Last Call For Operation Rehabilitation

There will always be one place where having a Trump regime job on the resume will actually help getting you hired, and that's the right-wing noise machine at FOX News.

Former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany will officially join Fox News as an on-air commentator, the network announced Tuesday.

The news, which was announced by Fox News host Harris Faulkner, comes after weeks during which the network had equivocated about McEnany's role at the network.

"It is my distinct pleasure to welcome Kayleigh McEnany to the Fox family," Faulkner said. "We will be seeing much more of her."

A spokesperson for Fox News declined to comment beyond Faulkner's statements.

McEnany, a former CNN contributor, was a spokesperson for Trump's 2020 re-election campaign and took on the role of White House press secretary last spring. She told reporters as she took the job: "I will never lie to you."

That promise quickly became the subject of criticism, as McEnany routinely defended and promoted misleading statements made by then-President Donald Trump. McEnany proved to be one of Trump's most ardent defenders during the election, with Fox News at one point cutting away from a press conference she held in early November in which she pushed false claims of voting irregularities.

McEnany is the latest person to walk through the revolving door between Fox News and the Trump White House: Sarah Sanders, another former press secretary, joined Fox News before leaving to eye a run for Arkansas governor. Larry Kudlow, Trump's former economic director, recently joined Fox Business Network where he hosts his own show. Hope Hicks, Trump's longtime communications director, also joined Fox News' parent company, Fox Corp., in 2018 to serve as its executive vice president and chief communications officer. She later returned to the Trump White House.

 

As the Big Lie machine gears up for attacking Biden and the Dems and supporting Trump through his legal woes, the familiar faces of Trump's propaganda corps on FOX will put them back on top. It's what the cultists want, and it's what they'll get.

 

Kayleigh the professional liar only changed who signs her paychecks, not her job. 

But I bet there's an extra zero on the salary at the new gig.

Retribution Execution, Con't

The silver lining to the psychically exhausting GOP practice of "saying the quiet part out loud" in America is that it makes it very, very easy to identify the fascists in our midst who should never be allowed to have political power whatsoever. It also means there are Republicans worse than Donald Trump in 2020, like Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton.

This week, rioters have plunged many American cities into anarchy, recalling the widespread violence of the 1960s.

New York City suffered the worst of the riots Monday night, as Mayor Bill de Blasio stood by while Midtown Manhattan descended into lawlessness. Bands of looters roved the streets, smashing and emptying hundreds of businesses. Some even drove exotic cars; the riots were carnivals for the thrill-seeking rich as well as other criminal elements.

Outnumbered police officers, encumbered by feckless politicians, bore the brunt of the violence. In New York State, rioters ran over officers with cars on at least three occasions. In Las Vegas, an officer is in “grave” condition after being shot in the head by a rioter. In St. Louis, four police officers were shot as they attempted to disperse a mob throwing bricks and dumping gasoline; in a separate incident, a 77-year-old retired police captain was shot to death as he tried to stop looters from ransacking a pawnshop. This is “somebody’s granddaddy,” a bystander screamed at the scene.

Some elites have excused this orgy of violence in the spirit of radical chic, calling it an understandable response to the wrongful death of George Floyd. Those excuses are built on a revolting moral equivalence of rioters and looters to peaceful, law-abiding protesters. A majority who seek to protest peacefully shouldn’t be confused with bands of miscreants.

But the rioting has nothing to do with George Floyd, whose bereaved relatives have condemned violence. On the contrary, nihilist criminals are simply out for loot and the thrill of destruction, with cadres of left-wing radicals like antifa infiltrating protest marches to exploit Floyd’s death for their own anarchic purposes.

These rioters, if not subdued, not only will destroy the livelihoods of law-abiding citizens but will also take more innocent lives. Many poor communities that still bear scars from past upheavals will be set back still further.

One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers. But local law enforcement in some cities desperately needs backup, while delusional politicians in other cities refuse to do what’s necessary to uphold the rule of law.

Cotton goes on to say that the Insurrection Act, a law created nearly two centuries ago to give the US Army the power to put down slave rebellions, is needed.

Chief Propaganda Minister Kayleigh McEnany agrees.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Wednesday defended the use of chemical agents and projectiles used by law enforcement officials to clear crowds of racial justice demonstrators in Lafayette Square on Monday — a move that was widely criticized as an excessive use of force on a peaceful protest.

“They had no other choice,” McEnany responded when asked if law enforcement officials under the direction of Attorney General Bill Barr had overstepped in their attempts to forcibly remove protesters from the park in preparation for President Trump’s walk to a photo op at the St. John’s Episcopal Church.

Those responsible for increasing the perimeter for Trump as he made his way to the church used the most “minimal force” possible, McEnany said. Contrary to reports from the scene, McEnany described groups of “rioters” who had grown violent and were launching bricks and water bottles at police officers.

Protesters were given three warnings, the press secretary said, before members of the National Guard, park staff and other law enforcement officials escalated the encounter to an “appropriate level,” dispensing chemicals into the air and shooting projectiles to drive protesters away.

Very soon I expect Trump to fire, replace, or cow Defense Secretary Mark Esper into making the call to use the Insurrection Act in DC at the very minimum, and for Republican governors to go along in order to placate Trump.

I also expect hundreds, if not thousands of Americans to die.

Tom Cotton is calling for a military coup, followed by a functional dictatorship. Let's get this out of the way right now, Cotton wants Trump to use military force to kill Americans over the objections of Governors, state law enforcement, and local law enforcement.  It is absolutely vile, and 100% fascist. Cotton should be made to resign over this in a heartbeat. But he won't.

And millions of Americans back him, because they figure they are somehow safe from the tanks and bombs that will annihilate them regardless. They want fascism, because it will keep black and brown bodies in line, and cement us as the permanent slave class.  They've wanted it all their lives.

It was never Donald Trump who was the true threat.   

It was the people who enabled him.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Trump's newest press flack is displaying exactly the level of competence we've come to expect in Trump hires. Only the best people, remember?

It’s a feel-good story that President Trump’s press secretaries have relished over the years: the quarterly announcement of which government agency Mr. Trump has selected to be the lucky recipient of his salary, an easy way to show the president sticking to his 2016 campaign pledge to forgo his $400,000 salary and donate it.

In the past, the $100,000 check from Mr. Trump has been made out to the Small Business Administration initiative to help veteran entrepreneurs, to the Office of the Surgeon General to fight the opioid epidemic, and to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, among other places.

But on Friday, Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, did not just reveal that the president was sending his salary to the Department of Health and Human Services to help “support the efforts being undertaken to confront, contain and combat the coronavirus.”

She also displayed the president’s private bank account and routing numbers.
The $100,000 check she held up like a prop appeared to be a real check from Capital One, complete with the relevant details. An administration official said mock checks were never used in the briefing.

A White House spokesman, Judd Deere, said in a statement, “Today his salary went to help advance new therapies to treat this virus, but leave it to the media to find a shameful reason not to simply report the facts, focusing instead on whether the check is real or not.”

For an average civilian, that information could be used to withdraw or deposit money, make online purchases or hack an account.

“It’s not a best practice to share that information publicly,” said Eva Velasquez, the president and chief executive of the Identity Theft Resource Center. “If you don’t have protections in place, there are sophisticated schemes and ways someone could access those funds knowing the account and routing number and the individual person it belongs to.”

These clowns can't even get a simple thing right like "Don't display a person's account and check routing numbers on national TV" right.  And we're supposed to believe they have a handle on classified intelligence?

Jesus, what morons these people be.

Last Call For Trump Goes Viral, Con't

As Greg Sargent calls out, the White House has exactly the kind of rapid, through and robust COVID-19 testing protocols that Donald Trump refuses to make available for the American people because they're not necessary for the rest of us serfs.

Katie Miller, the wife of adviser Stephen Miller, has tested positive for the coronavirus. The infection of Ms. Miller, a close adviser to Vice President Pence, means potential exposure to President Trump’s inner circle — so reporters are raising questions about White House internal testing policies.

The White House has indicated to reporters that Pence and many members of his staff have been getting tested daily, and Pence and Trump appear not to have had contact with Katie Miller recently.

Meanwhile, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany sought to reassure the news media that the White House testing procedures are sound. I wanted to draw attention to this quote from McEnany:

“We have put in place the guidelines that our experts have put forward to keep this building safe, which means contact tracing," McEnany told reporters during Friday’s news briefing. "All of the recommended guidelines we have for businesses that have essential workers, we are now putting them in place here in the White House. So as America reopens safely, the White House is continuing to operate safely.”

The careful reader will note a jarring juxtaposition here. McEnany claims both that the United States is reopening safely and that the White House is operating safely. But only one of these two — the White House — actually has the sort of testing regime the White House itself is now implicitly acknowledging is a prerequisite to safety.
The rest of the country largely lacks this level of testing — because Trump doesn’t want to take the steps necessary to stand up a robust federal testing regime.

The rub here is that the guidelines by themselves (which McEnany referenced) aren’t enough. Equipment and resources are also necessary.

Trump, Pence and their aides have access to rapid and regular testing, which is also given to those who meet with them. They have access to the resources that enable the very sort of safe testing regime McEnany described here.

It’s true that the fact that Miller tested positive — as one of Trump’s valets did earlier this week — shows that having robust testing isn’t absolutely foolproof. The coronavirus can still get in. But as Philip Bump notes, having that intensity of testing is exactly what prevented it from spreading.

Trump and his staff get tested and tested regularly.  We on the other hand get to wait in line for tests that just aren't available and never will be.

And remember, Trump's own rabid base is being told testing is not needed to be a Real American Warrior and to go back to work without a mask.  They either don't notice the ridiculous hypocrisy or they are glad to die for the God-Emperor of Stupid.

And if you still think we don't need testing:

How do we fix the U.S. #SupplyChain in the wake of #COVID19? It might be more complicated than you think. We examined travel paths of mobile devices from some of the nation's top #meatpacking plants and what we saw was eye-opening... (data courtesy of @xmodesocial) pic.twitter.com/aCYuq1n3jT

— Tectonix GEO (@TectonixGEO) May 6, 2020

These plants have hundreds of sick workers each.  These workers have traveled all over the Midwest.  Cases and deaths will continue to rise. And Donald Trump is both mentally and emotionally unable to lead the country out of this disaster...a disaster the White House now officially believes is over.

In a week when the novel coronavirus ravaged new communities across the country and the number of dead soared past 78,000, President Trump and his advisers shifted from hour-by-hour crisis management to what they characterize as a long-term strategy aimed at reviving the decimated economy and preparing for additional outbreaks this fall.

But in doing so, the administration is effectively bowing to — and asking Americans to accept — a devastating proposition: that a steady, daily accumulation of lonely deaths is the grim cost of reopening the nation.

Inside the West Wing, some officials talk about the federal government’s mitigation mission as largely accomplished because they believe the nation’s hospitals are now equipped to meet anticipated demand — even as health officials warn the number of coronavirus cases could increase considerably in May and June as more states and localities loosen restrictions, and some mitigation efforts are still recommended as states begin to reopen.

The administration is struggling to expand the scale of testing to what experts say is necessary to reopen businesses safely, and officials have not announced any national plan for contact tracing. Trump and some of his advisers are prioritizing the psychology of the pandemic as much as, if not more than, plans to combat the virus, some aides and outside advisers said — striving to instill confidence that people can comfortably return to daily life despite the rising death toll.

On Friday, as the unemployment rate reached a historically high 14.7 percent, Trump urged Americans to think of this period as a “transition to greatness,” adding during a meeting with Republican members of Congress: “We’re going to do something very fast, and we’re going to have a phenomenal year next year.” The president predicted the virus eventually would disappear even without a vaccine — a prediction at odds with his own science officials.

A White House spokesman defended the status of testing by pointing to comments in mid-April by two of the medical professionals on the task force, Anthony S. Fauci and Adm. Brett Giroir, saying there have been enough tests to safely reopen the country.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany also backed the administration’s response, saying, “President Trump is committed to a data-driven approach to safely reopening the country. His steadfast leadership has saved American lives, and the American people recognize his leadership.”

Some of Trump’s advisers described the president as glum and shell-shocked by his declining popularity. In private conversations, he has struggled to process how his fortunes suddenly changed from believing he was on a glide path to reelection to realizing that he is losing to the likely Democratic nominee, former vice president Joe Biden, in virtually every poll, including his own campaign’s internal surveys, advisers said. He also has been fretting about the possibility that a bad outbreak of the virus this fall could damage his standing in the November election, said the advisers, who along with other aides and allies requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

The president is also eager to resume political travel in June, including holding his signature rallies by the end of the summer in areas where there are few cases, advisers said. Trump’s political team has begun discussions about organizing a high-dollar, in-person fundraiser next month, as well as preliminary planning about staging rallies and what sort of screenings might be necessary, according to Republican National Committee officials and outsider advisers. One option being considered is holding rallies outdoors, rather than in enclosed arenas, a senior administration official said.

Officials also are forging ahead with the Republican National Convention planned for late August in Charlotte, albeit a potentially scaled-back version.

Once again:

We are being sacrificed for Trump.  We are being told to accept 2,000 deaths a day as the New Normal, and that toll is going to increase dramatically over the next few weeks as the true cost of "re-opening the economy" becomes bloodily apparent.

When do we say hell no to this?