TrumPutin says, "I don't want to give a bailout to a company and then have somebody ... use that money to buy back stock ... and then get a bonus. So I'm a Republican, but I don't like that."
Yes, it is Republican dogma to give money to corporations under the guise of public benefit, and then watch as the oligarchs use the public largesse to enrich themselves and their cronies. Republicans have believed in that selective socialism for 100 years or more, and it is refreshing to hear the leader of the current regime acknowledge it.
In his defense, he probably is not aware that that is what he has done. And he will probably draw the line at disallowing the Mar-muy-Largo estate and the TrumPutin Properties from using the public money to prolong themselves. After all, power comes with the right to abuse it -- if he has taught the electorate anything, it is that basic principle of deal-making.
And since the Large Orange One is not at ease with truthful statements, it is unlikely that he does not like "that." It is rather the opposite. He intends to practice the art of taking government funds and enriching himself, and then disavow any notion that it is bad form.
The original words were, after all, spoken by an unrepentant liar (I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic), a toddler who screams his lies and demands that the sycophants who surround him attest to his truthiness.
The Obese Orange went on national television to comfort and reassure a nation.
How could he fail? Let us count the ways.
First, his speech was written by Steven Miller and Jared Kushner.
Miller, trying to qualify as a human being but failing every test except the one that gives him credentials in the TrumPutin regime, wrote the part about "foreign" virus and travel bans.
Kushner, trying to qualify as an adult but failing in every regard except toadying for his dad-in-law, wrote the other incoherent parts, presumably including the "moment in time" nonsense.
Second, TrumPutin can't read and looked like an imbecile trying to pronounce complex words like "country."
Third, TrumPutin exhausted himself trying to look sincere, and was winded by the time he was halfway through the speech. He tried to manage sincerity, but could only get to grotesque.
Fourth, he has never told the truth, so the speech was ruined even before it began.
Fifth, he's an idiot.
Sixth and so on, see above.
Poor little rich girl. Unappreciated for the selflessness and devotion her life requires.
The world reels from a virus -- death, illness, uncertainty, economic distress.
And Melania, in her hard hat, standing out all by herself and her servants and spokesperson, supervising the construction of a tennis pavilion.
Why won't the world appreciate her? Why do her detractors not see the burden she carries?
Her dress so close to real dirt, her shoes liable to scuffs, her brow very nearly almost sort of sweaty. The pain of watching labor, without even a limo nearby to take her to a safer place with central heat and hors d'oeuvres prepared by three or four different European chefs.
Life is hard, and no thanks does she get. But apparently the world thinks that tennis pavilions build themselves. Oh, well, Be Best, or whatever.
Melania, we don't really care. Do you?
Mick Mulvaney -- he tried so hard, so faithfully, so pathetically, so painfully.
Lying, sneering, believing in the fables that the TrumPutin cadre put forth, and sincerely groveling in his faithfulness to his leader.
But, Mick accidentally told the truth and that done him in, it did.
He lost everything. Acting power over the White House staff, the Consumer Financial Protection Whatever, OMB -- all gone. Because Mick forgot that the credo of the TrumPutin regime is to put full faith in the lie, to never admit that the lie is not the truth.
Mick admitted there had been a quid pro quo. Everyone knew it was so, but Mick said it.
And for that moment of truth, Mick is now the envoy to Northern Ireland. Unless TrumPutin decides to build a golf club there, Mick will never be seen again among the grifters toadying up to the Obese Orange.
Mick, we hardly knew ye -- but that was enough.
Maybe I have a natural ability.
Spoken as though the idiot believed what he said. Holding a paper with what he thinks is a Coronavirus molecule, or Hurricane Dorian, with Alabama somewhere in the picture, Trump Guy gloats like a two-year-old drunk on his own brilliance.
He does have a natural ability, but not to understand anything.
His natural ability is to make a fool of himself, to embarrass the country, to make his entourage of lickspittles cringe at the pain of having to suffer his ego.
He has no natural ability to do anything worthwhile, only to enrich himself at the expense of others. And then to call himself a businessman. As if.
Soon the bloated image will go away, along with the red hat, the Mussolini imitations, and the coterie of drooling sycophants longing to have their very own natural abilities.
Yeah, but no.
Cartoons by Troy Barbados