What magic pixie dust did Bob Woodward sprinkle over SCROTUS to make him speak honestly – and coherently – over several telephone interviews?
Under what delusion did IMPOTUS believe that it would paint a rosy picture of him to speak to the journalist who, along with partner Carl Bernstein, brought down the Nixon presidency?
I know, I know, "bombshell" is so hackneyed since 2017. But oh my golly. This one starts fires.
He knew. He understood. In a moment of clarity for the 45th President* of the United States, he was absolutely crystal clear about the threat that COVID-19 represented to the citizens of the nation. He understood that this was a gravely deadly threat. He knew it early. He knew it, he understood it, and yet, he lied to us all, from Day 1. And his lies have cost nearly 200,000 lives in the last six months.
This time, we don't have some anonymous Whitewash House source. We don't have a contrite former staff member. We don't have an estranged relative. We have the Odious One himself, in his own voice, on tape.
Watch:
This POS purposefully "downplayed" the threat in order "not to induce panic." Instead, his actions induced complacency and willful ignorance, causing millions of people to contract the disease, countless citizens to be left with serious long-lasting health effects, and hundreds of thousands to lose their lives.
Today we mark the 19th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. It has been a custom to read aloud every name lost on that day. It takes over 3 hours to read the names of those who perished. If we were to name every American who died from COVID-19, it would take more than 8 days, reading 24 hours a day, to honor all 192,000 who have died so far.
He didn't simply downplay the threat of the virus, he actively negated the threat by calling it a hoax, by saying it was under control, by discouraging effective measures such as wearing face masks, by encouraging gatherings, by patting himself on the back for the "good job" he was doing.
It's not only a complete and utter absence of leadership, it's morally abhorrent and, frankly, criminal. He betrayed the American people's trust knowingly, willfully, and selfishly, for he somehow thought that his actions would somehow help his re-election, even as he knowingly and willfully participated in the death of many of his own base.
Despicable.
Bob Woodward, thank you for crafting your journalistic magic and bringing back the curtain on this ugly, ugly human being. Perhaps by some miracle more will see him for the narcissistic, selfish, despicable, abhorrent pond scum he is and he will be summarily removed from our sight.
In other bombshells this week, we learned from The Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffery Goldberg, that during a trip to France in 2018, marking the 100th anniversary of the battle at Belleau Wood, 45 refused to honor those lost in WWI because soldiers who die are "suckers" and "losers."
Other media outlets independently verified the story, including FAUX News's Jennifer Griffin, who reported on its veracity. King GertRUDE of course immediately called for her resignation. Doing her journalistic duty of searching for the truth? Off with her head!
The revelation was not a surprise, as we have witnessed him disparage service members left and right, including Sen. John McCain, when he said, "I like people who weren't captured;" as well as casting aspersions on a Gold Star family, among many other insults against the military.
And kneeling in front of the flag is disrespectful?
I find it difficult to believe that even one decent human being still supports this person. I guess that's it, isn't it? His base has no decency. It's obvious that the common denominator is repugnancy. Entitlement. Xenophobia. Misogyny. Racism.
And in left-wing bombshells: Nancy Pelosi went to the hair salon!
She was caught getting a verboten haircut! unmasked! in a San Francisco salon! blatantly disregarding state and local guidelines!
Yes, it was wrong to go get a haircut without a mask. I'll condemn that action. As a private citizen, she shouldn't have done that. As a congressional leader, she shouldn't have done that. But if going to the salon is her biggest scandal, I'll take it. Just please don't lump this behavior with the person who has raped, exploited, caged, lied, bombed, denied, colluded, attacked, diminished, shut down, stole, bullied, mocked, threatened, and demeaned.
Remember SCROTUS's unscheduled visit to Walter Reed hospital last November?
Apropos of nothing*, yesterday he tweeted,
It never ends! Now they are trying to say that your favorite President, me, went to Walter Reed Medical Center, having suffered a series of mini-strokes. Never happened to THIS candidate - FAKE NEWS. Perhaps they are referring to another candidate from another Party!
The tweet left people scratching their heads. An out-of-the-blue tweet about an incident 11 months ago. No one in the news media had recently suggested that he was suffering TIAs, transient ischemic attacks (aka "mini strokes"). Shortly after this tweet, the Whitewash House physician Dr. Sean Conley released a statement at IMPOTUS's request:
"I can confirm that President Trump has not experienced nor been evaluated for a cerebrovascular accident (stroke), transient ischemic attack (mini stroke), or any acute cardiovascular emergencies, as have been incorrectly reported in the media."
Protest much?
Well, perhaps no one in the media has speculated about his multiple TIAs, but I have!
You know I've written extensively about his speech and language symptoms, pointing to a neurological condition.
Here is my blog post after that very same trip to Walter Reed. It outlines a lot of the disordered speech and language he exhibits. And it puts forth my speculation about that unscheduled trip to the hospital. I think he had a larger-than-normal TIA, went to the hospital, it cleared up, and he refused further work-up.
The truth is he exhibits sudden transient dysarthria, paraphasias, confabulations, apraxic errors, disordered language, and empty speech. Something is terribly wrong. And he doth protest a whole hell of a lot.
I acknowledge that professionals should not diagnose without examining the patient, so my speculation is just that. However, Speech-Language Pathologists use speech and language behaviors to help in diagnosis. There is a ton of data, well preserved, for this specimen. We train on analyzing recordings and videos. I can analyze his speech and language and describe its pathology. In the end, take what I say with a grain of salt, but just one. One little bitty grain.
*it turned out his out-of-the-blue tweet was in response to Bill Clinton's former press secretary Joe Lockhart's tweet asking the question, "Did Donald Trump have a stroke which he is hiding from the American public?" 45 characteristically stretched the point, defended earnestly, and splashed the issue all over the news cycle.
My dad, Jack, was part of the Greatest Generation, aka the O.G. Antifa.
Jack was drafted into the Army Air Corps in 1943. He was finally accepted after being denied a couple times over a minor medical issue. He served in the 351st Bomb Group of the Mighty Eighth Army Air Force through the end of World War II.
A dozen years ago I came into the possession of Jack's cache of letters home to his mother and his older sister. They've sat on my closet shelf, waiting for me to share them, and I decided now is the time. I hope that my activity on this blog project, Little Sister Resister, will diminish come January 20, 2021, and I can devote more time to this project.
One of my major regrets in life was not recording or writing down Jack's stories about being a ball-turret gunner on the belly of a B-17 over Germany. He didn't speak of his experiences for many years, and then a fountain of stories spilled forth. He died in 2002, and his stories died with him. But his letters home remain, and though he was not able to tell about his air attack missions in his letters, they give us a snapshot into the life of an airman.
My idea for this blog is to share his actual letters, along with giving some context with regard to his and his family's life as well as to the war itself.
We'll start with his letters in 1942, when 19-year-old Jack was working as a welder in the shipyards of Bremerton, Washington. From there, Jack will get his basic training at a few bases in the western United States before shipping overseas for combat.
One note about the letters: the letters are still in their envelopes, and I've arranged them in chronological order according to their postmark. It may not always be in chronological order as to when he wrote them, but most likely in the order that my grandma and Auntie Bo would've received them. I'm transcribing every letter, as Jack's handwriting is really hard to read. I'll transcribe him with his spelling and punctuation.
“Deeds, Not Words” - Emmeline Pankhurst, British suffragette
100 years of votes for women!
Today is the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote in the United States. Yup. 144 years after the creation of the union, it was finally decided that women have a voice.
This year is THE most momentous vote in our nation's history, and we must not squander the right for which our sisters were beaten, tortured, and jailed as they fought for us 100 years ago. This year is extra special because we have a historic ticket. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris!
It is imperative to get out the vote in these precarious days. COVID risks and the destruction of the post office add extra dimensions, but it is not impossible to get out the vote. Every citizen must act to help rid our country of the orange menace. I implore you to pledge not only to vote, but to do one thing that will help one another vote.
Here are some ideas.
Contact your local elections officials and volunteer at the polls. I filled out my application today. Traditionally filled by retired folks, there will be fewer able to safely work the polling places. If you are able and willing, the election needs you! Search here for your local election office. My application was simple. Here is the Santa Barbara County election website. Please consider volunteering.
Donate to help residents vote across the country. Black people are still disenfranchised in many areas. Stacey Abrams's group Fair Fight is helping to get out the vote in Georgia and other voter-suppressed areas. Other organizations fight for voter rights. Donate or volunteer to:
Write postcards to encourage people in swing sates to vote. I took part in Tom Steyer's postcard campaign in 2018. Sign up at Postcards for Swing States or Postcards to Voters. (Note: I didn't completely vet these organizations, but I signed up for both! The New York Times did a piece on the Postcards to Voters group. Here is a piece from The Hill about Postcards for Swing States.)
If you are not a writer, maybe phone banking is for you! You can volunteer for a specific candidate, or look for a general phone banking group, like:
Help people vote! Spread information about voting methods and polling places on social media. I learned today that polling places will be fewer in my county but open for four days, October 31-November 3! Spread the word about dropping off ballots at local elections offices rather than using the postal service. Get guidance on voting during this pandemic. Learn and share about BallotTrax, a tool that can track ballots! Here is California's BallotTrax. Provide rides to neighbors to the polls, to the post office, or to the elections office.
Most of all, bring people along with you. Be enthusiastic and vocal about voting.
“The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” - Ida B. Wells, American suffragette
Let's on turn the light in the voting booth and light this mother up!
The President* of the United States, the most powerful man on the planet, went on TV to brag about his performance on a dementia screening, to not one, but two TV news reporters.
Here he talking to Chris Wallace on FAUX News.
Here he is in the second one with FAUX News's on-air physician, Dr. Marc Siegel. (Full interview here)
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) July 23, 2020
I wrote about this screening, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, or MoCA, right after his physical where the Whitewash House physcian, Dr. Ronny Jackson, administered the test. It's in my post, Thinking: The talking of the soul with itself. I had some concerns then about the valid administration of the screening.
And here we are, eighteen months later, and he is bragging about "acing" the test. Why? To somehow smear Joe Biden's cognitive abilities? Ummm....
It seems ridiculous to address this seriously, but at the risk of normalizing or legitimizing what he said, I feel it's my professional duty to clarify some things, and then I'll go on to addressing it non-seriously.
Again, this is a screening device to screen for cognitive decline. That's all it is. It is a 10-minute snapshot of a few cognitive abilities:
visuospatial (path making; drawing)
naming (naming three common animals from line drawings)
delayed recall (recalling 5 words after about 5 minute distracted delay)
attention (immediately repeating 5 numbers in order; immediately repeating 3 numbers in reverse; indicating when a certain letter is heard in a list of letters; serial subtraction)
language (repeating sentences exactly [10-12 words]; naming as many of words as possible that begin with a given letter of the alphabet in one minute)
abstraction (telling how two items are alike)
orientation (date, day, place)
A normal score for a person with a high school education is ≥ 26/30.
So, the lies/misrepresentations/confabulations/problems with SCROTUS's diatribe:
In the interview, he says the examiner goes back to the memory question "Ten minutes, fifteen, twenty minutes later" (and later) "twenty, twenty-five minutes later" for the delayed recall. Nope, it's at most 5 minutes. The entire screening takes about 10 minutes.
He insisted that you get "extra points" for recalling the words in order. Nope. You don't get a score at all for the training portion (repeating the words immediately twice) and there are no bonus points. In fact, the instructions are to tell the patient, "It doesn’t matter in what order you say them."
Not only are there no bonus points for recalling those five words in order, you can recall just one of them and still score in the "normal" range on the test.
He insisted "the last five questions are the hardest." Well, if you don't know the date or where you are, that may be true. And it's probably very true for him.
There aren't 35 questions. There are 30 points total, but the items aren't 1:1 points-wise.
It's a screening for cognitive dysfunction. It's not a memory test. It's not an intelligence test. It's not a general knowledge test. It's not the SAT. It's not a citizenship test. It's not a psychology test. It's not a test of fitness to perform the duties of president of the United States. All of those he would fail.
And now, some hilarity to mock the buffoon that thinks that passing a test that a fifth grader could pass.
The absolutely brilliant, amazing, hilarious Sarah Cooper
The Lincoln Project continues their scathing ads and videos
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) July 24, 2020
Stephen Colbert's brilliance shines:
And the memes!
As a professional using this instrument, I'm worried that its validity has been compromised with all of the publicity. I like the screener, but there are others to use until people forget about this one. But I doubt anybody will forget "Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV." (5 points)
For the past three years, I've participated in the annual GISH event. It's a week of wacky fun, creativity, caring, and charity. I've been lucky enough to land on an amazing team, led by team captain Sister Resister Anne.
The week-long event challenges team members to create, make, bake, find, perform, ... all kinds of tasks.
Because the event is positive and full o' love, among the over 200 tasks there are several items that focus on social issues and are progressive in nature. Because politics is my thang, I was happy to undertake many of those items. I thought it fitting to share them here.
Item #102. Give Sarah Cooper a run for her money lip-syncing Trump or any other politician you think deserves this presidential treatment.
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Last year, there was a challenge to create a PSA for stroke awareness using the tune for "Head and Shoulders Knees and Toes." So, in homage to that task, I chose the same tune for this year's song challenge. Plus the tune is easy. :-)
Item #105. Write and sing an original protest song about police brutality, and the racist foundations of the United States' criminal justice system.
I can't sing, so this is way outside my comfort zone! But it's important, so I did it!
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This item challenged GISHers to re-create a vintage suffragette poster with a face from today:
Item #48. This year marks the 100th Anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment in the United States. We've made a lot of progress since then, but women represent only 25% of the US Senate and 23% of the House of Representatives, so we still have a long way to go. Find a female candidate you support and update a women's suffrage poster so that instead of being about obtaining the right TO vote for women, it's about getting votes FOR women — specifically, your candidate. Post the vintage poster and your update on social media, tagging the candidate and @sheshouldrun. Then, submit both the original poster and your updated version as a side-by-side image with the link to your social media post. (Do not submit a screenshot of your post — we want your original artwork.) - Inspired by Jrosebud. #kamalaharris #kamalaforvp #SheShouldRun
I was pretty proud of this. I sketched it free-hand in the waning minutes of the hunt.
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Makin' us learn:
Item #256. Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis recently passed away. At his funeral, former President Obama read his eulogy, and Former Presidents Clinton and Bush also made remarks. Listen to all three memorial speeches, then write a single paragraph about commonalities between the three speeches.
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Our team was set to the task of doing a virtual demonstration:
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Speaking of social justice, I did my first-ever crayon drip painting!
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And we made a fundraiser for this year's cause. Please donate if you can! This cause works toward equitable justice for all. Check it out here.
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I guess this one is political. As a Speech-Language Pathologist, this resonated with me. so I grabbed it. (FYI the video had to be no more than 14 seconds long)
Item # 121: Not that we have a strong opinion on the topic, but to be a casual English language grammar prescriptivist is to be complicit and prideful in systems that, by nature, devalue cultural and colloquial flexibility in the use of language (lookin' at you, AAVE) by maintaining that only those selective demographics who have dominated the academy, or been deemed valuable by the academy, have the license to create language to suit their communicative needs — Big Academia only affords the grace of words to the voices of a specific demographic (generally, in the West, the well-educated, affluent and predominantly white members of society). Perform a mic-dropping slam poem highlighting the value of eschewing prescriptivism and embracing dynamic, evolving forms and dialects of grammar. You may not USE any language variance that's currently in use (like AAVE) to do this item as it may be appropriative or racially or technically insensitive, depending on the speaker… instead, you must perform it in academic English. Hypocritical? Yup.
(note: I started this around Independence Day, and planned to publish it earlier than now, but, well, life.)
We are all tangled up in a ball of confusion these days. I don't think I'm the only one who was a little confused this year on Independence Day. It's been one of my favorite holidays, full of pride and patriotism, but this year it rang hollow for a few reasons. It took me a few days to process my thoughts.
SCROTUS and his ugly campaign stop Independence Day event at Mt. Rushmore, where dog whistle after dog whistle was blown. He's not smart enough to know the meaning of what surrounded this appearance -- or maybe he is -- but in any case, he or one of his handlers *cough* Stephen Miller *cough* loaded his speech with grotesquities (ooh I made a new word! I like it!)
The song "Garryowen" was played at his entrance. This song is rife with racist connotations, as it was the song played and sung by General Custer and his 7th Cavalry as he massacred the Lakota, Dakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapahoe Indians just a few hundred miles from Mt. Rushmore. Read about the pledge by descendants of the 7th Cavalry to never again play the song. "The dreaded 'Garryowen' will never ring again across the American plains or the American west for the native Americans. And the old native American ghosts can rest in peace." That is, until SCROTUS stands on hallowed ground, ground stolen from Native Americans, and spouts his racist feculence.
He evoked the "great" Andrew Jackson during the speech, among other notable Americans (but no other presidents, other than those gracing the mountain behind him).
The week before, he called for criminal penalties on those who tried to topple the "great monument" of Andrew Jackson statue in Washington D.C., calling them “bad people, they don’t love our country, and they’re not taking down our monuments.”
This fawning over Andrew Jackson was a clear message to Native Americans. As you know, Andrew Jackson was single-handedly responsible for the deaths of thousands of Native Americans when he signed the Indian Removal Act, which led to the forced removal of Native Americans in the east to areas west of the Mississippi, a march known as the Trail of Tears. As The Washington Post reports, "a few removals took place without great loss of life, but most were terribly deadly. Of the 80,000 Native people who were forced west from 1830 into the 1850s, between 12,000 and 17,000 perished. The U.S. Army and state militias killed some in wars to break the resistance of noncompliant communities, but the large majority died of interrelated factors of starvation, exposure and disease (malaria, cholera, typhus, smallpox and dysentery). To put this in perspective, the death toll (14 to 19 percent) would be equivalent to between 46 million and 62 million of the current U.S. population." This action has been called genocide by some. Jackson was a bad man. No wonder IMPOTUS reveres him. All his talk about Andrew Jackson was a spit into the face of the Native Americans whose land he was contaminating with his very presence.
The speech was divisive, disparaging those of us on the left, using words like "fascist" (ummm, get your terms right, idiot. Look in the mirror: Fascism is what YOU and your right-wing white supremacists subscribe to), and saying the "left-wing cultural revolution" will "destroy" our civilization.
He fueled racial tensions yet even more, ranting against the recent demonstrations: "The radical ideology attacking our country advances under the banner of social justice, but in truth, it would demolish both justice and society. It would transform justice into an instrument of division and vengeance and it would turn our free and inclusive society into a place of a repression, domination, and exclusion. They want to silence us, but we will not be silenced."
"He pandered to his religious base, as well as the nationalists among them, saying "We are proud of the fact that our country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles and we understand that these values have dramatically advanced the cause of peace and justice throughout the world. We know that the American family is the bedrock of American life. We recognize the solemn right and moral duty of every nation to secure its borders and we are building the wall. We remember that governments exist to protect the safety and happiness of their own people. A nation must care for its own citizens first. We must take care of America first. It’s time. We believe in equal opportunity, equal justice, and equal treatment for citizens of every race, background, religion and creed. Every child of every color, born and unborn, is made in the holy image of God." Ummm.... no.
It's hard to celebrate the day when it's been so perverted.
The Black Lives Matter movement and our collective self-examination, has renewed my, as well as many others', assessment of our Founding Fathers. Most of the white men who founded our country were racist, embraced slavery, also mistreated the Native Americans, did not see women as deserving of equality, and did not truly live up to the "all men are created equal" bit. The time has come to not ignore that stuff and face it.
And then, yo-yo'd back, up with the timely broadcast of "Hamilton." What joy! It brought back the awe and love about the Founding Fathers in a glorious way! We got to see the founding women and men in a human light, with magical rhymes in a brilliant production. A work of art! But there was backlash about it, too. Not enough treatment of slavery. I understand the criticism. Thing is, it's art, not history.
In the end, we must face the facts that the Founding Fathers were flawed men in a flawed time. We must judge them as they were, with all of their faults and all of their genius. Thomas Jefferson gave us amazing words in amazing documents, but he was woefully short on action. He wrote that slavery was wrong, but did nothing to move toward abolishing it, not even to free his slaves. George Washington was a brilliant politician and a great leader, and he did free his own slaves, but it would be another 64 years --three generations of slaves -- before the Civil War began.
These men and the other founders laid out a framework and gave us a roadmap for the country's future. They brilliantly defended their positions and made a document envied by the rest of the world. And they also shamefully passed the buck on the hugely important issue of slavery.
Here is the cast of "Hamilton" responding to the issue of the Founding Fathers' faults and how "Hamilton" fits in to the conversation.
On a long drive just after the Fourth of July, I happened upon this great episode of one of my favorite podcasts: The Hidden Brain: A Founding Contradiction. Historian and Harvard law professor Annette Gordon-Reed taught me more about the complex Thomas Jefferson. He wrote public condemnations against slavery while owning several human beings to do his bidding, including his long-time relationship with Sally Hemings, fathering six children with her. The times were complicated, the relationship was complicated, and it's a fascinating listen. She concludes in the podcast: "The fascinating thing about Jefferson is that, in some ways, he embodies the country. I mean, the struggles that were within him - and that's why when you go to Monticello, you get to see the best and the worst of America. And they're embodied in this person who was idealistic but, in some areas, did not live up to that. And certainly, the idea of citizenship, first-class citizenship for African-American people, is not - has not come to pass, I don't believe." I'm going to read Gordon-Reed's books, the one she talked about here (co-written with Peter S. Onuf), "Most Blessed of the Patriarchs," as well as her Pulitzer-Prize-winning book, “The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family.”
The Founding Fathers, particularly Jefferson, were complicated men who aspired for something better. And if you've read here for any length of time, you know I'm cut from the same fabric. An eternal optimist, I never want to give up hope for what our country can become, even in these upside down and inside out days that we are living through. And our Founding Fathers, in their wisdom, offered us great hope when they launched this wonderful experiment. They couldn't, or wouldn't, do it all, and they certainly did shirk too much off to future generations, who also passed the buck, and on down the line for generations....
...to us. NOW. Today. You and me. WE can be the ones to continue the changes to make our country better.
