Fifty-six days to go. We are entering the final stretch of the quest to dethrone tRump. It’s officially after Labor Day today, so all those low-information “I can’t be bothered” voters are going to start paying attention now. Right?
It’s about time to break out the hip waders and get ready for navigating the flood of BS that’s going to come spewing out of Derp* State. I’m not particularly nervous about it. They’ve spent the last 3¾ years shredding their credibility into a meaningless confetti of obvious lies and nonsensical drivel.
Yes, our national media has a vested interest in Selling (with a capital ‘S’) us a horse race and their poor journalistic practices will work to make bushels of faux-apples out of handfuls of liberal oranges.
Yes, the dark money superpacs supporting our unclothed emperor will send out their Storm tRumpers to spew ever more outlandish claims, ridiculous accusations and baseless conspiracy theories.
The ugly tRumpet will sound his perverted call to all the disturbed parts of our society that have no interest in Democracy, Justice or Equality.
The thing to remember is: He’s already got all the folks who were susceptible to his line of snake oil politics in his base. There aren’t any votes for him to pick up. More than half of the electorate has already vowed not to vote for him. His only hope is to try to steal the election.
We aren’t going to let that happen. We aren’t helpless lambs on our way to the slaughter house. We have the tools, power and inspiration to end this nightmare. We will prevail. Not because we want to, but because we must.
Tyrannis sedito. Sic semper tryannis.
GOTMFV
*Derp — used as a substitute for speech regarded as meaningless or stupid, or to comment on a foolish or stupid action. (from Google’s English Dictionary provided by Oxford Languages)
Up the Resistance!
If you haven’t seen John Oliver’s rants on the Republican Convention and the events in Kenosha, here’s your chance. This will get you fired up. [20:09]
and it’s on to the news:
The delusion is strong in this one
The man isn’t losing it. He lost it and he isn’t going to find it again. Even his sickophants can’t dig him out of the trench he dug so he’d have a ramp to stumble down to the hole he keeps digging. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few more prominent henchweasels started trying to fill the hole in, with him in it, before the election.
Rolling Stone: Trump Claims ‘Sophisticated Friends’ Say He’s ‘Most Innocent’ President Ever
Trump went on to disparage Joe Biden, calling him a “stupid person” and then acted stupidly himself by getting annoyed at one reporter for asking him a question while wearing a mask and praised another for not wearing one.
Trump defended himself against reports claiming that he called Americans who died in wars losers and suckers, saying, “Only an animal would say a thing like that.”
During a laughable rant about the impeachment investigation, Trump seemingly made up a story about having “sophisticated friends” and how those supposed friends have told him that he is the “most innocent guy ever to hold this office”
Is this the straw?
One of the conservative(ish) writers at Daily Beast, Matt Lewis, after talking about the media’s liberal bias, thought this time tRump might not get away with it. I think all the straw/camel stories are, by themselves, eroding the sandy base tRump is sinking into. And the Blue Tide has peaked yet.
Daily Beast: The ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’ of the U.S. Military Return to Haunt Trump
In the 2016 election, there were numerous occasions when smart observers thought Trump had finally gone too far. His comments about John McCain and POWs were one early example. The Access Hollywood video was perhaps the ultimate one. Every time, Trump survived.
Could it be different this time? Possibly. Trump faces more obstacles this time around. Joe Biden is more formidable than Hillary Clinton, and—unlike in 2016, when maybe you could imagine Trump might magically fix everything—Trump has a (bad) record to run on. When you consider that Trump won three important electoral college states by around 77,000 votes last time, you realize that any little thing could make the difference. Even before this story dropped, Trump was losing support among members of the military. One could imagine this report accelerating that trend among active duty personnel and veterans. (It’s also worth noting that, just as this story hits, it has also been reported that Stars and Stripes, a newspaper for the military that has been around since the Civil War, is being shuttered by the Pentagon.
The story keeps growing. Liddle Donnie, can’t avoid stepping in it, even though he dropped it in the first place. As they way in the old country, “Holy Crap!”
CNN: Trump launches unprecedented attack on military leadership he appointed
President Donald Trump launched an unprecedented public attack against the leadership of the US military on Monday, accusing them of waging wars to boost the profits of defense manufacturing companies.
"I'm not saying the military's in love with me -- the soldiers are, the top people in the Pentagon probably aren't because they want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy," Trump told reporters at a White House news conference.
Trump's extraordinary comments come as several defense officials tell CNN relations between the President and Pentagon leadership are becoming increasingly strained.
The Mask is off and it’s not pretty
I guess he figures all the orange makeup is mask enough. This is not a good look for him and it will not win him any new followers.
Huffington Post: Trump Orders Reporter To Remove His Mask At Press Briefing
“You’re going to have to take that off. Just take it off,” said Trump as he pointed to the mask worn by Jeff Mason, White House correspondent for Reuters.
“How many feet are you away?” asked the irritable president, referring to social distancing efforts to help stop the spread of COVID-19. “If you don’t take it off, you’re very muffled. So if you take it off, it would be a lot easier.”
But Mason could easily be understood on a recording of the exchange. He began his question referring to Trump’s decision two years ago not to attend a memorial ceremony for fallen American soldiers at a French cemetery. The president blew off the ceremony (which was attended by European leaders) after referring to deceased war heroes as “losers,” according to a bombshell report in The Atlantic last week.
And, of course, there’s more. He’s getting pushback from his own side of the aisle.
Huffington Post: North Carolina Republican Implores Trump To Wear Mask At Upcoming Visit
The GOP chairman of a North Carolina county commission has implored President Donald Trump to follow local requirements and wear a mask when he makes a campaign stop at Winston-Salem this week.
“There is no excuse,” Dave Plyler, the chairman of the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners, told the Winston-Salem Journal. “He just needs to do it.”
“It’s been ordered by the governor,” he said. “When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in North Carolina, do as the governor says.”
Somebody else is in trouble too
DeJoy is looking DeSad. He might just be going to DeJail.
Radical Compliance: Campaign Finance and Corporate Compliance
The allegations, laid out first by the Washington Post and subsequently confirmed by other media, are that while DeJoy was chief executive of New Breed Logistics in the 2000s and 2010s and building a reputation as a prolific fundraiser for GOP candidates, he pressured employees to donate money to various candidates and then reimbursed those employees with higher bonuses.
That math alone is enough to raise eyebrows, even in DeJoy’s very Republican home state of North Carolina. Then there’s this analysis from the New York Times:
A review of campaign finance records shows that over a dozen management-level employees at New Breed would routinely donate to the same candidate on the same day, often writing checks for an identical amount of money. One day in October 2014, for example, 20 midlevel and senior officials at the company donated a total of $37,600 to the campaign of Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, who was running to unseat a Democratic incumbent. Each official either wrote a check for $2600, the maximum allowable donation, or $1000.
Again, that seems statistically strange — certainly odd enough to merit investigation, and North Carolina state attorney general Josh Stein (a Democrat) strongly hinted over the weekend that his office plans to do exactly that.
Mother Jones: Report: Louis DeJoy Used Bonuses to Reimburse Employees for Donations to GOP Campaigns
The Cohen book hit the streets today
I’m only a couple of chapters into it and it’s, as expected, highly damning. Cohen is relatively harsh with himself in the part I’ve read so far. That give him some added credibility with me. It remains to be seen how much of his own culpability he’ll try to dodge. I’ll have a book report up in the Shade after I finish reading it.
A teaser: If you ever wondered whether tRump’s lying persona was different in private, this passage should lay that doubt to rest.
“Don tells me great things about you,” Trump said, as half a dozen employees of the company filed into the office and arranged themselves behind me, standing at attention. “You do know I gave you a great deal on your new apartment,” Trump continued.
I blinked. I didn’t know what to say in reply. This was Trump’s first tell, if I’d had the ability to see what was unfolding, but events were moving so fast and in such a tantalizing way that I didn’t have the presence of mind to consider what had just occurred. I had paid the asking price on the Park Avenue apartment; there had been no discount or special consideration—it had never even come up. But there it was: within the first few seconds of our meeting, Donald Trump had lied to me, directly, demonstrably and without doubt. What was I supposed to do, if I had possessed the wherewithal to gather my wits and take on the implications? Call Trump on it? The lie seemed silly, harmless, and childish, the kind of fib that was pointless to contest; it occurred to me that Trump might actually believe it, too. In a matter of a couple of sentences, with no conscious thought or understanding of what was actually happening, I had given my unspoken consent to start to play along in a charade that I would come to learn was all-devouring and deadly serious. [bolding added]
CNN: In tell-all book, Michael Cohen says Trump hired a 'Faux-Bama' before White House run
Ranting about Obama after he won office in 2008, Trump said, "Tell me one country run by a black person that isn't a sh*thole...They are all complete f*cking toilets," according to Cohen. After Nelson Mandela died, Trump allegedly said of South Africa that "Mandela f*cked the whole country up. Now it's a sh*thole. F*ck Mandela. He was no leader."
Cohen also divulges personal details about Trump, including his hair routine, described as a "three-step" combover designed to disguise "unsightly scars on his scalp from a failed hair-implant operation in the 1980s."
Writing that he once witnessed Trump shortly after he showered, Cohen recalls that "when his hair wasn't done, his strands of dyed-golden hair reached below his shoulders along the right side of his head and on his back, like a balding Allman Brother or strung out old '60s hippie."
BBC News: Michael Cohen's Trump book: The ex-lawyer's key claims
Rolling Stone: Michael Cohen: ‘Trump Was a Mobster, Plain and Simple’
A Little Borowitz will make the nervousness go down
There’s nothing like a bit of withering sarcasm to perk me right up.
The New Yorker: The Borowitz Report: Trump Blasts Supporters Who Plan to Vote for Him Only Once
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a withering critique of his own voters, Donald J. Trump on Thursday blasted supporters who plan to vote for him only once.
Speaking to reporters, Trump called supporters who intend to cast only one vote for him “disgracefully low-energy,” claiming that they are “like Jeb Bush and Sleepy Joe put together.”
“I like supporters who have stamina,” he said. “Stamina means you keep voting for me until someone tells you to stop.”
After all that tRump related filth, we need a palate cleanser.
Sunny Skyz: Farmer Plants Over 2 Million Sunflowers, Invites Visitors To Take A Dozen Home
Scott Thompson's family has been running the Thompson Strawberry Farm in Bristol, WI, for more than 70 years, and this is the first year that flowers are in the spotlight.
The pick-your-own farm usually consists of strawberries, rasberries, and pumpkins. This year the family said they wanted to give locals a place to go and spread a little happiness.
"As the season went on, the pandemic never went anywhere ... and we thought people might be looking for something to do, and what a great way to social distance and ... smile, basically," Thompson told CNN.
Musical Interlude
WineRev’s History Lesson
Our resident history professor’s always interesting history lesson will appear here as soon as I notice he posts it in the comment section.
Take it away, WineRev!
>>>>>Hold your nose and read on. Rasmussen (that gang of losers) released a poll yesterday for Wisconsin showing Biden 52 Trump 44…...+8 points. BUT, add those 2 together and there’s only 4 percent unsure/third party/still living in a cave. Even if T-Wrecks gets all of them (NEVER happens!) Joe is still sitting at 52…..with the win! (Another case of showing why being on the right side of 50% is so important.) Even better: the demographics showed Biden winning the African-American vote. Well yeah!? Hillary got 88% in ‘16. This poll says Biden is only getting 69%…..yeah, RIGHT! (Keep thinkin’ that, you idiots!) As 1 commenter put it, Rasmussen called up Sheriff Clarke in Milwaukee and he gave them the names and cell phone numbers of 18 of his relatives and 3 people who owe Clarke money and Rasmussen called each of them to get that polling number.
September 8ths that have wafted across the window pane of History, leaves from the calendars past, some Good, some Goofy, for your 2020 Good and Goofiness that you’ll run into today
1504 Florence, Italy Michelangelo’s statue of ‘David’ is unveiled for the first time. 5.5 meters/17 feet high, carved from a single block of marble. Michelangelo is reputed to have said he saw the statue in the marble when he started and all he did was chip away all the parts that were NOT David. The statue may be marble, but 500 years of visitors have been left weak in the knees by the handsome features.
1565 St. Augustine, Florida 70 some years after Columbus bumped into the Bahamas, Spanish explorer Pedro Menendez de Aviles establishes St. Augustine as the 1st permanent European settlement in the US in continuous existence, 42 years before Jamestown and 43 years before Quebec, the LatinX impact was here to stay………….. DOUBLEHEADER DATE ALSO ON THIS DAY Island of Malta, Mediterranean. 540 knights of the Order of St. John, 400 Spanish troops and scores of Maltese gentry acting as militia, and led by Jean de la Valette, holed up Fort St. Elmo near the main harbor. Suleiman the Magnificent of Turkey landed 40,000 men in his army to take the island. De La Valette had ordered crops either harvested early or burned and all wells poisoned so the Turks would have to depend on supplies they brought along. Although the fort fell after a month, the effort cost the Turks 20% of their army while De La Valette escaped most of his men. The whole summer was a series of Turkish assaults on Maltese forts that saw most of the forts fall but at great cost to the attackers. On this day a relief force of 6000 Spanish and Italian troops landed to lift the siege and the Turks sailed away, never to return (and shattering the myth of their invincibility). The Siege and Salvation of Malta was celebrated across Europe for decades. The Maltese rebuilt, and resettled and renamed their capitol Valetta after their hero.
1636 Edge of Boston. 16 years after the landing of the Mayflower and 6 years after the settlement of Boston, Cambridge College is founded, the first college in America. Two years later its name is changed to Harvard University to honor Rev. John Harvard, who made a major bequest to fund it and also a gift of 300 books from his own collection to build up the library. (Fun fact: By 1640, a study has shown 3% of the Massachusetts Bay Colony held a college degree (from England). The US population as whole or any individual state, did not reach that level of bachelors’ degrees again until the 1930s. Those early Pilgrims were an unusual bunch!)
1664 Manhattan Island. At the end of the Dutch-English War, 300 British soldiers stood at attention as the Dutch surrendered New Amsterdam to the British, who renamed it New York.
1698 Paris. Birth of Francois Francoeur, violinist and composer. Francois had an inside track for music: his father played cello and string bass for the King’s String Orchestra. Francois himself made the team at age 15 on the violin and was mostly in royal good graces his whole life. Wrote several operas and was co-director of the French Opera House (until it burned to the ground in 1763). Collaborated with other musicians on compositions (esp. Francois Rebel) so that his own sonatas and concertos have fallen into some obscurity.
1891 Sioux City, Iowa Christian Martin, a black man living in corn country, does a lot of heavy labor. On this day he receives a patent to make it a bit easier. He invents an improved “piano truck”, a steel cart with wheels, cushioned and upholstered to protect the case, for moving pianos around in a theater, a studio, music school or any sort of stage. Through clever design (the patent) his “truck” could and would move anything from a spinet, to an upright to the grandest grand, reducing the labor to, at most, 2 men at a time (those grand pianos are still, well, grand.) Old joke: When you don’t use Mr. Martin’s invention and something slips, what do you get when you drop an 18-foot Steinway grand piano down a mineshaft?.......A) A flat minor (miner?)! Insert groan here…..
1930 Minneapolis, MN Richard Drew, an engineer at Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing (you know it as 3M; and now you know what the “M”’s stand for) creates a “flexible celluloid adhesive ribbon” on a roll as an office supply. 3M markets it with a plaid dispenser as “Scotch Tape.” The beginning of the change in birthday and Christmas wrappings of ribbons and bows to becoming purely decorative instead of actually holding the wrappings in place.
1966 Across America. While just a few days back we read in the History corner about the cancellation of “Star Trek” this is a much happier day: the premiere episode on NBC. (Trivia moment!) The episode, “Man Trap”, shows the crew visiting an outpost to conduct medical exams and being confronted with a shape-shifting alien (obviously related to earth vampires) “who only vants to suck your salt!” McCoy’s old flame Nancy almost sucks the life out of him.
1971 Washington, D.C. The dedication today of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Tonight’s first performance is a premiere as well, Leonard Bernstein’s Mass.
May all your News be Good, comforting and inspiring.
Shalom.
On the Lighter Side
Today’s Quote(s)
In true democracy every man and women is taught to think for himself or herself. — Mohandas Gandhi
Democracy is not the law of the majority but the protection of the minority. — Albert Camus
Anti-democracy…is a virus that exists, and pro-democracy is the antibody to that virus, and I think we have to become vigilant, and we have to stay on top of the issues of democracy and freedom. — Harry Belafonte
In democracy it’s your vote that counts; In feudalism it’s your count that votes. — Mogens Jallberg
To make democracy work, we must be a notion of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain. — Louis L’Amour
Required Pet Photo
Pressley sez: “We’re coming for you, Donnie. And we aren’t slowing down for anything.”
To all of our fellow resisters, rounderuppers and gnusies recovering from illness or injury lots of hugs, including {{{{oldhippiedude}}}}, {{{{Msdude}}}}, our Tuesday partner {{{{niftywriter}}}}, {{{{karij}}}}, {{{{ElizabethinNYC}}}}, {{{{Arel1}}}}, {{{{Crankylib}}}} and to our entire {{{{Gnuville}}}} community during this time of uncertainty.
Yosef 52’s latest guide to how to help get rid of republicans. Share this far and wide: Our Goal: VICTORY. Our Chief Weapon: GET OUT THE VOTE. Here's Everything You Need to Do That!
Last night’s Shade was about the deplorable state of the republican party:
Ruminations on Today's Republicans - Evening Shade, Monday
The first time the Grateful Dead played this Rodney Crowell song, was in Philadelphia a couple of days after the Loma Prieta quake. This is that performance. It has one of those lyrics about persistence: “We may fall in the ocean, but you’ll never make us run. You’re a partner to the devil, but we ain’t afraid of him. We’ll build ourselves another town, so you can tear it down again.”
Disclaimer: No veterans were gratuitously insulted during the creation of this Roundup.
