August 12, 2020

By Abby Zimet

Common Dreams

The bunk and lies keep coming. Facing growing awareness of his mass negligent homicide - as of today, 163,000 deaths, over 5 million cases  and counting - Trump again played golf all weekend, this time in New Jersey, where he jetted in and then helicoptered the 14 miles to his Bedminster golf club; from one unhappy resident, "You can actually feel the moral (and) civility indicators in our state decline when he’s here. You hear his plane & immediately want to engage in unethical conduct." He took just enough time off from the links to hold a delusional lie-a-thon, from crowds greeting him - "People say they've never seen anything like it" - to Dems wanting to open the prisons to "our numbers looking good" on "the China virus," never mind horrified doctors calling nationwide surges "unstoppable." The highlight: Several executive orders, widely deemed "Constitutional slop" and "laughable - none of this is real" - that would both fail to serve those in need and pave the insidious way to killing off Social Security and Medicare, even as Repubs and Mitch stonewall the Dems' real-live, $3 billion Heroes Act, and propose making more F-35 fighter jets and forcing workers back to their jobs by cutting off their unemployment. Jeff Tiedrich: "What kind of shithole country allows its lunatic president to make up fake laws while goofing off at his tacky vermin-infested for-profit shithole golf resort?" The kind where, after signing his drivel with a flourish, he smirkingly hands out pens to his pasty, paying, polo-shirt wearing, unmasked millionaire golf buds and calls it governance.

Then, alas, came questions from the ever-pesky press. Because he's a pig, most pesky are women journalists, especially of color, who for years he's attacked and insulted: CBS' Weijia Jiang - "What a nasty question...Keep your voice down...Be nice" - CNN’s Abby Phillip - "What a stupid question " - CNN’s April Ryan - "A loser"- PBS' Yamiche Alcindor - "What a racist question." Perhaps most egregious is CBS' Paula Reid, who's white but uppity enough to have once kept asking what he did with the time he bought by (partly) banning China at the start of the pandemic. (Answer: nothing.) This weekend, the "disgraceful" Reid was at it again after Trump boasted he passed the Veterans Choice program allowing vets to be covered for care from doctors outside the VA system: "They've been trying to get that passed for decades and decades and no president's ever been able to do it." Except he didn't; Obama did in 2014, marking over 150 times he's told that lie. Reid: "Why do you keep saying that you passed Veterans Choice?...It was a false statement, sir." (Actually, a "lie.") Trump argued; Reid snuck in a great jab when asked if she knew what "obstruction" meant -  "Yes, you were investigated for that"; the playground bully flinched, snarled, and walked out, when challenged by another mere woman. And they keep coming. CBS' Margaret Brennan tried to pin down squirmy National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien, and CNN's Dana Bash queried a baffled Larry Kudlow on the supposed riches - $1,200? $800? $400? - from Trump's order. But at today's "briefing," a somnambulant Trump droned, rambled, shuffled, lied, with again barely a peep from our long-prostrate press. Please: We need you. Be like Reid et al. Or from one patriot: "Screw your access - do your job."

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