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
Friday
May292020
The Commentariat -- May 30, 2020
Late Morning Update:
Trump's Childish Tweets du Jour (so far). Matthew Choi & Craig Howie of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Saturday morning warned protesters who forced the White House into partial lockdown would face 'vicious dogs' and 'ominous weapons' if they breached the building's perimeter, praised the actions of the Secret Service and appeared to call his supporters to defy authorities by staging a counter protest. 'Great job last night at the White House by the U.S. @SecretService. They were not only totally professional, but very cool. I was inside, watched every move, and couldn't have felt more safe. They let the "protesters" scream & rant as much as they wanted, but whenever someone.... ...got too frisky or out of line, they would quickly come down on them, hard - didn't know what hit them,' Trump tweeted. 'Big crowd, professionally organized, but nobody came close to breaching the fence. If they had they would.... ....have been greeted with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, I have ever seen. That's when people would have been really badly hurt, at least. Many Secret Service agents just waiting for action,' he added. The president also appeared to call for a counter protest, tweeting: 'Tonight, I understand, is MAGA NIGHT AT THE WHITE HOUSE???'... D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser announced the partial lifting of lockdown measures Wednesday, though gatherings of more than 10 remain prohibited." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Needless to say, calling for a MAGA rally is INSANE in a city that (a) disallows gatherings of more than ten, (b) where anti-Trump protesters are likely to show up, and (c) where the vast majority of residents can't stand him.
~~~~~~~~~~
Everything Is Going Very Smoothly. Matt Zapotosky & Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post: "A global pandemic has now killed more than 100,000 Americans and left 40 million unemployed in its wake. Protests -- some of them violent -- have once again erupted in spots across the country over police killings of black Americans. President Trump, meanwhile, is waging a war against Twitter, attacking his political rivals, criticizing a voting practice he himself uses and suggesting that looters could be shot. America's persistent political dysfunction and racial inequality were laid bare this week.... Together, the events present a grim tableau of a nation in crisis -- one seared by violence against its citizens, plagued by a deadly disease that remains uncontained and rattled by a devastating blow to its economy."
~~~ Myah Ward of Politico: Joe Biden "condemned Trump for 'calling for violence against American citizens during a moment of pain for so many.... I'm furious, and you should be too.' Biden also decried the arrest of a CNN news crew early Friday, when police handcuffed reporter Omar Jimenez and led him away even after he produced his press credentials. He was quickly released and back on CNN's air less than 90 minutes later. Jimenez, who is black, was reporting on the protest and riots since the death of George Floyd.... 'This is not abstract: a black reporter was arrested while doing his job this morning, while the white police officer who killed George Floyd remains free,' Biden said. 'I am glad swift action was taken [to release Jimenez], but this, to me, says everything.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Philip Rucker & Toluse Olorunnipa of the Washington Post: "President Trump ... chose to inflame the tinderbox [in Minneapolis] ... when he issued an ultimatum to people protesting the death of a black man there under the custody of a white police officer.... Having contributed to another national cleavage over racial justice, a president who was elected to lead the nation through crises effectively retreated from the responsibility of doing so.... At the same time, Trump on Friday abdicated the traditional role of an American president abroad, ceding global leadership by announcing that he was 'terminating' U.S. membership in the World Health Organization.... Trump called an afternoon news conference in the Rose Garden, read a scripted statement railing against China and the WHO over the coronavirus pandemic, and then turned his back on journalists shouting questions about the unrest in Minneapolis....
"Trump's 'when the looting starts, the shooting starts' phrase has an ugly racial past. The phrase was notoriously used in 1967 by Miami's tough-talking police chief, Walter Headley, who was white, to warn robbers in the city's black neighborhoods that he could use shotguns and dogs at his command. Pressed by reporters, Trump claimed ignorance of the origins.... Trump earlier sought to explain his 'shooting starts' comment with an awkwardly constructed pair of tweets Friday afternoon claiming that he meant to convey that looting often can lead to shooting. 'It was spoken as a fact, not as a statement,' Trump wrote. 'It's very simple, nobody should have any problem with this other than the haters, and those looking to cause trouble on social media. Honor the memory of George Floyd!'" ~~~
~~~ Max Boot of the Washington Post: "More broadly, Trump is channeling the kind of 'law and order' rhetoric employed by the Republican Party beginning in the 1960s to woo Southern whites and working-class Northern whites away from the Democratic Party. Richard M. Nixon pioneered this so-called Southern Strategy, but he was much more subtle than Trump.... [But Trump] actually sounds more like George Wallace, who in 1968 echoed [Sheriff Walter] Headley by saying: 'When the looting starts, the shooting starts.'... In 1968, following the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, Wallace ... focused on a 'law and order' message that drew on white voters' concerns about rising crime, urban riots, antiwar protests, liberal court rulings, busing and other hot-button issues. His slogan was 'Stand up for America.'... In Donald Trump, we have the closest thing we have ever had to having George Wallace in the White House -- and Republicans are nearly unanimous in their approbation. The president is pouring gasoline on the flames of racial division, and the Republican Party is holding the jerrycan for him. This is where the Southern Strategy has led after half a century." ~~~
~~~ Julie Pace of the AP: "Over 48 hours in America, the official death toll from the coronavirus pandemic topped 100,000, the number of people who filed for unemployment during the crisis soared past 40 million, and the streets of a major city erupted in flames after a handcuffed black man was killed by a white police officer. It' the kind of frenetic, fractured moment when national leaders are looked to for solutions and solace.... Donald Trump instead threw a rhetorical match into the tinderbox. 'When the looting starts, the shooting starts,' he declared ominously in a late-night tweet.... [Trump has] latched on to personal grievances and cast himself as a victim, while making only occasional references to the staggering loss of life across the country. He's willingly stoked partisan divisions over public health, and now racial divisions in the face of a death, rather than seeking opportunities to pull the nation together." ~~~
~~~ Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump simply does not accept that he has any institutional obligation of any kind as president to use the White House's formidable communications powers to calm the nation at moments of severe tension and hardship. Instead, he views it as beneficial to his reelection to actively incite further hatred.... Setting aside whether Trump will or even can ['assume control' over Minneapolis], the intent of the threat itself is the thing here -- not just to glorify violence but to glorify his willingness to threaten it against urban protesters, should they get out of hand.... Joe Biden offered another approach.... He appealed for calm while also calling for justice for the Floyd family and acknowledging the legitimate grievances of the protesters about systemic racism and police brutality. Biden noted that Floyd's 'final words' were 'Let me breathe, I can't breathe,' and added that this has 'ripped open anew' the 'wound' wrought by racism.... The core difference here is the recognition of a broader historical and societal context in which the protesters actually do have legitimate grievances." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Kaelan Deese of the Hill: "On Friday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called President Trump's tweet about protests in Minneapolis 'horrific,' adding, 'Donald Trump is calling for violence against Black Americans.' In her tweet about the president, Warren said, 'His advocacy of illegal, state-sponsored killing is horrific. Politicians who refuse to condemn it share responsibility for the consequences.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Fran Speilman of the Chicago Sun-Times: Chicago "Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Friday accused ... Donald Trump of trying to 'foment violence' and offered a vulgar response -- in code -- after he threatened Minneapolis rioters protesting the death of George Floyd at the hands of police. 'We see the game he's playing because it's so transparent and he's not very good at it. He wants to show failures on the part of Democratic local leaders to throw red meat to his base. His goal is to polarize, to destabilize local government and inflame racist urges. And we can absolutely not let him prevail,' Lightfoot said. 'I will code what I really want to say to Donald Trump. It's two words: It begins with F and ends with YOU.'" ~~~
~~~ Oops, He Did It Again. Davey Alba, et al., of the New York Times: "Amid the unrest in Minnesota, Mr. Trump posted a message on Twitter early Friday saying that 'when the looting starts, the shooting starts.' Twitter quickly prevented users from viewing the tweet without reading a brief notice that the post glorified violence, the first time it had applied such a warning on any public figure's tweets. The official White House account then reposted Mr. Trump's message; Twitter responded by adding the same notice." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Dan Lamothe & Missy Ryan of the Washington Post: "President Trump's threat Friday to involve the military more deeply in the response to looting in Minneapolis pulled the military into a political fray over the issue, but he is unlikely to follow through despite his authority to deploy armed forces, defense officials and national security experts said.... Trump's tweets had parallels to his comments about the southern border in 2018, when he suggested that if migrants threw rocks at U.S. troops dispatched there, American forces should act as if the rocks are rifles. After a backlash, Trump said the migrants would not be shot.... By Friday afternoon, Trump appeared to backtrack on his late-night [looting-shooting] tweets." ~~~
~~~ BUT. James Laporta of the AP: "As unrest spread across dozens of American cities on Friday, the Pentagon took the rare step of ordering the Army to put several active-duty U.S. military police units on the ready to deploy to Minneapolis, where the police killing of George Floyd sparked the widespread protests. Soldiers from Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort Drum in New York have been ordered to be ready to deploy within four hours if called, according to three people with direct knowledge of the orders. Soldiers in Fort Carson, in Colorado, and Fort Riley in Kansas have been told to be ready within 24 hours.... The get-ready orders were sent verbally on Friday, after ... Donald Trump asked Defense Secretary Mark Esper for military options to help quell the unrest in Minneapolis after protests descended into looting and arson in some parts of the city. Trump made the request on a phone call from the Oval Office on Thursday night that included Esper, National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien and several others."
Katie Benner & Emily Badger of the New York Times: "Attorney General William P. Barr on Friday labeled the images of the death of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis whom a white police officer knelt on for nearly nine minutes, as 'harrowing' and 'deeply disturbing' and vowed that the federal investigation into his death would proceed quickly.... Mr. Barr's announcement suggested no broader investigation into possible abuses in the Minneapolis Police Department, a move that local activists have demanded.... The Trump administration's years of inaction on police violence and President Trump's embrace of law enforcement have made civil rights advocates wary of the Justice Department's involvement in the Floyd case. The administration has largely dismantled police oversight efforts, curbing the use of federal consent decrees to overhaul local police departments. Mr. Barr has said that communities that criticize law enforcement may not deserve police protection, and Mr. Trump has encouraged officers not to be 'too nice' in handling suspects."
Protesting Violence with Violence
Sudhin Thanawala of the AP: "Demonstrators marched, stopped traffic and in some cases lashed out violently at police as protests erupted Friday in dozens of U.S. cities following the killing of George Floyd after a white officer pressed a knee into his neck while taking him into custody in Minnesota. Georgia's governor declared a state of emergency in one county to activate up to 500 members of the state National Guard 'to protect people & property in Atlanta.' Gov. Brian Kemp said in a pair of tweets early Saturday that the move came at the request of Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and in consultation with emergency officials. The Georgia National Guard will deploy 'immediately' to assist law enforcement, he said." More on Atlanta linked below.... About 1,000 protesters gathered in Oakland. They smashed windows, sprayed buildings with 'Kill Cops' graffiti and were met with chemical spray from police. Oakland Police were notifying a crowd that the demonstrationwas an unlawful assembly. Authorities said officers were injured when projectiles were thrown and that they were asking people to leave the area." Apparently the irony of violently protesting violence is lost on these vandals.
The New York Times is live-updating developments in the killing of George Floyd. Protesters May Give Trump His Way. "Minnesota's top officials acknowledged early Saturday morning that they had underestimated the destruction that protesters in Minneapolis were capable of inflicting as a newly issued curfew did little to stop people from burning buildings and turning the city's streets into a smoky battleground. Gov. Tim Walz [D] said at a news conference that the police and National Guard soldiers had been overwhelmed by protesters set on causing destruction days after George Floyd was pinned to the ground by an officer before dying.... State officials said that a series of errors and misjudgments -- including the Minneapolis police abandoning a precinct on Thursday that protesters overtook and burned -- had allowed demonstrators to create what Mr. Walz called 'absolute chaos.'... Mr. Walz did not rule out the possibility of bringing in the U.S. military."
The Washington Post's live updates of developments in the George Floyd case are here.
** Briana Bierschbach of the (Minneapolis) Star-Tribune: "Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman says [former Minneapolis policeman] Derek Chauvin has been charged with murder and manslaughter. Freeman said this moved with extraordinary speed, that the ivestigation is continuing into other three officers, Freeman says. He said they have never charged a case this quickly before. Earlier, Minnesota Department of Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington said he just received information that the officer identified as Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd has been taken into custody by the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension." A Politico story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ WCCO Minneapolis: “A lawyer has issued a statement from the wife of the now-arrested and charged former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, and she said she has filed for divorce. 'This evening, I spoke with Kellie Chauvin and her family. She is devastated by Mr. Floyd's death and her utmost sympathy lies with his family, with his loved ones and with everyone who is grieving this tragedy. She has filed for dissolution of her marriage to Derek Chauvin,' reads the statement released by Sekula Law Offices." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I know that not all racists are stupid, but I'd argue that stupid can enhance racism. So if you were wondering why cops are racists, Michael Moore (ca. 1999) is here to help:
~~~ BTW, according to a federal judge, stupid cops are A-OK. ABC News (Sept. 2000): "A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court's decision that the city did not discriminate against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test." This episode of Moore's "The Awful Truth" is helpful, too. ~~~
~~~ Philip Kennicott of the Washington Post: "That [Omar Jimenez], a journalist of color, was arrested by cops whose pale arms suggest that many of them are white, and that CNN, which has been a consistent object of President Trump's puerile and corrosive abuse, was the target raises deeply disturbing questions. Among them: How many police in America are loyal not to the public but to a racist brand of populism that has found in the president its vigorous avatar?" See yesterday's Commentariat for context. ~~~
Georgia. Richard Fausset & Michael Levenson of the New York Times: "Hundreds of demonstrators poured into the streets near Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park on Friday night, smashing windows and clashing with police officers in a protest that grew so tense that the city's mayor forcefully told people to go home. Not far from the park, the city's iconic tourist destination, some people climbed atop a large red CNN sign outside the media company's headquarters and spray-painted messages on it. Some people jumped on police cars. Others threw rocks at the glass doors of the Omni Hotel, eventually breaking the glass, and shattered windows at the College Football Hall of Fame, where people rushed in and emerged with branded fan gear. 'It's enough,' Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said in an evening news conference. '... what are you changing by tearing up a city? You've lost all credibility now. This is not how we change America. This is not how we change the world.'"
Kentucky. Tessa Duvall, et al., of the Louisville Courier Journal: "For the second night in a row, angry protesters are crowding the streets and sidewalks of downtown Louisville -- setting fires, blocking traffic, breaking windows, burning flags and protesting the March death of Breonna Taylor, the unarmed black woman killed in her apartment by Louisville police. ~~~
~~~ CBS News: "At least seven people were shot Thursday night in Louisville during demonstrations calling for justice in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor. The Louisville Police Department issued a statement to CBS affiliate WLKY-TV confirming at least one person was in critical condition.... Hundreds took to the streets calling for the officers involved in Taylor's death to be arrested. The 26-year-old EMT was asleep in her Kentucky apartment just after midnight on March 13 when police entered with a 'no-knock' search warrant in a drug investigation and opened fire, killing her." ~~~
~~~ Brooke Seipel of the Hill: "A local Louisville, KY., reporter and camera operator were shot with pepper balls in the middle of a live broadcast on Friday covering protests against police brutality. Video of the encounter shows Kaitlin Rust, a reporter for CBS affiliate WAVE 3 News, narrating as she walks around the area of the protest before suddenly screaming: 'I'm getting shot!' Rust appears shocked but continues reporting, explaining what's happening as the camera focuses in on an officer pointing a gun with pepper bullets at the cameraman. 'It's okay it's those pepper bullets.' The anchors back in the studio then ask, 'who are they aiming at?' 'At us,' Rust responds. 'Directly at us.'" Here's video from WAVE3 News.
New York. Edgar Sandoval of the New York Times: "Protesters angry over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis clashed with the police across Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan on Friday night in a series of chaotic skirmishes and standoffs that left people injured on both sides. For the second night in a row, tensions flared in New York City, as thousands of people attended a demonstration at the perimeter of Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Some hurled bottles and debris at police officers, who responded with pepper spray. An abandoned police van was set on fire and at least two other police vehicles were vandalized, their windows shattered, all in the Fort Greene neighborhood near the arena." ~~~
~~~ NYC Bus Drivers Support Protesters. Jason Koebler of Vice: "Workers for New York City’s MTA are refusing to transport people arrested during protests against police brutality in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. A video of a bus driver refusing to transport people arrested during protests in front of Brooklyn's Barclays Center went viral Friday night. In the video, a crowd cheers a bus driver who appears to be refusing to sit behind the wheel: 'the NYPD is using a bus to transfer arrested protesters at the Barclays Center,' @berniebromanny, who shared the video, tweeted. 'However, the bus driver refused to drive it.' The video was viewed more than a million times in just over an hour.... Motherboard[/Vice] has confirmed that this is the official position of the union that represents MTA bus drivers."
Washington, D.C. Clarence Williams, et al., of the Washington Post: "Several hundred people gathered outside the White House in two successive tense and confrontational demonstrations occurring hours apart on Friday, both of them protesting the death of George Floyd.... Crowds continued to face off with police after 3 a.m. Saturday. Officers used what appeared to be gasses and sprays to disperse crowds, and protesters were throwing water bottles at a line of law enforcement amid the scene that remained tense more than 10 hours after the initial demonstration started. By about 3:30 a.m. police had issued two warnings to the crowd before a line of officers with shields were seen advancing on the group that was chanting 'black lives matter.'... It was not clear if the president and his family were in the White House at the time." ~~~
~~~ Brooke Seipel of the Hill: "The White House went into a brief lockdown on Friday evening as protests over the death of George Floyd raged nearby, according to reporters who said they were in the building at the time. NBC News White House correspondent Peter Alexander said on Twitter that he was on lockdown inside the building as protests in the building's vicinity were ongoing. He later tweeted that the lockdown had been lifted.
The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Friday are here. The Washington Post's live updates for Friday are here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) said on Friday that he had tested positive for coronavirus antibodies, becoming the second senator in as many days to disclose that they had been infected with the disease. Casey, in a statement, said he had a 'low-grade fever and some mild flu-like symptom'" earlier in the spring and received an antibodies test last week to try to determine if he could donate blood plasma, which is being studied as a potential treatment for COVID-19. '... In an effort to help others fighting this virus, I will be making my first donation today in Taylor, Pennsylvania,' he said. The disclosure comes after Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said on Thursday that he had recently tested positive for coronavirus antibodies." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
** Josh Gerstein of Politico: "A sharply divided Supreme Court late Friday turned aside a church's urgent plea that California's coronavirus lockdown orders are putting an unconstitutional burden on religious freedom. Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the court's liberals in rejecting a San Diego church's request for relief from Gov. Gavin Newsom's most recent directive limiting churches to 25% of their normal maximum capacity, with an absolute maximum of 100 people at any service. In a three-page opinion issued just before the stroke of midnight Washington time, Roberts said it would be unwise for the court to intervene on an emergency basis as state officials try to grapple with the ebb and flow of a pandemic caused by a highly infectious and sometimes deadly virus. 'The precise question of when restrictions on particular social activities should be lifted during the pandemic is a dynamic and fact-intensive matter subject to reasonable disagreement,' Roberts wrote.... The court's four other GOP appointees dissented, with three of them joining in an opinion written by ... Brett Kavanaugh. He said the California policy 'indisputably discriminates against religion.'" The New York Times' report is here. ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie Note to Bart O'Kavanaugh: Where the majority of your colleagues disagree with you, the matter cannot, by definition, be "indisputable." It has been disputed.
South Carolina. Astead Herndon of the New York Times: "... South Carolina Republicans [-- including U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham & Tim Scott --] returned to the normal rhythm of the campaign trail, coronavirus all the same. [An] outdoor gathering [in Conway, S.C.,] on Thursday was a send-off event for Cleo Steele, a longtime Republican Party operative in Horry County, who is retiring to Ohio. Speakers shared the same microphone. Local and state political candidates greeted voters with handshakes and squeezed tight for pictures. Of all the people gathered outside the county Republican office -- many of them senior citizens -- fewer than a dozen wore masks.... According to interviews with more than a dozen attendees, the event was an active rejection of behavior that the hyper-conservative crowd has come to associate with liberal enemies in recent months -- wearing masks and gloves, staying six feet away from other people, avoiding physical touch... [Here's how the M.C., Robert Rabon, began the event:] He coughed into the microphone, and passed it to the first speaker."
Wisconsin. Daniela Silva of NBC News: "Wisconsin saw a record number of new coronavirus cases and deaths reported in a single day on Wednesday, two weeks after the state's Supreme Court struck down its statewide stay-at-home order.... Wisconsin also issued a record number of test results Wednesday, with more than 10,300 tests conducted, according to the department." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Michael Crowley, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump said Friday that his administration would 'begin the process' of ending the American government's special relationship with Hong Kong, including on trade and law enforcement, and that it was withdrawing from the World Health Organization, as part of a broad effort to retaliate against China. But the president was unclear about the speed and full scope of the actions, and his remarks left many questions unanswered.... Mr. Trump voiced a range of grievances against China's 'malfeasance,' angrily denouncing the country's trade and security practices and its crackdown on civil liberties in Hong Kong, as well as its influence at the W.H.O.... Mr. Trump delivered a scathing indictment of Chinese behavior that echoed an emerging line of attack in the president's re-election campaign, as he seeks to deflect blame for his administration's failure to stem the pandemic that has killed more than 100,000 Americans." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump took no questions & did not address those 100,000+ deaths. or the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, or his own threat to kill protesters. This was strictly a chickenshit teleprompter show.
Patricia Mazzei, et al., of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump's baseless insinuations that [Joe] Scarborough was involved in [Lori] Klausutis's death and had an affair with her reflect a callous pattern in which the president attacks his critics by going after their families or even ordinary people unconnected to Mr. Trump's grievance. They have become the collateral damage of a transactional president and his followers, whose online swarm lingers and continues to unsettle long after Mr. Trump has moved on to the next outrage.... Mr. Trump has gone after the dead and their families before, usually because he regards them as political opponents. In 2016, he claimed that the Gold Star mother of a Muslim soldier was not 'allowed' to speak alongside her husband at the Democratic National Convention. He relentlessly insulted Senator John McCain of Arizona for months after his death. When former Representative John D. Dingell Jr. died last year, Mr. Trump mocked his widow, Representative Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, and implied that her late husband was 'looking up' from hell." The story details accounts from some ordinary citizens who continue to be harassed years after Trump targeted them. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Trump Makes Another "Screw the Victims" Decision. Erica Green of the New York Times: "President Trump vetoed a bipartisan resolution on Friday to overturn new regulations that significantly tighten access to federal student loan forgiveness, siding with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos over veterans' organizations that say her rules will harm veterans bilked by unscrupulous for-profit colleges. The veto will allow stringent rules for students seeking loan forgiveness to take effect on July 1. The rules toughen standards established under the Obama administration for student borrowers seeking to prove their colleges defrauded them and to have their federal loans erased. Even if some borrowers can show they were victims of unscrupulous universities, they could be denied relief unless they can prove their earnings have been adversely affected."
Your Friday Night Docudump. Devlin Barrett & Greg Miller of the Washington Post: "Transcripts of phone calls in late 2016 between President Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn and a Russian diplomat were released Friday, showing that the two did discuss sanctions as the incoming administration sought to avoid escalating the conflict over Russian interference in the presidential election. The conversations were secretly monitored by U.S. agents as part of intelligence-gathering on then-Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents in early 2017 when he was asked if he discussed sanctions with the ambassador. He has since argued he was unfairly targeted by the FBI, and earlier this month the Justice Department asked a judge to toss out his guilty plea.... Flynn's message to Moscow was: 'Do not allow this administration to box us in right now!' according to the transcript. 'I know you have to have some sort of action,' Flynn said, but he added he would like Russia 'to only make it reciprocal; don't go any further than you have to because I don't want us to get into something that have [sic] to escalate to tit-for-tat.'" A Politico story is here.
Matthew Karnitschnig, et al., of Politico: "German Chancellor Angela Merkel has rebuffed Donald Trump's invitation to attend a G-7 summit, which the president is keen to portray as a symbol of a return to normality from the upheaval of the coronavirus crisis. 'The federal chancellor thanks President Trump for his invitation to the G-7 summit at the end of June in Washington. As of today, considering the overall pandemic situation, she cannot agree to her personal participation, to a journey to Washington,' German government spokesman Steffen Seibert told Politico on Friday."
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Reader Comments (22)
Farewell frying pan, hello fire...
We are in the middle of a once in a century pandemic, unemployment is skyrocketing, the nation is heading into yet another sad, dangerous period of racial tension, riots are breaking out in many cities, idiots are storming state capitol buildings armed with automatic weapons threatening to murder governors unless they can get a haircut, economic free fall looks to expand to epic proportions when the mad rush to reopen everything triggers an even more deadly round of infections, government and elected officials are more concerned with insider trading and making sure underlings pick up their dry cleaning in a timely manner than actually doing their jobs, and now we’re heading into what looks to be an unprecedented hurricane season.
And what is uppermost in Trump’s mind?
Fighting, as Jimmy Kimmel puts it, with an app on his phone.
News of a very bad hurricane season gets this response: “Yes! That’s what we need!” Reports of violence stemming from more unarmed black men being slaughtered by police motivate him to shoot every black person in sight. More bad news about his horrifically inept handling of the coronavirus pandemic prompts attacks on other countries, doctors, governors, public health experts, and now a great skedaddle from the WHO.
Trump is a sick, dangerous fool stomping on the accelerator as the country careens toward chaos, death, and violence almost entirely of his own device. He’s flailing about, desperate for any way to distract from his monumental incompetence and historic impotence. This is why he relishes the possibility of deadly natural disasters, why he’s threatening a social media outlet that dares to point out his dangerous serial lying, why he ratchets up the violence and encourages the lunatics to start shooting people he doesn’t like, especially black people.
Look for things to get worse. A lot worse. His party of traitors won’t stop him. State TV cheers on his craziest excesses. He’s a little boy who has always gotten his way. Any problems were solved by daddy’s millions or by threats of lawsuits, bullying, braggadocio, and bullshit. He ran for president purely as an ego trip and to improve his flagging brand, never really expecting to win. But then a Russian autocrat saw the chance of a lifetime, to help propel a useful idiot into the White House, an anti-democratic, anti-American, incompetent clown, the better to sow dissension and chaos and stymie his great enemy once and for all. Suddenly, he’s president.
Only now he has to put up or shut up. He can’t do either. And now the facade of the great winner, the “deal maker” is disappearing faster than ethics in a Republican caucus room. And now everyone can see clearly that he’s nothing but a fat, lying loser. And losing the upcoming election will be undeniable proof of his true status.
This is the stuff of psychological mayhem, of mental breakdowns. A lifelong faker and con man forced to face reality for the first time ever?
It’s gonna get a lot worse from here. Military action somewhere? A bit of the old wag the dog? He’s talking now about calling out the national guard to kill those he hates. The distractions will come hard and fast as the pall of November closes over the dim orange dome.
The Fire next time may be upon us.
I'm so old I remember a few days ago when the Orange Lumpy Ass retweeted a video of a fascist famboy claiming that " the only good democrat is a dead democrat". Now there's threats to "shoot looters", sending in the military onto America's streets, and multiple police incidents on police arresting or attacking the media covering the protests. All that secondary gasoline throw on our sociery has allowed the media to forgot about the president* supporting the mass killing of his political opponents *and supporters*.
We can not allow the media to forget about that one with a shrug. It's outrageous.
John Cleese on Stupidity:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/09/29/1333141/-John-Cleese-on-Fox-News-stupidity?detail=email
Could we say the chickens have come home to roost? No more whitewashing of all those fences down by the farm? Who or what is going to save us from ourselves someone asked a century ago. Pain and anger spill over the streets of our cities once again and once again we ask the same question.
"This time it will be different," someone said during some march years ago whose people marched for that difference. They managed to make it across the bridge but encountered the same old "Keep Out"signs at the other end.
Last night even a curfew couldn't contain the rage.
Don't think I can expand on AK's comment. Shit-for-brains is withdrawing us from everything , and we used to be the envy of the world, with so many years of success leadership. Of course, there is that little race question-- no glory there-- and the repugnants cheer. There's that little virus failure, also... Also the little matter of military bravado, in the world and now in our cities... The other participants of the G7 should have a G6 and not invite us. (...not to mention that Flynn AND the Useful Idiot are traitors--)
Sheesh. Have a good weekend and stay away from the city centers...
I like Angela Merkel more every day.
I had a friend, now long departed, who was easily provoked to rage. He was often angry, resentful, and always thought he knew more than anyone else. Often did he did.
He was a genius with an eidetic memory, but a very unstable one, who through his college years lived what seemed to me to have been a privileged life.
I came to suspect that in addition to his disappointment at the failure of others to acknowedge his innate superiority, one other thing that provoked his anger was a dim recognition of his essential cowardice, something I learned about him early in our relationship when he set me up to take a punch on his behalf in a small Austrian town...and then tried the same trick again some years later in Seattle. That time I didn't cooperate.
In his later years, he wrote angry letters. I found one I had saved the other day in which he shouted at me (from a safe distance of course) all in capitals. Hurtful as it was to be reminded of those years watching him disintegrate, I re-read it. All the characteristics were there: paranoia, resentment, anger and an unerring instinct (part of his genius) to identity another's weaknesses (in this case my own) and attack them.
Until his death, I remained his friend, sometimes close, in later years more distant, but because I remembered his bouts of near royal generosity to our children, his love of literature and some of the genuinely good times we'd had together when we were younger, I was always there for him when he needed something, occasions that grew more frequent as he fell apart and withdrew from the world and more and more into himself.
It was complicated. I liked him and I felt sorry for him. I wished him the best, and I was always glad he had never achieved the prominent position his early life of privilege and accomplishment would have predicted for him.
With the power that comes with prominence, he would have made an awful boss. I shudder to think of the harm he might have done. And though he was married four times, he remained childless, which I have guiltily thought to be a blessing to the unborn.
But this friend really was a genius.
Other than that, while all the parallels are not exact, they are close enough.
Maybe that's why I feel I know the Pretender so well.
@Ken Winkes: A very interesting story about your friend. I've never known anyone quite like that, but I believe they do exist. They're often written off as "black sheep," I think. You've confirmed it.
Been reading with amusement the back & forth between the NC gov and the GOP convention folks. NC quite reasonably asks the GOP to provide their detailed plan for how they will keep everyone safe & healthy during their Trumpapalooza, and the GOP says nah, we don’t have a plan (natch), you do it for us, and besides, we aren’t worried because Jeebus.
But really, all of this posturing is just pretext for moving the convention to the only place in the country that really works for Trump - his Doral country club. He got gypped (apologies for the arguably offensive term but it’s the best one I could think of) out of holding the G7 there and he’ll be damned if he’ll be cheated out the grift this time.
Ken,
I can appreciate your relationship with this friend of yours. I’ve had two (at least) friends who were, shall we say, acquired tastes. One, from my earliest years through college, was a highly accomplished self taught musician. We played in several bands together, but he was always a problematic chap. I was likely his only real friend for all of those years. Others either just didn’t get him, or thought him too weird and a bit of a braggart. None of that bothered me. I liked him for other reasons.
Often, we love people for some things and in spite of other things. My other friend I met in high school and we are still friends (just got a text from him reminding me that today would have been his brother’s 66th birthday). He was always extremely smart, never went to college, but owned, and read, the entire Great Books collection. He could be (and still is) cantankerous and even unstable at times, but he’s generous to a fault. Others made fun of him, some were afraid of him. But if I called him up and said I was stranded in Timbuktu, he be on his way within the hour to rescue me. You can’t buy that sort of friendship.
Both of these guys have made a lasting impact on my life. I think one of the best things I learned was not to overlook people, not to give up on people too easily.
I cannot, for the life of me, imagine that Trump has any close friends like these guys. He would have been (hopefully) a better human being. More appreciative of others, more sensitive to both their faults and their excellences. Instead, he’s consumed only by himself and his never satisfied lust to be adored as he adores himself. He uses people then discards them when they no longer serve him, even the mother of his children.
Family is important, but we don’t pick them. We get to pick our friends. Your loyalty to your friend was a blessing for you as much as for him. It helped make you the kind of man who can take a careful look at people and at life and find the good (I mean this as Plato meant it).
As my mother used to say, show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are. Looking at those surrounding Trump one can only be disgusted by the collection of grasping, clutching liars, traitors, and self-dealers. A big reason we’re in such a bad way.
Thanks for the remembrance.
Additional thoughts about that friend who is very much on my mind this morning.
He was the product of a renowned military academy in the midwest and never lost his taste for hierarchy and uniforms.
Don't know if that's where it began (probably much earlier), but there was never any gray in his life, just a succession of blacks and whites. His favorite poet and critic who taught as the university we attended was an an absolutist. A brilliant man and a fine poet, but no gray there either.
My friend's craving for certainty eventually led him into religion's realm, where he lived uncomfortably, picking fights, labeling fellow religionists friends and enemies, for the last thirty years of his life.
His greatest failing in my judgment was an undue admiration of wealth that he carried with him from his early years. He had an MBA from the University of Chicago, became an investment banker, worked on some 1980's IPOs and was associated with and did some work for a friend when he was an early Microsoft CFO.
But he was always smarter than anyone else (as I said, he often was) and let everyone know it. After his fiftieth birthday party at a Seattle yacht club attended by many of what he would have called "tony folks," most of those friends drifted away, and since by then he had no money of his own and his health was in decline, the anger and the absolute certainty that were his constant companions overwhelmed him.
Needless to say, though he had all the opportunities to have learned better (which for me was the saddest thing of all about his life), he was a staunch Republican.
@Rockygirl: cheated.
@Rockygirl
Thanks for the glimpse into the slimy workings of the Reptile's brain.
Good thinking. You could well be right.
@Bea - yes, cheated. “Gypped” just had a more visceral feel. But I will try to avoid since it also has the racist one.
DiJiT tweeted about the "ominous weapons" and vicious dogs awaiting his WH protestors. And he had a "sir story" in which the SS told him they put their younger uniformed police "in front" because they love the "action" and the "practice."
What a sphincter.
I tried to conceive of what kind of weapon used by SS is "ominous", and my guess is that DiJiT was shown a shock wave generator used for crowd control (like one of these, maybe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_ring_gun )
Some of these types of weapons look very "Star Wars"-y and would therefore tickle DiJiT's tiny cerebellum. But I suspect they told him that the SS doesn't disclose its riot control gear so he is left describing it as "ominous." Which also means he'll probably name the gear within a few days, probably in a phonecon with Putin, asking what kind of riot control the Kremlin uses (hint: it's lethal).
The White House Occupier announced that he is withdrawing us from the WHO because the WHO withheld virus information. Are we also withdrawing support for Florida?
Would-be dictators are not all the same.
It's tempting to compare the Pretender to the likes of Putin and even Hitler, but I see a major difference.
While Hitler and to a lesser degree Putin wished and wish to hold sway over a greater and greater swath of the world, the Pretender is deliberatley shrinking his ambitions.
If you want to boss everyone around, one way to do that is to make sure there are not as many everyones to boss.
Withdraw from every treaty and every international organization, so you don't have to sway anyone to your point of view, endure questions about it or be forced to prove the worth of your opinions.
Shrink your world to your own territory.
Build a wall to make sure that territory has clearly defined borders, so you know who's in and who's out; and then within those borders advance further exclusionary principles, designating as enemies, even traitors, all who disagree with you or find your pronouncements empty of merit, thereby shrinking your world even more.
Until you've reached the point where your world has become very small indeed, limited to a declining number of followers and sycophants.
Outside that shrinking circle, every day more and more will find your bluster foolish, even comic.
But within your narrow reach, you're still, by god, the boss.
Wonder if even Melania listens.
Marie,
Excellent point about Bart (Rapeboy) O’Kavanaugh’s shoddy thinking. Critical thinking and careful deliberations require (demand) command of the language. Proper word selection indicates a careful mind, whether it’s in law, philosophy, political debates, or dinner table discussions.
The use of such an implacable word as “indisputably” indicates that the speaker (or writer) believes there is no possible alternate finding. Especially in the realm of law and legal disputes, there are few things that are truly indisputable, as the Supreme Court proves on a regular basis. Even murder, which has many shades and levels of culpability, intentionally, action, and consequences.
One of the most important and difficult challenges of legal decision making at such high levels is to be able to discern the fine lines that separate varying and disputatious claims of rights. Does this right supersede another, and in what context?
So, yes, people have a right to own and carry guns, but in many states, some nuance is applied. For instance, waving loaded weapons at airports is looked at with a certain measure of disapproval. In this case, the overwhelming concern must be for the general health of the public rather than the churches’ decision which could spread infection far beyond the confines of the gathered congregations. So there is very much a reason to dispute rock hard claims of rights. And coming down on the side of public health is in no way an indication of bias against religion.
Command of the language and the ability to choose words carefully to represent well thought out positions are essential to the task of judging, one would think.
The fact that Bart is the choice of Mr. Best Words, he of the third grade vocabulary, is unsurprising. And the fact that they both leave a lot to be desired in the critical thinking category might be one of the few things that ARE indisputable.
@NiskyGuy
I like his logic, properly applied.
If withholding information about Covid is sufficient reason to withdraw from anything, let us not fail to withdraw from the Pretender in November.
Maybe Bethesda Bart was looking for the word "indubitably", which has a nice fustian clang to it, but could not summon it and settled for "indisputably", which is in the same neighborhood.
Which reminds me, always edit your work, folks, at least twice. Bart didn't and is the object of our mockery. OK, he was before, too, but still ...
I thought Bart was the highly recommended candidate sponsored by that bastion of democracy, the Federalist Society.
The mayor of Chicago says that riots are not how to change America to which I must say really? The most liberating acts passed by Congress that come to me are the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act both of which were passed by an America convulsed by war, anti-war protests and race riots.
South Africa abandoned apartheid only when a world economic boycott made it too expensive to maintain. Not an option with the US. Which leaves only the example of the mid-60's in America. Perhaps the violence could be replaced by every coloured person in America and their white sympathisers feeling symptoms of Covid-19 on June 26 and self isolated for the day. Can't change America by the odd race riot? Try bringing it to its knees.
So the Racist in Chief who is yelping for black people to be shot down for daring to protest yet ANOTHER murder of an unarmed black man, blathers some self serving bullshit to George Floyd’s family about how awful it is. Isn’t this a bit like Hitler calling the family of Anne Frank and whining about how they shouldn’t be complaining because he didn’t personally shove her into the oven?
@Cowichan
You make an excellent point. Two of them, in fact, and I really like the second.