Link to full story below.

SNIP -

As a mental health professional, what do you see when you watch Trump's so-called briefings about the coronavirus pandemic?

Trump is both denying responsibility by saying things such as, "I take no responsibility. We've done everything right." But at the same time, Trump is also sabotaging the efforts to stop the coronavirus pandemic. This is a very important aspect of Trump's behavior. Trump is not just deflecting blame onto the governors, he is actively interfering with the governors' ability to do their job. Trump is not just incompetent. He is actively engaging in sabotage.

If Donald Trump is primarily obsessed with omnipotent destruction, how is that fueling his behavior?

Donald Trump has to create a field of negative corrupting energy around himself. For example, he pressures the scientific experts to bend the truth to his dreamworld during his press conferences. The scientists are basically Trump's hostages. The American people are hostages as well to Donald Trump. We are being abused by him. We know that Trump is lying. We know that he's doing nothing to help us. We feel helpless to do anything to stop him. It is causing collective mental despair. In this way Donald Trump is inducing feelings of rage and outrage — and he keeps doing it. It is not that all Americans are suckers or dupes, it is that Trump is a master at such cruel and manipulative behavior. Donald Trump knows exactly what he is doing to the physical and emotional health of the American people.
I envision Donald Trump as a megalomaniacal puppet master. The American people are his little marionettes. The American people must acknowledge that relationship to cut the strings.

ttps://www.salon.com/2020/04/25/psychologist-john-gartner-trump-is-a-sexual-sadist-who-is-actively-engaging-in-sabotage/?fbclid=IwAR09YvHnlrYQvNOlG9Derxap-ZG3vD4ctaRrLNhULR16KGPKdMInt3dup0s

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"The repeated warnings were conveyed in issues of the President’s Daily Brief, a sensitive report that is produced before dawn each day and designed to call the president’s attention to the most significant global developments and security threats.

For weeks, the PDB — as the report is known — traced the virus’s spread around the globe, made clear that China was suppressing information about the contagion’s transmissibility and lethal toll, and raised the prospect of dire political and economic consequences. "

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/presidents-intelligence-briefing-book-repeatedly-cited-virus-threat/ar-BB13hFnC?ocid=spartanntp

Obama would accept a Supreme Court nomination and be appointed to that body? And, if that happens, what are the chances of overturning Citizens United?
I need some hope to hang a hat on and I figure if I'm projecting my thoughts into the future I don't want them to be thoughts of trepidation. I want to focus on thoughts of positive change.

Thinking about corporations running our government and the world lead my mind to really dark spaces where the toll on human life through corporate greed, climate change, slave wages, lack of medical care, etc. will make this pandemic look like a cake walk.

I want to unleash my mind for an exploratory walk through a different world.
What do you think? Is there a chance? Because thinking about that feels pretty good.

The oath says the person will solemnly swear to:
Support and defend the Constitution of the United States
Protect the U.S. against all foreign and domestic enemies
Be faithful and allegiant to the U.S.
Take this oath freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion
Faithfully discharge the "duties of the office" of their job

It's not likely a private entity will require employees to take an oath such as this. In fact, a privatized Post Office will have no reason to support this oath at all. They'll be in it to make money for their shareholders just like any other corporation.
If tRump is discussing privatizing he's likely been conversing with entities eager to purchase and offer him whatever it takes to do so.

And because he accuses others of the exact things he's doing, beware when he says vote by mail is ripe for fraud. A privatized Post Office may be more likely to do tRump's bidding. His "deals" tend to work out for him but not so much for others.

Source: Washington Post

More than a dozen U.S. researchers, physicians and public health experts, many of them from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were working full time at the Geneva headquarters of the World Health Organization as the novel coronavirus emerged late last year and transmitted real-time information about its discovery and spread in China to the Trump administration, according to U.S. and international officials.

A number of CDC staff members are regularly detailed to work at the WHO in Geneva as part of a rotation that has operated for years. Senior Trump-appointed health officials also consulted regularly at the highest levels with the WHO as the crisis unfolded, the officials said.

he presence of so many U.S. officials undercuts President Trump’s assertion that the WHO’s failure to communicate the extent of the threat, born of a desire to protect China, is largely responsible for the rapid spread of the virus in the United States.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/americans-at-world-health-organization-transmitted-real-time-information-about-coronavirus-to-trump-administration/ar-BB12St5R?ocid=spartandhp

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He knew.

before Exxon Mobile starts laying off members of congress?

This is cruel.

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"After a third of U.S. renters couldn't make rent this month, the Treasury Department is pointing out opportunities for banks and debt collectors to steal Americans' relief checks out from under them," Jeremy Funk, spokesperson for consumer advocacy group Allied Progress, said in a statement responding to Kent's comments.

"It's the middle of a pandemic," said Funk. "This money should be going toward food, rent, and medicine—it's not the time to hand out favors to debt collection industry donors or pad some big bank's bottom line," said Funk. "Secretary Mnuchin needs to ensure that these $1,200 checks go straight into Americans pockets where they belong."

https://www.salon.com/2020/04/15/trumps-treasury-department-gives-banks-green-light-to-seize-individuals-1200-stimulus-checks_partner/?fbclid=IwAR0MQ962e0gFXDBJW-H1UjBaLF1VTNrPKsDxsc3xjTNEaOiKfzob0y-Ez_A

It's like getting a campaign flyer with the candidate's name delivered to your mailbox. But this one is special. You can cash it.

Source: Washington Post

Excerpt
A team of government officials — led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — has created a public health strategy to combat the coronavirus and reopen parts of the country.

CDC and FEMA officials have worked on the public health response for at least the past week, and the resulting document by the two agencies has been discussed at the White House including by members of the coronavirus task force, according to two administration officials speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

President Trump wants a final detailed plan on reopening the country ready within days so he can issue suggestions for some states to reopen May 1, officials said.

Within the White House, one senior administration official said, Trump has been so insistent on the reopening that some officials worry only a narrow window exists to provide information to change the president’s mind or to ensure that the effort to reopen does not significantly add to the country’s still rising number of infections and deaths. The president has not committed to following the guidelines delineated in the draft.

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Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/cdc-fema-have-created-a-plan-to-reopen-america-heres-what-it-says/ar-BB12DkUj?ocid=spartandhp

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Further detailed info contained within the Washington Post piece.

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More than 80 percent of the benefits of a tax change tucked into the coronavirus relief package Congress passed last month will go to those who earn more than $1 million annually, according to a report by a nonpartisan congressional body expected to be released Tuesday.

The provision, inserted into the legislation by Senate Republicans, temporarily suspends a limitation on how much owners of businesses formed as “pass-through” entities can deduct against their nonbusiness income, such as capital gains, to reduce their tax liability. The limitation was created as part of the 2017 Republican tax law to offset other tax cuts to firms in that legislation.
Suspending the limitation will cost taxpayers about $90 billion in 2020 alone, part of a set of tax changes that will add close to $170 billion to the national deficit over the next 10 years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), the nonpartisan congressional body.

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On a personal note: My husband and I just filed our tax returns. Everything's the same as last year. Everything. Yet we paid more tax this year. The idea of retired people on fixed incomes supplementing corporate profits and CEO pay does not make for warm fuzzy feelings. I'd rather pay extra tax dollars to feed hungry children, renew & replace out of date and vulnerable infrastructure, take care of our veterans, the list goes on and on.