Election Fever Friday Reads

Posted: October 16, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: 2020 Elections, morning reads | 16 Comments

Ladies of the Night Otto Dix

Good Day Sky Dancers!

Well, the usual crazy election season is even crazier than usual.  Republicans are panicking and trying as quickly as possible to shove an unacceptable candidate on to the court while screaming Biden wants to pack the courts! at the top of their lungs. Trump exited an official townhall debate with Joe Biden on ABC only to be given an hour to himself on NBC/MSNBC.  Joe’s fundraising is a monster machine while Trump can’t even afford a few TV ads.  Every day is a new fresh hell!!

I’m mostly staying in bed with the blankets over my head.  

Peter Nicholls–writing for The Atlantic—says Trump is Scared and lashing out.

He seemed as if he might be delirious. He blasted out bewildering tweets in all caps. Sick and infectious, he circled the perimeter of the hospital in an armored SUV, waving to supporters. He demanded the arrest of his opponents.

After doctors treated Donald Trump with a steroid last week, following his COVID-19 diagnosis, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, other Trump critics, and national-security experts questioned whether the drug had warped his judgment. “Roid rage” started trending on Twitter. His condition revived talk about invoking the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. A Stanford University law professor who had taken the same drug tweeted that she couldn’t be “president of my cat” when under its influence.

Those suspicions miss the point: Trump is belligerent when sick, just as he’s hostile when well. He sees plots when he’s dosed with dexamethasone and conspiracies when he’s gulping Diet Coke behind the Resolute desk. Days have passed since he apparently stopped taking the drug, and he sounds every bit as unmoored.

What’s been driving him in the final stretch of the campaign isn’t a medication that messes with his mood. It’s dread, people who’ve worked with him throughout the years told me. There are less than three weeks to go in a campaign that appears to be heading the wrong way. “He’s down and he’s likely to lose,” a former White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to talk more freely, told me. “This is fear.”

It’s hard to gauge whether Trump’s thinking was impaired. One measure that doctors use to spot changes in a patient’s behavior is deviations from the baseline. But Trump’s ordinary conduct is, “let’s say, charitably, unusual,” Robert Wachter, the chairman of the department of medicine at UC San Francisco, told me. Or, in the nonclinical and wholly unscientific assessment of the ex–White House official: “There’s no way to put lipstick on this pig. The guy is nuts.”

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner “Portrait of Erna” 1915

Jonathan Swan of Axios writes that “Trump’s advisers brace for loss, point fingers”.  Wow, wouldn’t you like to have to look for a job expecting Donald Trump to have to give you a reference.

Three senior Trump advisers who recently talked to campaign manager Bill Stepien walked away believing he thinks they will lose.

The big picture: The Trump campaign is filled with internal blaming and pre-spinning of a potential loss, accelerating a dire mood that’s driven by a daily barrage of bleak headlines, campaign and White House officials tell me.

  • “A lot of this is the president himself,” one adviser said. “You can’t heal a patient who doesn’t want to take the diagnosis.”

Behind the scenes: In weekly pep talks, Stepien tells staff members why they shouldn’t pay attention to the perennially horrible public polls — and how they can “win the week” and the campaign.

  • But in other private conversations, described by multiple sources, Stepien can seem darkly pessimistic. He likens the campaign to an airplane flying through turbulence, saying: “It’s our job to safely land the plane.”
  • Three sources who have heard Stepien use variations of the airplane analogy say they sensed he was deeply, perhaps irretrievably pessimistic about the state of the race.
  • “It’s not a great feeling when you get the sense the campaign manager doesn’t deep down think we’re going to win,” one campaign source said.

Stepien pushed back strongly on that, telling me on Friday morning: “With each day closer to November 3, our campaign data presents a clear pathway to 270 for the President that provides me more confidence than ever in President Trump’s re-election.”

  • “Our campaign knows how President Trump was elected in 2016 and more importantly, we know exactly how he’s going to do it again,” Stepien added.

Why it matters: Trump can still win. But make no mistake: Even his most loyal supporters, including those paid to believe, keep telling us he’s toast — and could bring Republican control of the Senate down with him.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Sitting Lady

There is some indication that Mitch McConnell expects to lose the Senate but is plotting to regain it in 2022.  It appears that he doesn’t want to do anything regarding COVID 19 because he believes any stimulus would help a Biden economy.  He’s really just an evil ass isn’t he? This is an Op Ed from Market Watch by Rex Nutting: “By saying no to more stimulus, Mitch McConnell is already trying to make Joe Biden’s life miserable”.

Blame Donald Trump all you want for Washington’s failure to deliver more relief and stimulus to the battered economy. But the failure is not his, not entirely. If Senate Leader Mitch McConnell had wanted to do it, it would have been done.

McConnell has gotten everything he wanted out of Trump’s presidency: A big tax cut for corporations and the wealthy, a judiciary packed with young conservatives.

The Republican senator from Kentucky may be the most powerful person in Washington. His strength doesn’t rely on subservience to Trump, but on his skill in orchestrating the most autocratic institution in the land. He’s a master, and he plans on being there for a while longer. At 78, he’s running for re-election to another six-year term.

Although both men have occasionally mentioned further stimulus, neither Trump nor McConnell wanted another stimulus bill urgently enough to get it done. The “greatest deal maker” in history never engaged with the Democrats, and McConnell seemed happy to let the effort fail.

Now they are talking about piecemeal proposals that may bail out a few industries, but nothing substantive that would boost the economy, move the needle on the stock market SPX, 0.49% DJIA, 0.82%, or help the people who are struggling to pay the rent or buy food.

At first glance, McConnell’s indifference to further economic assistance is a puzzle. McConnell was fully onboard with economic stimulus and relief in March and April, when a bipartisan group of lawmakers and administration officials crafted a series of measures that flooded the economy with timely and targeted aid.

It wasn’t perfect, but it got results.

The government assistance approved in March and April kept millions of households, thousands of business, and the U.S. economy in general afloat for much of the summer, before most of the provisions expired. You’d think that another shot of adrenaline before the election could have sealed a Republican victory in November by making the economy a big plus instead of a question mark.

…

Why did Mitch say no?

Some will point to ideology. McConnell didn’t want to give that much cash to states poorly run by Democratic governors and mayors, they say. Or maybe Mitch is honestly worried about the national debt.

But I think it was McConnell’s pragmatism and knack for political calculus that made the difference between the cooperation of the spring and the gridlock of the summer and fall. He knows that no legislation enacted now can save the election for the Republicans.

He still wants to win, of course, but he needs a Plan B just in case. McConnell can see the blue wave coming, and he’s already angling to make Joe Biden’s life miserable, just as he did with Joe’s buddy, Barack Obama.

We need to get rid of McConnell as much as we need to get rid of Trump.  Well, at least he has to deal with bad ratings today.

Chew out this you ugly Orange Snot Blob!

Presidential candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump appeared in directly competing town halls on Thursday night, after the President dropped out of the second debate.

Trump’s hourlong appearance on NBC, which drew criticism across the industry and even an angry letter from top talent and showrunners who work with NBCU, appears to be trailing Biden’s 90-minute session with ABC in the ratings, at least according to early numbers.

Biden drew 12.7 million total viewers on the Disney-owned network, while Trump drew 10.4 million in the same 9-10 p.m. time slot on NBC. Across the entire runtime, the Biden town hall averaged 12.3 million viewers. In terms of the fast national 18-49 demographic, Biden is comfortably on top with a 2.6 rating to Trump’s 1.7.

Plus, the First Day of Early Voting is happening here in New Orleans and we seem to be no different than the rest of the country.  This is from our Mayor LaToya Cantrell:

I was bugging the Denver part of my family to get their ballots mailed in since of any of us, they have the likelihood of a vote that really matters.  The Denver Post reports this: “Early voter turnout in Colorado increases a “bonkers” 2,400% from 2016. Democrats returning ballots at highest rate so far”  Youngest Son in Law seems to like the mail in ballots.  The kids and sister in Washington State do too.  Me, I’m going to be headed down the Avenue to the old Fire Station on Election Day as usual.

More than 300,000 Colorado voters have returned ballots for the Nov. 3 election as of 11:30 Wednesday night — a staggering display of enthusiasm in a state that sends all voters a ballot by mail.

When that latest figure was tabulated by the Secretary of State’s Office, Colorado was 20 days out from the election. Twenty days out from the 2016 election — when Colorado also had universal mail-in voting — 12,141 people had cast ballots, said a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Jena Griswold. That’s a 2,377% increase in early turnout this year as compared with 2016, when overall voter turnout far exceeded the national average.

“It’s great for democracy to see so many Coloradans making their voices heard,” Griswold told The Denver Post. “Even with ballots still being mailed this week to registered voters, turnout is 24 times higher than at this point in 2016.”

Politicos in Colorado are floored by these numbers, which Democratic political consultant Craig Hughes described as “bonkers.”

I’m assuming all our Sky Dancers have similar plans to save our Republic.

George Grosz
The Poet Max Herrmann-Neisse
1927

So, one more thing just to Drive Donald bonkers.  This is Forbes.  You know, the ones with the billionaires’ list?  It seems Donald does have billions in debt.  “Donald Trump Has At Least $1 Billion In Debt, More Than Twice The Amount He Suggested.” This is from Dan Alexander.

No aspect of Donald Trump’s business has been the subject of more speculation than his debt load. Lots of people believe the president owes $400 million, especially after Trump seemed to agree with that figure on national television Thursday night. In reality, however, he owes more than $1 billion. 

The loans are spread out over more than a dozen different assets—hotels, buildings, mansions and golf courses. Most are listed on the financial disclosure report Trump files annually with the federal government. Two, which add up to an estimated $447 million, are not.

A list of what he own and what he owes and to whom is shown on the link.

And today’s best and most creative Trumpist excuse of the day comes from Kudlow whose probably already been at the bottle.

So, I’m going to go back and hide under the blankets with a cup of nice black coffee and a cat or 2 plus a dog.

What’s on you reading and blogging list today?

 

Sex Traitor Monday Reads

Posted: October 12, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , | 22 Comments

Good Day Sky Dancers!

I’m really in a bit of a twist today. I’m trying to decide if I want to see OfDonald try to convince any one that she’s anything other than the member of a cult that basically sees women as men’s property and sperm vessels. I’ve been trying to get women’s rights ever since I was told it was not possible for little girls to play little league baseball in grade school.  I feel like my life’s work is about to be trashed by all these old men riding on the back of yet another woman.

We know who she is as she turns on her on kind: “From the New York Times: “Rooted in Faith, Amy Coney Barrett Represents a New Conservatism”.  I do not know how her faith–more taliban like terrorist fanatacism to me–should guide any one but her self.  She made her choice. Let us all make ours.

Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh, Mr. Trump’s two previous nominees, had the kind of background traditional for Supreme Court nominees of both parties, featuring Ivy League schools and government jobs on their résumé as well as establishment religious beliefs. Judge Barrett embodies a different kind of conservatism.

Judge Barrett is from the South and Midwest. Her career has been largely spent teaching while raising seven children, including two adopted from Haiti and one with Down syndrome, and living according to her faith. She has made no secret of her beliefs on divisive social issues such as abortion. A deeply religious woman, her roots are in a populist movement of charismatic Catholicism.

From her formative years in Louisiana to her current life in Indiana, Judge Barrett has been shaped by an especially insular religious community, the People of Praise, which has about 1,650 adult members, including her parents, and draws on the ecstatic traditions of charismatic Christianity, like speaking in tongues.

The group has a strict view of human sexuality that embraces once-traditional gender roles, such as recognizing the husband as the head of the family. The Barretts, however, describe their marriage as a partnership.

Some former members of the group say it could be overly intrusive. Other members, like Judge Barrett, appear to have treasured their connection to it. But she does not appear to have spoken publicly about the group, and she did not list her membership in the People of Praise when she filled out a form for the Senate Judiciary Committee that asked for organizations she belonged to.

Around the time of her appeals court confirmation, several issues of the group’s magazine, “Vine & Branches,” that mentioned her or her family were removed from the People of Praise website.

Family members have also declined to comment on her participation.

To Judge Barrett’s critics, she represents the antithesis of the progressive values embodied in Justice Ginsburg, her life spent in a cocoon of like-minded thinking that in many areas runs counter to the views of a majority of Americans.

She has made clear she believes that life begins at conception, and has served in leadership roles for People of Praise, and her children’s school has said in its handbook that marriage is between a man and a woman. Her judicial opinions indicate broad support for gun rights and an expanded role for religion in public life.

“Amy Coney Barrett is everything the current incarnation of the conservative legal movement has been working for — someone whose record, and the litmus tests of the president nominating her, suggest will overturn Roe, strike down the A.C.A., bend the law toward big business interests and make it harder to vote,” Elizabeth B. Wydra, the president of the liberal Constitutional Accountability Center, said, referring to the Affordable Care Act.

It’s not her religion that makes her unsuitable for the court.  It’s the way she believes every one must follow it and tends to dictate that from the judiciary.  That’s something that is distinctly against the first amendment that says the state not provide legislative support to a religion of its choice and making.   Her views are starkly fanatical and  quite in the minority which is why the Oldest Living Confederate Widow is rushing this through despite putting an entire group of senators at risk of Covid-19 and the entire process in jeopardy.

Women’s rights is just one area where she will rip across the civil rights of others. From the Daily Beast: “Will Amy Coney Barrett Finally Explain Her Ties to Anti-Gay Hate Group?”

She told Franken in 2017 that she was “generally aware” that the Alliance Defending Freedom had been categorized as a far-right hate group. What does she know about the group now?

In 2017, then-Senator Al Franken asked federal judicial nominee Professor Amy Coney Barrett a simple question: What is the nature of your relationship with the far-right legal advocacy organization Alliance Defending Freedom? At the time, Barrett pleaded ignorance about ADF’s sustained campaigns against LGBTQ people both in the United States and abroad.

“I’m invited to give a lot of talks as a law professor and it is not—I don’t know what all of ADF’s policy positions are,” Barrett told Franken. “It has never been my practice to investigate all of the policy positions of a group that invites me to speak.”

Another extremely important issue is this:

The Washington Post has extremely good coverage on this decision which OfDonald will also be willing to strike down.  “Barrett Supreme Court hearing expected to focus on health care, with the pandemic looming over the proceeding”.

“We are all agreed on two starting points: One is the importance of the Affordable Care Act,” Sen. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), the No. 2 Democratic senator and member of the Judiciary Committee. “And secondly, the extraordinary effort to drop everything — covid-19 relief and any other consideration by Congress — to focus exclusively on filling this Supreme Court vacancy.”

A Supreme Court nomination hearing touches on a panoply of legal and policy issues that may come before the nine justices. But this time around, Democratic senators will have a much tighter focus, each drilling Barrett with questions about the legality of the Affordable Care Act and telling stories of constituents who have benefited from President Barack Obama’s signature health-care law, according to Democratic aides who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the strategy.

Democratic senators on the committee have held at least four conference calls in the past week to fine-tune their Barrett strategy, while Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) has spoken regularly with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the committee’s ranking Democrat.

SACRAMENTO, CA – MARCH 24: Members of the Handmaid Coalition of California hold signs as they march to the California State Capitol during a March for Our Lives demonstration on March 24, 2018 in Sacramento, California. More than 800 March for Our Lives events, organized by survivors of the Parkland, Florida school shooting on February 14 that left 17 dead, are taking place around the world to call for legislative action to address school safety and gun violence. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

A majority of Americans agree with the former Republican position that this court position be put on hold.  ABC reports “Majority says wait on the SCOTUS seat; 6 in 10 favor upholding Roe: POLL. Americans say they prefer to wait to fill the vacancy until next year, 52%-44%”  I do not understand how any American supports the founding of a theocratical autocracy.

Six in 10 registered voters say the U.S. Supreme Court should uphold Roe v. Wade as the basis of abortion law in the United States, and a majority in an ABC News/Washington Post poll — albeit now a narrow one — says the Senate should delay filling the court’s current vacancy.

Sixty-two percent in the national survey say they would want the court to uphold Roe, while 24% would want it overturned; 14% have no opinion. There are broad political, ideological and religious-based divisions on the question.

Separately, 52% say filling the seat opened by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg last month should be left to the winner of the presidential election and a Senate vote next year. Forty-four percent instead say the current Senate should vote on Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the position.

That’s a closer division than the 57%-39% preference for waiting in an ABC/Post poll late last month. That poll was conducted before Trump nominated Barrett and the Senate moved to proceed with her confirmation hearings, scheduled to start Monday.

Opposition to action has dropped among political independents, from 63% to 51%. Eighty-three percent of Democrats favor waiting to fill the seat, while 77% of Republicans in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, support action now.

Similarly, 77% of conservatives want action by the current Senate; 64% of moderates and 87% of liberals say wait. Among registered voters who want Roe upheld, 68% say the Barrett nomination should be set aside; among critics of Roe, 71% want the Senate to proceed.

Meanwhile, the insane orange thing on steriods can’t wait to pack the courts with some one that will let him skirt the law.

So yes, We’re living in a dystopian novel framed by a Life Long Criminal Grifter and a group of fanatics that make the Taliban look compassionate. Welcome to the Theocratic Kleptocracy of America.

So, I hope you’re all well and doing as well as possible in these truly Dark Times where we may lose our Republic.  Vote !!!! VOTE!!!! VOTE!!!!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Furious Friday Reads: Delta and Don

Posted: October 9, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: morning reads | Tags: , , , | 28 Comments

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Waxing and waning by Otto Dix

Good Morning Sky Dancers!

I woke up to the most oddly colored sky today as Hurricane Delta spins away in the Gulf of Mexico. Jim Cantore has been spotted in Beaux Bridge and that’s way west of here. We’ll get some bad weather when it rolls closer to us but right now we’ve just got this breeze and a yellowish tinged cloud cover.

So the crazy go nuts at the White House is getting crazier, more gone, and nuttier.  We all knew these last few months of the Trumpist regime would be unlike anything we could imagine.  Harvard Historian Heather Cox Richardson keeps an active blog on her thoughts on history. On Thursday, she posted this:

On October 8, 2020, the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, appears to be melting down. Over the course of the day, he has called for the imprisonment of his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, as well as his own predecessor, President Barack Obama, and called Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris a “monster” and a “communist.”
 
This morning, he announced that he would not take part in the planned October 15 town hall debate if it were turned into an on-line event. But then, after Biden said he was willing to postpone the debate so Trump could take part, said he would participate in another debate on October 22.
 
He released a video addressed to seniors, who are leaving him in droves, calling them “my favorite people in the world,” and speculated that he could continue to hold rallies as early as this weekend, before his quarantine period is over. He called into the Fox News Channel twice, ranting. Of his bout with coronavirus, he said: “I’m back because I’m a perfect physical specimen and I’m extremely young.”
 
He is erratic enough that tomorrow, the House will begin to consider a bill seeking to enforce the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, designed to provide an exit ramp for a president who is experiencing physical or mental impairments that make him unable to lead the nation. The bill, advanced by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, will not pass, but it will keep focus on what seems to be the president’s precarious mental state.
Vice President Mike Pence, who was supposed to go to Indiana to vote tomorrow, after campaigning in Arizona, has cancelled his scheduled events and is headed back to Washington, D. C.
 
Everything emerging from the White House today is murky and confused, but there is one event that is crystal clear: the FBI announced today it has stopped a terrorist plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and put her “on trial” for treason. Six men have been charged in the plot, and are now facing life in prison if convicted. Another seven have been charged with planning to storm the state capitol building and start a civil war. They face up to 20 years in prison.
 
This afternoon, Whitmer called out Trump for refusing to denounce such domestic terrorists. At last week’s debate with Biden, Trump told the white supremacist neo-fascist Proud Boys to “Stand back and stand by.” In April, after Whitmer shut down the state to combat coronavirus, Trump tweeted: “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” and at least three of the thirteen men now charged were among those who entered the state’s senate chamber with guns on April 30 to protest Whitmer’s stay-at-home orders.
 
Tonight, rather than express sympathy with Whitmer or denounce the terrorists, Trump attacked Whitmer on Twitter. Attorney General William Barr, who has been out of the public eye since last the coronavirus super spreader event at the White House Rose Garden in honor of Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s nominee to take the seat of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, has not commented.
 
 
s-l1000

Widow by Otto Dix


It’s so bad that Nancy Pelosi is bringing up the 25th Amendment as a way to discuss his overall mental, emotional, and physical health.  She has no power to remove him this way but it starts a conversation.

Since Monday he has blown up negotiations for additional federal coronavirus relief by tweet and spread false claims comparing the virus to the flu.

He also attacked his some of his closest Cabinet allies during a Fox News interview for not pursuing groundless accusations of criminality by Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday openly addressed an issue that even White House aides are said to be speculating about: Has the president’s judgment been affected by his illness and the medication he is taking to treat it? And is it so bad that he is unable to fulfill his duties?

Pelosi in her remarks to reporters Thursday went on to hint that lawmakers in the House might create a commission that would allow Congress to intervene and create a body to remove the president from office under the 25th Amendment of the US Constitution.

The 25th Amendment was ratified by Congress in 1967 to ensure conditions for a smooth transfer of power if the president becomes incapacitated. It was a response to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Section 4 of the amendment is most relevant to current circumstances, with a clause allowing for the removal of presidents from office against their will if they are unable to fulfill their duties.

Under the section, the decision to remove a president unable to do the job can be made by “the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide.”

With the US presidential election only weeks away, the prospect of adamantly loyal Vice President Mike Pence cooperating is remote. Likewise any of Trump’s Cabinet.

And if they were to do so, the removal would require a supermajority in both houses of Congress to remain in force if challenged by Trump.

But that leaves open the possibility of Congress by law creating another body to try to achieve the same goal.

Newborn Baby on Hands by Otto Dix

Harvard Historian Heather Richardson Cox runs a blog on her Facebook page and frequently gives lectures and blogs on a variety of history things.  Yesterday, she went over on Trump.

October 8, 2020 (Thursday)

I’m going to be brief tonight, folks, but here are the main stories I’m watching:

On October 8, 2020, the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, appears to be melting down. Over the course of the day, he has called for the imprisonment of his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, as well as his own predecessor, President Barack Obama, and called Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris a “monster” and a “communist.”

This morning, he announced that he would not take part in the planned October 15 town hall debate if it were turned into an on-line event. But then, after Biden said he was willing to postpone the debate so Trump could take part, said he would participate in another debate on October 22.
He released a video addressed to seniors, who are leaving him in droves, calling them “my favorite people in the world,” and speculated that he could continue to hold rallies as early as this weekend, before his quarantine period is over. He called into the Fox News Channel twice, ranting. Of his bout with coronavirus, he said: “I’m back because I’m a perfect physical specimen and I’m extremely young.”

He is erratic enough that tomorrow, the House will begin to consider a bill seeking to enforce the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, designed to provide an exit ramp for a president who is experiencing physical or mental impairments that make him unable to lead the nation. The bill, advanced by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, will not pass, but it will keep focus on what seems to be the president’s precarious mental state.

Vice President Mike Pence, who was supposed to go to Indiana to vote tomorrow, after campaigning in Arizona, has cancelled his scheduled events and is headed back to Washington, D. C.

Everything emerging from the White House today is murky and confused, but there is one event that is crystal clear: the FBI announced today it has stopped a terrorist plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and put her “on trial” for treason. Six men have been charged in the plot, and are now facing life in prison if convicted. Another seven have been charged with planning to storm the state capitol building and start a civil war. They face up to 20 years in prison.

This afternoon, Whitmer called out Trump for refusing to denounce such domestic terrorists. At last week’s debate with Biden, Trump told the white supremacist neo-fascist Proud Boys to “Stand back and stand by.” In April, after Whitmer shut down the state to combat coronavirus, Trump tweeted: “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” and at least three of the thirteen men now charged were among those who entered the state’s senate chamber with guns on April 30 to protest Whitmer’s stay-at-home orders.

Tonight, rather than express sympathy with Whitmer or denounce the terrorists, Trump attacked Whitmer on Twitter. Attorney General William Barr, who has been out of the public eye since last the coronavirus super spreader event at the White House Rose Garden in honor of Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s nominee to take the seat of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, has not commented.

There’s even more crazy things from this morning.

From the New York Times:

Trump Lashes Out at His Aides With Calls to Indict Political Rivals  —  The pressure on his top administration officials to take action came as President Trump bristled at the restraints of his illness.

From Oliver Darcy  at CNN:

Coughing Trump tells Hannity he’s healthy and ready to hold rallies  —   Recuperating from the coronavirus and plunging in the polls, President Trump is retreating to his safe spaces: Twitter, Fox, and rallies.  —  On Thursday Trump started and ended his day on Fox.

the-nun

Nun by Otto Dix

And then there’s the entire craziness of a group of young, white male, right wing extremists going after the Michigan governor. This terrorist cell of incels and your basic white male grievance gone violent is just about as Trumpy as you can get.  NBC reports they are likely tied to the so-called “boogaloo” movement.

Several of the six men charged in federal court Thursday with a conspiracy to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer have histories of anti-government organizing, as well as interest in countering what they saw as an “uprising” against President Donald Trump, according to their online profiles and comments.

In addition, several of the seven men facing separate state terrorism charges for their activity with a group called the Wolverine Watchmen also posted pro-Trump and anti-government content.

The men have not yet appeared in court or entered pleas.

A senior federal law enforcement official said federal agents found that the group of seven tied to the Wolverine Watchmen believes in the “boogaloo” movement, which is largely dedicated to eradicating the government and killing law enforcement officers. Their social media profiles showed connections to a wide variety of known anti-government groups.

Around the country, self-described members of the boogaloo movement have committed acts of violence and killed police officers in recent months, often in attempts to ignite what they believe will be a second civil war. Authorities said a California man accused of killing a police officer and a federal agent in June scrawled the word “Boog” in blood on the hood of a car during a standoff with police. Federal agents arrested two other members of the boogaloo movement whom they accused of offering to work with the terrorist group Hamas last month.

Still Life with Widow’s Veil by Otto Dix

According to the Detroit Free Press the real intent of this militia that called themselves the “Wolverine Watchmen” was to start a civil war.  The name alone is a disturbing mix of two comic book realities.  Let’s be real though.  These armed “militias” are really just armed terrorists. We always make special names up when it comes to white men being super bad.  They’re not misunderstood.  They’re not lone wolves.  They are armed, dangerous TERRORISTS.

The Wolverine Watchmen militia group didn’t just plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, but they were on a mission to attack the state Capitol and target police officers at their homes as part of a broader mission to instigate a civil war,  authorities said Thursday in announcing felony charges against 13 militia members accused in a sensational case of domestic terrorism.

Attorney General Dana Nessel referred to the accused as “extremists” who are hoping to recruit new members “by seizing on a moment of civil unrest” to wreak havoc on the country. She identified the militia group as the Wolverine Watchmen, whose members are accused of, among other things, conducting surveillance outside Whitmer’s vacation residence, using code language and encrypted messages to throw off police and planting a bomb under a bridge to divert law enforcement.

“There has been a disturbing increase in anti-government rhetoric and the re-emergence of groups that embrace extremist ideologies,”  Nessel said at a press conference Thursday. “This is more than just political disagreement or passionate advocacy, some of these groups’ mission is simply to create chaos and inflict harm upon others.”

I continue to wonder why the remaining jerks in the Republican Party don’t ever say anything about this.  Trump will be on Tucker Carlson tonight and that is bound to be an even worse display of idiocy and insanity than we’ve seen this week.

Frau Doctor by Otton Dix

Here’s what we missed besides normalcy and sanity.  The Atlantic‘s writer Edward Issac Dovere  interviews Hillary Clinton. “Hillary Clinton Says She Was Right All Along. The biggest factors she blames for her loss—disinformation, Vladimir Putin, and America’s deep political divide—will still be problems even if Trump loses, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee warns.”

In many ways, Clinton feels vindicated by how the Trump presidency has played out, and by what Americans have learned about him over the past four years—including the recent revelation that he paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2017. That “was even worse than I thought it was,” she said. But being right is a small solace. She was sitting in her home in New York, speaking with me over Zoom for a conversation you can hear in full on the latest episode of The Ticket. Chappaqua is not Washington, D.C. She’s not in the middle of the reelection campaign she’d like to be running right now. She pointed out more than once that she won the popular vote in 2016, even if she didn’t win the Electoral College, and she mentioned former FBI Director James Comey’s letter in the final week of the race seeming to reopen the investigation into her (and then Comey’s announcement that nothing had come of it). And to those who wish she would just go away? She thinks they feel a bit guilty, she told me: They don’t want to admit that she was right about Trump.

What she’s hoping for over the next four years: Biden wins and gets rid of Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris helps reset some of the American political expectations for women, and Mark Zuckerberg—whom she compared to the sorcerer’s apprentice, losing control of his creation in a way that has done grave damage around the world—ends up facing new restrictions. She’s also hoping that she can step back from politics a bit more.

You can listen to their conversation at the link above.  I’m not sure why I went over to Otto Dix’s dark side.  I almost used some of his World  War 1 etchings which are mostly every one as skeletons but that was like way too dark.  But, maybe it’s just the lighting that the weather has brought to my desk.  He’s got more styles than Picasso and was just about as prolific!

So, I’m going to trying to get stuff battened down around here before the winds start up around supper time.  I’m also going to go eat my favorite comfort food which is my grandmother’s recipe for mac and cheese. Please, please take care!  Let us know you’re okay.  Thank you for all the Donations!  We’ll be able to keep the doors open another year!!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Live Blog: VEEP Debatestakes 2020

Posted: October 7, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Live Blog | Tags: , , | 43 Comments
 

Where would be without a live debate thread especially when it’s Kamala vs the guy who calls his wife mother?

Image

So,  we will be following the debate antics.  Here’s the details:

 

9-10:30 PM EDT on ABC · CBS · FOX · NBC · PBS

Stream: C-SPAN · CBSN · ABC · NBC · PBS

Apps: ABC News · CBS News · CNN · Fox News · NBC News

Moderator: Susan Page

Location: University of Utah, Salt Lake City

Format: Nine segments of approximately 10 minutes each

And here’s the downlow:  “How to watch the vice presidential debate” by Caroline Linton of CBS.

Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris will meet for their first and only debate on Wednesday, October 7, at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Susan Page of USA Today will moderate, and Pence and Harris will be separated by a plexiglass barrier.

…

Campaign manager Bill Stepien and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, both of whom helped with Mr. Trump’s debate preparation, have tested positive for COVID-19, as well as Hope Hicks, counselor to President Trump. Christie also checked into the hospital for treatment. Chris Wallace, the moderator of the first debate, said Mr. Trump arrived too late to the debate site to be tested for COVID-19 there.

Pence has been tested multiple times since then, and he said the latest test, on Wednesday, was negative.

Harris announced on Friday that she and her husband, Doug Emhoff, had both tested negative for COVID-19. To limit travel, she arrived in Salt Lake City on Friday night. 

The candidates will be seated 12 feet away from each other. 

 

So, let’s see if she can make him cry!

 

Monday Crazy Go Nuts Reads

Posted: October 5, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: morning reads | Tags: , | 45 Comments

Good Day Sky Dancers!

We Americans have had some really crazy few days even with the last 4ish years being one crazy day after another.

Today, we wonder exactly what Covid-19 hospital protocol allows a patient to ride around the block in a hermetically sealed SUV exposing every person around him in the process. Any idea?

I continually worry about the secret service and all of the workers at the White House. You know, the folks that have worked there forever to keep the place clean, the folks fed, and the garden manicured?

This New York Times article kind of sums that answer up: “The president made a surprise outing from his hospital bed in an effort to show his improvement, but the murky and shifting narrative of his illness was rewritten again with grim new details.” This is written by Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman.

 President Trump sought to dispel any perception of weakness on Sunday with a surprise and seemingly risky outing from his hospital bed to greet supporters even as his doctors once again rewrote the official narrative of his illness by acknowledging two alarming episodes they had previously not disclosed.

The doctors said that Mr. Trump’s blood oxygen level dropped twice in the two days after he was diagnosed with the coronavirus, requiring medical intervention, and that he had been put on steroids, suggesting his condition might be more serious than initially described. But they insisted that his situation had improved enough since then that he could be released from the hospital as early as Monday.

The acknowledgment of the episodes raised new questions about the credibility of the information provided about the commander in chief of a superpower as he is hospitalized with a disease that has killed more than 209,000 people in the United States. With the president determined not to concede weakness and facing an election in just 30 days, officials acknowledged providing rosy assessments to satisfy their prickly patient.

Determined to reassert himself on the political stage on his third day in the hospital, Mr. Trump made an unannounced exit from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in the early evening, climbing into his armored Chevrolet Suburban to ride past supporters holding Trump flags gathered outside the building. Wearing a suit jacket and face mask but no tie, Mr. Trump waved at the crowd through a closed window as his motorcade slowly cruised by before returning him to the hospital.

Alexej Von Jawlensky

So, this is all very quite odd.

Andrew Joseph of Stat writes this: “‘There’s a disconnect’: Outside medical experts question the upbeat portrayal of president’s condition”. Supposedly, Trump has gotten a steroid that’s only given to patients in need of oxygen or ventilation. So, it rather implies he might still be on oxygen and we’re not being told about it’

The main concern: Trump started receiving the steroid dexamethasone, which is recommended only for hospitalized Covid-19 patients who are on ventilators or require oxygen. Trump’s medical team said Sunday they planned to continue giving him dexamethasone even as they touted that Trump was not on supplemental oxygen at that point and not having difficulty breathing.“I think today’s news means he’s sicker than I thought he was on Friday and Saturday,” said Nahid Bhadelia, the medical director of Boston Medical Center’s Special Pathogens Unit.

Outside experts also raised other reasons for skepticism.

For one, Trump has experienced at least two drops in his oxygen levels, his doctors confirmed Sunday. One, on Friday, led to doctors giving the president oxygen at the White House. During the Sunday briefing, the president’s lead physician, Sean Conley, said Trump’s oxygen levels had dropped again Saturday but he wasn’t clear whether oxygen had been provided again. It was that second episode that led the team to start him on dexamethasone, the doctors said. To the outside experts, two periods of low oxygen levels indicated this wasn’t a mild illness.

Multiple Secret Service agents are criticizing President Trump’s brief appearance in an SUV outside Walter Reed Medical Center Sunday evening, accusing the president of putting his protective detail in unnecessary danger.

He’s not even pretending to care now,” an agent who requested anonymity told The Washington Post.

“That should never have happened,” another unidentified agent, who works in both the presidential and first family detail, told CNN. “The frustration with how we’re treated when it comes to decisions on this illness goes back before this though. We’re not disposable.”Agents are authorized to decline requests that would place the president at risk, but not those that would put themselves at risk.

This comes from The Hill link above and was written by Zack Budryk

So, given that Republicans seem ready to jump off the cliff with the Orange Dumpsterfire I find this Politco story perplexing: “Republicans gripped by dread as multiple crises swirl. The presidency, control of the Senate and even a quick confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett are all in doubt less than a month from the election.” Evidently quite a few of them are now concerned about their elections. We just got this breaking news too. Republican U.S. Senator Pat Toomey from Pennsylvania will NOT run for re-election in 2022.

Trump’s Republican critics have long argued that he was a virus infecting their party that would eventually destroy it. Trump skeptics-turned-supporters, which could describe most Washington Republicans, made a different calculation: If the worst elements of Trump could be contained, then Republicans could keep a Democrat out of the White House, lock in a majority on the Supreme Court and protect their redoubt in the Senate. Even before Trump’s diagnosis, the cost of the deal with Trump was starting to look high. But the path to pushing through Barrett and retaining the Senate and even White House was hardly insurmountable.

That an actual virus has now infected Trump, his wife, his campaign manager, the head of the Republican National Committee, several advisers, and three senators — many of them at a celebration of Barrett’s nomination — thus throwing all three of the GOP’s 2020 goals into chaos, is a plot twist that would be rejected by any writer as just a little too on the nose.

“Trump has done more to derail the Barrett nomination than any Democrat,” said one dejected former senior White House official. “They are screwing themselves, that’s for sure.”

Republicans around the Trumpsterfire who have tested positive for COVID-19 include former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, Hope Hicks, Russian Sparrow Melania Trump, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former senior advisor Kellyanne Conway . So far, Vice President Mike Pence and Trump’s senior advisor Stephen Miller among those who tested negative for the virus

Trump’s fast track of Barrett might be on the slowed down track according to WAPO: “Positive tests for senators raise doubts about fast-track confirmation of Trump’s Supreme Court choice”. Thoughts and prayers to those Senators and stay in bed place for as long as you’re told too! This was penned by Seung Min Kim.

From the start, Senate Republican leaders have known their ambitious timeline to get Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett confirmed before Election Day offered little room for error.

But that tightly crafted schedule has now been thrown into uncertainty with the coronavirus diagnoses of at least two Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee and the fear that other senators could test positive in the coming days. A handful of other GOP senators, on and off the committee, are also isolating as a precaution after being exposed to infected colleagues.

Sensing an opportunity to delay, Democrats are cranking up their push to postpone the Oct. 12 confirmation hearings, citing the safety of members, aides and Barrett herself — waging a public pressure campaign because they have no powers on their own to stop the proceedings.

In a statement to The Washington Post on Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) demanded that Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) require all members of the Judiciary Committee to be tested before participating in Barrett’s confirmation hearing. Democrats have also insisted that remote participation, even for senators, is inadequate for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

“Moving forward with the committee process when three senators have recently tested positive for covid-19 is irresponsible and dangerous, but doing so without requiring all members to be tested before a hearing in accordance with CDC best practices would be intentionally reckless,” Schumer said in the statement to The Post. “If Chairman Graham doesn’t require testing, it may make some wonder if he just doesn’t want to know the results.”

Lets just hope he does everything possible to sandbag that Graham operation. It might be more succesful though given Lindsey’s election problems.

So that’s it for me today! Just a couple of things. Please be patient with us as we learn how to use this crazy block editor from Word Press. It would cost us $283 odd dollars just to keep it as an add on supported for two years so definitely not worth that. Also, it’s time this week to help us with our annual fee to Word Press for what they do provide us now. It’s about $8 a month for the premium which is renewed for us on the 18th.

Be safe! Check in and tell us what’s up with you. And, what’s on your reading and blogging list today!

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