October 24, 2020

The Rude Pundit: Biden Wipes Trump's Cards Off the Table

https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2020/10/biden-wipes-trumps-cards-off-table.html


The Rude Pundit
Proudly lowering the level of political discourse
10/23/2020
Biden Wipes Trump's Cards Off the Table

snip//


Take, for instance, on the simple issue of compassion. Biden not only did his usual speaking to the camera to speak to average Americans watching (which is theatrical, of course, but no more so than Trump's fake "I'm not a politician" schtick), but he offered an understanding of so many different kinds of American pain. "The fact of the matter is, there is institutional racism in America. And we have always said, we’ve never lived up to it, that we hold these truths to be self-evident, all men and women are created equal," Biden said after talking about what Black parents and their kids have to through when it comes to dealing with cops. Biden also found sympathy for people who live near polluting chemical and oil plants, saying that he lived near them when he was a teen in Delaware and "That’s why so many people in my state were dying and getting cancer."

But more importantly than anything else, Biden demonstrated clearly that he just simply gets what is most prominent on Americans' minds: how savagely fucked the nation has been by both COVID-19 and Trump's response to it. He talked about the constant flow of false promises and bullshit hopes from Trump: "The fact is that when we knew it was coming, when it hit, what happened? What did the President say? He said, 'Don’t worry. It’s going to go away. It’ll be gone by Easter. Don’t worry. Warm weather. Don’t worry'...even today, he thinks we are in control. We’re about to lose 200,000 more people." And Biden laid out quite clearly everything that needs to be done, the funding that schools and businesses will need, the reliance on science when it comes to potential shutdowns, and more. All of sudden, in the midst of one of the worst pandemics in human history, a potential American leader said to the current one, "Yeah, you can have a fuckin' plan, numbnuts." Instead, Trump keeps bumblefucking us into the dark winter ahead that he denies will happen.

Biden also just had some great lines last night. There was the Abraham Lincoln line and flatly saying about Trump, "He doesn’t understand this" about those poor people living in areas dangerous to their health and "We’re going to choose science over fiction." While Biden may not be as far left as we want him on health care yet, it was genuinely bold and progressive of him to state what is obvious on handling climate change: Oil is done and we need to transition out of it and into cleaner sources, where there will be a fuck-ton of jobs. Challenged by Trump on it in his bullying way with "That's a big statement," Biden didn't back down. "It is a big statement," he said. "Because the oil industry pollutes, significantly...it has to be replaced by renewable energy over time, over time, and I’d stopped giving to the oil industry, I’d stop giving them federal subsidies." As the man said, this is a big fucking deal, and you're gonna hear about this the rest of the campaign from Trump, as if Biden isn't absolutely right about oil.

Ultimately, Biden won because Trump played every fucking card he had - the supposed scandal (that was debunked by the Wall Street Journal today), that Biden's a puppet to Sanders or "AOC plus three" (which is such a fucking dumb phrase), that he,Trump, did everything he could on COVID, that Biden would tank the economy that's already tanked - and Biden just swept them off the table. He didn't even play the game of attacking Trump's family, which he could have done so simply as Trump attacked his.

Biden seemed like the goddamn president last night. And, holy fuck, it would be nice to have one again.

October 24, 2020

Biden calls for sevenfold increase in testing as he details COVID-19 plan

Biden calls for sevenfold increase in testing as he details COVID-19 plan
By Peter Sullivan - 10/23/20 04:04 PM EDT


Democratic nominee Joe Biden on Friday called for a sevenfold increase in the country’s testing, as he laid out further plans for fighting the pandemic in a speech taking aim at President Trump.

Biden is making the worsening pandemic a central theme in the closing days of the election, after hammering Trump on it throughout the campaign. He followed up Thursday night’s debate with a speech on the coronavirus response in Delaware on Friday.

In putting forward some further details of his proposals to fight the virus, Biden called for a dramatic increase in the nation’s testing.



Biden also said if elected, he would call on the new Congress to put a bill with resources to fight the virus on his desk by the end of January, “to see how both our public health and our economic response can be seen through the end.”

more...

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/522507-biden-calls-for-seven-fold-increase-in-testing-as-he-details-covid-plan

October 23, 2020

'I Want to Feel America' By Connie Schultz

'I Want to Feel America'
By Connie Schultz
October 22, 2020 6 min read


They waited in the pouring rain on Wednesday, six feet apart and some of them without umbrellas, to cast their ballots in central Florida.

One masked man caught the attention of another voter, and his video account made it to the ABC News Facebook page.



snip//

This is a hard time in our country. More than 220,000 people have died of COVID-19, and we are seeing new surges in the number of cases in many regions, including the county where I reside in Ohio. People are scared, and they are exhausted by this pandemic.

One might think this could lead to an electorate that is too distracted by fear and grief to care about voting.

One couldn't be more wrong.

The U.S. Elections Project is run by Michael McDonald, a professor at the University of Florida and an expert on early voting. As of 5:30 p.m. EST on Oct. 22, he reports 47,664,552 Americans have cast their ballots. As many news organizations are reporting, this is an astonishing number, and if it continues on this track, we are on our way to a record voter turnout in this election.

And that's exactly what we need.

It's impossible to overstate the importance of making this election a landslide victory for former Vice President Joe Biden.

more...

https://www.creators.com/read/connie-schultz/10/20/i-want-to-feel-america

October 23, 2020

Report finds coronavirus pandemic leading to 'unacceptable' shortage of US drug supplies

More winning!!


Report finds coronavirus pandemic leading to 'unacceptable' shortage of US drug supplies
By Celine Castronuovo - 10/23/20 10:38 AM EDT


A report released this week from the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota said that COVID-19-related drug shortages in the United States have reached “unacceptable” levels.

“Ensuring a Resilient US Prescription Drug Supply” is the sixth report in the center’s series titled, "COVID-19: The CIDRAP Viewpoint.”

The newest report, released Wednesday, found that 29 out of 40, or approximately 73 percent, of drug treatments for COVID-19 are experiencing shortages, including propofol, albuterol, midazolam, hydroxychloroquine, fentanyl, azithromycin and morphine, citing data from the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has reported that 45 percent, or 18 out of 40, of the drug treatments are on its official drug shortage list, according to CIDRAP.

The report added that 67 out of 156 critical acute drugs, including diazepam, phenobarbital, lidocaine and acetaminophen, are also in short supply.

more...

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/522434-report-finds-coronavirus-pandemic-leading-to-unacceptable-shortage-of-us

October 23, 2020

Amy Coney Barrett Is the Least Experienced Supreme Court Nominee in 30 years

Amy Coney Barrett Is the Least Experienced Supreme Court Nominee in 30 years
The Federalist Society has turned many mediocre men into judges—and a few smart moms.
Stephanie Mencimer


Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett took some heat from Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) during her confirmation hearing last week, when he pressed her on her failure to turn over additional relevant documents to the committee, including an anti-abortion newspaper ad she’d signed in 2006. Barrett responded that she had submitted 30 years’ worth of material to the committee, and that she had simply missed the 15-year-old ad. “I produced 1,800 pages of material,” she insisted, implying that this submission was voluminous.

In the world of Supreme Court nominees, however, 1,800 pages of documents barely registers as a footnote. Chief Justice John Roberts rustled up 75,000 pages of records for his 2005 confirmation hearing—just from his time serving in Republican administrations. The Senate reviewed about 170,000 pages of records before confirming Justice Elena Kagan and 180,000 for Justice Neil Gorsuch. No one even comes close to the document dump from Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The Senate Judiciary Committee waded through more than 1 million records during his 2018 confirmation fight, including a supplemental submission of 42,000 the night before his hearing started.

Page counts, of course, are not a perfect proxy for experience, but the relative paucity of Barrett’s is an indication of just how circumscribed her legal experience has been compared with virtually all of her predecessors—and even one nominee who was ultimately denied the position. The permanent record of the 48-year-old former Notre Dame law school professor is in direct proportion with her resume, which is strikingly thin for someone nominated to a lifetime position on the Supreme Court. By almost any objective measure, Barrett is the most inexperienced person nominated to the Supreme Court since 1991, when President George H.W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas, then just 43, to replace the legendary Thurgood Marshall.

Barrett’s limited CV did have an upside: It’s one reason that Republicans have been able to rush her confirmation hearings and vote on her nomination, which the Judiciary Committee did Thursday without a single Democrat in the room. (The full Senate will vote on it Monday.) There’s simply not that much in her record to review.

But Barrett’s insular professional history raises some pertinent questions about her nomination that go beyond how she might rule on hot-button social issues: How did a professor from a second-tier law school with such a shallow reservoir of experience manage to leapfrog to the top of the list of potential Republican Supreme Court nominees? And why were Republicans, who have spent decades obstructing legislation that would help women advance in the workplace, so eager to promote this particular under-credentialed, female candidate?

“How did she go from really good law professor to the short list?” asks Angie Maxwell, a political science professor at the University of Arkansas who studies conservative politics and feminism. “That’s not from being a law professor. That’s from partisan networks and groups she worked with, and that’s what’s concerning.”

more...

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/10/amy-coney-barrett-is-the-least-experienced-supreme-court-nominee-in-30-years/

October 23, 2020

Democrats Have Massive Lead In Early Vote

https://politicalwire.com/2020/10/23/democrats-have-massive-lead-in-early-vote/

Democrats Have Massive Lead In Early Vote
October 23, 2020 at 6:55 am EDT By Taegan Goddard

October 22, 2020

While Trump crows about a growing economy, 701 economists say Americans should vote him out

While Trump crows about a growing economy, 701 economists say Americans should vote him out
Meteor Blades
Daily Kos Staff
Thursday October 22, 2020 · 11:51 AM EDT


Next Thursday, the government will report growth in gross domestic product (GDP) for the third quarter, which ended Sept. 30. The median forecast of surveyed economic analysts is for a GDP growth of 31.8%, or 7.95% annually, a huge rise. Trumpspeak will, of course, be dedicated to the notion that this proves the economy is being quickly rebuilt into the-best-ever-in-American-history without a mention that the GDP rise comes on the heels of a GDP plunge of 31.4% in the second quarter. In fact, much in the news points to something quite far from best ever. For instance, the Federal Reserve’s report on economic activity known as the Beige Book called growth in most of the country “slight to modest.” The Conference Board’s leading economic indicators show growth, “but the decelerating pace of improvement suggests the U.S. economy could be losing momentum heading into the final quarter of 2020,” said Ataman Ozyildirim, the board’s senior director of economic research. Unemployment levels are devastating, with at least 10.7 million fewer American workers on the job now than in pre-pandemic February.

Whatever the outlook for the rest of the year, 701 economists, including seven Nobel laureates and others of prominence, are taking a longer view and have written a pointed open letter warning against reelecting the squatter in the White House. They wrote, “In just one term in office, Donald Trump has rendered the United States unrecognizable, and has faced no consequences for doing so. He has carried out a sustained assault on democratic institutions, put his family members in charge of critical government functions during a pandemic, called for his political opponents to be thrown in prison, normalized corruption, and weakened the economic recovery with selfish and reckless behavior. For these reasons, we strongly recommend that the electorate do what no one else can: reclaim your democracy by voting to remove Donald Trump from office."

Some excerpts from the letter:



Among the signers are Nobel laureates Paul Milgrom (2020), Oliver Hart (2016), Alvin Roth (2012), and George Akerlof, the 2001 Nobel-winning husband of former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen.

more...

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/10/22/1988587/-While-Trump-crows-about-a-growing-economy-701-economists-say-Americans-should-vote-him-out

October 22, 2020

Don Jr: Trump Campaign Will Have Someone At Presidential Debate To Heckle Kristen Welker

10/22/20 9:43am

Don Jr: Trump Campaign Will Have Someone At Presidential Debate To Heckle Kristen Welker
The Trump campaign is injecting intimidation in the heart of tonight's presidential debate. My only question is, will this person be a member of the Proud Boys or some other white supremacist militia group?
By John Amato
5 hours ago by Frances Langum


Trump's unhinged son joined Fox and Friends this morning, once again hopped up on something and armed with QAnon conspiracies.

Great family surrogate you got there, Mister so-called president.

But there was a surprise in the interview: Don Jr. admitted that the Trump campaign will have someone in the debate hall to attack and cause chaos against Kirsten Welker, the debate moderator, whenever they like.

Co-host Ainsley Earhardt said the Trump campaign is going to have people at the debate monitoring Kristin Welker and her use of the mute button.

"How are they going to do that?" she asked.

"Well, they're gonna have someone in the room and we're gonna call nonsense when we see nonsense." Junior said.

more...

https://crooksandliars.com/2020/10/don-jr-trump-campaign-will-have-someone

October 22, 2020

The Rude Pundit: Note to Republicans: No One Gives a Shit About Hunter Biden's Business Deals

https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2020/10/note-to-republicans-no-one-gives-shit.html


The Rude Pundit
Proudly lowering the level of political discourse
10/20/2020
Note to Republicans: No One Gives a Shit About Hunter Biden's Business Deals


snip//

(Note: To reiterate, "no one" means "no one who hasn't permanently stapled themselves to Trump's ass.&quot

No one gives a fuck about China's investments in companies Hunter Biden worked for. And it goes further than that. No one really gives a fuck about the other shit Trump's tried to throw at Biden. Court-packing? Why the fuck should anyone think about that when they're trying not to die or lose their jobs? Higher taxes? Motherfucker, we're out here wondering if we need to hoard toilet paper and canned soup again to get a jump on the inevitable lockdown. We're wondering what the fuck we're gonna do with our kids' schooling when we can't afford wifi anymore. And Trump's out here talking about how mean the press is to him and toilets don't flush right for him. Who gives a fuck? The world's burning and Biden might actually try to put it out instead of pissing gasoline on it. That's all that matters.

And, yes, yes, it has to be said again, yes, another big fucking reason GOP fuckery isn't working now when it worked on Hillary is because 25 years of nonstop defamation, of dragging her for trying to get people health care or support women's rights, of seeking to destroy her for no reason other than to see if you can, of punishing her for daring to be a presidential nominee without a dick, aided and abetted by a media that has been contorted into a repetitive commentary stream because of Fox "news," yeah, all that worked. So we're on the verge of fucked beyond fucked not because of Russian disinformation, but because of homegrown motherfuckers in the media making it so that people believed Russian disinformation because it confirmed suspicious shit they had been told over and over on CNN and in the New York Times.

Biden doesn't have that burden. He doesn't have that burden with the American people. And, more especially, he doesn't have that with the American press. It's sexist as fuck, but it's there. Trump thought he could run the same play as 2016, but the narrative that has finally taken hold is that Biden is worth the effort to unite and, with our votes, say, "Nah, not this time." And also, "It's really pretty fucked that you're making a big deal about a candidate's son. Wanna talk about your kids?"

Look, anything can happen come Election Day. Shit's so unpredictable now and we were burned so badly in 2016 that we're not allowing optimism to lead to complacency. Right now, Trump is like a torpedoed ship lurching to get to port before it sinks. He's gonna dump his munitions to save himself. But I feel pretty confident that all he's got are duds.

Except for voter suppression. That's what might fuck shit up.

October 22, 2020

Trailer park tenants say landlord sends note implying a vote for Biden is a vote for increased rent

Trailer park tenants say landlord sends note implying a vote for Biden is a vote for increased rent
"We are not telling you how to vote," a copy of the letter sent to 9NEWS says. "We are just telling our tenants what we will do according to the results."
Author: Liz Kotalik
Published: 12:09 AM EDT October 22, 2020
Updated: 12:10 AM EDT October 22, 2020


FORT MORGAN, Colo. — The landlord of a trailer park in Fort Morgan allegedly sent a note to residents warning rent would most likely double in price if Joe Biden becomes president.

9NEWS received several emails from Fort Morgan residents concerned about the legality of the letter, calling it a form of voter suppression.

The Colorado Secretary of State’s office confirmed they have received a complaint, and told 9NEWS they passed it along to the Attorney General.

According to several pictures of the letter sent to 9NEWS, it reads:



more...

https://www.11alive.com/article/news/local/local-politics/trailer-park-biden-voter-intimidation-letter/73-56daf9cd-5eb8-49eb-a768-4e3cb08640a3