On a day in which massive wildfires are burning in 10 western states and the covid-19 death toll has reached 196,970, observing September 11 seems weird. Especially with the big lump sitting through the ceremony like this:
Seriously, Donald, you could have stayed home and played with your toy trucks, or whatever you do. I doubt anyone wanted you there, especially with you acting like a petulant three- year- old.
“There” was the Flight 93 memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Last week New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo suggested that Trump stay out of town …
“He can’t have enough bodyguards to walk through New York City,” Cuomo said on Wednesday night. “Forget bodyguards, he better have an army if he thinks he’s going to walk down the streets in New York. … He is persona non grata in New York City, and I think he knows that, and he’ll never come back to New York, because New Yorkers will never forget how gratuitously mean he has been.”
… so perhaps that discouraged Trump from attending the New York City commemoration. Mike Pence went to New York in Trump’s place.
Also, this was reported yesterday in the New York Daily News:
The Trump administration has secretly siphoned nearly $4 million away from a program that tracks and treats FDNY firefighters and medics suffering from 9/11 related illnesses, the Daily News has learned.
The Treasury Department mysteriously started withholding parts of payments — nearly four years ago — meant to cover medical services for firefighters, emergency medical technicians and paramedics treated by the FDNY World Trade Center Health Program, documents obtained by The News reveal.
The payments were authorized and made by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which oversees the program. But instead of sending the funds to the city, the Treasury started keeping some of the money.
“This was just disappearing,” the program’s director, Dr. David Prezant, told The News. “This is the most amazing thing. This was disappearing — without any notification.”
So, yeah, not a good day for Trump to be in New York City. See also Trump, Biden marking 9/11 with very different tones.
The 20th anniversary is next year. I sincerely hope that ever after there are no more big, whoop-dee-doo observances that involve the President or a surrogate showing up. Scale it down and make it for the locals, for the survivors and eyewitnesses. Everybody else can stay away.
If someone flew another airplane into a skyscraper now, then everyone would just shrug. We had more covid casualties just this week.
It must be excruciating not to be the center of attention.
You're right, Maha. He just should have stayed home and played with his toy trucks. Nothing says I really care for your pain and loss like sitting in a posture like that. Yesterday he was all effervescent when he was basking in the adulation of his idiot followers while he spewed hatred and division, but today he's downcast because he's got to take a back seat to an event that doesn't put the spotlight on him….poor baby!
So which personality showed up today? Well as with Cybil they need names. Credit Maha for the perfect picture, Let us call this personality the Donald Prima. Sarah Cooper plays him so well in this Obamagate piece.
https://youtu.be/FImJp1QPiNI
Confused? I am just off on my yesterday comment.
For (probably) obvious reasons, my mind keeps running back to Hannah Arendt's great and groundbreaking book, "The Banality of Evil."
I keep seeing at all of these high, and relatively high, level government officials tilting towards the dark side of "The Force" – if not totally immersing themselves in it.
How many if them, who but for tRUMP's innate ability to exude corruption and complicity, a decade ago, would have even thought of doing something like aiding and abetting in, oh, say: interfering in the election process; verifying information you know is untrue as fact; create/spread rumors that could dramatically change people's opinions in a negative way, etc…
They're career/careerist worker bee types. Part of the human furniture of a place, so to speak.
"Regular" folks.
They are people like me.
Or Doug, who used his job to get in the face of "our" government -and his employer – bringing a major issue into focus so as to improve this, our, country.
Now imagine if someone was a regular weak person, and always "went along to get along," and then did something affecting an upcoming election because s/he though it might put them in better stead with their tRUMP-worshipping boss? Or they themselves think along the same lines, and do it because they can.
And that's what's happening. Some "regular" people, just subtly changing the way things have always been done, not for positive change, but to benefit a cause or person.
Luckily, some people are speaking out, or refusing to go along, like that woman Federal Assistant DA who resigned today because she thinks Bill (dis)Barr is putting his fat Opus Dei believing thumb on the scales of an (trumped-up?) investigation into the investigation of tRUMP's ties with Russia.
Most of these major changes swirling around us involve the most banal of people. People doing small things that can have major – even terrifying – consequences. People. You know, "regular" people. "Regular" folks.
Standing or sitting like that says "I do NOT want to know you – go away" .