The Gray Plague: COVID19, The Villages & The (Unlikely, But Possible) Fall Of The House Of Trump & MAGA

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve told the MAGA people I know repeatedly over the last four years that they will dominate American politics for at least the next 20 years. On a macro level, we have about 20 years before the youngest of the Baby Boomers finally shuffle off this mortal coil. So, from a demographic level, we’re probably going to have a succession of Trumps with the occasional Mike Pompeo or Nikki Haley thrown in for good measure. That’s our future. MAGA’s version of warmed-over fascism is our future. It’s 100% or future. The end. Good night and good luck.

But.

The possibility of The Gray Plague is staring us in the face. It’s at least possible that given the systemic corruption of incompetence of the Trump Administration that if, say, that bastion of MAGA codgerland known as The Villages erupted with COVID19 cases and A LOT OF PEOPLE STARTED DYING that maybe Trump might not have the absolute lock on angry white Baby Boomers? I’m not suggesting that MAGA faces an existential threat — yet — but it might get the wind knocked out of it for at least one election cycle. Maybe. Remember, for all the talk about Watergate, Ford only BARELY LOST in 1976. So things would have to grow demonstrably catastrophic in the United States for Trump’s connection to the Baby Boomer volk to in any way degrade.

Put another way, if The Villages imploded, Trump would probably freak out in a rather spectator fashion. His absolute physiological need to win would strike the absolute likelihood that he might, at last, face some potential political consequences with the base. Given that MAGA is a massive cancer on America, for there to be any real chemo used against it, a lot of people would — very tragically — have to die for it to happen. I don’t want that and I’d much rather take my chances with Trump’s Fourth Reich.

The point I’m trying to make is, even if Trump faces a possible existential threat with The Gray Plague, the hate and fear of brown people and “takers” that he represents ain’t going anywhere and we’re all fucked.

No One Listens To Me #CoronaVirus #COVID19

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner


While I’m no fucking Oracle, I do believe I’ve gotten within the spectrum of predicting the real-life pandemic scenario that’s now rapidly unfolding around us. I said it would probably be today that the story started, and it is. But we still haven’t gotten to the “inciting incident” when the plot really begins.

It seems to me this scenario’s inciting incident will be one of several things that may happen within hours or days.

50 For 50 Test Results This Weekend
Now that we’re actively testing people across the country, what happens when every fucking State has at least one case? If it happens this weekend, then Trump and his toadies are going to look just as bad as W. with his “Mission Accomplished” sign behind his back on the aircraft carrier. And the conditions are there for it happen rather rapidly.

The WuFlop Comes To America
This is the wildcard. But the moment it recorded happening in the United States — especially somewhere like NYC or LA — then we’re going to the show. The entire nation will freak the fuck out. My fear it will happen at some recorded live event, say, Saturday Night Live. That’s kind of the nightmare scenario. To date, it’s just been CCTV recordings.

Bonus: The Gray Plague
There are a lot of old, powerful and well-known people in the world right now. If, say, The Pope dies in the next 24-48 hours, well, that, in itself, would be a news event and lurch us into the a major crisis that would likely take about a year — at least — to sort itself out.

Anyway, I feel as though my work here is done. I’ve proved my point — I’m pretty good at building real-world scenario and I don’t know jack shit about anything. I’ll keep at it for no other reason than that’s my nature. But, lulz, I’m just a crank, right Maggie Haberman?

‘6.7m’ #CoronaVirus Threat Assessment For Feb. 29th, 2020

What do I know?
Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner


Datapoints

Wuhan
I think at least two (2) planeloads of Americans came directly from Wuhan, the COVID19 hotzone, in the last two months. In at least one of those instances, improper protective attire was worn by the staff because this IS the Trump Administration we’re talking about.

The death rate in Wuhan is about 2%.

Iran
It does seem as though it’s at least possible that they have a more potent strain of the virus. But it may be they just have a lot more under reporting of cases.

Italy
They have been the source of a lot of cases in the last few days (!). Much of Europe is beginning to get COVID19 from the Milan area.

South Korea
These guys are doing a great job testing and they STILL think it’s possible things could get out of control.

Uh oh.

USA
We have reports of three states — California, Oreg an and Washington – having communal transition as of today. If you assume that maybe 200,000 people move in and out of those areas in any, say, three days, that’s a lot of chances for the communal transmission to bounce around the entirety of the United States very, very quickly.

Very little testing has been done to date.

No change in personal or group behavior.

Trump continues to have rallies.

The 2020 presidental campaign is in full swing. South Carolina has a rally today, Super Tuesday is on Tuesday.

About 47 million people in the United States are elderly.


My conclusion
About 6.7 million Americans, (2% of 335 million) may die directly from Trump being a bad president. I only say that because by the time we do get around to testing, a huge chunk of the American population will likely be infected.

By the end of the pandemic, nearly ever American might have been exposed because of administration incompetence when it really mattered at the early stages of the pandemic.

‘Beware, Columbia, The Ides Of March:’ The House Trump #COVID19 ‘Hoax’ Gambit #CoronaVirus

We Got This.
Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner8

From what I can tell of MAGA’s take on the growing Corona Virus crisis, our addled Dear Leader believes that through sheer force of will he can escape any political consequences from what may be about to happen. He has every reason to believe this. Because about 35% of the population is deathly afraid of “scary brown people” and women with sexual agency, they are willing to give our doofus president absolute power. Absolute. Power.

So, it’s worked before, so why won’t it work again? A lot of people die from the flu each year, so House Trump believes they can message the base such that they shrug the whole thing off. They tell them they’re “patriots” for voting for Trump should there be a deep recession this year and, besides, Biden’s son is a criminal and Sanders is a Communist. Lulz! They think Trump will win exactly the same way he did last time — help from the Russians and a divided opposition. By 2022 he gets his Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment” and he gets to hand over the family business over to the doofus crown prince sometime around 2030.

There’s a problem for them now, however — Coronavirus. If it turns into the biggest domestic catastrophe since the Civil War, it’s at least POSSIBLE the MAGA death cult…might notice? If the economy locks up, the old die and the young starve, it’s within the realm of possibility that Trump’s absolute lock on the presidency might…maybe…work with me here…be a little less absolute?

The next few days — hell, hours — could be crucial. A lot of what is going ot happen may be determined by what has elapsed over the weekend when the Sunday morning political chat shows take place. If a dozen states report cases of Coronavirus and the entire nation is freaking out, then, well, that MIGHT be a little bit more difficult to write off as a simile “liberal media hoax” created by evil liberals who want to hurt our deranged Chauncey Gardner’s fee-fees out of spite. (Look way from the “fuck your feels” mantra of 2016, huh?)

The possibility that Trump’s absolute need to win at all costs slams against his absolute realization that he’s going to be blamed for the death of thousands (millions?) and while he’ll obviously still win because of Russian hacking, that at some point he might have an existential issue on his hands. At that point, he’s going to snap. He is going to lose his fucking mind. He may shut down the Internet. Shut the borders entirely. Order the Air Force to shoot down passenger planes. Tell his followers to murder people he doesn’t like. Whip out his cock and start to masturbate on TV. You name it, he might do it.

The issue for me is, how long before — should the worst happen — the entire country grinds to a halt socially and economically and Trump’s “Hoax Gambit” fails completely? The earliest it would fail, I think, would be Feb 29th. The latest it would fail would be the Ides of March, March 15. There’s something of a spectrum between those two dates, as well, of course.

It will definitely be interesting to see how bad things get before Trump either completely fucking loses his mind, or he, at last, reluctantly for a moment stops thinking about power, or his checkbook or the stockmarket and starts thinking about us, his charge.

He’s a fucking racist idiot. He may never do. He may, instead, simply end civilization rather admit defeat. I wish I was joking. And if you think I have “Trump Derangement Disorder,” let me tell you in advance to eat shit you piece of shit. The lives of millions are at stake and this is not a simple policy debate or me not liking Trump as a person. He’s a fucking idiot and a traitor. And if you support him, you’re complicit, you cockholster.

’02/29′ #CoronaVirus #COVID19

Get ready.
Shelton Bumgarner

Editor’s Note: I fucking hate the Trump Administration with a white hot rage. I want it destroyed, burned to the ground, lit on fire and buried. But I’m a man of peace, a man of ideas. I am also a former journalist, so I’m at least trying to give you an objective assessment of what’s going on. But, for the record: Fuck Trump. Fuck MAGA and Fuck You if you support either one of them. If you think that means I have “Trump Derangement Disorder,” please let me tell you in advance: eat shit.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m not an expert. I can’t predict the future. I don’t have reveled truth. But I can read. And I am sentient enough to notice some alarming things about what’s going on — or not going on — in the United States right now.

The United States Isn’t Testing For COVID19
The reason why you test, as I understand it, is you have a metric. You have some sense of who has it, who they’ve come in contact with. It’s your first line of defense when it comes to controlling the spread of something as contagious as COVID19. If you aren’t testing, then essentially “jungle rules” apply and the contagion goes completely unchecked. As such, the number of people who are infectious increases exponentially as do, ultimately, the people who will get sick and maybe even die. The United States have tested about 500 people while the South Koreans have tested something like 30,000. So, as of right now, they’re on opposite ends of the spectrum.

South Korea is a small nation that’s testing everyone. The United States is big nation doing, effectively, nothing. So, while I keep being reassured that while this is bad outbreak, it’s not “THE BIG ONE.” And, yet, while on paper that may not be true, if the United States’ isn’t testing anyone, wouldn’t it make sense that the only metric we will ultimately have is, well, people getting sick and dying?

And, really, how would we even know that was happening?

The Gray Plague: Stars’ End
It seems to me that the only metric we will have is people dying, specifically elderly celebrities and political leaders. And, sad to say, the United States is pretty much run by old people at this point. So, if there WAS a massive culling of the American population of individuals 65 years of age and older, I suspect someone, somewhere — even MAGA — might notice this. There are about 47 million Americans who are considered “elderly” and, as you can see from this chart, the elderly face a significant increase in mortality because of COVID19

So, the mortality rate for people 60-80 starts at 3.6% and gets worse from there. There must be +50 million Americans who fit that bill. If you do absolutely nothing when it comes to testing for days after you know COVID19 is bouncing around the population, there’s going to come a point when The Gray Plague kicks in as a demonstrable fact. So, what might NOT have been “THE BIG ONE” may become it out of sheer criminal mismanagement on the part of the current criminally incompetent administration.

The WuFlop looks like this is about to happen.

The WuFlop
Another metric we may be left with, given that we’re not testing anyone, is the WuFlop. It may have to be a few recorded instances of The WuFlop for America to take what’s going on seriously. So, in essence, the longer we DON’T have recorded instances of The WuFlop, the worst things are going to get because, well, lulz! It’s all a hoax by the evil liberals who hate MAGA and just don’t like Trump as a person or his “policies.” Well, I fucking hate Trump’s policies. Now what. When first Drudge and TMZ then the broadcast nets show clip after clip after clip of the WuFlop in the United States, maybe you need to re-evaluate your hot take on this situation, you racist MAGA fascist piece of shit.

Anyway, the point is, the longer we don’t have any metrics, the worst things are going to be. It could become rather nightmarish. So, in a sense, you could say the best case scenario would be either a major celebrity or political figure gets sick form COVID19 this weekend or someone does the WuFlop about the same time. If it’s Friday and we still have no metrics of how big the infection is and we start testing, we may realize EVERYONE has been exposed and, really, there’s nothing we can do but just let it run its course.

Not that there won’t be a panic, but in the end, everyone will be so sick that there won’t be anything the medical profession can do but just watch people get sick and maybe die. But, you know, like I said, I can’t predict the future. So, it’s possible that while this is going to be “bad” it won’t be THE BIG ONE. If isn’t, I’ll be quite pleased. I have a novel I’m developing and I really want to start working on the first draft.

The Gray Plague – Code Name: Iceland #CoronaVirus #WuFlu #WuFlop #COVID19

Buckle Up.
Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner


I can’t predict the future. I don’t have any revealed truth. But it definitely seems as though at some point between now, and, say, Sunday afternoon a massive amount of history may take place.

I say this because all the datapoints point to a few bolts popping off American society as some event happens that will mark the official beginning of the War War WuFlu (3W). My best guess is it will be someone’s notable’s abrupt demise at the hands of COVID19 or maybe a recorded instance of the WuFlop. Either one of those events would be the historical record scratch that would lurch us into a new era.

Or, put another way, this weekend could be the beginning of a period of unprecedented instability in the United States. The Right is already chomping at the bit to kill liberals, it’s not too difficult to assume they would actually do it far sooner than you think.

But the issue is — key a close eye on Iceland. If Iceland buckles over the weekend, then that’s a pretty good indication that the United States will be brought to her knees in about two weeks. This is the point where I say — I’m not an expert. I’m not looking at this from a medical standpoint, I’m looking at it from simply what seems to make sense on the face of it. So, as such, I could be making some pretty big assumptions that are completely inaccurate.

And, yet, here goes — I feel if Iceland implodes, then the worst is coming for the United States. I say that because more Americans visit Iceland in a year than there are natives. So, well, you know. It would mean a lot of Americans are infected but don’t know it and are exposing the unsuspecting population of poor old Iceland along the way. You could also say the same thing about a number of other nations very closely associated economically with the US like Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. I think Mexico is the most likely to go down next to Iceland.

Meanwhile, America would be rather oblivious because we’re not testing anyone and won’t do so on any mass level until the end of next week. That gives COVID19 a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time to bounce around our population of 335 million people. The endgame might be rather nightmarish in the short term when a massive number of Americans are too sick to do anything and if they’re over 65, well, they’re just dead. The Gray Plague will take a massive hit out of the elderly population at some point starting in about two weeks, probably. But it could be as early as THIS weekend when elderly celebrities — and, gulp, elderly powerful people — begin drop dead.

Ironically, I would say in the short term, more people would be saved if someone DID suffer the WuFlop in the States this weekend. At least, then, we would start taking the situation a lot more seriously. The WuFlop is pretty eerie and to see it is to realize this may be a very dark moment in not just American history, but humanity’s history.

We’ll bounce back, of course, but for a few days it would be something of a bumpy ride. It would be extremely dark and scary. I’m thinking if this horrific event happens, it would be at some point in, say the Ides of March timeframe, if not a little sooner. But it would be this weekend, Leap Day Weekend, when our fate would be sealed.

And, as such, that’s why we need to keep a close eye on Iceland’s fate.

The 5 Stages of MAGA’s Potential Coming COVID19 Death Rattle

Oh boy.
Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner


Now, let me be clear — the only way we get rid of the death cult that is MAGA is, well, the biggest catastrophe in American domestic history since the Civil War. And, even then, there’s a 50/50 chance that we’ll endup with some Handmaid’s Tale level bullshit.

But, since Don Jr. thinks I’m looking forward to such an enormous clusterfuck because…I’m as big a dick as he is? — let’s go through what the MAGA death cult death rattle would look like.

Denial
This is where we are now. They beat impeachment, they beat TrumpRussia, they beat Stormy Daniels, they beat EVERTHING. So, the idea that essentially fucking God himself would stab them in the back is a little too much for your MAGA death cult thought leader. So they say it’s all a liberal media conspiracy to hurt Trump. It’s nothing more than the flu, fuck you, Rachael Maddow. So, their denial is mixed with hate.

Anger
This the most dangerous step. This is when MAGA will start to lash out and murder people in frustration. When it comes obvious that the jig is up, they probably will become transitional, at last. They will settle some scores once and for all. I’m thinking by about Wednesday we’ll reach this point.

Bargaining
This will be the most pathetic part of all of this. Suddenly, all the hateful badfaith thought leaders of the MAGA death cult will switch gears rather abruptly and say it’s time for us to come together as a nation and give the Dear Leader the “thoughts and prayers” he needs. This will probably happen about the time the significance of the Gray Plague begins to sink in. Maybe the end of next week?

Depression 
This is when Sean Hannity breaks down in tears and goes all Jimmy Swaggart on us. Hugh Hewitt might also get rather mopey on TV at some point. Matt Schlapp, meanwhile, will continue to be quite content with MAGA even as the dead and dying grows more and more tragic

Acceptance
For us to have gotten to this point — sometime within the next two weeks, things will have had to have gotten so bad for MAGA that, at last, the hate and rage that is at the core of MAGA will, at last, be squelched. This would be maybe a month or two from now when the old order has finally collapsed and a new on is slowly beginning to come together. Suddenly all the MAGA thought leaders will be thinking about how they can explain the many, many, many, many, many, many, MANY lies they told for Trump so they can act as if nothing happened the last four years.

The above is, for the moment, a delusional liberal fever dream. And, even if we finally get Sean Hannity to shut the fuck up about Hillary’s email server it will simply not be worth it to me, or any other American. That’s why it’s a tragedy.

Act of God: The Kraken #COVID19 #CoronaVirus

Just do it.
Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner


I’m going to give you the known conditions of what’s happening as we enter the weekend and YOU can tell ME what YOU think is going to happen. At the end I’ll give you some of what I’ve written about Trump going bonkers and you can use that, too, to decide what would happen if Trump suddenly woke up to the fact that he was absolutely not going to be able to weasel his way out of being blamed for the astonishing spread of COVID19 in the United States. Trump’s NOT a political genius as Maggie Haberman thinks, but only, in fact, a very lucky idiot.

Within about 48 hours of the first case being reported in northern Italy, the country was reporting hundreds of cases of COVID19.

The first instance of “community spread” COVID19 has happened in the United States about 48 hours ago. The United States doesn’t have a comprehensive testing strategy right now. It’s beginning to get better, but everything is being seen through the prism of short term politics. Everyone is trying to score points, not save lives. There are 335 million Americans who move around a lot and are very social.

As such, our only metric for the time being people getting sick. There’s a good chance we have a “shadow pandemic” taking place in the United States caused by a lack of testing. As such, COVID19 may pop out of the population like a kraken in rather abrupt fashion.

COVID19 is spreading and Trump doesn’t care.

Or, put another way, if you don’t have any metric for who has it because you’re not testing, and you’re not doing anything to stop the spread, then, well, lulz? You’re fucked. You could have a HUGE pandemic bouncing around the nation’s 335 million people at an alarming rate. Every day we don’t do some of the crazy things that places like China, South Korea and Japan have done to stop the spread, COVID19 uses to grow exponentially. More people spread it around their community. More people get sick. More people begin to die. But it’s likely they would be treated as if they just had the flu.

At some point, however, things would get so bad — like they have in Iran — that it would hard to ignore what was going on. Probably what would happen would be a LOT of elderly people would begin to die. They, too, would probably at first thought to have died from “the flu.” And we wouldn’t know any better until A LOT of elderly CELEBRITIES and POWERFUL PEOPLE began to die in quick succession to such an extent that the general population noticed it because each one of those events was news item.

Also at risk — if China is any indication — are nurses, doctors and other members of the health care system. Nurses as young as 29 have died there from COVID19. So, it is reasonable to assume that something similar would begin to happen in the United States. But because COVID19 was bouncing around unchecked, more and more such individuals would begin to die.

Now, if you take all those conditions and mull them for a bit, it definitely seems as though everyday something doesn’t happen to wake Trump up that maybe he needs to be a leader, the worst the situation is going to grow when something happens that finally does. In other words, as long as Trump tells MAGA this is all a Deep State conspiracy to bring him down, more and more lives are being put at risk.

I suspect the WuFlop — where people faceplant and begin to writhe on the ground like they’re possessed might give even MAGA people pause for thought. The conditions are there for this weekend to be rather dark on more than one level. And Trump’s willfully oblivious to what’s going on, focusing more on the stockmarket than the lives of the 335 million people he swore to protect.

Do The WuFlop.

The Gray Plague, too, might rattle the cage of a few of Trump’s supporters. Maybe. Either that, or we have some significant political violence in the United States. Places like Virginia I could see exploding into violence pretty easily if the vast majority of the United States was sick. Gun nuts, in particular, are itching to overthrow the Virginia state government because, lulz, they hate liberal democracy and want to fuck their guns.

Of course, this IS Trump we’re talking about, so once he realizes the magnitude of his fuck up, he’s probably going to snap. He’s going to panic in a rather frightening manner. He might shut the country down in various ways. He might order all planes out of the sky — including shooting them down. He might order the Internet shut down. He might start a war to distract people. Or, worst of all, he might just snap. The issue, of course, is there’s no political will to do anything about Trump until well after he inevitably wins re-election through any means necessary. The 25 Amendment is a dead letter, too. So, I honestly don’t know what would happen if he snapped in the middle of the biggest domestic crisis since the Civil War.

I’ve written at great length about what Trump losing his mind might look like. Here’s an example.

For about four years now, I have been telling anyone who will listen that I think Donald Trump is an existential threat to the Republic. The last few days have pretty much proven my case. It’s rare that I look out in the blue winter sky and wonder if I’m going to see a DPRK ICBM in the sky, heading to nearby-ish DC.

I have even begun to pace out how I would know it had happened. The EMP burst would zap all electronics in the general area of the nuclear blast and so, well, nothing would work. I have thought about how many sites the DPRK would target and the likelihood they would actually be able to blow them up. I love Koreans, but they have no “medium” switch on a cultural level. So if president crazypants managed to get them to the point where they wanted to take us down with them, then, then they would probably shoot as many as five ICBMs towards us. They have a pretty nice H-bomb arsenal at this point and the means to deliver them across the entire United States.

But they haven’t really had a chance to test the whole system, so there’s a good chance what would really happen is we would all collectively shit our pants at how fucking close we came to 10+ million dead (at least) in the United States alone. We aren’t really prepared on a psychological or emotional level to deal with THAT many dead in the context of civilization continue to exist. But that would be a real possibility — as long as the Chinese and Russians sat on their hands, any nuclear war between the DPRK and US would be on the low end of a “limited exchange.” Given how fucking bonkers Trump is, of course, he would probably nuke the North Koreans out of existence using not just tactical nukes but h-bombs. You could probably turn most of North Korea into an unlivable radioactive hellscape with as few as 5 h-bombs. Think about that. That’s pretty deep.

The point is, however, that we’re definitely lurching towards what I’ve suggested all along — things are going to get so extreme and so surreal pretty soon that we’re going to learn a lot not just ourselves as a people but something pretty basic about our nation as a whole. If there’s nothing Trump can do that will lesson his support for any reason, what happens if he get’s so bad on a mental level that we all start to think maybe we’re entering The Dead Zone. Maybe the reason there’s no intelligent life in the universe is inevitably an ET Donald Trump pops up and blows the planet to bits? Is it possible that Trump’s not just an existential threat to the Republic, he’s an existential threat to the species?

I suspect that we’re just fucked. MAGA just needs Trump cognizant enough to make it into his second term. That’s it. By that point his new Veep — The Kooch, Kris Kobach, Tom Cotton, Tucker Carlson or Don Jr? — will be in place to pick up the slack. So I fully expect one of the scenarios we face is Trump uses any war in the Middle East to win re-election and the he promptly turns into a psychological puddle and we get the American Hitler we’ve all been expecting in Trump.

I just can’t see ANYTHING that will force Trump out of office for any reason other than a peaceful death sometime in the next 10 years. He’s just one tweet away from demanding a Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment.” He will get it, they will go rouge and pass Enabling Acts on a Constitutional level and I die in an ICE camp sometime in the next two to three years. Lulz!

Another, far darker scenario is Trump doesn’t make that far. He manages to crater on a psychological level not when MAGA needs him to (any point after Jan 20, 2021) but, say, sometime in the January-October time frame. If things get as mindblowingly surreal as fear, Republicans will have three lines of defense, 1) Let the people decide 2) If only we back off and give him some space, he’ll make America Great Again 3) The Pence Pivot.

The last one is one of the more clever moves they might use. If things get so absolutely extreme that the Republican Lizard People finally face the unthinkable of having to admit that, well, maybe Trump really WAS a worse choice than Hillary Clinton, they will simply say that Trump needs his rest and Pence is making sure Trump’s vision of America (ugh) becomes a reality. We’re safe because of Pence, in other words.

But let’s say that doesn’t work. Then what. What if what I’ve mulled before happens. I mean, what if Trump really finally flips his lid — and in the middle of a major regional war in the Middle East, no less! Then what. Poor old Hugh Hewitt’s brain may break. If you’re such a cockholster for The Dear Leader and finally reality comes crashing into the situation in a way that even you can’t spin or deny, then, well, things are going to get fucking lit. A lot of smart, educated grown-ass men have debased themselves absolutely for the sake of Trump and every day Trump gets worse and more dangerous for not just America but the FUCKING WORLD.

The single most surreal event of my life will be if Dennis Prager+Hugh Hewitt+Matt Schlapp get on TV and have a complete, total mental and emotional breakdown when, like The Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy, they realize they hitched their “lives and scared honors” to the wrong guy. This is unlikely to happen, but thinking about it happening is kind of chilling. That level of bonkers behavior on the part of a “public intellectual” would be rather disturbing.

Only if, say, a few million people died and everyone blamed Trump for it could I see that happening. In real terms, those guys have gotten what they wanted from Trump — a tax cut and young, hack MAGA judges. They have no shame and our media ecosystem is so broken that the moment Trump is no longer politically viable, they’ll change their tune in mid-conversation and act as if nothing happened. Fuck those liars.

Anyway, I generally don’t think any that extreme is going to happen. Far more likely is Trump will always be just on the cusp of losing his mind and yet never quite get so bad that Nancy Pelosi strikes by sending the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate so they can be used essentially as the 25th Amendment. He will drift into his second term and The Kooch (or whomever) will be the person who puts me in a camp and is indirectly responsible for my death in American Killing Fields. (In upstate New York maybe?)

Here’s a little fragment I wrote about how difficult it would be to get Trump physically out of the White House if, for some reason, we did manage to decide to get rid of him against his will.

9/10th
a story fragment of a possible near future
by Shelton Bumgarner

April, 2019

The eyes of the world were on the White House.

Just moments before, President Donald J. Trump, 45th president of the United States, had been convicted by 67 members of the Senate for a whole list of high crimes and misdemeanors. Trump had for weeks now been ranting on Gab about his case in the Senate, bouncing back and forth between threats to start a war with Iran or the DPRK and not-so-subtle hints that he might take his own life should he be convicted by the Senate.

And, now, at last, the moment of truth had arrived.

Trump legally, at least, was no longer president, but he had been oddly silent since the verdict had been announced with great fanfare from the well of the Senate. Trump’s conviction had come after months of investigations on the part of the now Democratic Congress. The length and breath of Trump’s malfeasance discovered by these hearings had rocked the nation to its very core. On more than one occasion, MAGA talking heads on cable news had been interrupted by astonishing breaking news that left them, for once, unable or unwilling to defend the president.

The hearings had ground on for months to such an extent that Trump’s approval had slowly drifted to the 20s and stayed there consistently. Trump’s support was now made up of the very rich and the very poor. Oddly, despite Trump’s near constant demands on Twitter for violence on the part of his supporters, little, if any was reported. Trump had grown so frustrated that he had all but abandoned Twitter at one point for the more receptive Gab social media platform. Though on more than one occasion Rudy Giuliani had made it very clear it was within the rights of the president to declare martial law if he deemed it in the best interests of the nation. More than one delegation of Senate Republicans had gone to the White House to explain to Trump that he was going to be convicted, no avail. Trump made it clear to them, in not so many words that his simply living in the White House made him president, a sentiment best expressed by the legal saw that, “Possession is 9/10ths of the law.”

Finally, a post to Gab came out: “My so-called ‘conviction’ is the work of the Deep State and as such illegitimate. I remain president.”

This set off a chain of events, the likes of which Americans had never seen. Suddenly, everyone on Twitter became a Constitutional scholar as everyone studied the exact wording of the Constitution as to what happens if the president is removed from office by the Senate. The wording is quite clear: he or she is no longer president and that’s it.

Nowhere in the Constitution did it explain what to do if the president simply decided to ignore the Senate. What’s more, nowhere in the Constitution did it state what to do with the nuclear launch codes should a president be removed from office and he refuse to accept the decision of the Senate.

The next few hours were chilling as they were surreal for millions of people not just in the United States but around the globe. The issue of Trump’s physical access to America’s nuclear launch codes was suddenly at the forefront of everyone’s mind. Though it was finally announced that while the nuclear football remained in Trump’s possession, Sec. of Defense Mattis had ordered the American armed forces to stand down for the duration of the crisis.

Trump, on Twitter, was as defiant and unhinged as usual.He threatened to kill himself. He threatened to start a nuclear war. He vowed to declare martial law.

The usual suspects on cable news did their best to spin all of this for Trump. As an anxious nation waited for the now former president to leave the White House, a cavalcade of former Republican Senators and Trump White House staffers attempted to make the former president’s case. Their final argument was that for the good of the country, Trump should be allowed to remain president, despite his lawful conviction by the Senate.

Things began to move rapidly at this point.

Vice President Pence was sworn in but Chief Justice Roberts in a dark, somber event in the Old Executive Building. Meanwhile, it was learned Trump had quietly replaced his Secret Service detail with a private security force that made it clear it was prepared to defend Trump until the bloody end.

At this point, two things happened. A final bipartisan delegation of Congressional leaders came to the White House grounds under the flag of truce. During the course of an hour-long meeting, Trump screamed at them that they had never supported him and the world would be better off if it just ended instead of allowed the forces of the Deep State to ruin America. He made it absolutely clear that he would never leave the Oval Office willingly.

With that, they left.

Next, a surreal, bizarre event, the FBI slowly began to surround the White House. There was much debate online and on TV about how long the nation should wait for Trump to leave the White House. CNN went so far as to do a deep dive into the exact amount of food the White House grounds might have available at any one moment.

Finally, shots rang out from the White House as the battle was joined. It took several hours but in the end, the FBI was finally able to secure the facility. Nearly a dozen personnel on both sides died during the course of the Battle of The White House.

In what would become ionic footage, Trump was quietly escorted from the White House grounds. He spent the remainder of his days ranting on Twitter and Gab that he was the rightful president.

The End.

The Bob Iger Bounce: #DIS #CoroniaVirus

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Invision/AP/REX/Shutterstock (9241938da) The Walt Disney Company CEO Robert Iger attends a special screening of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” at Alice Tully Hall, in New York NY Special Screening of “Beauty and the Beast”, New York, USA – 13 Mar 2017
Shelton Bumgarner

By Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner


Why did Bob Iger leave Disney so abruptly? I don’t think it’s a conspiracy theory to say he may have known through his network of Masters Of The Universe that there was a really good possibility that Disney as he knew it for 15 years was a Dead Man Walking.

I’ll leave it to the folks at CNBC to do the fundamentals, but a back of the envelope projection of Disney’s profits for the rest of the year look like this:

#US0

Nothing. The moment someone does the WuFlop at a Disney property anywhere in the world and it’s recorded, well, that’s it. Disney will have to survive off of Disney+ subscriptions for about a year. And I seriously doubt that will be enough to prevent some serious pain at the House The Mouse Built. No new TV or movie production. No one will go to Disney Land or Disney World. But everyone in their house with a lot of free time will use their Disney+ subscription like crazy.

For
A
Whole
Year

So, I guess, what may have happened was Iger wanted to quit at the top, rather than have his potential legacy destroyed by having to complete re-imagine Disney from the ground up to accommodate the mainstreaming of “Immersive Media” over the next 18 months.

But the above is just wild speculation on my part. A bit of financial “infotainment,” if you will. Don’t use it to make any financal decisions, for Christ’s sake. I’m nothing more than Brian Fellows, writing in an obscure portion of an unimportant part of the Internet.

This is me when it comes to stocks.

With Great Risk Comes Great Opportunity #COVID19US #CoronaVirus

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner


We’re in a crisis. This weekend could be momentous. A process, a war, if you will against COVID19 may begin sometime in the next 48 hours. Our nations psyche will be torn open as millions grow sick and thousand die. We will enter an interregnum of the world orders.

Heroes will be made. Cowards will be shamed. All will be remembered.

And so we have to keep a calm mind. We have to realize that there will be battles won and lost. The fragile nature of human life, human existence will be shown more than once. Empire will fall. Empires will rise. A entire generation, the Millennial Generation, now know for “killing” this or that industry, may be know for saving civilization itself.

But it will take a concerted effort among individuals of all ages, genders and races to defeat this new foe that brings with it fear, hate, and death. The United States may be brought to its knees soon because of rank mismanagement on the part of the current administration. And our ruler, a would-be tyrant, may see this as an opportunity to finally strike a death blow to Columbia.

Whenever I have such doubts, however, I am reminded of my time in South Korea as an expat. One of the things I learned during my five years there, at a modern day Terminus, was great risk brings with it great opportunity as well. When an old order collapses, both the tyrant and the slave have opportunities they never had before. As such, if Trump, as I fear, comes completely bonkers and, at last, declares himself a king, I believe leaders from the common folk who will arise to defend Columbia from his threats. These “renagades of funk,” if you will, will use all their will to ensure that the covenant of Washington and Lincoln will, again, be renewed.

But such a renewal will not come easy. It will come at great cost. And just as Father Abraham lost his life at the end of his “fateful trip,” so, too, may new martyrs of liberty fly too close to the sun. But I am a man of peace. I would much rather have the power of rhetoric as my sword than any mere physical armament.

I am a man of peace. A man of ideas. And I am an American.