Donald Trump is a dumbass.  We all know that.  He’s also narcissistic, cruel, self obsessed, and utterly devoid of human emotion.  We’ve come to expect the worst in him through pure personal experience.  Now let’s look at Greg Abbott; he graduated from UT and Vanderbilt Law.  He served on the Texas Supreme Court and as Attorney General of Texas.  Greg Abbott is smart.  His problem is that he’s also a partisan hack.  He sued a tree trimming company after a tree fell on him after a storm, paralyzing him from the waist down resulting in an insurance settlement that pays him for life, though he can freely practice law.  After he got his, of course, he spent years trying to undo the very system that supported him when injured.  That makes him a hack, and a hypocrite.  But he’s worse than that.  As governor since 2015, he’s continued Rick Perry’s dismantling of Texas reputation for good education and a fair government.  He’s participated in the culture wars and even sicced the Texas State Guard on the US Army after goofy conspiracy theorists raised hell about how the military exercises are going to “take away their guns”.  It was stupid, and he knew better, but still pandered to screwballs.  He’s now continued that pandering all the way through Trump’s disastrous presidency, and now Texans are actually dying because of that pandering.

Against all common sense and medical experts, Abbott ordered the reopening of businesses and government agencies even though no criteria for reopening had been met.  Trump called for immediate reopening to save his reelection bid, and Abbott happily complied.  He even overruled safety precautions put in place in cities all over the state.  The result?  COVID-19 cases have overwhelmed the hospital systems; medical staff is either exhausted or sick themselves.  People are dying waiting for a hospital bed, or at home, terrified to come to a hospital. Yesterday, Texas hit a new record of over 11,000 new cases and 131 deaths, overwhelming the previous death record by over 100%.  Total deaths since the beginning of this disaster now total over 3,000.

This catastrophe is all on Abbott, period the end.  When he overruled adults like Sylvester Turner and Lina Hidalgo, he took the entire responsibility on himself.  The real tragedy?  Unlike Trump, Abbott is not a dumbass; he knows better.  He’s just a corrupt and cynical politician, and this year should spell the end of his political career and a place in polite society (if that even exists anymore).

Trump just explained to Sean Hannity about this tax returns.

“I’m under tax audit, I have been for a long period of time,” the president told Hannity. “Once I ran for politics that deal was like we didn’t make it. So I’m under a continuing audit, and anyone that did that or showed that before you have it finalized, but they treat, they treat me horribly, the IRS. It is a disgrace what has happened. We had a deal done, I guess it was signed even. Once I ran or once I won, somewhere back a long time ago everything was like let’s start all over again.”

Remember when he made a perfect score on the cognitive test and the doctors had never seen that before, insinuating that he has more cognitive than anyone else on the planet?

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Oh y’all, this is *almost* sad.

No details yet on what he did but I’m sure it involved deal-making of some sort.  Hey, it’s out.  Mari catches it in the comment section.

Also back into custody, Lindsey Graham.

President Donald Trump took a swing at Sen. Lindsey Graham on Thursday in the aftermath of two Supreme Court decisions involving his closely held financial records, lamenting that the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman and close Trump ally was not doing enough to target the president’s political foes.

Graham better start indicting Obama or Trump’s gonna tell Lindsey’s secret.  I’ve got a strange feeling that Lindsey’s not coming back next year, and not by choice.

Well, Trump is still strongly considering pardoning Roger Stone before he has to report to jail on the 14th – that’s next Tuesday.  Rumor has it that he’ll wait until Sunday night to do it and hope nobody notices.

Apparently his friends, yes, both of them, are advising him not to do it.

“Barr has told Trump not to do it, and if he does there will be a mutiny at DOJ,” said a source briefed on the internal debates. People close to Trump fear he won’t listen. “You can’t underestimate how hard it is to get information through to him,” a Republican close to the White House said. “When you talk to him, he just talks at you. He doesn’t like to read memos, so there’s not really a way to get through to him. Everyone agrees.”

So here we have a president who is totally disassociated from the world and makes decisions based on the voices in his head. Or the silence. You never know about these things.

My bet is that he’s going to do it and claim that Stone is a victim.  Stone will then begin yapping and make things even worse than they are now.

Hey, there’s one other tidbit in this article that amused me.  People are wondering if Jared is going to leave his White House Post (he’s the Undersecretary of Accomplishing Diddle Squat) and lead the campaign.

“If I go to the campaign, Trump might not let me back into the White House,” Kushner told people, according to a person briefed on the conversation. “As of now, he intends to remain in his current role,” an administration official said.

Remember when I said Trump has two friends?  Make that one, and if Stone goes to prison, zero.