Monday Reading

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

From the land of the disappearing virus and bustling economy:

Donald Trump spent his weekend at Bedminster, New Jersey resort, in the company of scandal-hit ex-NFL quarterback Brett Favre before toasting wealthy prospective donors at an evening fundraiser for his re-election campaign on Saturday, then taking to Twitter to brag about his exploits on Sunday.

While the president was enjoying himself, the year’s first tropical storm from the Atlantic – Hurricane Hanna – made landfall in southern Texas, as it downgraded to a tropical storm, and the US passed 1,000 deaths from the coronavirus for the fifth straight day.

On Sunday, White House Task Force member Admiral Brett Giroir admitted that the administration’s Covid-19 testing turnaround was still too slow and that more needed to be done as Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows put his faith in “American ingenuity” to lead the country out of the pandemic.

White House economist Larry Kudlow told CNN that he doesn't buy that the US is experiencing an economic downtown despite 11 per cent unemployment.

If you wish hard enough, it will all go away, like magic!  Maybe if we work hard enough, it will all go away in November.

The Republican Party (a.k.a, Sociopaths 'R' Us), ladies and gentlemen:

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said Sunday that the Trump administration was not interested in extending current federal unemployment benefits instituted earlier during the pandemic because it "paid people to stay home."

"The original unemployment benefits actually paid people to stay home, and actually a lot of people got more money staying at home than they would go back to work," Meadows said during an appearance Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "The president has been very clear, our Republican senators have been very clear, we aren't going to extend that provision."

Have they no refuge or recourse?!  Are there no prisons?!  Are there no union workhouses?!  Can't they find something new?!

So, you know, evict them, make 'em homeless for not returning to jobs that don’t exist.

Got it. https://t.co/EmobnYtSwM

— Tengrain ✂️ 6-feet-away-or-6-feet-under (@Tengrain) July 26, 2020

Of course, the Trumpist Republican governors overseeing their part of the bungled pandemic response are just as much to blame for unnecessary death and hardship in their states as Trump is for the nation as a whole.  Florida man Ron DeSantis is the ne plus ultra example:

As the virus spread out of control in Florida, decision-making became increasingly shaped by politics and divorced from scientific evidence, according to interviews with 64 current and former state and administration officials, health administrators, epidemiologists, political operatives and hospital executives. The crisis in Florida, these observers say, has revealed the shortcomings of a response built on shifting metrics, influenced by a small group of advisers and tethered at every stage to the Trump administration, which has no unified plan for addressing the national health emergency but has pushed for states to reopen. [snip]

The response — which DeSantis boasted weeks ago was among the best in the nation — has quickly sunk Florida into a deadly morass. Nearly 5,800 Floridians have now died of covid-19, the disease caused by the virus — more deaths than were suffered in combat by Americans in Afghanistan or Iraq after 2001. One out of every 52 Floridians has been infected with the virus. The state’s intensive care units are being pushed to the brink, with some over capacity. Florida’s unemployment system is overwhelmed, and its tourism industry is a shambles.

It's a good, detailed accounting of what happens when you put sociopathic slugs into positions of authority, part infinity.

We noted yesterday that Trump's "fulfillment problem," which as a business scam artist he could bluff his way out of, doesn't work when it comes to life and death situations.  Jacob Lambert has a similar take on Trump's old tricks:

The culture-war nuggets Trump wants to feed us are no longer what the public — drained financially, medically, and emotionally by COVID-19 — has the appetite to consume. In the past week and a half alone, he has accused Barack Obama of treason, called his own niece a criminal, and asserted that Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, wants to abolish — deep breath — the police, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the bail system, the second amendment, and intriguingly, the suburbs. None of these charges caused much of a ripple beyond Trump's Twitter feed. And until the virus subsides — likely sometime next year, regardless of who is president — that pattern is likely to hold. [snip]

What can a provocateur do when his usual provocations grow stale? If Trump's use of federal force in Portland over the past week is any indication, he will shift to unusual provocations. His quick, cynical embrace of the "law and order" tag may now be his only move: flailing against COVID, unable to conduct rallies or weaponize social media, he is portraying himself as the country's best defense against the loathsome "Radical Left." This is familiar territory for him, of course; last November, for instance, he decried New York's early release of "900 Criminals, some hardened & bad," and added, "The Radical Left Dems are killing our cities." But it's a role he may have to play with increasing vigor if he is to dig himself out from the double-digit hole he is stuck in against Biden, who, Trump warns, "will destroy our Country as we know it."

On the last observation, E.D. Mondainé, president of the Portland, OR, chapter of the NAACP has this message to the folks in the streets of that city:

At their core, the Trump administration’s actions in Portland are a deception. The federal government’s response is no display of strength — rather, it is a deliberate cover for Trump’s weakness. The president and his allies want spectacle, be it a naked yogi or the next shocking display of force. They need to distract the country by engaging our movement in empty battles where they have the advantage.

If we engage them now, we do so on their terms, where they have created the conditions for a war without rules, without accountability and without the protection of our Constitution. This makes me fearful for the safety of everyone demonstrating in Portland. That’s why we need to remember: What is happening in Portland is the fuse of a great, racist backlash that the Trump administration is baiting us to light.

We cannot fall for their deception. We cannot settle for spectacles that endanger us all. This is a moment for serious action — to once again take up the mantle of the civil rights era by summoning the same conviction and determination our forebears did. We welcome our white brothers and sisters in this struggle. In fact, we need them. But I must ask them to remain humbly attuned to the opportunity of this moment — and to reflect on whether any actions they take will truly help establish justice, or whether they are simply for show.

It's time to focus our passions and energies on the November elections.  Period.

Infidel 753 closes things again with his top- notch link round- up, a treasure of great links covering a gamut of topics of interest.  Check it out, and also read his own thought- provoking posts.