This is a timeline of how we got here and identifies the reasons for our massive failures compared to other countries. The timeline starts with the George W. Bush administration. It seems that while on vacation, President Bush read a popular book on the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. It freaked him out and lead him to launch a major effort of planning and pandemic preparedness. A very detailed “playbook” for the response of the federal government was prepared. A playbook, that in the event, was largely ignored.

A major thread in this timeline is “health communication.” Not just Trump but other leaders come in for some serious criticism. Bill DiBlasio gets a particularly hard thumping.

Trump supporters will immediately scoff because, you know, the New York Times is “fake news.” I recommend you get over that. Watch. And learn something. It won’t hurt.

Well, well, well. If Biden would have somehow “destroyed himself” with his “radical” ideas as some have hoped, we will never know after the embarrassing spectacle that Dear Leader made of himself last night.

The political reality is that Trump is losing the election. At this stage in 2016, Clinton was ahead by 3 points nationwide, won by 2 points but lost in a squeaker because of the anachronistic Electoral College. Biden is ahead by 8 points. More importantly, in the swing states which Trump won by tiny margins in 2016, Biden is leading by 5 points or so.

To legitimately stay in power he needs to convince ALL of the undecideds and some of Biden’s current supporters to give him their votes. He did absolutely nothing to achieve that. His virtuoso performance as a school yard jackass may have pleased the Proud Boys but for everyone else it was cringeworthy. He may think that leading this nation is a sort of WWE freak show. It isn’t.

It is clear from last night that Trump knows he cannot win and equally clear that he is planning some sort of Hail Mary based on the chaos he hopes to create by his constant dishonest bullshit about mail-in voting and the violence he hopes it will generate when the election is “stolen” from him by slow counting of the massive mail in vote. Proud Boys, put on your brown shirts and “Stand by.”

https://som.yale.edu/news/2020/09/ceo-caucus-survey-business-leaders-fault-trump-administration-on-covid-and-china

For those who put great faith in the sagacity of successful corporate leaders lets see you spin away this recent informal poll of about 300 attendees at this prestigious conference.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/09/23/dhs-secretary-white-supremacy-poses-persistent-and-lethal-threat/3511913001/

That is according to Trump’s acting DHS Secretary in sworn testimony to a Senate committee last week. Not Antifa (a philosophy, not an organization according to Trump’s FBI director). Not BLM. Not people protesting Trump’s regime (“left wing mobs” according to Barr). White Supremacists.

You have to admire the way that reality eventually “trumps” lies in a free society with a robust free press which can protect whistleblowers willing to stand up for the truth.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/27/new-york-times-trump-tax-returns-key-findings

The New York Times investigative piece is long and detailed. Here is a convenient summary of the key findings – so far.

Trump, of course, is crying “Fake News!” That is a very poor substitute for fulfilling his promise to release those returns himself which would definitively repudiate this story if it really is “fake news.” Wouldn’t it give the Trump campaign a HUGE boost to prove that the NYT really is lying about him? Of course, it would and he would do that in a heartbeat if he could. The obvious conclusion is that he cannot for the simple reason that – as it usually does – the NYT got the story right.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/09/jared-kushner-let-the-markets-decide-covid-19-fate

When the political season is over there needs to be an honest assessment of why Americans suffered from the pandemic so much more than people in other countries. What went wrong? This article is a good place to start. It is long and detailed but well worth the effort to read.

The short version – a toxic mix of libertarian philosophy, worship of free markets, inept wheeling and dealing and outlandish cronyism kept the government from ever getting its act together. The central figure in all of this was not Trump but his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, on whom Trump laid grave responsibilities that he was simply not capable of handling.

https://joebiden.com/financial-disclosure/#

Joe Biden has never made a secret of his personal finances.

In spite of hundreds of promises that he would release his, Trump never has and has fought tooth and nail to keep them secret. Thanks to the New York Times we can begin to see why.

1. He is a loser. He never earns enough to pay any federal income taxes. While other billionaires pay taxes in the tens and hundreds of millions, Trump most years has paid virtually none. Given all his business failures, this part of what NYT discovered is not surprising.
2. He is NOT worth the $10 billion he claims. He is under water and has debts in the hundreds of millions – many to foreigners that he has no way to pay off.
3. He fiddles on his taxes with the connivance of family members. Wealth transfers to Ivanka, for example, were treated as “consulting expense” and treated as a business expense.

There is a lot more to come.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-usa-putin-idUSKCN26G1LJ?taid=5f6dde28d9f82500010e3a8b&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

Too little. Too late. He had better pull the plug on the bullshit they have been spreading TODAY.

https://peopleofpraise.org/about/who-we-are/

People of Praise will be in the news for the next few weeks because Judge Barret and her husband are dedicated members. We will soon all hear that People of Praise membership requires that wives be subservient to their husbands. There will be discussion if that is a philosophy that is acceptable on the 21st Century bench. And rightly so. If a Justice cannot put aside that sort of anachronistic belief and very strictly follow the law, bad decisions will follow.

But, there is a lot more to what they believe than that peculiar point. They do not explicitly declare the maxim originated by Karl Marx – “From each according to his ability. To each according to his needs” – but the sentiments they express and goals for their community amount to that. They are in fact “Communists” in the truest sense of the word. And THAT really is what Christ was teaching, so I say – Good for them!

One last point I bring to the attention of those people here who mocked President Obama for being a “community organizer.” People of Praise put high value on doing exactly what President Obama did – move into distressed neighborhoods and work with the people there to solve community problems. Let the mockery begin.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/23/oregon-portland-pro-trump-protests-violence-texts?fbclid=IwAR1u1w9WyrAZEtrSOEsnLSjsXvMpI8Ppfx0BbgHGJE6Yp7CAwrbW30ffUEo

This is a classic Fascist tactic. Create violence and then use it as an excuse for a “law and order: expansion of the police state. Is anyone in the White House encouraging such outrages? Your damn right there is – Donald J. Trump.