59 Days and counting, and we can't let our guard down until Joe Biden is inaugurated.
Dirty tricks, obfuscation, wholesale lying, deception, inveigling and skullduggery--all standard Republican tools--are afoot and the republic is still in danger.
Throughout Lame Duck Trump's term we've all said something like, "It surely can't get worse than this," only to find out a few days later that yes, indeed, it can. Trump's "worse than" moments have escalated and multiplied until it truly does seem there could be no more. And yet, especially during this past year, the pace of multiplication has picked up exponentially as the Fool-in-Chief's minions have joined him in making the world a worse place.
I'm tempted to compare the multiplication of Trump's "worse thans" to the infinitely reproducing Tribbles of Star Trek fame,¹ but there's nothing cute and cuddly about what's coming out of the White House.
The alleged leader of the nation is a pathological liar and malignant narcissist. He is a laughingstock and pariah to other world leaders, a bumbling fool whose grip on reality is steadily loosening. It's all what we've come to expect--and what does that say about us?
But the Fool-in-Chief has the world's most powerful military at his command. We can only hope that if he decides to throw some bombs--maybe on Tehran, maybe on Portland, Oregon--that those in command will politely but forcibly tell him to go to Hell.
Some of Trump's minions come close to matching the depth of his delusions.
Scott Atlas, who has become Lame Duck Trump's medical mouthpiece, has recently spoken against mask use, size limitations on gatherings, and has urged people in Michigan to "rise up" against Governor Gretchen Whitmer's stringent public health policies and actions. Why Whitmer and not another governor with similar policies, like Ralph Northam? Because Whitmer happens to be LDT's current whipping girl. He's intimidated by women who wield power--and who will outlast him in office.
But back to Atlas. If you go looking for his public health credentials you'll find nothing. Atlas is a neuroradiologist, a specialty that positions its practitioners about as far away from sick people as it's possible to get. Not to trash talk the specialty; it's important to people with certain neurological problems. It's just that one would seldom if ever mention neuroradiologists and public health in the same sentence. And yet this hands-off physician, who sees his patients only in radiology media, is telling us to ignore all the other "expert" doctors with public health cred.
It's hardly surprising; he's Trump's tool, more valuable for being a fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, a right-wing think tank that provided a number of the unpresident's advisors, than for being a doctor.
Yet he is still a physician who has sworn to uphold the precepts of the Hippocratic Oath. Contrary to popular belief, the Oath does not contain the words "First, do no harm." It does, however, bind medical practitioners to the promise of dedicating their lives to healing the sick. It says, in part, "I will . . . benefit my patients according to my greatest ability and judgement, and I will do no harm or injustice to them. . . . Into whatever homes I go, I will enter them for the benefit of the sick, . . ."²
Scott Atlas has betrayed any trust the American people might have held him in, and has also betrayed his professional oath. His medical licenses should be rescinded.
Then there's the Rudy Roadshow. Rudy Giuliani, whose grip on reality is no more secure than LTD's, leads a team of boutique litigators and attorneys from small firms (of course; no major firm would touch this nonsense) in a brazen attempt to overthrow the 2020 election result. So far they are batting zero, and getting paid ridiculous sums to do it. Rudy is said to be paid $20,000 a day. Talk about throwing good money after bad.
Once again, here are overpaid professionals, whose job it is to uphold the law, trying to subvert the voice of the people. The lot of them should be disbarred.
Stay alert and watch for tyranny everywhere.
--- Diogenes, 11/22/2020
¹ Star Trek, "The Trouble With Tribbles," Season 2, Episode 15.
² National Institutes of Health, "Greek Medicine," https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/greek/greek_oath.html.
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