Cupcake Kelly

Road Trip:  While the COVID headcount crossed the 100,000 mark and the onslaught against Black men continued to throw quarantine jittery cities across the country into turmoil, Trump took his extended family on a taxpayer funded jaunt to Brevard County, Florida to watch the launch of the manned SpaceX rocket.  Ivanka, Jared, the Kushner kidlets, Don Jr, paid girlfriend Kim and the rest of the boondoggle crowd didn’t get to see the rocket head to space since the launch was scratched on account of weather, a not totally surprising outcome and the reason that most presidents don’t spend millions of dollars on such trips but then again Trump needed an excuse to leave Washington, and was hoping the rocket launch would divert from the mortality count while giving him another pep rally moment.  Nothing to worry about there, last night he announced plans to return on Sunday, the rocket’s next possible launch date.  While at the NASA facility, Trump and Melania toured around touching things and breathing their germs into the air.  Ivanka and the Kushner Kids wore color coordinated masks with their oddly festive spring frocks but strangely enough Jared, who traipsed around with them was unmasked.  On the masking front, yesterday virus guru Fauci, who clearly hasn’t gotten the Trump directive, told CNN that he wears a mask because he wants “to protect myself and protect others, and also because I want to make it be a symbol for people to see that that's the kind of thing you should be doing." Even Senate Majority Leader McConnell weighed in on the facemask debate, telling a Kentucky audience that “There’s no stigma attached to wearing a mask. There’s no stigma attached to staying six feet apart,” adding that “you have an obligation to others.” Wow, a moment of clarity from the otherwise devious Mitch.   

Twitter Wars: Trump is not happy about Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s decision to fact check his most egregious tweets, most notably the ones about faux election fraud and Joe Scarborough and the murder that wasn’t.  Those false murder accusation tweets are so offensive that three Republicans, frequent Trump critic Senator Mitt Romney and Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger expressed their dismay, pleading for Trump to stop it already, not that he cares.  Yesterday Trump tweet slammed Twitter writing “Twitter has now shown that everything we have been saying about them (and their other compatriots) is correct. Big action to follow!” Adding “Big Tech is doing everything in their very considerable power to CENSOR in advance of the 2020 Election. If that happens, we no longer have our freedom. I will never let it happen! They tried hard in 2016, and lost. Now they are going absolutely CRAZY. Stay Tuned!!! To that end Trump is expected to issue an executive order directed at Twitter and the other social media companies this morning.  It’s not clear that he can really do anything substantive to them but he’ll try and his Fox echo chamber and a number of elected officials will support his efforts.  And, sadly at least one of those other social companies appears to be on Team Trump; yesterday Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg went with his “private companies” especially these “platforms shouldn’t be the arbiters of truth” argument.  Twitter’s Dorsey slapped back that he’s not trying to be the arbiter of truth, that his intention is to “connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves. More transparency from us is critical so folks can clearly see the why behind our actions."  He also made it clear that attacks launched against his fact checker, Yoel Roth, some of which have been cloaked in anti-Semitism, by people such as the reliably awful Kellyanne Conway, are beyond the pale saying  "Please leave our employees out of this. We’ll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make." On the Kellyanne front she’s also throwing out alternative facts and arguments against facilitating voting by absentee ballot.  For some reason that escapes the logic of most sane people she’s now equating voting rights with cupcakes saying people “wait in line at Georgetown Cupcake for an hour to get a cupcake. So I think they can probably wait in line to do something as consequential and critical and constitutionally significant as cast their ballot.”  Wonder if Cupcake Kellyanne has discussed her baked goods theory with any of those Wisconsin voters and poll workers who contracted COVID while waiting hours to cast their primary vote?  She also might want to throw a few stale cupcakes at Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany who lives in the DC area but voted by Florida absentee ballot 11 times in the past 10 years. Fraud?   

Et Cetera:  Brazil is dying, China relations are a mess, Hong Kong residents are on the verge of losing their remaining rights and the administration, with the help of trusty Secretary of State Pompeo is pushing more arms sales to Saudi Arabia.  It hasn’t gone without notice that those insider trading accusations against Georgia’s appointed  Senator Kelly Loeffler were dropped within a week of her husband’s $1 million donation to a Trump PAC.  Weather forecasters are predicting a rougher than usual hurricane season, the virus is spiking in parts of those barely ever closed but early to open states and the newest government projection is that the virus death count will hit 135,000 or much more by August, not that those numbers are ever right.   Also demonstrations broke out last night in Los Angeles over the Minneapolis police “knee to the throat” killing of George Floyd, not to be confused with the “citizen” shooting of Atlanta jogger Ahmaud Arbery.  For his part Trump, who had little to say about the virus headcount passing 100,000 responded to a question about George Floyd by saying it was a “very, very sad situation,” a baby step past his usual “good people on both sides” comment.   For his part candidate Joe Biden said Floyd’s life mattered, he also issued one of his patented genuinely heartfelt statements where he mourned the loss of the 100,000 who didn’t need to die.

Stay safe!