a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
On Monday evening, federal authorities used tear gas to clear Lafayette Square of peaceful protestors, so President Trump could pose for a photo while holding a Bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church.
It wasn’t the first time Trump has used the word of God as a political prop. But it was obscene, even for him.
– William J. Barber II and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, The Washington Post
You know it has to be bad when multiple emergency alert messages pop up on your phone.
In downtown Seattle today, a peaceful protest march was turned into a destructive riot, with evil-doers throwing Molotov cocktails and other objects at police, breaking storefront windows, looting them, and setting three or four vehicles on fire.
Seasoned reporters say this one was the worst since the 1999 World Trade Organization protests here in the city.
A curfew is now in place for tonight & tomorrow night, and the National Guard has been called in by the governor.
‘White people, by and large, do not know what it is like to be occupied by a police force. They don’t understand it because it is not the type of policing they experience. Because they are treated like individuals, they believe that if ‘I am not breaking the law, I will never be abused.’
– Khalil Muhammad, author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America
There is a lot of trouble in Minneapolis over the police brutality that led to George Floyd’s death on Monday.
In 2014, Trump had criticized President Barack Obama for playing golf when there were two confirmed cases of Ebola in the United States.
Fast forward to May 2020, with the death toll for Covid-19 approaching 100,000. It’s Memorial Day weekend, honoring America’s war dead.
President Obama made welcome and rare appearance on national television tonight, delivering two virtual commencement addresses to the Class of 2020 high school graduates.
His main messages:
1. Don’t be afraid.
2. Do what’s right.
3. Build a community.
He commented on the pandemic as well, and criticized the handling of the outbreak that has now killed more than 87,000 Americans, and crippled much of the economy.
“More than anything, this pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge, know what they’re doing. A lot of them aren’t even pretending to be in charge.’
Jared Kushner had the ba*** to say today that the federal government’s response to the corona virus outbreak is ‘a great success story’. That is a vile and infame lie.
Anyone that knows anything, knows the response can only be described as an abysmal failure. Obama’s team (that had sent 10,000 troops to contain the Ebola pandemic in Africa in 2014), briefed them in 2017 at the hand-over. What did Trump do? He dismantled the pandemic agencies in the federal government.
Trump was briefed extensively in January & February 2020 by the intelligence agencies about the coming pandemic. He dismissed their concerns. At least – what? 50%? of the 60,000 deaths that have now been recorded, could have been prevented. More Americans have now died of the virus in three months, than the casualties of the Vietnam War. That war ended after three decades on Apr. 30, 1975.
ox·y·mo·ron
/ˌäksəˈmôrˌän/
noun
a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction (e.g. act naturally, deafening silence, bittersweet, President Trump).
chlor·ox·y·mo·ron
/ˈklôräksəˈmôrˌän/
noun
a figure of speech, suggesting that the injection of bleach into humans can cure Covid-19, and that it therefore warrants medical research.
I saw this YouTube clip from a 2018 Jimmy Kimmel Live show for the first time today. Several people are shown a big world map with the countries outlined.
Were they going to be asked to point out an obscure country such as Nepal, on the map? Maybe a more obvious one such as – uh – Australia? China? Canada? No. Four or five people were asked to choose and correctly point out any one country whatsoever on the world map. Couldn’t do it.
To save Kimmel’s audience from utter despair, the clip ends with a young boy ticking off the countries in South America, on to Mexico, USA, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Australia, New Zealand and .. correctly pointing out Papua New Guinea.
The stock market was down today by ‘only’ – what? 4% or so, I think. I am not even looking anymore. Congress is still trying to pass a $2 trillion economic package. (That’s a 2 with 18 zeros; about 10% of the entire US Gross Domestic Product). As the New York Times says: Republicans insist that we should fight a plague with trickle-down economics and crony capitalism. Democrats, for some reason, don’t agree, and think we should focus on directly helping Americans in need.
There was Trump today, again at the podium with the daily press conference, his tedious self. He has done very little to stop or slow the pandemic. He now tries to claim, that it is going to be possible to resume business as usual in another week or so. (Unbelievable. And good luck with that). The press conference today went on so long, and so off the rails, that it was abandoned by the three national TV networks.
Gov. Jay Inslee expanded school closures and prohibited large gatherings across all of Washington State on Friday, in an effort to slow the spread of the new coronavirus. Health officials reported at least five new deaths, and more than 560 people have now tested positive.
– Associated Press
Trump finally announced today — some 30 minutes before Wall Street closed for the week— that he declares a National Emergency* over the coronavirus. He shook hands with at least three Fortune 500 executives (a bad example in the time of coronavirus), and proceeded to exchange barbs with the press. ‘Such a nasty question’ he said, without answering, when asked why he disbanded the pandemic response team when he took office.
Panic buying erupted on Wall Street, pushing the Dow Jones Industrial Average and other indexes up almost 10%.
Okaayy .. but there is going to be a recession. How can there not be? The world is grinding to a halt. The three largest cruise ship lines have announced a suspension in cruising for 30 days. Delta Airlines says the drop-off in business is worse than after 9/11. If any number of states is like Washington State or the State of New York, the national economic impact will be significant.
*The Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act of 1987 is activated. When the Stafford Act is activated to deal with a pandemic, the federal government can begin providing direct emergency medical care to citizens throughout the country. This could include the establishment of temporary hospitals, for example, to ease the nation’s projected shortage of intensive care beds. The government could also use the act to provide food, water, medicine and other supplies to Americans. [Source: USA Today].
More cancellations today: the entire NBA season cancelled — and the NCAA’s March Madness games, as well (Madness? No, necessary).
Trump’s muddled speech about banning travel from Europe to ‘stop the spread of the coronavirus’ landed with a thud in the financial markets, as did the Federal Reserve’s announcement today, that they will intervene in the markets and pump in more than $1.5 trillion (yes, trillion with a T).
The United States is having a crisis of confidence in the President, and the White House, during this nationwide public health emergency.
I sent my vote in today. It’s so easy in Washington State: you get your paper ballot in the mail, you fill it out, the mailman picks it up. No stamp needed.
As someone said on Twitter about voters in California and Texas that had to wait in line for 4 hours or more on a Tuesday workday, at a polling station: that is not ‘democracy in action, in America’. That is voter suppression.
Here’s the pledged delegate count, as reported late on Tuesday night by the New York Times. Biden 228, Sanders 211, Warren 13, Bloomberg 8. It sure seems to be down to a two-person race (first to 1,191 delegates wins). And it seems Bloomberg’s campaign has to do some introspection.
Super Tuesday turned out to be a momentous day for the Joe Biden campaign, and the tide seems to have turned in his favor.
Biden won in at least 9 of the 14 contested primaries. Texas was too close to call by late Tuesday night. Biden will likely lose California to Bernie Sanders, but he will probably make the 15% cut-off, to still garner some of the state’s huge number of 415 pledged delegates.
Update Wed 3/4: Michael Bloomberg announced that he is dropping out of the race, and endorsing Joe Biden. By now the delegate count is Biden 432-Sanders 388.
The South Carolina presidential primary is tomorrow, Saturday.
Saturday will be followed soon by Super Tuesday (Mar 3), leaving only two or three candidates of the remaining 7 contenders in the race for the Democratic Party’s candidate for President.
The US still has by far the most billionaires in the world (585, compared to China: 373, Germany: 123, Denmark: 6, South Africa: 6, if Elon Musk is counted in that 6).
So are billionaires to blame for income inequality? Are they, indirectly so? How does one stop a country’s economy from producing billionaires? (Probably something like a marginal tax rate of 90% above $5 million of annual income).
Anand Giridharadas (political commentator, TIME Editor at large), says this 2020 Presidential election in the United States will be a referendum on wealth and capitalism, that has gotten a little out of control/ completely out of control, in the United States of America.
It sure looks like it’s going to be Bernie Sanders that will go up against Trump in the 2020 Presidential election, after his run-away win in Nevada’s primary on Saturday. With 60% of the votes counted there, he has 46%, and Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren follow, each with less than 20% of the vote.
Now there are #PleaseNotBernie hashtags starting to appear on Twitter posts, similar to the #NeverTrump movement in 2016.
Well, about that, writes opinion columnist Ross Douthat in the New York Times:
“A world where Sanders is on track to get a clear delegate plurality in late March is probably a world where he gets a majority by May .. which means that the long game of delegate accumulation and superdelegate machination is probably irrelevant, and the only question is whether it’s possible to unite a not-Sanders vote across the first three Tuesdays in March.
To quote an ancient NeverTrump proverb: ‘Good luck with that’.”
Here’s a yard sign put up by a Bloomberg supporter here in my neighborhood. I also saw ones for Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Mayor Pete, but none for Joe Biden or Amy Klobuchar.
There was yet another Democratic presidential primary debate last night, and Mike Bloomberg appeared on stage for the first time. Alas, he seemed ill-prepared for the incoming attacks from Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders (for his lavish spending of his own money on his campaign, and the toxic work environment women had to deal with in the days when he still ran his financial services company).
Does he still have a shot at the candidacy? The Nevada caucuses on Saturday should be a good indicator. Front-runner Bernie Sanders escaped mostly unscathed, Elizabeth Warren put in a strong performance, and Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar had a few heated exchanges. Joe Biden was not really engaged by the other candidates: not a good sign. It probably means that they no longer see him as a threat.
I followed some of Bernie Sanders’s stump speech that he gave in the Tacoma Dome tonight. A seasoned campaigner, he has it down pat, of course: denouncing income and wealth inequality, the corporate owners of the media, and advocating for free healthcare, college education, and so on.
‘And by now, the Democratic establishment should be getting nervous as well’, he also said. (I think they are very nervous. I like most of what he says, but I’m kind of nervous as well). As he left the stage, Neil Young’s ‘Keep On Rockin’ In The Free World (1989)‘ played.
The Wikipedia entry for the song explains its background: ‘The lyrics negatively reference the George H. W. Bush administration, then in its first month, quoting Bush’s famous ‘thousand points of light’ remark from his 1989 inaugural address and his 1988 presidential campaign promise for America to become a ‘kinder, gentler nation.’ The song also refers to Ayatollah Khomeini’s proclamation that the United States was the ‘Great Satan’ and Jesse Jackson’s 1988 campaign slogan, ‘Keep hope alive’. The song was first performed live on February 21, 1989, in Seattle with The Restless, without the band having rehearsed it’.
Geld wat stom is, maak reg wat krom is. – Afrikaans saying.
Rough translation: Money that’s mute, makes right what’s blight.
I did not even mention ex-New York mayor Mike Bloomberg in the Iowa and New Hampshire Democratic primaries. He was not on the ballot there, and is still a shadow/ dark horse candidate for President.
But Bloomberg (78) is one of the wealthiest men on the planet (net worth: $60 billion). His strategy is to skip the early states, and make a splash on Super Tuesday (Mar. 3). From there, pull all the levers he can, using vast sums of money, to gain the nomination. (He is already running ads on TV and social media).
It might just work, in spite of (completely valid) objections: Bloomberg would essentially buy the Democratic nomination with an onslaught of TV ads, social media campaigns, and out-of-pocket contributions to charities and organizations in turn for their support. (A fine line, that he knows how to toe, since that’s what he did to get elected as Mayor of New York for the third time).
The New Hampshire primary election for the 2020 Democratic nominee for President, went largely as forecasted. The top two candidates are the same ones as in Iowa (Sen. Bernie Sanders & Mayor Pete Buttigieg). Neither are from the so-called political establishment. Former Vice-President Joe Biden came in a distant 5th. Ouch.
Next up is Nevada (Feb. 22), South Carolina (Feb. 29), and a whole bunch of States on Super Tuesday, March 3.
The pundits still see 78 year-old Sanders as most likely to become the Democratic Party’s nominee, but man! is he the one to beat Trump?
Sanders has a fervent and devoted following, but in the General Election he’s going to take relentless and withering criticism for being a democratic socialist. His detractors (Republicans, Trump, corporate America) will shorten it to ‘socialist’ and paint him as an evil destroyer of the American dream. No matter that the American dream is dead*.
*Over the last 50 years in the United States –
A child’s chance of earning more than his or her parents has plummeted from 90 to 50 percent;
Earnings by the top 1 % of Americans nearly tripled, while middle-class wages have been basically frozen for four decades, adjusting for inflation;
Self-inflicted deaths — from opioid use and other drug addictions — are at record highs;
Nearly one in five children in the US are now at risk of going hungry;
Among the 35 richest countries in the world, the US now has the highest infant mortality rate and the lowest life expectancy.
[Source: Vox.com]
