The buck stops somewhere else...it's a Democrat hoax...everyone says so

In further evidence that everything the administration touches turns into an unmitigated disaster, dead people are getting Coronavirus relief checks. Because of course they are. Here's an NPR story about it. And it's not like the IRS doesn't know the people getting this money are dead, the names are followed by "DECD" which is evidently code for deceased. So what gives?

"This is why I tried to block this: relief money just incentivizes being dead.
How are Americans supposed to want to come back to life and get back to
work if we're paying them more to stay dead? I ask you..."

-Lindsay Graham

I guess, he's probably in attention
withdrawal since he can't throw
himself any more rallies for awhile.

The obvious explanation would be that the IRS was so swamped with the sudden need to prepare millions of checks on short notice and somewhere along the way something went wrong. I mean, it seems like a big something and you'd think there'd be a mechanism to filter our deceased taxpayers, but whatever. It would be a lot more understandable if it weren't for that last minute demand the President made that his name appear on the checks. His need to feel appreciated for something he had very little to do with, may have screwed us again.

Ok, so dead people can't cash checks, so what's the big deal? The big deal is that their executors and heirs can and they're not supposed to. So that's a ton of money tied up in a weird limbo at the worst possible time. The IRS would like that money back thank you very much, which with the physical checks is as simple as ticking the "deceased" box and sending them back. Direct deposit on the other hand is a bit more complicated.

I mean, I assume they can't cash checks, although
at this point not much would surprise me.

A national turducken if you will.

Like, you can't just write the IRS a check and hope they get it and check your dead relative off the list. There's just no mechanism in place to put this money back and no one has a clue what to do. It's just a disaster inside a crisis wrapped in an era of suck. But ok, how is the the President's fault? Well, like I said, I'm unconvinced that adding his name didn't put unnecessary pressure on the already over-taxed (ha!) IRS, but more importantly this whole thing is happening on his watch.

Technically. Because as I've mentioned
before, most of us voted for her.

Leaving aside how he's handling-or not-the crisis as a whole, he's still the President. Technically. And one of the hallmarks of his time in office has been his stubborn, almost comical if so many people weren't dead, refusal to accept any responsibility for anything ever. Credit sure, usually for the economic situation he inherited from Obama or in the case of the relief checks, for something congress put together using our tax money. His was a literal (well, figurative) rubber stamp.

Which totally frosts my cookies. I mean, how is that not a political ad for his campaign? I had direct deposit, so I never got a check with his name on it, but I did get this letter from him with his big, dumb signature on it, about how we're going to conquer this challenge and how "America will triumph yet again--and rise to new heights of greatness." Which is a clear reference to his campaign slogan again, at tax payer expense.

Pictured: his big, dumb, illegible signature, which,
like, doesn't his name have a "T" in it? Where's the "T?"

Because when playing poker for
money and (presumably drinking) you
definitely want a knife on the table. 

Anyway, he never accepts blame for anything that goes wrong no matter how directly responsible he is. Which is weird, because that's what leaders are supposed to do, right? I'm going to get pedantic now (what do you mean: "what do I mean now?"), but expression "pass the buck" comes from olde timey people playing poker. The story is that a buck knife was passed around the table to whoever's turn it was to bet, and if you didn't want to bet you'd passed the buck. Harry Truman famously kept a sign on his desk reading "The buck stops here" which was his way of saying he takes responsibility, like a leader.

Also, to my knowledge he never
bragged about sexually assault,
so he's got that on Trump as well.

Truman's successor Dwight D. Eisenhower once said-yeah, get me, now I'm quoting Eisenhower. Anyway, he said:

"Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well."

-Dwight "Big D Energy" Eisenhower on leadershi-
what? It's what kids in the 50's called him...

Above: Donald Trump, seen here not
accepting responsibility for anything.

Which is the exact opposite of everything Donald Trump says and does. Don't get me wrong, I do love cynicism, but remember when we had a president who at least tried to do leader-y things? Took responsibility? Spoke in complete sentences? Didn't tell people to drink bleach? Those were the days. So yeah, this whole thing, the botched response to the pandemic, the unemployment and economic tailspin all of it is not only Donald Trump's fault because he's terrible at his job, but it's his fault because it's his job for it to be his fault.

Hey speaking of missing people who did leader-y things, Barack and Michelle Obama are going to live stream a kind of virtual commencement address next month. It's for students whose graduations were canceled by the closures and I think the best thing we can all do is watch. Like, let's make sure that the Obamas and Lady Gaga-'cause she's on this thing too, get better ratings than the current President. He will absolutely lose his mind. It'll be great.

Petty? Maybe. But we must grasp what shreds of joy we can in these
 uncertain times. And the idea of Donald Trump having to hear about
how many more of us watched the Obamas and Lady Gaga than his
 Lincoln memorial pity-party would absolutely get me through this.