It might be holiday time in America but Donald Trump is still the president, which means we are in for a rotten time of it until Trump is out. He is on a relentless mission to blow up America to get even with his enemies and conduct loyalty tests of Republicans as he tries to stay in power after losing the election.
Currently, Trump is refusing to sign two key pieces of legislation. He is doing this even as the pandemic has taken the lives of one out of every 1000 Americans. Trump pays no attention to that. He is inflicting maximum pain on the most vulnerable Americans and conducting a loyalty test for Republican lawmakers.
What Happened With the Coronavirus Relief Bill?
After months of Trump’s total lack of involvement in helping to craft the coronavirus relief bill, the Democrats and Republicans finally, painstakingly, hammered out a compromise with Treasury Secretary Mnuchin representing Trump’s interest in the talks to construct a deal. The Dems had tried for $2000 personal checks for Americans for a long time, but the Republicans held out for $600 and because McConnell controls the Senate, Republicans eventually got their way. Trump was said to be on board with the $600 checks. It wasn’t perfect but it was finally done and just in the nick of time to prevent terrible damage to Americans and to our country’s security.
All Trump had to do was sign the bill.
Instead he had a hissy fit over twitter and demanded those checks to Americans be $2000, not a “measly” $600. (By-the-way, he is doing this to make himself look good to Americans since he wants that to be part of his legacy when he runs again in 2024.)
Mr. Petulance in Chief is now sitting on the bill and no one knows if he will veto it, or continue to sit on it resulting in a pocket veto-an indirect veto of a legislative bill by the president or a governor by retaining the bill unsigned until it is too late for it to be dealt with during the legislative session. Millions of Americans will lose their unemployment, could be evicted from their homes, the vaccine effort will come crashing to a halt, and a government shuts down looms on Monday, December 28th.
Oh, and he also refuses to sign the bill that funds our military and protects us from cybersecurity threats.
UPDATE: On Sunday night Trump finally did sign the Covid-19 Relief bill averting a shut down although 14 million Americans may have already lost their unemployment aid. Trump signed the bill after 5 days of holding out, which created great uncertainty in the country.
What’s With All These Pardons?
Trump has abused the power of the pardon by letting 41 mostly corrupt criminals off the hook. Many of these were people who were personal friends or friends of friends, or people who didn’t rat him out in the Mueller investigation. Trump dangled these pardons during the inquiry to get people like Paul Manafort to clam up, which was one of the ways he kept Mueller from getting the truth about his criminal behavior (which is called obstruction of justice). These guys proved their loyalty to him in exchange for the pardons they are getting now. He also pardoned 4 contractors who had been working for Blackwater, a company run by Betsy De Vos’s brother. These four are despicable killers who massacred innocent Iraqi men, women and children in cold blood. And there are two border guards who also killed in cold blood.
After blowing shit up, Trump flew off to Mar-a-Lago to go play golf. La de dah. He’s on vacation while America burns.
What is motivating Donald Trump?
I’ll tell you what is motivating him. Anger. Revenge. Cruelty. He is a vicious, mean, sadistic MF and he wants to inflict pain. As I have written many times in the Markin Report, Trump is a mob boss. He wants total, unquestioned power and control, demands loyalty, and will do anything to be relevant at all times. If he does not get what he wants, he will be cruel and wreak havoc. The pain he inflicts on his perceived enemies is the goal. People who are not loyal to Trump get “offed” by Trump, the mob boss. Now Trump is calling out Republicans, insisting they prove their loyalty to him by voting for his tweeted out revision for the relief bill. This is both a loyalty test and a tantrum.
Who is Trump mad at?
Mitch McConnell, Republicans, and the American people.
- Mitch McConnell infuriated Trump by breaking with Trump’s alternate universe. Mitch held off for 6 weeks after Biden won the election. Finally, Mitch had to break with Trump’s fever dream that he won when he didn’t and admit Biden will be the 46th president. Mitch also asked Republicans NOT to protest on January 6th when Congress will tally the Electoral College votes. He is crossing Trump who wants Republicans to stand up for his coup. Mitch knows that this vote will fail and that it will pit Republicans against each other and weaken the GOP. These moves by Mitch infuriated Trump who wants Republicans in Congress to support his bogus claim that he won the election in a landslide. He wants lawmakers to challenge the votes from key battleground states on January 6th even though
- there have been recounts and each time Biden wins;
- there have been over 50 court challenges and Trump’s attorneys lost all of them;
- the Supreme Court was asked to weigh in and the justices refused to even hear the matters because they were without merit; and
- Trump’s attempts to corrupt local election officials also failed miserably because these public servants did their jobs and were unwilling to break the law to please Trump.
- Trump wants to get even with Mitch. Throwing a wrench into the coronavirus deal is Trump’s way of punching Mitch where it hurts. Mitch had said he would not approve anything Trump wouldn’t sign. Trump empowered Mnuchin to be his emissary. Mnuchin was certain Trump would sign. So Mitch got the deal done. Only to have Trump punch his lights out. Trump had a twitter tirade about Mitch saying the only reason McConnell got reelected was because he, Trump the Almighty, helped him out. “And this is how he repays me?”
- Trump is furious with Republicans because they won (down ballot) when he didn’t and they are not loyal enough to him in his attempted coup to stay in power after losing the election. Trump is furious that too few Republicans are joining him in his attempted coup. About 120 Republicans in the House plan to protest the Electoral College vote on January 6th when Congress convenes to do the official tally from each state. Other Republicans are trying to lay low so as to avoid getting tweeted at by mob boss Trump. Even though Trump has lost 8 points in his approval rating among Republicans, he still has a rabid base of deplorables who would kill someone on 5th Avenue if Trump told them to. They might even do that without being asked by Trump.
- Trump is urging that angry base of his to get into the streets of Washington, DC on January 6th to protest for him. This is Trump’s way of threatening Republicans who do not go along with him. Trump is saying, “See? I can command MY people, MY base, to get into the streets to fight for me. They are totally loyal to me and they will help me primary you if I say so.”
- Trump is enraged with Americans because they did not reelect him.
- If Trump still thinks he won the election he is psychotic. Assuming he is not psychotic, he knows he lost the election, therefore he’s a loser. But being a loser is overwhelmingly unacceptable to him psychologically and makes him furious. In Trump’s mind he is thinking- “They didn’t vote for me?! They can all go to hell. So what if there is a pandemic raging and so what if people will be evicted from their homes and lose their unemployment benefits? I don’t give a damn.” Meanwhile the whole world is waiting with baited breath to see what he will do. That makes him feel better because he is still relevant. Trump is ever the reality TV guy creating chaos to get attention. But this is real life and real Americans are suffering.
What will happen if Trump vetoes the military funding bill?
That veto will likely be overridden by Congress.
What happens if Trump either vetoes or pocket vetoes the coronavirus bill?
Chaos will ensue unless Congress also overrides this veto.
If anyone out there still thinks Trump is a good president and should have been reelected, you ought to have your head examined. You only need to look at the damage he is doing to our country on his way out to realize that Trump is not a person you should have supported in the first place and you really shouldn’t support him ever again. If he does run for president again in 2024, remember what he did to our country in his last days in office.
The Snake Bite
Trump warned all of us about who he really is when he ran for office in 2016. During that campaign he used to tell a poem about a snake. Remember that? The snake pretended to be so nice and cozied up with the unsuspecting, generous lady, but then, after gaining her trust, the snake showed his true colors: he bit her and she died. That poem was supposedly about xenophobia, but it was really about Donald Trump.
Trump is the snake. The woman who got taken in is America. Many Americans and Republicans were like the “gentle woman” in the poem who takes in the snake only to get bitten by it. “Shut up!” the snake says to the dying woman. “You knew I was a snake when you took me in.” And so did Americans. We all knew Trump was a snake when some of us took him in. What Trump is doing in his last days in office is, to the best of his ability, giving our country a lethal snake bite out of spite.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/18/opinion/trump-snake-poem-meaning.html
Thank goodness 81 million more of us voted him out after one term. But getting rid of Trump is not enough . We must get rid of all the Trump’s enablers who knew he was a snake but kept quiet about it, leading to the deaths of thousands of Americans from Covid-19, the poverty of 8 million more Americans, careers ruined, lives ruined, families ruined: this is the devastation Trump leaves in his wake.
The Way Out
The first step to a brighter future is to win those two Senate seats in Georgia. If Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock can win there, the Senate power will flip- leaving Mitch out of power to refuse to call legislation for a vote in the Senate. Our nation will have a fighting chance to mend. Please do whatever you can to get those two Senate seats for the good of our country.