The Commentariat -- July 27, 2020

Afternoon Update:

Jonathan Easley of the Hill: "The first presidential debate in September has been moved from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. The move came after the Rev. John Jenkins, president of Notre Dame, announced the school would withdraw as host of the debate, saying the burdensome health precautions required would interfere with student education."

Tom Jackman & Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: "An Army National Guard officer who witnessed protesters forcibly removed from Lafayette Square last month is contradicting claims by the attorney general and the Trump administration that they did not speed up the clearing to make way for the president's photo opportunity minutes later. A new statement by Adam DeMarco, an Iraq veteran who now serves as a major in the D.C. National Guard, also casts doubt on the claims by acting Park Police Chief Gregory Monahan that violence by protesters spurred Park Police to clear the area at that time with unusually aggressive tactics. DeMarco said that 'demonstrators were behaving peacefully' and that tear gas was deployed in an 'excessive use of force.' DeMarco backs up law enforcement officials who told The Washington Post they believed the clearing operation would happen after the 7 p.m. curfew that night -- but it was dramatically accelerated after Attorney General William P. Barr and others appeared in the park around 6 p.m. Monahan has said the operation was conducted so that a fence might be erected around the park. DeMarco said the fencing materials did not arrive until 9 p.m. -- hours after Barr told the Park Police to expand the perimeter -- and the fence wasn't built until later that night." The AP's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Whom to believe? (1) An attorney general who has already lied to the American people and is a proven presidential* lapdog, or (2) an Army major who gets nothing out of contradicting Barr and others?

Devlin Barrett & Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration is sending more federal agents to Portland, Ore., as officials consider pushing back harder and farther against the growing crowds and nightly clashes with protesters, vandals, and rioters.... To strengthen federal forces arrayed around the city's downtown courthouse, the U.S. Marshals Service decided last week to send 100 deputy U.S. Marshals to Portland, according to an internal Marshals email reviewed by The Post. The personnel began arriving Thursday night. The Department of Homeland Security is also considering a plan to send an additional 50 U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel to the city, but a final decision on the deployment has not been made, according to senior administration officials involved in the federal response.... There were 114 federal agents there in mid-July -- though it is unclear how many personnel there now would be relieved and sent home once the reinforcements arrive." Related Oregon Public Broadcasting story linked below.

John Wagner of the Washington Post has a story on National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien's contracting Covid-19. "'He has mild symptoms and has been self-isolating and working from a secure location off site,' the White House said in a statement. 'There is no risk of exposure to the President or the Vice President. The work of the National Security Council continues uninterrupted.'" Mrs. McC: This is getting to be like a version of the cat-on-the-roof joke. First, it's Mrs. Stephen Miller who works far, far away in the veep's office. Then it's the valet who has a crummy job but works closely with Donaldo. Then it's the girlfriend of the ne'er-do-well son. Now it's a top advisor to the president. Who next? Bill Barr? Mike Pompeo? Before November, it will be Donald Trump. ~~~

~~~ Real Cat-on-the-Roof Story. Charlie Cooper of Politico: "A pet cat in England has tested positive for Covid-19, the first confirmed case in an animal in the U.K. and one of very few worldwide. The U.K.'s Chief Veterinary Officer Christine Middlemiss said that it was 'a very rare event' and there was no evidence to suggest that pets transmit the coronavirus to humans. The cat is thought to have contracted the virus from its owners, who had tested positive and since made a full recovery -- as has the cat."

Ashley Parker & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "... both allies and opponents agree [Trump] has failed at the one task that could help him achieve all of his goals -- confronting the pandemic with a clear strategy and consistent leadership. Trump's shortcomings have perplexed even some of his most loyal allies, who increasingly have wondered why the president has not at least pantomimed a sense of command over the crisis or conveyed compassion for the millions of Americans impacted by it. People close to Trump ... say the president's inability to wholly address the crisis is due to his almost pathological unwillingness to admit error; a positive feedback loop of overly rosy assessments and data from advisers and Fox News; and a penchant for magical thinking that prevented him from fully engaging with the pandemic.... In the past couple of weeks, senior advisers began presenting Trump with maps and data showing spikes in coronavirus cases among 'our people' in Republican states, a senior administration official said.... This new approach seemed to resonate...." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: IOW, Trump could not care less about Americans dying as long as those Americans were not especially likely to vote for him or buy MAGA hats.

Erica Werner, et al., of the Washington Post: "Senate Republicans will propose cutting weekly emergency unemployment benefits from $600 to $200 until states can bring a more complicated program online, according to two people familiar with the plan.... The proposal will come as part of a broader $1 trillion relief bill aimed at dealing with the economic fallout caused by the novel coronavirus. Republicans plan to release the legislation later on Monday and start negotiations with Democrats.... Republican lawmakers and some business executives have complained that the $600 weekly payment has created a situation where some Americans are paid more to stay home than to return to their jobs." Mrs. McC: Another way to look at it: Congress, in its wisdom, thought what a family needed to survive was $600/week (or $15/hour,  $31,200/year). That suggests not that the emergency benefits should be cut but that the minimum wage should be raised to more than $15/hour. Republicans look at everything ass-backwards.

Florida. Tyler Kepner of the New York Times: "The Miami Marlins postponed their home opener against the Baltimore Orioles on Monday -- four days after the season opener -- after learning that 14 members of the team's traveling party, including two coaches, had tested positive for the [corona]virus. The outbreak was first reported by ESPN." Here's an ESPN story.

Rachel Siegel of the Washington Post: "Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she will vote against Judy Shelton's nomination to the Federal Reserve Board, raising the stakes of a political fight around one of President Trump's controversial picks for a seat on the central bank. Collins joined Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) in opposing Shelton's nomination, which is slated to go for a vote before the full Senate. Collins and Romney alone can't derail Shelton's advancement, but the margin is getting thinner for Shelton, who is known for her outspoken criticism of the Fed and her advocacy for a return to the gold standard.... If the Senate's Democrats and Independents all vote against Shelton's nomination, her confirmation could be doomed if she looses the support of more than three Republicans."

Texas. Gary Bass of KLTV (Tyler): "During a rally organizers said was to 'protest the unconstitutional occupation of Portland,' on Sunday, Hank Gilbert's campaign manager was allegedly assaulted by a group of counter-protesters. Gilbert, a Democrat from Tyler, is running against U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Republican, for the 1st Congressional District. The protest took place in Tyler's downtown square on Sunday afternoon. Ryan Miller, the alleged victim, is Gilbert's campaign manager. 'Miller was attacked by at least four protesters, some of whom were armed, and sustained blows to the head and other parts of his body, as well as a large gash under his eye,' a press release from the campaign stated. 'The incident occurred as officers from the Tyler Police Department drove around the square idly, waving at the Blue Lives Matter counter-protesters who had come to support Gilbert's opponent.' According to the press release, counter-protesters disrupted the rally by shouting, 'Louie! Louie! Louie!' repeatedly. The press release also claimed the counter-protesters shouted 'Louie' as Miller was being assaulted." A TPM story is here.

Peter Beinart in a New York Times op-ed, relies on polling data to show that Joe Biden is running a more successful campaign against Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton did because Biden is a man. A 2010 study Beinart cites is instructive: "... two Yale researchers ... asked participants their opinions of two fictional candidates, one male and one female, who were described as possessing 'a strong will to power.' Attributing ambition to the male candidate didn't hurt his appeal. But upon learning that the female candidate was ambitious, many participants responded with 'feelings of moral outrage.'"

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Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "America's standing in the world is at a low ebb. Once described as the indispensable nation, the United States is now seen ... a reluctant and unreliable partner at a dangerous moment for the world. The coronavirus pandemic has only made things worse. President Trump shattered a 70-year consensus among U.S. presidents of both political parties that was grounded in the principle of robust American leadership in the world through alliances and multilateral institutions. For decades, this approach was seen at home and abroad as good for the world and good for the United States. In its place, Trump has substituted his America First doctrine and what his critics say is a zero-sum-game sensibility about international relationships.... The president has demeaned allies and emboldened adversaries such as China and Russia." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Balz won't say so, because to admit the truth would crush his strong belief in both-siderism. However, it clear from his essay that the faction and factor that brings the U.S. low in the world's estimate is the Republican party. ~~~

~~~ Julian Borger of the Guardian: "Germany is the most admired country in the world for the third year running, leaving the US in a tight battle for distant second place with China and Russia, according to a new [Gallup] global leadership poll. The annual poll ... casts more doubt on US secretary of state Mike Pompeo's claim on Friday that the US was 'perfectly positioned' to lead the free world in a new ideological rivalry with the Chinese Communist Party." --safari: I can't figure out why 'Russia' would be in the running...

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

<>Daniel Lippman of Politico: "Robert O'Brien..., Donald Trump's national security adviser, has tested positive for Covid-19, making him the highest profile Trump official to get the virus, an administration official confirmed. It's unclear how O'Brien was exposed to the coronavirus or how much in-person contact he's had recently with Trump. Anyone who is near the president is tested regularly for the disease."

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Monday are here: "One of the first large studies of safety and effectiveness of a coronavirus vaccine in the United States began on Monday morning, according to the National Institutes of Health and the biotech company Moderna, which collaborated to develop the vaccine. The study, a Phase 3 clinical trial, is to enroll 30,000 healthy people at about 89 sites around the country. Half will receive two shots of the vaccine, 28 days apart, and half will receive two shots of a saltwater placebo. Neither the volunteers nor the medical staff giving the injections will know who is getting the real vaccine." ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post's live updates of coronavirus developments Monday are here.

Alayna Treene of Axios: "Top Trump advisers and GOP leadership have told the president in recent weeks that he needs to switch gears on the coronavirus and go all in on messaging about progress on vaccines and therapeutics.... When scientists and health care researchers make big strides on vaccine and therapeutic development, the White House wants Trump at the podium, delivering the good news himself. He'll also largely continue to deliver these messages alone.... Reality check: It's nearly impossible that a vast majority of the public will have access to a vaccine by 2021, let alone before the election. And that assumes a vaccine proves to work...."

Marianne Levine & Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Even before Senate Republicans roll out a proposal on the next coronavirus relief package, top Trump administration officials are already pushing a backup plan in case negotiations stall. During media appearances Sunday, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin suggested Congress could take an issue-by-issue approach to coronavirus relief, an idea House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has already rejected." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Because of my strong focus on the China Virus, including scheduled meetings on Vaccines, our economy and much else, I won't be able to be in New York to throw out the opening pitch for the @Yankees on August 15th. We will make it later in the season! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet Sunday ~~~

~~~ James Wagner of the New York Times: "President Trump said he would no longer be throwing out the ceremonial first pitch before a Yankees game on Aug. 15 -- days after he said he would be doing so, causing a political ruckus. Trump wrote on Twitter on Sunday afternoon that he would not be in New York that day, when the Yankees will play the Boston Red Sox, because of his 'strong focus' on the coronavirus pandemic, 'including scheduled meetings on Vaccines, our economy and much else.'... Trump's announcement [that Yankees management had invited him to throw out the first pitch] drew criticism from local New York political figures, including Mayor Bill de Blasio. He wrote on Twitter on Saturday, 'After CONDEMNING racism, the next step isn't inviting it to your pitcher's mound. To the players that knelt for the BLM movement, we applaud you. To the execs that have aligned with hatred, you are on the wrong side of history and morality.'" The Hill's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: The headline is "Trump backs out of throwing pitch...." But reading between the lines, it might seem that it was the Yankees who disinvited the racist-in-chief. August 15 is a Saturday. Let's see if Trump goes a'golfing, as he did this weekend when one might think he would have been focusing on "much else." I do not believe that Trump had three or more presidential business meetings scheduled on a Saturday in August. ~~~

~~~ Ben Dreyfuss of Mother Jones: "Setting aside the racism of the 'China virus' stuff, Trump is saying he is so focused on coronavirus and the economy that he can't make this event. This would be unremarkable were it not for the fact that he sent this tweet from his golf course in New Jersey, where he spent the last day and a half playing golf!"

Conrad Wilson & Jonathan Levinson of Oregon Public Broadcasting: "Several dozen additional out-of-town federal law enforcement officers are deploying to Portland as they look to make additional arrests in the coming days, while also shifting tactics from the use of tear gas, according to multiple federal law enforcement sources.... The beefed up federal presence comes at the same time federal officials are internally acknowledging they have contributed to the quick escalation between law enforcement and groups of protesters, which had dwindled to a couple hundred people or less earlier this month. 'Anytime you shoot someone in the face and beat them with a baton, it's going to be criticized,' said one federal law enforcement official. 'That's not a controversial statement.'" ~~~

~~~ Zach Beauchamp of Vox: "What we're seeing [in Portland], according to experts on comparative democracy and American politics, is our polarized political system reaching its breaking point -- and our democracy buckling under the pressure of Trump's authoritarian impulses and near-total control of the Republican Party.... His unprecedented deployment of federal law enforcement personnel is a means to that end; he gets away with it because American politics is so dangerously polarized that Republicans are willing to accept virtually anything if it's done to Democrats...This kind of violent federal deployment over the objections of state and local officials has no real precedent in American history...In fact, outside of the context of a domestic insurgency like the Troubles in Northern Ireland, there is no example of state security forces being deployed under circumstances like this inside any democratic state." --s

MEANWHILE. Sen. Tom Cotton (Racist-Ark.) Says Slavery Was a "Necessary Evil." Bryan Graham of the Guardian: "The Arkansas Republican senator Tom Cotton has called the enslavement of millions of African people 'the necessary evil upon which the union was built'. Cotton, widely seen as a possible presidential candidate in 2024, made the comment in an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette published on Sunday. He was speaking in support of legislation he introduced on Thursday that aims to prohibit use of federal funds to teach the 1619 Project, an initiative from the New York Times that reframes US history around August 1619 and the arrival of slave ships on American shores for the first time. Cotton's Saving American History Act of 2020 and 'would prohibit the use of federal funds to teach the 1619 Project by K-12 schools or school districts', according to a statement from the senator's office." ~~~

~~~ Cotton Denies He Said What He Said. Summer Concepcion of TPM: "The office of Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) pushed back on the backlash that ensued upon the publication of his interview with the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, which included a remark citing the Founding Fathers' argument that slavery was a 'necessary evil.'... 'We have to study the history of slavery and its role and impact on the development of our country because otherwise we can't understand our country,' Cotton said. 'As the Founding Fathers said, it was the necessary evil upon which the union was built, but the union was built in a way, as Lincoln said, to put slavery on the course to its ultimate extinction.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Cotton is an educated man. He knows that if I say, "As Joe said, blah blah," then I agree with "blah blah." What that whiney whitey meant was that slavery was a necessary evil for the founding of this country. Maybe we should be grateful Cotton at least realizes that endorsing slavery is not a good look. ~~~

~~~ Paul Campos in LG&$: "This is the kind of thing that would have been considered completely outrageous if George Wallace had spewed it way back in 1968, but here we are. It's a shame James Bennet could only be fired once for printing this guy's love letter to Trumpian fascism."

Florida. David Neal of the Miami Herald: "Florida has another 9,344 confirmed COVID-19 cases, according to data released Sunday by the state, pushing it past New York for the second most cases in the nation. During the pandemic, Florida has had 423,855 COVID-19 cases, second only to the 445,400 reported by California as of Saturday. New York was reporting 415,911, according to the New York Times as of Sunday afternoon. About half of Sunday's new cases in Florida came from South Florida."

Minnesota. Hate-Statement Masks & Cheeseballs. Rachel Hutton of the Minneapolis Star Tribune: "Just before noon Saturday, police officers in Marshall, Minn., were called to the town's Walmart on a report that two shoppers were wearing masks emblazoned with swastikas. Another shopper, Raphaela Mueller, the vicar of a southwest Minnesota parish, filmed the swastika-wearin man and woman as they were confronted by others in the store. Then she posted the video on Facebook, where it went viral. 'If you vote for Biden, you're going to be living in Nazi Germany,' the woman with the swastika mask told Mueller, as her companion bagged up toilet paper and an enormous canister of cheeseballs. The two were apparently using the masks to protest Minnesota's mask mandate, which took effect Saturday.... Per the store's request, law enforcement served trespass notices to the 59-year-old man and 64-year-old woman, warning them that if they will face arrest should they return. The two departed without incident and charges were not pursued." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Virginia. Andrea Cambron of WTOP (Washington, D.C.): "A crowd gathered outside the home of Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of Homeland Security, in Alexandria, Virginia, on Sunday afternoon to protest the recent controversial detention of protesters in Portland, Oregon.... ShutDownDC organized the protest on Facebook." A Washington Post story is here.

Janis Frayer & Yuliya Talmazan of NBC News: "After 35 years, the U.S. official presence in China's Chengdu ended on Monday with the lowering of the American flag over the consulate in the southwestern city. China took over the premises of the consulate in retaliation for a U.S. order to close the Chinese consulate in Houston last week -- capping months of escalating tensions between Beijing and Washington. The tit-for-tat closures of consulates comes as China and the U.S. clash on a range of issues, including trade, technology, security and human rights."

Oliver Milman of the Guardian: "The US will officially exit the Paris accord one day after the 2020 US election and architects of that deal say the stakes could not be higher.... [F]ormer vice-president Joe Biden ... has vowed to rejoin the climate agreement. The lifetime of the Paris agreement, signed in a wave of optimism in 2015, has seen the five hottest years ever recorded on Earth, unprecedented wildfires torching towns from California to Australia, record heatwaves baking Europe and India& and temperatures briefly bursting beyond 100F (38C) in the Arctic.... The faltering global effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions and head off further calamity hinges, in significant part, on whether the US decides to re-enter the fray." --s

Joshua Geltzer, et al. of Just Security: "Attorney General William Barr has a lot to answer for. Roger Stone. Michael Flynn. Geoffrey Berman. Robert Mueller. The names alone are enough to spark recollection of how Barr has raised profound concerns about his performance at the helm of the Justice Department. Now he has a chance to explain himself. With the shocking and still unexplained removal of Geoffrey Berman from serving as head of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, the House Judiciary Committee Chairman said he's inviting Barr to testify at a hearing on Wednesday addressing the state of affairs at the Justice Department. We're not naïve. We doubt Barr will show up.... Here are a few -- well, maybe more than a few -- questions for members of Congress and the media to ask him." --s

Presidential Race

Axios: "FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver said on ABC's 'This Week' that while President Trump's reelection bid is 'clearly in trouble' due to his dismal coronavirus approval ratings and polling in swing states, he does not believe the president's 'fate is sealed.'... 'We found historically that when there are lots of major news events and economic disruptions, an election becomes harder to predict,' Silver said.... 'A turnaround in the COVID situation by the fall could make the election more competitive.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Rick Rojas of the New York Times: John "Lewis, who died on July 17, crossed the [Edmund Pettus Bridge] one last time on Sunday, his coffin carried by horses as part of a valedictory pilgrimage retracing the arc of his life. The trek started on Saturday in Troy, county seat of Pike County where he grew up on a cotton farm, and continues this week onto Washington, where he served in Congress, and Atlanta, which became his home." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Sydney Trent of the Washington Post: "For the last two decades, the 17-term congressman from Georgia..., led an annual march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge to kindle hope in the ongoing struggle for racial justice. On the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in 2015, he made the trip with the nation's first black president, Barack Obama. Now, as Lewis was carried across the span Sunday before lying in state at the U.S. Capitol, a revived effort to rename the Edmund Pettus Bridge in honor of the civil rights giant is gaining traction.... There are two petitions now, on Change.org and the [John Lewis Bridge Project's] website, that have picked up steam since Lewis' death. As of Saturday, about 715,000 people had signed them, including 'Selma' director Ava DuVernay, Kerry Washington, Paul McCartney, Dan Rather and Pettus' great-great-granddaughter, Caroline Randall Williams, who is black.... Pettus was a U.S. senator for Alabama from 1897 to 1907, a Confederate Army officer and, after the Civil War, a grand dragon in the Ku Klux Klan." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ John Bowden of the Hill: "... Joe Biden will honor former Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) as his body lies in state at the U.S. Capitol on Monday."

Comments

[Marie Burns]

At the end of yesterday's thread, Gloria responded to the Nazi couple in Minnesota. Here is Gloria's commentary:

"Eighty years ago my grandfather shot people wearing that insignia. My father built planes to drop bombs on people wearing that insignia. My mother sewed parachutes for men dropping in battlefields to kill people wearing that insignia. These people make me sick. Whether they’re shopping in Walmart, marching with torches, or chanting Blood and Soil, Jews will not replace us. They sure tell us who they are. And I’m sure taking note."

[Patrick]

I think we should keep the Pettus Bridge's name. The 1965 events made the place and name iconic. Almost no one knew who the heck Pettus was, but for 50+ years most of us who pay attention were aware of the meaning of those events. Even now that Gen. Pettus' bio is becoming well-known (KKK etc.), that should just add reasons to keep the name. Lewis & co. prevailed over Pettus' values there, at the bridge named for him. 100 years from now it would seem odd to read that Lewis prevailed at the Lewis Bridge.

[Akhilleus]

Vaccine Vicissitudes

As Dr. Donald Mengele gets closer to possibly losing the election (either that or forcing his way back to the White House with an, even for a con man crook and fraud like him, unprecedented attack on truth, democracy, and honesty at the polls), he is becoming both more desperate and unstable, which is saying a lot.

In addition to his usual plan for stealing the election, he is placing great hopes on being able to claim that the Amazing Trump Cure is just around the corner, but that if he loses the election, Joe Biden will insist on, like an actual FDA approval process.

First, given the already toxically obvious disdain for human life and suffering demonstrated on an hourly basis by Dr. Mengele and his party and followers, especially if it could mean the spigots would be turned off and no more Nazi judges, who could possibly trust that any vaccine would be tested and manufactured with the proper respect for caution and scientific accuracy and best practices?

Trump has already brutally and selfishly warped the most effective disease control organization in world history, purely for his political and electoral reward. What might he do to jimmy a possible vaccine and expose the public to more suffering if he thought it might benefit him personally?

During the polio scourge, it took Jonas Salk two and a half years to develop a successful vaccine. A rival vaccine took even longer. But as the initial wave of American children was vaccinated, several hundred thousand were given doses that were poorly manufactured. 40,000 CONTRACTED polio from a vaccine designed to cure it. Many were permanently paralyzed and 10 kids died. And that was when Science was respected.

I have no doubt that Donald Mengele would have no problem with a bad vaccine if he thought it would get him re-elected.

He is an evil, murderous scumbag. And if a vaccine appears imminent, look for him to force the developers and the FDA to forego safety for his benefit.

[PD Pepe]

@Patrick: How about John Lewis prevailed crossing the bridge once named after Edmond Pettus, a racist General and KKK grand dragon, but renamed the John Lewis bridge in 2020.

[PD Pepe]

“In the American South, in 1830, there were only 120 Jews among the 45,000 slaveholders owning twenty or more slaves and only twenty Jews among the 12,000 slaveholders owning fifty or more slaves.” David Brion Davis noted in 1994, on the question of Jewish involvement in the slave trade. “No one should defend the small number of Jews who bought and sold slaves,” he writes. “No one should defend the infinitely larger number of Catholics and Protestants who built the Atlantic slave system, or defend the Muslims who initiated the process of shipping black African slaves to distant markets, or defend the Africans who captured and enslaved perhaps twenty million other Africans in order to sell them to European traders for valuable and empowering goods. But while posterity has the right and even duty to judge the past, we must emphatically renounce the dangerous though often seductive belief in a collective guilt that descends through time to every present and future generation.”

[citizen625]

Senator Josh Hawley is drooling down his chin with his conclusions getting away from information concerning abortion rights: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sen-hawley-lays-down-new-antiabortion-marker-for-supreme-court-nominees/2020/07/26/52ed360a-cf73-11ea-8d32-1ebf4e9d8e0d_story.html?hpid=hp_politics1-8-12_hawleycourt-420pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans. God damn! What do they put in the water on the Ivy League campuses? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_Hawley; and the Missus: https://fedsoc.org/contributors/erin-hawley-1. What the Hawleys and Tom Cotton are good at is ginning up media focus and that attention adds money to the bottom line. At 40 years of age, Hawley is an evil little shit with a long dark future for everyone including himself. Rapture, isn't it nice? This family is positioning itself to take over for Pat Robertson. Don't forget, Pat went to Yale. Fine tradition at those schools. Such nice people.

[Bobby Lee]

Regarding Hawley, Cotton, and their like, you cab always gild a turd, but it's still going to make a mess on your shoes.

[Bobby Lee]

Speaking at a biotech company in Morrisville, NC, president* Trump said there are governors who have not reopened their states and that they should do so.

Soon to be National Morticians "Man of the year".