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melania trump
Whatever Removes Donald Trump--a Miserable Bastard--From Public Life Is Good
Donald Trump has been laying waste to our Constitution, our democracy, and our very society.
Oct 02, 2020
"First and foremost, I pray for a speedy recovery for President Trump and the First Lady."
Okay. I got that out of the way.
The honest truth is that Donald Trump is a miserable bastard, and indeed a sociopath, who routinely demeans and debases others in his personal life and in his public performances.
That lead is a quote of what virtually every pundit and politician has said this morning upon learning of the COVID diagnosis of Donald and Melania Trump. Indeed, it is reasonable to think that many of those people also spoke with those quotation marks implied. They were saying what others have said, or what they think The Ideal Human Being would say, or at least what any decent human being would be expected to say under normal circumstances.
These are not normal circumstances.
One small sign: some skeptics have raised questions about whether the entire announcement is a ploy by Trump to gain sympathy and curry favor with voters. The very fact that smart people can wonder about this is a sign of how dangerously low things have fallen in this country. Anything is possible with Trump. In other words, we are all still in real danger.
It is often said that "hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue." One can slightly extend the notion, and fairly observe that civility is the tribute that vice often pays to virtue. It is often good to be nice even to those we despise. It is good to perform a basic decency in our interactions with others, whoever they may be, as a way of enacting integrity for oneself, and of promoting some minimal level of decency in the world.
It is also true that honesty is the tribute that virtue pays to vice.
And the honest truth is that Donald Trump is a miserable bastard, and indeed a sociopath, who routinely demeans and debases others in his personal life and in his public performances.
This was on full display in Tuesday's so-called "Presidential debate," when he abused Joe Biden, went out of his way to viciously attack Biden's son, and could not even show a minimal amount of respect for Biden's other dead son, a man who did something that no person in Trump's family has ever done--volunteered for military duty and devoted his life to public service.
Trump's COVID diagnosis is The News today, the major headline in every medium, including the New York Times.
But today's Times also features these stories on its web "front page":
"Trump Virtually Cuts Off Refugees as He Unleashes a Tirade On Immigrants."
"In Profane Rant, Melania Trump Takes Aim At Migrant Children and Critics."
"Wisconsin Is Frazzled By Surging Virus Cases and Growing Campaign Frenzy."
"After Wild Fires Stop Burning, a Danger in the Drinking Water."
"Why 'Stand Back and Stand By' Should Set Off Alarm Bells."
The point is simple: as every honest person has been saying for at least months now, Donald Trump has been laying waste to our Constitution, our democracy, and our very society. He has promoted the most cruel and vicious tendencies among us. He has deliberately lied about the pandemic and has defiantly held huge public rallies, both indoors and out, in which many thousands of people have been crammed together without masks. He has deliberately conducted business in the Oval Office in defiance of all social distancing and mask guidelines.
Donald Trump is personally responsible for the many tens of thousands of deaths that could have been prevented through an honest and serious response to the pandemic. Over 200,000 Americans have died of COVID in the past nine months. It will be at least 300,000 by the end of the year. And Trump has not cared.
Donald Trump is personally responsible for the cruel family separations and mass immigrant detentions at our border.
Donald Trump is personally responsible for deploying federal forces to assault a peaceful protest in Lafayette Square, and for deploying federal forces to kidnap people off the streets of Portland, and for encouraging police brutality, and for threatening martial law.
Donald Trump is personally responsible for inciting the violence of his right-wing, white supremacist supporters.
Donald Trump is personally responsible for repeatedly and deliberately announcing that the only legitimate election result is one where he is the winner, and that if there is another result, he will refuse to honor it.
Donald Trump's very existence has been a disaster for the vast majority of U.S. citizens and residents not named Trump.
Donald Trump is personally responsible for more cruelty and injustice than any president, and any single American citizen, in recent memory.
Is it "cosmic justice" that he is now infected by the very disease that he has allowed to spread among us? The Plague gets the plague? Let the philosophers argue about this. One of my colleagues posted on Facebook last night that "Karma is a Bitch!" That seems about right to me.
Donald Trump is no different to me than any other stranger who is also a tyrant responsible for mass suffering. I really do not give a shit about him or his rather vile family members. If I am being honest, I will admit that, having been subjected to his Public Domestic Abuse for four years, I was not the slightest bit sorry to learn about his illness. Why should I be sorry? It's not like my feelings about the matter caused his illness. Indeed, his own irresponsibility caused it. And surely caused many others around him to also become ill. He is a despicable man, and he deserves nothing more than he has given to others. It is normal and legitimate for those whose lives have been disrupted and threatened by a bully or a tyrant to feel some exultation when the tyrant suffers.
Pundits are now worrying about the "national security" implications of Trump's illness. It is true, such instability in the Presidency is always a cause for concern. But can those of us who are responsible for public commentary at least be honest: Trump at full capacity is a malevolent, ignorant, and irresponsible man who has never taken his job or its public responsibilities seriously. Do you really think we are in greater danger now with Trump in bed than we were when Trump was sitting in front of his TV threatening war via Twitter? Yes, the President of the U.S. is responsible for the nuclear codes. And quite honestly, I would feel safer with those codes entrusted to my neighbor's fifteen year old daughter than to Donald Trump.
Donald Trump's very existence has been a disaster for the vast majority of U.S. citizens and residents not named Trump.
Nothing that takes Donald Trump even the slightest bit away from public life is bad.
And, honestly, all further consideration of his illness bores me.
The only thing that matters politically is the decisive defeat of Trump next month, and his expeditious removal from office by January 20, 2021.
Nothing else matters.
Fuck Donald Trump, and Melania too.
Constitutional democracy is on the ballot next month. Defending it is the most urgent imperative of our time.
We must defeat Donald Trump and elect Joe Biden.
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'Know Who Didn't Get a F***ing Break? The Children': Outrage Over Melania Trump's Recorded Comments on Imprisoned Kids
The first lady accused parents and children of lying about the violence they faced in their home countries and claimed children were "taken care of nicely" in ICE detention centers.
Oct 02, 2020
Anger and condemnation ensued overnight and into Friday after the release of secretly-taped audio recordings revealed First Lady Melania Trump dismissing public outrage over the family separation crisis initiated by her husband's administration at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018.
"'Oh, what about the children, that they were separated?' Give me a fucking break."
--First Lady Melania Trump
Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former friend of the first lady hired as her senior advisor when President Donald Trump took office in 2017, released the audio a month after publishing a memoir of her White House career, "Melania and Me."
In the recording from July 2018, Trump is heard first complaining about the expectation that she oversee the Christmas decorations at the White House and then speaking disparagingly of critics who said she did not do enough to speak out against the separation of thousands of families at the border--a policy which resulted in thousands of children being locked up in detention centers away from their parents or guardians.
\u201cHere's all of the Melania Trump audio played on @andersoncooper tonight. The audio was taped by her former friend and advisor @SWWCreative. \n\nIn the tapes, Mrs. Trump talks about: \n\n- Family separations \n- Christmas \n- "Liberal media" \n- The "I really don't care" jacket\u201d— Yashar Ali \ud83d\udc18 \u06cc\u0627\u0634\u0627\u0631 (@Yashar Ali \ud83d\udc18 \u06cc\u0627\u0634\u0627\u0631) 1601603880
"I do it and I say that I'm working on Christmas and planning for the Christmas and they said, 'Oh, what about the children, that they were separated?' Give me a fucking break," Trump is heard saying in the recording. "Where they were saying anything when Obama did that?"
The first lady suggested the Obama administration separated families in the same manner as President Donald Trump and his top immigration officials, repeating a claim by the administration.
In fact, the Obama administration did not impose a blanket family separation policy at the U.S.-Mexico border; officials declined to use family separation as a deterrent to undocumented immigrants and instead separated children from the adults they arrived in the U.S. with only when there were doubts about the familial relationship or concerns about the children's safety.
The first lady expressed her frustrations a month after President Trump was forced, following intense international outcry, to sign an executive order officially ending his family separation policy. By that time, under the administration's "zero tolerance" policy announced in April 2018, more than 2,200 families had been forcibly separated.
By the end of July, when Trump was recorded by Wolkoff, hundreds of parents had yet to be reunited with their children.
In another recording, Trump claimed the children were "taken care of nicely" at detention centers operated by ICE--contrary to numerous credible reports of severe neglect, abuse, and unsafe conditions in the facilities, which in some cases resulted in the deaths of children.
"You know, yeah, they are not with parents, it's sad. But when they come here alone or with coyotes or illegally, you know, you need to do something," adding a claim that parents and children frequently lie about the dangers they face in their home countries in order to be granted asylum.
"They say like, 'Oh we will be killed by gang member...It's so dangerous," Trump told Wolkoff. "And they are not, you know, it's not true...Some of them are using that lines."
According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), "In recent years, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala (known as the Northern Triangle) have experienced a dramatic escalation in organized crime by gangs, called maras," leading thousands of families to flee their home countries and seek asylum elsewhere.
"Current homicide rates are among the highest ever recorded in Central America. Several cities, including San Salvador, Tegucigalpa, and San Pedro Sula, are among the 10 most dangerous in the world," the UNHCR reports. "The most visible evidence of violence is the high rate of brutal homicides, but other human rights abuses are on the rise, including the recruitment of children into gangs, extortion, and sexual violence."
At the height of the family separation crisis, Trump was photographed during her visit to the southern border wearing a jacket with the phrase, "I really don't care, do U?" across the back--provoking disbelief and outrage among immigrant rights advocates.
The July 2018 recording simply confirmed the first lady's attitude about the plight of thousands of families at the time, critics on social media wrote.
\u201cShocked Melania was caught on tape saying she doesn't care about immigrant children in cages, a thing we already knew because she literally wore a jacket saying it\u201d— Mike Drucker (@Mike Drucker) 1601602063
\u201cCan we stop the Melania is an innocent bystander storyline now? #MelaniaTapes\u201d— Gene Jones (@Gene Jones) 1601601437
\u201cAsked about children in cages, the first lady said "give me a f***ing break." \n\nYou know who didn't get a f***ing break? The children.\u201d— Dr. Merav Ben-David (@Dr. Merav Ben-David) 1601604316
"The woman who violated U.S. immigration law to work in the United States on a tourist visa, believes all those moms and children fleeing violence in Central America are making up their asylum claims," tweeted journalist Julia Ioffe.
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Just After Declaring 'End of the Pandemic Is in Sight,' Trump Tests Positive for Coronavirus
A spokesperson for the French government said Trump's diagnosis "demonstrates that the virus spares no one, including those who have shown skepticism."
Oct 02, 2020
President Donald Trump announced on Twitter early Friday morning that both he and First Lady Melania Trump have tested positive for the coronavirus, a contagion the president has downplayed since it began spreading in the United States and continued to minimize even after the nation's death toll surpassed 200,000.
"Tonight, FLOTUS and I tested positive for Covid-19," Trump, 74, tweeted just before 1 am ET Friday. "We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!"
Trump's announcement came hours after one of the president's top aides, Hope Hicks, tested positive for the coronavirus Thursday morning. Hicks, who reportedly began showing symptoms on Wednesday, traveled with Trump throughout the week, including to Tuesday night's presidential debate with Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
The Washington Postreported that "since late Tuesday, Trump has appeared with thousands at a rally in Minnesota, debated Biden onstage and has interacted with a coterie of aides and political advisers at the White House. There was no immediate answer from Biden's camp as to whether he had been tested."
"After White House officials learned of Hicks' symptoms, Trump and his entourage flew Thursday to New Jersey, where he attended a fundraiser at his golf club in Bedminster and delivered a speech. Trump was in close contact with dozens of other people, including campaign supporters, at a roundtable event," the Post noted. "The president did not wear a mask Thursday, including at the events at his golf course and on the plane, officials said. He was tested after he returned to the White House, but he also appeared on Sean Hannity's TV show from the residence by telephone."
During a speech at the 75th annual Al Smith Dinner at the White House Thursday evening ahead of his positive test, Trump declared that "the end of the pandemic is in sight" even as the coronavirus continues to spread and deaths rise in states across the country.
\u201cIn a speech just hours ago, Trump vowed the \u201cend of the pandemic is in sight.\u201d \n\nNow he\u2019s tested positive for coronavirus.\u201d— Dan Diamond (@Dan Diamond) 1601614862
Sean Conley, the White House physician, said in a statement that "the president and first lady are both well at this time, and they plan to remain at home within the White House during their convalescence." Conley did not say whether Trump was showing symptoms.
World leaders were quick to respond to news of Trump and the first lady's positive tests, which come just a month before the November 3 U.S. presidential election.
"Wishing President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump speedy recovery from Covid-19," Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan tweeted early Friday.
Gabriel Attal, a spokesperson for the French government, said Trump's diagnosis "demonstrates that the virus spares no one, including those who have shown skepticism."
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