Buffoonery…

Unusually I drove out yesterday a Saturday, a few dozen miles to a town I know the other side of northern England, I needed a change of scene and to hopefully chat to a few people I sort of know a little or thirty years. The day was okay, missed seeing Pauline, her place is now condemned, and my excuse for the carbon footprint on this is that already my small car is only running 8k miles annually as opposed to what would have been 18k miles in years gone by. Gone is the horse charity work and a strange marriage that ‘drove me’ to places as now dog-less I’d never venture; memories suffice. Recently merely a second time such a ‘need’ has overcome me … last exercised a year ago. Result not too exciting admittedly but actually the best part was the journey across this part of northern England, through some always interesting landscape and a chance to criss-cross on foot the two towns I know best.

What struck me and horrified me was the amount of hardcore heavy drinking spilling out from the main watering holes, and this at 6pm! I doubt they could be very well off and wonder what hardship this causes at home, my wife grew up in a household where weekends were hell, as she many times told me “When drinks in wit is out”. Luckily she was able to move to her grandmothers age eleven and gain some peace and quiet, and yes her parents were usually stoney-broke, looked it, sounded it and what would be termed disadvantaged by the social workers.

Noise, volume, heated banter, all which covid would enjoy, likewise the other town I drove over to in taking a walk to the lake; I had no idea the town became a drinkers mecca on a Saturday night, silly me …. how else could all these pubs and eateries justify their existance! I cannot myself see the point, value or pleasure in this, a certain type only is drawn to it. I’ve never had the luxury to throw money away in such a manner, admittedly I did have a half year of pub visiting when in digs but soon met my wife thankfully and the interest quickly waned, we actually moved town and being strangers never did fall into any pattern of ‘going out’. My pleasure nearest to this is enjoy my own home cooking and some late evening beer at home, any pub or bar will never see my presence nor my money.

My point is, covid deaths are still high if I’m reading the news correctly and after all the sacrifices made, surely the pendulum is swinging too far in the opposite direction? Is this a smokescreen from Boris Johnson to deflect from his own disastrous predicament? The next thing is they’ll be having a war, an age old diversion for such times as now.

On the drive back at our local town there is a tiny public house, recently converted from a small office premises say ten years ago just before the T**ford Bridge and it was full packed with drinkers, mostly older and windows all steamed up, only one single doorway as access. Again, why?

The tragedy of Aid cuts by the UK…

… this vexes and saddens me greatly, established programmes and hard won connections and systems of delivery are being thrown to the wind and rendered useless. Stability and continuity I would think are vital.

There is no need for this trivial so-called cost cutting in the name of ‘saving money’ and with the covid response I’m sure huge vast amounts of money have gone down the plug-hole (the scandal of track and trace Dido Harding etc) at zero positive effect for the intended purpose. Witness the Government sending me ten thousand pounds which I do not need nor ever wanted (certainly not at this stage of my life, forty or even twenty years ago I would have been desperate for such munificence to help my workshop facilities) just one of about four schemes the self employed could ‘benefit’ from during covid in the UK, thrown to the recipient with no means testing, no follow up, no scrutiny of application or examination of real need. I gave the people a quick call at County Hall, intending to say no thanks and in fact laughing at the silliness of it all but to be told everyone is accepting the money, but I’m okay, I don’t need it! Its the only hand-out I secured in this long turgid covid crapathon and initially turning it down but Mr Greed took over and I was egged on by the ex girlfriend. I’ve not touched a penny of it, maybe I’ll return it. I pay full tax and willingly as a sole trader, deliberately as not a small company, it annoys me so many people vaguely eligible as small company status (which appear to be short term individuals with zero establishment or operating costs) revel in not paying their fair share of tax. Something like 98% of self employed / small business were grabbing for this £10k handout I was told; how not to run a country Mr Sunac.

Anyway, they shower me with money but other people really do need it ie the helpless, those lacking resources; therefore networks, aid programmes and hardworking folk with insight and expertise finding their umbilical is cut. UNICEF etc. cut, cut, cut ….. the lamentable Mr Sunak. A slick kid, well adulated on bbc r4 but I am very sceptical.

UN agencies warn of ‘serious consequences’ for children as UK cuts funding | World News | Sky News

UK’s aid cuts hit vital coronavirus research around world | Aid | The Guardian

Children will ‘suffer the consequences’ of Unicef cut as Govt also plans to reduce polio funding by 95% (thelondoneconomic.com)

These cuts are tragic, short sighted, silly and reprehensible.

Considering how Britain exploited the less developed world in times past its baffling we can be so mean.

Its too quick …

… the pace at which events are unfolding. Thank goodness James Mattis and Obama and others can get word out at the culminating insanity of a trump so-called ‘administration’ …. maybe more like a mal-administration that degrades humanity, the constitution and husbanding the environment.

We have now got into the area of Orwells ‘doublespeak’ where good is bad, right is left and its always getting better (not), the screen is everywhere (tho the latter is not trumps fault). The likes of Kayleigh Macenany beggar belief, we’ve seen it before but I just cannot understand that after three years of dirt from trump anyone whatsoever could defend the total disappointment known as trump, mr tv clip himself.

Likewise the utter crass upturning of truth and fact which seems to be a code of conduct of Republicans that still persist in accepting and encouraging a false message of the merits of their beloved d j trump. Note I deny trump upper case. What drives them, corporate greed, a scramble to buy up bankrupt agribusiness, are they so very obsessed with naked self interest?

trump didn’t know what to do with a Bible, in fact if ever an inhabitant of this planet needed guidance it is donald j trump and his coterie of scrambling hangers on. Very true that total power totally corrupts, Roy Cohn the master of nastiness himself would be very delighted to see how his protégé has turned out.

Worrying to see Genl Mark Milley step into the limelight (or the gaslight) …. I’d wondered who this totally on edge individual could possibly be a few months ago at his first widespread media exposure, standing behind trump nervous as could be imagined, primed and already on hyper-drive! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_A._Milley

Is trump a useful puppet? Who are his puppet masters in the US? Certainly Pence and Mnuchin are the first to come to mind. We know fine well he is in up to his chest beholden to Russia, quite easy to see in trumps lack of desire to investigate the queasy Russia connection, the two hour alone at Helsinki, the chumminess with Russias Kysliak, etc etc … it all stinks.

To dominate the news, the media, online, is trumps agenda, an agenda to stay in the White House at all costs; therefore corporate greed, self interest and the greedy cosy up to him. trump delights that something has come along to take attention away from worsening economic problems and from trumps quite hopeless and useless covid-19 mis-management.

Its true to say whatever trump says in fact the opposite is the actual truth. He slams and points to the media as fake when he himself is the fake, he derides people of ability and learning whilst he himself seems stuck at the level of a ten year old, everyone is a liar whilst only donald j trump has the truth!

Everyone must read and learn from past times of difficulty and danger, per Dr MLK “Be true to what you said on paper” … The Constitution. History, to read and learn from it is vital at this time.

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/06/trump-finally-gets-war-he-wanted/165825/

https://www.thedailybeast.com/kayleigh-mcenany-is-trumps-most-despicable-mouthpiece-yet

The following on EPA destruction and rollbacks I found on the Charles Booth site, thanks. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks.html?smid=fb-share&fbclid=IwAR3lhEM0bJon-wllBhlOoOVk7TAj-GSMwONXQdtWbJO4xHKk4lRrY5SbT8k

I feel so sorry for Dr Anthony Fauci…

Its obvious as a medical professional it is most frustrating to cope with a furious controlling and ineducable imbecile as d j trump. Inevitably yet more heads will roll at the instant there is disagreement from trumps tweet of the day byline which of course wavers at whim from whatever is projected from Fox News or from his immediate handlers Mnuchin, Pence or granddaddy Putin; the only good thing about all this is that trumps total inabilities are constantly revealed, trump insistently jeopardises any meaningful handling of the cv-19 epidemic, particularly for the ordinary, poor and vulnerable and the few remaining trump zombie voters must surely start to realise they have been duped.

Its my opinion these last few days here in the UK we need to look to unloosen a little the business clampdown, no-one mentions on media news that often if a business fails the owner loses everything, house, savings etc…. merely to save a few lives of mostly folk that have compromised health already. Sounds callous, but the economic disaster known as lockdown is too destructive if it is carried on as we hear yesterday for another year. Remember the spine-chilling term ‘herd immunity’ this is exactly what it means. I feel sorry for city dwellers, its no more than semi-urban here, distancing is easier. Maybe that’s why the Saxons moved to the country, away from Roman towns and cities! The clampdown CAN be loosened a little, after all it is the medical and healthcare workers we need to specifically cordon off from public encounters, so far no-one mentions this but they will; they will have to.

Good sense in my mind would be to loosen up soon and carry into autumn, then clamp down again when the season of coughs and sneezes descends upon us. I think we are going to have to live with the fact of 1k deaths a week if that means we avoid financial disaster, economic disaster ie trading and personal disaster ie losing the roof over your head and the psychological disaster of being cooped up in low grade accommodation or abusive unpleasant partners or unruly children. My heart bleeds for people in less fortunate circumstances, for the poor and vulnerable.

trump and his many pronged attack on good sense and decency... — trump and his many pronged attack on good sense and decency…

Lets use our brains …

Propaganda to the masses and bad thinking at the top are rife, epidemic. Some examples…

When trump tweets realise its not just his finger on the keyboard but in fact that little keyboard is a giga-powered propaganda machine with open input from any of his crooked and twisted lackeys and I include Ivanka and particularly Jared in this; the little keyboard of his phone (or more likely an office computer logged into trumps twitter feed) the most powerful meat grinder (unfortunately) in the world. Meat grinder in that trump and cohorts will quite happily sacrifice the poor and less fortunate to get past this lockdown, to mangle the truth at every convenience to trump and his constant revision of what he said the day before. At every turn, so many times trump likes to sacrifice the poor and helpless, think travel bans think border wall, all needless.
trump is the wrong man at the wrong time in the wrong position at least to all God fearing sane and decent citizens, yet to Putin trump is the right man in the right place at the right time, an unprecedented opportunity for exploitation. Of course trump is being massively exploited, I’m sure in my mind there is huge amounts of Russian money chanelled through trump activities, trump depends and needs this to survive as no American Bank will suffer him and remember the disgusting lovefest of trump and Putin at Helsinki; two hours behind closed doors, no American witnesses and no notes, trump emerging visibly shaken. This is sickening, trump indeed is skewered on Putins arm as some hapless dumb ventriloquists doll. Note trumps endless insistence that Russia did not meddle in the elections no matter the clamouring of US citizens at all levels, that Russia is his friend, that Russians have been invited and freely entered the Oval Office.
Everything trump issues as an insult or failing is in fact most applicable to himself; everything from trump is a reversal of the truth and time-won practical experience, of established institutions, of knowledge and scientific data ie climate change, the environment, sleazy tax handouts to cronies, international relations, the respect to other religions and ways of life etc etc. He courts dictators. When he points the accusatory finger “Fake news” he in fact is the only fake in the room; shouldn’t therefore everyone point back silently, good move I think and we are quite entitled to do so however the irony would be that trump would assume the accusatory finger to be in fact a fascist salute and therefore an adulation!! As usual, with trump we are in a room full of mirrors. Personally I would also encourage public booing to somehow break the bubble of the would-be fascist Emperor and his hangers on after all he is so incredibly thin-skinned.
trumps obsession and over-repeated slogan “Drain the swamp” is now utterly most applicable to himself, no great swamp existed pre-trump but now boy-o-boy trump has created his very own sickening swamp by any standards. Note handler Mnuchin always standing by rooting for Big Money, likewise Pence to ensure a fundamentalist, regressive and backward doctrine are included, to be promoted at all times.
Truth is cooked up each day according to the whim or shallow fancy of trump, as cooked up as him unfathomable tax returns or unknown educational attainment, both we assume not worth the paper they are written on if only anyone could ever find them.
Mining the moon … one couldn’t make this up! This really is an exercise of sustainable living in hostile conditions, which has been foreseeable for the last couple of years, such as the dreaded impending methane release and subsequent chaos of interconnected climate feedback loops running out of control from the efficiency / efficacy of surging methane levels. Its not CO2 that will kill us but the much more damaging (say x120 fold) and much faster acting methane release in its three forms ie microbial from thawing permafrost, methane deposits trapped within the strata capped and held in place by permafrost and probably worst of all thawing subsea hydrates for instance the East Siberian Ice Shelf. These are huge areas, far bigger any one of them than Europe.
My opinion is that there is a limit to the gullibility of trumps so-called voter base, like most things of his its smaller than he says; soon trump fans will tire of the trump spiel and media hogging, even the most unthinking zombie-like adorer of the trump stance must surely quite soon see the light, the obscuring fakery of trump.
Has anyone realised the huge places recently constructed to die and equipped with respirators, a life of lockdowns, the end of personal freedom as of cv-19 are exactly what we will need when climate change kicks in hard? Which it will, the impending catastrophic increase of methane being the real ‘biggie’.
From my UK standpoint and I think near universal is insufficient regard taken with care and health workers, these special people need special treatment in safer distancing from family members and public, to be cordoned off in effect. The PPE scandal will not go away, neither the scandal of care home deaths being kept out of the cov-19 death toll. The early hours health and care worker shopping hour needs to be redefined as a means of increasing bio-security, so far no-one is taking this angle seriously enough. This would allow economies to loosen up and get a few more contributors working again. Issuing all care workers with a badge is exactly what one would have decided is the first step in identifying such workers and hey presto was announced a fortnight ago. Funny how this can be redefined as a means to separate out care and health workers from the general population, which I think would be utterly stupid not to do so, yet no-one specifically mentions this. this in some ways silly lockdown needs to be engineered more intelligently.
In essence we need to be more aware to separate the health and care workers from the rest of the general population, the latest tragic news of two sisters, both care workers to die reinforces the need to do this.
Quite seriously, why has no-one drawn attention to the lunacy of having a beard at this time, I would imagine a virus catcher par-excellence!

Postscript, nice to hear my words echoed and the exact words indeed as utilised by Polly Toynbee a few hours after I wrote them, great minds think alike! Likewise two days later interesting to hear Nick on bbc r4 this morning echoeing my particular sentiment that nice sounding words are useless when in fact in reality things don’t happen or the PPE isn’t delivered and the cv-19 testing just is not happening as they portray. I would term this a disjoint of delivery. The latest disaster is a recall for botched cv-19 testing, also the NHS and Government seeming to be ignoring the offers of PPE manufacturing and lab testing capacity in the UK. One couldn’t make this up!

Heres Amy Goodman with Noam Chomski …

As Noam Chomsky tells us trump is indeed v v clever.

trump incompetence …

We normally put up with donald j trump, the ultra part-timer and the utter incompetent ‘Clown in the White House’, trump is the fly in the ointment; we allow him to hiss, accuse and blether his way through soundbites and for yet another day to project outwards his tissue thin façade of so-called ‘competence’. But now with cv-19 its time to man-up so to speak and realise trump is now responsible for many innocent lives being lost which most certainly upsettingly compounds his already relentless attempts to wreck, to induce fear and anxiety.

Realise, its not what trump says that matters, its what he does (or wrecks). trump knows most near all of his face to face media encounters are mere ‘blether-fests’.

This article helps assemble and gain an overall view of the disaster zone called donald j trump …

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/americans-are-paying-the-price-for-trumps-failures/609532/

Heres good sense from Noam Chomsky, interviewed by Amy Goodman.

Also, interesting …. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/studying-fascist-propaganda-by-day-watching-trumps-coronavirus-updates-by-night

And heres my little cartoon, quite accurate I think.

Why is it ….

… the funny little fella Anthony Fauci has every time to be running his hands all over the presidential lectern. Its as if he’s in love with it and cannot get his hands on it enough! I’m glad I don’t have to touch it after he’s been around; but hey …. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/06/hydroxychloroquine-trump-coronavirus-drug

Here he is Dr Anthony Fauci …. a complete and utter buerk. Maybe I need to go tell him “Keep yr hands to yourself” ! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Fauci

Regardless of whether he has just washed his hands (I’m sceptical) … he should not be touching anything. Funny how certain people get to the top!

A case in point is d j trump, how did he get to the top! The Guardian quotes trump as pronouncing he has no time or truck with I quote ” But we don’t have time to go and say, ‘Gee, let’s take a couple of years and test it out, and let’s go and test with the test tubes and the laboratories.’”

‘…the test tubes and the laboratories’.

No-one has seen trumps educational record or tax record and one cannot help but wonder of whatever was presented would be trumped up, to be phoney, fake, fake as in most of what trump is associated with. trump was and is ineducable, incapable of learning very much. Dictators were often ignorant, trump is merely just another; but how sad he influences and controls to such an extent, we now read that trump has forbidden Fauci from saying anything. trumps over-bearing ignorance surely should never be tolerated. Every misdemeanour, possibly many each day further strengthen this clown.

Trump is a clown, an exceedingly dangerous and disruptive clown. — This is the swamp indeed ie Master Faker trump… can barely read, despises the printed word other than when it carries his own name, denies experts or science or environmental prudence, is blind to climate change.

When do the last dregs of America get it?

Surely there can not be a single individual remaining in the US of A that would vote for trump.

His callous indifference, surreal return to ‘snake oil salesman’, must surely brand the ‘Retard in Charge’ as the most unsupportable so called ‘leader’ anywhere anytime. Well okay, maybe Nero was a bit of an indifferent twat and maybe some Biblical / Egyptian types were a low point; Hitler, Mao … yes all disregarded the ordinary folk.

trump drags down the world, dumbs down, clogs up and hinders the work of self-effacing people of integrity. HOW MUCH PATIENCE must the USA and the world extend to this clown, this buffoon, this snake-oil salesman, wanna-reality star, conman ….

trumps ‘invented wisdom’ knows no bounds.

Its quite nasty up there at the WH, look at Jared, his dad done for voting fraud so daddy in law enumerates him as numero-uno adviser! Yes indeed if crooked and low brow is your favoured stance.

With the cv-19 we do indeed see the folly of allowing trump to lodge at 1600 Pennsylvania.

Why are we so jumbled?

Why is bigotry and blindness, pretend knowledge that can hardly amount to a sentence or two allowed such free-rein dominance and real ‘grown-up’ dialogue so despised?

Has the ‘little screen’ so jumbled peoples minds that knowledge and anything other than a few dozen words is beyond most people? Or perhaps more accurately shoddy tenth-rate no, zero-rate leadership glove puppet trump in the White House and space boy Pence who also doesn’t ‘believe’ in science are twitching and pronouncing on things they have utterly no idea about. Its all about the sound bite my dears, to dominate the news cyle excluding fair arguament and grown-up open minded and informed dialogue.

How can things have got this bad?

Looks like Lewis Carrol wrote the script.

Witness endless destruction of carefully built EPA safeguards and protections, a trillion handed back to the already super-rich, hatred and bigotry fuelled and stoked to a desire to be back in the 1930’s, the modest, the Mexican, the Moslem all shoved to the back of the queue, families crow-barred apart and deported. Remember, the 1930’s to people like trump would have meant ‘business opportunities’ as we imagine them cruising in their chauffer driven limos. trump finds war quite appealing, anyone who has ever been in it or suffered its effects will be screaming that war should not ever happen again. trump is deaf to this.

Once trump mis-management, inertia and sheer ignorance bite home I fear the USA will be harder hit than anyone in the coming recession.

Never trust anyone with a funny haircut, nor parades barrel chested, magesterially and with pomp with silly over-applied tv makeup for the next op ….. nor revels so obscenely in his ‘me-focused’ rallies. Remind you of anyone?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/28/coronavirus-donald-trump-truth-president

Trump is a clown. — This is the swamp indeed ie Master Faker trump… can barely read, despises the printed word other than when it carries his own name, denies experts or science or environmental prudence, is blind to climate change.

I applaud Mitt Romney.

At least someone has courage and decency; its frightening to see so many old white men hang onto the coat-tails of trump, himself a mere puppet for vested interest. How can anyone tolerate the absurdity and total unsuitability for Office? Nancy is my hero, best thing she could do in tearing up that script.

In these vile days of trump two and two are most certainly three, or five but anything but four.

trumps obsession is to be on the edge of the news curve, he’ll do anything to be the headlines; lying and false claims are nothing to him, chaff to the wind each day. These times of change seem to be bringing out the worst in people that should know better.

trump used to talk about the swamp, merely another hook to catch voters, but in his post acquittal speech he himself goes lower than anyone could imagine, a surreal DC comic version of what an unhinged President would promulgate whilst all around him lay disarray and destruction.

https://www.vox.com/2020/2/6/21126669/trump-white-house-impeachment-speech

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/07/alexander-vindman-fired-trump-impeachment-white-house

The Impeachment Trial was a farce. Those that spoke the truth or wanted to get at the truth were effectively silenced, a couple of days later Alexander Vindman (a Ukraine expert) fired and escorted off the premises, Gordon Sondland also fired. As we know, trump does not like experts or anyone that is impelled to seek the truth. From the wiki below we can also see that Vindmans twin brother has also been fired at the same time,

quote:

His identical twin brother, Yevgeny S. Vindman, is an Army lieutenant colonel and JAG Officer who was assigned as an attorney on the National Security Council staff handling ethics issues, until he was dismissed from that post on February 7, 2020, the same time as Alexander was removed from his NSC post.[3][27][25]

unquote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Vindman

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Sondland

As a comic aside from this Impeachment charade I can’t help but recall Judge Nutmeg of Reeves and Mortimer “What are the charges …. trumped up” !