Trump to Governors: I'd Like You to Do Us a Favor, Though

[dajoki]

Trump to Governors: I’d Like You to Do Us a Favor, Though
Once again, the president is using aid to extort re-election help.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/30/opinion/trump-federal-aid-coronavirus.html?

Last December, during a congressional hearing on impeachment, the Stanford Law professor Pamela Karlan tried to explain the gravity of Donald Trump’s Ukraine quid pro quo by making a domestic analogy.

Members of Congress, she said, should imagine living in a state “prone to devastating hurricanes and flooding.” What would they think, she asked, if their governor requested a meeting with the president to talk about disaster assistance, and he replied, “I would like you to do us a favor”?

Karlan seemed to assume that the grotesquerie of this hypothetical would be obvious. Now, with American life upended by coronavirus, her flagrantly corrupt scenario has come close to reality.

True, Trump is not demanding that governors investigate Joe Biden in exchange for federal help. But he’s strongly suggested that if governors speak candidly about his monumental incompetence, he’ll penalize them and their states as they struggle to contain the coronavirus. Once again, he’s using his control of vital aid to extort assistance with his re-election.

There are a lot of parallels between the president’s behavior now and during the whole Ukraine scandal,” Representative Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who led Trump’s impeachment prosecution, told me. “Certainly the most apparent is his demand that the governors basically pay fealty to him, praise him, or they’ll suffer consequences."

snip//

[Docreed2003]

1. We were warned during the impeachment hearings of this EXACT scenario

As appalling his behavior has been in this tragedy, should any of us be surprised?

[gratuitous]

2. No surprise, for sure

But it makes the "no quid pro quo" argument during impeachment look even more ludicrous. That's how Trump conducts his office: The services of the President or the United States aren't made available to those in need or citizens or states, but only to those who will do Trump a "favor" before getting anything.

[Docreed2003]

4. Exactly...this is who he is

And now we're all dealing with the consequences of living in his "Trump centered" world

[treestar]

3. The very idea of his asking anything in return

shows how deplorable he is.

[LudwigPastorius]

5. Everything is transactional with Trump.

And, since he is a textbook narcissist and psychopath, that includes the very lives of anyone other than himself.

[Scalded Nun]

6. This falls directly onto the lap of the GOP.

Trump could not do what he has and is doing without their unwavering fealty. The GOP could have rid themselves (and our country too) of him but instead chose to put our country and our democracy at risk. And this is where we are now.

They all deserve to be jailed for life.

[young_at_heart]

15. They ought to feel guilty!

But there will be an excuse....there always is.

[crickets]

7. And it is paraded on TV for all to see, every day. nt

[2naSalit]

8. He even sounded like he was

trying to be the godfather on the recording of that conference call with Dr. Fauci and governors. He flat out used the tactic of NOT saying a word to Gov. Bullock while saying to Dr. Fauci that he "hasn't heard anything" about testing and lack of PPE immediately after Bullock explained that there was a problem. He was saying, indirectly and directly to Bullock, "I can't heeeear you!"

That told me that he intends to fuck over any state with a Democratic governor. He hates Montana now because we snubbed his attempts to denigrate and replace Sen. Tester in 2018 and because Bullock was running against him for a few months.

But he also doesn't recognize, of course, that a bunch of his buddies are here hiding out in their trophy homes and will be left with no hospital space or equipment to help them when they all start getting sick in our rural counties.
Chances are that they brought the virus here to our state. The arrival of trophy homers has nearly doubled the number of people currently in state as a good 70% of all homes in the state are trophy/vacation homes. The ones that didn't come here themselves are renting to others from high population areas already afflicted with numerous cases.

ETA: DJTJ likes to hole up in a location in my county which immediately decreases the overall IQ of the entire state.

[malaise]

10. That interjection was

dystopian

[2naSalit]

11. But it was clear as a bell on a sub zero night.

When it's -20F, you can hear everything very clearly from a great distance.

[Brainfodder]

9. I never need be told, it's always SHIT with this toddler.

His diaper at execution, stand the fuck back!

That can be taken a couple ways!

[2naSalit]

12. +1

[ancianita]

13. Racketeering. Abuse of power. Impeachment evidence lies with the leveraging death for profit.

[calimary]

14. WHOA! This one's a real humdinger!

WHOA!

Michelle Goldberg!

She NAILS it and NAILS it and NAILS it.

All I can think of right now is a line from one of the Cheech & Chong movies: "Holy sheep shit!"