERAL of the criteria handily. The ICC charter explicitly says that non-member states (The USA, to its shame, withdrew in 2002) can nevertheless petition the ICC to consider prosecuting someone who has committed crimes against humanity. It would be good if Biden's incoming AG would lodge such a complaint.
It will never happen. Even under a "restoration" administration such as Biden's, this would seem like a relinquishment of US sovereignty. God knows US "sovereignty" needs a good hard slap in the face by the international community. But so much for fantasy-land.
And so, in the end, Donald Trump plays his endgame role: God. From denying SNAP to the food insecure to the distribution of vaccines to executions, he is demonstrating the wrath of vengeful god. He knows no benevolence, charity or compassion, only violence and destruction. He is in his glory and it's killing us.
What a small, small man he is. To have reached this advanced age without having learned to deal with failures and disappointments is stunning. Mary Trump probably didn't know the half of it.
We all predicted it would get a lot worse before January 20th and, sigh, we still have 4 weeks to go of this malevolent derangement. Unless and until Murderous Mitch and his Marionette Minions march their arses into the White House--or go down to Florida--and tell the sick bastard that his time is up, drag him kicking and screaming to a desk, put a sharpie in his hand, and make him sign we will be having to endure the whirlwind of his psychopathy. And as you all know, they won't. Even though they could lose both senate runoffs as a result. They have eaten of his sickness and it has become their raison d'être.
As Bill's brilliant wife has said, many Americans have this bizarre idea--based on utter ignorance of anything other than what exists on Fox and what poison the NRA feeds them--that freedom (or, to borrow her phrase, free-dumb) is a zero-sum game that means that white men get to do anything they want and everyone else has to suffer the consequences. However, they also don't understand how Medicare and Social Security work (as the Trumped-up anti ACA rhetoric demonstrated a decade ago), what unemployment actually is, or, indeed, any of the other programs put into place by FDR, Truman, and Johnson that protect white people from the likes of the Deranged Donald. So perhaps what we need is a vast re-education program, when we finally get rid go the Maniacal Menace once and for all. And indict his ass, as well as those of his congressional apparatchiks.
If he is going down in ignominy then he will take all of us, whether complicit or not, with him. Perhaps we are all in some ways complicit by not being more active in local government, backing people we believe in more strenuously and speaking out to our elected officials both in good times and bad. We have been willing to "go along to get along" and down that slippery road to perdition we have gone. I have resolved to continue to be more active politically, socially and environmentally regardless of who is in power. I hope we all find our inner true grit and willingly "speak truth to power" for the rest of our lives.
He is inflicting as much pain as possible and exercising the only power he has left by refusing to do what everyone is asking him to do. It is as if he he is setting himself apart from the entire US govt perhaps to play victim and hero to his base, perhaps in some twisted hope that his base will stage some kind of overthrow and he will be left in charge. I actually hope he just stays at mar-a-bozo and keeps playing golf. I hope he signs the bill but I suspect he won’t and will blame all the chaos on everyone else. The effect on the GA run offs will be interesting to watch. My biggest concern is that he will continue to inflame his base after Biden is sworn claiming the US is run by an illegitimate President, but hopefully there are some laws that will limit his influence in that regard.
Rather than focusing and lamenting on what is, let’s find solutions. Give to charities, donate food, clothing, time. There are so many churches and organizations needing donations and help. Turn to solutions instead of sitting in anger and resentment. It’s really toxic and helps no one.
I have looked at DT’s Twitter feed a handful of times, but I wanted to hear his objections to the measures passed by Congress so I bit the bullet. His remarks were standard Trumpian propaganda but the comments – well, the comments were something else again.
The comments defending, lauding, or continuing to support Donald Trump were a toxic mix of the last wails of a dying breed of disgruntled cranks, terribly misinformed individuals who cannot conceive of the possibility they have been misled – not just by Trump, but by the Conservative movement that Trump hijacked - and hired guns in the employ of Putin’s army of internet assassins.
Those in Putin’s employ will be rewarded by their master for their mischief. Those who continue to sing the praises of Donald Trump will eventually find themselves on the dustheap of history, either ridiculed for being so thoroughly fooled by a delusional demagogue or scorned for supporting the man who did more to undermine the United States than any person in its history.
My concern: Although the comments themselves may be the work of lunatics, ignoramuses or bots, the thousands of “likes” they received are from folks who may not feel comfortable posting such things but harbor the same sentiments.
It is difficult to resist lashing out but resist we must because they derive pleasure from the scorn. It empowers the worst of them, and I refuse to empower them any more than I would pass ammunition to a lunatic on a school playground wielding a weapon. It may give some satisfaction in the short run, but it does not address the root problems.
There is work to be done. We cannot ignore the millions of people who followed Trump and think that by electing a Democratic President everything will work out fine – it won’t.
The good work I expect a Biden administration will attempt, is vital. Changing the conditions under which people live for the better, is a start in the right direction.
However, unless people have a workable alternative narrative, unless there is an information intervention that can succeed in breaking through the decades of lies many people have come to believe, we will remain a divided nation and those divisions will become even more rigid. And, it will be our children who pay the price.
Once again my wife comes up with a winner. This explains almost everything.
https://eand.co/why-freedom-became-free-dumb-in-america-4947e39663f2
I've convinced that Trump isn't just striking back at McConnell and Thune but also intentionally weakening the economy for Biden and the nation. It's hard not to conclude that for Trump, hurting people is a source of perverse pleasure, a pleasure that eases the pain and anger of a humiliating loss. And he's not done yet.
Would be very interested in your insights on another aspect of the bill. I've read that it contains a clause requiring shell corporations to make funding sources transparent. Obviously, the Trump empire does not want this to pass into law. Could the fights with Senate Majority Leader and Whip be a smokescreen? When the negotiations are all final, it would be interesting to see if this remains in the final bill he signs. My personal belief is that all of his people-oriented attacks are distractions to draw attention away from how he is increasing his personal revenue.
Here's the piece I didn't get at all - this comment from a WH aide - "One person in conversation with White House officials talked with Jeff Stein of the Washington Post about Trump’s scuttling of the bill and said, “He’s just angry at everybody and wants to inflict as much pain on Congress as possible.” Excuse me! Inflict as much pain on Congress as possible??? How about the American people, and the whole of government, the whole military, you know the ones doing the work, soldiers, sailors, their families - not getting the help they deserve. I'm so sick of the Republican party's political ploys and pure laziness, I could scream. But to no effect, alas.
It's been a whole four years of screaming into the wind about the enablers of Trump's sitting coolly in their Senate splendor, yucking it up with their Russian oligarch counterparts. Sick of the whole game they are playing with American lives. I can hardly wait till 2022 when I get a chance to donate to every Democrat running for Senator and get these fools and Grifter Oligarchs and suck-ups to our Russian agent president out of office.
As HCR alluded, for Republicans, the 800 lb gorilla isn't Trump, it's his base; the MAGA Mob, the Red Hat Battalions, the idolatrous throng that will turn out en masse to unelect any Republican who isn't as blindly loyal to Trump, and only Trump, as they are. For the last four years what is now the party of Trump has played and encouraged Trump's mob.
Now, on his way out the door, Trump is playing them.
The elites in Germany thought, in the end, they could control Hitler....
The wrath and stubbornness 45 is exhibiting simply reinforces the reality that he is incapable of leadership! No human being could possibly continue this deadly game of Russian roulette when so many lives are at stake! People will be penniless, homeless and in states of desperation during the coldest months of the year! I can't even bear to think of the consequences of his actions! My heart aches for our country and our people. More children will be on the streets starving -- the poor innocent children! It's unbearably heartbreaking!
One self-centered sociopath is destroying hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. Are our hands completely tied? Is there nothing to be done from a legal perspective? I feel utterly useless, sitting here, watching the destruction of a nation by one vengeful, soulless individual.
I posted here few weeks ago I was willing to take bets that trump would get on board and start hyping up his supporters to win the GA runoffs for the Republicans. I'm kind of glad no one took me up on it. I still think he's going to try and turn out his base for a win, but I'm a whole lot less certain now. He's really playing it close to the line! I have a hard time believing he'll take down his party just because they put down his kool-ade for a brief, refreshing swig of reality.
What would otherwise be an enjoyable spectacle of Republicans being eaten by a monster of their own creation is sadly tempered by considering the chaos and hardship he is also inflicting on millions of desperate Americans who should be able to expect better of their government. The Republican party is now a joke, and a sad excuse for representative democracy.
As Adam Serwer, a columnist for The Atlantic, once said "the cruelty is the point".
When he was running for president in 2016, I remember Trump, the newly-minted "pro-lifer", being asked, regarding abortion, whether the woman having the abortion should be prosecuted in addition to the doctors performing it. "Yes. There has to be punishment." was his reply. I remember reading a reaction to this on Facebook (when I still was on FB): "He is a monster." At the time I thought: well, he is an idiot, and a proto-fascist, but a monster, probably not, because he never means what he says anyway. I was wrong, stupidly wrong. As the journalist Masha Gessen said upon Trump's election: when the tyrant speaks, believe him. He means it. He IS a monster.
I am wondering if Trump's malfeasances -- wow that's too weak a description! -- can be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague? 330,000 dead through depraved indifference certainly counts as mass murder, if not on the scale of Pol Pot, then at least of Idi Amin who slaughtered 500,000 Ugandans. Add to this his evil antics at his end-of-term, and you are seeing a crime against humanity.
Looking at the Wikipedia definition of a Crime Against Humanity, it's clear that Trump meets SEVERAL of the criteria handily. The ICC charter explicitly says that non-member states (The USA, to its shame, withdrew in 2002) can nevertheless petition the ICC to consider prosecuting someone who has committed crimes against humanity. It would be good if Biden's incoming AG would lodge such a complaint.
It will never happen. Even under a "restoration" administration such as Biden's, this would seem like a relinquishment of US sovereignty. God knows US "sovereignty" needs a good hard slap in the face by the international community. But so much for fantasy-land.
---LMN
Life and Death Decisions
And so, in the end, Donald Trump plays his endgame role: God. From denying SNAP to the food insecure to the distribution of vaccines to executions, he is demonstrating the wrath of vengeful god. He knows no benevolence, charity or compassion, only violence and destruction. He is in his glory and it's killing us.
What a small, small man he is. To have reached this advanced age without having learned to deal with failures and disappointments is stunning. Mary Trump probably didn't know the half of it.
We all predicted it would get a lot worse before January 20th and, sigh, we still have 4 weeks to go of this malevolent derangement. Unless and until Murderous Mitch and his Marionette Minions march their arses into the White House--or go down to Florida--and tell the sick bastard that his time is up, drag him kicking and screaming to a desk, put a sharpie in his hand, and make him sign we will be having to endure the whirlwind of his psychopathy. And as you all know, they won't. Even though they could lose both senate runoffs as a result. They have eaten of his sickness and it has become their raison d'être.
As Bill's brilliant wife has said, many Americans have this bizarre idea--based on utter ignorance of anything other than what exists on Fox and what poison the NRA feeds them--that freedom (or, to borrow her phrase, free-dumb) is a zero-sum game that means that white men get to do anything they want and everyone else has to suffer the consequences. However, they also don't understand how Medicare and Social Security work (as the Trumped-up anti ACA rhetoric demonstrated a decade ago), what unemployment actually is, or, indeed, any of the other programs put into place by FDR, Truman, and Johnson that protect white people from the likes of the Deranged Donald. So perhaps what we need is a vast re-education program, when we finally get rid go the Maniacal Menace once and for all. And indict his ass, as well as those of his congressional apparatchiks.
OMG! Heather, you're our lighthouse in this unrelenting storm.
If he is going down in ignominy then he will take all of us, whether complicit or not, with him. Perhaps we are all in some ways complicit by not being more active in local government, backing people we believe in more strenuously and speaking out to our elected officials both in good times and bad. We have been willing to "go along to get along" and down that slippery road to perdition we have gone. I have resolved to continue to be more active politically, socially and environmentally regardless of who is in power. I hope we all find our inner true grit and willingly "speak truth to power" for the rest of our lives.
He is inflicting as much pain as possible and exercising the only power he has left by refusing to do what everyone is asking him to do. It is as if he he is setting himself apart from the entire US govt perhaps to play victim and hero to his base, perhaps in some twisted hope that his base will stage some kind of overthrow and he will be left in charge. I actually hope he just stays at mar-a-bozo and keeps playing golf. I hope he signs the bill but I suspect he won’t and will blame all the chaos on everyone else. The effect on the GA run offs will be interesting to watch. My biggest concern is that he will continue to inflame his base after Biden is sworn claiming the US is run by an illegitimate President, but hopefully there are some laws that will limit his influence in that regard.
Rather than focusing and lamenting on what is, let’s find solutions. Give to charities, donate food, clothing, time. There are so many churches and organizations needing donations and help. Turn to solutions instead of sitting in anger and resentment. It’s really toxic and helps no one.