The games in Cleveland

         The Yankees had a good night in Cleveland.   They beat the Indians and Shawn Bieber 13-3.  A few blocks away, Democracy had a very bad night in Cleveland.   Although Joe Biden was the clear winner, it was an ugly night, driven wild by an addled demagogue who seems hell bent on taking America down with him when he is defeated in November.

        The moderator of the "debate", Chris Wallace tried to restrain tRump on numerous occasions when the president* shouted over Biden and Wallace.   He completely disregarded the rules agreed upon by both campaigns and showed a stunning disregard for decorum and norms that made his debates with Hillary Clinton look like a ladies' tea party.   If I was Wallace, I would have shut the mikes and the lights off midway through the proceedings and walked off the stage.   As it is, his reputation as a tough but fair moderator is toast.

      I think Biden made the best of a bad situation.   Several times during a nightmarish 90 minutes he looked into the camera and spoke directly to America, promising to be the president of all the people, not just those who support him.   I believe a small but significant cohort of tRump's supporters will look at last night with the disgust most of us felt and switch their allegiance.   I believe a tidal wave is coming.

The tRump voter

       As the "typical" tRump voter becomes more and more hesitant to declare his/her allegiance to the president*, some pundits have sought out an even rarer specimen, democrats who have switched loyalties even if Cheetolini has made his disdain for them evident.

      So it was that NYT columnist Bret Stephens was able to find a Manhattan lesbian who is voting for tRump.    A former Bernie Sanders fan, Chris, no last name please, is voting for tRump mostly because the stock market is filling her 401 K at a blistering pace.   I guess Stephens didn't point out the market does not reflect any genius on tRump's part.  The Federal Reserve has pumped over a trillion dollars into Wall Street to avoid a catastrophe caused by the coronavirus pandemic.  But I digress.

      Chris also approves a buffoonish foreign policy, the president's* serial sexual assaults and only hesitated at the Charlottesville incident.   This "interview" was conducted before the latest revelations about Cheetolini's taxes, so there is a little journalistic malpractice going on.  Shown the criminal tax evasion practiced by the president, it is possible Chris may have changed her mind. 

     I can only imagine Stephens' next scoop;  the surviving Koch brother  is a secret Biden voter! 

Another nail

        As if there were any reasons left for supporting the president* in the upcoming election, a new blockbuster piece in the NYT last night conclusively removed the "he's a successful businessman" meme from the list.

       tRump has refused to release his tax returns to the public, ostensibly because he is under audit by the IRS, and ha spent freely to keep them secret.  The Times reporters, who are incidentally the same who documented the Trump family's tax frauds in the 1980s and 90s.  These frauds were used to pass on Fred Trump's wealth without paying any inheritance taxes.  tRump's tax returns show a far more illegal use of the tax system.   When a supposed billionaire pays nothing to the IRS for 10 out of 15 years and a meager $750 the year he won the presidency, it seems to me prima facie evidence of crimes being committed.

    Of course, if the right wing media covers this story, it will put a gloss on the illegality, telling listeners that all wealthy people game the system and if we had access to high powered tax lawyers we could write off junior's tree house as a business expense.   This toxic fairy  tale impugns all the people who contribute to the defense of the country as well as the myriad expenses of the modern nation state.  

    This is not a case of "both sides do it".   Cheetolini failed to show his taxes to the American people because he has a lot of explaining to do.  What else do we not know about a president* who has as much as half a billion dollars of bills coming due in the next several years.   We need to find out before election day.

An irreversible split?

       In today's NYT, Jamaal Bouie makes  a compelling argument using the Missouri Compromise of 1821 as his jumping off point.   He says the nation was of course more factionalized in the early part of the 19th century by the issue of slavery.   Both sides believed they were playing a zero sum game and if one or the other established a preponderance of legislative power their adversary was doomed.   By allowing Missouri to enter the union as a slave state along with Maine as a free state, both sides kept a precarious equilibrium which allowed 40 more years of peace.

      Bouie compares that uneasy peace with the conflict between the newly emboldened authoritarian Republican party and the Democrats who oppose it.  The latest bare knuckled tactic; the evident approval of whomever the president* nominates to fill Ruth Bader Ginsberg's seat in seeming contradiction to the party's stance when Obama faced a similar situation.   

      In both era's, the party of reaction faced a similar demographic decline.   The slave owning south would eventually be numerically overwhelmed by the industrial north.  Similarly, the white nationalists who mostly represent the Republicans will sooner or later be rendered irrelevant by the coming majority of non-white and progressive Democrats.   The south did not go down without a fight, and whether Bouie says it or not, he believes today's Republicans will do the same.   So far, it is a legislative brawl.  Let's hope they don't adopt the other tactic of the Lost Cause.

Stolen election porn

       Now comes an article in The Atlantic magazine, detailing how the tRump campaign is going to steal the election in November.   Barton Gellman, the author, describes voter intimidation, ballot stealing and even colluding with state legislatures to vote in tRump electors instead of respecting the people's choice.  Obviously  these plans did not come from Cheetolini, whose powers of concentration rival those of a fruit fly.   These plans exhibit the fingerprints of Billy Barr and Moscow Mitch.

      I haven't read the 10,000 word article, but I am curious as to who Gellman thinks is the mastermind behind plans to deploy more than a thousand lawyers to challenge voters' signatures on mail in ballots.  The Biden campaign has its own army of litigators set to go as well.  My main worry is the perennial failure of Democrats to realize Republicans will always bring a gun to a knife fight.

     As one pundit put the challenge to Democratic voters, we must run up the score so even the most hardened partisan will realize the will of the people is to be done with Cheeto Jesus in the wake of the most disastrous 4 years in American history.

Outrage meter maxed out

      Following the latest outrages perpetrated by tRump and his merry band of nihilists is exhausting and ultimately futile.   It seems there  is no norm they will not violate, no agency of the government they will not compromise and no lie they will not tell in service to the dear leader.   The Divine Mrs. M has stopped watching the news in an effort to preserve her sanity.

      Now the media has given up on the horse race metaphor since Cheetolini is so far behind in most polls.   In an effort to keep eyeballs on the screen we are now treated to endless articles on how the president* will steal the election if he is within a certain margin on election day.  Of course tRump aids this effort on a daily basis, telling his followers the election is rigged unless he wins.  Most of these poor souls are so far into the right wing news bubble they swallow this garbage and prepare for armageddon.

     There seems to be little the average person can do except to keep informed, donate to democrats with a credible chance of being elected and be prepared for the blizzard of BS which will hit the proverbial fan on election day and the weeks following.  

Let's play hardball

      While the title of this post quotes the odious Chris Matthews, the spirit applies to Democrats as tRump and McConnell propose to enshrine a conservative majority in the Supreme court for a generation.  Appealing to cultural norms or even Republican pledges is a fool's errand.  It is time for Dems to play hardball if they win a majority in the Senate.

      Statehood for DC and Puerto Rico are surely on the table.   How about Guam?  Packing the Supreme Court would be next on the agenda.   Surely 4 new 30 something millenials would give Joe Biden and his agenda their stamp of approval.   Conservatives have been playing the long game on judicial appointments for 40 years, confirming men and women to whom the progressive agenda is anathema.  Democrats can erase this advantage immediately so small d democratic legislation can be passed and upheld by a court no longer beholden to Republican daddies.

      Of course all these suggestions assume Chuck Schumer and his caucus are not just as firmly in the pockets of American oligarchs as McConnell and tRump.   Here is their chance to prove it if the levers of power are delivered to them by voters in November.   If they fail to act, then my nephew will have been proved right to disdain the Democratic party as a frail imitation of the Republicans.

Last gasp gardening

     It shouldn't have happened so early, but it did.   The garden experienced it's first killing frost on Sunday morning.   Although my truck's outside thermometer showed 35 degrees, ice was forming on the leaves of most of the vegetables.   The hardier lettuces, brassicas and herbs are fine, but even some of the dread galinsoga was burned, albeit in a spotty fashion.    Say goodbye to basil, zucchini, beans and tomatoes.  Instead, focus on broccoli, kale, lettuce and winter squash.   As i have said before, this may be my last year of gardening on a semi-commercial scale, so this is a bittersweet farewell to the summer garden.

Rats, Ship, etc.

      Another day, another tRump administration functionary recording an anti-tRump ad because she couldn't take any more of the BS.   This time it was a highly placed member of the laughably named Coronavirus Task Force.   As Ms. Troye said, their task was for the most part keeping Cheetolini satisfied with a lot of happy talk about how he was handling the pandemic.

     As we approach the election I would assume more and more officials will be looking at the polling and deciding it would be better to jump ship with a juicy story to tell than remain and go down without a trace.   Ms. Troye's contribution is the tidbit concerning tRump's exclamation that maybe Covid 19 wasn't too bad since now he doesn't have to shake hands with those "disgusting people".   Troye joins another Homeland Security alumnus who decried the president's handling of the problems at the US southern border.  

     I'm pretty sure most of the "disgusting people" won't change their minds about their hero.  I doubt the second coming would shake the allegiance many feel for this horrifying imitation of a human being.  However, look for a steady trickle perhaps turning to a flood of people leaving the administration in the next few weeks.

Culling the Herd

       In a grotesque and horrifying performance the other night, the president* insisted the coronavirus would "eventually go away".   He followed up this assertion by saying if enough people get the disease and recover, there will be a "herd mentality" and the virus will be stopped.

      We know Cheeto Jesus got this theory from a radiologist whose familiarity with epidemiology is seemingly rudimentary at best.  It seems Dr, Scott Atlas' main claim to fame is his ability to appear on Faux News and spout his contrarian theories regarding Covid 19.  Let a large percentage of the population get sick and recover and we will achieve herd immunity says Dr. Atlas.   He advocates sheltering the most vulnerable from the disease, but is not very forthcoming about how to do that.  Especially since many of our "essential" workers are minorities with co-morbidities which make them unusually vulnerable to infection.   

     tRump has seemingly bought into this theory.  He brought Atlas into the White House to manage the pandemic response, meanwhile sidelining actual infectious disease experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx.  New exposed documents from Atlas' team are instructing states with high rates of transmission to cancel any plans for statewide mask mandates.   Even the CDC director has said masks are the single best way to combat the spread of the virus.  However, if your goal is efficient spread of the disease, by all means, cancel any mask mandates, hold packed rallies indoors and endorse indoor dining at bars and restaurants.

      The truly scary thing about this scenario is the possibility of millions of deaths among the most vulnerable populations, the elderly, the sick and those with pre-existing conditions.  It may well result in more than 2 million otherwise preventable deaths.   However, in tRump's mind that may be a feature, not a bug.

Inoculated against reality

       In a not too scientific poll of voters in Wisconsin and Michigan, a reporter for Time magazine estimated that approximately one in five of the potential voters she spoke with believed there is a system of tunnels under the US that are used by cannibalistic pedophiles to trap, torture and eat children!    She also said they were totally impervious to facts, as if being "inoculated against reality".

       When this abandonment of truth in favor of wild conspiracy theories began, sober people believed these latter day "truthers" were uneducated, unemployed lower middle class whites who had basically dropped out of the system and filled their days with social media.   As we all know, Facebook, instagram, etc. are notorious timesucks which can easily waste a couple of hours per day even among those who are employed.   Imagine someone with 24/7 availability.

       It turns out that plenty of Q anon adherents are also well educated and middle class.   What does this say about America in 2020?   I'm guessing many of these idiots are looking for an overarching narrative which blots out the reality of wealth inequality, climate change, racial strife and a hundred other realities they can't control.  Q and some even wilder conspiracies allows them to believe that there are horrible people out there doing horrible things, but our leader is secretly working to save us all.  As an old acquaintance of mine used to say, "What a world"!

The lengthening shadows

       As we count down the days to the presidential election, the freakouts on the left and the right continue to intensify, although in different ways.   Many on the right look at the polls and demand the president* take aggressive and even violent action to invalidate the vote.   Roger Stone called for federal officials to seize ballots in Clark County, Nevada which leans democratic.   The slightly deranged Michael Caputo is advising good republicans to buy ammunition now to deal with the antifa hordes coming to dispute the results of the election if tRump wins.   On the other side, there seem to be a lot of handwringing over the possibility of  Cheetolini refusing to accept the results if they favor Biden.   Hiring hundreds of lawyers to contest republican ratfucking in the courts seems to be about as aggressive as democrats can imagine being.

      I am optimistically predicting Biden will prevail and the margin will be so overwhelming that tRump will accept the results while decrying the whole process as he gets on his plane for the one way trip to Moscow to escape the judicial reckoning his crimes will inspire.   As Caputo so aptly put it, the shadows are getting longer.

Wishing and Hoping

       I think I have used this title before, but as we careen down the road to another "most significant election in history", it seems like we are wishing and hoping that somehow the nightmare of four more years of tRump will not come to pass.   But it will take more than than that to excise the orange boil on our democracy.

        First and foremost, make sure you and everyone in your family votes.  Sure, your crazy uncle will probably vote for Cheetolini, but the exercise of everyone's right to vote can survive a few minor aberrations.   Once you have the voting plan in place, donate to your favorite local candidates.  Down ballot races are the lifeblood of democracy.  Far too many democrats focus on the presidential election and ignore their local congressional races.   Finally, get involved.   I intend to make calls for my local candidate for Congress.   She may be a long shot against Elise Stefanik, a fervent tRump ass kisser, but at least she is in the arena.   Wishing and hoping won't get it done this time.

Tap Dancing around the obvious

     Is the president* of the US a criminal.  A very vocal minority certainly believes that if tax evasion, money laundering, sexual assault and accepting help from a foreign adversary are crimes, tRump certainly fits the definition.  In light of Bob Woodward's conversations with Cheeto Jesus on tape in which the latter admits to knowing how deadly the coronavirus was as early as January, we may want to add manslaughter to the docket of his crimes.

     Paul Krugman nearly calls for the manslaughter charge in his NYT column today.  He lays out the timeline and the number of deaths that may have been avoided if the president had displayed leadership instead of "downplaying" the threat numerous times before finally admitting how serious the situation had become.    Even now, Cheetolini is urging everyone to get back to bars, restaurants and schools even without any federal guidance on how to do so safely.  Pro tip;  in the absence of a safe and effective vaccine there is no safe way to open the previously mentioned establishments.   Krugman ends his column saying tRump may be responsible for many preventable deaths.

    In another corner of the Op-Ed pages, Michelle Goldberg cribs from Jerry Seinfeld, saying that "nothing matters" in the tRump administration.  The endless series of scandals has numbed us to any true accountability of any of the criminals involved.  Woodward's latest book is just one more door stop.  The only thing that will provide some relief is the election.  Then we can begin the herculean task of cleaning the Augean Stables of this administration, beginning with the trial and conviction of its leader.

Whiteness and the President*

       After the revelations preceding the release of Bob Woodward's latest book, there are no words to describe the hubris and stupidity of the man our nation entrusted with the nuclear codes.   As Rachel Maddow put it, " If this was a book, this is the chapter where he resigns".   After being outed on tape describing the coronavirus as "deadly" all the way back in February, but continuing to deny it in public until April, tRump basically admitted causing tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths and hospitalizations.   Timely action by the government could have greatly diminished the effects of the pandemic, but Cheetolini stood in the way of his experts because of his fears of a falling stock market.

      While even Maddow knows there is little possibility of tRump resigning from office as long as his base is still behind him, many wonder if perhaps this is the last straw and his supporters will start to stampede to Biden.   Unfortunately, this is not a realistic possibility.   I personally know a pretty good cross section of tRump voters and short  of a nuclear war, nothing will change there minds regarding voting for the president*.   In most cases, these white men have invested far too much of their political capital in an authoritarian buffoon to switch at this point.  In the face of an avalanche of news concerning his serial crimes, the average tRump voter will either rationalize the behavior or cry "fake news".  Besides, owning the libs is the point.   After 8 years of a competent black man leading the country, any white man, even one as manifestly unfit as Cheeto Jesus is better than the alternative.    

Booking to the election

        It feels as if a new book full of revelations of bad behavior by the president*drops nearly every week.  Virtually anyone who is related to him or worked for him but had a falling out is willing to write a tell all.   From Omarosa to Mary Trump and now Michael Cohen we have been treated to a barrage of charges of grifting, bigotry, malignant narcissism and outright sexual assault.   The result seems to be a collective yawn.   His supporters are seemingly immune from disgust at the charges and the rest of us buy the books and shake our heads at the revelations.

      As we get closer to the election, both sides fear and expect tampering with the results.   Democrats fear voter suppression and tampering with the Post Office to slow ballots in the mail.  Republicans just fear a fair count, although as usual they project their own behavior and shout about vote fraud.    Meanwhile, the Russians hover in the background looking for a way to influence the election in tRump's favor.

      Some say this will be the highest turnout election ever and say it is all about persuasion.  Others say it is all about turning out the base.  Whichever is true, the best strategy for dems is to make the election a referendum on tRump and his character.   

Gardening

        Despite a few cool nights, the gardening season is still in full swing.  I celebrated Labor Day by setting out lettuce and brassica transplants and fertilizing previous plantings.   Despite some havoc created by the omnipresent Swede Midge, my later plantings of broccoli and cauliflower are looking good.  October should be a great month for these tasty fall vegetables.   The winter squash vines are starting to falter and the butternuts and delicata are maturing.   Tomatoes continue to ripen and the last plantings of cilantro and basil look good.   The final row of beans may or may not produce before frost, but I'm rooting for at least one picking.   All in all, it was a good week in the garden.

Labor Day

       Over the years I have been writing this blog, Labor Day has always presented a problem for me.   I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment behind the holiday, but have always had problems with the way the day is used by politicians.   In the Covid 19 emergency there will probably be few parades and hopefully gatherings will be kept to a minimum.   

       The future of work should be in our thoughts today.  While many jobs will still be performed by human beings 25 years from now, many, especially those in the "knowledge economy" will be taken over by AI or artificial intelligence.   From reading and interpreting X-Rays and MRIs in medicine to writing the latest news for media outlets to driving big rigs cross country, automation is coming for your job.  Those of us lucky enough to be able to work from home during the pandemic should take note.  My own job, vegetable sales will someday soon be easily replaced by a computer which will more easily match supply with demand.   The same will happen to many other occupations in the near future.

      What will we do with the millions of people whose reason for getting up each morning is to do an honest day's work for pay?   Just something to think about this Labor Day.

A last full measure

         "Suckers" and "losers" is how the president* described those who gave the last full measure of devotion to their country.   Despite a roar of denial from the White House, Jeffrey Goldberg's story in The Atlantic, quoting tRump as he declined to visit a gravesite in France in 2018 was confirmed by the AP and there is little doubt he said what he is reported to have said.

        I checked the NYT and WaPo this morning and both carried stories on page one.  However, if Obama had been found to have disrespected our fallen as well as disabled veterans, there would have been half a dozen stories and most GOP members of Congress would have been calling for impeachment.  I'm sure they will be asked for their reactions today, but of course will offer some BS excuse to dodge the question.

      Had any previous president exhibited such a complete lack of empathy for the fallen, his campaign would have ended as of last night.   I suppose even a recording of tRump disparaging all veterans in the same manner he once did to John McCain wouldn't move his core supporters.  However, I think that among the millions of presently serving soldiers, sailors and marines and veterans and their families, Goldberg's story and its confirmation may have real world consequences.    

Requiem for the Franchise

       The original Tom Terrific is gone.   Tom Seaver, the face of the "Miracle Mets" of 1969 and one of the greatest pitchers of all time died yesterday at his home in California.  He was suffering from dementia, but the cause of death was listed a Covid 19.  He was 75 years old.

       Being a Yankee fan to the bone, I didn't follow Seaver's career, but couldn't help but admire his mastery of the pitcher's craft.  The local L.I. tabloid, Newsday, probably featured Seaver and the Mets far more often than the woeful Yankee squads of the late 60s and early 70s.  You could count on Tom Terrific to notch 20 victories and 200 strikeouts virtually every season or so it seemed.   In a stunning series of stupid decisions, the Mets allowed "The Franchise" to get away, trading him to the Cincinnati Reds for a package of no names in 1977 and then after getting him back in the early 80s failed to protect him in draft for compensatory damage and the White Sox claimed him.   He finished his career in Boston, ironically part of the team which lost to the Mets in 1986.   

      Seaver was known as a standup guy who mentored younger pitchers and was a savvy broadcaster who was brought in to call numerous World Series games.   RIP Mr. Seaver.  You will be missed.

Alternate Reality

        I live in a universe where Rachel Maddow can spend an entire show reading excerpts from a tell all book by an ex-friend of Melania Trump.   In an alternate reality,  someone tuning in to Tucker Carlson's White Power hour on Faux News is treated to non-stop praise of a 17 year old who allegedly killed 2 protestors in Kenosha, Wisconsin and wounded another.   How does one reconcile these drastically skewed visions of what constitutes reality?

      I guess you could wait for Trevor Noah to make sense of it on his comedy channel Daily Show.  Or wait even longer for This Week with John Oliver's profane take on both Maddow and Carlson.  It's a little scary that Comedy Central and HBO offer a more reality based take on the news than the supposed mainstream media.

      Meanwhile, in the WaPo, Dana Milbank declared the president's* plane took off for Kenosha yesterday, but somehow landed on "Planet Zog".   tRump's tour of the damage caused by looters and vandals in the aftermath of the Jacob Blake shooting and his subsequent roundtable praising the paramilitary policing were yet more jarring side trips to a different reality than the one most of us inhabit.  I think we need to agree on a shared experience or by November 4 our nation may experience a psychotic break.

Who could have predicted

          Among the avalanche of books about the tRump White House, there are two more additions today.  While many of the early releases were written at a second or third hand remove from the action, Melania and Me and Donald Trump v United States were written in the first and second person, respectively.

        Stephanie Wolkoff, who ran much of tRump's inauguration festivities is writing to clear her name and in the process take down the public perception that the First Lady is an unwilling participant in the tRump family's grift.   I'm sure there are juicy, gossipy bits throughout the book, but i won't be reading it.

      Michael Schmidt's book about Cheetolini's capture of the non partisan areas of American government, especially justice and intelligence is probably worth a read, although in this case, Schmidt's main sources are in it for self justification.   Don McGahn and John Kelly come off as tRumpian lickspittles who wish to be perceived as trying to rein in the Dear Leader's worst impulses.   Instead, they, along with Rod Rosenstein enable the corruption of the DoJ and FBI and pave the way for even more egregious hacks like William Barr to further democracy's downfall in service to a malignant narcissist.   Where were these paragons when the actual dirty work was being done, including the curtailment of the FBI's investigation into tRump's ties with Russia.   

     The very fact all these books are being written in the context of the 2020 election is a clarion call to bring this administration down before it brings down America.