Tracker

Apparently there are night spots on Corydon which have been utterly ignoring all COVID restrictions, and one has been fined twice already to little effect. We seem to have our share of covidiots.

And reports out of Texas say that the governor there is fudging the numbers as well. Truly, America is a failed nation and verging on an idiocracy.

Here are 6 signs Trump may use DHS stormtroopers to stop Democrats from voting Last night I wrote about Trump’s use of ICE and Border Patrol stormtroopers under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security to detain and intimidate peaceful protesters. In that piece I speculated that Trump was not only testing the waters of creating his own personal paramilitary domestic security force and attempting to please the most sadistic elements of his base, but also that he was taking the natural actions an executive might take if he actually believed the dystopian propaganda about America’s cities being promulgated every day on Fox News. But there is another deeply alarming possibility to consider. This November will be the first since the expiration of a 1982 consent decree in which the Republican National Committee will be freed to conduct voter suppression and intimidation en masse. As Andy Kroll recently explained at Rolling Stone: The result of the suit was a 1982 consent decree between the Democratic and Republican parties. Even though the RNC refused to admit wrong-doing in New Jersey, the group agreed to stop harassing and intimidating voters of color, including by deputizing off-duty law-enforcement officers and equipping those officers with guns or badges. Over the next three decades, Democrats marshaled enough evidence of ongoing Republican voter suppression to maintain the consent decree until 2018, when a federal judge lifted the order. The 2020 presidential election will be the first in nearly 40 years when the RNC isn’t bound by the terms of the 1982 decree. Clark, the Trump campaign lawyer, told the group of Republicans at the private meeting last November that the end of the consent decree was “a huge, huge, huge, huge deal,” freeing the RNC to directly coordinate with campaigns and political committees on so-called Election Day operations. The RNC is sending millions of dollars to state Republican parties to vastly expand these measures, which include recruiting 50,000 poll observers to deploy in key precincts. So consider the following facts: 1) The Republican National Committee under Trump is set to deploy tens of thousands of likely armed, unbadged goons to try to intimidate voters of color from exercising their right of suffrage; 2) Both Border Patrol and ICE are functioning as largely unaccountable enforcers of the president’s personal whims and interpretations of law, detaining citizens for hours without explanation or formal charges, and operating in direct conflict with local mayors and governors; 3) Border Patrol and ICE both have stridently bigoted, conservative organizational cultures hostile to most people of color and more liberal, urban areas generally–and they are well aware that their powers will likely be curtailed under a possible future Democratic administration; 4) Trump continues to ramp up rhetoric against nonexistent “voter fraud” in liberal areas. His focus has primarily been on vote-by-mail as a result of the COVID pandemic, but imaginary in-person voter impersonation fraud among communities of color in Democratic-leaning cities has long been a Republican obsession. A senior legal adviser to the Trump campaign recently declared that Trump would win even California if voting were “fair,” showing just how deeply the conspiratorial thinking around this issue runs in top GOP circles. 5) Acting Department of Homeland Security chief Chad Wolf appears to have no constraints on his behavior or his overheated rhetoric, and that the Trump Administration is planning to scale up the use of border patrol agents as a conservative paramilitary nationwide. 6) Donald Trump and his campaign team know by now that absent some explosive scandal around Biden or other unpredictable event to change the fundamentals of the race, the president’s only path to victory lies not in persuading a majority of voters but in choosing his own electorate by suppressing the votes of the majority of Americans who despise him. https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/here-are-6-signs-trump-may-use-dhs-stormtroopers-to-stop-democrats-from-voting/

Think of Trump's behaviours this way: his bullying, lying, racism and fascism has gotten him to be the head of an overvalued but large corporation, the presidency and trophy wives with few consequences for 60 years. Why would he change now?

(sounds of crickets)

Don't Blame Protesters For The Rise In Violent Crime. The president is peddling a debunked myth about the relationship between police morale and homicide rates. Since the start of the protests ignited by the police killing of George Floyd in May, cities across the country have seen an alarming spike in violent crime. In New York, 64 people were shot over the Fourth of July weekend. Brooklyn’s Canarsie neighborhood had three drive-by shootings in a single day. In total, the recent shootings in New York City represent a 210% increase over the same time period in 2019. Other cities are showing similar trends. In Dallas, violent crime has increased more than 14% since April. Philadelphia has already logged 210 homicides in 2020, the highest death toll since 2007. Police and politicians have blamed protesters for the rise in violence. “There is a feeling on the street that the police are handcuffed, that they are not out there as aggressively as we were in the past,” New York Police Department Chief Terence Monahan said on a local radio show this week. “All the rhetoric of ‘Defund the police,’ get rid of the police, abolish the police, that’s got to end. That has to stop” President Donald Trump claimed this week that Chicago, where shootings have also increased, was “worse than any war zone” and that a “vicious assault” on police officers was to blame for the rise in crime. But while the increase in crime is real, there is no evidence to suggest that the protests are to blame. https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/dont-blame-the-rise-in-violent-crime-on-protesters_n_5f122c8bc5b6cec246c294f3?ri18n=true

Trump is desperate now and resorting to anything that holds a possibility of turning his fortunes around. He is convinced that destroying Obamacare (the ACA) will do it. Whenever Trump is cornered, he doubles down and lies.

Unfortunately, in this instance, Trump was correct, but for all the wrong reasons. He has screwed up so many things.

I Was a Military COVID Planner. Trust Me: Texas Is in Deep, Deep Trouble Things are pretty bad right now in the Lone Star State. But the real pain is likely to come during hurricane season, when as many as 19 named storms are projected to hit. Like many of my fellow Texans, I was shocked when Senator Ted Cruz was recently spotted not wearing a mask on a flight from Dallas to Houston as COVID-19 cases were spiking across the state. Pandemic petulance is pretty on brand for the junior senator, but his latest fit of obstinacy comes at a particularly dangerous time: hurricane season. This is a personal issue for me. Up until my recent retirement from the Army, I served as a COVID-19 crisis planner at NORTHCOM in Colorado Springs. I was part of the team managing this crisis since January, when we first started evacuating U.S. citizens out of China. Further, my active duty military career was bifurcated by a stint in the Army Reserves. During that time, I worked in Emergency Management at the state and local level in Texas. I was in the Texas Emergency Operations Center on Sept. 11, and I’ve worked disasters all over, including several hurricanes. And a hurricane in the middle of a pandemic was very much on our minds at NORTHCOM. We started calling it the COVICANE. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is calling for an above-average Atlantic Hurricane Season this year with a possibility of 19 named storms. We based some of our planning off Hurricane Harvey, which struck Cruz’s hometown of Houston in 2017. Typically, the National Guard and some active duty forces respond to hurricanes to provide things like search and rescue, engineering, and medical support. Rooftop helicopter rescues make for dramatic footage, but the truth is that the military does not do the bulk of the work. Instead, volunteer organizations like the Red Cross lead the effort by managing shelters, feeding the hungry, and processing displaced families. My team looked at how COVID-19 might impact volunteers. What we found was scary. https://www.thedailybeast.com/i-was-a-military-covid-planner-trust-me-texas-is-in-deep-deep-trouble?ref=home

WORKS FOR ME!

I watched the Rider-RedBlacks replay last night and really enjoyed it, but it reminded me how much I miss CFL games. Dammit.

And a darned good blocker, too.

Barr has shown that he will implement actions based on a very flimsy interpretation of law or convention.

A chiiling thought has occurred to me: what if Trump and his sycophants have decided to let the current pandemic build into a nation-wide acute crisis so that they can "delay" the pending election indefinitely by declaring a national state of emergency. No doubt there is this sort of contingency built into US law and Barr would support this.

That says all you need to know about the Cheeto in chief in the White House.

The problem with Viagra is that if you swallow it too slowly, you get a stiff neck.

Police Union Boss Won’t Talk About That QAnon Mug He Keeps Putting On TV The FBI considers the far-right QAnon conspiracy movement to be a potential domestic terrorism threat. Ed Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, appears Thursday on Fox News with a black "QAnon" coffee mug behind him. The head of one of New York City’s largest police unions appeared on Fox News twice this week with a “QAnon” coffee mug but claims to have no knowledge of the extremist cult. Ed Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, was invited on Fox News on Monday and Friday to discuss crime in New York City. During both appearances, Mullins could be seen speaking from the same office where, sitting on what looks like a printer or scanner behind him, is a black coffee mug bearing a giant red-white-and-blue “Q.” The mug is also inscribed with the word “QAnon,” as well as the letters “WWG1WGA,” an acronym for “Where We Go One, We Go All,” the signature slogan of QAnon, a far-right conspiracy movement. https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/ed-mullins-qanon-mug-fox-news-police-union-boss_n_5f1228fbc5b6cec246c2920e?ri18n=true

.No, no, no. The dwarf was for sale on the darkweb.

It is just a matter of time until Trump erupts. It will be explained by his lackeys as a reasonable response to all the attacks and unfair treatment he has been getting.

Federal Agents Invade Portland, Citing Trump’s Executive Order Protecting Statues. The Border Patrol says it has authority to “conduct arrests” in Portland. Portland has been invaded by federal agents—including unidentified, camouflage-clad officers who have emerged from unmarked minivans to arrest protesters. These officers have reportedly refused to say what agency they work for. But their supposed authority to police Oregon’s largest city and make arrests appears to rest on a June 26 executive order by President Donald Trump calling for the protection of statues, monuments, and federal property. Black Lives Matter protests in Portland have continued this month, drawing attention from Trump, who falsely described the city as “totally out of control.” Trump also threatened this week to “take over” cities he claims are suffering from crime sprees. Agents from US Marshals Service, Federal Protective Service, Homeland Security Investigations, and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have been in Portland since early this month. But on July 14, protesters began to document instances in which armed agents wearing masks and military-style fatigues emerged from unmarked vehicles, detained protesters with no explanation, and drove away. https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2020/07/federal-agents-portland-border-patrol-chad-wolf-statues/ ( This is stunning. Trump is using border patrol agents as his private militia and the border patrol has already stated that they are not answerable to the courts. They are functioning as secret police apart from the FBI or regular police forces)

Overwhelmed and Terrified’: Las Vegas’ Reopening Backfires Terribly Casinos have been open for weeks—undeterred by 123 visitors who tested positive, a Caesars employee who died and a hospital system reaching breaking point. As the coronavirus pandemic continues to pummel the United States, Las Vegas seems to be operating business as usual. Casinos have been open since June 4—undeterred by the 123 visitors who have tested positive for the highly contagious virus and the 51-year-old Caesars employee who died in late June. But it’s not business as usual for doctors and nurses in Las Vegas’ besieged health-care system, who say they are “overwhelmed and terrified” about the massive influx of new cases in a state officially deemed a “red zone” by the White House. “I would say in the last month we’ve been completely overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients and our hospital is running out of space,” one Las Vegas emergency room doctor, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of professional retaliation, told The Daily Beast on Friday. “Not only are we overwhelmed and terrified, but based on the numbers for the rest of the country, it’s only going to get worse for us.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/las-vegas-casino-reopening-backfires-as-covid-19-surges-in-nevada?ref=home

Kayleigh McEnany lashes out at the press for accurately quoting her saying ‘science should not stand in the way’ of school openings White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany lashed out at the media on Thursday after she garnered criticism for her remarks about science and decisions on school reopenings. Speaking during the afternoon’s press briefing, McEnany stumbled into a gaffe when she urged schools across the country reopen despite the ongoing pandemic and said: “The science should not stand in the way of this.” This sounded as though she thought schools should reopen regardless of what the science says. The slip-up clearly played into one of the consistent criticisms of the Trump administration — and the GOP more broadly — that it refuses to accept scientific conclusions it finds ideologically inconvenient. She seemed to be aware in the moment, though, that she might have put herself in an indefensible position. So she added shortly after: “The science is very clear on this. For instance, you look at the JAMA Pediatrics study of 46 pediatric hospitals in North America that said the risk of critical illness from covid is far less for children than that of seasonal flu. The science is on our side here.” So McEnany bristled when news outlets focused on her first poorly phrased reference to science: https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/kayleigh-mcenany-lashes-out-at-the-press-for-accurately-quoting-her-saying-science-should-not-stand-in-the-way-of-school-openings/

YaaaY! I've been desperately missing fungi capable of suoer warp speed.