RNCC 2020: ‘Profoundly’ WTAF
I could expend a lot of time and effort on the disgusting spectacle which was the final night of the Republican National Committee’s Convention.
I could write more about media outlets which enabled this unlawful fascist excess by failing to note how in-our-face the Trump campaign and Trump administration were in their taking of public resources for a partisan campaign.
I could write about the maskless attendees who played ‘Rona Roulette sitting cheek and jowl on the White House lawn.
But no. I’m going to say this:
That’s how many Americans died of COVID-19 over the last 24 hours. It’s likely an understatement since excess deaths have been running nearly 25% higher than those reported as COVID-19.
I’m going to say this:
recognizing all the Americans who have died because that tangerine hellbeast chose not to protect the American public because he thought it was better for his campaign to act as if the pandemic disappeared, because he listened to his incompetent Victorian doll-faced son-in-law that neglecting blue states would help his re-election.
It’ll just disappear, he’s said repeatedly about the pandemic. In his addled venal mind it already has because COVID-19 does nothing to fluff his ego. It’s just an annoyance to be brushed aside because it doesn’t help his TV ratings.
It’ll just disappear, like the tens of millions who’ve lost their jobs or are worried about losing them soon, the many who will lose their homes to eviction and foreclosure, the families struggling with food security, the children who don’t have access to internet to study from home or are in classrooms with teachers grappling with infection control with little help.
None of these Americans are visible to him because they are not his audience. They’re disrupters of his TV and approval ratings, inconveniences impeding his narcissistic supply — the fix he needs which he’ll never get from his father.
“Profoundly” he accepted his political party’s nomination tonight, unable to read the word “proudly” in his speech and really not caring about that detail. Somehow it fits.
Trump is profoundly wrong in so many ways, as is the party which owns his gross failings.
We have 67 days to work out how to safely vote this miserable waste of carbon out of office. If things continue as they have, losing 1100-1200 Americans a day to COVID-19, the death toll will increase by another 80,000 by Election Day.
If the rate remains unchanged, the total number of Americans lost to COVID-19 will nearly double by Inauguration Day.
I can’t begin to stomach the cost of human life if we do not remove him from office. The potential number of deaths is as profoundly wrong as he is.
Consider tonight’s profound farce conducted on the people’s lawn using taxpayer resources our marching orders.
It’s time to save our fellow Americans’ lives.
It’s time to take our democracy back.
In the time I spent writing this post, another 100 Americans died of COVID-19.
Nazism was (italics needed) resisted.
Time to wear white roses.
Dear klynn,
Thank you for that. Yes, it’s past time.
Genau.
White roses need to go viral.
und genug!
I have been wondering…
Gov has data on unemployed.
Whether homeowners or renters, should they lose their residence now, does that impact voting registration?
Have the GOP run the analytics on those unemployed to figure out how many are dem voters/ indep voters/ gop voters and discovered data that would benefit GOP to have massive homelessness in terms of voting in up-for-grabs areas?
Sidebar: If a few wealthy people wanted to help families… offering financial cover to avoid massive homelessness would be a remarkable economic stabilizer and offer a small amount of protection of our Democracy and voting.
Concerned the GOP are delaying a vote for relief until a date that makes it too late in terms of voting registration.
https://www.nonprofitvote.org/voting-in-your-state/special-circumstances/voting-and-homelessness/
The wealthy could also buy up distressed consumer debt for pennies on the dollar and make a gift to the debtors. Otherwise, vultures will collect 100% until the Second Coming. That was done with medical debt several years ago, but if those programs continue, they’ve slipped below the radar.
Yeah, I’ve been worried about this for some time, a “voter foreclosure” redux.
This “voter foreclosure” concern needs to become a loud concern. Fast.
I posted it on August 7. Yell at media who don’t want to clue in, too busy being led by the nose by Trump.
I know! Just cannot figure out how to make your post go viral.
Voter concern groups need to yell! We need to yell!
Unfortunately, attaching links to emails to congress critters is not allowed.
Send a fax with the URL typed out in the the body of the fax. FaxZero(.)com allows free faxes to members of Congress.
Did you send it to Greg Palast?
I don’t send my work to others unless they ask for it.
It’s good to know there is a federal guideline that maintains voting rights for the homeless, it would be interesting to see how it is translated into reality state by state.
At the bottom of this list of voter’s rights by state (which to me just is more confusing) are the links to each state (some directly to the page that addresses the issue) is probably the best place to spot check some of the problem areas if someone has the time.
https://nationalhomeless.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/VotingRightsUpdate.pdf
If your “in” foreclosure it is still your residence until you move, and just like any other move you are require to file a change of address.
While the problems and chaos that I assume go along with losing your home may put the importance of voting on the back burner, at first glance there doesn’t seem to be anything nefarious tossed in that makes it more difficult for someone moving as a result of a foreclosure to vote, than someone moving for other reasons, but perhaps I am missing something?
At least in my area, foreclosures and evictions HAD been held at bay because of the additional unemployment cash, and things are also becoming clearer on what mortgage companies are offering as payment deferral options on mortgages, so we will see….
You are missing the fact the persons most likely to be affected aren’t going to receive education about filing a provisional ballot if their address is contested.
You are missing that the GOP planned to do this in 2008 and only concerted effort by the DNC and wide coverage by mainstream media prevented “voter foreclosure” during the foreclosure crisis.
Check your privilege and think like a young, newly-evicted/-foreclosed person of color whose risk of contracting COVID has escalated with loss of housing.
“Check my privilege?”
I will remind you that you don’t know me, or anything about me, I will let you know however that you are missing your mark by a mile when you try to shame me with these kind of pot shots.
I am not missing the point.
I will say it again.
You do not need a provisional ballot in ANY state if you are living in a home that is in foreclosure.
If you have moved from a home that is in foreclosure or has been foreclosed, the requirements for voting are no different than if you moved to a new home, or apartment, parents house under normal circumstances.
Pointing this out does not show my lack of empathy for “newly-evicted/-foreclosed person of color whose risk of contracting COVID has escalated with loss of housing.” but simply suggests that if you are looking to make an impact on voter suppression this might not the be spot to focus on.
In 2008 in there were talks in some battleground states of using names listed on foreclosure and eviction lists to challenge votes, there was an uproar, some lawsuits, and it got shot down.
What DID escalate since the 2008 campaign was disinformation campaigns. In 2008 the “news” being spread was that was that people who had been or were going through a foreclosure would not be allowed to vote.
IMHO disinformation could do more damage than all of the GOP ballot tossing, poll closing, voter intimidation tricks combined.
Especially when it comes out of the mouths of our leaders.
You really don’t want to go down this road with me. I was the managing editor for the journalist who broke the “voter foreclosure” story in 2008. I sat in on phone calls with our national editors during the parties’ legal wrangling to stop this mess. The journalist had direct statements from a Michigan GOP county party official who intended to use a list of foreclosures to contest ballots. Marcy has written about it as well.
You can say, “You do not need a provisional ballot in ANY state if you are living in a home that is in foreclosure” all you want, but the average voter doesn’t know that. They are more likely to be discouraged as soon as their address is contested because they don’t know differently.
The 1982 DNC v. RNC Consent Decree expired in 2017. If you don’t think the RNC will seize that opportunity to use various voter caging techniques including eviction/foreclosure lists to contest ballots especially since this SCOTUS has been abysmal about protecting voter rights, you’re incredibly naive.
And don’t tell me election officials won’t steer voters wrong because Crystal Mason was sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation — and nobody, NOBODY tried to educate her on the limits of her rights or to stop her from casting a ballot.
I couldn’t publish other stories related to this mess 12 years ago because sources were afraid to go on record. There was too much money involved. How convenient for the “foreclosure king” here in Michigan though, who was integral to this story. He ended up elected to Congress in 2014 and 2016.
Your denialism is exactly what will cause voters damage.
EDIT: Take the hint, Vicks, and drop this. You’re done in this thread.
To the issue of knowledge, I’ll add here the issue of shame (Marcy’s recent spot-on post on the evaporation of shame for our politicos notwithstanding, plenty of regular Americans still feel it).
People feeling it are generally not all loud and proud about their rights; they are particularly susceptible to believing the bad things related to other loss of status that people message or tell them (hence why suppression campaigns like this work in ways beyond what people think of as ‘rationally’ based ‘disinformation’: Cartesian decision-making is a fiction*).
People in liminal status with regard to any fundaments of their “responsibilities” (“working”; “paying their bills”) or other aspects of the WASP-work-ethic-American Dream tend to be more liminally breakable as to other aspects, such as their worth and civil rights. Self-in-society boundaries weaken when people don’t feel proud or good about themselves.
Individuals vary, yes. This is an on-the-whole perspective. We’d do well to explicitly address the phatic aspects of suppression campaigns as well.
—
*The GOP routinely exploits this fact, all the while their concern trolls drive-by to shout ‘But emotion!’ (even when they are the ones trying to deploy it while others discuss information. But they are hypocrites writ large).
[As an aside to the current topic, I would point out that even the very rational exercise of parsing election law is at once a feel-good exercise of following the rules.]
ETA:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=phative+language&t=hk&ia=web
You’ve encapsulated why ACORN was so important for marginalized voters, and why the GOP did its damnedest to kill ACORN. The organization was a significant force protecting voters’ rights.
Are the ballots from mail-in voters easier to challenge for address changes than challenging voters in person at the polls on election day?
(I freely confess White privilege as the basis for asking that question.)
‘Easier’ will depend on the state and the municipality. Trump campaign+GOP have been steadily attacking every angle.
This gives an indication of the scale of the problem ahead: More than 500,000 mail ballots were rejected in the primaries. That could make the difference in battleground states this fall.
One big problem: whether voters are informed when their mail-in/absentee ballot is contested. Again, will depend on the state as we can see in this article about Indiana: Judge: Indiana can’t reject absentee ballots for signatures without informing voter
A good piece on all the myriad problems: Why Vote-by-Mail Could be a Legal Nightmare in November
National Conference of State Legislatures shares Policies for Election Observers, which includes challengers. Note the reference to “credible observers” — who is credible? How are they screened and booted out if not credible? There’s so may grey space around voting.
Over all of this lays the Electoral College. Team Trump+GOP may put more money into contesting both election laws now and ballots later based on the electoral votes, not just demographics of any state.
Thanks for the homework assignment.
I’ll get right on it.
See you in a couple of weeks.
It’s bad, isn’t it. Not even a question. See you after you’re done reading. :-)
Politico claimed the disqualification rate for mail-in ballots in 2018 was 8%, nationwide.
It’s alarming. I can only rely upon my White privilege if I show up in person.
And early voting during the primary was at an assisted living center.
Maybe they’ve changed the location for the general. More homework–STAT.
Ah, a magic wand.
I had a feeling there was a reason you were never challenged.
I respect your work and the site, so it’s disappointing to learn that this goes on.
For what it’s worth; I don’t agree, but I do understand.
[That you’d made more than 1000 comments here and never noticed is informative. You’re also not taking the hint to move on. /~Rayne]
I tuned in for about 30 seconds. Ben Carson’s quiet but Wagnerian rendition of life in Trump’s America matched the Bund-like avenues of flags. The scene could have been Madison Square Garden in 1939, with Trump’s photo replacing George Washington’s. The only thing missing was a little boy on stage, dancing a jig as a protesting young man is beaten and ejected from the Garden – pantsed to show the crowd that he was Jewish.
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/06/american-nazis-in-the-1930sthe-german-american-bund/529185/
https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/2/20/18230052/night-at-garden-oscars-2019-madison-square-bund-anniversary-interview
and they had fireworks that played well into the night. We could hear it — seemed endless.
Hm-m-m-m. I live about four blocks due west of the WH and the fireworks ran about 10-15 minutes, from 11:35 -11:50 pm. Granted they were quite late and extremely loud but nowhere near the length of the usual July 4th extravaganzas.
The scariest thing is the buy in from the DC press. Wolf Blitzer doing his wow just wow thing, Politico pushing a line that nobody cares about ethics (translation: we writers want to look worldly) — they have locked themselves into their bubble as much as Trump has.
It’s a case of “he is showing a new tone” level anlysis times ten.
They have trouble seeing what’s right in front of them.
https://twitter.com/TomJChicago/status/1299153670383304704
He can’t put together a coherent sentence by himself, let alone read a speech like he means it.
Unfortunately, PJ, his worshippers don’t care what he says. He “rallied” in an airport hanger in New Hampshire (another mask-less, super-spreader event) to a few hundred people, and all they want is to hear him rant about the radical leftists. He had to come down the AF-1 steps very slowly and tripped (and almost fell) as he mounted the podium. He ranted about DC Mayor Bowser, the rioters, the fake Russia investigation, etc., etc. Couldn’t keep the train on the tracks for more than a few minutes. Tom is absolutely correct about his dementia, but I don’t know if it’s going to take him down fast enough.
I don’t understand how Trump hasn’t contracted Covid yet.
I don’t want him to die from it. Just to be hospitalized and very sick like Boris Johnson was.
I’m losing my faith in fatalism.
McKay Coppins uses the word
I couldn’t get out of my head last night: CARNIVAL
A Carnival of Propaganda
Republicans warmly welcomed voters into their post-truth convention.
https://theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/08/trumps-rnc-was-loaded-disinformation/615838/
MCKAY COPPINS 10:04 AM ET
Former Trump adviser Bryan Lanza:
Bryan fucking Lanza avoids using a timeline with that figure. He also neatly avoids the fact that states have had to order stay-home/lockdowns to prevent COVID from spreading wildly. Had the states not stepped in we would easily have seen 1-3 million deaths by year’s end and 3-5 million by the time a safe and effective vaccine was fully tested, approved, and ready for full-scale roll-out.
If you have a link to a source with that Lanza bit I’d appreciate it. Thanks.
All I know is that Coppins has quotation marks around those words in his article, linked above.
The subhed “Republicans warmly welcomed voters into their post-truth convention” feels tacked on by an editor, because that is definitely not the tone of the piece.
The tone is better captured by the quote of Sarah Isgur, former spox for Jeff Sessions, who says they are down to trying to scare voters who want to vote for Trump but can’t quite steel themselves up for it.
They’ve given up on warm welcomes, and sunk to a level of a carnival display of dancing skeletons adorned with Memento Mori signs.
Who knows, people had fun at old school pre-Lent carnivals, but if they don’t have the timing right they’re stuck eating lentil porridge for a long time.
Le Grand Guignol (cue spooky music and shreaking). Vote!
Yes!
“carnival” is a much better word than “circus”
Rather sitting and being entertained at a circus, one attends a carnival to PARTICIPATE in the activities, for the thrill of rubbing elbows with hucksters and grifters and handing over money to play games they know are fixed against them.
The Trump Show is all spectacle and no substance.
Unfortunately, a shit show is running when we need an actual, effective government to handle a national pandemic.
On top of that, we have Trump drumming up cops and vigilante militant types who appear to have joined forces in some precincts.
PBS Newshour with Judy Woodruff interviewing historian Michael Beshloss. Here is what he said at 3:46:05
https://www.pbs.org/video/republican-national-convention-day-4-kzlw4v/
… This whole scene tonight should not have happened to those of us who care about the rule of law, The Hatch Act is intended to keep political campaigning away from federal property like the White House, and federal employees and for those of us who care about tradition, the White House this year is 220 years old and in all those 220 years, this has been sacred space.
Other presidents have respected the fact that you don’t use this for domestic politics. Instead tonight we had, you know, nasty things said about his opponent, we had donors, we had campaign signs. The south lawn of the White House was turned into the floor of the Republican convention. That’s a house that belongs to all of us, that has always been the tradition.
And the other thing is that we saw tonight, the symbols of our state, the White House, all those flags mixed with the symbols of a political party and a political movement. That’s what happens not in a democracy but that is what happens in autocracies.
And for any of us who heard Barack Obama’s warning a week ago when he said, “Do not let them take away your democracy,” it’s not very reassuring that next year, if Donald Trump is reelected that we can be absolutely certain that we will be living in a democratic system. I hope that is wrong.
Yes, it was sad to see a venerable old building like The White House all tarted up and defiled with that Trump-Pence electioneering frippery and falderal.
Amy Klobuchar tweeted: Get off our lawn.
That one should probably go in the Twitter Library that Comedy Central is running.
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1299346003125063680
10:00 AM · Aug 28, 2020
As the lemmings start to get sick, Trump will try to hide or dismiss the positive cases. He was back at it today assembling a maskless crowd in New Hampshire.
He nearly fell at the top of the stairs to the platform for the podium. Flailing arms as he recovered his balance – and the cameras caught it from three angles. Not good.
This story from Washington Post seems to paint a picture (for me) that Trump is really, truly becoming MORE UNHINGED!
Didn’t think that was possible, but here it is:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-escalates-rhetoric-on-unrest-in-cities-looking-for-a-campaign-advantage/2020/08/28/c42beee4-e984-11ea-a414-8422fa3e4116_story.html
When Trump is reading from the teleprompter he leans on the podium and grasps with both hands.
Reads the words with a sarcastic tone. Soooo SAD, gross and LAZY!
Bye-bye! [former FDA Spox] EMILY MILLER [about 2 scaramuccis]
Two P.R. Experts at F.D.A. Have Been Ousted After Blood Plasma Fiasco The agency’s chief spokeswoman, Emily Miller, was removed from her position just 11 days into the job.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/health/blood-plasma-fda.html Aug. 28, 2020, 12:09 p.m.
More here:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/08/25/rncc-2020-night-of-a-thousand-wtafs/#comment-855598
correction…it was about 1 scaramucci.
More here:
FDA ousts top spokesperson after 2 weeks Emily Miller’s short tenure was marked by repeated clashes over the agency’s communications approach.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/28/fda-top-spokesperson-leaves-404422 08/28/2020 12:24 PM
I wonder if we’ll find out how she got that job, with no background in science or medicine, and the previous employer being a notoriously right-wing organization.
More from Politico:
“In addition, Wayne Pines, a longtime communications consultant, confirmed that his contract to advise Hahn on communications strategy was ended Friday.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/28/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/
So both the liar and the man who warned about her lies BOTH get canned? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. . .
[FYI, URL was edited to remove tracking. /~Rayne]
Pines was fired because he told Hahn the best thing he could do would be to retract the BS about the plasma therapy Trump was touting.
As far as the so-called CDC recommendations to not test people who had been exposed to people who had tested positive for Covid-19, this was decided by the Covid Task Force with no medical professionals present, to the best of my knowledge.
Emily Miller has a long history of genuinely nutty behavior:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2004/05/17/colin-powell-interview-with-russert-is-cut-off/57cd47d7-cf60-48d0-ae87-e741fde84631/
Video here:
https://youtu.be/kMAguqSeRrE
About in-person voting. Another kind of potential suppression occurred to me. If temperatures are taken because of Covid, it is conceivable that some people could be excluded if they are told they exceed whatever is the limit. I wonder what the alternative would be for those people. At this point in Trump’s and the GOP’s sordid history, I wouldn’t put it past them to have rigged thermometers. So, it might be worth it to take a cold pack along to cool foreheads down before going in to vote. And to bring our own thermometers. Or, at least, to have Democratic poll watchers on hand with their own devices. It would be awful to be rejected from voting because of something we haven’t thought about.
It would be hard to rig a thermometer – it’s possible to bring your own, if necessary. (I have a liquid-crystal thermometer. It’s not breakable without scissors or a knife, and it’s accurate enough.)
I think digital ones are used now, the kind that are pointed at your forehead. I have no idea how they work. But I’m concerned about manipulation and pretense. It doesn’t have to be the real thing. It only has to look like it is.
Last week they took my temp from my arm(!) – first time for that. Usually it’s forehead. I don’t miss the oral thermometers, even the digital ones, though they may come back. (They had disposable plastic covers so you never actually touched the thing.)
Here is the kind of thermometer (infrared) I was thinking about. They seem to have some inherent challenges. The article shows photos.
“Non-contact Infrared Thermometers”
…
“Using the NCIT:
As previously noted, the person using the device should strictly follow the manufacturer’s guidelines and instructions for use for the specific NCIT being used. In particular, the following are typical instructions for NCIT usage.”
https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/general-hospital-devices-and-supplies/non-contact-infrared-thermometers
Most of the challenges appear to be caused by people who don’t know how to use them. These are professional-type instruments, not household-type. (Which is why I have a liquid-crystal thermometer: it’s contact, but hard to mess up.)
I wonder about those devices. When the restaurants re-opened here (LA) in early June, a friend and I, who were in the middle of a bike ride, stopped in at a restaurant for a cup of coffee and cookies. We stood, socially distanced and masked, in a lineup at the main counter, and when it was my friend’s turn to place his order, the employee pointed a digital thermometer at his forehead. He passed the thermometer check and was allowed to order.
I was a bit incredulous because having just come in from a bike ride, we were hot and our foreheads were sweaty, so I expected that the thermometer would register a false high reading. I asked the employee what the temp reading was for my friend and she looked at the thermometer and read it out – 92.7, which to me seemed to be both inaccurate and impossible. I guess they were just checking for high temps only and she told me that if anyone’s temp registered within the “acceptable” range (whatever that was), they were allowed to order.
Since that time, indoor dining has become forbidden once again, and now when we stop there during more recent bike rides, I’ve noticed they don’t even bother with the thermometer check at all anymore, even though indoor time is still spent waiting (SD and masked) in line before ordering and then going outside to eat.
Can’t say that experience instilled any confidence in me that these digital forehead thermometers are all that useful…
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/public-health/fauci-temperature-checks-often-notoriously-inaccurate.html#:~:text=Fauci%20said%20at%20an%20event,before%20getting%20into%20air%20conditioning.
Fauci spoke Thursday shooting down the efficacy of using temperatures for any Covid screening.
It can find the people with fevers, from whatever cause, but not the asymptomatic people – and asking people about symptoms won’t find them, either.
WTAF – – every single thing:
1] https://twitter.com/Zac_Petkanas/status/1299192145732042754
11:48 PM · Aug 27, 2020
2] https://twitter.com/Zac_Petkanas/status/1299192773917249537
11:51 PM · Aug 27, 2020
From the screenshot:
…I’ve never heard of him. Not much of a star.
Ha ha ha ha. You made me laugh!
My guess is he can’t read music or count, either.
He’s apparently actually trained at the Manhattan school of music, so he should be able to read and count. (I suspect he’s more a pop tenor than an operatic tenor, no matter what he thinks.)
[I learned to read music in grade school. I still do it for fun.]
Here’s another singer the RNC hired way back when. Out of no where Omaha NE. Even though I can’t prove it, the Franklin credit union scandal and accusations by young people sound very much like the same set up as Epstein. I do wish this would be re-investigated. Several deaths, high ranking officials. In my town I swear they used false accusations to muddy the water and discredit the entire investigation. Some people were accused who were truly innocent and truly not involved. But since learning more about Epstein I really wonder if some of those kids were telling the truth. I worked in a mental hospital at the time. Suicide in hospital and many believed some of these kids. It may be a bogus conspiracy theory but my gut says they peppered the investigation and infused with false allegation that muddied the water on the valid ones.
The allegations have become so crazy that it’s hard to find the kernel of truth but learning about Epstein and his approach and ties to big names is so similar to what these kids reported. By the way, Michael Jackson made a visit to the Lawrence king home when he was playing in KC.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_child_prostitution_ring_allegations
Great post, Rayne! Very heartfelt and hard hitting! Thank you.
I plan to work as hard as possible over the next few months to make the Russian-financed yam an ex-President!
Thanks, Zinsky. Do whatever you can to help voters register, check their registrations, vote early if possible, get to the polls.
Rayne, the old BP can sometimes spike up to around 300. Mine does regular these days. Usually around 3 AM. Just kick back and avoid popping a vessel, have a GnT and cogitate on the old Woody. In spite of trump and the russians we will get ourselves through this thing. It’s not like it’s the dust bowl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqiblXFlZuk
For some it won’t feel like the Dust Bowl. It’ll just be inconvenient while waiting it out, sipping a cocktail.
Meanwhile…
.
August 4 — Phoenix police pressed Ramon Lopez into hot pavement until he died. Lopez may have been having a psychological event having been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.
.
August 7 — 22-year-old Salathis Melvin was shot in the back and killed by police in Orange County. He was not a suspect of any crime, just happened to be running away from where police were seeking a gang member.
.
August 21 — Trayford Pellerin was shot 11 times in the back in Lafayette, LA, while walking away from police. You can guess Pellerin’s race.
.
August 23 – Jacob Blake shot in the back by Kenosha police.
.
August 27 —
.
It’s been more than five months since Breonna Taylor was murdered in her bed by Louisville police and not one person has been held responsible.
.
.
It’s not the Dust Bowl. For brown people it’s someplace between 1933-1945. This time the targets don’t wear yellow stars. This time the killers don’t need gas chambers, just badges and a virus.
If one’s blood pressure isn’t spiking, they should wonder why.
Probably should have put this up as a post.
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains all the cops have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft boiled eggs
–Harry McClintock
And now we hear that federal employees will be forced to take a mandatory payroll tax deferral — no way to opt out. The National Finance Center is also telling workers that the deferred taxes will eventually be forgiven, but only Congress can do that.
This is so typical of Trump: Make sure somebody else (Congress, in this case) will get stuck with either the blame, or the bill.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/28/payroll-tax-federal-employees-deferral-404546
The best thing that federal employees can do in this situation is to divert more money into their Thrift Savings Plan account until things straighten out.
Fewer than 24 hours apart:
1] 10:08 PM · Aug 27, 2020
https://twitter.com/aravosis/status/1299166993615065090
2] 7:55 PM · Aug 28, 2020
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1299495978530230273
Why is a campaign event using a podium with the presidential seal, at all? (What would they have said if Obama had done it in 2012?)
He’s appropriating the Presidential Seal as his own personal–and by extension–family brand or heraldic device. Expect a Presidential order soon stating that anyone seeking an audience with Trumpus Optimus Maximus must prostrate themselves before his Magnificence.
Trump wants to remain in the Oval Office to stay out of prison. Lynne Patton just helped make the point.
The assumption is that Trump earned money. Instead of receiving it, he had it paid to someone else. That money is still income to Trump. If Trump failed to account for it, he understated his income and its source(s), and committed accounting and tax fraud. (Being Trump, he might have failed to record the income, but took the tax deduction anyway – egregious frauds that would up the penalties.) Trump would have also falsified Trump Foundation records. Contributions that came from its founder would have been accounted for as coming from third parties, making the foundation appear more active and successful than it was.
It doesn’t matter that had Trump received the money and paid it to his foundation, he might have been able to take a tax deduction for it. Among other things, that would have required Trump doing things he’s really bad at: Keeping records of the work performed, who paid for it, and when; information on the alleged charity and its tax status when the donation was made; complying with rules on charitable deductions and on contributing to your own charity. And who’s to say that having established this practice, Trump directed that the money be paid only to his own charity instead of to another Stormy Daniels?
As Trump’s crimes go, this is a nit, but they add up. And these are state as well as federal frauds. Lynne Patton is asserting that this was an established pattern and practice. As a paid spokesperson, her script would normally come from the client, which suggests Trump is hoping that the more flagrant his crimes, the less likely he will be held to account for them. Instead, state and federal prosecutors should grab the baton being handed to them and run with it.
https://eu.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2016/09/21/some-donations-trump-foundation-count-trumps-money-aide-says/90784632/
Trump, of course, also controlled the Trump Foundation end of this arrangement. He managed it so well that NY state was forced to investigate it and order it dissolved, because of more than a decade of serial abuse. Let’s hope that as part of that dissolution, NY state ordered its records be maintained – or that it has copies of relevant portions of them – because this ain’t over.
If Donald Trump is overtly using this week’s events to raise a private army from his Patriots Only supporters, odds are he’ll use it to stay in office, or to cover his escape into the private sector. Had Barack Obama hinted at doing the same, we would still hear echos of the outraged calls for impeachment and virtual lynching that would have come from congressional Goopers and their armed pals back home. Donald Trump is a psychopath: from his perspective, he has nothing to lose.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/08/rnc-white-house-trump-gop-fascism-kenosha-murder.html
https://medium.com/@vgwcct/a-duty-to-differentially-diagnose-the-validity-underpinning-the-diagnosis-of-the-president-371354142a02
responding to earlofhuntingdon posts (3 – 8/29/20, 10:57, 11:10, 1:30)
Let’s hope we are hunting don!
Like an iceberg (cue Madonna’s “like a vir…” melody now) D.T.’s machinations are hidden from view and will eventually, hopefully, be revealed to be more extensive than we had any clues to suspect!
Since taking office his actions have only increased in outrageousness, possibly illegal, nasty, cruel.
He works very hard at covering his tracks, has others execute the most egregious activities, always has SOMEONE ELSE TO BLAME!
We need to listen to what he is saying because D.T. is giving us the blueprint for what he is planning.
Insurrection Act to use military on U.S. soil!!!
Friday’s campaign rally in New Hampshire outlined his plans and the supporters erupted with CHEERS!!!
He deployed federal agents to Portland, OR and gleefully injured U.S. citizens exercising constitutionally protected rights!
The use of the White House as backdrop for the Republican Convention and his nomination followed by fireworks and celebrations says very loudly ‘I’m here and I’m staying!! So there!!’
I wonder what Blackwater and Prince are up to.
I turned 13 in 1967. Then, the news of American deaths in Vietnam was in the daily newspapers and on the TV that evening. It was heart wrenching to read about the weekly deaths. The three deadliest years of the conflict were 1967- 69, years in which 40,042 soldiers lost their lives:
1967 = 11,363
1968 = 16,899
1969 = 11,780
It was unreal to know that such a high number of my fellow citizens, most of whom were not much older than me, were having their lives cut short. Yet in 2020, we have losses that dwarf these and it’s hard to fathom how anyone could still support that fucking imbecile in the White House.
Yes, Cuomo made mistakes as did other governors, but they learned from them and tried to do the right thing. Trump hasn’t learned anything and he doesn’t want to. It’s more than out of sight out of mind, he doesn’t care about anyone. When I reflect on the number of my fellow citizens who’ve been killed by his stupidity, I am usually enraged. Tonight, I simply feel profound sadness.
We have early voting in Texas and I’m going to take advantage of it.
I turned 13 in 68 watching the “war in the streets” at the mayor richard daley show DNC in Chicago on Walter Cronkite and Huntley and Brinkley. We are right back in it right now.
ht tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv0rI-5ycBU
ht tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtj7zfMaP0o
Steely Dan wrote a song about it
ht tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNBTUJbnN1o
Do not underestimate trump, as he is quite skilled at what he does for putin. Our spooks won’t underestimate don and vlad. Sing Sing is waiting for you, don. And vlad man, fucking with our election, I think the spooks got something real special for you and your pal val. pay attention to the open skies.. ..but then I’m just guessing here. For ex I thought tony soprano was the 1st to say it.
https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/what-the-actual-fuck/
1968 I turned 16; we had national guard troops being housed in our high school gym to deploy to control Berkeley people’s park riots, etc.
From my little world just a few miles away it seemed like the other side of the world.
Now it’s deja vu all over again.
ABC news reports the Republican governor of Massachusetts plans to call up 1,000 national guard troops. (Oh, he has a corporate background in healthcare!)