"As the demonstrations continue every night in Portland, many people with their own agendas are co-opting, and distracting attention from, what should be our central concern: the Black Lives Matter movement.He's not suggesting right-wing militia specifically have infiltrated the protests, but he raises the valid argument that the demonstrations are in danger of breaking away from the Black Lives Matter agenda, and providing grist for Trump's racist message. Former Federal prosecutor and former Stanford law professor Elizabeth De La Vega suggests a different venue that would frustrate the stormtrumpers and Trump:
The protests that have gone on for weeks in Portland and around the country had a very specific origin. The killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis prompted a nationwide reckoning with the original and savage crime of slavery our country committed against African Americans. This crime has been reverberating through every generation in this country, black and white, for 401 years. That monstrous crime has finally caught up with us as a nation. I do not believe it is a time for spectacle." (our emphasis)
It's time to look at strategy and tactics, especially as we move closer to the November elections. Feeding Trump's racist and authoritarian message shouldn't be one of them.Portland protesters could really mess with Trump, his plans -- and his mind -- by staging massive peaceful protests against Trump, away from federal property, outside of federal jurisdiction.— Elizabeth de la Vega (@Delavegalaw) July 26, 2020
Police have identified the so-called “umbrella man” who set off a chain reaction that led to days of rioting and looting during Minneapolis protests against George Floyd’s killing.
The man was identified as a 32-year-old white supremacist associated with the biker gangs Aryan Cowboys and Hell’s Angels, but his name was not released because he has not yet been charged, reported the Star Tribune.More examples here. As we were saying...
Senate Republicans and administration officials on Monday unveiled a $1 trillion proposal, narrowly tailored to Republican priorities. It includes slashing by two-thirds the $600-per-week unemployment payments that workers have received since April and providing tax cuts and liability protections for businesses.
Just from that incomplete description, which bill do you think meets the needs of the moment and which does not? Which looks out for workers and families, and which looks out for donor and business interests? Which wants to protect public health, and which wants to protect the election prospects of Republican officeholders? Don't just take our word for it; check out this Public Citizen thread.House Democrats in May approved a $3 trillion relief package that amounts to their opening offer: a sweeping measure that contains a number of Democratic priorities, including an extension of the jobless aid, nearly $200 billion for rental assistance and mortgage relief, $3.6 billion to bolster election security and additional aid for food assistance.
Senate GOPers
leaving lunch w/ Mnuchin, Meadows:
“I’m not inclined
to support it... it’s a mess" - Josh
Hawley
"We are all scratching our
heads" - Mike Braun
"The amount to
be spent is a concern" - Lindsey Graham
A
piecemeal deal is unlikely - Kevin Cramer
Via @elwasson
—
Saleha Mohsin (@SalehaMohsin) July
28, 2020
“'Where’s my Roy Cohn?' That was President Trump’s famous lament after then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation. But in Sessions’s eventual replacement, William P. Barr, Trump may have done even better — by his standards — than Cohn, the notoriously unscrupulous defense lawyer.Given Barr's craven service to Trump there are a multitude of issues that the Committee is expected to raise, not that Barr will be in any way forthcoming:
As Barr prepares to testify before the House Judiciary Committee for the first time as Trump’s attorney general, he has instead come to resemble another disgraced lawyer of the past: former attorney general John Mitchell, whose misplaced loyalty to President Richard M. Nixon outweighed the duty he owed to the Justice Department and the country." (our emphasis)
"On the Mueller report, the committee should compare Barr’s now notorious summary to what is actually in that document. A judge found that Barr engaged in 'a calculated attempt to influence public discourse about the Mueller Report in favor of President Trump.' Barr should be pressed to explain why he failed to disclose that Mueller lacked 'confidence … that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice.'There's more ground to cover, including his meddling in the cases of Michael Flynn and Roger Stone, and his firing of SDNY U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman, who was overseeing cases involving Trump personally. Barr will be his evasive and uncooperative self, aided by Rethuglican committee members like Rep. "Gym" Jordan, so Dems need to be focused and coordinated in their questioning.
On Ukraine, the committee should pin Barr down on what he knew about the decision to keep the whistleblower complaint from Congress. What was Barr’s involvement? Did he discuss the effort to suppress the complaint with the president or other White House officials?
The committee should also question Barr on his changing accounts of his role in the assault on peaceful protesters at Lafayette Square, examining his contacts with Justice and White House officials who said Barr ordered the actions. It is also imperative to address Barr’s role in the recent 'surge' of federal law enforcement into Portland, Ore., and other cities." (our emphasis)
Donald Trump, who in recent weeks has stirred racial tensions, says he has no plans to visit the late Congressman John Lewis as the civil rights icon lies in state at the US Capitol.
"No I won't be going," the president said. "No."
Because of my strong focus on the China Virus, including scheduled meetings on Vaccines, our economy and much else, I won’t be able to be in New York to throw out the opening pitch for the @Yankees on August 15th. We will make it later in the season!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2020
Saturday. pic.twitter.com/b6Twgzmqxj
—
Helen Kennedy (@HelenKennedy) July
26, 2020
I guess his favorite golf course is open again.— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) July 26, 2020
I don't think he can throw a pitch. Even a Fauci pitch.— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) July 26, 2020
And you seem so naturally athletic. pic.twitter.com/vxkBhzgmnX— Amy Siskind 🏳️🌈 (@Amy_Siskind) July 26, 2020
In that case here’s what you’ll be missing: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!— Andy Richter (@AndyRichter) July 26, 2020
Tweets the busy guy from his New Jersey golf course. He cant handle the fact that both teams will be taking a knee- even if before the anthem.— Mia Farrow (@MiaFarrow) July 26, 2020
You should have told ‘em you were training for the Iron Man Triathalon, it would have been more believable. @realDonaldTrump— NoelCaslerComedy (@CaslerNoel) July 26, 2020
Well, a pitching mound is like a ramp, so this is probably for the best.— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) July 26, 2020
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You're a complete idiot.— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) July 26, 2020
Nah, it’s cuz you’re a coward.— John Sipher (@john_sipher) July 26, 2020
"China Virus"— Angela Belcamino (@AngelaBelcamino) July 26, 2020
Imagine being this proud of being a freaking racist.
But here we are.
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.
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
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.
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.
It's time to focus our passions and energies on the November elections. Period.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.
Gracing the silver screen in both big and small roles, in a career stretching over 50 years, de Havilland was perhaps best known for her performance as Melanie Hamilton in “Gone with the Wind,” and for making multiple films with Errol Flynn. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, for “To Each His Own” in 1946 and for “The Heiress” in 1949.
She is also forever enshrined in the history of workplace law, scoring a major legal victory over the Hollywood studio system in 1944 that became informally known as “the de Havilland law.” Her lawsuit against Warner Brothers resulted in California state regulations that limited the extent to which artists could be bound to contracts. It catalyzed the eventual end of the powerful studio system, which often constrained actors’ career opportunities.
De Havilland had a lifelong personal and professional rivalry with her younger sister, Joan Fontaine, which became a major part of her star persona and the stuff of Hollywood legend. The two actors ― the only pair of siblings to win Oscars in a lead acting category ― clashed over everything from their careers, to their romances, to their mother’s funeral. [snip]
She had just turned 104 on July 1, and she was a pistol all the way to the end. This is a picture of her riding a bicycle last year at the age of 103:After the success of “Gone with the Wind,” de Havilland’s career continued to soar. In addition to winning two Oscars for Best Actress, she also received nominations for “Hold Back The Dawn” and “The Snake Pit.” In the latter film, released in 1948, de Havilland played a woman living in a psychiatric hospital after experiencing a mental breakdown. The movie’s realism inspired states to reform conditions in mental institutions.
