https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/1310584937356103686

breathtaking corruption
https://twitter.com/SimonWDC/status/1309259096609173510

https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/24/seniors-200-gift-certificates-prescription-drug/

😬😬😬
"Amy Coney Barrett reportedly belongs to People of Praise, a group to which members must swear a lifelong loyalty oath."

"Members of the group swear a lifelong oath of loyalty, called a covenant, to one another, and are assigned and are accountable to a personal adviser, called a “head” for men and a “handmaid” for women."

https://mavenroundtable.io/theintellectualist/news/trump-s-leading-pick-to-replace-rbg-believes-husbands-should-rule-over-wives-93462IjaBkKkd-p7tXZVCQ?fbclid=IwAR2fNDdtTIZLXLdd1R_N7pZ7Gv3ixGOFs-JXjx26Fe3N79l7M4dQNvq_7cg

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-weird-shit-is-rotting-our-democracy

"That’s why those seeking to defeat Trumpism have to turn to an opposition playbook outside of the American paradigm. Yes, there has been no dearth of compelling and cathartic anti-Trump ads. But there is also a real concern that voters are increasingly desensitized to the negativity and need to imagine not just overthrowing Trump but what the future will look like without him.

There is a useful anti-authoritarian playbook to employ, tracking the phrase “Vamos a decir que no… la alegría ya viene” (or “We’re going to say no… happiness is coming”). The “No” campaign to oust Augusto Pinochet in the 1988 Chilean national plebiscite models how to expose the monstrous cruelty of an autocratic regime and then project an uplifting image for happier days ahead.

Their successful television ad campaign, documented in the 2012 film No, was a one-two punch. They first decried the inhumanity of the Pinochet regime—the authoritarian rhetoric, the chilling and killing of the opposition, and the body bags —and then beamed the sunny faces free of Pinochet. The compelling ad campaign helped galvanize a record-setting voter registration campaign and a coalescing of opposition leaders, much like Democrats saw this year in Bernie Sanders’ and Elizabeth Warren’s full-throated support for the Biden-Harris ticket.

The Chilean lesson—as the plebiscite successfully unseated the dictator and set the groundwork for a return to liberal democracy—is clear: On the campaign trail, Democrats must remind the American people that Donald Trump, through his governance, has proven to be the most anti- and un-American president in our history. Biden and Harris should not be afraid to reiterate why he is an exception to American democracy: A president impeached for corruption, and whose continued corruption denied our country protection against the virus.

Then they must embody in these closing days of the campaign what exactly American democracy looks like, that would make America once again move toward a more perfect union, and how a vote for them will be a vote to let America be America once again. "

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/25/what-katie-porter-taught-us/

Good piece. The conclusion--

"Porter’s questioning was instructive in several respects.

First, grilling administration witnesses about whether they explicitly received direction from President Trump is a waste of time. These appointees get their jobs because they understand what Trump wants. If there is any confusion, they read the president’s daily tweets.

Second, asking witnesses to confess to corrupt motives is also futile. The best you can do is establish the lack of qualifications and any donations the appointees made to Trump. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist, for example, to figure out that Gordon Sondland, a former ambassador to the European Union who had no diplomatic experience, got the job because he donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee.

Finally, she has aptly underscored the degree to which the Trump administration cares not one wit about good governance. It is a government designed to serve Trump’s grudges and conspiratorial paranoia while allowing cronies to feather their own nests. After failing so miserably at his job and revealing how little qualified he is for the job, DeJoy, one might hope, would resign out of shame. But this, remember, is an administration without apologies or regrets. Just lots of scandals."

I think every speaker at the RNC was required to use the improper pejorative "Democrat party" when referring to the party but better yet, call us socialists and Marxists. I lost count of how time they said it. They are such gross childish bullies.

&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR0KUepF6sAP9JJfw_KGFudDrtcL487GPtY4UkCrEHUMwIfB0Y0uWUFKJv4

🚨🚨🚨 🚨🚨🚨
The Postal Service has informed states that they’ll need to pay first-class 55-cent postage to mail ballots to voters, rather than the normal 20-cent bulk rate. That nearly triples the per-ballot cost.

https://prospect.org/coronavirus/unsanitized-federal-benefit-extension-anger-unemployment-evictions/

done it using hydroxychloroquine?

Scary scary stuff here:
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/07/18/expect-trump-to-use-dhs-stormtroopers-to-stop-people-from-voting-and-plan-accordingly

Last night I wrote about Trump’s use of ICE and Border Patrol stormtroopers under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security to detain and intimidate peaceful protesters. In that piece I speculated that Trump was not only testing the waters of creating his own personal paramilitary domestic security force and attempting to please the most sadistic elements of his base, but also that he was taking the natural actions an executive might take if he actually believed the dystopian propaganda about America’s cities being promulgated every day on Fox News.

But there is another deeply alarming possibility to consider. This November will be the first since the expiration of a 1982 consent decree in which the Republican National Committee will be freed to conduct voter suppression and intimidation en masse. As Andy Kroll recently explained at Rolling Stone:

The result of the suit was a 1982 consent decree between the Democratic and Republican parties. Even though the RNC refused to admit wrong-doing in New Jersey, the group agreed to stop harassing and intimidating voters of color, including by deputizing off-duty law-enforcement officers and equipping those officers with guns or badges. Over the next three decades, Democrats marshaled enough evidence of ongoing Republican voter suppression to maintain the consent decree until 2018, when a federal judge lifted the order.

The 2020 presidential election will be the first in nearly 40 years when the RNC isn’t bound by the terms of the 1982 decree. Clark, the Trump campaign lawyer, told the group of Republicans at the private meeting last November that the end of the consent decree was “a huge, huge, huge, huge deal,” freeing the RNC to directly coordinate with campaigns and political committees on so-called Election Day operations. The RNC is sending millions of dollars to state Republican parties to vastly expand these measures, which include recruiting 50,000 poll observers to deploy in key precincts.