TRACKING TRUMP
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DAY 1264

7/7/2020

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part 2
  IS TRUMP A PSYCHOPATH?

Concluding our analysis of Trump on a checklist of 20 unflattering personality traits.
And what this tells us about the 45th president
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TRUMP at the House House in 2018. CREDIT: The White House, Joyce Boghosian
WE CONTINUE our pseudo-medical analysis of Donald Trump, using the "Hare Psychopathy Checklist," which assigns a score to 20 various personality traits. Yesterday, we went through the first 10. Today, we do the rest, and arrive at a total score.

#11 - promiscuous sexual behavior

OH, LORDY, to paraphrase James Comey, where to start?
   Let’s got with the infamous 2005 Hollywood Access tape obtained by the Washington Post shortly before Trump’s election. On the set of a TV show, Trump bragged to host Billy Bush about his past treatment of women, unaware that the conversation was being recorded as they were about to meet an actress.
TRUMP: I moved on her, actually. You know, she was down on Palm Beach. I moved on her, and I failed. I’ll admit it.
UNKNOWN VOICE: Whoa.
TRUMP: I did try and fuck her. She was married.
UNKNOWN VOICE: That’s huge news.
TRUMP: No, no, Nancy. No, this was [unintelligible] — and I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping.
   She wanted to get some furniture. I said, “I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.” I took her out furniture — I moved on her like a bitch. But I couldn’t get there.
   And she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.
BUSH: Sheesh, your girl’s hot as shit. In the purple.
TRUMP: Whoa! Whoa!
BUSH: Yes! The Donald has scored. Whoa, my man!
 [Crosstalk]
TRUMP: Look at you, you are a pussy.
[Crosstalk]
TRUMP: All right, you and I will walk out. Maybe it’s a different one.
BUSH: It better not be the publicist. No, it’s, it’s her, it’s --
TRUMP: I better use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.
BUSH: Whatever you want.
TRUMP: Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.
   Soon after the Post’s bombshell, CNN got hold of a 2005 taped interview with radio’s Howard Stern, in which Trump described the privileges of a beauty pageant owner.
I’ll tell you the funniest is that I’ll go backstage before a show and everyone’s getting dressed. No men are anywhere, and I’m allowed to go in, because I’m the owner of the pageant and therefore I’m inspecting it…. “Is everyone OK?” You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. “‘Is everybody OK?” And you see these incredible looking women, and so I sort of get away with things like that.”
SCORE: 2

#12 – Early behavioral problems

IN THEIR 2016 book, Trump Revealed, Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher, Washington Post reporters, describe recollections of people who grew up with Trump.
   Dennis Burnham, a Texas business consultant, said his mother wouldn’t let him play with Trump because he was “known to be a bully.” Dennis’ mother left her son in a backyard playpen briefly, then discovered Donald throwing rocks at her son.
   Another contemporary, Steve Nachtigall, said that he saw Donald and some of his friends jump off their bikes and beat up another boy. Said Nachtigall, a doctor: “He was a loudmouth bully.”
   Mr. O and I debated whether these accounts, plausible as they are, add up to a conclusion of chronic bad behavior. So, we gave Trump an undeserved break, rating it “Applies somewhat.”
SCORE: 1
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MR. O
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PHOEBE

#13 – Lack of realistic, long-term goals

WHILE TRUMP'S 2016 campaign outlined a depraved set of goals, and unfortunately, he’s followed through – starting to build the “wall” on the Mexican border, canceling climate change and Iranian nuclear agreements, and appointing mean-spirited Supreme Court justices.
   But many observers fault him for lacking long-term policy goals or having a second-term agenda.
   Trump’s answer to a June 25 question in a Fox TV interview drew many comments, and was described this way by Snopes, the fact-checking website:
When (Sean) Hannity, one of the most pro-Trump broadcasters in the U.S. news media, asked the president the softball question of “What are your top priority items for a second term?” Trump did not articulate a single second-term goal of his.
 SCORE: 2

#14 – Impulsivity

FAREED ZAKARIA, in a Washington Post column on Jan. 9, listed Trump’s many impulsive foreign policy actions: threatening North Korea’s “Rocketman,” dictator, then cozying up to Kim Jong-; threatening Iran with an attack, then calling it off; withdrawing troops from Syria, but sending forces to Saudi Arabia. He wrote:
Trump does not have a foreign policy. He has a series of impulses — isolationism, unilateralism, bellicosity — some of them contradictory. One might surge at any particular moment, triggered usually by Trump’s sense that he might look weak or foolish. They are often unleashed without any consultation, and then his yes men line up to defend him, supporting the president’s every move with North Korean-style enthusiasm, no matter how incoherent.
   See also Items #3, #8, #10 and #11.
SCORE: 2

#15 – Irresponsibility

IT'S A TRUMP hallmark.
   Recent examples of irresponsibility include his failure to protect American troops after Russian offered bounties to fighters who kill them. But Trump’s willful bungling of the Covid-19 pandemic has imperiled millions of Americans.
   The delays in responding to the threat lost crucial time and may have contributed to some of the more than 130,000 deaths so far. As the administration failed to devise a national strategy, leaving states to develop their own, often conflicting policies, Trump endorsed unproven treatments, and famously mused publicly about injecting people with sunlight and disinfectant.
   There’s Trump’s refusal to wear a facemask, and his contempt for people who do. Let’s return to the briefing room, on April 3.
I’m feeling good. I just don’t want to be doing, somehow sitting in the Oval Office behind that beautiful Resolute Desk, the great Resolute Desk, I think wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens, I don’t know, somehow, I don’t see it for myself. I just don’t. Maybe I’ll change my mind. This will pass. Hopefully it will pass very quickly.  
SCORE: 2

#16 – Failure to accept responsibility for one’s own actions

MR. O POINTS OUT that this is almost the same issue raised in #15.
   Trump answered this question on March 13, when a reporter asked whether he felt any responsibility for the lag in Covid-19 testing.
No, I don’t take responsibility at all.
SCORE: 2

#17 – Many short-term marital relationships

HE'S BEEN MARRIED three times. Whether that’s “many,” and whether they are “short-term,” are subjective judgments. His 1977 marriage to Ivana Zelní?ková ended in divorce in 1992 – about 15 years;  Marla Maples, 1993 to 1999, about six years. He married the former Melania Knauss in 2005, so this one is at the 15-year mark and counting.
   We note a recent book, The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump, by Mary Jordan, a Washington Post reporter. She wrote that Mrs. Trump initially declined to move to Washington from New York City when Trump took office, because she wanted to strengthen her bargaining hand in rewriting their prenuptial agreement.  
   Mr. O and I agree there’s too much subjectivity in trying to rate this one.
SCORE: 0

# 18 – Juvenile delinquency

TRUMP is often juvenile and always a delinquent.
   But as far as we know, Trump doesn’t have an official juvie record.
SCORE: 0

#19 – Revocation of conditional release (from prison)

Sadly, no.
SCORE: 0

#20 – Criminal versatility (i.e., commits diverse types of crimes)

FORTUNATELY, the category doesn’t say someone has been convicted of a crime, only that he’s committed one. Let us count the ways:
  • Impeachment. Sure, the Senate voted not to convict on Feb. 5. But the House did impeach Trump, charging him with the Constitutional sins of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” namely that Trump abused his powers by trying to shake down the president of Ukraine, threatening to withhold military aid, unless Ukraine investigated Joe Biden, Trump’s likely election opponent; and  that he obstructed Congress’ impeachment inquiry.
  • Mueller Report. Former FBI chief Robert Mueller pulled his punches in March, 2019 by not formally charging or explicitly linking Trump to colluding with Russia in the 2016 election. But his report is devastating, both in detailing the Trump campaign’s willingness to accept Russia’s help, and a damning assessment as to whether Trump obstructed the investigation: “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
  • Tax fraud. Trump has refused to release his recent income tax returns, and the dog and opossum agree he’s got something to hide. The previously mentioned New York Times investigation into Trump family’s shenanigans:
   President Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents, an investigation by The New York Times has found.
   … Much of this money came to Mr. Trump because he helped his parents dodge taxes. He and his siblings set up a sham corporation to disguise millions of dollars in gifts from their parents, records and interviews show. Records indicate that Mr. Trump helped his father take improper tax deductions worth millions more. He also helped formulate a strategy to undervalue his parents’ real estate holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars on tax returns, sharply reducing the tax bill when those properties were transferred to him and his siblings.
  • Sex crimes. Seventeen women have accused Trump of abuses, ranging from forced kisses (7); reaching up their skirts (3); grabbing their buttocks (4); leering at naked beauty contestants (2); and rape (1).
We note the seriousness of the allegations, especially the accusation by advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in her book, What Do We Need Men For? An excerpt was printed in New York magazine June 21, 2019. She wrote that Trump asked her to help him buy a gift, and that he assaulted her in the dressing room of a department store.
The next moment, still wearing correct business attire, shirt, tie, suit jacket, overcoat, he opens the overcoat, unzips his pants, and, forcing his fingers around my private area, thrusts his penis halfway — or completely, I’m not certain — inside me.
   There’s more.
   The so-called “emoluments” allegations, whether Trump violated the Constitution’s ban on gifts, because foreigners seeking Trump’s favor stayed at his Washington hotel; Trump’s pardoning of a convicted war criminal; Attorney General William P. Barr’s corrupt meddling on Trump’s behalf, moving to withdraw the prosecution of former national security advisor Michael Flynn, who’d already pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI; and Barr’s removal of a U.S. attorney whose office was investigating former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer.
   The list is so long.
SCORE: 2
OKAY, we’re done.
   Here’s our chart, and the final score.
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WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
   According to the Psychology Today website, 30 points and more indicate a bona fide psychopath, so Trump is admitted yet another exclusive club with 33 points.
  But Trump may be disappointed to learn that he’s six points behind serial killer Ted Bundy, who scored 39.
   Trump shouldn’t fret, though. He’s probably far ahead in actual deaths.
  • Deaths, never to be counted, of asylum seekers and other would-be immigrants denied entry into the U.S.
  • Deaths of Covid-19 victims who might have lived with a responsible U.S. campaign against the pandemic.
  • Deaths of people denied medical care, housing and food because of Trump policies.
  • Deaths because of rollbacks in air and water quality.
  • Deaths of U.S. soldiers who may have died in Afghanistan because Trump ignored Russian bounties.
  • Death of the planet, if Trump’s policies mean it’s now too late to reverse climate change.
   That’s the problem in trying to write off Trump as merely “crazy.”
   Even if Trump truly is a psychopath - Merriam-Webster's definition is "a person having an egocentric and antisocial personality marked by a lack of remorse for one's actions, an absence of empathy for others, and often criminal tendencies" - that doesn’t get us very far.
    It doesn't help us understand his cruelty, racism, incompetence, viciousness and divisiveness that, combined with the enormous powers of a president, make him such a destructive and frightening force.
   Still, we’ve found this exercise useful in one way: it’s allowed us to pull together a few of Trump’s many bad deeds and dangerous qualities. It’s hard to keep all of them in mind in the turmoil of continuous bad news that Trump generates daily.
   So, maybe this helps remind us that the score that matters will be the electoral college’s tally after the Nov. 3 election.
   What’s really scary? There’s only 119 days to go.
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DAY 1263

7/6/2020

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IS TRUMP A PSYCHOPATH?
Rating Donald Trump on a list of 20 unflattering personality traits.
And what it tells us about the 45th president.
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TRUMP in Prescott, Arizona, October, 2016. CREDIT: Gage Skidmore, Creative Commons license
PictureMR. O
WE LOATHE Donald Trump, but we think it’s wrong to label him “crazy.”
   For one thing, that lets him off the hook; he’s evil, regardless of whether he’s ill. And it’s unfair to group him with people who have genuine mental health problems.
   But as we were looking for the one word in the English language that perfectly describes the 45th president – rogue, scumbag, fiend, killer, bounder, etc. – we came across sociopath, which, in Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, led us to psychopath.
   What intrigued us was the simple, you-can-do-this-at-home way to identify a psychopath: a list of 20 personality traits – none of them flattering – that lets you know if someone is indeed a bad dude.
   Of course, it’s not an original idea to use pseudo-medicine to explain Trump. Books have been written by professionals, and Trump antagonist George Conway covered the topic in The Atlantic magazine last October.
   But ours may be the first such analysis by a dog and an opossum.
   I should explain about the “we.” I’ve been chatting with Mr. O – the optomistic opossum, who appeared in our yard earlier this year, long enough to be photographed by the Humans, who think he disappeared.
   But he's still around, and he and I talk politics almost every evening. At some point, we ran across Psychology Today magazine’s website and found the “Hare Psychopathy Checklist.” We were excited to see it was created by a fellow backyard citizen, one with floppy ears. But later, we learned it was developed by a Canadian researcher, Robert Hare – our lesson here being that to Hare is Human.
   Anyway, Psychology Today warns that “A true assessment should be conducted by a mental health professional.”
  
RIGHT. So, if you want to try this at home, here’s the list. (Scoring:  0 - Doesn’t apply; 1 – Applies somewhat; 2 - Fully applies)
  #1- Glibness/superficial charm
  #2 - Grandiose sense of self-worth
  #3 - Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
  #4 - Pathological lying
  #5 - Conning/manipulative
  #6 - Lack of remorse or guilt
  #7 - Shallow affect (i.e., reduced emotional responses)
  #8 - Callous/lack of empathy
  #9 - Parasitic lifestyle
  #10 - Poor behavioral controls
  #11 - Promiscuous sexual behavior
#12 - Early behavioral problems
  #13 - Lack of realistic, long-term goals
  #14 - Impulsivity
  #15 - Irresponsibility
  #16 - Failure to accept responsibility for one's own actions
  #17 - Many short-term marital relationships
  #18 - Juvenile delinquency
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PHOEBE
  #19 - Revocation of conditional release (from prison)
  #20- Criminal versatility (i.e., commits diverse types of crimes)

OKAY. Let's get started, with the first character trait.

#1 – Glibness/ superficial charm

WHERE TO START? Of course, Twitter, on Jan. 6, 2018 at 8:27 a.m.:
Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star..... to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!
SCORE: 2

#2 – Grandiose sense of self-worth

WE COULD could have written: “See Item #1.”
   But that’s the lazy way. Here’s something we found in Trump’s acceptance speech to the Republican National Convention, July 31, 2016:
Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.
SCORE: 2

#3 – Need for Stimulation/ proneness to boredom

WE AGAIN went right to the source, in this case, one of “his” books, published in 1990, Surviving at the Top.
I get bored too easily. My attention span is short.
GIVEN THAT that it’s unlikely that Trump has written any of “his” books, we’ll add an assessment of an outside source, this one by a ghostwriter who authored Trump’s 1987 book: Trump: The Art of the Deal, Tony Schwartz. He was interviewed by the New Yorker magazine’s Jane Mayer in 2016. Trump is so unfocused, Schwartz told her, that when he tried to interview him, Trump couldn’t go the distance, even though it was about Trump’s favorite topic. Mayer wrote:
Schwartz “…asked Trump to describe his childhood in detail. After sitting for only a few minutes in his suit and tie, Trump became impatient and irritable. He looked fidgety, Schwartz recalls, “like a kindergartner who can’t sit still in a classroom.” Even when Schwartz pressed him, Trump seemed to remember almost nothing of his youth, and made it clear that he was bored. Far more quickly than Schwartz had expected, Trump ended the meeting.
SCORE: 2

#4 – Pathological lying

MR. O AND I objected to Hare’s use of the word “pathological,” because the Checklist is supposed to define whether someone is “pathological,” so you shouldn’t use the word as part of the assessment itself.  “Serial,” “committed,” “total,” “shocking,” or some other, more neutral adjective to go with “liar” is what's needed.
   This is pathetically easy to answer. The Washington Post’s “Fact Checker” has been keeping count since Trump’s inauguration. In June the Post wrote:
As of May 29, his 1,226th day in office, Trump had made 19,127 false or misleading claims, according to the Fact Checker’s database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement he has uttered. That’s almost 16 claims a day over the course of his presidency. So far this year, he’s averaging just over 22 claims a day, similar to the pace he set in 2019.
   One example. The Post says one of Trump’s most repeated lies, told 206 times, is that even before it was enacted, the Republican tax cut of 2017 would be the largest in history, more than a 1981 measure during Ronald Reagan’s presidency.
Reagan’s tax cut amounted to 2.9 percent of the gross domestic product and none of the proposals under consideration came close to that level. Yet Trump persisted in this fiction even when the tax cut was eventually crafted to be the equivalent of 0.9 percent of GDP, making it the eighth largest tax cut in 100 years.
SCORE: 2

#5 – Conning/ manipulative

“CONNING?” That confused us, too. We thought it was a misprint of “cunning.” But on second thought, “cunning” gives the Trump brain too much credit. It’s more appropriately a derivative of “con,” as in con man, con artist. In her New Yorker article, Jane Mayer cites a 1991 book by Wayne Barrett, Trump: The Deals and the Downfall, that described the kind of flimflam in which Trump specializes, in this case, a 1975 development of the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York:
Trump snookered rivals into believing that he had an exclusive option from the city on the project, when he didn’t. Trump also deceived his partner in the deal, Jay Pritzker, the head of the Hyatt Hotel chain. Pritzker had rejected an unfavorable term proposed by Trump, but at the closing Trump forced it through, knowing that Pritzker was on a mountain in Nepal and could not be reached.
SCORE: 2

#6 – Lack of remorse or guilt

PictureAT MOUNT RUSHMORE, July 3, 2020. where Trump staged a rally, ignoring Covid-19, fire dangers. CREDIT: Associated Press
IF YOU'RE current on the news, Trump’s July 3 appearance at Mount Rushmore is typical.   
  Setting aside Trump’s racist and provocateur’s rant, he certainly showed no guilt in convening a Covid-19 super-spreader event, in which attendees were too close together, most not wearing masks; in arranging a fireworks display when the landscape was at risk of wildfires; in placing himself among four truly monumental presidents carved into the mountain; in ignoring the objections of Native Americans whose land is both scared and stolen.
SCORE: 2

#7 – Shallow affect (I.E., reduced emotional responses)

SO MANY examples. Mr. O suggested the classic:  Trump’s phone call to the family of George Floyd, whose video-recorded death as a Minneapolis policeman pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck, resulting in historic national demonstrations protesting the nation’s long mistreatment of Black citizens. Philonise Floyd, George’s brother, described the presidential call to MSNBC’s Al Sharpton on May 20:
It was so fast. He didn't give me the opportunity to even speak. It was hard. I was trying to talk to him, but he just kept like pushing me off like, “I don’t want to hear what you’re talking about.” I just told him I want justice.
SCORE: 2

#8 – Callous/ lack of empathy

LET'S GO to the Covid-19 briefing room on March 20, when NBC’s Peter Alexander, asked Trump a softball question:
ALEXANDER: “What do you say to Americans who are watching you right now and are scared?”
TRUMP: I’d say that you’re a terrible reporter, that’s what I’d say. … I think it’s a very nasty question, and I think it’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people … “The American people are looking for answers, and they’re looking for hope. And you’re doing sensationalism. And the same with NBC and Concast — I don’t call it Comcast, I call it Concast…You should be ashamed of yourself.
SCORE: 2

#9 – Parasitic lifestyle

MR. O AND I had to scratch our heads on this one, but soon discovered that Trump’s history is well documented. We return to Joan Mayer’s New Yorker article, where she quotes Wayne Barrett, the author the book about Trump’s shady business deals, debunking Trump’s claim that he was a self-made businessman. Mayer wrote:
… he found that Trump’s father was instrumental in his son’s rise, financially and politically. In the book (Art of the Deal), Trump says that “my energy and my enthusiasm” explain how, as a twenty-nine-year-old with few accomplishments, he acquired the Grand Hyatt Hotel. Barrett reports, however, that Trump’s father had to co-sign the many contracts that the deal required. He also lent Trump seven and a half million dollars to get started as a casino owner in Atlantic City; at one point, when Trump couldn’t meet payments on other loans, his father tried to tide him over by sending a lawyer to buy some three million dollars’ worth of gambling chips.
   Similarly, the New York Times, in its Pulitzer Prize-winning articles about the Trump family’s tax scams, wrote on Oct. 2, 2018: 
Mr. Trump won the presidency proclaiming himself a self-made billionaire, and he has long insisted that his father, the legendary New York City builder Fred C. Trump, provided almost no financial help.
  But The Times’s investigation, based on a vast trove of confidential tax returns and financial records, reveals that Mr. Trump received the equivalent today of at least $413 million from his father’s real estate empire, starting when he was a toddler and continuing to this day.
SCORE: 2

#10 – Poor behavioral controls

POLITICO has been one of many news outlets commenting on Trump’s lack of discipline. On Oct. 29, 2018, the news website reported it had a week’s worth of Trump’s White House schedules, which showed that up to nine hours a day was spent as “Executive Time,” compared to three hours doing actual presidential work.
What is unclear is how much thinking and working actually takes places in these off-hours, despite the protestations of some Trump aides — as opposed to tweeting, television-watching, gossiping and venting with friends and allies by telephone.
Politico quoted Yuval Levin, a policy aide to former President George W. Bush:
… the lack of structure yields a lack of orderly decision-making and discipline that can be a huge problem given the demands of the job. 'Executive’ is the last thing I would call unstructured time.
SCORE: 2
OKAY. That’s enough for now.
   If you’ve made this far, congratulations.
   We’ll finish this tomorrow with Part 2, including the final score.
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DAY 1242

6/15/2020

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WITH THE ELECTION AROUND  THE CORNER, WHICH VOTERS ARE MORE TERRIFIED: TRUMP’S OR BIDEN’S?

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I'M ONLY A "SWEET DOG," whose formal education ended when I flunked a six-week obedience course, so I’m just guessing when I tell you that the difference between Trump’s voters and Biden’s has to do with how seriously they take the Nov. 3 election.
  The election - you heard it here first - is 139 days from now.
  Only 139 days to go until …!  Which isn’t even FIVE months until the world …!
  Don’t get me wrong about Trump voters. They do want him to win, and according to some polls, they are more “enthusiastic” about Trump than Biden’s supporters are about him. Which is to say, Trump’s people remain as always: obsessive zealots, cultists manically devoted to the Worst President Ever.
  But they are enthusiastic only in the way sports fans are enthusiastic their teams; they sound wild, crazy, and committed right up to the final game; but they also realize that losing is just part of the game, not end of the world. Go Sox. Go Trump.
 
I'LL PAUSE HERE to explain a dog's view of Human history.
   Long, long ago, before the Covid-19 pandemic’s arrival in January or February, the Ancients were devoted to rituals known as “sports.” These were games that involved throwing, hitting, catching and bouncing balls of various sizes and shapes, but at skill levels far beyond my own, and I am part Labrador retriever.
  These games took place in massive stadiums, seating thousands of “fans,” while millions more followed “the action” on TV or on their “personal devices.”
   Between games, fans endlessly debated the merits, shoe endorsements, talents, weaknesses, medical histories, political beliefs, musical tastes, lifetime records and genomes of players, coaches, assistant coaches, assistant managers, as well as team owners, who sportscasters reverently referred to as “Mister.” Each sport concluded its “season” in playoffs with superlative titles, such as “Super,” “World” and "FedEx.” They followed the same pattern, with one team winning and other losing, a recurring anticlimax that left the universe unchanged.
  The fans returned to their regular lives, sustained by vivid, if unrealistic, dreams of “next year.”
   Should they lose in November, the T's will shrug it off with a “It was fun while it lasted.”  Some may acknowledge that “I never liked the Tweets,” and “I wouldn’t want my daughters to ride in an elevator with Trump.” And should Trump be ousted in a voter landslide, the T’s will remember it this way:  “I don’t remember who I voted for.”  
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THIS IS NOT the case with Biden voters.
  They will not be okay with losing. They will not return to normal. Their passion is born of terror and the certainty that if Biden loses, there is no next time, no tomorrow, no next year, no afterlife.
  Unlike the Trump voters, the Biden voters – including the Humans I live with – are less invested in a particular candidate than they in getting rid of Trump. In fact, if Biden suddenly dropped out of the race, his voters will enthusiastically support any substitute, for example, one of Biden’s primary rivals, or even a carrot, preferably one that's organic and non-GMO.
  Biden voters cannot fathom a Trump second term.
  At 1,242 days since Trump’s inauguration, they have a clear vision about what a second Donald J. Trump term means.
  •   Four more years of Trump means THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY.
  •   Trump’s reelection means THE COLLAPSE OF CIVILIZATION.
  •   A Trump victory means AN ENVIRONMENTAL CATASTROPHE THAT WILL MAKE LIFE ON EARTH UNSUSTAINABLE.
  Big stakes for the Biden folks.
  But not for Trump’s voters.
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THE B'S FORESEE dictatorship. Having probed and exploited the Constitution’s weaknesses during his first term, Trump in his second term will put an end to the world’s oldest democracy, establishing a new authoritarian order enforced by an efficient, ever improving, increasingly intrusive technology that’s far more controlling than anything envisioned by George Orwell.
  The T’s will miss their entertainer-in-chief's gift for shock, insult and sacrilege, but they'll note that the Trump 24-hour Twitter cycle was losing its sparkle after nearly four years, and there's better (as in meaner, more diabolical) stuff on regular TV.
  The B’s envision an authoritarian regime that just got started during the first term, with Trump demonizing immigrants and taking baby steps to discredit the press. In his second term, he'll abolish a seditious media, expand the roster of despised groups and establish – in law and in culture – a new and enduring apartheid. As for social programs like healthcare, Food Stamps, affordable housing and Social Security, you might be able to read about them in microfilmed back issues of newspapers, if you can find a library that’s still open.
  The T’s objections to “the government” were never about reform, just opportunities to complain and criticize. As for keeping score of Trump’s broken promises about draining the swamp and creating the best health plan ever, that turned out to be too wonky and pointless. No problem, then, in going back to watching Fox' gladiators eviscerate, humiliate and exaggerate the actual and fictional shortcomings of an incoming Biden or a Non-GMO Organic Carrot Administration.
  The B’s know that the Trumpeteers barely got started during the first term in the crusade to accelerate climate change. The B's are certain that in the second term, Trump will put that cause on warp speed, with the EPA renamed the EDA ( “Protection” becomes “Destruction”).  Wildfires, sea-level rise, hurricanes, heat waves, blizzards, floods, drought and tornadoes will set new and horrifying records, except there won’t be any scientists to measure, validate and record them.

AS THE ELECTION CLOSES IN, here’s one dog’s reading – as a long-time observer of Human behavior – of the difference between the B’s and the T’s:
  The B’s care. And the T’s could care less.
  The T’s will cheer if Trump survives. If not, they’ll get over it, even as they share in the benefits of a restored democracy, a more just society, better health care and a rescued environment.
  The B’s, however, have everything to lose.
  As does the rest of the world.
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dAY 1221

5/25/2020

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a 2nd look
MAYBE BIDEN IS THE RIGHT ONE TO TAKE ON TRUMP

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"IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN – Joe’s just shot himself in the paw,” I hollered.
   “I think you mean ‘foot,' ” said a tiny voice, which was coming from somewhere I couldn't place. “People have 'feet,' Phoebe; whereas you and I have ‘paws.’ ”
   It had been a couple of days since Joe Biden made national news the way he usually does, by “misspeaking.” This time, the presumptive Democratic candidate for president had declared that African Americans thinking of voting for Trump instead of him didn’t understand who they were.
   Specifically, Biden put it this way during a radio program that's followed by a black audience:
    “If you have problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”
   So much wrong, in just a few words..
   And it didn’t take Republicans long to pounce, saying Biden's blunder proved that Democrats take black voters for granted; instantly the GOP was churning out tweets and T-shirts; while the news people found themselves helplessly obligated to repeat and rehash the latest "news."
   “This is what we’re in for during the next six months, cleaning up after Biden,” I complained from our backyard deck. “And this is the guy who is supposed to get rid of Trump and save democracy?”
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“WHY DO YOU ALWAYS look on the gloomy side?” said the tiny voice. It seemed to be coming from the big azalea bushes in the backyard and that now were ablaze with hot-pink spring flowers.
    “Who’s there?” I demanded. “I can’t even see you.”
    “Why are you such a Downer Dog," the voice continued, "always assuming the worst when it comes to Joe Biden, always putting him down?”
   “Because there’s so much at stake in this election,” I said. “I don’t think the country can take another four years of Donald Trump. And I’m scared to death that Biden is going to fumble his way to an election night disaster. And I'm not the only one who feels that way."
   “We’re all in agreement about the need to dump Trump,” the voice said. “But look on the bright side.”
   “You mean there's a bright side to how Joe Biden just insulted the Democrat’s most important constituency?
   “Absolutely,” the voice said. “Look how Biden recovered, and how fast, after he made the remark on that radio program. Within hours, he was back on the phone, this time calling the U.S. Black Chambers, Inc., which advocates for black businesses. Joe delivered an absolutely genuine, from-the-heart, common sense apology – the kind that makes  him so appealing to so many people.”
   “What did he say? I asked, forgetting that I was talking to something in bush.
   " ‘I shouldn’t  have been such a wise guy. I shouldn’t have been so cavalier,’ that’s how he explained it,” the voice said.
    “What's so great about that?” I asked.
   “Because it was exactly the right thing to say,” the voice said. “Biden’s no racist. Joe knows that. Most Americans know that. Most African Americans know it. So, Joe didn’t have to pretend that what he’d  said was anything more that what the rest of us do too often, say something stupid. As Joe said, it was just a wisecrack gone wrong, nothing more.”

   “WHO ARE YOU, anyway?” I demanded.
   “Biden is the perfect Every Man,” the voice continued, “and that makes him just the right candidate to take on Donald Trump, who is the very definition of a phony, insincere, inept and overall horrible person.”
   “But Biden…,” I said, before being interrupted again.
   “But nothing,” said the voice, sternly. “Donald Trump is a racist. That’s his history. Making phony ‘birther’ claims that Barack Obama wasn’t born an American, stirring up racial hatred, attacking black football players, insulting black Congresswomen.”
   “Now, you’re playing the Republican’s game, ‘What-About-Ism,’ “ I said. “It’s one of Trump's worst tricks. First, he does something horrible; then he defends himself by saying: What about Hillary? What about Hunter? What about Barack?”
    “Hey, Man,” the tiny voice said, “This is what this election is about: Trump is a terrible man; Biden is a terrific person. Maybe Joe wasn’t and never will be your first choice. But he’s won the primaries, and Joe is absolutely everything Trump is not: kind, experienced, inclusive, capable. This election is simple: get rid of Terrible and replace him with Terrific.”
   “But before we go any farther, who ARE you,” I asked again.
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"I DON'T KNOW if you saw Biden on the Stephen Colbert show the other night,” the voice said.
   “The ex-Veep was great. When he first appeared via remote camera, he was wearing a facemask to prevent the spread of Covid-19 to Secret Service people and others around him. Contrast that with Trump, who's treating the whole mask thing as a joke. Just like when Trump toured the Ford factory in Michigan, he said he had a mask and had even worn it, but not in public. Why? Because he didn’t want the give the press the ‘pleasure’ of seeing him wear one. Very grown up."
   "Contrast that with Joe. He's very good at this kind of symbolism, leading by example. You've been underestimating Joe Biden, lots of people have," the voice continued. "It's not only counterproductive, it's just plain wrong."
   “And, for people who think Joe is too old, too over the hill, there’s a new Wired magazine ‘interview’ running on YouTube. Biden is at home, wearing a blue blazer, aviator sunglasses, open-collar striped shirt; behind him is a window, through which you can see spring in full bloom.
   "The approach Wired takes is to have Biden answer questions that are often asked about him on Google; they're printed on poster boards, but hidden by peel-off labels. Holding the boards with one hand, Joe tears away each label with his left, so he can see the question and then answer it – which he does in that neighbor-next-door way of his, with gusto and good humor.” 
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  QUESTION: Is Joe Biden a Democrat or Republican?
   ANSWER:  What a silly question, Man. What else would you be but a Democrat?
   Q: Is Joe Biden a billionaire?
   A: Unfortunately, I am not.
   Q: Is Joe Biden left handed?
   A: No. That’s why I’m having trouble pulling these (labels) off with my left hand.
   Q: Is Joe Biden a vegan?
   A: No, Joe Biden is not a vegan, although my wife is pushing me.
   Q: Did Joe Biden ever have a job?
   A: Yeah, I’ve had a job. I used to be a lifeguard for years , and when I ran for the United States Senate, they said: Well, why do you want a 29-year-old who’s only been a life guard? Well, the truth was I was a practicing lawyer. I’d been a public defender and I had my own small law firm…. 
    "It’s corny, and undoubtedly not spontaneous," the tiny voice said. "But you do get a good idea why Joe Biden is so likeable, why he’s gotten to where he is and why he’s such a good match for Donald Trump. You can see the whole thing on YouTube by clicking on this link. ”
  
"WHO ARE YOU?" I persisted.
   “You can call me ‘Mr. O,’ ” the voice said. And suddenly, I spotted him.
   Partially hidden by an evergreen, he was perched atop the fence that’s behind the flowering azaleas. I’d never seen anything like him. He had a totally cute face – mostly white, with a tiny pink nose, polka dot eyes and black Teddy-bear ears.
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   But at the other end, he had a  repulsive tail, which looked like a rat’s, except it was horribly longer and seemed to hang halfway down the 6-foot fence.
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 "AND WHAT are you?” I burst out.
   “That’s a very insulting question, Ms. Downer. Very objectifying, very dismissive,” the voice scolded. “It’s like you're saying that I'm just a thing, instead of a living, breathing sentient being like you.”
   “I’m sorry,” I said. “Folks are always coming up to me and asking what ‘kind’ of dog I am. The answer they're looking for is that I'm part Labrador retriever and part Husky – which actually is meaningless and doesn't tell anyone anything about me.”
    “Technically, I’m an opossum," Mr. O said, "a marsupial, like kangaroos – just nicer. But I’d prefer to be thought of as a political scientist, just without a PhD. The best way to think about me is as a student of politics.”
   “You certainly seem to see Joe Biden, if not through the proverbial rose-colored glasses, through the glow of hot-pink azaleas,” I said.
   “You know the old saying,” Mr. O replied:  Want Some Optimism? Call An Oposs’m.”
    “Actually, I've never heard that one,” I said.  “But I’m glad to meet you. Your attitude is really positive, hopeful, encouraging. And we sure can use a lot of cheering up around here.”
   “I’m not going anywhere,” Mr. O said. “But Joe Biden is.”
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0 Comments

Day 1196

4/30/2020

0 Comments

 

GO JOE - GO AWAY
Biden is an Awful candidate. But there's still time - and plenty of capable replacements - to set America Free

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JOE BIDEN announcing his run for president last May. CREDIT: Michael Stokes, Creative Commons license
NEXT TO DONALD TRUMP, who is the most dangerous man in the country?
   Joe Biden.
   That’s because if Biden runs for president, we’ll get Trump.
   And our country can’t stand four more years of Trump; neither can other countries nor the world’s environment.
   We need somebody else to lead the Democratic challenge.
   Who?
   One of the governors who’ve shown their stuff during the Covid-19 crisis, like Andrew Cuomo of New York, Gavin Newsom of California or Jay Inslee of Washington state.
   Or one of the standouts from the debates. Remember them?
   Remember how many candidates there were? Remember  how refreshing it was to look across the panorama of the debate stage and see a gathering of energetic, smart, talented, decent and good people? How most of them gave us hope and reminded us of how we’d forgotten what it was like to have a responsible, capable person in the White House?
    I’m not saying that any one of them is guaranteed to beat Trump, but I know this: Joe Biden can’t.
   Joe Biden is a disaster. He’s too mediocre, too burdened by his past failures as a presidential candidate, as a Senate committee chairman, as a person of no memorable ideas, no ability to inspire, encourage and excite voters. Yes, he seemed a good vice president for President Barack Obama – that's because Obama is that good.
    Biden will be outgunned, out-talked, outfoxed and outspent by Donald Trump, and the result will be that early in the evening of Tuesday, Nov. 3, the world as we know it will come to an ugly, tortured and nasty end.
   We need to get rid of Biden, and tomorrow isn’t too soon.
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BIDEN as Barack Obama's vice president in 2013
YOU’RE SAYING:  “What an ungrounded, impractical, ridiculous dog you are, Phoebe. We’ve suspected you were losing all common sense and this proves it.”
   You’re saying it’s too late.
   You’re saying the primary process has played out the way it’s supposed to, and Joe’s the last man standing.
   And I say to all of that?
   You don’t believe that Joe’s the one any more than I do.
   Really.
   Tell me, down deep in your heart, that you don’t feel exactly as I do.
   Tell me that every time Biden opens his mouth, your heart doesn’t suspend activity because you are scared about what’s going to come out of the Biden mouth, whether the Biden brain will make sense, will get its facts straight and finish the sentence, all without embarrassing the Biden campaign.
   Tell me that of all the role models you want for  your children, you’d pick Joe Biden. “Kids: I want you to grow up to be just like Joe Biden.”
   Tell me one thing that Joe’s said that’s worth remembering.
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HERE’S WHAT I can tell you – as a dog and from the heart.
   Dogs have super senses, and not just of smell, hearing and eyesight. When it comes to our human pals, we can tell when you’re scared, when you’re hurting and when you’re hopeful and when you’re happy.
   And dogs know that when you hear two words, “Joe” and “Biden,” your face frowns and  you say to  yourself: “Maybe things will work out. I hope.”
   You’ve got your fingers crossed. Please don’t make any mistakes. Hang in, Joe. Maybe Trump will self-destruct. His luck’s got to run out, sometime. You were everyone's second choice; the so-called safe choice. So hang in there, Joe. Donald Trump’s bad deeds will catch up with him. Stay the course, Joe. Safe and steady, goes Joe. At some point, the proverbial scales will fall from the eyes of Donald's worshipful supporters and they will say: “What fools, we’ve been. Hooray, thank goodness for Good Old Joe.”
   Let me quote, not from the Bible, but from today’s Gallup poll:
“Americans divide evenly when asked whether they approve or disapprove of the way President Donald Trump is handling the coronavirus situation in the U.S., with 50 % approving and 48 % disapproving.”
   With more than one-million Americans infected with Covid-19; with more than 60,000 dead; with some of the departed in refrigerator trucks awaiting their trip to the funeral home and the cemetery; with the economy in shambles; with Trump on TV day after day demonstrating in plain sight how stupid, how mean, how inept, how untruthful he is.
    With all of that, Donald J. Trump, 45th president of the United States, has an overall job approval rating of 49 percent, the Gallup poll says, up from 43 % at the beginning of April.
   So if the country is to rescue itself, it’s going to take someone who is dynamic, angry, motivated, capable, tough and appealing to unseat Donald Trump. And that person is not Joe Biden.

TWO EXAMPLES of how Biden is failing.
  One is his failure -- until Friday, May 1 reportedly -- to respond to the sexual assault charges voiced against him by a woman who briefly was on his staff when he was a U.S. Senator. Tara Reade says when she was 29, Biden pushed her against the wall of some government building, kissed her, reached up under her skirt and inserted his fingers into her private parts.
  If Reade is lying – like many, including me, believe – you’d expect Biden to have come roaring out of the basement of his home in Delaware, boiling with outrage. What an insulting, outrageous, ugly thing to say about him. Would you let anyone, whether  a man or a woman, get away with that kind of slander?
   Unless.
   Unless you are Joe Biden, and your brilliant political game strategy is to keep a low profile in the “me-too” era; bad enough that some women, Reade included, said last year that he had wandering hands, just not that wandering. Now it’s time to lay low, not stir things up, not give Reade a spotlight, let others speak about what a fine fellow is Joe.
   Unless.
   Unless he did it. In which case, he owes Reade an apology, as he does his wife, grandchildren, supporters, staffers, voters and the world. Who knows, people might admire his honesty, and find it a refreshing counterpoint to Trump’s denial of the many more assault charges brought against him by many more women.
   Tonight, after a bunch of newspaper stories, opinion columns, a Washington Post editorial, and growing demands within the Democratic Party, Biden reportedly has decided to talk about the charges on the “Morning Joe” program on MSNBC Friday, May 1. He shouldn’t have waited, shouldn’t have tried to hold out.
   As always, my heart will be on full-stop during the interview. Maybe he'll get through it.

THE OTHER EXAMPLE of how Biden is failing is that he is just failing.
   He’s failing to be an important voice, a participant, a change agent, an expert on the coronavirus and other crises while awaiting coronation at the Democratic National Convention.
   But you don’t have the slightest idea of what Joe’s up to, do you, other that this "Morning Joe" bit. Do you know where your presumptive Democratic nominee is tonight? Where he was  yesterday? Where he’ll be two days from tomorrow?
   Don’t blame the media, please. If Biden was worth covering, reporters would cover him. He has plenty of opportunities. Do you think there’s a news program on TV and radio, or a newspaper, a magazine, an online news website, that wouldn’t welcome an interview?
    And wouldn’t a savvy, hungry, crafty, skilled candidate find a way to make news at a time when Trump’s ineptness, his stupidity, cruelty and egoism is on such display?
   Why isn’t Joe Biden, safely face-masked, standing in front of a post office in East Nowhere, challenging the president to stop trying to destroy the U.S. Postal Service because it delivers Jeff Bezos’ Amazon packages, because Trump hates Bezos’ Washington Post and because Republicans don’t want a functioning post office that can deliver mail ballots this fall?
    Why isn’t Joe Biden standing in front of a Clorox factory, warning Americans not to inject themselves with bleach, after Trump wondered aloud whether that might not be just what the doctor ordered as a treatment for Covid-19?
   Why isn’t Joe Biden standing in front of a Navy ship, calling for the reinstatement of Captain Brett Crozier, who was fired as skipper of the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt because he appealed to higher-ups to take Covid-19-infected sailors off the ship?
   Why isn’t Biden’s “No Malarkey” campaign bus back on the road, social distancing itself to political hot spots, championing the governors trying to save their states from the infection despite the Trump administration’s bungling, delivering masks to nursing home staffers, interviewing victims’ families?
   Why? Because Joe Biden is a terrible candidate.
   And you really don’t need a dog to tell you that.
   If Joe Biden is truly a public servant, who loves his country more than himself, he’ll come out of his basement hideout, blink a couple of times at the daylight and resign from the race. Heck, he could do it on "Morning Joe."

   IT WON'T BE EASY to beat Donald Trump.
   But there’s still time. There are plenty of Democrats – experienced, motivated, inspired – who can do it.  Andrew the Avenger can beat the Dangerous Don. Ambitious Amy can. Carry on Cory can. Liz the Whiz can give Don the biz. Galloping Gavin can. And if California Man can’t, Jumpin' Jay knows the way from Washington the state to Washington, the district.
    But Biden? The Don will trample him.
    Don’t be fooled by Biden’s frighteningly small lead in early polls that invite respondents to a pretend match-up “if the election was today.” Remember Hillary Clinton’s lead, and how she made the same sort of too-clever-by-far, defensive, consultant-driven, too-careful mistakes that Biden is making now, and how that turned out.
   This doesn’t need to be a hold-your-breath campaign.
   There are better candidates. This can be a vigorous, exciting, inspiring moment in American life.
   Let’s pick someone who realistically can take on the toughest job in America, sending the most dangerous man in America back where he belongs, taking the “up” escalator at Trump Tower.
   Nov. 3rd doesn’t have to be the worst night of your life. Or mine.
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0 Comments

DAY 1182

4/17/2020

0 Comments

 

Exclusive  
THE 'REAL' PLAN TO RE-OPEN AMERICA?
a draft speech may mean trump has a
secret scheme for reviving the economy

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LILY, a special correspondent, has shared with the "Tracking Trump" a purported draft speech suggesting Trump may have a secret plan to restart the economy. In this undated photo, Lily is at her home office in Providence, R.I.
  
   
   By LILY
   Special Correspondent
   
   EDITOR’S NOTE: President Trump on April 16 announced a three-phase roadmap to get the American economy rolling again after the stunning downturn caused by measures to limit the spread of COVID-19.
   However, Special Correspondent Lily, who is safe distancing at her home on Providence, Rhode Island’s historic East Side, has obtained a purported draft of a speech in which the president describes a radically different approach.
     Is this the “real” plan? The White House had no comment, nor was it asked for one. The “Tracking Trump” blog is publishing the document in full as a public service, and we thank Lily for her diligence and enterprise.
   - Phoebe
                                                       * * *
 MY Fellow Americans,
      Today, I am announcing a bold new initiative that will save mankind and solidify my position as President Forever.  
      It is called:  
      “ONE INCH AT A TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
      Every day, every day, for the next 72 days, Americans will be allowed to come one inch closer to one another. 
   
 THINK of it. By this time next week we will be a full foot closer –  or something like that. 
    Each day, each day, we will be building antibodies and resistance to this dreaded virus.
   This plan has been scientifically vetted and approved –  Mike Pence calls it: “ONE FOR THE AGES!!!!!!!”
    In a little over two months America – and then the world – will burst back into full bloom. 
    It’s a great plan, a great plan, and it’s all my doing.
    Just 72 days from now – I think that’s sometime about mid-May – we will be face-to-face, or knee-to-face, as you adoring masses kneel before your conquering hero.
     I can’t wait … .
   
   WAIT a minute ....
    We must ramp up our economy instantly, and I have the solution. 
    I’ll  make it:
    ONE FOOT AT A TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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EXHAUSTED by her success in obtaining a purported draft of Trump's speech outlining his secret economic revival plan, Lily recuperates in the backyard of her East Side, Providence home.
0 Comments

Day 1181

4/15/2020

0 Comments

 

A THERAPY DOG
ANSWERS YOUR “NOVEL” CORONAVIRSUS QUESTIONS

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Because of the vast number of questions raised by the novel coronavirus pandemic, we’ve again asked our political analyst, Phoebe, A “Sweet” Dog, to put politics aside (but not completely), and provide guidance and counsel. In keeping with the unique nature of the crisis, questions must be “novel.”
   Phoebe holds license # 000085 issued by the City of Newport, R.I., expiring April 30, 2020, so new questions should be submitted with that time period. Her license is limited to the practice of being a dog, and thus her advice on other subjects are her own and not necessarily those of the management of OnTrumpsTrail.com and its subsidiary, the “Tracking Trump” blog.”
 
                                (The following section has been updated for clarity).
Dear TheraPhoebe: The Washington Post is reporting that Trump’s signature is to be placed on economic stimulus checks being mailed to millions of Americans. But that's not fair to those of us who will get the money deposited directly into our bank accounts, but who won't receive the actual check with the presidential psycho-scrawl, suitable for framing. Is there a way for us to receive both the direct deposit and the highly coveted check?
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Answer: You are in luck. Double-dipping is authorized by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act when such funds promote an incumbent president's reelection. Thus, you can have BOTH  your signed check and the direct deposit. Just follow these steps:
  1.  After receiving the direct deposit, go to www.whitehouse.gov and fill out the appropriate form to receive a check with the coveted psycho-scrawl signature on the “memo” line.
  2. Upon receiving the check, but prior to cashing it, take a photograph of the check, "The greatest, most sought-after and amazing check ever issued in recorded history."
  3. Cash the check.
  4. Mount the photograph of coveted check in a garish gold frame and place it on your fireplace mantel, so that it's easily spotted by potential voters, who can appreciate the president's generosity during a time of great personal and national need.
  5. Since you'll be rolling in cash, buy as many copies of the failing New York Times as you can. (Don't worry that this purchase will benefit the Times, as you will see in Step 6.)
  6. Set the copies of the Times ablaze in the fireplace, while wearing your MAGA hat and chanting "USA, USA, USA."
WARNING: Recipients may not misuse this benefit - for example, defiantly tossing the framed photo of the psycho-scrawled check into the flaming pile of newspapers, just like the draft card- and bra-burning protesters of yesteryear. Violators will spend the entire Second Term in constant fear and always looking over their shoulders, as provided in the CARES Act: "We know who you are."

Dear TheraPhoebe: Last Christmas, my partner bought me a set of Fiestaware, the vividly colored plates and other dinnerware that first appeared during the Paleolithic Age. They brightened our lives, too. But after weeks of confinement during the pandemic, my partner, when he unloads the dishwasher, stacks them obsessively by color: he starts with two yellow dinner plates; then he puts two dark blue dinner plates on top of those; followed by red-red; light blue, light blue, turquoise-turquoise; etc. Is this a sign that my partner has cabin fever? Should I be worried?
Answer: Darn tooting you should be worried. Fiestaware is so yesterday! What are your friends going to think when you have them over for supper to celebrate the end of the pandemic and they see what kind of dinnerware you’re using? The shame. I just pray you’ll come up with a dessert that will make them forget the main course.
   As to your concern about your partner’s obsession with the stacking order, this indeed is very disturbing behavior, and when this crisis is over, you should rush your partner to the nearest Bed, Bath & Beyond (assuming they’re still in business) for an intervention.
   Further – and this is important – everyone who owns Fiestaware knows that stacking should follow this protocol, starting with dinner plates: one yellow plate goes on the shelf first; topped by a single red plate; next a dark blue one, and so forth, until you’ve exhausted the spectrum; repeat with the remaining dinner plates. IN THE EXACT COLOR ORDER, do this with the saucers, bowls and other pieces. And you must always begin by stacking the dinner plates first.
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THE WRONG WAY
to stack Fiestaware
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THE RIGHT WAY
Dear TheraPhoebe: My spouse and I are taking advantage of the coronavirus crisis to watch the excellent programs you can find these days on “streaming” TV, like Netflix, Hulu and MHz. We tend to watch a lot of “mysteries,” many of them involving gruesome stabbings, shootings, poisonings, drownings, crushings, beheadings, hammerings, smashing, sawings, clippings, choppings, along with “operations” performed in scary cellars with rusty surgical instruments, and deaths caused by pushing off-steep-cliffings.
   Lately, when it comes time for the medical examiner to explain in excruciating detail  the “manner of death,” I’ve noticed my partner furiously scribbling notes in her journal, which she then hides in her underwear drawer. Should I be worried?
Answer: You are on target, because you are the target. Your spouse is becoming impatient living with just one person during the COVID-19 confinement, and she is planning – I’m putting this as delicately as possible – to make a change.
   Until the confinement ends, I’d take common sense steps to protect yourself, such as slipping a portion of whatever she’s cooked for supper to your cat (but never to your dog) before you proceed to eat; further, you should check the cellar periodically for surgical instruments, and if you find any, run the dehumidifier to keep them from becoming rusty.
   Believe me, she IS planning to get rid of you, and I don’t blame her one bit. What in the world are you doing going through her underwear drawer? In my professional opinion, you are a real sicko pervert and you deserve everything that she’s planning to do to you. My only worry is whether she’s learned enough from watching hundreds of hours of “mysteries” to achieve the gold standard: the perfect crime.
                     * * *

DO YOU HAVE NOVEL questions about the novel coronavirus? Please include them in the “comments” section. Due to the volume we get, please understand that we cannot answer them individually. But be assured our staff tries to read each and every one until they don’t.
0 Comments

DAY 1179

4/13/2020

0 Comments

 

SICK OF TRUMP AND COVID-19?
THIS LATEST JOE BIDEN STORY
WON'T MAKE YOU FEEL ANY BETTER
Are we willing to consider Biden's possible flaws the way we want Trump's Zombies to face up to his?

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PH0EBE, trying not to look through rose-colored glasses, or yellow ones, for that matter, at the man she hopes will take down Donald Trump
          (This posting has been revised, since Phoebe wasn't satisfied with her original version)
HERE’S SOMETHING to take your mind off the coronavirus crisis, although not in a good way if you’re as pained by the prospects of a Trump second term as by the terror of the pandemic.
   In case you haven’t picked up the story already, I’m sorry to be the messenger. I know my role as a “sweet” dog is to provide hope. But I have other duties, and I’d appreciate not being labeled a mad dog who needs a visit by animal control.
   Let me outline the basics in “objective” newspeak:
   A woman, who worked briefly on the staff of Joe Biden when he was a U.S. senator, says that he sexually assaulted her in the summer of 1993, pushing her against a wall of a Senate building, kissing her, then reaching under her skirt and penetrating her with his fingers.
   Tara Reade, who was 29 at the time, says that she rebuffed the assault, and Biden angrily rebuked her, saying: “Come on, Man, I heard you liked me,” and walked away. Reade says she filed a written complaint with the Senate, but never heard if it was acted on, and she was forced to leave her Capitol Hill job.
   Reade’s allegations surfaced in a story in the New York Times on Sunday, April 12, after the newspaper followed up on an emotional, hour-long interview Reade had with New York City podcaster Katie Halper on March 25. The Washington Post published a similar story.
   Biden, who has vanquished all other primary contestants for the Democratic presidential nomination, has not addressed Reade’s charges personally, at least as of this writing. But his campaign underlings vigorously denied them, as have people the Times interviewed who were on Biden’s Senate staff.
   Reade’s account is confirmed, according to news accounts, by at least two people – a friend and a brother – whom she told shortly after the alleged assault. Informing someone about an incident near the time it happened is a gold standard for journalists trying to determine the credibility of women accusing men of sexual crimes.
    This is not the first instance in which Reade has accused Biden publicly of inappropriate behavior. She was one of eight women who one year ago said that Biden touched and kissed them in ways that were invasive, demeaning and unwanted.
   At the time, Biden and associates said he was a person who famously expressed empathy and warmth physically, but now understood that customs and boundaries were changing, and that women had a right not to be touched and to have their concerns considered seriously.

AS USUAL in these kinds of cases, there's some ambiguity in Reade's story and thus reasons to challenge its truthfulness. But we’ve also learned in the Me-too Era that inconsistencies and “flaws” in victims’ stories can be the result of lifetime trauma caused by the incidents.  
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JOE BIDEN - Will he stand up to the latest allegations, and those sure to come?
   Here are some shortcomings:
  • Reade’s story has changed – “evolved,” to put it kindly – over the past year. Initially, she complained about Biden touching her, as well as about a remark she was told  Biden made to other staffers, that she had “nice legs.” But until now, she didn’t include the far more damning charge that he criminally penetrated her.
  • No one has determined that Biden has a history of criminal assaults – a pattern of behavior such as those ascribed to abusers like President Trump, convicted movie producer Harvey Weinstein and the late money-man Jeffrey Epstein. Abusers’ histories bolster individual accounts.
  • Reade has a ready answer for many of her story’s deficiencies. She didn’t disclose the sexual assault until now because it’s been too overwhelming for her to talk about; she was horrified by criticism following her first disclosure. She didn’t retain a personal journal that she wrote at the time, even though the assault upended her career and life.
  •  She has made comments praising Russian president Vladimir Putin, writing in a 2018, but now-deleted post on the online platform Medium: “… President Putin scares the power elite in America because he is a compassionate, caring, visionary leader. … To President Putin, I say keep your eyes to the beautiful future and maybe, just maybe America will come to see Russia as I do, with eyes of love.”
   Don’t laugh at this last point. I’m no Red-baiting capitalist pig running dog.
   Though Reade has disavowed them, her Russia comments remind us that Russia is continuing its assault against American democracy, just the way it maliciously supported Trump’s election in 2016, and concocted a phony story that Trump used as part of his impeachment defense.
   So, every time a story surfaces that could cause turmoil in American politics, it’s mandatory that it be treated skeptically, and I’m sure that the Times, the Post and other media outlets were wary of being duped by foreign or partisan mischief-making when they stepped into the Reade story.

   SO, PHOEBE, WHY BRING THIS UP? And now, of all times, in the middle of a pandemic?
   Those of us who think that Trump is the biggest threat to democracy ought to be willing to do what we’re asking Trump's Zombies to do: listen with an open mind. For example, thinking about these kinds of don’t-want-to-hear questions we constantly put to Trump’s supporters:
  • Why do you ignore Trump’s lies?
  • Can’t you see that Trump favors the rich? Hides his tax returns?
  • Don’t you care that Trump is poisoning your air and your water and promoting climate change?
  • When will you see that Trump already has killed thousands of people by bungling the response to COVID-19, by closing the borders to asylum seekers, by weakening Obamacare, limiting food stamps?
  • How can you call yourselves moral, God-fearing citizens when Trump has abused and sexually assaulted women, promoted racial hatred and bigotry, coarsened our public discourse?
  • People of Trump: You say you’re for “law and order,” but don’t care that the  president is appointing politically biased judges, pardoning war criminals, letting convicted public officials out of jail?
   I’m just saying that we in the sainthood have to be willing to do what we refused to do when Bill Clinton abused his power as president by having a sexual relationship with  a young  employee, and then giving the all-time-most-convincing-lie ever-told-on-television: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.”
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POLITICS is no bed of roses, or whatever those things are that she's sitting in
 BUT THE STAKES ARE HIGH - TOO HIGH
   No, they’re not.
   It's not too late.
   It’s April 13, not Nov. 3. There’s time to change nominees.
   Let’s say Joe Biden, who’s 77, and therefore more likely than a younger person to get COVID-19 and die, the Democrats would, of course, pick a replacement. If it is proved that Biden, because of criminal conduct, is unfit for office, the same holds true.
   The primary produced debate stages filled with competent Democrats. The pandemic has spotlighted talented governors – Cuomo of New York, Inslee of Washington, Newsom of California, to name just three battle-tested leaders whose performances have shown Trump to be a snake-oil fraud. And there's second-place Bernie Sanders.
   Of course, there’s always the cynical rationalization we can turn to: So what?
   All presidents are flawed.  Kennedy was a womanizer. Truman dropped not one but two atom bombs on Japan. Obama backed away from his own red line. If it’s clear that Biden did just that one thing, just with his fingers, and just that one time, so what?
   But at least we would do that knowing as much as we can know and make an eyes-open, if shameful, decision.

   THERE’S PLENTY KNOWN SO FAR to both confirm and dispute Reade’s account.
   I don’t think someone should be believed simply because they may be a victim. Nor should anyone automatically be dismissed because their account can’t be proved in court, beyond a reasonable doubt.
   After looking at the Times story, Googling other stories and stuff that’s easily Googled, and reading and listening to and thinking about Reade's allegation, I’m not convinced. Not so far.
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DAY 1165

3/30/2020

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A LUCKY DOG TAKES A WALK
in a time of pandemic, Celebrating the Ordinary

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    WE SPEND a lot of time in this space worrying about the ways in which a cruel man is tearing apart our country because he managed to win an election and might do it again.
    But it shouldn’t take a microbe to tell us there is a lot more to our lives than Donald Trump.
    It shouldn’t be that way. But it is, and as the coronavirus pandemic closes in on our little corner of the Atlantic seacoast in Newport, R.I., I’ve been thinking about many things, but mainly that I’m a lucky dog.
    “Phoebe,” you say, “we think of you as a ‘sweet’ dog. What’s luck got to do with it?”
    Okay, try this.
    I live a couple of blocks away from one of the most famous mansions in the world. “The Breakers” was built by the Vanderbilt robber baron dynasty and has 70 rooms. Up to 1 million tourists pay to walk through it and nearby mansions every year.
    “But, you’re a dog, and they don’t let dogs in, so that’s lucky?”
    During the COVID-19 pandemic, nobody else is getting into The Breakers, either. Governor Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island, unlike Trump, is working hard to keep her voters alive. She's issuing tough love orders about “social distancing,” telling bars to close and restaurants to do only do take-out; advising New Yorkers fleeing to their summer homes to age-in-place for a couple of weeks after they get here, and telling people who favor crowds to "cut it out!"
    All I'm saying is that I live in a house the size of a grape, but within walking distance of The Breakers.
    On some days, like today, The Grouchy One and I walk to The Breakers and keep going to the Cliff Walk, which is behind the mansion and is another big tourist draw. It’s pretty spectacular, with jagged cliffs and the ocean on one side and a bunch of mansions on the other side, although none as humongous as The Breakers.
    All we have  to do is walk out the front door of the grape, turn left, keep going straight.
     “So, you live in a snooty place. You’re trying to rub it in?
    Not my point. It’s a fact that in a small state like Rhode Island, most people live minutes from the seacoast, a park, a forest, a river, Narragansett Bay or something similar. And then there’s the country itself, the United States of America, which turns out be a pretty good place to be. Lucky us.
     “Blah, blah, Phoebe. What’s the big deal?”
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THESE ARE DAYS when you or somebody you care about wakes up in the morning and realizes that's a good thing. Tomorrow is another matter, but it's not something you take for granted.
    You can hear it in the phone calls. The Humans have been on the phone a lot while waiting for the full force of COVID-19 to strike, sometimes using what they call the “speaker,” so they each can hear both sides of the conversations, and so can I.
    They talk to their “children,” who are actually grownups, and have been for a while, and with other members of the family, in Vermont and as far away as London. And they are talking with friends they used to work with or who were classmates in college. A lot of them are in their  70s and some in their 80s. They've all had other health issues, which is a qualification for membership in the coronavirus “vulnerable” club – Trump’s people use the  term "expendable.".
    Listening in, as dogs do, these conversations sound pretty ordinary, boring, in fact.
    Hello, what are you doing, how are you, am I calling at a good time, how’s the weather, the kids, the grandkids, what’s the weather like, been to the store lately, it’s raining here, again, what are you watching on Netflix, reading any good books, more rain tomorrow and can you believe what Trump said. The usual stuff.
     “You sure know how to do boring, Phoebe. Be a good girl and wrap things up.”
    Boring?
    That's what I thought, until I realized what’s different about these phone calls is that they aren't as much about hello as  goodbye.
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 IT'S MORNING. I wake up early. Then I get Grouchy up; drag him out the front door; we turn left, walk straight ahead and keep going.
    At The Breakers, the tall iron gates are  closed, a chain wrapped around the iron bars, secured by a padlock. We go to the Cliff Walk. Ocean waves are rolling in, still scary beautiful, even on a foggy day, but no one is around to see that, except us.
    On the way back, we go through my favorite park, which is popular  with lots of other dogs and their people. No one around today.  The playground swings and merry-go-round are wrapped in yellow caution tape, in case a visitor misses the PLAYGROUND CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE sign.
    My world is the same, but it's also different.
   Back home, The Nice One is having breakfast, and Grouchy begins fixing mine, which means pouring pellets from a container into into a bowl.
   Another day, a routine day, a good day, is getting underway but not taken for granted. Tomorrow is a question. Today, I'm a lucky dog.
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dAY 1160

3/26/2020

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A THERAPY DOG’S COVID-19 DILEMMA:
WHETHER TO TELL HIGH-RISK FRIENDS THE BAD NEWS - TRUMP’S RATINGS ARE RISING

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MY MAJOR JOB at our house is to keep a pair of Humans smiling and in good spirits.
   I have this trick, for example, of grabbing a tennis ball, then tossing it up in the air and chasing it around the living room. Grab. Toss. Chase. Gets a big laugh every time.
   But getting a chuckle out of my “client base” – I am a trained therapy dog – is increasingly difficult these days.
   Even in normal times, it’s harder to cheer up The Grouchy One than The Nice One, although she’s no Pollyanna when it comes to what’s wrong with the world, politics and that sort of thing.
   But with the coronavirus pandemic, my job is much harder.
   The bad numbers keep rolling in, as I’m sure you’re aware. And they are really alarming.
   No, not those numbers, the ones tracking the exponentially rising deaths and infections in New York City, which is just a few hours’ drive from our corner of paradise in Newport, R.I.
   The statistics I’m worried about are survey results the Gallup poll has been dribbling out all week.  In fact, I suspect Gallup is releasing them bit by bit because they are so distressing, so inexplicable, so hard on the stomach.
   Here’s a summary of Gallup’s serial (killer) reports:
  • Trump’s approval rating: Highest of his presidency at 49 percent.
  • His handling of the coronavirus crisis: 60 percent approval.
  • The country’s assessment of how news media is performing during the crisis: 55 percent disapprove; 44 percent approve; 1 percent, no opinion.
   How do you keep everyone laughing with numbers like that?
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MY FIRST LINE of defense may be to keep the poll results hidden for as long as possible.
   I know, you’re saying that as a blogger, whose writing is available to an international audience thanks to the Internet, that my primary responsibility is to get the news out quickly and accurately.
   But these people are my friends, as well as my clients.
   For heaven’s sake, don’t these poor Humans have enough on their minds without having to worry about whether the country is going stark raving mad?
   Here’s another number I have to consider: The Nice One and The Grouchy One are 77.
   It’s been years since they became eligible to join the AARP, granted that organization sets a low bar for membership, 50 years and up. But 77 (seventy-seven) is a big number. My Humans are no longer just senior citizens;  they’re senior, senior, senior citizens.
   That puts them at “high risk”  of being victims most endangered by the novel coronavirus. By the way, what’s with this “novel” bit? Why do they call it that? I thought novels are things you make into movies.
   My Humans have enough to consider without being burdened by the Gallup poll.
   It’s not out of the question that one of these days we’ll be rushing to our local ICU, where our troubles will just be starting, thanks to Donald J-for-Jerk Trump, whose ineptness means there’s not enough medical equipment to keep old folks chugging.
   I have these daydreams about my changing role in all of this. No longer a “sweet” dog, but now a wolf descendant, with a full set of teeth and claws on all four feet, I use my super sense of smell to find the supply room where the last ventilator is stored. Because I’m ready to do whatever it takes for these guys, and don't you think that I'm only the court jester around here.
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IT COULD BE that I’m getting ahead of myself. Nice and Grouchy are healthy old things.
   But still, that Gallup information is going be hard for them to swallow.
   Trump being rated 49 percent approval as president, and 60 percent on handling the virus business is beyond comprehension.
   You would think that his behavior at his daily TV briefing/campaign-rallies are Exhibit A for launching emergency impeachment proceedings. Rambling, incoherent, bumbling, he lies every day, berates, brags and violates the very social-distancing standards he’s supposed to be promoting by standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Doc Fauci, the vice president, surgeon general and his cast of sycophants.
   As usual, you can argue that his behavior is brilliant Trump-craft, that there’s a method and plan. Maybe he is hoping that Pence, whom he appointed to “lead” the administration’s virus program, will become infected, since the Veep has a better COVID-19 performance rating: 61 percent compared to Trump’s 60. And of course, Trump can’t abide Fauci, who can speak in complete sentences.
   But the fact that Trump is pushing to end the containment regimen and put America “back to work” is no laughing matter, unleashing a once unthinkable national debate about whether old people – nice and grouchy ones alike – are expendable in a trade-off between resuscitating the stock market or your grandma.
   It’s discouraging that 60 percent of Americans might agree with Trump, while 55 percent are critical of a news media that's telling them just how dangerous Trump has become.
   Granted, the Gallup numbers are confusing.
   For example, if a majority of survey respondents disapprove of the media’s performance, Gallup also reports that people are paying attention to news about coronavirus: 66 percent are following news “very closely,” and another 27 “somewhat closely.”
   Also, 51 percent expect the crisis to last months, while only 36 percent say it will take weeks to get back to normal, contrary to Trump’s Easter bunny fantasies of bringing an early halt to social distancing.

IN ANY CASE, you can see my dilemma.
   The coronavirus is something Nice and Grouchy can handle – they’re keeping a respectful distance from fellow Humans, washing their hands, wiping down door knobs. I’m betting they’ll survive the COVID-19 crisis.
   But if they learn that Trump may be on his way to a Second Term, I’m not so sure how that will hit their will to live.
   So, I’ll probably skip the Gallup reports for now and dig up some Peter, Paul and Mary, Kingston Trio and Joni Mitchel records to spin on their high fidelity turntable, and maybe I’ll do that tennis ball routine in the living room.
   Grab. Toss. Chase. That’ll get them smiling again.
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    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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