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Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Source says Trump given brief on Russian bounties weeks ago, but may not have bothered to read it



WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 02: (L-R) U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. President Donald Trump attend a meeting with the White House Coronavirus Task Force and pharmaceutical executives in Cabinet Room of the White House on March 2, 2020 in Washington, DC. President Trump and his Coronavirus Task Force team met with pharmaceutical companies representatives who are actively working to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
CNN is reporting that, despite denials by Donald Trump and White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, information on Russia paying bounties for the murder of American soldiers was included in Trump’s “daily brief.” That briefing happened “sometime in the spring,” though CNN does not indicate that their source provided a precise date for the briefing. The source indicated that this was such a big deal — directly involving the safety of American forces in Afghanistan — that it certainly would have been included in information that reached Trump.

However, there is still a sense in which Trump might not have been briefed, even though he was. That’s because, as CNN notes, “Trump is not known to fully or regularly read the President's Daily Brief.” So there remains the possibility that Trump didn’t know about Russia putting a price tag on the heads of American soldiers, because he was so incompetent, and so unconcerned with the safety of the military, that he simply didn’t read the report.

After all, Trump has lots of golf on his schedule. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for reading.

The NY Times confirms CNN’s report, adding additional information: The briefing was on February 27.

“Moreover, a description of the intelligence assessment that the Russian unit had carried out the bounties plot was also seen as serious and solid enough to disseminate more broadly across the intelligence community in a May 4 article in the C.I.A.’s World Intelligence Review, a classified compendium commonly referred to as The Wire,” the Times reported.

Of course, Trump likely didn’t read the briefing, since it wasn’t read by the cast of Fox and Friends on his television. That doesn't make him any less culpable of the worst kind of malfeasance, if not treason.
 Trump's bromance with Putin means American soldiers must die.

Monday, June 29, 2020

Put Your Mask on and Shut the F*ck Up

Commuters arrive at Grand Central Station during morning rush hour on June 8. (photo: Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images)
Commuters arrive at Grand Central Station during morning rush hour on June 8. (photo: Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images)


By Jessica Valenti, Medium
29 June 20

Only in America could something this basic be this controversial

oments after entering the world, my daughter was put on a ventilator. I had developed a deadly illness during pregnancy — the only treatment for which was to deliver Layla three months early, way before her lungs had a chance to properly develop. And so my daughter needed breathing assistance for the first months of her life — ventilators, CPAP machines, and nasal cannulas. Every once in a while her oxygen would dip dangerously low and she would turn blue, machines blaring before a nurse would rush over to revive her.

Even after she finally came home from the hospital, it would be years before Layla stopped getting lung infections and pneumonia, before the panicked trips to the emergency room slowed and shifted into everyday childhood colds and cases of flu. I have no intention of seeing my now-nine-year-old on a ventilator ever again, nor do I have any desire to end up back in a hospital again myself. Being deathly ill is exactly as awful as you imagine.

All of which is to say: Wear your mask and shut the fuck up about it.

With over 120,000 Americans dead and millions ill, you would think that this incredibly basic act — covering your mouth to stop the spread of germs — would be a given. A basic human kindness. But as the rest of the world watches out for each other’s health and beats back the number of Covid cases, Americans seem intent on distinguishing ourselves as the most selfish assholes on the planet.

This week at a Palm Beach County commissioners meeting, Florida citizens erupted in anger after mask-wearing was made mandatory — comparing the rule to the “Devil’s law” and claiming “they want to throw God’s wonderful breathing system out the door.” One woman even compared not wearing a mask to not wearing underwear: “Things gotta breathe.” (Right now, Florida has more than a hundred thousand people sick with Covid, and a record number of new cases each day.)

This isn’t just a one-off we can chalk up to Florida being Florida. Earlier this month, the health commissioner in Orange County resigned after outrage over her face-covering requirement; she needed extra security to handle all the threats.

Meanwhile, a sheriff in Washington mocked people who followed the governor’s orders to cover their faces in public as “sheep,” and Rep. Jim Jordan was admonished Wednesday for refusing to wear a mask on the House floor. Even the president of the United States still won’t wear a mask — he thinks it will make him look silly.

Since the pandemic erupted, it’s becoming clear that the health and safety of all Americans depends on the whims of the dumbest among us. Videos posted from all over the country show people cutting holes in their masks to make it “easier to breathe,” haranguing grocery store employees who won’t let them enter without masks, and printing fake medical exemption cards to present to business owners — with threats of $75,000 fines if they are refused service.

I understand feeling trapped or claustrophobic about wearing a mask: I live in Brooklyn, where most people don’t have access to a backyard or other outdoor space where they can safely breathe without one. But no one is asking people to wear masks when they’re outdoors and a safe distance from other people. All of this is hard; it’s also completely doable.

Wearing a mask is not a freedom issue, nor does it have anything to do with the “devil.” It’s a matter of health, life, and death. Maybe you can look at my daughter — whose nose still bears a mark from the pressure of a breathing tube pressing inside it for weeks on end — and tell her that a mask makes you feel uncomfortable.

Or maybe you can just put it on your face, protect your neighbors, and go about your day.

Sunday, June 28, 2020

The Left's Resurgence Is for Real

Jamaal Bowman greets supporters on June 23, 2020, in Yonkers, N.Y. (photo: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)
Jamaal Bowman greets supporters on June 23, 2020, in Yonkers, N.Y. (photo: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

By Miles Kampf-Lassin, In These Times
Jamaal Bowman and other progressive and democratic socialist challengers had a very good night, while Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez cruised to victory—proving that the left wing is a force to be reckoned with.
wo years ago, New York City was the site of a stunning victory for the U.S. Left that propelled a transformative candidate into office. When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won her primary to represent New York’s 14th District in 2018, defeating longtime Democratic incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley, she shocked the political establishment by showing that a left-wing challenger can run on a bold agenda, lift up movement demands, and win.

After Tuesday night, it appears New York will again be home to an electoral upset jolting the Democratic Party’s centrist wing, as Jamaal Bowman holds a dominant lead over 16-term incumbent Eliot Engel in New York’s 16th District. Engel, the hawkish House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman who has held the seat since 1989 and saw mainstream Democrats rally around him in the waning days of the campaign, ended the night losing to Bowman by nearly 25 points. If Bowman holds onto his lead as mail-in and absentee ballots are counted in the coming days, he will almost assuredly be the next Congressional representative of the deep-blue district.

Bowman, a Black former public school principal, had the backing of a broad array of progressive groups in the state, including Justice Democrats, the Working Families Party and the New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), of which Bowman is a member. He was also endorsed by Ocasio-Cortez as well as Bernie Sanders, whom Bowman cites as first inspiring him to run for office.

With protests over the police killing of George Floyd spreading across New York in recent weeks, Bowman has embraced the growing movement for racial justice—including the demand to redistribute funding from police departments into social programs, telling In These Times earlier this month, “We need to end the militarization of the police and transfer significant portions of the funding funneled to police forces into our schools and our healthcare facilities.” In a speech to supporters Tuesday night, Bowman referenced President Trump’s antipathy toward the protests, saying “You know what Donald Trump is more afraid of than anything else? A Black man with power.”

Throughout the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, Bowman transformed his campaign into a vehicle to help residents access food and services while calling on the federal government to cover workers’ wages and enact a moratorium on evictions, as well as mortgage, rent and debt payments during the crisis. His platform also includes key redistributive policies such as Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, free college, cancelling student debt, a wealth tax and major investments in affordable housing and public education.

“I cannot wait to get to Congress and cause problems,” Bowman said Tuesday night, singling out “institutional racism and sexism and classism and xenophobia” as “what we designed this campaign to fight against.”

The remarks evoked Ocasio-Cortez’s entrance to Congress in 2018 when she famously participated in a sit-in protest outside of House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office organized by the climate group Sunrise Movement to demand the passage of a Green New Deal. This confrontational approach to advocating for policies within Ocasio-Cortez’s own party has been criticized by some Democrats, including those such as former Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill who’ve been upset by her endorsement of primary challengers.

But Tuesday showed that this strategy can work, as not only does Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsed candidate look poised to topple the incumbent Engel, but she herself won a resounding primary victory in her own district, stating on Twitter: “Tonight we are proving that the people’s movement in NY isn’t an accident. It’s a mandate.”

Indeed, in the last cycle, Ocasio-Cortez was widely dismissed as being a serious threat to the establishment, and her opponent Crowley hardly campaigned in the primary. This time, she faced a well-funded challenger in CNBC contributor Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, who attempted to smear her democratic socialist rival by claiming “I am a real Democrat.” In the end, Ocasio-Cortez won by over 50 points.

A similar dynamic also played out in Bowman’s race, where Engel sensed his fortunes falling after a string of gaffes—including when he was caught on a hot mic saying, “If I didn’t have a primary I wouldn’t care” at a press event addressing recent protests. Democratic establishment heavyweights including Hillary Clinton, Sen. Chuck Schumer and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo sought to revive his campaign with their support. Engel also received over $1.5 million in financial support from the pro-Israel PAC Democratic Majority for Israel to fund his reelection, along with other big-money donations from lobbying groups. And he attempted to slam Bowman personally by claiming “he’s not really a Democrat.”

But in the end, these big-name endorsements, PAC contributions and attacks weren’t enough to hold off Bowman’s challenge—a testament to both the insurgent’s political skills, as well as to the growth of a vibrant left-wing electoral infrastructure in the United States.

In July 2019, Fox News reporter Brooke Singman quoted a senior Democratic source as saying of the Justice Democrats: “No one is afraid of those nerds. They don't have the ability to primary anyone.” Bowman isn’t the only example of how this sentiment has been proven wrong. In March, progressive challenger Marie Newman—also a member of the Justice Democrats—ousted right-wing Democratic incumbent Dan Lipinski in Illinois.

The Working Families Party, which also endorsed Bowman, saw other successes on Tuesday, including the likely victory of progressive Mondaire Jones in the primary to represent New York’s 17th District in Congress. Jones is set to join probable 15th District winner Ritchie Torres in becoming the first openly gay, Black men in Congress.

DSA similarly flexed its electoral muscle on Tuesday, as multiple endorsed candidates either won their races or took the lead in New York. Besides Ocasio-Cortez and Bowman, incumbent State Sen. Julia Salazar won her primary by a massive margin. On a video call ahead of the results, Salazar said, “What’s really exciting to me is that we’re going to elect more democratic socialists tonight…and with that power we’re going to grow the working-class movement.”

She could soon be proven right, as public school teacher and DSA member Jabari Brisport appears likely to defeat machine-backed candidate Tremaine S. Wright to take a State Senate seat in Brooklyn. And Zohran Kwame Mamdani, another DSA-backed candidate, holds a lead in his race for State Assembly in Queens.

In 2018, mainstream media pundits and establishment Democrats—including Gov. Cuomo—attempted to write off Ocasio-Cortez’s shock win as a “fluke.” But Tuesday’s results are an indication that, at least in New York, the left-wing is a serious force to be reckoned with, capable of delivering votes, ousting powerful incumbents and advancing the demands of grassroots social movements.

As the likely 15th District winner Torres told the Washington Post ahead of the elections, “It’s like B.C. and A.D.—before AOC and after AOC…In the post-AOC world, incumbency is no longer an entitlement, no longer a guarantee of elected office.” 

(The author is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.)

Saturday, June 27, 2020

What some Republicans are telling themselves...



TULSA, OKLAHOMA - JUNE 20: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at  a campaign rally at the BOK Center, June 20, 2020 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Trump is holding his first political rally since the start of the coronavirus pandemic at the BOK Center today while infection rates in the state of Oklahoma continue to rise. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
It wasn't a mistake! You had no choice!
Over the past three and one half years most of us have seen a lot of nonsense on Facebook from people who claim to support Donald Trump. Much of it leans towards gibberish, repetition of tired cliches and memes, and out-and-out trolling, intended to provoke and insult rather than provide a coherent explanation why anyone at this point would still support extending Trump’s disastrous tenure in office. As most of us have realized by now, engaging in political discussions with these types of ‘friends” is usually a waste of time, and for this reason many of us tend to only do politics with like-minded individuals.

But regardless of your political alignment, the single biggest obstacle to changing anyone’s political opinions on social media (or in any other context) owes itself to one recurring, seemingly immutable phenomenon: no one ever, ever wants to admit they may have made a mistake.

So it was with some interest that I read on Facebook, in the context of a public discussion of some minor vandalism to a large, pro-Trump yard sign prominently posted in our neighborhood, a comment from an avowed Republican well-known in our local community. In response to the many anti-Trump comments she candidly said that her father, a die-hard conservative, wouldn’t be voting for Trump this year out of disgust with his performance in office. I have no reason to think this person (who aside from her political views is fairly well respected, even by my most ardent  Democratic friends) wasn’t telling the truth. Great, I thought. But it was what followed that most struck me.

She said, “He voted for Trump in 2016 because he felt he had no other choice.” 

That was interesting to me on a number of levels. My initial reaction was: Really?

He voted for a race-baiting, phony “reality TV-show” serial bankrupt with a history of assaulting women and zero public service experience over an experienced Senator and Former Secretary of State, because he “felt he had no other choice?” Yeah, that just doesn’t seem to pass the smell test.

But then I realized that’s because I’m seeing this through eyes of someone who has despised Trump from the beginning, who has seen fulfilled all his worst expectations of the man. While the depths of Trump’s incompetence and depravity may have sickened or disgusted me, I can’t say that they ever really surprised me.

They were all apparent from the way he campaigned against Hillary, visible to anyone paying attention. That the guy was a scumbag and would turn out to be a terrible president was no surprise. And the idea that Hillary Clinton somehow exhibited any characteristics or traits that could possibly change my vote for her was fairly incomprehensible.

But then, I’m not a Republican.

I’m fairly confident that if I asked this “die-hard” conservative what exactly was it about Hillary Clinton that prompted him to vote for Trump I’d get a mushy semi-coherent response about “Benghazi” and “emails” or some other nonsense that would all amount to thinly disguised misogyny. Because that is what motivated a lot—not all, but a lot—of Trump voters in 2016: it wasn’t so much that they loved anything coming out of Trump’s mouth (although many admittedly did), but that they hated Hillary Clinton beyond all sense and reason.

In short, I’m not sure whether this “die-hard conservative” really “felt that he had no other choice” in 2016 for any logical reasons, or whether it was something much deeper that motivated him. I’m inclined to believe that he just hated Hillary Clinton’s guts so much that he would have voted for anyone instead of her. “No other choice?” Please.

But—and this is the important part—I think his “excuse,” such that it is, speaks volumes. What he’s telegraphing here is that he’s not going to vote for Trump in 2020, but he didn’t make a mistake in voting for him in 2016. He had no other choice, you see? It wasn’t his fault Trump turned out to be such a disaster. Significantly, this gets him out of the terrible dilemma of having to admit he was wrong, and it allows him to rationalize not voting for Trump (and presumably voting for Biden) in 2020.

Again, the hardest thing to admit for any voter—Republican, Democrat, or anyone else—is that you blew it with your vote. Voters will look for any excuse to avoid that bitter acknowledgment. It’s a blow to their ego they’ll twist themselves into knots to avoid. That’s one of the reasons Trump’s “approval” levels have stuck around 40% in the face of the most disastrous presidency in American history. There are Republicans out there who see the wreckage that this man has brought about, but can’t bring themselves to admit they’re responsible for him in  the first place. And my guess is that there are quite a few of them.

He “had no other choice in 2016.” Sure. Whatever.

If that’s what you want to tell yourself, we won’t say you were wrong.

We’ll be happy to get you to your precinct on November 3.

Friday, June 26, 2020

William Barr hasn't just destroyed the purpose of the DOJ, he's eaten the department's soul



TOPSHOT - US Attorney General William Barr arrives for a press conference about the release of the Mueller Report at the Department of Justice April 18, 2019, in Washington, DC. - US Attorney General Bill Barr said Thursday that the White House fully cooperated with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe of Russian election meddling and that President Donald Trump took no action to thwart the probe. "There is substantial evidence to show that the president was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents, and fueled by illegal leaks," Barr said ahead of the release of the Mueller report. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP)        (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)
Pop quiz! Which of these men is currently behind bars? A) Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty over two years ago to lying to FBI agents in a scheme to defraud the United States; B) Roger Stone, convicted four months ago on obstruction, witness tampering, and five counts of making false statements; C) Paul Manafort, convicted on eight counts of tax evasion, bank fraud, and hiding foreign bank accounts and pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy against the United States and witness tampering; D) Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty to five counts of tax evasion, one count of making false statements, and two counts of illegal campaign contributions at the request of a candidate? The answer, of course, is E) None of the above.

Since William Barr became attorney general, he has withdrawn charges against Flynn, reduced the sentencing for Stone, and both Cohen and Manafort have been sprung from prison out of concerns over COVID-19. (Oddly enough, there are people still in both of the prisons where Manafort and Cohen were serving who didn’t get a pass to return home when the pandemic hit.) Despite working together to corrupt an election, conspire against the nation, suborn perjury, intimidate witnesses, and walk away with millions, every one of Donald Trump’s boys is comfortably Netflix-and-chillin’ at home. That’s what it means to have the head of the so-called Justice Department willing to cut down tradition, precedent, and U. S. attorneys to protect the boss.

It’s not absolutely certain that Stone and Flynn will avoid spending some time on the other side of bars. Despite Barr’s best efforts, Judge Emmet Sullivan seems likely to bounce Flynn’s case back to the full Appeals Court for another go at forcing some kind of consequences, though surely insufficient, for Flynn’s both lying to the FBI and breaking a deal with the special investigator. Stone—who was convicted back on February 20, but unaccountably had all the way until June 30 to show up for his sentence—has now applied for the same get-out-of-jail-because-COVID pass that Manafort and Cohen have already received. It’s hard to believe he won’t get it. The odds that either of the pair will ever need a genuine Trump pardon to avoid a day behind bars is slim.

Meanwhile, the sentences for Manafort and Cohen have been commuted to serving the remainder of their term under “house arrest.” So even if the pandemic were to vanish as magically as Trump has claimed, neither would have to put down their Scotch bottle or get off the couch—which in Manafort’s case, is probably covered in the hide of something endangered.

As The New York Times reports, Barr’s attempts to interfere in these cases isn’t anything new. From the moment he arrived in D.C., Trump’s incoming attorney general began to undermine the case against Cohen, questioning why U. S. attorneys had even bothered to investigate a case of extortion and campaign fraud.

Even though Cohen had been convicted by the time Barr was officially installed as AG, he still ordered up a memo listing arguments with which the Justice Department could attack its own case and own attorneys. The goal of that memo wasn’t just to free Cohen, but to start building the groundwork for the prosecutions ahead—Stone and Flynn. Barr deliberately turned the headquarters of the DOJ into a machine that operated to destroy the cases of the U. S. attorneys serving at offices across the nation.

Where previous attorney generals had recused themselves from politically charged cases involving the man who put them in office, Barr ran toward those cases. Under Barr, the priorities of the Justice Department became a mirror of Trump’s priorities.

Trump wanted conspiracy theories about Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton investigated, so Barr created a special investigator and sent a team around the world, traveling with them himself and several times trying to get foreign governments to make statements that would undermine both U. S. agents and U. S. intelligence in order to feed Trump’s Q-grade theories.

At home, Barr destroyed the results of the Mueller investigation, dismissed the obvious findings of obstruction, and wrote Trump a clean bill of health. Then he set out to assist in a purge of the FBI and rest of the DOJ to ensure that Trump loyalists, and only Trump loyalists, remained—even if that meant shoehorning totally inexperienced and inappropriate figures into critical roles.

And it meant that Barr dove into cases directly involving Trump and his associates. That meant not just leaning on U. S. attorneys to get the results he wanted, it meant replacing those attorneys who failed to play ball. Unprecedented is an overworked term when it comes to Barr, but it’s often the only one that fits. The removal of sentencing suggestions in the case of Roger Stone and the complete withdrawal of the case against Michael Flynn despite a guilty plea, were genuinely unprecedented events. Also terrifying when it comes to the rule of law.

Rather than attempting to limit the extent of politics within the Justice Department, Barr has made it clear to everyone inside and outside of the agency that he intends to make it more political. U. S. attorneys who attempt to operate with impartiality are to be “reined in” and reminded who is boss. Which is exactly what happened as Barr ousted first Washington D. C. attorney Jessie Liu, then clumsily bulled his way through  removal of U. S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman.

Clearing that SDNY office, and moving to replace Berman with Jay Clayton—a close friend of Barr’s who has never prosecuted a case of any kind—doesn’t just punish Berman for his role in going after Trump associates, it cuts off future threats to Trump. Whether it’s corporate malfeasance, tax fraud, a fake university, using a charity as a personal slush fund, or the antics of Rudy Giuliani, Trump is free from any concern so long as the U. S. attorney in the Manhattan office is both inexperienced and in his pocket.

Barr hasn’t just ignored the lines that supposedly exist between the White House and the Justice Department, he has actively worked to destroy even the impression that there should be such boundaries. He has openly operated the DOJ as if it is Donald Trump’s personal legal team and opposition research squad. Barr should be impeached at a minimum. There is no magic umbrella above Barr’s head, no tangled interpretation that says he can’t be disbarred, charged, and convicted.

With all Trump’s pals wearing their cashmere slippers at home, there are plenty of open jail cells. One of them should have Barr’s name on it.

Thursday, June 25, 2020

The Unfathomable Stupidity of Rich White Men


Oh, rich, white men.  You unfathomable idiots.  You could have had it all! 

There you were back in 2008, freshly bailed out after almost totaling the economy with your criminal greed, with not a single one of you headed to prison for it.

  While working class incomes stagnated, health costs soared, and the young staggered under the weight of student loans, you and your fellow plutocrats sat smugly atop a mountain of accumulated wealth, courtesy of an economy structured for your benefit by legislators beholden to your largesse.

Yes, you were sitting pretty.   And all you had to do to keep it that way was to not wage a racist, scorched-earth war against the first Black President of the United States.  That’s all!  That is the only thing you dumb, stupid idiots had to do:  swallow your pride, smile, shake hands, and play nice with one of the most charismatic, inspiring, intelligent and genuinely moral politicians in American history.

Barack Obama didn’t want to ruin you, you dumbasses!  He wasn’t out to confiscate your estates, kill your grandmas, and force you into re-education camps!   All he wanted was a more humane, less cruel, less racist version of the system that made you rich.  You should have wanted that too!  Not because you care about other people -- for your own good!   But you were too stupid.

What would it have cost you?  A moderate tax hike?  More oversight from nosy bureaucrats?  Some limits on your environmental depredations and exploitation of workers?  Maybe a few more women and people of color showing up at the Executive Retreat?   And in return, millions of your fellow citizens would have health coverage, a living wage, affordable education and child care, clean air and water, some disposable income and free time – in short, a stake in the system. 

You should have seen how providing these things served your interests, you imbeciles!  How a more economically secure working and middle class would be less likely to question the legitimacy of the system!  How living in a society where people are happier because they aren’t beset on all sides by financial and physical insecurity would be more pleasant for you, too!   But most of all, how unbelievably, brain-meltingly stupid it would be to actually burn down a system constructed by rich white guys for rich white guys – just because you can’t stand being told what’s good for you by a confident, competent, superior Black man.

But you couldn’t see that, because you were too greedy, too racist, and – most of all – too stupid.  So instead, you declared open war.  You obstructed.  You “investigated.” You lied – about his policies, about your intentions, about his religion and national origin.  You vilified the man who came to save you from yourselves, thwarted his reasonable agenda, blocked his qualified judicial picks, mocked and slandered him for actualizing the very promise of America: that anyone can rise to the top based on talent, initiative, and the content of their character.

Then, just to drive the point home, you replaced him with the most grotesque caricature of rich white entitled male supremacy imaginable, a man you knew to be an idiot, an incompetent, a degenerate, a xenophobe, a racist, a con man and a criminal.  That’s who you made Barack Obama shake hands with as he departed the White House -- and he still managed to do it with dignity.

You elevated this grotesquery to the Presidency, cynically stoking the racist, sexist, xenophobic resentments of the white working as you proceeded to loot the treasury, stack the courts, disenfranchise voters and eviscerate the civil service.

Nothing was off limits to your idiotic greed.  You even looted the pandemic relief fund!    Money that was supposed to go to struggling people and small businesses!

You dolts!   You seriously didn’t think people were ever gonna get sick of your bullshit?  Denying systemic racism!   Denying economic inequality!  Denying police brutality!   Denying climate change, for fuck’s sake?!  You know your mansions, your companies, your real estate holdings are located on planet Earth, right?   You dumb fucking morons!

And now, the people are in the streets demanding fundamental, systemic change.   And, like a bunch of mental defectives, instead of being terrified, you are indignant!

You’re shocked at their behavior.   Castigating hard-working police officers!  Pulling down perfectly good statues!  Demanding the resignation of New York Times editors for the “crime” of publishing the words of a sitting U.S. Senator!   Where can fascism get a fair hearing, if not the pages of the Newspaper of Record?!   You idiots still have absolutely no idea what’s going on – do you?

You should be grateful they’re only coming for the statues.   Maybe you should have thought a little more about how the system protected you before you started hacking away the foundations:  denying the possibility of an impartial judiciary, a fair press, an unrigged election, a well-intentioned law, an unbiased civil servant, a non-partisan scientist, an honest meteorologist, for God’s sake!   Maybe, just maybe, before you noodleheads decided on all-out, us-versus-them, Game of Thrones style partisan warfare, you should have considered that there are more of “them” than there are of you.   A lot more!   And that you liked it that way!

But you were just too stupid.

So here you are.   Your last, dumb stand.  Your castle gates defended by a rabble of red-hatted brownshirts, maskless mouth-breathers, and their Dear Leader, Ramp Boy.  And across the moat, hundreds of millions of angry Americans with torches and pitchforks demanding justice, civil rights, economic fairness, environmental sanity.  If you weren’t so colossally ignorant, you’d see that this is the end of the line for your dumb dream of perpetual white supremacy and dynastic wealth.

Because this movement will not be stopped – not by Donald Trump, not by MAGA nation, not even by Joe Biden should he fail to rise to the occasion, until it returns America to the people who truly make it great.   You should hope to God that will happen peacefully, through the miraculously durable and adaptable/amendable structures of American democracy that our Founding Fathers put in place all those years ago to protect the rights and privileges of white guys like you -- and that you’ve done so much to undermine. 

If it happens like that, you might even come out OK.  Not as rich, and not in charge, but OK.  And if not – well, good luck to you, dumbasses.  You had a good run, and you probably could have kept it going – but you were too impossibly, unbelievably, unfathomably stupid.

Wednesday, June 24, 2020

Trump knows he is losing, and he's prepared to tear the nation apart when it happens



TULSA, OKLAHOMA - JUNE 20: A supporter sits in the upper seats during a campaign rally for U.S. President Donald Trump at the BOK Center, June 20, 2020 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Trump is holding his first political rally since the start of the coronavirus pandemic at the BOK Center on Saturday while infection rates in the state of Oklahoma continue to rise. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
The "fake media" can't fake this reality, but Trump will try to steal the election anyway.
Donald J. Trump may have some sanity problems, but even he has to recognize that the crowds are smaller, the polling data is worsening every day, and his re-election looks shakier with every passing week. There are a few standards that Presidents are expected to commit to in our country. One of those standards is the peaceful transition of power. Donald J. Trump, however,is not one of those presidents.

Instead, President Trump is busy laying out a case, now, for unbridled civil unrest and ‘let’s end democracy’ acts should he fail to win in November. Why? Because Trump is already calling the 2020 election a fraud.

Democratic voters and unaffiliated voters are taking up absentee or vote by mail ballots in record numbers. Both parties have put effort into getting more of their voters to vote by mail siince the outbreak of COVID.

Trump’s statement, however, makes it clear: if he doesn’t win, the election is a fraud — and he will blame mail-in ballots.

This is a dangerous path to travel, especially in these times. It is not at all unlikely that Trump could win a state, let’s say Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, or even Florida on election night, but lose it as mail-in ballots are counted. Trump is setting the groundwork for legal contests and fights as well as a refusal to concede a lost election. He is counting on the narrative being: the media will announce I won a state on election night with the in-person vote, and any challenge to that outcome is not legitimate.

The scary part of this is that a large number of Americans may see the election night number and be used to thinking of it as the final, unchangeable number. They will count on networks to tell them “who won” on election night.

Between now and election day, the Democratic faithful have several jobs in getting rid of the disaster in the West Wing. We need to make sure we turn out every Democratic voter possible. We have to work on behalf of the means by which to put sanity back in charge.

It also puts a challenge to us: that we have to make sure that voters understand that vote by mail may not be entirely calculated on election night. That counting all the votes is what we as a party stand for in an election. We don’t need early, fast calls. We need the right results.  This is what Trump doesn’t want.

Trump wants a different kind of riot — a Brooks Brothers 2.0 Riot.  He’s already planning and thinking about it. Talking about the idea of his defeat is unthinkable, and could only happen by fraud. This isn’t about a conspiracy or a plot. It is about the deranged thoughts of one man, who, unfortunately, is US President. It is about what those deranged thoughts and conservative media willing to run with them can do to our nation.

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

A purge is underway at the Pentagon as 'loyalty concerns' place Trump above the Constitution



Donald Trump heads for St. John's Church with William Barr, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, and Gen. Mark Milley in tow.
During the protests over the police murder of George Floyd, the sore point between Donald Trump and the Pentagon got considerably sorer. While Trump was cringing in the White House bunker, he ordered tens of thousands of active military into the streets of Washington D.C. to take down peaceful protesters. Then attempts to keep Trump from pitting elite military forces—with bayonets—from coming nose to nose with unarmed civilians, actually ended up with calls for the National Guard to get “more aggressive.” And when Trump finally surfaced, he got General Mark Milley to join him in strolling past tear-gassed civilians for a Bible-waving photo-op.

Afterward, Milley apologized for inappropriately taking part in a political stunt, and the Washington D.C. National Guard forces were left dispirited and divided. But they weren’t the only ones unhappy. Donald Trump wants it absolutely clear that the military is his military. Military officers may take an oath to defend the Constitution, not any individual. But then, Trump took that oath himself and he certainly doesn’t consider it binding. He doesn’t trust anyone who does. Just as he’s done with every other department of the government, Trump has ordered up the broom to sweep the Pentagon clear of “disloyal” officers.

It’s not that the military hasn’t gone along with every Trump request, from taking out a target with a missile full of knives to pointlessly expending dozens of missiles at an empty airfield to dragging cadets back to West Point in the middle of a pandemic to witness Trump’s epic ramp-shuffling skills, the military has been there for him. And they’ve stayed ever so quiet while Trump insulted POWs, Gold Star families, and soldiers injured in an unnecessary conflict.

But after launching his White House with an armload of generals, Trump has fired them all, along with several of their replacements. It’s become clear to him that career military officers just won’t do to run the military. So, as Politico reports, a “loyalty purge” is underway at the Pentagon to stamp out any last trace of respect for the constitution, honoring the rule of law, and keeping the military even nominally apolitical.

Unsurprisingly, the first heads to hit the floor are two high-ranking women. Both the top official overseeing international security, Kathryn Wheelbarger, and acting comptroller Elaine McCusker are out. Both had been put into those positions by Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and he tried to keep both in place. However, Esper himself is a prime candidate for visiting the rusty, well-worn bottom of the Trump bus any day now. Wheelbarger also had a good relationship with former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, which led to her being at the top of a list of “loyalty concerns.” With Wheelbarger and McCusker gone, the number of empty offices at the Pentagon continues to grow. Occupied chairs are especially scarce in oversight roles—the inspector general seat has been open for over a month.

That doesn’t mean slots aren’t being filled. Republicans recently confirmed 11 positions simultaneously. In lower level slots, the Trump White House has filled dozens of roles, with dozens more coming. Reordering the Pentagon doesn’t even have to mean replacements. It’s also about promotions. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman is just one of several officers up for promotion whose next rung on the military ladder could be cut away to represent a lack of loyalty to Trump. In many military situations, a failure to be promoted is a signal of a career that is either over, or doomed to hopeless spiral downward. So much so that missing a promotion is often a precursor to retirement or resignation. Trump doesn’t have to fire every officer personally. He just has to let his staff filter, filter, filter.

Just as with Mitch McConnell’s blanket replacement of the federal judiciary, Trump’s team is reweaving the fabric of the Pentagon at every level. Those whose loyalty is to tradition, the services, and law, are being driving out in favor of those who support Trump. And only Trump.

After all, as Trump’s recently departed chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said, “The military type personality is just one that doesn’t work well with Donald Trump.”

The next time Trump orders an attack on American civilians, he wants an attack. Dammit.
 Generalissimo Donaldo Trumpino, supreme leader of the United Banana Republics.