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marmar
marmar's Journal
marmar's Journal
July 9, 2022
(Guardian UK) Fourteen years after her star power and incendiary rhetoric rallied crowds in her bid for the US vice-presidency, Sarah Palin takes the stage again on Saturday night – with a very different man at her side than during the 2008 election.
Palin was the running mate of presidential nominee John McCain, a war veteran and Republican party stalwart who was this week posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Joe Biden.
This weekend, however, as Palin seeks election to Congress, the headliner at her campaign event in her native Alaska is Donald Trump, the former president and longtime nemesis of McCain. The before-and-after contrast says much about the evolution of the Republican party over the past decade.
It was Palin, then the governor of Alaska, who in the 2008 race arguably did more than anyone to set the stage for Trump’s raucous, racist demagoguery that took him all the way to the White House in 2016. Both candidates elevated celebrity and charisma above knowledge or expertise.
Now the wheel has turned and it is Trump seeking to give Palin a boost as the 58-year-old chases Alaska’s sole seat in the House of Representatives, made vacant by the death of Don Young, who held it for 49 years. ............(more)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/09/sarah-palin-comeback-trump-alaska-republicans
Like two viruses that just won't die......
(Guardian UK) Fourteen years after her star power and incendiary rhetoric rallied crowds in her bid for the US vice-presidency, Sarah Palin takes the stage again on Saturday night – with a very different man at her side than during the 2008 election.
Palin was the running mate of presidential nominee John McCain, a war veteran and Republican party stalwart who was this week posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Joe Biden.
This weekend, however, as Palin seeks election to Congress, the headliner at her campaign event in her native Alaska is Donald Trump, the former president and longtime nemesis of McCain. The before-and-after contrast says much about the evolution of the Republican party over the past decade.
It was Palin, then the governor of Alaska, who in the 2008 race arguably did more than anyone to set the stage for Trump’s raucous, racist demagoguery that took him all the way to the White House in 2016. Both candidates elevated celebrity and charisma above knowledge or expertise.
Now the wheel has turned and it is Trump seeking to give Palin a boost as the 58-year-old chases Alaska’s sole seat in the House of Representatives, made vacant by the death of Don Young, who held it for 49 years. ............(more)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/09/sarah-palin-comeback-trump-alaska-republicans
July 9, 2022
BY LIZZIE O’LEARY
JULY 08, 20223:02 PM
(Slate) In mid-June, massive floods swept through Montana. Many of the people whose homes flooded didn’t have flood insurance, largely because they didn’t think they needed it. But with climate change, that map is shifting. Despite the scale of the damage and its unprecedented nature, a spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency said that people need to “take responsibility for their own disaster recovery,” and that FEMA would not be able to make them whole.
What the Montana floods underscore is that natural disasters are getting worse, and no one is immune. On Friday’s episode of What Next: TBD, I spoke with Craig Fugate, who served as FEMA administrator under President Obama, about what happens when the old disaster playbook needs an overhaul. Are we left to fend for ourselves? Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Lizzie O’Leary: Some people might assume that when there’s an emergency, like the floods in Montana, the federal government just shows up. But that’s not actually how it works. Can you give us a little FEMA 101?
Craig Fugate: FEMA doesn’t step in until a governor has requested from the president a disaster declaration. As part of that request, the governor certifies in writing that the disaster exceeds the capability of the state to manage. In most cases, what that refers to is lack of insurance, and FEMA is being asked to support a state financially for the extraordinary cost.
....(snip)....
There’s the idea of managed retreat, a whole community saying, “All right, we are not going to rebuild here. We’re going somewhere else.” It happened after Superstorm Sandy in some places, but what do you think of it?
It actually started as far back as 1993 and the big Midwestern floods. At the time, under Director James Lee Witt, FEMA began working with communities and said, “Instead of putting you back in the river plain to flood out again, why don’t we take the whole town and move it up on that hill?” Again, these were small numbers, but it demonstrated that FEMA did have that ability. In Florida, we’ve had some communities from the ’80s and ’90s that flooded routinely. We went in, bought them out, moved them. So it is something that can be done, but there’s also challenges you run into. One is the historical context. We have historical communities that if we don’t rebuild, we lose that era. Some industries are very dependent upon very vulnerable coastal areas that, again, workforce and housing are key. A lot of local governments have tremendous pressure to keep communities where they’re at. But we’re seeing it even in the state of Louisiana. Gov. Edwards has worked with some of the communities, and they made a decision on one of the tribal areas. They had, basically because of sea level rise and repetitive flooding, made the agreement to relocate the whole community.
Another place I think is going to accelerate even more is going to be in Alaska. The challenge in Alaska is a lot of these communities that need to relocate won’t necessarily be from a federally declared disaster. Between permafrost and the erosion of coastlines, we have seen communities in Alaska having to relocate. The question’s going to be, how do we pay for that? Not all these events are triggering federal disasters where you at least have some of the Stafford Act funding to do this. ..............(more)
https://slate.com/technology/2022/07/craig-fugate-climate-change-fema.html
Can FEMA Survive Climate Change?
Can FEMA Survive Climate Change?BY LIZZIE O’LEARY
JULY 08, 20223:02 PM
(Slate) In mid-June, massive floods swept through Montana. Many of the people whose homes flooded didn’t have flood insurance, largely because they didn’t think they needed it. But with climate change, that map is shifting. Despite the scale of the damage and its unprecedented nature, a spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency said that people need to “take responsibility for their own disaster recovery,” and that FEMA would not be able to make them whole.
What the Montana floods underscore is that natural disasters are getting worse, and no one is immune. On Friday’s episode of What Next: TBD, I spoke with Craig Fugate, who served as FEMA administrator under President Obama, about what happens when the old disaster playbook needs an overhaul. Are we left to fend for ourselves? Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Lizzie O’Leary: Some people might assume that when there’s an emergency, like the floods in Montana, the federal government just shows up. But that’s not actually how it works. Can you give us a little FEMA 101?
Craig Fugate: FEMA doesn’t step in until a governor has requested from the president a disaster declaration. As part of that request, the governor certifies in writing that the disaster exceeds the capability of the state to manage. In most cases, what that refers to is lack of insurance, and FEMA is being asked to support a state financially for the extraordinary cost.
....(snip)....
There’s the idea of managed retreat, a whole community saying, “All right, we are not going to rebuild here. We’re going somewhere else.” It happened after Superstorm Sandy in some places, but what do you think of it?
It actually started as far back as 1993 and the big Midwestern floods. At the time, under Director James Lee Witt, FEMA began working with communities and said, “Instead of putting you back in the river plain to flood out again, why don’t we take the whole town and move it up on that hill?” Again, these were small numbers, but it demonstrated that FEMA did have that ability. In Florida, we’ve had some communities from the ’80s and ’90s that flooded routinely. We went in, bought them out, moved them. So it is something that can be done, but there’s also challenges you run into. One is the historical context. We have historical communities that if we don’t rebuild, we lose that era. Some industries are very dependent upon very vulnerable coastal areas that, again, workforce and housing are key. A lot of local governments have tremendous pressure to keep communities where they’re at. But we’re seeing it even in the state of Louisiana. Gov. Edwards has worked with some of the communities, and they made a decision on one of the tribal areas. They had, basically because of sea level rise and repetitive flooding, made the agreement to relocate the whole community.
Another place I think is going to accelerate even more is going to be in Alaska. The challenge in Alaska is a lot of these communities that need to relocate won’t necessarily be from a federally declared disaster. Between permafrost and the erosion of coastlines, we have seen communities in Alaska having to relocate. The question’s going to be, how do we pay for that? Not all these events are triggering federal disasters where you at least have some of the Stafford Act funding to do this. ..............(more)
https://slate.com/technology/2022/07/craig-fugate-climate-change-fema.html
July 9, 2022
Cacophony of dunces: When the Supreme Court trashed the Constitution
Sam Alito and John Roberts appeal to "history and tradition" — while they dance around the burning Constitution
By LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV
PUBLISHED JULY 9, 2022 8:00AM
(Salon) Watching Justice Samuel Alito go spelunking in his Dobbs opinion through centuries of so-called history and tradition in search of legal justifications to overturn the right to abortion decided almost 50 years ago in Roe v. Wade was like watching a boy play in a pile of dirt. Where do I dig next, he seemed to be muttering to himself as he shoveled manure from a slave-era law in Virginia onto an 18th-century pile of garbage he quoted from some doofus who believed women were inferior beings. Clarence Thomas was right there behind him in his decision that New York can't prevent people from carrying concealed weapons, plowing through statutes from jolly old England and the American frontier to show that Dodge City didn't really mean it when they told cowboys they had to check their six-guns with the sheriff if they came into town.
And then along came Chief Justice Roberts as clean-up man, swinging the club of something known as the "major questions doctrine" to deny the Environmental Protection Agency its statutory authority to — duh — protect the environment unless Congress spells out exactly how they should do it. According to Roberts, it is Congress, not the EPA, that has to write a rule telling corporations they can't empty industrial waste directly into creeks, rivers or the ocean because it's a "major question" if it costs corporations a lot of money, so let's make it as hard as possible for the government to take a chunk out of our golf buddies' bottom lines.
Throughout the entire year of decisions by a court that for the first time included all three of the Supreme Court's newest and most conservative members, the Republican majority decided to jettison the doctrine of stare decisis, which means to stand by things decided, and employ their own doctrine on how precedents should be treated: Stare quisquilias acervum or "stand by the trash heap," where they proceeded to throw the court's previous decisions and entire articles of the Constitution.
All of this in service to their favorite doctrine of all — rights granted by the Constitution must be "deeply rooted in the nation's history and tradition" or they aren't really rights at all. Legal scholars have been predicting that the court will use its new jewel of a doctrine to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, not to mention other recent decisions recognizing rights under the privacy provision of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment … because we have no "history and tradition" of same-sex marriage or gay sex or rubbers or the pill, or anything else they simply don't like. ............(more)
https://www.salon.com/2022/07/09/cacophony-of-dunces-when-the-trashed-the-constitution/
Cacophony of dunces: When the Supreme Court trashed the Constitution
Cacophony of dunces: When the Supreme Court trashed the Constitution
Sam Alito and John Roberts appeal to "history and tradition" — while they dance around the burning Constitution
By LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV
PUBLISHED JULY 9, 2022 8:00AM
(Salon) Watching Justice Samuel Alito go spelunking in his Dobbs opinion through centuries of so-called history and tradition in search of legal justifications to overturn the right to abortion decided almost 50 years ago in Roe v. Wade was like watching a boy play in a pile of dirt. Where do I dig next, he seemed to be muttering to himself as he shoveled manure from a slave-era law in Virginia onto an 18th-century pile of garbage he quoted from some doofus who believed women were inferior beings. Clarence Thomas was right there behind him in his decision that New York can't prevent people from carrying concealed weapons, plowing through statutes from jolly old England and the American frontier to show that Dodge City didn't really mean it when they told cowboys they had to check their six-guns with the sheriff if they came into town.
And then along came Chief Justice Roberts as clean-up man, swinging the club of something known as the "major questions doctrine" to deny the Environmental Protection Agency its statutory authority to — duh — protect the environment unless Congress spells out exactly how they should do it. According to Roberts, it is Congress, not the EPA, that has to write a rule telling corporations they can't empty industrial waste directly into creeks, rivers or the ocean because it's a "major question" if it costs corporations a lot of money, so let's make it as hard as possible for the government to take a chunk out of our golf buddies' bottom lines.
Throughout the entire year of decisions by a court that for the first time included all three of the Supreme Court's newest and most conservative members, the Republican majority decided to jettison the doctrine of stare decisis, which means to stand by things decided, and employ their own doctrine on how precedents should be treated: Stare quisquilias acervum or "stand by the trash heap," where they proceeded to throw the court's previous decisions and entire articles of the Constitution.
All of this in service to their favorite doctrine of all — rights granted by the Constitution must be "deeply rooted in the nation's history and tradition" or they aren't really rights at all. Legal scholars have been predicting that the court will use its new jewel of a doctrine to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, not to mention other recent decisions recognizing rights under the privacy provision of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment … because we have no "history and tradition" of same-sex marriage or gay sex or rubbers or the pill, or anything else they simply don't like. ............(more)
https://www.salon.com/2022/07/09/cacophony-of-dunces-when-the-trashed-the-constitution/
July 9, 2022
Here’s how Parallel Reality is helping passengers at Detroit Metro Airport
If you’ve traveled lately at Metro Airport, you might have seen a display that takes you into a parallel universe
DETROIT – You’ll notice it right after you go through security at the McNamara Terminal at Metro Airport. It’s a big-screen offering something called parallel reality to help passengers figure out where to go.
If you’ve traveled lately at Metro Airport, you might have seen a display that almost looks like it might take you into a parallel universe.
Okay, not quite.
It’s a brand new technology to help you get your travel itinerary personalized—no need to scan that big board trying to find your flight amongst the hundreds of others. Delta has customized the big board just for you.
“Ohhh, that’s so cool,” said one passenger. “Oh my God! That is awesome.”
The big arch and information desk just past TSA is getting all kinds of reactions for passengers traveling through Metro Airport. ...............(more)
https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2022/07/07/heres-how-parallel-reality-is-helping-passengers-at-detroit-metro-airport/
Here's how Parallel Reality is helping passengers at Detroit Metro Airport
Here’s how Parallel Reality is helping passengers at Detroit Metro Airport
If you’ve traveled lately at Metro Airport, you might have seen a display that takes you into a parallel universe
DETROIT – You’ll notice it right after you go through security at the McNamara Terminal at Metro Airport. It’s a big-screen offering something called parallel reality to help passengers figure out where to go.
If you’ve traveled lately at Metro Airport, you might have seen a display that almost looks like it might take you into a parallel universe.
Okay, not quite.
It’s a brand new technology to help you get your travel itinerary personalized—no need to scan that big board trying to find your flight amongst the hundreds of others. Delta has customized the big board just for you.
“Ohhh, that’s so cool,” said one passenger. “Oh my God! That is awesome.”
The big arch and information desk just past TSA is getting all kinds of reactions for passengers traveling through Metro Airport. ...............(more)
https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2022/07/07/heres-how-parallel-reality-is-helping-passengers-at-detroit-metro-airport/
July 9, 2022
(ESPN) LONDON -- We're in the twilight of the GOAT era. Rafa Nadal's body is creaking, Roger Federer hasn't played a competitive match in a year and Serena Williams' next movements are unclear. Novak Djokovic is at the peak of his powers but will likely not play another Grand Slam event until May.
Tennis will likely never see their like again, and the chances to watch them are getting rarer.
Friday's Wimbledon men's semifinal round was going to be a blockbuster. Opening with Djokovic against British hope Cam Norrie, then Nadal, now 36 years old, trying to take down mercurial Nick Kyrgios to continue his charge for a calendar Slam. But a tear in a muscle in Nadal's abdomen robbed us of the second half of that draw.
And with that came the growing feeling of transience in the sport, and that gnawing thought at the back of the mind knowing these players will one day retire was moving closer to the front of the mind. .............(more)
https://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/id/34212003/2022-wimbledon-slam-was-clear-reminder-sport-goats-endangered
2022 Wimbledon: This Slam was a clear reminder the sport's GOATs are endangered
(ESPN) LONDON -- We're in the twilight of the GOAT era. Rafa Nadal's body is creaking, Roger Federer hasn't played a competitive match in a year and Serena Williams' next movements are unclear. Novak Djokovic is at the peak of his powers but will likely not play another Grand Slam event until May.
Tennis will likely never see their like again, and the chances to watch them are getting rarer.
Friday's Wimbledon men's semifinal round was going to be a blockbuster. Opening with Djokovic against British hope Cam Norrie, then Nadal, now 36 years old, trying to take down mercurial Nick Kyrgios to continue his charge for a calendar Slam. But a tear in a muscle in Nadal's abdomen robbed us of the second half of that draw.
And with that came the growing feeling of transience in the sport, and that gnawing thought at the back of the mind knowing these players will one day retire was moving closer to the front of the mind. .............(more)
https://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/id/34212003/2022-wimbledon-slam-was-clear-reminder-sport-goats-endangered
July 9, 2022
Boris Johnson has vandalised the political architecture of Britain, Ireland and Europe
Fintan O’Toole
His political career has consisted of chucking rocks over the walls of the neighbours. We will live with the damage for years
Fri 8 Jul 2022 09.45 EDT
(Guardian UK) It seems rather apt that Boris Johnson pocketed a huge advance from a publisher for a book about William Shakespeare but never got round to writing it. Johnson’s rise and fall hovers between cheap farce and theatre of the absurd. It has none of the grandeur of tragedy. The only line of Shakespeare’s that came to mind at his political demise was the first bit of Mark Antony’s elegy for Julius Caesar: “The evil that men do lives after them”. If the good that Johnson did in his public life is to be interred with his bones, the coffin will be light enough. But the evil will weigh heavily on the coming decades.
This is what is so strange about Johnson’s place in history. It is hard to think of a figure at once so fatuous and so consequential, so flippant and yet so profoundly influential. His reign was short – its malign hangover will last long. He was a politician so incompetent that he could not keep himself in office even with a thumping parliamentary majority, a sycophantic press and a cabinet specially selected for slavish self-abasement. Yet he has remade the political architecture of Britain, of Ireland and of Europe.
Johnson’s dark genius was to shape Britain in his own image. His roguishness has made it a rogue state, openly defiant of international law. His triviality has diminished it in the eyes of the world. His relentless mendacity and blatantly self-seeking abuse of power have ruined its reputation for democratic decency. His bad jokes made the country he professes to love increasingly risible.
....(snip)....
It is indeed a weird idea of power. The soundtrack to Johnson’s political career is the crash of breaking glass as he chucks rocks over the walls of the neighbours across the Irish Sea and the Channel. The construction products of Johnson’s imagination – Boris Island, the garden bridge in London, the fabulous bridge that was going to connect Scotland to Northern Ireland – were fantasies whose very grandiosity made them infantile. But at least they never happened. It was the destructive side, that pleasure in political vandalism, that became real – a reality in which Britain seems likely to be trapped for a long time after his departure.
The worst aspect of this is his reckless sabotaging of the Good Friday agreement. It is possible to imagine that Johnson was smug enough to think that both British and EU political institutions were sufficiently robust to withstand his own cynical abuse of them. But surely even he must have had a basic understanding that peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland is a delicate and radically unfinished business. He must have had some inkling that this is one place where the consequences of stirring up tribal identity politics were all too obvious. ...............(more)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/08/boris-johnson-politics-britain-ireland-europe
Boris Johnson has vandalised the political architecture of Britain, Ireland and Europe
Boris Johnson has vandalised the political architecture of Britain, Ireland and Europe
Fintan O’Toole
His political career has consisted of chucking rocks over the walls of the neighbours. We will live with the damage for years
Fri 8 Jul 2022 09.45 EDT
(Guardian UK) It seems rather apt that Boris Johnson pocketed a huge advance from a publisher for a book about William Shakespeare but never got round to writing it. Johnson’s rise and fall hovers between cheap farce and theatre of the absurd. It has none of the grandeur of tragedy. The only line of Shakespeare’s that came to mind at his political demise was the first bit of Mark Antony’s elegy for Julius Caesar: “The evil that men do lives after them”. If the good that Johnson did in his public life is to be interred with his bones, the coffin will be light enough. But the evil will weigh heavily on the coming decades.
This is what is so strange about Johnson’s place in history. It is hard to think of a figure at once so fatuous and so consequential, so flippant and yet so profoundly influential. His reign was short – its malign hangover will last long. He was a politician so incompetent that he could not keep himself in office even with a thumping parliamentary majority, a sycophantic press and a cabinet specially selected for slavish self-abasement. Yet he has remade the political architecture of Britain, of Ireland and of Europe.
Johnson’s dark genius was to shape Britain in his own image. His roguishness has made it a rogue state, openly defiant of international law. His triviality has diminished it in the eyes of the world. His relentless mendacity and blatantly self-seeking abuse of power have ruined its reputation for democratic decency. His bad jokes made the country he professes to love increasingly risible.
....(snip)....
It is indeed a weird idea of power. The soundtrack to Johnson’s political career is the crash of breaking glass as he chucks rocks over the walls of the neighbours across the Irish Sea and the Channel. The construction products of Johnson’s imagination – Boris Island, the garden bridge in London, the fabulous bridge that was going to connect Scotland to Northern Ireland – were fantasies whose very grandiosity made them infantile. But at least they never happened. It was the destructive side, that pleasure in political vandalism, that became real – a reality in which Britain seems likely to be trapped for a long time after his departure.
The worst aspect of this is his reckless sabotaging of the Good Friday agreement. It is possible to imagine that Johnson was smug enough to think that both British and EU political institutions were sufficiently robust to withstand his own cynical abuse of them. But surely even he must have had a basic understanding that peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland is a delicate and radically unfinished business. He must have had some inkling that this is one place where the consequences of stirring up tribal identity politics were all too obvious. ...............(more)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/08/boris-johnson-politics-britain-ireland-europe
July 8, 2022
Donald Trump, Macbeth and the ruins of the Republican Party
Even after testifying to Trump's crimes, leading Republicans might vote for him again. Shakespeare can explain
By PETER C. HERMAN
PUBLISHED JULY 8, 2022 6:00AM
(Salon) Toward the end of Shakespeare's tragedy "Macbeth," Malcolm (the good guy) decides to give his ally, Macduff, a very strange test.
Granted, Macbeth is the very embodiment of a murderous tyrant but, Malcolm says, he's even worse. Compared to himself, Macbeth "will seem pure as snow."
"What are you talking about?" Macduff responds. So Malcolm gives him a few examples.
First, "there's no bottom, none," to his sexual appetite. Your wives, your daughters, your matrons, won't satisfy him. Macduff's response is, to say the least, surprising. That's OK, he says. Even though sexual rapaciousness has justified the "fall of many kings," nonetheless, "We have willing dames enough."
....(snip)....
Shakespeare's scene parallels the responses to three Republican witnesses to Donald J. Trump's perfidy: Bill Barr, Russell "Rusty" Bowers, and Brad Raffensperger.
All three have good reasons for unqualifiedly repudiating Trump. Barr, the former attorney general, has said that Trump's belief that he won the election suggested that the then-president was "detached from reality." Bowers, the speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, was subjected to numerous calls from Trump pressuring him to replace Arizona's Biden electors with Trump ones, a scheme he described as illegal and unconstitutional. As for Raffensperger, Georgia's secretary of state, Trump asked him to "find 11,780 votes," and when Raffensperger refused, Trump said that standing by the election results was "a big risk to you" and "a criminal offense."
Yet all three of these men have said that they would vote for Trump again if he's the Republican nominee in 2024. Even though Barr says he would prefer someone else, he pledged to vote for Trump if the twice-impeached ex-president winds up on the ballot. Bowers said the same: "If he is the nominee ... I'd vote for him again." Raffensperger was more evasive, refusing to rule out voting for Trump while not explicitly saying that he would. ........(more)
https://www.salon.com/2022/07/08/donald-trump-macbeth-and-the-ruins-of-the-party/
Donald Trump, Macbeth and the ruins of the Republican Party
Donald Trump, Macbeth and the ruins of the Republican Party
Even after testifying to Trump's crimes, leading Republicans might vote for him again. Shakespeare can explain
By PETER C. HERMAN
PUBLISHED JULY 8, 2022 6:00AM
(Salon) Toward the end of Shakespeare's tragedy "Macbeth," Malcolm (the good guy) decides to give his ally, Macduff, a very strange test.
Granted, Macbeth is the very embodiment of a murderous tyrant but, Malcolm says, he's even worse. Compared to himself, Macbeth "will seem pure as snow."
"What are you talking about?" Macduff responds. So Malcolm gives him a few examples.
First, "there's no bottom, none," to his sexual appetite. Your wives, your daughters, your matrons, won't satisfy him. Macduff's response is, to say the least, surprising. That's OK, he says. Even though sexual rapaciousness has justified the "fall of many kings," nonetheless, "We have willing dames enough."
....(snip)....
Shakespeare's scene parallels the responses to three Republican witnesses to Donald J. Trump's perfidy: Bill Barr, Russell "Rusty" Bowers, and Brad Raffensperger.
All three have good reasons for unqualifiedly repudiating Trump. Barr, the former attorney general, has said that Trump's belief that he won the election suggested that the then-president was "detached from reality." Bowers, the speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, was subjected to numerous calls from Trump pressuring him to replace Arizona's Biden electors with Trump ones, a scheme he described as illegal and unconstitutional. As for Raffensperger, Georgia's secretary of state, Trump asked him to "find 11,780 votes," and when Raffensperger refused, Trump said that standing by the election results was "a big risk to you" and "a criminal offense."
Yet all three of these men have said that they would vote for Trump again if he's the Republican nominee in 2024. Even though Barr says he would prefer someone else, he pledged to vote for Trump if the twice-impeached ex-president winds up on the ballot. Bowers said the same: "If he is the nominee ... I'd vote for him again." Raffensperger was more evasive, refusing to rule out voting for Trump while not explicitly saying that he would. ........(more)
https://www.salon.com/2022/07/08/donald-trump-macbeth-and-the-ruins-of-the-party/
July 8, 2022
A suspect lost his pants while he was being chased by Florida police but kept the manhunt up for hours longer completely in the nude, cops said.
Police responded to a home in Branford on July 2 to a residence where 50-year-old Jesse Lamb, of Gainesville, was reportedly refusing to leave, according to the Suwannee County Sheriff’s Office.
While cops were on their way, they learned that Lamb had an active warrant out for failing to appear in court in 2021 for driving with a suspended license.
When cops arrived at the residence, they spotted Lamb sprinting from the back of the residence towards the Suwannee River in nothing but a pair of shorts. Deputies chased him until he jumped in the river and began swimming towards a floating dock, which he hid under. ...........(more)
https://nypost.com/2022/07/08/florida-man-jesse-lamb-flees-nude-from-police-in-hours-long-manhunt/
Man loses pants while being chased by cops in hours-long manhunt
A suspect lost his pants while he was being chased by Florida police but kept the manhunt up for hours longer completely in the nude, cops said.
Police responded to a home in Branford on July 2 to a residence where 50-year-old Jesse Lamb, of Gainesville, was reportedly refusing to leave, according to the Suwannee County Sheriff’s Office.
While cops were on their way, they learned that Lamb had an active warrant out for failing to appear in court in 2021 for driving with a suspended license.
When cops arrived at the residence, they spotted Lamb sprinting from the back of the residence towards the Suwannee River in nothing but a pair of shorts. Deputies chased him until he jumped in the river and began swimming towards a floating dock, which he hid under. ...........(more)
https://nypost.com/2022/07/08/florida-man-jesse-lamb-flees-nude-from-police-in-hours-long-manhunt/
July 8, 2022
(NBC News) A Florida man who threatened to kill Rep. Ilhan Omar, writing that she was on a "hit list," was sentenced to probation, according to court records.
David Hannon, 67, of Sarasota, was sentenced Wednesday to three years of probation and fined $7,000 in connection with the threat, which was emailed in 2019.
In the email, Hannon, who was a supporter of former President Donald Trump, called Omar, D-Minn., a "radical Muslim," threatened "mass assassinations" of what he called "radicals" and said Omar was on a "hit list," according to court documents.
The email also said Omar and three other members of Congress would die. ..........(more)
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/florida-man-sentenced-probation-threat-kill-rep-omar-rcna37227
Florida man sentenced to probation for threat to kill Rep. Omar
(NBC News) A Florida man who threatened to kill Rep. Ilhan Omar, writing that she was on a "hit list," was sentenced to probation, according to court records.
David Hannon, 67, of Sarasota, was sentenced Wednesday to three years of probation and fined $7,000 in connection with the threat, which was emailed in 2019.
In the email, Hannon, who was a supporter of former President Donald Trump, called Omar, D-Minn., a "radical Muslim," threatened "mass assassinations" of what he called "radicals" and said Omar was on a "hit list," according to court documents.
The email also said Omar and three other members of Congress would die. ..........(more)
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/florida-man-sentenced-probation-threat-kill-rep-omar-rcna37227
July 8, 2022
State Police found her walking along a freeway near Detroit, and believe it or not, drugs may have been involved.
She Was Walking On The Side Of I-75 Near Troy
The woman was spotted by several drivers late Sunday afternoon (July 3) near Big Beaver Road just north of Detroit, stumbling along with the 55-gallon drum on her head.
When asked what she was doing on the freeway, she told responding Michigan State Police officers that she was "picking up trash". I guess, if you have the trash can on your head, you don't need to carry the trash to the barrel, which would make it easier. I guess.
The woman wasn't identified other than she was 33 years old, and described as "uncooperative". The officers who investigated also drew the obvious conclusion that she was under the influence of drugs. ............(more)
https://wfgr.com/why-did-a-michigan-woman-have-a-55-gallon-drum-on-her-head/
Why Did A Michigan Woman Have A 55-Gallon Drum On Her Head?
State Police found her walking along a freeway near Detroit, and believe it or not, drugs may have been involved.
She Was Walking On The Side Of I-75 Near Troy
The woman was spotted by several drivers late Sunday afternoon (July 3) near Big Beaver Road just north of Detroit, stumbling along with the 55-gallon drum on her head.
When asked what she was doing on the freeway, she told responding Michigan State Police officers that she was "picking up trash". I guess, if you have the trash can on your head, you don't need to carry the trash to the barrel, which would make it easier. I guess.
The woman wasn't identified other than she was 33 years old, and described as "uncooperative". The officers who investigated also drew the obvious conclusion that she was under the influence of drugs. ............(more)
https://wfgr.com/why-did-a-michigan-woman-have-a-55-gallon-drum-on-her-head/
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