PMC Commentary

The Senate gets … serious?

Politico reports that "a bipartisan group of senators is trying to jump-start stalled coronavirus stimulus talks during the lame duck" session. But making a deal will be — understatement alert — an "uphill battle," continues Politico, since "congressional leaders [are] still at odds over providing more relief."

Yes, there's a wee bit of a gap between Nancy Pelosi's $3 trillion bill and Mitch McConnell's proffered three dollars.

Negotiators include Sens. Chris Coons, Joe Manchin, Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, Mark Warner, Rob Portman and Michael Bennet; also Susan Collins, who is, however, still trying to decide if she really should be participating in the talks.

Yet there's no hurry, even though "a number of key provisions, like expanded unemployment insurance and eviction moratoriums … are expiring at the end of the year." The upside is that the jobless and soon-homeless will have all of December to test their mettle. So good luck, folks, and have a Merry Christmas.

Trump's Fox News interview, and his clarification

From "we had glitches where they moved thousands of votes from my account to Biden's account" to "I came up with vaccines" in record time, here is Trump's full, stomach-turning interview yesterday with Maria Bartiromo:

However, lest we think Trump spewed all that garbage merely on behalf of his gargantuan ego, this morning he set us all straight:

I’m not fighting for me, I’m fighting for the 74,000,000 million people (not including the many Trump ballots that were “tossed”), a record for a sitting President, who voted for me!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2020

What is so particularly, strikingly Trumpian about the tweet is not only his laughable stipulation that "I’m fighting for the 74,000,000 million people … who voted for me!" but also his omission of all 330 million Americans who, purportedly, were robbed of an honest election. He just cannot escape his little world of Trumpers only.

Less than two months to go, but nervous weeks between

The assassination of Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was almost certainly effected by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but even more certain is that the go-ahead came from America's most vindictive mob boss, Trump.

The hit "threatens to cripple President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s effort to revive the Iran nuclear deal before he can even begin his diplomacy with Tehran," writes the Times' senior national security correspondent, David Sanger. "And that may well have been a main goal of the operation."

Probably the main goal. Just as Trump has successfully derailed — at least for now — much of President Obama's agendas out of spite, he'll attempt the same to incoming President Biden.

"The reason for assassinating Fakhrizadeh wasn’t to impede Iran’s war potential," says Mark Fitzpatrick, a former State Department nonproliferation expert. "It was to impede diplomacy," he added, which Biden hopes to emphasize, and which Trump neither understands nor prefers.

Only this outgoing president, seething in rage at his reelection loss and intent on maliciously haunting his Democratic successor, would take such a belligerent step — potentially igniting an international conflict that would bog down the next incumbent just weeks before the transfer of power.

Nevertheless, even Iran's reputedly fanatical, warlike leaders are likely to maintain cooler heads than America's "presidential" mob boss. Or so we must hope. Then, in 51 days, we and the world will be rid of this inhuman pestilence.

Kick up your feet, strap on those phones and be blown away

​​​​​A Sunday pause from the madness: Mendelssohn's magnificent, 90-miles-per-hour String Octet, which he composed at the age of — 16. I first offer this abbreviated version (4th movement) in both the interest of your time and for the artists' commentary.

Or, if you prefer, here's the entire, 28-minute version, with Heifetz as lead violinist and full orchestration, which is a mind-blower to try to follow.

Third Circuit Court of Appeals slams Trump

​​​​​It's times like these that I thank Jesus I am not a Christian, for I need not struggle to forgive Trump his many malfeasances:

The Campaign tries to repackage these [Pennsylvania] state-law claims as unconstitutional discrimination. Yet its allegations are vague and conclusory. It never alleges that anyone treated the Trump campaign or Trump votes worse than it treated the Biden campaign or Biden votes…. Voters, not lawyers, choose the President. Ballots, not briefs, decide elections.

— UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT, 27 Nov. 2020

The courts have held strong in the face of Trump's appalling, post-election conduct. And I'm also thankful for that.  

No, you are not president (in the traditional sense of the title)

"Don't talk to me that way, you're just a lightweight, don't talk to me that way. I'm the president of the United States. Don't ever talk to the president that way," barked featherweight Trump at Reuters correspondent Jeff Mason yesterday as the reporter attempted to press him on his absurd claims of "massive" election fraud — and yet profoundly true implication that he has been conducting himself as would a tinpot dictator in a "third world country."

The latter point I'll give to Trump in full, but only a half-point to his opening remark of "Don't ever talk to the president that way." A more precise comeback would have been, don't ever talk that way to a president, which he is not. He's nothing but America's aforementioned, authoritarian embarrassment before the world — the civilized nations of which are delighted to be rid of him — and negligent homicidal sociopath.

And had I been Reuters' reporter at Trump's abhorrent press conference yesterday, I would have told him that, Reuters' paycheck or no. And that's why I'm no more a Reuters' reporter than Trump is a president of the United States.

Georgia Republicans are flipping out, big time

Having not only been left untreated but egged on by the chief wingnut of the world, the GOP has become a textbook study in epidemical paranoia and charming self-destruction.

"Driven by Trump’s insistence that Georgia’s elections are indelibly rife with fraud," Politico reports, "conspiratorial MAGA figures are calling for a boycott of the two Senate runoff races, slated for Jan. 5.

"Their reason: The two GOP candidates, Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, are not only insufficiently pro-Trump, they may be complicit in Georgia’s electoral fraud. It doesn’t matter that both candidates are essentially lock-step with Trump, or that there is no evidence of links to electoral malfeasance. On Twitter and its less-restrictive alternative Parler, Trump’s more hardline followers have linked the duo to the president’s favorite — and untrue — voter-fraud theories. Hashtags like #CrookedPerdue and #CrookedKelly are flying around. The two lawmakers’ Parler accounts are brimming with posts accusing them of being secret 'liberal DemoRats.'"

Although, as noted, Perdue is for sure under assault by growing QAnon-MAGA hydrophobia, it seems Loeffler has gotten the worse end of hardcore Trumpeteers' drooling fulminations — in particular from Sidney Powell, so recently a player on the president's legal dream team, "when she started pushing an untrue allegation that Loeffler had somehow conspired with a voting technology company, Dominion Voting Systems, to suppress votes for [Rep. Doug] Collins," Loeffler's even mega-nuttier primary opponent.

QAnon was once to be loathed. Now it is to be loved.

A truly thankful Thanksgiving

I'll greet you and leave you this Thanksgiving holiday with one simple message: America's honor, dignity and leadership are back.

That's not to imply that our road ahead will be mine-less, for there are those in state and federal government intent on forever pulling us back into Donald Trump's swampish hellhole, and of course Mitch McConnell and his rat pack of Republican senators will do whatever they can to inhibit President Biden's thoughtful agenda and immiserate Americans to the fullest extent possible — all that "keeping him to a one-term president" kind of hyperpartisan GOP salmonella which has had most of us barfing for decades.

But, 2020 has been a historic turning point. Trump and Trumpism were rejected by millions more than those who embraced it, the latter of whom are leaving this earthly ground by the day, demographically replaced by kinder, gentler Americans. To the dearly departed I say, "Good riddance." To the new generation I say, "Hang in there, but be prudent." As President Biden is.

My daughter and I shall likely celebrate this Lincoln-granted day with exquisite delicacies such as Cheez Doodles, M & M's and traditional Pilgrims' lasagna. However the closeness and safety of our little family are all that matter. So whether you're having turkey or almond Snickers bars, I hope you and yours celebrate and enjoy the same.

And thank yourself for helping restore America to a place of honor.  

With Michael Flynn's pardon, Trump lives down to his anticipated rock-bottom lowness

And so begins the deluge of a criminal president's pardons of his criminal friends: The self-confessed liar to the FBI, Putin collaborator and "Lock her up" Michael Flynn is, as of today, now invulnerable to having to pay any price for his felonious misdeeds, while thousands of non-violent federal inmates must languish in prison year after year. 

But what a perfectly appropriate ending — the beginning of an ending, that is — to the most corrupt presidential administration in American political history. More execrable pardons to come. All of them also perfectly predictable. 

The top knot of Trump's decadence and butchery of American decency will, quite naturally, arrive in the style of his own pardon. For there is no obscenity too abhorrent for the likes of this granddaddy of all grifting, belly-crawling sons of bitches. 

Well done, Mr. Trump. You're leaving just as you came in. We expected nothing less. 

Damn it, Joe!

A trifle more retailing

This note is directed to non-contributing, regular readers. Please, take some of the load off those similarly regular readers who donate year after year. Click "DONATE" — in the sidebar — today. And then you can proudly look down on the others who don't. Thank you — PM

According to one poll, a slight improvement for Georgia's Democrats

The Georgia Senate races could not be any closer. The good news is that the Democratic candidates have perhaps inched a bit forward.

Meanwhile, Trump is still pouting and isolating, since only his political welfare matters. "[He] has tweeted support for the Republican candidates but has not announced whether he will come to Georgia to campaign," reports the Washington Post, adding that "Perdue has privately worried that Trump’s power might be waning and that continued support of the president could have political costs."

Given Trump's persistent wails about election fraud and his mass of supporters who have joined his foot-stomping and genuinely buy into his screaming paranoia, it could be that just enough Republicans stay home on 5 Jan. — convinced that Democratic black rats will chew up thousands of GOP ballots — while Ossoff and Warnock waltz to victory.

J-E-S-U-S C-H-R-I-S-T!

I apologize for my recent obsession with Dinesh D'Souza, but he has got to be one of the more pernicious presences on Twitter. Although he spends part of his time producing overtly insane "documentaries" exposing deep-state and diabolical liberal conspiracies either carried out or attempted against the forces of right-wing cretinism, he devotes his other thoughtful hours to further shrinking the Trumpian lizard brains among us.

Governors have said a lot of stupid things during this pandemic, but this can go near the top of that list. https://t.co/Y7Bq3q2HCO

— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) November 24, 2020

Prithee, just what in God's name is "stupid" about these words from Maryland's Republican governor, Larry Hogan. Not only stupid; they are, according to Dinesh — with two million Twitter followers — and something called rumble.com, evidence of going "Full Communist."

(That term is banished by the faithful, however, from describing small-government Republicans who feel compelled to order women around as to what they can do with their own bodies. And if the Jerry Falwell Jr.s of this world could legally demand that only their wives could give blowjobs to pool boys, so they could watch, they'd do it.)

Trump pardons himself

We knew this would happen.

Wisdom —what we voted for

NBC News on President-elect Joe Biden's high-level appointments:

"So far, he's giving everybody from progressive activists to centrist Democrats something to be happy about and little to fight over."

And he will continue to. That's why he was always the most advisable Democratic presidential candidate.