185,963
Here’s the topic Donald Trump and the Republican Party are doing everything they can to avoid:
It’s also the single biggest reason not to vote for Donald Trump.
I think Drew Gibson put it best in a tweet today:
We still have roughly 40,000 new cases of COVID-19 a day due to this administration’s colossal incompetence and they’re playing a video of Nancy Pelosi getting her hair done like it’s the goddamn Zapruder film. https://t.co/nBEshTT01Z
— Drew Gibson (@SuppressThis) September 3, 2020
The White House can put all the spin on their “Zapuder tape” they want. It won’t change the fact we can see they are killing us through police brutality and COVID-19.
It won’t change the fact Joe Biden was welcomed in Kenosha by community leaders, spoke with shooting victim Jacob Blake and met with Blake’s family — none of which insensitive racist Trump could bring himself to do.
It won’t change the fact Trump failed to boost U.S. manufacturing as he promised in 2016. Instead he set off an unnecessary trade war implementing tariffs which not only inflated consumer prices in the U.S., damaged demand for U.S. commodities, but encouraged the burning of Amazon rain forest for farmland in Brazil, which sold more soybeans to China.
It won’t change the fact that the Trump administration still has no effective response to COVID-19, allowing states to continue to fight on their own as more a thousand Americans die each day from the disease. At this rate 300,000 Americans will die of COVID-19 this year.
It won’t change the fact that no one in their right mind sees the Trump administration’s politicized hyper-speed development of a COVID-19 vaccine as anything more than a ploy for re-election purposes.
It won’t change the fact that +30% of college football players who’ve tested positive for COVID-19 developed myocarditis which may inhibit their ability to play in college and professionally — and none of this had to happen had Trump done his job.
It won’t change the fact the Trump administration and the GOP senate are allowing children to go hungry, ignoring mounting food insecurity and growing numbers of unemployed with 1.6 million new claims filed this week.
It won’t change the fact that evictions and foreclosures are creating another crisis surpassing that of 2007-2009.
But keep spinning, Kelly McEnany. Maybe you’ll survive the failed Trump years and earn yourself a gig spinning numbers for a TV game show as your next gig.
This is an open thread.
.
UPDATE-1 — 6:15 P.M. ET —
Wonder what the White House will do next to hide this?
Donald Trump, in a White House meeting, asked that a military parade exclude wounded veterans, because “nobody wants to see” amputees. My story here: https://t.co/4PUGrR7tCS
— Jeffrey Goldberg (@JeffreyGoldberg) September 3, 2020
This is bad. I wonder if they’ll care, though, since they’ve fucked up the U.S. Postal Service so badly overseas military votes may not get counted in a timely fashion.
We should be pounding on Esper to help active duty military to vote.
.
UPDATE-2 — 8:00 A.M. ET FRIDAY —
Oh, not good. Media have been arguing about sourcing behind Jeffrey Goldberg’s piece in The Atlantic. AP verified some, and Washington Post followed up as well. But WaPo’s team published a piece which is just as blistering as Goldberg’s.
See Trump said U.S. soldiers injured and killed in war were ‘losers,’ magazine reports
We still aren’t told who the sources are but my money is on Jim Mattis being one of them. Goldberg wrote a piece on Mattis in June in which Mattis took a stick to Trump.
See James Mattis Denounces President Trump, Describes Him as a Threat to the Constitution
Twitter was flooded with condemnation of Trump after yesterday’s piece in The Atlantic; Team Trump sent out a horde of proxies like Sarah Huckabee Sanders to swat it down.
Not certain who’ll believe her.
Three things:
— Call your friends, neighbors, family, acquaintances and ask them to complete the U.S. Census online if they haven’t done it already.
— Call your senator if they are GOP about the HEROES Act (economic aid) and the Delivering for America Act (post office funding) and ask them to get back to work and support these bills. Congressional switchboard: (202) 224-3121
— Shout, “Fuck Mark Meadows. Fuck Steve Mnuchin” out your front door. Scumbags both of them, deliberately obstructing aid to the American people for whom they are supposed to work.
Not enough is being said about Jason Miller’s connection (at 20 k$ per month) to the Build the Wall charity scandal.
Also, Pelosi has noted that this smelled like a setup, and given how quickly this was blasted into Faux, I think she was right.
But, to your point Kayleigh needs to be asked every day about what DJT is actually DOING about the 4000+ per day (which will go up as the college totals come in) and the death toll. Follow that up with the studies reported this week on the pediatric effects of COVID-19.
The stylist is backing Pelosi. The owner appears to blame Pelosi for state and local rules, and is ignoring them as much as possible.
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Nancy-Pelosi-esalon-haircut-stylist-statement-15540110.php
I saw one description of the series of events that was (paraphrasing):
Pelosi (or her assistant) calls to see if it’s okay.
Stylist checks with owner, who says “yes”.
Stylist sanitizes place beforehand.
Pelosi comes in and gets haircut.
Stylist sanitizes place afterward.
You have Trump’s fan base behavior celebrating similar to a rock concert or a football game, Trump obsessed with his brand, fans blindly following him. Volatile cocktail in the making.
Then there are followers making heroes out of shooters and demonizing those who stand up for the silent.
Now the Trump administration is creating what is most important at the news conference – Hairgate. What will they think of next?
Just can’t make this poop up.
It hasn’t gotten much traction since it’s a statistical finding, but epidemiologists are measuring “excess deaths” over what they expect to see without SARS-Cov-2 virus. Looking at excess deaths, scientists think the COVID-19 deaths passed the 200,000 mark several weeks ago. If I can find the article to back this up, I’ll post it on a following post.
here’s one:
https://hub.jhu.edu/2020/09/01/comorbidities-and-coronavirus-deaths-cdc/
Don’t read the comments.
Thanks for the link.
This is probably a more accurate number, and is standard practice for epidemiological studies. Given the policies in red states to downplay and under-report deaths like DeSantis did in FL (firing his statistician to boot) we aren’t going to get anything official that can be relied upon. That was before the CDC was pulled off for a private contractor (who then fell on their face) and now the Q-theory is that unless it’s only COVID it isn’t COVID.
I like how Mustang Bobby discussed this:
https://barkbarkwoofwoof.com/2020/09/the-harsh-reality/
Thanks. I think I recall seeing a percentage of additional deaths — something like an additional 25% of the COVID-19 deaths number in excess deaths.
Financial Times might have something as one of their contributors had been regularly tweeting about excess deaths for a while.
Excess mortality can be a good early warning of an incoming pandemic, but there are some ways to misread it. Most importantly, you have to ask excess to what? Mortality is heavily season dependant, and especially 2018 was a very bad flu season. EuroMoMo, the European excess-mortality monitoring programme, has good data for the last few years. Another issue for covid-19 is that some of the contries that did close down, actually saw a decrease in total mortality when the population was sheltering.
CDC site for excess deaths shows the seasonal variation as well as the upper bound for excess deaths, and the US has been above that upper bound since the week ending March 28. In the spring we were also above the peaks for the 2018 flu season (which also shows excess deaths). For the people who insist that many of these folks would have died anyway, I suppose there would be partial confirmation if the seasonal death rate dropped well below expected this winter.
I agree with what you say, the point I was trying to make was something along the lines of “just because there is no visible excess doesn’t mean there are no covid-19 deaths”.
Hey, don’t Blue Lives Matter at the WH (snark alert)? This was kind of interesting in comparison to what Faux News would have everyone believe which is that the cops are dying like flies under attack from BLM and ANTIFA.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/9/3/1974754/-COVID-19-caused-more-police-officer-deaths-in-2020-than-all-other-causes-combined-Combined
Playing football anyway will have consequences, and it is hard to play well when you can’t breathe or the heart goes out. All of those parents looking for their kid’s NFL payday needs to get a dose of reality, and reinforces why the Pac-12 and Mountain West shut down the fall season for everyone based on medical considerations. Maybe Kayleigh or DJT can tell us how many lives lost or ruined athletic careers are acceptable collateral damage, and the press needs to make them cough up a number (100, 200, 186 thousand?). How about their own kids first?
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/9/3/1974739/-A-third-of-college-athletes-with-COVID-19-ended-up-with-heart-damage-Trump-still-wants-them-to-play
Great quote about Pelosi and the Zapruder film. That it was a set-up and shiny object was made clear by how many minutes it took for the story to make it to Faux Noise. An MSM twtr comment I can’t find now suggested that even if the salon thing was fake, it was not a good look for the Democrats. JHC.
Posted today in Wall Street on Parade: “The Fed Provides an Unlimited Money Lifeline to Wall Street; 30 Million Americans Facing Eviction Get a No-Money 4-Month Plan.” Sheldon Wolin wrote an article for The Nation magazine titled “Inverted Totalitarianism, How the Bush Administration is effecting the transformation to a fascist state” dated May 19, 2003. It seems more revelant today than it did when he wrote it.
The Atlantic article is chilling — it quotes John Kelly describing Trump’s hamhanded comments at Arlington Cemetery at the graveside of Kelly’s son, who was killed in Afghanistan:
“Trump can’t imagine anyone else’s pain. That’s why he would say this to the father of a fallen marine on Memorial Day in the cemetery where he’s buried.”
OT but an example as to why DJT will still lose regardless of the cheating lined up to support him. Oh, and I can’t see a single Semper Fi Marine (there are ones I call “corporate” Marines he’ll still hold) voting for DJT after this on top of the Russian bounties (where DJT still hasn’t done anything). There’s a reason one of the big amphibs is named for the Belleau Wood battle. The Atlantic article covers the lowlights about DJT’s disrespect for “his” military.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-americans-who-died-at-war-are-losers-and-suckers/615997/
Yea, not a great look for the Commander-in-Chief to say, “If they were winners, they wouldn’t have died.” It’s like Trump is trapped in a loop, watching The Rock, at the moment where Sean Connery’s character tells Nicholas Cage’s that “doing your best” is for losers, “winners go home and fuck the prom queen.”
Imagine how much more disdain Trump would have for Medal of Honor winners. What each did to win their country’s highest award for valor in combat against an armed enemy varied. But one of their common attributes was a willingness to sacrifice themselves for others. Trump must regard them as highly as Enron’s salescritters regarded the California grandmothers they were impoverishing: fuck ’em.
He’s a draft dodger and the grandson of a draft dodger. There’s no tradition of service or sacrifice in that family.
(My mother’s father got three machine gun bullets in his leg, in France, and his cousin took six in his chest and shoulder. They both survived.)
My biological father took a 122 mm rocket in the Central Highlands while advising the Biet Dong Quan and came home in a box. My step father took grenade fragments and a .50 cal bullet in the knee in Korea but made it home.
Brave American winners have been giving of, and sacrificing themselves so that the rest of us can live in relative freedom. The sad truth is that ‘rest’ includes those who don’t deserve those gifts or sacrifice.
Thanks to your in-laws and all other vets and their families who have sacrificed for all of us.
I think of the grandfather of my niece-by-marriage, who died on Guadalcanal in 1943, in his second week as squadron leader – they were trained on P70 nightfighters, but those planes got sent elsewhere. He’s buried at Arlington – they brought him back after the war.
What I think of Trmp would melt the screen.
Yes Earl, but John Patrick Mason in The Rock never really shied from a fight. Also, Connery was great, as was Nic Cage. What a flick.
“Honey, uh…you want to know who really killed Kennedy?”
“… a willingness to sacrifice themselves for others.”
A characteristic that could be easily argued as the very foundation of Christianity as exemplified by Christ Himself in His life and His death.
So who’s side are these people on that they so loudly and self righteously claim to be good Christians ?
…”fuck ’em.”
Amen
Not holding my breath for the obvious Biden-Harris press release: “Trump calls Jesus Christ ‘loser’ and ‘sucker’ for getting caught, crucified by Romans.”
LOL
Thanks for creating and delivering the punch line.
Would be great to see this conclusion gain traction.
Of course the expletive …”fuck ’em.” … inserted for personal emotional release might have to be edited.
Yours is funnier, but here’s Biden’s initial response, in case it’s of interest to anyone:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eoq5yB4C5cY
DJT needs to watch the Youtube recording of CMOH winner TSGT John Chapman, USAF until he gets it.
There is a reason CMOH owners are saluted by flag officers.
I’m also reminded of the time DJT accepted a Purple Heart from a misguided soul, saying “I’ve always wanted one of these” like it was something to be owned and not earned.
“I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” – DJT
(“them” being casualties interred at Arlington National Cemetery)
He is indeed a sick person.
I should correct that comment. Trump is a psychopath. He doesn’t disdain those Marine veterans, or their valor, or the war in which they died a hundred years ago. He doesn’t think about them at all. They don’t exist, because they’re not him.
He is capable, however, of acting out and blaming others – including the dead – for the most heinous of crimes, in order to give himself the lazy pleasure of a few more minutes in bed, so that he can eat and tweet – because that is about him. That’s what’s president. At least for a few more months.
Trump sees dead Marines the same as he does dead migrants and asylum seekers.
The Atlantic article describes John Kelly’s dawning realization that Trump is dead inside, and he was right to be angry. I hope, though, that Kelly reevaluates his own time at DHS and asks himself if he also needed more compassion toward people outside of his walk of life.
I corrected my earlier comment because I fell into the same groove the MSM does. Trump is stunningly ignorant and incompetent. It makes him easy to laugh at and to underestimate, because we feel superior correcting him. But as a psychopath, Trump’s ignorance empowers his malevolence and destructiveness.
Trump is like the Russian spy in Ice Station Zebra. He nearly scuttles the American submarine by sabotaging a torpedo tube. He knew nothing about nuclear power or how to operate a submarine. He didn’t know how to launch a torpedo. But he knew exactly how to jury-rig a small circuit board and gum up the spout of a test cock, so that the crew would do the unthinkable: open both ends of a torpedo tube to the sea at the same time. That’s Trump. It’s all intentional, and it’s all bad.
Thanks for the sobering insight but it’s really hard not to make ‘sput’ when the jokes write themselves.
I agree. Trump does have areas in which he is highly effective. His behavior when asked at a press conference about all his lies being one example – completely unconcerned and passed on so smoothly to another journalist – it couldn’t have been done better. And he did enough to be the Republican nominee in the 2016 election.
I think that even with his current level of functioning he is still very capable of exploiting opportunites and, with the opportunities available to POTUS before him, remains a great danger to the republic.
Smerconnish pointed out this am that Trump’s second walk off song at his rally on Thursday was “Fortunate Son” by CCR.
“Some folks are born made to wave the flag
Ooh, they’re red, white and blue
And when the band plays “Hail To The Chief”
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord
It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no senator’s son, son
It ain’t me, it ain’t me; I ain’t no fortunate one, no
Some folks are born silver spoon in hand
Lord, don’t they help themselves, oh
But when the taxman comes to the door
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale, yes
It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no millionaire’s son, no, no
It ain’t me, it ain’t me; I ain’t no fortunate one, no
Yeah!
Some folks inherit star spangled eyes
Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord
And when you ask them, “How much should we give?”
Ooh, they only answer, “More! More! More!” Yo
It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no military son, son
It ain’t me, it ain’t me; I ain’t no fortunate one, one”
And what is your and Smerconish’s point?
Sorry, thought it was obvious and didn’t want to offend by spelling it out.
Trump is one of the “fortunate sons” that this song attacks and I found his team’s choice to blast this particular protest song at an important time during his event unsettling.
Any thoughts?
The human cholla was in an especially foul mood yesterday.
Type II diabetes? Or Irritable Male Syndrome?
After I calmed down on this topic last night, I realized that events unfolded in a way that might be too close for coincidence.
Yesterday afternoon I surfed to Lincoln Project to see what their latest take was, and there was this new video pointed at active service and veterans. In addition, they’ve got a bunch of signatories from vets and family members.
Am I seeing ghosts if I wonder if Goldberg previewed his article with the team at LP, and they did this as a coordinated effort?
https://lincolnproject.us/news/pow/
You may see that accusation by the right wing coming up but I don’t think Goldberg coordinated anything. That’s John Solomon level stuff. That would be a pretty serious problem for a journalist unless it was a case of picking up on an effort already in the works, in which case it ought to be covered in the reporting.
His sources may have said something without Goldberg knowing about it. Odds are this has been known for a long time in some circles based on how many sources there are and how quickly it has been verified.
An indication about how much of a nerve this touched was when I surfed over to LGM this morning and most of their stories had 40 or so comments and this one was already at 804. As noted above many of us have had relatives come home in a box (i.e. I was named for my uncle massacred at Malmedy) and have family who have served (my grandfather was in the Canadian Black Watch in WW1 and spent the rest of his life picking out metal that would work its way out to the skin of his leg when a shell set off the ammo he was carrying forward) so this kind of disdain for the “help” really cuts to the quick especially in these times when the military is respected. I don’t think this attitude about the cemeteries would play well even after Vietnam when the military was generally shunned.
It’s an old story, but IIRC DJT threatened to cut off Tiffany if she joined up, so this isn’t a one-off bit of senility, DJT really does think of the troops as riff-raff good for photo ops and nothing else.
I thought it was interesting that the Maples prenup conditions weren’t just that Tiffany didn’t join the military; they were “full-time job, enlisted in the military, or joined the Peace Corps.”
Ya know, losers.
A better example of coordination would be the Faux News poutrage about Pelosi’s salon visit, where SFGate reports that the stylist in question (through their lawyer) backs Pelosi’s version of events and IIRC also notes that the salon owner (who told the stylist to proceed, which makes it the owners fault) was looking to leave SF. Buh-bye.
The salon owner is getting donations from GOP-T minions. Because of course they’re the victim.
Lincoln is lightning fast in getting well produced material out, and my guess is this is just further evidence of that.
Concur, LP may be populated by mostly evil and not-fully-principled conservatives (let’s not forget Max Cleeland) but they are very good at this and very experienced at executing outrage politics. This is a piece of cake for them.
I have to wonder now whether Kaiser Quisling might have ever said anything like this to Putin or to any other Russian.
What if that’s the real reason that the translator’s notes were impounded as state secrets?
What if there are tapes?
Who is “Kaiser Quisling”? Seriously, what does that even mean?
Use Trump’s name. If you only intend to talk to yourself, that too cute shit might be understandable. But you make yourself, and us as a whole, look stupid. Is that your goal? If not stop this bizarre and idiotic bunk. Please.
That and KQ were originally my handles because they actually do fit DJT very well as a description, but I’ve switched to DJT. I even had to give up Caesar Disgustus which I saw over on Daily Kos yesterday.
Note to Mitch, bmaz is right about the name calling distracting from the message. We really don’t have to do anything, DJT is perfectly capable of immolating himself like we are seeing now on the cemetery outrage. As Napoleon said, never interfere with an enemy making a mistake.
Speaking of which, I have no doubt there are tapes than Putin is going to release when it is time to burn DJT as an agent. Let’s remember how many times we learned of meetings from the Russian press because the US press were kept out.
Message received.
One is moved to observe that the Trumpers among the 185,000 could be said to have committed suicide. Perhaps 80,000? Fifty-five years ago people took acid and thought they could fly. Turned out they were wrong; didn’t stop them.
Do you have a reference for the claim that someone took LSD and thought they could fly, with an untoward outcome? Real LSD, not some crappy imitation? Been hearing this claim since Nixon, never confirmed.
I’ve dropped well over 300 times, starting in 1964, and would have done more had time allowed. Reputable sourcing and responsible dosing, never had a bad trip nor did anyone I was with. Entirely pleasurable, uplifting, transcendent, no problem at all.
I’m with Bill Hicks:
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/494644-wouldn-t-you-like-to-see-a-positive-lsd-story-on
1970s TV host Art Linkletter’s daugher took acid and thought she could fly and died that way so that was probably where all that came from.
As I recall, Art Linklater recanted that story in his later years
Just checked Snopes. They say that the Linkletter (I misspelled the name in my other post) daughter’s LSD suicide flight story was untrue
Kids Say The Darnedest Things
Edit after post: Sorry, somehow I missed the earlier posts on this topic. My anger hasn’t been calmed. Links removed.
News reports are indicating that Trump refused to visit a WW1 battleground in France to commemorate the war dead in November of 2018 because ‘They were suckers and losers.’
Oh yeah, and the rain might mess up his hair.
Fuck him and the horse he rode in on.
I wouldn’t be cruel to the horse, which had enough cruelty carrying him.
But him: sideways, with a cholla segment.
Lol. We have a cholla patch in our front, You don’t want to be sideways with that.
Friends had a cholla named “Spike”. Definitely a junkyard-dog type cactus. (Their prickly-pear was “Mickey” – it had three pads when they got it.)
Yeah we have a prickly pear patch too, and a corner full of Joshua trees. I can report that cholla do not really jump, but it is real smart to give them wide berth. Any inadvertent contact will hurt you bad.
Cholla do jump. Once hiking around Cave Creek I brushed one – I was sure I was not close but the spines are so fine they are invisible. The little hairs stick out an inch and you don’t see them. One gets you then the whole plant falls into you. Next many hours spent at the emergency room getting the spines pulled out one by one. I was about 10 years old. Marked my life.
So, I recommend flailing Trump with a live Cholla. Yes.
Ooof, sorry to hear about that. They do not technically “jump” but that is almost deceptive in a way. ANY brush is quite enough. And, yes, I too have had those experiences. Not taken to hospital, but it was truly hell.
I once got too close to a miniature prickly pear and got hair spines in a hand. It was at a cactus/succulent nursery, sot hey took care of it. (Their recommendation for the teeny stuff is masking tape or rubber cement, which grabs them and can be pulled off without causing too much more damage.) All the opuntia clan are too vicious for my taste, though they can be handsome and the flowers, like all cactuses, are beautiful.
First, I love prickly pear lemonade. Second, I ordered some prickly pear (babies) with some other plants years ago *and they packed them all loose flopping in the same box*. Third, they had taped over the tops, around the plants, to keep the soil and plants from falling out.
Guess what happened when I tried to handle even the non-cacti and get that tape off? I had to do the ‘leave the duct tape on for 30 minutes’ thing.
Later, a friend (carefully) mailed me some large prickly pear pads but they never did take root, I think they got buried in snow when we had a surprise early storm… no prickly pear lemonade for me.
I shipped mine to Texas (and back), wrapped in newspaper and in a box just big enough to hold them. They survived both trips. I didn’t worry about bits of paper stuck on the spines, because biodegradable. (They had most of the dirt knocked off before shipping. Water well, let the soil dry out, and then pack and ship.)
Sounds like you should be in charge at that nursery I ordered from.
One thing I know about prickly pears is that they grow in ever-expanding clumps. Whacking them in spring is a good idea. (I saw some guys, spring before last, cutting young pads off a clump in the yard they were maintaining.) And they can produce a lot of fruit, too. (The seeds are crunchy, and the fruit is sweet.) Sometimes you can find fresh pads (“nopales”) and fruit (“tunas”) in stores.
Great comments, please count me as somebody who agrees with John Lennon in that it’s not so much a mind “altering” drug as a mind “opening” one.
My naive ass honestly (swear) thought Dubya (aka Baby Bush the Lesser) would be the intellectual basement for US Presidents in my lifetime. The first time I heard a DJT joke was in 1989 when visiting NYC as a 20 yr old.
I pray our fading republic survives this mess and learns some valuable lessons.
I wonder if the day will ever come when Trump’s base supporters realize that he considers them to be a bunch of suckers and losers, too. After all, they’ve voted for him and defended him, but what material gain have they ever really got out of his administration? I like to think of Trump getting his comeuppance in front of his public one day, something like what happens to the Lonesome Rhodes character played by Andy Griffith in the 1957 film “A Face in the Crowd”.
Or if Il Duce had taken several days to expire. And being video blogged around the world. Along with his beloved daughter, and the trunts.
We should ask the salon owner to take responsibility for preparing the hair of the corpses from Covid-19 that can have proper funerals. She should do the preparations herself.
I wonder if somebody gave this cartoonist a job after he was fired.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/30/media/canadian-cartoon-trump/index.html
I’d like him to do one of Trump using Herman Cain’s body as a surfboard–I guess that means I’m a bad person.
He is definitely back at work. Very talented cartoonist. Most are posted on his Twitter account ‘deAdder’. He had a nice tribute to John Lewis and still publishes very poignant pieces.
He is doing work for the Lincoln Project and newspapers as well
https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1301887106118115328?s=20
Thanks for this information about the cartoonist, who is indeed both brilliant and funny. The Trump golfing cartoon kept showing up in places like the welcome screen list of internet “hot topics” for my ISP, along with the caption, “the cartoon that went too far”. I could never figure that out. I thought the cartoon was right on
The herd immunity arguments are a lesson in gaslighting to be thrown in the Florida is peaking in April round file. Get called out, walk it back, come out with slightly modified garbage, and then repeat. A lot of people are unexposed even in NYC. The most infected zip codes are testing only 51 percent infected.
Refer to this post in the future because side effects are the bigger problem and the GOP will be moving goal posts saying there are fewer deaths this week.
I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around the disconnect between letting everyone get infected in a reach for herd immunity, while concurrently fast tracking a vaccine to be ready this November.
The vaccine is a MacGuffin. It will not be ready by November. If anything arrives, It won’t be properly tested, have a known efficacy rating, or have known limited side effects. To queer the pitch further, there are stories about a possible wonder cure, it’s just that it needs to be stored at sub-zero temperatures. That throws blame on states and away from Trump. That’s because there is no existing infrastructure in most clinics, pharmacies, doctors’ offices, and general hospitals to handle it.
Consider also the Ukraine story. Trump didn’t care about a real investigation. He just wanted an announcement about one to come out when he needed it. Standard character assassination. It’s novel only in that it doesn’t use allegations about drugs, fraud, or underage sex. The claim hits the front page; the correction is usually buried on page twelve.
Think of this as Trump throwing spaghetti at the wall. Something might stick. If it does, Trump will claim he identified that strand before he threw it.
In light of the growing National political chaos and moral vacuum that reaction to COVID has created in the US medical institutions, it’s comforting the International medical institutions are moving right along with clear guidelines and goals.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/09/1071662
Dan Rather on Twitter: 11:59 AM · Sep 3, 2020
https://twitter.com/DanRather/status/1301550489394388992
A reminder: It’s illegal to vote twice. But not to impeach twice.
You’re advocating running a 24-hour Le Mans in 4 hours. Besides, neither the Republican Senate’s adamant stance that Trump can do no wrong, nor the Democratic establishment’s resistance to open accountability have changed. Since we’re less than two months from the election, and given the president’s full-court press to suppress, not count, or miscount the vote, I’ll put my efforts elsewhere.
Sure, it’s highly unlikely to happen. But, theoretically, there is something satisfying in thinking it could be done between January 3 and January 20, 2021, when the new Congress takes office. We know it won’t happen. But still, we dream of a dramatic transition from dark to light.
Not if Pelosi, Hoyer and Jeffries are still the top leadership. If that is the case, as is extremely likely, absolutely nothing will occur.
Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman have their take on the Trump “veterans are suckers” story, and it is an embarassing self-own, although it’s questionable whether they realize it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/04/us/politics/trump-veterans-losers.html
The most astounding thing is that they were unable — or unwilling — to confirm it. That speaks volumes about how bad their sources and reporting are.
The Washington Post was able to confirm it with sources with direct knowledge within hours. It is something that sources are clearly eager to reveal. And yet the top two White House reporters for the Times are left scrounging for denials from Trump and Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
It’s not clear whether the failure by the Times is due to its top reporters being out of the loop by cultivating the wrong sources, or because sources don’t trust them after years of writing lopsided stories.
But I am sure Baker is patting himself on the back for this, as is DC politics editor Patrick Healy. By definition in their minds, if it’s a Times story, it must be a Times story.
I should add that the AP has confirmed it too — the Times is left in the dust by The Atlantic, Washington Post and AP and *this* is best Peter Baker, Maggie Haberman and Patrick Healy can come up with.
Yes BobCon, I think that about sums it up.
I just saw MW’s thread from a few hours earlier which digs into more details. Great read:
https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1301850876563329026
Thank you, BobCon, for linking to EW’s marvelous deconstruction of that NYT piece. The arc of my day got sent downward upon reading the Baker/Haberman “now you don’t see it” attempt to vanquish what had felt last night like it might leave a mark on DJT. In short, I felt hope-shorn again. Not anymore! Masterfully deployed explication of the text will get us . . . well, at least a step closer to that “light” Joe Biden was talking about.
SHS is looking for relevance since she is not pretty enough for Faux and not honest enough for anyone else. There’s a story floating about her and KJU that exemplifies how much of a “frat boy” DJT is (the word is Ewwwwwww). In the interest of good taste I won’t link to it, but I will note that SHS hasn’t done much over at Faux either in terms of air time.
As for the NYT, it’s not really a surprise that Haberman, et al would try to downplay the story because that is what DJT wants and therefore that is what Dean wants. The question I would ask is what leverage is DJT or the Russians exerting on the NYT to consistently cover for DJT? It can’t be Hillary-hating any more after 2016 (and the NYT was famous for that) so what is the hook?
There is no leverage over the Times. They are doing this of their own free will.
Exactly. This is what Baquet and the NYT’s owners want. If it weren’t, Baquet would be history and so would the perspective and flaws of this kind of reporting.
It’s not a secret that Trump craves few things more than the adulation, or at least respect, of the Times. Like those old-money patricians who refused to admit him to their social circles, the Times represents the ultimate ascension to America’s true elite, the club you can’t buy entrance into. He has little but contempt for the voters who made him president, but seems baffled that the office itself hasn’t sufficed to garner him the acknowledgment of his triumph. He and Baquet are dancing an ironic jitterbug of unearned and unnecessary mutual deference.
It should not be surprising, but in his many insults to his own armed forces, Donald Trump is flabbergasted at their centuries’ long aspiration to “leave no one behind.” Trump was just as gobsmacked that governments would spend a bent dime trying to recover the bodies of fallen service members, whether they were killed by the French, Apaches, Germans, Japanese, Koreans, of Vietnamese. Why bother?
In reality, it’s half the equation: you serve, we protect you. The more cynical might say it’s to protect secrets – an idea expressed in Wind Talkers. I believe them. But it’s part of the deal, part of what gets rational people to walk into harm’s way or jump out of a perfectly good airplane. Because what goes around comes around.
But Donald Trump wouldn’t know anything about that. He’s proven that he would sell his brother, mother, or father to the Devil for a little more money, fame, or longevity.
EW hit the right notes in the twitter feed about the (ahem) gaps in DJT’s obligations, which I am sure Chuck Todd will do as well since he looks at the political angles only (read the end of King Lear, who’s in and who’s out) but the military has noticed. Tom Nichols in a response recalled the CIA wall of stars insult within days after being sworn in so this is not new.
I posted a link in an earlier thread to the Military Times poll showing the active duty troops don’t like DJT any more (down 4%) after going for him almost 2:1 in 2016. The families really will not like this, and VoteVets already has their ad up pointing that out.
Has anyone asked TX Congressman Crenshaw for comment?
Hmmm…. Still haven’t heard from Crenshaw or Tom Cotton for that matter, or Joni Ernst, or…
How many chickenhawks does it take to fill the Republican Party?
These three are veterans, that’s why I named them. Crenshaw was the one Pete Davidson of SNL had to apologize for making a joke about Crenshaw’s lost eye.
Chickenhawks are a whole separate group within the GOP and are plentiful.
I have a son in the Marines who went to Bella Wood a few years ago. He participated in ceremonies for the 100th anniversary of that battle. Soldiers and dignitaries from several countries attend.
It is a huge point of pride for the Marines. French people who live in the region remain grateful to them to this day.
Given that, it’s hard to overstate how repulsive Trump’s comments are. It’s hard to believe any adult could be that vain, self-centered and mean spirited. The fact that it’s our President – well, I don’t even have words for it.
My grandmother was a Gold Star mother. She lost 2 sons in WWII. One was 19 and the other, a pilot who earned a Purple Heart, was 28. Their brother(my father) was a Major in the Army. He had severe PTSD after the war ended, which adversely impacted his life and the lives of his family members. He drank himself to death by the age of 54.
I will never understand how 2 of my own brothers became enthralled with Trump, the Neo-Nazi worshipper. It makes me sick to even think about it. At least the son of one brother has pretty much disowned him. He even officially changed his last name. So, there is still hope for the future.
This needs more attention, because this is the guy being charged with killing a RW protester in Portland last week. He claimed self defense.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/09/why-was-michael-reinoehl-killed
https://twitter.com/kathrynw5/status/1301933471045050369
1:21 PM · Sep 4, 2020
Not the most credible voice.
Also TRUMP/ESPER, today:
https://twitter.com/DefenseBaron/status/1301874647940636672
9:27 AM · Sep 4, 2020
This is from 9/2/20
Bipartisan group of senators urges Esper to keep funding Stars and Stripes
https://www.stripes.com/news/us/bipartisan-group-of-senators-urges-esper-to-keep-funding-stars-and-stripes-1.643650
September 2, 2020
And this is from 8/31/20
[I think Rugger9 mentions this polling above]
New Poll: Trump’s Popularity Among the Military Is Eroding
https://www.motherjones.com/2020-elections/2020/08/donald-trump-poll-military/
8/31/20
The polling is from the Military Times which runs polls in connection with Syracuse University. Keep in mind this was before the Thursday blowup. LGM’s story has 908 comments now.
The battle provided a few quotes, but none more famous than this one as the French were falling back and telling the USMC to join them:
“Retreat? Hell, we just got here”
Whether it was Captain Williams or Major Wise who said it has been debated (with most crediting Williams) but it really doesn’t matter, because that was and still is the Marine id.
The rest of the DefenseBaron thread is very informative:
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1301980887442239489
4:30 PM · Sep 4, 2020·
3rd screenshot:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1301968873487564802
3:42 PM · Sep 4, 2020
LOL!
Esper’s a worm. Trump must think few in the military will vote for him, or he would not go to such petty lengths to piss off officers, enlisted personnel, and veterans. That supports the idea that Trump plans to cheat his way to “victory.” Fighting your own base normally costs votes. But I hope he carries on in that vein, because I don’t think he’s any more competent at cheating than he is at anything else.
I concur on that sentiment, but for me it will be interesting to see whether any of the JCS will join in a DJT demand to impose martial law. Remember that illegal orders can be refused, and our oaths are to the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic.
However, we still have ICE and CBP under “Acting DHS Secretary” Chad Wolf who is well past his expiration date even if he was appointed properly (and he wasn’t). I was pleased to see a lawsuit reported today regarding DACA that specifically went after the illegal order arising from an illegally appointed official.
Law and Order, my tuchus.
Senator Tammy Duckworth:
https://twitter.com/SenDuckworth/status/1301866909139382273
8:57 AM · Sep 4, 2020
Here are Trump’s tweets about how he treated John McCain:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1301710816979357697
10:36 PM · Sep 3, 2020
Regarding lowering the flags:
Trump Relents Under Pressure, Offering ‘Respect’ to McCain
https://nytimes.com/2018/08/27/us/politics/flag-half-staff-mccain-trump.html
Aug. 27, 2018
Also, this, from Trump’s own former DHS chief of staff, Miles Taylor:
https://twitter.com/MilesTaylorUSA/status/1301838420466114560
7:04 AM · Sep 4, 2020
I remember the fuss at the time, and i refuse to let him re-write history to make it not have happened.
Fck him.
With regard to: I never called John a loser
Wendy Siegelman has a screenshot of the July 18, 2015 Trump retweet [LOL!] of an article by something called FitsNews titled:
Donald Trump: John McCain is “A Loser”.
ALSO “NOT A WAR HERO”.
https://twitter.com/WendySiegelman/status/1301715098952773632
Also during his 1999 run for the WH [via Ryan Goodman]:
https://twitter.com/JakeSherman/status/1026639098822488064
9:20 PM · Aug 6, 2018
Transcript:
TODAY [or late last night], WaPo writes about this 1999 interview:
https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1302932187017285632
7:30 AM · Sep 7, 2020
…and Jeffrey Goldberg writes:
https://twitter.com/JeffreyGoldberg/status/1302789757789974528
10:04 PM · Sep 6, 2020
Ryan Goodman tweeted that on 9/4!
And here he is on January 14, 2000 on The Today Show:
https://twitter.com/chrisdonovan/status/1026686653589540864 12:29 AM · Aug 7, 2018
Donald Trump is an EXCEEDINGLY SMALL man.
TRUMP HAS NO REGRETS
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1302004389012480000
6:03 PM · Sep 4, 2020
About 20 minutes after those tweets, Trump spoke to reporters:
https://twitter.com/kaitlancollins/status/1301715476259713037
10:55 PM · Sep 3, 2020
Aaron Rupar has VIDEO of that last bit here:
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1301717723442032641
11:04 PM · Sep 3, 2020
Transcript:
About the visit to the cemetery:
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1301713085237989377
10:45 PM · Sep 3, 2020
There’s a photo of them here:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/white-house-decision-cancel-veteran-s-cemetery-france-visit-creates-n934796
[Caption]:
Now Fox News is in the picture.
Trump Reportedly Referred To American War Dead As ‘Losers’ And ‘Suckers’
The president’s controversial remarks from 2018 were confirmed by multiple outlets, including Fox News.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-american-war-dead-losers-suckers_n_5f517e63c5b62b3add3e1e45
Trump cannot make this go away with a spin, denial or by hiding it under his hair. Trump and the gang are tap dancing.
Yes, thanks, Jenny. Here’s FOX News Jen Griffin:
https://twitter.com/JenGriffinFNC/status/1301975321495973889 4:08 PM · Sep 4, 2020
Here’s Griffin being interviewed on FOX: https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1301993506840350720
5:20 PM · Sep 4, 2020 [VIDEO]
She says almost exactly what’s in the tweet thread.
That’s the attitude Trump brings to every aspect of being president, ceremonial and substantive. It’s probably the attitude he brought to every previous job. You mean work goes with the title? Fuck that, where’s my cheeseburger?
Daniel Dale with the information:
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1301723096232144897
11:25 PM · Sep 3, 2020
I’ll be watching the Trump popularity figures at fivethirtyeight.
If Trump can stay above 40% approval after dissing the fallen then we’ll be seeing his base support him in disrespecting their own family members. This possibility worries me – demanding respect from the President and self-respect go hand-in-hand. And people lacking in self-respect can more easily do terrible and destructive things.
I would very much like to see a large fall in his popularity over the next fortnight.
Yesterday’s reporting on Trump/military service reminded some people of Trump’s reactions to health care workers coming home from aiding in Africa during the Ebola crisis:
1] https://twitter.com/themstems/status/1301730503087853569
11:55 PM · Sep 3, 2020
She links to Trump, 2014:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/495379061972410369
9:22 PM · Aug 1, 2014
This is Craig Spencer, the doctor who contracted Ebola while aiding in Africa, and whom Trump attacked on twitter:
2] https://twitter.com/Craig_A_Spencer/status/1301732065466081285
12:01 AM · Sep 4, 2020
He links to Trump, 2014: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/525635174877630464
9:09 AM · Oct 24, 2014
I am a former Marine. My uncle was a Marine who fought on Iwo Jima. The motto is semper fidelis. It is not something Trump is capable of understanding. Most have missed the real story – Trump’s ability to corrupt and cower even the military. Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, has not resigned. Milley’s father was a Marine that fought at Iwo JIma. Trump essentially pissed on Milley’s father and his father’s grave. What type of man is a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs that knowingly parades with the President against the civilian population in battle camouflage? More importantly what kind of man lets anyone piss on their father’s memory and his grave? The answer is a thoroughly corrupted one. I could write more about the West Point weasels Esper, Pompeo, Bullatao, and Brechtbuhl for pissing on their honor code but it is just the Trump mafia in action. They are Trump’s Lucca Brasi.
I thought there was no such thing as a “former” Marine. :-) Agree wholeheartedly. Continuing to serve Donald Trump is not preventing harm, it is not preserving something or steering him toward a better course. It is enabling his malevolence.
The saying is no such thing as ex-Marines or ex-Catholics, only former Marines and former Catholics :) But you are correct. Once a Marine, always a Marine. I had a very difficult night trying to get to sleep. I honestly don’t understand why all of the SecDef, service secretaries, and Joint Chiefs have not resigned. They want their troops and sailors to think they aren’t going to stand up to the President on their behalf? Maybe Lord Acton is right. Power corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
No kidding about the Marines, it is something they take a lot of pride in and also has kept them together when the ordure hits the rotating air mover (i.e. the retreat from Chosin among many others) and rise above their adversaries. As a former USN officer we also know MARINE is an acronym but we like them anyhow for the job they do. There were the “corporate Marines” who for some reason were more toady-ish (I really don’t know how they made it through Bulldog) but not many of those. The rest take Semper Fi and Ooh Rah seriously and will not like this at all on top of the bounties (which DJT still won’t denounce). Belleau Wood was one of the key battles that built the USMC psyche, and the number of dead were more than all other actions combined to that point, which is saying something. One of the big amphibs (LHA-3) is named for that sacrifice.
The confirmation by Faux of all networks is not going to go well, but it appears Gutfeld and Watters on The Five did their darndest to squeak “fake news”. Let’s see what Hannity and Ingraham have on their shows.
I also understand the subject is banned on Free Republic, so whatever will Tommy T have to talk about on Monday over at First Draft?
I was close with a few Vietnam era SEALs and a Marine MP. The Marine was from Kansas City and was “lucky” to serve in Tokyo, paired with TPD foot patrol, dealing with other Marines on R&R. Used to say the job was easy: everyone he arrested was drunk and trained to kill. No problemo. He went into local politics, said it was harder work. None of them would have had kind words for private Bonespurs.
With Fox confirming, I’m curious if we see a replay of sorts of the 2016 playbook, where the release Access Hollywood recording was followed up with the frantic outreach to get the Wikileaks dump.
If Trump has any kind of dirty tricks in store, does this trigger it?
I’ve been wondering the same thing…What will it be and what will the effect be?
It’s always possible they don’t have anything close to Wikileaks. It’s known the Russians have been pushing the line that Biden is mentally unfit, which is weak stuff compared to what they did in 2016, and may end hurting Trump.
The Podesta release in response to Access Hollywood was in October, so it’s possible they are keeping their powder dry too. I’m sort of surprised they would have that kind of discipline, if that’s the case. Maybe someone is keeping Trump in the dark to keep him from blowing things. We’ll see.
It seems that not everyone got the memo about the official story on the attempted arrest near Seattle of the alleged Portland shooter, Michael Forest Reinoehl. The four arresting officers were not members of the US Marshals Service; they were two local sheriff’s deputies, a local police officer, and a state prison guard, who had been locally deputized. “FB video shows overarmed dudes strutting around bullet-casing-strewn scene for at least two minutes before they start ‘CPR.'” Reinoehl was suspected of killing a member of the far-right Patriot Prayer group. Naturally, since his troops were involved, Bill Barr had something to say:
Barr doesn’t even bother to identify Reinoehl as an “alleged” violent agitator. His snark about the US not being governed by “violent mobs” is palpable. And once upon a time, it used to require more than “producing” a firearm to justify using deadly force.
https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/y3zjnb/police-dont-have-their-story-straight-about-the-killing-of-michael-reinoehl
https://twitter.com/froomkin/status/1301995805897887747
I tried posting about this earlier but was blocked for some reason.
However, there does seem to be a pattern here where inconvenient witnesses are unable to testify and in this case the suspect was claiming self defense which is plausible given what we know already of actions by the Proud Boys and their allies in Portland. This guy deserved a trial, but the police said he shot at them so let’s see the body cam video and see if he did. I’m not taking AG Barr’s gracious word on anything.
Rugger, nobody blocked you in the least. There were two that ended up in moderation, I freed both up. We have been having to filter a lot lately. There is no easy way to describe the full extent of it all.
I am sorry to one and all. But, by the same token, want to get back to the principle that we wish to have comments as opposed to not. Sometimes there are tradeoffs.
WFT is an 83-year old former college football coach getting the Presidential Medal of Freedom?
I somehow knew you weren’t joking, but … here’s video:
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1302000165658730498
5:46 PM · Sep 4, 2020
He’s famous, a football coach, and against Biden. That’s all that’s needed.
I couldn’t remember where I recently heard Holtz’s name, but Kyle Griffin reminded me: He called Biden a “Catholic in name only” at the RNC:
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1302026164551155712
7:30 PM · Sep 4, 2020
Biden is a better Catholic than Holtz, IMO.
That he would insult Biden’s faith in exchange for a pat behind the ear from Donald Trump proves your point. Same goes for Providence, R.I., bishop Thomas Tobin, who would seem to prefer a congregation of Mel Gibsons to a real one.
Tobin misreads the laity all the time. Same for a lot of the other bishops and archbishops, who were chosen to back conservative views. Biden is closer to the norm.
Stroke of Genius
He confers with Putin or his priestess,
They say it’s best to deceive us,
So that’s the way that he treats us,
He does all he can to aggrieve us.
Trump insists that no now means yes,
and knows just how to be egregious,
He relishes his own uniqueness,
honoring most what is specious.
Second nature is his meanness,
and the way he always cheats us,
At Walter Reed the intravenous
shored him up so he still bleeds us.
He calls it his own stroke of genius,
And laughs at how he misleads us,
He pouts and puffs, between huffs,
Now it’s him that misreads us.
M-I-A, that’s our thesis:
He’s gone now (but between us,
we’re not trying to be facetious,
we just know he’s never seen us.)
Captain Sully thread: https://twitter.com/Captsully/status/1301998157404962823
—
What a past 24h+. I am back to square one, the first problem: how do you tell your uncle (Marine, Vietnam) all of this, that the president basically said you (too) are a loser? How do you have that conversation, when, if a standard low-life bully had said such things, you’d file it away, keep your eyes out, and not necessarily speak it — so as not to hurt your loved-one — but instead it’s a POTUS (_real_ hard time typing that title here) up for reelection? The details need to be spoken in this case. I feel heartsick.
The network news was shying away from specifics and mostly rehashing the John McCain stuff — which is another way of covering Trump’s ass by a few miles, and in a few directions: ‘just political rivals’, making it appear to be a more limited and differently-motivated ‘event’ as opposed to a deep and broadly-dangerous suite of character flaws; lays atop the anti-McCain propaganda machine already in existence; etc..
Anyway … I am borne of and kin with many vets, so Fran, Rugger, others above and lurking… nod.
I did like that most all of the dinnertime trending topics were shows of human force against Trump’s soullessness (“My Dad” “Vietnam” “Korean War” “Battle of the Bulge” … on and on and on). Great tributes, photos, and pointed words.
As if I needed any reminder, given current events, of what my grandfather was doing 75 years ago this past spring, some photos from the US Army Center of Military History came up. The Signal Corps documented the end-point atrocities the best they could, to be supplemented by oral and other histories. I am never not awe-struck just glimpsing the magnitude of what they fought, lived, and died through.
(Fascist) authoritarians given go-ahead momentum are harder to stop.
And so I’m also reminded of what my spouse was doing zero years ago this past spring, going to work at a place meant to heal and save lives with a refrigerator truck tucked out back.
Genocide (broad sense) by transnational crime syndicate, I think, arrives a little differently: there’s not really a need to build-out (or capture) much infrastructure when your partners own it, or you can exploit and/or destroy that which is extant, at will. Call it one of the many fluxy shape-shifts of ‘war’ afforded by internet era late-stage capitalism — influence, supply chains, and all.
By putting it that way, I don’t intend to elide the Miller-and-money-driven recapitulation of internment camps for people seeking asylum, and other of Miller’s — their — kinks (recalling he’d shared an idea to use trains, in an intentionally Nazi-evocative manner, to ship migrants around, per those emails SPLC obtained). Gags aside, that’s the Trump admin’s only “infrastructure week” legacy.
And yet, they won’t DPA PPE or other COVID-crucial materials. Fluxy shape-shift…
My father’s youngest brother was a pharmacist’s mate on a ship in the South Pacific in WW2. After the war, he became an MD, and later an anesthesiologist. He’d have an opinion about Trmp. Next older brother was on a tender, also Navy, and made it to Japan. He worked for General Dynamics when he retired. My father was active-duty naval reserve, at the aircraft development center in PA, and was a development engineer mostly for defense stuff.
(They didn’t hassle Marines.) Trmp can get f*cked sideways.
That one’s in the news periodically (along with a former base) for PFOS contamination in the groundwater. There’s businesses and housing on it now. We drove by it once after it had closed, I just remember a LOT of asphalt.
Trump has no clue. The way he would just repeatedly ask the same (what would you even call it, rude?) questions of everyone (~”Why would they do it?”) reminds me most of a narcissist I knew. Always with the questions that aren’t questions and aren’t socially appropriate.
He should be tasked with producing the domestic supply of prickly pear lemonade.
From what I can find online, it started out as an aircraft factory (Brewster), then got taken over for the air modification people. Not sure what exactly my father did, but I have his (motheaten, because wool ribbing cuffs) flight jacket. With a pencil in the inside pocket still. (That’s my father. Mom had to check his pockets every time she did laundry.)
Trump is such a narcissist that he cannot keep himself from drawing attention to The Atlantic’s reporting and confirmation from reporters at other outlets. He’s now calling for Jen Griffin of Fox News to be fired for confirming the story in The Atlantic:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1302083885384249344
Projection on the Trump Hotel in DC last night:
“Trump disrespected our troops. Our troops deserve better than Trump.”
Paid for by the DNC and approved by Biden. Images here:
https://twitter.com/mcbyrne/status/1302041035783237632
I wonder, if during the last presidential election some people were ashamed to tell pollsters that they were going to vote for Trump then will there be people in this election afraid to tell people they will not vote for Trump? I’m thinking some people would be afraid to admit out loud to anyone they will vote for Biden because Trump-ism seems to be a lifestyle choice, a whole life and body commitment, and their parents, spouse, children, friends and/or coworkers would disown them or at least give them constant grief.
About Trump and losers, I’d like to imagine a debate between Cadet Bonespurs and Abe Lincoln. Gettysburg would be a good venue. But something else might really happen there.
About the reluctance of top military leaders to criticize their commander-in-chief’s losers comments, I value the tradition of deference to civilian leadership. But does it not require some level of reciprocity? At some point, does leadership not demand an articulate response in opposition to such a gross refusal to lead and the crude dismissal of those who gave their last full measure of devotion? Perhaps, in imitation of the celebrity readings of Howard Zinn’s work, a group of retired admirals and generals could jointly read the Gettysburg Address at Gettysburg.
John Kelly thinks that would be a bad idea. Too political. Possibly, but it seems equally likely that he’s trying to keep his private parts out of a wringer he helped put in motion.
Remind me what is the legislative authority for Donald Trump to stop collecting FICA. He is apparently forcing the Pentagon to stop withholding it, which will mean double withholding for several months in 2021. That will cause a significant drop in income for anyone below the rank of E-5, which is about half the total enlisted service. Many lower ranks are already on public assistance in some months, because their pay won’t get them to the end of the month. https://twitter.com/RepDonBeyer/status/1302018729144967169
If Trump is re-elected, though, no worries, because he will make the non-payment permanent as part of abolishing Social Security altogether. It’s for losers.
This should not have been news to Strzok, but that it is expensive, time consuming, and a major pain-in-the-ass to audit a guy with 500 or more LLCs is a reason a guy like Trump has 500 or more LLCs.
https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1302231439719702529
Thanks, I’m interested in checking that out since reading his interview with Anne Applebaum : https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/anne-applebaum-interviews-peter-strzok/616003/ (with a quick-scan comparison, it seems Applebaum’s format lent to a few more nuggets, however significant).
Christian Wolff, Ben Affleck’s character in The Accountant, could audit Trump’s companies overnight. Just give him a lot of sharpies and some windows. There are quite a few like Wolff out there. Strzok just has to look for them.
A guy like Trump would more likely interest Wolff for other reasons.
The Accountant was very much a surprisingly good movie I thought.
Rain Man meets Robin Hood and Erik Prince. It was an odd but satisfying mix of plot and subplot, action and emotion. I also like dogs playing poker.
Sorry for being glib and an apologist for Strzok. The IRS would have a permanently assigned team for the Trump organization so they don’t have to re-invent the audit wheel every year with new people on a learning curve. That team would have to know what the Trump organization interrelationships are among the 500 odd companies in order to properly do its job. I don’t know the exclusion and confining factors for the justice department and the IRS sharing information but that is where I would start. The IRS would have to have all the information for the intercompany transactions. I imagine in great part that is why Trump is fighting so hard not to release returns. It’s all accounting with supporting bank and company verifying information in the end. Unless Trump pulled an Enron with night parties creating false documents.
I assume investigators and prosecutors would approach it with and like forensic auditors. Intercompany transactions and massive abuses of transfer pricing rules will be the keystones. That and the DB loans – and any formal or informal guarantees for them. If nobody has done it, it really needs to happen, because almost certainly it’s where X marks the spot.
I’m expecting that there were at least three sets of books – one for the lenders, one for the tax people, and an honest set somewhere in a locked container.
Wonder what’s going on here? From CBSAustin.com
Multiple 911 calls have been made regarding boats being in distress, some sinking at the ‘Trump Boat Parade’ scheduled for Saturday afternoon on Lake Travis, according to the Travis County Sheriff’s Office.
TCSO confirmed with CBS Austin that multiple boats have been sinking and are in distress.
The sheriff’s office says calls have been made about boats along the entire route of the parade, some of the locations include: Paradise Cove, Emerald Point and West Beach.
At this time, there is not a confirmed amount of boats that are experiencing issues on the lake.
“Parade” at high speed creating large waves and swamping uninvolved boats at the sides. No one missing, AFAIK. One or two of the offenders:
https://twitter.com/bobphoto/status/1302329264533114880
One of the ways the Royal Navy planned to thwart any attempted German invasion of the British Isles in 1940 was to send their destroyer flotillas in among the enemy’s invasion barges, swamping and capsizing them with their bow waves. Modern authorities have assessed that it would have been a very effective tactic. See “When Britain Saved the West: The Story of 1940” by Robin Prior.
This one’s for Rayne: “Trump Orders Purge of ‘Critical Race Theory’ From Federal Agencies.” https://twitter.com/yourauntemma/status/1302260160681959425
Donald Trump and, presumably, Stephen Miller are purging more than a critical theory and an analytical framework. They are assaulting those who hold and advocate it, along with those who hold similar views, and those who advocate for progressive change generally.
Critical reassessment is necessary to get us to a fairer place. Without it, the best we could hope for would be the status quo. Trump will take that, too, and every other place where we might find firm footing, as he pulls us into his personal abyss.
1] White House directs federal agencies to cancel race-related training sessions it calls ‘un-American propaganda’
Administration seeks list of contracts for those that refer to ‘white privilege,’ according to memo
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/04/white-house-racial-sensitivity-training/
September 5, 2020 at 10:52 a.m. EDT
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1302240920084111360
9:43 AM · Sep 5, 2020
1a] [The next shot in the battle]
Trump says Department of Education will investigate use of 1619 Project in schools
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/06/politics/trump-education-department-1619-project/index.html
Kevin Liptak, CNN
10:01 AM ET, Sun September 6, 2020 (CNN)
…hmmmmm…what message might that be?
Tom Cotton wants to be the second president of the Confederate States of America.
Maybe he just wants the complimentary statue that goes with the job.
But not a peep from Senator Cotton so far about DJT disrespect for the dead, wounded and other vets. He would have known several of those “losers” personally from Iraq.
Hmm…..
2] https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1301709455743242240
10:31 PM · Sep 3, 2020
Links to:
https://twitter.com/AndrewMCrespo/status/1301587452101111813
2:26 PM · Sep 3, 2020
Links to:
D.C. crackdown on gun crime targeted Black wards, was not enforced citywide as announced
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/dc-crackdown-on-gun-crime-targeted-black-wards-was-not-enforced-citywide-as-announced/2020/09/03/f6de0ce2-e933-11ea-970a-64c73a1c2392_story.html
September 3, 2020 at 8:18 p.m.
More from the Crespo thread:
3] DHS draft document: White supremacists are greatest terror threat
The [3] documents are slightly different drafts of the same annual threat assessment, which is not yet published.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/04/white-supremacists-terror-threat-dhs-409236
09/04/2020 05:45 PM
Benjamin Wittes, who supplied Politico with these documents, has several twitter threads about these memos. The following is toward the end of his comments:
https://twitter.com/benjaminwittes/status/1302018584147787776
6:59 PM · Sep 4, 2020
Thank you, EoH, for bringing this up. I hope you don’t mind that I added some other related thoughts…
his personal abyss, indeed!
Not at all. It’s why we’re here, why the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts.
It sounds like Barr might be waging war against part of the DHS, too, getting a head start on criticizing it’s finding before Trump expressed his rage. It’s what a good consigliere would do.
It really is why we are here!
:-)
FOX News’ Jennifer Griffin today: [!]
https://twitter.com/jeremymbarr/status/1302337567216590849
4:07 PM · Sep 5, 2020
Sometimes sources refused to be named for their safety and that of their family and friends. In this case, I can understand it – look at the Vindmans, who are honest and honorable.
Story with experts’ predictions for the virus in the rest of the year:
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Experts-project-autumn-surge-in-coronavirus-15545259.php
They think it’s going to get worse, especially with holidays that are traditional social occasions. 400K dead by New Year’s.
(I got a “Giant Meteor 2020: Just End It Already” sticker for my car. I am so ready for that.)
Eureka posted a link to Captain Sully Sullenberger‘s response to the Goldberg article in The Atlantic above, but I’d like to post it again. Read the whole thing, but here is part of it:
https://twitter.com/Captsully/status/1301998157404962823
5:38 PM · Sep 4, 2020
Yevgeny Vindman:
https://twitter.com/YVindman/status/1302004736636448770
6:04 PM · Sep 4, 2020
Pompeo and the State Department are afraid of the International Criminal Court, and have been attacking some of it’s members [the ones who are NOT white males!].
Pompeo’s State Department is a national DISGRACE! in very large and very small ways
1] In a “very large way”: here’s a State Department tweet [video]:
https://twitter.com/StateDept/status/1302408992464023552
8:51 PM · Sep 5, 2020
2] In a “very small way” [the following is via Kate Brannen]:
https://twitter.com/GEsfandiari/status/1302543148535762945
5:44 AM · Sep 6, 2020
This tweet has now been deleted and reissued with the correct tag for the International Criminal Court. [It took them more than an hour and a half].
https://twitter.com/StateDept/status/1302617088578772996
10:38 AM · Sep 6, 2020
TRUMP is a COMMON THIEF
https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1302584363410915330
8:28 AM · Sep 6, 2020
Trump Ended 2018 France Trip Having Art Loaded on Air Force One
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-06/trump-ended-2018-france-trip-having-art-loaded-on-air-force-one
September 6, 2020, 8:00 AM EDT
So he’s a thief in all ways. We’ll have to have his moving crates examined as he leaves. And all the carry-ons and pocketses, too.
According to the story, this happened during the six hours Trump was NOT at the cemetery.
If you’re a star they let you […] grab ’em […]
The eleventh day of the eleventh month, at the eleventh hour, is etched in European history. It is the Armistice, the end to a very bloody First World War that exhausted treasuries, society, and a generation in equal measure. It is the hundredth anniversary, a time when the leaders of the countries who fought it come together to pay their respects, acknowledge mutual loss, and vow never again.
Enter Donald Trump. He is bored with work, bored with Paris, and bored with tweeting and bed, but full of Paris’s finest happy meals. He roams the hallways of the renowned American embassy building, assessing how he could Trump it up. He admires a few objets d’art. So, imitating Hermann Goering, he loads them onto his train, er, Air Force One, for safe travel back to Ber…Washington, DC.
In Paris, Trump was insulting. More often, he’s a serial criminal with the launch codes and an ego more frail than a factory hen’s egg. Let’s make sure his public employment abruptly ends in January. We should also make sure he leaves the artwork: like American democracy, it’s not his.
$750,000 worth of objets d’art. Wonder how all that was accounted for.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-06/trump-ended-2018-france-trip-having-art-loaded-on-air-force-one
Wasn’t that Goering’s thing as well? He wasn’t alone among the Nazis but easily the most famous. I recommend the book Monument Men about the US Army’s group of art sleuths looking for purloined stuff. It still goes on today where IIRC a call was put out for the original owner of a painting in the EU.
I mentioned him in the second paragraph. For film buffs, a grittier take on Nazi art thefts is, The Train, with Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield, and Jeanne Moreau. I think it does a better job of illustrating the scale of theft and the lives lost in connection with it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Train_(1964_film)
Cultural theft as a source of power and negotiating leverage still goes on. The Brits and other former colonial powers populate their museums with it. Corporations and PE also do similar things, say, when they buy up growth forests and threaten to clear cut them (and do) before reluctantly selling them back to a steward at considerable profit.
I’d forgotten about the Train. Great flick.
There is a potentially serious article in the Washington Post regarding Louis DeJoy’s GOP campaign contributions.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/louis-dejoy-campaign-contributions/2020/09/06/1187bc2c-e3fe-11ea-8181-606e603bb1c4_story.html
The Post reports that DeJoy’s employees said they were pressured to contribute to the GOP and later were made whole by company bonuses.
DeJoy flatly denied this happened when questioned by Rep. Jim Cooper during the recent oversight hearing.
Campaign finance law is complicated, so I can’t say whether this crossed the line, and he may be protected by statutes of limitation as far as the dates of the contributions; and I can’t say whether there is a slam dunk regarding his obvious lie to the House. I’ll note, however, that Dinesh D’Souza went to prison for dodging contribution limits by paying straw donors to give money to the Senate campaign of Wendy Long, and on the surface at least it would seem hard to pull an “I forgot” defense for what he said to Rep. Cooper.
If the facts are as alleged, it is absolutely illegal campaign finance activity. People go to prison for this. Google John Junker. Ah, never mind, here is a link, Google if you want more. Junker was not as high up as DeJoy, but he was a very big shot both in AZ and in the NCAA. He went to prison.
If these facts are true, there’s also the little matter of DeJoy’s lying to Congress, another felony.
Absolutely. And that congressional question was awfully specific. Somebody is on to something out there.
There are a bunch of former employees willing to go on the record in that article. I am guessing he made a lot of enemies there, and they may be the ones who led Rep. Cooper to ask this at the hearing.
The article says he was advised by the former general counsel at the FEC, so it’s possible he has enough insulation from federal charges, I only know that these can be tough to win in court. Dinesh D’Souza was dumb enough to get crushed by the prosecutors, but maybe DeJoy wasn’t that dumb. It’s hard to be as stupid as D’Souza.
I thought it was interesting, though, that there’s no statute of limitations for state crimes in NC. DeJoy raised a ton of money for state races, and there is a lot of GOP corruption in NC if the Democratic Governor and AG want to pursue it.
Advised by the general counsel of the FEC? It’s the sort of good old boy defense DeJoy would mount, but it’s hard to imagine how the apparent scheme would remotely pass muster. But it illustrates how much like Trump DeJoy is, and how vital to Trump’s remaining in office now and out of prison later is Billy Barr.
Thom Tillis was already in trouble for re-election (he’s tied with Cunningham) before the NYT linked the DeJoy scandal to him as a principal beneficiary of the alleged finance violations.
Sweet effing Ghu, you have to be really sure no one will come after you, if you’re going to do that.
(FWIW, the companies I’ve worked for never ever talked politics with employees, in any way, even when we were aware of who they were donating to.)