Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

It didn't take long for the Potemkin orders mango Mussolini Donald "COVID Donnie" Trump signed at his Bedminster golf club ($350,000 member fee) to be recognized for the bullshit they are:

President Trump’s new executive actions to disburse coronavirus relief without congressional approval sparked confusion and frustration on Sunday among businesses, Democrats and state officials, some of whom lamented the moves would not deliver the necessary relief to cash-strapped Americans.

Trump’s directives were aimed at offering new unemployment benefits, protecting renters from eviction and postponing the payment of a federal tax. But some economists and experts faulted these policies as incomplete or legally questionable — raising the prospect that the president’s attempt to boost the economy may have only a muted impact.  (our emphasis)

Here's another reality check:

Already largely absent from intense negotiations for a coronavirus stimulus package, President Trump fully distanced himself from the thorny legislative process by leaving Washington on Thursday for a weekend at his private golf resort in New Jersey.

After talks on Capitol Hill collapsed, Trump assembled some of his dues-paying club members to watch him complete the final step of what has become a familiar routine in his turbulent presidency: signing a legally dubious executive order after failing to reach a deal with Congress.

The president who pitched himself to voters as the consummate negotiator and ultimate dealmaker has repeatedly found his strategies flummoxed by the complexities and pressures of Washington lawmaking. In response, he has frequently relied on showmanship and pageantry to try to turn negotiating failures into victories. (our emphasis)

When even one of your Republican senators calls it "unconstitutional slop," you're losing. The sociopathic bonus of floating an end to the payroll tax, which doesn't help the unemployed but does rob Social Security and Medicare, is peak Trump Republicanism, though.

The Washington Post also had a front pager on "The lost days of summer: How Trump fell short in containing the virus."  One name pops up immediately (not coincidentally the same name refusing to negotiate with Democrats on the coronavirus relief bill):

As the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows is responsible for coordinating the vast executive branch, including its coronavirus response. But in closed-door meetings, he has revealed his skepticism of the two physicians guiding the anti-pandemic effort, Deborah Birx and Anthony S. Fauci, routinely questioning their expertise, according to senior administration officials and other people briefed on the internal discussions.

Meadows no longer holds a daily 8 a.m. meeting that includes health professionals to discuss the raging pandemic. Instead, aides said, he huddles in the mornings with a half-dozen politically oriented aides — and when the virus comes up, their focus is more on how to convince the public that President Trump has the crisis under control, rather than on methodically planning ways to contain it.

During coronavirus meetings, Meadows has repeatedly questioned the scientific consensus that wearing masks helps contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, officials said. He has regularly raised with Fauci and others a range of issues on which he thinks Fauci has been wrong, and he personally monitors the infectious-disease expert’s media appearances. When he catches Fauci sounding out of sync with Trump, the chief of staff admonishes the doctor to “stay on message,” officials said — and he has impressed upon Fauci, Birx and other public health professionals that they should not opine on restrictions or make policy in the media.  (our emphasis)

Meadows, you should know, brings his background expertise as a restaurant and real estate company owner in Highlands, NC, to the table. He also was memorably the leader of the House Freedom Freedumb Caucus, a collection of sociopaths and nihilists (think Jim "Gym" Jordan, Andy Biggs, and Steve King).  So, we're in the best hands.

Robert Draper has a long read about the history between Trump and the Intelligence Community, specifically how he's managed over time to subvert our intelligence gatherers into often- cowering functionaries fearful of reporting the truth to Putin's puppet.  The barbered report from the most recent investigation of Russian interference in the 2020 election is just the latest evidence:   

Just as this article was going to press — and shortly after I submitted a list of questions to the O.D.N.I. relating to its struggle to avoid becoming politically compromised — Evanina put out a new statement. In it, the O.D.N.I. at last acknowledged publicly that Russia “is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former Vice President Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia ‘establishment.’” In the same statement, however, Evanina also asserted for the first time that both China and Iran were hoping to defeat Trump. As with the preceding statement, the O.D.N.I. made no distinction between Russia’s sophisticated election-disrupting capabilities and the less insidious influence campaigns of the two supposedly anti-Trump countries. Like its predecessor, the statement seemed to be tortured with political calculation — an implicit declaration of anguish rather than of independence.

It called to mind something the former C.I.A. acting director Michael Morell said several months before, when we were discussing Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. “This is the only time in American history when we’ve been attacked by a foreign country and not come together as a nation,” Morell said. “In fact, it split us further apart. It was an inexpensive, relatively easy to carry out covert mission. It deepened our divisions. I’m absolutely convinced that those Russian intelligence officers who put together and managed the attack on our democracy in 2016 all received medals personally from Vladimir Putin.”  (our emphasis)

Now that you're finished this modest reading, please do yourself a favor and check out Infidel 753's link round- up for a comprehensive array of links to topics from around the Internet.  He's done all the work;  all you need to do is browse.

Trump's Plan To Defund Medicare And Social Security

Hey seniors (and future seniors)!  Moron vector Donald "COVID Donnie" Trump just said the quiet part loud again:

Another document signed by Trump on Saturday attempts to defer payroll tax payments from September through December for people who earn less than $100,000. The impact of this measure could depend on whether companies decide to comply, as they could be responsible for withdrawing large amounts of money from their employees’ paychecks in a few months when the taxes are due.

The president said that if he wins reelection, he would seek to extend the deferral and somehow “terminate” the taxes that are owed. He also dared presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden to try to recoup those tax dollars if elected in November. The payroll tax funds Social Security and Medicare benefits, and it’s unclear where those programs will get funding if the taxes are deferred.  (our emphasis)

But the other "bills"  executive orders  bullshit he signed at his $350,000 membership fee golf club have the mark of a sociopathic moron as well:

[T]here were instant questions about whether Trump’s actions were as ironclad as he made them out to be. A leading national expert on unemployment benefits said one of the actions would not increase federal unemployment benefits at all. Instead, the expert said it would instead create a new program that could take “months” to set up. And Trump’s directive to halt evictions primarily calls for federal agencies to “consider” if they should be stopped.

Trump also mischaracterized the legal stature of the measures, referring to them as “bills.” Congress writes and votes on bills, not the White House. The documents Trump signed on Saturday were a combination of memorandums and an executive order. [snip]

One of the measures Trump signed on Saturday aims to provide $400 in weekly unemployment aid for millions of Americans. Trump said 25 percent of this money would be paid by states, many of which are already dealing with major budget shortfalls. The federal contribution would be redirected from disaster relief money at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Those funds are not likely to last more than two months, and Trump would not say when the benefits would kick in. [snip]

Two of the other executive actions are related to eviction protections and student loan relief. The plan related to housing only makes suggestions to federal agencies but does not halt evictions nationally. The measure on student loans aims to extend the relief granted by Congress in March through the end of the year.  (our emphasis)

If all this sounds like the flim flam associated with his border wall, Trump steaks, Trump University, Trump casinos, etc., etc., you, too, are onto something.  Those bullshit signings were a cover to allow him to pretend he was taking action and to take the heat off him for a few news cycles until the facts eventually caught up.  Then it'll be on to something else.

But the biggest story here remains his intention to starve Social Security and Medicare to death should there be enough low- information voters out there believing in this malignant con man to give him a lifetime hold on the presidency.  We need to make sure he doesn't get away with it.

Monday Reading - "Parasitic Presidency"

The New York Times' Charles Blow has a hard- hitting op/ ed on the shitgibbon (as usual, the entire piece is worth a read) and concludes:

This is a 70-year-old man who has lived his entire life as the vile, dishonest, incurious creature who got elected. That election validated his impulses rather than served as a curb on them. 

Trump will continue to debase and devalue the presidency with his lies. Trump will continue to follow Bannon’s philosophy of internal deconstruction of our government, its principles and its institutions. And Trump will continue to leech as much personal financial advantage as he can from the flesh of the American public. 

That’s who Trump is. America elected a parasite.

In his op/ ed, Blow cites the number of Executive Orders signed by the shitgibbon (16 in 45 days) having a broad impact on the lives of Americans. The use of these orders to further the "deconstruction of the administrative state" (as advisor Steve "Loose Cannon" Bannon has put it) have impacted environmental quality, gun laws, financial controls, Obamacare and immigration/ border "security" among other areas.  But it looks like these nihilists are far from through:

On @POTUS's schedule tomorrow:

THE PRESIDENT signs an Executive Order entitled “Comprehensive Plan for Reorganizing the Executive Branch”

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) March 13, 2017

If that doesn't send a chill down your spine, you're not paying attention.

Trump Pushing Agenda Via Executive Orders

Alternative fact: Now that *tyrant Barack Obama* and his history of *abusing executive powers* is gone, Republicans are in an uproar about Cheeto Benito's abuse of the same executive powers .

Hur hur.

Well, the neo- fascist shitgibbon Donald "Rump" Trump is well on his way to proving to be a change chaos agent in the White House, and (to the surprise and eventual affliction of many of his benighted voters) doing what he said he would do.

First, there was his sticking it to homeowners with FHA mortgages. Then, in short succession,

Affordable Care Act

President Trump’s executive order instructing federal agencies to grant relief to constituencies affected by the Affordable Care Act has begun to reverberate throughout the nation’s health-care system, injecting further uncertainty into an already unsettled insurance landscape. 

The political signal of the order, which Trump signed just hours after being sworn into office, was clear: Even before the Republican-led Congress acts to repeal the 2010 law, the new administration will move swiftly to unwind as many elements as it can on its own — elements that have changed how 20 million Americans get health coverage and what benefits insurers must offer some of their customers. [snip] 

Robert Laszewski, president of the consulting firm Health Policy and Strategy Associates, called the executive order a “bomb” lobbed into the law’s “already shaky” insurance market. Given the time it will take Republicans to fashion a replacement, he expects that federal and state insurance exchanges will continue to operate at least through 2018.  

“Instead of sending a signal that there’s going to be an orderly transition, they’ve sent a signal that it’s going to be a disorderly transition,” said Laszewski, a longtime critic of the law, which is also known as Obamacare. “How does the Trump administration think this is not going to make the situation worse?” (our emphasis)

Answer to that last rhetorical question: "That's. Their. Plan."

Trade

President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order as early as Monday stating his intention to renegotiate the free trade agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico, a White House official told NBC News. 

Eliminating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which was crafted by former President Bill Clinton and enacted in 1994, was a frequent Trump campaign promise. [snip] 

U.S. manufacturing exports to Canada and Mexico, the United States' two largest export markets, increased 258 percent under the agreement, according to the website of outgoing U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, and the deal helped create a trade surplus in agriculture and manufactured goods. [snip] 

The Center for Automotive Research, a respected automotive research firm in Ann Arbor, Michigan, said in a statement this month that pulling out of NAFTA could cost auto jobs created since the end of the Great Recession. "Counter to the incoming Trump administration's goal of creating manufacturing jobs, the withdrawal from NAFTA or the implementation of punitive tariffs could result in the loss of 31,000 U.S. jobs," CAR said. [snip]

Trump is also expected to sign an executive order announcing his intention to withdraw from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade agreement among 11 Pacific Rim countries and never ratified by Congress, said the White House official. He will simultaneously move to begin individual trade negotiations with the countries in the TPP.  

Here's an assessment of the dangers of "renegotiating" NAFTA (shorter: aim, fire, shoot in foot).  China is certain to welcome the US pulling out of the emerging Asian rim trading bloc that would have given us far more benefits and leverage than a go- it- alone policy:

There are signs that China will take full advantage of the American shift to press its own trade vision. The Beijing-backed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, a rival pact that excludes Washington, is already getting new attention, including from leaders in Peru and Malaysia who signed TPP and now plan to focus on trade negotiations with China.

The damage these nihilists could do in short order across the board makes it all the more important that the popular resistance movement we saw on Saturday all over the country stays engaged in order to mitigate that damage wherever we can.  In any event, as our friend Infidel 753 says,

"If we keep fighting, we still might lose.  If we don't, we will definitely lose."