July 31, 2020

From Al Franken's July 23 e-mail ...

“You don’t see too many people brag about passing a dementia test.”

Not a Masters from Wharton, Not a PhD from MIT. A freaking dementia test.

July 29, 2020

Trump Will Eventually Disappear - Al Franken

Trump Will Eventually Disappear
July 23, 2020

https://alfranken.com/uncategorized/trump-will-eventually-disappear



<snip>

There were the six weeks to two months that Trump assured us that everything was “totally under control.” That our cases would soon be down to zero. That the coronavirus would magically disappear.* All this was in direct contradiction to what he was being told by his team. On January 18, when Health and Human Services Secretary Azar warned Trump about the grave threat posed by the virus, Trump called him “an alarmist,” and moved onto what he wanted to talk about – “that f*cking vaping thing.” That’s right – vaping. The president was very, very angry that he had been dragged into banning fruity and mint-flavored vaping products. Of late, he had been receiving a lot of political blowback from that decision, one that he bitterly regretted.

We know that there were similar warnings in the Presidential Daily Brief during that period. But, then again, this president doesn’t read the PDBs. Recently, Joe Biden announced that, as president, he will read the Presidential Daily Brief. And get this. He promised to read them daily!

When pressed about his months-long dismissal of the coronavirus, Trump explained that he was being “a cheerleader” for the American people. Alright. OK. Thing is – I’ve been to a lot of high school football games, and I have never seen the cheerleaders turn around and fire AK-47s into the bleachers. We have lost more than 140,000 Americans to Covid-19. There is no question that had Trump acted – as any president before him would have – tens of thousands of Americans who have died from this horrible disease would still be alive today. This is American Carnage. And Donald Trump is responsible for it.

I was in the Senate during the Ebola crisis. I saw first-hand how the United States led the global response to Ebola. Because the CDC was on the ground in Africa at the time of the outbreak in Liberia, we identified it before it got out of control and sent medical teams there to treat people and staunch the epidemic. The Trump administration cut 80% of the CDC’s funding for just that kind of presence in 39 countries – including a huge cut in our footprint in…China.

Before Trump, most of the world thought of America as the indispensable nation. And so did Americans. Now, after three-and-a-half years of Trump, neither is true. Not only did Trump choose not to lead a global response to Covid-19 – he decided against a national response. Instead, he kicked it down to the states. It’s as if, after Pearl Harbor, FDR said, “This is really Hawaii’s problem now.”

<snip>

Three months ago, a bipartisan group, including former Trump administration Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb and former Obama head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Andy Slavitt, put together a comprehensive plan for contact tracing and isolation. It cost a lot – an estimated $46.5 billion. But it included $12 billion to expand the contact tracing workforce by 180,000 people and $4.5 billion for using vacant hotels as self-isolation facilities. Testing, tracing, and isolation is the only way we can start to safely reopen and begin to get our economy back on track. In the end, the program would pay for itself and more. And, yet, Trump has insisted that Congress reduce the funding for testing that is in its latest coronavirus relief package.

<snip>

But, of course, It would be completely irresponsible for schools to open in those areas of the country where Covid-19 has been spiking. The idea of a blanket national policy is just another example of the insanely backasswards way this president has been approaching everything in this crisis. PPE? Let every state fend for themselves and have to bid against each other for masks and for ventilators. But schools? Open or no funding from the federal government.

There are actual rational, intelligent, measured ways to approach these problems. But we have been held hostage by a malignant narcissist. And not just any malignant narcissist. This one. Yes, it would be nice if the president had empathy. But I’d settle for a malignant narcissist who couldn’t give a fig about anybody, but who at least was smart enough to understand that he (and the country) would be a lot better off if he had just followed the science. Who knows? Maybe that malignant narcissist would have had a good shot at being reelected.

___

*Trump continues to defend that statement, insisting that at some point, the coronavirus will indeed disappear. Of course, on that score, Donald Trump is absolutely correct. Then again, eventually, the sun will also disappear – in the sense that it will burn out. In about five billion years.

July 27, 2020

In another time, in a different circumstance, there would perhaps be room to pity such a person.

Donald Trump Is a Broken Man

In another time, in a different circumstance, there would perhaps be room to pity such a person.
July 21, 2020
Peter Wehner

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/trump-wallowing-self-pity/614434/

<snip>

When Wallace interrupted, trying to get Trump to focus on the positive achievements of his presidency—“What about the good parts, sir?”—Trump brushed the question aside, responding, “Russia, Russia, Russia.” The president then complained about the Flynn investigation, the “Russia hoax,” the “Mueller scam,” and the recusal by his then–attorney general, Jeff Sessions. (“Now I feel good because he lost overwhelmingly in the great state of Alabama,” Trump said about the first senator to endorse him in the 2016 Republican primary.)

Donald Trump is a psychologically broken, embittered, and deeply unhappy man. He is so gripped by his grievances, such a prisoner of his resentments, that even the most benevolent question from an interviewer—what good parts of your presidency would you like to be remembered for?—triggered a gusher of discontent.

<snip>

Just in case his bitterness wasn’t coming through clearly enough, the president added this: “That would be Comey, that would be Brennan, that would be all of this—the two lovers, Strzok and Page, they would be in jail now for many, many years. They would be in jail; it would’ve started two years ago, and they’d be there for 50 years. The fact is, they illegally spied on my campaign. Let’s see what happens. Despite that, I did more than any president in history in the first three and a half years.”

With that, the interview ended.

<snip>

In another time, in a different circumstance, there would perhaps be room to pity such a person. But for now, it is best for the pity to wait. There are other things to which to attend. The American public faces one great and morally urgent task above all others between now and November: to do everything in its power to remove from the presidency a self-pitying man who is shattering the nation and doesn’t even care.

July 25, 2020

Johnny Cash was thinking about Trump ...

We all got to face up to it at some point. Its not if, its when. Nov 3, 2020.

July 17, 2020

UPDATE: I'm leaving for the ER, I have some symptoms and VA told me to go "now" ...

All positive energy will be appreciated.

Update:

I have an infection in my intestine. It gave me all the symptoms of Covid except my sense of smell and taste are good.

A simple course of Ampicillin should knock it loose in 10 days.

But to give you all a taste of what Covid is doing here in small town Texas: the ER Doctor and his wife and his wife's parents have had it: it took a month for the Doctor to get over it - his father-in-law died four days ago.

The scary thing I take away from it is not only are masks and hand washing the most important things we can do: They are the ONLY things we can do besides staying away from as many people as we can. There is no way to completely cut yourself away from the contact of the world.

How anyone can deny we are in the middle of a tough pandemic is beyond crazy.

Thank-you all for your kindness and thoughts, I am still moved over the response I got a year ago over my cancer surgery

July 15, 2020

A Teenager Didn't Do Her Online Schoolwork. So a Judge Sent Her to Juvenile Detention.

A Teenager Didn’t Do Her Online Schoolwork. So a Judge Sent Her to Juvenile Detention.

A 15-year-old in Michigan was incarcerated during the coronavirus pandemic after a judge ruled that not completing her schoolwork violated her probation. “It just doesn’t make any sense,” said the girl’s mother.

by Jodi S. Cohen July 14, 4 a.m. CDT

https://www.propublica.org/article/a-teenager-didnt-do-her-online-schoolwork-so-a-judge-sent-her-to-juvenile-detention?utm_source=pocket-newtab

This story was co-published with the Detroit Free Press and Bridge Magazine.

PONTIAC, Mich. —<snip>

<snip>

In Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued an executive order in March that temporarily suspended the confinement of juveniles who violate probation unless directed by a court order and encouraged eliminating any form of detention or residential placement unless a young person posed a “substantial and immediate safety risk to others.” Acting on Whitmer’s order, which was extended until late May, the Michigan Supreme Court told juvenile court judges to determine which juveniles could be returned home.

Judge Mary Ellen Brennan, the presiding judge of the Oakland County Family Court Division, declined through a court administrator to comment on Grace’s case. In her ruling, she found Grace “guilty on failure to submit to any schoolwork and getting up for school” and called Grace a “threat to (the) community,” citing the assault and theft charges that led to her probation.

<snip>

Brennan was unconvinced. Grace’s probation, she told her, was “zero tolerance, for lack of a better term.”

<Snip>

Those numbers, obtained by ProPublica from the Oakland County Circuit Court, reflect long-standing racial disparities in the state and county’s juvenile justice system. From January 2016 through June 2020, about 4,800 juvenile cases were referred to the Oakland court. Of those, 42% involved Black youth even though only about 15% of the county’s youth are Black.

<snip>

But officials at the Michigan Protection & Advocacy Service, the state disabilities watchdog organization, said they were especially troubled that a student with special needs — one of the most vulnerable populations — was punished when students and teachers everywhere couldn’t adjust to online learning.

<snip>








The ending where a "Children’s Village case coordinator, listening, tried to be encouraging. “You are doing very well right now, ... (W)hatever happens, it looks good. You are respectful, you are following the rules.”

Then she told them their time was up.

“Stay strong,” Grace told her mom.

“You stay strong, too,” her mother replied. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”"

I know how I'd feel if I had to stand an active third person review of the interaction between my children and myself with actual time interaction from that observer. Its just so wrong on sooo many levels.

The article is a lot much longer and every paragraph is solid.

July 13, 2020

I didn't do it, but if I did, you deserved it.

Russia Denies Paying Bounties, but Some Say the U.S. Had It Coming

Russia’s grievances against what it sees as American bullying and expansion into its own zones of influence have been stacking up for decades.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/03/world/europe/russia-bounties-putin-afghanistan.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

By Andrew Higgins and Andrew E. Kramer

July 3, 2020

MOSCOW — <snip>

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia responded with an ominous warning, saying weapons in the separatist regions could easily be sent “to other zones of conflict” — which many took to mean Afghanistan.

<snip>

Russian officials have scoffed at the idea they would hire killers from a radical Islamist group that is banned in Russia as a “terrorist” outfit and that shares many views of the Afghan fighters who killed so many Red Army soldiers, and those of Islamic militants who caused Moscow so much pain in Chechnya during two wars there.

In remarks to a state news agency on Monday, Zamir Kabulov, Mr. Putin’s special envoy for Afghanistan and a former ambassador in Kabul, dismissed the Taliban bounties report as “outright lies” generated by “forces in the United States who don’t want to leave Afghanistan and want to justify their own failures.”

Amid a torrent of outraged denials, however, there have been pointed reminders that, in Russia’s view, the United States, because of its overreach overseas, deserves to taste some of its own medicine.

<snip>


Remembering, of course "... Syria, where U.S. forces killed scores of Russian mercenaries in 2018". Are they buying "paybacks"?

July 11, 2020

Susan Collins, Congress's last New England Republican, facing toughest reelection yet

Susan Collins, Congress's last New England Republican, facing toughest reelection yet
The Democratic Senate primary is Tuesday, but November is already top of mind.
By
Quinn Scanlan
July 11, 2020, 4:02 AM

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/susan-collins-congresss-england-republican-facing-toughest-reelection/story?id=71716146

<snip>

“The big picture is that she's in a fight for her electoral life here that she's really never seen before since she was first elected to the seat,” said Mark Brewer, a professor of political science at the University of Maine.

<snip>

All three major race raters – Inside Politics, Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball – rate Collins’ race as a toss-up, meaning it’s basically anyone’s guess at this point whether she’ll be able to hold onto her seat, or lose to her Democratic challenger.

"This is an atmosphere like nobody has never seen in Maine before. Everything is so polarized. Everything you see happening in the country, you see in Maine," the Collins campaign told ABC News. "You've got Democrats and Republicans at each other's throats, and you have Senator Collins’ opponents flooding Maine with $20 million worth of false attack ads in an attempt to try to make this Senate race a referendum on Donald Trump. Senator Collins is going to run her own race, like she always does, on her own impressive legislative record."

<snip>

“If Trump can be competitive again and come as close as he did in 2016 to winning Maine, she will win Maine – even if Trump will lose narrowly,” said Sabato. “But Trump has a long way to go to get competitive again.”

July 11, 2020

St. Louis Cops Seize Gun That Couple Pointed At Black Lives Matter Protesters

St. Louis Cops Seize Gun That Couple Pointed At Black Lives Matter Protesters
“They took my AR,” Mark McCloskey told a right-wing radio program.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mark-mccloskey-st-louis-guns-black-lives-matter_n_5f094073c5b6480493d04299

By Mary Papenfuss


<snip>

“We complied with the search warrant. They took my AR,” Mark McCloskey told the conservative Todd Starnes radio show. “I’m absolutely surprised by this.”

<snip>

Mark McCloskey claimed he and his wife grabbed their guns during the protest because they were afraid for their lives from the “angry mob who came through my gate.” His wife insisted in a Fox News interview that she heard protesters talk about how they wanted to take over their home, kill her and her husband, and their dog.

But video of the protest that went viral shows protesters slowly sauntering past the couple on the sidewalk and not confronting them.

<snip>

They have sued neighbors for making changes to their gravel road, sued a former employer for wrongful termination, sued others for defamation, and asserted “squatters’ rights” on common neighborhood property, according to the newspaper. This was apparently part of the land they claimed to be guarding with their firearms. McCloskey said in an affidavit last year that he had once challenged a neighbor cutting through that property “at gunpoint.”