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The Day After

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[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

I’m still furious after listening to and reading yesterday’s interview on NPR’s Fresh Air. I’ve already vented about it in the debate post so I’ll spare you a repeat.

But I’ll be candid and disclose that one of the reasons I was so goddamned upset was personal.

You see, yesterday morning when I couldn’t immediately post the SCOTUS decisions, I was caring for a family member who has dementia and Parkinson’s-like symptoms.

We spent the entire day together. I’m sure the people they ran into briefly while we went about errands thought she was fine. They made small purchases, ordered lunch, managed not to lose any personal belongings.

But they didn’t spend enough time with this person to know how damaged they are.

They have a stooped posture and shuffling gait which is common among Parkinson’s patients; they have difficulty with walking distances and have no grip strength. Forget about doing anything like riding a bike because they don’t have the strength or balance for it in spite of going to the gym to work out three days a week. They frequently need to hang onto to doorframes when there is a change in elevation entering a room.

They repeat themselves; I must have heard a variation of the same story four times inside a half hour, and on several occasions yesterday.

They can’t remember new material longer than fifteen minutes.

They have difficulty explaining concepts in which they were once expert.

They lie or confabulate to make up for gaps in their ability to retain new information or express concepts they once knew well.

They sundown, becoming anxious as the afternoon and evening progresses, losing orientation in time and location, becoming agitated when their unease exceeds their ability to hold themselves together. Rather like a toddler in need of a nap they act out.

After getting through dinner and handing this family member off to their regular caregivers, once out of my sight, they melted down.

This person can’t be left alone any longer; they have been struggling with their activities of daily living like remembering to take medications regularly and at the same time each day. Timers on medication bottles no longer work to this end.

There is no way this person could hold a full-time job let alone a part-time one. They can’t focus for long on any task.

This is stable behavior now after they’ve been put on medications for night-time seizures which affected their sleep and an Alzheimer’s medication which hasn’t improved their condition but leveled it off.

Reality Check

So while some folks panic about Joe Biden’s performance during the debate, I want to tell you to get a fucking clue and check in with reality. Biden was likely unwell and fatigued; imagine how well you’d perform under the same conditions, regardless of your age.

The former guy, however, no matter his performance last night…

This guy has had muscle coordination problems for years now, obvious during his term in office.

(source)

This guy has had problems walking over changes in elevation.

(see video and article at this link)

This guy has had difficulty walking distances, including the 700 yards G7 leaders walked in 2017.

(source)

This guy has experienced phonemic aphasia with increasing frequency.

Over the weekend, Donald delivered two speeches that left viewers shocked about his health. It wasn’t just the content of his speeches — the plethora of lies and the fascistic rhetoric — that made headlines: it was his apparent aphasia (or, to be technically accurate, phonemic paraphasias). That is the type of mental confusion that might leave one saying “Venzwhere” instead of “Venezuela” or “wall mongers” instead of “war mongers.”

“Putin has so little respect for Obama that he’s starting to throw around the nuclear word,” Donald said on Saturday night to a silent audience.

The silence likely stemmed from the fact that Obama hasn’t been president for over seven years.

(source: Mary L. Trump, Losing It)

This guy acts out violently when anxious and agitated.

~ ~ ~

I know which of the two candidates at last night’s debate is and has been suffering from cognitive and other neurological impairment, and whom I wouldn’t and couldn’t trust to tackle the nation’s most sensitive matters.

I also know I would not trust the candidate who during his first week in office ordered a ban on Muslims entering the U.S.

I would not trust the candidate who so carelessly and indifferently failed to respond appropriately in advance of and following a hurricane which eventually took thousands of American lives.

I would not trust the candidate who let his son-in-law deny federal COVID aid to blue states.

I would not trust the candidate who refuses to be pinned down on reproductive rights though his appointments to the Supreme Court have now resulted in the mounting loss of maternal and infant lives.

I would not trust the candidate who appointed so many persons who demonstrated bad faith, lousy judgment, and poor ethics during his term in office, and who removed or forced out so many good federal employees.

I cannot trust the candidate who refused to return presidential records and classified documents including national defense information, storing them improperly and even showing them off to unauthorized persons while in his possession.

Nor can I trust the future of this country, its democracy, and its very sovereignty to the candidate who has said he wants to be a dictator on Day One of his term in office, and who has been compromised by hostile foreign governments.

How you who are panicking after the debate have forgotten all this is beyond me. Has COVID sapped our nation’s collective ability to recall what happened during Trump’s term in office? Did you actually fall for the seasoned con man’s ability to gain your confidence once again because he managed to hold it together for a single carefully-managed appearance on stage?

Save your fucking panic and get to work because for some of us this is personal — our lives depend on it.

Three Things: When the Hangover Ends

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I debated about writing and publishing this but after last week Republicans are too relaxed and smug.

The not-a-trial of Donald J. Trump is off their backs and they can go back to whatever slacking off they were doing last year as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell continues to sit atop a stack of more than 400 bills the House passed, waiting for this prospective legislation to suffocate and die.

They have a couple handy whipping boys — well, a boy and a girl — in Mitt Romney and Nancy Pelosi. Morons like Kevin McCarthy can make videos on the taxpayers’ dime, poking fun at Pelosi while celebrating the failure to convict Trump.

To Congress’s GOP caucus: Get a fucking grip on yourselves. We can see your emperor has no clothes and your asses are showing, too.

~ 3 ~

Trump was a whiny wretch at the National Prayer Breakfast on Friday, complaining about how he was treated during the not-trial.

He was a jackass during a speech about impeachment during which he was equally obnoxious, admitting to obstructing justice.

Here’s the thing: in these public performances voters see a malignant narcissist with some form of undiagnosed neurological disorder — likely a form of progressive dementia. The Republicans KNOW he’s ill but they are too afraid of him calling them names to do anything about it.

You have to wonder how many elderly parents these jerks have who are not in a safe place while suffering from dementia because the way they’ve treated Trump reflects who they are elsewhere.

The public has also seen this:

They’ve also seen this:

And this, because Trump’s neurological deficit has become a joke fit for television:

The Senate Republicans couldn’t convict him for this behavior BUT his behavior the House found impeachable — abusing office and obstructing Congress — in no small part arose from his increasing instability on top of his lifelong lawlessness.

After more of his suspicious sniffing, Trump admitted to obstruction of justice on camera, then swore at 4:44 in the above video clip. He’s not glued in and in need of constant narcissistic supply — Republicans surely must be able to see this.

He’s not going to get better. Trump’s not going to remain stable. Prescribed medications clearly couldn’t do much to stop his dystonic movements during the one annual speech a substantive number of Americans watch.

GOP attacks on Speaker Pelosi don’t redirect our attention. We can see through their maliciousness to their insecurity.

Republicans must start dealing with this. They must start talking about it — clearly the public already has. There’s been a group of health professionals publishing warnings for more than two years.

The GOP will have a lot more to fear than one failing old man with neurological problems if they don’t face this issue.

They’re chickenshit, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) was too nice to say in his NYT op-ed:

“…One journalist remarked to me, ‘How in the world can these senators walk around here upright when they have no backbone?’

[…]

For the stay-in-office-at-all-cost representatives and senators, fear is the motivator. They are afraid that Mr. Trump might give them a nickname like “Low Energy Jeb” and “Lyin’ Ted,” or that he might tweet about their disloyalty. Or — worst of all — that he might come to their state to campaign against them in the Republican primary. They worry:

‘Will the hosts on Fox attack me?’

‘Will the mouthpieces on talk radio go after me?’

‘Will the Twitter trolls turn their followers against me?’ …”

Except for Romney they’re pussies, letting Trump grab them by their short hairs.

They need to do the math. If more than 20 Senate Republicans had made a pact to stick together — say, all the Class II senators up for re-election in 2020, the two retiring senators and Mitt Romney — Trump and his horde would have a damned tough time overcoming that bloc slinging a few bad names at them. The public would have had a hard time accepting as legitimate the malignant narcissist’s harangue and his hideous family’s backup refrain.

Fox News would have a hard time coming up with a cohesive narrative to bat down this number. The right-wing Twitterati would likewise find themselves over their tiny heads. And Limbaugh isn’t in any condition to fight Trump’s fight, Medal of Freedom Fries or no.

If the Republican senators can’t organize a bloc they deserve what will eventually come for them — the utter dissolution of their power and authority, having already yielded both to a sick old man.

And they’d better get their shit together if he has a major meltdown and becomes incapacitated by Election Day. Or is that what they’re hoping for so they don’t have to expend any effort bucking the malignant-narcissist-in-chief?

~ 2 ~

Revenge. Retaliation. Retribution. That’s what the chickenshit GOP senate unleashed when they rolled over and voted to acquit Trump.

We knew it was coming because Trump’s fucking minions have huge mouths, no couth, and less smarts.

Ueland’s remarks suggest actions taken by the White House against witnesses and against states and federal services’ users has been premeditated. Given the number of White House staff and federal employees required to perform some of these retaliatory efforts there may be an ongoing conspiracy.

The firing of Lt. Col. Alex Vindman was bad enough, a retaliatory firing of a federal employee who testified on request before the House Intelligence Committee. But firing his brother who didn’t testify looks incredibly personal and punitive.

While I have no pity for hotelier and million-dollar Trump donor Gordon Sondland, his firing, too, was retaliatory — a reaction to his requested testimony before the House.

Donors will surely think twice about political appointments if not donations as Sondland’s business had already suffered a downturn once it became more widely known he was both a Trump supporter and a hotelier.

Four Republican senators — that’s all — tried to save Sondland’s job. They did nothing for the Vindmans, which looks utterly spineless:

But this is what looks really, really bad:


GOP senators applauding and laughing at Trump’s vengeful firing of federal employees.

They’re literally scoffing at their own laws.

The only reason why Republican senators are getting away with enabling behavior is their co-equal but separate status. Their true bosses may wish to have a word with them come November.

~ 1 ~

Trump’s unlawful solicitation of assistance from a foreign national to aid his 2020 re-election campaign may already have born fruit given Joe Biden’s flagging results in opinion polls and in the Iowa caucus.

But is Trump now using federal resources to interfere in his opponents’ campaigns, holding unnecessary rallies in states before the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary?

Rally on Thursday 30-JAN-2020 in Des Moines, IA, the largest city in the state
Caucus on Monday 03-FEB-2020 across Iowa

Rally on Monday 10-FEB-2020 in Manchester, NH, the largest city in the state
Primary on Tuesday 11-FEB-2020 across New Hampshire.

Why would Trump hold a rally in these states when he has a 94% approval rating with his own political party?

Isn’t this a waste of taxpayers’ resources?

Is he really threatening to cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security to pay down a deficit he created while making worse by spending more taxpayer money on his unnecessary rallies?

The kicker, though, is how bad he looks doing this:

~ 0 ~

This is an open thread. Bet you have a few things you want to get off your chest about our descent into autoritarianism — you can do it in comments.