Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

Joe Biden has an op/ ed in the Washington Post this morning about the false choice Trump is trying to portray, and what's really necessary to start to rebuild the economy:

... His goal is as obvious as it is craven: He hopes to split the country into dueling camps, casting Democrats as doomsayers hoping to keep America grounded and Republicans as freedom fighters trying to liberate the economy.

It’s a childish tactic — and a false choice that none of us should fall for.

... The Trump administration could focus on producing and distributing adequate testing and protocols that conform with the guidance of public health experts; doing so would speed up the reopening process considerably and make it a whole lot more effective. The administration is fully aware that this is the right path, too — after all, the president and his staff are now reportedly receiving daily tests. They knew exactly how to make the Oval Office safe and operational, and they put in the work to do it.

They just haven’t put in that same work for the rest of us.

If Trump and his team understand how critical testing is to their safety — and they seem to, given their own behavior — why are they insisting that it’s unnecessary for the American people?

And why does the president insist on trying to turn this into yet another line of division, pitting strained, grieving Americans against one another across manufactured battle lines of “health” and “the economy”? Everybody knows that we can’t revive the latter unless we safeguard the former — and pretending otherwise is the most transparent of political ploys. Instead of once again seeking to divide us, Trump should be working to get Americans the same necessary protections he has gotten for himself.

It’s the right thing to do, and the only path to truly getting the economy back on track.

But, we know why Trump doesn't want the kind of testing that we need, don't we.

The perversion of justice by Trump's porcine consigliere William "Low" Barr in the Michael Flynn case is the subject of an editorial in the New York Times and an op/ ed by former Justice Department official Chuck Rosenberg in the Washington Post.  Here's the Times' take:

... For decades, he has pushed to give presidents — Republican presidents, anyway — maximum authority with minimal oversight. In a 2018 memo criticizing the Russia investigation, he argued that the president “alone is the Executive branch,” in whom “the Constitution vests all Federal law enforcement power, and hence prosecutorial discretion.” For the attorney general, that discretion includes cases involving the president’s own conduct.

If you’re having trouble distinguishing Mr. Barr’s vision of the presidency from the rule of a king, you’re not alone. “George III would have loved it,” said Douglas Kmiec, who led the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

“Bill Barr’s America is not a place that anyone, including Trump voters, should want to go,” wrote Donald Ayer, who served as deputy attorney general under the first President Bush. “It is a banana republic where all are subject to the whims of a dictatorial president and his henchmen.”

Bill Barr’s America is the one we’re now living in. The Justice Department, in the midst of a presidential campaign, has become a political weapon.

Here's Rosenberg on Flynn's lies:

Were his lies material, as required by the statute to which he pleaded guilty? Absolutely. For those of us who spent a professional lifetime as prosecutors and in the Justice Department, this is not a close call.

Had Flynn been asked his favorite ice cream flavor by FBI agents and told them it was vanilla when he preferred chocolate, that would be immaterial. But lying to the FBI about his conversation with a Russian diplomat, given his financial and other ties to Russia, in the wake of massive Russian interference in our 2016 election, and during an FBI counterintelligence investigation concerning Russia? That is material — plain and simple.

Now, in a stunningly dishonest intervention orchestrated by Attorney General William P. Barr, the Justice Department posits that Flynn’s false statements were not material and that the charge to which he pleaded guilty should be dismissed.

The winners will write the history, and Barr will be recorded as the most unlawful, corrupt, dangerous AG ever.

Elizabeth Spiers, a former senior level employee of pencil- necked dilettante Jared "Mr. Ivanka Trump" Kushner, discusses the parallel universe occupied by the Clown Prince and his dolt of a father- in- law:

On some level, Trump and Kushner appear to believe that whether they are really doing their jobs is irrelevant. But they have no reason to believe otherwise; they’ve never faced any consequences for not doing what they’re supposed to do except bad press. (Or, in Trump’s case, an impeachment that quickly led to a pro forma acquittal.) As of today, Kushner’s string of failures have not resulted in any kind of demotion or reprimand, much less dismissal. (Whatever happened to the Office of American Innovation? What has it done? Who’s demanded results?) They act like they think they should get credit for any effort at all, for stooping to bother. (Kushner, in a statement to The Washington Post this week about his task force, bragged about its accomplishments, despite the problems it has run into. “The bottom line is that this program sourced tens of millions of masks and essential PPE in record time and Americans who needed ventilators received ventilators,” he said. “These volunteers are true patriots.”)

Worse, when they fail, the entire executive office apparatus is expected to adapt to their mistakes and bend reality in service of optics. When Kushner stated publicly — and incorrectly — that the national stockpile of medical supplies is “supposed to be our stockpile” and “not supposed to be states’ stockpiles that they then use,” the administration changed the language on federal websites to accommodate his ignorance. This goes beyond the sort of routine movement of goal posts many elected officials engage in when they need to explain their gaffes. This is teleporting the goal posts to an entirely different dimension or denying their existence in the first place. In this alternate universe where Jared Kushner is doing a good job, no identifiable outcomes constitute failure, and everything is, by definition, success.

(One of the regime's "successes" that Dr. Rick Bright blew the whistle on was the failure to get quantities of PPE -- in this case, N95 masks.  Here's a report on how the Trumpers turned down a company willing to make nearly 2 million N95 masks a week at low cost, in favor of big companies who ended up charging much more per unit.  Another "shart of the deal.")

Some good news:  panic in Republican world:

Republicans are increasingly nervous they could lose control of the Senate this fall as a potent combination of a cratering economy, President Trump’s handling of the pandemic and rising enthusiasm among Democratic voters dims their electoral prospects.

In recent weeks, GOP senators have been forced into a difficult political dance as polling shifts in favor of Democrats: touting their own response to the coronavirus outbreak without overtly distancing themselves from a president whose management of the crisis is under intense scrutiny but who still holds significant sway with Republican voters.

Wishing, hoping, dreaming won't get us there.  Organizing, volunteering, contributing and voting will.

As always, we highly recommend a visit to Infidel 753's link round- up of items of interest from around the internet.  Also, please read his essay "The Choice," and save it for future reference/ motivation.