Link. Yes, only words and words are cheap. However, you get these words from Biden. No such words have ever, nor will ever, come from Trump/Pence. The old saying, "Actions speak louder than words," we'd all die of old age waiting for any Trump family member to act toward the goals Biden's advanced, they've been in control and those policies would cut against the family's greed and interests, so go figure.
Even if Biden gives a lukewarm try and fails, he's not Trump. And if in his latter years he has his heart into what he proposes; the benefit of that would be stupendous.
You have to trust one or the other, and I never trusted a thing about "reality" TV.
UPDATE: About a link alone, here at Crabgrass, with no follow-up quote or reposting of original item links: The report itself is ably sourced based upon linked material. Go to it and follow whatever linking rings your bell.
Other interesting MarketWatch content: children and house plants, here. Mary Trump free to go on a book-signing tour, here.
_____________FURTHER UPDATE______________
In terms of that tax plan, and whether it is more than blowing smoke the easy way, DWT has a discouraging post, but one saying go into the voting booth, or mail a ballot, but do not expect much beyond warmed over garbage, with Joe. Be surprised if it turns out better, but the donors up front were told by Biden, "Nothing Will Fundamentally Change" - and they are seasoned investors buying with confidence in having gotten that Joey promise up front.
Being surprised if better than that, great. But expect that.
The phenom of "Never Trump" stuff from Trump advisor Conway's spouse does not augur well. It is as if "bipartisan" Joe has promised to actually dance to Paul Ryan's tune if he gets GOP love; and the donor class has the GOP owned aside from the tolerated Tea Party types. The GOP presence in setting policy as prepared by it is beyond doubt via considering the GOP advertisements that DWT embeds in its post. It is VERY depressing. Karen Bass is a beam of light among the darkness if tagged as Joe's VP, but Val Demings or Sen. Harris will more likely be the affirmation that the Republicans following the donor class toward Biden will get what they and the donors want. As was the outcome with Obama.
Telling the story, from that DWT post, this image. As already posted here at Crabgrass, I endorse Biden as lesser evil, but I will no longer vote for evil. I will sit this one out. A VP choice better than Demings or Harris will be an encouragement, but you vote for the top of a ticket, not for second fiddle.
It is a stinker of a two-party Big Donor run pairing. But so was 2016. Where we probably got the lesser evil.
The hand of Clyburn in the South Carolina and other southern primary voting is resented. Bernie offered so much more. On the surface you would not see Bloomberg and Clyburn as opposite sides of the same coin. But that is how it is and was, during the primaries.
Here is a thought experiment running 2016 and 2020 together. Who's the lesser evil among the Clintons, Biden and Trump? Sad as the situation is, Biden probably is the lesser evil.
Tuesday, July 14, 2020
Two things - Black Lives Matter street mural in NYC -and- pro bono experienced former prosecutors joining the Ellison AG team for the George Floyd prosecutions of the four cops involved in Floyd's death.
Also, no link needed, the judge on the case has issued a gag order for all parties to lessen the chance of bias to jury pools.
Black Lives Matter mural.
Bolstering the prosecution team via pro bono additions.
Black Lives Matter mural.
Bolstering the prosecution team via pro bono additions.
Monday, July 13, 2020
The bulwark publishes - Trump’s Presidency Is About to Enter Chapter 11 - As the walls close in on him, what will Trump do? by Nicholas Grossman - July 6, 2020 5:13 am
Quoting:
[links in original omitted]
UPDATE: One link in Grossman's article is to ACLU content on voter suppression.
[...] Because states run elections, voter suppression isn’t something the president can do by himself, so he’s working to encourage it. There are the usual techniques of purging voter rolls, shrinking voting times, and closing polling places in more urban, less white, more Democratic areas.
But Trump is fixated on vote by mail.
The pandemic created more challenges for voting. Mail-in ballots offer a straightforward solution, but solving it is clearly not the president’s goal.
Trump has been denouncing vote by mail for months, falsely claiming it’s a common avenue for fraud. Bill Barr claimed without evidence — or, when you think about it, logic — that foreign countries would mail in counterfeit ballots. The reason they’re making these accusations isn’t subtle. As President Trump said on Fox & Friends about expanding vote by mail, “If you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
He’s obviously wrong about that. This is a large country and never is a long time. But normal Trumpian exaggeration aside, there’s no evidence mail-in ballots give either party an advantage.
There’s the pandemic factor to consider, though. Voting by mail is popular and Trump is on the wrong side of the issue. Why would he do that? Because he is betting that limiting vote by mail will impact Democrat-leaning urbanites more than Republican-leaning senior citizens.
And this strategy dovetails nicely with his efforts to downplay the coronavirus. Polls show that Democrats view COVID-19 as more of a serious issue than Republicans do.
[...] It’s been four tiring years. Running as an outsider is more fun than running as an incumbent. And neither he nor his supporters hate Joe Biden like they hated Hillary Clinton. Even the rallies and Fox interviews aren’t as ego-boosting as they once were. So instead of plotting an elaborate cheat or hoping for a miracle, maybe Trump turns the strategic goal of his campaign from winning the election to setting up his post-presidency and protecting himself, his kids, and their money.
I don’t buy theories that Trump doesn’t want to be president and is hoping to lose. Being president means he can tell people what to do, powerful people show him respect, he gets tons of attention, and he’s effectively above the law. You think he’d give all that up if he didn’t have to?
Trump reportedly expected to lose in 2016 and didn’t mind, because running boosted his brand and set up lucrative media opportunities. And that scenario could still be operable if he plays his cards right.
Donald Trump talks about #winning so much that people often forget that one of the defining aspects of his life have been his bankruptcies.
Going bankrupt taught Trump a very important lesson: If you fail, make sure other people pay the price.
Trump’s companies have declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy six times, and he sometimes managed to make money for himself even as the business went broke. With his Atlantic City casinos, Trump had the company pay him millions in salary and bonuses before filing for Chapter 11, stiffing contractors and creditors, and leaving his partners holding the bag. Stock and bond holders lost over $1.5 billion. And, using now-illegal accounting tricks, Trump even managed to get hundreds of millions in tax write-offs for himself.
Well, Trump’s presidency is going bankrupt. Which means that he will put himself first and get out with as much as he can, screwing over whoever he has to on the way out the door. In this scenario, after losing the election Trump would focus more on issuing pardons and setting up new business ventures than trying to remain in power.
[...] Except for this: can a president pardon himself? Lawyers are on various sides of that question, and it hasn’t been tested. Maybe we’ll find out.
Or maybe Trump will resign in January so Pence can pardon him.
[links in original omitted]
UPDATE: One link in Grossman's article is to ACLU content on voter suppression.
The Occupy movement was about the rest of us being screwed by the oligarchs. The George Floyd protests were about a segment of US being screwed worse by the oligarchs than what was done to others.
One contention was snuffed mercilessly, the other recognizing racism as a real problem.
The glide and slide in all that is an entrenched propaganda effort to divert attention from the big truth to a sub-truth. From the essence of the problem to extra plight in a sub-problem.
Figure out what's being manipulated in all that, and pulling down statues is a "so what" very minor dimension of the ongoing oppression by the oligarchs against the people. Against US.
Diversion of attention, the "nothing to see here" ploy, hinges upon a gullibility among too many of the oppressed and overburdened to see only their burden, with oligarch propaganda outlets all to happy to feed such tunnel vision.
Identity politics IS tunnel vision, and it is being fed and whipped into frenzy mode, to distract from more fruitful avenues of reform.
Eyes on the prize. King fought racism and had allies. He moved on to generic class oppression and was assassinated. Figure that out. Malcolm, after the haj experience expanded beyond the "White man is the devil" message, and was assassinated. Regardless of whoever pulled triggers, those engineering the deaths are the true criminals in the stories. Do you believe the official versions of much of any mischief, written after the fact, offering lame shadows of truth and releasing clearly incomplete or false information and then grounding a story on a partial set of real facts, with mixed in falsehood. Twin towers dropped dead square into their footprints, and a third tower downed, also into its footprint, hours later with no claim of airplane involvement. Might there just be more to the story? Lone gunmen? Then bandy the term "conspiracy theory" as a pejorative against doubt, and not as a sane range and dimension of speculation where "official" conclusions border on or reach presumptuousness. Never mind "voter fraud" as REPUBLICANS sing repeatedly, or "Russian interference" as popular with the Clintons' choir. Do you ever know who won or lost an election when you did not count the votes?
Who had King killed? The Kennedys? Malcolm? What is the nature and extent of any "swamp" to be drained? If ignoring such foundational questions, glib stories are not in short supply.
The glide and slide in all that is an entrenched propaganda effort to divert attention from the big truth to a sub-truth. From the essence of the problem to extra plight in a sub-problem.
Figure out what's being manipulated in all that, and pulling down statues is a "so what" very minor dimension of the ongoing oppression by the oligarchs against the people. Against US.
Diversion of attention, the "nothing to see here" ploy, hinges upon a gullibility among too many of the oppressed and overburdened to see only their burden, with oligarch propaganda outlets all to happy to feed such tunnel vision.
Identity politics IS tunnel vision, and it is being fed and whipped into frenzy mode, to distract from more fruitful avenues of reform.
Eyes on the prize. King fought racism and had allies. He moved on to generic class oppression and was assassinated. Figure that out. Malcolm, after the haj experience expanded beyond the "White man is the devil" message, and was assassinated. Regardless of whoever pulled triggers, those engineering the deaths are the true criminals in the stories. Do you believe the official versions of much of any mischief, written after the fact, offering lame shadows of truth and releasing clearly incomplete or false information and then grounding a story on a partial set of real facts, with mixed in falsehood. Twin towers dropped dead square into their footprints, and a third tower downed, also into its footprint, hours later with no claim of airplane involvement. Might there just be more to the story? Lone gunmen? Then bandy the term "conspiracy theory" as a pejorative against doubt, and not as a sane range and dimension of speculation where "official" conclusions border on or reach presumptuousness. Never mind "voter fraud" as REPUBLICANS sing repeatedly, or "Russian interference" as popular with the Clintons' choir. Do you ever know who won or lost an election when you did not count the votes?
Who had King killed? The Kennedys? Malcolm? What is the nature and extent of any "swamp" to be drained? If ignoring such foundational questions, glib stories are not in short supply.
Jolly Roger.
YouTube. From months before the commutation. Try it. See how far you get before quitting on it. I got to eight minutes, forty seconds, with it in background mode while writing the post and thinking about what to write, whether to link to the "I am not an inmate" image, all that. However, I thankfully did not stop it there, and got to the final sentence - worth the wait, to me, as saying so much more truth beyond the words used.
From far away the smell is clear, and it is on the web, not in a pasture. It's the odor of voter suppression intent. REPUBLICAN voter suppression intent! Let's be honest, instead.
Strib carries what seems a local and not a national-feed op-ed, but not identified clearly as one or the other: "Editorial counterpoint: Mail-in voting would undermine election integrity - The risk for ballot harvesting is high and we can't let that happen. - By Justin Clark - July 10, 2020 — 5:30pm"
First, the turth. The two-party stranglehold on the nation together with money running politics has already undermined election integrity so that nothing else really matters. The meter needle is already pinned to "crooked and disappointing" and cannot budge further.
That said, the perp is not some neutral savant. The item footer: "Justin Clark is senior adviser and senior counsel to Donald J. Trump for President, Inc."
Without reading a word between the two captions, one already knows it's a hymn to screwing voters out of their rights to vote, if likely to vote against REPUBLICANS. These pathological folks fear the electorate and want to CHEAT. Voter suppression is nothing but CHEATING and should be quelled.
That said, local content appears the case, from text in the item:
What a sleazeball. Sophistry is one of the gentlest words coming to mind over this garbage. All this same crap had to have been trotted out in the same wording when poll taxes were stricken and when at the turn of the Twentieth Century women were given the vote.
The biggest steaming pile? "There is something satisfying about trooping to a precinct place with your neighbors, popping your ballot into the machine and getting that little iconic ‘I Voted’ sticker."
Get real. It's a waste of time not needed to be wasted and we know REPUBLICANS will tout anything that suppresses voting likely going to the Dems, such as distant polling places, slow processing with long lines, hope for foul weather, etc. with lengthening the time it takes to hold the nose and pick a lesser evil being REPUBLICAN DOGMA.
Picking a lesser-evil by mail is less hassle when the "choice" is to choose a lesser evil from the two-party menu of two evils. This election, like the 2016 two-party stinker, is going to be for certain a lesser-evil top of the ballot thing, (Biden being a lesser evil than the Clintons - but still ...). To whine "election integrity" as a reason to burden citizen voting more than is necessary is not only absurd, but flat-out hateful.
If wanting "election integrity" let's have three or four parties. Over my lifetime lesser evil has been the serving from Democratic Party and Republican Party, and "integrity" too frequently has been absent from either party's offering. And it's gotten worse over time.
Presuming this Justin Clark is a Minnesotan, I'd like to make the SOB vote from North Dakota. In retaliation for his being so transparently a right wing idiot, and not even special that way.
First, the turth. The two-party stranglehold on the nation together with money running politics has already undermined election integrity so that nothing else really matters. The meter needle is already pinned to "crooked and disappointing" and cannot budge further.
That said, the perp is not some neutral savant. The item footer: "Justin Clark is senior adviser and senior counsel to Donald J. Trump for President, Inc."
Without reading a word between the two captions, one already knows it's a hymn to screwing voters out of their rights to vote, if likely to vote against REPUBLICANS. These pathological folks fear the electorate and want to CHEAT. Voter suppression is nothing but CHEATING and should be quelled.
That said, local content appears the case, from text in the item:
Ballot harvesting, which allows anybody to collect voters’ ballots to turn into a polling location, is especially susceptible to fraud and sets a dangerous precedent. It allows anyone, including political operatives and campaign staff, to show up and take possession of a voters’ completed ballot for delivery.
The assertion by Minnesota’s DFL secretary of state Steve Simon that requiring voters to request an absentee ballot “just forces voters to take one more step,” and requiring this extra step “costs the state more money,” rings hollow when weighed against the importance of protecting the integrity of our elections.
Protecting each and every citizen’s vote must come ahead of any desire to loosen election security protocols.
[...] It sets a dangerous precedent if we allow for tangential excuses to alter the very foundation of our election process.
Finally, the board attempts to suppress the vote in its own right, painting the idea of in-person voting as daunting, and an unacceptable danger.
“There is something satisfying about trooping to a precinct place with your neighbors, popping your ballot into the machine and getting that little iconic ‘I Voted’ sticker as a testament to your good citizen status,” the Editorial Board quips. “But many Minnesotans may want or need to make a different calculation this time, opting to keep themselves and others safe,” alluding to the idea that if you do choose to vote in person, you are not only risking your own life, but you are also being selfish toward others.
It’s an irresponsible tone, and message, to send to voters during a time of uncertainty. The integrity of our elections shouldn’t be a partisan issue, but unfortunately, Democrats have turned it into one.
What a sleazeball. Sophistry is one of the gentlest words coming to mind over this garbage. All this same crap had to have been trotted out in the same wording when poll taxes were stricken and when at the turn of the Twentieth Century women were given the vote.
The biggest steaming pile? "There is something satisfying about trooping to a precinct place with your neighbors, popping your ballot into the machine and getting that little iconic ‘I Voted’ sticker."
Get real. It's a waste of time not needed to be wasted and we know REPUBLICANS will tout anything that suppresses voting likely going to the Dems, such as distant polling places, slow processing with long lines, hope for foul weather, etc. with lengthening the time it takes to hold the nose and pick a lesser evil being REPUBLICAN DOGMA.
Picking a lesser-evil by mail is less hassle when the "choice" is to choose a lesser evil from the two-party menu of two evils. This election, like the 2016 two-party stinker, is going to be for certain a lesser-evil top of the ballot thing, (Biden being a lesser evil than the Clintons - but still ...). To whine "election integrity" as a reason to burden citizen voting more than is necessary is not only absurd, but flat-out hateful.
If wanting "election integrity" let's have three or four parties. Over my lifetime lesser evil has been the serving from Democratic Party and Republican Party, and "integrity" too frequently has been absent from either party's offering. And it's gotten worse over time.
Presuming this Justin Clark is a Minnesotan, I'd like to make the SOB vote from North Dakota. In retaliation for his being so transparently a right wing idiot, and not even special that way.
Sunday, July 12, 2020
Slush funding for Jesus, and those little-boy diddlers.
Perhaps a harsh headline, but Strib carries an AP feed beginning:
[italics added] If a separation of church and state lawsuit were to be filed reaching this current Supreme Court, how would you guess the result and what odds would you give? Recent decisions as they are? Any guess at Joe Biden's feelings on that money going that way?
UPDATE: The item is a lengthy, detailed factual report where, several paragraphs after the above quote it was reported:
[italics added] Taxpayer money. Are you awaiting accountability, or just shrugging your shoulders waiting for November? And don't you despise theater lines where some feel privileged to cut in front of you in line? Me firsters, damn the rest?
FURTHER: Meritorious Covid-19 impacted small businesses slow on pulling the trigger are not the only entities suffering while Jesus jockeys reaped billions. This local-content Strib report documents more small business owners neglected by the Trump/pence - Congressional - administrative-agency hanky-panky bullshit. Mark Dayton after his one Senate term where he declined to run again did call DC "a cesspool." Does any reader have a different view, given 1980 and onward? "Crooked as a ram's horn" is a phrase I recall my mother using from time to time. Some say, " . . . as a dog's hind leg." Whatever the metaphor, the implication is explicit.
FURTHER: Nark Dayton. For something being "a cesspool" to him must really be bad; given how he early in his first term along with Republican state leadership used shutdown diversionary worry to kill his "Tax the Rich" campaign promising. Words are cheap. Mark Datyon, who was Tina Smith's trampoline into the U.S. of A. Senate after Franken got jobbed. We live in interesting times.
FURTHER: With all the inflation the government's up to, cheapening the dollar by flooding them out the door to friends, the Trump-voting white old farts will wake up and look at retirement savings dwindling in real value while the young face wage freeze with prices soaring, and folks will ask, "Who took the money, who took the money away?" Wondering, how it does not make sense. Poetry in song allows lyrics to mean different things to different people, except to Republicans who only understand Frank Sinatra. Lovable Republican puffballs.
Something sobering in a passing reference in the earlier linked Strib Twin Cites - FEMA report, this:
Besides impeaching the myth of Obama, friend of the people and their suffering, that excerpt does say from 1992 to today the dollar had been jobbed to half its 1992 value! And wages kept up, yes/no? We do live in interesting times. Governed by kind-hearted, wise rulers. Two parties, so cast your vote: One Tweedle or the other. As Heller wrote, Everybody owns a share.
NEW YORK — The U.S. Roman Catholic Church used a special and unprecedented exemption from federal rules to amass at least $1.4 billion in taxpayer-backed coronavirus aid, with many millions going to dioceses that have paid huge settlements or sought bankruptcy protection because of clergy sexual abuse cover-ups.
The church’s haul may have reached -- or even exceeded -- $3.5 billion, making a global religious institution with more than a billion followers among the biggest winners in the U.S. government’s pandemic relief efforts, an Associated Press analysis of federal data released this week found.
Houses of worship and faith-based organizations that promote religious beliefs aren’t usually eligible for money from the U.S. Small Business Administration. But as the economy plummeted and jobless rates soared, Congress let faith groups and other nonprofits tap into the Paycheck Protection Program, a $659 billion fund created to keep Main Street open and Americans employed.
By aggressively promoting the payroll program and marshaling resources to help affiliates navigate its shifting rules, Catholic dioceses, parishes, schools and other ministries have so far received approval for at least 3,500 forgivable loans, AP found.
The Archdiocese of New York, for example, received 15 loans worth at least $28 million just for its top executive offices. Its iconic St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue was approved for at least $1 million.
In Orange County, California, where a sparkling glass cathedral estimated to cost over $70 million recently opened, diocesan officials working at the complex received four loans worth at least $3 million.
[italics added] If a separation of church and state lawsuit were to be filed reaching this current Supreme Court, how would you guess the result and what odds would you give? Recent decisions as they are? Any guess at Joe Biden's feelings on that money going that way?
UPDATE: The item is a lengthy, detailed factual report where, several paragraphs after the above quote it was reported:
CASHING IN FAST
After its lobbying blitz, the Catholic Church worked with parishes and schools to access the money.
Many dioceses -- from large ones such as the Archdiocese of Boston to smaller ones such as the Diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin -- assembled how-to guides to help their affiliates apply. The national Catholic fiscal conference also hosted multiple webinars with legal and financial experts to help coach along local leaders.
Federal data show that the bulk of the church’s money was approved during the loan program’s first two weeks. That’s when demand for the first-come, first-served assistance was so high that the initial $349 billion was quickly exhausted, shutting out many local businesses.
Overall, nearly 500 loans approved to Catholic entities exceeded $1 million each. The AP found that at least eight hit the maximum range of $5 million to $10 million. Many of the listed recipients were the offices of bishops, headquarters of leading religious orders, major churches, schools and chapters of Catholic Charities.
Also among recipients was the Saint Luke Institute. The Catholic treatment center for priests accused of sexual abuse and those suffering from other disorders received a loan ranging from $350,000 to $1 million. Based in Silver Spring, Maryland, the institute has at times been a way station for priests accused of sexual abuse who returned to active ministry only to abuse again.
[italics added] Taxpayer money. Are you awaiting accountability, or just shrugging your shoulders waiting for November? And don't you despise theater lines where some feel privileged to cut in front of you in line? Me firsters, damn the rest?
FURTHER: Meritorious Covid-19 impacted small businesses slow on pulling the trigger are not the only entities suffering while Jesus jockeys reaped billions. This local-content Strib report documents more small business owners neglected by the Trump/pence - Congressional - administrative-agency hanky-panky bullshit. Mark Dayton after his one Senate term where he declined to run again did call DC "a cesspool." Does any reader have a different view, given 1980 and onward? "Crooked as a ram's horn" is a phrase I recall my mother using from time to time. Some say, " . . . as a dog's hind leg." Whatever the metaphor, the implication is explicit.
FURTHER: Nark Dayton. For something being "a cesspool" to him must really be bad; given how he early in his first term along with Republican state leadership used shutdown diversionary worry to kill his "Tax the Rich" campaign promising. Words are cheap. Mark Datyon, who was Tina Smith's trampoline into the U.S. of A. Senate after Franken got jobbed. We live in interesting times.
FURTHER: With all the inflation the government's up to, cheapening the dollar by flooding them out the door to friends, the Trump-voting white old farts will wake up and look at retirement savings dwindling in real value while the young face wage freeze with prices soaring, and folks will ask, "Who took the money, who took the money away?" Wondering, how it does not make sense. Poetry in song allows lyrics to mean different things to different people, except to Republicans who only understand Frank Sinatra. Lovable Republican puffballs.
Something sobering in a passing reference in the earlier linked Strib Twin Cites - FEMA report, this:
While there are no recent examples of FEMA aiding cities hit by rioting, its response in 1992 to Los Angeles was a major counterexample. Within a week of the riots, President George H.W. Bush had declared Los Angeles a federal disaster area, and within a month the government began distributing $638 million in assistance to the city, according to the New York Times. Adjusted for inflation, that’s $1.2 billion in today’s dollars.
In 2015, however, FEMA, under the Obama administration, denied aid to the state of Maryland after rioting in Baltimore over the death of Freddie Gray, a Black man who died in police custody. Maryland appealed the decision and was again rejected.
Besides impeaching the myth of Obama, friend of the people and their suffering, that excerpt does say from 1992 to today the dollar had been jobbed to half its 1992 value! And wages kept up, yes/no? We do live in interesting times. Governed by kind-hearted, wise rulers. Two parties, so cast your vote: One Tweedle or the other. As Heller wrote, Everybody owns a share.
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