Trumpland 2019: There Is No Bottom to How Low It Can Will Go
The President of the United States of American took a break on Tuesday from his 10 day golfing vacation, catching a helicopter to Western Pennsylvania to make what was billed as a speech on energy policy.
The fact that none of the three cable news networks or any CSPAN feed carried the speech, despite Congress being in recess tells us expectations for any news coming out of the event were low.
This assessment was accurate when it comes to policy pronouncements--the rationale for taxpayers paying for his transportation. The White House justified the trip by saying it was to be a speech on “America’s Energy Dominance and Manufacturing Revival.”
This appearance before an audience of Shell petrochemical workers paid to attend was of historic significance, though not for the reasons advertised.
Politico’s report on the speech included a dozen examples of Trump going “off script,” meandering through his delusions and grievances. Three snips...
On the supposed benefits of natural gas over renewable energy: “When the wind stops blowing, it doesn’t make any difference does it? Unlike those big windmills that destroy everybody’s property values, kill all the birds. One day the environmentalists are going to tell us what’s going on with that. And then all of a sudden it stops. The wind and the televisions go off. And your wives and husbands say: ‘Darling, I want to watch Donald Trump on television tonight. But the wind stopped blowing and I can’t watch. There’s no electricity in the house, darling.'”
On pundits suggesting he might not leave office willingly: ““Can you imagine if I got a fair press? I mean, we’re leading without it; can you imagine if these people treated me fairly? The election would be over. Have they ever called off an election before? Just said, 'Look just let’s go, go on four more years.' You want to really drive them crazy? Go to #ThirdTerm, #FourthTerm — you’ll drive them totally crazy.”
On his pledge to salvage manufacturing jobs: “You guys, I don’t know what the hell you’re going to do. You don’t want to make widgets, right? You don’t want to make — do you want to learn how to make a computer? A little tiny piece of stuff. ... You put it with those big, beautiful hands of yours like … you’re going to take these big hands, going to take this little tiny part. You’re going to go home, ‘Alice this is a tough job.’ Nah, you want to make steel, and you want to dig coal — that’s what you want to do!”
Trump also claimed credit for two actions taken by the Obama administration, namely construction of the fracking/plastic plant where he was speaking (approved in 2012) and the Veteran’s Choice Act (signed into law in 2014).
I won’t be the first one to say this, but you really have to wonder about the President’s mental health at times like this. And that concern is in addition to the misogyny, racism, and greed rampant throughout the administration.
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1161339166690631681?s=20
According to CNN, last week was a slow one for the President, at least when it comes to spinning falsehoods, attributing the drop (only 21 last week) to a decline in presidential statements following multiple mass shootings. The network counted 56 lies/distortions in the previous week.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1161667421544960001?s=20
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Meanwhile, the Trumpian agenda churned ahead in Washington.
Via Vox:
Tuesday morning, acting Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Ken Cuccinelli did an interview on National Public Radio and was asked by host Rachel Martin whether the values in Lazarus’s “The New Colossus” sonnet still represented American values — a question that’s pertinent in light of a new restrictive rule the administration introduced the day before that would make it more difficult for poorer immigrants to become US citizens.
“Would you also agree that Emma Lazarus’s words etched on the Statue of Liberty — ‘give me your tired, your poor’ — are also part of the American ethos?” Martin asked.
Cuccinelli acknowledged they are — but then suggested a major revision.
“Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge,” he said.
He doubled down on that sentiment later in the day during an appearance on CNN:
https://twitter.com/edbott/status/1161648550201061378?s=20
Legalizing job discrimination...In the run up to oral arguments before the Supreme Court on October 8, the Justice Department is demanding the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reverse an Obama-era stance claiming Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits employment discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. As was true with an earlier policy reversal that now threatens to overturn the Affordable Care Act, this move exposes the real intentions of the administration.
https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1161655208256184320?s=20
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Commemorative 'Trump for President' plastic straws...Looking ahead to the 2020 campaign, Hunter at Daily Kos has an excellent piece up about how the debate over the environment will play out.
We already have the outlines of how the 2020 campaign between Democrats and Republicans will shape up, and they are not likely to change. Democrats will push for attempts to save the U.S. climate, as numerous regions of the country already soar past the 2 degree Celsius warming mark, already changing weather patterns and threatening landscapes in the Northeastern states. This is happening as affected states scramble to block rollbacks of current fossil fuel restrictions from Trump's band of arsonists.
And while Democrats are presenting their plans, pushing for new government programs to turn America's slumping manufacturing sector into the world's top provider of new green technologies and threatening legal consequences for fossil fuel companies that have long attempted to block the public from learning the long-known environmental costs of their products, Republicans will sell Donald Trump-branded plastic drinking straws. They’ll also claim on television that Democrats will be "banning cows," and base entire campaigns on a sneering, trolling mockery of the notion that any true American should give a damn about what happens to states like New Jersey....
...This will be coupled with—in other words, paid for—by each of the fossil fuel companies currently in the climate crosshairs. It will be aggressive, it will be expensive, and above all it will be mean, through and through. Those that push for climate action—even as the effects become dramatic, in some states—will be declared to be conspirators, or in league with "globalists," or effeminate, or take-your-pick. The battle to save American landscapes from permanent and catastrophic change will be based not on policy or on science, but will be a nightly battle between your local weather report and a sneering Tucker Carlson.
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Does Trump’s rhetoric really “bring people together” as he claimed last week in response to questions about recent mass shootings?
ABC News is up with a report examining 36 criminal cases where Trump was invoked in direct connection with violent acts, threats of violence or allegations of assault.
In nine cases, perpetrators hailed Trump in the midst or immediate aftermath of physically attacking innocent victims. In another 10 cases, perpetrators cheered or defended Trump while taunting or threatening others. And in another 10 cases, Trump and his rhetoric were cited in court to explain a defendant's violent or threatening behavior.
Seven cases involved violent or threatening acts perpetrated in defiance of Trump, with many of them targeting Trump's allies in Congress. But the vast majority of the cases -- 29 of the 36 -- reflect someone echoing presidential rhetoric, not protesting it.
ABC News could not find a single criminal case filed in federal or state court where an act of violence or threat was made in the name of President Barack Obama or President George W. Bush.
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Lead image credit: Pixabay