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Day 851

5/27/2019

 

THE CRUELTY WATCH

Tracking how Trump's "Team Mean" strives, even on holidays, for innovative ways to inflict pain on the rest of us

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CAT AND I trust that you’re having a pleasant Memorial Day weekend.
   In my case, the Grouchy One hauled me out to the backyard yesterday for a photoshoot, using a row of azalea bushes - which are in full, vibrant spring bloom right now - serving as a backdrop.
    “I suppose we better get this over with before they fade,” Grouchy said. “These blossoms don’t hang around very long. Blam! And they’re gone.”
   To the uninitiated, this may not sound like a grouchy approach to smelling the roses. But trust me, it’s the Glass-Half-Empty Syndrome in its purest form.
    You could contrast it with how the Nice One would have done things, had she been behind the lens.
   “Phoebe, just look at the azaleas; they’re gorgeous this year, pinker than ever," the Nice One would have said. "We should enjoy them right now. And, getting some pictures now means that we’ll be able to look at them the rest of the year, remembering how lucky we are to have such wonderful bushes right in our own backyard."
    Cat, for his part, was celebrating the holiday out on the back deck, enjoying the blinding sunshine while simultaneously avoiding it – lying in the shade underneath a lounge chair. You have to admire cats for their have-my-cake-and-eat-it-too genius.
   Cat and I agreed that the three-day classic spring holiday this year was  sure living up to its promise as the prelude to summer. Sunny. Warm. Refreshing.

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 SADLY, that’s not the theme of today’s  posting, which is to introduce you to a new feature to the On Trump’s Trail blog:
   The Cruelty Watch.
   I know. Cat knows. And we apologize. Yes, it’s a nice weekend up in our corner of America, in New England, where there’s lots of chirping birds and no tornadoes. You’re expecting something upbeat. A holiday treat. We hear you.
   But it’s not our fault. It’s our job, to keep an eye on Donald J. Trump and the ghouls who make him possible: the Republicans. Without Republicans, Trump would not be the most dangerous president in history.
   And you already know that one of the hallmarks of Trump’s presidency is cruelty. It’s both horrible and forgettable. There are so many different ways Trump’s meanness expresses itself, it’s hard to keep track. And for that matter, who wants to? But we must; it’s what we do in a democracy.
   So, as a public service, Cat and I have decided to keep an eye on the things Trump and the Republicans do to harm their fellow human beings and to dishonor our country. So here’s the first edition of what we wish wasn’t The  Cruelty Watch.

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 HOLIDAY FOR WAR CRIMINALS?
    At mid-month, the New York Times reported that the White House was in hurry-up mode to process pardons for some soldiers convicted or charged with wartime atrocities, in time for Memorial Day, a revered holiday during which the nation honors its war dead.
   But just the mention of such a grotesque idea triggered furious pushback, including that from military people, who said such pardons would disgrace service men and women who attempt to follow rules meant to civilize war, at least to the extent that contradictory idea is possible. They would potentially make things tougher for our soldiers should they be taken prisoner and held under what we would demand were humane conditions.  And they would be counter to the hope that, as a nation, we're an ethical model for the rest of the world.
       Among pardons being considered, the Times said, included those for a Blackwater “contract” soldier found guilty of killing 17 unarmed civilians in Baghdad; an Army Special Forces officer convicted of killing a man in Afghanistan; and Marines charged urinating on the corpses of Taliban fighters.
       Also on the list, Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher, of the Navy SEALS. He's accused by usually tight-lipped fellow SEALS of firing into crowds of civilians in Iraq; gunning down a girl and an elderly man; stabbing a wounded teenage enemy fighter even as he was was being administered medical treatment by other Americans. The Times quoted investigators as saying members of Gallagher’s platoon were so worried by his behavior that they monkeyed with his sniper’s rifle so he literally couldn’t shoot straight.
       Gallagher has said he’s innocent, and just as his trial was scheduled to begin tomorrow, defense lawyers accused the government of sending emails embedded with software to track persons reading or forwarding computer messages, an abuse that might at least delay the hearing.
       By week’s end, Trump said he might  slow down the pardon process, acknowledging that “it’s a little bit controversial." And as of this writing, we know of no pardons being issued. But it’s the thought that counts. It's what Trump, himself a draft-dodger, wants to do:  honor our fighting men and women by excusing the few who disgrace the rest.

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 INNOVATIONS IN IMMIGRATION
       About 108,000 immigrants – including 55,000 children – live in “mixed” families in federally subsidized housing, meaning that at least one family member is unauthorized, while the others in the family are citizens or are permitted to live in the United States.
    The Department of Housing and Urban Development would ban such families from public housing and from rent-subsidized homes. While theoretically, the “problematic” family member could move out, HUD analysts expect most families wouldn’t split up, and would leave voluntarily or after formal eviction.
    Trump has made attacks on undocumented immigrants Job One since he took office, demonizing them as a dangerous and unfit group, the latest expression of the country’s racist historical underside.
    And this is one more innovation in disrupting families. Because that’s what Republicans do when they’re not promoting family values: Getting thousands of kids out of the house and onto on the streets.

THE WAR ON TRANSGENDER PEOPLE – PART 1
    Medical practitioners and health insurance companies would be free to discriminate against transgender people under a new rule proposed by Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services –  a new way to harm another group that Trump has singled out for demonization.
    The Obama administration had added gender identity to anti-discrimination rules, but Trump would reverse that, allowing doctors and other caregivers to refuse to treat transgender men and women, such as not performing gender reassignment surgery, while permitting  insurance companies to limit health coverage.
    Adding to the already difficult road traveled by an extraordinarily vulnerable group of Americans.

THE WAR ON TRANSGENDER PEOPLE – PART 2
    But that’s not all, folks, when it comes to beating up on transgender people: target the ones who are homeless.
     HUD is proposing a rule change that would allow people who run single-sex homeless shelters receiving federal funds to exclude people on the basis of gender identity, using “the individual’s sex as reflected in official government documents.”
    Many transgender people experience homelessness, including young persons kicked out of their parents’ homes. Turning them away from shelters exposes them to increased violence and death on the streets.
    You have to be a special kind of sick to think up this one. But a mean president and his Republican toadies can call on some of America's meanest minds when it comes to preying on the vulnerable.

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 WELL, THAT'S The Cruelty Watch for now.
  Honoring America’s war criminals; evicting immigrant children from their homes; and two new ways to make life more intolerable for our transgender fellow citizens.
    Let’s enjoy what’s left of a glorious Memorial Day weekend.
    Soak up the sunshine. Fire up the grills. Marvel at the spring blossoms.
    Keeping in mind on this Memorial Day that Donald Trump, cruel as he is, couldn’t do any of this without the lots of help, including the 53 Republicans who control the Senate.
     Team Mean: its motto is ‘Comfort the Comfortable and Afflict the Afflicted.”
    If nothing else, Team Mean, strives every day, holidays included, to undermine the best traditions and values of a country for which thousands of other Americans have died to protect and preserve.
      What will Trump and the Republicans think of next?

Day 839

5/15/2019

 

EXTRA!
     EXTRA!

All This News Is Making Me Sick
Is there a doctor in the House? (Or the Senate?)

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 “I can’t breathe.”
   “Phoebe, what’s the matter?” Cat said.
   “I can’t breathe,” I said. “I mean, obviously I am breathing. But I’m having trouble this morning. I should have said that I can hardly breathe.”
   Cat wouldn’t be your first choice in seeking medical help.  He’s not the Florence Nightingale type. In fact, he’d rather be poaching a nightingale, with a side of fried sparrow, than dishing out aspirins.  But I didn’t have an option: my health plan doesn’t allow me to go out of network.”
   “When was the onset?” he said.
   “What do you mean, ‘onset,’ you knucklehead?” I yelled at him.
   “Now, now, just because you’re not feeling perky today doesn’t mean the rest of us have to suffer,” said Doctor Cat, said in his authoritative,  I-have-to-get-to-the-next patient voice. “Don’t make me have to sedate you.”
   “Could you, Doctor?” I moaned. “Just a couple of pills to get me through the morning news cycle.”
   “But that wouldn’t be getting at the real problem, my girl,” the hairy sawbones said. “Now, when was the onset – I mean, when did you first notice you were having troubling?”
   “The minute I woke up,” I said. “I turned on the radio, which is sadistically locked onto NPR, (except during those insufferable fund drives) and right away, the words President Trump shot out of the speakers. I could practically see them flying straight towards me and suddenly, I just couldn’t catch my breath, and it was like I had a102.3 fever,” I said.
   “Celsius or Fahrenheit?” he said.
   “Megahertz, you idiot,” I said. “Where did you go to medical school? DID you go to medical school?”
    “I have other patients waiting …,” the physician said. “Now, besides the words ‘President' and 'Trump’ what else did you hear?”
   “I can’t … remember … just words,” I said. “I think that maybe one of them was ‘dictator’.”
   “Now, now, Phoebe, let’s not exaggerate,” Doctor Cat said. “You know that President Trump isn’t a dictator. He invites dictators to the White House, sitting them down in the Oval Office, where he can be seen on TV shaking hands as they make small talk about torture and censorship.” 

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“Are you saying it’s all in my head?” I said.
   “Of course it is,” the doctor replied, his tail flicking impatiently. “You just said your problems started as soon as you heard the radio.”
    “What we have to identify is the particular kind of airborne pathogen that seems to be coming from the speakers into your auditory canal, then to your body’s  lymphatic  systems and straight into that organ, which  in Canis lupus familiaris, is equivalent to what laypersons call  the brain,’”  he said.
   “It’s coming back now,” I said. “It’s definitely the news. But just telling you about what I hear day after day after day after day is really making me sick again.”
   “Try to do your best,” the doctor said, wiping his paws against his lab coat, leaving flecks of what looked like nightingale feathers scattered on the white cloth.  “This hurts me just as much as it does you; the difference being that I don’t have all morning.”
   "But there’s just so much terrible news, it’s so overwhelming, I think my brain-equivalent is going to explode,” I said.
   “That’s okay it does explode, Phoebe,” the physician said. “It’s part of the healing process, getting all that unhappy news out of your mind.”
   So, I did what the doctor ordered, sometimes pausing to catch my breath, fragments of the latest news items spilling all over the exam room floor.

            THE MORNING ROUNDUP
     Dictator News -- The latest dictator Trump invited to White House was the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban. He was shunned by the Obama administration and despised by other European Union countries, because he’s destroying Hungary's  once emerging democracy, closing a university, warring against others, controlling news, demonizing immigrants, undermining the courts and allowing the spread of anti-Semitism. Trump described his guest to assembled reporters:  … “highly respected… Probably like me, a little bit controversial, but that’s okay. That’s okay.”
  Trade War News -- After talks on a trade deal between the U.S. and China broke down, Trump increased our tariffs, and China imposed more of theirs. The stock market took a dive, although not for long. Farmers complained. Trump promised them thousands in bailouts. And in a 5:31 a.m. tweet, Trump had this advice for American businesses: “Make your product at home in the USA and there is no Tariff. You can also buy from a non-Tariffed country instead of China.” (Emphasis added). What? Mr. Bring Back American jobs advising U.S. businesses to outsource production to foreign countries?
   Immigration News -- Via the Washington Post, a story about a would-be deportation extravaganza cooked up by the White House and beginning with mass arrests of “illegal” immigrant families  in 10 cities across the country, making sure plenty of children were part of the roundup. It was to be another way of getting word to Central America that anyone wanting to escape murder and starvation should think twice about coming here. The plan was reportedly squashed by Kirstjen Nielsen before she was canned as Homeland secretary, apparently for being too weak on immigration.
   Immigration News (Again) -- From NPR, a story about an ex-Marine waiting to be deportation. Brought to the U.S. from El Salvador when he was 3, he fought in Iraq, returning brain injured and suffering post-traumatic-distress syndrome, which figured into arrests for drugs, fights and assault. Not having completed his application for citizenship, he was now caught up in another version of Trump’s Hate An Immigrant Today program. A grateful country thanks you for your service. Now, we’re going to deport you, rather than treat your brain, injured in service to your country.
   Mueller Report News -- Via New York Times. Robert Barr appointed a prosecutor to look into the origins of the Russia investigation. It’s the third such investigation, part of Trump’s propaganda campaign to discredit the Mueller Report. Who’s Barr, again? A hard-working lawyer holding down two jobs, Attorney General of the United States and Donald Trump’s personal attorney and PR wizard.
   Iran War News -- Oops, getting ahead of myself; I meant the Can We Goad A Country into War news.  The War Department, oops again, I mean the Department of Defense, is dusting off plans to fight back should Iran attack the forces of the world's only superpower. Could involve 120,000 soldiers.  U.S. already moving an aircraft carrier, other “assets” to the Persian Gulf. Ominous reports that Iran is planning attacks.  Really? We’ll have to trust Trump on this one. After all, it’s been weeks since he told the 10,000th lie of his presidency.
   Jimmy Carter News -- The antithesis of Donald Trump,  Carter is a moral, ethical, principled, contemplative, kind, hard-working Sunday school teacher and Navy veteran who has worked as hard for world peace after leaving the White House as when he was its occupant. The 39th president fell at his home and broke his hip. That’s a worrisome injury for any older person, and Carter is 94.
   Torture News --  Over the weekend, the New York Times published a horrific account of torture in Syrian prisons, where 120,000 have died as part of President Bashar al-Assad’s campaign to keep his citizens in line.  The PBS NewsHour caught up with the reporter, Anne Barnard, who shared a little of what the paper learned:  
… Sometimes, there were much more sort of baroque torture methods that were really creative in their sadism. One activist protest organizer, Muhannad Ghabbash, told us about a guard who would direct kind of plays for his fellow guards during dinner. They would make the prisoners act like different animals. And if they didn't act the way he wanted them to, he would beat them. Some of them had to act as tables or chairs for the people watching. And they were naked while doing this. And other prisoners were nearby, hanging from walls and having cold water doused on them in this outdoor courtyard, so that other prisoners could hear what was going on.

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 “Stop this. Stop. Stop. Stop. STOP THIS NOW!” screamed Cat.
   “It’s too much. How can you tell me all about this. You have to be sick to listen to news like this. Get out of here.”
   “Now, Cat. Just listen to your Therapy Dog. Just calm down,” I said in my most soothing Therapy Dog voice. “Just breathe in. Hold it. Now, breathe out. Repeat.”
   Cat did as I said, and soon, he seemed calmer and more relaxed.
   “But, Therapy Dog, why do you listen to all this news?” he asked. “How do you stand it? Can’t you just turn it off. Just for one day.”
   “No, Cat,” I said. “I mean, you can turn off the radio and TV and cancel the newspaper delivery and unplug the laptop and let the battery run down in your smart phone."
   "But that doesn’t stop the news from happening. It can’t stop Trump from demonizing immigrants, messing with the economy, consorting with dictators. Tuning out won’t stop torturers from torturing, or keep an attorney general from acting as the president’s personal lawyer.”
   “But it’s every day, weekends included. It doesn’t stop,” Cat said. “I can’t breathe. I mean I obviously can breathe, but all this news, every day, it’s just so hard to take in.”
   “Cat, your 50 minutes are up,” I said. “I’ve got a full waiting room.”
   “Well, thank you, Therapy Dog, for all your help,” Cat said.
   “No problem,” I assured him. “One more thing, Cat. Your health plan has limited benefits, and they don’t include therapy sessions."
    "Oh?" Cat said.
    "But we do accept credit cards.”
 

DAY 831

5/7/2019

 


LOOKING ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF TRUMP'S ANNOYING RUN OF GOOD LUCK
It only seems that Trump is immune from the rules that apply to the rest of us.

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HI. IT'S PHOEBE.
   Cat and I have heard from a number of you, saying you were discouraged by Cat’s view, expressed in the blog’s Day 829 posting a couple of days ago, that Individual One’s fortunes are looking pretty upbeat lately, an indication he's heading for reelection.
   Like you, I found Cat's  account to be:
  1. Admirably comprehensive and persuasive as a list of just how nicely things are going for the president and therefore bad for everyone else.
  2. An unnecessarily mean-spirited attempt to shoot down my determination, now that I’m middle aged, to have a positive outlook for my remaining days, which, being a positive dog, I expect will be many.
   In the spirit of staying positive, while Cat is laying the groundwork for his regular late-afternoon nap by completing his normal mid-afternoon nap, I’ll ignore Point #2. Instead, I'll address some of the points he made in #1, with the goal of seeing them in a positive perspective.
   Let me say that looking on the bright side isn’t the same thing as ignoring unpleasant facts. It means not being overwhelmed by the terrible, frightening and dangerous changes Individual One has visited upon us and our country since the Night We’ll Never Forget. Being positive means not being paralyzed by evil, since, in a democracy, it’s everyone’s responsibility to do something about it.
   Also, I understand our shared frustration at the injustice of it all.
   How, you ask, does he keep getting away with it? The lying, hucksterism, criminality, bullying, hypocrisy, foul language, racism, stupidity, ugliness. We’ve grown up thinking there is actual justice.
   We teach our kids to tell the truth, to help the poor, work hard, to play by the rules, eat a well-balanced diet, to not grab the genitalia of the person sitting next to you in an airplane, not to cheat, to be polite, to care about the environment, to pick up after your dog and feed the cat.
   And that if you fail these and the other 104,391 other rules of  decent living, the System will catch up with you. And if you escape that, surely your Higher Power will put the hammer down, or  the laws of physics, gravity and  will kick in – so that sooner or later, everyone gets their comeuppance.
   But not Donald J. Trump.
   This is where this positivity business comes in. Trust me, Trump’s day coming.
    It won’t happen by itself. In a democracy, it's up to us. And democracy is hard as it is boring and frustrating: you make what seems to be a gain, like cleaning up the rivers and the air, and then Donald J. Trump comes along and makes them dirty again; what you thought was fixed, gets re-broken; one step forward, two back. There are many other clichés  that describe this phenomenon. But in the end, things get better. It’s the American way.

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ROBERT S. MUELLER III - Credit: Federal Bureau of Investigation
   “OKAY, PHOEBE," you’re saying, “enough of theory and the banality of goodness. Let’s put your attitude to the test with some real-world cases, the kind that sets your hair on fire.

#1. The Mueller Report, Vol. 1. That really ticked you off, didn’t it? For two years, Robert S. Mueller III, a man dispatched directly from central casting to play the role of the great American lawman and save an imperiled nation. Sheriff Bob investigated the bejeezus out of Donald J. Trump, his annoying “children,” Donald’s henchmen, thugs, hangers on, grifters, enablers and sycophants, and what did Sheriff Bob come up with?
   The investigation did not establish that the members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.
   How can that be? If Trump wasn’t beholden to Vladimir Putin, he surely was – is – enthralled by the Russian Thug. But Mueller didn’t say that Trump is innocent, only that there wasn’t enough evidence to show, under law, that the two were in cahoots. The report notes that there was a whole lot of lying going on, unavailable witnesses, disappeared records, leading to this statement:
   … the Office cannot rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed additional light on (or cast in a new light) the events described in the report.
   Translation: Just because we couldn’t prove it in court, didn’t mean it didn’t happen.

 #2. The Mueller Report, Vol. 2 – As Cat pointed out, Sheriff Bob didn’t state outright whether Trump did or didn’t obstruct his investigation:
   Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also did not exonerate him.
   The Sheriff laid out a pretty compelling case that the president, in public and in private, tried to derail the investigation by firing FBI director James Comey, trying to get rid of Mueller, encouraging aides to lie, to limit the investigation, alternately threatening and encouraging witnesses to shut up. The Sheriff outlined a clear roadmap for prosecutors to indict Trump or for Congress to impeach him.
   This part of the report hasn’t sunk into the collective consciousness, because Robert P. Barr, newly minted as “the attorney general Trump always wanted,” showed himself to be the president’s poodle (and here we’ve been criticizing Trump as the only president never to have had a dog in the White House).
    Poodle Bill skillfully downplayed the very negative findings of Mueller’s report, before the public had a chance to read it, and Barr effectively used the time to paint his master in the best possible light.
   The positive part? The Mueller report is a scathing account of Donald Trump’s presidency.  It will stand as a historic description of how abuse of power is carried out at the highest levels. Anyone who reads it will be shocked and convinced this guy should be sent packing. Sooner or later, somebody is going to use it in the way that Sheriff Bob intended.
   Pointedly, the report assures us that the Constitution  does not protect a president from the law:
   The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President’s corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law. (Emhasis added).
   Just yesterday, former federal prosecutors – growing to more than 690 by the time this posting was made - had signed a public letter stating that the case Mueller laid out, if it dealt with someone besides a president, would have resulted in an indictment.
   Sheriff Bob himself earlier had broken two years of silence, writing a letter chastising Barr’s summary of the report, saying that it:
   …did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office’s work and conclusions .… This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigation.
   Why is this “positive” news, since Trump keeps broadcasting Bob’s Big Lie, that the investigation exonerated him? Because it means men and women of conscience are unwilling to let Donald Trump off the hook. You never know when that kind of arcane standard is going to catch fire.

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 #3. House of Representatives: As Cat noted, after Democrats took over the House in the mid-term elections, there was an expectation that Trump and his Republican cult followers would be curbed. But now it appears that Trump, Barr and others are ignoring subpoenas,  raising the shocking possibility that the House doesn’t have the power to stand up to the White House.
   But positive thinking suggests that we do this: stay tuned.
   If the House flexes its Constitutional muscles, and gets backed up by the courts, despite Trump’s and the Senate’s  drive to pack the system with complicit judges, the House eventually may prevail, especially if some witnesses – like Sheriff Bob – cooperate, possibility setting off a stampede of truth-tellers.
   As to the House’s refusal, so far, to impeach Trump, fearing that the Republican Cult in the Senate won’t convict, and further that the voters will be sympathetic to Trump in the 2020 election, let’s cut Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders a break. They are faced with a classic dilemma, two terrible choices:
  • Don’t impeach him, and the House sets a terrible precedent that, actually, the president is above the law.
  • Impeach him and lose the election.
   Granted that I’m just a dog rescued nine years ago as a stray 6-month-old in Missouri, my recomendation is that the House start impeachment proceedings.
   Because you never know when doing the right thing will actually turn out to be the right thing.

#4. Trump’s Poll Numbers. They are rising. It’s true that initial disappointment in the Mueller report, plus comfort in a robust economy and the eternal support of his cult followers is putting Trump in a good position to spend four more years in the White House, and at the same time for the GOP to regain control of the House and to retain the Senate. (I hope you’re not reading this just before going to bed).
   Our positive take: Donald Trump is a loathsome psychopath, relishing the pain of others, trading on hatred, jealously, fear and imbued with the full spectrum of ugly qualities that lurk in the cellar of the human experience.
   It’s reasonable, therefore, to suspect that nobody actually likes him and that he has no true friends. When, his run luck begins to fade, lots of people will turn on him, as have Michael Cohen, his one-time lawyer, and Michael Flynn, briefly his national security advisor. It’s possible that the antidote for the poison Trump has injected into or lives may be Trump himself.

#5. The Troubled Democratic Field. Repulsive as Trump is, he drives the news cycle, unmatched by the 20-plus busload of Democratic challengers, most of whom are little known or barely known and, who, individually or as a group, have failed to inspire and energize.
   The bright side? There isn’t one – not yet. Name recognition is vital, and even with the campaign already underway, there may not be enough time between now and next November for anyone to match Trump’s attention-getting magic.
    Still, there are more than a handful of women and men who can do the job and do it well. Trump at least has demystified the presidency, so if the stars are aligned next year, desperate voters will understand that any one of the surviving Democrats will be an instant, welcome improvement over the monster who's terrified us during the last two-plus years.

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#6. The Bright Side  
   In the photo above, which the Grouchy One and I took today at a nearby park, is none other than that astronomical no-show: the sun.
   My hope – and I trust that of the still-sleeping Cat – is that just as happened in the mid-terms, political energy will be creative and powerful across the country. We, as voters, need to stay engaged, to keep pushing for change, to contribute money and/or time, and most of all, to keep our spirits up.
   Cat was moaning about the stingy spring we’ve endured in New England this year, drizzle almost every day, fog, clammy mist, green slime covering the sides of houses, stingy temperatures. Our blog pictures were of gray skies, gray seashores.
   Today is different. Blindingly bright skies. Warm sunshine. The kind of lush, deep green you see in lawns and trees only during this special time of year, when everything is new and full of promise.
   So yes, cycles do change, even when you think they won’t.  And sometimes the changes are for the better.

Day 829

5/5/2019

 

AS PHOEBE TURNS 9, SHE VOWS TO 'LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE'
But Cat asks: Who's happy about Individual One's latest winning streak?

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"WE'RE GOING to try something new, Cat,” I said.
   “Who cares,” Cat said, without putting a question mark on it, meaning: “Leave me alone, mangy cur.”
   Easily ignored.
   “It’s the day after my birthday, so you should cut me a little slack,” I said.
   “Button it up,” Cat growled. “The only thing anything people care less about than what an 8-year-old dog has to say is what one who’s just turned 9 thinks.”
   “The new approach, from now on,” I chirped, “is looking on the bright side. And do you want to know why?"
   “No.”
   “Well, now that I’m headed down the wrong side of the Age Divide, I’m going to make every day count – at least I’m going to try, and the best way – the only way – to do that is be positive.”
   “Look out  the window, Norman Vincent Pooch," Cat said. "It’s rained for 78 days in a row; it’s cold; and clammy; there’s green slime growing everywhere. When it's not raining, it's gray. The sky is gray. The seashore's gray."
    "And individual One is on a winning streak. He’s heading for reelection, Phoebe,” Cat said. “Clear sailing next year, right back into the White House. And this time, he won’t need help from the Russians, not that that will stop the Commies doing what they do best: come to the aid of the Party.”
   “It’s exactly what I mean,” I said. “It’s your kind of defeatist attitude that guarantees Individual One will be around for years to come. Shrug your shoulders. Throw your paws up in the air. And wait for inevitable defeat.”
   Cat yawned.   Then he said: “Here are some new numbers that even an aging PhoebeAnna can appreciate:
  • GDP: up over 3 percent.
  • Unemployment: 3.6 percent, lowest in half a century.
  • Wages: up 3.6 percent.
   “Translation: Four more years. Four more years.  It’s the economy, stupid. Want some more facts and figures?” Cat asked
    "Not particularly," I said.
  • According to the Gallup Poll, Individual One’s approval rating is: 46 percent. As in nearly half of the voters give a thumbs up to the most racist, cruel, law-breaking, crude, lying, nuclear-armed psychopath-in-chief in U.S. history.
  •  Republicans loving the president: 91 percent.
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INDIVIDUAL ONE - Credit: Frank Gerardi
  "TIRED OF NUMBERS, PHOEBE?" said Cat without waiting for an answer. “Here’s just a sample of  Really Good News that’s broken Individual One’s way just in the past few weeks:
     The long-awaited report from Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III became public April 18. The wait is over. The report is 448 pages long, but let’s settle for just one paragraph – the one that broke the hearts of 65,853,514 people who voted for The Other One in 2016:
   Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities. (Emphasis added).
   “And here we all were, convinced that Putin-the-Puppet-Master was pulling the strings, and that Mueller – the most trusted lawman in the West - would prove in no uncertain terms that Russian loans, Russian videos, Russian hotels, or some other form of Russian Kompromat would be so overwhelming that not even a Republican Toady could withstand the blinding rays of the truth that would set us free."

    “The evidence would be so solid – because Mueller knew everything about the rotten underbelly of the Individual One/Russian Conspiracy – that even before Nancy Pelosi could say ‘Impeachment,’ or  Mike Pence could say ‘I do solemnly swear,’ the Nation would be glued to our TVs, iPhones and devices, seeing once again live shots of a resigned, disgraced president standing in the doorway of Marine One, giving the Nixon Goodbye Wave before the chopper whisked him away to the Individual One Golf & Luxury Resort at Guantanamo.  History would repeat itself. Another Watergate happy ending."  
   "But that's not happening, Phoebe. Not happening."

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ATTORNEY GENERAL WILLIAM P. BARR - Credit: U.S. Department of Justice
"AND THEN THERE'S Attorney General William P. Barr," Cat went on. "Bob put on stunning display of public relations acrobatics and obliterated the negative part of the Mueller Report – which upon a close reading, practically begs Congress to impeach Individual One for attempting to obstruct Mueller’s investigation.
   But before anyone can read the actual report, Barr is  the the first to speak, putting out a distorted and misleading version, the infamous four-page summary, plus another written statement the day of, which becomes the lasting, dominant version in the public’s mind."
   “One of Barr’s many lies was that, Hamlet-like and indecisive Mueller left to the Justice Department whether to charge the president with obstruction of justice. So Barr grabbed the rudder to the ship of state, and steered it to the safe harbor of Not Guilty."
   "But when you read the report’s summary, it’s Congress that Muller keeps mentioning as to who could be calling the shots on obstruction of justice."
   "What’s more, not only did Barr personally rule that Individual One did not obstruct, he adopted the president’s own language of “no collusion,” portraying Individual One as terribly  upset that the wrong-headed investigation would unfairly derail his presidency. The President's Poodle wrote on April 18:
   As the Special Counsel’s report acknowledges, there is substantial evidence to show that the President was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponent, and fuel by illegal leaks.
   “Gosh darn it all to heck, Phoebe, what crooked president wouldn’t be ticked off and do everything possible to protect the sacred office of the presidency, which, after all, is in the Constitution?”

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 “ARE YOU finished, Cat," I said.
   “Hardly,” the fiendish feline purred. “Remember how the House of Representatives, solidly Democratic after the mid-term elections, was going to restore the Constitutional balance of power to the United States government and curb Individual One’s excesses?"
   “Please don’t take this personally, Sweet Pooch, but as a Watchdog, Congress has turned out to be pretty toothless. Individual One has caught on, too:. Stonewall. Ignore. Go to court. Drag it out. Tweet. Re-Tweet. Hey, House of Representatives, I double dare you. Triple dare you. Silly House, remember this: the only house that counts in my town is the White House.”
   “Barr’s with him on that, too,” Cat continued. “Barr was a no-show a House Judiciary Committee meeting, objecting to Chairman Jerry Nadler’s insistence that the committee's staff lawyers question Barr, as well has House committee members. So, who looks petty? Nadler. Why fuss over the staff lawyers? Can’t elected members of Congress ask their own questions? Two-thirds are probably lawyers anyway. Silly House. Silly Jerry.”

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FORMER VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN - Credit: Joe Biden for President 2020 campaing
 "I'D LIKE TO POINT out one thing,” I said to Cat. “It IS the day after my birthday. Can we wrap up the gloom and doom?”
    “Nope,” Cat said, with a smile. It turns out that cats can do that – smile – although no one ever said cat smiles are nice smiles.
   “Look at all the Democrats running for president,” Cat said in his folksy way. “Why, there’s more candidates than there are claws on 9-year- Old Dog. None of the Democrats are as well-known and media savvy as Individual One.And the one Democrat who seems to be the most popular at the moment is former Vice President Joe Biden, and look what his “fellow” Democrats are doing to him:”
   “They’re hacking Joe to death: Too old. Too touchy- feely. Too burdened by past mistakes. Like, long ago, when Biden, as chairman of the Senate committee holding hearings on Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the Supreme Court, wouldn’t allow in more witnesses to back up Anita Hill’s allegations that Thomas was a perv. And you want to know how one of those would-be witnesses now describes what she thought of Joe Biden at the time?”
   “… prattling, ineffectual lump of nothingness.”  That's what Angela Wright-Shannon wrote in the Washington Post. To be fair, Wright-Shannon went on to acknowledge that Biden later sponsored legislation protecting domestic violence victims, and she said the point of her essay was to name Thomas as the real scoundrel."
   "But still, that phrase – prattling, ineffectual lump of nothingness – kind of lingers as we close in on 2020. Fits nicely into a Tweet, too.”
   “Now let’s say Old Joe lives another year, long enough to run, and he turns out to be the only candidate who can beat Individual One? By then, the Democrats have already savaged and torn Old Joe into little bits so that he’s no longer viable or effective."
    "How do you like them apples, Oh Cheery One?" Cat said. "Where’s the bright side?"
  “Well,” I said after a long pause, “I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

    A "sweet dog" confronts the catastrophe of the Trump presidency

    The Tracker

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    PHOEBE might have remained a “sweet” and apolitical dog but for the Trump crisis. Now, like millions of Americans, she wrestles daily with the challenge of what to do about it. With no illusions about the impact, she founded and is the principal writer of the Tracking Trump  blog.

    In Memoriam

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    CAT, a cat and Libertarian was Phoebe's co-author. He died Nov. 14, 2019. His self-described role was to leaven Phoebe’s naiveté and idealism with “common sense." He is remembered and missed.

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