The Plan

The pieces of this have been floating around for a while, but this brought it all into focus:

President Donald Trump on Wednesday would not commit to providing a peaceful transition of power after Election Day, lending further fuel to concerns he may not relinquish his office should he lose in November.

"Well, we're going to have to see what happens," Trump said when asked whether he'd commit to a peaceful transition, one of the cornerstones of American democracy.

(Via Joe.My.God.)

This isn't the first time he's said it, but I started thinking about all those pieces:

1) Railing against voting by mail, since, because of the way he's bungled the federal response to the pandemic, it's going to be the only real option for millions of people.

2) Gutting Post Office operations, because #1.

3) "Fraud! Fraud! Fraud!" While pointing at Democrats. As it turns out, the very few cases of voting fraud and election tampering that have been discovered are almost all committed by Republicans.

4) Threatening to send federal troops to "protect" polling places.

5) Rushing through his nominee, either the Handmaid or the kiddie porn sympathizer, to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat on the Supreme Court, because he's covering all his bases: if he doesn't win, he'll challenge the result, with pictures of Bush v. Gore dancing in his head. And don't be surprised if Moscow Mitch dispenses with hearing and debate and just calls a floor vote: time is of the essense.

6) And the latest wrinkle, having state legislatures bypass the voters and appoint electors directly. Someone pointed out that this will only work in states that Trump would likely win anyway, but given the way his approval ratings have been dropping, even in so-called "battleground" states, I'm not sure that's the case.

7) And of course, there's always the white supremacists, neo-nazis and other assorted lowlifes to call to arms, just in case.

And the "free, independent, adversarial press" is not calling him out on any of it.

Good-bye, America. It was nice while it lasted.

Footnote: Under the heading "Great Minds. . .", this post from Mustang Bobby.

What's New at Green Man Review

Yes, the move to a new host is done (and the less said about it, the better) and we're back again with a new edition. Note: we're going to biweekly review editions, with the stories alternating, so needless to say, this edition is packed full of neat stuff. This is just the tip of the iceberg:

Autumnal Folkmanis Puppets, Demon Detectives, British Mysteries, Soundscape Designers, and more

So hop on over and enjoy.

In Memoriam

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-2020)

I think she would have appreciated the image, which is a collage by Ghillermo Rojo titled "Annunciation".

Damn!

There goes the Court:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the demure firebrand who in her 80s became a legal, cultural and feminist icon, died Friday. The Supreme Court announced her death, saying the cause was complications from metastatic cancer of the pancreas. The court, in a statement, said Ginsburg died at her home in Washington, D.C., surrounded by family. She was 87.

Moscow Mitch and the holy rollers are licking their chops, because you know McConnell will ram through some brain=dead Christian Dominionist, or worse, to fill the vacancy.

There's much more to the article -- go ahead and read the whole thing.

Via Joe.My.God.

Critter Chronicles: We Still Have Cicadas

Although the noise at twilight is not quite as deafening as it was. We have here, in addition to the world-famous seventeen-year locust, annual cicadas as well, so every summer we get serenaded. And it turns out that there's also a thirteen-year cycle for some species.

I suspect, because of the noise level, that we'be hit a congruence of broods, although I don't think the seventeen-year bugs are quite due.

Today's Must-Read: Our "Free, Independent, Adversarial" Press

Digby does a major take-down of a piece by Dan Balz at WaPo that I think illustrates one of our major problems. She sums it up:

This bland recitation of Trump’s corruption as if it’s just another tactic is as “norm-breaking” as Trump himself. The Village is alive and well.

Read the whole thing. It's devastating.

It's No Secret

That Trump will do anything to retain power, and it's no secret that Roger Stone is nuts, but this is over the top even for him

Roger Stone is making baseless accusations of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election and is urging Donald Trump to consider several draconian measures to stay in power, including having federal authorities seize ballots in Nevada, having FBI agents and Republican state officials “physically” block voting under the pretext of preventing voter fraud, using martial law or the Insurrection Act to carry out widespread arrests, and nationalizing state police forces.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. While I would expect Trump and his minions to be a little more subtle -- although subtlety is not one of Trump's defining characteristics -- I can actually envision something like this happening, although I would expect Trump and the Republicans to try to tie the election up in the courts, since stacking the courts is the only thing Moscow Mitch and his pet Senators have done in the past three-and-a-half years -- aside from giving the richest a free ride. (On second thought, Stone's "recommendations" are really just what Trump's been threatening without the pretty wrappings.)

Read the whole article, but do keep in mind that it's Roger Stone speaking to Alex Jones, another certifiable loon.

Via Balloon Juice.

I'm Back

Being so fed up with Wordpress that I've decided to stick with the new, "improved" (hah!) Blogger.

Actually, it doesn't seem to be stalling my computer the way it was, so maybe something's corrected itself.

In other news, Green Man Review is back, and has a new edition up. Our Coda this time is a couple of songs by Cameron Hawthorne; you can see the videos at the link. Here's one I wanted to include, but that would have been overkill. It's a nice change of pace from the two in the Coda:

And, as you can see, in addition to being a talented musician, he's a real cutie.

Today's Must-Read: The DNC Kick-Off

Michelle Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention. The whole thing is at Bark Bark Woof Woof. Here's the beginning:

Good evening, everyone. It’s a hard time, and everyone’s feeling it in different ways. And I know a lot of folks are reluctant to tune into a political convention right now or to politics in general. Believe me, I get that. But I am here tonight because I love this country with all my heart, and it pains me to see so many people hurting. I’ve met so many of you. I’ve heard your stories. And through you, I have seen this country’s promise. And thanks to so many who came before me, thanks to their toil and sweat and blood, I’ve been able to live that promise myself. That’s the story of America. All those folks who sacrificed and overcame so much in their own times because they wanted something more, something better for their kids. There’s a lot of beauty in that story. There’s a lot of pain in it, too, a lot of struggle and injustice and work left to do. And who we choose as our president in this election will determine whether or not we honor that struggle and chip away at that injustice and keep alive the very possibility of finishing that work.

Read the whole thing. It's a beaut.

What's New at Green Man Review.

Sadly, nohing. We're in between hosts and had expected to be up and running before now, but there have been complications. As for this site, I really am going to have to move over to Wordpress or something. Aside from being user-hostile, Blogger is now causing my computer to stall. I'm having to write posts on Wordpad and copy and past them in, which is a pain. I'll try to keep you posted.

Blatant

This will probably bemy last post fora while. Blogger has "updated", with the result that I'm finding it next to unusabe. I'll probably try moving everything over to Wordpress, but it may take a while. I'll try to post a link to the new blog once I've started setting it up. Trump and his allies have gotten to the poiont where they're not even pretending any more. Trump himself lets the cat out of the bag:

President Donald Trump said the quiet part out loud, admitting he’s intentionally withholding money from the U.S. Postal Service to undermine its ability to handle mail-in voting in the 2020 election. “They need that money in order to make the Post Office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” Trump said on Fox Business Thursday morning of the states that are implementing universal mail-in voting ahead of the November election. “But if they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting, because they’re not equipped to have it.”

What's New at Green Man Review

Our usual mix of this, that, and the other, with a couple of surprises:

Penguin Cafe Orchestra and Son, Hugo Award Winners, King Arthur Revisited, the Universe, a Graduating Class, and Other Cool Stuff

So, off you go to enjoy all the goodies.

Critter Chronicles: Pigeons Are Weird

Firsts off, they walk funny -- like wind-up toys -- their heads bob back and forth, and the faster they walk, the faster their heads move. It's a wonder they don't get whiplash.



And have you ever noticed how a flock of pigeons will take off from wherever they're roosting, fly around in circles for a while, and then light just where they were to begin with?

Culture Break: Penguin Cafe: 'Protection' for Erased Tapes

Penguin Cafe is the successor to Penguin Cafe Orchestra (reviews of their music are here and here. This piece was a new one for me, that I ran across quite by chance. I like it a lot:

I don't know if this has been released on an album, but you can find a review of their album A Matter of Life. . . at Green Man Review this coming Sunday.

They're worth checking out on YouTube, as well -- lots of nice stuff.

Nice Company You've Got There

Be a shame if anything happened to it. This broke a couple of days ago:

President Donald Trump said TikTok will have to close in the U.S. by Sept. 15 -- unless there’s a deal to sell the social network’s domestic operations to Microsoft Corp. or another U.S. company.

Trump also said the federal government will have to be paid a “substantial amount of money” as part of any deal.

“I don’t mind whether it’s Microsoft or someone else, a big company, a secure company, a very American company buys it,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday. “It’ll close down on Sept. 15 unless Microsoft or somebody else is able to buy it and work out a deal, an appropriate deal, so the Treasury of the United States gets a lot of money.”

Trump really has started to think of himself as the godfather. I can't see how the U.S. government can legally demand a cut of a business deal between two corporations. My own feeling is it's just Trump blowing gas again -- he announced originally, on Friday, that he would ban TikTok's operations in the U.S. on Saturday via his old stand-by, executive order. Nothing happened.

However, the reactions have been, predictably, not positive. The Chinese, in particular, are not pleased:

Chinese state media this week is blasting Washington for what it calls the United States' "nasty" treatment of TikTok — the wildly popular video-sharing app that has become emblematic of worsening US-China relations.

"The US' decoupling from China starts [with] killing China's most competitive companies," wrote the Global Times, a state-run tabloid, in an editorial published Monday. "In the process, Washington ignores rules and is unreasonable."

And as usual, Trump's own people have no idea how this is supposed to happen, if it happens (and that's a big if, but it's the press' latest shiny object):

White House officials on Tuesday could not say how the U.S. government would receive a portion of the proceeds from any sale of TikTok’s U.S. operations, one day after President Donald Trump called for a cut of the money.

“There’s no specific blueprint here,” White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Fox Business Network on Tuesday.

“It may be that the president was thinking, because the Treasury has had to do so much work on this, there are a lot of options here. I’m not sure it’s a specific concept that will be followed through ... Regarding fees or anything like that, all that remains to be seen,” Kudlow said.

This is revealing of Trump's thinking on this (among other things):

Experts have said the U.S. government generally does not have the authority to take a cut of private business sales. But Trump, a real estate developer and former reality television star who has touted his “art of the deal,” on Monday said “a very substantial portion” of any TikTok sale must go to the U.S. Treasury “because we’re making it possible for this deal to happen.”

That's a stretch, at best -- the only possible way we "allowed this to happen" is if it requires an OK from the Commerce Department, or DoJ, on anti-monopoly grounds, which wouldn't apply here.

The man's an idiot.

Oh, and if you're wondering why Trump is going after TikTok in particular, aside from the fact that it's a Chinese company, note this, from the Bloomberg story:

Teenagers opposed to Trump have also used the app to disrupt the president’s campaign activities, including signing up for tickets to his first rally since the beginning of the pandemic, in Tulsa. Attendance at the late June event was far below expectations, and Trump hasn’t held another rally since.

Bottom line: they're being mean to him.

All via Joe.My.God.

What's New at Green Man Review

Another Sunday, and more reviews. There's sort of a theme this week:

de Lint books and music, blatant self-promotion is a good thing, a boozy trifle and other good things

It's not all de Lint -- just mostly. Hop on over and see what else is waiting for you.

Catching Up: The Next Step

Toward what? you may ask. Why, toward a fascist authoritarian state, of course. This is from a couple of days ago (I don't seem to have highlighted it yet):

With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020

He can't do that of course -- no matter what Mike Pompeo says. The date of the presidential election is set by federal law. Good luck with getting Nancy Pelosi to agree to a delay. But even the Republicans aren't jumping on this particular bandwagon:

Top Republicans on Thursday rejected President Trump’s suggestion that the Nov. 3 general election be delayed — something he has no authority to order. “Never in the history of the federal elections have we not held an election and we should go forward,” said Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, adding that he understood “the president’s concern about mail-in voting.”

Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, declined to answer questions on Capitol Hill, but dismissed Mr. Trump’s suggestion in an interview with WNKY television. “Never in the history of the country, through wars, depressions, and the Civil War have we ever not had a federally scheduled election on time, and we’ll find a way to do that again this Nov. 3,” Mr. McConnell said. “We’ll cope with whatever the situation is.”

Meanwhile, Trump's minions are doing everything possible to make voting by mail untenable:

The U.S. Postal Service is experiencing days-long backlogs of mail across the country after a top Trump donor running the agency put in place new procedures described as cost-cutting efforts, alarming postal workers who warn that the policies could undermine their ability to deliver ballots on time for the November election.

As President Trump ramps up his unfounded attacks on mail balloting as being susceptible to widespread fraud, postal employees and union officials say the changes implemented by Trump fundraiser-turned-postmaster general Louis DeJoy are contributing to a growing perception that mail delays are the result of a political effort to undermine absentee voting.

Of course, the Republicans have been wanting to kill the USPS almost as long as they've been trying to repeal Social Security.

Needless to say, the reactions to this ploy have been less than positive. A sample:

This is Trump's most dangerous Tweet ever. And I know that is saying something. It is not within his power to change the date of the election. But that he wants to try should set off alarms everywhere. He is publicly contemplating a dangerous, authoritarian power grab. https://t.co/QhOMi6AlTr

— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) July 30, 2020

We all knew it was coming to this. Make no mistake about it: Any announcement of a delay of the election will be a declaration of war against America by our criminal president. https://t.co/fIAE4spGWd

— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) July 30, 2020

I'm really starting to think we're heading toward a civil war, courtesy of Trump and the Republicans.

Today in Trump's America: A Quick Survey (Update)

There's just so much.

First, from the top attorney for Trump's re-election campaign, the Gospel according to your favorite theocrat (pick one -- they'ar all over the place in this regime):

The notion that the United States observes a separation of church and state is a lie, according to President Donald Trump’s senior campaign legal adviser.

“The left is going to tell you there’s this separation of church and state, and that’s just nowhere in the Constitution, nowhere in American law,” Jenna Ellis declared Monday evening during a Zoom event hosted by Asian Pacific Americans for Trump. “That’s nothing that our founding principles ever, uh, derived whatsoever.”

There's more at the link. Via Joe.My.God., who also has some of Ellis' past statements about gay people, just in case you were wondering.

Next up, Trump's Pentagon, which claims that American citizens are the "adversaries":

A new mandatory Pentagon training course aimed at preventing leaks refers to protesters and journalists as "adversaries" in a fictional scenario designed toteach Defense Department personnel how to better protect sensitive information.

The new course was recently launched as part of Defense Secretary Mark Esper's effort to improve "operational security," or OPSEC, and clamp down on leaks. The training materials are public and include a video message from Esper, as well as a July 20 memo outlining his concerns about operational security and directing all DoD personnel — military, civilian and on-site contractors — to take the course within the next 60 days.

The DoD spokesman gives a nice rationale for use of the term, but it still reveals a mindset that's pretty dismal.

Again, vie Joe.My.God.

And from Glorious Leader himself, a little racism to wash it down:

...Your housing prices will go up based on the market, and crime will go down. I have rescinded the Obama-Biden AFFH Rule. Enjoy!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2020

There's more. I may update this one.

Update: Trump doesn't think he has to abide by Supreme Court decisions:

President Donald Trump though acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf (photo) will sidestep a Supreme Court ruling and move to drastically limit access to and limit the protections of the Obama-era program known as DACA.

The administration believes DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, is still illegal, NBC News reports. Acting Secretary Wolf on Tuesday announced he will not accept any new applicants to the program that protects undocumented immigrants who were brought into the country as children.

Nice elections you have there -- be a shame if anything happened to them:

The Trump administration is planning to keep federal agents in Portland, Oregon, through at least mid-October, according to an internal email obtained by CNN.

Portland has been the site of ongoing protests for more than 50 days that have turned violent, sparking outrage among local officials who have faulted the federal presence for aggravating the situation on the ground.
But as protests persist, Customs and Border Protection -- part of the Department of Homeland Security -- is laying the groundwork for continued presence in the city on a rotational basis to relieve those agents who have been in Portland and who may be deployed in the near future.

At least mid-October? Like, into early November? And if it looks like it's working in Portland ("working" being a matter of viewpoint), why not try it in other cities?

About Those "Violent, Left-Wing Extremists"

Can you say "bullshit"?

A man seen breaking windows in a viral video of Minneapolis protests is suspected to be a known member of a white supremacist group, cops have alleged in a search warrant affidavit. The man in question, Mitchell Carlson, has not been charged with a crime.

The video, filmed on May 27, showed a man dressed in all black methodically smashing windows of an AutoZone in Minneapolis during racial justice protests over the police killing of George Floyd. The man also spray painted “free shit for everyone zone” on the building’s doors. The man appeared to be dressed as an anti-fascist, but was eyed as a possible infiltrator or “outside agitator” when protesters tried to question him over his activities. He became known as “Umbrella Man” on social media alongside debunked theories that he was a police officer attempting to discredit the protests.

Now, in a search warrant affidavit first reported by The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, police say they have received a tip that the man is Mitchell Carlson, “a full‐fledged member of the Hell’s Angels” and “a known associate of the Aryan Cowboys. The Aryan Cowboys are a known prison gang out of Minnesota and Kentucky.”

Via Joe.My.God.

And as for who started the violence, note this via Digby:

The New York Times reports today on how these troops were the instigators of the violence:

After flooding the streets around the federal courthouse in Portland with tear gas during Friday’s early morning hours, dozens of federal officers in camouflage and tactical gear stood in formation around the front of the building.

Then, as one protester blared a soundtrack of “The Imperial March,” the officers started advancing. Through the acrid haze, they continued to fire flash grenades and welt-inducing marble-size balls filled with caustic chemicals. They moved down Main Street and continued up the hill, where one of the agents announced over a loudspeaker: “This is an unlawful assembly.”

By the time the security forces halted their advance, the federal courthouse they had been sent to protect was out of sight — two blocks behind them. Eight weeks after the death of George Floyd, here’s a look at why longstanding protests in the city have recently intensified.

The aggressive incursion of federal officers into Portland has been stretching the legal limits of federal law enforcement, as agents with batons and riot gear range deep into the streets of a city whose leadership has made it clear they are not welcome…

Digby concludes with this warning:

I think we all knew on some level the moment they named the agency the Orwellian Department of Homeland Security, that we were building an internal police force. And if you build it, they will use it. They’re using it.

Remember, these troops were sent in by the man who had peaceful protesters teargassed so he could have a photo op holding a Bible upside-down in front of a church he doesn't attend.

Footnote: I saw a statement by Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot that there is evidence that the looting on the South Side and in the suburbs during the first demonstrations was planned. You can bet it wasn't planned by BLM.

How to Turn a Demonstration Into a Broad-Based Movement (Updated)

Send in your brown shirts. Trump really screwed up this one:

First there was a Wall of Moms united to protect the peaceful Black Lives Matters protesters in Portland. The footage was absolutely amazing.

Now there is a "Wall of Vets" providing further backup. The group of military veterans joined the Moms and other groups on Friday night, standing united and in full force with signs showing support for the BLM movement. These veterans ranged in age from 20's to senior citizens to disabled.

This is what it's like in Portland, as of last night:

Portland right now. Stunning. pic.twitter.com/g2U5B8aFI3

— Joshua Potash (@JoshuaPotash) July 25, 2020

Those are not Proud Boys with tiki torches. Those are the good guys.

A short history:

Feds started abducting protesters and a wall of moms formed.

They gassed the moms, so dads brought leaf blowers.

They beat a Navy veteran who just wanted to speak with them, then a wall of vets came together.

They attacked volunteer medics, so nurses showed up in scrubs. https://t.co/cQBCjojxq2

— ACLU (@ACLU) July 25, 2020

And he wants to try the same thing in Chicago?

Update:

Via Digby, an article on a very interesting survey done in early June. This paragraph is pretty revealing:

The reasons persuadables moved from opposing to supporting the protests, Prull said, can mostly be attributed to the demonstrations growing and becoming largely peaceful by their second week, with human stories of everyday police brutality saturating the media environment. Trump’s strongman performance on June 1 did almost nothing to turn public opinion against the demonstrations. Instead it likely backfired. “Between those two dates, the big driver that I see is the protests becoming larger and even more peaceful each day,” Prull told me. “The story was being told by people who are being hurt by police every day, and the empathy with that, and frankly the reasonableness of that, was breaking through. And then the president tear-gassing protestors outside the White House lawn, I think, was a nontrivial part of this. You had the draconian response of the government, and then the protests just seemed even more reasonable when it was a bunch of regular people being tear-gassed in the middle of Washington D.C. for the sake of a photo op.”

Trump is playing to maybe 30% of the populace -- the same 30% that's been against everything since Independence. (They were probably against independence, as well.) The rest of the country is leaving him behind.