I'm OK Now But I'll Tell Ya, Last Week I Was In Rough Shape...

     So, as of yesterday at dusk, President Dangerfield has been on the loose. He wasn't out of Walter Reed 10 seconds and he was already touching the handrail because, well, we know how poorly he does on stairs and ramps these days. He issued another standup routine on Twitter and a video, with the Washington Monument in the background saying, "Live with it".

     Live with it, he said. As if 211,000+ Americans could still do that.

    The West Wing, obviously hoping he would stay in the hospital for the duration of his quarantine, had to bar him from entering the Oval Office, which is probably being deep-cleaned starting with sanders and steamers. At last count, 21 current and ex-staffers, support employees and supporters were sick with the virus, including three senators, his campaign manager, press secretary and his own wife.

     And now, throw in all but one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, leaving our military, and national security, more vulnerable than ever.

     Putin must be rolling on the carpet of his office at the Kremlin right now. Another four years of this, he'll be able to walk into and conquer the United States with a potato gun.

     The White House was offered contact tracing from the CDC. The White House told them to go fuck themselves. Isn't that a riot?

     But our workaholic president couldn't wait to get back to work, no doubt to magically materialize out of his big, red muffin-shaped MAGA hat that infrastructure bill and the wall and the Republican alternative to Obamacare that's all looking as mythical as Joseph Smith's golden Bible.

     And a non-sociopath would think that even a sociopath, after having a close call like Trump did late last week, would have a "come to God" or "road to Damascus" moment in which, like the Apostle Paul, Trump realized he was persecuting the wrong people, that perhaps he should change his life and entire outlook and use what little time and awesome power he has left in the Oval Office and on this earth to help those who need it the most.

     Yeah, I do get off a good one every once in a while.

     Obviously, none of that happened and we got an ominous sign when Trump's doctors would fan out for their mercifully brief series of Medical Super Friends North Korean propaganda press conferences on the "president's" health when Dr. Conley would refuse to offer direct answers to direct questions about what treatments were given to the so-called Commander in Chief.

     We got another ominous sign when Trump sat for a photo op in which, among a pile of hastily tossed folders and binders, Trump pretended to do paperwork with his beloved Sharpie. You know, lest we get the mistaken impression he wasn't doing that bang up job as "Chief Executive" on which we've been spoiled for the last four years.

     Then, like a child escaping a grounding or time out, Trump then decided last Sunday to go on a joy ride and in doing so, hermetically sealing himself up in a presidential SUV with Secret Service agents who were already wondering how much time they'd have left to spend with their families.

     Then, finally unable to stand being at Walter Reed among other sick people like him, he decided to check himself out. After lumbering off Marine One, he climbed the few steps to the South Portico of the White House and ripped off his mask, even though he's still very much in the midst of shedding the COVID virus still in his system. There, visibly gasping for breath, he still micro-managed the brief photo op in which he saluted... something... in a show of strength that plainly wasn't there.

     Because Trump's superficiality is bottomless. It's all surface, all optics no matter how contrived, and no substance, he is so absolutely terrified of going to prison once he's voted out of office, he's heroically waging a Quixotic quest for re-election against a rickety windmill named Joe Biden. He must get Judge Amy on the Supreme Court when the voters vote him out so she can lead the right wing charge to have those tens of millions of absentee ballots tossed in the garbage.

     Taking his cue, Plastic Pence now refuses to let plexiglass guards anywhere near him during the vice presidential debate, Trump insists on having his second debate with Biden, Ron Johnson is talking about wearing moon suits in the Senate to vote for Barrett and Tom Cotton vows to wheel in senators a la Hannibal Lecter to that end.

     Ah, yes, now they want to go to work, a manic energy that wasn't much in evidence when Democrats pressured them to vote on a second COVID relief bill or that infrastructure bill we've been hearing about every time the "president" gets into hot water.

     Because it's all politics all the time.

     The EPA, however illegally, is essentially on strike. All but one of the Joint Chiefs is under quarantine. Three senators have COVID and the West Wing looks like a set from The Seventh Guest.

     But the right wing shit show must go on.

     Because Donald Trump isn't the only sociopath on the Hill. Every single Republican in the land is a sociopath and they're proving it now, as if they haven't already during this pandemic, over the weeks, months and years. They're proving their absence of feeling for human life by stubbornly holding events that eventually get them killed, pursuing a right wing, Dominionist agenda and doing everything in their power to get reelected a man whose own sociopathy got 211,000+ Americans killed...

     ...while accusing Democrats of politicizing everything. 

     This is the party that deserves no respect, especially on Election Day.