Roger Stone, Trump’s self described chief dirty trickster, has just had his sentence commuted by The President of the United States Don Donaldo Trumps, freeing him from paying the price for colluding with Russians, slandering political opponents and violating virtually every modicum of common decency and then lying to the DOJ about it. Let’s be clear here: Roger Stone colluded with Wiki Leaks founder Julian Assange to disclose thousands of emails stolen from DNC and staff emails to damage Hillary Clinton in 2016.  He also participated in operations to slander Clinton and others.  THEN, he lied to the DOJ about his activities.  In an act of abject corruption (once again) Trump commuted Stone’s sentence to protect him from justice.

This corruption must not stand.  Come January 20, 2021, the jails must be opened for those who have violated the public trust and made millions on the backs of honest Americans.

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).

In an alarming turn of events, management of the Texas Medical Center in Houston has halted the reporting of real time COVID-19 data.  They haven’t reported new data since Thursday.  That’s right, folks; as COVID-19 new case rate goes almost vertical and ICUs are being overrun, TMC has halted real time data reporting.  Why, you ask?  Apparently, the heads of TMC cut a deal with Greg Abbott.  As we know, Abbott awoke from his Stupid Coma on Thursday and shut down all elective surgeries in the state to relieve the load on hospitals in the state.  He also ordered bars throughout the state to close again after he had stupidly allowed them to reopen starting in May.

Doctors within TMC have been ringing the alarm bells for weeks as new case rate increased.  Leadership also provided public warnings about capacity, reporting that they were going to exceed surge ICU capacity by the first week of July.  Late Thursday, though, TMC management reversed themselves, saying they had plenty of capacity.  What happened?  I’m hearing that Abbott built in a huge loophole in his shutdown policy to allow elective surgeries in TMC and affiliates as long as the hospitals have “enough capacity”.  Apparently “enough capacity” is pretty damn vague.  Methodist Hospital even sent out a “don’t worry, be happy” post on Thursday that they had plenty of room and elective surgeries (translated “very profitable”.  As I’m sure is a complete coincidence, TMC simultaneously halted realtime reporting of COVID-19 case rates and ICU capacity utilization in Houston.  Hmm.

All of this is going on as ICU capacity at TMC and other is overrun.  TMC hospitals are even moving adult patients into Texas Children’s hospital, turning kids away.  It’s like we’ve fallen down the rabbit hole into the Greg Abbott version of Trumpland.  I continue to shake my head at the willful ignorance and magical thinking coming from our elected leadership.  It’s an alternate reality where Abbott/Patrick/Paxton & Company run us into a brick wall at 100 miles an hour only for them to say, “Oops, that didn’t work.”  My jaw is aching from dragging on the floor.

Jesus.

Trump got his money’s worth this morning, using one of his judges on the DC Court to overrule district court judge Emmet Sullivan, ordering him to immediately drop the charges against Michael Flynn to which he had twice pleaded guilty.  The order was written by Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee and protege of none other than Clarence Thomas.  Rao was joined by Karen Henderson, an HW appointee.  Robert Wilkins, an Obama appointee, disagreed.

The judicial branch of our government is now completely corrupted, caught in the iron grip of Trump criminality.

Two new ones, and they’re rich:

Your campaign was so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should. pic.twitter.com/cfAAkGLttH

— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) June 22, 2020

Brad Parscale, Trump’s digital marketing guru, boasted earlier this week that one million people had applied for tickets to Coronafest in Tulsa.  Usually brilliant, Parscale fell for a prank by Tik-Tok users whose viral posts prompted all those ticketed no-shows.  Only 6,200 showed, the outdoor events were abruptly canceled, and you know that Trump raged all the way home.  But the best thing?  This photo:

Nothing embodies Trump’s fizzling re-election prospects more than this image.