May Hope and History Rhyme (Trump#116)

[lionheart]

With thanks to Seamus Heaney for inspiring the President Elect.

"History says, don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme."

Trump is losing support except from the hard core conspiracy theorists
www.axios.com/trump-white-house-conspiracy-theories-d95450a4-c7a3-4579-a568-0473b18529c9.html

[quote BruceAndNosh]Trump is losing support except from the hard core conspiracy theorists
www.axios.com/trump-white-house-conspiracy-theories-d95450a4-c7a3-4579-a568-0473b18529c9.html[/quote]
Will he wake up in the White House one day finding his guards have abandoned him, all rooms empty, and he has to go into the street and cry:

Have I neither friend nor foe?

(In a nod to Stewart Lee and "free laughs", you can certainly watch current events from a more amused viewpoint if you've read some history ...)

Donald J. Trump. What an artist dies with him.

@DGRossetti when the "Voices of Reason" are Meadows, Barr and Pence, things are bad.
Now even they don't have his attention.
God knows what the fuck he'll do with only Sidney Powell and General Flynn as his Inner Circle

[quote BruceAndNosh]@DGRossetti when the "Voices of Reason" are Meadows, Barr and Pence, things are bad.
Now even they don't have his attention.
God knows what the fuck he'll do with only Sidney Powell and General Flynn as his Inner Circle[/quote]
I guess a circular firing squad is too much to hope for.

Whom Gods Destroy indeed ....

Not too much to hope far after all:

www.axios.com/trump-white-house-conspiracy-theories-d95450a4-c7a3-4579-a568-0473b18529c9.html

'President Trump, in his final days, is turning bitterly on virtually every person around him, griping about anyone who refuses to indulge conspiracy theories or hopeless bids to overturn the election, several top officials tell Axios.

The latest: Targets of his outrage include Vice President Pence, chief of staff Mark Meadows, White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Secretary of State Pompeo and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.'

Maybe his nut-job friends can keep proposing their ridiculous 'steal the election back' suggestions and keep him chasing his sorry-ass tail for the next 29 days.

It seems that with everything they suggest he has to call everyone he thinks is still 'loyal' and sound them out on it. That can take up a lot of time.

Anyone want to make guesses on when the pardons for his kids and his closest cronies will drop?

I'm guessing Tuesday the 19 Jan after 3pm local.

I believe that Pence has a "foreign visit" pencilled in immediately after Congress appearance on Jan 6th.
There's no way he will want to face Trump in the White House after Biden is confirmed

@lionheart disappointed McEnany wasn’t a target. Oh well.

[quote Coquohvan]@lionheart disappointed McEnany wasn’t a target. Oh well.[/quote]
MCNinny is still on #team trump and willing to heft piles on paper on tv whenever a TV show asks her

What's going in here, is it getting too hot

Deutsche Bank says Trump's longtime personal banker, Rosemary Vrablic, has resigned
edition.cnn.com/2020/12/22/business/trump-deutsche-bankers-resign/index.html

Interesting from David Enrich NYTimes

The timing on Vrablic's departure is awful for @realDonaldTrump. He has about $330M in personally-guaranteed loans to Deutsche Bank coming due in the next few years.

With Vrablic gone, Trump's chances of refinancing those loans with Deutsche Bank just dropped precipitously.

How old are these people? Vrablic was born "1960/1961", so not really retirement age, and Scalzi was "Class of 1976 Essex Catholic High School, Newark, NJ" so even less so: that would make him born 1963?

Good question

Twitter came up with some more 'interesting' facts

From Wikipedia: “Vrablic lives on Park Avenue in New York in a duplex apartment formerly owned by Phillip R. Bennett, sentenced to 16 years in prison for financial fraud.”

Lets not forget that she was also Jeffery Epstein's personal banker.

I can’t believe there are 29 days still to go.
That has to change surely.

Pardons (x20).

www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/us/politics/trump-pardons.html

www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/president-trump-pardoned-four-blackwater-contractors

Nothing preemptive for his spawn yet?

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/23/pardons-sink-trump-further-into-swamp-of-his-own-shamelessness

Trump is shameless

'the president announced a slew of 15 pardons. Strikingly they included four military contractors imprisoned for the killing of unarmed men, women and children in Iraq. In short, war criminals.

Trump’s motivation had less to do with the quality of mercy than a boundless quantity of shamelessness. In his binary worldview people on death row must face implacable justice but those who pass his loyalty test have a ticket to freedom.'

“Nothing about Trump’s actions surprise me. He has no concern for the law, for humanity, for decency or for tradition.

“If he thinks it’s to his advantage financially, politically, in terms of his family, he will issue whatever pardons he wants to, including perhaps for himself and likely for family members and other cronies.”

@BruceAndNosh
MCNinny is still on #team trump and willing to heft piles on paper on tv whenever a TV show asks her.

I know plus her wee adorning postits 😏

Some voter fraud has actually been discovered.
thehill.com/homenews/531242-pennsylvania-trump-supporter-charged-with-voter-fraud

Meanwhile, leave the pardons aside for a moment: apparently Trump has now vetoed the relief bill, saying $600 per person is a disgrace. It is, of course, but nothing (which is what he has made sure they will get) is certainly no better.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/22/covid-relief-trump-demands-changes-to-sign-900bn-bill

He seems to have it confused with a different bill to which he objects for different reasons, according to the World Service this morning.

And he has signed a lot more special orders allowing mining in areas which had been protected until yesterday. One in particular, in Arizona, gives tribal sacred land to be used to create the largest copper mine in the USA.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-arizona-copper-mine-san-carlos-apache-tribe-b1767265.html

www.wionews.com/world/in-last-rush-trump-grants-mining-and-energy-firms-access-to-public-lands-351119

He's on a rampage of destruction.

In addition to the Blackwater horror (and the Prince-DeVos axis) some of those other pardons are for appalling crimes.

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/23/trump-pardons-blackwater-contractors-jailed-for-massacre-of-iraq-civilians

and covering your arse:

theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/12/23/president-trump-pardons-george-papadopoulos-and-14-others/

and assorted others:

apnews.com/article/donald-trump-politics-shootings-coronavirus-pandemic-russia-1883214fa4961a31993169193dbb4ed7

www.politico.com/news/2020/12/22/biden-blasts-trump-cyber-attack-450126

Interesting. He won't like reading this.

"Trump is the only modern US president to never reach a 50% approval rating in his four years in office. His average approval rating was just 41% according to Gallup -- a full eight points less than former President Barack Obama's."

apple.news/AWUkca6iBToqrQmOVPmdlew