babylonsister
babylonsister's Journal"Their silence is criminal."
Posted on FB by my sister~ written by Jake Tapper
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?id=2080958988803211&story_fbid=2882911795274589
We all knew. When he first rode that golden escalator to a paid crowd to announce his candidacy, we knew. His speech tinged with racism and misogyny was only a precursor of what was to come. He told us who he was.
The Republicans have been sucked into the black hole of Trumpism and they are pulling the nation into the abyss. Silent, passive, weak.
While I blame him, I hold most of my contempt for the Republican Party, they had the power to stop him, but didn't.
They have the power to reign him in, but won't.
They stand on the sidelines flush with power and watch him destroy our democratic norms. They watch him violate the Constitution they all swore an oath to defend.
Today in the United States, children are torn from their parents' arms to languish in squalid conditions, caged, alone and afraid. Families remain in a semi-permanent limbo arrested and unable to seek redress.
Today in the United States at least 70,000 Americans will be diagnosed with Covid19. On July 17 it was 74,987, nearly 3 times the number diagnosed only a month ago on June 17 when it was 26,257. The death toll now tops 140,000 and projections are that a quarter of a million Americans will likely be dead by 11/1/2020. Just days before the election. We still lack adequate PPE, we still have inadequate testing, hospitals in some areas are running out of ICU beds, the data is being subverted, a document produced by the task force that shows 18 "red zones" was withheld, witnesses are not being allowed to testify, and the Republicans remain silent.
We have watched Trump abandon our allies leaving the Kurds to be slaughtered by Turkish forces. We just learned he has no interest in challenging Putin over the bounties and murder of our own Troops, and the Republicans remain silent.
An acting director of DHS, acting commissioner of CBP, and acting head of Immigration and Naturalization have unleashed an unmarked, unidentified, paramilitary force on the city of Portland. Their mission to abduct and terrorize "Violent Anarchists" who have committed the act of graffiti on federal buildings. They do this with the blessing of the DOJ under a bizarre Executive Order expanding the role of the FPS to protect "monuments", and Republicans remain silent.
We witnessed the murder of an unarmed black man under the knee of a sadistic police officer. Protests over police brutality were met by police brutality. Police insisting that they are above the law and will not be called to account for their actions. As the list of senseless and cruel deaths at the hands of police grows, the administration has sided with the police and the Republicans have offered nothing but "incentives" to stem the genocide.
He is destroying the USPS, putting it in the hands of a wealthy donor who has already ordered service to be "slowed down".
He has instructed the DOJ to negotiate away protections for people with pre-existing conditions making their health insurance unobtainable.
He is destroying Voice of America to create his own propaganda machine within the Federal Government.
He teargassed and shot rubber bullets at peaceful protesters, including the Priests at St. Johns to do a photo op.
Eliminating Trump is not enough every Republican that has remained silent and enabled this must be voted from office.
Their silence is criminal.
Their silence enables him.
Their silence destroys what made America great in the first place.
The list is endless, but the silence of the Republican party is deafening, and I will never forgive them or the people who continue to support them.
May we all get to November 3 and vote in such overwhelming numbers we destroy Trumpism forever, before it destroys us.
Two Florida mayors urge residents to wear masks at home
Two Florida mayors urge residents to wear masks at home
By Marty Johnson - 07/23/20 10:05 PM EDT
Two Florida mayors who govern Miami and Miami-Dade County encouraged their residents on Thursday to wear masks inside to lower the transmission rate of COVID-19 between family members.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez (R) explained that while the city's number of daily new cases is down, the virus is still being spread easily through households, as multigenerational households are commonplace in Miami.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez (R) had a similar message at his own press conference.
more...
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/508836-two-florida-mayors-urge-residents-to-wear-masks-at-home
"Trump Voters Are Old and They Don't Want to Die": Why Trump Finally Flip-Flopped on Mask Wearing
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/why-trump-finally-flip-flopped-on-mask-wearingTrump Voters Are Old and They Dont Want to Die: Why Trump Finally Flip-Flopped on Mask Wearing
New campaign chiefs Bill Stepien and Jason Miller got the president to reverse course as sagging swing state polls show his coronavirus strategy is tanking with voters. For the longest time, he didnt want to be told what to do, said a former West Wing official.
By Gabriel Sherman
July 22, 2020
snip//
The flip-flop is Trumps biggest concession yet to the fact that his erratic coronavirus response has damaged him politically. For the longest time, he didnt want to be told what to do, a former West Wing official told me. An Economist/YouGov poll released on Tuesday showed Trump trailing Joe Biden by seven points. Its simple. Trump voters are old and they dont want to die, a Republican close to the White House said.
According to sources, Trump came around to mask wearing after intense lobbying by his new campaign chiefs, Bill Stepien and Jason Miller. They showed him polling that things are so bad in the swing states. It was enough to get Trump to move on from the mask issue, a campaign adviser told me. In an interview, Miller praised Trumps evolving position on masks. I thought yesterdays press conference was fantastic and laid out a clear path forward for how the government and American people will unite to defeat the invisible China virus, Miller said.
The new campaign regimes apparent success at getting Trump to abandon mask denial is a sign of Millers growing influence in Trumpworld since Trump demoted Brad Parscale earlier this month. Jason understands my message. He gets who I am, Trump told an adviser a few days ago. It is also something of a comeback for Miller, a 2016 campaign veteran who had been Trumps original pick for White House communications director. (Miller reportedly turned down the West Wing job after former Trump campaign staffer A.J. Delgado disclosed she and Miller had had an affair during the 2016 campaign; she later gave birth to their child.) Jason is the first person Trump talks to in the morning and the last one he talks to at night, the campaign adviser said. (No, that would be Melania Trump, Miller said when I asked if he spoke to Trump last each day.) Miller shares Trumps penchant for going low. He told me that the campaign will ratchet up attacks on Biden by alleging the former vice president will be controlled by the radical left wing. Things are going to escalate a notch, Miller said.
Republicans worry, though, that there will be only so much Miller can do to temper Trumps worst impulses. Trump is a contrarian and likes to pick fights, the former West Wing official said. At a fundraiser earlier this month, Trump told donors that he was skeptical of COVID-19 vaccines, according to a person briefed on his remarks. You know people get these huge vaccines and theyre never the same after, Trump said, according to this person. Earlier this month, Trump also threatened to veto a defense spending bill that included a provision to rename military bases named after Confederate figures. Why is he doing this? asked the former official. The only people who want this are in Alabama, and theyre with Trump anyway.
Ron Wyden tells Trump to attack the virus as hard as he is attacking Portland
https://www.politicususa.com/2020/07/22/ron-wyden-trump-portland.htmlRon Wyden tells Trump to attack the virus as hard as he is attacking Portland
Posted on Wed, Jul 22nd, 2020 by Jason Easley
Sen. Ron Wyden Tells Trump To Attack The Virus As Hard As He Is Attacking Portland
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) said that he wished that Trump was attacking the coronavirus half as hard as he is attacking the city of Portland.
Wyden said on MSNBCs Meet The Press Daily, No, the vast bulk of people on the streets are peaceful protesters. We know theres always a subset interested in violence. You heard me this morning making it clear, I dont take a backseat to anybody in terms of fighting violence. What Chad Wolf and Donald Trump has done is basically inflame this situation. They have escalated it with these paramilitary squads. I will tell you, I wish Donald Trump would attack the coronavirus half as hard as hes attacking our city.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1286054434699714562
Sen. Wyden was correct. Trump is attacking American cities, and he announced that he is sending hundreds of federal officers into Chicago. Trump is attacking American cities to take attention away from the war against the virus that he has already surrendered on.
The virus has won, which is why Trump has come with a new imaginary war, as he is trampling the constitution and the rights of every American with his attacks on American cities.
The Rude Pundit: Trump Assures That We Stay Angry with a Parade of Horribles
The Rude Pundit
Proudly lowering the level of political discourse
7/22/2020
Trump Assures That We Stay Angry with a Parade of Horribles
One thing that is remarkable about the remarkably bad presidency of Donald Trump, who is really just a sack of yams with a deranged parrot on top of it, is that every single time the mongrels of the media start to say that he's "pivoting" or taking "a new tone," he undercuts that by doing more scandal. It's either an offhand remark or tweet, like telling accused child sex trafficker and rapist Ghislaine Maxwell that "I wish her well," or the revelation of some other scandal, like the fact that Trump asked redundantly-named Woody Johnson, the U.S. ambassador to Britain, to convince the British government to move the British Open golf tournament to Trump's failing golf resort in Scotland.
There's always a danger that we simply get used to one form of fuckery, like Trump's constant violation of the emoluments clause in the Constitution, and it fades into the deafening background drone of crime and offense that marks this presidency and this administration and this party. You don't want to become complacent, but as long as Republicans are willing to cover up for Trump, many Americans have a "well, what are you gonna do?" attitude. Ah, well, we'll fix it in the election, we think, hilariously, since there's no guarantee we'll make it to the election or that the election won't be fixed in Trump's favor or that Trump would leave office if he lost. Our adorably naive belief and hope that the mechanisms of democracy will function as they're supposed to in 2020 might not be enough.
But there's no fucking break here. Sure, sure, we keep saying, "This isn't normal," but systems have a way of adapting. Some of us think about the migrant kids who are still being separated from their parents or the mistreatment of the kids who are on their own, but most of the country has absorbed that horror as either forgotten or solved or "well, what are you gonna do?" We moved on from something so abjectly, objectively terrible, the very policy that Trump should have been impeached over, and that truly says something sad about all of us.
Fortunately, Trump is a bounty of crime and unethical behavior. Today, as I'm writing this, that piece of shit president and his evil walrus attorney general are announcing that they will be sending an alphabet soup of hundreds of federal law enforcement officers (or, you know, stormtroopers) to Chicago, since the ongoing dress rehearsal in Portland went so well, and that other cities will follow. Trump said, militaristically, "Today Im announcing a surge of federal law enforcement into American communities plagued by violent crime." Of course, Trump spoke about this in the rapiest way possible, saying that the cities "need it badly" and "should want it." Of course, they don't want it, as governors and mayors have made crystal-fuckin'-clear, but der Trumpen-fuhrer will not be deterred from securing the fatherland (as in "I bet my father would love me if he saw how I'm treating this land" ). And, hey, it's probably unconstitutional for him to be doing this specifically for policing purposes, as Walrus Barr said it would be, so throw another impeachment log on the dead fire.
more...
https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2020/07/trump-assures-that-we-stay-angry-with.html
Rand Paul calls for Cuomo to be impeached over coronavirus response
Does he say shit just to hear himself talk? Has he criticized mf45 at all?TheHill.com
Rand Paul calls for Cuomo to be impeached over coronavirus response
By Kaelan Deese - 07/22/20 05:18 PM EDT
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) called Wednesday for the impeachment of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) over his handling of the state's coronavirus outbreak, saying, "the people we are lauding are actually making catastrophic decisions."
"I think Governor Cuomo should be impeached ... for the disastrous decision he made to send patients with coronavirus back to nursing homes ... virtually half his people who died were in nursing homes," Paul said on Fox News's "Rundown" morning podcast.
Earlier in the show, Paul called into question the pandemic lockdown imposed in New York in March, referencing the surge of cases across the state despite the shelter-in-place orders.
snip//
"Under age 45, this disease we're looking at is less dangerous than the seasonal flu. Above age 45, it's more dangerous than the seasonal flu," he said.
Paul, who became the first senator to contract the novel coronavirus back in March, has been vocal about the U.S. pandemic response, repeatedly saying that a small subset of health experts should not be making the rules on their own.
The Republican senator publicly questioned leading infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci, saying in June that the epidemiologist advising the nation's response to COVID-19 should provide "more optimism" about America's approach.
NPR Business Journalist: Ivanka Trump's Jobs Plan Is Stupid, Wrong and Lazy
https://www.politicususa.com/2020/07/22/npr-business-journalist-ivanka-trumps-jobs-plan-is-stupid-wrong-and-lazy.htmlPosted on Wed, Jul 22nd, 2020 by Darragh Roche
NPR Business Journalist: Ivanka Trumps Jobs Plan Is Stupid, Wrong and Lazy
NPR business journalist Adam Davidson has slammed Ivanka Trumps jobs plan for America. He says the plan is filled with bad ideas and misconceptions about work.
Davidson is a contributor to NPRS Planet Money and has a newsletter that usually covers business rather than politics. But he took a hatchet to the Find Something New plan on Wednesday.
Find Something New embodies every wrong and dumb idea about how jobs work.
President Donald Trumps daughter has been the face of the initiative, which essentially tells people to go find a job. Davidson explained why that tactic wont work and why the plan was perpetuating falsehoods about employment.
He also took the time to dissect Ivanka Trumps career and suggest she had no idea about real work.
Another major project she oversaw involved a likely money-laundering scheme for Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
She also ran a jewelry business with a fraudster. She barely avoided getting arrested for a different real estate scheme in New York.
And there are many, many, many other sketchy deals shes participated in over the years.
He goes on to explain why nobody should take career advice from Trump and trashes the initiatives website.
Philadelphia's Top Prosecutor Is Prepared to Arrest Federal Agents
Philadelphia's Top Prosecutor Is Prepared to Arrest Federal Agents
After Trump said he would send agents to more cities, Phillys district attorney lays out how he might criminally charge federal officers.
By Brentin Mock
July 22, 2020, 5:00 AM EDT
Anyone, including federal law enforcement, who unlawfully assaults and kidnaps people will face criminal charges from my office," warned Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner.
After numerous reports and lawsuits in Portland regarding un-badged and un-uniformed federal officers arresting, beating, and detaining people in unmarked vehicles, the Trump administrations response is that theyre going to do it even more, and in more cities. Saying that his federal agents are doing a fantastic job, Trump has suggested that he will also deploy agents in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore and Milwaukee to do the same.
In one of those cities, the city prosecutor has already preemptively warned Trumps police forces what he will do if they bring the same tactics to Philadelphia:
Trump claims the federal intervention is needed due to excessive violence, particularly around federal statues and monuments. But legal experts have said the reported federal actions in Portland far exceed legal boundaries.
more...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-22/philly-d-a-threatens-to-arrest-federal-agents
Biden and Obama to talk Trump in new campaign video
https://www.axios.com/biden-obama-conversation-campaign-video-trump-f934c4d7-161c-4d2c-a860-ef40c6a179c7.html35 mins ago - Politics & Policy
Biden and Obama to talk Trump in new campaign video
Alexi McCammond
Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama sat down in-person to discuss systemic racism, the coronavirus pandemic and President Trump's handling of those issues for a new campaign video that will be released Thursday.
Why it matters: You'll only see more of Obama in the months leading up to the election as he helps sell Biden's pitch to voters that he's better suited than Trump to help the country get past a slew of national crises.
What they're saying: "I don't understand his inability to get a sense of what people are going through," Biden says of Trump in a preview clip. "He can't relate in any way."
"If you can connect those struggles to somebody else's struggles, then you're going to work hard for them and that's what's always motivated you to be in public service," the former president adds.
What's next: The conversation will go live on Thursday across both Biden's and Obama's social media platforms.
German Scientists Stage Concert to Study How Coronavirus Spreads in Crowds
SCIENCE!https://www.thedailybeast.com/german-scientists-stage-concert-to-study-how-coronavirus-spreads-in-crowds?ref=home
German Scientists Stage Concert to Study How Coronavirus Spreads in Crowds
Tom Sykes
Published Jul. 22, 2020 6:49AM ET
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