Eyeball_Kid
Eyeball_Kid's JournalTin Foil Hat Conspiracy Time.
Okay. I'm listening to Maddow and it's striking me how reluctant the Trump Administration is on managing and releasing PPE and ventilators to the people who need it. It's exclusively Trump's decision-making. So what do we know about Trump that might make this murderous policy have a rationale?
We know that Trump only thinks about money. Remember Eric saying this about his father shortly after the inauguration? The quote was actually made, if memory serves, during the 2016 campaign. Trump only thinks about the money. For Trump, reluctance disappears when money moves. And Trump got the money to move at the expense of deaths.
So where is money being exchanged? We now know that the White House has established a system of distribution that includes a small cadre of middlemen. The feds distribute to the middlemen who turn around and sell those PPEs to the states and hospitals for around TEN TIMES the price per unit.
What kind of arrangements did Trump make with these middlemen? Will we ever know? These are sweetheart deals. It's very easy money, and it's tons of money. Trump is allowing our tax dollars to bleed into the middlemen's pockets at the expense of dying CV-19 patients. If they weren't buddies with Trump, they are now. Some states get outbid for the PPEs. So what happens in those states? They get stiffed. We haven't seen it yet because it's still early, but states will have to decide who dies because Trump wants business as usual.
In the end, we have Trump killing off tens or even hundreds of thousands of sick people so that "business" can be conducted. And there's a sociopathic element to this kind of business, led by the sociopathic commander in chief.
News outlets haven't described the CV-19 outcomes in this way, but there have been plenty of hints. Politicians, medical experts, and ordinary people have angrily observed the "inefficiency" in getting PPEs to those who need it, and fault the Trump Administration for doing so, but stop short of speculating that it's purposeful. But now we know something about the flow of money. And that makes a difference.
So, does this make sense?
It doesn't make sense if we assume that Trump has morals, or that he has limits to his amoral behavior. Have we ever seen him exercise a moral decision? Why would he have limits? All through his life, he's had opportunities aplenty to show that he abandoned moral turpitude, or, to put it differently, acted in a principled way. Why would Trump change now? So it just makes sense that Trump is intentionally cutting off life saving equipment for both patients and health care workers for business purposes.
We WILL find out that these "arrangements" for the price gouging of PPEs is benefiting Trump in some way.
What's Trumpy's ultimate "reality distortion" tactic and is it being deployed right now?
We, as a nation, RELY on "impartial" polling organizations to give all of us accurate feedback on how we, as a nation, are viewing the issues of the day, and in our situation right now, how we believe Trump is handling the responsibilities of his office.
We trust that polling organizations collect raw data from populations and convert that data into something we can all understand as our true sentiments regarding Trump and his performances.
For Trump, who exists on a Potemkin-like set of images and stunts, the ultimate victory in framing the nation's sentiments HIS WAY is to hack into the computer systems that collect raw data BEFORE the data gets translated into something we can all understand.
As Brad Parscale is earning the tens of millions in salary that he collects as a major player in Trump's propaganda machine, his ultimate victory would be to have control over the raw data that is stored and manipulated by the polling organizations' computers. Having control over the raw polling data is the final victory that Trump's propaganda machine needs to convince the nation that Trump's approval rating is really increasing as his performance descends below the figurative gutter.
The GOP has already made major inroads into controlling the election data in many localities and regions, whether it's voter suppression or voting machines. It's only logical that Trump would make concerted efforts to control the data from beginning to end. It's the ultimate logical sequence in Trump's world to create his alternative reality. Trump can do whatever he wants to keep himself protected from criminal liability because, presumably, the national feedback loop, the opinion polls, are being manipulated from the front end to the back end by Trump.
I know that this sounds fantastical and can feed the "bummer" that many of us feel, but it's entirely within the Trumpian logic of authoritarianism gone haywire. We can all say, "Oh, that CAN'T happen!" But it's Trump we're dealing with, not a person who has any value system outside of his own ideational constructs.
Here's a thought for discussion: Is there a relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic
and GLOBAL WARMING?
In the recent past, some scientists have speculated that climate change/warming can have unpredictable consequences, such as the release of microbes into the general population that were previously contained by biodiversity.
With mass extinctions of life forms presently underway, we may be susceptible to this microbial release as one of many that will affect all of us.
Ignoring the decades-long warnings of fossil fuel emissions releases into the atmosphere may now be coming home to roost.
I know that we don't need more bad news, but it may be even more dangerous to NOT consider the global consequences of climate change.
The Cabinet and White House staff of the next president will be mostly women.
There are plenty of female Congressional stars to promote, and they will be promoted. The 2018 wave has great talent.
DeBlasio on MSNBC... Did he REALLY SAY THIS?
DeBlasio's likely mission on MSNBC was to quell a panic regarding the coronavirus. But he may have done worse.
DeBlasio was describing the INFECTION rate among demographics and said that young people, i.e. school students, were safe from the virus because their infection rate is substantially low. His remark should have been challenged, but IT WASN'T.
DeBlasio is ONLY looking at the infection rate among age groups, and that's outrageously irresponsible. DeBlasio does NOT mention transmissibility, which is of major importance, because even if children do not show symptoms, they CARRY THE VIRUS and can easily spread it among the population, thus infecting those in older age brackets who have higher infection and mortality rates.
What's wrong with DeBlasio??? Doesn't he understand basic information about the virus, or is he placating his constituents without regard to the inevitable spread of the disease by nonsymptomatic children?
Dimes to Donuts: the field general who pulled off...
... the Biden tsunami is Pelosi.
She had to have coordinated the endorsements. She had the strategy and the resources. And she has the gravitas.
Do you want a president who consistently lies to you about anything and everything?
Of course you don't.
But this is what faces us in November. And asking this question is what the Dems MUST do to focus attention on Trump's big vulnerability. No one ever knows what is a lie and what isn't whenever he speaks. He has no credibility. Most of us know this, but...
The Dems so far have failed in pressing this message onto the voters. They aren't making gross dishonesty part of the discussion. And I don't know why. (Bloomberg's "Lie" TV ad is the exception. And he's gaining ground in the primary races.)
ANY Dem candidate can begin asking this question. Do we want a dishonest president? Do we want a president who lies all the time? Do we want a president who doesn't account for his conduct?
ANY Dem candidate can promise honesty and integrity in office. Any candidate can point to a record of honesty and truthfulness, and contrast that with 16,000 lies. The sooner we hear this kind of talk from Dem candidates, the sooner that Trump's approval numbers will start to tumble. Honesty counts. People value honesty and integrity. Run on honesty and truthfulness.
The Forbidden Logic. No one wants to speak the unspeakable on the eve of the Trial.
What will be lost, legally and logically, by a Senate Acquittal?
What precedents will be set? What are the destructive actions that will be set in motion?
1. Separation of Powers, a Constitutional fundamental, will be dissolved. There will no longer be co-equal branches of government. The Senate will have approved of actions by Trump that express a "unitary executive", devoid of checks and balances. This will be a permanent precedent that the Senate will establish.
2. Congressional oversight, an Article 1 governmental underpinning, will be dissolved. The executive branch will no longer be accountable to Congress. It can ignore subpoenas, requests for records and documents, and requests for executive branch officials to appear before Congress.
3. The Article 1 clause regarding impeachment itself will be dissolved if the Senate votes to acquit. It is the Senate majority argument that the most egregious of violations of a president's oath of office (as stated in the Founders' arguments for impeachment) can be dismissed as not serious enough for removal from office. Thus, there will be NO threshold to cross that activates removal from office.
4. With all of the barriers to impeachment and removal dissolved, the president can feel unencumbered by Constitutional limitations on power. Just as Trump is currently in the hunt for foreign propaganda to influence the coming election, he'll continue to do so all the way to November, knowing that there is no institution or government entity that can stop him from cheating in any way he can to win the next election. That's because he'll know that he can NEVER be removed from office, and he can manipulate the campaign-- and the election data, in any way he sees fit.
5. With a nullified and powerless Constitution being shredded daily, the power vacuum will be filled by Trump, who will then have the option to turn this democratic republic into a dictatorship. All of the elements for a dictatorship will be in place AFTER THE ACQUITTAL.
6. Remember the Patriot Act? We'd BETTER remember the Patriot Act, because it gives Trump the power to manufacture a national security emergency in order to cancel the election. It will be within his power to do so. If you're thinking that the "manufacturing" part will make it invalid, think again. By the time Congress gets the news, it will already be too late. A dictator doesn't have to wait for approval. Besides, this Acquittal will already have rendered Congressional oversight to be impotent.
Are we following the Bouncing Ball yet?
For those who minimize the logical consequences of an Acquittal, I have a comment: the Trump Party is well aware of these logical consequences. They all support the unitary executive assertions that AG Barr loves. They all support a "permanent Republican majority" goal, set in motion by Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay in the 1980s, which includes gerrymandering, manipulating voting machines, changing voting data in servers, and radio/TV markets saturated with right wing propaganda. And now, Trump will be given explicit permission to pull in propaganda efforts by FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS, unhindered by Congress or any other entity.
Why is this NOT part of the general discussion regarding impeachment and removal? Where are the legal scholars/celebrities who are on every news program, warning the viewers and anyone else of the logical and legal consequences of an acquittal? The most consequential decision in US History is about to be made, and the entire Fourth Estate, AND the Democratic Party, are tragically silent.
For those who are reluctant to call out the real and historic crisis that is unfolding RIGHT NOW, fearing that it might panic the population: IT IS TIME TO PANIC. It will be too late after the Acquittal.
When the Senate acquits, the Constitution dies.
-- As a DU member, I have posted similar theses many times over the past several weeks, but I've generally used DU to post comments in reaction to a thread. Now, it's time for more readers to take a look.
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