The RNC Convention begins today the goal here is to remember two things: 1) you already know it will be a hatefest so don't be enraged and 2) that hate fest is why we vote. The goal is to vote Democrat straight down the ballot at all times for the rest of your life.
The Utah Jazz defeat the Denver Nuggets 129-127 to take a commanding 3-1 series lead behind 51/4/7 from Donovan Mitchell
Kawhi's strength is him extending his arm away from his body to create space. It's an offensive foul for everyone else and it's never called.
The 100 bench points for Toronto was the most in any NBA game since records have been kept. The regular season high since 1970-71 is 94 by Golden State on 03/19/1977. The playoff high was 86 by Dallas in 2011.
Ernie Johnson saying b!tch a$$ white boy on live air is everything
https://streamable.com/6wxxa8
Jamal Murray finishes game 4 with a new career playoff high of 50 points,11 rebounds and 7 assists
Jordan Clarkson in tonight's win: 24 points on 9/13 FG, 4/7 3P, 2/2 FT (86.5% TS)
Brandon Workman faced 42 hitters with the Red Sox last September and gave up 3 hits. In his first 1 1/3 innings with the #Phillies, he allowed 5 hits.
https://twitter.com/jaysonst/status/1297719992637587456
Kellyanne Conway to leave the White House at the end of the month, citing the need to focus on her family. Moot since she served 3.5 years. But if Trump wins re-election she won't return, so she's really done.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/kellyanne-conway-white-house/2020/08/23/6c26e18a-e5a7-11ea-bc79-834454439a44_story.html
Republican will not adopt new platform (platform has not been updated in a decade), instead pledging undying support to what Trump wants
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/08/republican-national-committee-2020-platform-trump.html
Judge halts Trump campaign's mail-voting lawsuit against Pennsylvania
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/513314-judge-halts-trump-campaigns-mail-voting-lawsuit-against-pennsylvania
Following a series sweep and seven years as head coach, the 76ers are expected to part with Brett Brown, sources tell @ShamsCharania.
https://twitter.com/theathleticnba/status/1297882118631108608
Melania Trump made disparaging remarks about the president and his adult children, according to former friend and advisors new book. Possible tapes as well.
https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1297895252540325888
Melania Trump taped making disparaging remarks about president and his children
https://www.theweek.com/speedreads/933226/melania-trump-reportedly-taped-making-disparaging-remarks-about-president-children
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.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/senate-made-criminal-referral-trump-jr-bannon-kushner-two-others-n1237155
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-08-14/senate-committee-sought-investigation-of-bannon-raised-concerns-about-trump-family-testimony
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/senate-intelligence-committee-donald-trump-jr-jared-kushner-stephen-bannon-erik-prince/2020/08/15/a7905a84-def5-11ea-b205-ff838e15a9a6_story.html
GO VEGAN. RELOCATE THESE CREATURES TO SANCTUARY FARMS. REDIRECT ANIMAL MURDER FUNDING TO SANCTUARY FARM FUNDING: Starving pigs are caught on film resorting to cannibalism in a shocking catalogue of neglect unveiled at 'high standards' farm
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8656913/Starving-pigs-caught-film-resorting-cannibalism-high-standards-farm.html
Jared Kushner made a deal with Russia for ventilators during the COVID crisis, but every single machine was faulty
https://www.businessinsider.com/kushner-sourced-covid-ventilators-from-russia-that-didnt-work-report-2020-8
We know: Data show Trump didn't 'build' a great economy. He inherited it.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/data-show-trump-didn-t-build-great-economy-he-inherited-n1237793
Democrats have a plan to reduce that (Bernie and Elizabeth had plans to eliminate that): Banks Have Made $18 Billion From "Paycheck Protection Program" Processing Fees Alone — Fees paid to banks eclipse funding allocated to develop vaccines, provide medical supplies and feed children.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/paycheck-protection-program-covid-relief-fees-banks
Three Ohio House Republicans have drafted articles of impeachment against their own Republican Gov. Mike DeWine because they don't care about covid19
https://www.cleveland.com/open/2020/08/articles-of-impeachment-drawn-up-against-gov-mike-dewine-over-coronavirus-orders.html
Federal judge halts Betsy DeVos's illegal and unconstitutional and even anti-Jesus rule sending coronavirus aid to private schools
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/08/23/federal-judge-halts-betsy-devoss-controversial-rule-sending-coronavirus-aid-private-schools/
Biden calls for immediate investigation into police shooting of Jacob Blake
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/513368-biden-calls-for-immediate-probe-into-police-shooting-of-jacob-blake
Biden Campaign Rejects Richard Spencer Endorsement, Condemns Views as 'Absolutely Repugnant'
https://www.newsweek.com/biden-campaign-rejects-richard-spencer-endorsement-condemns-views-absolutely-repugnant-1527230
Postmaster General DeJoy testifies before the House Oversight Committee - 08/24/2020 | Live 10:00am
https://www.c-span.org/video/?474917-1/postmaster-general-louis-dejoy-testifies-postal-service-operations-mail-voting
I'm absolutely disgusted that the Democrats are interfering with a democratic election by attempting to allow every eligible voter to vote.
- You didn't tell me I was supposed to make an opening statement!
- ...We always have you make an opening statement
- But you didn't tell us to this time
- We did tell you this time
- I don't think you did
- Fine just make your statement
And conveniently enough he already has one prepared
The #USPS delays are not due to Covid-19 nor "rioting" in major cities as Rep. Jody Hice just said.
Internal documents show the service delays are caused by DeJoy's policy changes.
DeJoy has admitted as much -- calling the delays an "unintended consequence" of his policies.
https://twitter.com/GeoffRBennett/status/1297906764755677185
Photo of DeJoy's nameplate w/ the word "Honorable" mispelled
https://twitter.com/grace_panetta/status/1297899608614547456
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EgMQze0XsAAVxB4?format=jpg
I'd like to think the intern knew what he/she was doing. They just couldn't bring themselves to call him something he clearly isn't.
Every single Republican: "Everything I don't like is a Democrat hoax and Democrats attacking my Christianity!"
You can blame Newt Gingrich for that mentality.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/newt-gingrich-says-youre-welcome/570832/
Why is Jim "I dismiss rape as a hoax" Jordan on every fucking committee? Why do we have to be subjected to the torture that ensues when he speaks??
If DeJoy did nothing wrong, why is Comer so defensive? It begs the question, why would anyone in Congress defend a new hire with conflicts of interest? Why wouldn't they be more interested in protecting an American institution than the new guy? Trump's water carriers have a very distinctive tone.
Full list of all mail sorting machines removed in all states, in alphabetical order (and all were permanently decommission and dismantled/destroyed and cannot be restored):
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/08/dejoy-says-usps-wont-reinstall-more-than-600-removed-mail-sorting-machines/
A quick reminder: efficient systems are not resilient, resilient systems are not efficient. Resilient systems are capable of sustaining and enduring; services should be made to be resilient first, with considerations of efficiency second. Efficiency, in a political arena, is a dog-whistle for privatization. UPS and FedEX use the USPS for their own deliveries to certain areas because they are not profitable. Such a service (USPS) is necessary and shouldn't be sold off. On top of that the USPS is LITERALLY PART OF VOTING right now, so Republicans messing with it at all is absolutely unacceptable.
Cooper: "Mr. DeJoy, is your backup plan to be pardoned like Roger Stone?"
DeJoy: refuses to answer.
Fucking Cooper is the MVP.
Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) to the Postmaster General at today's hearing: "Mr. DeJoy, is your backup plan to be pardoned like Roger Stone?"
https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1297925554553978884
Republicans: The USPS has been losing money for years, it's a disaster!
Everyone: Okay, let's give them money so people can keep their jobs and allow voting by mail
Republicans: No! The USPS has $13 billion in cash on hand, they're fine!
DeJoy says at today's #USPS House hearing that he "did not direct" the removal of collection boxes and processing machines, the reduction of post office hours nor any cuts to overtime. Documents show the changes happened after he was installed. If he didn't direct it, who did?
https://twitter.com/GeoffRBennett/status/1297907717533765634
I remain amazed by Republicans' ability to simply adopt whatever Trump says reality is at any given moment, even after he literally says he wants to defund the postal service to stop mail-in voting.
I feel physically repulsed when I hear any of these republicans speak... Their words, allegations, conspiracies, flat out lies, mud slinging, treachery, malicious stupidity and the list goes on.
"There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the president is using the postal service to interfere with the election" EXCEPT TRUMP SAID SO HIMSELF, HE EXPLICITLY SAID HE WANTED TO GET RID OF THE USPS BECAUSE THEY DELIVERED ABSENTEE BALLOTS WHICH WAS "FRAUD VOTING" THAT BOOSTED DEMOCRATS. HE. EXPLICITLY. SAID. IT. FROM. HIS. OWN. MOUTH. HE. MURDERED. YOU. QUIT. SUCKING. HIS. DICK.
"I never talked or had lunch with Steven Mnuchin about the job, that is outrageous. I did talk to him about the job after I received the job offer"
"I've had no contact with the Trump campaign... I mean, I spoke to the President, I spoke to Steve Mnuchin... I spoke to friends of mine who are associated with the campaign. But I never spoke with the Trump campaign."
Fucking lol
REMINDER -- Republicans in Congress had the MAJORITY of Congress and the WH for two years & didn't do a damn thing about the financial condition of the USPS. For them to use that excuse now to justify efforts to sabotage mail-in voting is total bull-sh*t.
"For the first time in 240 years you sent out a letter to the American people that said the Post Office can't guarantee that we can deliver the mail on time. "
Cooper: "Mr. DeJoy, do you have a duty to obey US law sir?"
DeJoy: "I do, sir."
Cooper: lists off other postmaster generals that have done less and been punished severely.
DeJoy: "Erm, I don't agree with the premise."
Cooper: "Did you pay back several of your top executives by bonus or rewarding them?"
Dejoy: Refuses to answer, calls it ridiculous.
Cooper: Digs in deeper with DeJoy on the record. "Do your mail delays fit Trump's campaign goal in hurting the post office, in stated in his tweets?" and "Will you give this committee your communications with Meadows?"
New York AG files lawsuit against the Trump organization and other defendants
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-24/new-york-sues-trump-organization-erik-trump-court-filing-shows
You can read Congressman Krishnamoorthi's great letter about John Barger and him selecting and bringing up Dejoy's name, circumventing their entire selection process.
https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000174-0cff-d0fb-aff6-9cff9ec00000
"Madam Chairwoman! Madam Chairwoman! Madam Chairwoman! Madam Chairwoman! Madam Chairwoman! Madam Chairwoman!"
- Republican party slogan, 2019/20
DeJoy has millions invested in direct rivals of the post
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/08/13/fact-check-postmaster-general-louis-dejoy-invested-competitors/5550480002/
DeJoy was selected by Republican activists and shoved through a make believe process that involved the administration in order to destroy the post office to prevent citizens from voting, most of whom cannot vote because they are overseas in the military or work for the US government overseas or work for the natural resource extraction industry overseas or are elected officials who almost always vote absentee etc (in other words, most overseas voters are Republicans)
Daily reminder that Jim (Gym) Jordan was complicit in the coverup of a long period of sexual abuse at Ohio State. That's the kind of moral fiber the Republicans puts on display.
If you don't have any patterns of misconduct in your background, you should have no problem releasing your background check
DeJoy just realized that he is in a great deal more legal jeopardy than he thought, and called a potty break to consult with his legal counsel.
Giancarlo Granda says his sexual relationship with the Falwells began when he was 20. He says he had sex with Becki Falwell while Jerry Falwell Jr, head of Liberty University and a staunch supporter of President Trump, looked on.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-falwell-relationship/
Every single Republican. Every, single, Republican, in every one of these committees is always so intent to try to act like the rules are being broken against them. Even when they are being called on breaking the rules.
Did anyone else hear DeJoy's voice get super squeaky at the word "ethical"? 🤣 I wonder if he's worried...
Republicans are trying to frame it like "USPS is losing billions of dollars a year" as if it's a business but it's not a business. It's in the constitution.
Not only is Harley Rouda great, he also defeated Russia Bro Dana Rohrbacher in a deep-red California district.
Don't Republicans know that USPS employs a shitload of veterans?
Russian collusion, Ukrainian blackmail, and now USPS delays... it's ALWAYS a Democratic hoax. Reams of evidence make no difference to Trump supporters. A huge chunk of the country is convinced, Trump's constitutional transgressions simply are not real; they are made-up crimes, part of a nefarious Democrat plot to seize power. No wonder there are people who believe in the deep state. Trump himself rails against it to evade responsibility for his actions. No wonder a phenomenon like QAnon is possible. Republican leaders and right-leaning "news" sources consistently project a perverted representation of reality; over the course of years, these distortions accumulate in unthinking people's brains like mental plaque, resulting sometimes in absolute rot. When one of the major parties, including its leader, so completely denies reality - and supporters buy in - you end up with mass brainwashing that one tends to associate with totalitarian states, not democracies. Sometimes, the damage can seem nearly irreversible.
"I'll be candid, I don't trust you"
- Rep sarbanes is all of us right now
Imagine being a public official who does a lot of interviews/ zoom calls and not having the good sense to set up a good camera, microphone, and ring light... that absence of judgment should give a hint as to capabilities in other areas.
I have to hand it to the Republicans, they really know how to reach their crowd. Their arguments have pretty much sunk down to that episode of Family Guy where the crowd is won over by simply mentioning 9/11. All buzz words with no substance. "China... Mobs... Russia..." We are not simply worried about "mail boxes" we are worried about voter suppression and complete corruption of our county.
Again, DeJoy has claimed today that:
1) He doesn't know why mail sorters were taken off line, somebody else ordered that
2) He doesn't know who made the decision to disconnect those sorters, somebody else ordered that
3) It's absurd to think he would know anything about disconnecting these machines, somebody else ordered that
4) He will under no circumstances direct that sorters be reconnected and reinstalled, nor will he allow anyone at a local level make a direction to reconnect a sorter and reinstall them
Republicans keep mentioning Obama's administration removing mailboxes and that never happened, the USPS' infrastructure and service greatly expanded during both the Bush II and Obama Years
Can't hear anything on NBATV, no audio for a NBA PLAYOFF GAME. FFS.
And for some, silent basketball.
COVID has limited our workforce, so we've decommissioned sorting machines to make it more difficult to get mail where it's supposed to go
Loosing our legs has limited our workforce, so we are throwing out all the wheelchairs and crutches.
His computer is as old as him. I wonder if he uses CompuServe or AOL for dial-up.
You don't even need this job. Almost like you were brought in for political purposes.
At this point we could just play a recording every time a Republican is on: 'Mr DeJoy, I apologize for the behavior of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle - you are a great man and you are doing your job that you do not want. Now, the question the American people want an answer to: are the rumors true that you have a monster sized dong?' Although that might still make too much sense for some of these Republicans
It is really interesting to see how confident and excited Dejoy is when he is talking about simple USPS functions (describing priority mail) vs when he has to answer questions in regarding how the USPS functions or why machines were removed/unplugged. Louis Dejoy sounds more like a run-of-the-mill USPS clerk who hasn't been trained yet rather than the Postmaster General.
Trump after a wildly dishonest monologue about a wide variety of subjects: "We can never forget the 175,000 people. Which will go up. Remember this, though: we saved millions."
No improvement for the Iowa #CropWatch20 #corn, which was damaged by the Aug. 10 derecho. Ears are starting to mature quickly on the bent plants, and that will continue this week in the heat. Yield is expected to come in slightly below average, though uncertainty remains high.
https://twitter.com/kannbwx/status/1297955848778477568
I took action to force the Trump Organization, and specifically EVP Eric Trump, to comply with my office's ongoing investigation into its financial dealings. For months, the Trump Organization has failed to fully comply with our subpoenas in this investigation.
https://twitter.com/NewYorkStateAG/status/1297949682816225282
Our investigation began after Michael Cohen testified before Congress that Trump's annual financial statements inflated the values of his assets to obtain favorable terms for loans & insurance coverage, while also deflating the value of other assets to reduce real estate taxes.
https://twitter.com/NewYorkStateAG/status/1297949683520856064
The Trump Organization has stalled, withheld documents, and instructed witnesses, including Eric Trump, to refuse to answer questions under oath. That's why we filed a motion to compel the Trump Organization to comply with our lawful subpoenas for documents and testimony.
https://twitter.com/NewYorkStateAG/status/1297949684997267459
Nothing will stop us from following the facts and the law, wherever they may lead. These questions will be answered and the truth will be uncovered, because no one is above the law.
https://twitter.com/NewYorkStateAG/status/1297949685739642881
I need Magic to make this 2-2 so I can read a bunch of hot takes
Magic really need to start games better. Both games they dropped they played better than the Bucks in the 2nd half, but they keep digging themselves in massive holes in the 1st half that sealed their losses.
DeJoy keeps answering with lies and the Republicans keep trying to cover for him by shouting over him to drown out his lies LOL
Trump called the USPS a joke. Shut the fuck up and go back to WVA.
Remember: Republicans with a straight face are still saying "baseless claims of Russian collusion" when a Republican majority committee just completed an investigation that found there was Russian collusion and interference, and presented more evidence than the Mueller report because they went further than Mueller, a Mueller who was shut down by Republicans
Yup, this is the same adviser that told Melania her "Be best" slogan sounded illiterate and plagiarized (which it probably was) and also was concerned with spending on inauguration committee. Everything the Trumps touch ends in corruption. America is supposed to be better than this but the Trumps stay in power because more than half the country wants the other half exterminated.
Republicans: the postal service needs urgent reforms because it operates at a loss, and those reforms are so urgent that they should be undertaken during a global pandemic and an election.
Republicans: the postal service has more cash on hand than ever before! The postal service doesn't need extra funding to deliver the essential services that our constiutents rely on!
"This is theatrics! A joke!"
--Mark Green, completely devoid of irony (as he finishes reading his script).
Why is there not a single fucking Republican willing to stand up for veterans, senior citizens, and small businesses that are being directly affected by mail delays that completely coincidentally only started with DeJoy's leadership?
Remember Paul George threw CJ Miles under the bus in the 2017 playoffs and told the media he's the only one who needs to take the last shot? Well look at him now
This is the same Stephanie Winston Wolkoff who somehow made $ 26 million disappear for the inauguration committee.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/15/trump-inaugural-committee-paid-26-million-to-friend-of-melania-trump.html
Getting him to admit they are tracking COVID19 in the postal service is huge because it totally obliterates the entire republican narrative.
He answered that COVID1+ question reflexively, and you could tell she didn't expect him to give her an answer. It didn't look like he expected it either!
AOC [DeJoy]:
- Do you have experience in logistics? [Correct]
- You served for 30 years at XPO Logistics [Correct]
- You then served at X, and then resigned [Correct]
AOC submits for the record publicly available information about his previous dealings
- Have you taken any meetings with XPO since becoming post master? [No]
- Have you video-called/phoned/had a meeting in person with people at XPO? [I have many friends, spoken casually with them]
- Do you keep a daily calendar? Have you deleted any entries [Yes, and No]
- Does ethics Officers full access to your calendar to screen [Yes... there is an officer]
- Can you submit your calendar? [I will speak with counsel, and will come back to you]
- According to our regulations, these are agency documents [I will do that, if these are the regulations.]
- Madam Chairwoman, I would recommend that these documents are subpoenaed, if he does not comply.
Reminds me of Sondland during the impeachment hearing. Almost like buying your job isn't really a great idea.
Pool Boy: Jerry Falwell Jr. 'Watched' Me Have Sex With His Wife | In an explosive Reuters interview, Giancarlo Granda said his relationship with the couple began after they met in March 2012, when he was a 20-year-old employee at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel. The now 29-year-old said that throughout the relationship, which ended in 2018, he would have sex with Falwell's wife, Becki Tilley Falwell, in front of the evangelical leader. "Becki and I developed an intimate relationship and Jerry enjoyed watching from the corner of the room," Granda said, noting that the liaisons took place "multiple times per year" at hotels in New York and Miami and at the couple's home in Virginia. | The bombshell claim comes just one day after Falwell Jr., 58, said in a statement to The Washington Examiner that his wife struck up an "inappropriate personal relationship" with the couple's "pool boy" who then threatened to come forward. Citing the "emotional toll" of the affair, Falwell claimed that while he and his wife have "tried to distance ourselves from him over time," the man "became increasingly angry and aggressive." In the statement, Falwell Jr. insisted he was "not involved" in the affair. "Eventually, he began threatening to publicly reveal this secret relationship with Becki and to deliberately embarrass my wife, family, and Liberty University unless we agreed to pay him substantial monies," Falwell said in the statement to the Examiner. | In his own statement to the Examiner, Granda denied ever extorting the family, saying "any allegation of extortion is falsely, defamatory and belied by clear documentary evidence. The Falwell's attempt to sandbag me, and the Examiner, with a last minute story without providing the Examiner clear evidence that this was not simply an 'affair' with concocted allegations of extortion reeks desperation. The WHOLE truth will come out." | In another 2018 audio recording obtained by Reuters, Tilley Falwell complained to the 29-year-old about him describing his relationships with other people. "He's like telling me every time he hooks up with people. Like I don't have feelings or something," Tilley Falwell reportedly said before Falwell chimed in: "You're going to make her jealous." | But recent text messages, including one exchange in June, revealed the relationship between Granda and the Falwells had turned sour—in part because of a business dispute. According to BuzzFeed News, the couple bought a Miami Beach youth hostel in 2013 with Granda—and he was "offered a share" because the 29-year-old lived in the area and would act as the manager. Corporate records show Granda still has a stake in Alton Hostel LLC while multiple media outlets reported the deal sparked a legal battle that later involved Michael Cohen. "Since you're okay with ruining my life, I am going to take the kamikaze route," Granda wrote to Jerry Falwell in 2019, according to Reuters. "It really is a shame because I wanted to reach a peaceful resolution and just move on with our lives but if conflict is what you want, then so be it."
https://www.thedailybeast.com/giancarlo-granda-says-jerry-falwell-jr-watched-him-have-sex-with-wife
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-falwell-relationship/
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/exclusive-falwell-says-fatal-attraction-threat-led-to-depression
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/aramroston/jerry-falwell-jr-michael-cohen-pool-attendant-lawsuit
Postmaster general: I don't know the cost of sending a postcard. I don't know how many people vote by mail. I don't know who ordered the destruction of our services.
Has anyone told him that he's the boss of the USPS?
Katie Porter made an excellent point that any effective manager should understand: When you take over a new job, you listen and learn before you speak and change.
The United States Postmaster General does not know the postal service motto, does not know how much a package costs, does not know how much it costs to send a post card, and does not know the starting weight for a first class package.
Rashida Tlaib tells DeJoy to familiarize himself with 18 U.S. Code § 1701 (obstruction of mail).
DeJoy held between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of stock in Amazon when he joined the Trump administration, CNN reported, citing financial disclosures. DeJoy divested the shares on June 24th but on the same day bought between $50,000 and $100,000 of Amazon stock options, which give him the right to buy shares in Amazon at $1,860 per share, according to CNN. As a result, he still stands to benefit financially if Amazon's share price increases. (Amazon stock closed on Thursday at $3,161 per share.)
https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/13/21367736/postmaster-general-amazon-post-office-conflict
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/12/politics/postal-service-dejoy-conflicts-amazon-trades-xpo-stake/index.html
Fultz barrels into Middleton at full speed for the and oneHighlights
https://streamable.com/56npex
He just said he made the decision to stop the processing machines...
This 4th quarter was kinda a letdown. Middleton woke up and cooked the Magic and the Magic just completely collapsed
18 U.S. Code § 1701 - Obstruction of mails
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1701
Comer accused democrats of spreading conspiracies to discourage faith in the elections. Meanwhile, Trump was at the RNC during this hearing, screaming about how mail-in voting is full of fraud to discourage faith in the elections.
About those calendars…USPS rejected our July #FOIA request for DeJoy's calendars, saying the "calendar maintained on a USPS computer" was for his personal use and couldn't be FOIA'd. We appealed. The public needs to know who he is meeting with.
https://twitter.com/weareoversight/status/1297992688088866818
The media DID fact-check the Dems last week — that's part of the point — reporters checked and found that the speeches were largely accurate. There were few egregious errors. Trump showed today that the RNC will keep fact-checkers v v busy
https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/1297991882799292416
Giuliani: If you want a look at 'Biden's America,' look at Portland riots, NYC crime surge
Me: I'm anti-BlackLivesMatters and pro-BlueLivesMatters saying, THIS IS HAPPENING IN TRUMP'S AMERICA. AND IT'S WORSE THAN WHAT HAPPENED AT THE END OF THE OBAMA YEARS (Missouri and Baltimore riots were nothing compared to what's happening now)
Literally Trump's America
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/24/us/kenosha-police-shooting-jacob-blake/index.html
The Milwaukee Bucks defeat the Orlando Magic 121-106 behind Giannis Antetokounmpo's 31/15/8 to take a 3-1 lead in the series
Khris Middleton scored 18 points in the 4th quarter of Game 4. He scored a combined 33 points (11 ppg) in the first 3
Nikola Vucevic in a loss against the Bucks: 31/11/7/2 on 11-20 FG
Yesterday in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Jacob Blake was shot seven times in the back as police attempted to restrain him from getting into his car. His children watched from inside the car and bystanders watched in disbelief. And this morning, the nation wakes up yet again with grief and outrage that yet another Black American is a victim of excessive force. This calls for an immediate, full and transparent investigation and the officers must be held accountable. These shots pierce the soul of our nation. Jill and I pray for Jacob's recovery and for his children. Equal justice has not been real for Black Americans and so many others. We are at an inflection point. We must dismantle systemic racism. It is the urgent task before us. We must fight to honor the ideals laid in the original American promise, which we are yet to attain: That all men and women are created equal, but more importantly that they must be treated equally.
https://joebiden.com/2020/08/24/statement-by-vice-president-joe-biden-on-the-shooting-of-jacob-blake-in-kenosha-wisconsin/#
Fury erupts outside Buckingham Palace as enraged crowds scream 'paedophile' at gates
https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/1326739/Royal-latest-news-Buckingham-Palace-protest-Prince-Andrew-paedophile-Royal-Family-video
Harden looks annoyed as fuck that some unknown kid (Lu Dort) is guarding him so hard.
What do you want Harden to do there, jump over Steven Adams for a rebound?
I think we can appreciate that Dort is a good defender and that Harden is a supernatural offensive talent at the same time.
If you think the CP3 vs Harden flopping antics are bad, just wait until we see Lowry vs Smart flopping antics
Tony Brothers is THE WORST
The modern NBA, tough defense is punished. You're either making easy layups/dunks, wide open shots, or getting fouled. Adam Silver has been good on the social side, but his rules have been terrible for 2-way basketball.
Tony Brothers' hate of the Rockets is something I will never truly understand.
A flagrant? Lmao that's garbage. If you're gonna call that, make any hit to the head a flagrant.
Is this one of the worst commentated games ever? They both sound drunk
Please stop calling him Stevie Adams
Where we're going, we won't need defense 😎
120 combined pts in the first half
That giant footprint in whatever show was just on TNT was the footprint of the refs' effect on the games in this bubble
CP3 gets a lot of credit, as he should, but SGA, Schroeder, Dort, Adams should all get equal credit
Refs screwing the rockets
"One of the sex pics problems started when Jerry [Falwell] was sending some nudes of Becki to Ben and accidentally cc'd most of the executive staff of Liberty University."
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/limited-modified-jerry-falwell-hang-out
Because the delay is minimal, gives Trump every chance to comply, makes them look reasonable and professional, may increase the chance of victory on the issues, and has no impact on when the public sees the information: Manhattan prosecutor agrees to wait 7 days to enforce subpoena for Trump tax returns https://thehill.com/regulation/513370-manhattan-prosecutor-agrees-to-shelve-subpoena-for-trump-tax-returns
Matt Fogal, Republican DA in Franklin County, penned an open letter in support of Black Lives Matter and against Donald Trump. This weekend the Republican party in Franklin County disowned him for those comments
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/franklin-county-da-matt-fogal-censured-black-lives-matter-20200824.html
This trend of recording people who trust you saying scandalous things then selling releasing a book about it strikes me as ugly
Jerry Falwell Jr. agrees to resign from Liberty University
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/08/24/jerry-falwell-jr-agrees-resign-liberty-university/
Pretty impressive that Jerry Falwell Jr. had a scandal so deliriously scandalous it totally displaced the one involving a guy getting arrested on a giant yacht for allegedly defrauding donors from just four days ago.
Biden campaign confirms that post-convention Biden + Harris will undergo regular testing for Covid-19; the campaign says it will make public the results if either Biden or Harris has a confirmed, positive case.
The Philadelphia 76ers fired coach Brett Brown
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1298001906695110657?s=20
Lawgeeks, TikTok filed suit today to challenging Trump's executive order banning TikTok in the U.S. The complaint raises due process, unjust takings, ultra vires, non-delegation, and free speech causes of action.
https://courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/TikTokTrump-COMPLAINT.pdf
Oh hey, ex-Rep. Duncan Hunter's wife was sentenced today to eight months of home confinement for her role in misusing campaign money to fund a multiyear spree of vacations and personal spending. She got a deal for cooperating with prosecutors.
https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/ap_news/us/wife-of-ex-california-congressman-sentenced-for-corruption/article_7285ce08-61f3-5ca6-8021-93ebdce94fee.html
Should be no surprise that MDA & Harden have made adjustments in attacking Dort
Rockets with a 30 point quarter. Still 5 minutes left
Thunder need small ball this entire quarter, he's a horrific coach that should be fired at the end of the season
Rockets made more 3s in 7 mins than the lakers do in most games
Rockets haven't been running a lot of PnR but it's been great this game.
This feels like those third quarters the warriors always have in all their games
"In 2013, I was employed to lead one of the most dramatic rebuilds in professional sports history. In the past seven years, our players and coaches have evolved and grown, and I have deep appreciation for the 102 players I have coached. I am grateful for my coaching staffs and their dedication to our common goal, while also proud to see three of my former assistants now deservedly NBA Head Coaches and one a major college Head Coach. I would also like to thank the ownership group, led by Josh Harris and David Blitzer, former GM Sam Hinkie, the 76ers' historic alumni, our passionate fans, and finally current GM Elton Brand, who I coached and worked for. He is a high-character talent that the 76ers are fortunate to have. I sincerely wish him, the players, and the next coaching staff my very best in their pursuit of an NBA championship. Thank you, Philadelphia."
https://twitter.com/rich_hofmann/status/1298005692830425091
Elton Brand is more at fault for what happened with this team. Brown isn't great by any stretch, but the front office should've been held wayyyy more accountable. I have little to no hope that they will make any meaningful changes to the front office brcause Elton isn't going anywhere.
Talking about what the police shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin and what players can do, Bucks guard George Hill said, "We can't do anything. First all, we shouldn't have came to this damn place to be honest."
George Hill: "Coming here just took all the focal points off what the issues are. But we're here. It is what it is. We can't do anything from right here. But definitely when it's all settled, some things need to be done."
https://twitter.com/JeffZillgitt/status/1297997726240710657
George Hill: "This world has to change. Our police department has to change. Us as society has to change. Right now, we're not seeing any of that. Lives are being taken as we speak day in and day out. There's no consequence or accountability for it. That's what has to change."
https://twitter.com/JeffZillgitt/status/1297997726240710657
George Hill's frustration is apparent. Asked about the Bucks not quite at pre-hiatus level, he said, "Until the world gets their shit together, I guess we're not going to get our stuff together. Watching stuff that happened in Wisconsin really breaks my heart."
https://twitter.com/JeffZillgitt/status/1297997726240710657
If the only way multiple cops can get control over a situation where one unarmed man is resisting arrest and walking to his car, is to shoot him 7 times in the back....maybe they shouldn't be cops or go back to training school.
Darius Bazley makes 26-foot three point jumper (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander assists) 90 - 80
P.J. Tucker makes three point jumper (James Harden assists) 93 - 80
Dennis Schroder makes 26-foot three pointer 93 - 83
All kinds of sloppy Rockets misses and turnovers thanks to superb Thunder defense
Nerlens Noel makes free throw 1 of 1 93 - 84
Chris Paul makes 11-foot pullup jump shot (Nerlens Noel assists) 93 - 86
Really bad Rockets foul
More sloppy Rockets thanks to Thunderous defense
Chris Paul makes free throw 1 of 1 93 - 87
Nerlens Noel makes alley oop layup (Dennis Schroder assists) 93 - 89
Rockets messiness thanks to Thunderous defense and tired Harden and just like that...
...Dennis Schroder makes 31-foot three point shot (Chris Paul assists) 93 - 92
Rockets crashed and burned the last part of the 3rd quarter LOL after scoring 30pts in the first 7 minutes of the 3rd.
Playoff Nerlens?!?
This shit show at the USPS is exactly why I vote in person. I need to feel confident about my vote being counted.
I want to go old school again and reintroduce consequences for lying under oath. What the hell is the purpose of swearing someone in if that person then lies and lies and lies and everybody just takes it? Remember, folks, Bill Clinton was impeached not for getting bjs in the Oval Office, but for LYING ABOUT IT UNDER OATH.
Every question the Democrats asked they already had to the answer to, complete with receipts. DeJoy perjured the fuck out of himself and he knows it. By the end the Dems were begging him to resign and save face. The part when he was like "how do you know" or "who told you that we cut overtime" or something along those lines seemed revealing. He looked scared.
Becki Falwell, a Trump campaign surrogate, appeared on Trump campaign show last year with Lara Trump promoting "traditional family values"
https://twitter.com/wsteaks/status/1298020284176437249?s=20
C-SPAN has been showing past convention speeches all day. Buchanan '92 on now. The winding road from Goldwater to Reagan to Buchanan and Perot to Trump is one that will be studied for decades. And the camera just caught a smiling conservative VP from IN cheering on the KKK Nazi Trump.
Coronavirus cases in multiple states have been linked back to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota, which saw hundreds of thousands convene over 10 days.
https://nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-more-cases-linked-to-sturgis-rally-multiple-states-20200824-lq62zvft7fcnxpymdbib6i6qoy-story.html
"Owning the libs and pissing off the media," shrugs Brendan Buck, a longtime senior congressional aide. "That's what we believe in now. There's really not much more to it."
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1298026125650808833
A few weeks after Exxon decided to cut its workforce rather than slash its dividend, the Dow Jones Industrial Average cuts Exxon out of its Index.
https://truthout.org/articles/gop-proposes-letting-fossil-fuel-firms-sue-sick-workers-seeking-compensation/
Salesforce, Amgen, Honeywell to join the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Exxon Mobil, Pfizer, Raytheon to be removed from the index.
https://twitter.com/CNBCnow/status/1298009887256043524
Danilo Gallinari gets the clutch steal and Schroder scores to extend OKC's lead to 3
https://streamable.com/v19gnb
Paul George has blocked users from commenting on his Instagram pictures unless he personally follows them
James Harden in a narrow loss in Game 4 tonight: 32/8/15/4stl/6tov 11-25 fg 6-15 3pt 4-5 ft
The Oklahoma City Thunder defeat the Houston Rockets, 117-114 behind Dennis Schröder 30 points (4/7 3PT) and even out the series at 2-2
Rockets shot damn near SIXTY fucking threes and still lost from the Golden State Warrior PTSD
Started 22/37 from 3, then missed 18 of their next 20 before that buzzer beater
James Harden over the final 21 minutes of the game: 7 points, 3/12 from the floor, 1/7 from 3
James Harden: Open layup? Nah, pass to teammate for 3.
He was so good at the start, then he hit the sidestep 3 but the Refs called a travel which was a terrible call
Live by the 3, die by the 3
LMAO the 3 at the end, they miss so much from the last part of the 3rd through the entire 4th half but make that 😭😭😭
I get that they're playing a style, but watching James Harden pass up layup after layup for another bricked 3 while everyone is ice cold is infuriating. And yes I realize they were shooting great in the first half, but take the damn points because that 3rd quarter blowout lasted all of 7 minutes.
4/25 is the new 0/27
Dennis "Mike 'Fred VanVleet' Conley" Schröder
Between this and Mavs-Clips, playoff basketball is spoiling us.
Embarassing for Houston
The Rockets really wasted 6 seconds to foul when they were down 4 at the end
Rockets were in WCF Game #7 form after that hot start to the 2nd half. Something like 3/24 from 3-point range?
They get gassed with a short rotation.
Houston "Playoff P" Rockets
Anyone else catch Harden absolutely body that hand sanitizer stand on his way out?
James "Fuck hand sanitizer" Harden
At least 50% of all Gordon's drives should be offensive foul (ditto for Lebron James.....) Dude just puts his head down and runs into people
Harden takes out the hand sanitizer dispenser. The funniest thing is how non-aggressive it is. I guarantee this clip + the one of him wearing a Blue Lives Matter hat will be used in a right wing youtube doc lol. Probably wanted to wash his hands of this series. From another camera view we can see that the hand sanitizer flopped.
https://streamable.com/9r0hn4
Chris Paul in Game 4 to even the series against Houston: 26/6/3/3stl/3tov on 10-19 fg 0-5 3pt 6-6 ft
UAE cancels public meeting with US and Israel over Netanyahu's opposition to F-35 sale, Trump's "Middle East Peace" over LOL. The Trump administration denied recently that the F-35 deal had nothing to do with the Israel peace deal. That lie didn't last long.
https://www.jta.org/quick-reads/uae-cancels-public-meeting-with-us-and-israel-over-netanyahus-opposition-to-f-35-sale
AOC's Grilling of Michael Cohen Was What Led to NY AG's Fraud Case Against Trump Businesses, Eric Trump
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/aocs-grilling-of-michael-cohen-was-what-led-to-ny-ags-fraud-case-against-trump-businesses-eric-trump/
Rep. Katie Porter Exposes the Dangerous Ignorance of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/katie-porter-exposes-ignorance-postmaster-louis-dejoy-1049242/
Jerry Falwell Jr. tells Virginia news outlet that reports he has resigned are "completely false" even though according to Liberty he was fired. He claims he's on indefinite leave LOL.
The people who know Donald Trump best are sounding the alarm: our country cannot survive four more years of a Trump presidency.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1298030438225764352
https://twitter.com/American_Bridge/status/1298030438225764352
Just before Mark and Patricia McCloskey speak at the RepublicanNationalConvention, the rabbi who is a neighbor to them speaks out: 'They are bullies.'
https://forward.com/news/national/453183/the-rabbi-who-is-neighbor-to-mark-and-patricia-mccloskey-speaks-out-they/
Angry, maskless pro-Trump terrorists forced themselves into the Idaho House special session on the pandemic Monday, shattering a glass door & forcing lawmakers to ask for calm in a crowd that included a man carrying an assault-style weapon.
https://apnews.com/2262f803692a574ec7ede04cc174397f
Michael Cohen says Trump talking about "law and order," a key RNC theme, is "laughable — virtually everyone who worked for his campaign has been convicted of a crime or is under indictment. Myself included."
Reminder that "save the children" is not at all about saving the children, it's about laundering QAnon and dangerous right wing conspiracies: Child trafficking conspiracies blur the lines between real life and fringe extremism — and the clicks continue to roll in
https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/save-the-children-qanon-child-trafficking
Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization's chief financial officer and a longtime confidant of Trump, gave sworn testimony to the state investigators over two days last month. He is expected to meet again with the office.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-attorney-general-investigating-whether-president-trump-organization-inflated-his-assets-11598291821
CP3 gets Harden on the switch and gets back-to-back clutch buckets
https://streamable.com/43ys9c
Chris Paul & The Referee Talking About James Harden Behind His Back, "You Know Him"
https://streamable.com/rryain
Republicans: Let's see what Trump says so we know what our platform is.
RNC: Jeffrey Epstein will be tweeting from Hell, with Herman Cain
The remarks of both Don Jr. and Kim Guilfoyle will be on tape, despite complaints from Republicans last week that too much of the DNC was on tape.
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1298052929493127168
So the RNC already did the nomination it's like they don't want people to see what their delegates look like
The Republican party is an increasingly white party. In the 116th Congress, for example, there are 56 Black lawmakers, and just two of them are Republicans. A similar proportion exists when it comes to gender: There are 131 women in this Congress, and just 24 are Republicans. While the DNC roll call showcased the diversity of America, the RNC roll call was dominated by older white men, all in front of a white background emblazoned with RNC2020
https://www.vox.com/2020-presidential-election/2020/8/24/21399525/rnc-dnc-difference-one-tweet-roll-call
The DNC is projecting this on the side of the Newseum, down the street from the Carnegie Auditorium in DC where the RNC speeches are originating: "1,000+ deaths per day.... 'It is what it is,' - Donald Trump." Photo via source.
https://twitter.com/aseitzwald/status/1298062521224564736
RNC Chairwoman says in her speech that Democrats talked a lot about how much they despise Trump, & focused very little on policy, but the RNC did not release a party policy platform ahead of this convention
After doing a formal roll call this morning in Charlotte with a limited number of delegates, Republicans are now doing a version of what the Democrats did last week with a virtual roll call in each state & territory, except shorter. There was no calamari from what I could tell.
This video has Trump saying "I have kept every single" promise. Not even close to true. Mexico hasn't paid for the wall, the PPACA hasn't been repealed, and on and on. PolitiFact's 100-promise tracker says 49% have been broken and that number is closer to 80% because courts overturned 95%+ of Trump's anti-environment, anti-Muslim, and anti-immigrant (among other things) orders/rules/etc
https://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer/
Most memorable RNC moment so far: The couple saying "we want this nation to continue to be the beacon of hope for the world," as they watch a segment get attached to the wall on the US-Mexico border
Ronna McDaniel's characterization of Biden's agenda was entirely false. He's said repeatedly he opposes defunding the police and his position on health care was litigated through the whole Democratic primary.
Kim Klacik is not a Republican congressional candidate in Maryland (or anywhere else), she was blown the fuck off the map in the special election she ran in earlier this year, she lost to Kweisi Mfume, 92.99% for Kewisei and 5.59% for Kim
https://twitter.com/NilesGApol/status/1298061561345519616
Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee, calls herself a "housewife" even though she's not, she's a career woman and her children are raised by nannies and daycares etc
The Miami Heat complete the 4-0 sweep against the Indiana Pacers, 99-87 behind Bam Abeyado's 14/6/19 and advance to the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals
Republicans attack Democrats for their mostly pre-taped speeches at the DNC. Most of the RNC speeches are also pre-taped.
Trump (and Republicans) backtracked and failed to support red flag laws: Red flag laws are extremely popular measures that empower family members and law enforcement to ask a judge to temporarily remove a person's guns when there is evidence that person poses a risk to themselves or others. After last year's mass shootings in Dayton and El Paso, Trump (and Republicans) promised to support these life-saving measures –– but he's since abandoned the idea. He has made it easier for criminals to access ghost guns: In January, Trump (and Republicans) enabled the online posting of schematics for downloadable, untraceable guns––a move that could allow terrorists, convicted felons, and domestic abusers to 3D print untraceable and undetectable weapons. Trump (and Republicans) has also failed to address the rising problem of ghost guns made at home from parts available without a background check––which have emerged as a weapon of choice for gun traffickers, violent criminals and extremists. He allowed the background system to be overwhelmed during COVID-19, and for tens of thousands of gun sales to proceed without a completed background check. Over a year ago, the House passed H.R. 1112 to address the Charleston loophole that allows gun sales to proceed after three business days even if the background check is not completed. The Charleston loophole has been exacerbated during the pandemic and an Everytown FOIA found 76K gun sales that could be made without a check in just March. Trump (and Republicans) has failed to address the loophole and is deleting records of background checks that have not been completed. He failed to provide critical federal funding to address city gun violence: In the face of persistent and increasing gun violence in US cities during the coronavirus pandemic, he has not prioritized funding the violence intervention programs proven to prevent city gun violence. He made it possible for people suffering from severe mental illness to buy guns: In 2017, Trump (and Republicans) quietly reversed an Obama-era rule, thus making it possible for people who were found to be unable to manage their financial affairs as a result of their mental impairment to buy guns. He lifted the ban on silencer sales to unfriendly governments and foreign companies, endangering the lives of U.S. troops: At the behest of a former lobbyist for the gun industry, Trump (and Republicans) ended the ban on silencers being sold overseas. The decision reportedly "thrilled" the gun industry, but military experts "expressed alarm," because the ban was "intended to prevent American equipment from making its way to hostile groups that might use it against American service members."
More than one hundred Americans are shot and killed every day –– and twice that many have been wounded –– in mass shootings, incidents of daily gun violence, unintentional gun violence, and gun suicide.
I'm flabbergasted by the RNC insistence that Pres. Trump's handling of the pandemic is so brilliant and so successful. How can you say that with a straight face when the US has 4 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the world's Covid deaths?
https://twitter.com/NickKristof/status/1298069485799317505
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.
It's just weird how this production's visual interest is cycling between the same four shots
"No matter where you live, your family will not be safe in the radical Democrat America. -- Patricia McCloskey, charged with illegally pointing a loaded firearm at people marching past her PUBLIC property
Vernon Jones, now touting his law-enforcement credentials in defense of Trump, ran for sheriff in DeKalb County. Among the people who know him best, he lost 76% to 24%.
After terrorist assholes hit the World Trade Center, 2,606 people died. The country came together: Democrats AND Republicans. Now 57% of Republicans call 176,000 dead from COVID-19 "acceptable losses?" What happened to you, America?
https://twitter.com/StephenKing/status/1297690400703033347
(and started a global war on terrorism that resulted in the deaths of millions of people across Iraq and Afghanistan.....)
According to a CBS poll, 57% of Republicans feel that 176,000 dead from COVID-19 are "acceptable losses."
https://twitter.com/StephenKing/status/12975712866260336750
Sigh....The Los Angeles Lakers blowout the Portland Trail Blazers 135-115 to take a 3-1 series lead behind 30/6/10 from LeBron James
Chief Actuary Of Social Security Report: Eliminating payroll tax could eliminate Social Security and Medicare
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/solvency/VanHollenSandersWydenSchumer_20200824.pdf
Night one of the RNC was all about spreading fear, in stark contrast to the hopeful message of the DNC
https://www.businessinsider.com/first-night-of-rnc-was-dark-all-about-spreading-fear-2020-8
They all still know. They're just too chicken to say.
https://twitter.com/RepsForBiden/status/1296906118367780865
Mark McCloskey, who, with his idiot wife were both charged with weapons felonies for aiming their guns at protestors and threatening to murder them: In 2013, the synagogue placed beehives along the wall to produce honey for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. One morning they found the hives destroyed and all the bees dead. Mark McCloskey had taken an ax or sledgehammer to them."
https://forward.com/news/national/453183/the-rabbi-who-is-neighbor-to-mark-and-patricia-mccloskey-speaks-out-they/
USPS Sorting Machines Are Still Being Dismantled Despite DeJoy's Promise to Stop
https://truthout.org/articles/usps-sorting-machines-are-still-being-dismantled-despite-dejoys-promise-to-stop/
Paul George: "I'm getting the looks, I'm getting the shots. The floor is open, the defenders aren't great. I'm just not finding the ball through right now."
Damian Lillard will undergo a second MRI on his injured right knee later today. The @trailblazers announced early this morning that the post-game results of Lillard's first MRI were inconclusive
https://twitter.com/TheSteinLine/status/1298240090477666304
Dallas' Kristaps Porzingis (knee) has been listed as OUT for tonight's Game 5 against the Clippers
https://twitter.com/TheSteinLine/status/1298288155708346369
Kimberly Guilfoyle cited her Puerto Rican mother in her RNC speech to highlight her immigrant experience, but Puerto Ricans are US citizens
The announcement of a "Democratic" small-town Minnesota Mayor speaking at the RNC: he's now a registered Republican and no longer a mayor, he lost his re-election. 100% of the people at the convention are lying about who they actually are.
New York and New Jersey have sued Trump and his Postmaster General over major changes to postal service operations that they fear will hinder mail-in voting during the November election.
Alaska's Republican attorney general on unpaid leave after sending hundreds of "uncomfortable" texts to a young female colleague | On March 16, Clarkson wrote to the state employee: "You're beautiful ... sweet dreams. 😘 Sorry to bother you." The day after that he texted, "So what are you doing sweet lady?" And the day after that: "Always nice to see you beautiful lady ... You have to find a way to say yes and come over and let me cook for you."
https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/2020/08/25/alaskas-attorney-general-on-unpaid-leave-after-sending-hundreds-of-uncomfortable-texts-to-a-young-female-colleague/
https://www.propublica.org/article/alaskas-attorney-general-on-unpaid-leave-after-sending-hundreds-of-uncomfortable-texts-to-a-young-colleague
How fucking stupid are people in positions of public trust and power that they send emails to coworkers of a sexual nature? This is beyond stupidity, this has to be some kind of mental illness. 558 text messages in 27 days, with someone who he was not in a relationship with. An average of 20 messages a day to someone who was not reciprocating his feelings. That is some obsessive, dangerous stalker kind of behavior.
Trump to nominate Chad Wolf for Homeland Security secretary | Trump's announcement comes after a government watchdog concluded Wolf is not legally qualified to hold his job as acting DHS head.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-nominate-chad-wolf-homeland-security-secretary-n1238049
The Minnesota Twins have superb Dodgers pitchers Rich Hill and Kenta Maeda
Minnesota vs Cleveland 7:10 PM | Rich Hill vs Shane Bieber
https://www.espn.com/mlb/game?gameId=401226117
Many great games, many excellent pitchers pitching today, many of them on new teams
https://www.espn.com/mlb/schedule
Damian Lilliard retweeted a video compilation with "experts" on Luka before the draft. His caption was simply "lol". Luka's athleticism is repeatedly questioned throughout the video. A clear bias against European prospects is also apparent. Luka has proven them all wrong in a short period of time: https://twitter.com/Dame_Lillard/status/1297925422651445251
Senate Democrats' Climate Committee Releases New Report On Climate Action, Plan To Build Clean Economy For American People
https://www.democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/senate-democrats-climate-committee-releases-new-report-on-climate-action-plan-to-build-clean-economy-for-american-people
Today, Senate Democrats unveiled their plan to get there. In a 255-page report, the caucus says that it will pursue a broad approach to fighting climate change, imposing new standards and spending billions of dollars to reduce U.S. carbon pollution to net-zero by 2050. The document, which emerged from a year of hearings and private meetings with Democratic allies, is not a draft bill, but a menu of potential policies that have wide support in the party and that could be combined in future legislation. | The Senate plan also reflects the past decade of thinking among climate advocates: that fossil-fuel companies have wielded their power to block climate policy. So it proposes a number of policies that aim to weaken the political power of the fossil-fuel industry, mostly by curtailing the role of "dark money" in politics. The plan also calls for the targeted use of federal authority over the financial sector to force banks to disclose their fossil-fuel holdings and protect against a crisis driven by future losses in the fossil-fuel industry. | But to the frustration of some activists, the Senate proposal does not go as far as the House or Biden plans in restraining the supply of fossil fuels available to drillers. It does not call for a ban on oil drilling on public lands, for instance, and it suggests expanding a subsidy for capturing carbon before it enters the atmosphere, a policy that could benefit oil and gas firms.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/08/a-new-plan-to-surmount-climate-policys-greatest-obstacle/615658/
https://grist.org/climate/democrats-climate-plan-takes-aim-at-the-fossil-fuel-industrys-political-power/
House Democrats: "Hey, let's do this Green New Deal!"
Senate Democrats: "Let's go carbon neutral by 2050!"
Democratic Presidential Candidate: "Even better, let's go carbon neutral by 2035!!"
Republicans: "Lol, I just snorted a rail of coal dust."
Both sides, amirite? '
"There's so much pain in the world that we are powerless over, but being party to animal suffering is not one of them," - Joaquin Phoenix
Let the RNC be a Nazi Hitler KKK lovefest. There will be millions of Republicans who did not understand or believe or underestimated the depths of hatred/insanity of Trump and pro-Trump Republicans. There will be millions who will be aghast and horrified. They will see Trump endorsing every moment of it. They will be the Republicans who stay home election day.
Biden condemned looting and "opportunistic violent destruction" in his June 2 speech - his first after the George Floyd killing. He's otherwise stepped away during looting/unrest news cycles, which Rs have portrayed as him not condemning violence.
https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1298334950052319232
The Liberty University Board of Trustees acted today to accept the resignation of Jerry Falwell, Jr. as its President and Chancellor and also accepted his resignation from its Board of Directors. All were effective immediately.
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1298334357552336901
AGREED: Wisconsin's Democratic governor: There remains a line between peaceful assembly and what we saw last night that puts individuals, families and businesses in danger. | We cannot allow the cycle of systemic racism and injustice to continue. We also cannot continue going down this path of damage and destruction.
https://twitter.com/jessieopie/status/1298328732483059712
The Baton Rouge Police Department is still working to figure out how a man asking for money in the parking lot of Trader Joe's on Perkins Road turned into a deadly shooting on Saturday, Aug. 22. BRPD confirms to WAFB there have been no arrests in this case so far, and police have not released the name of the person who reportedly pulled the trigger.
https://www.wafb.com/2020/08/25/woman-confronted-by-man-trader-joes-parking-lot-moments-before-he-was-shot-speaks-out-brpd-investigating/
Jacob Blake Is Paralyzed from the Waist Down After Being 'Shot in the Back Seven Times' by Police
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/jacob-blake-is-paralyzed-from-the-waist-down-after-being-shot-in-the-back-seven-times-by-police/
1. There was no reason for the three officers failing to arrest him. Grapple his ass and be done with it. They were literally on top of his ass. They played around, resulting in a 20 minute scuffle with punches thrown and tazers failing, ending with a shooting that involved officers shooting multiple times into a vehicle with children
2. Three police opening fire into a vehicle with children was insane, three police repeatedly firing was criminally insane
3. They fired not once but multiple times, knowing children (and a female adult) were in the vehicle
4. The three officers had no plan, no strategy, towards arresting him without incident. They escalated the situation, could not handle the guy, then found themselves staring at person with multiple arrest warrants for dangerous crimes attached to his name climbing into the SUV reaching for something, and instead of tackling his ass, or firing a warning shot towards the ground near his feet, they opened war zone fire straight into the SUV knowing children and their mother were inside
Mike Clevinger will start for the Indians tomorrow.
https://twitter.com/ZackMeisel/status/1298348088088834053
Cancer survivor who spoke at RNC didn't actually benefit from right to try law
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/trump-brags-that-hes-helping-patients-access-medical-miracles-he-isnt/2019/11/15/14690142-00df-11ea-8501-2a7123a38c58_story.html
Chris Paul After Leading Thunder To Comeback Win In Game 4: 'The Win Is Good, But Voting Is Real'
https://sports.yahoo.com/oklahoma-city-thunder-chris-paul-game-4-win-houston-rockets-voting-jacob-blake-police-shooting-233112982.html
Nearly 9,000 Florida children diagnosed with coronavirus in two weeks as schools reopen
https://www.newsweek.com/nearly-9000-florida-children-diagnosed-coronavirus-two-weeks-schools-reopen-1527587
The DNC platform is "Stop Trump, the guy who killed 175,000 Americans, trampled your civil rights, and tanked the economy", and that should be more than enough.
J.A. Happ hinted that he thinks the Yankees are staggering his starts to avoid having his $17M option for 2021 kick in. "It actually doesn't take too much to figure out sort of what could be going on. ... I think I can help our team. I'd like to be out there every five days."
https://twitter.com/BryanHoch/status/1298364743456088068
Who Invited the McCloskeys? The gun-toting Missouri lawyers—featured speakers at the RNC—are not conservative heroes. Why are we even pretending? Virtually every public statement the couple has made clashes with some demonstrable fact of the actual event.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/state-of-the-union/who-invited-the-mccloskeys/
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned American diplomats that under federal law they should not take overt sides in the presidential campaign. On Tuesday, he plans to ignore his own warning by illegally speaking to the Republican National Convention.
1) In a scene that played out several times Monday, a Black Lives Matter protest that began in Columbia Heights confronted White diners outside D.C. restaurants, chanting "White silence is violence!" and demanding White diners show their solidarity. #DCProtests
https://twitter.com/KunkleFredrick/status/1298344285079838720
2) In Adams Morgan, protesters screamed at Lauren B. Victor for several minutes for refusing to raise her fist with them.
"Are you a Christian?" a female protester demanded.
"Good for you — you stood your ground," Chuck Modiano said sarcastically as the crowd moved on.
https://twitter.com/KunkleFredrick/status/1298345254668701696
3) Modiano, who had been yelling at Victor and moments later identified himself as a citizen journalist who writes for @Deadspin, told Victor he couldn't understand why she was the only diner in the area who wouldn't comply. "What was in you, you couldn't do this?"
https://twitter.com/KunkleFredrick/status/1298346368994508801
4) "I felt I was under attack," Victor, an urban planner, said, adding that she felt there was something wrong about being coerced to show support.
https://twitter.com/KunkleFredrick/status/1298347266109997057
5) "In the moment, it didn't feel right," Victor said, adding that she also could understand their anger. "I wasn't actually frightened. I didn't think they'd do anything to me," she said. "I'm very much with them. I've been marching with them for weeks and weeks and weeks."
https://twitter.com/KunkleFredrick/status/1298347887211024386
Nice to know Deadspin is okay with their ahem white writers terrorizing white people just having dinner.
Anyone who stages this kind of mob aggression is doing the Trump campaign's work for free.
No one sees a problem with getting in people's faces and trying to force them to do something? Hell would have to freeze over for someone to get me to do what they want me to do. I do it of my own free will or I don't do it at all.
The brazen witlessness of these cosplaying activists aside, what happens when they do this to the wrong person? Someone who suffers from anxiety attacks. Someone who just lost a loved one and is mourning. Someone who carries a weapon. What then?
Hey, privileged white kids? Not helping. Also, there's a pandemic. Maybe space that out a bit. Preferably by going home, but whatever.
We've seen what happens when we dismiss right wing extremism online—namely lots of murders. We've already seen examples of real-world violence from QAnon followers. Trump and Republicans do not care. DOMESTIC TERRORIST Marjorie Taylor Greene will be at the White House for Trump's RNC acceptance speech. The REPUBLICAN-CONTROLLED FBI designated QAnon a domestic terrorist group. Remember that.
People wonder how the world just went about its business while the Holocaust happened. Studies have shown how outlets like the NYT buried the news. But the headlines were there. Most people just didn't care until it was too late. This must be raised at every presidential debate: Uighurs in China: "There were babies born at nine months who we killed after inducing labor. They did that in the maternity wards, because those were the orders" https://rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/abortions-08172020144036.html
A chunk of the country is on fire, a hurricane is about the hit the gulf states, another tropical storm has formed, a pandemic has claimed 178k lives and we are on the brink of a major spread of Democratic-funded-and-orchestrated race riots.
The shooting by police of Jacob Blake was egregious, and adds to a righteous sense of moral outrage about these recurrent horrors. But make no mistake, the Democratic-funded-and-orchestrated arson and rioting play right into Trump and Republican's hands and the primal fear message we heard so frequently last night.
Riots were declared in Portland 10 times between the end of May and the end of July when the federal police stepped back. Since then riots have been declared 12 times in the month of August (which obviously isn't over yet).
https://twitter.com/verumserum/status/1298300543236837376
We were told everything had calmed down as soon as the feds left. I guess the feds weren't the problem after all.
We were also told by CNN's Brian Stelter that this was only impacting a tiny section of the city. Here's what happened just last night according to Portland Police:
https://twitter.com/verumserum/status/1298303953797439488
Most Americans think recognizing the country's flaws makes the U.S. stronger, not weaker
Don Jr, paraphrasing: We're not going to tear down monuments and forget the people who built our great nation Instead, we will learn from our past so we don't repeat any mistakes.
Me: tearing down statutues does not mean we forget or fail to learn from our past you jackass idiot. Nobody learned about Robert E Lee or Stonewall Jackson from a statue or plaque or memorial etc. They learned about confederate leaders in school, in books, on television, in films, on the internet. Statues are an afterthought.
Far too little far too late: Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski and Republican Rep. Denver Riggleman have introduced a bipartisan resolution in the U.S. House condemning QAnon and rejecting the conspiracy theories it promotes https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/08/25/bipartisan-lawmakers-introduce-house-resolution-condemning-qanon-cult/
https://twitter.com/Forbes/status/1298375570800205824
Very strong words from a National Hurricane Center meteorologist. Hurricane Laura is the real deal, a catastrophic threat to the Gulf Coast.
https://twitter.com/EricBlake12/status/1298356902712217604
THANK YOU. Justin Blake, the uncle of police shooting victim Jacob Blake, urges demonstrators to protest peacefully. "We want justice, and we're going to get justice. We're going to demand justice. But we're going to do that without tearing up our own communities."
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/kenosha-wisconsin-police-shooting/h_661cd83401232142c17bc9c80962e020
Malcolm X's Fiery Speech Addressing Police Brutality
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_uYWDyYNUg
"For the last 70 years, American transportation planners have been using the same model to decide what to build. There's just one problem: it's wrong."
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/v7gxy9/the-broken-algorithm-that-poisoned-american-transportation-v27n3
In June, Barr ordered federal police in riot gear to expel demonstrators from a park adjacent the White House shortly before Trump walked through the area to stage a photo op at a nearby church.
The Democratic National Convention portrayed an America suffering from every possible sort of malady — except urban unrest and all the riots ("peaceful protests"). The protests has caused TRIPLE-DIGIT millions of dollars in property damage, cost thousands of people jobs, costs thousands of business owners their businesses, resulted in killings of protestors, resulted in injuring innocent people, forced regular people to be late to work, forced ambulances to blueprint alternate routes to medical complexes, catastrophically increased lawlessness all over the country (looting, theft, vandalism, bullying, etc), etc. The DNC refused to acknowledge any of this across four nights and eight hours of programming. No one mentioned it — not the community activists, not the mayors or governors, not the former presidents and first ladies, and emphatically not the party's current nominees for president and vice president. The Biden campaign surely doesn't want to risk a discouraging word about anyone marching under the banner of Black Lives Matter for fear of alienating African-American voters, yet the convention's portrayal of the protests seemed quite sincere. The Left's narrative is that the George Floyd protests have, with very few exceptions, been peaceful and above reproach, and only haters could think otherwise. This abiding belief is impervious to all evidence to the contrary. There have been massively destructive riots in Minneapolis, New York City, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Seattle, among other cities. Just a couple of weeks ago, looters ransacked stores in Chicago, and nightly riots are now part of the urban identity of Portland, Ore. You would think that Democrats would want, merely as a matter of political cover, to make some nod toward denouncing this violence and disassociating their cause from it, and maybe, just maybe, calling off the riots altogether. Black Lives Matters and the riots were unconvincing at the end of the Obama Years and Trump won. Even during a week when they were remembering the work of John Lewis, an inspiring and courageous devotee of nonviolence, they couldn't bring themselves to do it. Instead, the party's alternate reality reigned. Waving the bloody shirt of the clearing of Lafayette Square prior to a Trump photo-op in front of St. John's Church, Washington, D.C., mayor Muriel Bowser declared that "it was here that, just weeks ago, Americans donned face masks and, safely and peacefully, protested the death of George Floyd. But while we were peacefully protesting, Donald Trump was plotting." The truthfulness of this statement depends on her definition of "we" and of "peaceful," since it's a matter of record that protesters set a fire at the historic church and threw projectiles at riot forces. (Peaceful protesters do the damnedest things.) In the wake of all the not-so-peaceful protests, cities have experienced spikes in shootings. This, too, would seem to demand some acknowledgement, to keep Trump and Republicans from exploiting the lapse if nothing else, but speakers blithely skipped over it.
Despite their incessant calls for a national conversation about race, Democrats don't know what to say about it other than to accuse others of racism. Especially since the George Floyd shooting, it's not uncommon to see a "Stop Racism" sign posted in front yards. To which, I think, "yes, by all means." And your plan for doing so is what exactly?
The media is complicit as well. They use the term "largely peaceful". Really? As if that small percentage who are burning these cities down can and should be ignored? One big problem is that democratic DA's are publicly stating they will not prosecute people for these crimes. The police therefore have given up trying to enforce the law, and the bad actors know it. This no prosecute policy is madness that the Democrats clearly do not want to highlight.
Fundamentally, the Democrat politicians are driven by fear. They have unleashed a movement that will consume them as well if they speak up. Condemn them and you lose most Black voters and the left and plenty of white "progressives" and the entire young adult vote.
The lesson from the Democrat party is, if this racist nation dares to re-elect Trump, then we are going to burn it down! Imagine what the streets will be like on the day of Trump's second inauguration. It's as if the Democrats are holding a gun to the nation's head saying:" don't do anything foolish!" The threat failed in 2016 and is downright failing now.
Test groups and polls say these protests bad for the Democrats. That's all you need to know.
Portland's Damian Lillard has been diagnosed with a right knee sprain and will miss Game 5 against Lakers.
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1298359951820296192
Could have been much worse.
Jaylen Brown Offers Perspective To Jacob Blake Shooting, "Every Time I Look At My Jersey Now, What I See Is A Black Man Being Shot 7 Times"
https://streamable.com/so8pxp
The far-left faction primarily targets other liberals and progressives. All they're doing is convincing the left to not vote Democrat.
Most Democrats recognize that there is a fairly extreme faction of people out there on the left but feel obliged to ignore it because Trump is president. Once Trump exits the scene, Democrats will not tolerate the extreme faction anymore. A Biden win will not put an end to the far-left destruction of cities because Biden and Democrats are not leftists, they are not "far-left" enough, so expect the leftists to continue burning down the nation. Maybe he'll be a pressure valve for a year or two. But after that, we'll likely see a return to these same awful methods.
Most Democrats are not very extreme, don't believe in a lot of racial sectarianism or violence. They have already turned on the rioters. Plenty of Democrats have already been directly impacted by them, losing their business, suffering injuries, forced to find alternate routes to get to work, etc.
The mainstream media has also outright refused to cover the nationwide rioting, people who live outside those areas have no idea what's going on
If Democrats win, Democrats will give the ravaged cities a monster bailout
Another thing of note is that Biden could be as far left as humanly possible and many of these people would still be out there. It's not like the proud boys and other violent rightwing groups disappeared under trump in fact the opposite was true they became emboldened
When I talk to moderates/progressives/mainstream/liberals/etc, they don't like street violence, looting, ideological bullying, but it's not much on their radar and low on their concerns. It's extremely high on mine - and I don't live in a city - because I see the lies and damage and derangement.
Are we being held hostage until November? Black Lives Matters began in late summer 2013 (Martin/Zimmerman) and will continue if Biden is elected
Dear Kellyanne: I'm so glad you can afford to quit your job amid a crisis you helped create
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2020-08-24/kellyanne-conway-quits-job-family-crisis-covid-19
An RNC speaker set to appear tonight urged her supporters to research an antisemitic conspiracy theory about a global Jewish plot to enslave the "goyim."
https://www.thedailybeast.com/rnc-speaker-boosts-qanon-conspiracy-theory-about-jewish-plot-to-enslave-the-world-1
I don't think QAnon becomes a mainstream phenomenon or anything close to it, without maistream social networks promoting it.
The U.S. is a failed state saturated with firearms and full of unhinged people. I really don't know how much longer we can last like this.
Every day since the Kavanagh hearing fiasco I've screamed as much at Democrats as Republicans. I've flipped-flopped whether to vote or not vote a million times since that fiasco. I hate Democrats as much as Republicans right now and will likely vote Democrat straight down the ballot - as I always do every election, local, state, federal, etc - November Election Day 2020. The rage must be used against Republicans.
Anyone riled up by Sarsour's participation in a pre-convention DNC meeting should be outraged by Mendoza taking center stage tonight. Mary Ann Mendoza urged her followers to "investigate" (kill) Jews to stop them from enslaving the world. Her tweet promotes false claim that "The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion Is Not A Fabrication."
https://thedailybeast.com/rnc-speaker-boosts-qanon-conspiracy-theory-about-jewish-plot-to-enslave-the-world-1
The riots of the 1960's were largely poor disadvantaged people, the riots of now are largely young privileged people. The sociological analysis probably needs to change. I'm just basing this on reports I read about people who are arrested. But it is also noticeable how the poorest parts of America have had basically no civil disturbance, there's very little happening in Baltimore, Detroit, the Southern black belt, etc. Compare this to what is laid out in the Kerner Commission. Riots emanated overwhelmingly from the poorest neighborhoods, ghettoized communities, etc.
https://ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/8073NCJRS.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Rich
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankie_Banali
RNC speaker Abby Johnson supports policies barring women from voting | The 19th Anti-abortion activist Abby Johnson has advocated for a head-of-household voting system, which historically barred women from the ballot.
https://twitter.com/abbydphillip/status/1298409258778857473
The more Democrats scream abnout the RNC Convention, spluttering with endless outrage, the happier Team Trump and the Trump voters will be.
The Republican covid19 narrative: the virus didn't simply emerge from China. It was a deliberate attack by the Chinese "Communist Party" (which doesn't exist, they're a capitalist nation and have been since the Bush II Years) against the one man on Earth willing and able to stand up to it: Trump. And Trump moved quickly to fight back with new therapies, innovative telemedicine and billions of dollars for a vaccine. The Chinese coronavirus attack kneecapped what had been a great Trump-built economy, the architect of which should be rehired to build it back. Will this lie-infested narrative work? Yes, because I know Trump people and they really believe he is a China-fighter, they know he's lying and don't care because we finally have a President relentlessly attacking "Red Communst" China and putting them in their place. Race was the second problem addressed on opening night. Trump's long record of race-baiting earned him former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke's endorsement in 2016, and he recently reached the dismal low of warning "suburban" (read: white) women that New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker (read: large Black man) is menacing their neighborhoods. Three African Americans speaking on Trump's behalf on Monday won't erase that record in the minds of Black voters. But there was another audience in play: white voters who don't want to believe they are voting for a racist. Even less do they want to believe they themselves are racist. I know Trump voters who are torn between disgust at continued examples of excessive police violence but who also pushback hard against the idea that American racism goes bone-deep. Strong messages from people of color absolving Trump - and the nation - were aimed directly at those white voters, to help them feel better about voting again for Trump. I'm writing this with three more nights to go. Things could get worse for the Republicans, but not much better.
Jokic hits buzzer-beater 3 over Gobert to end 1st quarter
https://streamable.com/umx4ce
Giannis Antetokounmpo Accepts DPOY Award, "Defense Is Building Trust"
https://streamable.com/cgk7b5
Giannis Becomes 5th Player In NBA History To Win Both MVP & DPOY In His Career
The Nuggets starting lineup of Murray / Harris / Barton / Milsap / Jokic played more minutes than any lineup in the NBA this season. They have also had one of the best +\- in the entire NBA over the past 3 seasons
Clarkson splashes a 3 off the fastbreak and forces Coach Malone to call timeout
https://streamable.com/j2cgvx
Routine single gets past Reddick with the bases loaded, all runners score giving Angels a 3-0 lead
https://bdata-producedclips.mlb.com/4c012fc8-965b-4b33-a681-9539c65e30c4.mp4
The Angels are 9-22, which means it's time for Joe Maddon to get creative. Mike Trout will lead off in the second game of a doubleheader — his fifth start there in the last seven years.
https://twitter.com/alden_gonzalez/status/1298397652149624832
The Angels have won 9 games this season. The St. Louis Cardinals, who sat out two weeks because of a coronavirus outbreak, have won 10
Trump supporter Tomi Lahren inadvertently calls president a 'jackass' in Hindi while thanking Indians for support
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/tomi-lahren-trump-wise-owl-insult-hindi-rnc-a9687606.html
'My brown son is more likely to commit crime': RNC speaker claims police would be right to racially profile her son
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/rnc-racism-abby-johnson-anti-abortion-racial-profiling-republican-convention-a9688431.html
Lots to chew on in this NFIB survey of small businesses, but most eye-opening is that 21% report that they can survive current conditions for 6 months or less (40% say a year or less.)
https://assets.nfib.com/nfibcom/Covid-19-11-Questionnaire-and-Write-up-FINAL.pdf
I clicked this thinking, oh, maybe she tweeted this years ago. It was today!: Hours before she was set to speak at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday night, Mary Ann Mendoza took to Twitter and urged her followers to investigate a supposed Jewish plot to enslave the world.
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1298408747224702978
Democrats have a bit of a head start by virtue of having 2 fairly popular living ex-presidents while Republicans have none at the moment, although Bush's image has been rehabilitated enough that he'd surely speak if the Republican nominee were someone other than Trump.
Following 46 cases of bleach ingestions in the North Texas Poison Center region since the start of August, experts are again warning people that drinking the chemical won't prevent COVID-19.
https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2020/08/24/almost-50-north-texans-drank-bleach-this-month-poison-center-warns-stop-it-wont-cure-covid/
I'm not sure why people are surprised that the RNC is having ratings problems when this is the sort of evening lineup it trots out.
https://politico.com/news/2020/08/23/trump-campaign-announces-speakers-for-republican-convention-400295
This is the Twitter account for Mary Ann Mendoza (scheduled to be an RNC speaker tonight) telling her 40,000 followers to read a thread on a host of insane antisemitic conspiracy theories, urging them to "investigate" (read: kill) Jews, including the false claim that "The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion Is Not A Fabrication." https://twitter.com/mamendoza480/status/1298212522835640320
When you buy something from an artist, you're buying more than an object. You're buying hundreds of hours of errors and experimentation. You're buying years of frustration and moments of pure joy. You're not buying just one thing, you are buying a piece of a heart, a piece of a soul...small piece of someone else's life.
"The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" has outlived a mountain of other conspiratorial, anti-Semitic texts. It's not correct or even original—so why has it survived for so long? Steven J. Zipperstein explains:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/08/conspiracy-theory-rule-them-all/615550/
CNN now reporting that Mary Ann Mendoza has been abruptly removed from tonight's program. Mendoza just tweeted an apology for retweeting anti-Semitic QAnon conspiracies https://twitter.com/mamendoza480/status/1298404223063711745
To the extent there's an educational moment here, it's about how easily raw uncut antisemitism becomes the focus of these conspiracy theories. You can set your watch to it.
This woman in RNC speech said Trump passed a law that saved her life. The only problem: 1) law didn't apply to her case 2) the "saving" happened before the law even existed
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/08/25/natalie-harp-bone-cancer-trump/
"Trump said he was going to protect the steel industry, the coal miners, the auto - and it just never appeared." Steelworkers in Michigan on getting laid off & views on the President ahead of November
https://twitter.com/NBCNewsNow/status/1298379179868803072
Good. Agreed. But it would be really great if Biden gave a speech.The Biden campaign's Symone D. Sanders in response to the unrest in Wisconsin following the shooting of Jacob Blake: "Protesting such brutality is right and necessary. It's an utterly American response. But burning down communities and needless destruction is not."
https://twitter.com/sarahmucha/status/1298401154062262272
Russian national arrested for conspiracy to introduce malware to a Nevada company's system. DOJ says he offered a company employee $1 million to inject the malware, but does not name the company.
https://justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1308766/download
This is the Twitter account for Mary Ann Mendoza (scheduled to be an RNC speaker tonight) telling her 40,000 followers to read a thread on a host of insane antisemitic conspiracy theories, urging them to "investigate" (read: kill) Jews, including the false claim that "The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion Is Not A Fabrication." https://twitter.com/mamendoza480/status/1298212522835640320
When you buy something from an artist, you're buying more than an object. You're buying hundreds of hours of errors and experimentation. You're buying years of frustration and moments of pure joy. You're not buying just one thing, you are buying a piece of a heart, a piece of a soul...small piece of someone else's life.
"The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" has outlived a mountain of other conspiratorial, anti-Semitic texts. It's not correct or even original—so why has it survived for so long? Steven J. Zipperstein explains:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/08/conspiracy-theory-rule-them-all/615550/
CNN now reporting that Mary Ann Mendoza has been abruptly removed from tonight's program. Mendoza just tweeted an apology for retweeting anti-Semitic QAnon conspiracies https://twitter.com/mamendoza480/status/1298404223063711745
To the extent there's an educational moment here, it's about how easily raw uncut antisemitism becomes the focus of these conspiracy theories. You can set your watch to it.
This woman in RNC speech said Trump passed a law that saved her life. The only problem: 1) law didn't apply to her case 2) the "saving" happened before the law even existed
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/08/25/natalie-harp-bone-cancer-trump/
"Trump said he was going to protect the steel industry, the coal miners, the auto - and it just never appeared." Steelworkers in Michigan on getting laid off & views on the President ahead of November
https://twitter.com/NBCNewsNow/status/1298379179868803072
Good. Agreed. But it would be really great if Biden gave a speech.The Biden campaign's Symone D. Sanders in response to the unrest in Wisconsin following the shooting of Jacob Blake: "Protesting such brutality is right and necessary. It's an utterly American response. But burning down communities and needless destruction is not."
https://twitter.com/sarahmucha/status/1298401154062262272
Russian national arrested for conspiracy to introduce malware to a Nevada company's system. DOJ says he offered a company employee $1 million to inject the malware, but does not name the company.
https://justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1308766/download
Murray splits the D again and spins in the paint for the pretty finish around Gobert
https://streamable.com/isvgl8
Murray with the hesitation off the PnR gets the leaner to go, forcing a Jazz timeout
https://streamable.com/7r6epq
Mitchell carefully navigates into the paint and gets the and-1 off Murray
https://streamable.com/2ea2mq
Mitchell splits the D and gets it to Clarkson who splashes the corner 3
https://streamable.com/k9w9ab
Jokic just played the quarter of his life and it's just a one point lead.. yikes
This Embiid commercial just feels kinda sad after he got his ass swept lol
Nuggets players open 3's: broke
Jokic fastbreak last second deep 3 with 2 defenders: WOKE
Nuggets Analyst: "Jazz are shooting 55% on 3's off the Pick & Roll. I think we should make an adjustment"
Malone: "No, I don't think I will"
Good defense is punished way too often with these ridiculous pump fake, foul-seeking jumpers
Malone has just sat his 8/8 player for 5 minutes to ice him in an elimination game
Nobody in Denver can hit 3 except Jokic, this is game 7 vs Portland all over again
DJT: "Hooked on Phonics works for me."
All these clips are so staged like that fake looking graduation lmao
Let's not forget that the president still stands by his statement that the Central Park Five are guilty.
I love when players just refuse to let their teams lose. Jokic is willing Denver in the game right now
Mary Ann Mendoza, says she didn't know what she retweeted apparently but yeah, right. She probably didn't know she called out Soros and the Rothchilds explicitly by name in another tweet, either.
According to CNN Pam Bondi from Florida is going to be speaking out against nepotism tonight. She's followed by Eric Trump, Melania Trump and Tiffany Trump.
Jon Ponder's story is inspirational. But should he be endorsing a candidate for president while being identified as the founder & CEO of Hope for Prisoners, which -- as a 501(c)(3) non-partisan non-profit group -- is barred from participating in partisan politics?
https://twitter.com/kenvogel/status/1298423710848888833
Trump and Biden are obviously different re the Iraq War - Biden was in office, Trump chatting with Howard Stern - but both became opponents during the war, not before. Trump became an opponent in 2004. Biden called his vote a mistake beginning in 2005. Rand Paul is correct Biden voted for the Iraq War, but Paul's contrast with Trump, man who declared the war an awful mistake, is misleading: Trump tentatively supported the war before it happened, becoming an explicit opponent more than a year into it. https://cnn.com/2019/10/29/politics/fact-check-trump-false-claim-opposed-iraq-invasion/index.html
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1298423930030620673
And Trump bombed Syria and Afghanistan repeatedly, and provided funding and military logistics to help to Saudi Arabia's genocide of Yemen, and Trump sent the military to fight Islamic terrorism Somalia and the Philippines
Rand Paul's time slot tells you everything you need to know. Democrats and Republicans are united in finding him insufferable.
And Tucker Carlson cuts into Rand Paul's anti-war comments LOL
Reminder from last year: Dozens of retired miners, some in wheelchairs and using oxygen tanks to manage black lung disease, recently visited the Capitol seeking federal help for their failing pension plans.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/coal-workers-fight-benefits-industry-struggles-under-trump-n1044576
Lobsterman admits he was opposed to an Obama EO because it "offended him" but it did not negatively affect his state's economy
https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1298424944225685504
Trump's inaction to covid that caused the food chain collapse. Why can't these people hold their own accountable?
Perhaps your business should've been robust enough to pay your people a living wage and navigate regulations designed to protect your employees?
OMG-- a "Biden induced" recession. But I though the Trump economy was robust and winning!
Am I the only person who's business actually did better during Obama's presidency? What the fuck are these people all talking about how it was so bad before Trump?
Why are all these people so angry? So strange...
Tyler Glasnow vs BAL: 7IP 5H 2ER 1BB 13K (96p- 72 strikes)
Congolese elephant poacher sentenced to 30 years
https://www.dw.com/en/congolese-elephant-poacher-sentenced-to-30-years/a-54697087?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf
The Denver Nuggets (2-3) avoid elimination against the Utah Jazz (3-2) by a score of 117-107 behind Jamal Murray's 42/8/8
What's funny (not really) is that these "Christians" would crucify Jesus again if he were here today.
For any people watching along that are actually wondering why we have regulation: it's because there is a natural imbalance in the favor of companies in a free labor market. It also protects against external factors which an unregulated business would exploit, like the environment, to name one. If your business can't survive what relative little regulation the US has compared to the rest of the world, you need to re-evaluate your business model. In addition, the social safety net programs that democrats advocate for are specifically designed to empower those with limited access to capital to still have an acceptable level of risk when attempting to open a small business. That alone will overpower the regulatory needs of a reasonable society.
Murray drives past Ingles on the iso and finishes past Gobert
https://streamable.com/015xz3
Meanwhile: California condor facility burns in Big Sur fire, fate of some endangered birds unknown https://mercurynews.com/2020/08/25/condor-facility-burns-in-big-sur-fire-fate-of-some-condors-unknown/
Rand Paul called the Balkans interventions "the war in Serbia" in attacking Biden. The Serbs were committing genocide in Bosnia and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Neither is Serbia today.
Libya and Iraq Trump supported initially. Trump supported Libya strongly. Paul falsely says Trump opposed Iraq.
Republicans: "How dare Biden's son get any benefits as a result of being related to his dad!"
Also Republicans: "I'm so excited to see Don Jr. and Eric and Tiffany talk later!!!"
Hell, last night Don Jr.'s girlfriend was the keynote speaker. FFS.
The Los Angeles Clippers blowout the Dallas Mavericks 154-111 to take a 3-2 series lead behind 35/3/2 from Paul George. Credit to the Mavericks for not giving up after being blown out of the game in the first quarter.
Doc Rivers incredibly emotional in his post-game interview: "It's amazing how we keep loving this country and this country does not love us back. It's really so sad. Like, I should just be a coach. And I'm so often reminded of my color. We gotta do better. We gotta demand better."
https://streamable.com/q0s2hb
Jamal Murray has 92 points, 19 rebounds & 15 assists with 0 turnovers on 61-57-100 splits in Games 4 & 5 of this series
Luka Doncic On Morris, "I Don't Want To Talk To Him. He's Just Saying A Lot Of Bad Stuff To Me"
https://streamable.com/e9fnff
Kawhi gets a ridiculous steal on Boban
https://streamable.com/4kndiz
After getting an unbelievable steal, Kawhi passes the ball to Reggie Jackson who fumbles the ball. Kawhi then mouths to Reggie at the end of the quarter: "I didn't give up the ball for that shit."
https://streamable.com/mwxysj
Rick Carlisle gets ejected
https://streamable.com/b2v4yt
Donovan Mitchell Becomes First Player In NBA History To Average 35+ PPG On 50/50/90 Through First 5 Games In Playoffs
Pat Bev trash-talking Luka on the free throw. Luka drains it and lets Pat Bev know he's been talking too much
https://streamable.com/pnqnmf
Paul "Playoff P" George Responds To Critics: 35 PTS | 12-18 FG | 4-8 3PT | +23 | 25 MIN
Montrezl knocks down the 3 and then throws down the massive slam
https://streamable.com/qxchoh
The Los Angeles Dodgers have lost only 9 games this season, 4 of them to the San Francisco Giants
Dodgers blew 3 saves tonight. In the 9th, 10th and the 11th inning
Solano walks it off for the Giants with a two run shot, beat Dodgers 10-8 in wacky, back and forth 11 inning game
https://bdata-producedclips.mlb.com/e28743f5-9bca-49e4-b6cf-b5f1a0cc81dd.mp4
Through 9 outings, Josh Hader - now 7-for-7 in save chances - has yet to allow a run or a hit as opponents are 0-for-28 with 5 walks, a HBP and 13 strikeouts. #ThisIsMyCrew
https://twitter.com/mikevassallo13/status/1298454866537349121
Lucas Giolito (White Sox) has no-hit the Pittsburgh Pirates
Shane Bieber vs. Twins: 6 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 10 K, 3 BB
Two Killed and One Injured on Third Night of Unrest in Kenosha, Wis.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/26/us/kenosha-shooting-protests-jacob-blake.html
American Airlines cuts 19,000 jobs amid travel slump
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53910936
Hellish animal testing laboratory in Germany animal rights groups fought to close last year due to barbaric conditions allowed to stay open. Shocking images and videos from LPT revealing horrific living conditions of monkeys, cats, dogs and rabbits tortured daily.
https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/animals/horror-testing-lab-where-monkeys-screamed-in-pain-during-barbaric-tests-allowed-to-stay-open/news-story/7bed4ff5e87ef288a21956b7184858e8
Coal-fired pollution killing 800 Australians a year: report - death toll is twice as high as the number of smoke inhalation deaths in the recent catastrophic bushfire season, and eight times greater than the average annual casualties from all natural disasters
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/coal-fired-pollution-killing-800-australians-a-year-report-20200825-p55ozz.html
Al-Qaeda blows up Yemen clinic after executing dentist
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2020/Aug-25/510749-al-qaeda-blows-up-yemen-clinic-after-executing-dentist.ashx
Jack Brewer, a member of Black Voices for Trump, who is scheduled to speak at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, was charged with insider trading by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) earlier this month.
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/25/905953942/rnc-speaker-facing-federal-charges-of-insider-trading
Luka loses his shoe after Morris steps on his heel
https://streamable.com/mglxo2
Eric Trump falsely claims his father achieved Middle East peace and ended America's wars in RNC speech.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/eric-trump-rnc-speech-claims-peace-middle-east-wars-troops-isis-a9688746.html
Lincoln Project ad depicts 175,000 caskets as 'Trump's wall'
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/513667-lincoln-project-ad-depicts-175000-caskets-as-trumps-wall
'We're losing, dude, and we're going to get really hurt': Trump Jr believes father will be defeated by Biden, report says
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-jr-2020-election-joe-biden-a9688561.html
Trump Adviser Refers to Pandemic in Past Tense ("It was auwful") (uhhh, and covid1 is STILL awful) on Same Day Covid Kills 1,147 People.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/kudlow-trump-coronavirus-past-tense-economy-pandemic-1049953/
But Trump Jr. is apparently worried. "Don's the only person who thinks they're going to lose," says a prominent conservative activist who is in regular contact with him and other key members of Trump's political operation. "He's like, 'We're losing, dude, and we're going to get really hurt when we lose.'" An electoral defeat in November, Trump Jr. fears, could result in federal prosecutions of Trump, his family and his political allies. He has told the conservative activist that he expects that a Biden administration will not participate in a "peaceful transition" and instead will "shoot the prisoners." ("This is 100 percent false," Surabian says. "Don does not have these concerns.")
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/24/magazine/donald-trump-jr.html
Duncan Hunter's Wife, Margaret, Is Sentenced for Stealing Campaign Funds
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/24/us/duncan-hunter-wife-sentencing.html?ocid=uxbndlbing
Registered Foreign Agent Pam Bondi Says Biden Is Corrupt
https://www.thedailybeast.com/registered-foreign-agent-pam-bondi-says-biden-is-corrupt
Pam Bondi Resurrects the Biden Ukraine Conspiracy, Seemingly Forgetting That Trump Was Impeached Over It
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/08/pam-bondi-rnc-ukraine/
Ohio Democrats sue state over ballot drop box limits
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/25/politics/ohio-democrats-drop-box-limits/index.html
For the uninitiated, Cameo is an app that allows people to pay (often washed-up) public figures to say anything they are told. And so, I paid conservative commentator Tomi Lahren $85 to call President Trump a jackass. To be clear, she didn't actually say "jackass": she said "ulloo", which literally means "owl" in Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi. But colloquially "ulloo" means "jackass" and the term is only used pejoratively in India. That's right — Tomi sold out, albeit unknowingly, for just $85. What price dignity, eh? Lahren thought she was calling Trump wise, but ended up insulting the man whose presidency her entire career is based on.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/tomi-lahren-trump-jackass-hindi-india-why-a9688716.html
She also said that her Black son is more likely to be a criminal than her White son. She doesn't have a Black son. She adopted a biracial son.
https://www.simchafisher.com/2020/06/25/abby-johnson-police-will-racially-profile-my-biracial-son-thats-smart/
Reminder: Pam Bondi's nepotism speech being immediately followed by Tiffany Trump, Eric Trump, Melania Trump
The Sudanese immigrant who was naturalized during the RNC came to the US in 2012. Had she tried to come today she would've been denied entry by Trumps Muslim Ban which includes Sudan. So basically Trump actually banned people like her but was willing to use her for political gain
https://twitter.com/AymanM/status/1298459256774107136
Rand Paul blocked a bill providing financial assistance to 9/11 first responders.
Idaho State Police arrest Ammon Bundy and 2 others after refusing to leave Statehouse room
https://www.ktvb.com/mobile/article/news/crime/idaho-state-police-take-ammon-bundy-into-custody-after-refusing-to-leave/277-cbb09274-047c-4dbe-8268-1b5298cad65f
https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article245252665.html
Melania is not a hostage. She is not reluctant. She is not sending messages in Morse code with eye blinks. She is complicit. I feel pretty sure she never wanted to be First Lady, but that's because she didn't want the responsibility. But she still has gone along with everything. She's just as bad. During the peak of children in cages (before we collectively, sadly, appear to have agreed), she wore a jacket that said 'I really don't care, do you?'
She is a willing participant in the Trump administration; and our nation as a whole is forever tarnished by our own complicity. And Melania is a birther.
Biden literally stated he isn't going to raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000....
I'm honestly ashamed to be an American after this garbage display. AND the fact that people voted for this cabal of rotting scumbags in the first place...The stupidity and willful ignorance I can longer take in America. It is so extreme. Why is it a prerequisite for many in this country to be so stupid and misinformed?! As humans, we have the unique ability to have self-awareness and the ability to improve our intelligence, if we so choose, and it seems many in this country don't want to do that. Even if it is in their best interests...
Federal judge rules DoD's policy unlawfully slows immigrant troops' path to citizenship
https://www.militarytimes.com/pay-benefits/2020/08/25/federal-judge-rules-dods-policy-unlawfully-slows-immigrant-troops-path-to-citizenship/
If Kamala Harris runs in 2024, she would be running against Nikki Haley. That is likely the real reason she was chosen VP (she's not Black....). She is the equal-but-opposite of Nikki Haley.
Wisconsin governor declares state of emergency amid protests over shooting, which is the right thing to do. He's acknowleding the problem of violent deranged rioters. It's not the cops hurting here it's the small businesses and communities getting burned down
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/wisconsin-governor-declares-state-of-emergency-amid-protests-over-shooting/
Chad Wolfe is not legally in office at the DHS so the whole naturalization theatre (swearing in ceremony during RNC Convention) is a farce and illegal. And 100% of the people sworn in during Wolfe's stint are not legally sworn in and should be stripped of their citizenship.
Mysognist Incel Kansas Candidate Who Admitted To Sexual Assault And Also Strangled His Girlfriend is back in the race. Aaron Coleman, 19, had said he was dropping out of the race after winning the Democratic primary election for a Kansas House seat by 14 votes. Now he wants back in. He also hit and choked his girlfriend within the last year yet still won that primary.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/25/us/elections/aaron-coleman-kansas-house.html
https://theintercept.com/2020/08/25/aaron-coleman-ex-girlfriend-assault/
"It's a revisionist version of recent history belied by hours of videotape in which the president minimized the threat of the virus for months, falsely predicted that it would 'disappear' with warmer weather, promoted several unproven miracle cures." Trump uses Republican convention to try to rewrite coronavirus history, casting himself as lifesaver. With the pandemic still-ravaging the country just 10 weeks before Election Day, the president is relying on his background in reality television and show business to create an alternate reality.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-coronavirus-convention/2020/08/25/e3741c40-e6e1-11ea-970a-64c73a1c2392_story.html
Hurricane #Laura Advisory 26A: Laura Strengthens Into a Major Hurricane. Potentially Catastrophic Storm Surge, Extreme Winds, and Flash Flooding Expected Along the Northwest Gulf Coast Tonight. http://go.usa.gov/W3H
https://twitter.com/NHC_Atlantic/status/1298589018339209216
https://nbcnews.com/news/weather/laura-now-hurricane-it-barrels-toward-texas-louisiana-gulf-coast-n1237995
Kelly Anne Conway became the first woman in history to manage a campaign that got 0.5 more of the popular vote than Susan Estrich got for Michael Dukakis in 1988 and 2.3 points less than Donna Brazile got for Al Gore in 2000.
Tiffany Trump, daughter of a billionaire and the president of the United States, says she can relate to other college graduates about not finding work
Karen Lee, a teacher in SE DC, said she assigned 18 students to write an essay last school year. They could write about anything — their families, their ambitions, their favorite celebrities. Nine of them wrote about gun violence.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/academic-impact-violence/2020/08/23/85f0868a-00af-11ea-9518-1e76abc088b6_story.html
"Are you trying to get Trump re-elected?" angry store worker in Kenosha, Wisconsin says after store windows shattered amid Jacob Blake protests: Windows of businesses and residential buildings being smashed on University Avenue — which were not preemptively boarded up. This Papa John's employee asks protesters, "Do you want Trump to be elected?"
https://twitter.com/telldylan/status/1298504147013185537
Pacers have fired coach Nate McMillan
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1298643744498081801
YEP: CNN's Lemon warns of Democratic 'blind spot' on 'riots': 'It shows up in the polling'
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/513742-cnns-lemon-warns-of-democratic-blind-spot-on-riots-it-shows-up-in-the-polling
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https://www.newstatesman.com/international/places/2020/08/do-not-be-fooled-polling-donald-trump-could-very-well-win-second-term
Do not be fooled by the polling. Donald Trump could very well win a second term. Regardless of his mishandling of the pandemic, part of the electorate will always vote for Trump.
Judging by the numbers, Joe Biden is going to win the presidential election on 3 November. He is currently leading Donald Trump in every poll in the country. Among those likely to vote, he is ahead by 52 per cent to 42 per cent. While he did not get the traditional bounce in voting intentions after the Democratic National Convention (DNC) concluded on 20 August, his net favourability (a related but distinct metric) did rise from -3 to +5.
After Trump's unexpected win in 2016, some might question the accuracy of the polls. But this year they are likely to be more precise, as they should have corrected for the unexpected turnout in the north-eastern rust belt that took the president to victory over Hillary Clinton four years ago.
The headline numbers that are predicting a Biden win aren't necessarily wrong, but they do not tell the whole story. Three numbers in particular cast November's election in different lights, and should caution against the now common idea that Biden is set to become president.
The first number is 50 per cent. That is approximately the share of white voters who say they would vote for Trump if the election were held today. To put it another way, today, with more than 170,000 dead and millions unemployed from a pandemic that Trump has comprehensively mishandled, half of white voters (even when given the option to say "don't know") would respond: "Four more years!"
That, too, is the response of 45 per cent of male voters, 42 per cent of Midwestern voters, and 35 per cent of independent voters (not loyal to any one party). All of which is perhaps not surprising, given that some two-thirds of Republicans and a third of independents approve of Trump's handling of the pandemic. But it is a reminder – particularly for those who, living on the liberal east and west coasts, or outside the US, rarely encounter Trump voters day-to-day – that the president retains an electoral base that will support him no matter what.
The second figure is 40 per cent. That is the share of young voters in battleground states, such as Michigan and North Carolina, who have yet to be contacted by the Biden campaign. It underscores the concern in parts of the Democratic Party that it is failing to reach out to the progressive left.
Young Democratic voters are typically, though not always, more left-leaning than older Democrats. Some in the progressive wing were enraged by the DNC after their most eloquent tribune, the congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ("AOC"), was allocated a mere minute to speak, and at which none of the other prominent left-wing congresswomen – Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley – spoke at all.
AOC and Bernie Sanders have endorsed Biden, and in swing states 87 per cent of Sanders supporters plan to vote for the Democratic candidate (compared with 4 per cent for Trump). But the question remains: will followers of Sanders and AOC really go and cast their ballots for a centrist candidate like Biden on election day?
"I think the party is assuming the left will turn out," fretted one senior Democratic Congressional aide I spoke to. "We did that with Hillary and lost." Biden's inner team, and the wider campaign, cannot afford to assume things will be different this time. "The party needs to be doing a lot more than it's doing" to win those voters, the aide said. "I'm not confident at all."
The last, and most important, number is one million. That is roughly how many people voted by mail in Georgia's presidential primary this past June. By contrast, in 2016 the number was 36,000. Millions more ballots this year are expected to be submitted by mail. Printers are already warning about what will happen if demand for ballots exceeds the amount requested by local election officials: voters could be left without their ballot papers. Whether those people would then physically go to the polls during a pandemic is unclear.
"Are pollsters asking them, 'Are you willing to wait in line for six hours?'" one former Capitol Hill staffer wondered. "I'm afraid that when a lot of voters realise how the lack of poll workers will dramatically increase their wait times to vote, they'll just say, 'Screw this.'"
Donald Trump, who himself votes by mail, has already tried to delegitimise postal ballots, citing baseless concerns about fraud. In a bid to prevent universal mail-in voting (where ballots are automatically mailed to voters), he wants to fend off plans to provide extra funding for the post office.
There are worries about a shortage of poll station workers, many of whom are older and so more likely to stay at home. Trump has pledged to deploy law enforcement officials to guard polling stations, which could keep some voters away. Democrats also fear that hate groups will try to intimidate black and brown voters on election day. "There's ill will here that I don't think ever existed before," the Democratic strategist Mustafa Tameez told me. "We've never had an environment where you have an incumbent and allies who are actually trying to undermine the electoral process."
None of these factors means that Biden will lose. The election is still 70 days away. As another Democratic strategist put to me: "Polls are irrelevant to Biden's campaign. They will keep campaigning like it's a dead heat until 3 November."
But it does mean that the US is in unfamiliar territory. We have a president for whom part of the electorate will apparently vote regardless; we have disgruntled young and progressive voters who may not vote; we have a pandemic that makes it complicated for Americans to cast their ballots; and a president determined to stop as many as possible from doing so by mail. Add all this together, and it could yet amount to a winning combination for Trump.
________________________________
Operate under the assumption that Trump will win. Until Biden is sworn in on Jan. 20, assume the worst.
Republican Senate candidate John James touts the jobs his company created, but documents show his company lost its tax exempt status after failing to create the jobs it promised
https://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/gop-senate-candidate-john-james-touts-the-jobs-his-company-created-but-documents-reveal-the-state-revoked-its-tax-exempt-status-after-they-fa/
Reminder: The economy is still collapsing and Republicans are refusing to save it
https://theweek.com/speedreads/933773/reminder-economy-still-collapsing-republicans-have-no-plan-fix
The 2020 RNC isn't a political convention — it's a celebration of the Trump cult
https://www.salon.com/2020/08/26/the-2020-rnc-isnt-a-political-convention--its-a-celebration-of-the-trump-cult/
Kanye West won't appear on Missouri ballot after falling thousands of signatures short. He had months and months to qualify and never lifted a finger until the deadline was a few days away.
https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article245237325.html#storylink=mainstage
Unsung Hero: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is consistently killing it in the Thunder/Rockets series
https://dailythunder.com/unsung-hero-shai-gilgeous-alexander-is-killing-it-in-the-thunder-rockets-series/
Mishaps with Florida's unemployment system were known and dismissed before officials handed out $135m contract, transcripts show
https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2020/08/26/mishaps-with-floridas-unemployment-system-discounted-before-officials-awarded-135m-contract-transcripts-show/
Democrats are running against an incumbent who has no reluctance to shred norms, rules, laws, and institutions to maintain power, and all those things Trump does, he promised to do, which is why he won, people wanted a President who would shred laws and institutions and crush the establishment and everything else they didn't like.
According to documents removed by the Dailyy Dot, Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, has been charged with murder in last night's shooting in Kenosha. Rittenhouse's social media was rife with pro-police posts
https://dailydot.com/debug/2-killed-by-vigilante-wisconsin/
A look at #Laura from above as it pushes closer to the landfall expected as a Category 4 hurricane overnight tonight. Laura will bring with it:
A look at #Laura from above as it pushes closer to the landfall expected as a Category 4 hurricane overnight tonight. Laura will bring with it:
Unsurvivable storm surge
Hurricane force winds and
Widespread flash flooding
The window to prepare is nearly closed. Do so NOW.
https://twitter.com/NWS/status/1298665340801613824
Joe Biden's campaign is selling small bottles of hand sanitizer with his Covid-19 plan printed on the Dr. Bronner's-style label
https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1298666554025025537
1. There is a medical consensus that sanitzers do not sanitize. They trap and spread viruses, bacteria, germs, dirt
2. There is a medical consens that normal soap and warm water do sanitize, and sanitize most of the time
3. When winter hits, everybody (except me) are going to experience severely and deeply cracked skin all over their hands from not only excessively "cleaning" hands, but from chemicalizing them with chemicals that DRY OUT the skin. Start stocking up on certified vegan petrolium jelly like Keys Avo Jel or VegaLine or After Inked (all petrolium jelly should be vegan by default of being petrolium jelly....)
US crew of armored vehicle injured in NE Syria yesterday in encounter with a Russian military convoy several US officials say. Happened when a Russian vehicle apparently deliberated collided with the Americans causing concussion like injuries according to US sources.
https://twitter.com/barbarastarrcnn/status/1298657641091280898
Susan Collins is concerned.
Rand Paul is but illegal wars and freedom
Ron Johnson is BENGHAZI
The Russians were chasing bounty $$$'s
Four US troops were injured after a Russian vehicle intentionally rammed a US vehicle in N. Syria earlier this week, according to a draft CENTCOM statement that POLITICO reviewed. Pentagon currently declining to comment, which is understandable
https://politico.com/news/2020/08/26/us-troops-injured-russian-forces-syria-402347
Ending and withdrawing all US military persons and infrastructure is the only solution, but then the entire planet will laugh at the US and say they're
Wisconsin is quite literally the most important swing state in this whole election and is 87% white. His whole suburban, law and order campaign in a tinderbox is about to get a supercharged acceleration for all to see: Trump says he's sending "federal law enforcement and the National Guard" to Kenosha, Wisconsin after third night of violence amid Jacob Blake protests, even though the alt-right pro-Trump teenager who murdered two protestors was captured and charged.
https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1298673638556798976
I don't know who needs to hear this, but it's time to send @JoeBidenand @KamalaHarris to Wisconsin to see disaster first hand and show some real leadership. Get out there today and steal the news cycle. Refusal to do so - and we know they are refusing - means Trump easilty wins re-election. Absolute stunning silence from Biden and Kamala and Democrats, ceding the messaging on Jacob Blake, rioting, and 'Law and Order' to Trump for white suburban swing voters. I thought Joe and Kamala and Democrats were fighters. The protestors are DEMOCRATS ffs. GET THE FUCK OUT THERE DEMOCRATS AND CONFRONT YOUR OWN RIOTING VOTERS.
If you have watched the first two nights of the Republican National Convention, and I am sorry if you have, you have probably seen speaker after speaker accuse Joe Biden and the Democratic Party of being SOCIALISTS who, if elected, will carry out the agenda of Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Ihlan Omar. If only that were true! But while they scream "socialist" as an epithet in their videos and from the stage, what everyone needs to know is that Trump and the Republican Party just LOVE socialism - a corporate socialism for the rich and the powerful.
In 3 months in 2017, reportedly staying in NYC to pressure Donald Trump to enrich her prenuptial agreement, Melania incurred double the travel costs that Michelle Obama incurred in a typical year. No First Lady in modern times has done less of public interest and spent more of the public's money on her private concerns https://theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/melania-trumps-rnc-speech-was-disconnected-reality/615712/
Gov Evers has now authorized 500 members of the Wisconsin National Guard to support police in Kenosha tonight.
https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/WIGOV/bulletins/29beffc
If @AbbyJohnson would willingly welcome racial discrimination by the police against her own biracial adopted son, that is beyond troubling! If a mother would say such a thing publicly, maybe Child Protective Services should be doing a welfare check on that kid! #AbbyJohnson
https://twitter.com/AprilDRyan/status/1298679905505378308
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https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/melania-trumps-rnc-speech-was-disconnected-reality/615712/
The Lie at the Heart of Melania's Speech. The first lady lamented the divides that her husband foments and exploits, and that she herself has done little to overcome.
In order to fill the White House Rose Garden for Melania Trump's Tuesday night speech, COVID-19 safety procedures were ignored. Attendees did not socially distance and did not mask, and not all were tested beforehand. The speech violated historical conventions about how the White House should be used during a president's reelection campaign. If, as seems overwhelmingly likely, government resources were used in any way to produce the event, the speech violated laws as well.
Melania Trump's speech did all these things in order to tell a lie. The lie, in this case, was not one of the flamboyant, paranoid lies told by her stepson on the first night of the Republican National Convention. Nor was the lie, in this case, one of the casual misrepresentations of specific checkable facts that filled so much of the convention's second night. The lie was a more existential one, and one somehow even more symbolic of the Trump presidency than the other kinds of lies.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/26/fact-checking-second-night-2020-republican-national-convention/
No presidential spouse in modern times has engaged in fewer public appearances than Melania Trump. That's her prerogative of course. There's no job description for the first lady, or a future first gentleman. There is virtually nothing a first lady or first gentleman must do. If the spouse of the president wishes to make few public appearances, or do little for public causes, and focus almost exclusively on her personal and private concerns, that is, of course, an option. What is uniquely Trumpian about this first lady is that she has done far less for the American people than any first lady in a century—while spending far more public funds on her personal upkeep.
During the government shutdown of 2018–19, President Donald Trump nixed a long-planned trip by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan. During that same shutdown, Melania Trump spent $35,000 of public funds to fly to Florida so she could spend the Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend there, although her husband remained in Washington. The trip was her second solo trip to Florida in less than a month; she also traveled apart from her husband in Washington over New Year's Eve, again at public cost.
https://qz.com/1527450/as-trump-grounds-pelosis-troop-visit-flotus-took-a-35000-military-flight-to-florida/
https://people.com/politics/melania-trump-mar-a-lago-new-years-eve/
When Donald Trump was elected president, Melania Trump at first refused to move to Washington with him at all. The purpose of the delay, Mary Jordan reported in her book about Melania Trump, was to leverage a more advantageous prenuptial deal out of Trump. Once the money was secured, Melania Trump relocated. But if the delay was indeed about a renegotiation, the process came at incredible expense to taxpayers. Melania Trump did not relocate to the White House until June 2017. The first three months of that delay alone—January, February, and March—imposed $675,000 in travel costs on taxpayers. That figure emerged only because of court proceedings; the cost of her full six months in New York remains a secret. And to put the figure in perspective: The cost to taxpayers of only those first three months was double Michelle Obama's average total annual travel cost.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/melania-book-art-of-her-deal-prenup-white-house/2020/06/11/ce63ec02-abec-11ea-94d2-d7bc43b26bf9_story.html
https://www.wsj.com/articles/melania-trumps-military-flights-before-her-move-to-washington-cost-more-than-675-000-1517221801
Doing as little for public good as possible, grabbing as much as possible from the public Treasury: That has been the approach of the whole Trump family during the Trump presidency.
The story Melania Trump narrated in the Rose Garden was, of course, just the opposite. There, she spun her very occasional public acts as a public contribution on the scale of her predecessors', who all did far more, at less expense. To do the spinning, she violated an important restraint on the use of the White House, and almost certainly involved her staff in violations of federal election law.
The text of Melania Trump's speech was rambling, vapid, and disconnected from reality. It mixed sad laments about the partisan and cultural divides that her husband foments and exploits, and that she herself has done little to overcome, with partisan slams at opponents and the media. "No matter the amount of negative or false media headlines or attacks from the other side, Donald Trump has not and will not lose for you," she said. But the speech in its full context revealed much about the family side of the Trumps: the damage they have done in office, the damage they will continue to do if given a second term. That approach framed the spooky blankness of the first lady's face and the empty falsehood of her words.
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I struggle to understand why a pandemic isn't considered a national security issue. Republicans relentlessly scream that covid19 is a thing done to us by China. If you're going to compare it to an attack, shouldn't the focus be on a response? Instead, the message has been things were fine before.
After using LGBT people as a wedge against Muslims after the Pulse shooting while promising to protect rights, the Trump administration has systematically undone Obama-era protections, specifically targeting transgender people, which he promised to do, which is a major reason why he won 2016
https://nytimes.com/2020/08/26/us/politics/trump-lgbtq-rights.html
Trump stayed silent during Pride Month, a time during which there was a sweeping SCOTUS decision on workplace protections for LGBT people, the anniversary of Pulse shooting, the anniversary of the marriage decision, a massive march for Black trans lives
https://nytimes.com/2020/08/26/us/politics/trump-lgbtq-rights.html
Honestly, how many more soldiers have to be found dead this year at Fort Hood alone? What the hell is going on at Fort Hood and why isn't this a bigger deal? Why aren't we hearing more outraged politicians at the national level, and not just ones representing Texas? A complete disgrace again that the right people are not outraged and investigating this. I get there is a lot going on but this kid was military.
https://washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/08/26/elder-fernandes-missing-soldier-fort-hood/
Elizabeth Neumann, former Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism and Threat Prevention at DHS in the Trump Administration: "I do not think we can afford four more years of President Trump. We are less safe today because of his leadership."
https://twitter.com/i/status/1298673811425034242
This line really stands out to me, about the president and the pandemic: "You were hired to handle America's worst day, and you've absolutely failed"
This is Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, an Illinois resident who was just charged with first-degree murder of two people last night in Kenosha, Wisconsin. This teen, whose social media history is full of misogyny and white supremacy, had easy access to an AR-15.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1298669264568586240
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1298682494271852546
Florida USPS Mail Sorting Machines Dismantled Ahead of Record Election For Mail Ballots
https://www.newsweek.com/florida-usps-mail-sorting-machines-dismantled-ahead-record-election-mail-ballots-1527825
"Yesterday I had a person call me and say why don't you deputize citizens who have guns to come out and patrol the city of Kenosha? And I'm like oh, hell no. And What happened last night...is probably the perfect reason why I wouldn't." -Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth
https://twitter.com/OmarJimenez/status/1298696711989321731
Reporting from today: Current known COVID-19 cases linked to Sturgis is 112 in 8 states, and that is an early, early tally as contact tracing continues.
https://www.inforum.com/newsmd/coronavirus/6632177-More-than-100-COVID-19-cases-in-8-states-linked-to-Sturgis-Motorcycle-Rally-in-South-Dakota
"Even officials who say they cheer the vice president struggled to identify examples of Pence taking bold, potentially unpopular actions to curb a virus that has left more than 177,000 Americans dead and innumerable more struggling with its indeterminate long-term effects."
https://politico.com/news/2020/08/26/mike-pence-coronavirus-response-401862
This was a speech against nepotism.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EgT2dTVXYAAztZX?format=jpg&name=small
In 2012 they canceled the first night of the RNC because Hurricane Isaac was hitting Louisiana. That was a category 1 storm. Laura will be a category 4. I don't understand how you hold a convention in the middle of this.
Trump-controlled Office of Special Counsel, which has no statutory authority to enforce or advise on criminal provisions derived from the Hatch Act, says Republican use of WH for political activity "not necessarily" a violation of the Hatch Act.
https://osc.gov/News/Pages/20-27-OSC-Hatch-Act-RNC.aspx
The CDC was instructed by higher-ups within the Trump admin to modify its coronavirus testing guidelines this week to exclude people who do not have symptoms of Covid-19 — even if they have been recently exposed to the virus. This lowers the numbers of testing and positive results.
https://nytimes.com/2020/08/26/world/covid-19-coronavirus.html
EU trade chief Phil Hogan will resign on Wednesday. Hogan was under pressure over his appearance at an event that violated coronavirus regulations.
https://bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-26/eu-trade-chief-phil-hogan-to-resign-on-wednesday-official
In 2018, Republican candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene shared a racist video on Facebook that pushed the Great Replacement theory. Quoting a Holocaust denier, it blamed an "unholy alliance of leftists, capitalists and Zionist supremacists" for "breeding us out of existence." Marjorie Taylor Greene shared an anti-Muslim video that portrays Jewish people as trying to destroy Europe through immigration; the video includes a Holocaust denier.
https://mediamatters.org/congress/marjorie-taylor-greene-shared-anti-muslim-video-portrays-jewish-people-trying-destroy
National weather service is calling storm surge unsurvivable.
https://twitter.com/AdamKlotzFNC/status/1298692502879383552/photo/1
"Last night I congratulated Donald Trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country. I hope that he will be a successful president for all Americans. This is not the outcome we wanted or we worked so hard for, and I'm sorry we did not win" - Hillary Clinton, 11/6/2016.
"What I saw on that video makes me sick. Once again, a Black man, Jacob Blake, has been shot by the police, in broad daylight, with the whole world watching. You know, I spoke to Jacob's mom and dad and sister, and other members of the family just a little bit earlier, and I told them justice must and will be done. You know, our hearts and families are with his family, especially his children, it's horrible what they saw, watching their father get shot. Like Gianna Floyd, they're asking, "Why?"| Put yourself in the shoes of every Black father and Black mother in this country and ask, is this what we want America to be? Is this the country we should be? You know, as I said after George Floyd's murder, protesting brutality is a right and absolutely necessary. But burning down communities is not protest, it's needless violence - violence that endangers lives, violence that guts businesses, and shutters businesses, that serve the community. That's wrong. In the midst of this pain, the wisest words that I've heard spoken so far have come from Julia Jackson, Jacob's mother. She looked at the damage done in her community, and she said this, "This doesn't reflect my son, or my family. So let's unite and heal, do justice, end the violence, and end systemic racism in this country now."
https://twitter.com/i/status/1298697722304888833
https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1298697722304888833
The Wisconsin officers are on desk duty and under investigation. That is the start of justice. You want accountability, the precinct is giving that to you: they put the officers on desk duty and opened an investigation into what happened. They may be charged. There may be a grand jury hearing. There may be a trial. Time will tell. Burning down the country to bully the country into eliminating police is not justice, it's domestic terrorism.
One-time Eagles player Jack Brewer, facing insider trading charges, removed from RNC speaker list
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/jack-brewer-rnc-republican-national-convention-speaker-donald-trump-insider-trading-20200826.html
How many criminals can Donald Trump have directly involved in his campaign and STILL somehow his followers have the cognitive dissonance that this is the party of "law and order" that works for America?
Boris Johnson's new Brexit trade adviser is former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott, who has been labeled an 'offensive, climate change-denying, Trump-worshipping misogynist'
https://www.businessinsider.com/boris-johnson-former-australia-prime-minister-tony-abbott-brexit-trade-2020-8
Dead dolphins on Mauritius shore after oil spill
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-53917793
U.S.-China tensions over the South China Sea escalated on Wednesday with Beijing firing two missiles into the disputed waterway and the Trump administration strengthening action against companies that helped set up outposts in the region. China launched two medium-range missiles into the South China Sea on Wednesday amid broader military drills, the South China Morning Post reported. It wasn't immediately clear if there were U.S. ships in the area. The move came a day after Beijing protested a flyover by a U.S. spy plane earlier this week.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-26/u-s-adds-24-chinese-firms-to-restricted-list-on-south-china-sea
Over 61 million defenseless innocent chickens - tortured from the moment they were conceived through to right now and until they are murdered - in England and Wales rejected over disease and defects
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/25/over-60-million-chickens-in-england-and-wales-rejected-over-disease-and-defects
USPS mail-sorting machines in West Palm Beach dismantled ahead of Nov. 3 election
https://www.tcpalm.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/08/26/usps-mail-sorting-machines-dismantled-before-nov-3-general-election/3412642001/
Almost 50,000 salmon escaped after four pens at fish farm in Scotland were damaged during Storm Ellen, raising concerns about potential environmental impact they will have in the wild. As well as large number of fish that escaped, more than 30,000 salmon died as result of damage.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/salmon-escape-fish-farm-storm-ellen-scotland-a9689151.html
More than 10,000 Islamic State fighters are estimated to remain active in Iraq and Syria two years after the militant group's defeat, and their attacks have significantly increased this year, the U.N. counter-terrorism chief said Monday. | Turning to Africa, Voronkov said the Islamic State in West Africa Province "remains a major focus of ISIL global propaganda, and its total membership of approximately 3,500 makes it one of the largest of the remote `provinces.'" He said it continues to reinforce links with the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, "which remains the most dangerous group in the tri-border area of Burkina Faso, Mali, and the Niger."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/un-over-10000-islamic-state-fighters-active-in-iraq-syria/2020/08/24/f1021ca0-e659-11ea-bf44-0d31c85838a5_story.html
In light of the momentous decision by the NBA tonight: "We keep loving this country and this country doesn't love us back."
https://twitter.com/i/status/1298476250709635072
Black voters are being targeted in disinformation campaigns, echoing the 2016 Russian playbook
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/08/26/race-divisions-highlighted-disinformation-2016/
Schiff says his committee has reason to believe the FBI counterintelligence division has never looked into the national security risks of Trump's foreign financial ties. He has reissued a narrowed Deutsche Bank subpoena this week.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/26/adam-schiff-fbi-trump-foreign-financial-ties-402318
The next update to the iPhone's operating system, iOS 14, will require apps to obtain users' permission for tracking and targeting ads. In response, Facebook has lashed out at Apple's attempt to limit advertisements
https://twitter.com/FinancialTimes/status/1298734516698255361
179,000 Americans have died from Covid, that means hundreds of thousands of American families are in mourning. It has changed daily life and how we interact as humans. This is more than a singular event, the effects of all this collateral damage are not even close to being over
Missouri lawmakers pass bill making it legal to give guns to kids without parents' permission
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/513771-missouri-lawmakers-pass-law-making-it-legal-to-give-guns-to-kids-without
Two women at last night's naturalization ceremony said they were never told they would be showcased at a political convention, and no one sought their consent. The Trump campaign declined to comment. The immigrants in the naturalization ceremony featured in the RNC convention program last night found out only minutes before that Trump would attend, and didn't know it would be aired during the convention.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/immigrants-in-trump-led-ceremony-didnt-know-they-would-appear-at-rnc-11598481345
Abbott launches $5 coronavirus test that yields results in 15 minutes, without needing any laboratory equipment. This will significantly speed testing efforts. 50 million tests a months, headed our way.
https://twitter.com/FayCortez/status/1298751202361069568
The Kenosha Shooting Suspect Was In The Front Row Of A Trump Rally In January
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/ellievhall/kenosha-suspect-kyle-rittenhouse-trump-rally
Every word Chris Webber says here should be listened to.
https://twitter.com/bubbaprog/status/1298755867836321794
Hurricane Laura continues to strengthen on its way to the U.S. Gulf Coast, maximum sustained winds at 150 miles per hour (240 km/h) with higher gusts
https://twitter.com/BNONews/status/1298769738173165569
Democratic Party disavows Kansas candidate who admitted to revenge porn
https://apnews.com/02010ec78412455ed67d6c49ff62e449
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https://www.nba.com/article/2020/08/26/milwaukee-bucks-players-statement-following-boycott-game-5
ORLANDO -- The Milwaukee Bucks have boycotted Game 5 of their First Round series vs. the Orlando Magic this afternoon. The team provided the following statement
"The past four months have shed a light on the ongoing racial injustices facing our African American communities. Citizens around the country have used their voices and platforms to speak out against these wrongdoings.
"Over the last few days in our home state of Wisconsin, we've seen the horrendous video of Jacob Blake being shot in the back seven times by a police officer in Kenosha, and the additional shooting of protestors. Despite the overwhelming plea for change, there has been no action, so our focus today cannot be on basketball.
"When we take the court and represent Milwaukee and Wisconsin, we are expected to play at a high level, give maximum effort and hold each other accountable. We hold ourselves to that standard, and in this moment, we are demanding the same from our lawmakers and law enforcement.
"We are calling for justice for Jacob Blake and demand the officers be held accountable. For this to occur, it is imperative for the Wisconsin State Legislature to reconvene after months of inaction and take up meaningful measures to address issues of police accountability, brutality and criminal justice reform. We encourage all citizens to educate themselves, take peaceful and responsible action, and remember to vote on Nov. 3."
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The officer will be investigated, indicted, arrested, and prosecuted. He will be fired and the city of Kenosha will be sued for millions. If Biden is elected I see a Justice Dept consent decree in Kenosha PD's future.
Robert Unanue, the president and CEO of Goya Foods, will not be speaking Wednesday night
https://apnews.com/75f9fa75bcf07ff87dd3c668243ea102
The last time NBA playoff games were postponed: In LA, in 1992, when the Rodney King riots raged. Before that: April, 1968 -- in the days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.
Reminder: Native Americans have been oppressed for 35,000+ years
Reminder: 75,000,000+ Native Americans have been genocided
Reminder: Canada and the US and Mexico and Central and South America etc belong to Native Americans
Trump And Republicans Sabotaged Coronavirus Testing Guidelines to Keep Numbers Low
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/08/trump-cdc-coronavirus-testing-keep-numbers-low.html
Fauci Says He Was Under Anesthesia When CDC Changed COVID-19 Testing Guidelines
https://www.thedailybeast.com/dr-fauci-says-he-was-under-anesthesia-when-cdc-changed-covid-19-testing-guidelines
In at least three different situations: Chaz/Chop in Seattle, outside the Wendy's in Atlanta, and in Kenosha, when police have vacated the scene, rioters/vigilantes killed people. State and local officials have to recognize that there's no substitute for police.
An RNC video showing warning about "Biden's America" actually showed Barcelona
http://buzzfeednews.com/article/janelytvynenko/rnc-protest-video-barcelona
If you are impatient about facts, I don't blame you. We all want to know more. But most of the time we only get a snippet of the full picture from those events. We don't ever know the full story of anything from a brief social media video. That applies to basically every news event. News outlets should pump the breaks and make clear to audiences that they don't have all the facts when they don't have all the facts. (And we still don't have all of them.) Being first isn't always a virtue.
The NBA strike is the most effective RNC counterprogramming possible
Only Native American on federal death row executed, Black people silent, Democrats silent, neither Democrats or Black people lifted a finger to fight for his sentence to be converted to life in prison without parole. Black people and Democrats only care about capital punishment when a Black man is days away from execution.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/article245258610.html
Looting in downtown Minneapolis. Haskell’s liquor store and Medical Arts building included. This is all linked to alleged suicide of suspect in earlier homicide. Crowds down here were convinced he was shot by police.
https://twitter.com/courtneygodfrey/status/1298794134195572736
Tens of thousands of chickens and emus to be killed as Victorian bird flu outbreak worsens because PEOPLE ARE MENTALLY ILL DERANGED CRIMINAL TERRORISTS WHO REFUSE TO RELOCATE THESE CREATURES TO A SANCTUARY FARM AND GO VEGAN
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-27/emus-and-chickens-being-culled-as-bird-flu-in-victoria-worsens/12601422
Democrats are in charge of the cities with violent protests and that will be a sample of Biden’s administration. Republicans are in charge of entire states that are consistently lowest in all markers of health, education, and economics. So if Democrats are responsible for the cities, Republicans are responsible for entire states basically being third world countries.
US officials reportedly considered using a 'microwave weapon' that can cause second-degree burns to deter migrants at the Mexico border
https://www.businessinsider.com/officials-considered-use-of-microwave-weapon-migrants-report-2020-8
Jacob deGrom: 7IP, 2H, 1ER, 2BB, 14K
https://www.espn.com/mlb/game?gameId=401226136
Another 1.006 million Americans filed new unemployment claims last week
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jobless-claims-coronavirus-unemployment-week-ended-august-22-2020-181644541.html
U.S. economy plunged an annualized 31.7% in second-quarter
https://apnews.com/a9ef11294c55f6fc8d130194dd507d0a
Taliban kill four survivors of Afghanistan flash floods
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-afghanistan-floods/taliban-kill-four-survivors-of-afghanistan-flash-floods-idUKKBN25N15G
RNC Gave Prime Time to Vigilantes. The Next Day A Pro-Trump Self-Proclaimed Militant Murdered Two BLM Protesters
https://truthout.org/articles/rnc-gave-prime-time-to-vigilantes-the-next-day-a-gunman-shot-blm-protesters/
Head Coaches and executives from Cleveland's three major professional sports teams - the Cavaliers, Browns and Indians - are forming a sports alliance to develop a sustainable and direct strategy to address social injustice facing the city of Cleveland and all Northeast Ohio.
https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/1298970366736556033
The NBA's players have decided to resume the playoffs, source tells ESPN.
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1299012762002231299
Everyone is wondering "what can the players do? What can the owners do?" But this boycott should serve as a wake up call for all of us to vote Democrat because only by voting Democrat do we get the changes this entire planet needs
The NBA's players have decided to resume the playoffs, source tells ESPN.
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1299012762002231299
NBA players in meeting today agreed to continue playing this postseason — but want to find new and improved ways to make social justice statements. Players expect games to resume this weekend.National Writer
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1299014320488054785
NBA referees start marching in support of the players
https://streamable.com/qcc732
Rockets announce they'll make Toyota Center available as a voting center in November:
https://twitter.com/davidaldridgedc/status/1299002850475900928
Several key members of Lakers -- and some peers around league -- stayed up until early AM hours talking through issues in The Bubble. Among key players in league heading into 11 AM meeting, there's optimism about a majority of players wanting to continue playoffs.
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1298992228606472192
It was revealed in the meeting that CP3 got the entire OKC team registered to vote
https://twitter.com/PompeyOnSixers/status/1298816905021710339
I commend the players on the @Bucks for standing up for what they believe in, coaches like @DocRivers, and the @NBA and @WNBA for setting an example. It's going to take all our institutions to stand up for our values.
https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/1298786988833857537
Underneath it all -- the passive-aggressive questions about what walking out will prove, how people will never, ever watch the NBA again -- is threat, questions less in search of illumination but designed to diminish the players, to question their authenticity and disavow them of any thought of self-determination. There is no citizenship beneath their tank tops, and even less humanity. You're here to entertain us. No, you're literally here to entertain us. That's your job. Underneath that layer of threat is more threat, which is to say you better be grateful there are people willing to watch, because if we don't watch, you're back to being nothing. The message is, of course, to remind these Black players of how precarious their positions are, to let them know in case they forgot how thin the margin is, that one misstep, injury or arrest, backtalk or protest can put you back there with the rest. Never forget who you owe. Yet everyone in America knows what the players are feeling right now, because they have felt it themselves, when the pain that lives down deep rises up and paralyzes them -- body, heart, mind -- and playing a game really doesn't matter. Nothing feels like it matters. We remember that from Sept. 11. We remember that from the Boston Marathon bombing. We remember that when family and the closest people to us die. We remember that when the constant racism breaks our hearts, and then our backs. Going to work doesn't matter. It simply isn't that important. There is no doubt many people have felt it during the more hopeless moments of the coronavirus pandemic, where it is difficult to see a future around the corner.
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/29749948/the-reality-black-pain-breaking-american-sports-status-quo
Definitely agreed with this, boycotting in solidarity for one day is fine, cancelling the sport to punish society gives racists and Republicans the win because you're cancelling one of the most powerful platforms on the planet, Draymond Green gives his opinions of players boycotting the NBA via Instagram comments: But why can sports wait? Because it's a sport? It to is a business, like the many other businesses in the world. Why is it that sports can wait but other businesses should not? If that is the case why shouldn't the CEO of YouTube boycott Alphabet? Or the President of Apple boycott the company? But you say basketball can wait... Is it because sports(the platform) has afforded the athletes involved such huge platforms? Or maybe the athletes involved past and present actually afforded sports those platforms, that the many athletes currently have today(that's neither here nor there). The notion that athletes should just stop working but no one else in the world should stop is baffling to me. Why stop doing the very thing that offers you the biggest platform to speak for those that look like me/a lot of us. To do that is to actually give up the platform to speak for them, because without us using our platforms which is afforded by the influence of the sport, it actually stops us from echoing what those in the back are saying. Those people then will never truly be heard. Athletes stand with the people, no secret there, but to actually tell athletes to stop doing what provides that platform to speak for the people is actually counterproductive. In my opinion.
https://imgur.com/mMb3AOa
We stand with our players and the players of the NBA in their demand for justice and the end of racial violence. Eighty percent of NBA players are black men. We cannot love them for the joy and entertainment that they bring to the world, yet sit in silence and fail to use our platforms and resources to amplify their voices when they demand the justice and equality that America has promised us all, but denied Black people for so long. In 2020 alone, we have been made to bear witness to the killings of numerous unarmed Black men and women at the hands of the police, as well as private "vigilantes". Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and now, Jacob Blake. We must continue to say their names. But now is also the time for us to say enough.
https://twitter.com/hmfaigen/status/1298790268372582400
The NBA, owners and front offices didn't see this wave of player boycotts coming today. Hours ago, they all expected to be playing these games tonight. This is a pivot point for the NBA and professional sports in North America.
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1298729636004798466
Portland's Damian Lillard will leave the NBA campus in Orlando on Thursday and return to Portland for further examination of his injured right knee.
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1298843325571661825
It would be wrong to think that today's NBA, WNBA and MLB boycotts were about one shooting in one city. This is frustration and anger that after 400 years of racial oppression there has not been nearly enough change. How much longer will we tolerate this racial oppression?
https://twitter.com/realStanVG/status/1298772221436059649
Billionaire's Son Jared Kushner Takes Swipe at NBA Players for Their Wealth and Privilege
https://www.thedailybeast.com/jared-kushner-takes-swipe-at-nba-players-for-their-wealth-and-privilege
Sources also say that Kyle Korver apologized for the way the Bucks made the decision not to play without alerting other teams. This element has clearly frustrated teams around the league, and Korver made the choice to address it.
https://twitter.com/sam_amick/status/1298840981178142726
What does an NBA players strike accomplish? It's action. It's sacrificing professional goals for a life-or-death conversation. It's forcing people to listen. It's shoving people out of their comfort and complacency. It's a build up of grief and rage, released powerfully.
https://twitter.com/KerithBurke/status/1298736269468434437
Lara Trump misquotes Abraham Lincoln during RNC speech after repeating words from a meme
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election/lara-trump-speech-rnc-abraham-lincoln-meme-a9691541.html
Ivanka Trump shared a video of her meeting a homeless D.C. woman. That woman says she's still waiting for her to keep a promise.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/ivanka-trump-shared-a-video-of-her-meeting-a-homeless-dc-woman-that-woman-says-shes-still-waiting-for-her-to-keep-a-promise/2020/08/26/162e4c18-e7ce-11ea-97e0-94d2e46e759b_story.html
Norway plans to illegally drill for oil in untouched Arctic areas - Norway is planning to illegally expand oil drilling in previously untouched areas of the Arctic, a move campaigners say threatens the fragile ecosystem and could spark a military standoff with Russia.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/26/norway-plans-to-drill-for-oil-in-untouched-arctic-areas-svalbard
At least 463 million students around the world have no access to digital or broadcast lessons, UNICEF report says
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/08/27/least-463-million-students-around-world-have-no-access-digital-or-broadcast-lessons-unicef/
Navajo Nation files lawsuit seeking to ease Arizona's vote-by-mail deadline
https://thehill.com/regulation/513942-navajo-nation-files-lawsuit-seeking-to-ease-arizonas-vote-by-mail-deadline
Pence disinvited from Wisconsin Lutheran commencement speech amid Kenosha unrest
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/27/politics/mike-pence-commencement-speech-kenosha/index.html
Republican secretary of state says Iowa counties can't set up drop box systems for absentee ballots
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2020/08/26/iowa-secretary-of-state-paul-pate-says-counties-cant-use-absentee-ballot-drop-boxes/5621892002/
Michigan Judge Dismisses Republican Candidates' Lawsuit Challenging the State's Mail-in Voting Process
https://lawandcrime.com/2020-election/michigan-judge-dismisses-gop-candidates-lawsuit-challenging-the-states-mail-in-voting-process/
We believe electing Biden is not just the right course for the nation but imperative if we are to have any hope of overcoming the grave problems that currently trouble us. President Trump's inept leadership of the federal government's response to the covid-19 pandemic has cost many more lives than it should have. His divisive rhetoric and enmity toward those he perceives as adversaries have exacerbated political and social divisions at a time when Americans should be uniting to confront the serious challenges that threaten all of us. His disinterest in American values, his tolerance for despots and his hostility to allies leave us uniquely vulnerable while our adversaries take every advantage of absent American leadership. Last, it has become increasingly clear that Trump's personal qualities — his lack of self-control, his chronic dishonesty, his inattention to his duties and his self-obsession — render him temperamentally unfit for the White House. Many of us have reservations about some of the views expressed by Biden, by his running mate, Sen. Kamala D. Harris, and by the Democratic Party's platform. Should the Democratic ticket win the election, we expect to oppose some of the policies their administration pursues. We are, however, encouraged by Biden's long history of seeking bipartisan solutions to serious national problems. We are confident he will fulfill his promise to be a president for all Americans and act in what he believes are the best interests of us all. We believe he will seek to temper the political polarization that impairs our government, not aggravate it, and try to repair the divisions besetting our society, be they racial, economic or political, not intentionally worsen them. We trust that as president, Biden will take seriously the federal government's primary role in addressing the worst public health crisis in a century, and not shift his responsibilities or the blame for his failures to others. And while some of us might find fault with the foreign and defense policies a Biden administration would implement, we are confident that a President Biden would endeavor to act in accord with U.S. interests and ideals, and confront rather than acquiesce to threats to them — a confidence we do not have in the incumbent president. For those and other reasons, we believe we are acting in accord with John McCain's charge to put "country first" when we urge Americans to elect former vice president Biden and Sen. Harris the next president and vice president of the United States.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/27/mark-salter-john-mccain-aides-endorse-biden/
The Republican Party is failing young conservatives like me by refusing to discuss climate change at its convention | We're the ones who phone-bank and wear out our tennis shoes knocking on doors — and though we appreciate the support of leaders in the Republican party, we now need a little more in return | It's no secret that conservative youth drive GOTV campaigns, spend countless hours phone-banking, and wear out our tennis shoes door-knocking. We host events with elected officials and candidates, cheer on their work via social media, and consistently defend our party to our peers and on college campuses. And yet, when it matters most, our concerns are consistently left off the table, nonstarters. While party leaders may not understand why the GOP doesn't attract the youth vote, all they need to do is ask one of the young Republicans they laud as the future of the party. The answer will be clear: work on climate. We're not asking for a Green New Deal, but it's not enough to be against a bad policy. It's long past time the GOP put forth a serious, realistic climate plan. Recent polling demonstrates that climate change is an important issue to 77 percent of right-leaning young Americans. The same poll shows that this demographic is also lukewarm on the Green New Deal, and wants free-market solutions instead. It's obvious, then, that without a GOP alternative, young cons are left feeling both disappointed and disenfranchised. Climate isn't a new concern; the RNC has had plenty of time to develop a serious platform on the issue. For all the hours activists have spent mobilizing for the party, the least leaders could do is hear them out — the political, moral, and strategic cases are all there. While the climate change debate has been politically charged and hyper-partisan for the better part of three decades, the time for simply obstructing climate alarmism is long over. Concerns about the progressive approach to climate are valid, but we cannot sustainably continue being the party of "no."
https://www.acc.eco/acc-youthpoll
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/594749a459cc68025728c8d1/t/5e40b43d4b6b8940eec523fc/1581298770298/ACC+Poll.pdf
Colorado Republican leader suing Democratic governor over statewide mask order. This is happening everywhere all over the country, Republican leaders suing their Democratic leaders
https://www.denverpost.com/2020/08/26/colorado-jared-polis-mask-lawsuit-patrick-neville/
NBA Players Have Earned Their Wealth and Success, Unlike Jared Kushner
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a33822073/jared-kushner-nba-strike/
20 mail-sorting machines in MN being taken offline; 10 already are, says lawsuit
https://www.twincities.com/2020/08/26/20-mail-sorting-machines-in-mn-being-decommissioned-10-already-offline-says-lawsuit/
Room rentals, resort fees and furniture removal: How Trump's company charged the U.S. government more than $900,000
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-company-secret-service-spending/2020/08/27/9331bd86-de36-11ea-8051-d5f887d73381_story.html
Donald Trump is charging Secret service agents, and therefore you the taxpayer, "resort fees" for the privilege of protecting him and his Vice President...: When VP Pence went to @realdonaldtrump's Las Vegas hotel in 2017, the Secret Service rented 151 rooms over a wk. Trump Org added "resort fees" to the agents' bills: $29 per room, per night. (And nobody would know if we hadn't sued the govt to get the records)
https://twitter.com/Fahrenthold/status/1299042848378179584
Context: Before we had these numbers, Eric Trump said Trump Org charges the govt only "like 50 bucks" for hotel rooms. We have found no evidence that's true. Instead, Trump Org often charged the maximum allowed under federal rules -- and sometimes more, as it did here.
https://twitter.com/Fahrenthold/status/1299045473135853575
Prior to his stint in the WH, Kushner gave tens of thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates. Now he's attacking LeBron for supporting Democrats.
Israel's top court rules for removal of Israeli-owned homes to appease Islamic terrorists
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-settlements/israels-top-court-rules-for-removal-of-settler-homes-from-palestinian-land-idUSKBN25N2LI0
Biden on Hurricane Laura: "My Lord ... I just pray that they're not going to find they've lost more people than they thought. And, you know, our main concern that we weren't prepared enough for this brutal hurricane, and Donald Trump keeps saying we're going to be safe."
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1299044007276933120
C-Span Cameras Captured Kenosha Murder Suspect Kyle Rittenhouse at Trump Rally in January https://www.mediaite.com/news/watch-c-span-cameras-captured-kenosha-murder-suspect-kyle-rittenhouse-at-trump-rally-in-january/
Kushner is implying James supports Biden, and that this is a problem b/c Biden wants "to close down charter schools." This isn't true either. Biden is against vouchers and for more charter accountability, but supports publicly funded charter schools.
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/07/trump-twists-bidens-position-on-school-choice-charter-schools/
5 months too late, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has ordered all bars, nightclubs and breweries to close in six counties across the state after a spike in positive coronavirus cases, specifically among young adults.
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/07/trump-twists-bidens-position-on-school-choice-charter-schools/
Here are 966 bipartisan pages of the truth Republicans ignored last night. Russia helped Trump, Trump and his campaign knew it, and they welcomed it.
https://intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
Kellyanne Conway is not wrong: How do Trump aides see Kenosha? Here's @KellyannePolls to Fox this AM on what they see as political upside: "The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is for the very clear choice on who's best on public safety, and law and order."
https://twitter.com/ZekeJMiller/status/1298980063614918658
"What bothers me most is the idea of just pouring gasoline on the racial flames that are burning now," Biden to @mitchellreports. "That does not justify any of the looting, any of the burning, any of the damage being done by protesters. But the people have a right to be angry."
https://twitter.com/KThomasDC/status/1299033353904160768
Kanye West's presidential campaign is a full week late in filing its finance reports, a violation of federal law. Until it files, there's no way to find out how deep run the Republican (and leftist) efforts to help get his spoiler campaign on the ballot.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/k7q57n/kanye-west-is-breaking-campaign-finance-law-and-keeping-his-gop-backers-a-secret
This is punishable by big fines. But if Kanye's team won't pay, or doesn't mind the fees, there's really no way to enforce the law here before November — or find out who else is involved in this campaign besides @RGreggKeller & the others who've been named on filing/court docs. (https://twitter.com/RGreggKeller)
Biden/Trump debates: Bide should show up, read the names of the women who have accused him of sexual assault, read the list of current investigations, accuse him of being an agent for Russia, blame him for 200,000 coronavirus deaths, remind America he was impeached, drop mic, leave. Trump would fucking lose it. Or read the names of those who died of covid 19, even if that takes a week to do.
Pelosi vows to get Trump's tax returns from Treasury if Biden wins: 'The world will see what the president has been hiding'. | "When we win this election and we have a new president of the United States in January, and we have a new secretary of the Treasury, and [House Ways and Means Committee Chairman] Richie Neal asks for the president's [Trump's] tax returns, then the world will see what the president has been hiding all of this time," Pelosi, D-Calif., said at a press conference.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/27/pelosi-says-congress-will-get-trumps-tax-returns-from-treasury-if-biden-wins.html
Trump announces during FEMA briefing that he'll be visiting the Gulf Coast "very shortly" (most likely this weekend) to survey damage from Hurricane Laura.
https://twitter.com/albamonica/status/1299048956253679616
Michigan's attorney general is investigating a voter-suppression robocall allegedly created by blundering conservative operative Jacob Wohl.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/jacob-wohl-accused-of-starting-a-voter-suppression-scheme/main-info
Remember Trump's executive order targeting social media companies? There's a new lawsuit filed by voting rights groups arguing the order affects their work b/c Trump and others can spread misinfo about voting unimpededhttps://buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/trump-executive-order-section-230-twitter-fact-checking
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7047017/8-27-20-Rock-the-Vote-v-Trump-Complaint.pdf
It's extraordinary how pretty much almost the entire nation is dedicated to fighting Trump until the bitter end (and that's if Biden wins)
Millenialism and Evagalism are Terrorism: VP Mike Pence altered a biblical reference, changing 'Jesus' to the American flag in his RNC speech. Because these people are at war with government and democracy and democratic institutions
https://washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/08/27/pence-bible-rnc-jesus-flag/
Dave Roberts said Mookie Betts told him last night that he wasn't playing today, but changed his mind. Betts told him this morning that he spoke to other Black players around the league and decided they could use their platform by playing.
https://twitter.com/jorgecastillo/status/1299050554295951360
Lorenzo Cain, talking with reporters now on Zoom, said he not only opted out for COVID reasons, but also to, "Get my life right with G/d." Added, "Something I needed to do, not only for myself but my family as well."
https://twitter.com/WillSammon/status/1299045998153654272
Overnight ratings for night three of the conventions. Six networks combined, 10-11p ET: Democratic - 16.2 Republican - 10.5 In a matchup of VP nominees, Harris outrated Pence by +54% in America's biggest markets
https://twitter.com/mulvihill79/status/1299011315306868737
Seven more dolphins found dead on Mauritius beach near oil spill
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mauritius-environment-dolphins/seven-more-dolphins-found-dead-on-mauritius-beach-near-oil-spill-idUSKBN25N1EU
President's son complains that Democrats spend too much time talking about the still-raging pandemic that so far has killed more than 180,000 Americans and cost tens of millions of American jobs
https://twitter.com/nick_ramsey/status/1299057689193066497
Kamala Harris also spoke to Jacob Blake's family. She said Blake's shooting represents "the two systems of justice in America." "We need to fight ... for the ideal that says all people are supposed to be treated equally, which is still not happening."
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2020/08/26/kamala-harris-michigan-event-there-still-two-systems-justice/5636276002/
Biden on CNN again commits to 3 debates: "I'm used to dealing with bullies. I understand how they work. And I'm gonna go by the rules of the debate commission, play by the rules, and we're gonna have a debate."
https://twitter.com/JTHVerhovek/status/1299058684023238657
Biden asked if the McCloskeys, who spoke at the RNC, are heroes: "I don't see them that way at all. And by the way, talk about middle class neighborhoods, they look like they're living in...a multi-million dollar mansion for G/d's sake."
https://twitter.com/JTHVerhovek/status/1299057952024924160
Biden: "You imagine, I'm getting attacked on my religion by Donald. Trump.? When's the last time he darkened the doorway of a church? Come on."
As the final night of RNC Convention airs tonight, "traditional" Republicans seem to screaming: "Give us our party back!" Seeing hundreds of supporters of John McCain, Mitt Romney, George W Bush unite in message for support for Biden and the Democrats (not their platform, their general professional civilized defense of America and equality and stability and normaly and compassion etc) speaks to the current state of the failed Republican cult of Trump
Fire At University Of Delaware's Chabad Center Ruled Arson Which Makes This Another Antisemitic Hate Crime
https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2020/08/27/fire-at-university-of-delawares-chabad-center-ruled-arson/
Local authorities voted to keep this Confederate statue. Hurricane Laura tore it down.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7wm7k/hurricane-laura-tore-down-a-confederate-statue-that-local-officials-voted-to-keep
Man shot by Secret Service officer outside White House was apparently holding a comb. White officer said the black man threatened that he had a weapon.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/man-shot-by-secret-service-officer-outside-white-house-apparently-was-holding-a-comb-documents-show/2020/08/27/61cdf110-e872-11ea-97e0-94d2e46e759b_story.html
Biden: "Have you ever heard this president say one negative thing about white supremacists?"
Defacing a synagogue isn't activism.
Power outages across three states totaled close to 700,000. And video of the storm's 150-mph winds at landfall showed an RV being completely flipped over. | As Laura continued its push inland on Thursday, it lost its hurricane properties around midday, with sustained wind speeds dropping to 70 mph. The storm is still dangerous, despite its weakening, and was moving quickly to the north at 15 mph, according to the NHC. Lake Charles and Cameron, both in Louisiana, recorded the top wind gusts during the height of the storm at 137 mph and 127 mph, respectively. AccuWeather forecasters say Laura will continue weakening as it moves to the Northeast, but that what is left of the once-powerful hurricane could get a second wind when it moves back out over the Atlantic Ocean.
https://www.accuweather.com/en/hurricane/live-news/hurricane-laura-hours-away-from-landfall-in-louisiana/799307
I think Biden and Harris are going to be showing more and more of their teeth and fangs towards Trump over up until the election. Remind me to not be on the wrong side of Kamala. She's ripping Trump to shreds.
ByeDon 2020
I'ts a great speech and points out all of Donald Trump's failures. Unfortunately.. it isn't a prime time speech. Vice Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris delivers remarks on COVID-19 and its impact on economy
https://www.c-span.org/video/?475191-1/senator-kamala-harris-remarks-covid-19-economy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEgcKDSJsbk
Trump will watch clips of that speech and he will be ENRAGED inthe hours leading up to his Presidential nominee acceptance speech
Pence says Officer Underwood was "shot and killed during the riots in Oakland." In fact he was murdered by an alt-right pro-Trump Boogaloo member. Nowhere in his speech does Pence mention, let alone denounce, violence by alt-right extremists, from Charlottesville to Oakland to Kenosha.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/airman-charged-killing-federal-officer-during-george-floyd-protests-california-n1231187
A moderate, Clinton-endorsing Democrat, Chris Murphy, tweeted and deleted this. This is emblematic of the problem of the Democrats. Gallup polling shows 8% -- *8 percent* -- of Americans are supportive of looting/rioting. But Murphy is too intimidated to stand with 92%?
https://twitter.com/ZaidJilani/status/1299067172724056064
Very tense situation in South #Beirut Lebanon tonight: Heavy clashes taking sectarian tone between Hezbollah & gunmen in several areas. Echoes of civil war heard 3 weeks after Beirut explosion:
https://twitter.com/Joyce_Karam/status/1299065051186425858
Harris: "It didn't have to be this bad ... All we needed was a competent president."
Pence delivers the smallest TV audience of the Republican National Convention so far
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-27/pence-delivers-the-smallest-audience-of-gop-s-convention-so-far
Kamala Harris: "Instead of rising to meet the most difficult moment of his presidency, Donald Trump froze. He was scared. And he was petty and vindictive."
Kamala Harris: "Here's what you have to understand about the nature of a pandemic: It's relentless. You can't stop it with a tweet."
Kamala Harris: "Trump still doesn't have a plan. He still doesn't have a plan. Joe Biden released his first plan in March." (he also warned everybody in October 2019 that Trump and Republicans were not prepared for a pandemic and had tossed the Obama Administration's historic pandemic preparedness response office and and destroyed prepretory briefings and publications/plans on preparedness )
Kamala Harris mentions the pandemic response office set up in the NSC by the Obama administration that the Trump administration disbanded.
The absence of masks at the RNC events are part of calculated effort to suggest the siege is over. That's a fantasy.
3/ As campus reopened, Arizona set up a system to test the wastewater leaving about 20 buildings on campus, including all the dorms that are occupied. Early work in Europe in the spring showed that people infected with coronavirus shed it into their stool very early.
https://twitter.com/cfishman/status/1299050563481595904
4/ All dorms had been tested once and come up negative. On Tuesday, one dorm — Likins Hall — showed coronavirus in the wastewater. On Wednesday, all 311 residents of Likins were given antigen quick-tests. 2 residents were found to be positive — asymptomatic, but positive.
https://twitter.com/cfishman/status/1299051182133055491
5/ Those 2 Arizona undergrads are in isolation at UA's isolation dorm now (& their contacts being traced).
The other 309 residents of Likins: Back to covid-life-on-campus. Mind you, all 311 of those residents had already been tested once, on arrival, and come up negative.
https://twitter.com/cfishman/status/1299051735445573632
6/ And the initial test of the dorm's wastewater last week was negative. So those 2 students caught the virus somewhere between coming back to school and Tuesday. But imagine what would have happened without the wastewater testing.
https://twitter.com/cfishman/status/1299051941864013825
7/ Those two students would have wandered their dorm, asymptomatic, likely infecting their fellow students unknowingly. Then instead of 2 students in Likins being infected, you might have had 10. Those students would have been out and about on campus, and in Tucson.
https://twitter.com/cfishman/status/1299052387777249281
8/ Arizona doesn't yet have a follow-up testing regime for its students living on-campus. You had to be negative to move into the dorms, there is talk of testing everyone every 2 weeks — but for now, more testing is voluntary. (You can get a quick test every day if you want.)
https://twitter.com/cfishman/status/1299052728115748865
9/ But wastewater testing is a reasonable surrogate. In Europe, it caught infections a week before anyone showed symptoms. In practice, at UArizona, that's exactly what happened: A dorm outbreak, detected, isolated, stopped in its tracks. This is how you do it.
https://twitter.com/cfishman/status/1299053226713640965
10/ Remember the fruitless mantra of the spring?
Testing.
Testing.
Testing.
It's still true. Testing is how you find infections, testing is how you protect people who might get sick, testing is how you protect everyone who isn't yet infected.
https://twitter.com/cfishman/status/1299053523926159365
11/ Wastewater testing is not common at all — here in the US, or anywhere else. It requires a consistent population (you wouldn't want to wastewater test a restaurant or a movie theater), it requires access to the pipes, & an understanding of the plumbing.
https://twitter.com/cfishman/status/1299053839207796742
12/ Most important: Wastewater testing requires the ability to do follow-up testing completely & quickly.
They didn't test a few kids living in Likins. They tested them all. They didn't test them using a method that required a 3-day wait for results. 1-hour antigen test.
https://twitter.com/cfishman/status/1299054304142204928
13/ Lots of *cities* don't have much in the way of quick-test ability on demand. But this is how it's done. This is how you find people who might get sick, isolate them, and get back to work. Imagine using wastewater testing at high schools, for instance, or workplaces.
https://twitter.com/cfishman/status/1299054612968865793
14/ Arizona has the scientists on campus to develop and manage its wastewater testing. But this is not arcane science. And to be clear: UA has 5,000 people living on-campus, but another 25,000 living off-campus. It could still have an outbreak, and have to go all-online.
https://twitter.com/cfishman/status/1299055009036935169
15/ UArizona's most recent testing data:
Total tests since reopening:
• 10,126 tests
-->46 positive
Wednesday, 8/26 testing:
• 770 tests
--> 9 positive
Note that yesterday's results are a small warning.
Overall positive rate: 0.5%
Yesterday's positive rate: 1.2%
https://twitter.com/cfishman/status/1299055737885396995
16/ That dramatic jump in positivity might be a quirk of testing and who walked in yesterday. Might be a sign that as students and staff come back to campus, use the restaurants and the classrooms and see each other on the lawns, some transmission might be happening.
https://twitter.com/cfishman/status/1299056039027970048
17/ But UArizona's wastewater testing is a smart, invaluable technique. Let's hope other colleges and universities, and lots of other organizations, jump in and put it to use as well.
https://twitter.com/cfishman/status/1299057449559785473
Laura was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm early this afternoon and is expected to continue weakening rapidly. Laura will continue north across northern Louisiana into Arkansas over the next day. Hazards continue with Laura, from damaging tropical storm force winds, heavy rainfall, widespread flash flooding, minor to moderate river flooding, and severe storms with tornadoes.
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
Kamala's speech is perfect, he's totally going ballistic right before his speech tonight lol. And this is the game, surprise attack- Trump's many mental illnesses can't let him focus or ignore. And everyone knows he's going to go off script tonight to address her specifically. He won't be able to help himself.
NBA players protesting racial injustice seems to have motivated many Twitter followers to take an interest in human rights in China. I am sure those who use China to criticize NBA players are working tirelessly and giving generously to further the cause of human rights in China.
https://twitter.com/realStanVG/status/1299057305720434690
Nine NFL teams opted not to practice/scrimmage today: 🏈Bears 🏈Broncos 🏈Cardinals 🏈Chargers 🏈Colts 🏈Jets 🏈Packers 🏈Titans 🏈Washington Football Team
http://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/1299073931370991617
Kamala Harris points out that instead of fixing the problem, he's obsessed with the stock market. Instead of taking a strong stance on China, he caved in to China.
Is there any doubt that she's the sharpest and smartest amongst Trump, Pence, and Biden? Not that it's great competition, but still.
Trump was a registered Democrat for decades and doesn't have any form of a coherent political ideology. The people who go to these rallies and support Trump are reactionaries still pissed off that a black man inhabited the White House for 8 years and they will burn the whole country to the ground out of spite if it will piss off the liberals. I am not as scared of Trump as I am of his supporters.
In 2004, George W. Bush received a bigger share of the vote in MI/PA/WI than Trump received across those states in 2016. Trump won all three, Bush lost them.
Detroit and Chicago hit with misleading and racist robocalls discouraging mail-in voting
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/27/politics/robocalls-detroit-chicago-racist/index.html
Why is Jacob Blake handcuffed to the hospital bed, Dumb Deranged Democrats ask? Because because he is a violent criminal with multiple outstanding warrants for his arrest. Violation of the restraining order is one. Sexual assault. Attempted murder. Take your pick. He was strangling his ex-girlfriend who eventually screamed so loud the police were called to break up their dispute.
One week after this reporting came out... and Hannity hasn't done anything to deny it: "Hannity would tell you, off-off-off the record, that Trump is a batshit crazy person.
https://vanityfair.com/news/2020/08/sean-hannity-fox-news-staffers-feel-trapped-in-trump-cult
Israeli Officer Need Not Have Shot Autistic Palestinian, Commander Says | The commander testified that the man his partner killed, Iyad al-Hallaq, was not resisting and posed no danger, in a case that ignited protests against police brutality.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/world/middleeast/israel-police-shooting-palestinian-autism.html
YEP: FWIW, despite what the state polling averages say, I still view Biden's path of least resistance to 270 Electoral Votes as MI, #NE02, PA and *AZ,* rather than FL or WI - based on demographic patterns and what we saw from hard votes in '18. Admittedly, it's a really close call.
https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1299039354485121026
Officials at the Department of Homeland Security waged a yearslong internal struggle to get the Trump White House to pay attention to the threat of violent domestic extremists. They ended up quitting in frustration.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/26/trump-domestic-extemism-homeland-security-401926
Tonight we'll be treated to a speech from Trump super fan Tom Cotton. When Cotton isn't spreading the lie that COVID was a Chinese biological weapon, he enjoys calling on the US military to crack down on peaceful American protestors. Cotton will reportedly claim that China is rooting for Joe Biden. The truth, according to Trump's former National Security Advisor John Bolton, is that Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to help him win reelection. Cotton is silent on the fact that Trump told President Xi that building concentration camps for a million+ Uighurs is "exactly the right thing to do." And as China strangles Hong Kong's democracy, Trump shrugs and claims it will help the US stock market. Trump promised to end foreign wars. Instead he sent more troops to Afghanistan. Trump tore up the Iran deal when it was working and now Iran is closer to getting a bomb while the US is more isolated. And despite all the love letters, North Korea now has a dozen more nukes. Over the last four years, Trump has driven away key allies like NATO and embraced dictators like Putin, Xi, and Mohammed bin Salman. America is weaker and the world treats us like a joke. That's the foreign policy vision Tom Cotton is shilling for.
There is no immunity under the First Amendment that allows you to disregard, without potential arrest and penalty, a direct order - even one you believe is illegal - from a police officer. The First Amendment rights of petition and assembly do not give you permission to cross or occupy private property; that's still called trespassing. Occupying public property: Since the "occupy" movement a few years ago, many jurisdictions updated their policies regarding public squares, such as parks, with many outlawing overnight stays or blocking the space so that other, non-involved persons are unable to pass through it. Blocking traffic on a public street, whether an individual effort or a mass #protest, is illegal. There is no First Amendment shield against arrest, though police action may well depend on balancing the taking of #protesters into custody versus clearing the thoroughfare. The rights of assembly and petition on National Park Service property have certain limitations, with permits required if a group of 25 or more, or – pay attention to this - the protest is likely to attract a combined audience of participants and those watching of more than 25.
The violence will get much worse. Unless police and political leaders begin to crack down on the protests, more bloodshed will follow the killings in Kenosha. It's what gives Trump the win because Democrats are continuing to dismiss the protests as "peaceful".
Judge blocks illegal Republican rule that illegally provides relief funds to private and parochial schools
https://wpta21.com/2020/08/27/judge-blocks-rule-that-moves-relief-funds-to-private-schools/
Trump's 2016 RNC speech: "Our Convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation. The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life. Any politician who does not grasp this danger is not fit to lead our country. Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities. Many have witnessed this violence personally, some have even been its victims. I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end. Beginning on January 20th 2017, safety will be restored. The most basic duty of government is to defend the lives of its own citizens. Any government that fails to do so is a government unworthy to lead."
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/full-transcript-donald-trump-nomination-acceptance-speech-at-rnc-225974
448ft. Tatis Jr is the second player ever to send a home run ball to the rooftop of the Western Metal Building.
https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1299093368752885760/vid/1280x720/W50KUGrXIdLibFwk.mp4
https://bdata-producedclips.mlb.com/63600d02-3971-4b13-9814-2deed4a8132d.mp4
Joe referring to the Paris Climate Deal: And in 146 days, we'll rejoin it.
https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1299073447729872896
Biden is considering a modified return to the campaign trail after Labor Day
https://www.axios.com/biden-considers-return-to-campaign-trail-f662bc55-9082-4238-9522-61ab235f12d7.html
Becki Falwell was an employee of the university when the alleged encounter took place, violating multiple university rules: Last October, I spoke for the first time with a man who told me Becki Falwell gave him oral sex when he was a student at Liberty University. This is his story.
https://politico.com/news/2020/08/27/becki-falwell-affair-liberty-university-student-band-jerry-402559
YEP: If you don't think Donald Trump can get re-elected in November, you need to spend more time on Facebook.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/technology/what-if-facebook-is-the-real-silent-majority.html
If you listed the names of Americans dead from Covid on a memorial, it would be 3x longer than the nearby Vietnam Veterans Memorial. If you read the names, 1 per second (fast!), it would take 50 hours. Yesterday, 1,193 Americans died of Covid.
The Trump campaign says its convention protocols are in "full compliance" with the D.C. public health department. City guidance currently prohibits mass gatherings of more than 50 people https://coronavirus.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/coronavirus/publication/attachments/COVID-19_DC_Health_Guidance_for_Mass_Gatherings_2020.07.29.FINAL_.pdf
This is why Trump supporters love Trump, he gives the finger to all the rules and does what he wants, he's also showing everybody he's not afraid of a virus: It's a sight I never before imagined: the South Lawn of the White House transformed into the stage of a political convention.
https://twitter.com/jonkarl/status/1299111122050732043
Masks are not required. And COVID-19 tests will not be given to everyone
You commit a crime, ANY crime, you are no longer "peaceful".
A judge ordered an Iowa county Thursday to invalidate 50,000 requests for absentee ballots, agreeing with Trump's campaign that the county elections commissioner overstepped by pre-filling them with voters' personal information.
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2020/08/27/judge-grants-trump-motion-block-absentee-ballot-requests-iowa/5650357002/
The state undermines its own monopoly on the use of violence when law enforcement officials allow armed civilians who share their politics to cosplay as auxiliaries. This sort of thing is extremely dangerous.
In a gallop poll, 58% of respondents blamed the slain Kent state students for their own deaths.
Reminder: In 2017, Trump promised to "completely isolate himself" from his businesses. He didn't. He visited 271 times. Now we can add up the benefit of breaking that promise: Trump Org received $3.8M from campaigns, at least $900K+ from taxpayers.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-company-secret-service-spending/2020/08/27/9331bd86-de36-11ea-8051-d5f887d73381_story.html
Garrett Richards' line: 0.2IP, 6 R, 6ER, 4H, 2BB, 2HR
Marmolejos hits a Grand Slam to make it 5-0 for Seattle in Game 2
https://bdata-producedclips.mlb.com/cc3fc7ed-97a3-44bb-8365-bb1161de9598.mp4
Lol. Watch @ScottWalker turn off his own camera when the questions get tough. What a coward.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1299122287648673801
Hurricane Laura's rapid intensification is a sign of a warming climate
https://washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/08/27/hurricane-laura-rapid-intensification/
State v. Rittenhouse was filed todaay. He is charged with reckless homicide (Rosenbaum), recklessly endangering safety (McGinnis), intentional homicide (Huber), attempted homicide (Grosskreutz), and recklessly endangering safety (unknown male). https://drive.google.com/file/d/1m9sDjYr1Nj_fpFr9bTycWPG8tS2aPDeL/view
I spent the past week watching the RNC livestreamed on the Trump campaign's official Twitch channel, which has become a platform for MAGA fans to post racist and sexist memes depicting, for instance, Black men being whipped, shot, and hung on trees.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/27/racism-sexism-trump-rnc-twitch-403843
Twitter has taken action to stop a spam operation that pushed messages from fake accounts about Black people abandoning the Democratic Party.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/viral-pro-trump-tweets-came-fake-african-american-spam-accounts-n1238553
What a lineup tonight. Ivanka, Giuliani, Kevin McCarthy, Tom Cotton, McConnell, Ben Carson, Trump. Hope you've all got something to numb the horror.
Notre Dame calls out Lou Holtz: "We Catholics should remind ourselves that while we may judge the objective moral quality of another's actions, we must never question the sincerity of another's faith, which is due to the mysterious working of grace in that person's heart."
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1299134602175377410
Nearly every California Republican state senator in quarantine after coronavirus exposure -- from one of the legislature's most prominent Covid-19 skeptics
https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Nearly-every-California-GOP-state-senator-in-15520047.php?
On the last day of the RNC, the boys pick @PhilArballo2020 for #CA22. As you may know, his opponent, @DevinNunes, is a climate-denying, cow-suing Trump lover. A businessman and community leader, Arballo will protect Cali's environment. Give what you can: http://secure.actblue.com/donate/adopt-phil-arballo
https://twitter.com/PreetBharara/status/1299133521219420167
i want to just point out a quick *positive* messaging thing here that biden did that dems don't do often enough. he mentions that trump violated the hatch act. then he stops and says, people don't know what that is, here, let me explain it in layman's terms.
https://twitter.com/owillis/status/1299036569890885632
The problem is, most people feel laws and regulations are useless and petty and restrictive and get in the way of everything and violate their right to do what they want, Trump ran on a platform of getting rid of laws and regulations, nobody really cares that Trump is breaking all the laws and regulations, they WANTED a President who would cut through the restrictions and "established order" and rules and protocols etc, people love that Trump violates all the laws/established order/regulations/rules/protocols/etc
How many people are going to see this and take a cue that they no longer need to avoid large gatherings?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Egd0W65WoAE5rV2?format=jpg&name=small
Machado hits his third home run of the day, keeps the game close
https://bdata-producedclips.mlb.com/2d9a98b9-b9e4-415b-9026-cb99c40401e3.mp4
When he took over, he started his day in the Oval Office around 9 a.m., but then complained to aides that he was working 12-hour days and 'this is way too much.'"
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/us/politics/donald-trump.html
65% of Wisconsin voters live in counties carried by Trump in '16 (despite Trump taking just 47% in WI). Most of those voters live in a news/info ecosystem that looks nothing like the one most Dems live in and is reacting to events in Kenosha far differently.
Federal judge gives the Trump administration 10 days to give answers about what's changing (or not) at the mail service
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/27/politics/usps-slowdowns-hearing/index.html
Capital One Cuts Card Limits Amid U.S. Impasse on Jobless Aid: Capital One is cutting borrowing limits on credit cards, reining in its exposure as the U.S. reduces support for millions of unemployed Americans. Some customers have complained that their limits have been slashed by a third to two-thirds.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-28/capital-one-cuts-card-limits-amid-u-s-impasse-on-jobless-aid
Biden will begin traveling to battlegrounds after Labor Day. He lists Wisconsin, Minnesota, Arizona and Pennsylvania as among the states on his itinerary. He said he will get out safely without jeopardizing peoples' health.
https://twitter.com/jeneps/status/1299118741003874308
KeepAmericaGreat.com
https://twitter.com/joebiden/status/1299141898901299201
Mali's Ousted President Is Released From Detention by Coup Leaders
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/world/africa/mali-coup-president-released.html
"The president can't be bought"
Somewhere, right now, Putin is wiping a tear from his eye because he's laughing so hard.
Scavino: “I wish you could be at his side with me to see his endless kindness to everyone he meets.”
This guy looks like CGI. Uncanny valley and all that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Scavino
This grand strategy would be news to the many Democratic primary voters on the left who voted against Biden and for Sanders: A bit hard to follow the logic but Van Drew appears to be implying that the left of the Democratic Party lost the primary as part of a devious plot to "install" Joe Biden "as their puppet president."
https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1299147680636186625
A recurring theme of this convention is "Donald Trump is not who you think he is." The problem with that is, we've all been watching and listening to him for four years.
"You know the president cannot be bought"
..........Actually said!!! I suppose the point is: a smash-and-grab operation is very different from a purchase-and-sale
Customary for parties to do a tribute for leaders who've died since last their convention, but nothing yet on 41 or McCain
Protests and sirens faintly audible from the South Lawn at the White House.
RNC Night 4 continues to feature speakers who claim that the protests and violence happening in Trump's America wouldn't be happening in Trump's America.
I just can't get over how much of the RNC Convention and Trump campaign message is, "None of this would be happening if Donald Trump were president!"
The "you won't be safe in Joe Biden's America" message is interesting because the violence in American cities began and is happening under Trump's presidency and 180,000 Americans who were alive six months ago are dead from coronavirus-19. And keeping Trump won't unseat Dem mayors.
Philippines Government Legalizes Child Rape And Child Pornography
http://www.cnnphilippines.com/news/2020/8/27/House-panels-approve-bill-statutory-rape-age-16.html
Russian tourist offered employee $1 million to cripple Tesla with malware
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/08/russian-tourist-offered-employee-1-million-to-cripple-tesla-with-malware/
Last night, Vice President Mike Pence stood before America and with a straight face said, "You won't be safe in Joe Biden's America." His proof? The violence you're seeing in Donald Trump's America. Did Mike Pence forget Donald Trump is president? Is Donald Trump even aware he's president? These are not images from some imagined "Joe Biden's America" in the future. These are images from Donald Trump's America today. The violence we're witnessing is happening under Donald Trump. Not me. It's getting worse, and we know why.
https://joebiden.com/2020/08/27/statement-by-vice-president-joe-biden-on-donald-trumps-america/
Shinzo Abe, Japan's Longest-Serving Leader, to Resign Because of Illness
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/world/asia/shinzo-abe-resign-japan.html
Staff were told not to reveal infections at Amazon, McDonald's, Delta, Cargill, Target, Cheesecake Factory, & REI, among 100s of firms that prohibited or punished talk of Covid19 cases or concerns ,according to workers, complaints, documents
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-08-27/covid-pandemic-u-s-businesses-issue-gag-rules-to-stop-workers-from-talking
________________________________
https://thebulwark.com/biden-needs-a-sister-souljah-month/
Biden Needs a Sister Souljah Month
Democrats need to convince voters that they really are against riots.
by Robert Tracinski
August 28, 2020 5:10 am
I suggested a little while ago that Joe Biden needs a Sister Souljah moment, a reference to an incident in the 1992 presidential campaign when Bill Clinton criticized a race-baiting black rapper. Facing steep odds of winning the White House, Clinton took the chance of slightly alienating the radical wing of the Democratic party for the sake of reassuring centrists and conservative Democrats.
http://tracinskiletter.com/2020/07/16/the-silent-majority-2/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Souljah_moment
When I suggested this, the riots had abated for a while in favor of peaceful protests, and Biden held a strong lead in the polls. The cautious option was for Biden to take no chances and stand pat.
This week of protests and riots in Kenosha has changed that calculation. Public opinion is turning against the Black Lives Matter protests. A Marquette Law School poll completed before Kenosha showed support in Wisconsin for Black Lives Matter protests falling from 61-36—nearly a two-to-one approval-to-disapproval ratio—down to 48-48. We should assume it has gone done farther since then. Republicans will spend hundreds of millions of dollars over the next ten weeks trying to convince voters that they should punish Democrats for tolerating or excusing lawless violence.
https://rpubs.com/PollsAndVotes/652966
Which is why, on Wednesday afternoon, Joe Biden released a video making largely the correct argument: "[P]rotesting brutality is a right and absolutely necessary. But burning down communities is not protest, it's needless violence—violence that endangers lives, violence that guts businesses and shutters businesses that serve the community. That's wrong."
https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1298697722304888833
This is about the best we could expect from the Man in the Middle. In his statement, Biden acknowledged the legitimate grievance of the Black Lives Matter moment and made a small obeisance toward the left's dogma of "anti-racism" by using the phrase "systemic racism"—but he also used a quote from Jacob Blake's mother disavowing the violence as protective cover so he could offer a straightforward rejection of riots as "needless violence."
It was a good start. But it was only a start.
Democrats do not seem to realize how much credibility on this issue they are in danger of losing. A New York Times reporter talking to people in Wisconsin sounded the alarm:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/26/us/kenosha-wisconsin-trump.html
Ellen Ferwerda, who owns an antique furniture store downtown just blocks from the worst of the destruction that is now closed, said that she was desperate for Mr. Trump to lose in November but that she had "huge concern" the unrest in her town could help him win. She added that local Democratic leaders seemed hesitant to condemn the mayhem.
"I think they just don't know what to say," she said. "People are afraid to take a stance either way, but I do think it's strange they're all being so quiet. Our mayor has disappeared. It's like, 'Where is he?'"
Or consider another exchange caught on video: a store owner shouting out from his shattered window, "Are they trying to get Trump re-elected?" A protester replies, "These people don't represent our movement." His rejoinder: "I'm sorry, but they're with you."
https://twitter.com/telldylan/status/1298504147013185537
That's the problem in a nutshell. The anarchist and revolutionary wing of the protest movement has run riot—quite literally—among the non-violent protesters with not nearly enough resistance from either elected Democrats or the left-leaning media.
Consider, for example, the role of the press in sugar-coating the dark side of these protests. There is the way they described the takeover of downtown Seattle as having a "festive" atmosphere—which Seattle's mayor compared to the Summer of Love—and only later printed the stories of residents and business owners intimidated by lawless mobs. Or the way CNN characterized the burning of businesses in downtown Kenosha as "fiery but mostly peaceful protests."
https://dailycaller.com/2020/08/27/cnn-chiron-wisconsin-riots-mostly-peaceful-correspondent-burning-building/
"Mostly peaceful protest" has become a running joke as an evasive way to describe a violent mob. Is there a big difference between a protest and a riot? Absolutely. I just wish the media would remember this and stop blurring the difference between them.
https://babylonbee.com/news/orcs-march-on-minas-tirith-in-mostly-peaceful-protest/
Add to this the increasingly widespread use of brutish intimidation tactics, as with a group of Black Lives Matter protesters who surrounded outdoor diners at a restaurant in Washington, D.C., and demanded that they raise their fists to show symbolic solidarity with the cause, chanting the Orwellian slogan "Silence Is Violence." When one woman refused, they surrounded her in a literally howling mob. The woman, Lauren B. Victor, stood firm, explaining that "she felt there was something wrong about being coerced to show support." The whole thing bears a striking visual similarity to the Two Minutes Hate, including the raised fists, and that's what gives it such a totalitarian flavor: the venting of unreasoning hatred against even the smallest signs of dissent.
https://reason.com/2020/08/25/black-lives-matter-protesters-dc-silence-is-violence-white-people/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8668841/Brave-diner-REFUSED-intimidated-BLM-mob-tormenting-dinner-DC.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvGmOZ5T6_Y
This is precisely the sort of thing that could tip the election back to Trump by making his opponents seem like weak and timid men afraid to confront the violent brutes.
Is this Joe Biden's Sister Souljah moment? Maybe, but he needs more than a moment. The Democratic party needs a Sister Souljah month. A month in which Democratic mayors and governors stop trying to appease the rioters and instead shut them down. A month in which the media and commentators stop making excuses for the rioters and start exposing the viciousness of their destruction.
What they need to recognize, and what they need to say to the American people, is that how you fight for a cause says a lot about what that cause actually is.
If you resort to violence, you undermine your claim to fight for peace.
If you unleash hatred, you undermine your claim to fight for love.
If you target random businesses and passersby, dealing out the very kind of indiscriminate violence you are supposedly protesting against, you undermine your claim to fight for justice.
If you lust to build a guillotine, you are not a humanitarian.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/amazon-jeff-bezos-guillotine-protest-home-a9593961.html
It is the nature of coalition politics that every party attracts a crazy, illiberal fringe. It is also in the nature of these coalitions that they risk being captured by their crazy fringe—that they grow so used to regarding them as "their people," as their allies and fellow travelers, that they cannot bring themselves to disavow the fringe's most repellent notions. On the Republican side, Donald Trump has done this repeatedly, most recently by his refusal to disavow the QAnon conspiracy theorists.
The overriding message of last week's Democratic convention is that their crazy fringe is not in charge, that the sober, reasonable liberals are running the show. But Democrats now have to back that message with very specific words casting out the rioters from among their company.
And it would help if these words were backed by actions of local elected Democrats and by liberal activists.
Only the Democrats can really do this. Only they seem to be willing and able to credibly recognize the grievances driving these protests. But they have to find the courage to shake off the fear of their radical wing and stand for the rule of law. There is no nobler cause than to crusade for the equal protection of the laws.
But the equal protection of the laws requires the protection of the laws.
It implies a society run by the rule of law, not the rule of the mob.
Biden's recent statement on this is a beginning. But Democrats need to treat it as only a beginning.
________________________________
MLB just announced the latest COVID-19 test results. For the first time, zero positive results among players (and just two staff members) this week. @680TheFan
https://twitter.com/kevinmcalpin/status/1299357467206352897
The Houston Rockets held an instrasquad scrimmage Thursday to get All-Star guard Russell Westbrook his first full-speed 5-on-5 action since he was diagnosed with a strained right quadriceps, sources told @wojespn and I. Source: "Looked as explosive as ever."
https://twitter.com/espn_macmahon/status/1299343095914524672
More than 350 faith leaders endorse Biden, citing 'need of moral leadership'
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/514110-more-than-350-faith-leaders-endorse-biden-citing-need-of-moral-leadership
Four people at RNC tested positive for coronavirus - I don't get how this happened... said no one. Waiting for reports about the 1500 people that came for his rally last night that we, as tax payers, paid for.
https://www.wcnc.com/mobile/article/news/politics/national-politics/four-people-at-rnc-tested-positive-for-coronavirus/275-b0b50e37-aea2-49f0-ad25-efc458940319
Portland suffering serious street violence because Democratic official refuse to order law enforcement to remove the criminal terrorist protestors whom are destroying downtown Portland, forcing alt-right locals to form armed militias to combat the criminal terrorist protestors.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/28/portland-violence-far-right-protests-police
The NBA and NBPA have put out the following joint statement about play resuming Saturday, along with initiatives the players and league will work on together:
https://twitter.com/NBA/status/1299376501020913665
House panel initiating contempt proceedings against Mike Pompeo
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/28/house-panel-initiating-contempt-proceedings-against-mike-pompeo-404354?s=09
Million-dolllar gas station illegally secured small business bailout money, illegally created illegal shell company to illegally hide the money, then illegally paid for Trump billboards. The owner is a pro-Trump terrorists who rapidly opposes "government handouts".
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/28/politics/trump-billboards-ppp-loan-invs/index.html
If the owner can afford 6 billboards he doesn't need a government bailout. He should be required to repay the bailout money in full, with all applicable interest, immediately and be blacklisted from participation in any future government programs of the type and be shut down pending investagion for laundering federal money.
481 and counting: Norway's illegal murdering of whales hits four-year high. Norway illegally continues its illegal commercial whaling operation despite the International Whaling Commission placing a global moratorium on commercial whaling in 1982.
https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/481-and-counting-norways-whaling-catch-hits-four-year-high/
Astros' Yordan Alvarez underwent arthroscopic surgery on both knees. He is out for the season.
https://twitter.com/ByRobertMurray/status/1299392144088666114
Biden campaign turns 'Keep America Great' domain into list of broken Trump promises
https://www.keepamericagreat.com/
Daniel Dale fact-checking Trump's speech, set to NFL Films music is something else.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1299334116144492553
Democrats Offer Further Concessions On Covid19 Relief, Republicans Reject The Proposal Again
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/pelosi-meadows-covid-relief-white-house
Emily Miller (former OAN journalist) ousted from FDA after only two weeks on the job.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/28/fda-top-spokesperson-leaves-404422
The Trump Hotel in Vancouver is just 3 yrs old. It was struggling even in 2019, then covid shut it down for 4 months and counting. It's closed permanently and bankrupt.
https://washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-hotel-vancouver-permanently-closed/2020/08/28/5a8a2f2c-e935-11ea-97e0-94d2e46e759b_story.html
Biden hits Trump where it hurts: in the convention speech ratings
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/28/media/ratings-trump-vs-biden-convention-speeches/index.html
Ivanka Trump said her son built a Lego replica of the White House for her father. She told a similar story about herself 13 years ago. And she doesn't have one because the Lego replica of the White House was first released 10 years ago, was replaced with a promotional minitature replica in 2015 that sold out fast and was never replaced. White House Lego Replica have been unavailable for at least 5 years. A large new replica was released yesterday, the day of her speech. EVERYTHING SHE SAYS IS A LIE. EVERYTHING TRUMP SAYS IS A LIE.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ivanka-trump-said-her-son-053155927.html
They're seriously trying to claim self defense when he drove 20 miles to an area that was known to have active riots to protect property that wasn't his
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-race-usa/judge-delays-extradition-for-teen-charged-in-kenosha-wisconsin-slayings-idUSKBN25N1GY
Judge grants Trump motion to block absentee ballot requests in Iowa county
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2020/08/27/judge-grants-trump-motion-block-absentee-ballot-requests-iowa/5650357002/
Not enough, 100% of them need to be arrested and charged: DOJ says 74 people facing federal charges for actions committed during Portland riots
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/514081-doj-announces-74-people-facing-federal-charges-for-actions-during
Biden digital ad targets sports fans, showing footage of empty stadiums due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The campaign has taken over the YouTube masthead nationwide w/ a 30-second version, as well as CBS Sports. Targeted versions running in AZ, PA, MI, and WI
https://twitter.com/i/status/1299340910749155328
https://twitter.com/i/status/1299342687682924549
https://twitter.com/i/status/1299345076502646787
This works for and against Democrats, the Democratic viewers blame Trump and Republicans for their failure to deal with covid19 early on, resulting in no sports, the Republican viewers blame Democrats for shutting down sports over a hoax flu, even as the players themselves test positive
A president who speaks openly of shooting people in the streets cannot credibly plead innocent when one of his fans does exactly that
Repealing Obamacare was a central, almost obligatory part of every political speech in the 2012 and 2016 Republican conventions. This week, the word that rallied Republican voters for nearly a decade was not uttered by any elected officials at the RNC.
Biden does not need a sistah soldier moment to win. What whites want is for him to establish distance from black protestors so they can be assured they'll never be subjected to their demands. twitter.com/sykescharlie/s…
https://twitter.com/MattBors/status/1299382126798729217
Unemployment insurance does not cover the average two-bedroom apartment rent cost in three out of every four metros in the U.S. — and it doesn't even cover the average studio apartment rent cost in 35% of metros"
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/unemployment-insurance-doesnt-cover-rent-in-most-cities-study-shows-151038651.html
Mitch Mcconnell is afraid of Jon Ossoff because he can win in Georgia, so he's spending more in dark money than ANY OTHER STATE. Jon is running a great campaign but he does need money. https://secure.actblue.com/donate/tjoaugustsmb#
https://wsj.com/articles/georgia-gets-cash-crush-befitting-a-battleground-11598607001
Joe Biden took part at the NAACP event July 24, 2019 in Detroit. The forum was moderated by April Ryan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wugsBUgBTvg
Support For Black Lives Matter Surged During Protests, But Is Waning Among White Americans. Continued rioting is turning off centrist white voters, who Biden, and numerous candidates for lesser offices, need it they're going to win in many areas of America. And any retort that "they should be turned off by police violence" is self-destructive moralizing. Political power is what enables movements to pass laws and institute administrative reform. And that political power comes, overwhelmingly, from the outcome of elections. So you can scream at the voters all you want, but you lose if they don't agree with you, even if they're wrong.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/support-for-black-lives-matter-surged-during-protests-but-is-waning-among-white-americans/
Right-wing media figures glorifying a pro-Trump alt-right 17 year old domestic terrorist who intentionally murdered two people to stop them from protesting seems like the very definition of radicalization.
An initially socially distanced event has turned into this, despite Rev. Al Sharpton calling on protesters to spread out.
https://twitter.com/PhilipinDC/status/1299429584908279810
Twitter is antisemitic Westerners telling confused Palestinians that they should support vandalizing American synagogues
https://twitter.com/Yair_Rosenberg/status/1299429283417513985
"Law and Order" Trump, who said Biden wants to empty all of America's prisons, signed off on releasing thousands of prisoners based on "good behaviour" in prison. These criminals include rapists and pedophiles and attempted murderers and actual national terrorists.
https://washingtonpost.com/national-security/3100-inmates-to-be-released-as-trump-administration-implements-criminal-justice-reform/2019/07/19/7ed0daf6-a9a4-11e9-a3a6-ab670962db05_story.html
Facebook is facilitating recruitment, fundraising, and mobilization for a white supremacist terrorist movement.
https://theguardian.com/technology/2020/aug/27/facebook-kenosha-shooter-support-ban
Felony warrants against Jacob Blake Jr. have been vacated and restraints have been removed, Blake's attorney, Patrick Cafferty, told CNN. Cafferty also said that the police are no longer guarding Blake at the hospital.
https://twitter.com/ShimonPro/status/1299424502766538758
Senate Majority Leader @SenFitzgerald says the state Senate will convene Monday for the special legislation session called for by @GovEvers
https://twitter.com/MollyBeck/status/1299404508439560197
"In addition to the series of bills that Governor Evers has asked the legislature to consider, Senator Wanggaard of Racine has released a package of bills aimed at increasing transparency and community involvement into law enforcement," Fitzgerald says.
https://twitter.com/MollyBeck/status/1299404661414273025
Fitzgerald says he wants legislation to create enhanced penalties for violence against police/fire/EMTs. "The riots in Kenosha and Madison this week further demonstrated that first responders are performing their public service duties at great risk to their personal safety."
https://twitter.com/MollyBeck/status/1299405085307412480
YEP: This already exists. Battery against a regular person is a misdemeanor. Battery against a cop, EMT, or firefighter is a felony.
https://twitter.com/ajrmort/status/1299411547253551110
Pause for a moment to consider how significant it is that in 2020 America this needs to be said: The U.S. armed forces will have no role in carrying out the election process or resolving a disputed vote, the top U.S. military officer told Congress
https://apnews.com/a979ad8beceacd77c692e42448cf7b82
Federal judge orders U.S. State Dept. to issue an American passport to the daughter of a married gay couple whom the Trump admin. had argued in court was ineligible for birthright citizenship.
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/court-orders-state-dept-issue-passport-gay-couple-s-daughter-n1238724
As the #Angels sputter on the field again, GM Billy Eppler will spend another trade deadline improving the team's long-term outlook. While coming to terms with the probability that nothing he does will save his job.
https://twitter.com/maria_torres3/status/1299351931173781504
Saints/Pelicans owner Gayle Benson has been diagnosed with coronavirus.
https://twitter.com/Amie_Just/status/1299408969065209859
Madison Square Garden is excited to support our community by partnering with NYC Board of Elections to serve as a polling site for residents to exercise their right to vote in the upcoming general election.
https://twitter.com/nyknicks/status/1299441927587278849
Gonna be weird when the Magic beat the Bucks in 7 games and the Celtics/Raptors series is already 3 games in (the Raptors would be facing the Magic and Celtics the Heat....): The NBA has announced its schedule for this weekend. Bucks-Magic will be the first game played at 3:30pm Saturday, followed by Thunder-Rockets and Lakers-Blazers. Sunday: Celtics-Raptors at 1pm, followed by Clippers-Mavericks and Jazz-Nuggets at 8:30pm.
https://twitter.com/TimBontemps/status/1299446218272243713
Phillies reliever David Robertson had a setback in his rehab from Tommy John surgery, Joe Girardi said. It was already going to be a challenge for Robertson to return in 2020, but that challenge is now even steeper.
https://twitter.com/matt_breen/status/1299424309828558848
Rand Paul being stressed out by protests (which we all are, the entire country is sick of the protests) doesn't justify him demanding the FBI arrest the protestors
Motivated after the RNC? The boys say give to @candacefor24 in #TX24. An educator who served special-needs students, she'd be the 1st Black & Latina member of Congress. Her opponent supports Trumpism & spreads hateful rhetoric. Give what you can: http://secure.actblue.com/donate/candace-for-24-1
https://twitter.com/PreetBharara/status/1299452499406000133
Draymond Green to @jaketapper on Trump: "I mean, we're dealing with a master manipulator, probably the master of all masters when it comes to manipulating people. He got into office by manipulating people."
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EgiQuXsWoAIx2vL?format=png&name=small
Pool report: "Many of the protesters along the avenue greeted the motorcade with raised middle fingers. There were far too many middle fingers to count. Several of the peope in the crowd opted to raise both of their middle fingers in a double barreled one finger salute."
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1299457991369019392
Angry troll who saw me on TV defending the Mass Bail Fund said the only reason that I donate to MBF is because the people being released aren't in my neighborhood. The troll speaks the truth. The people in my neighborhood can afford to post their own bail. That's why I donate!
https://twitter.com/GoldenbergLaw/status/1299458197347094530
QAnon Supporters: "Donald Trump and his allies are secretly fighting an elite pedophile conspiracy."
Trump Allies: "Donald Trump's teenage son is SLAMMIN'!"
https://twitter.com/joshgondelman/status/1299364098732363777
HEY SWING STATES, DO IT!!! Fearing Delays and Chaos, Swing States Weigh Early Counting of Mail-In Ballots
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2020/08/28/fearing-delays-and-chaos-swing-states-weigh-early-counting-of-mail-in-ballots
Republicans Illegally And UnConstitutionally Right Now Eliminating Funding For Social Security And Medicare
https://www.govexec.com/pay-benefits/2020/08/federal-employees-will-have-payroll-taxes-deferred-next-paychecks-processor-says/168089/
The N.Y. attorney general asked a judge to order Eric Trump to testify about the Trump family business.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/24/us/elections/the-ny-attorney-general-asked-a-judge-to-order-eric-trump-to-testify-about-the-trump-family-business.html
Melania Trump is not the first FLOTUS to visit troops in a combat zone in 50 years
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/aug/28/facebook-posts/melania-trump-not-first-flotus-visit-troops-combat/
National Hurricane Center nailed track forecast for Laura within a mile and 3 days in advance
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/08/27/national-hurricane-center-forecast-laura/
Jamarcus Glover, the drug manufactoring and drug trafficking criminal and boyfriend Breonna Taylor was protecting and hiding, has finally been arrested.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/27/us/breonna-taylor-jamarcus-glover-arrest/index.html
Biden would ban assault rifles, but not force owners to sell them if they are willing to register them under the NFA and pay $200 tax per firearm.
https://joebiden.com/gunsafety/
NYM@NYY: Pete Alonso ties the game with a 3-run home run to dead center
https://streamable.com/cc2t6l
LeBron James led small group of players who sought advice of Barack Obama on Wednesday, and the former President offered them guidance to continue playing with plan of action.
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1299462860280664064
Mavs' Kristaps Porzingis has a meniscus tear in his right knee and will miss remainder of season.
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1299464786376372224
Time for Yankees to end the Gary Sanchez experiment. How long will apologist be okay him with striking out on three straight pitches in clutch spots?
Less than a month ago, Trump's own chief of staff was going on record to say he though Trump' RNC speech should be "miles and miles away from" White House. Such opposition went silent very quickly.
https://cnn.com/2020/08/09/politics/mark-meadows-white-house-trump-convention-speech/index.html
This abomination may be the most visible misuse of official position for private gain in America's history. It is an abuse of the power entrusted to this man, the breach of a sacred trust. It is the civic equivalent of a mortal sin—maybe a religious one too. And it is a harbinger
https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1299353957890953216
Former NFL player Brandon Marshall was trying to move into his new home.
Security called the police.
His net worth is an estimated $18M
His scared children were in the car.
https://twitter.com/RexChapman/status/1299413653880549382?s=20
Secret Service copes with coronavirus-19 cases in aftermath of Trump appearances | In the past two months, dozens of Secret Service agents who worked to ensure the security of Trump and Pence at public events have been sickened or sidelined because they were in direct contact with infected people | "Never before has the Secret Service run up against a president so intent on putting himself first regardless of the costs, including to those around him," said Ned Price, a national security expert and former CIA analyst. "And by maintaining a rigorous travel schedule and otherwise flouting public health guidance, he is demanding that agents add to their already considerable professional risk in ways that are qualitatively different than what they signed up for."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/secret-service-copes-with-coronavirus-cases-in-aftermath-of-trump-appearances/2020/08/28/fa0e7b6e-e22a-11ea-8dd2-d07812bf00f7_story.html
Two students sit outside a Taco Bell to use Wi-Fi so they can 'go to school' online. This is California, home to Silicon Valley...but where the digital divide is as deep as ever. Where 40% of all Latinos don't have internet access. This generation deserves better.
https://twitter.com/ArykanotErika/status/1299401739309846528
The desecration of the White House for Trump's perverse political use is an abomination. The question of whether voters care about the Hatch Act is beside the point. It is the law. Trump's convention was a pageant of breathtaking dishonesty, racial incitement and demagoguery. It was an exposition of lawlessness where the powerful symbols of State that belong to all of us were profoundly abused in the name of Trump's personal vanity and political narcissism and personal financial profit. The playing of Hail to the Chief and the use of USMC sentries attired in dress uniforms for political purposes was grotesque. Make no mistake about what Trump declared over these last four days. In essence he said, I AM THE TRUTH, I AM THE LAW, I AM THE STATE. The Republican Party's platform has but one demand. One requirement. Obedience and loyalty to Trump. It is the definition of a cult of personality. This cult of personality is sustained by a vast, disaggregated and pernicious propaganda network that includes misinformation incepted and distributed by Russian Intelligence Services and other state actors, Fox News, OAN, Breitbart, a rancid collection of pundits and talk radio hosts , Internet trolls, Q Anon, and a thousand Facebook sites that teem and boil with conspiracy theories, extremism, menace, racism, antisemitism and misogyny. All of it together represents a grave danger to our national unity and democracy. There is a war being waged on truth and it turns out truth like the concepts of duty and patriotism was surrounded by many faithless friends. The complicity through both deed and silence of Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins and so many more in service to the maliced alternate reality of Trumpism seen this week isn't just disgraceful, it's tragic and deadly. The RNC began with the appearance of the contemptible McCloskeys. Their awfulness was experienced by the children of the Synagogue who have the misfortune of worshipping G/d next door to the McCloskeys. The children established bee hives to curate honey for the Jewish holidays. The hives were accidentally placed inches over the property line. McCloskey took an axe to them. The only reason they were on television this week was for pointing weapons at Black people who were marching for justice and equality on a public street. Their message speaks for itself. Their words had meaning. Matt Gaetz words had meaning. Kimberly Guilfoyles messianic blatherings of devotion had meaning. A 17 year old heard the message. He lived in Indiana. He sat in the front row of a Trump rally. He heard it all. He took it all in. He was poisoned by it. He was converted by it. He was radicalized by Trumpism the same way young men in the Middle East are radicalized by extremism. He drove to Wisconsin with his AR-15 to join the fight. He became a killer there. We ignore this radicalization at our great peril. There is indisputable cause and effect. We do not have the luxury to pretend there is not. This was another week of needless suffering and death in America. Thousands are dead since the gavel was struck on Monday. More families are shattered and more businesses are shuttered. That is the reality. School openings are in chaos and there is no plan. This week was another putrid chapter in this ghastly Trump era. America knows the truth and the truth is this. Trump is untrustworthy and dishonest. He is a liar. He doesn't care about anything or anyone but himself. He doesn't care about your family or mine. He doesn't care for our troops. And he doesn't care for America. He lacks humanity and decency. It is all on the line in November. Vote.
@JeffPassan says the @MLB is going to move to bubble cities for the playoffs Houston & Arlington for the National League LA & San Diego for the American League The World Series will be in Arlington #PatMcAfeeShowLIVE
https://twitter.com/patmcafeeshow/status/1299376106269741057
They're using AL stadiums for the NL and NL stadiums for the AL so some teams don't get to feel like they have home games, they feel like they're playing away
So the Dodgers may play out of the same dugout used to cheat them out of a title...
Why the fuck does Houston get rewarded like this for cheating?
YEP: Draymond Green in his first appearance as a CNN contributor: "Put it in terms of a concert when a performer is on the stage, if you're sitting in the nosebleeds, the only way you can hear that performer is because they have a microphone and they're on a stage," Green said. "If we leave our stage and we drop our microphone, we can no longer speak for those people that we are speaking for, which are parts of our community that their voices aren't heard. I think it's extremely important that we continue to speak for them."
https://twitter.com/TheLeadCNN/status/1299438649264738310
US jets intercept Russian military aircraft off Alaska coast. US Northern Command said it was monitoring a Russian sub that surfaced off the coast of Alaska
YEP: Danny Green on decision to resume play: "If we felt [walking away] was the best thing to do, we would. [Staying] is probably the better way to do it. To keep our platform for everyone. When we're dispersed & divided, we're not as strong. We considered all options."
https://streamable.com/k7g9kh
After striking out the side to earn the save against the Yankees, Edwin Diaz now has 28 Ks in 12.0 IP, good for a 21 K/9 on the season
Teoscar hits home run #12
https://bdata-producedclips.mlb.com/819a1bc5-c60f-4938-afca-ed2d80512cde.mp4
N.Y.C. Tenants Say They Were Tricked Into Appearing in R.N.C. Video
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/nyregion/nyc-tenants-rnc-video-trump.html
3D printing is helping to rebuild Hong Kong's precious coral reefs
https://www.euronews.com/living/2020/08/28/3d-printing-is-helping-to-rebuild-hong-kong-s-precious-coral-reefs
Hurricane Laura leaves at least six dead and a trail of destruction
https://news.yahoo.com/hurricane-laura-leaves-least-six-020600363.html
The June jobs report showed that nearly 18 million Americans were out of work: TRUMP: "You better vote for me or you are going to have the greatest depression you have ever seen."
https://twitter.com/i/status/1299497305717047296
"We will not be a footstool to oppression,"Jacob Blake's sister, Letetra Widman, said at the March on Washington. "Black America, I hold you accountable. You must stand. You must fight, but not with violence and chaos."
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1299498479560134656
The University of Alabama reported Friday that an additional 481 students have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total to more than 1,000 infections since students returned to campus for the fall.
https://apnews.com/9ea84c51603c994b41a0863cfa291cba
Trump thinks Kamala Harris would only get to be president because she's a woman and lacks other qualifications, but that his daughter who has never held a job that he did not give her would be qualified on her own merits
Trump now says (deranged New Hampshire speech) the next President will be responsible for choosing up to 5 new Supreme Court Justices. He used to say just 3 or 4. Doesn't bode well for current members of the High Court.
We're nearly 4 years in to Trump. It's been almost 2 years since he declared a national emergency to seize federal $$ for it. His former strategist was arrested in a fraud scheme for a company supporting the wall. And there is barely any wall, and no foreign money has come for it
As Trump appointees flout the Hatch Act, civil servants who get caught get punished
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hatch-act-trump-convention/2020/08/28/dce68a7e-e877-11ea-bc79-834454439a44_story.html
New Biden spots (stadiums are empty because Trump and Republicans failed to deal with covid19) clearly upsetting Trump, who says in NH: "they are trying to blame me and keep football shut down."
Trump is warning people that under a Biden administration they will lose their healthcare. On 07/19 Trump said,
"We're signing a health-care plan within two weeks, a full and complete health-care plan." Last night would have been great timing for that announcement...
FBI warns that criminal hackers posing as Russian "Fancy Bear" unit have returned for another ransom DoS attack campaign:
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2020/08/fbi-warns-businesses-about-fancy-bear-impersonators-running-ddos-extortion-campaign-3983573
Kanye West is suing the Wisconsin Elections Commission to get on the ballot. His lawyer, Erick Kaardal, is the former Secretary/Treasurer of the Minnesota Republican Party
https://twitter.com/Bencjacobs/status/1299506452252495875
Trump's RNC Loses Bigly to Biden's DNC in TV Ratings
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-rnc-loses-bigly-to-bidens-dnc-in-tv-ratings
These Democratic rioters are serving as an ad for the Trump campaign. If you sneer loftily at the claim that the Democrats are in thrall to "radical Marxists" who will loot and pillage their way through suburbia, you only reinforce Trump's message. THESE PEOPLE HAVE ALREADY DESTROYED THOUSANDS OF BUSINESS - INCLUDING A LARGE NUMBER OF MINORITY-OWNED BUSINESSES - ALL OVER THE NATION. THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE ARE UNEMPLOYED BECAUSE OF DEMOCRATS RIOTING. THOUSANDS OF BUSINESS OWNERS ARE TOTALLY BANKRUPT AND LOST EVERYTHING THEY HAVE BECAUSE OF DEMOCRATIC RIOTERS. I KEEP SAYING, DEMOCRATS ARE DONE. YOU ASK A HUNDRED PEOPLE, WHAT DO YOU CARE ABOUT MORE, KIDS SEPARATED FROM PARENTS OR "PEACEFUL PROTESTS" AND ALL HUNDRED WILL SAY THE R I O T E R S DESTROYING CITIES AND FUCK THE KIDS WHOSE PARENTS CAME HERE ILLEGALLY. END THE DESTRUCTION. NOW.
https://washingtonpost.com/local/hours-after-march-on-washington-protesters-scattered-throughout-city-blocking-roads-and-yelling-at-police/2020/08/28/04fc85c0-e983-11ea-97e0-94d2e46e759b_story.html
Actor Chadwick Boseman, who brought the movie "Black Panther" to life with his charismatic intensity and regal performance, has died. Boseman has battled colon cancer since 2016 and died at home with his family and wife by his side, according to a statement posted on his Twitter account. He was 43. "A true fighter, Chadwick persevered through it all, and brought you so many of the films you have come to love so much," the statement said. "From [Thurgood] Marshall to Da 5 Bloods, August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and several more, all were filmed during and between countless surgeries and chemotherapy." With his role as King T'Challa in the boundary-breaking film "Black Panther," he became a global icon and an inspiring symbol of Black power. That role was the "honor of (Boseman's) career," the statement said. With his role as King T'Challa in the boundary-breaking film "Black Panther," he became a global icon and an inspiring symbol of Black power. That role was the "honor of (Boseman's) career," the statement said. He graduated from Howard University. A South Carolina native, Boseman graduated in 2000 from Howard University, a historically Black college in Washington, DC. While there, he also attended the British American Drama Academy at Oxford in 1998. "It is with profound sadness that we mourn the loss of alumnus Chadwick Boseman who passed away this evening. His incredible talent will forever be immortalized through his characters and through his own personal journey from student to superhero! Rest in Power, Chadwick!" University President Wayne A. I. Frederick said in a statement. Boseman's breakout performance came in 2013 when he played Jackie Robinson in the film "42." Boseman's passing was announced the day Major League Baseball honored Jackie Robinson Day, an annual commemoration delayed by several months due to the pandemic. "His transcendent performance in '42' will stand the test of time and serve as a powerful vehicle to tell Jackie's story to audiences for generations to come," Major League Baseball tweeted Friday about the actor.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/28/entertainment/chadwick-boseman-dies/index.html
He applied to study directing at Howard, the historically black university in Washington, D.C., affectionately known as "the Mecca." In his book Between the World and Me, writer Ta-Nehisi Coates – a contemporary of Boseman's at Howard and, coincidentally, a writer of the Black Panther comics – calls it "the crossroads of the black diaspora," where "scions of Nigerian aristocrats in their business suits [give] dap to bald-headed Q's in purple windbreakers." Boseman ate it up. He got a job at an African bookstore and took a trip to Ghana. He also learned about a certain African superhero. "At a historically black college, you're getting turned on to all these things – the pantheon of our culture," he says. "It's John Coltrane, it's James Baldwin. And it's Black Panther." Boseman took extra acting classes to help improve his directing. One of his teachers was Phylicia Rashad, a.k.a. Clair Huxtable from The Cosby Show. She became his mentor. "She would do a play in D.C. and you'd go see it, and she'd drive you home and talk to you," he says. " 'How you eating? You look too skinny. You need a pork chop.' We were just trying to aspire to her excellence."
Rashad has fond memories of Boseman. "Chad was this lanky young man with big eyes and an endearing smile and a very gentle way," she says. "What I saw in him was the sky was the limit. He never asked me to introduce him to anyone – that's not his way. He was going to make it on his own merits." While taking Rashad's class, Boseman and some of his classmates applied to a prestigious summer program at Oxford to study theater. They were accepted, but they didn't have the money to go. "She pushed for us," Boseman says. "She essentially got some celebrity friends to pay for us to go." ("I don't want to say who paid for me," he adds. "No, it's not Bill Cosby.") While he was at Oxford, he studied the Western canon: Shakespeare, Beckett, Pinter. "But I always felt like black writers were just as classical," he says. "It's just as difficult to do August Wilson, and the stories he's telling are just as epic." After graduation, Boseman moved to Bed-Stuy, in Brooklyn, where he fell in with New York's hip-hop theater scene, writing and directing plays featuring rapping stars and beatboxing Greek choruses. "What Hamilton is doing now," he says with pride, "we were doing 15 years ago." To pay the bills, he also taught acting to kids at the Schomburg Center, a black research library in Harlem. ("He was so proud and fulfilled by that," says Rashad. "When he talked about it, he became like sunshine – he loved it so much.") Eventually he started booking gigs on the usual shows – Law & Order, CSI: NY, Cold Case – before his big break playing Robinson in 42. But through it all, he always looked for projects that had the same emotional weight he felt when he was 17 and a bullet took his friend and inspired his first play. "For me, doing this, it has to be meaningful," Boseman says. "Because that's how it started." When Boseman got the role of Black Panther, one of the first things he did was ask his father to take a DNA test. He wanted to know more about his roots. "AfricanAncestry.com," he says. "They get specific about what ethnic group you come from, as opposed to just what country." (For the record: Yoruba from Nigeria, Limba and Mende from Sierra Leone, and Jola from Guinea-Bissau.) He says he's also traced his American lineage as far back as he could. "To go any farther," he says with a wry smile, "I'd have to go to property records." Boseman drew from a wide range of real-life influences for T'Challa: Shaka Zulu and Patrice Lumumba, Mandela speeches and Fela Kuti songs. He read about Masai warriors and talked to a Yoruba babalawo. For his fight scenes, he trained in African martial arts – Dambe boxing, Zulu stick fighting and Angolan capoeira. He also made two trips to South Africa for research. On one trip, a Cape Town street musician bestowed on him a Xhosa name: Mxolisi, or "Peacemaker." "I think it was his way of saying, 'As an African-American, I know you're disconnected from your ancestors and your culture and your traditions,' " Boseman says. " 'Here's my way of welcoming you back.' "
https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/black-panther-chadwick-boseman-ryan-coogler-cover-story-w516853
Chadwick Boseman throwing out the first pitch to Matt Kemp at a Dodgers game in 2013, wearing a 42 jersey. RIP to a great man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6xoIJoNTKU
Dying mother dolphin struggles to save baby in Mauritius lagoon after oil spill
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mauritius-environment-baby-dolphin/dying-mother-dolphin-struggles-to-save-baby-in-mauritius-lagoon-after-oil-spill-idUSKBN25O2AN
85 ballot drop boxes in Missouri are in storage due to confusion over mail-in voting law
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/85-ballot-drop-boxes-in-missouri-are-in-storage-due-to-confusion-over-mail-in/article_6aad4622-89f7-577f-81cf-8d5ed91cd5e6.amp.html
By participating in a naturalization ceremony in his official capacity at the White House that appears to have been designed to support Trump's re-election, Chad Wolf was in clear violation of the Hatch Act, according to a complaint filed by CREW with the OSC.
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1299693284223311877
One federal employee was suspended for 30 days without pay after giving a PowerPoint presentation that displayed the words "Vote Republican." As Trump appointees flout the Hatch Act, civil servants who get caught get punished.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hatch-act-trump-convention/2020/08/28/dce68a7e-e877-11ea-bc79-834454439a44_story.html
If you're going to throw the first punch, seems only sporting to stick around for the subsequent fight rather than run away: Watch as someone who looks a lot like Trump-loving evangelical author and radio host Eric Metaxas sucker punches an anti-Trump protester following Trump's RNC speech last night. https://instagram.com/p/CEa6BYnhzof/
Don't always assume you will have more time
To be young, gifted, and black.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1299538040893984769
Heartbroken. My friend and fellow Bison Chadwick Boseman was brilliant, kind, learned, and humble. He left too early but his life made a difference. Sending my sincere condolences to his family.
https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris/status/1299545362479411201
We have a president more interested in beating people at golf than beating COVID-19
https://twitter.com/joebiden/status/1299723485611130887
The Rockets have confirmed that Russell Westbrook is playing in tonight's Game 5 against Oklahoma City
https://twitter.com/TheSteinLine/status/1299750118942531584
Rockets' Russell Westbrook expected to play Game 5, but with minutes restriction
https://twitter.com/jonathan_feigen/status/1299688656991649793
Luke Voit hits his 12th homer of the year to give the Yankees an early 1-0 lead
https://bdata-producedclips.mlb.com/8ee380fa-fb52-41af-87e3-1be81da0612e.mp4
Chadwick Boseman talks about what it was like to play Jackie Robinson, and the honor of passing his legacy along
https://twitter.com/baseballquotes1/status/1299575474323173376
Michael Moore warns that Donald Trump is on course to repeat 2016 win | Film-maker says enthusiasm for president in swing states is 'off the charts' and urges everyone to commit to getting 100 people to vote | "I'm warning you almost 10 weeks in advance. The enthusiasm level for the 60 million in Trump's base is OFF THE CHARTS! For Joe, not so much," he later added. He continued to voters: "Don't leave it to the Democrats to get rid of Trump. YOU have to get rid of Trump. WE have to wake up every day for the next 67 days and make sure each of us are going to get a hundred people out to vote. ACT NOW!" | "Whether Trump means it or not is kind of irrelevant because he's saying the things to people who are hurting, and that's why every beaten-down, nameless, forgotten working stiff who used to be part of what was called the middle class loves Trump," Moore warned at that time.
https://www.facebook.com/mmflint/photos/a.10150288227701857/10157178473831857/?type=3
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has informed the House and Senate Select Committees on Intelligence that it'll no longer be briefing on election security issues, a senior administration official told CNN. It'll provide written updates, the official said. | The abrupt announcement is a change of course that runs counter to the pledge of transparency and regular briefings on election threats by the intelligence community.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/29/politics/office-of-director-of-national-intelligence-congress-election-security/index.html
Martin Luther King III speaks at the 2020 March on Washington
https://youtube.com/watch?v=jc9nli2yy-U
Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Schiff Statement on Cancellation of Election Security Briefings by Office of the Director of National Intelligence: This intelligence belongs to the American people, not the agencies which are its custodian.
https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/82920
50,000 people in Iowa will need to request another absentee ballot after a judge illegally and unconstitutionally sided with the Trump administration and invalidated their requests. The most egregious part of these lawsuits is not the potential results, it's that they're selectively targeting ONLY battleground states and battleground counties to do them in, while ignoring other states and counties in which they could sue for the same reasons.
https://www.businessinsider.com/iowans-another-ballot-after-trump-lawsuit-2020-8
IRS illegally and constitutionally orders companies to cancel paycheck taxes thatare constitutionally-manded to fund Medicare and Social Security
https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/national/irs-tells-companies-to-not-take-out-social-security-taxes-from-checks-following-presidential-order
The NY Yankees win on a walk-off wild pitch by former NYY reliver Betances
https://streamable.com/6pwvau
Virginia Senate Rejects End to Qualified Immunity for Police Officers
https://vpm.org/news/articles/15998/virginia-senate-rejects-end-to-qualified-immunity-for-police-officers
Cliff Robinson hits a 3 IN THE DARK as the lights go out in The Palace
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC4IFyujJas
#Nuggets G Jamal Murray's shoes. One with George Floyd. The other Breonna Taylor. Seeking justice for both. Proud of him and all of these young men in the NBA doing so much important work that doesn't involve basketball.
https://twitter.com/chrisadempsey/status/1299782343620661248
The NBA paid tribute before today's Milwaukee/Orlando Game 5 to Clifford Robinson, Lute Olson and Chadwick Boseman by observing moment of silence in their honour
https://streamable.com/81mpvr
Concerned Voters of Virginia Announce Intent to File Lawsuit Challenging Kanye West's Legitimacy on the Virginia Ballot
https://twitter.com/Bencjacobs/status/1299820471119220736
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Egnj0-qWsAArbvn?format=png&name=small
Yes, the Yankees have been battered all season. But the fact that the pitching staff for the Rays has been semi-wiped out (Charlie Morton, Ryan Yarbrough, Jose Alvarado, Nick Anderson, Oliver Drake) and they are still 22-11 and atop the AL East says a lot about how bad the NY Yankees are.
QAnon is what you get when you let Neil Breen write Monsters Inc.
What's particularly appalling about the Democratic-funded-orchestrated riots is that most of it is being driven by young wealthy trust-fund white racists and antisemites of the professional class who clearly have no grasp of what it means to pour years, decades, or even generations into building up some unglamorous small business that's rooted to one spot
I really feel like people should be able to remember that the Democratic nominee is Joe Biden and not whatever annoying people are dominating twitter on any given day.
According to a new Melania tell-all, Donald Trump wanted his inauguration to look like a North Korean military parade. When discussing the parade during the transition, Trump said: "I want tanks and choppers. Make it look like North Korea."
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/29/new-melania-trump-tell-all-book-404926
Schumer: "DNI Ratcliffe has made clear he's in the job only to protect Trump from democracy, not democracy from Trump. Our intel officials have said there's an ... assault on our democratic process from Russia. Pres. Trump is simply using John Ratcliffe to hide the ugly truth."
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1299815372271607810
Dreher defends Metaxas: "You just get so sick of these people and their filthy mouths, and their berserk screaming at people. ... Sometimes you have to use violence to preserve order." https://theamericanconservative.com/dreher/eric-metaxas-protester-christian-dandy-throws-a-punch/
This is a particularly horrifying example, but so much of the media has just not learned anything about this stuff or how to deal with it, and watching it honestly scares the hell out of me some days.
https://twitter.com/AlexKoppelman/status/1299812862265896965
1/ A mob has torn down and defaced the statue of Sir John A Macdonald in Montreal. This vandalism of our history and heroes must stop. As his biographer Richard Gwyn wrote, "no Macdonald, no Canada." Both Macdonald & the country he created were flawed but still great.
https://twitter.com/jkenney/status/1299811729979842560
2/ Many of those on the extreme left responsible for this kind of violence claim that Canada is an illegitimate state, all the while enjoying Canada's rights, freedoms, privileges & prosperity. None of those things were created by accident. They come from the vision & sacrifice
https://twitter.com/jkenney/status/1299811879380951040
3/ of those who went before us, particularly Macdonald himself. He was an immigrant who suffered unimaginable personal trauma throughout his life, which he overcame to forge an enormous country out of divided factions. It's right to debate his legacy and life. But it is wrong
https://twitter.com/jkenney/status/1299812006422147072
4/ to allow roving bands of thugs to vandalize our history with impunity. If the City of Montreal decides not to restore Wade's statue of Macdonald to where it has stood for 125 years, we would be happy to receive it for installation on the grounds of Alberta's Legislature.
https://twitter.com/jkenney/status/1299812161766658054
A Jacksonville home was appraised at $330k. But when the homeowners hid evidence of their Black family & had a 2nd appraisal, it came back at $465k. A BrookingsInst report found lower appraisals cost Black homeowners $156 billion in cumulative losses.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/25/realestate/blacks-minorities-appraisals-discrimination.html
"Now Alex Morse admits to sexual relationships with college students -- even while he was a university lecturer. Alex Morse, terrible judgment, we don't need in Congress."
https://twitter.com/i/status/1299810193899958273
________________________________
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/amp/2020/07/david-shor-cancel-culture-2020-election-theory-polls.html
David Shor became famous by getting fired. In late May, amid widespread protests over George Floyd's murder, the 28-year-old data scientist tweeted out a study that found nonviolent demonstrations were more effective than "riots" at pushing public opinion and voter behavior leftward in 1968. Many Twitter users — and (reportedly) some of Shor's colleagues and clients at the data firm Civis Analytics — found this post insensitive. A day later, Shor publicly apologized for his tweet. Two weeks after that, he'd lost his job as Civis's head of political data science — and become a byword for the excesses of so-called cancel culture. (Shor has not discussed his firing publicly due to a nondisclosure agreement, and the details of his termination remain undisclosed).
https://twitter.com/davidshor/status/1265998625836019712
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/case-for-liberalism-tom-cotton-new-york-times-james-bennet.html
https://twitter.com/davidshor/status/1266448606321664004
https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/12/30/20879720/what-is-cancel-culture-explained-history-debate
But before Shor's improbable transformation into a cause célèbre, he was among the most influential data gurus in Democratic politics — a whiz kid who, at age 20, served as the 2012 Obama campaign's in-house Nate Silver, authoring the forecasting model that the White House used to determine where the race really stood.
And before that, he was a college Marxist.
This idiosyncratic combination of ideological background, employment experience, and expertise has lent Shor a unique perspective on American politics. He is a self-avowed socialist who insists that big-dollar donors pull the Democratic Party left. He is an adherent of Leninist vanguardism and the median voter theorem. And in the three years I've known him, I don't think I've found a single question about U.S. politics that he could not answer with reference to at least three peer-reviewed studies.
https://twitter.com/davidshor/status/1255125470263283713
https://medium.com/cantors-paradise/the-median-voter-theorem-c81630b57fa4
Shor is still consulting in Democratic politics, but he is no longer working for a firm that restricts his freedom to publicly opine. Intelligencer recently spoke with him about how the Democratic Party really operates, why the coming decade could be a great one for the American right, how protests shape public opinion, what the left gets wrong about electoral politics, and whether Donald Trump will be reelected, among other things.
-- What is it like to have your name become shorthand for a culture war controversy?
I cannot comment on any of the stuff around all of that.
-- All right. That line of questioning is canceled.
Sorry!
-- I feel silenced, but it's okay. Let's start here then: What are the biggest revisions you've made to your conception of how electoral politics works since you first took a job on the Obama campaign?
I think going into politics, I overestimated the importance of the personal ideology of people who worked in campaigns for making decisions — which was part of a broader phenomenon of overestimating the extent to which people were making decisions. In 2012, I would see progressive blogs* publish stories like, "The White House is doing a Climate Week. This must be because they have polling showing that climate is a vulnerability for Republicans." And once you know the people who are in that office, you realize that actually no; they were just at an awkward office meeting and were like, "Oh man, what are we going to do this week? Well, we could do climate." There's very little long-term, strategic planning happening anywhere in the party because no one has an incentive to do it. So, campaigns' actions, while not random, are more random than I realized.
I've also fallen toward a consultant theory of change — or like, a process theory of change. So a lot of people on the left would say that the Hillary Clinton campaign largely ignored economic issues, and doubled down on social issues, because of the neoliberal ideology of the people who worked for her, and the fact that campaigning on progressive economic policy would threaten the material interests of her donors.
But that's not what happened. The actual mechanical reason was that the Clinton campaign hired pollsters to test a bunch of different messages, and for boring mechanical reasons, working-class people with low levels of social trust were much less likely to answer those phone polls than college-educated professionals. And as a result, all of this cosmopolitan, socially liberal messaging did really well in their phone polls, even though it ultimately cost her a lot of votes. But the problem was mechanical, and less about the vulgar Marxist interests of all of the actors involved.
-- A tasteful Marxist (or whatever the opposite of a "vulgar" one is) might counter that class biases were implicated in that mechanical error — that cosmopolitan, upper-middle-class pollsters and operatives' eagerness to see their worldview affirmed led them to ignore the possibility that their surveys suffered from a systematic sampling error.
That's exactly right. Campaigns do want to win. But the people who work in campaigns tend to be highly ideologically motivated and thus, super-prone to convincing themselves to do things that are strategically dumb. Nothing that I tell people — or that my team [at Civis] told people — is actually that smart. You know, we'd do all this math, and some of it's pretty cool, but at a high level, what we're saying is: "You should put your money in cheap media markets in close states close to the election, and you should talk about popular issues, and not talk about unpopular issues." And we'd use machine learning to operationalize that at scale.
The right strategies for politics aren't actually unclear. But a lot of people on the Clinton campaign tricked themselves into the idea that they didn't have to placate the social views of racist white people.
-- What is the definition of racist in this context?
Ah, right. People yell at me on Twitter about this. So working-class white people have an enormous amount of political power and they're trending towards the Republican Party. It would be really ideologically convenient if the reason they're doing that was because Democrats embraced neoliberalism. But it's pretty clear that that isn't true.
I think that winning back these voters is important. So if I was running for office, I would definitely say that the reason these voters turned against us is because Democrats failed to embrace economic populism. I think that's sound political messaging. But in terms of what actually drove it, the numbers are pretty clear. It's like theoretically possible to imagine a voter who voted for Democrats their whole life and then voted for Trump out of frustration with Obamacare or trade or whatever. And I'm sure that tons of those voters exist, but they're not representative.
When you take the results of the 2012 and 2016 elections, and model changes in Democratic vote share, you see the biggest individual-level predictor for vote switching was education; college-educated people swung toward Democrats and non-college-educated people swung toward Republicans. But, if you ask a battery of "racial resentment" questions — stuff like, "Do you think that there are a lot of white people who are having trouble finding a job because nonwhite people are getting them instead?" or, "Do you think that white people don't have enough influence in how this country is run?" — and then control for the propensity to answer those questions in a racially resentful way, education ceases to be the relevant variable: Non-college-educated white people with low levels of racial resentment trended towards us in 2016, and college-educated white people with high levels of racial resentments turned against us.
You can say, "Oh, you know, the way that political scientists measure racial resentment is a class marker because college-educated people know that they're not supposed to say politically incorrect things." But when you look at Trump's support in the Republican primary, it correlated pretty highly with, uh … racially charged … Google search words. So you had this politician who campaigned on an anti-immigrant and anti–political correctness platform. And then he won the votes of a large group of swing voters, and vote switching was highly correlated with various individual level measures of racial resentment — and, on a geographic level, was correlated with racist search terms. At some point, you have to be like, oh, actually, these people were motivated by racism. It's just an important fact of the world.
I think people take the wrong conclusions from it. The fight I saw on Twitter after the 2016 election was one group of people saying the Obama-to-Trump voters are racist and irredeemable, and that's why we need to focus on the suburbs. And then you had leftists saying, "Actually these working-class white people were betrayed by decades of neoliberalism and we just need to embrace socialism and win them back, we can't trust people in the suburbs." And I think the real synthesis of these views is that Obama-to-Trump voters are motivated by racism. But they're really electorally important, and so we have to figure out some way to get them to vote for us.
-- How should Democrats do that?
So there's a big constellation of issues. The single biggest way that highly educated people who follow politics closely are different from everyone else is that we have much more ideological coherence in our views.
If you decided to create a survey scorecard, where on every single issue — choice, guns, unions, health care, etc. — you gave people one point for choosing the more liberal of two policy options, and then had 1,000 Americans fill it out, you would find that Democratic elected officials are to the left of 90 to 95 percent of people.
And the reason is that while voters may have more left-wing views than Joe Biden on a few issues, they don't have the same consistency across their views. There are like tons of pro-life people who want higher taxes, etc. There's a paper by the political scientist David Broockman that made this point really famous — that "moderate" voters don't have moderate views, just ideologically inconsistent ones. Some people responded to media coverage of that paper by saying, "Oh, people are just answering these surveys randomly, issues don't matter." But that's not actually what the paper showed. In a separate section, they tested the relevance of issues by presenting voters with hypothetical candidate matchups — here's a politician running on this position, and another politician running on the opposite — and they found that issue congruence was actually very important for predicting who people voted for.
https://www.vox.com/2014/7/8/5878293/lets-stop-using-the-word-moderate
So this suggests there's a big mass of voters who agree with us on some issues, and disagree with us on others. And whenever we talk about a given issue, that increases the extent to which voters will cast their ballots on the basis of that issue.
Mitt Romney and Donald Trump agreed on basically every issue, as did Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. And yet, a bunch of people changed their votes. And the reason that happened was because the salience of various issues changed. Both sides talked a lot more about immigration, and because of that, correlation between preferences on immigration and which candidate people voted for went up. In 2012, both sides talked about health care. In 2016, they didn't. And so the correlation between views on health care and which candidate people voted for went down.
So this means that every time you open your mouth, you have this complex optimization problem where what you say gains you some voters and loses you other voters. But this is actually cool because campaigns have a lot of control over what issues they talk about.
Non-college-educated whites, on average, have very conservative views on immigration, and generally conservative racial attitudes. But they have center-left views on economics; they support universal health care and minimum-wage increases. So I think Democrats need to talk about the issues they are with us on, and try really hard not to talk about the issues where we disagree. Which, in practice, means not talking about immigration.
-- It sounds like you're saying that public opinion is a fixed entity, which campaigns have little power to reshape. I think many progressives dispute that notion. In their view, the "social views of racist white people" aren't a given. Right-wing media has fed the public a story that pits their interests against those of immigrants. But if Democrats offer a counter-narrative about how corporate interests use ethnic divisions to divide and conquer working people, maybe they can change what is and is not "popular." Why is that view wrong?
It's worth being precise about mechanisms. It's true that political parties have enormous control over the views of their partisans. There's like 20 percent of the electorate that trusts Democratic elites tremendously. And they will turn their views on a dime if the party tells them to. So this is how you can get Abolish ICE to go from a 10 percent issue to a 30 percent issue. If you're an ideological activist, that's a powerful force. If you convince strong partisans to adopt your view, then when the party comes to power, strong partisans will ultimately make up that administration and then you can make policy progress.
The problem is that swing voters don't trust either party. So if you get Democrats to embrace Abolish ICE, that won't get moderate-ish, racist white people to support it; it will just turn them into Republicans. So that's the trade-off. When you embrace unpopular things, you become more unpopular with marginal voters, but also get a fairly large segment of the public to change its views. And the latter can sometimes produce long-term change.
But it's a hard trade-off. And I don't think anyone ever says something like, "I think it was a good trade for us to lose the presidency because we raised the salience of this issue." That's not generally what people want. They don't want to make an unpopular issue go from 7 percent to 30 percent support. They want something like what happened with gay, where you take an issue that is 30 percent and then it goes to 70 percent. And if you look at the history of those things, it's kind of clear that campaigns didn't do that.
If you look at long-term trends in support for gay marriage, it began linearly increasing, year over year, starting in the late 1980s. But then, right when the issue increased in salience during the 2004 campaign, it suddenly became partisan, and support declined. After it stopped being a campaign issue, support returned to trend.
https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/abf/7bd/2cb2437065f1a8751b58345719cf3f80ea-marriage-support-chart.2x.w710.jpg
Campaigns just can't effect those kinds of long-term changes. They can direct information to partisans who trust them, and they can curry favor with marginal voters by signaling agreement with them on issues. But there isn't much space for changing marginal voters' minds.
-- How do you square this analysis with the events of the past few weeks, in which the salience of racially discriminatory policing increased in tandem with Joe Biden's lead over Donald Trump? Obviously there are a lot of other variables. But we have seen a surge in support for the Black Lives Matter movement and police reform. We've seen Biden boasting a bigger advantage over Trump on the question of which candidate can best handle race relations — and all while progressive activists have been associating the left with the exceptionally unpopular concept of defunding the police.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/black-lives-matter-police-reform-opinion-poll-28-06-2020/
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/2020-polls-trump-coronavirus-democracy.html
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-like-the-ideas-behind-defunding-the-police-more-than-the-slogan-itself/
Yeah. I'm not going to pretend that I would have predicted that this is how it was going to shake out. But I do think it's actually consistent with what we've been discussing.
One way to think about electoral salience and the effects of raising the salience of given issues, is to look at which party voters trust on a given issue, not just what their stated policy preference is. So if you do a poll on universal background checks for guns, you'll find that they're super-popular. But then, politicians who run on background checks often lose. In the same way, if you poll comprehensive immigration reform, it's super-popular, even among Republicans. But then Republicans can run on anti-immigrant platforms and win. So how do you square that circle?
One way is to remember that these polls give us a very limited informational environment. You just throw people a sentence-length idea, which they've often never heard of before, and then people react to it. So it tells you how people will respond to a policy at first brush without any partisan context. But ultimately, when people hear from both sides, they're gonna revert to some kind of partisan baseline. But there's not a nihilism there; it's not just that Democratic-leaning voters will adopt the Democratic position or Republican-leaning ones will automatically adopt the Republican one. Persuadable voters trust the parties on different issues.
And there's a pretty basic pattern — both here and in other countries — in which voters view center-left parties as empathetic. Center-left parties care about the environment, lowering poverty, improving race relations. And then, you know, center-right parties are seen as more "serious," or more like the stern dad figure or something. They do better on getting the economy going or lowering unemployment or taxes or crime or immigration.
If you look at how this breaks down in the U.S. — Gallup did something on this in 2017, and I'm sure the numbers haven't changed that much since then — you see that same basic story. But there's an interesting twist. One thing that Democrats consistently get rated highly on is improving race relations. And this points to the complexities of racial resentment. The way that racially charged issues generally get brought up in the U.S. is in the context of crime, which is a very Republican-loaded issue (in terms of which party the median voter trusts on it). Or it comes up in terms of immigration, which is itself a Republican-loaded issue. So even if voters acknowledge the massive systemic inequities that exist in the U.S., discussion of them normally happens in a context where conservatives can posit a trade-off with safety, or all these other things people trust Republicans on.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/212795/americans-say-parties-core-issue-strengths.aspx
What's powerful about nonviolent protest — and particularly nonviolent protest that incurs a disproportionate response from the police — is that it can shift the conversation, in a really visceral way, into the part of this issue space that benefits Democrats and the center left. Which is the pursuit of equality, social justice, fairness — these Democratic-loaded concepts — without the trade-off of crime or public safety. So I think it is really consistent with a pretty broad, cross-sectional body of evidence (a piece of which I obviously tweeted at some point) that nonviolent protest is politically advantageous, both in terms of changing public opinion on discrete issues and electing parties sympathetic to the left's concerns.
https://twitter.com/davidshor/status/1265998625836019712
As for "the abolish the police" stuff, I think the important thing there is that basically no mainstream elected officials embraced it. Most persuadable voters get their news from the networks' nightly news broadcasts and CNN. And if you look at how they covered things, the "abolish the police" concept didn't get nearly as much play as it did on Twitter and elite discourse. And to the extent that it was covered, that coverage featured prominent left politicians loudly denouncing it. And I think that's a success story for everyone involved. Activists were able to dramatically shift the terms of debate around not just racial justice issues, but police justice in a way that's basically the Second Great Awokening. But because Democratic politicians kept chasing the median voter, we got to have our cake and eat it too. We got to have public opinion shift in our direction on the issues without paying an electoral price.
https://www.vox.com/2019/3/22/18259865/great-awokening-white-liberals-race-polling-trump-2020
-- To play insurrectionist's advocate: The protests weren't entirely nonviolent. And one could argue that, had there not been rioting in Minneapolis, there would have been less media attention and thus, fewer nonviolent protests. So how do we know that the nonviolent protests were the source of the movement's political efficacy? And why didn't the violence at the fringes of those protests activate the public's concerns about crime?
I want to caution against turning this into physics. There's only so much we can understand about the dynamics of these events. But if you wanted to be purely utilitarian, and set aside the morality concerns, I think you can tell a story about how the initial wave of violence triggered media coverage, or got the police or security forces really primed to use violence against nonviolent protesters, and without that happening, it wouldn't have exploded as much as it did. It's hard to know. I can't really evaluate that counterfactual.
But there's always a mix of violent and nonviolent protest; or, there's always some violence that occurs at nonviolent protests. And it's not a situation where a drop of violence spoils everything and turns everybody into fascists. The research isn't consistent with that. It's more about the proportions. Because the mechanism here is that when violence is happening, people become afraid. They fear for their safety, and then they crave order. And order is a winning issue for conservatives here and everywhere around the world. The basic political argument since the French Revolution has been the left saying, "Let's make things more fair," and the right saying, "If we do that, it will lead to chaos and threaten your family."
But when you have nonviolent protests that goad security forces into using excessive force against unarmed people — preferably while people are watching — then order gets discredited, and people experience this visceral sense of unfairness. And you can change public opinion. And if you look at the [George Floyd] protests, there was some violence in the first two or three days. But then that largely subsided, and was followed by very high-profile incidents of the state using violence against innocent people.
And, you know, the real inflection point in our polling was the Lafayette Park incident, when Trump used tear gas on innocent people. That's when support for Biden shot up and it's been pretty steady since then.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/trumps-church-photo-op-all-the-absurd-details.html
-- In describing the Democrats' troubles with non-college-educated white voters earlier, you put a lot of emphasis on discrete decisions that the Hillary Clinton campaign made. But, in my understanding, the 2016 election just accelerated a preexisting trend: In both the United States and Western Europe, non-college-educated voters have been drifting right for decades. Doesn't that suggest that something larger than any given campaign's messaging choices is at work here?
That's a great point. I used to spend a lot of time trying to figure out, you know, "Where did things go wrong?" You see Matt Stoller and Ryan Grim do this, where you try to pinpoint the moment in time when Democratic elites decided to turn their backs on the working class and embrace neoliberalism. Maybe it was the Watergate babies. Maybe it was the failure to repeal Taft-Hartley. Maybe it was Bill Clinton in 1992.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/how-democrats-killed-their-populist-soul/504710/
https://strongarmpress.com/catalog/weve-got-people/
But then you read about other countries and you see that the same story is happening everywhere. It happened in England with Tony Blair. It happened in Germany with Gerhard Schröder. The thing that really got me was reading about the history of PASOK, the Social Democratic Party in Greece. And you're reading about an election in the 1990s where it's like, "New Democracy party made gains with working-class voters," and you realize there are broader forces at work here.
So why is this happening? The story that makes the most sense to me goes like this: In the postwar era, college-educated professionals were maybe 4 percent of the electorate. Which meant that basically no voters had remotely cosmopolitan values. But the flip side of this is that this educated 4 percent still ran the world. Both parties at this point were run by this highly educated, cosmopolitan minority that held a bunch of values that undergirded the postwar consensus, around democracy and rule of law, and all these things.
Obviously, these people were more right wing on a bunch of social issues than their contemporary counterparts, but during that era, both parties were run by just about the most cosmopolitan segments of society. And there were also really strong gatekeepers. This small group of highly educated people not only controlled the commanding heights of both the left and the right, but also controlled the media. There were only a small number of TV stations — in other countries, those stations were even run by the government. And both sides knew it wasn't electorally advantageous to campaign on cosmopolitan values.
So, as a result, campaigns centered around this cosmopolitan elite's internal disagreements over economic issues. But over the past 60 years, college graduates have gone from being 4 percent of the electorate to being more like 35. Now, it's actually possible — for the first time ever in human history — for political parties to openly embrace cosmopolitan values and win elections; certainly primary and municipal elections, maybe even national elections if you don't push things too far or if you have a recession at your back. And so Democratic elites started campaigning on the things they'd always wanted to, but which had previously been too toxic. And so did center-left parties internationally.
-- What is your understanding of why there's such a profound divide between college-educated and non-college-educated people on these so-called cosmopolitan issues?
Education is highly correlated with openness to new experiences; basically, there's this divide where some people react positively to novel things and others react less positively. And there's evidence that this relationship is causal. In Europe, when countries raised their mandatory schooling age from 16 to 18, the first generation of students who remained in school longer had substantially more liberal views on immigration than their immediate predecessors. And then, college-educated people are also more willing to try strange foods or travel abroad. So it really seems like education makes people more open to new experiences.
But politically, this manifests on immigration. And it's ironclad. You can look at polling from the 1940s on whether America should take in Jewish refugees, and college-educated people wanted to and non-college-educated people didn't. It's true cross-nationally — like, working-class South Africans oppose taking in refugees from Zimbabwe, while college-educated South Africans support taking them in.
Other research has shown that messaging centered around the potential for cooperation and positive-sum change really appeals to educated people, while messaging that emphasizes zero-sum conflict resonates much more with non-college-educated people. Arguably, this is because college-educated professionals live really blessed lives filled with mutually beneficial exchange, while negative-sum conflicts play a very big part of working-class people's lives, in ways that richer people are sheltered from. But it manifests in a lot of ways and leads to divergent political attitudes.
-- We've been talking a lot about the education split among white voters. But the polling results you just referenced from South Africa suggest that education-based splits on cosmopolitanism manifest across racial and ethnic lines. Are Democrats losing ground with nonwhite, non-college-educated voters?
Yeah. Black voters trended Republican in 2016. Hispanic voters also trended right in battleground states. In 2018, I think it's absolutely clear that, relative to the rest of the country, nonwhite voters trended Republican. In Florida, Democratic senator Bill Nelson did 2 or 3 points better than Clinton among white voters but lost because he did considerably worse than her among Black and Hispanic voters. We're seeing this in 2020 polling, too. I think there's a lot of denial about this fact.
I don't think there are obvious answers as to why this is happening. But non-college-educated white voters and non-college-educated nonwhite voters have a lot in common with each other culturally. So as the salience of cultural issues with strong education-based splits increases — whether it's gender politics or authoritarianism or immigration — it would make sense that we'd see some convergence between non-college-educated voters across racial lines.
American politics used to be very idiosyncratic, because we have this historical legacy of slavery and Jim Crow and all of these things that don't have clear foreign analogues. But the world is slowly changing — not changing in ways that make racism go away or not matter — but in ways that erode some of the underpinnings of race-based voting. So if you look at Black voters trending against us, it's not uniform. It's specifically young, secular Black voters who are voting more Republican than their demographic used to. And the ostensible reason for this is the weakening of the Black church, which had, for historical reasons, occupied a really central place in Black society and helped anchor African-Americans in the Democratic Party. Among Black voters, one of the biggest predictors for voting Republican is not attending church. So I think you can tell this story about how the America-centric aspects of our politics are starting to decay, and we're converging on the dynamics that you see in Europe, where nonwhite voters are more left wing than white voters, but where they vote for the left by like 65 to 35 percent, rather than the 90-10 split you see with African-Americans.
To be clear, if that happens, it would take a long time. But if I had to guess, I'd say young African-Americans might trend 4 or 5 percent against us in relative terms. But they're a small percent of the Black electorate. These are slow-moving trends.
-- Are all of the trends you've studied unfavorable for Democrats? If the party is losing young African-Americans and non-college-educated whites, is it making compensatory gains? What is the outlook for the party over the coming decade?
I'll start with the good news. The fear I had after 2016 was that Romney-Clinton voters were going to snap back to being Republicans, but Obama-Trump voters wouldn't snap back to being Democrats. And that hasn't happened — we've retained Clinton's gains. We see this in 2020 polling. We saw it in 2018, with Democrats making big gains with these voters in the Senate, House, and state-level elections.
-- And those don't just reflect discrepancies in which college-educated professionals decided to turnout for a midterm?
Some of it was. But roughly 75 percent was people changing their minds. So college-educated professionals have basically become Democrats. These voters aren't optimal for winning the Electoral College. But they have other assets as a demographic.
There's this sense in left-wing politics that rich people have disproportionate political influence and power. Well, we've never had an industrialized society where the richest and most powerful people were as liberal as they are now in the U.S. You know, controlling for education, very rich people still lean Republican. But we're at a point now where, if you look at Stanford Law School, the ratio of students in the college Democrats to students in the college Republicans is something like 20-to-1. Harvard students have always been Democratic-leaning, but only like three or four percent of them voted for Donald Trump. So there is now this host of incredibly powerful institutions — whether it's corporate boardrooms or professional organizations — which are now substantially more liberal than they've ever been.
And this is reflected not just in how they vote but in their ideological preferences. If you look at small donors — which, to be clear, are still mostly rich people — Democrats got around 54 percent of small donors in 2012. In 2018, we got 76 percent. People like to chalk that up to ActBlue or technology or whatever. But 2018 was also the first year where super-PACs, as a spending group, gave more to Democrats than Republicans.
So these constituencies that previously did a lot to uphold conservative power are now liberal. I don't know what all of the consequences of that are. But Democrats are now better funded than they were. And the media is nicer to us. There's a lot of downstream consequences.
-- Many on the left are wary of the Democratic Party's growing dependence on wealthy voters and donors. But you've argued that the party's donor class actually pulls it to the left, as big-dollar Democratic donors are more progressive — even on economic issues — than the median Democratic voter. I'm skeptical of that claim. After all, so much regulation and legislation never crosses ordinary Americans' radar. It seems implausible to me that, during negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Obama administration fought to export America's generous patent protections on pharmaceuticals to the developing world, or to expand the reach of the Investor State Dispute Settlement process, because they felt compelled to placate swing voters. Similarly, it's hard for me to believe that the primary reason why Democrats did not significantly expand collective-bargaining rights under Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama was voter hostility to labor-law reform rather than the unified opposition of business interests to such a policy. So why couldn't it be the case that, when it comes to policy, a minority of big-dollar donors who are highly motivated — and reactionary — on discrete issues pull the party to the right, even as wealthier Democrats give more ideologically consistent responses to survey questions?
https://twitter.com/davidshor/status/1255125470263283713
https://qz.com/543385/under-the-tpp-americas-insanely-high-drug-prices-will-be-an-unappreciated-export/
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/08/a-super-court-is-helping-corporate-criminals-go-free.html
It depends on what level of government you're talking about. When you're talking about state legislatures, that's all really low-salience stuff. And the reality is that state parties have to do some ethically questionable things to keep the lights on because small-dollar donors generally don't donate to their campaigns. So in state and local politics, corporate money is absolutely a big driver.
But the rise of small-dollar donors has really changed federal politics. And again — to be clear — "small-dollar" donors are mostly affluent people. Most of these donors are giving hundreds of dollars. But the thing people don't realize is, at this point, that's most of the money. Most of the money in Democratic politics now comes from ideologically motivated small donors and very liberal millionaires and billionaires like George Soros. There's corporate money, but it's not the biggest pool anymore. This produces some counterintuitive dynamics where, like in West Virginia, there aren't a lot of affluent liberals, and so there isn't a lot of small-dollar donations, and so Joe Manchin is a little bit more beholden to corporations.
It's true that, if you are a representative in a swing district, you have a strong incentive to raise lots of money. But I think those incentives mostly pull candidates left, for the simple reason that the way that you get a lot of small-dollar donations is to stand up and yell at Trump — or do whatever makes very liberal dentists and doctors excited. Obviously, that doesn't mean calling for socialism. But these liberal professionals do tend to be pretty economically left wing.
David Broockman showed in a recent paper — and I've seen this in internal data — that people who give money to Democrats are more economically left wing than Democrats overall. And the more money people give, the more economically left wing they are. These are obviously the non-transactional donors. But people underestimate the extent to which the non-transactional money is now all of the money. This wasn't true ten years ago.
https://twitter.com/dbroockman/status/1254924460299173888
So then you get to the question: Why do so many moderate Democrats vote for center-right policies that don't even poll well? Why did Heidi Heitkamp vote to deregulate banks in 2018, when the median voter in North Dakota doesn't want looser regulations on banks? But the thing is, while that median voter doesn't want to deregulate banks, that voter doesn't want a senator who is bad for business in North Dakota. And so if the North Dakota business community signals that it doesn't like Heidi Heitkamp, that's really bad for Heidi Heitkamp, because business has a lot of cultural power.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/6/17086452/democrats-dodd-frank
I think that's a very straightforward, almost Marxist view of power: Rich people have disproportionate cultural influence. So business does pull the party right. But it does so more through the mechanism of using its cultural power to influence public opinion, not through donations to campaigns.
-- So, in your view, the reason that Democrats aren't more left wing on economic issues isn't because they're bought off, but because the median voter is "bought off," in the sense of responding to cues from corporate interests?
Yeah. One thing I've learned from working in Democratic politics for eight years is that the idea that the limiting factor on what moves policy to the left in this country is the personal decisions of individual Democrats is kind of crazy. Democratic politicians, relative to the country, are very left wing. But campaigns really want to win.
In my career, I have seen circumstances where polling has said to do one thing, and then we didn't do it for ideological reasons. But every single one of those times, we ignored the polling from the left. Like, if Joe Biden wanted to just follow the polls, he should support the Hyde Amendment (which prohibits federal funding for abortion services). The Hyde Amendment polls extremely well. But the people who work on his campaign oppose the Hyde Amendment. So Joe Biden opposes the Hyde Amendment.
Like, if you look at the Obama administration, the first time they resorted to procedural radicalism was to make recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board. They didn't do that to win votes; a lot of labor's agenda — repealing right-to-work laws, establishing sectoral bargaining — is unpopular. But Democrats do pro-labor policies because the people who work on Democratic campaigns, and who run for office as Democrats, are generally very liberal people. Leftists just don't understand how small of a minority we are.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-rebukes-obama-on-recess-appointments/2014/06/26/e5e4fefa-e831-11e3-a86b-362fd5443d19_story.html
https://news.gallup.com/poll/175556/americans-approve-unions-support-right-work.aspx
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19741375/56_Policies_scores.pdf
One personal anecdote: Shortly after Civis did a poll showing that a federal job guarantee is actually a very popular idea, one of my colleagues took a call from a big Democratic super-PAC. And they said, "You know, we saw the job guarantee polling from Civis" — and my colleague was about to throw me under the bus (you know, "Oh, it was just those crazy socialists in Chicago") — but the super-PAC just thought it was cool. And then there was a long discussion about how to incorporate public job creation into messaging.
So I think people underestimate Democrats' openness to left-wing policies that won't cost them elections. And there are a lot of radical, left-wing policies that are genuinely very popular. Codetermination is popular. A job guarantee is popular. Large minimum-wage increases are popular and could literally end market poverty.
https://www.vox.com/2018/4/6/17086720/poll-corporate-board-democracy-worker-council-codetermination-union-labor
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/03/the-radical-proposal-moderate-democrats-should-be-running-on.html
All these things will engender opposition from capital. But if you focus on the popular things, and manage to build positive earned media around those things, then you can convince Democrats to do them. So we should be asking ourselves, "What is the maximally radical thing that can get past Joe Manchin." And that's like a really depressing optimization problem. And it's one that most leftists don't even want to approach, but they should. There's a wide spectrum of possibilities for what could happen the next time Democrats take power, and if we don't come in with clear thinking and realistic demands, we could end up getting rolled.
-- Do you think the coronavirus crisis has expanded the realm of realistic demands?
I think a really underrated political consequence of coronavirus has been a large increase in Democrats' odds of taking the Senate. A year ago, I thought it was possible but a long shot. Now, it's something that has a very reasonable chance of happening.
And I think that's partly because a lot of Senate Republicans have put themselves in the position of opposing very popular things. The coronavirus has really increased the salience of health care, which is a Democratic-loaded issue. But it's also made opposing things like paid leave incredibly toxic. And we've seen Republican incumbents do that again and again. I think Republican Senate incumbents are being blamed for a lot of what's happening in ways that aren't fully appreciated by the media. So that's the most direct way that coronavirus is expanding the realm of the possible.
-- Sorry, so you were saying about positive trends for Democrats?
Yeah. So the other positive thing is that age polarization has also gone up. It's not just that every new generation is more Democratic. Something much weirder has happened. People who were 18 years old in 2012 have swung about 12 points toward Democrats, while people who were 65 years old in that year have since swung like eight points toward Republicans. Right now, that's a bad trade. Old people vote more than young people. But the age gap has gotten so large that cycle-to-cycle demographic changes are actually worth something now. On the Obama campaign in 2012, I calculated that demographic change between 2008 and 2012 — holding everything else constant — would gain Democrats like 0.3 points. Now, I think that number is probably two-to-three times higher. Young white people are now very liberal. And that's going to be important.
The bad news is, over the next ten years, our institutions' structural biases against Democrats are going to become very large. People say this a lot, but I don't think they truly appreciate how bad things are. The Electoral College bias is now such that realistically we have to win by 3.5 to 4 percent in order to win presidential elections. Trump is historically unpopular, so this year we can maybe pull that off. But for the past 30 years or so, most presidential elections have been pretty close. So the fact that we need to win by four points is going to decrease the amount of time we hold the presidency. People like to say things like, "Oh, but the Sun Belt will trend towards us" — I think if you actually go and simulate things, barring some large realignment, the Electoral College bias is probably going to hold steady over the next decade.
-- So you don't think Texas could become a 51 percent Democratic state by 2030?
If education-based polarization reaches a point where Texas becomes the tipping-point state, then that means that Michigan and Minnesota and Maine and Wisconsin are all gone. Right now, we're in a place where there are a bunch of working-class states that are two points more Republican than the country. And that sucks, but we can live with it. If those states become five points more Republican than the country, then it becomes harder. I'm not saying it will be like this forever. But for the next two cycles, the baseline case is fairly bad.
The Senate is even worse. And much worse than people realize. The Senate has always been, on paper, biased against Democrats. It overrepresents states that are rural and white, and mechanically, that gives a structural advantage to Republicans. For 50 years or so, the tipping-point state in the Senate has been about one percentage point more Republican than the country as a whole. And that advantage did go up in 2016, because white rural voters trended against us (it went up to 3 percent). But the problem isn't just about that increase in the long-term structural bias. If it were, I wouldn't be so despondent about the future. The real problem is that the Senate's bias used to not matter much, because the correlation between how people voted for president and how they voted for Senate used to be much lower. As recently as 2006, if you looked among Democratic incumbents, there was literally zero correlation between how states voted on the Senate level and how they voted on the presidential level. That year, Ben Nelson in Nebraska actually did better than Bob Menendez in New Jersey. So 14 years ago, the correlation was roughly zero. And now, it's roughly 90 percent.
That's the core of the problem. There used to be a lot of randomness down ballot, and there also used to be very strong incumbency advantages. In 2004, being an incumbent was worth about 11 points of vote share. Now it's about three points. And with an incumbency advantage that low — and correlation with presidential vote that high — it's just not possible for Democrats to win in all these states that used to be the backbone of our Senate majorities. We won an open race in North Dakota in 2012. It's true that the bias is getting higher, and that that's made things worse. But 90 percent of the story is that ticket-splitting used to be common and now it's rare. And that's not a Trump thing. Ticket-splitting was declining in the Bush era, and accelerated under Obama. And that trend line probably isn't going to change.
-- Why not?
The reason people aren't splitting their tickets anymore is probably because the internet exists now and people are better informed than they used to be. There was this broadband rollout study where they looked at the fact that different places got broadband at different times. And what they saw was that when broadband reached a given congressional district, ticket-splitting declined and ideological polarization went up.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26379489?seq=1
Right now — because we already have a lot of these incumbents in red states, and because we were lucky enough to have a big wave when many of them were on the ballot in 2018 — we have a decent chance of winning the Senate in 2020. But if you just project out the trends — if you fit a regression on 2018 polling and apply it forward — if we have a neutral national environment in 2024 (i.e., a 2016-style environment), we're going to be down to 43 Senate seats. It's really quite bleak. The Senate was always a really fucked-up anti-majoritarian institution. But it was okay because people in Nebraska used to vote randomly. But now they have the internet, and they know that Democrats are liberal.
-- So what should Democrats do? Abolish the internet? Or add states?
Everything we can. Obviously, D.C. and Puerto Rican statehood are great. But we should really strongly consider adding more than two states. I've been trying to push the U.S. Virgin Islands, for example — home to largely nonwhite, marginalized people who don't have representation. We've actually done polling on this. And even with pro and con arguments provided, it polls really well. People have really weird, incoherent views on representation. When you tell people, "There are 50,000 people in American Samoa and they don't have a senator to stand up for their interests. Do you think they should get a senator?" — even when you tell them that Republicans say this proposal is an absurd Democratic power grab — still a very large minority of Trump supporters say yes. In our polls, majorities are onboard with adding three or four or five states. People think it's fair. One fun thing is, Virgin Islands statehood actually polls much better than D.C. statehood. D.C. statehood is actually the least popular of any of the statehood proposals we've polled.
-- What probability would you assign to Donald Trump winning reelection?
I think one big lesson of 2018 was that Trump's coalition held up. Obviously, we did better as the party out of power. But if you look at how we did in places like Maine or Wisconsin or Michigan, it looked more like 2016 than 2012. Donald Trump still has a giant structural advantage in the Electoral College.
So, in 2016, we got 51.1 percent of the two-party vote share (of the share of votes that went to Democrats and Republicans). And if we had gotten 51.6 percent of that, we would have had about a 50 percent chance of winning an Electoral College majority. We probably needed to get to 52 percent in order to have a high chance of winning the presidency. For most of the last six months, in public polls, Biden was at 52 or so. Now, we're at like 54.
So, the question is just: Are things going to go down?
I'm not gonna speculate about whether the coronavirus will get better or whether it will get worse. I think you can tell plausible stories in either direction. But if you go back and look at polling this far out, and then do a regression where you predict Election Day as a function of polling, generally, when candidates are this far ahead, things tend to revert toward a mean. And unfortunately, in this case, the historical mean we're regressing to isn't 50 percent; incumbents have historically averaged 51 percent of the vote. So things are likely to tighten. And, of course, polling was wrong in 2016. And actually, on a state level, the polling was wrong by a similar margin in places like West Virginia or Ohio or Michigan or Montana in 2018. So after we get through the conventions, and partisans activate on both sides, there's a substantial chance that we'll find ourselves in a close election. And everybody should treat it that way.
Personally, I remember that in 2016, around September, we gave Hillary an 85 percent chance of winning. And this led to situations where you had Democratic organizations, our clients at Civis, wanting to take money out of Pennsylvania and put it in other places. I think one person literally asked me, "What if we try to maximize 370 electoral votes instead of 270." I think there's going to be a real instinct for us to take the election for granted, and start to do dumb, hubristic things like spending millions of dollars on our victory stage, which is something that Hillary Clinton did.
So we should all have the discipline to continue investing in tipping-point states and appealing to the median voter. Because this is an incredibly important year. This is our last chance to win a trifecta for a very long time. And if we don't win the presidency, things could get very dark. So everything we do matters a lot.
*In an earlier version of this interview, Shor attributed a blog post about "climate week" to Daily Kos Elections (DKE). He was referencing something he remembered reading eight years ago extemporaneously, and misidentified the outlet that published the (alleged) blog. DKE published no such post.
________________________________
Hogan Administration Official Praises Domestic Terrorist Kenosha Killer on Social Media, Loses Job
https://www.marylandmatters.org/2020/08/29/hogan-administration-official-praises-teen-kenosha-shooter-on-social-media-sparking-furor/
The Milwaukee Bucks close out the series against the Orlando Magic, 118-104, behind 28 PTS and 17 REB from Giannis Antetokounmpo and advance to the Eastern Conference Semifinals
Giannis checks out of the game with 28-17-3 on 11-17 shooting in 28 minutes
5 Miami Heat vs 1 Milwaukee Bucks
3 Boston Celtics vs 2 Toronto Raptors
A nonprofit started by two Trump allies that controversially held cash giveaways in predominantly Black communities had its tax exempt status auto-revoked after failing to provide legally required forms to the IRS for three years in a row.
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1299844276818382848
Remember that MLK was accused by the FBI of being a communist and Marxist.
One of the fundamental problems with our politics is we have too much jersey wearing and not enough values. Racism is wrong. Violence is wrong. Both ought to be fundamental values we hold as a civil society.
If Republicans really cared about hurricane victims, they'd stop denying climate change — Thoughts and prayers are not enough and never have been
Despite the fact that this letter from the ODNI to @SpeakerPelosi is stamped as having been delivered Friday, a source in the Speaker's office says she was sent it Saturday evening after 5 pm, via email, hours after the story broke and hours after CNN obtained a copy.
https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1299832357776695296
It doesn't allow for further questions by Congress. It also allows the president to decide what information does and does not get released to congress, thus ruining checks and balances.
The Kanye West campaign is now running into trouble in Virginia, where voters yesterday submitted two affidavits to election officials claiming they were misled into signing up as his electors.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/kanye-west-campaign-in-virginia-is-accused-of-deceptive-signature-gathering/2020/08/29/b0a2fa56-ea07-11ea-bc79-834454439a44_story.html
With the caveat that everyone really needs to stop equating protesting to rioting on all sides, YouGov shows that Kenosha seemed to spark a shift in public opinion and signal lower sympathy for protests. https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/trcdohan8j/20200828_yahoo_coronavirus_crosstabs.pdf
The left are mentally ill and need to be exterminated already: Alex Morse ADMITTED HE USED HIS POSITION OF POWER FOR FORCE STUDENTS TO HAVE SEX WITH HIM. HE IS DONE AND NEEDS TO BE FORCED OUT OF THE RACE. HE IS A RAPIST. STOP DEFENDING RAPISTS.
Kyle Tucker hits a 3-RBI triple off Frankie Montas in the 1st, leads MLB in triples with 6
https://bdata-producedclips.mlb.com/60446117-e2d3-43c4-8902-df8d6f11b3c9.mp4
The ever-honest Zack Greinke throws a wild pitch, immediately exclaims "Oh my goodness!" loud enough for the field mics to hear
https://streamable.com/c82122
Yu Darvish in Game 1 of a double header vs the Reds: 6 IP, 0 R, 7 H, 2 BB, 8 K
David Robertson has setback, is officially out for the season. He pitched 6 2/3 innings in his Phillies career after signing for two years, $23 million
https://www.nbcsports.com/philadelphia/phillies/david-robertson-out-for-season-phillies-free-agency
Trump plans to head to Kenosha on Tuesday, White House says
Charred ruins of Kenosha endanger Joe Biden's march to presidency. On Friday afternoon in Kenosha, Terry Nelson was hammering plywood boards on to the windows of his bar, the Down Town'R Saloon. Sadly, though, the horse in this particular stable had already bolted. | Over the past week, as protest, unrest and violence spread after Jacob Blake was shot in the back by a policeman on Sunday, rioters broke into Nelson's saloon, smashing windows, setting off fire extinguishers and stealing the alcohol. | "In the past week I've seen my city burnt to the ground by people who don't live here," Nelson said, putting the blame on outside agitators. "I've got nothing against peaceful protest but if I wanted you to be sympathetic to my cause and then I took a baseball bat and broke both your knees, how sympathetic would you be?" Nelson believes that the events in this unremarkable city on the shores of Lake Michigan, which have been beamed across the world, could change the way people think about the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and November's presidential election, which may well be swayed by the result in Wisconsin, a key battleground. "When you wrap yourself in that flag of BLM and you burn cities to the ground, people will remember," he said. "There's a quiet majority out there." Opinions like Nelson's have many Democratic strategists and liberal pundits fretting after recent unrest. Is there a tipping point at which urban violence and disorder pushes the election towards Donald Trump? The president spent much of last week hammering a law and order message at the Republican National Convention, accusing Democrats of giving "free rein to violent anarchists, agitators and criminals who threaten our citizens". | As a result when protests turn violent, as they did in Kenosha, Democratic condemnation has been tepid. With much of the recent disorder taking place in key battleground states, Minnesota and Wisconsin, and in cities run by Democrats, the fear in the party is that it could turn some moderate voters back towards Trump, who is trumpeting his law and order credentials and trying to echo Richard Nixon's successful 1968 presidential campaign. "The swing voters live in the suburbs and they tend to be women with younger children, so they prioritise safety and security," said Frank Luntz, a conservative pollster. "They have sympathy for the protesters but they also don't like the riots. This issue and these voters are up for grabs." Adding to the political angst, presidential polls in the battleground states appear to be tightening and support for the protests has dwindled. In June, according to a Marquette Law School poll, 61% of people in Wisconsin approved of the BLM protests. That dropped to 48% in August, with a potential Kenosha effect still to come.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/charred-ruins-of-kenosha-endanger-joe-bidens-march-to-presidency-hpqdhdq6s
Man fatally shot in Portland as protesters clash with counterprotesters: Police in the Oregon city said pro-Trump demonstrators appeared to face off with Black Lives Matter protesters.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-fatally-shot-portland-protesters-clash-counterprotesters-n1238802
Biden, who has been a firm supporter of peaceful protests, is expected to travel on Monday to condemn protest violence, and to note that chaos has unfolded on Trump's watch, even though the same thing happened during the Obama Years from 2013-2016 and even though it's happening in Democratic-controlled cities.
https://nytimes.com/2020/08/29/us/politics/biden-trump-crime.html
How many people have died at the hands of pro-Trump Republian terrorists fueled by Trump's hate? Tree of Life Synagogue, El Paso, Rittenhouse...
New York City isn't dead. But a lot of people are moving to the suburbs. In July, there was a 44 percent increase in home sales for the suburban counties surrounding the city compared with the previous year
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/30/nyregion/nyc-suburbs-housing-demand.html
Airlines, including private jet companies headed by Trump campaign donors, have received billions in bailouts yet are poised to implement major furloughs. We FOIA'd DOT and Treasury for related communications with industry representatives.
https://americanoversight.org/documents?fwp_document_keyword=INDUSTRY%20REPRESENTATIVES%20REGARDING%20COVID-19
The Justice Department secretly took steps in 2017 to stop the investigation into Russian election interference and any links to the Trump campaign, according to former law enforcement officials, keeping investigators from completing an examination of President Trump's decades-long personal and business ties to Russia. The special counsel who finished the investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, secured three dozen indictments and convictions of some top Trump advisers, and he produced a report that outlined Russia's wide-ranging operations to help get Mr. Trump elected and the president's efforts to impede the inquiry. But law enforcement officials never fully investigated Mr. Trump's own relationship with Russia, even though some career F.B.I. counterintelligence investigators thought his ties posed such a national security threat that they took the extraordinary step of opening an inquiry into them. Within days, the former deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein stopped the investigation without telling the bureau, all but ensuring it would go nowhere.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/30/us/politics/trump-russia-justice-department.html
RFK Jr. exporting American conspiracies and headlining anti-mask/anti-5G/antivax events in Europe now.
https://twitter.com/noUpside/status/1299795614905954304
It feels like the pendulum is swinging away from Biden—that he would have been better off if Election Day were in July. The one thing to keep in mind is that things could look very different in November, too. Will we still be talking about riots or about covid19 or about closing schools?
Republican ads keep using Biden's "fundamentally transform the country" comment out of context to wrongly suggest he endorsed rioting or even communism. Biden was speaking about using the Covid response to create a fairer society for people including meat workers.
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1300077823521181696
________________________________
(I don't agree with this but most of what she's saying is factually true, look beyong her "everbody who doesn;t agree with me is anti-Black" idiocy. Look at it from the point of view that looters are poor through no fault of their own and have done everything they could to overcome poverty but failed because they were born into it and it's all around them and the government refuses to let them break through poverty because capitalism requires human enslavement to and absolute dependence upon work and money and materialism)
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/08/27/906642178/one-authors-argument-in-defense-of-looting
One Author's Argument 'In Defense Of Looting'
August 27, 202012:08 PM ET
In the past months of demonstrations for Black lives, there has been a lot of hand-wringing about looting. Whether it was New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo saying that stealing purses and sneakers from high-end stores in Manhattan was "inexcusable," or St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter saying looters were "destroy[ing] our community," police officers, government officials and pundits alike have bemoaned the property damage and demanded an end to the riots. And just this week, rioters have burned buildings and looted stores in Kenosha, Wis., following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, to which Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson has said: "Peaceful protesting is a constitutionally protected form of free speech. Rioting is not."
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/02/politics/andrew-cuomo-new-york-city-floyd-protests/index.html
https://www.minnpost.com/state-government/2020/05/walz-mayors-blame-looting-violence-on-outsiders-urge-twin-cities-residents-to-observe-saturday-night-curfew/
https://www.wisn.com/article/buildings-burned-and-businesses-looted-amid-civil-unrest-in-kenosha/33792937
Writer Vicky Osterweil's book, In Defense of Looting, came out on Tuesday. When she finished it, back in April, she wrote (rather presciently) that "a new energy of resistance is building across the country." Now, as protests and riots continue to grip cities, she argues that looting is a powerful tool to bring about real, lasting change in society. The rioters who smash windows and take items from stores, she says, are engaging in a powerful tactic that questions the justice of "law and order," and the distribution of property and wealth in an unequal society.
I spoke with Osterweil about this summer's riots, the common narratives surrounding looting, and why "nonviolence" can be a misleading term. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
https://www.boldtypebooks.com/titles/vicky-osterweil/in-defense-of-looting/9781645036678/
-- For people who haven't read your book, how do you define looting?
When I use the word looting, I mean the mass expropriation of property, mass shoplifting during a moment of upheaval or riot. That's the thing I'm defending. I'm not defending any situation in which property is stolen by force. It's not a home invasion, either. It's about a certain kind of action that's taken during protests and riots.
Looting is a highly racialized word from its very inception in the English language. It's taken from Hindi, lút, which means "goods" or "spoils," and it appears in an English colonial officer's handbook [on "Indian Vocabulary"] in the 19th century.
-- During the uprisings of this past summer, rioting and looting have often gone hand in hand. Can you talk about the distinction you see between the two?
"Rioting" generally refers to any moment of mass unrest or upheaval.Riots are a space in which a mass of people has produced a situation in which the general laws that govern society no longer function, and people can act in different ways in the street and in public. I'd say that rioting is a broader category, in which looting appears as a tactic.
Often, looting is more common among movements that are coming from below. It tends to be an attack on a business, a commercial space, maybe a government building—taking those things that would otherwise be commodified and controlled and sharing them for free.
-- Can you talk about rioting as a tactic? What are the reasons people deploy it as a strategy?
It does a number of important things. It gets people what they need for free immediately, which means that they are capable of living and reproducing their lives without having to rely on jobs or a wage—which, during COVID times, is widely unreliable or, particularly in these communities is often not available, or it comes at great risk. That's looting's most basic tactical power as a political mode of action.
It also attacks the very way in which food and things are distributed. It attacks the idea of property, and it attacks the idea that in order for someone to have a roof over their head or have a meal ticket, they have to work for a boss, in order to buy things that people just like them somewhere else in the world had to make under the same conditions. It points to the way in which that's unjust. And the reason that the world is organized that way, obviously, is for the profit of the people who own the stores and the factories. So you get to the heart of that property relation, and demonstrate that without police and without state oppression, we can have things for free.
Importantly, I think especially when it's in the context of a Black uprising like the one we're living through now, it also attacks the history of whiteness and white supremacy. The very basis of property in the U.S. is derived through whiteness and through Black oppression, through the history of slavery and settler domination of the country. Looting strikes at the heart of property, of whiteness and of the police. It gets to the very root of the way those three things are interconnected. And also it provides people with an imaginative sense of freedom and pleasure and helps them imagine a world that could be. And I think that's a part of it that doesn't really get talked about—that riots and looting are experienced as sort of joyous and liberatory.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1341787.pdf?seq=1
-- What are some of the most common myths and tropes that you hear about looting?
One of the ones that's been very powerful, that's both been used by Donald Trump and Democrats, has been the outside agitator myth, that the people doing the riots are coming from the outside. This is a classic. This one goes back to slavery, when plantation owners would claim that it was Freedmen and Yankees coming South and giving the enslaved these crazy ideas—that they were real human beings—and that's why they revolted.
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/09/873592665/unmasking-the-outside-agitator
Another trope that's very common is that looters and rioters are not part of the protest, and they're not part of the movement. That has to do with the history of protesters trying to appear respectable and politically legible as a movement, and not wanting to be too frightening or threatening.
Another one is that looters are just acting as consumers: Why are they taking flat screen TVs instead of rice and beans? Like, if they were just surviving, it'd be one thing, but they're taking liquor. All these tropes come down to claiming that the rioters and the looters don't know what they're doing. They're acting, you know, in a disorganized way, maybe an "animalistic" way. But the history of the movement for liberation in America is full of looters and rioters. They've always been a part of our movement.
-- In your book, you note that a lot of people who consider themselves radical or progressive criticize looting. Why is this common?
I think a lot of that comes out of the civil rights movement. The popular understanding of the civil rights movement is that it was successful when it was nonviolent, and less successful when it was focused on Black power. It's a myth that we get taught over and over again from the first moment we learn about the civil rights movement: that it was a nonviolent movement, and that that's what matters about it. And it's just not true.
Nonviolence emerged in the '50s and '60s during the civil rights movement, [in part] as a way to appeal to Northern liberals. When it did work, like with the lunch counter sit-ins, it worked because Northern liberals could flatter themselves that racism was a Southern condition. This was also in the context of the Cold War and a mass anticolonial revolt going on all over Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America. Suddenly all these new independent nations had just won liberation from Europe, and the U.S. had to compete with the Soviet Union for influence over them. So it was really in the U.S.'s interests to not be the country of Jim Crow, segregation and fascism, because they had to appeal to all these new Black and Brown nations all over the world.
Those two things combined to make nonviolence a relatively effective tactic. Even under those conditions, Freedom Riders and student protesters were often protected by armed guards. We remember the Birmingham struggle of '63, with the famous photos of Bull Connor releasing the police dogs and fire hoses on teenagers, as nonviolent. But that actually turned into the first urban riot in the movement. Kids got up, threw rocks and smashed police cars and storefront windows in that combat. There was fear that that kind of rioting would spread. That created the pressure for Robert F. Kennedy to write the Civil Rights bill and force JFK to sign it.
But there's also another factor, which is anti-Blackness and contempt for poor people who want to live a better life, which looting immediately provides. One thing about looting is it freaks people out. But in terms of potential crimes that people can commit against the state, it's basically nonviolent. You're mass shoplifting. Most stores are insured; it's just hurting insurance companies on some level. It's just money. It's just property. It's not actually hurting any people.
-- During recent riots, a sentiment I heard a lot was that looters in cities like Minneapolis were hurting their own cause by destroying small businesses in their own neighborhoods, stores owned by immigrants and people of color. What would you say to people who make that argument?
People who made that argument for Minneapolis weren't suddenly celebrating the looters in Chicago, who drove down to the richest part of Chicago, the Magnificent Mile, and attacked places like Tesla and Gucci—because It's not really about that. It's a convenient way of positioning yourself as though you are sympathetic.
But looters and rioters don't attack private homes. They don't attack community centers. In Minneapolis, there was a small independent bookstore that was untouched. All the blocks around it were basically looted or even leveled, burned down. And that store just remained untouched through weeks of rioting.
To say you're attacking your own community is to say to rioters, you don't know what you're doing. But I disagree. I think people know. They might have worked in those shops. They might have shopped and been followed around by security guards or by the owner. You know, one of the causes of the L.A. riots was a Korean small-business owner murdering 15-year-old Latasha Harlins, who had come in to buy orange juice. And that was a family-owned, immigrant-owned business where anti-Blackness and white supremacist violence was being perpetrated.
https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-0318-latasha-harlins-20160318-story.html
-- What would you say to people who are concerned about essential places like grocery stores or pharmacies being attacked in those communities?
When it comes to small business, family owned business or locally owned business, they are no more likely to provide worker protections. They are no more likely to have to provide good stuff for the community than big businesses. It's actually a Republican myth that has, over the last 20 years, really crawled into even leftist discourse: that the small business owner must be respected, that the small business owner creates jobs and is part of the community. But that's actually a right-wing myth.
https://aeon.co/essays/what-does-small-business-really-contribute-to-economic-growth
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/small-business-job-creation-myth/
A business being attacked in the community is ultimately about attacking like modes of oppression that exist in the community. It is true and possible that there are instances historically when businesses have refused to reopen or to come back. But that is a part of the inequity of the society, that people live in places where there is only one place where they can get access to something [like food or medicine]. That question assumes well, what if you're in a food desert? But the food desert is already an incredibly unjust situation. There's this real tendency to try and blame people for fighting back, for revealing the inequity of the injustice that's already been formed by the time that they're fighting.
I have heard a lot of talk about white anarchists who weren't part of the movement, but they just came in to smash windows and make a ruckus.
It's a classic trope, because it jams up people who might otherwise be sort of sympathetic to looters. There's a reason that Trump has embraced the "white anarchist" line so intensely. It does a double service: It both creates a boogeyman around which you can stir up fear and potential repression, and it also totally erases the Black folks who are at the core of the protests. It makes invisible the Black people who are rising up and who are initiating this movement, who are at its core and its center, and who are doing its most important and valuable organizing and its most dangerous fighting.
One thing that you're really careful about in your book is how you talk about violence at riots. You make the distinction between violence against property, like smashing a window or stealing something, versus violence against a human body. And I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about why making that distinction is important to you.
Obviously, we object to violence on some level. But it's an incredibly broad category. As you pointed out, it can mean both breaking a window, lighting a dumpster on fire, or it can mean the police murdering Tamir Rice. That word is not strategically helpful. The word that can mean both those things cannot be guiding me morally.
There's actually a police tactic for this, called controlled management. Police say, "We support peaceful, nonviolent protesters. We are out here to protect them and to protect them from the people who are being violent." That's a police strategy to divide the movement. So a nonviolent protest organizer will tell the police their march route. Police will stop traffic for them. So you've got a dozen heavily armed men standing here watching you march. That doesn't make me feel safe. What about that is nonviolent? Activists themselves are doing no violence, but there is so much potential violence all around them.
Ultimately, what nonviolence ends up meaning is that the activist doesn't do anything that makes them feel violent. And I think getting free is messier than that. We have to be willing to do things that scare us and that we wouldn't do in normal, "peaceful" times, because we need to get free.
________________________________
Mitch Moreland is going from the #RedSox to the #Padres for Hudson Potts and Jeisson Rosario.
https://twitter.com/Joelsherman1/status/1300092391333007360
Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe defends eliminating election security briefings to Congress: What business is it of the voters to know whether Russia picked their president for them?
https://twitter.com/TPM/status/1300104231186300931
ODNI was furious about our reporting that Bill Evanina acknowledged in a classified briefing that Russia was again trying to help Trump. But even after that, ODNI still scheduled a briefing for September. So attributing this sudden change to leaks alone doesn't make sense.
https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1300103400445575169
Breonna Taylor investigation: Daniel Cameron tells Face The Nation his office has received a "critical component" in its investigation - a ballistics report - and will meet with the FBI this week as calls to arrest the officers involved in her shooting continue since March
https://twitter.com/FaceTheNation/status/1300088843840831488
To be fair, marches, protests and demonstrations, on the street or now online, are how the United States talks to itself. And, to the benefit of the nation, we are doing a lot of talking these days. Propelled and protected by the First Amendment freedoms of speech, assembly and petition, people have taken to the streets today and in the past to call the country to consider national challenges and solve national inequities, to press for change or to voice opposition to policies, plans and practices. The breadth of current public outcries may be surprising, but the depth of emotion behind them shouldn't be: protest is backed into the nation's civic DNA. From pre-revolutionary times, when colonials took to cobblestone streets to protest taxes and British rule, to rallies and marches by pro- and anti-slavery advocates in the early- to mid-1800s; from anti-draft demonstrations during the Civil War to a decade of anti-war rallies during the Vietnam War; from suffragette marches in the late 1800s and early 1900s to the ERA battles of the 1970s; from marches that led to a Prohibition amendment in 1920 to marches that led to its repeal in 1933; from white-robed Ku Klux Klan demonstrations across the nation peaking in the 1920s to the civil rights movement peaking in the 1960s; to the LGBTQ movement, from Stonewall in 1969 to recent demonstrations over marriage laws and employment equality. "We Protest" may well stand next to "In God We Trust" as a national motto. Speech, assembly and petition are central to keeping the nation safe from the tyranny of the majority. There's no guarantee under the First Amendment that when America talks to itself, Americans will listen. But our history is marked by those moments when as a nation we do hear, sometimes belatedly, what protesters, demonstrators and marchers are saying. And we are a fairer, more honest, more just country as a result. As King said in his last public speech in 1968, nearly five years after the March on Washington: "Somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right."
Chadwick Boseman getting emotional about trading letters with kids with terminal cancer who passed before they got to see Black Panther...knowing he was himself battling cancer when he said this. Jesus.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1299546534032412672
Trump is golfing today. He was supposed to return to the White House late Saturday.
The University of Alabama is reportedly threatening faculty that any mention of the COVID situation on campus, even "two students in my class tested positive", constitutes a HIPAA violation. I am not an expert at all, but this strikes me as absolute bullshit....
https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1299967361982767104
The hellscape Trump and Republicans are their base are projecting (and have been projecting for decades) on Democrats is already here. Right now. And has been going on for all of Trump's presidency. The nightmare scenario he says would play out under Democratic nominee Joe Biden - violence in the streets of major cities, no defense for a pandemic, American troops projected abroad and an economically disadvantageous relationship with China - is the current reality. He has presided over the deaths of 180,000 Americans from a disease he once credited China for working to contain; nearly 30 million people out of work and tens of thousands of small businesses closed as a result of the pandemic's spread in the United States; and civil unrest over racial injustice that he both denounces and stokes. He did not "build the greatest economy in history" by any recognizable measure. Annual gross domestic product growth - less than 3 percent per year before the pandemic — has been modest. Financial markets have seen record highs - as they do in most administrations. But while unemployment levels reached lows not seen in half a century under Trump, they also hit their high point since the Great Depression earlier this year. Built into Trump's strategy is another basic contradiction: that America is beset by Americans. In other words, he has met the enemy, and it is all Americans who oppose him and Republican solutions.
https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/business/aroundregion/story/2020/aug/28/virus-rages-us-economy-struggles-sustarecover/531001/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/small-businesses-are-dying-by-the-thousands--and-no-one-is-tracking-the-carnage/2020/08/11/660f9f52-dbda-11ea-b4f1-25b762cdbbf4_story.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2020/02/21/trumps-gdp-growth-rate-is-only-03-greater-than-obamas/#5d34d8666f4b
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/business/stock-market-by-president/index.html
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/new-weekly-figures-show-almost-40-million-people-lost-their-n1211886
It's the Constitution, not a political party, that protects the right to burn the American flag.
https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/blog/when-the-supreme-court-ruled-to-allow-american-flag-burning
A man affiliated with a right-wing group was shot and killed Saturday night. A caravan of supporters of Trump had driven into downtown Portland. The pro-Trump rally drew hundreds of trucks full of supporters into the city. At times, Trump supporters and counterprotesters clashed on the streets, with people shooting paintball guns from the beds of pickup trucks and protesters throwing objects back at them. The man who was shot and killed was wearing a hat with the insignia of Patriot Prayer, a far-right group based in the Portland area that has clashed with protesters in the past.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/30/us/portland-trump-rally-shooting.html
Celtics vs Toronto: We're all tuned in to watch what we anticipate to be one of the best NBA East playoff series we've had in years and within 5 mins of the first quarter one of the teams is in the penalty prison with their best player on 3 fouls. This is garbage refereeing.
Mike Trout has now played a season's worth of games vs. the Mariners in his career (162 games, 161 starts) ... he has posted a .329/.431/.661 slash line with 35 doubles, 10 triples, 46 homers, 119 RBIs, 15 SBs in those games.
https://twitter.com/RyanDivish/status/1300115694885847040
Rod Rosenstein was always the villain
Rampant destruction of forests 'will unleash more pandemics’ - Researchers to tell UN that loss of biodiversity enables rapid spread of new diseases from animals to humans
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/30/rampant-destruction-of-forests-will-unleash-more-pandemics
CDC: 94% of Covid-19 deaths had underlying medical conditions
https://nbc25news.com/news/local/cdc-94-of-covid-19-deaths-had-underlying-medical-conditionsMoreinfoaboutAMPnbc25news.com
The Corey Seager first pitch murdering tour continues, rips 9th laser of the season
https://bdata-producedclips.mlb.com/2260c385-6c85-4e53-a910-848327b24246.mp4
Ronald Acuña Jr. and Bryce Harper will be mic'd up for tonight's #Braves at #Phillies game on ESPN.
https://twitter.com/dobrienatl/status/1300136190985883648
Border wildlife cameras show animals facing 'completely unprecedented' barrier
https://tucson.com/news/local/border-wildlife-cameras-show-animals-facing-completely-unprecedented-barrier/article_c1dc7904-18e2-5b68-b067-848257f846b7.html
I don't know that I'd go this far but I would say social media is responsible for more radicalization over the past six years than probably any IRL event or social condition. In Minneapolis and Chicago, people just straight up made up fake events and spread them around on social to incite violence, leading to riots, looting, and gunfire. People every day watching YouTube clips to demonize entire professions or groups of people. It has its toll. A lot of the things happening today started under the Obama years (July 2013 Trayvon Martin case) and not because of anything related to Obama or really to IRL politics but because it became very easy to exaggerate things, spread contempt and disgust for anyone. The intentionality is a really ugly part of this. It feels new to have sitting senators use social media to intentionally radicalize people in the midst of street violence
Democrats haven’t argued that Russia is a greater national security threat than China — but that it is a greater *election* security threat. China and Iran have capability to interfere, but Russia is the only one doing it now, per intel officials.
The mainstream media has been completely worked by Republicans. Chuck Todd is using the language of white supremacists: That the racist gunman who killed two protesters in Wisconsin "took matters into his own hands."
The media is unwilling to describe what is plainly happening.
https://twitter.com/MattNegrin/status/1300082314656055296
Information chain A: Facebook post to QAnon person tweet to the president to 85 million followers
Information chain B: Facebook post to QAnon person tweet to Gateway Pundit to Trump campaign official to the president to 85 million followers...: Trump retweeted two tweets featuring an egregious false claim about Covid data. One was from a supporter of the QAnon idiocy; now been deleted. The other was from campaign advisor Jenna Ellis, who linked to a piece by conspiracy site Gateway Pundit, which cited the QAnon tweet.
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1300146074322075648
The tweets suggested that those who died of coronavirus & had comorbidities did not actually die of coronavirus, which is completely ludicrous & not how this works. One of the people spewing this misinformation? One of the President's campaign advisers, @JennaEllisEsq
https://twitter.com/JDiamond1/status/1300142075900563462
Lost in all of Trump's tweets about the protests were a pair of tweets in which the President is once again downplaying the coronavirus threat. Both tweets (one has been taken down by Twitter) falsely claimed the coronavirus death toll is in fact a fraction of what it is.
https://twitter.com/JDiamond1/status/1300142075195908097
Yikes: Appeals court temporarily halts protections for journalists, legal observers in Portland
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/appeals-court-temporarily-halts-protections-journalists-legal-observers/story?id=72688755
Even for Trump, it was a morning of especially wild tweets, advancing conspiracy theories claiming a coup against him and an inflated virus death toll while embracing a call to imprison Cuomo and offering support for Kyle Rittenhouse. See his twitter account.
Trump is deliberately killing people. He holds rallies where people get infected. On Thursday, no social distancing or masks, sending a clear message that the CDC should be ignored. His plan is to kill people. Let's just say it.
Marcus Smart makes up for his turnover and steals it back for a Timel-rd windmill jam
https://streamable.com/0guka7
As Tyson Chandler gets picked to shoot the technical free throw, Stan Van Gundy remarks, "I'm just glad to know that Tyson Chandler actually had his uniform on under those warmups. They really had to dust him off there."
https://streamable.com/xne5wv
Scott Foster will referee Clippers Mavericks Game 6. The Clippers have lost their last 7 games he's overseen, while Dallas has lost 10 of their last 12 Scott Foster games
The Boston Celtics torch the Toronto Raptors 112-94 behind a team effort with 6 Celtics in double figures to take a 1-0 lead in the series
Morris and Luka get into it
https://streamable.com/i4tqim
________
http://katu.com/news/local/oregon-gov-brown-joe-biden-other-politicians-respond-to-portland-shooting
Joe Biden today:
The deadly violence we saw overnight in Portland is unacceptable. Shooting in the streets of a great American city is unacceptable. I condemn this violence unequivocally. I condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right. And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same. It does not matter if you find the political views of your opponents abhorrent, any loss of life is a tragedy. Today there is another family grieving in America, and Jill and I offer our deepest condolences.
We must not become a country at war with ourselves. A country that accepts the killing of fellow Americans who do not agree with you. A country that vows vengeance toward one another. But that is the America that President Trump wants us to be, the America he believes we are.
As a country, we must condemn the incitement of hate and resentment that led to this deadly clash. It is not a peaceful protest when you go out spoiling for a fight. What does President Trump think will happen when he continues to insist on fanning the flames of hate and division in our society and using the politics of fear to whip up his supporters? He is recklessly encouraging violence. He may believe tweeting about law and order makes him strong – but his failure to call on his supporters to stop seeking conflict shows just how weak he is. He may think that war in our streets is good for his reelection chances, but that is not presidential leadership – or even basic human compassion.
The job of a President is to lower the temperature. To bring people who disagree with one another together. To make life better for all Americans, not just those who agree with us, support us, or vote for us.
Donald Trump has been president for almost four years. The temperature in the country is higher, tensions run stronger, divisions run deeper. And all of us are less safe because Donald Trump can’t do the job of the American president.
________
Fred van Vleet and Pascal Siakam today: 8-32 FG, 2-14 3PM
The Raptors are 11-0 against non-Celtic opponents in the bubble, 0-2 against the Celtics
I believe we're so much better than what we saw this week at the RNC. This is our moment to choose love over hate, hope over fear, fact over fiction. We'll overcome this era of American darkness, together.
https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1299851827442221057
The anticipation of November 3rd+ is killing me. I'm actually losing sleep over imagining the worst case scenario unfold and cannot wait for it to be over.
Ejected you criminal. Morris has always been and always will be a dirty player because, like the NFL, the NBA refuses to crack down on clear obvious criminality
Lol Kawhi is so used to getting that call that he instinctively stopped playing
Maybe the @Reds will ship our home run balls to the #Cubs fans who would have been sitting in those seats this weekend?
https://twitter.com/cubs/status/1300173712252174339
Adam Wainwright (on his 39th Birthday) vs. Cleveland Indians: CG 9 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 9 SO, (122 pitches)
Padres acquiring catcher Jason Castro from Angels
https://twitter.com/ken_rosenthal/status/1300170280044834818
Kyle Schwarber hits a grand slam, 3rd Cub with multiple HR's today (Happ/Heyward)
https://bdata-producedclips.mlb.com/7fc6d989-5f04-41a6-ae45-4beaca3d08e3.mp4
OKC's Dennis Schroder has been fined $25K because of a shot to the lower mid-section of Houston's PJ Tucker in Game 5, source tells ESPN. No suspension.
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1300179322762792960
Lol. That's amazing. Both players fouling and then complaining.
This will get no coverage meanwhile democracy and national security and continue to suffer under Trump: Leaked McGahn memo reveals alarms about Kushner's top-secret security clearance. Trump intervened to ensure Kushner received his top-secret security clearance
https://www.axios.com/jared-kushner-security-clearance-mcgahn-ecca918e-2685-473a-9504-cd412da301bf.html
Plans to quickly finalize a deal between the Chinese parent company of TikTok and suitors for the app's U.S. operations have been thrown off track as the parties huddled this weekend to weigh new Chinese restrictions that appear designed to affect a sale
https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-deal-talks-slowed-over-new-china-rules-designed-to-affect-sale-11598821033
Hell hath no fury like millennials robbed of their quad-hourly TikTok addiction. Block the sale, end TikTok, it wasn't super healthy anyway and it's Trump's political funeral.
Kelly has told people Trump wanted to behave like an authoritarian and had to be constrainted https://axios.com/newsletters/axios-sneak-peek-b26cd369-52fd-43ef-a703-af7999974c9a.html
Why didn't Joe Biden speak to the nation from the Oval Office? Or call out the National Guard? Or submit a legislative program of some kind or sign a relevant Executive Order? Instead ... NOTHING. It's almost as if Biden thinks he isn't president at all. My response to Trump's tweets today.
On Monday, August 31, Joe Biden will travel to southwestern Pennsylvania to lay out a core question voters face in this election: are you safe in Donald Trump's America? Other details were TBD in the release, but Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) is a critical area for his reelection campaign. He has to run up the score there in order to counter the Trump campaign's offense in the surrounding counties.
The first time in MLB history a starting outfield has each had a multi-home run game
https://twitter.com/i/status/1300176465741459456
Mayor Wheeler: "President Trump, you bring no peace. You bring no respect to our democracy. You, Mr. President, need to do your job as the leader of this nation. And I, Mr. President, will do my job as the mayor of this city. And we will both be held accountable, as we should." Mayor Ted Wheeler to Trump: "You've tried to divide us more than any other figure in modern history and now, you want me to stop the violence that you helped create. What America needs is for you to be stopped so that we can come back together as one America."
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1300174088015671297
There's a reason MLK called it "nonviolence" ... a sit-in is meant to be disruptive (it's not "peaceful"), but you incite the *other side* to deploy force first and reveal the violence implicit in the status quo. The trouble with the term "peaceful protesters," is that lots of attention-grabbing protest involves breaking laws (sit-ins, blocking intersections, looting).
This clippers/Mavericks gamehas been one of the worst games in a while. Awful refereeing, so many stoppages for no reason.
The officiating really went to shit this second half. Nothing changes in this league.
Dallas is just too sloppy today
Last week Gov. Kemp attacked the Atlanta Journal Constitution for disclosing White House report that showed GA was failing in its handling of Covid19. Kemp couldn't argue that information was wrong so he attacked media instead. That isn't okay.
https://www.ajc.com/opinion/opinion-worried-georgians-need-more-from-you-gov-kemp/XAAFKTTXERFQ3L4NGMBL33VZA4/
Vanilla ISIS
https://twitter.com/ZackBornstein/status/1300145919996780544?s=20
A top FB policy exec openly detailed her efforts to hep a favored political party win and her disdain for its opponents. FB didn't stop her — and never spoke up about blatant election misconduct on the platform. This is FB India, but it matters here, too. This blob needs to be deported for supporting a government that cheerleads and defends men - especially gangs of men - rape and torture and kill females.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-executive-supported-indias-modi-disparaged-opposition-in-internal-messages-11598809348
Curry and Hardaway have been off today
Curry, Burke and THJ combine for 1-13 from 3, 6-27 from the field
I love when coaches respond to questions by basically responding, "To win we need to score points"
Luka carrying this team - sadly I think the Clippers are still gonna take the series, but this young man has put up a damn fine fight
If the Mavs only played with this kind of energy for the whole game, they would not have had to climb that massive 20pt deficit.
Once Kawhi comes back in the game is over
Trump ads have portrayed a world in which people call 911 but nobody's there because the police got defunded. That is why Trump has already won the election.
Luka puts the moves on PG and gets the and 1
https://streamable.com/g2wtqh
Houston's PJ Tucker has been fined $25K by NBA for altercation with Dennis Schroder in Game 5.
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1300182604893712384
Kawhi gets the MJ-like one handed shot to go
https://streamable.com/m3m8kj
If Mavs double team Kawhi it just leaves another player open to rain 3s. Letting Kawhi ride out his hot streak in the mid range is better then letting the rest of the team get hot from 3
Kawhi giving zero fucks
I root for the Clippers in this series (except Morris), and if I could get a guarantee that they would win game 7, I would totally love for them to finish seconf in this game so we can stretch the series out one more game. This series is so fun to watch.
Kawhi is a beast. He's out there killing em softly like The Fugees.
How does one turn over a basic corner pass
Kawhi 5 steals, board man is insane
Kawhi is a monster on the court.
Twitter has taken down a tweet containing a false claim about coronavirus death statistics that was made by a supporter of the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory — a post that Trump retweeted earlier in the day
https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1300188048337047555
Chadwick Boseman brought King T'Challa to life in a way that transfixed the world and spoke uniquely to Black Americans. What I'll always remember about the first time I saw the film Black Panther are the costumes that people wore. It was a chilly night in my area and and almost everyone in the theatre was Black (I'm also a minority but not African-American). Children dressed as Shuri, white dots of paint tracing the contours of their face, plastic Vibranium Gauntlets strapped to their arms. Boys and girls who'd gotten their hair cut into the quintessential style of Killmonger, black twists dangling at their temple. And there were, of course, those dressed as King T'Challa himself. People of every age and gender donned the black mask of the Black Panther, with its sharp, symmetrical silver lines; the hard-bodied top that enhanced the torso; the spiky necklace that gleamed under the light of the theatre lobby. I remember how when people in costumes crossed paths with one another, they crossed their arms over their chest and said "Wakanda forever" with equal parts conviction and delight. T'Challa as the Black Panther had existed as a comic-book superhero since Stan Lee and Jack Kirby conceived of him in 1966. But it was Chadwick Boseman who brought the fictional Wakandan monarch and superhero to the big screen, whose exceptional talent gave new life to the groundbreaking character and transfixed a global audience. Boseman's reserved regal disposition and even-temperedness filtered into the role of a king who was guided as much by his moral center as by his physical strength. It became difficult to see Boseman without thinking of the Black Panther, something Black Americans had not had before (a Black superhero). That instinctive association is perhaps why Boseman's death on Friday, following a four-year battle with colon cancer, struck me and so many others differently than other celebrity passings. The news sent almost every Black person I know into mourning. My social-media feeds filled up with images of Boseman's face and the roles he'd played during his short, but rich, career. This is not to say that the outpouring of grief has been specifically limited to Black people; part of what was so remarkable about the cinematic success of Black Panther was how widely it was watched around the world. Still, the film, and the characters within it, did feel uniquely owned by Black people the whole world over. As such, Boseman's death struck a real dark discordant chord because he is Black Panther, he was sick and we did not know, he was ridiculously young, and exited at the supreme top of his fame. Part of it is also that, in some way, he felt like a superhero. Amid a moment in which Black life feels particularly fragile, losing a Black superhero, even a fictional one, is especially destabilizing. When I heard of Boseman's death, I thought of my nephews (minorities but not African-American) who wore their Black Panther costume from time to time during the last 2 years, gifts they received for their birthdays. How they would walk around my brother's house shouting "I am the Black Panther!" to no one in particular, how their small bodies moved with unbridled joy through my brother's home and outdoors as they showed us how high they could jump, how fast they could run. Representation is not everything. Representation will not prevent Black people from being killed by police. It will not reduce the racial wealth gap. It will not prevent Black people from being disproportionately affected by COVID-19. But neither is it nothing. We should not confuse representation with political power, nor should we discount it. Boseman did his part to show us its power. He was Jackie Robinson, who endured slurs and abuse on and off the baseball diamond as the first Black player in Major League Baseball's modern era. He was James Brown, sweat glistening from his face as the spotlight beamed down on him, his feet moving like lightning across the stage. He was a young Thurgood Marshall, wielding the weight of the law to move this country closer to the promises it had made but hadn't kept. Most recently, he played Stormin' Norman, a young squad leader in Vietnam brewing with frustration at how the United States asked Black folks to fight its wars but remained unwilling to let them have its rights. I watched that last film (Da 5 Bloods) about three months ago (10/10) and consider now how badly sick he must have been while making it. Da 5 Bloods' director, Spike Lee, remembering Boseman and the 2019 filming of the production, said yesterday: "I never, ever suspected that anything was wrong. No one knew he was going through treatment." I think of all the roles Boseman has played over the past four years, in between chemotherapy and surgery. He must have been so exhausted. And yet, as Lee said, "He was there every single minute in the moment." He portrayed with grace and mastery both the icons of our past and the superheroes who helped us imagine different futures. He gave us (Black and Non-Black) so much. And for that I am immensely grateful.
Trump supporters drive through crowd and pepper spray protesters in Portland
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2020/aug/30/trump-supporters-drive-through-crowd-and-pepper-spray-protesters-in-portland-video
The Los Angeles Clippers close out the series 4-2 against the Dallas Mavericks 111-97 behind 33/13/7 from Kawhi Leonard
Luka finishes with 38-9-9 n 15-28 overall n 4-9 on threes
Luka Eurostep for 38
https://streamable.com/axp1sb
Mayor rescinds $2,500 bill sent to N.J. teen who held Black Lives Matter protest
https://www.nj.com/bergen/2020/08/mayor-rescinds-2500-bill-sent-to-nj-teen-who-held-black-lives-matter-protest.html
I never thought I'd see the day when people care more about high school football than doing whatever it takes to beat back a pandemic that is still raging out of control through a significant portion of our country. Of course I could say that about a lot of things that have happened since a certain day in 2017. Pro-Trump Republican players and coaches from across Michigan descend on Capitol for 'Let Them Play' rally because they value teenage sports more than people. Maybe one year of not allowing your teenager to receive brain damage might do kids some good.
https://www.mlive.com/sports/2020/08/players-coaches-from-across-michigan-descend-on-capitol-for-let-them-play-rally.html
I've known Joe Kennedy as a friend, as a colleague in Congress and as a champion for the values we're most proud of as Democrats. But it's the times I've seen him in Texas that have made the biggest impression on me, and why I proudly endorse him for U.S. Senate. 1/5
https://twitter.com/BetoORourke/status/1300153903300964359
One of the first times I saw Joe in Texas was after Hurricane Harvey hit Houston & surrounding areas. Some had lost their homes, others had lost everything, and they needed help. Joe was on the ground working w/ local leaders to connect them with federal and state services. 2/5
https://twitter.com/BetoORourke/status/1300153912201273345
He later came back down to help us campaign against Ted Cruz. The conventional wisdom said we had no shot. But he believed in our grassroots campaign & lent a hand at a time that we really needed it. I saw him do that for countless Congressional candidates across the country. 3/5
https://twitter.com/BetoORourke/status/1300153917528068096
oe came to Tornillo in 2018 to confront Trump's cruel policy that locked up kids seeking asylum, some taken from their parents by force. He joined hundreds of protesters to bring attention & change. And he came back twice more, helping to push Trump to close down Tornillo. 4/5
https://twitter.com/BetoORourke/status/1300153924259917825
Joe will make a great U.S. Senator, for Massachusetts and for the country. The election is Tuesday and I know he'd appreciate more volunteer help in reaching the voters who will decide the outcome. Here's the signup if you're interested in joining 5/5:
https://twitter.com/BetoORourke/status/1300153926638096384
Care about every type of violence and every person's life rather than just a few niche categories validated by your political-social circle challenge.
In private Biden should be telling the mayors and governors to get it together. If they're unmoved he should call it out in his speech. Speeches pressure people with power. Portland's mayor and Oregon's governor have been deplorable in the ongoing crisis gripping the city. The chaos continues nightly. If they can't control their streets and keep their citizens safe from agitators and anarchists, then call in the National Guard. This has to stop now.
Ivica Zubac vs. Mavericks Game 6: 15 Points, 11 Rebounds, 75% FG, 3/3 FT, +33
Luka Doncic created, assisted, or scored 59.5 Points over 34.6 minutes per game, in his first playoff series
Jake Arrieta vs. Braves: 1.1 IP, 6 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 3 BB
Wuhan food markets are illegally selling wild animals, again. China is conducting ethnic cleansing, waging border conflict, attempting to conquer HK, illegally fishing in the Galapagos and stealing IP from all around the world. Exterminate China already.
http://www.idahoreporter.com/2020/wuhan-food-markets-are-selling-wild-animals-again/
Luka Doncic On Marcus Morris, "You Know What I Think... I Don't Want To Deal With That Kind Of Player"
https://streamable.com/y6yk23
"He's a great player … battled every minute he was out there on the floor, didn't back down. Led his team every game and he did a hell of a job out there." - Kawhi on Luka DoncicHighlights
https://streamable.com/xrpg6s
Lebron James on life in the bubble: "I've had numerous nights and days thinking about leaving the bubble... I think everyone has. I don't think there's one person that has not had a mind that said 'oh, I've got to get the hell out of here.' ... It probably crosses my mind once a day.
The boys' penultimate pick is @KateForCongress to flip #OH01, which Cook rules a tossup. A cancer survivor, she knows the importance of healthcare for all & she's worked to increase & improve care on the Cincinnati Board of Health. Give what you can: http://secure.actblue.com/donate/k4c-site
https://twitter.com/PreetBharara/status/1300238918269440000
The Rays take Cole deep again as Kevin Kiermaier sends one into right
https://bdata-producedclips.mlb.com/b69240c6-f5fd-47be-82b8-eefd5cb4e9fe.mp4
Red-hot Rhys Hoskins homers in his 3rd consecutive game
https://bdata-producedclips.mlb.com/cd3567ce-69ab-4ae1-9fc1-462d027521d0.mp4
Ji-Man Choi continues clobbering Gerrit Cole with a 2-run dong
https://bdata-producedclips.mlb.com/4b01266b-6cec-44e2-a0ef-c8fc759ebcf9.mp4
This Padres lineup is no joke😳
https://i.redd.it/wp3e8snfafk51.jpg
Pelicans' Brandon Ingram caps breakout season with NBA's Most Improved Player award
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/29781691/pelicans-brandon-ingram-wins-nba-most-improved-player-award
Stan Van Gundy pronounces it: Yawniss Ahtentikoupa, and somehow makes it sound different each time
Giannis is just embarrassingly bad from the line. I don't think you can be the best player if you can't shoot and basically are unable to perform one essential part in basketball.
Dragic has taken his game to another level this season
Satellite images show rapid growth of glacial lakes worldwide - Number of glacial lakes rose by 53% in 1990-2018 to reveal impact of increased meltwater
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/31/satellite-images-show-rapid-growth-glacial-lakes
throw paint at a statue: a decade in prison
shoot paintballs at protesters: peaceful protest
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1277954189008744448
