The Commentariat -- September 6, 2020
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Most Hilarious Weekend News Report:
Trump Skipped Cemetery Visit to Swipe Art Forgeries, Smuggle Them on AF1. Daniel Politi of Slate: "After Trump's cemetery trip was canceled, the president suddenly had a few hours to kill inside the U.S. ambassador's historic residence in Paris and it seems that during that time he took a particular liking to a few pieces of art. The next day, he ordered a Benjamin Franklin bust, a Franklin portrait and a set of figurines of Greek mythical characters be loaded on Air Force One to go back to Washington with him, reports Bloomberg.... 'The President brought these beautiful, historical pieces, which belong to the American people, back to the United States to be prominently displayed in the People's House,' White House spokesman Judd Deere said in response to questions from Bloomberg News.... But the truth is that they were fakes and replicas. The figurines that now sit in the Oval Office are from the early 20th century by an artist who was trying to claim they were from the 16th or 17 centuries. The figurines have little value and are really '20th century fakes of wannabe 17th century sculptures,' according to an art dealer.... White House officials ended up borrowing the original portrait [of Ben Franklin] from the National Portrait Gallery and hanging it up in the Oval Office rather than the replica Trump brought back from France." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump may think American soldiers fighting & dying in France were "suckers" & "losers," but when it comes to art appreciation, Trump is a sucker AND a loser. How perfect that he shirked his official duty to the American military so that he had time to pick out art forgeries to redecorate his own office. Yo, Donnie, I have the actual portrait of the Monna Lisa and it's bigger than that little fake in the Louvre. (This is 100% true, if you switch the words "actual" and "fake.") You can have my painting for $10mm, and if you want to use your campaign haul to pay for it, I'm good with that. Cash only.
Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Top administration officials on Sunday said they've never heard ... Donald Trump make disparaging remarks about veterans or the military, a subtle attempt to dispute a report in The Atlantic. But the president's top defender was the president himself.... Trump's defense of himself Sunday was to go on the attack. The president accused news organizations of partnering with the Democratic Party on 'a massive Disinformation Campaign' and urged his 85 million Twitter followers to let the magazine's owner [-- Laurene Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs --] 'know how you feel!!!'"
Alexis Benveniste of CNN: "Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, said his magazine's story about Trump calling Americans who died in battle 'losers' and 'suckers,' was just the tip of the iceberg. 'I would fully expect more reporting to come out about this and more confirmation and new pieces of information in the coming days and weeks,' Goldberg told CNN's Chief Media Correspondent Brian Stelter on 'Reliable Sources' Sunday.... 'We all have to use anonymous sources, especially in a climate where the president of the United States tries to actively intimidate,' Goldberg said of his editorial decision to cite nameless people. 'These are not people who are anonymous to me.'"
DeJoy Gained Influence via Illegal Straw-Donor Contributions to GOP. Aaron David, et al., of the Washington Post: "Louis DeJoy's prolific campaign fundraising, which helped position him as a top Republican power broker in North Carolina and ultimately as head of the U.S. Postal Service, was bolstered for more than a decade by a practice that left many employees feeling pressured to make political contributions to GOP candidates -- money DeJoy later reimbursed through bonuses, former employees say.... Two other employees familiar with [DeJoy's company] financial and payroll systems said DeJoy would instruct that bonus payments to staffers be boosted to help defray the cost of their contributions, an arrangement that would be unlawful.... Another former employee with knowledge of the process described a similar series of events, saying DeJoy orchestrated additional compensation for employees who had made political contributions, instructing managers to award bonuses to specific individuals.... Between 2000 and 2014, 124 individuals who worked for the company together gave more than $1 million to federal and state GOP candidates." Thanks to Ken W. for the link.
Amazing Grace. Ann Colwell of CNN: "Anita Hill never pictured herself voting for Joe Biden. But given the political reality the nation is facing, she's not only going to vote for Biden -- she's also willing to work with him, should he become president. 'Notwithstanding all of his limitations in the past, and the mistakes that he made in the past, notwithstanding those -- at this point, between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, I think Joe Biden is the person who should be elected in November,' Hill told CNN's Gloria Borger. But it's not just because he's running against Donald Trump, she adds. 'Its more about the survivors of gender violence. That's really what it's about.'"
The New York Times' live updates for coronavirus developments Sunday are here.
Sarah Watson, et al., of the New York Times: "... [at] about 100 college communities around the country ... [coronavirus] infections have spiked in recent weeks as students have returned for the fall semester. Though the rate of infection has bent downward in the Northeast, where the virus first peaked in the U.S., it continues to remain high across many states in the Midwest and South -- and evidence suggests that students returning to big campuses are a major factor. Despite the surge in cases, there has been no uptick in deaths in college communities, data shows. This suggests that most of the infections are stemming from campuses, since young people who contract the virus are far less likely to die than older people. However, leaders fear that young people who are infected will contribute to a spread of the virus throughout the community.... The result often is an exacerbation of traditional town-and-gown tensions...."
All the Best People, Ctd. Ewan Palmer of Newsweek: "A man who received thanks from Donald Trump for organizing boat parades showing support for the president is accused of using anti-Semitic language and sending threatening messages to a Florida resident. Carlos Gavidia, 53, was charged with sending a written threat to kill or do bodily injury after surrendering himself to police on Tuesday morning.... The 53-year-old received national attention for organizing a number of Trump boat parades.... Gavidia's Instagram page also shows him attending the president's RNC nomination speech on the White House lawn last week, as well as pictures with Trump at Admirals Cove and with the president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, taking part in one of his boat parades." --s
Jessica Wolfrom of the Washington Post: "Jacob Blake, the Black man who was shot by a police officer in Kenosha, Wis., in late August, spoke from a hospital bed, describing his physical pain and appealing to others to 'change y'all lives' in an emotional video released by his lawyer Saturday night. It was Blake's second public appearance since being shot seven times in the back in late August by Rusten Sheskey, a Kenosha police officer. The shooting left Blake paralyzed from the waist down. 'Every 24 hours, it's pain,' Blake said. 'It hurts to breathe. It hurts to sleep. It hurts to move from side to side. It hurts to eat.'" The Hill's story is here.
Ben Matthis-Lilley of Slate: "When an incident of police brutality against a Black person in the United States is captured on video, the aftermath follows a pattern. Activists, members of the community, and certain writers say that American policing and police discipline are fundamentally flawed.... In response, elected officials, police chiefs, and certain other writers say that most police officers are decent people doing a tough job to the best of their ability.... Which side are the police on? Do they favor the candidate [Biden] who believes law enforcement basically means well, as long as it keeps working to 'root out the bad apples' in police departments? Or the candidate [Trump] with a record of supporting criminal behavior, extrajudicial violence, and racism -- and of celebrating the bad apples? The country's largest municipal police union (the Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York) picked ... [Trump]; its leader, Patrick Lynch, spoke at the Republican convention. On Friday, the largest national police organization, the Fraternal Order of Police, announced that it was endorsing Trump on behalf of its 355,000 members as well. The police say that they want members of minority communities to believe the officers patrolling their neighborhoods are motivated by the principle of upholding the law.... Those officers also keep choosing to endorse Donald Trump."
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Presidential Race, Etc.
Caroline Kelly of CNN: "Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris said that ... Donald Trump's word alone on any potential coronavirus vaccine is not enough. Asked by CNN's Dana Bash in a clip released Saturday whether she would get a vaccine that was approved and distributed before the election, Harris replied..., 'I will say that I would not trust Donald Trump and it would have to be a credible source of information that talks about the efficacy and the reliability of whatever he's talking about,' she [said.] 'I will not take his word for it.'" ~~~
We remain on track to deliver a vaccine before the end of the year and maybe even before November 1st. We think we can probably have it some time during the month of October. -- Donald Trump, to reporters Friday
A Shot in the Arm -- to Trump's Campaign. Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump is so fixated on finding a vaccine for the novel coronavirus that in meetings about the U.S. pandemic response, little else captures his attention, according to administration officials. Trump has pressed health officials to speed up the vaccine timeline and urged them to deliver one by the end of the year. He has peppered them questions about the development status and mass-distribution plans. And, in recent days, he has told some advisers and aides that a vaccine may arrive by Nov. 1, which just happens to be two days before the presidential election. Trump's desire to deliver a vaccine -- or at least convince the public that one is very near -- by the time voters decide whether to elect him to a second term is in part a campaign gambit to improve his standing with an electorate that overwhelmingly disapproves of his management of the pandemic."
The Omen: Sunk. Colin Kalmbacher of Law & Crime: "Police in Austin, Texas say they have received several 911 calls about boats sinking into the waters of a large local lake during a boat parade being held in support of ... Donald Trump. According to local CBS affiliate KEYE-TV, the Travis County Sheriff's Office (TSCO) has received numerous distress calls from sinking boats -- apparently all along the route of the aquatic parade.... 'Several have sunk,' the TSCO reportedly told KVUE's Pattrik Perez.... According to citizen journalists who took stock of live updates from EMS response crews via the aptly-titled Citizen app, the parade participants were 'unruly' and 'not adhering to safety measures.'"(Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Bryan Pietsch & Aimee Ortiz of the New York Times: "... a spokeswoman for Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services, said no injuries had been reported.... 'We had an exceptional number of boats on the lake today,' [a spokesperson for the Travis County Sheriff's Office] said. 'When they all started moving at the same time, it generated significant waves.'... Other boat parades to display support for President Trump have taken place this summer. In Oregon, a boat sank after it was swamped by waves from a passing boat parade, The Oregonian reported."
The Biggest Grifter. Eric Lipton of the New York Times: "President Trump was proudly litigious before his victory in 2016 and has remained so in the White House. But one big factor has changed: He has drawn on campaign donations as a piggy bank for his legal expenses to a degree far greater than any of his predecessors.... The spending on behalf of Mr. Trump covers not only legal work that would be relatively routine for any president or candidate and some of the costs related to the Russia inquiry and his impeachment, but also cases in which he has a personal stake, including attempts to enforce nondisclosure agreements and protect his business interests.... [For instance,] Mr. Trump and his campaign affiliates hired lawyers to assist members of his staff and family -- including a onetime bodyguard, his oldest son and his son-in-law -- as they were pulled into investigations related to Russia and Ukraine.... Mr. Trump's tendency to turn to the courts -- and the legal issues that have stemmed from norm-breaking characteristics of his presidency -- helps explain how he and his affiliated political entities have spent at least $58.4 million in donations on legal and compliance work since 2015.... By comparison, President Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee spent $10.7 million on legal and compliance expenses during the equivalent period starting in 2007.
Trump Again Urges North Carolina Republicans to Commit Felony Voter Fraud. Dianne Gallagher, et al., of CNN: "... Donald Trump suggested to his supporters on Friday night that if they vote by mail they should also attempt to vote in person as a way to check that their vote is counted, which risks causing chaos at the polls and undermining confidence in the election. In a North Carolina 'telerally' Friday night, which was later posted on Facebook, Trump spent the first few minutes of the call explaining in detail how he wanted his voters to vote. If they vote by mail, they should go to their polling place anyway to 'see whether or not your mail-in vote has been tabulated or counted,' Trump said, noting that if it's been counted, they won't be able to vote. It's a federal crime to vote twice in the same election, and it's also a felony in almost every state, including North Carolina. Trump also addressed the possibility that a voter's mail-in ballot would be tabulated after they had voted in person." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Mark Niquette & Kartikay Mehrotra of Bloomberg, republished on MSN: "If the outcome of this November's election comes down to fights over counting mail-in ballots and claims of fraud by ... Donald Trump, Democrat Joe Biden may have a quiet advantage: The top election officials in many of the key states that could decide the election are Democrats." Thanks to PD Pepe for the link.
Jim Acosta of CNN: "... Donald Trump referred to fallen US service members at the Aisne-Marne cemetery in crude and derogatory terms during a November 2018 trip to France to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, a former senior administration official confirmed to CNN.... The former official, who declined to be named, largely confirmed reporting from Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic magazine, which cited sources who said Trump rejected the idea of a cemetery visit and proceeded to refer to the fallen soldiers as 'losers' and 'suckers.'... Trump said [Thursday] he ... 'called home, I spoke to my wife and I said, "I hate this. I came here to go to that ceremony." And to the one that was the following day, which I did go to. I said I feel terribly. And that was the end of it.'... First lady Melania Trump was on the same trip and was scheduled to visit the cemetery with the President. She was not in the US....Fox News, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Associated Press have also corroborated parts of The Atlantic's reporting." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Notice how Trump embellishes his lie about going to the Aisne-Marne cemetery with another lie: an anecdote that cannot possibly be true; it puts Melania on the wrong continent. ~~~
... Jennifer Griffin should be fired for this kind of reporting. Never even called us for comment. Fox News is gone! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet late Friday ~~~
~~~ Kill the Messenger. Daniel Politi of Slate: "... Donald Trump is calling for a Fox News reporter to be fired after she confirmed some details of a bombshell story that said he disparaged veterans.... Jennifer Griffin [of Fox 'News'] wrote a Twitter thread and also went on the network to lay out how she had confirmed several claims in the [Atlantic] piece." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Jeremy Barr of the Washington Post: "... the fact that [Jennifer] Griffin works for Fox, whose opinion hosts and corporate owners are seen as reliable supporters and defenders of the president, turned her revelations into a watershed development. It led to Trump's call for her firing late Friday on Twitter -- and an impassioned pushback from Fox News colleagues defending her journalistic honor.... Before the president took aim at her reporting, Griffin took veiled shots from some of her colleagues, most notably contributor Mollie Hemingway, a senior editor for the Federalist.... 'The Five' co-host Greg Gutfeld ... called the Atlantic's story 'a hoax' and 'a scam' that was 'created in a lab.' But Trump's attack on Griffin was a bridge too far for her colleagues, seven of whom took to Twitter over the weekend to defend her. 'Jennifer @JenGriffinFNC is a great reporter and a total class act,' wrote [Bret] Baier, the network's chief political anchor."
"You're All Losers." David Ignatius of the Washington Post: "... the fabric [of Trump's relationship with the military] began to fray by mid-2017. Trump increasingly treated the military as props in the reality-TV show of his presidency. He wanted them for parades and victory celebrations, not the anguish of combat. He seemed to take his strategic guidance from Fox News more than his commanders.... The bad marriage exploded this week, when former senior staff members told Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic of their shock at Trump's crude comments about combat and loss -- and his reported characterization of fallen warriors as 'suckers' and 'losers.'... It has been an open secret in Washington that many prominent retired four-stars have regarded Trump with growing horror.... The more [defense secretary & retired Gen. Jim] Mattis tried to educate Trump, as in his ... July 2017 seminar in the 'tank' at Pentagon, the more Trump became resentful. Trump berated his generals at that gathering -- with language that's eerily similar to what was reported in the Atlantic this week. According to Philip Rucker and Carol D. Leonnig in their book, 'A Very Stable Genius,' Trump said: 'You're all losers. You don't know how to win anymore.'"
Steve Benen of MSNBC: "Asked if he supports the military, Trump is quick to point to symbols and gestures: he has military flags in the Oval Office, for example, and his interest in military parades is borderline creepy. But there's no depth of thought or seriousness of purpose. It's what leads Trump to celebrate those accused of war crimes, while ridiculing those who serve honorably." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
The Special Relationship. Ben Riley-Smith of The Telegraph (UK): "[A]ccording to a cache of official notes taken during high-level UK-US meetings whose details have leaked to The Telegraph. The Prime Minister [Boris Johnson] is quoted telling the US ambassador to Britain in August 2017, when he was foreign secretary, that Mr Trump was doing 'fantastic stuff' on foreign policy issues like China, Syria and North Korea.... Mr Trump pushed back hard on Theresa May's pleas to expel Russian diplomats after the Skripal poisoning, saying 'I would rather follow than lead'.... The US president wondered why there was so much 'hatred' in Northern Ireland and asked Mrs May during a lunch why Mr Johnson was not prime minister.... The president was at times 'hectoring' towards Mrs May in 'nightmare' phone calls and would ask other world leaders what they thought of her.... Mr Trump cancelled his planned first visit to Britain as president at the last minute over the schedule and scrapped a call with Mrs May due to a foreign policy clash." --s
Your Tax Dollars at Work Lying about Latinos. Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "A fictionalized video produced by the Border Patrol and posted this week to its YouTube channel shows a Spanish-speaking attacker stabbing and killing a man in a dark alley after escaping from U.S. agents, a clip apparently created to dramatize President Trump's depiction of migrants as fearsome criminals. The three-minute video, titled 'The Gotaway,' is produced in the visual style of a television show..., with aerial drone footage, actors and fake blood.... The video ends with the lurid image of the stabbing victim bleeding and dying on the ground. 'Every apprehension matters,' a message on screen reads. 'Do you know who got away?' The message fades to a Fox News headline about the 2015 killing of Kate Steinle in San Francisco, followed by a rapid-fire cascade of other news clips and headlines about killings linked to immigrants illegally present in the United States. The Border Patrol's logo appears in the final scene, metallic and glinting. 'Protecting America Everyday,' it says. 'Honor First.'" ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: It's no secret that the Border Patrol is out of control. I expect the majority of them should be fired.
Kentucky. AP: "An airplane circled above Churchill Downs on Saturday, flying a banner behind it: 'Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor,' it said. The 146th Kentucky Derby became a surreal distillation of the crises facing the country in 2020, in the hometown of Taylor, a 26-year-old Black emergency medical technician shot dead in her home in March when police burst in to serve a search warrant in the middle of the night. Inside the racetrack, the stands were mostly empty and wagering windows closed as fans were banned because of the coronavirus pandemic. Outside, thousands of protesters leaned into the gates, chanting Taylor's name. Armored police vehicles in the parking lot replaced the normal throngs of Derby-goers in seersucker and showy hats.... The protests were peaceful. The demonstrators marched 2 miles from a city park and circled the track. They chanted 'No justice, no derby!' and carried signs imploring people to say Taylor's name. Inside the gate, police stood guard in riot gear with clubs, some on horses and some with armored military vehicles."
New York. Laura Ly & Nicole Chavez of CNN: "New York Attorney General Letitia James announced Saturday that she's forming a grand jury to investigate the death of Daniel Prude, who was pinned on the ground with a spit sock on his head.... Prude died in Rochester, New York, in March following an encounter with police, but protests began earlier this week after police dash and bodycam videos of the incident were made public by attorneys representing Prude's family." ~~~
~~~ Rochester Democrat & Chronicle: "A fourth night of protests over the death of Daniel Prude was the largest yet, and again ended with pepper balls, tear gas and fireworks. Rochester police said they arrested nine people, including two on felony charges. Three officers were 'treated at local hospitals for injuries sustained as a result of projectiles and incendiary devices which were launched against them,' said Lt. Greg Bello in a news release.... Social media showed images of protesters hit by projectiles, including Monroe County legislator and former journalist Rachel Barnhart."
Zoë Richards of TPM: "White supremacists pose the most serious terror threat to the United States, according to a draft report from the Department of Homeland Security. Three different drafts of the report obtained by Politico characterize the threat from white supremacists as the deadliest domestic terror threat in the United States. All three documents also report that 2019 was the deadliest year for domestic violent extremists since the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995.... Later drafts of the report refer to 'Domestic Violent Extremists' -- shifting away from the terminology 'white supremacist extremists' -- as 'the most persistent and lethal threat.'" --s
Literary Corner, Ha Ha
Ashley Parker & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "President Trump's longtime lawyer and personal fixer, Michael Cohen, alleges in a new book that Trump made 'overt and covert attempts to get Russia to interfere in the 2016 election' and that the future commander in chief was also well aware of Cohen's hush-money payoff to adult-film star Stormy Daniels during that campaign. In the book, 'Disloyal: A Memoir,' which was obtained by The Washington Post ahead of its Tuesday publication date, Cohen lays out an alarming portrait of the constellation of characters orbiting around Trump, likening the arrangement to the mafia and calling himself 'one of Trump's bad guys.' He describes the president, meanwhile, as 'a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man.' The memoir also describes episodes of Trump's alleged racism and his 'hatred and contempt' of his predecessor, Barack Obama, the nation's only African American president.... 'The whole idea of patriotism and treason became irrelevant in his mind,' Cohen writes. 'Trump was using the [2016] campaign to make money for himself....'" ~~~
~~~ Erica Orden of CNN: Donald "Trump's model of a man in power, according to [Michael] Cohen, is Vladimir Putin, and Trump is described as enamored of Putin's wealth and unilateral influence, and awestruck by what he sees as the Russian president's ability to control everything from the country's press to its financial institutions.... In the wake of Trump's presidential kickoff announcement in 2015, in which he called Mexicans criminals and rapists, he dismissed concerns that he had alienated Latinos. 'Plus, I will never get the Hispanic vote,' Trump allegedly told Cohen. 'Like the blacks, they're too stupid to vote for Trump. They're not my people.' (Trump won 28% of the Latino vote in 2016.) Trump's contempt, in Cohen's telling, extends broadly. Cohen characterizes Trump bluntly as racist, and says that while he never heard Trump use the 'N-word,' Trump used other offensive language. Ranting about [Barack] Obama after he won office in 2008, Trump said, 'Tell me one country run by a black person that isn't a sh*thole...They are all complete f*cking toilets,'..."
Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "Former FBI agent Peter Strzok alleges in a new book that investigators came to believe it was 'conceivable, if unlikely' that Russia was secretly controlling President Trump after he took office -- a full-fledged 'Manchurian candidate' installed as America's commander in chief. In the book, 'Compromised,' Strzok describes how the FBI had to consider 'whether the man about to be inaugurated was willing to place his or Russia's interests above those of American citizens,' and if and how agents could investigate that. Strzok opened the FBI's 2016 investigation into whether Trump's campaign had coordinated with the Kremlin to help his election and later was involved in investigating Trump personally. He was ultimately removed from the case over private text messages disparaging of the president.... [Even now, Strzok says,] '... I do think the president is compromised, that he is unable to put the interests of our nation first, that he acts from hidden motives, because there is leverage over him, held specifically by the Russians but potentially others as well.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Natasha Bertrand of Politico: "[Peter] Strzok's team had uncovered so many suspicious contacts and communications between the campaign and Russians that they began debating whether to open a case on Trump himself.... Four months into Trump's presidency ... the discussion at the bureau had shifted from whether a case on Trump should be opened at all to whether there were any compelling arguments against it. In Strzok's telling, by May 16, 2017, there weren't. So Strzok's team, with permission from then-deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe, opened a counterintelligence case on the president that proved far more complicated than many at the FBI had anticipated. 'When you step back and look at it, it[']s fucking huge, Strzok said in an interview this week. At the time the FBI opened the case, Trump's financial disclosure forms detailed his ownership of more than 500 limited liability companies (LLCs).... Investigators would need to root through those records to identify areas where Russia might have financial leverage over him, not only now but 30 and 40 years ago. And despite his belief that tracing money was the most critical investigative trail the probe could follow -- 'even more than proving contacts with Russia,' he writes -- Strzok is fairly confident that that thread was never tugged at, let alone unraveled, after he was removed from the investigation in August 2017.... [Strozk] emphasized how suspicious he and other senior FBI leaders were of [Rob] Rosenstein's motivations...." --s ~~~
~~~ Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "A former senior F.B.I. agent [Peter Strzok] at the center of the investigations into Hillary Clinton's email server and the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, defends the handling of the inquiries and declares President Trump a national security threat in a new memoir, while admitting that the bureau made mistakes that upended the 2016 presidential election.... In a scathing appraisal, Mr. Strzok concludes that Mr. Trump is hopelessly corrupt and a national security threat. The investigations that Mr. Strzok oversaw showed the president's 'willingness to accept political assistance from an opponent like Russia -- and, it follows, his willingness to subvert everything America stands for.'" (Also linked yesterday.)
The Trumpidemic, Etc.
Bad News for the My Pillow Huckster. Jen Christensen & Jamie Gumbrecht of CNN: "The US Food and Drug Administration has rejected a submission from Phoenix Biotechnology Inc. to market oleandrin as a dietary supplement ingredient, citing 'significant concerns' about the safety evidence the company presented. Last month, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who recently joined the board of Phoenix Biotechnology and has a financial stake in the company, said he had participated in a July meeting at the White House with ... Donald Trump regarding the use of oleandrin as a potential therapeutic for the coronavirus. The extract comes from the Nerium oleander plant; the raw oleander plant is highly toxic and consuming it can be fatal. There are no peer-reviewed, published studies on the impact of oleandrin on Covid-19, and there's no public evidence it has been studied in patients with Covid-19.... Lindell ... has no scientific background or medical training...." Mrs. McC: So it's potentially fatal and completely untested. Otherwise, it's a great snake oil! Worth remembering: after Trump had kicked most of the scientists & doctors off his made-for-TV fake coronavirus briefings, he let the My Pillow guy lead off one of the briefings. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Way Beyond the Beltway
Jason Burke of the Guardian: "The terrorist [Carlos the Jackal], whose real name was Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, had gained global notoriety with a series of attacks carried out on behalf of Palestinian extremists between 1973 and 1975. In the west, the polyglot Venezuelan radical was frequently portrayed as an agent of the KGB, trained and armed on behalf of Moscow';s security service by counterparts in the Soviet satellite states of central and eastern Europe. Now, classified documents discovered in archives in eastern Europe reveal a different picture: not of a master terrorist working hand in glove with ruthlessly efficient regimes to launch attacks in the west, but of an arrogant, demanding, and unreliable terrorist entrepreneur who manipulated the anxieties of insecure decision-makers and the ignorance of security officials from the Baltic to the Black Sea until they finally ran out of patience." --s
News Lede
New York Times: "Lou Brock, the St. Louis Cardinals' Hall of Fame outfielder who became the greatest base-stealer the major leagues had ever known when he eclipsed the single-season and career records for steals in a career spanning two decades, died on Sunday. He was 81.... Louis Clark Brock was born on June 18, 1939, in El Dorado, Ark., and grew up in Collinston, La., in a family of sharecroppers who picked cotton.... As a boy, Brock never played organized baseball. Instead of a ball and bat, he swatted rocks with tree branches. But he received an academic scholarship to Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., and played baseball there...."
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Reader Comments (18)
Another Trumpy Tell...
Like his invented stories designed to glorify himself that nearly always feature string, manly men weeping in his powerful presence and addressing him, in the most obsequious manner, as “Sir”, it’s no surprise that Trump regards members of the military who follow the rules as losers, but considers those convicted of or accused of war crimes as his kind of guys.
His fascination with criminals who, like himself, have no use for loyalty or honorable service and who piss on a uniform code of justice (rules are for the little people) provides a vivid corroboration of Trump’s disdain for rule followers, whom he considers losers, while fawning over those who “get it done”. This all of a piece with his crush on dictators (and wannabes) who murder, or threaten to murder or torture anyone in their way (Putin, Duterte, Kim, Bolsonaro). He’s on record stating that rules don’t apply to him.
He has an Article II. He’s just never bothered to read it. And he has no use for those who have.
Damn the Times headline writers. Damn them all to hell!
Top of the online edition: “In Final Stretch, Biden Defends Lead Against Trump’s Onslaught” makes it sound as if the pretender is the outsider. Biden may hold the lead in the polls but the Oval Office Occupier has the AG and Postmaster General each putting both large thumbs on the scale, the beginning of a long list of tunnel vision officials who are actively working to keep OOO in power.
I’m concerned about the USPS. I read in yesterday’s Wapo that Rep.Wasserman-Schultz was denied entry to a post office in Florida she was scheduled to tour. She is on the oversight committee. In today’s Buffalo News there is an article about the ramifications of our slowed down mail. I sent a letter to my daughter (first class) which she finally got but a week late. This is not good.
https://buffalonews.com/news/national/mail-delays-cause-increasing-concern-as-packages-pile-up-at-william-street-facility/article_8c0d62ce-eed2-11ea-b82a-2788ae41379a.html
So...Dr. Trumpy’s Miracle Cure, available for everyone just 48 hours before the election.
Naturally, there won’t be enough time to see if the crap really works or not, but I have an idea. As soon as Dr. Trumpy’s fast food drive through Secret Formula SN-ache 01l is ready (wink-wink) the entire bunch of Trump moochers should get two injections.
First, Daddy’s SN-ache 01l, followed by a biiiiig blast of live Trump virus. We know none of these con artists have the virus now. They all get the rapid fire test (available only for them) every time someone sneezes. I want Junior to get the first shots. Then, we’ll wait and see. If he’s dead in two weeks, or goes blind and grows a brain (nothin’ there now), it’s back to the drawing board and off to the loser’s hoosegow for Fatty, for trying one last con to steal the election. Again.
Donna,
Good thing you didn’t send a ballot. It might not get there til Christmas if Trump’s agents knew what it was. But blocking access to a member of Congress is just the first step in DeJoy’s cover up of his destruction of the Post Office in the service of fascism. Plenty more to come.
LET US COUNT THE WAYS:
Alrighty now––within a few short weeks we have the Schmidt report, the Mary Trump book, Maryanne on tape, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff's book along with binders and recordings of Melania, the Atlantic story, and now Michael Cohen's book is out. And wonders upon wonders we have a Fox reporter who told the truth.
This is astonishing–– a sudden tsunami of revelations which would be shocking if we hadn't known long ago who this man was–-what he was capable of even before he took that oath of office, an oath he has broken ten times over.
Something that has stuck in my craw for years and when I learned of it I thought–- this is the beginning of the end of a normal presidency because it was such an extraordinary episode:
This defining moment occurred before Trump's presidency had even begun, two days after his election. Since May 2016 Chris Christi had been head of the transition planning team for the takeover of power if Trump won. Given the complete lack of experience in public office, this process was even more important than usual. Christi and his team of 140, had spent six months on this job. Two days after Trump's victory Christi appeared at Trump Tower to present a carefully crafted thirty volume transition plan. This voluminous work included shortlists of pre-vetted candidates for all the the top jobs in the administration as well as timetables for action on Trump's signature policies and the drafts of executive orders.
When Christi entered the Tower he was greeted by Bannon who informed him he was fired; all thirty binders were thrown in the trash. The word "sadistic" is almost too good for what happened here.
Without going into Christi's feelings and thoughts, this action shocked me and when I learned of it I had the eerie sense of something evil being executed. I remember thinking it sounded awfully like an authoritarian regime; Christie's delusion that he could be a peer of the Trump realm had to be crushed. The great leader has no peers.
So here we are––four years later and the fact that this country has been run by this sadistic con artist without impediment ( even impeachment was moribund) is testament to our broken system.
It will drive DiJiT more nuts in October when pharmas say they have vaccines ready to test, but testing takes more time than would allow distribution prior to election. He will then drive the people around him more crazy trying to persuade them to short circuit the process, probably by mass testing abroad a la "The Constant Gardener."And he will publicly claim that he has the goods but "they" won't let him deliver for "the people."
He's already doing this, I'm just saying that this month he will get even more frantically nuts. He will actually not understand why you can't kill a few people to speed up the line. Because, he wants to speed up the line. That's enough benefit in the CBA, to his needs.
And ... it is OK for those test subjects to suffer or die, because they are not him. Why can't people understand that?
Sunday Sermon:
"As a little boy saddled with glasses in first grade, I occasionally had to tap my imagination to explain the lens scratches or bent or broken frames. I mainly told the truth, but to avoid trouble I sometimes told a whopper.
I early learned lying’s utility. It may not get you into heaven, but here on earth, lying does sometimes pay.
Once I creatively blamed a bouncing, wet, sand-coated playground ball for the lens I scratched by climbing over a rusty fence gate I had been told to stay off of. That one was met with skepticism, but the parental hammer did not fall.
Fabrication comes in many forms. There is the blame someone or something else ploy, like the ball and not the gate. The pretend innocence of “I don’t know anything about it". The empty claim of an “A” on a test that was really a “C.” And the best lies of all: The ones you don’t have to tell because you never got caught taking the nickel from your parents’ dresser.
The 21,000 Trump lies run the gamut from soup to outright nuts. See all the great Covid “cures” that aren’t (nbc.news.com); the I never knew all those convicted criminals (businessinsider.com); the endless claims about voter fraud (nytimes.com); and the great economy that was really Obama’s (washingtonpost.com).
In the next weeks the lies will come thicker and faster, their “proof” often invented, too, as was the maliciously edited video posted by Republican Representative Scalise that “proves” Biden will defund the police (the verge.com); and the Trump tweet that similarly “proves” that Biden admits we won’t be safe in his America. Even Twitter labeled it “manipulated” (thehill.com). And on and on.
Some of my lies worked. But not often,
Probably because my honest, staunch Republican parents weren’t stupid."
Lest I perpetuate another lie, I should confess this one was really last Thursday's sermon, but it did prompt a Sunday response in this morning's paper that said in part, “The hate for supporting Trump continues, but we know his American First agenda will win out because God wins in the end.”
I have no rejoinder to that.
@Ken Winkes: "... his American First agenda will win out because God wins in the end.” Yeah, Ken, there is no rejoinder to that. You could try to have a conversation with someone with that belief, but I doubt you could make a dent. Anyone who thinks Trump is an agent of a benevolent god is clearly deranged or -- at best -- incredibly uninformed. But no government official -- not Trump, not Barack Obama -- is supposed to be a Christian soldier or God's agent on earth. We do expect our officials to follow moral principles that are also -- but not based on -- principles most of the world's great religions embrace.
I do wonder, in general, if it would be useful to try to insist on separation of church & state not just in government acts but also in our conversations. If we said again & again, "God has nothing to do with it. This is earth, not heaven on earth."
I would characterize Trump as "evil," but I hesitate to do that because that puts us into a religious, or at least quasi-religious, framework.
PD,
Your reminding us of the way Trump used and abused Christie (who in his turn used and abused plenty of others) points out the break between the old Republican Party, that at least pretended to do things the right way (although that veneer was severely defaced by the Decider and his pet shark), and what it has morphed into under the influence (warmly welcomed in all of the dark corners of right-wing world) of a monster of their own creation.
The system, as you describe it, certainly does seem broken, but it has always been a system that relied on reasonably honest attempts to keep it in good shape and running according to the original plan (the Constitution).
Like any delicate, finely tuned machine, our system of government could be easily (far too easily, as we have discovered) broken and repurposed by incompetence, willful ignorance, and or corrupt machinations, operating without concern for safeguards. It’s like a nuclear power plant gone over to the dark side.
Previously, we’d have the odd whack job or two or three who sought to spin the dials in the wrong direction, but they would be pulled into line, or fired, by steadier hands who understood the dangers of letting things get out of control. But since Reagan informed his minions that the problem with nuclear power plants was the plant itself, newer employees, with zero experience, education in nuclear physics, or an interest in keeping the lights on, began to take over.
Then the monkeys swarmed in. Pulling levers, spinning dials, playing with the isotopes and fiddling with control rods.
Now the plant is run by the biggest, most ignorant monkey of them all.
The system will work. But it has to be run by supervisors who take the job seriously. With Trump and Bannon, and the rest of the brigands in the Fatty administration*, we get both monkeys and madmen who would love to see the plant implode, just to be able to say they did it.
Christie thought he could tag along for the ride, but he was just a garden variety corrupt bully. The monkeys and the madmen were—and are—all about something much more evil than corrupt bullying.
They’re working toward their very own China Syndrome. And their
titular supervisors, Moscow Mitch, et al, are letting them do it.
It’s not just Trump and the likes of Bannon. It’s the whole party.
@Ken: This response: “The hate for supporting Trump continues, but we know his American First agenda will win out because God wins in the end.”
Just yesterday when I was talking to a neighbor who was asking me whether I could explain those that rally round Trump and one of the things I got into was the religiosity factor: When your religion has given you all the answers there is no need to question or to bother with any kind of in depth study––"it is what it is" and that's the way of it.
And I want to know the truth! How DID your glasses get so scratched?
@Patrick: The other day on my walk I stopped in front of a neighbor's yard and silently watched this neighbor water his flowers–-he hadn't seen me there so when I said: "The Constant Gardener" he looked up, smiled and said "We Italians (he was including my husband) have it in our blood, don't you know. I told him I had once written a poem dedicated to my husband entitled "Bedding Man" that described his almost instinctive love for gardening and all it entails. He takes care of the earth like he takes care of the people he loves.
PD,
It was the proscribed shortcut over the gate. As I put my foot on the chain tying the gate to the post and climbed, I leaned over too far and brushed my glasses against the top of the gate's the rusty bar.
In those far off days, lenses were not advertised as "scratch-resistant," because they weren't.
That's the whole truth. Honest. Cross my fingers...but don't hope to die.
Today's great news about Vitamin D3 and survival from Covid:
2 double blind controlled clinical trials of Vitamin D from Spain.
They found in a small trials (n=76) that of the people who were treated with vitamin D in hospital for clinically proven Covid, one ended up needing to be in the ICU, whereas 50% of people who were untreated ended up in the ICU. In the untreated group one person died; in the treated group, none died. That's a p<0.001, clinically very significant, in terms of mitigating the seriousness of the illness and its progression.
Yes, yes, yes. They are small studies, but done right and replicated.
So here we have a cheap intervention which is beneficial, with no side effects, and about a century's worth of clinical use vs. gobbleteegook about an unproven injection from the orange one.
I see a non scary rational choice here.
https://youtu.be/V8Ks9fUh2k8
The piece above re the reactions to Jennifer Griffin's reporting on Fox News about Trump's remarks on dead soldiers is an absolute echo of how Brian Stetler (Hoax) wrote about the behind-the-scenes and the in-front in-your-face that takes place within. There evidently is an actual difference between the ones who attempt to maintain journalist standards and the opinionators such as Hannity, Gutfield, Ingraham, etc. Stetler's book is quite 'fair and balanced.'
Also took a look at the Breibart piece on Griffin and the insane comments that followed. Ugh!
PD mentioned several books that are out and coming out now — I finished "Melania & Me" a few days ago, and she really doesn't care. Well written by Stephanie Winston Wolkoff...it at first seemed an extensive love note to her BFF in the early chapters, but she delivered the explosive tell all in the last chapters. A friend was reading it at the same time. I held off any comments until we were both finished. and our conclusions were the same. All this time some people worried Melania was a 'victim' in this relationship, bah humbug! She's as complicit as they come.
And the Princess (Ivanka) fairs little better in the book.
Looking forward to Michael Cohen's book coming on Tuesday and have pre-ordered "Comprised" (Peter Strzok).
Not exactly shocking:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/louis-dejoy-campaign-contributions/2020/09/06/1187bc2c-e3fe-11ea-8181-606e603bb1c4_story.html?
@ PD
Thanks for sharing the Christi story. That's the first I've heard of this humiliation. I find it surprising that Christi can appear just about every week on ABC This Week as an administration apologist - having gone through this kind of humiliation. Most of the high ranking personalities the OM has stiffed have gone on to write incriminating books or retaliate by telling exclusive stories to a journalist/writer. What kind of person can take this kind of abuse and persist as (distantly) loyal? Someone blindly loyal to party principals even if his dear leader is broken and destructive beyond being a useful idiot.
Thanks Victoria for bringing up the Spanish study about Vitamin D. This spring there were a number of articles in the popular press written about this topic. I went looking for medical literature and found a number of articles, some on the NIH website, discussing various topics, including: less deaths among patients taken out in the sun during the 1918 epidemic, current higher morbidity in COVID patients with Vitamin D deficiency, and a higher Vitamin D deficiency in persons of color due to more difficulty in absorbing Vitamin D from the sun because of higher pigmentation of the skin. These are a couple of articles: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2835877/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5946242/
My doctor had already be pushing me to up my Vitamin D for bone health issues, so it's been a no-brainer to be more regular in taking a supplement and getting some sun every day (usually easy in Colorado). It can't hurt, and I hope that this topic will get more attention. If only we had a trustworthy system of communicating health issues. I'm heartsick about the destruction of our once proud public health institutions.
Also, regarding voting, I wish more in the country had Colorado's system of voting. I should get my ballot 3-4 weeks before November and will walk it up the street to the public library's drop box which is under camera surveillance.
Good luck to us all in these trying times.
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