August 20, 2020

A Yale professor's stark warning to returning students: Be prepared for deaths (non tweet version)

A Yale professor’s stark warning to returning students: Be prepared for deaths

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/08/20/yale-coronavirus-warning/

Paulina Firozi
August 20, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. CDT

<snip>

“While things will of course continue to evolve as the COVID-19 situation changes, it’s safe to say that your life in residence in the coming academic year will not be anything like the life you remember at Yale before COVID-19,” Santos wrote to the residents of Silliman College, one of the 14 undergraduate communities at the New Haven, Conn., campus.

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In a statement sent to The Post, Yale spokeswoman Karen Peart said university leaders “will continue to emphasize collective responsibility for adherence to health and safety rules and for behavior conducive to public health and education.”

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Brown also praised Santos’s warnings that student behavior would not just affect students, but also staff working at the residential college — including maintenance staff or dining hall workers — who may not have a choice about whether to return.

<snip>

She added: “We all should be emotionally prepared for widespread infections — and possibly deaths — in our community. Many of our staff members are from sectors of society that are most vulnerable to Covid-19 infection and mortality, so following the community guidelines will be essential for protecting them.”

<snip>

August 19, 2020

My free Covid vacation to NYC ...

Its been over 100 at least ten of the last fourteen days so the rain is really appreciated even of it was virtual.

August 19, 2020

A modest proposal re: mask deniers ...

Police officers in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, detained people suspected of defying quarantine measures in July.

By Anatoly Kurmanaev, Isayen Herrera and Sheyla Urdaneta

Aug. 19, 2020
Updated 11:05 a.m. ET

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/19/world/americas/coronavirus-venezuela.html

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan officials are denouncing people who may have come into contact with the coronavirus as “bioterrorists” and urging their neighbors to report them. The government is detaining and intimidating doctors and experts who question the president’s policies on the virus.

And it is corralling thousands of Venezuelans who are streaming home after losing jobs abroad, holding them in makeshift containment centers out of fear that they may be infected.

President Nicolás Maduro has tackled the coronavirus much as he has any internal threat to his rule: by deploying his repressive security apparatus against it.

In commandeered hotels, disused schools and cordoned-off bus stations, Venezuelans returning home from other countries in Latin America are being forced into crowded rooms with limited food, water or masks. And they are being held under military guard for weeks or months for coronavirus tests or treatment with unproven medications, according to interviews with the detainees, videos they have taken on their cellphones and government documents.

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What Maduro is doing is over the top, Covid is a public safety and health issue but it doesn't require the cops up front.

But the quarantining is a good idea once the political elements (and cops) are removed. Purposeful breaking of commonsensical practice is a form bio-terrorism as well as a symptom of wilful ignorance.

I don't think cops are the solution but there needs to be a way to enforce simple things that will help to get us out of pandemic.













b

August 18, 2020

Manafort associate is Russian spy, may have helped coordinate e-mail hack-and-leak, report says

Manafort associate is Russian spy, may have helped coordinate e-mail hack-and-leak, report says

The report says Manafort associate Konstantin Kilimnik is a Russian intelligence officer who may have helped coordinate Russia's hack-and-leak operation.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/manafort-associate-russian-spy-may-have-helped-coordinate-e-mail-n1237121?icid=related

Aug. 18, 2020, 1:53 PM CDT
By Tom Winter and Ken Dilanian

<snip>

According to the bipartisan Senate report, Manafort associate and ex-employee Konstantin Kilimnik is a Russian intelligence officer who may have had links to the hack-and-leak operation of the GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency, which hacked the emails of prominent Democrats and provided them to WikiLeaks.

<snip>

Specifically, "Manafort and Kilimnik both sought to promote the narrative that Ukraine, not Russia, had interfered in the 2016 U.S. election and that the 'ledger' naming payments to Manafort was fake."

The report says it was Kilimnik who "almost certainly helped arrange some of the first public messaging that Ukraine had interfered in the U.S. election." President Trump and his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani would later repeat that messaging.

<snip>

According to the report in December 2016, Manafort and Kilimnik tried to conceal their continuing communications by writing draft emails that each other could see, without actually sending the e-mail, in a practice the FBI describes as "foldering."

<snip>

August 18, 2020

Senate committee made criminal referral of Trump Jr., Bannon, Kushner, ... to federal prosecutors

Senate committee made criminal referral of Trump Jr., Bannon, Kushner, two others to federal prosecutors

The Intelligence Committee detailed its concerns in a letter to the U.S. attorney's office in Washington, D.C., in June 2019, an official said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/senate-made-criminal-referral-trump-jr-bannon-kushner-two-others-n1237155?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_lw

Aug. 18, 2020, 3:10 PM CDT
By Ken Dilanian

WASHINGTON — The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee made criminal referrals of Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon, Erik Prince and Sam Clovis to federal prosecutors in 2019, passing along their suspicions that the men may have misled the committee during their testimony, an official familiar with the matter told NBC News.

The official confirmed reports in the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post, which reported on the matter last week. A criminal referral to the Justice Department means Congress believes a matter warrants investigation for potential violation of the law.

<snip>

The Los Angeles Times reported that the committee questioned whether Bannon lied about his interactions and conversations with Prince about a meeting in the Seychelles between Prince and a top Russian official. Prince told special counsel Robert Mueller's prosecutors that he briefed Bannon on the January 2017 meeting, but Bannon said the conversation never happened.

Trump says he didn't discuss hacked emails with Stone. A bipartisan report says he did.

<snip>

August 18, 2020

Michelle Obama's speech in transcript...

Good evening, everyone. It’s a hard time, and everyone’s feeling it in different ways. And I know a lot of folks are reluctant to tune into a political convention right now or to politics in general. Believe me, I get that. But I am here tonight because I love this country with all my heart, and it pains me to see so many people hurting.

I’ve met so many of you. I’ve heard your stories. And through you, I have seen this country’s promise. And thanks to so many who came before me, thanks to their toil and sweat and blood, I’ve been able to live that promise myself.

That’s the story of America. All those folks who sacrificed and overcame so much in their own times because they wanted something more, something better for their kids.

There’s a lot of beauty in that story. There’s a lot of pain in it, too, a lot of struggle and injustice and work left to do. And who we choose as our president in this election will determine whether or not we honor that struggle and chip away at that injustice and keep alive the very possibility of finishing that work.

I am one of a handful of people living today who have seen firsthand the immense weight and awesome power of the presidency. And let me once again tell you this: The job is hard. It requires clear-headed judgment, a mastery of complex and competing issues, a devotion to facts and history, a moral compass, and an ability to listen — and an abiding belief that each of the 330,000,000 lives in this country has meaning and worth.

A president’s words have the power to move markets. They can start wars or broker peace. They can summon our better angels or awaken our worst instincts. You simply cannot fake your way through this job.

As I’ve said before, being president doesn’t change who you are; it reveals who you are. Well, a presidential election can reveal who we are, too. And four years ago, too many people chose to believe that their votes didn’t matter. Maybe they were fed up. Maybe they thought the outcome wouldn’t be close. Maybe the barriers felt too steep. Whatever the reason, in the end, those choices sent someone to the Oval Office who lost the national popular vote by nearly 3,000,000 votes.

In one of the states that determined the outcome, the winning margin averaged out to just two votes per precinct — two votes. And we’ve all been living with the consequences.

When my husband left office with Joe Biden at his side, we had a record-breaking stretch of job creation. We’d secured the right to health care for 20,000,000 people. We were respected around the world, rallying our allies to confront climate change. And our leaders had worked hand-in-hand with scientists to help prevent an Ebola outbreak from becoming a global pandemic.

Four years later, the state of this nation is very different. More than 150,000 people have died, and our economy is in shambles because of a virus that this president downplayed for too long. It has left millions of people jobless. Too many have lost their health care; too many are struggling to take care of basic necessities like food and rent; too many communities have been left in the lurch to grapple with whether and how to open our schools safely. Internationally, we’ve turned our back, not just on agreements forged by my husband, but on alliances championed by presidents like Reagan and Eisenhower.

And here at home, as George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and a never-ending list of innocent people of color continue to be murdered, stating the simple fact that a Black life matters is still met with derision from the nation’s highest office.

Because whenever we look to this White House for some leadership or consolation or any semblance of steadiness, what we get instead is chaos, division, and a total and utter lack of empathy.

Empathy: That’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. The ability to walk in someone else’s shoes; the recognition that someone else’s experience has value, too. Most of us practice this without a second thought. If we see someone suffering or struggling, we don’t stand in judgment. We reach out because, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” It is not a hard concept to grasp. It’s what we teach our children.

And like so many of you, Barack and I have tried our best to instill in our girls a strong moral foundation to carry forward the values that our parents and grandparents poured into us. But right now, kids in this country are seeing what happens when we stop requiring empathy of one another. They’re looking around wondering if we’ve been lying to them this whole time about who we are and what we truly value.

They see people shouting in grocery stores, unwilling to wear a mask to keep us all safe. They see people calling the police on folks minding their own business just because of the color of their skin. They see an entitlement that says only certain people belong here, that greed is good, and winning is everything because as long as you come out on top, it doesn’t matter what happens to everyone else. And they see what happens when that lack of empathy is ginned up into outright disdain.

They see our leaders labeling fellow citizens enemies of the state while emboldening torch-bearing white supremacists. They watch in horror as children are torn from their families and thrown into cages, and pepper spray and rubber bullets are used on peaceful protesters for a photo-op.

Sadly, this is the America that is on display for the next generation. A nation that’s underperforming not simply on matters of policy but on matters of character. And that’s not just disappointing; it’s downright infuriating, because I know the goodness and the grace that is out there in households and neighborhoods all across this nation.

And I know that regardless of our race, age, religion or politics, when we close out the noise and the fear and truly open our hearts, we know that what’s going on in this country is just not right. This is not who we want to be.

So what do we do now? What’s our strategy? Over the past four years, a lot of people have asked me, “When others are going so low, does going high still really work?” My answer: Going high is the only thing that works, because when we go low, when we use those same tactics of degrading and dehumanizing others, we just become part of the ugly noise that’s drowning out everything else. We degrade ourselves. We degrade the very causes for which we fight.

But let’s be clear: Going high does not mean putting on a smile and saying nice things when confronted by viciousness and cruelty. Going high means taking the harder path. It means scraping and clawing our way to that mountain top. Going high means standing fierce against hatred while remembering that we are one nation under God, and if we want to survive, we’ve got to find a way to live together and work together across our differences.

And going high means unlocking the shackles of lies and mistrust with the only thing that can truly set us free: the cold hard truth.

So let me be as honest and clear as I possibly can. Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country. He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is.

Now, I understand that my message won’t be heard by some people. We live in a nation that is deeply divided, and I am a Black woman speaking at the Democratic Convention. But enough of you know me by now. You know that I tell you exactly what I’m feeling. You know I hate politics. But you also know that I care about this nation. You know how much I care about all of our children.

So if you take one thing from my words tonight, it is this: If you think things cannot possibly get worse, trust me, they can; and they will if we don’t make a change in this election. If we have any hope of ending this chaos, we have got to vote for Joe Biden like our lives depend on it.

I know Joe. He is a profoundly decent man, guided by faith. He was a terrific vice president. He knows what it takes to rescue an economy, beat back a pandemic, and lead our country. And he listens. He will tell the truth and trust science. He will make smart plans and manage a good team. And he will govern as someone who’s lived a life that the rest of us can recognize.

When he was a kid, Joe’s father lost his job. When he was a young senator, Joe lost his wife and his baby daughter. And when he was vice president, he lost his beloved son. So Joe knows the anguish of sitting at a table with an empty chair, which is why he gives his time so freely to grieving parents. Joe knows what it’s like to struggle, which is why he gives his personal phone number to kids overcoming a stutter of their own.

His life is a testament to getting back up, and he is going to channel that same grit and passion to pick us all up, to help us heal and guide us forward.

Now, Joe is not perfect. And he’d be the first to tell you that. But there is no perfect candidate, no perfect president. And his ability to learn and grow—we find in that the kind of humility and maturity that so many of us yearn for right now. Because Joe Biden has served this nation his entire life without ever losing sight of who he is; but more than that, he has never lost sight of who we are, all of us.

Joe Biden wants all of our kids to go to a good school, see a doctor when they’re sick, live on a healthy planet. And he’s got plans to make all of that happen. Joe Biden wants all of our kids, no matter what they look like, to be able to walk out the door without worrying about being harassed or arrested or killed. He wants all of our kids to be able to go to a movie or a math class without being afraid of getting shot. He wants all our kids to grow up with leaders who won’t just serve themselves and their wealthy peers but will provide a safety net for people facing hard times.

And if we want a chance to pursue any of these goals, any of these most basic requirements for a functioning society, we have to vote for Joe Biden in numbers that cannot be ignored. Because right now, folks who know they cannot win fair and square at the ballot box are doing everything they can to stop us from voting. They’re closing down polling places in minority neighborhoods. They’re purging voter rolls. They’re sending people out to intimidate voters, and they’re lying about the security of our ballots. These tactics are not new.

But this is not the time to withhold our votes in protest or play games with candidates who have no chance of winning. We have got to vote like we did in 2008 and 2012. We’ve got to show up with the same level of passion and hope for Joe Biden. We’ve got to vote early, in person if we can. We’ve got to request our mail-in ballots right now, tonight, and send them back immediately and follow-up to make sure they’re received. And then, make sure our friends and families do the same.

We have got to grab our comfortable shoes, put on our masks, pack a brown bag dinner and maybe breakfast too, because we’ve got to be willing to stand in line all night if we have to.

Look, we have already sacrificed so much this year. So many of you are already going that extra mile. Even when you’re exhausted, you’re mustering up unimaginable courage to put on those scrubs and give our loved ones a fighting chance. Even when you’re anxious, you’re delivering those packages, stocking those shelves, and doing all that essential work so that all of us can keep moving forward.

Even when it all feels so overwhelming, working parents are somehow piecing it all together without child care. Teachers are getting creative so that our kids can still learn and grow. Our young people are desperately fighting to pursue their dreams.

And when the horrors of systemic racism shook our country and our consciences, millions of Americans of every age, every background rose up to march for each other, crying out for justice and progress.

This is who we still are: compassionate, resilient, decent people whose fortunes are bound up with one another. And it is well past time for our leaders to once again reflect our truth.

So, it is up to us to add our voices and our votes to the course of history, echoing heroes like John Lewis who said, “When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something.” That is the truest form of empathy: not just feeling, but doing; not just for ourselves or our kids, but for everyone, for all our kids.

And if we want to keep the possibility of progress alive in our time, if we want to be able to look our children in the eye after this election, we have got to reassert our place in American history. And we have got to do everything we can to elect my friend, Joe Biden, as the next president of the United States.

Thank you all. God bless.

August 17, 2020

Randy Rainbow's (Upper) West Side Story (NYT interview)

Randy Rainbow’s (Upper) West Side Story

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/realestate/randy-rainbows-upper-west-side-story.html

By Joanne Kaufman

July 7, 2020

<snip>

“All the movies and TV shows I love take place in New York, and being a musical-theater fan, I was obsessed with Broadway,” said Mr. Rainbow, 39, who has harnessed that passion to concoct sublimely impish parodies about Donald Trump and Mr. Trump’s coterie with melodies borrowed from theater and film scores, as well as pop hits. The ubiquitous pink cat’s-eye glasses add a certain je ne sais quoi to the proceedings.

?quality=90&auto=webp

A sampling of Mr. Rainbow’s oeuvre, the basis for his 2019 prime-time Emmy nomination for outstanding short form variety series, includes “Omarosa!,” a jaundiced look at the “Apprentice” contender turned White House staffer, sung to the title song from “Oklahoma!,” and “Kavanaugh,” an account of the messy confirmation of the newest member of the U.S. Supreme Court, sung to the title song from “Camelot.”

<snip>

“You’ve caught me at a good time, because I’m now living in the apartment I’ve always dreamed of,” said Mr. Rainbow — yes, that’s his real name — who enumerated the view; the floor-to-ceiling windows; the two columns in the living room; the washer and dryer; and a separate room complete with green screen and prop closet to serve as his production studio.

<snip>

During his adolescence in Florida, Mr. Rainbow, with the help of a friend, painted a mural of the New York City skyline that wrapped around his bedroom. His entire high school career, he recalled, was spent lying in bed staring at that mural.

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Very hard to snip down!!!! More photos at the link.

August 14, 2020

Reporter to Trump: "Do you regret all of the lying you have done to the American people?"

Reporter to Trump: "Do you regret all of the lying you have done to the American people?"
Axios

https://www.axios.com/trump-lying-reporter-6cf1cc32-4471-4a68-8cbf-2c03bf29d78c.html

S.V. Dáte, a White House reporter for HuffPost, asked President Trump at a briefing Thursday if he regrets "all of the lying" he has done "to the American people" over the last three and a half years.

Why it matters: The Washington Post fact-checker finds that Trump has made over 20,000 false or misleading claims throughout his presidency. Trump, who has rarely been confronted directly with claims that he has lied, paused for a moment before moving on to another reporter without answering the question.

The exchange:

REPORTER: "Mr. President, after three and a half years, do you regret at all, all the lying you've done to the American people?"

TRUMP: "All the what?"

REPORTER: "All the lying. All the dishonesties."

TRUMP: "And who is that?"

REPORTER: "You have done."

Trump just moved on to the next questioner.

AFT reporters started letting him have some hardball questions.

August 14, 2020

Tucker Carlson: Kamala Harris Will Deny You A COVID-19 Vaccine If You're Not A 'Certain Color'

Tucker Carlson: Kamala Harris Will Deny You A COVID-19 Vaccine If You’re Not A ‘Certain Color’

Through the use of selective footage, the Fox News host claimed that Harris would apply affirmative action to coronavirus treatment.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tucker-carlson-kamala-harris-coronavirus-treatment_n_5f34c150c5b6960c06706203

By Jeremy Blum

<snip>

“The disparities that have long existed based on race are now highlighted,” Harris said. ”So one of the things that I’m calling for around this pandemic is that we make decisions about where the resources should go based on that issue.”

Harris was referring to legislation she introduced to create a bipartisan commission that would investigate the U.S. response to the pandemic, including how it had disproportionately affected Black communities. She was also referencing a letter she sent to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), urging them to “require the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to prioritize allocation of resources, like testing and PPE, to communities at greatest risk of COVID-19 due to underlying health problems, lack of access to health care and heightened exposure due to the nature of individuals’ work.”

<snip>

“So we make decisions about where the resources should go to keep people from dying on the basis of skin color,” Carlson said. “So only people of a certain color get the vaccine, for example. That’s what she’s arguing. Now, this is a lot of things. It’s immoral. It’s unconstitutional, obviously. But above all, it is definitely not moderate.”

Carlson also honed in on a clip of Harris calling 18- to 24-year-olds “stupid” that has been also been used by the Trump campaign to discredit former Vice President Joe Biden and his running mate.

<snip>

August 12, 2020

Racist QAnon Follower Marjorie Taylor Greene Wins Georgia GOP Runoff

?cache=uw9edpwf1v&ops=scalefit_720_noupscale

Republican congressional candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene brandishes an AR-15 while defending property against nonexistent “antifa” activists in a promotional video.



Racist QAnon Follower Marjorie Taylor Greene Wins Georgia GOP Runoff

Greene overwhelmingly defeated her opponent in the heavily Republican 14th Congressional District.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/marjorie-taylor-greene-wins-georgia-gop_n_5f33494ec5b6960c066de62f

By Dominique Mosbergen


<snip>

She referred to African Americans, for instance, as “slaves to the Democratic Party,” warned of “an Islamic invasion of our government” and insisted that billionaire philanthropist George Soros is a Nazi, Politico reported.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) lambasted Greene’s videos as “appalling.” Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) said in June that he could “no longer support” Greene’s candidacy in light of her “deeply troubling” comments.

Greene has also come under scrutiny for her support for QAnon, the far-right conspiracy movement that, among other baseless beliefs, has promoted the fiction that President Donald Trump is working to dismantle a “deep state” cabal of Satan-loving and pedophilic liberal elites.

<snip>

“Republican extremism is on the ballot across Georgia and Marjorie Taylor Greene’s primary win tonight after embracing vile racism and conspiracy theories represents exactly what’s wrong with today’s GOP,” Scott Hogan, executive director of the Democratic Party of Georgia, said in a statement.

<snip>