LET 'EM EAT CAKE!

A concerned Republican friend confides that he fears that Trump had a "Marie Antoinette moment when he instructed his administration to sue to invalidate the ACA,  To attempt to take away healthcare at the same time as the nation has fallen into recession while in the midst of a pandemic, is an invitation for a pitchfork reaction or equivalent.  It is tantamount to pumping gasoline on a fire to control it.

SYMBOLOIC OF THE ADMININISTRATION

Today's news that the Trump Administration will, once again, try to get the Supreme Court to invalidate Obamacare, is symbolic of an administration which would take money from the poor to provide for the rich, in the form of tax cuts, and which would again take from the poor, in a time of plague, the means for paying for health care.

OF TESTS AND INVESTIGATIONS

When it comes to the damage that tests can do, Trumps knows whereof what he speaks.  For Trump, tests are analogous to investigations.  and just as,  more tests reveal more disease of the flesh, more investigations reveal more corruption of the body politic.

AT THE END OF HIS ROPE?

As a kid, a whining "why do you hate me so much/' signified that I had just won an argument with a narcissist who had run out of any further justification to maintain his position. I hear the same whine in Trump's self-pitying query about his likeability before the  Supreme Court. Could it be that Trump is at the end of his rope?

THE GREAT KLUTZ

By trying to ban Bolton's book  Trump has again demonstrated his inept clumsiness in dealing with matters that he finds embarrassing, using a howitzer where a scalpel was indicated.  Not only has Trump assured that Bolton's book will be a best-seller but a world classic as well.  If not published in the U.S. it will be published elsewhere in the world and will become a resource in our Universities, yet.

NOTHING SPEAKS TO THE INNATE SUPERIORITY

Nothing speaks to the innate superiority of the capitalistic form of economy than the fact that communist China, six months into a pandemic, has not been able to supply us with sufficient Personal Protective Equipment for our first responders. 

OUR ARMED FORCES CONFRONT REALITY

A large number of the National Guard troops who Trump brought to Washington so he could "cut through them like butter" were black.  Few, if any, were proud to tell their relatives that they had participated in the particular duty and which now may be a factor in low enlistments.

Our  Armed Forces no longer rely on a civilian draft for manpower and probably would rather jettison Donald Trump rather than go back to a draft.

This may account for the fact that for the very first time in my life, I have heard the head of the Joint Chiefs issue a verbal apology for appearing with the Commander-in-Chief in a photo op.

HONORING OUR ADVERSARIES

My, so-called, " Conservative" friends are all in a dither because liberals want to destroy or dishonor their history and /or culture by renaming military camps and bases.  Perhaps they have a point.  After all, we have not honored Gen. Cornwallis of Revolutionary War fame, proving our lack of culture.  There is not a single monument to Benedict Arnold,  another American general who violated his oath to the Union,

Perhaps the greatest victim of our not honoring our adversaries could be our future culture, if we do not honor those 12 Russians who were indicted by Robert Mueller for interfering ith an election that may have brought us the very first monarch of the Trump Dynasty.  What a sacrilege if we failed to honor those martyrs!

'NO ONE HAS THE RIGHT TO BE WRONG"

Some 70 years ago, I audited some courses at a small Law School located in Lower Manhattan.  Although I have long forgotten his name, a phrase from one of the lectures of a professor has remained in my head all these years, "No one has the right to be wrong".

Perhaps our society today would have that professor shaking his head because we now live in a society in turmoil because certain groups, in that society, have been given the right to be wrong, with impunity.

ALMOST 5 YEARS LATER

In September of 2015, a year before Trump was elected President. I  posted an article to this blog which was not a prediction but rather an observation on a subject I know.  From time to time, I enjoy reprinting it.

http://pitcherinthewry.blogspot.com/2015/09/bleak-have-been-reigns.html

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GUEST POST FROM DR. THOMAS

Covid-19 & Police Violence

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Dr. Claudewell S. ThomasPsychiatrist

Claudewell S. Thomas, MD, MPH, DLFAPA, is an established psychiatrist who is currently retired. He received his medical degree in 1956 at SUNY Downstate College of Medicine and specializes in social psychiatry, public health psychiatry, and forensic psychiatry. Dr. Thomas was board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry... more

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Onward Christian soldiers marching as to war, with the Iron Cross, the Swastika, the KKK Cross, and the twisted cross of MOM (aka POTUS) going on before, as SARS-CoV-2 looks on and licks its chops. The image of the warrior cop has been brutally exploited. The civil servant whose primary responsibility is to serve and protect has disappeared under images of SWAT overlapping the SEAL team and calls for military equipment to take on bad guys who are portrayed as heavily armed by cartels. 

The week ago murder of George Floyd by a vicious Minneapolis cop named Dauvin with the assistance of four fellow cops, under cover of office filmed by a courageous outraged teenager. Without their cell phone coverage, the entire episode would have gone into the books as resisting arrest and death due to preexisting health problems. With the opening up of shops, personal services, restaurants, beaches, hiking trails, and public parks despite warnings and concern for prematureness, protesters poured into the streets mostly peaceful and wearing masks.

The confinement due to Covid-19 may have predisposed to the psychology of reinforcement of restriction on the part of most cops vs a "damn the torpedoes" psychology on the part of marchers anyway with the help of troublemakers tear gas, rubber bullets, military phalanx clearances appeared across the country. One church was set afire in Washington D.C., allowing Trump and his Attorney General to assert military leadership and martial law threat in defense of religious freedom. Thus standing in front of a fire-damaged St. John's church and holding a sullied prayer book our President declared his intent to use Federal military might over the objection of weak, mostly democrat governors, mayors and congressmen, and women to save America.

The pretense of weekly informational press conferences to keep Americans informed about Covid-19 has been given up again despite alleged reinstatement because of its popularity. For over three weeks, Dr. Fauci has had no meetings with Trump or Pence nor has Dr. Birx. The politicization of mask-wearing and self-isolation has weakened those measures and false advertising of hydroxychloroquine, bleach and bogus vaccines has endangered lives. The SARS-CoV-2 virus will reassert itself in the next few weeks, we have 2 years before assured vaccines are available. Civil unrest with fascistic oppression can only help the virus's cause.

DOMINATING THE CITIES

I hate to puncture the dreams of Trumpers about the domination of American cities by superior military force but an objective view of the size of the protest movements shows every sign of growing with time.  When National Guard units have to start targeting their own relatives, it might be risky, for Trump, to assume that the venture would have a happy ending.  Also, he might want to consult with his own Pentagon on the losses Hitler suffered  fighting in the bombed-out rubble of cities in the Soviet Union  where whole German armies were lost.

SHEDDING THE ENTERPRISE?

The frustration of Trump's boss, in the failure of tactics, so successful in the Motherland,  like sending mounted Cossacks against peaceful demonstrators, is having an adverse effect here in the U.S., has become palpable.  He is said to be considering withdrawing his support and washing his hands of the whole enterprise.