We’ve all been reminded or even admonished not to let the outrages of the Trump administration become normalized but we need to face up to the fact that things like the following are happening so routinely that they’re really not remarkable.
BREAKING: Pres. Trump rejects independent study that reports an estimated 2,975 people died in Puerto Rico in 5 months after Hurricane Maria; provides no evidence to discount the study; declares, without evidence, that the higher death toll is political ploy to make him look bad.
— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 13, 2018
Ho hum. The president just denied a mass casualty event equivalent to 9/11 in its loss of life. What else happened today, honey?
Oh, you say that Donald Trump has now told more than five thousand demonstrable lies? You say that White House strategists have “largely stopped even trying to get Trump to stick to an economic message that focuses on facts and avoids wild exaggeration”? You say that Trump’s lawyer quit because the president is such “a fucking liar” that he’s essentially “disabled”?
Well, he did win the Electoral College so I guess we just gotta roll with this. Anything good on Netflix?
I mean, who wants to dwell on this?
President Trump tweeted that he didn’t believe that roughly 3,000 people died in Puerto Rico as a result of Hurricane Maria.
Said Trump: “3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000.”
He added that it was “done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!”
There’s a Thursday Night Football game on tonight. It’s got to be healthier to watch that than to spend three hours watching people hyperventilate on MSNBC, right?
The bottom line is that we need to fix this problem and it cannot wait until 2020. I can’t take anyone seriously who argues otherwise. And, yes, it starts with winning these damn midterm elections by an overwhelming margin.
Well hopefully he just threw a monkey wrench in Florida
https:/talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/scott-desantis-deny-trump-claim-democrats-inflated-maria-death-toll
And for icing on the cake
https:
/www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/sen-dianne-feinstein-refers-letter-about-supreme-court-nomin
ee-kavanaugh-to-federal-authorities/ar-BBNil7g?ocid=spartanntp
Unfortunately not shocking that Feinstein is keeping the letter from other Democrats on the committee. Pathetic, sad, frustrating, infuriating but not at all shocking.
Any action that could move any needle, make waves, cause change, block reprehensible actions, or advance a progressive agenda must me suppressed, frowned upon, papered over, hushed, avoided.
Like, remember when the Democrats got the House under Bush and Pelosi immediately announced that impeachment was “off the table”?
https:/nypost.com/2018/09/13/secret-letter-may-accuse-brett-kavanaugh-of-sexual-misconduct
So now after gigantic tax cuts creating huge deficits Pelosi wants to revert to paygo. Next she will want cuts to balance the budget. Let’s start with Obamacare. Grandma really doesn’t need that chemo. Wtf kind of people are leading us? I admit it. I really really like AOC. She wants to help working people. Thanks Dems for trying to help her along. Eh?
No, it means she gets to roll back some of the Trump tax cuts with every expenditure.
Not following?
If you are saying she will increase taxes with every expenditure, I am not sure whether I should say lots of luck or that is merely ignorant. She has no idea how much she would have to raise taxes and do you think the republicans are simply going to roll over and reverse the tax cuts they just passed? It may not go over well with some progressives who have programs they want passed and just like Trump why should they worry about taxes? There is only a need to address the deficit if and when there is a serious inflation. It is past times that democrats were economically ignorant and foolish, like don’t vote for those guys they will just increase your taxes, just ask Nancy.
. . . It’s obviously the more responsible way to govern, and restoring fair taxation is obviously good policy on the merits.
There are some equally obvious obstacles to success, though, even in the unlikely event of Dems gaining majorities in both Houses in November. Or the even more unlikely event of that + successful impeachment (think “president Pence”). Or the even more unlikely event that Mueller has the goods on Pence, too, and he’s gone on top of all the rest.
And you have to wonder, exactly who do they (still) think they’ll win over with that?
My God, will these people ever change? And don’t be surprised if they take the House in November they take a similar approach.
What??!!??
He’s essentially claiming these to be fake deaths. How very sad that he’s alleging this and that some folks will take this as the truth.
No, he is claiming that these were fake people.
. . . “fake” attributions of these “excess” deaths to Maria.
This attempted cover-up has a very close, fairly recent, sadly successful-to-a-substantial-degree [thx, media!] parallel: the attempt to dismiss the best scientific estimates (using hitherto widely accepted epidemiological survey methodology) of “excess deaths” attributable to the War Crime of invading Iraq under false pretenses as “exaggerations” — a million +/- several hundred thousand (i.e., very wide estimation interval due to large uncertainties inherent in the methodology).
Which, coming from Banana Republicans, is as unsurprising as it is consistent: Reality’s inconvenient? Easy-peasy, it’s “Fake Science”!
. . . (I just did; requires internet connection, which you have if you’re reading this, and <1 minute):
Booman’s right that
. . . and indeed we need to be all-hands-on-deck working towards that in any and every way within our means.
But it won’t be enough. It’s the necessary tourniquet to stop the bleeding-to-death that we’re currently experiencing, but it won’t reverse the systemic root causes that made the current crisis possible.
Nor will taking the Pledge to Amend voter pledge (link above) be enough. (There a lots of additional ways to get involved to whatever degree is possible for you in the Move to Amend campaign available from that link. E.g., there’s a separate Candidate Pledge, which you could take on getting candidates in state/local races to sign. Or advocate for your City Council/County Commission/state legislature to pass a resolution supporting the We the People Amendment. Etc.)
The two things are complementary tracks, both essential to countering the current existential threat to whatever’s left of our “democracy”; one addressing the syptoms — the immediate, life-threatening emergency; the other addressing the root causes of it. Both are necessary, or we’re done.
Gotta be honest here. I’ve been out door knocking for the Governor’s race in Colorado for the past month or so, and people are just way out of touch with what’s going on. Unless folks watch Maddow they just never learn about the insanity of this administration. What’s more, people have become really immune to it. I have had too many people basically respond with “yeah, so?” There is no sense that anything matters. It’s all just a bad TV show to them, so they don’t watch. While it is true that some people are paying attention, and are appropriately upset, it is far from as widespread as it needs to be. Lots and lots of people literally don’t think any of it matters. They’ve checked out.
The thing is, I would love to get back in their face and tell them how much it does matter, but then I see something like Chuck Schumer fast-tracking Trump’s court nominees and I just want to cry. The national Democratic leadership seems, if possible, even more out of touch than these overworked and underpaid shlubs on the unfashionable southern edge of the Front Range.
Talking to people about politics, they have internalized how deeply they are being screwed but do not believe anyone can make a difference, or that anyone who could make a difference will do so. I would say that on average, people are actually more cynical about the Democratic Party than they are about the Republican Party. I think this is in part because of Obama’s abject failure to punish bankers in any fashion whatsoever after 2008, in part because the ACA has been at best a complicated, expensive mess, in part because of Mitch McConnel’s terribly effective obstruction (for which the only penalty in public perception redounds to the Democrats, even though this is almost entirely unexamined), and in part because no one on the left except Bernie and Liz Warren has given any voice to the frustration of regular people in this country, and people do not think of those voices as representative of the Democratic Party.
So many people are struggling to pay their basic bills, and have been for going on ten years now, and the Dems as a party proceed like the number one issues in the country are people’s 401Ks and a vague, mythical sense of decorum that literally no one outside the Beltway cares about. It’s deeply infuriating, because people out here in flyover country see right through that, and know that they are not a priority at all. They’re not ignorant – they know the Republicans play hardball and they see the Dems just sit there and take it. And what am I supposed to say? I have a hard time telling them otherwise. I have no evidence. Nothing to point to in contradiction.
To be clear, I am a life-long Democrat, and passionate about politics, but even I struggle daily to find a path to believing that anyone is going to be able to make a difference. This is 100% a worse situation than the Bush years (check my account, I’ve been posting here since then). Those days we were motivated, people were freaked out and pissed off. Today, either because of fatigue or disillusionment, far too many have stopped caring. Those of us who do, do so in desperation and with little sense of hope. It’s a bad scene.
Everything you’ve said about the problems with the democrats I’ve been saying and especially since leading into the 2016 election, only to be shouted down by calcified party loyalists and bought off Clintonites who insist this is the only way democrats can win, even as they consistently fail this way. Its absolutely maddening. So what you experience canvassing doesn’t surprise me.
McConnell essentially invalidated the final year of Obama’s presidency, denying him a supreme court pick. He did this without precedent, and yet here’s Schumer fast tracking Trump judges? WTF! As for Kavanaugh, dems should have had the balls to just get the hell up and walk out in unison.
When are the democrats going to get that allowing the GOP to walk all over them as they meekly insist on “following processes” and “reaching across the aisle” may curry favor with certain donors but doesn’t instill confidence in voters who are looking for leaders to push back to change the status quo that has them going steadily backwards in their lives? That’s what “change” was supposed to be about, but instead we got all hope, little change. When “they go low” instead of going high, why not try going hard for a change?? And no, this doesn’t mean “we got to be like them,” it just means show some damned passion for a change, stand up and fight!
Republicans have been political junkyard dogs while dems run around like mute toy poodles, thinking, if we be nice, be silent, people will vote for us. Dems will win the House in November leading from behind because people don’t like Trump, and don’t like republicans. My biggest fear is they gain the House, go all don’t look back, look forward, reach across the aisle, Kumbayaa show no leadership and then get killed again in 2020 as voters don’t see any leadership still coming out of the party/
Democrats need to see this from a marketing perspective. People aren’t going to buy the best product unless you give them a reason to.
Democrats are not going to be able to “make nice” with Trump because he’s going to have a massive freak out and will spend the last 2 years of his administration blaming them for everything he screws up.
Trump will be defending himself from impeachment charges and Kavanaugh will be repealing Roe v. Wade. The blowback from that will be so intense as to drown everything else.
What do you think the political effect will be when in 28 states abortion is suddenly illegal? Because that is what is going to happen and it will all happen before 2020. The GOP is going to fast-track a frontal challenge to Roe v. Wade once Kavanaugh is on the Court and they have the votes. It’s going to be total and complete warfare for women’s rights, and economic issues will take a backseat for years to come.
2020 is going to be a much worse beat-down of Republicans than 2018. Reproductive rights are not a luxury for women, but an absolute economic necessity.
The response of the Democrats has to be to propose a new Equal Rights amendment, and to pass single-payer health care including women’s rights to abortion services and family planning – all paid for with Federal Tax dollars.
That’s what we’re going to be fighting about over the next 2 years, and we’re going to win.
McConnell could have fast tracked the judges anyway. Reid did it in 2014 – that was the point of busting the filibuster. What Schumer effectively did was get 6 consensus judges acceptable to both Obama and Trump confirmed (instead of more Federalist nuts) in return for the one week of Senate time McConnell would have needed to fast-track them. How is that a bad deal?
How can you fast track when you need unanimous consent to do so?
By “fast tracking” I was referring to bunching a number of nominations together but not bypassing the cloture ripening period. That doesn’t require unanimous consent. Although Schumer did provide unanimous consent to advance the judges they are still occupying a week of Senate time so it’s essentially the same effect that McConnell could have had by demanding a vote and passing it 51-49.
. . . does not comport very well with how this was portrayed in the Vox article Steggles provided downthread, however (hed:
Schumer’s deal to fast-track Trump judges makes progressive activists furious; subhed: “It is hard to think of a more pathetic surrender heading into the Kavanaugh hearings.”
It is completely plausible to me that Vox’s reporting is misleading. It’s also completely plausible that the quoted “progressive activist” just doesn’t get the nuance you describe above (I didn’t re-read it, but I don’t recall the bit about these “consensus” appointments being acceptable to Obama in the Vox article.)
This example encapsulates a very real and huge problem (assuming your take is accurate): a minute proportion of the electorate understands the arcana of Senate procedure well enough to grasp the nuance you describe, and good luck getting it from the Worse-Than-Useless Corporate Media. We do know that we want Dems opposing Banana Republican court-packing by every available means. So when we see/hear “Schumer’s deal to fast-track Trump judges”, we see red. Appropriately so, if that’s an accurate summary. You suggest it isn’t, that the Reality is more complex, nuanced, not so bad as that makes it sound, perhaps not even bad at all. Again, I hope you’re right. I don’t claim to know (would be happy to see booman weigh in on it, though!).
What I do know is that the “optics” of
. . . are utterly horrendous.
. . . court nominees . . . “
Alas, I’d be unsurprised to see this confirmed. Still, I’d like to assess the evidence of it for myself. Sorry, just the way I am.
Got link?
https://www.vox.com/2018/8/30/17797770/chuck-schumer-trump-judicial-nominees
To be clear: the people you speak to see no urgency to the need to remove Trump from office?
Chimneyswift…
Thank you.
I recently wrote a number of posts on this site about observing this same phenomenon. I saw it from another viewpoint…a NYC-based urban traveler through rural-ish TrumpLand, essentially. (eastern PA, western NJ, central NY)
I am not in the least surprised that others are seeing it elsewhere.
The constant “They said!!! No, we said” bullshit palaver in the clickbait media has had the opposite effect than the one (supposedly) desired. I say “supposedly” because I am no longer sure that this numbing effect on the body politic is not precisely the real aim of the corporate-owned, Deep State-controlled media.
I personally no longer believe anything other than what I see, hear and feel live.
Up close and personal.
This keeps the inner fire bright and burning.
Bet on it.
The U.S. media in general?
A palliative disguised as a stimulant.
So it goes.
Fight on.
Please.
We’re all we’ve got left.
Thanks again…
AG
“…it starts with winning these damn midterm elections by an overwhelming margin.”
No, it doesn’t. It starts, necessarily, with something far outside the terms of reference of the 1787 Constitution. Nothing defined in that Constitution meets the situation.
This isn’t France in 1958 with Charles de Gaulle demanding a referendum on a new constitution in exchange for agreeing to take on the unenviable task of ending the Algerian war. Sure, the US Constitution contains verbiage about holding a constitutional convention to amend the constitution, but in 230 years that has never been done.
. . . Though it may (as you kinda hint?) end at the other “solution” implied by the Founders in our other founding document (justifying their own actions at the time):
Though in my opinion, if it gets to the point that that’s the last standing available solution, it’s already too late.
See also.
You are quite right, it is already too late. Except that something must happen; but it cannot be anything that we can imagine, or anything that has a historical parallel.
. . . just sophistry, or some combination, but it doesn’t work:
Seems inescapable that if we can’t imagine it, then we cannot be causative agents of it. We can only sit back and observe, completely passive.
Could even be true! But if so, there’s no point in trying or doing anything. May as well just sit back and watch. Not buying that.
Again, you are spot on. The American people surrendered agency when they failed to set upon the people running the Reagan campaign in 1979 and tear them flesh from bone. Once agency has been forfeited, it cannot be regained.
. . . to write and post anything here?
Hard to see any point to it, beyond quashing any motivation of anyone to do, or even try, anything.
Sounds like nihilism from here. Which might indeed prove — with the heat-death of the universe, if not before — to have been the “correct” philosophy all along.
Still not buyin’ it. (“What about Friday night?”)
Sometimes – sometimes when you’ve listened to the latest lies even from seemingly smart people, you begin to wonder how you got here and what, if anything, can be done to change the course. I am coming to believe that the only way things change is during a catastrophe like the great depression or whatever that was in 2008 or the world wars. And then it appears the change is fleeting. Ignorance and greed abounds.
I agree, Booman. The Crazy is at the level of Capt. Queeg and the Strawberries in terms of detachment from reality, but here we are talking about the President of the United States flat-out denying a carefully and professionally researched hurricane death toll, while blaming his opponents, without a scintilla of evidence to back up his claim. And asserting that he didn’t fuck up royally in neglecting the disaster to begin with, but instead did a “great job.” Plus, the “billions” that he allegedly raised to rebuild PR is pulled straight out of his ass. It’s a damnable lie. You might as well say I personally donated a trillion dollars to PR relief.
He isn’t just fucking nuts, he’s absolutely, totally, pathologically deranged, a madman as insane as the Mad Hatter.
I only hope he takes the entire, rotted corpse of the GOP down with him. GOD DAMN THEM for letting this dangerous farce go on. This debased political entity no longer deserves any role in Government. NONE.
Entirely agreeing with you, nevertheless what you say requires clarification.
When you refer to “the GOP”, I take this as a metonymy for the adherents and sympathizers of the Party, as well as the Party organizational structure.
I also take your “no longer deserves” argument to be an argument from ethics/morals, rather than merely from majoritarianism.
Well, I think the GOP has abandoned even “majoritarianism” as a governing precept. I feel it’s mutated into a fascist party one step below the NADAP, i.e. no Brown Shirts, though Charlottesville offers a preview what that would look like in the USA.
Its appeal to its “base” is pure blood and soil racism, with a heavy dose of religious fanaticism. At the same time it resorts to every illegal trick in the book to suppress non-white votes. Consider the NC legislature, for example.
Meanwhile, the real action occurrs elsewhere. The 1% is in a firm alliance with GOP politicians to subvert one-man one-vote through money. Time and again we see that corporations and extremist billionaires are far more important than individuals to the GOP leadership. The goal is to return this country to the hellscape that was 1890s America, and to call elimination of the middle class and the creation of widespread impoverishment — through systematic dismantling of the New Deal — “American Exceptionalism.”
The dirtiest work has been done in Congress. The Merrick Garland Affair is a body blow to constitutional norms that shows the GOP doesn’t give a shit about the rule of law any more. Consider also the non-debates and secret drafting of the tax legislation. Who gives a damn about procedure and legislative process when you have the 51 votes to win in the Senate and a bare majority in the House? Consider also Devin Nunes. Need I say more about GOP notions of “Congressional oversight?”
If we win back the Senate the first order of business there should be a formal censure of McConnell. He has done as much damage to the sinews of our government as anyone. I absolutely loathe him. Nunes, if re-elected, should be treated with utter contempt by the Dems.
I could rant on and on. I haven’t even mentioned the unholy alliance with Russian oligarchs and their money, but you get the point. I consider the GOP to be a threat to American democracy itself.
From Marcy.
Interesting aside. I listened to NPR “nooz” last evening (rare event), and they blasted Trump in no uncertain terms for lying about the PR death tolls. They actually used the “L” word, Lie. They were very factual but brutal. First time I’ve heard any “nooz” org actually use the “L” word, but I don’t own a TV and avoid most radio “nooz” like the plague. So what do I know?
Trump and his Fan Cult blaming DemonCraps for this purportedly “Fake News” is to be expected.
Of course, one can point to the very early death toll, which was something around 64. And perhaps – maybe – those were the total deaths that occurred DURING the storm, itself.
However, all of these disasters have collateral deaths that occur afterwards, which are attibuted to the event/disaster because they most likely would NOT have occurred otherwise.
Given the situation in PR and how poorly the FEMA and other govt aid response was – especially given that they didn’t have full power for MONTHS – it’s no surprise that the death toll is much much higher.
The same thing happened with Katrina, due mainly – once again – to GOP handling of that disaster where far too many citizens were left to rot and die.
I am witnessing erudite Trump cultists attempting to la di dah this away with their usual holier than thou attitudes.
Hey: how about stopping focusing on yourselves and your Tin Pot Con Artist Nazi Leader for a change and focus on your fellow/sister citizens who actually suffered and died? Oh? Brown people? Who cares about them. Yeah, right. Got it.
Sadly the Crazy will continue… until at least 2020. That’s my take, at any rate.
. . . of All Examples of this phenomenon.
I just wanted to point out that a previous Harvard study in May had the toll higher at 4,645.
“A new Harvard study published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine estimates that 4,645 deaths can be linked to the hurricane and its immediate aftermath, making the storm far deadlier than previously thought.”
This means the study was subjected to peer review – note: Trump should not be considered a peer of Harvard researchers.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/harvard-study-estimates-thousands-died-in-puerto-rico-due-to
-hurricane-maria/2018/05/29/1a82503a-6070-11e8-a4a4-c070ef53f315_story.html