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
Sunday
Jul142019
The Commentariat -- July 15, 2019
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Eileen Sullivan & Julie Davis of the New York Times: "President Trump on Monday accused Speaker Nancy Pelosi of using racist comments, escalating his attacks on four first-term Democratic congresswomen to the leader of the Democratic Party. Ms. Pelosi had criticized the president on Sunday for suggesting four lawmakers of color should 'go back' to their own countries, and she said that his slogan, '"Make America Great Again" has always been about making America white again.' Mr. Trump in turn accused her of racist remarks. 'So Speaker Pelosi said, "Make America white again." That's a very racist -- that's a very racist statement. I'm surprised she'd say that,' Mr. Trump said at an event celebrating American manufacturing at the White House." ...
... Racist Tweets Okay Because Many People Agree. Claudia Koerner of BuzzFeed News: "President Trump on Monday claimed his racist tweets attacking progressive congresswomen weren't racist, and he added that he's not concerned about backlash because 'many people' hold his same views.... 'Does it concern you that many people saw that tweet as racist and white nationalists are finding common cause with you on that point?' a reporter asked. 'It does not concern me because many people agree with me,' Trump said. 'And all I'm saying, they wanna leave, they can leave. It doesn't say leave forever. It says leave.'" ...
... Heather Caygle & John Bresnahan of Politico: "House Democrats are drafting a resolution to condemn ... Donald Trump's racist tweets against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other high-profile freshman congresswomen, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Monday." ...
... Lindsey Changes His Mind, Embraces McCarthy's Tactics. Josh Israel of ThinkProgress: "Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) ... attacked Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) by name and others by association during a Fox News interview, claiming they were' Communists' who 'hate our own country.'... In the 1950s, Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-WI) and others famously accused American citizens of secretly being Communists -- often without evidence.... Last year, he angrily denounced the women who had come forward with allegations of sexual predation against Trump's then-Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. 'This is as close to McCarthyism as I hope we get in my lifetime,' he charged." ...
... Inae Oh of Mother Jones: Trump "ratcheted up his [racist] attack on Monday by asserting that the congresswomen owe him an apology.... 'When will the Radical Left Congresswomen apologize to our Country, the people of Israel and even to the Office of the President, for the foul language they have used, and the terrible things they have said. So many people are angry at them & their horrible & disgusting actions!'" ...
... Steve M.: "If Trump is doing this now, 16 months before the election, how inflammatory will his rhetoric be by the fall of 2020? He thinks he's bulletproof. He thinks he's an expert on winning elections, based on a sample set of one, and is certain that this (rather than Russian interference of James Comey's incompetence) is what worked for him." ...
... Jon Allsop of the Columbia Journalism Review runs down how the MSM avoided calling Trump's tweets racist.
The Epstein Treasures. Tom Winter & David Li of NBC News: "Agents unearthed a 'pile of cash, diamonds' and 'a passport from a foreign country' in a safe belonging to Jeffrey Epstein, prosecutors told a judge Monday during a bail hearing for the wealthy financier and accused sex trafficker. Federal authorities are arguing for Epstein to be denied bail and to remain behind bars until he's tried for sex-crime charges in acts allegedly involving underage girls.... 'The passport was issued in the name of a foreign country, it was issued in the 1980s, it is expired, it shows a picture of Jeffrey Epstein, and another name,' [the prosecutor] said, adding the passport showed Epstein's residence as Saudi Arabia." The court will rule Thursday on the bail plea.
Marisa Fernandez of Axios: "Larry R. Felix, the director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing from 2006 to 2015, said the probability of releasing a concept design [for the Harriet Tubman $20 bill] in 2020 had always been low due to security and fraud risks, despite then-Treasury Secretary Jack Lew's desire for an unveiling that coincided with the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. Felix told the [Washington] Post: 'Those announcements were not grounded in reality. The U.S. had not at the time acquired the security features to redesign and protect the notes.'... A former Obama appointee told the Post that the new $20 bill had always been scheduled for release toward 2030, consistent with the Trump administration's claims."
Hans Nichols, et al., of NBC News: "... Donald Trump has told aides and allies that he is considering removing Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross after a stinging Supreme Court defeat on adding a citizenship question to the census, according to multiple people familiar with the conversations.While Trump has previously expressed frustration with Ross, 81, in particular over failed trade negotiations, Ross' long personal relationship with the president has allowed him to keep his job." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: If Trump were firing Ross because he lied to Congress, the move would be justified. But Trump is Trump, so he will fire Ross for not lying well enough.
BBC: "Computer pioneer and codebreaker Alan Turing will feature on the new design of the Bank of England's £50 note. He is celebrated for his code-cracking work that proved vital to the Allies in World War Two. The £50 note will be the last of the Bank of England collection to switch from paper to polymer when it enters circulation by the end of 2021. The note was once described as the 'currency of corrupt elites' and is the least used in daily transactions." Mrs. McC: Maybe the £50 will become more popular in a couple of years.
Morgan Chalfant, et al., of the Hill: "The Trump administration is moving to end asylum protections for most Central American migrants, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security announced Monday. According to text of the rule set to publish in the Federal Register on Tuesday, asylum seekers who pass through another country before reaching the United States will be ineligible for asylum when they reach the southern border.... The Departments of Homeland Security and Justice announced the Interim Final Rule (IFR) in a joint statement Monday. Under the rule, those who have been the victims of trafficking are granted exceptions. The rule also allows exceptions for migrants passing through countries that have not signed major international refugee treaties and for migrants who have been denied asylum in the countries they traveled through.... 'The Trump administration is trying to unilaterally reverse our country's legal and moral commitment to protect those fleeing danger,' Lee Gelernt, the deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project said in a statement. [']This new rule is patently unlawful and we will sue swiftly.'" ...
... The AP story, by Colleen Long, is here.
~~~~~~~~~~
What? Yet Another Trump Bluff. Bobby Allyn of NPR: "President Trump's threatened roundup of undocumented immigrant families this weekend that sent migrants in many communities on edge showed few signs of materializing on Sunday, the second time rumors of a large-scale immigration enforcement operation failed to come to fruition. Instead, in the cities where rumors of mass raids swirled, many immigrants stayed inside their homes, as jitters turned typically vibrant migrant markets and commercial corridors eerily quiet. Immigrant advocates across the country, meanwhile, took to the streets to demonstrate in protest of the promised roundup.... Before Sunday, there were weekend reports of attempted arrests by ICE in New York, New Jersey and Chicago, where The New York Times reported (also linked next) that a mother and her daughters were apprehended but the family was immediately released. But those actions appeared to be part of routine enforcement activity, not connected to a massive raid operation." ...
... Caitlin Dickerson, et al., of the New York Times: "Only a handful of arrests appeared to take place, and they were reported in just a few cities. That was much different than the nationwide show of force that had originally been planned, in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were expected to fan out in unison on Sunday morning across immigrant communities in major cities. But the authorities said that more arrests would follow through the week. The plans for the operation were changed at the last minute because of news reports that had tipped off immigrant communities about what to expect, according to several current and former Department of Homeland Security officials. Instead of a large simultaneous sweep, the authorities created a secondary plan for a smaller and more diffuse scale of apprehensions to roll out over roughly a week." Mrs. McC: It wasn't just "news report that ... tipped off immigrant communities"; it also was Donald Trump.
Bianca Quilantan & David Cohen of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Sunday called out progressive Democratic congresswomen in xenophobic terms, saying: 'Why don't they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.'... While the president didn't mention them by name in his tweets, it appears he was attacking Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), a native of Somalia, and possibly Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), whose family is Palestinian [Mrs. McC: Tlaib was born in Detroit]. Both have been outspoken when it comes to Trump's administration and the conditions of migrant detention centers on the border. 'So interesting to see "Progressive" Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run,' the president wrote on Twitter." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Katie Rogers & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "Broadly, Mr. Trump's attack was meant for members of the so-called squad, a group engaged in an existential and generational war of words with Ms. Pelosi: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna S. Pressley of Massachusetts.... Only one of the women, Ms. Omar, who is from Somalia, was born outside the United States. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was born in the Bronx to parents of Puerto Rican descent. Ms. Pressley, who is black, was born in Cincinnati and raised in Chicago. And Ms. Tlaib was born in Detroit to Palestinian immigrants.... Mr. Trump's attack came after days of Fox News coverage that centered on Ms. Omar.... 'Like some of my Democratic colleagues, I'm young, from an immigrant family, also very critical of Trump,'[Rep. Brendan] Boyle [D-Pa.] wrote on Twitter. 'Funny thing though, he never tells me to "go back where I come from." Hmm I wonder why?'... He is white." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. So this is a sentence that Rogers & Fandos wrote: "His message was immediately seized upon by Democrats, who called it a racist trope." Yastreblyansky was not favorably impressed. AND Oliver Willis points out, "here's the ny times cleaning up trump's racism. his racism isn't racist. its just that democrats *called it* racism." AND Scott Lemieux in LG&$: "I wonder how racist Trump would have to be for Times reporter to just call the statement racist...."
... Matt Stieb of New York, on the other hand, does not mince words: "President Trump launched a white nationalist-themed attack on Sunday against four Democratic congresswomen of color who have been outspoken critics of his administration's war on immigrants and attention-earning proponents of more progressive government policies. The attack deployed one of the most obnoxious clichés of racist and xenophobic hate speech: telling an immigrant or descendent of immigrants to 'go back to your country.'" ...
... Justin Wise of the Hill: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Sunday condemned President Trump for telling a group of progressive lawmakers to go back to where they came from, saying the 'xenophobic' comments reaffirmed that Trump's plan is about 'making America white again.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Jonathan Lemire & Calvin Woodward of the AP: "Following a familiar script, Republicans remained largely silent after Trump's morning broadsides against the four women. But the president's nativist tweets caused Democrats to set aside their internal rifts to rise up in a united chorus against the president.... The attacks may have been meant to widen the divides within the Democrat caucus.... Instead, the president's tweets, which evoked the trope of telling black people to go back to Africa, brought Democrats together.... Trump appeared unbowed Sunday night when he returned [from golfing at his Virginia club] to Twitter to say it was 'so sad' to see Democrats sticking up for the women. 'If the Democrat Party wants to continue to condone such disgraceful behavior,' he tweeted, 'then we look even more forward to seeing you at the ballot box in 2020!'" ...
... Charles Blow of the New York Times: "On Sunday morning, the same day that the Trump administration earlier announced it would conduct raids to round up undocumented immigrants, Trump weighed in again on the conflict between four female freshmen congresswomen and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, tweeting a series of three of the most racist tweets he could produce[.]... The country Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and Pressley 'originally came from' is this one. They were born in America. Omar was a refugee from Somalia. But, this is the most important fact: They aren't white, and they are women. They are 'other' in the framing of the white nationalists.... We are watching a very dark chapter in this nation's history unfold in real time. We are watching as a president returns naked racism to the White House. And we are watching as fellow citizens -- possibly a third of them -- reveal to us their open animus for us through their continued support of him." ...
... Goldie Taylor of the Daily Beast: “Trump's repugnant rebuke of American values did not come out of thin air. It unfolded days after 'The Squad' travelled with a delegation of congressional democrats to tour detention facilities in border states. What they found was deplorable. Reports of rampant abuse and neglect filled the airwaves, leading Trump to again dismiss accurate coverage as 'fake news.' Rather than focus on improving basic conditions and getting to work on bi-partisan, comprehensive reforms, the president basically said if immigrants didn't like how they were being treated, they should stay in their own country.... His words Sunday were not racially 'charged,' 'fueled,' or 'tinged.' They were unapologetically racist. And, if you support him, so are you." ...
... Peter Baker of the New York Times reprises some of Trump's greatest racist hits. (Of course he misses quite a few since he's writing a newspaper story, not a book.) "His attack on the Democratic congresswomen came on the same day his administration was threatening mass roundups of immigrants living in the country illegally. And it came just days after he hosted some of the most incendiary right-wing voices on the internet at the White House and vowed to find another way to count citizens separately from noncitizens despite a Supreme Court ruling that blocked him from adding a question to the once-a-decade census.... His assumption that the House Democrats must have been born in another country -- or that they did not belong here if they were -- fits an us-against-them political strategy that has been at the heart of Mr. Trump's presidency from the start.... 'Trump has not only always been a racist, but anyone around him who denies it, is lying,' [Jack] O'Donnell..., the former president of Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City..., said on Sunday. 'Donald Trump makes racist comments all the time....' Mr. Trump, he said, regularly trafficked in racial stereotypes.... 'White people are Americans to Trump; everyone else is from somewhere else,' Mr. O'Donnell said. 'He simply denies the reality of how we all immigrated to the United States.'" ...
... Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Tommy Christopher of Mediaite: "The hosts of Fox & Friends Sunday were greatly amused by Trump's tweets, reading them aloud and laughing audibly." Includes video.
Who Let the Trump Organization off the Hook? Mrs. McCrabbie: Josh Marshall of TPM is very good at conspiracy theories. The difference between his theories & those floated by the wingnut crowd is that Marshall's (a) make sense, (b) are based on bits & pieces of suggestive evidence, so (c) sometimes prove to be true. In a post published Sunday, Marshall provides evidence for a conspiracy theory that immediately came to my mind when I read that the Southern District of New York had decided not to bring charges (story also linked Saturday) against the Trump Organization for obvious campaign finance violations: that Big Bill Barr put his big fat thumb on the scale. Marshall runs a timeline & finds that right before Barr was confirmed, SDNY investigators requested interviews with Trump Org officials, but then they never conducted the interviews, according to the CNN report. Marshall writes, "... Bill Barr was sworn in about exactly five months ago -- which seems to be roughly the time of the last contact between the US Attorney's office and executives of the Trump Organization." So now, apparently without doing any investigating, they're dropping the case. Coincidence? Uh, no. Congress should investigate.
Harry Howard of the Daily Mail: "Britain's former ambassador to the U.S. vouched for the credibility of Christopher Steele, the author of the explosive dossier detailing Donald Trump's alleged ties to Russia. Sir Kim Darroch, who quit his post after leaked diplomatic cables revealed his outspoken criticism of President Trump's administration and personality, backed the former MI6 spy when asked by a U.S. official." Mrs. McC: Last week, Trump read (and retweeted) a tweet from Lindsey Graham which Graham -- who was friendly with Darroch -- characterized as a compliment: "Ambassador @KimDarroch always understood the strength of President Trump and referred to him as the 'Terminator' who is indestructible and will most likely be reelected." (What Darroch actually wrote was, "Trump may emerge from the flames, battered but intact, like Schwarzenegger in the final scene of the Terminator.") This supposed "compliment" caused Trump to tack back & wish Darroch well. I guess he'll take that back now & start blaming Darroch for the "Russia hoax."
What's Wrong with These People? Oh. They're Sociopaths. Kevin Fitzpatrick of Vanity Fair: "Speaking with Sunday Morning Futures host Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business Network, Senator Lindsey Graham vehemently disagreed with humanitarian concerns raised by Vice President Mike Pence's recent tour of a migrant detention facility in Texas. 'I don't care if they have to stay in these facilities for 400 days, we're not going to let those men go that I saw,' said Graham. 'It would be dangerous.' Graham was referring to now-viral footage of Pence's tour, which saw the vice president blithely overlooking a fenced room filled to capacity with migrants protesting unsanitary conditions. Pence subsequently claimed over Twitter that the men 'were in a temporary holding area because Democrats in Congress have refused to fund additional bed space,' and derided CNN for allegedly 'ignoring the excellent care being provided to families and children' in a separate facility.... Donald Trump likewise tweeted on Sunday that 'Friday's tour showed vividly, to politicians and the media, how well run and clean the children's detention centers are. Great reviews!'... Graham, meanwhile, emphasized that the facility was 'overwhelmed,' and claimed 'all of [the detained migrants] broke our law.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Sophie Weiner of Splinter: "That's right: Graham is casually implying that he can somehow tell the men he saw crammed into a cage were 'dangerous,' based on nothing other than the fact that they crossed the border, a misdemeanor on par with failing to appear in court or public intoxication." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Apparently there are several verses in the Winger Bible that teach as an article of faith that Republicans can "look into a person's eyes" & judge his character. So Dubya tells us he could see Putin's soul; Acting Border Patrol chief Mark Morgan claims he can look into an immigrant child's eyes and tell he will grow up to be an MS-13 gangster; and now Loathsome Lindsey says he can tell that men who have been locked in overcrowded cages for more than 40 days with no place to lie down & sleep are "dangerous." You know, if you locked me up cheek-by-jowl with a few hundred people who, like me, hadn't showered in more than a month or slept in a bed or brushed their teeth or were otherwise allowed any normal creature comforts, I might be "dangerous," too.
Maggie Miller of the Hill: "Lawmakers are zeroing in on the potential for foreign cyber attacks to take down the U.S. electric grid, with members in both chambers pushing hearings and a flurry of bills to address the issue. Congressional interest in the issue is growing following reports that Iran has stepped up its cyber attacks against U.S. critical infrastructure, and as Trump administration officials cite threats from Russia and China against the electric grid." ...
... Spencer Kimball of CNBC: "Con Edison apologized on Sunday for a blackout that left 72,000 customers without power for hours in large parts of Manhattan, but the root cause of the outage remained unclear. The power failure began after a 'significant electrical transmission disturbance' impacted multiple circuits,' according to a company statement. Con Edison said the blackout was not due to a power overload.... Mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday that the blackout was not caused by an act of terrorism. 'This was not a cyber attack and this was not an act of physical terrorism,' de Blasio said[.]" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Until further notice, I'll accept the non-explanation, BUT Amy Plitt of Curbed: "In one of those bizarre coincidences that's almost too strange to be true, the blackout that affected a large swath of Midtown Manhattan on Saturday happened on the 42nd anniversary of the massive citywide power outage of 1977.
Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress: "A federal appeals court struck down Trump administration regulations on Friday that allow virtually any employer to exempt itself from federal rules requiring employer health plans to cover birth control. This decision is only limited cause for celebration among public health advocates. Judge Patty Shwartz, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit judge who wrote the opinion, is an Obama appointee. The two judges who joined her opinion in Pennsylvania v. President, United States of America are Clinton appointees. The Supreme Court, meanwhile, is dominated by Republicans.... Friday's victory for contraceptive care is likely to be temporary. Nevertheless, there are aspects of this case that may trouble even some Republican judges. As Judge Shwartz explains, the Trump administration bypassed the ordinary procedures agencies must nearly always follow when writing new regulations. It also wrote those regulations far more expansively than even a broad reading of federal 'religious liberty' laws could permit."
Presidential Race 2020
Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer: "She had them at 'hello.' No, seriously. After applauding performatively for anti-Trump red meat tossed out by New York Sen. Kirsten Gillbrand ... and former Cabinet secretary Julian Castro..., more than 3,000 politically left activists at the Convention Center went wild the instant that Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren took her first stride onto the Netroots Nation stage.... With her slam-dunk performance Saturday, Elizabeth Warren became president ... of the American progressive movement, anyway.... The current frontrunner, former Vice President Joe Biden, whose national headquarters is just a few blocks away in Center City, chose instead to campaign in New Hampshire rather than face what might have been tough questioning of his more moderate stances." (Also linked yesterday.)
Ed Kilgore of New York breaks down the "electability" factors that pundits attribute to Joe Biden & finds them all flawed.
Beyond the Beltway
Patricia Mazzei of the New York Times: "A political crisis engulfed Puerto Rico over the weekend, prompting the departure of two senior members of the government and threatening Gov. Ricardo A. Rosselló, who found himself increasingly isolated in office and no longer supported by leaders of his own [New Progressive] party. Mr. Rosselló's administration was rocked by the publication of a trove of derisive messages sent by the governor and some of his cabinet members and top aides in a private chat on the messaging app Telegram. The messages mocked political foes and allies alike, often with profanity. On Saturday, the governor tried to contain the fallout of the rapidly unfolding scandal by announcing that his chief financial officer and secretary of state had stepped down over their participation in the chat. But the high-profile exits proved insufficient to quell the widespread furor on the island that mushroomed in the hours after 889 pages of Telegram messages were published by Puerto Rico's Center for Investigative Journalism. Protesters gathered outside the governor's mansion, La Fortaleza, in San Juan late into the night on Saturday and demanded Mr. Rosselló's resignation, less than 18 months before the end of his term."
News Lede
CNN: "Communities in Louisiana are taking the first steps toward recovery after Hurricane Barry made landfall in the state as a Category 1 storm Saturday before being downgraded to a tropical storm.... Barry -- which weakened to a tropical depression Sunday as it moved slowly north across Louisiana and into Arkansas -- had put Louisiana on high alert for much of the weekend with a threat of epic flooding. Much of that threat failed to materialize. New Orleans, in particular, did not see the catastrophic storm surges that had been feared.... But the storm did dump significant rain on already inundated parishes, causing flooding, and authorities still warn that more water could be on the way.... Barry is forecast to produce an additional 3 to 6 inches of rain from the lower Mississippi River Valley through portions of Arkansas, west Tennessee and northwest Mississippi, said CNN meteorologist Michael Guy. Some areas in this region could see storm totals upward of 15 inches by the time the remnants of Barry push into the Ohio Valley by midweek."
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Reader Comments (20)
To carry yesterday's Twitter thought a little farther along, I concluded a month or so ago that the Pretender himself is the sole author of fewer and fewer of his Tweets. Someone(s) else now has his or her hand in the practice.
I base that on observing that while the core of nastiness and outright craziness has been preserved, the messages have frequently become longer and more coherent and contain fewer spelling errors.
What I'm not sure of is whether the tweets still originate with the Pretender and someone else edits them or if someone else (Stephen Miller?) is doing Donnie's homework for him. Probably both.
What a prime employment opportunity:
Called to work in the White House, a dream come true, thinking you will be imvolved in matters of national and international note, and finding yourself consigned to editing puerility, trying to make unmistakably childish pique sound more adult, while remembering to toss in an occasional malaprop or spelling error to feign authenticity.
It's gotta feel like a life fulfilled.
The Boy Who Cried Hate.
Ho-ho-ho! A banner day. We scared little brown children and their parents out of their wits and didn’t have to do shit but bang out a few tweets while sitting on the crapper. Ho-ho-ho. Serves them right for not being born the right color in the right place.
Truly despicable. But the side that comes across the worst here is....drumroll....
Well, okay. Not much suspense to that one. Who ALWAYS comes out of these things with a giant turd on his face?
Aside from the basic adolescent viciousness of the whole farce, there is, as there always is, an overwhelming stench of immortality to this latest scam. Had he followed through on his promise of nationwide raids on immigrant communities, as terrible as that would have been (and may still be; if enough of the race baiters and haters on Fox give fatty a failing grade as Racist in Chief, he may yet decide to tear a few thousand more families apart) at least it would have had the merit, if one can call it that, of someone being true to their word, a condition as alien to Trump as basic human empathy.
But aside from the latest con job being yet another dreary example of his fecklessness and puerile nastiness, it bears pointing outs the cost of such vicious scams, which is not in any way fraudulent.
Threatening white supremacist raids in big cities all across the nation, especially those that have demonstrated that public service does not require the banishment of basic humanity and common decency (as it does if you join the confederate party) has a very real cost.
Aside from further stress imposed on millions of innocent human beings, many of whom are citizens worried about friends and relatives—not inconsequential—Trump and Miller’s latest impractical joke cost taxpayers money. Those charged with running big cities have many responsibilities. Taking time and resources away from handling real problems in order to plan for a response to the latest Trump lie costs real money. This is fraud, any way you look at it. Triggering the ramping up of municipal resources, taking time and effort away from addressing real, pressing problems in order to have a giggle is criminal on so many levels.
But childishness, vicious hatred, incompetence, fraudulence, and a frightening disregard for human suffering are all Trumpian hallmarks.
I hope Nancy said a special prayer for him yesterday.
I thought “Thoughts and prayers” were strictly a Republican thing.
“...governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world”
More projection from one of the worst, inept most corrupt in the world.
Ken,
Quite. And loved the punchline. It has the benefit of being at the same time, funny, sad, and unfortunately, no joke.
@Ken: Looking at Trump's latest and long tweet that is causing much consternation, as well it should, does not read like the typical Trumpy tweet so you may be right in thinking that Slinky Severino had a hand in it. Let's say it was Miller and because of the blowback will Trump own it? He wouldn't be able to admit someone else was the author of his tweet and what would he do to Mr. "I hate all immigrants" person––such a conundrum.
Marie's posit that if she were put in a cage cheek to jowl with hundreds of unwashed, hungry, angry human beings for forty days and nights, she too would be someone to reckon with. Lindsey, on the other hand seems to be ignorant of the testimonies of death camp survivors who tell us what happens to humans under these circumstances–-they even turn against each other––it's survival at any cost; it's eat or be eaten on a human scale. But if Lindsey is knowledgeable of these facts wouldn't he have said so? Made clear his meaning? So what we glean from his statement is as racist as the man he continues to support to perhaps his peril.
I find the case of the Southern District dropping the case of investigating the Trump Organization most intriguing. Looks like B.Barr put his foot down and if so that would be a no-no wouldn't it? Obstruction of justice by the Attorney of Justice?
I agree. His latest tweetcrap is too well done. Just think of the burned black edges of the soul of this hateful manure merchant. I have violent dreams about his demise, the worst possible. Every time I semi-discount all his enablers, though, they rise to the occasion by never rising to the occasion. We can no longer count on ANY of them to rein him in or clean him up. What we can count on is the prospect of half the country being in his camp and ready to push any Democrat off a cliff for zero reasons. And thanks, NYT; you never disappoint in the efforts to normalize a psychopath and spew bothsideserism. Excuse me, must go throw up after reading the latest tweets featured elsewhere.
Leftover weekend thoughts...
A couple of things I didn't manage to comment on in time.
First, PD, loved your poem about day lilies. "Took on a day like it was her last", such a memorable line, as well as great advice for living life like, well, like flowers in bloom.
I remember reading an evolutionary biologist speculating about the first flowering plants. Until then I hadn't really thought about the amount of resources a flower requires of the plant. It's pretty amazing.
There had to have been some evolutionary value in expending all that energy to generate a flower. Basically, it's the survival of the species, its propagation. Flowers seem to have appeared relatively late in the timeline (about 100 million years ago). I suppose they were waiting for the bees and wasps and various spore distributing insects to evolve far enough along for flowers to make sense. Still, flowers didn't have to be so colorful and beautiful, did they? Or maybe they did.
Some might scoff at the idea that other species are as attracted to (and require) beauty in their lives as we do, but I prefer to think that, had your day lilies resembled blackened spit balls, the bees might give them a pass. In the Age of Trumpian Nastiness, we have to find beauty where we can, no?
And from the sublime to the absurd...Ken brought up the demise of MAD magazine. Even though I haven't thumbed through the covers of MAD for years , with the exception of picking one up at a newsstand for a quick jolt of nostalgia, I too bemoan its passing.
MAD, I'm sure, aided the whimsical, absurdist, political, and social sensibilities of several generations of American kids, myself included. The art alone was the worth far more than the price of each issue, Mort Drucker's amazing abilities, Al Jaffe's back cover fold ins, Don Martin's crazy characters, and the irreplaceable Spy v Spy, which alone offered a trenchant commentary on the madness of the Atomic Age.
There was a movie that came out in the 80's, "War Games", the lesson of which is straight out of Spy v Spy. A computer designed to arm and fire nuclear warheads, is hacked by a kid who unwittingly triggers military alarms all across the board. Eventually, military masterminds all watch in horror as the computer plays the game "Thermonuclear War", running through all the multiple scenarios then in place for responses to Soviet missile attacks. Eventually it recognizes that this game is stupid because no one wins. Everyone dies. The computer eventually quits and asks the assembled, frightened brass if they wouldn't rather play "a nice game of chess".
Spy v Spy taught this same lesson. They each cancel each other out. Both sides always lose. Absurdity as national military policy. And MAD taught that lesson.
Ah, me. It certainly helps to have a healthy skepticism about power and celebrity, and if I now possess that trait, I owe at least some of its oranges to the maniacs at MAD.
And lest you think that MAD had a tiny niche audience of aporetic adolescents indulging their taste for the absurd, here is something both weird, wonderful, and not a little bit disturbing.
Back in 1959, MAD's seventh year in publication, Fred Astaire (!) did a dance routine on a TV special as Alfred E. Neuman. He wasn't just wearing a mask, he had a Hollywood special effects makeup guy work on this weird incarnation. So it wasn't just us kids, okay?
And that's all I have to say about it.
Longtime viewers of the Tonight Show can recall Johnny Carson’s frequent jokes about Con Ed. He once described it as the Loony Tunes Power Company. Still crazy after all these years?
Your time is up!
Memo to Wilbur Ross: Get outta here.
Memo to Wilbur Ross: No, really, get outta here.
Story over on CNBC: "President Donald Trump has told aides and allies that he is considering removing Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross after a stinging Supreme Court defeat on adding a citizenship question to the census, according to multiple people familiar with the conversations.
( https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/15/trump-weighs-ousting-commerce-chief-wilbur-ross-after-census-defeat.html )
@AK: Lovely piece about flowers–-glad you liked the poem–– and fructifying plus interesting info re: MAD–-for someone like me who knew very little about this magazine.
The other day was reading a review by Orlando Figes on books by Sergei Lebedev, cited as the best of Russia's younger generation of writers. I found what Figes writes about one of Sergei's character named Krill jumped out at me and you will see why:
When Krill was leafing through the government anti-German documents, he saw the birth of totalitarianism in Russia––before the Bolsheviks came to power. He saw how a repressive state arose, how the public was willing to praise terror, keep looking for "aliens," turncoats, agents of evil who were the cause of the country's ills.
Figes ends his review saying if not for the history of spy-mania in the last years of the empire, it was not clear why people in the Stalin era slid so easily into the the madness of mutual denunciations, approving mass arrests and demanding bigger and more frequent executions of "enemies of the people."
Seems we are asking almost the same questions.
Huffpost is reporting that the malignant asshat ('orange' of which is the odious Miller--)is killing asylum entirely. And the bots and trolls and "patriots" are loving it. Someone on there has decided that he IS the antichrist, reincarnated Hitler. I dunno about that, but he IS a vicious piece of filth, surrounded and egged-on by dungeaters. That's as kind as I can be.
@Jeanne: See related story linked at the top of the page. Lawsuits to follow.
More on Wilbur from Vanity Fair: Hamptons Problems: The MAGA Invasion Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg
"Two: An unbelievable legal fiasco surrounding the U.S. census couldn’t stop Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross from dancing alongside Giuliani at the aforementioned party at the Weymouth home. “However bad you might imagine Rudy’s dance moves might be, he was upstaged by Wilbur, who looked like a skeleton doing the Happy Feet dance,” a source told Page Six.
( https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2019/07/hamptons-problems-donald-trump-jr-matt-lauer )
I can't say much about Wilbur and Rudy's dance moves. However, the way these republicans are falling in line does remind me of the "Hamster Dance". All in line, with monotonous music.
Re: The Alan Turing 50£ Note
A tad tardy, you buggers, doncha think? (Better Late Than Never?)
Now, if you might send word “across the pond” re: Harriet Tubman . . . ?
Theatrical Asides If Of Interest
• From the BBC, The Imitation Game”, with (the ever-superb) Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing.
• Was beyond fortunate to have seen Derek Jacobi when “Breaking The Code” came to Broadway in the late Eighties. But understand a made-for-tv film was produced in the late Nineties (I really must see it) with Sir Jacobi reprising his role as Turing.
Why would J. Epstein have a fake passport with his picture and a
different name and with a Saudi Arabia address? Who loves Saudi
Arabia more than the trumps? Inquiring minds want to know.
https://youtu.be/dbB49DABQHs
@forrest.morris: Inasmuch as the fake passport is expired, Epstein must be keeping it as a memento of happier times.
@Hattie: I saw "The Imitation Game” recently and thought it was quite good. I also saw "Breaking the Code" on Broadway way back when, so I figured when I decided to watch "The Imitation Game," it would be similar, but it wasn't. Both are searing reminders of the overarching importance of minority rights. And Trumpence stand before us, a daily reminder of how easy it is to lose those rights.
@Mrs. BeaMcC.
“Both are searing reminders of the overarching importance of minority rights. And Trumpence stand before us, a daily reminder of how easy it is to lose those rights.”
Indeed! And eloquently stated.
Smiling - against all laws of likelihood - that we might have sat in the same audience. Then again, I’d a similarly farfetched notion when Akhilleus mentioned NYU, also my Alma Mater (and my “blood” mater’s). A “small world”, which - when of positive-mind - I’m counting on to unify (resuscitate) Humanity.
Published this afternoon, Adam Serwer in The Atlantic, "Trump Tells America What Kind of Nationalist He Is"
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/trumps-white-nationalist-attack-four-congresswomen/594019/