Apologies for my spotty attendance this past week. Life just has a habit of getting in the way of things. By way of recompense I offer a potpourri of weird, silly and sick quotes from the Clown-in-Chief. All but the first and last were uttered during his presidency.
You've likely seen many of these already, but hey, they're still amusing. Think of it as comic relief from the Trumpverse.
So here we go. Hang on.
"I will build a great wall--and no one builds walls better than me,
believe me--and I will build them very inexpensively. I will build a
great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words." CBS News, 6/16/2015
"Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!" Twitter, 3/4/2017
"Let me just say, very simply, I will put it very simply -- the president of the United States has the authority to do what the president has the authority to do which is very powerful. The president
of the United States calls the shots." CNN, 4/14/2020
“If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations, your house just went down 75 percent in value. And they say the noise causes cancer. You tell me that one, okay?” Washington Post, April 3, 2019
"As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!)." Twitter, 10/7/2019
"Anybody that needs a test, gets a test. We--they're there. They have the tests. And the tests are beautiful." The Hill, 3/6/2020
“Cases are going up in the U.S. because we are testing far more than any other country.” Frequently in many places
“I loved my previous life. I had so many things going. This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier.” Reuters, 8/28/17
“Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me ‘old,’ when I would NEVER
call him ‘short and fat?’ Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend - and
maybe someday that will happen!” Twitter, 11/8/2017
"To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!" Twitter, 7/22/2018
“There is a cooling and there is a heating, and I mean, look: It used to not be climate change. It used to be global warming…That wasn’t working
too well, because it was getting too cold all over the place.” Interview with Piers Morgan, 1/28/2018
"So we have the biggest economy, the greatest economy we have
ever had, the highest employment numbers, the best employment numbers,
best unemployment numbers, also, the best of everything." CNN, 4/14/2020
“Nobody has better respect for intelligence than Donald Trump.” CNN, 11/11/2017
Speaking of his daughter Ivanka: "Yeah, she's really something, and what a beauty, that one. If I weren't happily married and, ya know, her father . . ." Rolling Stone, September 2015
Whew! Are you not entertained?
--- Diogenes, 7/31/2020
U.S. Constitution
The voice of the people
31 July 2020
27 July 2020
Who Was That Masked Man?
Well, it damn sure wasn't the Lone Ranger.
Just who are those ruffians in battle dress roaming Portland's streets? They wear no identifying insignia or badges and do not identify themselves. Their kind has been seen before, in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. They are grim automatons following the direction of some unknown presence in the pursuit of some unknown goal, and their only duty is to follow orders.
What might that be? Humiliate the Democratic mayor and governor, perhaps? Well, of course, especially since the governor is a woman who had the effrontery to be born in a foreign country.
Embattled streets? In Portland, Oregon, of all places? It's a beautiful city: great zoo, wonderful parks, acres of roses everywhere, clean downtown, and a nifty light rail system connecting all of it. Vanilla Portland, whose population is 80+% white and the largest minority, at 8%, is Hispanic?¹
But I digress. Back to the original question. Who are these thugs in camouflage body armor? The official word is that they are operatives of the Department of Homeland Security, which could mean anything: footsoldiers from one of a half-dozen or so formerly independent agencies, mercenaries, trainees, off-duty security guards, government contractors--black ops at 97201?
We're told they are there to protect federal buildings and property. Protect from what? A raging horde of bicycle-riding, latte-sipping white pacifists wearing Birkenstocks, who have been goaded into action by a direct threat to their Constitutional rights. And don't forget they are protectively fronted by arm-linked human "walls" of veterans, moms, and dads. Ripe targets for our big, bad DHS.
Portland police claim to have found loaded automatic weapon magazines (but no guns) and possible (unused) Molotov cocktails in a park that has been the scene of a lot of protest action, but the cops are trying to look good under the eye of the fed bullyboys, and at this point I don't believe much of anything coming out of either group.
The faceless invaders claim to be using "nonlethal" means of crowd dispersal: rubber bullets, flash-bang grenades, and tear gas. Let's look at this target-friendly ordnance.
Sic semper tyrannis! Let the DHS goons get what's coming to them, rubber bullets, flash-bangs, gas and all.
--- Diogenes, 7/27/2020
¹ https://www.movingtoportland.net/portland-information/portland-demographics/
² Haar RJ, Iacopino V, Ranadive N, et al., "Death, injury and disability from kinetic impact projectiles in crowd-control settings: a systematic review." BMJ Open 2017;7:e018154. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2017-018154. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/7/12/e018154
³ U. N. gas protocol: https://unoda-web.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/assets/WMD/Bio/pdf/Status_Protocol.pdf
⁴ Pro Publica: "Hotter than Lava." https://www.propublica.org/article/flashbangs
⁵ National Review: https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/07/the-portland-dhs-operation-is-legal-and-proportionate/
Just who are those ruffians in battle dress roaming Portland's streets? They wear no identifying insignia or badges and do not identify themselves. Their kind has been seen before, in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. They are grim automatons following the direction of some unknown presence in the pursuit of some unknown goal, and their only duty is to follow orders.
What might that be? Humiliate the Democratic mayor and governor, perhaps? Well, of course, especially since the governor is a woman who had the effrontery to be born in a foreign country.
Embattled streets? In Portland, Oregon, of all places? It's a beautiful city: great zoo, wonderful parks, acres of roses everywhere, clean downtown, and a nifty light rail system connecting all of it. Vanilla Portland, whose population is 80+% white and the largest minority, at 8%, is Hispanic?¹
But I digress. Back to the original question. Who are these thugs in camouflage body armor? The official word is that they are operatives of the Department of Homeland Security, which could mean anything: footsoldiers from one of a half-dozen or so formerly independent agencies, mercenaries, trainees, off-duty security guards, government contractors--black ops at 97201?
We're told they are there to protect federal buildings and property. Protect from what? A raging horde of bicycle-riding, latte-sipping white pacifists wearing Birkenstocks, who have been goaded into action by a direct threat to their Constitutional rights. And don't forget they are protectively fronted by arm-linked human "walls" of veterans, moms, and dads. Ripe targets for our big, bad DHS.
Portland police claim to have found loaded automatic weapon magazines (but no guns) and possible (unused) Molotov cocktails in a park that has been the scene of a lot of protest action, but the cops are trying to look good under the eye of the fed bullyboys, and at this point I don't believe much of anything coming out of either group.
The faceless invaders claim to be using "nonlethal" means of crowd dispersal: rubber bullets, flash-bang grenades, and tear gas. Let's look at this target-friendly ordnance.
- Rubber bullets: An extensive study of the use of these projectiles concluded that they kill about 3% of their targets and cause serious permanent injury to about 15%.² Maybe they should be called "mostly nonlethal."Just collateral damage for the Trumpster, right? But 3% of a thousand is 30 human lives lost. Not so collateral to their families.
- Tear gas: Proscribed for use in warfare by the Geneva Protocol of 1926, along with all "asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids,"³ but not disallowed for riot control. Hm--so it can be used on civilians in street clothes, but not on armed belligerents, presumably with gas masks. Who would have thought the rules of war could be more humane than those of domestic policing?
- Flash-bangs: Not nonlethal, very dangerous, and frequently misused.⁴
Sic semper tyrannis! Let the DHS goons get what's coming to them, rubber bullets, flash-bangs, gas and all.
--- Diogenes, 7/27/2020
¹ https://www.movingtoportland.net/portland-information/portland-demographics/
² Haar RJ, Iacopino V, Ranadive N, et al., "Death, injury and disability from kinetic impact projectiles in crowd-control settings: a systematic review." BMJ Open 2017;7:e018154. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2017-018154. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/7/12/e018154
³ U. N. gas protocol: https://unoda-web.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/assets/WMD/Bio/pdf/Status_Protocol.pdf
⁴ Pro Publica: "Hotter than Lava." https://www.propublica.org/article/flashbangs
⁵ National Review: https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/07/the-portland-dhs-operation-is-legal-and-proportionate/
26 July 2020
I Shouldn't Say "I Told You So,"
But I did.
I'm not a prophet, but I watch and listen and pay attention, and if anyone had bet against me a couple of months ago when I said COVID-19 wasn't done with us, they would have lost.
Naturally that would have included the Fool-in-Chief, but he's wrong about everything anyway, so no surprise there.
If the Dolt-in-Chief had even a smidgen of historical knowledge, he would know that plagues have historically lasted for years, and some for centuries. It's been suggested that the last gasp of the Black Death of the 1340s came only in 1955. Pandemics rip through us in waves, sometimes just a ripple, sometimes a tsunami. The first wave had barely passed when Trump and the Booboisie started screaming for everything to open up.
So we opened up. Masks came off, social distancing was forgotten, bars and beaches and other places of frivolity enjoyed some very welcome profitable days, and Americans were finally able to get out and have a good time. July 4 was a blast.
To date, more than 15,000 Americans have paid for that party with their lives.
Following the initial assault by COVID-19, which picked off the low-hanging fruit, the curve of U. S. deaths fell into a slump, which a great many ignoramuses thought was the end. Nope. just warming up for round two.
There were only 273 COVID deaths on July 4 in America, and the dwindling number allowed medical professionals to feel very cautiously optimistic. One week later, on July 11, 729 people died; on July 18, 879; and yesterday, 981. In four weeks the daily death toll quadrupled, and it's still going up.
There is only one possible reason for this increase: lessening preventive measures, including isolation, and the insane rush to dive into traditional holiday activities.
The delusional Megalomaniac-in-Chief is willing to sacrifice anything and anyone to get to the status quo ante; or in words he might understand, "the way it's s'posed to be." Or in Trumpspeak, "The way I want it to be."
He cannot and will not accept that it's not going to happen. Ever. That sense of complete and utter change in the world is something he's not wired to understand.
He does know something is going on. In a recent argumentative interview with Chris Wallace, the Great Pretender disputed Wallace's enumeration of cases, then asked, "how many deaths?" Apparently dead Americans mean more to him than sick ones.
Here's your number, you unworthy lout: since July 4, some 15,000 American families have lost a child, a parent, a spouse, a grandparent, or some other kin because you are too blind and too stupid to even try to improve the situation.
Every one of those deaths lies at your feet, and every bereft family blames you.
--- Diogenes, 7/25/2020
I'm not a prophet, but I watch and listen and pay attention, and if anyone had bet against me a couple of months ago when I said COVID-19 wasn't done with us, they would have lost.
Naturally that would have included the Fool-in-Chief, but he's wrong about everything anyway, so no surprise there.
If the Dolt-in-Chief had even a smidgen of historical knowledge, he would know that plagues have historically lasted for years, and some for centuries. It's been suggested that the last gasp of the Black Death of the 1340s came only in 1955. Pandemics rip through us in waves, sometimes just a ripple, sometimes a tsunami. The first wave had barely passed when Trump and the Booboisie started screaming for everything to open up.
So we opened up. Masks came off, social distancing was forgotten, bars and beaches and other places of frivolity enjoyed some very welcome profitable days, and Americans were finally able to get out and have a good time. July 4 was a blast.
To date, more than 15,000 Americans have paid for that party with their lives.
Following the initial assault by COVID-19, which picked off the low-hanging fruit, the curve of U. S. deaths fell into a slump, which a great many ignoramuses thought was the end. Nope. just warming up for round two.
There were only 273 COVID deaths on July 4 in America, and the dwindling number allowed medical professionals to feel very cautiously optimistic. One week later, on July 11, 729 people died; on July 18, 879; and yesterday, 981. In four weeks the daily death toll quadrupled, and it's still going up.
There is only one possible reason for this increase: lessening preventive measures, including isolation, and the insane rush to dive into traditional holiday activities.
The delusional Megalomaniac-in-Chief is willing to sacrifice anything and anyone to get to the status quo ante; or in words he might understand, "the way it's s'posed to be." Or in Trumpspeak, "The way I want it to be."
He cannot and will not accept that it's not going to happen. Ever. That sense of complete and utter change in the world is something he's not wired to understand.
He does know something is going on. In a recent argumentative interview with Chris Wallace, the Great Pretender disputed Wallace's enumeration of cases, then asked, "how many deaths?" Apparently dead Americans mean more to him than sick ones.
Here's your number, you unworthy lout: since July 4, some 15,000 American families have lost a child, a parent, a spouse, a grandparent, or some other kin because you are too blind and too stupid to even try to improve the situation.
Every one of those deaths lies at your feet, and every bereft family blames you.
--- Diogenes, 7/25/2020
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)