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.

The takeover of the GOP is complete. The Republican Party capitulated to Trump in toto today, declining to even propose or vote on a platform, the first time in history.  While struggling to stay vertical with no spinal columns, the rules committee issued a statement, courageously stating –

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.

As we’ve already reported, the Texas Medical Center halted reporting all COVID-19 data after some kind of agreement with Greg Abbott to continue allowing elective surgeries even after his statewide order that shut down those elective surgeries to free hospital capacity for infected patients.  TMC halted that reporting just as it reached 100% base capacity and forecast overrunning surge capacity in days.

Well, TMC started reporting the data again last night, but OMITTED ICU and hospital capacity data.  A before and after example is below.  Doctors in

Before and After

TMC have been ringing the alarm bells for weeks, and management was accurately reporting data and also sounding the alarm until everything stopped Thursday.  The Houston Chronicle has now picked up the story as well as other local media.  Frankly, this entire episode is shameful; corruption has moved from Austin and the governor’s mansion to the largest medical center in the world.

Our legacy will be determined by how we respond to this crisis.  I’m not hopeful as the cancer of Trump has metastasized from Queens to Houston.

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.

Millions of Americans have known for decades that our government was broken, but I don’t think any of us realized just how badly is was broken.  The Trump infestation of the WH has exposed the manifest weaknesses in our system of government which cynical career politicians have exploited for personal and ideological gain.  When the Framers established our Constitution and supporting laws, the assumption was that that those who governed would uphold the public trust; if an elected official betrayed that trust, they provided a provision for impeachment and removal from office.  They didn’t envision a time that the majority of representatives would be abjectly corrupt.  We’re there.

The most shocking feature of the Trump regime is the amount of damage one president can inflict with virtually zero accountability.  In three short years, Trump took over the Republican party, the Congress, the courts, and even the Justice Department.  He has pardoned criminals, unilaterally withdrawn from longstanding treaties, started trade wars, attacked countries, disbanded entire agencies that blinded us to massive threats like the Coronavirus pandemic, has undone decades of environmental, education, employment, and safety regulations, wrecked dozens of alliances, sidled up to murderous dictators, and ceased funding global efforts that support healthcare, security, and human rights.  He illegally extorted a foreign leader for to damage a political opponent.  He is actively trying to whip up a scandal in the Obama administration which is invented from whole cloth with zero basis in fact.  He personally profits from his presidency on a daily basis, and makes public policy to advantage himself and his family.

Worse, anyone who gets in his way is either fired, slandered, or both.  He’s now fired an FBI director, two Attorneys General, and five Inspectors General.  He continues attempts to illegally out the whistleblower in the Ukrainian extortion effort.  His current AG is violating the public trust and the law by covering up major crimes and participating in smearing Trump’s political opponents by initiating “investigations” of non-existent crime. As he does this, he willfully ignores the tsunami of actual crimes being committed by Trump and his cronies.

How did we get here?  In a word, corruption.  The US is no longer a functioning democracy and the majority of our elected representatives no longer actually represent Americans.  Over the last 4 decades the money has gotten so big for congressmen and senators that making money has taken over from representation.  To avoid responsibility, congress has steadily ceded authority to the president.  For example, Article 1 of the Constitution specifically authorizes the CONGRESS to determine international trade policy, but for years that authority has been delegated to the president under “expedited” rules.   Trump has run wild with that authority, starting and inflaming global trade wars while the Congress (especially the Senate) just sits there doing nothing.  The Constitution also assigns authority to declare wars on other nations, but through legislation has also delegated that to the president, leading to never ending war and deadly attacks on other countries without so much as a “Go to hell” to the Congress.  It goes on and on, from selling off federal land to private interests to unwinding decades of environmental protections to shutting down agencies and engaging in abject corruption which lines the president’s and his children’s pockets with zero oversight.  Add all that to a now hands-off anything political judiciary and we don’t even remotely resemble the federal structure envisioned by the Framers.

The Framers designed a system of checks and balances to prevent rule by one branch and corruption.  Over the years all three branches have altered that design and what we now have is a zombie version of the federal system.  Add a profoundly corrupt president with evil enablers and you get what we see today, a president unilaterally wrecking the US government, the economy, the healthcare system, the federal safety net, anti-corruption legislation, international treaties, global alliances, and even the rule of law.

The system is broken.  Even when we rid ourselves of the Trump infestation, massive damage will have been done chances are remote that anyone left in authority will have incentive to fix it.  Yeah, it ain’t pretty.