Just like everything else Trump, information about his case of COVID-19 is wholly and completely uninformative, not to mention unsettling. Sean Conley, his physician (not a MD, but an Osteopath), is obviously on a very short leash being controlled completely by Trump and his henchman.  The timeline, true condition, vital signs, and prognosis for Trump are completely opaque.  The information is so inconsistent and poor that the possibilities for his condition range from he’s not sick and faking the whole thing to he’s already dead.

To confuse matters even more, the WH has released photos of Trump “working” and even posted a video of Trump doing a “single take” video talking about how great he’s feeling.  Yes, that’s all bullshit.  The photos, taken in two different rooms showing him supposedly working throughout the day are staged, and taken 10 minutes apart using the same binder, folders, and Trump’s signature fat sharpie he uses for autographs.  The Washington Post has just posted an expert analysis of the video, concluding that it is heavily edited with a tool called Fluid Morph which camouflages edits.  They even found one part of the video where he was starting to cough, but then doesn’t.  Also, you can see the background shifting through the various edits.  This is the technique used in so-called “deep fakes” where videos are altered to show events that didn’t actually happen.  Here’s the video:

It is key that Americans understand clearly the condition of their president, but that is simply not going to happen with Trump.  Falsehoods are genetically encoded in him, and he will lie when telling the truth is easier.  We will likely never know the true extent of Trump’s illness until after he leaves office.

Chris Christie spent 4 days prior to the debate with Hope Hicks who was infected prior to the debate with Biden.  He’s now tested positive.

Boom.

NBC News is reporting that Trump was not diagnosed with COVID-19 on Thursday night but on Wednesday morning.  KNOWING he was infected, Trump held rallies in Minnesota and New Jersey and was a walking super spreader.  More to come.

Oh, yeah.  It’s just perfect – Trump’s and McConnell’s rush to pack the court with anti-choice, anti-American, and religious ideologues to protect the 2020 election just backfired.  The rushed up and non-masked ceremony to announce Amy Coney Barrett as RBG’s replacement is becoming the most prominent US super-spreader event so far. With over 150 unprotected guests, Trump and Barrett flouted public health policy, recklessly exposing staff, press, Secret Service, and many others to the deadly Coronavirus.  The result?  Trump has contracted the virus and is at Walter Reed Hospital as doctors use experimental treatments on him to counter his inherent risks of old, fat, terrible condition, and just fucking stupid.  Others infected are Melania, Trump Best Girl Hope Hicks, Utah Senator Mike Lee, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Rev. John Jenkins (president of Notre Dame), Thom Tillis, NC Senator, three unnamed reporters, Kellyanne Conway, and God knows who else.  The stupidity of Trump and his minions was on public display and now many are paying the price.  Many more are at risk.

It seems that RBG just won her first case from the Great Beyond, wherever that is.  Trump should have paid attention to her request.

Karma is a bitch.

Trump’s tsunami of bullshit dragged on for over an hour last night, illegally staged at the White House Coronafest of loyalists and GOP congressional invertebrates.  During his narcissistic tirade Trump repeated one of his favorite whoppers – that he created the “greatest economy in history” and that last month the US added 9 million jobs, “the most ever added in history”.  The tiny detail he omitted is that we’re still down 12 million jobs lost since, asleep at the switch, he allowed COVID-19 to paralyze the economy, costing trillions of dollars, millions of lost jobs, and wiping out the savings of millions of Americans.

Trump is the biggest bullshitter in the history of the presidency.  Hell, he’s the Mozart of Bullshit.  I’m pretty sick of it and how his sycophants swallow said bullshit as if it’s apple pie with Blue Bell. Let’s hit these lies head on.  The following charts are 25 years of key economic measures.  First, GDP growth:

Average GDP growth tends to run 2% to 3% per year.  That continued during the entire Trump infestation, with no material changes up until this year. There are two notable aberrations in the rate, one the Great Recession in 2008 at the end of the GWB administration, and, of course, this year where Trump’s incompetence has driven the economy into the ditch and will probably finish down 14%, the worst economic performance in modern US history.  This is what happens when you have a lunatic at the helm of the US government.

Second, wage and salary growth:

Wages and salaries follow a similar pattern general rising and falling with the economy.  The same aberrations are apparent here, with no abnormally high growth rate during the first 3 years of the Trump infestation.

Third, unemployment rate:

Unemployment, up until Trump’s massive 2020 failure, continued to follow the same trajectory established during the Obama administration as the economy recovered from the Great Recession.  You can see the explosion in unemployment rate this year.

Lastly, the S&P 500 Index:

There is one measure where Trump is correct – the stock market.  With the Fed pumping in trillions of dollars into the economy by buying US debt, it is propping up stocks.  Combine that with Trump’s massive tax cut in 2017, and there is clearly a winning class in this economy, and we know which one that is.

So, I’m here to call Trump’s bullshit, bullshit.  He has fabricated from whole cloth a booming economy and prosperity which simply doesn’t exist in any form.  Add this to Trump’s massive failures in public health, diplomacy, trade, environment, and social justice and it’s impossible for anyone only marginally objective to call Trump qualified for another term.

Yesterday, a 17 year old boy was arrested in Illinois for the shooting of three people, two fatally, at the protests in Kenosha Wisconsin over police shooting Jacob Blake in the back.  He used an assault rifle. The boy has appeared in several videos in altercations with protestors and people chasing him after the shootings, shouting at police that he was the shooter, which they ignored. In a video shot earlier that evening, the shooter claimed to be there to protect a car dealership with other armed vigilantes.  His  social media pages are full of gun videos and pro-police posts, as well of one of him with a ringside seat at a Trump rally in January.  Of course.

Where a goddam kid put his hands on an assault rifle is as yet unknown.  It’s illegal for a 17 year old to possess or open carry an assault rifle in Wisconsin or Illinois.  Unregulated private gun sales are legal in Wisconsin and open carry is legal for those 18 and over.  The Gifford’s Law Center rates Wisconsin gun laws at a C-.  In Illinois, rated A- by the Giffords Law Center, it is illegal for anyone under the age of 21 to purchase or own a long gun, even with parental consent.  We’ll likely find out that the assault weapon the shooter used in these murders either belonged to the shooter’s parents OR was purchased in Wisconsin in an unregulated sale.  This is a textbook example of why state and local gun laws simply don’t work.  Common sense, strict gun laws at the federal level is the only way we can even hope to reduce widespread gun violence.

On the other side of the country, armed radical right wing gun nuts pushed past Idaho state police officers at the state capitol in Boise, broke down the state house gallery door and stormed into the chamber to protest common sense public health policy.  Fearing violence, the police and the house majority leader allowed said gun nuts to fill the entire gallery ignoring social distancing rules and essentially commandeering state property that had been cordoned off to allow the senators to social distance as they debated health policy legislation. They also filled committee rooms and an auditorium.  There were only a few arrests, but one included Ammon Bundy, son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who has successfully commandeered federal land for his own private use for grazing his cattle.  It appears the younger Bundy was the leader of the Idaho protest.  One other note – this incident happened in the very same building where, in 2014, state police arrested dozens of protestors standing silently in the hallways to protest for LGBTQ rights.

The lessons here aren’t complicated.  The simple truth is that white guys carrying assault rifles literally get away with murder, violence, and threats of violence when other people, including lawmakers, are doing anything they hate.  Put even more simply, armed white guys have more rights than disarmed peaceful black people.  Carrying of weapons emboldens people to violate our laws and destroy societal norms.  Police allow, and sometimes even condone, such behavior, and the presence of guns during protests always confuses the situation and increases violence.  Self appointed “militia”, which are illegal, commandeer public property, and insert themselves into protests to  “protect” private property, but their effect is universally destabilizing. We have seen that many times, including the violence at the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, and at other protests from New Mexico to Dallas.

Allowing guns anywhere near political speech is nothing short of terrible public policy, period.  State and local gun laws don’t work, period.  Gun safety laws must be federal.  Guns in state capitols and municipal buildings threatens to destroy what’s left of our political system in America.  NO OTHER DEVELOPED COUNTRY HAS THIS PROBLEM.  The rest of the world understands that guns increase violence and death all the time, every time.  Only strong federal laws have a prayer of reducing the violence and threat of violence that now permeates our society.