Tag Archives: Axios

‘It is what it is’

There you have it.

Donald J. “Numbskull in Chief” Trump calls the death rate from the coronavirus pandemic a mere fact. That’s it. “It is what it is,” he said to Jonathan Swan, the Axios reporter who sought to get Trump to explain why the death rate in this country continues to soar.

He didn’t do it. Not only that, Donald Trump didn’t acknowledge the pain, the misery, the tragedy that has befallen more than 155,000 American families. He doesn’t speak to their suffering. Trump doesn’t offer words of comfort. He doesn’t turn to the TV camera and tell us he hurts right along with us.

He says of the death count “It is what it is.”

When in the annals of human suffering have we ever seen a president of the United States exhibit such utter callousness?

Donald Trump is presiding over a monumental failure of leadership in response to a once-in-a-century pandemic. What’s more, he continues to delude himself into believing he is doing a “fantastic” job.

It is shocking and repulsive in the extreme.

A-bombs to prevent hurricanes? Really, Mr. President?

This one almost got by me, as I thought it might be a satirical “news” story.

Hey, it wasn’t. Reportedly

Donald J. Trump reportedly floated the idea that we ought to use atomic bombs to prevent hurricanes from inflicting damage ashore. Yep! Drop them bombs on hurricanes!

What in the world is the president of the United States thinking? Oh, wait! He isn’t thinking. He never thinks before opening up his mouth or unleashing his Twitter fingers. He never ponders the impact of these pronouncements coming from someone who is supposed to be a man of reason, forethought, nuance, rational thinking.

He is none of it. None, I’m tellin’ ya!

I’m thinking The Onion ought to write a story about it, publish it in its satirical spin on the news. I’m wondering whether many readers will realize that Donald Trump actually meant it!

Axios reported that Trump made the remarks in a meeting of advisers. One of them leaked it to the media, telling how Trump thought it would be feasible to drop a nuke as a storm was forming off the Africa coast and began its trek toward North and/or South America.

Oh, but the president denies saying it. Sure … and I am expected to believe the serial liar in chief? Hah!

Weird, man.

They call it ‘executive time’?

Axios is reporting that Donald Trump spends a lot of what is being called “executive time,” meaning time off the clock, in the White House residence, doing something I presume other than reading briefing papers and intelligence reports.

This really isn’t a huge deal to me. I’ve noted already many times that I don’t even mind the president playing a lot of golf. What irks me about all that golf time is that this president promised he wouldn’t do it . . . and then he reneged on that promise!

Presidents are never off the clock. They’re only a radio message or phone call away from being summoned to respond to a national emergency; by that I mean a real emergency, not a phony one such as what Trump says is occurring on our southern border.

As for the executive time business, I  wish Trump would spend more time studying how to be president. He ought to learn about what the U.S. Constitution lays out in terms of executive power, and how the framers established Congress and the courts as co-equal branches of government. He doesn’t seem to know any of that.

Then again, maybe he is spending his executive time actually reading. Do you think? Nahhh! If he was doing it we certainly would know about it. He’d be firing off Twitter messages informing us of all the brainy work he is doing behind the scenes.

See the Axios story here.

Axios suggests he spends a lot of time each day reading newspapers and watching TV before he heads to the Oval Office, or the Cabinet Room, or the Situation Room to do the things that presidents do.

Still, the Axios story does reaffirm what many of us have noted all along, that we have elected a bizarre, unconventional and, um, “unpresidented” fellow as head of state, commander in chief and chief executive.

It’s all kinda weird.