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As is now the new normal, there were so many things happening in the political world this week it is hard to keep track of them all. But what is currently in the center ring is the vote happening in the Senate on the continuing resolution to fund the government for the rest of this fiscal year.
The administration of President Donald Trump is showing us all, in real time, how not to tackle a widespread medical crisis. Because things are moving so quickly, though, it's tough to tell how much of their woefully inadequate response has been the fault of Donald Trump himself, Trump's scorn for experts of any type who know more things than he does (a category which includes many people, for obvious reasons), or Trump's advisors and aides who have been put in charge of a massive problem but whose main worry seems to be not ever contradicting Trump in public (no matter how wrong Trump gets things). It all adds up to making a bad situation much worse, which is precisely where we find ourselves now. Decisions are made for political reasons, or -- worse -- to avoid making Trump himself look bad in any way. This has shattered the confidence of the stock market, as evidenced by today's record-busting 3,000-point drop. The more time goes by, the more Trump's inadequacies are becoming impossible to ignore, even by his staunchest supporters. Donald Trump, quite obviously, does not have a clue what to do next, is instead out there blatantly lying about the situation on a daily basis, and we're all going to suffer as a direct result. No wonder the market's tanking.
Roman Emperor Nero didn't actually fiddle while Rome burned. It's a myth. Violins (or "fiddles") wouldn't exist for another 1,500 years or so, making the very concept impossible. That's not to say Nero might not have blatantly ignored a flaming crisis, of course, it's just quibbling about the literal meaning of the maxim. Now, American Emperor-With-No-Clothes Donald Trump didn't fiddle while the country was hit by a pandemic, either. Instead, he played golf. Twice. That's right -- in the midst of a huge crisis, Trump spent the entire weekend playing golf.
I have to begin this review with the mandatory bit of pedantry which is required every four years. Last night, President Donald Trump gave a speech to a joint session of Congress. However, it was not technically a "State Of The Union" speech, since tradition dictates you have to have been in office for a whole year before giving one of those.
Nitpickery aside, let's do a quick review of how things went last night, shall we?
The House Republicans just -- stunningly and amazingly -- actually did something. I know! You could've knocked me over with a feather....
I start with such snark because it seems entirely appropriate. But this is rather big news, as what it truly means is that the Republican House cats have now (for once) been successfully herded. This really is a big deal, since it hasn't happened much at all in the past decade or so.
The way things usually go in the GOP House is that they attempt to pass a bill (usually a budget, since that's about all they're capable of paying attention to) but their slim majority in the chamber means that their speaker cannot convince enough of them to vote for it, and so it dies. This usually leads to negotiations with Democrats and kicking the can down the road once again (it can also lead to a new Republican speaker, as we've seen before).
The first month of the second presidency of Donald Trump is now over. Only forty-seven more to go!
That, of course, is a daunting prospect, but we can at least open with some good news this week: Trump is already wearing out his welcome with the public. The presidential "honeymoon" period is apparently over (almost before it began). Trump started off his second term with historically dismal ratings, although they did best one previous president -- himself, in his first term. His job approval numbers were actually at 50 percent or just above when he was sworn in this time around (which, as mentioned, every other modern president has beaten), so he could at least claim a majority of the public was behind him. Not any more.
It's hard, as each new week goes by, not to get distracted by all of the chaos emanating from Washington. This week, we're going to begin by connecting a few dots that really need connecting, and (so far) haven't gotten enough attention (in our humble opinion).
Before Donald Trump became president again, both he and his MAGA choir spent a lot of time decrying "censorship" and wailing about their "free speech" being somehow suppressed. This was largely due to social media sites policing their allowable content, and occasionally removing objectionable or flat-out false posts and even kicking people off their platforms.
We aren't even three weeks in to the administration of President Elon Musk, and already he has instituted an ideological purge the likes of which America has not seen since the time of Senator Joe McCarthy. Except this time they're not rooting out communists (or suspected communists, or communist sympathizers) but instead just "people they don't like." Or maybe "people who have pissed off Elon" -- that's probably closer to the reality of it.
We begin today with an apology and a solicitation for donations. Our apology is for perhaps not doing as thorough a job of reviewing the past week as we normally do, because last night instead of doing our homework we instead watched the FireAid benefit concert for the victims of the recent Los Angeles fires. If you missed it, at least check out the fireaidla.org site, where you can donate to the cause if you wish. It was quite a show, and well worth watching (note: this review contains only a partial list of the performers...):
The last time he was president, Donald Trump faced a big crisis. His response to the COVID-19 pandemic was erratic at best (and even that's being charitable). Later, he and his followers demonized the doctors and medical experts who were desperately trying to save lives with their advice and recommendations -- so threateningly that President Joe Biden felt the need to pre-emptively pardon Dr. Anthony Fauci right before he left office. Biden feared that Trump would harass Fauci via the Justice Department, so he precluded it from happening.
This time around, President Trump is pre-emptively taking a wrecking ball to the federal government's medical establishment, in what can only be called a war on medical science. It was telling, during the early months of the COVID crisis, that Trump kept complaining that we were doing "too much testing." The numbers of people infected and hospitalized and dying were shooting up dramatically, after Trump had promised the country that they wouldn't. The solution, as far as Trump was concerned, was to just stop testing everyone. That way, there wouldn't be any big numbers to alarm everyone. Hey presto! Problem solved!