Friday Talking Points -- Trump's Disgusting Supporters

[ChrisWeigant]

[Editorial Note: This was all written before I heard the sad news about R.B.G.]

Olivia Troye used to be a high-level staffer for Vice President Mike Pence, and she worked closely with him on the coronavirus task force which he led. She recently quit in disgust and went public this week with her support for Joe Biden (in yet another "Republican Voters Against Trump" video). The most damning thing she had to say about the president was the following:

When we were in a task force meeting, the President said "maybe this COVID thing is a good thing, I don't like shaking hands with people, I don't have to shake hands with these disgusting people." Those disgusting people are the same people that he claims to care about. These are the people still going to his rallies today, who have complete faith in who he is.

Now, as you'll remember, Hillary Clinton was famously raked over the coals by both the media and Republicans for labelling Republican voters as a "basket of deplorables." But she was talking about opposition voters, not her own. This time, President Donald Trump is calling his own followers -- the ones who stand in line for days, at times, so they can be in the front row and get a chance to shake Trump's own hand -- "disgusting people."

If you're waiting for the same level of outrage from Republicans that they exhibited when Clinton used the "deplorable" term, you've likely got a long wait coming. Because now, apparently, it's OK to call Republican voters "disgusting people."

Troye had plenty else to say as well, condemning Donald Trump's essential inhumanity (" a flat-out disregard for human life" ) and confirming what every other tell-all has said -- all Trump cares about is his own re-election, period. She also tells the story of one of the few times Trump actually attended one of the task force meetings, where he spent 45 minutes complaining about how Fox News was personally treating him, urging everyone there to call up Fox News and yell at them. Because of course he did.

Meanwhile, America will soon (likely tomorrow) hit the grim milestone of 200,000 coronavirus deaths. But according to Trump, that's OK because now he doesn't have to shake the hands of his own "disgusting" supporters -- which makes it all a "good thing" for Trump.

Is it Election Day yet? Can't get here fast enough, as far as we're concerned. Personally, we're voting the "Not A Sociopath" party ticket.

Sigh.

In other sociopathic news, it was revealed that the U.S. Post Office -- before it got a new postmaster general, please note -- actually had an astoundingly good idea, way back in April. Instead of sending out inane postcards signed by Trump to every American, the U.S.P.S. would send out a free pack of five reusable cotton face masks to every residential address in the country, including P.O. boxes. In April! That might have actually done a whole lot of good, of course, so it is no surprise what happened to the idea -- it was axed for political reasons: "There was concern from some in the White House Domestic Policy Council and the office of the vice president that households receiving masks might create concern or panic." I guess Trump has now effectively redefined the word "panic" as: "anything that would easily save tens of thousands of lives."

In related panicky news, during a town hall on ABC this week Trump continued to tell gigantic lies about Winston Churchill's response to the London Blitz. According to Trump, Churchill used to regularly climb onto rooftops (we are not making this up) and speak to the people of London. What Churchill told them was, essentially, to keep calm because there simply were no bombs falling. Nothing to worry about at all! The Nazis will miraculously go away (perhaps when the weather gets hotter). Well, OK, we made that last one up, but the shamelessness of these lies is simply breathtaking. What Winston Churchill actually did tell the British people: (1) the truth of the situation, (2) that things were going to get really bad, (3) that Britain would prevail by taking decisive action. Oh, and: (4) that bombs were definitely falling on London, of course. In other words, Churchill actually did everything Trump failed to do. And he didn't lie to the British at all, which was the point that Trump was somehow trying to get away with.

That was merely one of the enormous lies Trump told during his disastrous town hall, by the way. There are too many others for us to fully list, but here are two whoppers that the Washington Post fact-checkers caught:

"Rudy Giuliani did a fantastic job. The city was safe, and then all of a sudden we have a mayor who starts cutting the police force and crime is up 100 percent, 150 percent."

Major crimes are down under New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (D). There has been a jump in murders in 2020, but the annual number of murders under de Blasio has been about half as high as it was in Giuliani's best year, according to FactCheck.org.

"So I just saw a poll where African Americans in this country, Black communities, are 81 percent in favor of having more police."

Actually, Trump is confused. A Gallup poll conducted from June 23 to July 6 of more than 36,000 U.S. adults found that 20 percent of Black Americans would like more police, while 61 percent said they would like police to spend the same amount of time in their community. That does, however, add up to 81 percent.

The other notable thing Trump was confused about is that Joe Biden is not actually president. Trump tried to make political hay over the fact that Biden hadn't issued a national mask mandate order -- something which, as a private citizen, he is absolutely unable to do. Meanwhile, the head of the Republican Party said in an interview with Chuck Todd that she thought "it's disgusting to take a crisis in our country and try to lay it at the feet of the president." All while she was (as the article notes) trying to lay the crisis at the feet of "Hypothetical President Biden."

Speaking of Trump lies, Donald Trump just gave a press conference today, where he asserted that "we kept the oil" in Syria, that federal judges are wonderful people (even though he's losing most of his election-related federal lawsuits, including some fresh big decisions against him in Michigan and Pennsylvania), and that because his poll numbers look really shaky in Florida he's now changed his mind and decided to send billions of dollars to Puerto Rico in hurricane aid -- for a hurricane that happened three years ago, mind you.

The entire apparatus of the executive branch is also springing into action to help Trump. The Department of Transportation just announced a whole slew of grants... for certain states:

Some states that may be competitive in November's election -- including Florida, Pennsylvania and Texas -- raked in millions in infrastructure grants awarded Wednesday by the Department of Transportation, while blue states like New York got comparatively little.

Though the department says politics plays no role in these decisions, this round of annual discretionary "BUILD grant" awards for infrastructure projects saw the most money go to Texas, Florida and Pennsylvania, which together hold 87 electoral votes combined in the presidential race. Congress ordered that the money be split evenly between rural and urban areas for this round, which could account for at least some of the way the figures broke down.

Texas -- where President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden are polling roughly even as of Sept. 9, according to Morning Consult -- received two awards worth $25 million each to reconstruct an existing interchange in the Odessa-Midland area and for rail capacity improvements between Fort Worth and Dallas. Florida got $49 million and Pennsylvania got $46 million.

Arizona, Minnesota and North Carolina -- all important swing states -- led the pack too, with more than 10 percent of the $1 billion haul among them.

. . .

The non-swing state of Kentucky -- represented in the Senate by DOT Secretary Elaine Chao's husband, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell -- netted the eighth biggest award total at $38 million, despite ranking 26th by population.

The losers: Reliably Democratic states took a beating. New Jersey, the state with the greatest population density, got nothing. So did Hawaii, Delaware, Vermont and the District of Columbia, all Democratic strongholds. New York received $1.4 million for a street improvement project in an upstate Republican district. California managed to net $36 million -- 3.6 percent of the grant total for a state with 11.9 percent of the nation's population.

Funny how that works out, isn't it?

A whistleblower from the National Guard had a rather frightening story to tell about the day Trump cleared Lafayette Square for his "hold up a Bible" photo op: to prepare for the clearing of peaceful protesters, the Trump administration stockpiled 7,000 rounds of ammunition and requested both an "LRAD" and an "A.D.S." The first is a Long Range Acoustic Device that could blast the crowd with high-volume sound and the second is an Active Denial System which has been called a "heat ray" because it basically microwaves humans from a distance -- making them feel like their skin is burning. It was developed for use in wars, but never deployed because of questions about its safety and the ethics of using it against enemies. But apparently the White House saw no problem in deploying it against peaceful protesters in America.

Let's see, what else? Bob Woodward's book Rage was released this week, although most of the revelations were teased last week. Some further fun stories from the book: Trump respects the troops, once again, by saying: "My fucking generals are a bunch of pussies." Trump also spilled the beans to Woodward about a previously-secret nuclear weapons system: "We have stuff that [Vladimir] Putin and Xi [Jinping] have never heard about before." When asked to confirm it, "Sources confirmed to Woodward that the U.S. military has a such a weapons system but declined to say more and expressed surprise that Trump disclosed it."

In "we've heard it so often it's barely newsworthy" news this week, another woman has accused Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her. And Donald Trump once again tried to convince the public that he knows more about the coronavirus pandemic than the experts and doctors he has working for him (this time his target was C.D.C. Director Robert Redfield).

We did get some good news this week (bizarre as it was), as a Trump loyalist had a full-blown meltdown. Michael Caputo has been the point person at the Health and Human Services Department for censoring the scientists and instead shaping the narrative to align with whatever nonsense Trump is spouting about the pandemic. He's tried to tell Dr. Anthony Fauci what to say, he's been instrumental in editing scientific reports so they don't contradict Trump in any way, and he used to live in Russia, where he helped Vladimir Putin improve his public image.

Last weekend, he went on a Facebook rant, where he claimed there was a "deep state" in the C.D.C. that was out to get Trump. He also predicted a massive insurrection after the election and warned Trump supporters to "buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because it is going to be hard to get." He also revealed: "I don't like being alone in Washington," describing "shadows on the ceiling in my apartment, there alone, shadows are so long."

He had to apologize to his staff after this video went viral, and in doing so he "concluded the meeting by encouraging his staff to listen to music by the Grateful Dead." We wrote about this earlier this week (in extra-snarky fashion), if anyone's interested.

The next day, it was announced he'd be taking a medical leave until after the election. He proved to be too crazy for Team Trump, which is actually a pretty astonishing feat.

Speaking of Team Trump, let's end with a few moments of comic relief.

The Trump campaign released an ad this week that falsely claimed Trump "has achieved PEACE in the MIDDLE EAST." They added a caption to the ad stating: "President Trump was nominated for the Noble [sic] Peace Prize."

Trump has misspelled "Nobel" before, in tweets, but this was actually included in a campaign ad (which, assumably, is supposed to involve editing and vetting).

But that wasn't the only face-palm moment from Team Trump this week.

A digital ad released by a fundraising arm of the Trump campaign on Sept. 11 calling on people to "support our troops" uses a stock photo of Russian-made fighter jets and Russian models dressed as soldiers.

The ad, which was made by the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, features silhouettes of three soldiers walking as a fighter jet flies over them.

Except that one of those soldiers is carrying a Russian AK-47, and -- as a designer of fighter planes for the U.S. Air Force snarkily put it -- "That's definitely a MiG-29. I'm glad to see it's supporting our troops." Heh.





Before we get to the Democrats eligible for this award, we have two who aren't that deserve some praise.

Once again, the Republicans at the Lincoln Project have delivered another scathing anti-Trump ad. This one's called "Don The Con," and it mercilessly taunts Trump for essentially wasting $800 million of his campaign warchest:

"You really don't get what they did, do you, Donald?" the narrator asked, then suggested how money intended for his campaign could've been siphoned off by advisers to pay for beach houses and fancy cars.

"Pretty soon that $800 million you raised did nothing but make a lot of people rich," the narrator said. "And put you in a big hole."

The ad also calls Trump a "loser" and a "sucker," just for good measure.

We also would like to applaud CNN's Erin Burnett, for calling a lie a lie on air this week, on an issue we addressed yesterday -- Trump's non-existent new healthcare plan. Burnett was interviewing Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh, in an effort to find out what was in this so-called plan.

The exchange on Wednesday's broadcast of Outfront began when [Erin] Burnett asked [Tim] Murtaugh if the health plan Trump touted during his disastrous town hall with ABC News Tuesday was "real or just an empty campaign promise."

"Of course it's real," replied Murtaugh. Instead of teasing any details, he then criticized Biden's plan and the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, and said he wouldn't "get ahead" of the White House about any announcement.

Burnett hit back:

"I understand you don't like the (Biden) plan, Tim, but I'm merely pointing out that you don't have a plan," the anchor said. "The president has said for three years he's going have to a plan. It's going to be better. I understand the criticisms of Obamacare. We've all heard them. We've all dealt with it. You got rid of it and there's been no plan put out to replace it and no specifics. Why is it taking so long? Why is it now going to come right before Election Day?"

Murtaugh repeated that he would defer to the White House on any announcement, then resumed attacking Biden's policy proposals.

Burnett reminded Murtaugh that "at least Joe Biden has a plan out there. President Trump has promised one for three years. If there was a plan, we would have seen it by now. Pretty obvious, right?"

Murtaugh again attacked Biden's plan. And Burnett wasn't having it.

"I'm merely going to say I don't think it's fair to the conversation where you get to say his plan is bad when you don't have your own to defend," she said.

Burnett deserves some sort of award for standing up and loudly declaring: "The emperor doesn't have any new clothes -- he's stark naked!"

Moving right along... we found we had to give out two Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week awards this week, to California Governor Gavin Newsom and to California Secretary of Natural Resources Wade Crowfoot.

Donald Trump was shamed into visiting California this week after people began pointing out that the state had been burning for three weeks without a single mention by Trump. So he flew in (as a side trip on a campaign jaunt) and expected to give his usual "rake the forests" rant. But this time, the Californians were ready for him.

Here is some of what Newsom had to say to Trump, during a roundtable meeting with the state's experts:

We obviously feel very strongly that the hots are getting hotter, the drys are getting drier. When we're having heat domes the likes of which we've never seen in our history -- the hottest August ever in the history of this state, the ferocity of these fires, the drought five-plus years, losing 163 million trees to that drought -- something's happened to the plumbing of the world. And we come from a perspective, humbly, where we submit the science is in and observed evidence is self-evident that climate change is real and that is exacerbating this.

. . .

Record-breaking temperatures, record droughts, and you've got something else at play, and that's exactly what the scientists have been predicting for a half a century. It is here now. California, folks, is America fast-forward. What we're experiencing right here is coming to a community all across the country unless we get our act together on climate change, unless we disabuse ourselves of all the B.S. that's being spewed by a very small group of people.

This small group of people, of course, is led by President Trump himself. And to counter all of Trump's blather about how forest management would solve all the problems, Newsom pointed out a very pertinent fact Trump doesn't seem to have ever heard before:

We acknowledge our role and responsibility to do more in that space, but one thing is fundamental: 57 percent of the [forest] land in this state is federal forest land. Three percent is [owned by] California, so we really do need that support.

In other words, over half of the forests are your responsibility, not ours -- so why haven't you dealt with it?

But the crowning moment of the roundtable -- the one clip that went viral -- was when Wade Crowfoot had the following exchange with Trump (Crowfoot was responding to Trump's forest management complaint):

"If we ignore that science and put our head in the sand and think it's all about vegetation management, we're not going to succeed at protecting Californians," Crowfoot responded.

"It'll start getting cooler," Trump replied. "You just watch."

"I wish science agreed with you," Crowfoot said.

"Well, I don't think science knows actually," Trump retorted, laughing.

In related news, the longest-running magazine in American history, Scientific American, issued its first presidential endorsement this week, for Joe Biden (because he believes in science). This is the first time in 175 years that the magazine has felt it necessary to get involved in presidential politics, for obvious reasons.

Congratulations to both Gavin Newsom and Wade Crowfoot, for attempting the impossible: teaching Trump the truth about science.

[Congratulate California Governor Gavin Newsom on his official contact page, and California Secretary of Natural Resources Wade Crowfoot on his official contact page, to let them know you appreciate their efforts.]





Sadly, we have to award Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award this week, for once again showing timidity on marijuana reform instead of leadership.

In general, Democratic politicians have shied away from legalization efforts since the height of the Drug War in the 1980s, since Republicans have been regularly beating them up (for being "soft on crime" ) since then, politically. Specifically, though, the move this week to punt a historic vote in the House is due to the fact that the Democratic leadership doesn't want the issue to be used against them in this election. "You couldn't get a coronavirus relief bill done because you were too busy legalizing weed and defunding the police" is precisely what Republicans would say.

This thinking, however, is increasingly outdated. The Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment, and Expungement Act would have been more of an asset for Democrats running for office this year than a millstone.

"In about two weeks, the conversation has gone from 'no problem' to people now doing a stutter step, maybe trying to... avoid this vote altogether," said Rep. Lou Correa (D-Calif.), a co-chair of the moderate Blue Dog Coalition and a strong supporter of cannabis legislation. "[It] should have been a non-partisan vote, support on both sides of the aisle."

Marijuana legalization has far-reaching national support from Democrats, independents and even a majority of Republicans, multiple polls show. Democrats have touted the MORE Act all summer as a criminal justice reform bill, amid ongoing protests over racial equity that a majority of the public supports. A disproportionate number of Black or brown people are arrested for cannabis possession each year, and this bill aims to reduce arrests and erase some marijuana criminal records.

Democrats also wanted to use this historic bill -- legislation to remove federal penalties on marijuana never passed out of committee until earlier this year, let alone had a floor vote -- to show that legalization would be possible if Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress.

. . .

Even though the bill is not likely to pass the Senate, House Democrats thought the messaging created by this bill was important. Progressives and Democrat strategists say the marijuana vote would actually help in most congressional races and that a vote for the measure won't turn away voters in droves.

"If you're trying to punt it as a result of a political calculation, I disagree with that calculation," said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), a co-sponsor of the bill. "This is an enormously popular policy -- not just for our base, but it's also very popular amongst certain parts of registered Republican voters and independent voters. I think this is a win-win-win policy, and I think that we should be doing this before the election."

Political strategists say that while each House race has its own dynamics, moderates should see the MORE Act as a way to turn out both their Democratic base and undecided independents and not worry about how it plays to voters worried about the "defund the police" movement.

"If you're already motivated on the [idea that] the thundering hordes are coming over into your suburbs to take away your wife and imprison you in a socialist hell, I'm not sure being for [marijuana] is going to add any fuel to that fire," said Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist.

Talking about marijuana has helped boost turnout in past elections, said Sal Pace, a former Colorado House minority leader who now is a consultant focusing on the role cannabis plays in political races. He said targeting voters who care about cannabis helped increase turnout during now-Colorado Gov. Jared Polis' 2018 campaign, which he worked on.

"If a candidate is talking about cannabis in an effective way, and they're running against someone who is not pro-cannabis legalization, that issue can be used to turn out young voters," Pace said.

And with the national focus on criminal justice reform, many progressive say this bill should be a lock.

"This should be seen as a prime opportunity to address a form of systemic racism," said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), pointing out that the number of co-sponsors on the bill has jumped from 87 to 111 in the last two weeks.

. . .

Progressive lawmakers also see voting on marijuana ahead of the election -- rather than afterwards -- as part of a bigger strategy: It could help flip the Senate.

Both Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) argue that taking the unprecedented step of passing legislation to decriminalize marijuana -- even if the bill will not pass the Senate this year -- would encourage their base and increase Democrat turnout in key Senate races this year.

"There's a moral urgency in this I think a lot of voters understand -- and that this is a motivating issue for them -- especially for younger voters," Booker said. "I know that everything's through a political guise, but I think no elections are going to turn based upon voting for something that is all about restorative justice in this country."

In other words, holding the vote would have helped in both the House and Senate races. But this theory will not be put to the test.

Nancy Pelosi is instead playing it safe. While we understand her logic and reasoning, we cannot agree that this is the way to go. You're supposed to give the voters positive reasons to vote for your candidates, and showing the voters what a Democratic-led Congress would do next year with a Democratic president is a big part of that.

Sooner or later the Democratic Party will realize how potent an issue legalization truly has become, and how it cuts across party lines in a way that few other contentious issues do these days. But that day will have to wait, because once again Democrats, led by Speaker Pelosi, are choosing to play it safe instead. Which is why she's this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week.

[Contact Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on her official contact page, to let her know what you think of her actions.]




Volume 589 (9/18/20)

We have a rather mixed bag this week for the talking points. Oh, before we forget, there was one article this week that is worth a read for anyone dreading chaos on Election Day. Politico created a list of all the states which could be battleground states and rated them by how fast they are likely to count their votes. The bad news was that states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin may take days to accurately count all their ballots, but the good news is that there's one state that actually does a good job -- so we could find out on the night of the election who won Florida. If Biden beats Trump in Florida, a whole bunch of other states simply aren't going to matter -- and we may know who won the whole election a lot earlier than anyone expects. Days later, we'll learn just how big a margin of victory in the Electoral College Biden managed, but if Biden takes Florida, it will be almost impossible for Donald Trump to get to the 270 electoral votes he'll need to win. One way or the other, though, the article is a good read for those who are interested in such wonky things.

With no further ado, though, let's move right on to this week's talking points for Democrats to use. As always, please use responsibly.



Delivering for working people

Occasionally we let the professional wordsmiths have a talking point, and this is one of those times. The following is from an excellent article from Politico which offers up a beautiful talking point for Democrats to use:

We know this because in 2018, the progressive group Rural Organizing surveyed 820 rural Americans to test the power of the following message: "Instead of delivering for working people, politicians hand kickbacks to their donors who send jobs overseas. Then they turn around and blame new immigrants or people of color, to divide and distract us from the real source of our problems."

Note the three elements: 1) Americans of all races need good-paying jobs; 2) politicians have let the donor class gut Americans' standard of living; 3) then they try to deflect the blame onto immigrants or people of color. In the survey, three-quarters of rural respondents agreed with this message, which appealed not just to liberal voters (who made up only 23 percent of the respondents), but also to the 42 percent who were conservatives and the 26 percent who were moderates.

Last time I checked...

This one, sadly, has got to be hammered home from now until Election Day.

"There's a funny thing about listening to Donald Trump or his campaign ads -- they seem to think that Trump is not currently president. Now, the last time I checked, Joe Biden is not actually president of the United States. He just isn't! And yet Trump ads warn of 'Joe Biden's America,' while showing video footage of things that are happening right now in Donald Trump's America. Trump complained that Biden hadn't issued a national mask mandate, even though Biden has no power to actually do so. It's the most bizarre thing I've ever seen in politics -- not only is Trump not even pretending to run on his own record, he has apparently slipped into the Land of Make-Believe, where Joe Biden is currently running the country. Now, to be fair, tens of millions of Americans would love to live in that Land of Make-Believe where Donald Trump is not currently president. But that's not reality. In reality -- just to stress this basic fact once again -- Joe Biden is not actually president."



200,000 people died

This also needs to be hit hard until November.

"Trump lied, and now 200,000 Americans have died. As Joe Biden points out, it didn't have to be this way. If Trump had shown the slightest hint of leadership, tens of thousands of people might be alive today who are not. Trump lied. 200,000 people died."



Climate change is real

Gavin Newsom has the right idea.

"Climate change is real and it is devastating. Look around California and the West Coast. Fires are raging like they've never raged before. An area the size of Connecticut has burnt up in California alone this year. Or look down to the Gulf Coast. We have had more hurricanes this year than there are letters in the alphabet -- they've actually run out of names and are now moving to 'Alpha' and 'Beta.' The debate is over. Climate change is real, and it is an enormous problem. And the only way we'll ever solve it in any way is to elect politicians that believe in science."



Up on the rooftops...

Seriously, someone needs to call Trump on this one.

"Donald Trump said in his recent town hall, and I quote:"

When [Winston] Churchill was on the top of a building, and he said everything's going to be good, everything's going to be -- be calm. And you have the Nazis dropping bombs all over London, he was very brave because he was at the top of a building. It was very well known that he was standing on buildings, and they were bombing. And he says everyone's going to be safe. I don't think that's being necessarily honest, and yet I think it's being a great leader. But he said, you're going to be safe. Be calm, don't panic. And you had bombers dropping bombs all over London. So I guess you could say that's not so honest, but it's still a great leader.

"One at a time, let's debunk this pack of lies. First, Winston Churchill never gave speeches or radio addresses from the top of buildings in London. He just didn't. Edward Murrow famously did do so, so perhaps Trump got confused. Churchill did occasionally watch the Blitz from a rooftop, but this was not well-known to the British at the time. Churchill most certainly did not say 'everyone's going to be safe,' instead he warned the public about the dangers and hardship that was ahead. Churchill did not lie to the British people about what they faced. He did withhold some military details in a time of war, but while he was doing so he was also telling the unvarnished overall truth to the public, instead of lying or 'cheerleading' or whatever Trump wants to call what he did at the start of the pandemic that has now taken over 200,000 American lives. Trump may think everyone else lies as much as he does, but in the case of Winston Churchill, this is just not true. Trump is lying, not Churchill."



Bill Barr cuts loose

Hoo boy.

"Attorney General William Barr once again showed what an out-of-control Justice Department looks like. He defended his twisting of the department's mission into attacking Donald Trump's enemies while helping his friends, and he declared that coronavirus precautions were the equivalent of slavery. With apologies to King Louis XIV, Barr seems to think his motto is: 'La loi, c'est moi.' Or, to update the thought a bit, he is like Judge Dredd declaring: 'I am the law.' This should truly frighten any American who truly does believe in the concepts of law and order and justice for all."



Herd mentality

This one is just too, too easy.

"Donald Trump has been trying to make the case that Joe Biden has mental problems, but he just keeps proving over and over again that he is the one with a few screws loose. While trying to remember the term 'herd immunity' -- a theory that everyone should just get sick with COVID-19, no matter how many millions of people die as a result -- all Trump could come up with was 'herd mentality.' No, Mister President, 'herd mentality' is when a whole bunch of bovine types all blindly follow a leader even if the leader runs them all off a cliff. You know -- kind of like your rallies."




Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com

[2naSalit]

1. K&R