This is the first time we've featured extraordinary flutist, singer and songwriter Ragan Whiteside, and that's regrettable. Her smooth-flowing mastery of the flute is on display in her instrumental cover of the Little River Band's "Reminiscing," from her new album "Five Up Top." If this doesn't put you in the most mellow of moods, we don't know what will.
Wednesday, October 28, 2020
Trump's Evergreen Message: "I Don't Care About You" (Cont.)
Chaotic candidate, chaotic campaign, chaotic cluster(fuck):
Backers of President Donald Trump were left stranded overnight, with several taken to hospital for hypothermia after an Omaha campaign rally ended in chaos.
Hundreds were bussed in to the Eppley Airfield site, leaving their cars in parking lots, but were left wandering up to four miles in the cold after coaches failed to pick them up.
"President Trump took off in Air Force One 1 hr 20 minutes ago, but thousands of his supporters remain stranded on a dark road outside the rally," CNN reporter Jeff Zeleny tweeted at 10:21 p.m. CDT.
Zeleny, who was at Tuesday night's event, described the scene as a "chaotic cluster" as Omaha police officers scrambled to provide transportation for those stranded.
Another superspreader Nuremberg rally ends with hundreds of the knuckle- dragging sub- morons supporting COVID Donnie left out in the cold. Also: Bwahahahahaha.
BONUS:
Trump leaving his supporters stranded in the cold is the perfect metaphor for 2016-2020 https://t.co/qCQMn36lcv
— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum) October 28, 2020
BONUS II: A new parody queen emerges --
Woman stranded at MAGA rally in Omaha says Trump wanted to teach them a lesson pic.twitter.com/SvqYw5MnOZ
— blaire erskine (@blaireerskine) October 28, 2020
Voter Suppression Efforts Anger Minority Voters
The corrupt and unpatriotic efforts by Republicans across the country to stifle the vote of people of color through various voter suppression tactics is fueling anger among the communities they're targeting. In Texas, where a nervous and crooked Republican Governor Greg Abbott sees a purple tinge to his state coming, he has ordered ballot drop boxes be limited to one per county, meaning a Dem-dominated county like Harris Co. (Houston) has one drop box for its 2.4 million registered voters. Not surprisingly, Abbott's move was backed despicably by Texas' Republican-dominated state Supreme Court.
Black voters have noticed the attempt to disenfranchise them and, according to a report from Reuters, are angry and going to the polls in record numbers. Looking at Waco, Texas, in particular, black voters are responding:
"In the historically black neighborhoods of Waco, Texas, the usual get-out-the-vote activities in this presidential election year were upended by the pandemic. [snip]
Still, longtime political organizers in the African-American community in this central Texas city said their efforts have gotten a boost from President Donald Trump. He and other Republicans have called for poll monitoring and sought restrictions on mail balloting in Texas and elsewhere this year to prevent alleged voter fraud. Black voters, say residents and activists, have interpreted those actions as an attempt to disenfranchise them. Their response has been to turn out in record numbers in early voting in parts of Waco.
'Based on what I’ve seen, it pisses Black voters off,' said Linda Lewis, director of political engagement for the local chapter of the NAACP, the country’s largest civil rights organization. At that former campus in the East Waco neighborhood, 7,571 people had cast ballots in the first two weeks of early voting - more than the 5,155 who showed up in all of 2016, voting records show." (our emphasis)
Still, there is a segment of the community that doesn't fully grasp the danger posed to them by racist demagogue and con man Donald "Very Fine People" Trump, who has refused to repudiate the support of groups like the Proud Boys and extremist white supremacy militias (and that's with a black woman on the Dem ticket). Specifically, some African-American males are unbelievably aligning with white supremacist Trump either out of regard for his toxic, fake masculinity, or some belief contrary to reality that he's going to create economic prosperity for them. Whether the unprecedented turn out by the majority of African-Americans will be enough to overwhelm the clueless Trumpers among them will decide the election in some close states.
White (Supremacist) House Tells Us Trump Ended The Pandemic
From the alternate universe that is the White (Supremacist) House comes word that nitwit narcissist Donald "COVID Donnie" Trump has ended the COVID-19 pandemic!
Health officials and scientists working on the Trump administration’s coronavirus response said on Tuesday they are personally offended by the White House’s announcement that it has successfully ended the COVID-19 pandemic—a pandemic that is, in fact, worsening.
In a statement released Tuesday afternoon the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy said that it considered “ending the COVID-19 pandemic” to be one of President Donald Trump’s major first term accomplishments. The office released a corresponding report that listed achievements of the Trump administration in the area of science and innovation.
“It’s mind-boggling,” one official said of the White House’s assertion it had ended the pandemic. “There’s no world in which anyone can think that [statement] is true. Maybe the president. But I don’t see how even he can believe that. We have more than 70,000 new cases each day.”
Four officials working with the White House coronavirus task force told The Daily Beast that they viewed the White House’s statement as a personal slight and a public rebuke of their efforts to try and get control of the virus.
Of course, this is Orwellian, banana republic stuff we don't think you couldn't get away with even in Putin's Russia. But this kind of insane doublethink has become a dependable feature of the Trump personality cult that has infested his regime and his rotted out party for years.
We're climbing the third wave of the pandemic, with a record 500,000 new cases just in the last week alone, much of the rise occurring in red states. Meanwhile, the nitwit narcissist is out at his ego- massaging superspreader Nuremberg rallies telling his sub- moronic cult that "COVID, COVID, COVID" gets all the media attention now but won't after November 3.
Someone get a net... Make that nets.
Tuesday, October 27, 2020
Republican Crime Blotter -- Risible Ratfuckers' Edition
Professional (no offense to "professionals") Republican ratfuckers Jacob "Asshole" Wohl and Jack "Fly" Burkman have managed to get caught in another fraudulent scheme:
After already having been indicted in Michigan for a robocall scheme to intimidate urban-area voters with misinformation, the fabulously inept duo of Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman have now been indicted in Cuyahoga County for the same scheme.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost's office referred the case to local prosecutors.
Congresswoman Marcia Fudge was among those who noted after the Michigan case was unveiled that similar calls had been reported in Cleveland.
Wohl and Burkman face eight counts of telecommunications fraud and seven counts of bribery.
This is the same dynamic duo that tried to get Pete Buttigieg framed for sexual assault. That was shortly after they failed to get Robert Mueller framed for a similarly bogus charge (but did manage to make a laughingstock of Burkman, who appeared at the news conference laying out the accusations with his fly down). Oh, and there was their ludicrous attempt to link Sen. Elizabeth Warren to a younger ex- Marine boy toy (which the Senator dispatched with a witty "Go, Cougars!" shout out to her University of Houston alma mater's mascot). If these duds were smart, they might be dangerous.
But, for their latest capers, they've graduated from performance art ratfuckery to multiple felony counts in both Michigan and Ohio. They're due their day in court, after which we say, "Lock them up, lock them up!"
(Photo: Wohl and Burkman -- psst, Jack, what do birds do?)
Today's Cartoons
(click on images to enlarge)
(Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
(Ann Telnaes, Washington Post)
(Jen Sorensen, gocomics.com)
(Nick Anderson, Washington Post Writers Group)
(John Darkow, Columbia Missourian)
(Robert Ariail, gocomics.com)
(Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press)
(Tom Toles, Washington Post)
(Signe Wilkinson, Philadelphia Inquirer/Daily News)
(Michael de Adder, Toronto Star)
(Bill Bramhall, New York Daily News)
(Kevin Siers, Charlotte Observer)
(Matt Davies, Newsday)
(Dan Wasserman, Boston Globe)
Judge: Barr Can't Shield Trump In Defamation Case
In the mid-1990s, when sexual predator Donald "Grab 'Em" Trump was grabbing women and worse, he allegedly raped journalist E. Jean Carroll in a dressing room in a New York department store. Trump repeatedly and publicly denied the attack on Carroll, defaming her character. She managed to save the dress she was wearing at the time of the attack, which she says has traces of Trump's semen on it. Carroll has tried to obtain a DNA sample from him in order to prove defamation (apparently, the statute of limitations has run out on rape in New York).
Trump's corrupt consigliere and his "Roy Cohn" William "Low" Barr inappropriately intervened in the case, claiming that Trump was a "Government employee" and therefore entitled be defended by the Justice Department. Today, Federal District Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected the delaying tactic by Barr and ordered Carroll's case against Trump to continue:
"Carroll sued Trump over that denial in New York in November [2019], and last month, the Justice Department moved the case to federal court and asked a judge to substitute the U.S. government as the defendant. The department argued Trump was 'acting within the scope of his office as President of the United States' when he disputed Carroll’s allegations.
The maneuver was a bid to short circuit the case. If the judge had done what the Justice Department asked, government lawyers could then have invoked the notion of 'sovereign immunity' — which prohibits lawsuits against the government — to end the case."
Given Trump's experience with using the legal system to avoid prosecution, this will likely be a long process. Even though he can't be prosecuted in the State of New York for rape, proof that he raped Carroll over two decades ago will further confirm his depraved character and pathological lying.
Tweets Of The Day -- Republican Court-Packing
Barrett was nominated by a president who lost the popular vote, confirmed by a Senate majority that represents fewer people than the Senate minority, and gives the Supreme Court a majority of members who were appointed by presidents who took office after losing the popular vote.
— Jamison Foser (@jamisonfoser) October 27, 2020
The truth is:
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) October 26, 2020
This nomination is part of a decades-long effort to tilt the courts towards the right to accomplish through the courts what Republicans could never accomplish through Congress
Democrats will never stop fighting for Americans’ health care and rights and freedoms
Every option needs to be on the table to restore the Supreme Court’s credibility & integrity. Every option to expand our democracy. Every option to ensure that all Americans have equal justice in our courts & representation in our institutions.
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) October 27, 2020
The Supreme Court siding with the Republican Party against counting votes cast by eligible voters at the same time Senate Republicans ram through a nomination days before an election is a reminder that this rigged Supreme Court is a threat to democracy https://t.co/FBtGMzyD6I
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) October 27, 2020
Brett Kavanaugh is putting in place the judicial framework to back up a White House declaration of victory based on where things stand at 12:01 a.m. on November 4. And just to put a cherry on top, he cited...wait for it...Bush v. Gore. https://t.co/HCCcngBRcr
— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) October 27, 2020
This is how Cruella De Vil looked down at a yard full of Dalmatians.
— Steve Marmel (@Marmel) October 27, 2020
She’s going to skin the freedoms off Americans and make a coat. pic.twitter.com/0uiUrJAfXz
Good advice --
You don't get to despair tonight, sorry. Take whatever rage or fear you might be feeling and do something. Donate money to a House or Senate race. Help a friend or family member make a plan to vote. Sign up for last minute phone banking. Anything. One week. We don't get to quit.
— Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) October 27, 2020
Also good advice --
If you haven't mailed back your ballot yet, you should find another way to return it. Either to an official drop box or government office if allowed, or surrender it and vote in person if allowed. A ballot mailed today may not arrive in time. https://t.co/Frzx9j2Et9
— Rick Hasen (@rickhasen) October 26, 2020
The best defense against all of this chicanery is a Blue Tsunami that can't be denied by corrupt Trump jurists. Don't let them take away your vote and your rights!
(See also post below, with AOC tweet.)
View From The Balcony
With autocratic demagogue and sociopath Donald "COVID Donnie" Trump and his latest judicial tool Amy Coney Barrett grinning smugly at the White (Supremacist) House last night, they celebrated their theft of a Supreme Court seat in a nakedly political event staged for political impact. Barrett, in so doing, left no question about why she was nominated: to do Trump's bidding on striking down the Affordable Care Act, appease fundies by destroying Roe v. Wade, and reverse voting rights, gun control and environmental gains made over the last 60 years, among many other things on the hard right's agenda. In short, to act as his loyal jurist.
The shamefulness of the moment is hard to exaggerate: appearing with Trump on the balcony in authoritarian style, the scene soon to be turned into a campaign ad (and right on cue). During her hearing, she was absolutely silent on even simple softball questions like "can the President delay the election" (only Congress can Constitutionally) and "is voter suppression legal" (no according to U.S. statute).
After years of blocking a Dem President from appointing Federal judges, and then rushing through not only Barrett's appointment, but two other Associate Justices and hundreds of lower court appointments through Moscow Mitch McConnell's Senate, the Dems need to set about balancing the courts, in the likely event they control the Senate and White House after January 20. The cynical and dishonest Rethugs and their right-wing media megaphone will be crying "court packing," but the packing has already happened. As Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez noted,
Republicans do this because they don’t believe Dems have the stones to play hardball like they do. And for a long time they’ve been correct. But do not let them bully the public into thinking their bulldozing is normal but a response isn’t. There is a legal process for expansion.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 27, 2020
Let's hope they find the "stones" and balance the courts.
BONUS: The first thing Justice Barrett did was to participate in a campaign event at the White House for the president, eight days before an election that he has explicitly said he expects will turn on her vote.
(photo: Alex Brandon/AP)
What A Fool Believes
Jimmy Kimmel covers recent events, including Republican voter suppression, deluded COVID Donnie casting his ballot, his superspreader rallies, the odd choices of music played at them, and much more.
Monday, October 26, 2020
Tweets Of The Day
COVID clueless --
Millions of our tax dollars went to this mans covid treatment. pic.twitter.com/mK8zyhVBPa
— Molly Jong-Fast🏡 (@MollyJongFast) October 26, 2020
Son-in-law of Abraham Lincoln and man born with a silver foot in his mouth opines --
slenderman has some thoughts https://t.co/yCFNvHs6LM
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) October 26, 2020
Their last shot was a dud --
It turns out there is a difference between a Trump tweet and an article about it, even between an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal suggesting Joe Biden had done bad things, and a news article that didn’t reach that conclusion, @benyt writes. https://t.co/fpuA8wfPlV
— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 26, 2020
Happy Halloween!
The scariest Halloween story for Republicans is “Record Youth Voting.”
— Schooley (@Rschooley) October 26, 2020
Make the calls --
If you know anyone who lives in Pennsylvania or Florida, please call them and explain why you think it's so important that they vote against Trump. Those two states are likely going to decide this election. Voters in both states could save or help destroy American democracy.
— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) October 26, 2020
They should also do this --
If you haven't mailed back your ballot yet, you should find another way to return it. Either to an official drop box or government office if allowed, or surrender it and vote in person if allowed. A ballot mailed today may not arrive in time. https://t.co/Frzx9j2Et9
— Rick Hasen (@rickhasen) October 26, 2020
Time to re-balance --
After Amy Coney Barrett gets confirmed, Republican presidents will have appointed 15 of the last 19 Supreme Court justices.
— Jesse Wegman (@jessewegman) October 26, 2020
15 of 19.
Quotes Of The Day -- The Fight For The Soul Of America
"The Republican party has become dramatically more illiberal in the past two decades and now more closely resembles ruling parties in autocratic societies than its former centre-right equivalents in Europe, according to a new international study.
"In a significant shift since 2000, the GOP has taken to demonising and encouraging violence against its opponents, adopting attitudes and tactics comparable to ruling nationalist parties in Hungary, India, Poland and Turkey.
"The shift has both led to and been driven by the rise of Donald Trump." -- The Guardian summarizing a study by the V-Dem Institute in Sweden measuring the increasing authoritarianism of the rotted- out Republican Party, starting long before COVID Donnie came on the political scene.
___________________
"Under President Trump, the United States has abandoned international climate and nuclear arms agreements. It has announced its withdrawal from the World Health Organization, questioned the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and antagonized stalwart allies like Germany.
"America’s moral authority also has been undercut by the devastatingly high death toll and wrenching economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, coupled with the racial reckoning that has convulsed the country.
"These highlights from Trump’s nearly four years in office read like Vladimir Putin’s wish list. Few countries have benefited more geopolitically from Trump’s time in office than Russia." -- Phillip Rucker and Shane Harris on the front page of today's Washington Post, in a long read about the gift COVID Donnie has been to Russian thug Vladimir Putin.
Today's Tomorrow Cartoon: Trump Tower of Terror
(click to enlarge)
As is his modus operandi, bigot and demagogue Donald "COVID Donnie" Trump is trotting out messages of fear in his waning campaign days at virus super spreader events. Fear science, fear minorities invading your suburbs, fear Democrats balancing the Federal courts, etc. But, of course, don't fear the deadly COVID-19 pandemic that will disappear like a miracle after you've voted for him.
(Please consider supporting the great work of Tom Tomorrow here)
Putin Goes Rogue, Undercuts Trump's Smears
When you've lost your benefactor in politics, it's a more difficult to plow forward. But that seems to be partially the case with Russian thug and election meddler Vladimir Putin, who on Russian state TV, somewhat grudgingly dismissed the false smear of VP Joe Biden's son Hunter by his sycophantic stooge, pathological liar Donald "Tovarich" Trump. Putin, who's obviously reading the polls that show Biden in the lead, may be wanting to curry some favor with Biden, now seeing him as the likely winner. The smear alleging Hunter Biden's corruption while with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma was originated by his own intelligence services and tossed into the Presidential campaign by Trump's corrupt and disgraced personal "lawyer" Rudy "Hands In Pants" Giuliani. According to the report, Putin rejected the basis for the smear:
"'Yes, in Ukraine he [Hunter Biden] had or maybe still has a business, I don't know. It doesn't concern us. It concerns the Americans and the Ukrainians,' said Putin.
'But well yes he had at least one company, which he practically headed up, and judging from everything he made good money. I don't see anything criminal about this, at least we don't know anything about this [being criminal].'
Putin also reacted with visible irritation when asked about comments Trump has made concerning Putin's ties to the former mayor of Moscow, and to an alleged payment made to Hunter Biden by the ex-mayor's widow. Putin said he knew nothing about the existence of any commercial relationship between Hunter and the woman. Joe Biden says the accusation about his son is not true." (our emphasis)
Russian intelligence services are continuing to inject false stories about Biden through social media and other means despite Putin's public denials, so take this with a block of salt as you would with any statement from a former KGB Colonel. Their ultimate goal is to sow division, beyond who it helps or hurts.
BONUS:
I believe this is Russian for checkmate @realDonaldTrump
— Travis Bone (@TheRealTBone) October 25, 2020
This is a Burn Notice from your handler.
https://t.co/j4D8zUIHay
(image: Baby's diapers need changing)
Monday Reading
As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.
The successful OSIRIS-REx spacecraft's mission to the ancient asteroid Bennu, an Empire State Building sized object over 200 million miles from Earth, has resulted in the collection of enough asteroid material to stow:
Two days after touching down on asteroid Bennu, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission team received on Thursday, Oct. 22, images that confirm the spacecraft has collected more than enough material to meet one of its main mission requirements – acquiring at least 2 ounces (60 grams) of the asteroid’s surface material.
The spacecraft captured images of the sample collector head as it moved through several different positions. In reviewing these images, the OSIRIS-REx team noticed both that the head appeared to be full of asteroid particles, and that some of these particles appeared to be escaping slowly from the sample collector, called the Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) head. They suspect bits of material are passing through small gaps where a mylar flap – the collector’s “lid” – is slightly wedged open by larger rocks.
“Bennu continues to surprise us with great science and also throwing a few curveballs,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s associate administrator for science at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “And although we may have to move more quickly to stow the sample, it’s not a bad problem to have. We are so excited to see what appears to be an abundant sample that will inspire science for decades beyond this historic moment.”
The team believes it has collected a sufficient sample and is on a path to stow the sample as quickly as possible. They came to this conclusion after comparing images of the empty collector head with Oct. 22 images of the TAGSAM head after the sample collection event.
The spacecraft will eventually return to Earth in 2023. Hats off to the scientists, engineers and all who contributed to this major achievement for mankind.
Our QOTD yesterday from E.J. Dionne, Jr., argued rightly for the re- balancing of the Supreme Court (and, we might add, lower courts). Adam Serwer has an important read detailing the long, racist history behind Republican efforts to use the courts to disenfranchise Democratic constituencies and rig the vote:
[Justices] Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh have made no secret of their commitment to allowing Republicans to disenfranchise Democratic constituencies. On Monday, all four indicated their support for a GOP lawsuit seeking to overturn a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling allowing absentee ballots postmarked November 3 to be counted, even if they are received up to three days after the election. Roberts, in one of his rare breaks with the right wing of the Court, joined the liberals in a split 4–4 decision that allowed the original ruling to stand.
The message is clear: There is no constitutional amendment, no federal statute, no state law, no half-baked legal philosophy, and no federalist principle that will prevent the conservatives on the Court from upholding Republican efforts to sever Democratic constituencies from the franchise. Whether Trump wins or loses in November, they will pursue this agenda in earnest. And with Barrett on the Court, it is unlikely that even Roberts’s rare defections will be an obstacle to them.
The Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, has refused to rule out the possibility of expanding the Court, and Republicans have responded with considerable alarm and anguish. They sacrificed their dignity, their House majority, and their principles to elevate a clownish reality star to the presidency, a would-be strongman whose disastrous tenure has seen hundreds of thousands of deaths, the collapse of the American economy, and the nadir of American global influence. Everything Republicans have done for decades has led to this moment, and the possibility of that victory becoming Pyrrhic is terrifying for them.
After reading Serwer's piece, if you remain unconvinced that the Democrats need to make re- balancing the courts should they sweep the election, we don't know what else to say except please get out of the way.
Along those lines, former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) had some sage advice for Joe Biden:
Former Senate leader Harry Reid says if Democrats win the presidency and the Senate, Joe Biden should take “no more than three weeks” to test bipartisanship before ending the filibuster so Democrats can overcome what they call Republican obstruction and pass bills.
The retired Nevada Democrat told The Associated Press in an interview that he understands Biden wants to work with Republicans, as the former vice president and Delaware senator has in the past. But Reid said there is just too much that needs to be done in the country to wait around trying to reach agreements under the decades-old Senate practice of requiring 60 votes to advance legislation.
ICYMI, the 60 Minutes interview with COVID Donnie aired last night. As might be expected, before he petulantly ran away from Lesley Stahl, there were lots of lies. If you're inclined, the excellent Daniel Dale has 16 of them from both the aired and unaired footage.
Here's today's dumbass drunk Trumpanzee Floriduh man:
The man, later identified by police as 26-year-old James Blight, was charged with grand theft auto and trespassing, according to the outlet.
He's a blight, all right. Sounds like some public intoxication and destruction of private property charges should be thrown in there, too.
Finally, we once again urge you to continue your reading adventure by visiting Infidel 753's link round-up (or "Collection des liens pour le 25 Octobre 2020") for a really comprehensive set of links to items of interest from around the Internet -- en anglais! There isn't a better round- up, so don't even bother looking.
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