Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

tRumpFuckingIdiot, tRumpImbecile, ...



President Trump is demanding top advisers craft a plan to reduce the country’s ballooning budget deficits, but the president has flummoxed his own aides by repeatedly seeking new spending while ruling out measures needed to address the country’s unbalanced budget.

Trump’s deficit-reduction directive came last month, after the https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/government-borrowing-soars-despite-robust-economy/2018/09/11/09a85554-b5eb-11e8-a7b5-adaaa5b2a57f_story.html (White House reported a large increase in the deficit) for the previous 12 months. The announcement unnerved Republicans and investors, helping fuel a big sell-off in the stock market. Two days after the deficit report, Trump floated a surprise demand to his Cabinet secretaries, asking them to identify steep cuts in their agencies.

This account of Trump’s deficit stance is based on conversations with 10 current and former officials in the White House and Congress. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations or private conversations. The White House has not responded to repeated requests for comment.

Administration officials have, for now, crafted a sparse plan that would recycle past proposals and call on Congress to trim federal spending on a variety of programs, two White House officials said.

But even as he has demanded deficit reduction, Trump has handcuffed his advisers with limits on what measures could be taken. And almost immediately after demanding the cuts from his Cabinet secretaries, Trump suggested that some areas — particularly the military — would be largely spared.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

By now, everyone knows about the Friday news dump — the penchant for sleazy companies or even sleazier government agencies to hold onto a piece of really bad news until late on a Friday afternoon, so that any headlines that are generated come out when everybody's working for the weekend, or in Saturday newspapers that nearly nobody reads.

So, when the bad news involves mass death and disease, a never-ending bowl of natural disasters, the extinction of species, etc. — and when your boss is on the wrong side of the mass-death issue — that calls for the Mother of All News Dumps. That would be a news release at 2 p.m. on the Friday after Thanksgiving, when no one works and most Americans are either waiting on a rope line at Walmart or couch-prone in a tryptophan coma.

"This is, unfortunately, par for the course for this president that he would try to bury this news and deny it," Jake Levine, who'd worked on climate issues during Barack Obama's presidency, said on MSNBC right after the Trump administration realized that Black Friday — while a month ahead of schedule — was their preferred day to drop a congressionally mandated report on climate change that predicted dire consequences if America and the world do not respond quickly.

Don't let Trumpian government dump on your right to this life-or-death information. Now that Thanksgiving is over and blood sugar is returning to normal-albeit-elevated levels, you should read the government's Climate Assessment (the work of 13 different federal agencies) or check out some of the better summaries of its findings from the New York Times or Vox.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Pretending that voting for Trump or denying climate change or suggesting the solution to every problem is more guns is a legitimate point of view, worthy of respect is not "how America works." It is how it dies.

People in a free society are entitled to any point of view no matter how obviously wrong or outlandish or destructive provided they do not impose their views on others.

But suggesting that something ignorant or divorced from reality warrants the same kind of treatment in public debate as something based in fact or at least credible is absurd and when done on behalf of a society in public media or academic settings it is self-destructive.

We would not grant media coverage or much bandwidth at all to a group that argued that unicorns exist or that there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Yet views like denying climate change or basing policy decisions on sweeping, obvious lies, are just as unsound.

Somewhere, somehow, judgments must be made. Some behaviors are wrong and must be condemned. Someone must challenge lies and demand facts. Coddling people who embrace idiocies does not help them no matter how loudly they demand to be coddled.

I was at a dinner party last night when a woman argued that Midwestern conservatives who supported Trump should not be disrespected. Oh no? This is the ultimate consequences of the dumbing down of America. It is granting everyone who shows up a participation trophy in democracy.

It is grossly irresponsible to vote for someone or back an idea that is founded in lies, immorality, or criminal behavior. It is just as irresponsible to treat such candidates or ideas as though they were deserving of even a fleeting moment of consideration.

That's not "fairness." That is a proven path to catastrophe. There were no witches in Salem. The Jews did not poison the wells. One racial group is not superior to another. Trickle down economics does not work.

Somewhere some among us must exercise judgement and stand up for what is. There is plenty of room for reality-based, intelligent debate. But that debate is undermined when anyone can wander in and assert "their truth."

When campuses invite on charlatans selling inflammatory theories contradicted by all evidence, they are not serving freedom of ideas, they're abusing it. When experts on TV shows proffer unfounded, indefensible opinions they weaken all of us & destroy their hosts' credibility.

With our president waging a war against truth and with a party apparatus, the media and many in "expert" communities abetting him, our entire system of government which depends on a thoughtful, engaged, informed electorate, is put at risk.

They do more damage to us than volleys of missiles could ever achieve. We have to demand better. We have to challenge lies when we hear them. We have to directly condemn and opposed the perniciousness of faux-fairness.

We have to be able to call out the intellectually dishonest and lazy and work to stop them from doing further damage because in the end it helps them too and because it is our duty as citizens to do so, to demand more, to seek the truth.

We are faltering right now because we are too ready to give nonsense and deceit a place in our national conversation. Relaxing our standards as we have is the surest way to guarantee a tragic end to America's fragile experiment in democracy.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

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Hundreds of migrants apparently try storming California port of entry, as Trump threatens to close entire border

Hundreds of migrants apparently try rushing toward California port of entry, as Trump threatens to close entire border


Get the water cannons out, they could use a bath

 

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Julian Assange’s indictment may cause trouble for Democrats

 

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