2020: November election and beyond... (IX)

Which decent, respected and law abiding politicians are going to
want Kellyanne Conway's name connected in any way to their
campaigns when the Trump era is history??? The hole for her
career casket is getting deeper by the minute.

... "So come November, I'll do what LaCasse* has said she will do — vote for a man I believed sexually assaulted Reade. And it will turn my stomach. But while we deserved better than Biden, no one deserves another four years of Trump."

__________________

— Danielle Campoamor, "Trump vs. Biden is the 2020 election nightmare women like me warned America about"

LOL! Good, you do that, Danielle.

Just one question: in 2016, did you join those who denounced avowed Trump-supporters as being shameless supporters, shameless seconders, of a serial sexual-preadator and as people who, on that account, ought to be ashamed of themselves? Hmm?

_________________________________

* Lynda LaCasse: ..."a former neighbor of (Alexandra Tara) Reade's," ...

Good god, does even this need spelling out? The Trumpoidal reign sure has scrambled the collective brains something vicious.

Seth Meyers speaks urgent sense to Democrats praising Dubya:

Hey! Democrats Praising George W. Bush

#3--Bush, Cheney and company should have been tried for war crimes. We hear praise of John McCain these days too---and fine he stood up a couple of times against Trump but McCain was another war ghoul and also a shitbird. This Lincoln project IMO is baloney--these anti-Trump republicans have no real political clout but they're an excuse for centrist democrats to maintain their do nothing except for the rich status quo kind of politics by making them out to be something more than they are. Nobody cares about fucking Joe Scarborough, Nicolle Wallace, Bill Kristol, Rick Wilson or George Conway. They're all hacks and the only one of them who was ever elected to anything was Scarborough and he couldn't get elected dog catcher in Tallahassee now. These people don't flip votes. Trump might lose some voters from last time but they won't be the real reason--Trump will be the reason.

>4 lriley:

Yes, what a shame that anyone at the DP thinks they need to accommodate some imaginary "decent Republicans"--if that creature ever existed, it certainly went extinct after 2016--when they have no compunction in locking out millions of social democrats. Talk about lack of standards--and foresight. The future demands change. It's like nobody told the bloody zombies they are dead.

#5--I'm sick of these types really and no that creature does not exist. These Bush era castoffs are overrepresented in the mainstream media though. It's a laugh to hear MSNBC, CNN, the NYTimes or Washington Post called left wing. They're not--not even close. Not really even liberal. They very much represent the monied and corporate interests and that's why we find someone like Mr. Scarborough getting three hours in the morning on MSNBC to start out everyone's day.

You cannot be on the left in the United States and not be for certain things--among which are medicare for all and some for real version of a green new deal program.They are a basic part of the litmus test and the majority of elected democratic politicians in both the House and Senate are not for either and would not pass that test and neither is Biden and nor are any of those media entities. Their idea of being environmentally friendly is about rejoining the Paris climate accord and that's about it. And they don't represent working people either--they sell us out all the time. Yeah there are dumbass working people who voted for Trump--the least democrats could do though was give them a real reason to vote for them instead and they're not doing it. Too busy playing footsie with Bill Kristol and George Conway.

WHY (Arizona Senator McSally)?
The Lincoln Project. 30 sec.
https://arizonaspolitics.blogspot.com/2020/05/breaking-lincoln-project-trumps-la...

The (Lincoln Project) had released an online ad calling McSally a "Trump hack" back in January, but this is the first time that they have bought airtime in the Arizona Senate race. The likely battle between McSally and Mark Kelly is on track to be the most expensive and closely-watched Senate race in the country.

Trump replaces Postmaster General Megan Brennan with big campaign donor Louis Dejoy. Brennan's issue apparently that she couldn't raise postal rates all on her own as well as use the Post Office as a vehicle to target Trump enemy Jeff Bezos. There is such a thing as the Postal Rate Commission but fuck going the legal way. Breed apparently was head of New Breed Logistics Corp. and thinks that gives him special insight into how the Post Office works. A fat guy who loves to golf (just like Donald) and his wife works in Trump's administration.

I suppose golf is good for some people but it's always been to my eyes a game that draws loads of assholes and wannabe's.

Dejoy--DeVos I'm thinking he has in mind to do exactly for the Post Office what DeVos is doing for the public school system.

On to Mitch McConnell's Kentucky Senate seat which is up for grabs in this election cycle.

On the one hand in the democratic primary we have Charles Booker who has the endorsement of the Sunrise Movement and is for medicare for all. On the other hand we have Amy McGrath who wants neither of those things but is the Democratic Party establishments choice. This is what she said on Fox to Neil Cavuto last July:

'As a marine, I'm not a stranger to challenges, and this is going to be one of them. You know, I look at--if you look at Kentucky, it's a very red state; it's a very pro-Trump state, and but one of the reasons why Kentucky voted for Donald Trump is to drain the swamp, and do things like bring back jobs, to bring down prescription prices, to do big things like infrastructure. And all along the way, if you look at why he hasn't been able to get those things done, you got to look at Senator McConnell. He stops him along the way. And I think that's my message, you know? If you want to get these things done that Kentucky really needs, we have to elect people who care and want to--want to get these things done'.

So her message seems to be I can work with Trump better than McConnell does.

The fact that Biden's accuser backed out of a FOX News/Trump TV
appearance may indicate that there are major kinks in her
accusation. Embellishing a tale to entertain a neighbor/friend
and lying to the country at large are two completely different
things.

>10 Molly3028:

If you want to support Biden that's your business, but do it without dumping on Reade. Leave that crap to the misogynistic shits in here who still hate Hillary Clinton more than Trump.

I Believe Tara Reade. And You Should, Too.

We already knew that Biden is the type. Had we as voters and had the Democratic Party taken this seriously, we wouldn’t be in this mess now.

>11 LolaWalser:

True or not ~ The accuser is playing a put-a-woman-at-the-top-of-the-Dem-ticket game.

!

Team Trump Wants Flynn Back for 2020, Sees Him as Its ‘Nelson Mandela’
Can a disgraced former national security adviser become a campaign MAGA hero? We may soon find out.
Asawin Suebsaeng | May. 08, 2020

...Of the nine senior Trump administration officials, campaign staff, outside advisers, and longtime associates of the president reached on Thursday, all said that they wanted Flynn to assume some public-facing role in service of the president, including potentially as an official Trump surrogate as Election Day inches closer. One even compared the ex-general, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials, to one of history’s greatest human rights icons.

“Years ago when Nelson Mandela came to America after years of political persecution he was treated like a rock star by Americans,” John McLaughlin, one of President Trump’s chief pollsters, told The Daily Beast on Thursday evening. “Now after over three years of political persecution General Flynn is our rock star. A big difference is that he was persecuted in America.”

...Trump himself seems determined to see it happen. According to a source who has spoken to the president about Flynn in the past month, Trump had made clear that if legal circumstances permitted, he would want Flynn to get “something good” in his political orbit following years of bad press and legal turmoil. The source said it was unclear if Trump meant a job in the administration, a role for the 2020 campaign, or another position.

...Should Flynn himself assume a more overtly political role in the run-up to the election it would almost certainly embroil his own Justice Department in further controversy. The decision by the department to drop its charges against the former national security adviser came as a shock to longtime DOJ hands, Russia investigation watchers, national security types, and even some inside the building...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/team-trump-wants-mike-flynn-back-for-2020-sees-him...

Real presidents lead. Reality TV presidents don’t.
0:43 ( https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1258431648732872706 )

- Joe Biden @JoeBiden | 12:21 PM · May 7, 2020

The President Is Unraveling
Peter Wehner | May 5, 2020

The country is witnessing the steady, uninterrupted intellectual and psychological decomposition of Donald Trump.

...some of the essential traits of Donald Trump: the shocking ignorance, ineptitude, and misinformation; his constant need to divide Americans and attack those who are trying to promote social solidarity; his narcissism, deep insecurity, utter lack of empathy, and desperate need to be loved; his feelings of victimization and grievance; his affinity for ruthless leaders; and his fondness for conspiracy theories.

...ongoing ramifications for the remainder of Trump’s first term and for his reelection strategy. More than ever, Trump will try to convince Americans that “what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening,” to quote his own words in 2018.

That won’t be easy in a pandemic, as the death toll mounts and the economy collapses and the failures of the president multiply. But that doesn’t mean Trump won’t try. It’s all he has left, so Americans have to prepare for it.

Trump and his apparatchiks will not only step up their propaganda; they will increase their efforts to exhaust our critical thinking and to annihilate truth, in the words of the Russian dissident Garry Kasparov. We will see even more “alternative facts.” We will see even more brazen attempts to rewrite history. We will hear even more crazy conspiracy theories. We will witness even more lashing out at reporters, more rage, and more lies.

“The real opposition is the media,” Steve Bannon, the president’s former chief strategist, once told the journalist Michael Lewis. “And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”

We will see more extreme appeals to the fringe base of Trump’s party, including right-wing militias...

We will see a more prominent role played by One America News, a pro-Trump network that the president has praised dozens of times....

Watching formerly serious individuals on the right, including the Christian right, become Trump courtiers has been a painful and dispiriting thing for many of us to witness. In the process, they have reconfigured their own character, intellect, and moral sensibilities to align with the disordered mind and deformed ethical world of Donald Trump.

...the national Republican Party fall in line...

What this means is that Americans are facing not just a conventional presidential election in 2020 but also, and most important, a referendum on reality and epistemology. Donald Trump is asking us to enter even further into his house of mirrors. He is asking us to live within a lie, to live within his lie, for four more years. The duty of citizenship in America today is to refuse to live within that lie.

“The simple step of a simple courageous man is not to partake in falsehood, not to support false actions,” Alexandr Solzhenitsyn said...There are also the daily acts of integrity of common men and women who will not believe the lies or spread the lies, who will not allow the foundation of truth—factual truth, moral truth—to be destroyed, and who, in standing for truth, will help heal this broken land.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/president-unraveling/611146/

Experts Knew a Pandemic Was Coming. Here’s What They’re Worried About Next.
Nine disasters we still aren’t ready for.
GARRETT M. GRAFF | 05/07/2020

Updated: 05/08/2020

...Beyond other pandemics, which appear regularly every decade or two, there are eight other major threats (and one wild card) that scientists and national security officials worry about currently that are real, identifiable and stand a chance that is more likely than not of occurring—at some scale, ranging from mild to catastrophic—in the next five to 50 years.

Here’s what’s coming for us now:
1. Globalization of White Supremacy
2. Attacks on Trust and Truth--Deepfakes, Manufactured Election Results or Other Data Manipulation Attacks
3. Biosecurity--Terrorists, Mad Scientists, Lab Accidents and Biological Warfare
4. Technological Disruption--Downed Power Grids, GPS Outages and Solar Flares
5. Nukes
6. Climate Change

7. Covid-19’s Next Level Impact

The mounting human death toll and unfolding financial calamity of the current pandemic is one thing. But the ripple effects will last for years—and given the country’s bumbled handling of the virus itself, it seems an open question whether we’re in a strong position to respond and confront what comes after it.

The global reordering of power that has been underway for the past decade—as America retrenches, China grows and Europe’s democratic unity weakens—will only accelerate as the world’s leading economies rethink their economic strategies, political alliances and confront what, at best, might be a years long recession.

Gordon says she’s increasingly worried that the U.S. might not meet that moment, paralyzed by partisan politics, a hide-bound bureaucracy, growing income inequality, and population trends—like shrinking birthrates and a cutback on immigration—that will yield a rapidly aging population. “Our institutions are not keeping up with the turn of the Earth, and they’re being devalued in the moment,” she says. “Society requires government, yet we’re running out of the structures that make it work. The world was already getting more digital outside of the government, the government was getting more hide-bound, and this administration has less understanding of government’s necessity and role. Those three things have left us with a pretty difficult position.”

Moreover, the country’s ongoing, disastrous response to the pandemic—by almost any measure one of the worst in the developed world—is sending a clear message to other countries that the U.S. can no longer be counted on to lead global conversations. The U.S. didn’t even show up to a massive international vaccine virtual summit this week.

The U.S., if current trends continue, might find that it finally beats the virus in a year or two—but emerges from the pandemic no longer the world leader economically, politically or morally that it’s been for the last 75 years. The world, in turn, may discover in this moment that it doesn’t need the U.S. in the way that it thought it did. That could be even more true if a Covid vaccine emerges first in China or Europe.

There are massive economic, societal and security benefits that come from being the world’s leading superpower. What happens if we’re not anymore? Imagine a U.S. that doesn’t attract top talent. What if the next great innovations happen in Europe or Asia instead of Silicon Valley? What if Chinese VCs get first crack at the hottest deals in the world?

Losing political or financial power also means being forced to make tough tradeoffs as the U.S. finds itself unable to invest in critical projects. “We may be forced to make economic choices post-catastrophe that expose our flank on communications, for instance,” says Gordon. “It used to be that we had so much power, it didn't matter if we left our flanks exposed. Now what happens when we're in a world where that ... gap is much smaller?”

The U.S. already finds itself in the challenging position with regard to 5G, the next phase of cellphone technologies. The U.S. is trying to discourage western allies from adopting the advanced technology developed by China’s Huawei, but is unable to provide an alternative. What if the U.S. can’t stop its allies from using China’s digital infrastructure? What if the U.S. is forced to use it itself? “This has always been my concern with Huawei … you're turning over control of your most critical infrastructure to an adversary who you implicitly do not trust and has demonstrated it does not deserve your trust,” says Christopher Krebs, the director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which is in charge of protecting the nation’s critical infrastructure.

Gordon says, “COVID has proved we need institutions. Our bureaucracy is increasingly ineffective, and it is being ignored because it is so irrelevant to the speed of decision-making. It needs to be rebuilt. Who are the leaders who are going to come in rebuild it? My catastrophic event is the failure of bureaucracy to provide the governance our society still needs. You’re seeing it happen right now.”

8. Catastrophic Earthquakes
9. Unknown Unknowns

...Identifying those critical functions to keep the economy humming is especially important as every disaster seems to unveil new, unexpected and unknown interconnections between supply chains and industries. The long-term power outage in Puerto Rico that followed Hurricane Maria led to unexpected national shortages of IV bags and saline for hospitals because the nation’s main manufacturing plants were located there. The Covid crisis, similarly, is making clear how seemingly mundane business moves—like the market consolidation of the meatpacking industry—can lead to large-scale consequences in a disaster: Today, pork and beef are running short in large sections of the country.

“It’s highly likely that we’re not going to see the next thing coming, so we need to build more resilience into our society and ensure we’re adaptive to whatever comes,” Matheny says. “The fact that everything is unraveling amid what’s actually a relatively mild pandemic does not bode well.”

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/05/07/experts-knew-pandemic-was-comi...

NEW VIDEO
Donald Trump and his venomous politics and ideology are un-American.

Donald Trump IS The Snake.
2:05 ( https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1258788754589876230 )

- MeidasTouch.com @MeidasTouch | 12:00 PM · May 8, 2020

Anxious About the Virus, Older Voters Grow More Wary of Trump
Surveys show the president’s standing with seniors, the group most vulnerable to the coronavirus, has fallen as he pushes to reopen the country.
Annie Karni and Maggie Haberman | May 9, 2020

WASHINGTON — The coronavirus crisis and the administration’s halting response to it have cost President Trump support from one of his most crucial constituencies: America’s seniors.

For years, Republicans and Mr. Trump have relied on older Americans, the country’s largest voting bloc, to offset a huge advantage Democrats enjoy with younger voters. In critical states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida, all of which have large older populations, Mr. Trump’s advantage with older voters has been essential to his political success; in 2016, he won voters over the age of 65 by seven percentage points, according to national exit poll data.

But seniors are also the most vulnerable to the global pandemic, and the campaign’s internal polls, people familiar with the numbers said, show Mr. Trump’s support among voters over the age of 65 softening to a concerning degree, as he pushes to reopen the country’s economy at the expense of stopping a virus that puts them at the greatest risk.

A recent Morning Consult poll found that Mr. Trump’s approval rating on the handling of the coronavirus was lower with seniors than with any other group other than young voters. And Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic nominee, in recent polls held a 10-point advantage over Mr. Trump among voters who are 65 and older. A poll commissioned by the campaign showed a similar double-digit gap...At the same point in the race four years ago, Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, trailed Mr. Trump by five points with the same group...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/09/us/politics/trump-older-voters-2020.html

Crisis reveals character — and character belongs in the White House.
1:01 ( https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1259132265361100801 )

- Joe Biden @JoeBiden | 10:45 AM · May 9, 2020

here’s the president, saying the quiet part loud, which is that Democrats voting is itself fraud
Image ( https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/1259185252355969025/photo/1 )

- b-boy bouiebaisse @jbouie | 2:15 PM · May 9, 2020

Val Demings is the coalition pick for vice president
Joe Biden isn't a once-in-a-generation talent like Obama. If he wants to relate to his whole coalition, he's going to need some help.
David Byler | May 7, 2020

...On a biographical level, Demings is a great fit for the Biden campaign. As the child of a maid and a janitor and as a first-generation college student, she’d bolster Biden’s appeal as a working-class Democrat. Her background as a police chief might also resonate with some of the blue-collar former Democrats who have drifted toward the GOP in recent years. As an African American woman, she’d balance out the ticket demographically and would personally represent the party’s most loyal bloc of voters. And it doesn’t hurt that she’s from Florida, one of the key swing states.

...She was one of the managers of Trump’s impeachment in the House...like Biden, she sits between the progressive firebrands in the Squad and moderates like Pennsylvania Rep. Conor Lamb...a relatively moderate African American former police chief...relatively new House member...63 years old...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/07/val-demings-is-coalition-pick...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is part of a series where I make the best possible case for various vice-presidential contenders. Previous entries in the series can be found here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/david-byler/

Tammy Duckworth is Biden’s safest — and smartest — vice presidential pick
Joe Biden needs to play prevent defense in this election. Tammy Duckworth knows how.
Apr 29, 2020

If Biden is serious about winning, he should pick Tammy Baldwin as his running mate
Biden needs a vice president who can deliver a swing state. Baldwin is the best candidate.
Apr 21, 2020

Why Joe Biden needs Elizabeth Warren
Warren has had a clear mission and vision for years.
Apr 20, 2020

Joe Biden isn’t the Democratic Party’s future. He needs a vice president who is.
Kamala Harris looks like the rest of the party and has the flexibility to lead it forward.
Apr 16, 2020

The @JoeBiden campaign is cranking out these ads daily now. It seems to be working:
Trump's late-night unhinged rage-tweet sessions are getting worse...

0:41 ( https://twitter.com/egheitasean/status/1259509242689490945 )

- Shane @egheitasean | 11:42 AM · May 10, 2020

The contrast is clear between President Trump and Sleepy Joe.
While @realDonaldTrump salutes the U.S. Navy hospital ship sent to help New York battle the coronavirus, Joe Biden does….this.
https://donaldjtrump.com/media/clear-contrast-while-joe-biden-reads-president-tr...
Image ( https://twitter.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/1259533972230541312 )

- Trump War Room - Text TRUMP to 88022 & get the APP @TrumpWarRoom1:21 PM · May 10, 2020

#21--all respect to Val Demings--she is clear spoken etc. and she comes across kind of well but for the most part no one really knows her or where she stands on anything outside of a state level. Not unusual in that respect for congressmen/women. For the most part they're relatively unknown by the public. I don't see where choosing her even gets Biden the state of Florida. If he gets Florida it's more likely that the virus does it.

Keep in mind that Biden if he wins might not even make it through 4 years and that his VP choice might end up finishing his term for him and then be the presumptive for 2024. Go with an unknown?

Does Duckworth or Baldwin?--Senators tend to be a lot more known so perhaps. Dems don't have to win Illinois. Baldwin helps with Wisconsin.

Warren is a no. In some respects she's a legislative genius. Some of her political instincts though leave a lot to be desired and whatever animosity some Sanders folks have for Biden---a good % have even more animosity for Warren now. As far as a clear mission and vision--apart from the economic side that's debatable. She doesn't bring the party together and really came in 3rd in her own state of Massachusetts in the primary which is pretty awful and it's also not a state that the Dems need don't need to win.

Kamala Harris--the dems don't need to win California either.

Nor do they need to win the state of Washington but Pramila Jayapal despite being a congresswoman like Demings really has a higher profile--she was a key Sanders supporter and Justice Democrat. Want to bring a larger % of the Sanders faction in she would be a good choice to make. A lot better than Warren anyway. Like Demings she's very well spoken but not all that controversial. She's also been a point person for writing legislation on health care etc.

Money managers still expect Trump to keep the White House in November. In a late April survey of U.S.-based investors with at least $1 million of assets, UBS found that 52% think Trump will win.

The world's most popular betting destinations still show Trump as the clear favorite.

- Laurence Tribe @tribelaw | 8:11 AM · May 11, 2020

Trump lives life in his head. What is happening in the 50-state
country between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans does not exist
between his two ears. The outcome of the November election is
growing more important with each passing day.

This new Joe Biden ad rips into Trump for his COVID-19 response
Biden for President Campaign Ad Slams Trump's COVID-19 Response
3:55 ( https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1260271773750157312 )

- NowThis @nowthisnews | 2:13 PM · May 12, 2020

This president believes in unlimited executive power with no accountability. Could anything be less American?

Our NEW VIDEO with @protctdemocracy and @GovCTW
1:32 ( https://twitter.com/ForTheRuleOfLaw/status/1260214153421217793 )

- Republicans for the Rule of Law @ForTheRuleOfLaw | 10:24 AM · May 12, 2020

https://news.yahoo.com/stealth-trump-supporters-presidents-secret-113431884.html

Brainwashed stealth Trump voters are more of a danger to the
wellbeing of America/Americans than anything nature can send
our way this year.

Republicans Release Names of Obama-Era Officials in ‘Unmaskings’ That Revealed Flynn
Julian E. Barnes and Charlie Savage | May 13, 2020

WASHINGTON — Republican senators on Wednesday released the names of some Obama administration officials who made requests during the presidential transition to see fuller versions of classified intelligence reports, immediately prompting accusations that President Trump’s allies were wielding the information for his political benefit.

The list compiles the names of officials who had inquired about the identity of an American in National Security Agency intelligence reports that initially concealed it, on those occasions when the masked name turned out to be that of Michael T. Flynn, then Mr. Trump’s incoming national security adviser.

The list did not say what the intelligence reports were about. They could have included surveillance of foreign officials who were talking about Mr. Flynn, as well as surveillance of intelligence targets who were picked up talking to him.

The list, recently declassified by the acting director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell, reads as who’s who of the top officials working at the time on Russia policy, sanctions and intelligence collection. Among them are John O. Brennan, the C.I.A. director; Samantha Power, the ambassador to the United Nations; James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence; James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director; and Douglas E. Lute, the American ambassador to NATO.

Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Mr. Trump’s likely opponent in November’s election, was also on the list. He asked for the identity of someone who turned out to be Mr. Flynn on Jan. 12, 2017 — the day The Washington Post had published a column about Mr. Flynn’s calls with the Russian ambassador that were at the heart of the false-statements criminal case against him that Attorney General William P. Barr abruptly moved to drop last week despite his guilty plea.

“It’s not at all surprising that individuals in official positions related to U.S.-Russia relations would want to know what was behind intelligence reports,” said Mr. Lute, who declined to discuss the classified intelligence he saw. “What is surprising is that our acting director of national intelligence would be moved to compile and release this list of officials — most with longstanding, distinguished public service careers — apparently to fuel a partisan conspiracy theory.”...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/us/politics/unmasking-flynn.html
_________________________________________

Isn't it funny that, while this information has been in the possession of the Trump administration for 3 1/2 years,
they decide to make it public, and emphasize Biden's name,
only after it's clear that he is going to run against Trump?
Who is targeting whose opponent?
- Asha Rangappa @AshaRangappa_ | 5:41 PM · May 13, 2020·Twitter Web App

- Burisma
- Hunter Biden
- Dementia
- Tara Reade
- ObamaGate
What next? It's all very transparent & predictable.
Meanwhile 85,000 dead. 33 million unemployed. Testing still a mess in places. Distract, distract, distract!
- MURRAY @murray_nyc · 12h

Don't they realize that Biden “unmasking” Michael Flynn only happened because Flynn was caught betraying the US to (among others) Russia and that Biden didn’t know ahead of time that it was Flynn, hence the “masked” part of “unmasked”?
Don’t be traitor & you won’t get unmasked.
- MustangZeroFive @MustangZeroFive · 12h

And unmasking is a legitimate, normal, controlled, legal process, but they make it sound ominous, by how they keep repeating it, like some mantra or spell.
- Sameday Same Palmer @dpalmer25352 · 9h

_______________________________________

1st, Mike Flynn's notorious call to RU Amb Kislyak, which got this whole furball rolling, was on 29 DEC 2016...
and a lot of these unmasking requests are wayyyyy before that. Back to 30 NOV, in fact.
Hmmmmm.....
- John Schindler @20committee | 4:09 PM · May 13, 2020

The National Security Agency handled about 10,000 unmasking requests in 2019 and nearly 17,000 in 2018.
- Adam Goldman @adamgoldmanNYT | 8:50 PM · May 13, 2020

________________________________________

Am I the only person who realizes that when people request the "unmasking" of someone
it's because THEY DON'T KNOW WHO IT IS and, that being the case,
HOW COULD THAT EVER BE CONSPIRATORIAL!?!?!?!?
- Ben. No More, No Less. @BJS_quire | 4:52 PM · May 13, 2020

________________________________________

Of over 40 Potential Unmaskings of Mike Flynn During the Transition, Just One Led to Criminal Charges
emptywheel.net | May 13, 2020

https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/05/13/of-over-40-potential-unmaskings-of-mike-fl...

________________________________________

Susan Simpson @TheViewFromLL2 · 15h 3:27 PM · May 13, 2020
I am fascinated by the Grenell memo

Officials who requested the name of the unknown person from intel reports (who would turn out to be Flynn) in mid-December
included Treasury, @USNATO, Energy, "Chief Syria Group," and Ambassadors to Turkey and Russia.
https://grassley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/2020-05-13%20ODNI%20to%20CEG%20R...

Those unmasking requests had nothing to do with Flynn's calls to Kislyak, which didn't happen until the end of the month. Whatever reports these officials were reading, which were based on intercepts from which Flynn's name had to be masked, had to do with something else.

But what was Flynn involved in that would have been of concern for people at Energy, Treasury, NATO?

Well, the nuclear reactor deal that Michael Flynn was texting his business partners about during Trump's inauguration would seem to fit the bill.
Image ( https://twitter.com/TheViewFromLL2/status/1260652897806643200/photo/1 )

The request from the Ambassador to Turkey came much later – Dec. 28 – and may have been in connection with one of Flynn's various sketchy Turkey dealings.
But the rest of the requests came in a flurry from Dec. 14-Dec. 16 – from *30 different officials*.

Asha Rangappa @AshaRangappa_ | 10:46 AM · May 14, 2020:
...that Flynn's behavior was so alarming that, without knowing who it was, multiple officials in all parts of government were *independently* freaked out!
I think the DNI should release the intel report(s) from Dec. 14-16 so we can see what shady stuff Flynn was up to

Quote Tweet
David Corn @DavidCornDC · 4h
So it turns out that the Trump cult’s release of the unmasking requests related to Flynn
suggest that Flynn was engaged in OTHER suspicious activity beyond what’s publicly known.
Good work, guys. twitter.com/benjaminwittes…

Biden says he would not pardon Trump
Mike Memoli | May 14, 2020

...asked by a voter about whether he’d follow the lead of former President Gerald Ford, who pardoned Richard Nixon in large part to help the nation move beyond the Watergate scandal.

Biden, while not speaking to any specific potential charge, committed to ensuring that any prosecutorial decisions would be dictated by the law, in contrast to what he called the "dereliction of duty” by Trump and his attorney general, William Barr.

"It's hands off completely. The attorney general is not the president's lawyer. It's the people's lawyer,” Biden said. “We never saw anything like the prostitution of that office like we see it today.”

...asked to clarify whether he was aware of or participated in decisions related to incoming Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn during his final weeks as vice president in 2017. The president and his allies this week have accused Biden and former President Barack Obama of a conspiracy to entrap Flynn as part of a larger scheme to undercut the incoming administration, which they have dubbed “Obamagate."

..."I was never a part or had any knowledge of any criminal investigation into Flynn while I was in office, period. Not one single time”

...how he as president would respond to the COVID-19 pandemic...“I hope if I'm president that Dr. Fauci will stay on in the administration”...

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/biden-says-he-would-not-pardon-tr...

!

The Lancet. 2020. Reviving the US CDC. Editorial | The Lancet. Volume 395, ISSUE 10236, P1521, May 16, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31140-5 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31140-5/fullt...

...A strong CDC is needed to respond to public health threats, both domestic and international, and to help prevent the next inevitable pandemic. Americans must put a president in the White House come January, 2021, who will understand that public health should not be guided by partisan politics.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump · 3h
1:31 ( https://twitter.com/NHJennifer/status/1261792598521450497 )

Bill Kristol @BillKristol | 6:51 PM · May 16, 2020:
Needless to say, if something like this happened in real life, Trump would:
First, deny the threat was real.
Second, dither incompetently in organizing a response.
And third, urge us all to get back to business as usual despite having failed to deal with the dangers.
Oh, wait...

After much reflection,
I’ve concluded that circumstances don’t lend themselves to my success as a candidate for president this year,
and therefore I will not be a candidate.

- Justin Amash @justinamash | 1:45 PM · May 16, 2020

>35 margd: One wonders what he thought "success" would mean, and how his perspective has changed "on reflection".

Burisma, Tara, contd...

Donald Trump Jr. Smears Biden With Baseless Instagram Post
Jonathan Martin | May 16, 2020

President Trump’s eldest son on Saturday posted a social media message suggesting Joseph R. Biden Jr. was a pedophile, an incendiary and baseless charge that illustrates the tactics the president is turning to as he attempts to erase Mr. Biden’s early advantage in key state polls.

Donald Trump Jr., who is one of his father’s most prominent campaign surrogates, put on Instagram a picture of Mr. Biden saying: “See you later, alligator” alongside an image of an alligator saying: “In a while, pedophile.”

When a reporter shared the Instagram post online, the younger Mr. Trump, echoing one of his father’s tactics, wrote on Twitter that he was only “joking around” and noted that he had included emojis of a laughing face.

Yet in the same Twitter post, he also reprised his original insinuation. He accused the former vice president of “unwanted touching” alongside a collage of photographs of Mr. Biden showing affection for children. The misleading images were mostly taken from public swearing-in ceremonies at the Capitol, where the former vice president warmly greeted lawmakers and their families...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/16/us/donald-trump-jr-biden-smear.html

#36--personally I'm not into the libertarian thing at all but I would give Amash credit for standing by his principles and pretty much against his entire party in a way that say Rand Paul would never do. Amash is not a sycophant at least and it was a harder and longer stand without the toing and froing should I or shouldn't I of a Mitt Romney.

The Lincoln Project Effect
Mike Madrid | May 19, 2020

The Lincoln Project Effect and why the ads are working
Older voters are Trump Fatigued

https://medium.com/@madrid_mike/the-lincoln-project-effect-c901a27f6350

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump | 7:51 AM · May 20, 2020:
Breaking: Michigan sends absentee ballots* to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election.
This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State.
I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!..
@RussVought45 @MarkMeadows @USTreasury

* absentee ballot APPLICATIONS

__________________________________________________

What this is really about:
In local MI elections on May 5, some 99% of ballots cast were mailed in or dropped off in boxes.
Turnout was 25%, double previous local elections.
https://mlive.com/public-interest/2020/05/michigan-secretary-of-state-says-all-v...
- Trip Gabriel @tripgabriel | 8:30 AM · May 20, 2020
__________________________________________________

Secretary of State: All Michigan voters will get absentee ballot applications at home
Todd Spangler | May 19, 2020. Updated 7:15 a.m. ET May 20, 2020

Trump barely won Michigan by less than two-tenths of 1% of the vote in 2016.

Michigan changed its rules two years ago to allow anyone to vote by absentee ballot for any reason.

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (Democrat) said Tuesday all of Michigan's 7.7 million registered voters will be mailed absentee ballot applications so they can take part in elections in August and November without the risk of in-person voting if they choose to do so...said the threat posed by the spread of coronavirus, which has already killed 4,915 Michiganders since March but has been on the decline in recent weeks, is still too great to consider having people go en masse to the polls to vote in the Aug. 4 and Nov. 3 elections.

Benson could face a legal challenge, despite the fact that she and some local clerks sent out unsolicited absentee ballots applications to voters for the May 5 local elections.

possible opponents of such a move could try to use past legal decisions, like a 2008 Michigan Court of Appeals decision involving the Macomb County clerk, that ruled against her sending absentee ballot applications to every voter over the age of 60.

While that ruling centered on a local clerk, not the Michigan Secretary of State's Office, it did say that part of the reason she could not send the ballot applications was because election law is expressly under the Legislature's control and "the power to mail unsolicited ballot applications to qualified voters is not expressly stated anywhere in (the) statute."

about 1.3 million voters are already on permanent absent voter list, meaning their local election clerks mail them applications ahead of every election.

some jurisdictions are already mailing applications to all local registered voters.

Benson said people could also go to www.Michigan.gov/Vote and register to be on the permanent absent voter list, so they always have the option to vote by mail.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/05/19/all-michigan-vote...

The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln | 12:40 PM · May 20, 2020:

This is just another example that @realDonaldTrump is the worst manager America has ever seen.
Don, you got conned … by your IT guy.

0:47 ( https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1263147585625305088 )

MeidasTouch.com @MeidasTouch | 12:43 PM · May 20, 2020

This is not a test. The time to save our country is now.
This is an #EmergencyAlert
1:24 ( https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1263148469360791554 )

#EmergencyAlert

Eric Swalwell @ericswalwell | 7:30 AM · May 20, 2020:
US House candidate, CA-15

BREAKING: We've lost 90,000 lives to Trump's incompetence.
They can't vote. Will you?
1:40 ( https://twitter.com/ericswalwell/status/1263069459796746240 )

#VoteForYourLife https://remedypac.com

Joe Biden @JoeBiden | 8:45 PM · May 20, 2020:

We don't have a food shortage problem — we have a leadership problem.
1:38 ( https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1263269526721855488 )

Trump Is Playing the China Card. Who Believes Him?
Susan E. Rice | May 19, 2020

He attacks Joe Biden to deflect blame for his terrible handling of Covid-19 and record of appeasing Beijing.

...Desperate to obscure the reality of more than 90,000 American deaths and 36 million unemployed amid Mr. Trump’s utterly incompetent handling of the pandemic, Republicans have no better strategy than to play the China card. The Republicans are executing a 57-page campaign memo* that recommends branding opponents “soft on China” and reveals their rationale for repeated refrains of the “Chinese virus” and “Wuhan lab.”

For Mr. Trump, attacking former Vice President Joe Biden on China serves three purposes: to dampen turnout among populist Democrats; to deflect blame for his deadly mishandling of the coronavirus for which he takes no “responsibility at all”; and most cynically, to try to turn his own blatant weakness on China into a political weapon. Mr. Trump’s penchant for projecting his personal failings onto others is one of his most familiar and dishonest ploys — whether the subject is corruption, nepotism, sexual assault or Russian interference in the 2016 election, as with so-called Obamagate.

On China, Mr. Trump has much to fear from his own record...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/19/opinion/trump-biden-china.html

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Corona Big Book: Main Messages (57 p)
O'Donnell & Associates: Strategic Communication | April 17, 2020
https://static.politico.com/80/54/2f3219384e01833b0a0ddf95181c/corona-virus-big-...

(Main messages are on pages 3 and 4.)
("China/Wuhan virus" p. 57, the last page...)

The GOP unwittingly locked in Obama's golden legacy when they labeled the
Affordable Care Act "ObamaCare. " Obama, his family members and his future
descendants will be riding that legacy into eternity.

Well, to be fair, Trump is gonna end up with "Trump Flu".... so they each get what they earned.

Joe Biden @JoeBiden | 9:52 AM · May 22, 2020:

A president who can't handle a crisis is no president at all.
1:05 ( https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1263829969593004034 )

Lindsey Must Go (1:20)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/22/new-ad-makes-case-against-lin...

Who would have imagined that in 21st Century America a
cult fanaticism could destroy people's trust in science,
medicine, the rule-of-law and common sense in fewer than
four years? The November election results will indicate if
this cult virus will continue to ravage America.

The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln | 11:31 AM · May 25, 2020:

"I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement,
and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost,
and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom."

1:00 ( https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1264942054104334336 )

________________________________________________

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump | 8:16 AM · May 25, 2020
HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump · 4h:
There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent.
Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed.
The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone.....

....living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get one. That will be followed up with professionals telling all of these people, many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way!

------------------------------------------------------

I study election rigging. I co-authored a book called How to Rig an Election.
These tweets are lies. The purpose of these tweets is to lay the groundwork to reject or dispute election results if he loses.
- Brian Klaas (UCL poli sci) @brianklaas | 8:36 AM · May 26, 2020

#52--some states had been doing nothing but mail in ballots before the virus but Trump will never let a fact get in the way of a shit stained lie. He's got at least that part of being a for real politician down pat.

Mail boxes will be robbed. Really? The one case of fraudulently signed ballots from 2018 revolved around the criminal shenanigans of a republican operative in North Carolina........and he got caught.

.....and he's worried about California? I have a better chance of winning California than he does. So does just about everybody else on the planet. He's not winning California.

(Biden campaign funeral per Trump 0:38)

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=search&v=1129672777392645&external_l...

Nothing like a little race war to juice the campaign, bring back the red hats, eh what?

Minnesota Governor authorizes 'full mobilization' of state's National Guard, says protests no longer about death of George Floyd
Barnini Chakraborty, Dom Calicchio | Published 7 hours ago. Last Update 1 hour ago

(Gov Walz) incoming fire, improvised explosive devices and a highly evolved and tightly-controlled group of folks bent on adapting their tactics to make it as difficult as possible to maintain that order

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey added that most of the violent protesters aren't residents of the city but instead people taking advantage of a situation and hellbent on fanning the flames of hate.

“The sheer number of rioters has made it impossible to make coherent arrests... The capacity to be able to do offensive action was greatly diminished” by the sheer scope and seemingly organized nature of the assaults," Walz said.“The terrifying thing is that this resembles more a military operation now as you observe ringleaders moving from place to place”...

https://www.foxnews.com/us/minnesota-national-guard-full-mobilization-george-flo...

__________________________________________________

I hope journalists are looking into these videos of masked white "protestors" inexplicably destroying property + walking away w/o comment while protestors of color ask them why they're doing that and urge them to stop. You'd be forgiven for wondering if they're undercover cops.
- Charlotte Clymer @cmclymer | 9:48 AM · May 30, 2020

As we watch these images of chaos and destruction, it's important to note they do not represent those who are peacefully trying to express their outrage at the killing of black man by police. Protestors tell us the violent looters are hijacking their cause.
- Josh Campbell @joshscampbell |10:22 AM · May 29, 2020

Minnesota officials say many of the violent protesters who have caused widespread damage are from out of state. Authorities have been monitoring alleged criminals online, including postings by suspected white supremacists trying to incite violence.
- Josh Campbell (CNN) @joshscampbell |10:46 AM · May 30, 2020

It’s ANTIFA and the Radical Left. Don’t lay the blame on others!
- Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump | 11:54 AM · May 30, 2020

____________________________________________________

St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter: "Every single person we arrested last night, I'm told, was from out of state."
1:40 ( https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1266741567961825284 )
- NBC News @NBCNews | 10:41 AM · May 30, 2020

Minnesota Gov. Walz estimates that about 80% of those being destructive are from outside the state:
"Our heart and our solidarity are with folks who understand what happened Monday night to George Floyd ... But these folks are not them."
1:48 ( https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1266752990951755783 )
- NBC News @NBCNews | 11:27 AM · May 30, 2020

After failing to appropriate the Black People's Party, entitled white kids appropriated our fight yesterday, and made it dirty.
Then they left us to deal with the police violence they stoked.
Listen to the Black Woman desperately begging them to stop.
0:29 ( https://twitter.com/Selena_Adera/status/1266707305158017029 )
- Selena Adera @Selena_Adera | 8:25 AM · May 30, 2020

ETA
Black organizers in Minneapolis had to confront white Protesters and tell them to chill the fuck out.
0:58 ( https://twitter.com/Freeyourmindkid/status/1266626242905886721 )
- aNANsi @Freeyourmindkid | 3:03 AM · May 30, 2020

___________________________________________________

Helter skelter... Meanwhile President Bonespurs doesn't seek to calm the waters:

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump | 8:41 AM · May 30, 2020:
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. The front line was replaced with fresh agents, like magic. 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. “We put the young ones on the front line, sir, they love it, and....

....good practice.” As you saw last night, they were very cool & very professional. Never let it get out of hand. Thank you! On the bad side, the D.C. Mayor, @MurielBowser, who is always looking for money & help, wouldn’t let the D.C. Police get involved. “Not their job.” Nice!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was at the White House until the very end of the protests this morning and D.C. police were very much part of what appeared to be a coordinated response with Secret Service and Park Police
- Perry Stein (WaPo) @PerryStein · 4h

Per @SecretService this is a lie. Metro Police Dept was in fact on the scene.
Not that facts matter to MAGA sycophants
- Bradley P. Moss (national security lawyer) @BradMossEsq · 1h

ETA
U.S. Secret Service @SecretService | 12:28 PM · May 30, 2020:
Secret Service statement on Pennsylvania Avenue demonstrations:
Image ( https://twitter.com/SecretService/status/1266768560694743041 )

Barr says leftists responsible--there you go. Barr said so. Trump, too.

AG Barr: it appears the violence is planned, organized, and driven by anarchic and left extremist groups, far left extremist groups using Antifa like tactics... it is a federal crime to cross state lines or to use interstate facilities to incite or participate in violent rioting

2:03 ( https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1266796887622905856 )

- Acyn Torabi @Acyn | 2:21 PM · May 30, 2020
________________________________________________

Minnesota reports that at least 80% of the violent protesters are white supremacists from outside the area who convened to infiltrate the protests and engage in vandalism and looting.

AG Barr is gaslighting. He may even interfere w/ the FBI probe to shield the "Proud Boys".

- Monty Boa @MontyBoa99 | 2:46 PM · May 30, 2020
________________________________________________

Minnesota public safety commissioner says white nationalists are organizing and coming to the state for violence and destruction. In other words, white supremacists are following Trump's lead.

1:51 ( https://twitter.com/PoliticusSarah/status/1266752347813957632 )

- Sarah Reese Jones @PoliticusSarah | 11:24 AM · May 30, 2020

it is a federal crime to cross state lines or to use interstate facilities to incite or participate in violent rioting

Funny, I don't remember anyone hauling that charge out when the White Wing was rioting violently in Charlottesville....

#56--it's always interesting to see how people like Barr are always running cover for far right racist fringe groups--armed white nationalist militias--have hardly anything ever to say about police brutality/police racism. They're fine with the assholes walking into Michigan's state house with assault weapons and packing pistols for instance because they're right wing and white---because that's who they resemble when they look in the mirror. Groups that would push back against the racism, violence and privilege that their Klanner and law enforcement friends perpetrate that's who they're going to blame. I have no problem by the way with Antifa. IMO much more often than not they are performing a public service.

Walter Shaub ( former Director of @OfficeGovEthics ) @waltshaub | 11:59 PM · May 30, 2020:

100,000 dead from a virus, more than any other country;
white gunmen storming a state capital;
black jogger lynched;
police murdering a man on camera;
police attacking peaceful protesters & reporters;
a president glorifying violence;
crowds burning cars and looting.
America 2020.

40 million unemployed;
unemployed and low paid Americans go without healthcare;
people go to bed hungry;
virus hitting African American population harder;
corruption at highest level of government;
1 out of every 1,000 black men are killed by police;
billionaires getting richer.

Government considering closing the Post Office;
every year, 114,328 people in America are shot, with 37,603 dying;
poor people have to lose a day of pay to vote, some taking multiple bus transfers to sites where they wait on line 8 hours, while others vote without waiting.

One of the only two major political parties is actively working to keep people from voting;
two systems of justice in our courts, one for the rich and one for the poor;
jails are overcrowded and jail sentences are among the longest in the world;
dark money poisons our elections.

Are we GREAT yet??

beautiful moments during protests that the media won’t show; a thread
https://twitter.com/tomakeupwityou/status/1266920326182641670

- kylee @tomakeupwityou | 10:31 PM · May 30, 2020

(Powerful: Thousands of people lay on their stomachs for nine minutes chanting 'I can't breathe'. https://twitter.com/tomakeupwityou/status/1266925594241126402 )

(Runnersup: Sheriffs take a knee. Protesters and sheriffs take a knee.)

Trump appears to believe that what is going on in the U.S.A. this
year has absolutely no connection to anything he thinks, says or
does. He enjoys the prestige of living at 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue and flying around in Air Force 1, but performing the most
important historical presidential duties is a bridge too far for him.
The outcome of the November election becomes more important
with each passing day.

Have to say though that democratic party politicians have a habit of falling way short of expectations. No--they're not as bad as republican politicians but still they could be a lot better.

Things would probably work out a lot better for the country as a
whole if #45 was on speaking terms with former living presidents.
Garnering advice from wing nut radio and TV hosts is not the way
serious presidential administrators perform.

All of the living presidents would probably be joining together to
show a united front to all Americans and the world if Trump and
the GOP were interested in ending their divisive agenda.

The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln | 10:15 PM · May 31, 2020
No patriotic American should brandish or proudly celebrate the iconography of a rebellion that resulted in tremendous devastation,
the loss of more than 620,000 American lives, and the continued subjugation of Black America.

1:00 ( https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1267278651583848448 )

Blackout (I assume for night vision goggles?) + President Bonespurs in underground bunker...and not for fear of foreign attack. Wow!
I am reminded of Queen Elizabeth awaking to a prowler in her bedroom...kept him chatting until help arrived.

Lights that usually illuminate exterior of the WH have been turned off.
Image ( https://twitter.com/markknoller/status/1267291138655956992 )

- Mark Knoller @markknoller | 11:05 PM · May 31, 2020

___________________________________

You know, I always wanted to know what it would be like to simultaneously experience
the Spanish flu, Great Depression, and 1968 mass protests while Andrew (Jackson) was president.
- Miranda Yaver @mirandayaver | 3:34 PM · May 31, 2020

Today ~ Project Lincoln Confederate Flag Ad

Trump and the GOP winning in November will be an indication that
the South won the 21st Century Civil War.

The main reason Trump and his party don't want vote by mail is they expect to do a lot better if the turnout is low. They're figuring on their brainwashed supporters--half of whom think the pandemic is no big deal will show up at the polls and many on the other side won't......and FWIW Joe Biden is hardly someone to get all that excited over. I know tons of people who will vote for Joe but lots of them only because they hate Trump so much....it's not so much a vote for Joe it's a vote against Donald. I don't know a single person willing to make a donation or volunteer their time to the Biden campaign....only people who will vote against Trump. That is playing out around the country and partly the lack of volunteers and campaign cash can be attributed to the pandemic but it seems to me there is very very little enthusiasm for the Biden campaign.

But back to the vote by mail--the Postal Service going under will certainly kill that idea and so Trump sees real benefit in that happening.

I'm seeing this as a reverse coat-tails election. There are a lot of Senate seats open, and there's a lot of good organizing there, both locally to improve representation (get rid of Susan Collins, anyone?) and nationally to take McConnell out of the majority leader chair, and those campaigns will bring people to the ballot who will likely also vote for Joe. I think the thinking this year in general is that organizing around local races wherever you are will help a lot more than pumping money into the presidential race.

Bill Kristol @BillKristol | 8:06 PM · Jun 2, 2020:

NEW: "This November, End Trump's American Carnage."
The ad, from Republican Voters Against Trump, is airing on Fox News and is being promoted digitally in key states.
@RVAT2020

1:01 ( https://twitter.com/BillKristol/status/1267970835358330881 )

>69 margd: I'm glad they picked up the "American carnage" phrase. I've been meditating on that recently.

Trump pleased about the stock market comeback ~

The country is going to hell in a handbasket, but the stock market
is rebounding at a fast clip. The stock marketeers appear to be on
a mission to get Trump re-elected come hell or high water.

It is my personal opinion that "stock marketeers" are out for their own profit and not influencing elections.

Trump will take any good news as his personal victory. If a light turns green as his car approaches it he will proclaim that he caused it to change. The reverse is never the case however. He never takes responsibility for bad things.

(And, yeah, I know they blockade streets so he never has to stop. It's the only metaphor I could come up with.)

Help us take back #OurHouse!
0:36 ( https://twitter.com/democrat_nyc/status/1268623872019935232 )

If you love our content and want to help us save our democracy, you can now contribute via ActBlue!
From MeidasTouch.com
3:21 PM · Jun 4, 2020

If elephants could vote, would removing themselves as the
mascot of the modern-day GOP be their #1 agenda item??????

BREAKING: A judge just ruled that every Tennessee voter can now vote by mail for the 2020 elections.

- ACLU @ACLU | 9:02 PM · Jun 4, 2020

Republicans, please bear in mind that voting by mail is inherently corrupt, and you should only ever vote in person. Trump said so.

Joe Biden @JoeBiden | 4:20 PM · Jun 5, 2020:
Donald Trump is dangerously unfit to lead our nation through this moment. But don't just take my word for it:

0:57 ( https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1269001043251208192 )

Remember Biden's tone-deaf "you'ain't black"?

Trump: “Hopefully, George is looking down right and saying this is a great thing that’s happening for our country. It’s a great day for him, it’s a great day for everybody.” https://twitter.com/vladduthiersCBS/status/1268920235706458113

>72 mamzel:

Trump is laying golden eggs of opportunity for the marketeers.
And, judges are being put into place who will side with the
marketeers on cases brought before their courts long after Trump
is long gone. Getting him re-elected is a mission they won't pass
up.

"Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us." —General James Mattis

1:20 ( https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1269013225804357634 )

- The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln | 5:08 PM · Jun 5, 2020

Mike Murphy (Infuriated GOP Strategist) @murphymike | 4:04 PM · Jun 5, 2020:

I’ve worked for GOP candidates since I was 17, but this year it must be Country First. Proud to be joining ⁦@RVAT2020
⁩ — Republican Voters Against Trump as a strategic advisor.

Here’s a TV spot we just whipped up. Releasing today. See you in MI, AZ, FL, PA, NC and more.

1:00 ( https://twitter.com/murphymike/status/1268997121446801408 )

The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln | 7:08 AM · Jun 6, 2020:

Television
Regardless of the failure, President @realDonaldTrump tells us again and again:

“No, I don’t take responsibility at all.”

Special thanks to @johnorloff for the script for this new release.

1:00 ( https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1269224720081334272 )

As awful a president as I expect Joe Biden to be--I don't expect he'll be nearly as catastrophic as the shit for brains we have now. That said Biden works best when he's out of sight and keeping his mouth shut. When he starts talking glimmers of hope begin again to lighten up the eyes of Trump supporters. When it's quiet on the Biden front Team Trump settle back into either profound depression or go off on trips to insane fantasy land.

So right now Trump has fucked up on coronavirus--he's fucking up on the black lives matter protests---he's fucking up his alliance with a lot of military leaders with posse comitatus. He's moving the RNC convention out of Charlotte NC to a friendlier right wing-ier place where he and all his cheerleading apparatchiks can make believe that Covid-19 never ever happened (think about that one)--so that sometime after that's all over we might get to see numerous of their politicians, power brokers, delegates and Fox news hosts dropping like flies. Biden doesn't have to do a fucking thing IMO--he doesn't need another dime's worth of donations--all he and the democrats have to do is sit back and watch the republican party explode and implode on itself and stay out of the way.

GOP non-Trumpers who play cute election games in November ~
voting for anyone but Biden ~ will be handing the election to
Trump and flushing America down the toilet.

The caliber of people Biden will have in his administration will be
far superior to Trump's gang of incompetent/hate-filled/greedy
enablers. The Biden "package" would be much better fit for the
U.S. and the world.

> 83 Two other pre-election tasks for Biden:
1. stay healthy,
2. pick a competent VP, i.e. no Palins or Quayles!

Maybe release a few compassionate, non-scripted video clips, e.g., pinning his American flag on curious black kid.
Surprisingly heartwarming to see such a small kindness...

ETA: https://twitter.com/KirstenAllison/status/1268968268645031936

Biden's VP is fairly likely to finish out his term for him and very very likely to be running for POTUS in 2024 instead of him. This is not an 8 year guy.

Too much emphasis is on what anti-Trump republicans might do and all this effort to accomodate them when really all that's needed is winning more than your fair share of independents.

When you think about the Black Lives Matter movement which has all of a sudden in the last couple weeks become popular---for me the real test goes further than reforming police departments---we should also be thinking seriously about some kind of reparations program. To me you cannot have equality without economic justice. Just saying and I don't think any of those anti-Trump republicans are going to be on board with that nor even most of the democratic party.

Trump is not going to change his stripes in a second term. If
anything, his stripes are going to get wider and darker.

#87--I really don't see how Donald gets to a second term unless you're talking about that term and change in stripes in terms of a prison term.

Let's review recent history. He was running at best 50/50 for a second term after the republican Senate saved him on impeachment. Since then he's completely fucked up the coronavirus response that has killed well over 100,000 Americans (and isn't quite done yet) and completely tanked the economy--he's outraged black communities around the country to the point that hundreds and hundreds of thousands of white people are marching around with Black Lives Matter activists night after night and he's called the Army down upon all these protesters like they were 'the enemy within' and as if it's time to use the military to go to war with American taxpayers which military brass are about as loathe to do as anything they could possibly be loathe to do. The military like fighting foreign actors not domestic ones and such action would be tantamount to setting up a military dictatorship which if it were truly on their agenda they certainly wouldn't need or want Trump around.

So basically everything's turned to shit and the toilet is plugged and there are no plumbers available. For the rest of the summer and until election day shit is going to stink to high heaven in a way it hasn't stunk before. That's what his four years are going to look like come election day and yeah there are going to be a lot of fucking knuckleheads who will vote for him anyway but still they're going to be outnumbered and he's really going to turn out the black vote this time like didn't happen in 2016. He's not going to add to the states he won the last time around and he's going to lose states he did and the republicans are going to lose senate seats as well.

MeidasTouch.com @MeidasTouch | 8:09 PM · Jun 6, 2020:
Television
NEW VIDEO
@IvankaTrump has done a public disservice to our country. #ByeIvanka

1:16 ( https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1269421143712120834 )
#ByeIvanka: A Public Disservice Announcement
It's time we say bye to Ivanka and all the Trump grifters in the White House.
If you want to support the production of these videos, please consider a donation so we can continue to fight!

_____________________________________________________

Meghan Markle recently addressed her HS alma mater (6:11):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWstrgBr6Xg

She IS a professional actress, but hers sounded so much more sincere, IMHO.

>88 lriley:

Apparently, it took only 80k voters spread out over three states
to flip the Electoral College Trump's way in 2016. The EC and/or
the Supremes could hand the win to Trump on a silver platter.

The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln | 5:44 PM · Jun 6, 2020
Television

159 years ago Abraham Lincoln asked, “Will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake?"
Today, we hope our elected leaders will listen.
0:40 ( https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1269384811136847874 )

#90--well loads of people in Detroit and Milwaukee decided not to vote. There went Michigan and Wisconsin.

The electoral college should be abolished. It should be a straight nationwide vote using the same standardized machines and procedures nationwide or just done by mail with a standardized ballot. But people need to get their heads together right too. I see Buttigieg now as a standard bearer of the democratic party to abolish the electoral college and here he was the guy who claimed victory in Iowa's fucked up caucus though he ended up getting the second highest amount of voters. I think that is fucked up and hypocrisy on his part now and when I see shit like that it's hard for me to take it seriously.

Biden 63%
Trump 23%
in recent Detroit Free Press poll.

Hold that thought!

It may be time for a strategic retreat for Trump. I could see him carried out on a stretcher with a flare-up of those old bone spurs. Rest and recovery at some private spa perhaps.

>88 lriley: Please do not become complacent. Yes, Trump is beatable, but he still has to be beaten. And what's more, if we don't flip the Senate, beating Trump will be a job half-done, since President McConnell will still be ruling that roost and we know him for what he is.

#95--whatever complacent means? I live in NYS you know--Trump has about as much chance of winning electoral votes here as I have of ever becoming the Pope. He has no chance--where a vote means something is in states that might go either way like margd's Michigan.

As far as the Senate is concerned not only are the stars aligned against McConnell this time around with twice as many republicans up for reelection as democrats but it's pretty much the same picture in 2022. They as a party are going to take a beating......and if you think I'm ever going to vote for Schumer you're out of your tree. He's a fucking piece of shit too---just not as smelly as McConnell. That said I don't worry about him or his opponent because I know he's going to win it anyway. I don't have the need to be part of his winning team. I vote for democrats when my interests align.....and occasionally on special occasions such as Trump's presidency. I never vote for republicans. But IMO Biden is about as close to being a republican as it gets as well he's not very believable when it comes to Tara Reade's allegation.

I would happily vote for AOC by the way or Pramilla Jayapal or Ilhan Omar. That's the democratic party I really support---not the corporatist 80%.

>96 lriley: whatever complacent means? I live in NYS you know Actually, I didn't know that, but I'm not sure it makes a lot of difference. To me, complacent means figuring, oh, they've got it locked up because this week looks okay, and it means thinking oh, I'm in a safe state so it's all being done for me, and it means, well, neither of the candidates is exactly what I want so it doesn't matter how things come out.

This election is not decided yet, and it is going to be decided by the GOTV efforts in the states whose votes are up for grabs. If you want to affect that, I suggest you find congressional candidates that you think are aligned with your views who are running for seats in those battleground states, and help out their campaigns with a donation. Supporting their get-out-the-vote efforts will help get candidates you like into the House, which is something you want, and it will also help ensure that voters likely to vote anti-Trump are mobilized in states where they'll make the difference. If you don't trust Biden or his campaign organization, this is a good way to work for Trump's defeat without putting your money into that machine.

Here's a list of Michigan congressional races for this year. Similar list for Ohio.

> As far as the Senate is concerned not only are the stars aligned against McConnell this time around

Let's don't spike the ball just yet. The Senate is not won yet by any means. The consensus figures that I'm seeing suggest that four Republican seats are flippable, and we need to win all four of them to put the Kentucky Tortoise back in his pond.

#97--well to be frank I will probably end up voting for Biden but it's still in the internal debate stage and that said I think he's a complete shitbird with a career of bad policy and a decent amount of corruption and now even with a very believable sexual allegation against him. I totally expect him to be an awful POTUS and FWIW I don't necessarily see myself as part of the democratic party team. The Pelosi's, Schumer's etc. are all conservatives really. They stink. There's only one reason to vote for Biden and that's because he's not Trump.

So the election hasn't happened yet but here comes the NBC/WSJ poll and 80% of the respondents including 66% of republicans think the country is out of control. 15% say it's under control. That points to the leadership at the top and nowhere else. It speaks to the shittiest possible coronavirus response, a wrecked economy and the POTUS falling back on his out of touch racism and numerous republican Senate seats not in contention several months ago are in contention now. Could the democratic party find a way to fuck that all up somehow? Yeah--probably. That's not on me or anything to do with complacency on my part. If that somehow comes to pass it will be because the democratic party will have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. They have everything going for them now. That is why my advice to Biden is stay in his basement because he doesn't have to do or say a thing--everything that's happening is happening for him. November's election is all a referendum on Donald Trump's 4 years and has almost nothing to do with Joe.

> There's only one reason to vote for Biden and that's because he's not Trump.

That's fine. You don't need to convince me of anything. I don't have a lot of antipathy towards Biden, but he wasn't anyone who ever figured on my list of people I'd want to vote for.

I'm just saying, the next president is going to name Ginsburg's replacement, we can be pretty sure of that, and if you care who gets to make that choice then maybe it's worth taking some steps to make a difference about that. Because no matter what the polls are saying today, it's going to be very close in November, and if it's close enough to steal, then America loses.

#99--I have plenty of antipathy for Biden. He's a politicians literally without any ideas of his own and it's not even like he's living in the present---it's like he would take us back into the 1980's. He's corrupt and entitled and stumbles all over himself.

So if I'm wrestling with the voting for him idea--voting for him in NYS is largely a symbolic and meaningless exercise. It's not the same as voting for him in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida or Arizona as in where things are probably going to be close. Those are states where people's votes will really matter. If Biden were in fact to lose NYS we're talking about Trump winning in a landslide perhaps even winning states like Massachusetts or California. For a guy who has a good half + of the population hating him how would that happen? It's not. The word 'complacency' doesn't even figure into the dynamic we're looking at. I don't see the need for encouragement or warning here and as much as I despise the republican party I have no faith at all in people like Pelosi, Schumer, Obama. I don't expect anything good out of any of them.

As you say the courts--the Ginsburg replacement--someone moderately right would be about as good a replacement as we could hope for. But if you're really thinking my vote makes a difference in how NYS goes you're out to lunch. The vote here is not even going to be close.

Apparently Trump campaign is advertising in n NY where there are some Trump pockets.
Thought is they're going for popular vote, not Electoral College?

#101--There are Trump pockets in NYS. I live in one of them. What they call the North Country is very rural and the Southern Tier and Western NY and parts of the Finger Lakes. There are enclaves for sure on Long Island and in Staten Island as well. The suburban areas around Buffalo and Rochester. The NYC metropolitan area swamps the vote upstate though which is why someone might hear every once a while upstaters longing to separate into two states. When Cuomo killed fracking they were out in force in the areas along the Pennsylvania border---but really those people are laughable and not taken seriously at all.

The congressman in my district is Tom Reed who is a shithead republican. It's been a republican district pretty much since the 1960's. For a very long time Amo Houghton (the Houghton's are Corning Glass) was the congressman. He really was a republican moderate. They don't exist anymore. He actually was one of three or four republicans who voted against invading Iraq in 2003 or whenever exactly that vote was. That earned him some real enmity with the Bush regime. Don't fall for this shit that the Bush's are good people and don't forget they stole an election. Amo was rich as fuck but he wasn't stuck up. He'd actually get out and about. I can remember him visiting our postal plant and he liked to talk and joke around and not just with the big shots. He had a lot of shit political positions though. A democrat actually won the district a few years after Amo--last name Massa. He was a Naval officer with political connections and Hilary Clinton was up here all the time campaigning with and for him. He didn't last out his term--got caught up in a sex scandal involving underage interns/pages that worked in the House. The district runs up through the Finger Lakes to the outskirts of Rochester and out west towards Jamestown. Mostly small cities--Elmira, Corning, Ithaca--towns, villages, rural. Lots of shit jobs. Lots of older people. Lots of farms. Wineries in the Finger Lakes. It's a sleepy region. The dems will run some neo-liberal academic or chamber of commerce friendly businessperson or some town supervisor (people will go 'who's that?') against Reed and Reed will win by somewhere between 15 and 20%. He always loses in Ithaca though. That's pretty much the script.

Again the NYC vote swamps everything. At least 20,000 dead in the Metropolitan NYC area from the virus--basically Trump telling NYC and NYS to fuck off numerous times when asked for help. The wrecked economy. They hated him in NYC from day one before the virus, the economy tanking and the protests. He's got no chance.

> 102 I wonder if Trump is aiming for popular vote "win", either to save face or to have excuse not to leave.

______________________________________________

Then there's the usual R way...

So much news today, but don't overlook the voting debacle happening right now in Georgia. This is a dire wakeup call for November - long lines, broken machines. It is a national outrage that undermines the legitimacy of our democracy.

- Dan Rather @DanRather | 2:33 PM · Jun 9, 2020

----------------------------------------------------

This seems to be happening throughout Atlanta and perhaps throughout the county. People have been in line since before 7:00 am this morning.

Now being told line is out to the street at Sandtown Recreation Center and their machines are not working either @gasecofstate. Is this happening across the county or just on the south end? twitter.com/keishabottoms/…

- Keisha Lance Bottoms (Mayor Atlanta) @KeishaBottoms | 7:46 AM · Jun 9, 2020

----------------------------------------------------

Reports as many as 25+ Gwinnett precincts didn’t have machines or other equipment up and ready to go at 7am.
In some cases no scanners , or printers , or paper .
That’s about 20% of precincts in county (156 in total). @wsbtv

- Tony Thomas (Atlanta WSB TV) @TonyThomasWSB12:03 PM · Jun 9, 2020
______________________________________________

Also,

We need to think hard and creatively about what a defeated Trump could do from November to January.

- Windsor Mann @WindsorMann | 9:11 AM · Jun 9, 2020

Television
@realDonaldTrump finally got huge crowds, but not the ones he wanted.
0:43 ( https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1270423836756979712 )
From
The Lincoln Project

- The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln | 2:33 PM · Jun 9, 2020

>103 margd: Atlanta, Georgia...a spot of blue...

Here’s a glimpse of the scene at Cross Keys, where technical issues have ground voting to a standstill and officials have run out of provisional ballots. #gapol
0:07 ( https://twitter.com/bluestein/status/1270348490691010561 )
- Greg Bluestein (Atlanta reporter)@bluestein · 7h

This is the Republican plan to win in 2020 despite a deeply unpopular President that failed to prepare for a pandemic and sent the country into a historic recession
- Dan Pfeiffer (former Sr Advisor to Obama) @danpfeiffer | 12:22 PM · Jun 9, 2020

"If we aren't ten points ahead in Florida on Election Day we will lose the state" - @TheRickWilson*
on today's podcast (we need to win Florida)
- Sasha Stone @AwardsDaily | 12:30 PM · Jun 9, 2020

* sr. member, The Lincoln Project

Message from GOP lawmakers to Iowans: We don't want you voting
The Register's editorial | June 8, 2020

...The bill, among other things, prohibits the secretary of state from mailing absentee ballot requests to Iowans without a written voter request.

In other words, it would prevent the current secretary, Republican Paul Pate, from doing exactly what he recently did. To promote voting by mail during the coronavirus pandemic, he sent mail-in ballot request forms for the June 2 primary to all registered voters in the state.

The result was record voter turnout, largely due to absentee voting.

More than 520,000 votes were cast — shattering the existing record of about 450,000 set in 1994. Polk County saw a seven-fold increase in early voting...

This is largely the same group that passed an unnecessary Voter ID law in response to essentially nonexistent voter fraud...tried but failed to ban hosting satellite voting stations in state-owned buildings(would have prevented early voting on college campuses and the Iowa Veterans Home)...passed a bill requiring felons to repay restitution before voting rights are restored. That is likely unconstitutional and amounts to a poll tax on Iowans who are unable to afford to repay crime-related debts...

Then, almost immediately, GOP lawmakers rolled out the measure to ensure Iowans have to do more work to obtain an absentee ballot — a particularly egregious stunt considering we are in the midst of an infectious disease pandemic.

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/editorials/2020/06/08/gop-state-...

#103--he's not going to win the popular vote--still I expect he's not going to want to leave when his time comes. November will be interesting but January might be too. It's very good that people are getting out on the street to protest even in these times of pandemic. We should all be well practiced when January comes around. There's a lot more of us than there are soldiers and policemen.

The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln | 6:53 AM · Jun 10, 2020:

Television
It’s time for Iowa to elect someone to the U.S. Senate who will actually stand up for Iowans.
0:30 ( https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1270670487803355136 )

>105 margd: contd.

Ari Berman @AriBerman | 5:10 PM · Jun 9, 2020

Georgia closed 214 polling places after Supreme Court gutted Voting Rights Act
There were 80 fewer polling places for June primary in metro Atlanta, where majority of black voters live
Mitch McConnell is blocking legislation passed by House Dems to restore the VRA

“Things have changed dramatically” in the South, John Roberts wrote when he gutted Voting Rights Act in 2013

Black voters who waited in line for 5 hours today would beg to differ

For all those interested in voting rights, today is a good day to read Give Us the Ballot* & learn more about how GOP has systematically tried to roll back Voting Rights Act & suppress black voters since 1965

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781250094728

* Good reviews:
A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist, Nonfiction
Named a Notable Book of the Year by NYT and WaPo
Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, The Boston Globe, and Kirkus Reviews (Best Nonfiction)

Do the GOP Congressional reps not realize the ground beneath
their feet is shifting and cracking? A majority of American citizens
don't want to see the USS America hit the iceberg that lies ahead.

Here's a laugh. The GOP leadership has pulled out their 2016 platform and recycled it for 2020, without changing a word. Pretty lazy, eh? Well, actually, it has something to do with procedural rules. That leaves phrasing in there that repeatedly faults :

the “current president,” “current chief executive,” “current administration,” people “currently in control” of policy, or the “current occupant” of the White House.

G.O.P. Platform, Rolled Over From 2016, Condemns the ‘Current President’

The decision to simply let the current platform stay in effect, rather than try to pass any new platform, was ultimately driven by logistics, officials said. Republican officials decided it did not make sense to ask about 5,000 delegates and alternates to pay to fly to Charlotte, N.C., when the speeches and most of the action of the convention, including the hallmark speeches by the president and the vice president, would be happening in another city altogether.

My local (conservative) WV newspaper reporting on the primary results:

"Losses by a number of established Republican incumbents in Tuesday's primary might be a signal from voters that some of the hard right positions some have taken may not be sitting well with many voters... Around 10 incumbent Republican lawmakers lost to their Republican challengers."

Several lost to teachers (remember the teachers strike?)

Senate President Mitch Carmichael, on his loss, first blames the unusual circumstances (Covid, change of primary date) and then acknowledges: "I think a lot of teachers were energized and engaged in my election process, because they sort of needed a villain."

Most polling places in town were closed, funneled down to only two, with very poor notifications on where to go instead; and the lines were long.

>112 2wonderY: :)

Can you believe THIS?? Trump supporters will be lucky to survive until Election Day, poor things.

Trump campaign asks supporters to waive COVID-19 liability to attend Tulsa rally
Surgeon general still urges keeping distance from strangers
Niels Lesniewski | June 11, 2020 at 6:22pm

...“By clicking register below, you are acknowledging that an inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present,” the online registration form for the public says. “By attending the Rally, you and any guests voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19 and agree not to hold Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.; BOK Center; ASM Global; or any of their affiliates, directors, officers, employees, agents, contractors, or volunteers liable for any illness or injury.”...

https://www.rollcall.com/2020/06/11/trump-campaign-asks-supporters-to-waive-covi...

-----------------------------------------------

COVID-19: Tulsa County surge continues with 64 more new cases and highest four-day average yet
Staff | 6/11/2020

Tulsa County is experiencing its highest rate of transmission of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, according to data released Thursday.

The last three days, June 7-9, have seen the highest new case numbers — 65, 47 and 64 new cases, respectively.

Daily new case counts before June 7 had never been higher than 45.

Tulsa County’s four-day average number of new cases has risen to 46, far above previous averages. Before this week, the highest four-day average was 31, on April 3-4. Hospitalizations and death statistics tend to lag behind new case counts.

“There does not appear to be any singular incident or isolated outbreak to point to for the increase in cases that have been reported out this week,” Tulsa Health Department spokeswoman Leanne Stephens said...

https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/covid-19-tulsa-county-surge-continues-with...

-----------------------------------------------

I read somewhere that Juneteenth celebrations were cancelled this year on account of COVID,
but here is what preparations for 2019 looked like:
https://www.fox23.com/news/celebrating-juneteenth-in-tulsa-what-you-need-to-know...

Trump’s Grotesque Tulsa Trip
A racist president trolls his enemies with a rally on Juneteenth.
Michelle Goldberg | June 11, 2020

...Trump’s inflammatory...pattern (after Charlottesville, impeachment, Black Lives Matter): “When he finds himself under attack or slipping in popularity, he often holds a rally in a place like this (Phoenix, Minneapolis, Tulsa): a diverse blue city that’s home to liberal protesters but surrounded by red suburbs and rural towns filled with Trump supporters who will turn out in droves.”

...Somehow, even at this late date, there are professional commentators who have not grasped the full malignancy of this president.

There’s simply no reason to believe that Trump is going to Tulsa to try to ease intercommunal hostility, rather than exacerbate it. “It feels like a presidential act of trolling,” Omar Wasow, an assistant professor of politics at Princeton, told me.

Wasow has recently received a lot of media attention for his work showing how violent protest in the 1960s contributed to Richard Nixon’s 1968 victory. So far, this year’s civil unrest isn’t strengthening Trump’s position in a similar way, partly because of Trump’s own evident role in it. Trump is more George Wallace than Nixon, said Wasow: “He’s somebody who can credibly appeal to a niche, but for much of the country he is a source of chaos, not the solution to it.”

But Trump doesn’t appear to see it that way, nor do many of those around him. On Wednesday, ABC News reported on Trump campaign infighting, saying that “a growing chorus of Republican advisers outside and inside the White House” believe that Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, “is alienating the president’s voter base because he is too moderate a force.”

It’s hard to believe these people don’t know what they’re doing with Trump’s Tulsa appearance. In 2017, The Post described how rallies in blue cities “allow Trump to highlight the deep division in the country — and force voters to pick a side.” Tulsa has a Republican mayor, but a similar strategy seems to be at work with the Juneteenth event. Trump isn’t torn. He wants to tear up the country.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/opinion/trump-rally-tulsa.html

‘It’s broken’: Fears grow about patchwork US election system
STEVE PEOPLES and CHRISTINA A. CASSIDY | June 12, 2020

...With less than five months to go, fears are mounting that several battleground states are not prepared to administer problem-free elections during the pandemic.

The increasingly urgent concerns are both complex and simple: long lines disproportionately affecting voters of color in places like Atlanta with a history of voter suppression; a severe shortage of poll workers scared away by coronavirus concerns; and an emerging consensus that it could take several days after polls close on Election Day to determine a winner as battleground states struggle with an explosion of mail voting.

Officials across the political spectrum have raised concerns, but there is a contrast in the level of urgency by party, and even by race.

Democrats want to send billions of dollars to overburdened state and local election systems and expand in-person early voting and universal no-excuse mail balloting. Republicans, reluctant to inject the federal government into state elections, have resisted such efforts and instead call on local elections officials, who in urban areas are often Democrats, to fix the problems themselves.

President Donald Trump is also fighting states’ plans to expand voting by mail, raising repeated concerns with no evidence about voter fraud.

Civil rights activist Al Sharpton...offered a simple message to people of color and those who run elections this fall: “If you do not vote and protect the vote, then you are helping to keep the knee on our necks.”

Election officials are expressing optimism as they scramble to address glaring problems. Amid continued pandemic concerns, many don’t have enough poll workers to staff voting sites, the capacity to train new workers in states featuring new equipment or the ability to efficiently process the surge in mail ballots.

The challenges have led to extraordinarily long lines, particularly in urban areas...

https://apnews.com/550d11a97af645b1d6e64ad2047cd72a

>113 margd: Sounds like Republican Convention will separate delegates in Charlotte, NC from speakers including Trump in Jacksonville, FL? Could it be that NC's Dem governor cares more about R delegates' health than does RNC??

Republicans across the spectrum slam RNC's decision to keep 2016 platform
GABBY ORR | 06/11/2020

...RNC National press secretary Mandi Merritt blamed the situation (keeping 2016 platform unchanged) on North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, who has rejected the party's plans for a full-fledged convention in his state.

"His refusal to work with the RNC on holding a full event in his state left our members with no choice. It would not be right for a very small group to craft a new platform without all of the delegates present," Merritt said in a statement.

...With the Platform Committee scrapped, the only official business that is likely to take place next month in Charlotte, N.C. — the original location of the 2020 GOP convention — is the selection of Trump as the party’s nominee. The president’s acceptance speech is expected to take place at a separate facility in Jacksonville, Fla., though the Trump campaign and RNC were still finalizing those details this week.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/11/republicans-rnc-decision-314172

___________________________________________________

North Carolina coronavirus-related hospitalizations reach all-time high
WXII Updated: 8:05 PM EDT Jun 11, 2020

...The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services reported the highest number of coronavirus-related hospitalizations Thursday.

With 86% of hospitals in the state reporting, there are 812 people currently in the hospital because of COVID-19, according to the state.

Hospital beds, intensive care unit beds and ventilators are still available throughout the state...

https://www.wxii12.com/article/north-carolina-coronavirus-hospitalization-high/3...

>116 margd: And it's not the delegates, party officials and influencers themselves that NC should concern themselves with. They will come, exchange air and droplets and then go home again.

It's the sizeable army of service people who are locals who would be forced to interact with people who may not buy-in to Covid precautions.

Turning down the convention was a good call.

VoteVets @votevets | 11:40 AM · Jun 12, 2020:

Our new ad cuts to the chase, and pulls no punches:
We’d never name bases after America’s enemies, like Osama bin Laden.
Why does Donald Trump so desperately want to keep the names of other racist enemies on our Army bases?

0:45 ( https://twitter.com/votevets/status/1271467300651241472 )

Joe Biden @JoeBiden | 9:37 AM · Jun 12, 2020:
Our country is crying out for leadership that Donald Trump can’t deliver.
0:51 ( https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1271436340127608836 )

Santiago Mayer @santiagomayer_ | 1:41 AM · Jun 14, 2020:
Biden 2020: He Can Run and Drink Water
0:54 ( https://twitter.com/santiagomayer_/status/1272041452126650369 )

Howard Kurtz's rant about journos siding against Trump ~

Blaming the messengers doesn't change the 24/7 situation on the
ground. HK was an actual reporter when he worked at CNN.
Now, he is a Trump enabler like most of the on-air personalities at
FOX News. Murdoch's moolah caused him to lose his sight,
hearing and mind. The Trump videos don't lie, however. Four
plus months to go.

Kneel
0:30 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DLszMq8j54 )

---------------------------------------------------------
Trump’s Deceptive Ad on Biden and Defunding the Police
Rem Rieder | June 12, 2020

A Trump for President ad deceptively suggests that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden supports a campaign to “defund the police.” But Biden has said explicitly that he doesn’t.

The ad says, “Biden fails to stand up to the radical leftists fighting to defund and abolish the police.” It then presents images of three signs saying “defund the police” and a fourth image of the slogan painted on a street.

However, Biden has said categorically and repeatedly that he opposes defunding the police, a cause espoused by some of those protesting the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis and police misconduct in general.

“No, I don’t support defunding the police,” Biden told “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell on June 8. “I support conditioning federal aid to police, based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency and honorableness. And, in fact, are able to demonstrate they can protect the community and everybody in the community.”

...To sum up, Biden’s position is that police must meet certain standards to receive federal aid. But he has renounced a broader “defund the police” approach, and the Trump campaign ad is misleading to suggest he hasn’t.

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/06/trumps-deceptive-ad-on-biden-and-defunding-the...

Whoa!

Happy Birthday @realDonaldTrump.
Great to see @TrumpDeathClock featured in this blazing birthday tribute
as just one measure of endless atrocities
POTUS has committed against US and the world.
#HappyBirthdayTrump #TalkingAboutRace #AllBirthdaysMatter
1:33 ( https://twitter.com/TrumpDeathClock/status/1272273982851604481 )

- TrumpDeathClock @TrumpDeathClock | 5:05 PM · Jun 14, 2020

#122--hopefully he'll spend his next birthday in a cage.

Television
NEW VIDEO

Trump is an embarrassingly #WeakPresident.
0:37 ( https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1272325593577582593 )
...

- MeidasTouch.com @MeidasTouch | 8:30 PM · Jun 14, 2020

This pandemic and racial-strife period has highlighted how
completely out of touch most GOPers are with life in 21st
Century America. Twisting themselves into pretzels has
become a go-to ritual for them when they are cornered for
explanations about their outrageous stances on daily events.

Donald Trump's niece Mary set to publish explosive book about her family

The Daily Beast revealed on Monday that Mary Trump, the daughter of Donald Trump’s late brother Fred Trump Jr, will release Too Much and Never Enough with Simon & Schuster on 11 August. The timing, a few weeks before this year’s Republican National Convention, means any revelations could be particularly damaging for the president. The book is expected to lay out how she was a primary source for the New York Times’ Pulitzer-winning investigation into Donald Trump’s “dubious tax schemes” during the 1990s and will share “harrowing and salacious” stories about the US president.

The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln | 7:00 AM · Jun 17, 2020:

Trump’s rally in Tulsa on the weekend of Juneteenth proves what we already knew:
he’s the largest superspreader of division and hatred we’ve seen in generations.

1:00 ( https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1273208998028812290 )

Don Winslow @donwinslow | 8:00 AM · Jun 17, 2020:

My *NEW* Trump video is here!!
For years I've watched Donald Trump repeatedly congratulate himself for FAILING. I call this bizarre process:
"THE ART OF THE FAKE VICTORY LAP"
And I've made a video to show exactly how Trump does it.

2:13 ( https://twitter.com/donwinslow/status/1273223932091351040 )

MeidasTouch.com @MeidasTouch | 3:28 PM · Jun 18, 2020:

So will any journalists ask why China’s largest state-run bank decided to locate its headquarters in the US on an entire floor in Trump Tower? They could have set up shop anywhere in the country.

0:07 ( https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1273699082016485377 )

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump | 10:08 PM · Jun 18, 2020:

2:17 ( https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1273799790350884864 )

Florida Chris @chrislongview | 8:13 AM · Jun 18, 2020:
i don't know who made this new Biden ad but they deserve an award.

1:00 (https://twitter.com/chrislongview/status/1273589618567311360 )

The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln | 9:50 AM · Jun 18, 2020
Trump is the weakest president this country has ever seen and he’s made China the strongest it’s ever been.

1:04 ( https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1273614101634330625 )

From The Lincoln Project

Bill Kristol @BillKristol | 9:06 AM · Jun 19, 2020:

To my liberal friends:
Disagree with Bolton, chastise him for staying quiet in impeachment, disdain his lack of introspection.
Don't invite him to parties!
But he saw Trump up close for 17 months, and he has told the truth about him.
(And you go to war with the allies you have.)

We at @RVAT2020 released this ad on Trump, rallies, and masks at about 5:15 pm.
Less than an hour later, Fox News released a poll showing overwhelming support for masks (68% of Republicans!) and widespread disapproval of large rallies. A coincidence?

0:56 ( https://twitter.com/BillKristol/status/1274106564618715137 )

From Republican Voters Against Trump
- Bill Kristol @BillKristol | 6:27 PM · Jun 19, 2020

Turns out the current Senate is capable of taking action to defend an endangered species.

That endangered species, of course, is Republican senators.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/08/us/politics/senate-public-lands.html

Donald Trump is getting very upset over these ads. So we made another one to celebrate Father’s Day weekend. Retweet this far and wide. Text it to all your friends. Blow it up. #FredsFailure

0:57 ( https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1274446928474812417 )

This is a grassroots funded organization putting out the best and most hard hitting content against Trump you can find. Only because you step up. Please consider a retweet & contribution via ActBlue!

- MeidasTouch.com @MeidasTouch | 5:00 PM · Jun 20, 2020

Didn’t take long for tonight’s speech to make its way into ads.

0:33 ( https://twitter.com/AndrewFeinberg/status/1274552602710212609 )

From American Bridge

- Andrew Feinberg @AndrewFeinberg | 11:59 PM · Jun 20, 2020

How dangerous could being a cult personality follower be? A
young maskless woman with a maskless new-born baby were
spotted at the pre-rally Trump gathering in Tulsa!

One-minute of advice to Dems
from R strategist Rick Wilson, a leader of The Lincoln Project:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryn7-FA7FmU&feature=youtu.be&t=3609

The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln | 12:57 PM · Jun 21, 2020

This is art.
1:34 ( https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1274748265376907265 )
From fact

Are you listening, Florida?

Interior to push drilling in Florida waters after November election
Former Secretary Ryan Zinke backed away from Florida drilling after howls from state leaders.
BEN LEFEBVRE | 06/10/2020

The Trump administration is preparing to open the door to oil and gas drilling off Florida’s coast — but will wait until after the November election to avoid blowback in a swing state whose waters both parties have long considered sacrosanct, according to four people familiar with the plan.

...President Donald Trump, who has set “energy dominance” as a key national goal, has eased regulations on offshore drilling put in place by the Obama administration. Interior has spent years working on a proposed drilling plan that would expand oil companies‘ access to waters around the country's coastline, including a draft plan issued in 2018 by the Trump administration that considered opening the federal waters off both of Florida's coasts...

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/10/interior-drilling-florida-waters-novemb...

Charles Darwin’s genius is at play, now, with the Trumpkin party.
Tulsa, followed by Arizona, provides COVID-19 with a stunning opportunity to kill Americans.
It appears that @realDonaldTrump is destined to win a terrible award:
Darwin’s COVID Casualty Award. Nobody wins here.

- Major General (ret) Paul Eaton @PaulDEaton52 | 1:14 AM · Jun 22, 2020
https://twitter.com/PaulDEaton52/status/1274933788313817090

Bill Kristol @BillKristol | 7:52 AM · Jun 22, 2020:
You look at the polls and think "he can't win."
But Trump's path to victory doesn't depend on persuading Americans.
It depends on
voter suppression,
mass disinformation,
foreign interference, and
unabashed use of executive branch power to shape events, and perceptions, this fall.

Rick Wilson @TheRickWilson | 9:28 AM · Jun 22, 2020
Don’t get cocky, people. Bill is spot on.

>144 margd: Let's bear in mind, he didn't win last time either.

Don't let it be close enough to steal!

Your campaign was so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.

0:41 ( https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1275042854537134080 )

- The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln | 8:28 AM · Jun 22, 2020

Please don't retweet this sequel to my first Trump/Biden "ramp video".
Because Trump spent 10 whole minutes defending his West Point walk at his rally today.
Telling him he's a whiny b*tch might send him over the edge.

1:34 (https://twitter.com/FindAClearTruth/status/1274560910573465600)

- fact @FindAClearTruth | 12:32 AM · Jun 21, 2020

Trump is flat-out wrong. Mail-in voting is safer, not vulnerable to fraud, like he says | Opinion
Juan-Carlos ‘J.C.’ Planas | June 22, 2020

...Based on my 16 years of experience, I can assure voters that there is no merit to Trump’s baseless claims of widespread fraud in mail ballots.

Those who agree with the president, no doubt, will raise some anecdotal story or rumor of fraud regarding what used to be known as “absentee ballots.” But as someone with firsthand knowledge, I have seen how we have actually strengthened oversight in recent years to remove even the slightest possibility of fraud.

As part of the Republican legal team, we commenced each election cycle with the hypothetical presumption that the Democrats would attempt to commit fraud with the mail ballots. Based on that false supposition, we investigated numerous allegations and never found any credible signs of voter fraud in mail ballots. This was confirmed by our team’s physical presence before the county Canvassing Board that scrutinized the ballot signatures.

...why Trump’s rhetoric is so dangerous.

Mail-in voting lets Americans who, despite being unable to leave their homes, still perform their civic duty. Now, more than ever, when health concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic require physical distancing, we must rely on this method of voting as never before. The president, who recently voted by mail in this year’s Presidential Preference Primary, wants to cast doubt on our voting systems. It’s an obvious attempt to cause chaos and depress turnout —and do so in a way to turn the electoral tide in his direction, believing his base of support lies predominantly in rural areas less affected by the spread of COVID-19.

Conversely, the urban areas where Trump is unpopular have been harder hit because of their density. If he can depress turnout in large cities, he increases his chance of winning.

This is completely contrary to our American way of life. As technology has advanced, so, too, should our method of voting. Those who argue that voting should be something done only by those who can go out on one day, in a 12-hour period, obviously are advocating for the disenfranchisement of voters.

The assault on the right to vote must be stopped dead in its tracks. The false narrative of fraud must be rebuffed with all the air in our lungs. This desire to prevent people from voting by mail is an assault on democracy and an attempt to stage an electoral coup that must be put down immediately.

As a lifelong Republican, I can no longer stand on the sidelines.

https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article243715957.html

________________________________________________________________

FACT CHECK: Trump Spreads Unfounded Claims About Voting By Mail
Miles Parks | June 22, 20202:23 PM ET

...Recent polls in Iowa and Florida show that Republicans in those states are more likely this year to vote in person, rather than by mail, and that Democrats are more likely to vote by mail — even though in the past, absentee voting has been more popular among Republicans.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, a Republican and also the nation's first secretary of homeland security, told NPR last week that Trump's unfounded claims could discourage Republicans from using a form of voting that is increasingly popular and potentially safer when considering the coronavirus pandemic.

Ridge co-chairs a new bipartisan group called VoteSafe that is advocating for a number of election changes, such as increasing the amount of mail voting, in response to the pandemic.

"I think it's very sad and very disappointing that with almost five months to go, the president seems to want to try to delegitimize the Nov. 3 election," said Ridge. "It just seems to me that this may be an indication he's more worried about the outcome than he's worried about fraud."

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/22/881598655/fact-check-trump-spreads-unfounded-clai...

So let me get this straight: Legislation to restore the Voting Rights Act has been sitting on McConnell’s desk for months — and he will directly benefit from his state allocating just one polling place for 616,000 predominantly Black voters?

Can this be any more blatant?

- Robert Reich @RBReich | 7:50 AM · Jun 23, 2020

_____________________________________________

Election chaos renews focus on gutted Voting Rights Act
In response to the coronavirus, many states are encouraging mail-in voting. That has prompted the consolidation of polling places.
BILL BARROW | June 23, 2020

...The 2013 decision — Shelby County v. Holder — was heralded by conservatives at the time for invalidating a longstanding “preclearance” process that required certain states and jurisdictions with high minority populations and a history of discrimination to get federal approval for any changes to voting procedures.

Seven years later, the fallout from that decision is colliding with unprecedented changes to the way elections are being conducted. In response to the coronavirus, many states are encouraging mail-in voting. That — combined with a reduction in poll workers — has prompted the consolidation of polling places.

...In Kentucky, the planned reductions in polling places are even sharper than Georgia, with fewer than 200 across a state that usually has nearly 3,700, prompting worries especially about the state’s most populous cities where Kentucky’s nonwhite population is concentrated...

...Meanwhile, Trump has railed against voting by mail, arguing without evidence that it could contribute to fraud. Conservatives are trying to use an Arizona case over absentee voting to further weaken the Voting Rights Act. And concerns are mounting across the ideological spectrum that the changing nature of elections could leave some Americans questioning the result in November...

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/nation-world/election-chaos-renews-focus-on-v...

The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln | https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1275410546666463232:

During the biggest health crisis of this generation, @realDonaldTrump
asked his officials to slow down the one thing that could keep us safe: testing.

How many families suffered and lives were lost because of his gross criminality? #AmericaOrTrump

1:00 ( https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1275410546666463232 )

The tunnel vision of Trump's base is very sad and pathetic.
Eventually he is going to move on, and their jobs are going
to be performed by robots. When Trump looks out over his
adoring rally crowds, he sees bit players in his final bucket-
list escapade.

>19 margd: voter suppression in KY

jacob ryan (reporter) @jacobhryan | 6:16 PM · Jun 23, 2020:

The people want to vote.
0:16 ( https://twitter.com/jacobhryan/status/1275553297189998595 )

Just to be clear, these people were let in to vote.
Also ... support local journalism. https://louisvillepublicmedia.webconnex.com/contribute

________________________________________

Charles Booker (Senate candidate) @Booker4KY | 6:24 PM · Jun 23, 2020
STAY IN LINE!

Kentucky, your voice matters. If you are in line, stay there! If you are voting in Louisville and you are at the fairgrounds, stay in line.

We are fighting to make sure you can vote.

STAY IN LINE!

0:31 ( https://twitter.com/Booker4KY/status/1275555418912296961 )

(margd: they got their injunction. Deadline extended from 6 pm to 9)

________________________________________

Trump and the republicans fear mail in voting is because it’s the most uhackable method.
Ballots are secret- No one knows who you voted for.
Coded ballots prevent counterfeit.
✍🏼are on the outer envelope to verify identity

1:34 ( https://twitter.com/paulcshipley/status/1275582423162482688 )

#VoteByMail From Eleven Films
- Paul the other one, it's got bells on it. @paulcshipley8:12 PM · Jun 23, 2020

>127 2wonderY:

Ted Boutrous (lawyer) @BoutrousTed | 2:28 PM · Jun 25, 2020

The court has dismissed the Trump family’s lawsuit seeking to block Mary Trump’s book.
https://gibsondunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Fred-C.-Trump-File-No.-1999-39... (4 p).

My statement: “The court has promptly and correctly held that it lacks jurisdiction to grant the Trump family’s baseless request to suppress a book . . . 1/2

of utmost public importance and concern. We hope this decision will end the matter. Democracy thrives on the free exchange of ideas, and neither this court nor any other has authority to violate the Constitution by imposing a prior restraint on core political speech.” 2/2