Anyone "tired of all the winning" yet? Just asking....

In the same week America passed the grim milestone of 100,000 dead from the coronavirus pandemic, a black man was suffocated by a white police officer while three other cops stood by and either helped him commit this crime or did absolutely nothing to prevent it. Since then, there have been sometimes-violent protests in the streets of not only Minneapolis but in several other cities across the country. The dead man was accused of the crime of trying to use a fake $20 bill at a convenience store. The cops, acting as judge, jury, and executioner, provided him with a death sentence -- for the transgression of trying to pass a fake twenty.

So what has President Donald Trump been up to this week? Issuing an appeal for both calm and justice, as well as sympathizing with the families of the coronavirus victims? Nah. What Trump's been obsessed with instead is getting in an escalating war with Twitter. Because, obviously, Twitter is much more important to him than 100,000 dead from the virus or one dead black man in Minnesota. Never has a Nero metaphor been more apt, because Trump is now fiddling around with Twitter while America is burning.

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President Donald Trump executed a double-reverse bit of irony today, by signing an executive order that he thinks will threaten social media companies like Twitter into allowing conservatives to spout whatever hate-filled or wildly inaccurate rants they wish to. However, as with many things Trump does, his executive order might just wind up giving companies like Twitter more incentive to police Trump's own tweets. In other words, by attempting to "fight back," Trump may in fact have just shot himself in the foot.

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President Donald Trump is unclear on the basic concept of the First Amendment's "free speech" clause. This isn't all that surprising, since he's obviously never made it all the way through a reading of the United States Constitution. After all, the Founding Fathers didn't see fit to provide colorful graphics instead of boring blocks of text, and the whole thing just goes on for pages and pages and pages -- both of which absolutely guarantee Trump has never read it.

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Twitter is at the heart of a storm of controversy today, and rightly so. It just made a timid move to better its own public standing, but it is far too little and far too late to really stem the tide of deserved criticism they're now receiving. Twitter is, to be blunt, scared of President Donald Trump and his legions of followers. So they've allowed him to get away with tweeting pretty much anything that pops into his head, no matter how false or downright destructive his words prove to be. Now, perhaps, they're beginning to pay a price for this timidity in the court of public opinion.

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Program Note: I wrote the following article eleven years ago, for Memorial Day. It was a historic look back that was mostly prompted by a visit to Cobh, Ireland. But, as you can see, it branched off into a different subject related to World War I. Obviously, the subject matter is now a whole lot more relevant than it was back then, which is why it was a real no-brainer to run it again this year. Happy Memorial Day, everyone, and stay safe out there.

Originally published May 25, 2009

On a lonely hill outside the small town of Cobh, Ireland (pronounced: "cove"), is a mass grave marked by three somber headstones. As mass graves go, it's a fairly small one; holding not tens of thousands or even thousands, but merely a few hundred bodies. But the relative size of the grave on the scale of human misery is beside the point -- because while few, their deaths had monumental consequences for America. The dead were civilians, not soldiers (more on them in a minute). But their deaths deserve memorializing today just as much as those we remember who wore the uniform of our country. Because this is the final resting place of the people onboard the Lusitania.

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Proof has finally emerged that President Donald Trump has actually put a mask on his face. Bizarrely, this proof came from a non-official photographer instead of from an official media or White House source. Because the one thing Trump wants to avoid at all costs is ever setting any kind of good example for anyone.

You really couldn't make this stuff up if you tried. A president in the midst of a national crisis doesn't just ignore what the experts are telling all Americans to do, but openly defies them every chance he gets. Trump not only refuses to wear a mask, but this week also announced he was taking a drug that has now been shown to have no use against the coronavirus but comes with an increased chance of death for those taking it. Nothing like setting a good bad example, Mister President!

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There's a very big question looming in the backs of many Democrats' minds; one so downright scary that few can even give voice to it. When they do, it comes out almost as a whisper, because the possible consequences are so frightening to contemplate that many feel it is a subject best left unsaid. But that doesn't stop the worrying, because nobody truly knows what Donald Trump will do if he loses the 2020 presidential election.

The reason I'm choosing to write about this subject now is that Trump himself seems to be pre-emptively getting his excuses ready for what could be a very disappointing election night for him. He's preparing the ground for later claiming that the entire process was rigged and that the results must be challenged. Why else would he now be threatening battleground states that are moving to make mail-in balloting more accessible and easy? Trump hasn't uttered a peep (or even a tweet) about the Republican states that are doing exactly the same thing that Michigan and Nevada are now doing, proving that this isn't an ideological issue for him, but rather a tactical one.

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Today President Donald Trump returned to a favorite bugaboo of his, the continuation of a relentless smear job on absentee (or "mail-in") voting. This is part and parcel of his world view, which is both contradictory in the extreme as well as laughably hypocritical. Trump's basic position is that he doesn't like it when Democrats use absentee ballots, while it is just fine for Republicans (including, notably, himself) to do so. But the biggest danger for Trump isn't being ridiculed for such blatantly partisan contradictions, but rather that he might in fact motivate more people to vote against him and the Republican Party. Which would, of course, be deliciously ironic for Democrats.

Trump, as usual, began by getting his basic facts wrong. He rage-tweeted about Michigan sending out "absentee ballots," when in fact what had just been announced was that the state would send out applications for absentee ballots to every registered voter. Trump was apparently quickly informed of his mistake, because he then deleted the original tweet and replaced it with one that got this point right. Trump also vented his rage at Nevada, and actually threatened both states by telling them he'd be withholding federal funding to them. This funding was left unspecified, meaning nobody had any clue what Trump was even talking about. The White House has so far been unable to clarify this point.

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For the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began in the United States, things seem to be getting slightly better, at least on the national level. This is welcome news for everyone, of course, although it still may be too early to tell whether the positive trends now slowly developing will be sustained over the next month or so. But at any rate, things do seem to finally be headed in a more positive direction. So it's time for some very cautious optimism.

When looking at the data, a pretty clear picture of the spread of the virus can be seen in the charts done over time. In March, the numbers began climbing dramatically, following an exponential curve for a while. In April, the curves topped out and began to plateau. What's now become apparent is that the plateau itself now seems to be slowly but steadily decreasing over time, which really started happening in earnest a few weeks ago.

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Former President Barack Obama got up off the bench this weekend and fully entered the fray of the 2020 presidential election. He did so in prominent fashion, since he was given the rather large megaphone of a commencement address to graduating high school seniors that was simultaneously broadcast on every major television network. So this wasn't some tweet or offhanded comment leaked from a phone call (both of which had actually happened the previous week, with less attention paid). What it signals -- hopefully -- is that Obama is becoming fully vested in being the biggest surrogate possible for Joe Biden during the campaign.

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