Sleight of Mouth
POST 1180
Bright Shiny Objects
During the 2016 election campaign of Doñald* Trump we heard the audio recording of what became known as the Access Hollywood tape. In it Trump is heard bragging about trying to f*ck married women. He said, “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful… I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything.” Clearly, without their consent.
He said he would, “Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.” Sexual predator stuff. It was a plain, direct admission of having committed multiple counts of felony sexual assault.
Later that same day, as reported in Wikipedia,
WikiLeaks begins publishing thousands of emails from the personal Gmail account of Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, revealing excerpts from Clinton’s paid speeches to Wall Street.
While Doñald’s crude comments remained in the public discussion, Clinton’s pay for giving speeches to Wall Street firms proved to be a powerful distraction. And so it goes with most Trump vulnerabilities.
Heather Cox Richardson posted on May 16,
In his newsletter today, retired entrepreneur Bill Southworth tallied the times Trump has grabbed headlines to distract people from larger stories, starting the tally with how Trump’s posts about Peanut the Squirrel the day before the election swept like a brushfire across the right-wing media ecosystem and then into the mainstream. In early 2025, Southworth notes, as the media began to dig into the dramatic restructuring of the federal government, Trump posted outrageously about Gaza, and that story took over. When cuts to PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) and the U.S. Agency for International Development threatened lives across Africa, Trump turned the conversation to white South Africans he lied were fleeing “anti-white genocide.”**
So the political lesson is that when exposed as a cheat, fraud, liar or sexual assaulter, Trump dumps something explosive to distract the public. It’s the Bright Shiny Object insanity plea.
Like Doñald surrendering to China by reducing tariffs from 145% to 30% and getting nearly no concessions in return. Nevertheless, the self-crowned master of negotiating claimed a big negotiating win for America and personally attacked his critics, which became the story.
Like the week ending with Moody’s downgrading America’s credit score (as did two other ratings agencies), so Doñald had his spokesman, Steven Cheung, make personal attacks on a Moody’s analyst. As with nearly all things related to Trump, Cheung completely failed to address the substantive issue.
Like the Supreme Court overwhelmingly shooting down Doñald for using the Alien Enemies Act to kidnap people off the street, so Doñald countered by announcing a $400 million dollar aircraft “gift” from the Qataris, which became all the buzz.***
Another of Trump’s get-away trick for his indefensible assaults on law and morality is to do bad stuff by stealth in the middle of the night, like the Republican House did when cobbling together the theft of Medicaid via their fetid, stinking budget. They are sneaking their rip-off, their larceny from poor children, from grannies in nursing and retirement homes, from desperately poor people in Red states and so many more millions of Americans needing healthcare. It’s all to transfer more trillions of dollars to greedy billionaires and add another $5 trillion to our national debt, the debt service of which will overwhelmingly be paid by working Americans, not the greedy billionaires.
Does this ghastly, dreadful, putrid stuff make you want to stand up and scream? Well, there’s good news for you.
Slighting You and Me
From Dan Rather, May 16 regarding the rancid Republican budget bill:
Trump and Johnson don’t want to give anyone time to read the fine print [in the 1116 page bill].
Because then folks would know that the bill would cut $625 billion from Medicaid, pushing more than 8 million of our most vulnerable from its rolls.
People would also be aware that cuts to the food stamp program would target poor families with children, seniors, and veterans.
Voters would find out that someone making less than $15,000 a year would see their federal taxes increase by 74.3% by 2031. That is not a typo.
Trump claims all of these cuts are necessary to make his $4.5 trillion tax cut for billionaires and corporations permanent.
Reader and friend E.L. gave me the heads up that last Sunday was the 98th anniversary of Charles LIndbergh’s flight across the Atlantic Ocean. It was quite a feat and it put Lindbergh into a special class, which became quite mixed.
He was quite familiar with the Nazis and said this in a 1945 speech:
History is full of [the] misuse [of power]. There is no better example than Nazi Germany. Power without moral force to guide it invariably ends in the destruction of the people who wield it. Power . . . must be backed by morality . . .
We are suffering terribly from a lack of morality in our government. If this continues, there will surely be destruction of We The People before “the destruction of the people who wield [power].”
From Norm Eisen’s Memorial Day post:
To memorialize our veterans’ sacrifices is to attend to the fragile, unfinished work of fighting autocracy and building a country worthy of their service. It is to hold tight to the idea of America, even when its practice falters. To do our part, as they did—not on distant battlefields, but on our streets, among our communities, and in our courthouses.
Our Streets
You and I are just like the Founders in our abhorrence of kings, monarchs, despots and dictators. Won’t tolerate one in our America. Which is why June 14 is
NO KINGS DAY!
.
Click on the map, to find a demonstration near you and register. If there isn’t one close by, register to organize one. Or wait a few days, as new sites are popping up every day. As of this writing there are hundreds of them, people across the nation who won’t tolerate Trump’s scams leading to his dictatorship. Many thanks to Indivisible for kick starting this national demonstration to strengthen America and metaphorically kick would-be kings in a most debilitating spot.
Yes, June 14 is the date of Trump’s birthday and his narcissistic, “Aren’t I The Powerful One!” military parade. It’s designed to show the world what a tough guy he is, able to tear up Pennsylvania Avenue with tank treads in a single afternoon and waste $45 million beyond that. Instead, he could hire more air traffic controllers, but that wouldn’t be special for him.
“NO KINGS” – kinda has a ring to it.
__________________________________________
* We’ll call him “Doñald” now and then to honor the millions of Hispanic people living in our country who are threatened by him every day and who live in fear. We honor all who walk down the sidewalk or speak out in any way Trump doesn’t like, be they citizens or visitors.
We extend our flick off to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and its masked thugs who refuse to produce identification and who have no arrest warrants, but happily kidnap people. Didn’t kidnapping used to be a federal offense?
** Musk, too, claims there is a genocide of White farmers ongoing in his native country, South Africa. Here’s the fun part: His own Grok xAI says that isn’t true.
*** The giving of such a “gift” is called “bribery.” Also, “foreign emoluments,” which, like bribery, is prohibited by the Constitution.
Countdown to November 3, 2026
Mid-Term Election
Goes fast, doesn’t it?
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