On his weekly live @Facebook video yesterday, Trump’s @HHSGov assistant secretary for public affairs @MichaelRCaputo let his freak flag fly. He said @CDCgov contains a “resistance unit” of scientists engaged in “sedition.” That’s the least crazy bit. 1/5 nytimes.com/2020/09/14/us/…
“Remember the Trump supporter who was shot and killed [in Portland]? That was a drill,” Trump’s @HHSGov assistant secretary said. “Squads [are] being trained all over this country.....When Donald Trump refuses to stand down at the inauguration, the shooting will begin.” 2/5
“If you carry guns, buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because it’s going to be hard to get,” Trump’s @HHSGov assistant secretary said. “You understand that they’re going to have to kill me, and unfortunately, I think that’s where this is going.” 3/5
In the same video Trump’s @HHSGov assistant secretary said his “mental health has definitely failed....I don’t like being alone in Washington,” where the “shadows on the ceiling in my apartment, there alone, shadows are so long.” 4/5
BTW, before becoming the @HHSGov assistant secretary in
charge of quashing @CDCgov “public health updates” that “undercut Trump’s message that the pandemic is under control,” he was an Oliver North and Roger Stone protégé and worked in Russian and Ukrainian politics for years.
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Mark Andreessen: case study of the new generation of superrich tech/investor guys who got political 5 minutes ago when the political-economic pendulum started a leftward swing after its 50-year superrich-Big Business-coddling right swing. Shallow, self-interested, hysterical. 1/3
Never mentions the actual radical changes in our political economy 1980 to 2000 that hollowed out communities, dashed hopes, helped the well-to-do at everyone else’s expense. He’s all about the scary new antagonism toward Big Tech, and lefty young elite college graduates. 2/3
A nutty repeat of the history I chroncle in my book Evil Geniuses: c. 1970, rich big business guys—Koch brothers, Business Roundtable, Lewis Powell—freaked out convinced a countercultural crazy-kid socialist revolution was about to sweep them all way. 3/3 nytimes.com/2025/01/17/opi…
In the summer of 2017, Donald Trump had just become president and I published my book "Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, A 500-Year History." I'd started writing it in 2014. The last chapter deals with Trump and where America seemed headed. Here are the relevant pages. 1/8
Reading the indictment. So many gems. Here are five.
This from the introduction.
1/5
A summary of the classified documents he illegally kept and hid from the government, 31 of which (among those 21 marked Top Secret) are detailed in each of 31 of the total 38 criminal counts.
Been studying up on migration. Some key facts I learned.
Hundreds of thousands each year move here by getting standard immigration visas.
Another small group, about 40,000 a year recently, are granted
refugee/asylum status—what the people now massing at the border want. 1/3
To move here as refugees or “asylees” they must convince screeners they’ve been persecuted or have “a well-founded fear” of it because of political opinions, or bigotry against their race, religion or caste. They can either apply abroad and get it, or just show up and hope. 2/3
Of the apply-here people who got asylum in 2021, half were from 5 places: Venezuela, China and Turkey, plus 2,800 from El Salvador and Guatemala. Six countries supplied the 3/4 of the apply-abroad refugees admitted in 2022—Congo, Syria, Myanmar, Sudan, Afghanistan, Ukraine. 3/3
On trial for defaming his alleged victim, he posted 2 rants on his site by 10 am. The judge soon warned his lawyer:“Your client is endeavoring to speak to his public about things he's not supposed to speak about. But more troublesome, to the jury.” 1/4
Defense lawyer: "I will address them with my client, to the degree I have an ability to."
Judge: “I hope you’re successful, because we’re getting into an area where your client might be tampering with a potential new source of liability. And I think you know what I mean.” 2/4
Plaintiff lawyer later, after Trump Jr. posts similarly: "We are wondering about what remedy––it's inappropriate."
Judge to defense lawyer: "Remedies may go beyond those of this court. I suggest you speak to your client. There are relevant U.S. statutes here." 3/4
Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome is when mentally ill attention-hungry caregivers invent or cause illnesses in order to heroically cure them. It has been Trump’s main presidential tactic.
1/4
He made the migrant crisis worse, then blamed migrants and Democrats and judges. He tried to destroy Obamacare so he could save health care. He threatened war with North Korea, then became Kim’s BFF. He imposed tariffs that hurt farmers, then paid off farmers. 2/4
Encouraged cops and MAGAs to escalate confrontations with BLM protesters, inciting violence to put down. Spread election-fraud fantasies to fundraise off them.
If he signs the covid relief bills necessary to save lives and livelihoods, it will be the final instance of that. 3/4