The Washington Post offers tips on how to keep your EV battery running in frigid temperatures. The link at the end of this graf is supposed to be a "gift link" (from me, Marie Burns, the giftor!), meaning that non-subscribers can read the article. Hope it works: https://wapo.st/3u8Z705
Saturday
Aug152020
The Commentariat -- August 16, 2020
Late Morning Update:
Ali Vitali of NBC News: "Sen. Kamala Harris said she is 'very clear-eyed' about the kinds of attacks ... Donald Trump will lodge against her in the coming months, telling The Grio in an interview out Sunday that she expects the president and his allies to engage in 'lies' and 'deceptions.' The interview -- Harris' second publicly release since being announced as Joe Biden's running mate last week -- comes on the heels of Trump fanning false conspiracy theories about whether Harris is eligible to run as vice president."
Jacob Bogage & Joseph Marks of the Washington Post: "The House Oversight Committee will hold an emergency hearing on mail delays and concerns about potential White House interference in the U.S. Postal Service, inviting Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and Postal Service board of governors Chairman Robert M. Duncan to testify Aug. 24, top Democrats announced on Sunday. Democrats have alleged that DeJoy, a former Republican National Committee chairman, is taking steps that are causing dysfunction in the mail system and could wreak havoc in the presidential election. The House had earlier not planned a hearing until September.... On Thursday and Friday, [the USPS] began removing public collection boxes in parts of California, New York, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Montana. The agency said Friday that it would stop mailbox removals, which it said were routine, until after the election.... The Postal Service is in the process of removing 671 high-speed mail-sorting machines nationwide.... White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said on CNN's 'State of the Union' on Sunday that it would also halt sorting-machine removals. Meadows also said the White House is open to Congress passing a stand-alone measure to ensure the U.S. Postal Service is adequately funded to manage a surge in mail voting in November...." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: My, my. It does sound as if there's panic in the White House following the public uproar over Trump/DeJoy's cavalier moves to "kneecap" the postal service. ~~~
~~~ Justine Coleman of the Hill: "White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Sunday denied reports that several U.S. Postal Service (USPS) letter sorting machines were decommissioned after orders from the postmaster general. Meadows told CNN's 'State of the Union' that reports about hundreds of postal service sorting machines being taken out of service are a 'political narrative' and 'not based on fact.' NBC News reported on Friday that an internal document showed that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is decommissioning 671 of USPS's letter sorting machines across the U.S." Read on for Meadows' exchange with Jake Tapper. ~~~
~~~ Kevin Bohn & Sarah Westwood of CNN: "Chris Bentley, president of the National Postal Mail Handlers Union Local 297, which covers Kansas and part of Missouri, previously told CNN that postal management had already taken out four machines in Kansas City, two machines in Springfield, Missouri, and one machine in Wichita, Kansas. [Mark] Meadows told CNN that was not part of a new initiative but was part of a pre-planned reallocation. Documents obtained by CNN last week indicated 671 machines used to organize letters or other pieces of mail are slated for 'reduction' in dozens of cities this year. The USPS's own document calls the move a 'reduction' of equipment. A letter sent Wednesday from the National Postal Mail Handlers Union to the Postal Service headquarters asked, 'Why are these machines being removed?'"
Aishvarya Kavi of the New York Times: "President Trump said on Saturday that he would consider pardoning Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who faced criminal charges after leaking classified documents about vast government surveillance. 'There are many, many people -- it seems to be a split decision -- many people think that he should be somehow be treated differently and other people think he did very bad things,' Mr. Trump said during a news conference at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. 'I'm going to take a very good look at it.' The remarks signal a shift for the president, who repeatedly denigrated Mr. Snowden as a 'traitor' and a 'spy who should be executed' in the years before his election. The disclosures by Mr. Snowden, who sought asylum in Russia in 2013, set off a broad debate about surveillance and privacy." Mrs. McC: This is weird for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that Trump goes batshit when someone in his own administration leaks something fairly inconsequential.
~~~~~~~~~~
Presidential Race, Etc.
** Jennifer Senior of the New York Times reads about Joe Biden in "'What It Takes,' Richard Ben Cramer's gonzo classic about the 1988 presidential primary.... His youthful energy never came from his ideas or any particularly revolutionary philosophy. Rather, it came from his hustle, his sociability, the way he locked in with people and related to them -- 'the connect,' as Cramer called it. 'You were more likely to hear from Biden what Jill said the other day about teaching ... what his mother used to say ... or a wonderfully embroidered story about a nun in Scranton ... than you were about his five-point education plan,' Cramer wrote.... What was the one bedrock of his conviction? His decency. His identification with ordinary, bone-weary, underappreciated Americans. His commitment to them, his compassion for them. The connect.... You could argue that the biggest Biden/Trump contrast, the mother of all remedies, is his capacity for compassion, identification -- the ability to make the connect, the very thing he's been peddling from the start."
Christopher Cadelago & Natasha Korecki of Politico: "In less than a week as [Joe Biden's] running mate, Kamala Harris is showing signs she can act as an accelerant to his bid -- and give the campaign a new dimension to excite voters heading into the Democratic convention this week. In the few days since Harris joined the ticket, Biden has seen surging fundraising, promising polls and the rare sight of a hometown crowd -- despite not being able to hold a rally.... When Biden spoke on a campus [in Wilmington, Delaware] earlier this summer, the parking lot was near-empty, and the only activity was a few reporters waiting to have their temperature taken. But a day after Harris was announced, the same high school parking lot was jammed with cars. Supporters with custom signs and Biden and Harris t-shirts ringed the sidewalk with iPhone cameras to catch their first glances of the tandem that will take on Donald Trump."
This is the Biden campaign's first ad featuring Kamala Harris:
From the New York Times' election updates Saturday. Michael Levenson: "President Trump on Saturday falsely accused Democrats of refusing to fund the United States Postal Service.... Speaking at a news conference [Mrs. McC: or whatever it is] at his golf resort in Bedminster, N.J., Mr. Trump also continued to rail against mail-in voting, calling it 'a catastrophe.' But he did not directly say whether he supported the removal of mail-sorting machines and other changes made under the leadership of his postmaster general, Louis DeJoy. 'I don't know what he's doing,' Mr. Trump said.... Democrats have pushed for a total of $10 billion for the Postal Service in talks with Republicans on the COVID-19 response bill. That figure, which would include money to help with election mail, was down from a $25 billion plan in a House-passed coronavirus measure. [Mrs. McC: The House passed the bill three months ago. The Republican-controlled Senate has been MIA.] ~~~
“Mr. Trump on Saturday also refused to say that Kamala Harris ... is eligible for the vice presidency, but insisted he was not stoking a racist conspiracy theory that has taken hold among some of his followers. 'I have not gotten into it in great detail,' Mr. Trump said, when asked if Ms. Harris is eligible for the vice presidency. 'If she's got a problem, you would have thought that she would have been vetted ... by Sleepy Joe.'... He also praised John C. Eastman, a conservative lawyer who wrote a widely discredited op-ed article written in Newsweek that sought to raise questions about Ms. Harris's eligibility. Mr. Trump called Mr. Eastman 'a brilliant lawyer.' Newsweek apologized on Saturday for publishing the op-ed, saying it was 'being used by some as a tool to perpetuate racism and xenophobia.'"
Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: "President Trump represents the last primal shriek of retrograde white men afraid to lose their power. He's a dinosaur who evokes a world of beauty pageants, "suburban housewives,"' molestation, cheating on your wife when she's pregnant, paying off porn stars, preferring women to be seen and not heard, dismissing women who challenge you as nasty, angry and crazy."
Heather Caygle, et al., of Politico: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democratic leaders are considering cutting short the August recess and bringing the chamber back into session to deal with the unfolding crisis at the U.S. Postal Service, according to Democratic sources. The House could return to vote with the next two weeks, the Democratic sources suggested. The chamber is currently in recess, with no votes scheduled until the week of Sept. 14.... On Friday, Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) issued a scathing statement accusing ... Donald Trump and Republicans of waging an 'all-out assault on the Postal Service and its role in ensuring the integrity of the 2020 election.' Their statement came after Trump said he opposes a federal infusion of funds to save the flailing postal service because he doesn't support mail-in voting." Mrs. McC: I don't know what good it would do to bring the House back unless Mitch agrees to bring the Senate back, too -- and both Houses have similar bills to vote on.
Luke Broadwater, et al., of the New York Times: "... accounts of slowdowns and curtailed service are emerging across the country as [Postmaster General Louis] DeJoy pushes cost-cutting measures he says are intended to overhaul an agency suffering billion-dollar losses. But as President Trump rails almost daily against the service and delays clog the mail, voters and postal workers warn a crisis is building that could disenfranchise record numbers of Americans who will be casting ballots by mail in November because of the coronavirus.... At risk are not just the ballots -- and medical prescriptions and paychecks -- of residents around the country, but also the reputation of the Postal Service as the most popular and perhaps the least politicized part of the federal government.... Mr. DeJoy has said he is trying to reform an organization with a 'broken business model' facing a litany of billion-dollar losses and declines in mail volumes. But voters and postal workers said the Postal Service was more than a business."
Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "The breathtaking moves by the Trump administration this summer to disrupt a government service during the coronavirus pandemic -- under the argument that it will boost operational efficiencies -- represent the culmination of Trump's grievance-fueled crusade against the Postal Service that dates to the start of his presidency. Many of his complaints have centered on the post office's chronic financial problems, which have worsened during the pandemic.... Trump's fury with the Postal Service and mail-in balloting has become something of an obsession in recent weeks."
Eric Holder Weighs in. Daniel Politi of Slate: "On Saturday morning, law professor and legal analyst Barb McQuade pointed out [in a tweet] that obstructing mail is a federal offense and wondered who would prosecute Postmaster General Louis DeJoy in the Department of Justice headed by William Barr. 'The next, real, Justice Department,' [former Attorney General Eric] Holder replied [in a tweet]. Earlier, Holder posted a tweet that simply stated the law regarding the fines and imprisonment of up to six months that anyone who 'willfully obstructs or retards the passage of the mail' can face. Holder has been posting quite a bit on the Postal Service lately...."
Mitch's Man at the USPS. David Sirota & Matthew Cunningham-Cook of Too Much Information: In the lead-up to the current crisis, "Trump nominee Mike Duncan was appointed to the USPS's board of governors in 2018, and he was unanimously confirmed by the Senate in December 2019 to a full seven-year term. Duncan currently chairs the board. In 2018 federal disclosure filings during his confirmation, Duncan listed himself as the current chairman of the Senate Leadership Fund -- a $100 million Senate-focused Republican super PAC whose 2020 electoral goals could hinge on vote-by-mail systems.... Duncan was listed as a director of the Senate Leadership Fund in an annual report the super PAC filed in Virginia in August 2019. CNN reported in January 2020 that the Republican effort to retain the Senate includes '[Mitch] McConnell's super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, which is helmed by Mike Duncan, the former RNC chairman and a Kentuckian.'" --s
Khalida Volou & Kolbie Satterfield of WUSA Washington, D.C.: "A group of protesters staged a 'noise demonstration' Saturday morning outside of United States Postal Service Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's home in Northwest D.C. amid allegations of limiting mail-in voting ahead of the 2020 Presidential election. The demonstration was organized by the direct action group Shut Down D.C.... The organization believes DeJoy is 'dismantling' the U.S. Postal Service in favor of ... Donald Trump's re-election. They said his actions contribute to voter suppression.... Protesters chanted, sang, and banged on pots and pans outside of DeJoy's District resident for about an hour Saturday morning. Some neighbors, who seemed confused at first, joined the protest which had a portion of Connecticut Ave. closed to traffic. Some protesters stuffed fake absentee ballots and letters into the Postmaster General's apartment lobby door." Mrs. McC: Interesting that neighbors joined the protest. This is one of the ritziest neighborhoods in D.C. I wonder if the neighbors who joined the protest were Barack Obama & Jeff Bezos.
The Trumpidemic, Ctd.
Spit Take. Zach Lowe of ESPN: "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency authorization on Saturday allowing public use of a saliva-based test for the coronavirus developed at Yale University and funded by the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association. The test, known as SalivaDirect, is designed for widespread public screening. The cost per sample could be as low as about $4, though the cost to consumers will likely be higher than that -- perhaps around $15 or $20 in some cases, according to expert sources. Yale administered the saliva test to a group that included NBA players and staff in the lead-up to the league's return to play and compared results to the nasal swab tests the same group took. The results almost universally matched, according to published research that has not yet been peer-reviewed. The leading coronavirus saliva test, developed at a Rutgers University lab and given the same permission by the FDA in mid-April, costs individual consumers up to $150 -- though that can be reduced to $60 or $70 in some circumstances...."
Georgia. Scott Trubey & Greg Bluestein of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "President Trump's coronavirus task force warns that Georgia continues to see 'widespread and expanding community viral spread' and that the state's current policies aren't enough to curtail COVID-19. The task force 'strongly recommends' Georgia adopt a statewide mandate that citizens wear masks, joining a chorus of public health officials, Democrats and others who have warned that Gov. Brian Kemp's refusal to order face coverings has plunged the state into deeper crisis and will prolong recovery. 'Current mitigation efforts are not having a sufficient impact,' the report said. Businesses, such as nightclubs, bars and gyms, currently open with some restrictions in Georgia, should be closed in the highest risk counties, the report said.... Georgia also needs to ramp up testing and contact tracing statewide, the report said, and testing and infection control measures need to be expanded in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities."
South Dakota. Tony Romm of the Washington Post: "An order signed by President Trump to boost unemployed workers' weekly benefits will not deliver any new aid to South Dakota, where Republican Gov. Kristi L. Noem [R] appeared to become the first state leader to decline the heightened federal support. Noem, one of Trump's most vocal allies, said South Dakota did not need to accept the additional federal jobless aid because workers in the state are being rehired, and its economy is on the mend...." Mrs. McC: In case you might think Noem is just fiscally conservative and not mean, there's this: "Roughly 20,000 people in the state are currently collecting jobless benefits.... Michele Evermore ... [of] the National Employment Law Center, said...: 'If you're an unemployed person in South Dakota, it's not going to matter to you there aren't a lot of unemployed people.'..."
Liar, Liar, Liar, Liar, Liar. Sean Colarossi of Politics USA: "In a bipartisan letter to the Justice Department, the Senate Intelligence Committee raised concerns about testimony given by some of Donald Trump's family members during the Russia investigation. According to the Los Angeles Times, '[The letter] raised concerns about testimony provided by family members and confidants of President Trump that appeared to contradict information provided by a former deputy campaign chairman [Rick Gates] to Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III.' Among those family members and allies who may have given conflicting testimony were Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort and Hope Hicks. The committee also sought an investigation into former Trump adviser Steve Bannon for 'potentially lying to lawmakers during its investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: The letter is dated July 19, 2019. What with more than a year's having passed since the senators sent the letter to the DOJ, you'd almost think maybe our fine Justice Department wasn't getting right on it. ~~~
~~~ Update. Karoun Demirjian & others of the Washington Post now have a story on this: "The Republican and Democratic chairmen of the Senate Intelligence Committee notified federal prosecutors last year of their suspicion that several individuals, including President Trump's family members and confidants, might have presented misleading testimony in the panel's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, people familiar with the matter said. The list of individuals included ... Donald Trump Jr., and Jared Kushner, whose accounts of their pre-election meeting with a Russian lawyer were contradicted by the president's former deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates in interviews that were part of the criminal investigation led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, these people said.... But the intelligence committee, one person said, reserved its harshest allegations for the president's former chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, former campaign co-chair Sam Clovis and private security contractor Erik Prince, saying it had reason to believe all three had lied to congressional investigators -- a potential felony.... It is unclear whether the Justice Department took action on the referrals."
Gene Johnson of the AP: "... Donald Trump intends to withdraw the nomination of William Perry Pendley to head the Bureau of Land Management, a senior administration official said Saturday -- much to the relief of environmentalists who insisted the longtime advocate of selling federal lands should not be overseeing them. Pendley, a former oil industry and property rights attorney from Wyoming, has been leading the agency for more than a year under a series of temporary orders from Interior Secretary David Bernhardt. Democrats alleged the temporary orders were an attempt to skirt the nomination process, and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) and conservation groups have filed lawsuits to have Pendley removed from office."
AP: A riot was declared in Oregon's biggest city as protesters demonstrated outside a law enforcement building early Sunday, continuing a nightly ritual in Portland. Officers used crowd control munitions to disperse the gathering outside the Penumbra Kelly building, news outlets reported. Protesters had thrown 'softball size' rocks, glass bottles and other objects at officers, police said on Twitter. The department also said security cameras had been spray painted and other vandalism occurred. The actions came after what started as a peaceful protest.... Saturday afternoon, a rally by a small group of alt-right demonstrators quickly devolved as they traded paint balls and pepper spray with counter-protesters. About 30 people were participating in the Patriot Prayer rally in front of the Multnomah County Justice Center. Several were armed with automatic weapons, KOIN-TV reported."
News Ledes
Washington Post: "A series of fire tornadoes -- genuine twisters made of smoke and flame -- struck Lassen County, Calif., on Saturday, churning around as the Loyalton Fire rapidly expanded to more than 20,000 acres. Extreme fire behavior and pinpoint lightning strikes accompanied the massive blaze, which was 5 percent contained Sunday morning after burning for two days. The powerful fire and potent rotation inside the wildfire even prompted the National Weather Service in Reno, Nev., to issue what is believed to be the first weather alert of its kind: a 'fire tornado warning.'" The accompanying photo (which currently also appears near the bottom of the WashPo's front page) is stunning.
New York Times: "Robert S. Trump, the younger brother of President Trump, died on Saturday night in Manhattan. He was 71. The White House, which announced his death, at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, did not give a cause.... Simply being a close family member did not shield him from his brother's rages when Donald Trump needed someone to blame.... In one meeting, [Jack] O'Donnell [-- a former Trump Organization executive --] recalled, Donald Trump screamed at his brother, putting the blame for [a] slot machine debacle [at Trump's Atlantic City casino] entirely on him. 'Robert calmly got up, walked out of the room, and that's the last time I ever saw him,' Mr. O'Donnell said.... The rift [took] years to heal.... The relationship between the brothers ... was illustrated by Donald Trump in his book 'The Art of the Deal.' In it, he recalled stealing his younger brother's blocks when they were children and gluing them together so that Robert couldn't reclaim them." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McC: I cited those two anecdotes about Donald's relationship with Robert to help you adjust your sympathies in case your good nature has caused you to feel a pang of sorrow for Donald.
New York Times: "James R. Thompson, a Republican known as Big Jim who used his enthusiasm for campaigning and his canny understanding of state politics to become the longest-serving governor of Illinois, died on Friday. He was 84."
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Reader Comments (14)
"'If she’s got a problem, you would have thought that she would have been vetted ... by Sleepy Joe.' DJT
Now that's what I call rich! The piss poor vetting that Fatty and his feinds have engineered (read ignored) could fill half a book.
One wonders whether Donald will be part of the family funeral services for his brother or will Robert's family bar him from attending as others have in the past. He might very well be known as the Disgraced Mourner unlike the designated.
From yesterday: @MAG thanks so much for the Allen––it's so clever and so funny–-I'd seen it before but loved seeing it again.
And coincidently we received a letter in the mail (hooray! mail delivery!) from a Linda Ball, whose address is from a town adjacent to ours.
"Dear Neighbor" it begins, and tells us she is going to share some positive thoughts with us during these perilous times One example (there are three) is:
"the Bible addresses this situation and gives encouragement. At Luke 21:11 it mentions both pestilence and food shortage. That occurs world wide, as being one of the indicators that soon God will step in and bring improved conditions to the earth.(Luke 21:28)"
Her bottom line–– God will intervene and "all people will treated fairly, and with true justice, also there will no longer be sickness, disasters or shortages of any food." Yowza!
Now if that don't just shake your timbers and give you hope I don't know what will. Of course like those "end times" one has to ask when is this glory going to happen? Next week maybe? Linda offers her services––feel free to contact her if you want more information. I'd love to contact Linda, but I've been raised to avoid confrontation and I wouldn't want to sully my reputation.
It's a rainy Sunday––-another "here's that rainy day" we knew was coming our way.
Yes, PD: Let it rain
https://youtu.be/q4fsURMmOe0
@PD Pepe: Some religious groups -- among them Jehovah's Witnesses -- ask their members to write hand-written, personal letters to "neighbors" pushing their faith's messages. I've received a few of them myself. Since I didn't read them, I don't have a clue what group the writer might belong to. Apparently Jehovah's Witnesses scour the obituary pages, so I might have received some of these letters after my husband died; can't recall.
Just as I was leaving Florida, I was standing out in front of my neighbor's house when two nice Jehovah's Witness ladies came by. They started quoting OT Scripture to me, and I smiled and told them what I thought the passages really meant in their historical context and why they were not actually the prophecies of the NT Jesus the ladies claimed they were. The nice ladies rushed away muttering I was a heathen. I can still see their sensible high heels sinking into the neighbor's lawn as they fled.
Thank you, NBA. After months of being pretty sure an inexpensive spit test was as accurate as the nasal swab, as outlined in a NYT op-ed weeks ago, the NBA did the experiment to show the spit test results were robust.
I went yesterday to get my brain scrape test in preparation for traveling, working, and living in close proximity with a colleague for three weeks, a trip that was originally scheduled for March. We both want to start out with reasonable assurance we won't infect each other. Whether we get the results back before we leave in a week, we'll see.
If a quick, effective test were available to the general public, the economy would be up and running and the fear level of the population would be much lower. Instead, we have an Administration* that has sidelined testing and blocked assistance. If the Democrats had been able to move these programs forward, OOO would have a chance at being elected without wholesale stealing the election. There is no end to the stupidity, selfishness, and hatred centered in the oval office these days.
@Nisky: Good luck with your endeavor. Re: that testing: I'm thinking why someone doesn't come up with a test like the pregnancy one–-although I doubt whether peeing on a long tube would do it but how about an at- home salvia test that resembles that?
@Marie: would love to have gotten an ear full of your lecture to the J.W ladies with the sensible high heels. In THEIR ears and out faster than you can say "heathen."
For decades now, my wife has not allowed me to invite in Witness, Mormon or other doorbell-ringers. I used to have fun listening to the spiel and then asking questions until they started looking at the time. She said I was being unfair, getting their hopes up and then wasting their time. And she was also right, that I, then, didn't really have the time to waste.
And in the end it was kind of boring, because most of these doorbell missionaries don't really have deep awareness of their faith but are more like canvassers, sizing up leads.
And with COVID, I haven't seen any of those worthies at all this year.
A question and a thought:
Now that the White House is admitting that it is setting USPS policy, they're also admitting they were reponsible for the earlier sabotage, aren't they?
Think Holder and the law....
And on Snowden. Maybe the Pretender just remembered the Snowden flap occurred on Obama's watch and since the ensuing legal repercussions were also Obama's, he's thinking he can reverse at least one more Obama action before he goes.
Since anti-Obama has been his one and only guide since the onset of his stupid presidency, it's only logical...
@PD, I have family members who work in pharma. One told that they have a colleague who is working on a new test like the pregnancy stick that changes color if the proper compounds are present. It's intended for home use. I think it uses saliva too.
@Ken Winkes: My thoughts, too. Snowden was almost immediately charged with felonies after his theft of classified docs became public knowledge. That was of course Obama's DOJ.
In addition, Trump hates James Clapper, and Wikipedia reminds us that "Snowden said his 'breaking point' [i.e., what caused him to leak the docs] was 'seeing the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, directly lie under oath to Congress." The Wiki entry also says that Obama said, after the November 2016 election, that he would not pardon Snowden.
PLUS, maybe Vladimir Putin is sick of having Snowden in Russia & has asked Trump to do something about it.
It is Sunday, so....
It didn’t take long. Biden picks a woman of color as his running mate and bang!” birtherism" is back, promoted once again by a president who kickstarted his rise to the White House with another birther lie.
This time it’s not "Obama wasn’t born in the United States;" it’s Kamala Harris' parents weren’t American citizens when she was born so she’s not eligible to run.
The birther lie comes in two editions. There’s the lie about a person like the “he wasn’t born here” canard leveled at Obama by Trump and thousands of others, and also the lie about what the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution says about birthright citizenship. The current birthers don’t question Harris' birthplace but her parents’ citizenship status, a Constitutional irrelevancy.
In both Obama’ and Harris’ cases what’s really being questioned is their color.
Race is, in fact, where the birther nonsense began. Following the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was adopted to counter the pre-war 1857 “Dred Scott” Supreme Court decision denying citizenship to black men and women. Since 1868, the Constitutional language about birthright citizenship has been very clear: " All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States….” Period.
Then and since, that clarity has not been enough for those who don’t like it, who still wish American citizenship were tied to their whiteness.
Not only is that wish a political fantasy in a nation which began by bringing ten to thirteen million Africans to American as slaves (pbs.org) and now has more than 50 million Hispanics within its borders (most not in cages), but it is based on the supremely silly idea that an accident of birth confers superiority.
A poisonous idea spread by a genuinely “nasty” president.
Bad Lip Reading does the Drumpf/Swan interview. I liked the addition of the barking spiders.
The Daily Beast this a couple weeks ago about an upcoming at-home saliva test.
Re Snowden:
Putin asked Donald Fyedorovich to rid him of the couch-surfer, so Don said "konyechna". So Don is working on bringing Snowden out.
I replied to a posted screed on Instagram under Pete Souza's account, which is a mistake. This guy said that Dumpieface has done "more for African Americans" than any president, that Joe Biden is a racist and a predator, that the writer voted for Hillary but will now vote for Trump, and that I and the entire Democratic establishment are all dumb and can't converse. I told him his seven year old that he mentioned had more brains than the Current Occupant, and he flashed back that I was stupid and less smart than Dump. I went to his Instagram account-- he is of course Christian and home-schools his kids-- I finally deleted everything and realized I am NO match for MAGAts. I thought about telling him I was ABD on my doctorate (true, years ago--)but decided it was not worth my time to try to refute idiocy. I did, however, think that if it weren't for my blood pressure, I WOULD like to hear what makes someone approve of that maniac-- not that I believe he voted Democratic OR for Hillary. It's actually rare to have a troll on that Pete Souza thread-- Pete being Obama's photographer. But I may have met my match-- remind me not to read comments on certain websites. Not good for any of us!
My opinion: I heard the IA head of the post office folks (union) several times this week, and she SAID the machines were being pulled out. She would know. Mark Meadows is a fool and a liar like his boss.