As Notre Dame cathedral burned yesterday in Paris, leaders around the world spoke from the heart about the tragedy.  Here are a few:

“Notre Dame is one of the world’s great treasures, and we’re thinking of the people of France in your time of grief. It’s in our nature to mourn when we see history lost – but it’s also in our nature to rebuild for tomorrow, as strong as we can.” – Barack Obama

“Notre Dame of Paris in flames. Emotion for a whole nation. Thoughts for all Catholics and for all French. Like all our countrymen, I’m sad tonight to see this part of us burn.” – French President Emmanuel Macron

“The burning of the Notre Dame cathedral has again made us aware that we are bound by something more important and more profound than treaties. Today, we understand better the essence of that, which is common, we know how much we can lose. And that we want to defend it – together.” – EU President Donald Tusk

“To the people of France, I would like to say that Notre Dame Cathedral was like a gift to the human race. We share in the pain but we also thank you for this gift to civilization.” – Mayor of South Bend Indiana Pete Buttigieg (spoken in French)

And then, there was this:

“It is one of the great treasures of the world. The greatest artists in the world. Probably, if you think about it, I would say it might be greater than almost any museum in the world and it’s burning very badly. Looks like it’s burning to the ground.  That is beyond countries, that is beyond anything. That is a part of our growing up. It’s a part of our culture. It’s a part of our lives. That’s a truly great cathedral. I have been there, I have seen it. It’s a terrible scene.  They think it was caused by, at this moment they don’t know, but they think it was caused by renovation. I hope that’s the reason. Renovation, what’s that all about? It’s a terrible sight to behold.” – Donald Trump, Babbler in Chief

To make matters worse, Trump had earlier Tweeted his advice for fighting the fire:

“So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!” – Twitterfingers

This advice was so stupid that the Civil Defense Agency of France actually responded:

“The drop of water by air on this type of building could result in the collapse of the entire structure along with the firefighters who are currently doing their best to save Notre Dame.” – Sécurité Civile France

Trump simply cannot stand any event occurring anywhere in the world that might divert attention from himself even if that attention shows him for the idiot that he is.

In one of the latest entries into the Encyclopedia of Gleeful Cruelty and Dickishness, Trump announced last week that he is stopping immigration at the southern border because “the country is full; sorry”.  He can’t do that, of course, and the courts will stop him (again), but this is his campaign strategy for 2020, keeping the entire country whipped up into a lather while Heinrich Himmler Stephen Miller cooks up more nasty things to do to innocent people trying to save themselves and their families from the violence caused (or made worse) by US foreign policy in Latin America.

New York Times

Not only is this yet again new policy completely unnecessary and gaslighting of the worst kind,  Trump’s declaration is 100% false.  The country is not full; as a matter of fact, the work force is shrinking in many parts of the country.  As the country ages, the economy will suffer from lack of workers.  The NY Times published a story about this just this am.  This just another lie piled onto the Mount Everest of lies that Trump has built the the GOP has allowed to happen.

C’mon 2020.

In one of Trump’s most bewildering soliloquies since “covfefe”, trump rambled on for several minutes yesterday on national television in front of the head of NATO, repeating that we needed to know the “oranges” of the Mueller report.  It was a rehash of his whole hate Democrats, hate John McCain schtick, but the “oranges” references were confusing until just about everyone reached the conclusion that he was talking about “origins” of the report.  Never mind that we already know the oranges of the report (the dozens of contacts with the Russians, foreknowledge of WikiLeaks email dumps, bragging about how the Russians love him, and firing of James Comey for investigating the relationship), this guy’s mind is truly failing, and he confidently babbles nonsense on a pretty regular basis now.

Have a look, if you can stand it:

Orange you glad he’s our president?

The Cult of Trump has metastasized into a terminal cancer on our democracy.  The Congress won’t provide proper oversight, the press is running around chasing every little tweet, and Trump spends all of his time either tweeting or watching Fox Noise, and his cabinet of corrupt cronies is busily tearing down every tradition and progressive statute enacted over the last 80 years.

Since the Barr Report exonerated Trump (even though we haven’t seen the Mueller Report) Trump has been spiking the ball and becoming even more emboldened to do something really stupid.  Two possibilities of said stupidity are 1) Reigniting the battle over healthcare; 2) Whipping up the racists over immigration.  Case in point, he’s now threatening to close the southern border next week if Mexico doesn’t stop illegal immigration.  Once again, he is spouting nonsense and demanding the impossible.

I’m weary with the 24/7 train wreck that is the Trump presidency; I have Trump fatigue.   We have to do something different to wake up the Congress and the electorate.  So, I give up.  The Invertebrates in Congress won’t do their goddam jobs to stop this despot, so I say let’s do it.  Let’s close the border.  Shut down all the ports of entry and put the US military along the border.  C’mon shithead, DO IT.  Let’s burn down US-Mexico trade and just see what happens.

Here’s exactly what would happen: In January of 2019, the US imported over $27 BILLION of goods and exported $25 BILLION of goods.  That’s PER MONTH.  The US Trade Representative reports that 1.2 MILLION American jobs exist because of US export to Mexico. However, the Woodrow Wilson center has determined that 4.9 MILLION American jobs would be lost if trade with Mexico was halted.  I’ll say that again – 4.9 MILLION American jobs would be lost if trade with Mexico was halted.  Job losses at that scale would most certainly drive the US economy into another recession costing even more millions in jobs.

SO, I say let’s do it.  Let’s burn down the US and Mexico economies at the same time.  Let’s close the border.  If this is what it takes to wake up the Congress to do something, let’s shut it down, stranding billions of dollars in goods and costing millions of jobs.   I don’t know what else to do to stop this guy.

In an interview with CalMatters this week, George Lakoff, linguistics expert from Berkeley, explained why progressives should stop using the term “Mueller Report”.  Lakoff, who wrote Don’t Think of an Elephant, about political messaging, is a long time consultant to Democratic candidates and media pundits teaching them how to effectively frame messages to voters.  In this interview, he told readers that Trump and his talking heads are touting that the Mueller report exonerated him when it most certainly did not.  However, when progressives argue that the Mueller report didn’t exonerate him, they’re actually reinforcing the conservative message.  Instead, Lakoff suggests that rather than use the term “Mueller”, to change that to “Barr”.  So the response to conservatives’ claim of exoneration is “The Barr report cannot be trusted and we haven’t seen the Mueller report.”  Progressives need to keep “the Barr report” out there to reinforce that message rather than conservatives’ message.