Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Big_paul]

You can't make this shit up

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

The issue here is not that Trump doesn’t believe in things like truth and untruth; he absolutely believes that some things are true and other things are false, but what makes them true or false to him is grounded entirely in how he feels about them.

Once a belief is lodged in the sodden Nerf of his brain it becomes true to him, and remains that way forever. These things tend, if anything, to become more true over time, or at least become larger.

There is probably some latent impulse from his days as a real estate huckster that powers this—in the same way that he once added floors to the oafish towers he developed, he now adds years or billions to the oafish tales he tells from the front of his trade war with China. It also cannot be ruled out that the guy just likes saying large numbers.

When Trump authors one of his really avant-garde falsehoods, it’s this impulse that’s generally behind it. He just likes things to be big, if possible “much bigger many say than anything that we’ve ever seen” but always and everywhere as big as he can get away with making them.

...

Whether it matters to you or not that these projections had all “https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/09/04/president-trump-shows-doctored-hurricane-chart-was-it-cover-up-alabama-twitter-flub/ (long been ruled out)” by the time Trump was briefed on August 29 depends on a number of factors and your capacity for being outraged by the stupid things that one soggy old dullard does on the daily. That there is a law against lying about the weather under color of the National Weather Service—the penalty is a fine or 90 days in jail—clearly doesn’t matter at all, at least insofar as there are so many more significant crimes than Criminal Executive Storm Inflation on Trump’s docket and also because no one currently appears to be doing much about those. It is clear, though, that this all matters to Trump a great deal. More, certainly, than the progress of the storm itself, or any of the many other issues that might have attracted the attention of more distractible chief executive.

The extent to which this perseverating dovetails with any of Trump’s broader strategic goals—which it does, at least in the sense that he has lately leaned heavily on the idea that the Fake News is trying to convince you that he was wrong about the weather, when in point of fact he has never been wrong about the weather and has a lot of experience with it—is, as usual, purely incidental. The extent to which the fixation https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/04/trumps-war-reality-enters-bizarre-new-terrain/ (reflects a longstanding approach on Trump’s part), which it does in the sense that he has never admitted any error, is notable mostly because everything that Trump does “reflects a longstanding approach.”

Nothing about the man has changed since 1991 or so, but various aspects of his personality have grown, or metastasized. He has always had a taste for big things, and an irresistible urge to associate himself with them. In another universe, Trump would be online claiming to be “very close friends” with Dorian, or offering to broker a deal with the hurricane to prevent it from Doing Hurt to the southeast. In this one, he is just doing what he does—taking some foolish falsehood that he prefers to the truth and insisting upon it, over and over, until it is just him talking to himself, agreeing with himself, congratulating himself, and then waiting for someone to come along and make it true for him.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

As the President's homeland security and counterterror adviser Rear Adm. Peter Brown claimed in a statement issued late Thursday afternoon, Roberts said that in his visit to the Oval Office he learned that Trump on Sunday had been shown a graphic showing Hurricane Dorian proceeding north through Florida and touching the southeastern tip of Alabama with tropical storm force winds.

A White House source told CNN on Thursday that Trump personally directed Brown to issue the statement. Brown reports to national security adviser John Bolton but Bolton did not ask Brown to release the statement, the source said.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Fox News chief anchor Shepard Smith on Thursday roasted President Trump for repeatedly backing his own forecast about Hurricane Dorian’s path that incorrectly included Alabama.

“Some things in Trumplandia are inexplicable,” Smith said. “Maybe he got some bad info from somebody, maybe he made a mistake, maybe he was confused, we don’t know. But he was wrong. And since, for days and days, he’s been insisting — with fake visuals in hand — that he was right.”

...

“Why would the president of the United States do this?” Smith said. “He decries fake news that isn’t and disseminates fake news that is. Think China pays the tariffs. The wall is going up. Historic inauguration crowds. Russia probe was a witch hunt. You need an ID to buy cereal. Noise from windmills causes cancer. It’s endless.”

The map Trump tweeted Thursday afternoon shared a forecast on Twitter from days earlier that showed a potential path to Alabama — “four days old at the precise time he said Alabama would likely be hit harder than anticipated,” Smith said.

“By then,” Smith said, “it was fake news defined.”

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]