Two week to go. Fourteen days.
Thirty million votes already cast. Twenty percent of the predicted total have already voted.
We are seeing polling gaps widen. Almost all polling is well outside the margin of error. This is not the ghost of 2016.
The window for republicans to alter the outcome of this election is closing rapidly. it is very nearly closed already.
Efforts to smear Joe Biden with manufactured and obviously dubious dirt are gaining no traction.
tRump continues to unravel into a puddle of rancid fear sweat.
I’m not gonna stick my fork in it yet, but I’ve got it out of the drawer and I’ve been sharpening the tines, so it’ll sink right in when the time comes.
Parts of the media are still trying to sell a horse race. Faux Noise is still the official propaganda arm of the republican party.
This is not the time to get complacent. This is the time to redouble our effort. Let’s work to help all those “It’s too much trouble” voters get out and turn this into a rout for the ages. Check to make sure your tRump despising friends and neighbors all have a plan to vote. Let’s remind them and do everything we can to make sure they go to the polls.
If you are ok with the state of the race for president, there are some Senate races to jump on.
The deeper we bury tRump and the tRumpism, the easier we make it for Joe Biden to govern.
Tyrannis sedito. Sic semper tyrannis.
Up the Resistance
GOTMFV
How about a little scathing derision to warm you up?
And it’s on to the news,
A Refresher Course
As the countdown to dumping the Drumpf moves into its final fortnight, the fine folks over at Mother Jones put together a nice review of all the unanswered questions tRump is staring at. I think tRump’s plan is to let the questions outlive him.
Mother Jones: David Corn & Russ Choma: A Long List of Shady Financial Mysteries Trump Still Refuses to Explain
It seems that Donald Trump’s closing message for his reelection campaign during a time of pandemic and economic crisis is this: Hunter Biden. In recent days, he has jumped on a misleading New York Post story about the business dealings of Joe Biden’s son—an allegation promoted by Rudy Giuliani and linked to a Russian disinformation operation—and slammed the Bidens as a “corrupt family,” claiming “Joe Biden personifies the selfish and corrupt globalists.” At campaign rallies, he has led largely mask-free crowds in chants of “lock him up,” referring to Biden. And Trump has called on Biden to release “all” records related to his family’s business dealings, including any activity involving Russia and China.
Stone, meet glass house. For years, Trump and his family—including his three adult children, Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka—have been implicated in questionable endeavors that raise concerns regarding corruption and possible criminal conduct. Some of the sleazy antics are well known, such as Trump University (which prompted lawsuits alleging fraud that Trump settled for $25 million) and the Trump family foundation (which was shut down by New York State authorities after Trump was caught making illegal use of its charitable funds). But there are many significant mysteries about the Trump family’s financial shenanigans, and Trump has refused to provide answers. He has famously and steadfastly resisted releasing his tax returns, trampling on a long-established norm for presidents and presidential candidates. Moreover, Trump has not explained many of his clan’s business actions that seem sketchy, shady, or worse. After almost four years of his presidency and two presidential campaigns, huge question marks remain. So if Trump is going to insist that Joe Biden release information about his son’s business activity, then it’s only fair that Trump do the same about his and his family’s own wheeling-and-dealing. As a public service, here’s a list—only a partial list—of questionable activities that Trump and his business-partner kids have not addressed.
Reviewing the Damage
We all know tRump is a disaster. tRump’s enablers know he’s a disaster. The only people still enamored of tRump are full on cult members. Donald tRump has betrayed his oath, his country and any pretense of humanity. Wilentz articulately lays out the case against tRump. I use articles like this one as a great resource for debunking tRump.
Rolling Stone: Sean Wilentz: The Sedition of Donald Trump
Before Donald Trump got himself infected with the coronavirus, he had firmly secured his place as the worst president in American history. Now, after mocking Joe Biden at their first debate for mask wearing, Trump has proved to be a reckless superspreader, risking the lives of donors at a New Jersey fundraiser and the Secret Service agents sworn to protect him by demanding a bizarre motorcade photo op outside of Walter Reed hospital. One aide and associate after another of those exposed to him — and his wife — have fallen victim to the virus. Trump’s coronavirus policy, or rather the absence of it, had already been shown to have morbid consequences. Herman Cain, the former pizza king, could testify about that had he not died due to complications from the virus after attending Trump’s ill-fated Tulsa rally crammed with shouting, barefaced fanatics.
After demanding to be released from the hospital, Trump put on a display worthy of Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator, except that it wasn’t a parody. Clearly struggling for breath, the president first told the nation that Covid-19 was no big deal — “Don’t be afraid” — playing the he-man while spewing the deadly virus. The next day, Trump tweeted that there would be no further talk about a bill to stimulate the economy until after the election. The New York Stock Exchange averages immediately collapsed. But this unhinged performance is in keeping with the president’s attitude toward the contagion from the beginning, a toxic mixture of denial and presumed invulnerability.
Since Covid hit, Trump’s refusal to call the pandemic a siren-howling public-health emergency, coupled with his know-nothing disparagement of medical science, has led directly to the soaring death count, now well over 210,000 Americans, and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The escalating number of fatalities of Americans from the coronavirus outstrips the number of U.S. combat deaths in World War I, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and every war since combined. However Trump fares with the virus, whether he suffers its symptoms for months or recovers, his legacy is already written in stone as one of catastrophic and lethal failure.
tRump Trashes Fauci
Donnie just has to play the bully. It’s in his nature. He’s not getting any extra votes from saying crap like this.
CNN: Trump closes his campaign by insulting Fauci for telling the truth
(CNN)President Donald Trump's election endgame argument, far from bristling with new solutions to a pandemic that has killed 220,000 Americans, on Monday devolved into a campaign of insults against Dr. Anthony Fauci -- for telling the truth about the disease.
His personal warfare against Fauci on a frenzied day on the campaign trail, while indecent and questionable from a strategic political perspective, revealed how the US government effort to beat the pandemic has been suppressed in the service of Trump's reelection.
Rudy’s Plane Crashed and Burned on Impact
Mr. Noun Verb & 9/11 is changing his name to Mr. Number One Russian Stooge. The republican October Surprise, authored by Giuliani, has turned out to be such a giant display of poorly constructed idiocy that QAnon is adding it to their deplorable conspiracy schtick.
Wonkette: TFW Even Fox News Won't Swallow Your Senile Russian Disinfo Bullsh*t
Wonkette's Liz Dye has been ably curating the hilarious story of the Russian disinformation campaign that blew its wad a little too late, the caper of Hunter Biden and the laptop he allegedly abandoned thousands of miles from home, and ... yeah, we don't have the energy to rehash it all right now. It's a Rudy Giuliani Special, which means it was debunked in record time, and now all these stories are coming out about how US intelligence warned Trump LAST YEAR that Russian spies saw Roodles as the easiest mark, and ... yeah.
Here is just a fun cherry on top of that story. The New York Post, of course, was the only vaguely newspaper-shaped object willing to post Rudy's bullshit, and even there, journalists in the newsroom didn't want their bylines on it. Mediaite reports that Rudy shopped it to Fox News, and even they were like ummmmmmmmmmm OK no. They came with their friends, they are not leaving with you, Rudy Giuliani, and no, they do not want to buy any of your Kremlin-laced Girl Scout cookies.
”Mediaite has learned that Fox News was first approached by Rudy Giuliani to report on a tranche of files alleged to have come from Hunter Biden's unclaimed laptop left at a Delaware computer repair shop, but that the news division chose not to run the story unless or until the sourcing and veracity of the emails could be properly vetted.”
Yeah, when even Fox News? That's it, that's the joke. (Of course, it's lost on no one that both these entities are owned by Rupert Murdoch. It's just that one of them is clearly dumber and worse at journalism than the other, and it isn't the one we were expecting.
We Aren’t Done with You Yet, Rudy
The president’s drunken lawyer has become such a creepy hack that his own daughter can’t take it anymore. She supported Hillary in 2016, but has become even more vocal this cycle. Too bad the demon spawn (Uday, Qusay and the daughter wife) are too damaged to follow Caroline’s lead.
Vanity Fair: Caroline Rose Giuliani: Rudy Giuliani Is My Father. Please, Everyone, Vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
I have a difficult confession—something I usually save for at least the second date. My father is Rudy Giuliani. We are multiverses apart, politically and otherwise. I’ve spent a lifetime forging an identity in the arts separate from my last name, so publicly declaring myself as a “Giuliani” feels counterintuitive, but I’ve come to realize that none of us can afford to be silent right now. The stakes are too high. I accept that most people will start reading this piece because you saw the headline with my father’s name. But now that you’re here, I’d like to tell you how urgent I think this moment is.
To anyone who feels overwhelmed or apathetic about this election, there is nothing I relate to more than desperation to escape corrosive political discourse. As a child, I saw firsthand the kind of cruel, selfish politics that Donald Trump has now inflicted on our country. It made me want to run as far away from them as possible. But trust me when I tell you: Running away does not solve the problem. We have to stand and fight. The only way to end this nightmare is to vote. There is hope on the horizon, but we’ll only grasp it if we elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Around the age of 12, I would occasionally get into debates with my father, probably before I was emotionally equipped to handle such carnage. It was disheartening to feel how little power I had to change his mind, no matter how logical and above-my-pay-grade my arguments were. He always found a way to justify his party line, whatever it was at the time. Even though he was considered socially moderate for a Republican back in the day, we still often butted heads. When I tried to explain my belief that you don’t get to be considered benevolent on LGBTQ+ rights just because you have gay friends but don’t support gay marriage, I distinctly remember him firing back with an intensity fit for an opposing politican rather than one’s child. To be clear, I’m not sharing this anecdote to complain or criticize. I had an extremely privileged childhood and am grateful for everything I was given, including real-world lessons and complicated experiences like these. The point is to illustrate one of the many reasons I have a fraught relationship with politics, like so many of us do.
The Prominent Condemnations Continue
Every person of prominence who comes out against tRump is another nail in this administration’s political coffin. Halpern stuck it out to ensure the prosecution of Duncan Hunter was completed. His statement on what Barr has done to the Justice Department should be included in Barr’s indictment.
San Diego Union Tribune: Philip Halpern Commentary: I won’t work in Attorney General William Barr’s Justice Department any longer
After 36 years, I’m fleeing what was the U.S. Department of Justice — where I proudly served 19 different attorneys general and six different presidents. For the last three-plus decades, I have respected our leadership regardless of whether we were led by a Republican or a Democrat. I always believed the department’s past leaders were dedicated to the rule of law and the guiding principle that justice is blind. That is a bygone era, but it should not be forgotten.
Maybe I should’ve seen this coming, but like many of my colleagues, I fervently hoped that Attorney General William Barr’s preemptive misrepresentation of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report was an honest mistake or a solitary misstep — rather than a deliberate attempt to conceal potential presidential misconduct.
After all, Barr has never actually investigated, charged or tried a case. He’s a well-trained bureaucrat but has no actual experience as a prosecutor.
Unfortunately, over the last year, Barr’s resentment toward rule-of-law prosecutors became increasingly difficult to ignore, as did his slavish obedience to Donald Trump’s will in his selective meddling with the criminal justice system in the Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn and Roger Stone cases. In each of these cases, Barr overruled career prosecutors in order to assist the president’s associates and/or friends, who potentially harbor incriminating information. This career bureaucrat seems determined to turn our democracy into an autocracy.
The Conspiracy Theorist-in-Chief
Even though his demented conspiracy-addled base is sucking this stuff up, it’s having an adverse effect on his overall popularity. tRump is hemorrhaging support because, to quote Lindsey Graham, “He’s a kook.”
Rolling Stone: Trump Was Asked, Once Again, to Denounce QAnon. Once Again, He Refused
Time and again, President Trump has been pressed to denounce QAnon, the baseless far-right conspiracy theory positing that he is the right’s savior from a deep state ring of leftist pedophiles and child traffickers. And time and again, he has refused.
So it shouldn’t have surprised anyone when, after Savannah Guthrie asked him to denounce QAnon during his NBC town hall Thursday night, the president explicitly refused to do so, even going so far as to claim that he knew “nothing” about the conspiracy theory.
This is not the first time Trump, who has retweeted QAnon accounts at least 258 times, has been asked directly about QAnon. Back in August, he was asked to denounce QAnon when pressed about his support of Marjorie Taylor Greene, a GOP congressional candidate who has publicly espoused the movement. Later that month, he was asked specifically about QAnon in the White House briefing room. “I don’t know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate,” he said at the time. (QAnon followers, who hang on to the president’s every word and view them as an implicit endorsement of their movement, were absolutely elated by the shoutout.)
During the town hall, Guthrie also asked Trump about a retweet amplifying a QAnon account. Trump retweeted to his 82 million followers a baseless conspiracy theory that Vice President Joe Biden orchestrated the murder of members of the SEAL Team 6 unit that killed Osama Bin Laden. “I know nothing about it,” Trump claimed of the tweet. “That was a retweet — that was an opinion of somebody. And that was a retweet. I’ll put it out there. People can decide for themselves.”
He Has Once Again Proven, He Is an Idiot of the First Order
tRump took it seriously and retweeted this story. The world is full of fools and idiots, and then there’s tRump.
BabylonBee: Twitter Shuts Down Entire Network To Slow Spread Of Negative Biden News
SAN FRANCISCO, CA—In a last-ditch effort to stop negative stories about Joe Biden and his family from spreading, Twitter shut down its entire social network Thursday.
After seeing account after account tweet out one particularly bad story, CEO Jack Dorsey realized he had to take action. Dorsey smashed a glass box in his office reading "Break In Case Of Bad Publicity For Democrats." Inside the case was a sledgehammer for smashing Twitter's servers.
"Red alert -- shut the servers down! Shut them all down!"
The actual tRump tweet is still up:
My Borowitz Fix
I love me some Andy Borowitz. I want to be just like him when I grow up. My only problem is he steals all my ideas before I have them.
The New Yorker: The Borowitz Report: Trump Accuses New Zealand’s Prime Minister of Competently Handling the Coronavirus to Get Reëlected
JANESVILLE, WI (The Borowitz Report)—Calling New Zealand’s Prime Minister “crooked and rigged,” Donald J. Trump accused Jacinda Ardern of competently handling the coronavirus pandemic in order to get reëlected.
Speaking at a rally in Wisconsin, Trump called Ardern’s use of public-health measures to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus on her nation “a sleazy political move like you wouldn’t believe.”
“This woman wanted to get reëlected, so she decided to go after the coronavirus and beat it,” he said. “This woman is a disgrace.”
The Palate Cleansing Moment — Pressley Is Looking Out for Me with All This Walking
I wonder if Pressley knew about this when she pushed me into longer and longer walks?
GoodNewsNetwork: Exercise in the Morning May Stave Off Cancer, As Opposed to Later in the Day, New Study Says
The time of day we exercise could affect the risk of cancer, according to a new controlled study conducted with almost 3,000 Spanish people.
Studies have shown that one potential cause of cancer is circadian disruption, the misalignment of environmental cues—such as light and when you eat—and the internal, biological circadian rhythms.
It is established that regular physical activity throughout your lifetime can reduce cancer risk, but this protective effect could be the most beneficial when physical activity is done in the morning, according to a recent study coordinated by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), together with the Department of Epidemiology at the Medical University of Vienna.
Musical Interlude
Bonus Song
WineRev’s History Lesson
Our resident history professor’s always interesting history lesson will appear here as soon as I notice he has woken up and posted it in the comment section.
Take it away WineRev
>>>>This brief diary has clips from an interview with Rick Wilson, one of the big wheels inside the Lincoln Project. You know how the national polls have been stuck at about a 8-9 point Biden lead since about like forever? At the state level there’ been more movement, which is why DT keeps visiting the slipping-away Wisconsin and the Biden folk are putting resources and visits into AZ, GA, OH, etc? One underlying chunk of that has been American women. They have favored Biden by 20 points than men have. ….But in just the past two weeks (after Debate 1 and the Covid Comes to the White House Show) the national numbers are ticking up for Biden and some of the swing states are starting to prefer sapphires over rubies. According to Rick Wilson and the LP soundings, this is because in (big like CA) state after (swing) state women are moving to favor BIden by 27 points. Will it hold? T’wll tell the tale for sure, by my own feeling is yes, it will hold…..and keep growing!
>>>>>Political scientists and their stat-crunching grad students are giddy with data these days: America is early voting/absentee voting/mail-in voting in historic numbers, giving these people lots of new numbers to crunch every day and to record for posterity. (“Yes, I remember having to enter numbers every day for Professor Hamilton. We still used keyboards on our tablets back then, way before voice command algorithms, you young whippersnappers…...”). The nugget is as of a day or so ago, 14 million US women had already voted, vs. 11.4 million US men. Of those 14 million women, 3 million (22%!) did not vote in 2016. And in that same pool of 14 million, 672,000 are first time voters. Ponder those possibilities!
October 20ths that in previous years have also crouched 14 days away from November 3rd, waiting like Good or Goofy frogs to leap and capture lunch flying by and burping up the background music for This October 20th
1632 East Knoyle, England Birth of Christopher Wren, astronomer, architect. Born into a family with royal connections and income, the Puritan Civil War starting in 1640 made for a tense childhood. Still, Wren received a good education. He showed real talent in drawing and some of his anatomical works became medical textbook standards for years. Made contributions to astronomy and studies on geomagnetic properties of the earth that could be adapted for navigation. In the early 1660s St. Paul’s Cathedral had fallen into disrepair. Wren visited Paris to view Notre Dame and met several Italian architects visiting there at the same time. The Great Fire of London of 1666 destroyed better than half the city and did St. Paul’s no good at all. Wren was hired by the crown to oversee the rebuilding, especially of churches and public buildings. The current St. Paul Cathedral was his design, finished in 1711, as were 51 other churches around London.
1864 Washington DC After a Presidential proclamation the year before, urging the observance of the (heretofore mostly New England) holiday of Thanksgiving, this day President Lincoln proclaims it again, this time setting the fourth Thursday in November as the annual day.
1866 Washington DC Pierre Lallemont, a mechanic from France, legally protects an idea he has developed for the velocipede, the 2-wheeled “long stepping” contraptions young men would straddle on a center beam, steer with a pivoting front wheel, and propel by taking long steps on either side. Lallemont this day was granted a US patent for a velocipede that featured a rotary crank near the bottom, connected by an oiled chain to a rear hub, and driven by foot pedals.
1874 Danbury, CT Birth of Charles Ives, composer. From a prominent family, his father had been a Union Army band master and taught instruments, theory and conducted various musical groups. Charles graduated from Yale, and then was a church organist for a few years. He then worked for an insurance company, and later set up his own firm for the rest of his life. Had creative financial ideas and almost single-handedly invented the field of estate-planning for ordinary people. Produced symphonies, songs, and “Three Places in New England" and dozens of ”tone poems” all between 1908 and 1927. One morning in ’27 he came downstairs with tears in his eyes and said to his wife, “I can’t compose anymore. I can’t hear any music.” Not another note that last 27 years of his life.
1885 New Orleans, LA Birth of Ferdinand Lamenthe, jazz pianist, composer and singer. Jazz and blues have tangled roots and several claimants as the key person in this genre. WC Handy was one such figure, rivaled only by Lamenthe. Ferdinand could play piano at an early age and had the ear and talent to use classical melodies and tunes and improvise them to acclaim in saloons, brothels and other non-concert hall settings. During World War I and into the 1920s and 1930s, the Red Hot Peppers, led by Lamenthe (stage name Jelly Roll Morton) invented the early jazz practice of re-orchestrating and ad-libbing on well-known standard works.
1944 Leyte Beach, Philippines. 2 ½ years earlier a Japanese invasion had overwhelmed American forces in the colony, and General Douglas MacArthur has been spirited away. He famously promised, “I shall return.” On this day MacArthur makes good his promise. He comes ashore to the cameras, flanked by president-in-exile Sergio Osmena, and Philippine General Carlos Romolo, who later became foreign minister after independence in 1946.
1973 Sydney, Australia In 1957, after an international architectural design competition, Jørn Utzon, a 38-year old Dane was declared the winner. After controversy, funding issues and then 11 years of construction, Australia welcomes Queen Elizabeth II for a state visit. On this day, she dedicates the Sydney Opera House. The striking, interlaced shell design has become the iconic signature of the Sydney skyline.
May all your News be Good, comforting and inspiring.
Shalom.
On the Lighter Side
Quote(s) of the Day
Reading between the Lees
With great power there must also come ... great responsibility! — Stan Lee
Being responsible is an enormous privilege.... It's what marks anyone a fully grown human. — Barack Obama
The Buck Stops Here. — Harry S Truman
The price of greatness is responsibility. — Winston Churchill
Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so. — Noam Chomsky
Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you; it means learning to respect and use your own brains and instincts; hence, grappling with hard work. — Adrienne Rich
There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments in the hands of others and thus free ourselves from the responsibility for acts which are prompted by our own questionable inclinations and impulses. Both the strong and the weak grasp at this alibi. The latter hide their malevolence under the virtue of obedience: they acted dishonorably because they had to obey orders. The strong, too, claim absolution by proclaiming themselves the chosen instrument of a higher power -- God, history, fate, nation, or humanity. — Bruce Lee
Required Pet Photo
Closing Notes
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 has been busy. He has been drilling down in the swing states. Here are his latest guides to getting out the vote:
Keep Fighting and GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE! ('Cause It Ain't Over 'til It's Over.)
Florida Polling (from 538): Biden 49, Trump 45. BRING IT HOME BY GETTING OUT THE VOTE.
Pennsylvania Polling (from Civiqs): Biden 52, Trump 45. BRING IT HOME BY GETTING OUT THE VOTE
Last night the Shade took a look at tRump’s promise to leave the country if he loses: Bye Don - Evening Shade, Monday
For those of you who think the Evening Shade is only a recurring attempt to be snarkily funny, it also a source for links to many (maybe most) of the daily deluge of political ads put out by organizations working to elect Joe Biden, as well as new anti-tRump parody songs (Randy Rainbow, Parody Project, etc) and the daily diatribe from Keith Olbermann. It’s also an evening place for Gnusies to gather and continue the day’s conversations.
Someone asked me why I close out these roundups with music from the Grateful Dead. I’ll let Jerry answer for me:
“Whatever it is, it invented us, we didn’t invent it. The audience thinks we’re providing more than music, but we don’t let on what we’re providing, intentionally. We’re elliptical. Someone once wrote that we’re a real cheap vacation to Bermuda, which is kind of right. But insofar as we’re providing a safe context to be together with a lot of people who aren’t afraid of each other, which is real valuable in New York, I’d guess, we’re important.” — Jerry Garcia, September 1991
Disclaimer: It ain’t over til it’s over.