by John Walters

He Knew

Yesterday’s Trump revelations via Bob Woodward’s upcoming book, Rage, reminded me of Joseph Goebbels. Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda and his wife had six young children. In the spring of 1945, as the Russians were converging on Berlin from the east and the Allies from the west, Hitler committed suicide on April 30. In accordance with the fuhrer’s wishes, Goebbels succeeded him as Chancellor of Germany.

For one day.

On May 1st, Goebbels and his wife committed suicide. But, and this is kind of a big but, only after poisoning their six young children with cyanide tablets. Why did Goebbels’ six kinder have to die? Was someone going to charge them with war crimes? Unlikely.

Goebbels knew he was finished, but he decided to “protect” his progeny from the worldwide wrath they’d face as kids of his by… killing them?

The analogy that I find here is that Trump alleges to Woodward that he was protecting Americans when any sane person would realize that his extended—even to this month—public disavowal of the gravity of Covid-19 has resulted in tens of thousands of needless deaths. The dean of Brown’s medical school was on TV last night and went as far as saying that Trump’s protracted public ignorance (which, again, is not what he actually knows) probably caused at least two-thirds of the U.S. Covid-19 deaths thus far. So, add mass murderer to the list.

Two more things: 1) Yes, it has seemed like the longest year. But what people forget is that we spent the first five weeks of it obsessing about the Senate impeachment trial. That folly dominated the news all of January into the beginning of February—even though we knew what the outcome would be.

When it ended, and Trump won (sorta), he was in no mood to act responsibly or ethically. He was in the mood to celebrate. And stage rallies. This is a man who does what is pleasing to him. And that’s his only code. And so, prepare for the worst pandemic in more than a century? That wasn’t about to happen.

2) We heard the Senator from Louisiana, John Kennedy, do a CNN interview where he was asked about squaring Trump’s public statements about the pandemic with his private confiding to Bob Woodward. Kennedy’s practiced line (if you say a lie enough times, it begins to take hold) that he repeated over and over is that he’s “not a fan of ‘gotcha’ journalism.”

Of course, that’s not what this is. The President himself, on tape, is the one dishing on the president. These are not anonymous sources, disaffected ex-staffers, etc. This is from the source itself.

It’s a testament to Trump’s narcissism that he’d agree to 18 different talking sessions with the very man who brought down the Nixon presidency just because he knew the guy was writing a book about him. Trump would rather spend hours talking about himself, even to the point of admitting he committed mass murder by proxy, than keep his yap shut. Is there a better illustration of exactly who he is?

If You’re Going To San Francisco

Visual evidence to the contrary, California is a blue state. But the apocalyptic skies above the Bay Area are what the wildfires have wrought. Of course the president doesn’t care “because they didn’t vote for me.”

Reminder: The Towering Inferno was set in San Francisco.

Rocky Mountain Haiku

101 degrees last weekend

snow yesterday

all clothing alert

More Runs Than Outs

The Milwaukee Brewers put up 19 runs in a game yesterday, but so what? The Atlanta Braves scored 29 (not in the same game). The Braves, aided by three home runs and nine RBI by Adam Duvall, beat the Marlins 29-9 in Atlanta. In case you’re wondering, the Rangers put up 30 on the Orioles back in 2007, the modern record.

Amazon Career Day

When: September 16

Where: On-line

What: Amazon has up to 33,000 job openings with a minimum salary of $15 per hour and an average annual compensation of $150,000—WUT!?!

See you at Career Day, Jacob/Jason.