Countdown 95 days

WRITERS BLOCK and RECOVERY

I have attempted daily to write about the current presidential clown show with no lack of ammunition. For 5 months I have seen the mis-direction, miss-information, conspiracy theories, and lies spewing from his rhetoric and in Trump’s tweets. His message is always divisive and some meant to re-direct the conversation to his antics to cover for other more important news of the day.  Thus far there has been no shortage of his lunacy. 

On the day the nations mourns the late civil rights icon John Lewis, Trump tweets incendiary and patently incisive rhetoric about moving the election date and nonsense about mail in voting.  I will first tackle the lunacy.

 Trump also spews the unfounded rhetoric about fraud that he thinks will occur invoking his “talking to others” and “I hear it from a lot of people” as justification for his ignorance about the mail in ballot subject.  Trump has stated that absentee ballots he uses are ok, however mail in ballots are somehow wroth with fraud. His ignorance knows no bounds or he has a political motive (you think). Absentee ballots are mail in ballots.  Republicans for years have mailed to potential Republican registered voters applications for absentee ballots. The applications are mailed in and the ballot appears. These are now the mail in ballots Trump says can generate and may promote fraud.

A larger potential problem is the Post Office. If mail-in ballots have pre-paid return envelopes, the Post Office has stated they do not postmark these mailings. This creates a problem where states require voting to take place on or before the date of the election.  Without proof of the postmark, the Trump administration has signaled that they would challenge all these votes. This could invalidate millions of otherwise legitimate votes. This could be done in selective state locations, by a delay in postal service to certain areas and thus not having the ballots in the hands of the electors and without dates they won’t be counted.

Republicans should be up in arms about the fraud accusation for mail-in- ballots as that is how many of the state and local Republicans win.  They swamp the field with applications for the ballots and encourage usage by giving individualized instructions to fill out the forms. 

His tweets, as well as his unscheduled briefing on the virus, which was hastily put together to counter the devastating economic news and the eulogy of Barak Obama for John Lewis, was all to throw up a big laser light show to garner all the light and drown out the unpleasantness. Below is a break to honor a legacy I have reprinted a portion of an article from USA today dated 30 July by Nicquel Terry and Ellis Woodyard:

USA TODAY ATLANTA – Barack Obama challenged the nation Thursday to honor the memory of John Lewis by picking up the fight for his signature issue, voting rights, during a eulogy for the civil rights giant in which he was joined by two other past presidents, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

At the funeral on the grounds of the Ebenezer Baptist Church where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached, Obama invoked the names of Southern segregationists of the 1960s to make a point about how little has changed when it comes to protesters standing up against government oppression to try to right what they perceive as injustices.

“Bull Connor may be gone, but today we witness with our own eyes police officers kneeling on the necks of Black Americans. George Wallace may be gone, but we can witness our federal government sending agents to use tear gas and batons against peaceful demonstrators,” he said. 

In response, the masked mourners at the private service gave Obama a thunderous ovation. The best way to honor Lewis, who served in Congress for four decades after his work in the civil rights movement, is to continue the struggle for voting rights, Obama said. Lewis, whom Obama hailed as “a man of pure joy and unbreakable perseverance,” was a leader in the nonviolent demonstrations that led to passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

  Obama said voting should be made easier to former prison inmates who earned their place back in society, that early voting should be expanded, and that Election Day should be a national holiday. “Even as we sit here, there are those in power who are doing their darndest to discourage people from voting,” said Obama in a not-so-veiled swipe at Republicans. He cited the closing of voting locations and stricter identification card requirements that target minorities and students.

Clinton, speaking slowly in a soft voice, earlier hailed the late congressman for adhering to his belief in peaceful demonstration, even when it meant being beaten by police or state troopers in the 1960s. He noted the devotion to what Lewis called “good trouble” –becoming an irritant to the status quo to bring about change.

It was “extraordinary” that Obama, Clinton and Bush were all there. “It’s very rare that you find three of the presidents at a place at the same time,” said Allen, who marched with Lewis in Selma and was inspired by his nonviolent protests. “It’s so important to be here. ”It was Obama’s eulogy that resonated the most outside the church, with many cheering and clapping throughout. “He got in a lot of good trouble along the way, but let’s not forget he developed an absolute uncanny ability to heal troubled waters,”

Clinton said. “He thought the open hand was better than the clenched fist.” Lending a bipartisan air to the funeral, Bush called Lewis “an American saint, a believer willing to give up everything.”

Bush noted that he and Lewis had had political disagreements – Bush being a Republican and Lewis a Democrat – but that it was an inevitable result of democracy in action. He said he admired Lewis for his faith and pursuit of a better world. “We live in a better and nobler country today because of John Lewis and his abiding faith in the power of God, the power of democracy and the power of love to lift us all to a higher ground,” Bush said.

It was a remarkable testament to Lewis’ influence to have had his funeral attended by three former presidents. The fourth, America’s oldest living former president, Jimmy Carter, 95, sent a statement that was read at the service. President Donald Trump, who feuded politically with Lewis, didn’t attend. …/.. end of abbreviated article.

Trump tried his best to spoil John Lewis’ funeral by the antics of a jealous child that could not stand the more deserved attention shown to the icon. His “look over here” show had congressional Republicans all day having to counter his stupid tweet with facts. 

Trump has been laying the predicate about the voracity of the election with mail in ballots.  He has no realistic data that supports his position. He keeps sewing doubt about the election just in case its close he can contest the results. A Minnesota University study found that the rate of ballots only a .000025 or .0025% or 2.5 votes per million votes that were counted were potentially fraud. With 60 million votes per party- that’s only 150 votes for each presidential candidate in an election. The last presidential election mail in voters were 23% of the votes or 40 million.

When I began the day I had no subject to write about and then…Voila!  The Dotard in chief keeps on giving. He always looks for the attention so that his failings cannot be amplified.  Take the devastating economic news with a 32.9% annualized and record decline in GDP, with over 150,000 deaths from the virus, with the fourth straight day of record deaths, and the death of Hermann Cain, and the Fed coming to the conclusion that the economic recovery can only happen with confidence the virus has been controlled. 54 million jobless claims since the beginning of the virus and 1.43 million last week.

Finally, after 5 months, the administration is now tying the virus to the economic recovery. Only if this administration would tie testing to control of the virus we could make some headway with controlling the pandemic.  Duh!