At this point in the night, I feel it’s time for a quick reminder from His Bobness that the history of the United States of America has been more turbulent than most people remember.

Ever since the British burned the White House down
There’s a bleeding wound in the heart of town
I saw you drinking from an empty cup
I saw you buried and I saw you dug up

   — Bob Dylan, Narrow Way

“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied chains us all irrevocably. The first time any man’s freedom is trodden on, we’re all damaged.”

   — Captain Jean-Luc Picard, U.S.S. Enterprise

From Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 4, Episode 21: “The Drumhead”. Seems sadly relevant here in Germany today.

In his new piece, Glenn Greenwald eloquently expresses much about Trump and peoples' reaction to him that I always thought as well:

→ No Matter the Liberal Metric Chosen, the Bush/Cheney Administration Was Far Worse Than Trump

It should go without saying, though I know it does not, that none of this is a defense of these Trump failings or an attempt to mitigate the harms they caused. What this argument is, instead, is a vehement rejection of the grotesque historical revisionism that seeks to erase and whitewash the far worse moral evils, acts of violence and assertions of lawlessness that preceded him, all in order to propagate myths of American Exceptionalism and, worse, to rehabilitate the reputations and careers of the political and media cretins who perpetrated them.

Those who want to insist that Trump’s evils are unprecedented – such that their own service to or support for prior presidents should not exclude them from the realm of the Patriotic, the Decent and the Noble – should be prepared to explain which acts of Trump’s compete with the destruction of Iraq, or the implementation of a global regime of torture, or the “rendition” kidnappings and CIA black sites and illegal domestic eavesdropping under Bush and Obama, or imprisoning people for decades with no due process, and on and on and on.

This story… I dunno, man…

• Third Russian Doctor Falls From Hospital Window After Coronavirus Complaint

So, let me get this straight… Trump caused the coronavirus outbreak by being elected. And then he didn’t prepare for the outbreak he caused. And because he didn’t act fast enough, many people died. None of these people would have died if Trump wasn’t President. Because Hillary would have shut the whole country down in December. And that would have saved all the people. And all the jobs. And the economy. Because an earlier, stricter shutdown would have been better for the economy. That is clear.

These people… wow. It’s amazing how much idiocy and nonesense you can pack into a single tweet if you just detest Trump enough. And look at all the people who agree. “Does any of this make any sense at all?” “Who cares?” “ORANGE MAN BAD!!!”

Joe Biden seems to have a #MeToo problem.

• New Evidence Supporting Credibility of Tara Reade’s Allegation Against Joe Biden Emerges