The con man’s games and tricks

As the nation waited, and took a breath to watch the president hold forth on the State of the Union, Trump was hit with a week’s worth of fresh crises.

We learned last Tuesday, that the DOJ and the FBI have been scrubbing the president’s name from the Epstein files before they’re released to the public.  The NYT reported on February 25th that one of those files held back are investigative notes of a 13 year old girl who reported Trump raped her.

That would blow up a State of the Union speech of any other president. But he has no sense of shame or accountability or any boundaries.

June 19th, PBS reported that America’s top Catholic leaders issued a damning statement about Trump’s ICE and immigration policy. They included a number of  policy demands and criticisms of both DHS and ICE. 

They call for human rights for immigrants, for supporting not destroying immigrant families, for a new immigration policy with a path to citizenship and provide a way to stay for immigrants who’ve made a life here and “work for the common good”.

While he was preparing for his speech, polling from different sources show the alleged pedophile, convicted sexual abuser president has the lowest approval rating of both his terms. His approval rating is below 40%. Sixty percent of Americans disapprove of him as president.

He started his speech with a list of data points liberally sprinkled with half truths, bad numbers and outright lying. 

He lied liberally about the economy. He blamed (how many times) Biden for the inflation that still plagues us. Of course, anyone who understands economics knows that the Trump tariffs are sales taxes on imported goods that keep prices up, even raising them.

Jarringly, he reported that the US has taken 80 million barrels of oil from Venezuela since the kidnapping of their president. War for Oil?

After bragging about assaulting the environment with huge increases in oil drilling, he crowed  his “Drill Baby Drill” chant.

He claimed to have cleaned up several major American cities including Memphis, Washington, DC and others.

The rest of the speech was the con man’s games and tricks. He wrapped himself in glory that he didn’t earn or deserve: introducing military heroes soaking up their applause as though he had ever known the sacrifice, discipline and sheer terror and trauma that comes from all combat and defines what is given and taken in mortal struggle.

I couldn’t help but notice that every time he delivered an applause line he turned his head, preening with his silhouette.

The chamber was obviously more split than usual after the war Democrats have experienced from Trump including trying to prosecute Democratic war heroes like Senator Mark Kelly, basing federal aid on the way a state votes, flooding city streets with corrupt cops called ICE to remove as many brown and black people as possible. The Democratic side of the aisle had many open seats as many boycotted the speech.

While at one hour and forty-seven minutes, and forty seconds, the address was the longest in history. But not as long as rumors, and leaks, had predicted leading to speculation that some were using inside information to play the betting market on the speech’s length.

In the end the whole effort was about shoring up his slipping base. Of course, that just reinforces the status quo which is a disaster for Trump.

In the upper Potomac Valley we are facing two distinct crises piled on us by the GOP Administration.

Trump and his maga crowd are determined to build an ICE detention center just across the river in Maryland. And here in West Virginia the MAGA GOP Governor wants our state to create the most data centers in our nation. It will soak up our ground water, and suck up electrical power, driving up our electric bills.

It’s happening all over the country. Trump and the GOP are trying to sell the earth beneath our feet as they turn our children and grandchildren into high tech serfs, who only matter for giving themselves to a virtual boss and robotic existence.

Time to turn it around in November.

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