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demmiblue
demmiblue's Journal
demmiblue's Journal
July 24, 2020
Trump reveals his problem with female voters
President Trump was widely mocked for a hair-on-fire tweet on Thursday:
Apparently neither he nor anyone on his campaign knows much about suburban women. Let me help:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/24/trump-reveals-his-problem-with-women-voters/
Apparently neither he nor anyone on his campaign knows much about suburban women. Let me help:
“Housewife” may have been a popular term in the 1950s (which, it seems, is approximately when Trump imagines America was at its greatest — pre-civil rights, pre-women’s rights, pre-globalization) — but, for decades, it has been a condescending term that denigrates women who choose not to leave the house for work. (I’m old enough to remember when Republicans used to claim Democrats did not respect women who did not work outside the home.)
Trump’s screeching tone comically attempts to scare women, imagining they are easily frightened and susceptible to crude political manipulation and racist dog whistles (“destroy neighborhoods” is code for bringing the “wrong people” into the neighborhood).
Nothing in Trump’s appeal remotely addresses what does alarm women: the unchecked spread of coronavirus; an economic collapse; Trump bullying them to send kids back to school during a pandemic; Trump-directed clashes between police and demonstrators; and Trump’s constant attempts to inflame racial animosity. It is not former vice president Joe Biden who inspires fear and dread; it is Trump who raises their blood pressure and creates havoc in their lives.
Trump’s promise to make things better raises an awkward problem for his reelection effort: Aren’t things much worse than when he took over? He is pitching to women whose children’s education has been disrupted, whose family finances are less secure, and who fear for their health and for the health of their families.
His tweet, reminiscent of his “I alone can fix it” line from 2016 reminds many women of his know-it-all attitude and exaggerated sense to worth and accomplishment. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) recently said that Trump is like the guy who will not ask for directions. Now, we see Trump as the guy who passes a cognitive assessment test and thinks he is a genius. He is a caricature of male ego and bluster many women have confronted their entire lives.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/24/trump-reveals-his-problem-with-women-voters/
July 23, 2020
A little background:
"The FBI needs a new building and we'll get it done," says Trump
"The FBI needs a new building and we'll get it done," says Trump - and with that, ends today's briefing
https://twitter.com/ChrisJansing/status/1286420451066085377
https://twitter.com/ChrisJansing/status/1286420451066085377
A little background:
Trump’s Interference in the FBI Headquarters Relocation Plan
A plan to relocate the FBI headquarters to the Washington, D.C., suburbs was surprisingly scrapped in favor of the far costlier option of rebuilding at its existing site — which happens to sit a block away from the Trump International Hotel. American Oversight is investigating what influence the White House and the Trump Organization might have had over a decision that ensures a huge city block remains free of competition for the president’s hotel.
For more than a decade, the FBI sought congressional funding to move its headquarters from the deteriorating J. Edgar Hoover Building in downtown Washington, D.C., to the suburbs — a cost-saving plan that would address serious security concerns and free up prime downtown real estate. So when the Trump administration canceled the project in July 2017 and then seven months later announced plans to rebuild at the downtown site, which sits a block away from the Trump International Hotel, eyebrows rose.
In late summer 2018, after reports surfaced that President Donald Trump was personally involved in that decision, the inspector general of the General Services Administration found that GSA Administrator Emily Murphy may have misled Congress earlier in the year about the extent of Trump’s involvement — and that the agency had not accurately estimated the costs of the rebuilding.
The inspector general report also mentioned three meetings GSA officials had with the White House about the rebuilding plan. During a December 2017 meeting, Murphy met with then–White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Mick Mulvaney, who was then the director of the Office of Management and Budget, where she may have been told that the president wanted to be updated on the project. A month later, during another White House meeting, Murphy met with Kelly and Mulvaney, as well as with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray, in Kelly’s office, before moving to the Oval Office to meet with Trump. The third meeting occurred in June 2018 at the White House, and included Murphy, the president, Kelly, Rosenstein, Wray, and other officials, including OMB’s deputy director.
https://www.americanoversight.org/investigation/trumps-interference-in-the-fbi-headquarters-relocation-plan
A plan to relocate the FBI headquarters to the Washington, D.C., suburbs was surprisingly scrapped in favor of the far costlier option of rebuilding at its existing site — which happens to sit a block away from the Trump International Hotel. American Oversight is investigating what influence the White House and the Trump Organization might have had over a decision that ensures a huge city block remains free of competition for the president’s hotel.
For more than a decade, the FBI sought congressional funding to move its headquarters from the deteriorating J. Edgar Hoover Building in downtown Washington, D.C., to the suburbs — a cost-saving plan that would address serious security concerns and free up prime downtown real estate. So when the Trump administration canceled the project in July 2017 and then seven months later announced plans to rebuild at the downtown site, which sits a block away from the Trump International Hotel, eyebrows rose.
In late summer 2018, after reports surfaced that President Donald Trump was personally involved in that decision, the inspector general of the General Services Administration found that GSA Administrator Emily Murphy may have misled Congress earlier in the year about the extent of Trump’s involvement — and that the agency had not accurately estimated the costs of the rebuilding.
The inspector general report also mentioned three meetings GSA officials had with the White House about the rebuilding plan. During a December 2017 meeting, Murphy met with then–White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Mick Mulvaney, who was then the director of the Office of Management and Budget, where she may have been told that the president wanted to be updated on the project. A month later, during another White House meeting, Murphy met with Kelly and Mulvaney, as well as with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray, in Kelly’s office, before moving to the Oval Office to meet with Trump. The third meeting occurred in June 2018 at the White House, and included Murphy, the president, Kelly, Rosenstein, Wray, and other officials, including OMB’s deputy director.
https://www.americanoversight.org/investigation/trumps-interference-in-the-fbi-headquarters-relocation-plan
Scoop: Trump's obsession with the "terrible" FBI building
Trump is obsessed with the FBI building. For months now, in meetings with White House officials and Senate appropriators intended to discuss big-picture spending priorities, the president rants about the graceless J. Edgar Hoover Building in downtown Washington, D.C.
Behind the scenes: In the midst of one rant about the FBI, he lit into the building. "Even the building is terrible," he observed to an Axios source. "It's one of the brutalist-type buildings, you know, brutalist architecture. Honestly, I think it's one of the ugliest buildings in the city."
Another source said he was dead opposed to plans to move it out of D.C. "This is prime real estate, right on Pennsylvania Avenue," he said. "This is a great address. They need to stay there. But it needs a total revamp."
That source said Trump told Chief of Staff John Kelly he wants to oversee the project at an excruciating level of detail: the cost per square foot, the materials used, the renovation specs, etc. He's treating it like it's a Trump Organization construction project, the source added.
https://www.axios.com/donald-trump-obsession-fbi-building-headquarters-65d36fb9-b1a2-42ca-8cbd-3dbbe59de907.html
Trump is obsessed with the FBI building. For months now, in meetings with White House officials and Senate appropriators intended to discuss big-picture spending priorities, the president rants about the graceless J. Edgar Hoover Building in downtown Washington, D.C.
Behind the scenes: In the midst of one rant about the FBI, he lit into the building. "Even the building is terrible," he observed to an Axios source. "It's one of the brutalist-type buildings, you know, brutalist architecture. Honestly, I think it's one of the ugliest buildings in the city."
Another source said he was dead opposed to plans to move it out of D.C. "This is prime real estate, right on Pennsylvania Avenue," he said. "This is a great address. They need to stay there. But it needs a total revamp."
That source said Trump told Chief of Staff John Kelly he wants to oversee the project at an excruciating level of detail: the cost per square foot, the materials used, the renovation specs, etc. He's treating it like it's a Trump Organization construction project, the source added.
https://www.axios.com/donald-trump-obsession-fbi-building-headquarters-65d36fb9-b1a2-42ca-8cbd-3dbbe59de907.html
July 23, 2020
https://twitter.com/katierogers/status/1286399598261673987
Kimberly Guilfoyle under fire for Trump fundraising disarray
News that Kimberly Guilfoyle contracted the coronavirus had barely surfaced on July 3 before she hopped on a private flight from Mt. Rushmore back to New York with her boyfriend, Donald Trump, Jr.
Left behind in her wake after Donald Trump’s pre-Independence Day address were more than a half-dozen junior campaign staffers who Guilfoyle oversees as the president’s national finance chairwoman. The aides, who’d been in proximity to Guilfoyle, were forced to quarantine in their Rapid City, S.D., hotel rooms for three days and barred from any face-to-face contact with colleagues as they pleaded with the campaign to get them home.
The campaign tried to reassure the staffers, checking in with them and stressing the need to wait a few days to take a coronavirus test. But the aides felt deserted and scared they’d get sick in a city they’d never set foot in before. They were so distraught that weeks later they sought out Stephanie Alexander, the campaign’s chief of staff, to vent about the experience, according to people familiar with the incident.
The episode was the latest example of upheaval within the fundraising unit that Guilfoyle oversees, which is primarily responsible for cultivating networks of donors who cut checks in increments up to $2,800. Interviews with nearly a dozen Republicans familiar with the campaign’s fundraising depict an operation beset by departures, staffers with no prior fundraising experience, and accusations of irresponsible spending.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/23/kimberly-guilfoyle-trump-fundraising-380380
Left behind in her wake after Donald Trump’s pre-Independence Day address were more than a half-dozen junior campaign staffers who Guilfoyle oversees as the president’s national finance chairwoman. The aides, who’d been in proximity to Guilfoyle, were forced to quarantine in their Rapid City, S.D., hotel rooms for three days and barred from any face-to-face contact with colleagues as they pleaded with the campaign to get them home.
The campaign tried to reassure the staffers, checking in with them and stressing the need to wait a few days to take a coronavirus test. But the aides felt deserted and scared they’d get sick in a city they’d never set foot in before. They were so distraught that weeks later they sought out Stephanie Alexander, the campaign’s chief of staff, to vent about the experience, according to people familiar with the incident.
The episode was the latest example of upheaval within the fundraising unit that Guilfoyle oversees, which is primarily responsible for cultivating networks of donors who cut checks in increments up to $2,800. Interviews with nearly a dozen Republicans familiar with the campaign’s fundraising depict an operation beset by departures, staffers with no prior fundraising experience, and accusations of irresponsible spending.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/23/kimberly-guilfoyle-trump-fundraising-380380
https://twitter.com/katierogers/status/1286399598261673987
July 23, 2020
I love this!
If you're having a rough day please watch this cow singing Boehemian Rhapsody at a stop light.
https://twitter.com/RexChapman/status/1286051711833059329I love this!
July 23, 2020
teamwork makes the dream work
https://twitter.com/humorandanimals/status/1285942293577568256
July 23, 2020
https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1286088160020246529
2 boys saved when caught in falls in French apartment fire
PARIS -- Two young brothers were saved from an apartment fire in the southeastern French city of Grenoble when they dropped about 10 meters (33 feet) from a window and were caught by people below.
The two, aged 10 and 3, were unharmed by the fall Tuesday but might have suffered from smoke inhalation, French media reported.
Video of the dramatic rescue showed the younger brother being dropped from at least three stories up as black smoke billowed from the window and flames engulfed an adjacent balcony. As onlookers screamed, the older brother then hung from the window and let himself fall into the arms of those below.
The boys were hospitalized along with 17 residents of the building, the media reports said. Four of the people who caught the boys also were taken to the hospital to check if any bones were fractured when they caught the boys.
Athoumani Walid, a 25-year-old student who suffered a broken wrist from helping catch the children, said he heard screams and went out to investigate after seeing the fire from his nearby apartment and rushed to help along with four or five other people.
...
Walid said he hopes the rescue will change perceptions of the Villeneuve neighborhood, which has a large immigrant population.
“We are told it’s a ‘sensitive’ neighborhood,” Walid said, “but yesterday we showed we are here for each other, and we save each other.”
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/french-blaze-brothers-drop-window-caught-rescuers-71917093
The two, aged 10 and 3, were unharmed by the fall Tuesday but might have suffered from smoke inhalation, French media reported.
Video of the dramatic rescue showed the younger brother being dropped from at least three stories up as black smoke billowed from the window and flames engulfed an adjacent balcony. As onlookers screamed, the older brother then hung from the window and let himself fall into the arms of those below.
The boys were hospitalized along with 17 residents of the building, the media reports said. Four of the people who caught the boys also were taken to the hospital to check if any bones were fractured when they caught the boys.
Athoumani Walid, a 25-year-old student who suffered a broken wrist from helping catch the children, said he heard screams and went out to investigate after seeing the fire from his nearby apartment and rushed to help along with four or five other people.
...
Walid said he hopes the rescue will change perceptions of the Villeneuve neighborhood, which has a large immigrant population.
“We are told it’s a ‘sensitive’ neighborhood,” Walid said, “but yesterday we showed we are here for each other, and we save each other.”
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/french-blaze-brothers-drop-window-caught-rescuers-71917093
https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1286088160020246529
July 22, 2020
GOP considers extending unemployment benefit at reduced level of $100 a week through December
Source: CNBC
Republicans are considering extending the enhanced unemployment insurance benefit at a reduced level of $400 per month through the rest of the year, sources told CNBC.
Congress passed a $600 per week, or $2,400 a month, boost to jobless benefits in March to deal with a wave of unemployment unseen in decades as states shut down their economies to combat the coronavirus pandemic. The policy expires at the end of July as the U.S. unemployment rate stands above 11% despite two strong months of job growth.
The GOP, which has not made a final decision on how it will craft unemployment insurance in a bill set to be released this week, previously discussed additional payments of about $200 per week. Democrats want to make the $600 per week sum available at least until next year.
The level Republicans are mulling would slash the amount of money beneficiaries receive at a time when roughly 30 million people are receiving unemployment insurance in some form. The additional assistance helped Americans cover food and rent during the outbreak, and many economists say it boosted household spending and buoyed the economy.
Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/22/coronavirus-stimulus-republicans-consider-unemployment-insurance-extension.html
July 22, 2020
Natalie Portman and Serena Williams are among investors in new Los Angeles soccer team
CNN)Actress Natalie Portman, tennis star Serena Williams and her daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian are part of a majority woman-founded group that will own the newest soccer team in the United States.
The National Women's Soccer League announced that it has awarded the Angel City group the franchise for a new Los Angeles team, which will join the league in the spring of 2022.
The investor group is led by Oscar-winning actress Portman, technology venture capitalist Kara Nortman, media and gaming entrepreneur Julie Uhrman and Alexis Ohanian, Williams' husband and the co-founder of Reddit.
"Today we take an exciting step by announcing the first women majority-owned and led ownership group," Portman said in an NWSL statement.
"I am thrilled by the opportunity to partner with this incredible group of people to bring a professional women's soccer team to Los Angeles.
"Together, we aim to build not only a winning team on the field, but also to develop a passionately loyal fan base. We also hope to make a substantive impact on our community, committing to extending access to sports for young people in Los Angeles through our relationship with the LA84 Foundation.
"Sports are such a joyful way to bring people together, and this has the power to make tangible change for female athletes both in our community and in the professional sphere."
Other famous names involved are fellow Hollywood actors Eva Longoria, Uzo Aduba, Jennifer Garner and Jessica Chastain, along with more than a dozen former US Women's National Team stars, including Julie Foudy, Mia Hamm, Joy Fawcett and Abby Wambach.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/21/football/los-angeles-womens-soccer-team-serena-williams-natalie-portman-spt-intl/index.htm
The National Women's Soccer League announced that it has awarded the Angel City group the franchise for a new Los Angeles team, which will join the league in the spring of 2022.
The investor group is led by Oscar-winning actress Portman, technology venture capitalist Kara Nortman, media and gaming entrepreneur Julie Uhrman and Alexis Ohanian, Williams' husband and the co-founder of Reddit.
"Today we take an exciting step by announcing the first women majority-owned and led ownership group," Portman said in an NWSL statement.
"I am thrilled by the opportunity to partner with this incredible group of people to bring a professional women's soccer team to Los Angeles.
"Together, we aim to build not only a winning team on the field, but also to develop a passionately loyal fan base. We also hope to make a substantive impact on our community, committing to extending access to sports for young people in Los Angeles through our relationship with the LA84 Foundation.
"Sports are such a joyful way to bring people together, and this has the power to make tangible change for female athletes both in our community and in the professional sphere."
Other famous names involved are fellow Hollywood actors Eva Longoria, Uzo Aduba, Jennifer Garner and Jessica Chastain, along with more than a dozen former US Women's National Team stars, including Julie Foudy, Mia Hamm, Joy Fawcett and Abby Wambach.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/21/football/los-angeles-womens-soccer-team-serena-williams-natalie-portman-spt-intl/index.htm
July 21, 2020
BREAKING: Fulton judge recuses herself from Kemp-Bottoms case
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Kelly Ellerbe is recusing herself from a legal battle between Gov. Brian Kemp and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms over how to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.
She was set to hold the first hearing in the matter at 11 a.m. today, but the proceeding is now canceled, according to the Georgia Attorney General’s Office. No other details were released.
Kemp’s lawsuit accuses Bottoms of violating his executive orders by banning gatherings of more than 10 people on city property and requiring people to wear masks in Atlanta.
Kemp, who has encouraged but not mandated masks in Georgia and who has restricted gatherings of more than 50 people, says cities and counties are barred from enforcing rules that are more or less restrictive than his own. Saying Bottoms has sown confusion among Georgians, Kemp is asking the judge to suspend the mayor’s executive orders and prevent her from “issuing press releases, or making statements to the press, that she has the authority to impose more or less restrictive measures” than him.
Read more: https://www.ajc.com/news/watch-live-hearing-in-legal-battle-between-kemp-bottoms/D5JBDAJSZFD6DJAKMYMCIM6EX4/
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