Tom Toles for February 19, 2020

Anybody who didn’t see this… ALL of this… coming wasn’t paying attention. Which I can understand: Paying attention to this train wreck crossed with a septic tank overflow is acutely painful.

The more they destroy Democracy, the more they destroy the chances for a clean end to this madness.

Arbeit Macht Frei, soon to come in Bonespurs tweets.

I must suspect that Scofflaw-in-Chief Tяцmp isn’t quite as clueless as many people think. To be sure, he mostly functions at the level of instinct, and those instincts are undoubtedly telling him that he’s very widely despised, not loved at all like he desperately needs and knows he deserves, and that as a result he’ll soon be be going down in flames himself. By now, every miserable cell in his disgusting body is angry to the max. Consequently, while he still can, he’s going to flip off the world, the U. S. in particular. He’s going to do everything he can to take a flame-thrower to everyone and everything.

This sick tantrum behavior by Demented Doииie is NOT surprising, and has often been predicted. Unless he’s very soon restrained, physically, the next eleven months will be some of the most disastrous in U. S. history. I fear we ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Outgoing Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin set a small example.

You® senators who just acquitted Tяцmp, much of this is and will be directly on you, too. The ignominy…

Carriers – {3 beats/phrase, then 2 then 3}

Let’s vote for Dems as barriers // against these virus carriers. -

- These perps are desirous // that their virulent virus

will prevail in our troubled nation, // to democracy’s frustration.

… Coda: – {limerick}

Shouldn’t we quarantine // a dude with a fascist’s mien?

At least we should ask // that he double his mask

to make more hygienic the scene.

In an exclusive interview, Coronavirus COVID-19 told the press that President Donald Trump should stop tweeting because his tweets “make it impossible for me to do my job.”

Y’know what? It’s like that dream where we all died and went to hell, only nobody told us, and wait, it’s not a dream…

There is something more frightening than the resident and McConnell … the resident’s approval is growing and his disapproval is shrinking. Apparently there are many who approve of the authoritarianism that the resident and McCommell are nurturing. Establishment religions and the Constitution which assert freedom and justice for all are no longer appealing to many voters who prefer the disinformation over the facts.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/trump-approval/

I’ve been an Independent since 1971. My personal policy has been to usually vote against the individual and party was never a consideration. Until now. I’leaning very hard toward “Vote blue, no matter who” because any vote for blue is a vote against the most corrupt administration and party in this nation’s history.

{Off-topic:}

He Tweets – {3 beats/line, then 4}

He tweets in a furious flurry

{in a psychosis-driven hurry};

his frenzied fingers scurry. …

… Altho’ his thoughts are disheveled and blurry,

his minions relax with their “What? US worry?”

Their Donald’s triumphant as kingly chief,

so it’s quite okay that his tweetings cause grief.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Trumpus Fungus:

—) The following is a portion of a secret CDC report, as leaked to “The New York Tempus Magazine” —

The contagion designated “Trumpus Fungus” is rapidly spreading. An estimated 49 percent of the nation’s population is thus far infected. Research shows it is a genetically engineered chimera of several deadly species.

Principally designed by Doctors Cohn, Bannon, and Miller, it was nurtured in the Right Wing of Republican Labs by the notorious Tea Party consortium (with Russian technical support). it has been purposely spread by Fox News pundits and White House lawyers, including the notorious Dr. “Demento” Dershowitz.

It has a macrostomatus feature (large mouth parts) used in innumerable toxic tweets and rally rants. It is therefore classified as a highly contagious airborne social disease.

The present vector is the person for which it is named, the American chief executive, and through contact with him has been further spread by his executive staff and legislative sycophants. M. McConnell is identified as an infectious carrier, although he has so far successfully resisted restraint and quarantine.

Technical Note: In this new species, a characteristic macro-cyst periodically forms, and having burst, releases contaminating clouds of MAGAspores. Various containment procedures have been attempted, up to and including Impeachment, but the Trumpus Fungus is insidious and highly resistant to all known anti-politics. It may even have a rudimentary form of sentience.

It is thought that intense Voting will help stop the contagion, but success in that regard is questionable and perhaps impossible at this point. The situation is dire. Among young staffers, it is referred to as “World War T”. (— (—

It will take America generations to undo and repair the damage him and his stooges have done…..worse than any cancer, or virus…..

Seriously… HOW can any thinking individual agree with this, and think that it’s good for the country??

“ANY RATIONAL ADULT: 2020”

Somebody tell Sinclair Lewis, It IS Happening Here.

They got it from Putin.

{Off-topic:}

Molesting Milady Justice – {3 beats/line, then 2}

It raises us citizens’ hackles

to watch the AG as he shackles

the D.O.J.

and holds it at bay.

… Coda: – {4 beats/line}

It’s Lady Justice herSelf whom he tackles. -

- Barr and Trump are a pair of jackals

who stalk then strangle then mangle Milady,

and make her department a Cat quite aFraidy.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Those masks were pretty thin and did little to hide the program right from the start.

I’m beginning to think I’m a little more paranoid than I thought. I’m wondering if the game plan all along was to disenchant everyone’s respect for the Office of President, Congress, and the Judicial system, and of the public’s trust even in each other, thereby laying the foundation for an autocracy and overturning our republic. Suddenly, “Only I can fix it” takes on a much more sinister tone.

79 years ago my grandfathers, their siblings and others of that age enlisted to fight on the battlefields, on the oceans, in the air and in the factories against fascists like these. I have no qualm if I have to pick up and use a weapon besides a ballot to guarantee our freedoms.

My daughter told me to stop talking to her husband about the state of the USA and the world, it depressed him. I did but the situation kept going without pause. Her husband is slowly getting more angry without my help.

It may not have been obvious to everyone (some people live with eyes closed) but by now we are at the end. The active shooting is so very close.

“I told you so” is not a comfort in the least.

Since his young ape-hood he’s been striking out at a world that never did anything to him to begin with. Seriously? Who screwed him as he has screwed others? Is this not indicative of mental health problems? If the stick figures who birthed him had thought to smack his chubby little paw when first he grabbed at what wasn’t his … nah, never mind! :-)

Tiny heard that repressing his feeling was unhealthy. He is now bigly healthy.

The Republican senate has given a (puerile old man) great power and he will retaliate on those he fears.

It’s catching across the Anglosphere.

It’s a plague in the Anglosphere/ at its worst in the South – right here !/T’is Lindsay and Mitch/ and swathe of the rich/ and they’re playing on Anglos’ fear…

Vicious rat criminal Trump is suing everyone with taxpayer dollars.

Arrogant Republicans have made Republicans above the law, everyone else must suffer from their false accusations.

Wouldn’t mind seeing those two slapped into quarantine for the next couple of months.

{Off-topic:}

Rhetorical Ferocity – {limerick}

His regime promotes atrocity,

so it sponsors so much animosity

that it’s an ugly monstrosity

of rhetorical ferocity: -

- verbosity at high velocity.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Conservative pundit Michael Gerson: In the large category of things that justice demands but will never come to pass: The elected Republicans who voted against the impeachment and removal of President Trump owe Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman a public apology.The National Security Council staffer, Iraq War veteran and Purple Heart recipient obeyed a lawful subpoena, gave truthful testimony and was rewarded by his commander in chief with unceremonious removal from the White House and vicious criticism designed to destroy his life and career. A pathetic smattering of Trump’s congressional enablers criticized this calumny. But most winced, fidgeted and said nothing. All of them knew that Trump unremoved would be Trump unbound. And that utter predictability makes them personally responsible for all that has followed.Cowardice on this scale is not a single act; it includes all the guilty silences that complicity continues to require. And the consequences of Republican cravenness are still unfolding.Vindman’s treatment was part of the Great Purge of 2020, in which Trump has fired, attacked or vilified anyone with the audacity to expose or oppose his corruption. The president has checked off his enemies list one by one: Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman (dismissed for his last name), European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), the four federal prosecutors who quit the Roger Stone case and past leaders of the FBI.

And he continues: When revenge is this obvious, the goal is not merely to punish; it is to intimidate those who might resist Trump’s will in the future. And the strategy, thanks to elected Republicans, is working. The federal government is taking on the attributes of a banana republic — not in a humorous metaphorical sense but in the sense of real fear of presidential retribution, aided by the cable TV and Internet mob, for public resistance to his power.In the past, such attacks have often seemed the result of impulse. Now they have become systematic. And Trump is not only targeting his enemies; he is intervening in the legal system on behalf of those who implement his will. The president has consistently surrounded himself with con men, grifters and enforcers. His intervention in the Stone case — perhaps previewing the broader abuse of his pardon power — holds out the promise of impunity for his supporters. […] Trump has spent three years finding public officials who will anticipate and implement his purposes (and weeding out those who will not). In Attorney General William P. Barr, Trump finally discovered his ideal employee. Barr was more than willing to preemptively and deceptively summarize the Mueller report. He has been more than willing to begin harassing investigations of those who investigate the president and his cronies. And it seems he was more than willing to intervene on behalf of Stone, the president’s friend, in the sentencing phase of his trial on charges including lying to Congress and witness tampering. All these things have been done in service to the president’s person, not in obedience to the Constitution or the rule of law. Despite his protestations, this makes Barr a willing tool and a political shill who does not deserve the high office he holds. He should resign — which is another of those things that justice demands but is unlikely to come to pass.