Killer Clown Attacks American’s Freedoms…and Dr. Fauci

Rep. Jim “Begged Witness Not to Squeal” Jordan went off on Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, during the first round of questioning of Friday’s House Select Committee on COVID Oversight hearing.

The point of the hearing was to address the lack of a national strategy to contain COVID-19.

Jordan, as usual, derailed the hearing’s focus to score political points with Trump.

Fauci can’t say that any crowd is better than another at this point, not just because he’s supposed to provide ideology-free advice as a medical professional — not to mention Fauci can’t advocate shutting down an exercise of the First Amendment when Jordan asks “Should we limit the protesting?”

The doctor can’t say anything which would encourage activity in groups even with masks because it’s just too risky right now.

But Jordan, being the circus clown he is, continues to harangue Fauci in pursuit of usable digital content to help Trump’s agenda. Content later used like this idiotic context-sanitized bullshit:

Take a look around the internet; the right-wing horde seized on Jordan’s clown show with ALL CAPS and wrestling-action verbs like EXPOSES, HAMMERS, PRESSES, CRUSHES to describe Jordan’s antics. (Sadly, C-SPAN used “grills” which isn’t neutral.)

Fauci was too nice and too cautious on this point; he could have pointed to Trump’s misbegotten Tulsa campaign rally and Herman Cain’s subsequent death from COVID-19 but he didn’t.

Nor did Fauci refer to the study later submitted to the record which analyzed COVID-19 case counts after anti-racism protests.

The study found the protests did not result in increased COVID-19 cases.

Source:

Dave, Dhaval and Friedson, Andrew and Matsuzawa, Kyutaro and Sabia, Joseph and Safford, Samuel, Black Lives Matter Protests, Social Distancing, and COVID-19 (June 2020). NBER Working Paper No. w27408, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3632635

So no, Killer Clown Jordan, protests in the streets against systemic racism in policing by mask-wearing participants do not increase COVID-19 cases or deaths.

If you want to be technical about it, there have been too many anecdotes of events indoors like church choir practices which have resulted in clusters of COVID-19 cases and deaths. These kinds of meetings needed to be outdoors with participants wearing masks, even if socially distanced and washing hands as appropriate. Being indoors was the key problem along with not wearing masks.

But there’s one more problem with the clown show Jordan put on.

What Jordan did with his usual ignorant and loud routine was not to educate the public, not to encourage an improvement in services from NIAID or CDC or Dr. Fauci.

What Jordan did with his typical filibuster is to continue to obstruct development of a national response to COVID-19.

What Jordan did was to continue the political genocide and ethnic cleansing of Americans by ensuring federal services are withheld under a national response to the pandemic.

Jordan denied Americans, particularly those in blue cities and minority communities, honest goods and services to which they are entitled. He’ll get away with it, though, because his circus act will fall under Speech or Debate.

Jim Jordan, killer clown, in name and in fact.

 

This is an open thread.

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111 replies
  1. Rayne says:

    Start calling it what it is, people. It’s political genocide and ethnic cleansing.

    Not the first time in recent history we’ve seen ethnic cleansing. The foreclosure crisis caused a massive migration of minority homeowners, diluting their former congressional districts. Before it, Hurricane Katrina did the same to New Orleans on smaller, focused scale.

    But Trump has been engaged in both political genocide and ethnic cleansing since he took office, beginning his first week when he signed the Muslim travel ban, continuing with the caging of asylum-seeking children and the implementation of concentration camps, and through Hurricane Maria when Puerto Rico was denied the aid they deserved resulting in 3000 deaths.

    Trump and his minions don’t need gas chambers. He doesn’t need a gun on Fifth Avenue. He just needs willing morons like Jim Jordan who are both sympathetic to white nationalism and compromised morally and ethically.

    Oh, and stupidity helps.

    • Mary M McCurnin says:

      The population of New Orleans before Katrina was 484,674. It is now 391,006. Most of the people that never made it back home are black. The neighborhood they were allowed to live in, the lower ninth ward, is four feet below sea level. It is still not repaired and is mostly empty.

      Many from the lower ninth ward landed in Oakland after Katrina. They had family members that had moved to the area during WW2 to work at the Richmond shipyard. Current and persistent gentrification has pushed many from this black community out of Oakland.

      Asian, Pacific Islander, and Native American households have also been cruelly dislodged from their homes by opportunistic investors in NorCal.

      The Bay Area is not a liberal oasis. It is just a little more passive aggressive when using its greed to maintain power. Racism in this country is creative, cruel, and never ending. The poor communities of color have been setup to die. Again.

      • Rayne says:

        That, exactly, in concrete numbers — a loss of nearly 20% of New Orleans’ population. To be cleansed even further by COVID-19 and GOP officials who pretend they don’t know what they’re about.

        And NorCal has refused to deal with the problem of housing because of NIMBY though every member of the professional class relies on the goods and services furnished by those they refuse to house. And now they have to deal with additional costs as their “essential” but homeless fungible class drop off like flies. I’m sure someone will code an app for that.

        • P J Evans says:

          The professionals are being pushed out now by the tech millionaires (and billionaires). They’re finding out what it’s like for the people they pushed out.
          (Somehow my heart isn’t bleeding for them.)

          • Mary M McCurnin says:

            It is happening in the little, mostly white town of Sonoma. I lived there for ten years and left in 1998. It was both a beautiful and creepy place to live. Hispanics were allowed to live there because they were needed in the vineyards and restaurants. Everyone else was either a hippy or a professional.

            There was a black man who would ride his bike around town. He eventually left because he was constantly hassled by the police. I think he was a professor.

            The massively rich have moved in. The cost of living is not that different from SF. Half of the homes don’t light up at night because they are empty second homes. Now that people are working from home, the rich are taking over even more.

            When you ride through town, you see lots fancy cars on the road and old people shuffling down the sidewalk. The old people are the ones that are left of the middle class and own their homes outright. They will be gone soon.

            I only go back to visit my daughter and grandkids.

              • Mary M McCurnin says:

                Works for me! Thanks. So many places that I know are written about. I used to live right around the corner from the Clydesdales. Everytime I visit I take my grandkids to the plaza and sit by the duck pond with them. And I love Vella Cheese.

                • punaise says:

                  Cool! There’s also “the Patch” (a large field with vegetable / fruit stand) and a stroll up the hill through the old cemetery.

        • namekarB says:

          You speak of New Orleans instead of Louisiana but when it comes to addressing the housing shortage in Oakland all of a sudden your finger points to all of Northern California as having a NIMBY problem. That is a pretty broad brush and this hick in the sticks of Northern California (looks around) sees a small community, no money and no jobs.

          • Mary M McCurnin says:

            My experiences are mostly with New Orleans and the Bay Area. And the creole and black communities are literally related in both places. Cousins etc. I think it is important to talk about the 80,000 New Orleanians who have not made it back home after Katrina. The people that landed in the Oakland area are being pushed out of their neighborhoods.

            Plus, New Orleans is like a different state within Louisiana.

            I also understand a lot of the problems in North Carolina since I was born in Winston Salem and lived in seven other towns in the south as a young adult.

            A lot of people need help in this country. Or rather, need to be paid a living wage for the work they do.

      • dukachop says:

        “Most of the people that never made it back home are black. The neighborhood they were allowed to live in, the lower ninth ward, is four feet below sea level. It is still not repaired and is mostly empty.”

        The story of the Lower 9th Ward is a heartbreaking tragedy. However, your comment is an inaccurate oversimplification. “One of the neighborhoods…” is a better description. Watching a few post-Katrina documentaries on TV or taking a tour bus through the “Lower 9” does not make you an expert on NOLA neighborhoods. There were and still are multiple neighborhoods that are predominately Black or mixed-race Creole: the 6th Ward, 7th Ward, Gert Town, Pigeon Town, and Hollygrove, to name a few. I am White and live in one of those neighborhoods. “Redlining” was much more complex and nuanced.

        I have never commented on EW before, but felt compelled to correct this tourist misconception.

        • Mary M McCurnin says:

          I am from New Orleans. I was back there in December for my mother’s funeral. She is buried in the Metairie Cemetery.

          I grew up in Uptown and in Metairie. My brother, sister, and father still live there.

          I was talking specifically about the lower ninth ward. I have talked with people from the lower ninth ward that now live in Oakland. I understand the history of the lower ninth ward. I went through Betsy when I was 16 and remember the deaths that occurred in that neighborhood.

          Don’t make assumptions.

          And where are you from?

          • Literay says:

            Mary M McCurnin – August 2, 2020 at 2:02 pm & 7:17 pm
            “The neighborhood they were allowed to live in, the lower ninth ward, is four feet below sea level.”
            “Don’t make assumptions.”
            “And where are you from?”
            Dear Mary M McCurnin,
            I had to wait a couple of days before responding to your posts. I have visceral and emotional connections to the Lower 9. I found the phrase ” ..they were allowed to live in …” demeaning and not respectful of the self enabled agency of the people of the Lower 9. I suspect you did not mean it that way. You might want to compare the owner occupied residence percentages pre-Katrina of your old uptown neighborhood to the Lower 9. The Lower 9 was the highest in the city. The people of the Lower 9th Ward wanted to live there. They did not need anyone to “allow” them.
            To answer your question, I do not need to make assumptions about the Lower 9th Ward, and am trying to not make them about you. And I might ask you where are you from? The Garden District, State St. near Audubon Park, St. Charles Ave, near the country clubs in Metry, Metry ridge? Did you go to public school, or was it Louise S. McGehee School or Metairie Park Country Day? The cultural chasm between certain uptown areas and Metairie areas and the Lower 9th Ward pre-Katrina is huge. Heck the chasm between neighborhoods separated by a mere block is huge, e.g. Garden District and the Irish Channel. These distinctions may be somewhat diminshed post Katrina, with a large proportion of the black middle class scattered in a diaspora having been supplanted to a degree by white folks.
            Well meaning and understanding are different things.
            Oh, by the way, like most of New Orleans the Lower 9th Ward slopes from about 4 ft. above sealevel near the Mississippi River to about 20 ft. below between Claiborne Ave. and the Florida Canal.

        • Rayne says:

          Did the population loss change the demographics of a congressional district? Yes — an entire congressional district, the 7th, was eliminated in 2013 based on the post-Katrina 2010 census. The remaining districts along the coast were rejiggered, diluting minority representation. That’s not a fly-by observation but data.

          In a state which is 59.3% non-Hispanic white, with six congressional districts, only one representative is a person of color. Both of Louisiana’s senators are white. ALL of Louisiana’s congressional delegation are men though the state is 51.1% women.

          Again, not tourist POV. Don’t lecture here when the point long-time community member Mary McCurnin was trying to make was that the racial demographics have changed and the federal government did dick-doodley-squat to help Louisianans get back into their own homes.

  2. BobCon says:

    I think it’s key to dig into how Jordan does this stuff, and a good example is here at about the 1:36:00 point:

    https://www.c-span.org/video/?474168-1/drs-fauci-redfield-testify-national-strategy-combat-covid-19

    Jordan goes off on Fauci, Clyburn gently speaks back, Jordan continues to complain, a Democrat calls out that Jordan is out of order, and Clyburn cuts off the Democrat.

    Jordan does this stuff because there are no consequences. Clyburn uses the word “gentlemanly” at one point, and the time for indulgence is over. This isn’t a hearing on the naming of a courthouse, it’s the worst disease outbreak in a century.

    But a deeper issue is that the committee itself isn’t taking this seriously. The hearing schedule has been only five hearings over the past seven weeks, structured with the five minute pingpong between the two sides, instead of deep probing by a professional staff member.

    It is obviously not an investigative body, nor is it a meaningful public education forum. It’s there as a way for the House to claim it is doing something, and for members to get video clips of their statements. Clyburn is OK with Jordan getting his clips as long as the Democrats get their clips because the substance ultimately is beside the point.

    The Democrats don’t have to run things this way. It is a select committee which was authorized by a party line vote in April, and since the GOP was never going to support it, why not make it as substantive as possible?

    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/23/house-creates-coronavirus-oversight-committee-204316

    • Rayne says:

      The Democrats don’t seem to be able to organize ahead of time to force out into public’s consciousness that the Republicans in the Senate, with the aid of obstructive House GOP, are deliberately choosing to kill Americans by gross neglect.

      I don’t subscribe to the idea it’s senior Dems doing, more that they are too easily fragmented by other demands and the need to organize remotely further exacerbates the problem.

      It’s not as if Clyburn in particular doesn’t understand the stakes or the kinds of monsters we are up against.

      See: https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/status/1289925987103252481

      EDIT: I meant to add one more thing. It’s easy to tell who is white when they assume it’s just a snap of the fingers for persons of color to make things happen. Think about that.

      • John K says:

        If by some chance the Democrats, in spite of themselves, manage to win the presidency and the senate, can we at least coerce Biden into moving quickly to reverse the ability of Republicans to suppress voting? Can we have legislation ready to go on day one that creates nationwide (or statewide) registration and simplifies the ability to cast votes, maybe via internet?
        Let the GOP scream all it wants, they really have gone way past their expiration date and should never be allowed to get this level of power again. They clearly do not have the best interests of Chris and Pat Citizen at heart. Surely something can be done.

        • P J Evans says:

          “If by some chance the Democrats, in spite of themselves, manage to win the presidency and the senate”
          LOL. I take it you plan to vote only if they’re clearly winning in the polls?

          • John K says:

            Funny you should say that. I live in Louisiana and pretty much waste my vote every election because, even though I’m a registered Independent, I vote Democrat 95% of the time. The other 5% of the time I will vote for the lesser of Republican evils, because there is no Democrat or Independent in the race. But I do vote.

            • Rayne says:

              Your vote getting “wasted” has everything to do with gerrymandering in such a way that GOP voters constitute a larger percentage of the district. Until disaffected Dems and Independents who don’t vote and unhappy GOP voters willing to break with their party vote together against the GOP, the entire ballot will remain predominantly GOP.

              It can change. Watch what’s happening in NC. Watch what MI has done to end partisan gerrymandering.

        • Rayne says:

          Dude, it won’t be up to Biden, it’ll be up to Congress. The first bill the 116th Congress pass in the Democratic-led House was H.R. 1, the For the People Act of 2019 which expanded voting rights, limited partisan gerrymandering, strengthened ethics rules, and limited the influence of private donor money in politics.

          It’s been sitting on that goddamned slack-jawed asswipe Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s desk since March 8, 2019.

          This will happen again no matter who is in the White House if Democrats do not win a majority in the Senate.

          Can we, you ask? Who is “we”?? What are YOU doing to help ensure a Democratic majority in the Senate?? That’s the problem in a nutshell — the GOP takes their grip on power seriously and you’re here asking me as if this is a game of “Mother May I?”

          There are no guarantees right now. Don’t ask me, ask yourself what you are doing to make it possible to re-pass H.R. 1 under the 117th Congress and get it through a veto-proof Senate in January 2021.

          • graham firchlis says:

            Could HR 1 be wrapped in a spending bill, funding say election security upgrades, and pass under simple majority reconciliation rules?

            • graham firchlis says:

              Poison? Rather, let us say, beneficially, more like getting a neccessary medication down the throat of an unwilling dog. Wrapped in a meatball, quickly done.

              With a 50/50 Senate, D House and President, could happen.

              Any problem?

              • BobCon says:

                The 51 vote Byrd Rule in the Senate is basically only for program changes that primarily affect revenues and expenditures, not ones which have other major effects.

                So more money for an existing fighter program would work under the rule, but a major change in voting rights laws would not.

                You could in theory get non-budget measures added, but the rules in the Senate for killing them are pretty easy to win.

    • dude says:

      So, is Cliburn able to make different rules of conduct and inquiry on his particular committee, or is this some sense of the House rule of order that goes back to N. Pelosi?

      I agree the 5 minute, made-for-news sound byte etiquette is frustrating because it limits thoughtful and fuller inquiry–rather like being allowed one Twitter post before moving to the next person in line. But when is this format decided and by whom? Is there really no penalty for violating it? Jordan needs to go to the “time out” room once-in-awhile if only for not wearing a mask.

      • P J Evans says:

        IIRC the House rules also require wearing a jacket – and Jordan flouts that one all the time. He should have been disciplined for that long ago, and repeatedly. His “rules are for others” attitude isn’t a good thing.

        • punaise says:

          At the risk of insensitivity to the truly afflicted, Jordan should be wearing a straight jacket.

  3. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Nicely done. Agree that Trump has been aiming at the destruction of his enemies (anyone not bowed down before him) since he took office. With great power comes great opportunity, as Roy Cohn might have said. Who else would make Neonazi Stephen Miller his right hand man? He would also have been planning to steal – not win – the election since he took office, which for him, nicely coincides with the “opportunity” presented by Covid-19.

    • Rayne says:

      Trump and his minions are doing what the foreclosure crisis pointed to but couldn’t do permanently: eliminate a swath of people who vote blue.

      This overt disregard and gross negligence does one more thing the GOP has long wanted: it removes a percentage of people who draw down on Social Security and Medicare, leaving behind whatever remains of their investment into the system from their paychecks if heirs cannot claim it.

      The GOP wants us to die and they’re using misdirection, sleight of hand, and circus acts to prevent us from seeing this at work.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      Cutting or eliminating FDR’s reforms, along with LBJ’s, would fit right into that genocide. Destroying and privatizing the Post Office would, too. It would interfere with the fundamental right to vote; privatize its real estate, databases, and benefits – and remove a fundamental constitutional communications channel between people and their government. It would also destroy the union that put sustainable middle class America within reach of many, including women and people of color. And that’s just one project. This is not a culture war. It’s just war.

      • dude says:

        It is “class” war. But public servants cannot say that out loud (although Sen. Sanders might be an exception). Would-be public servants cannot say that out loud. I subsume race to class and maybe that offends some, but at this point I can’t really see much of a difference anymore. Class is a category and label of economists. If you are going to have a middle-class, you are going to have the others too.

        • Rayne says:

          It’s class war only to the extent that it’s the wealthy who can afford to flee COVID and the rest of the country which can’t, those who benefit from undercompensating workers and paying lower taxes and those on the short end of the stick, those labeled “essential” but treated as fungible.

          And unfortunately persons of color compose a large segment of that fungible “essential” class.

          There really is no middle class.

          • NorskieFlamethrower says:

            If there is “no middle class” (as I too believe) then the response to C-19 is class warfare initiated and enabled by the political class of both parties.

            • Rayne says:

              Norskie, one party is being disproportionately affected by COVID-19. Only one party is making any effort to ensure people are getting aid. I think you can shove your both parties crap sideways.

              It’s not much of a class war when it’s less than 5% against 95% when it comes to economics. The only middle in this is the cluster who are brainwashed into believing they aren’t affected and immune like the 30-year-old who admitted in the hospital before he died he’d made a mistake.

              • NorskieFlamethrower says:

                Rayne, I am really surprised that you don’t get it. Racism has been used in order to get the white poor and working class to support measures that hurt all poor and working class under the guise that it only effects “those people”. This use of C-19 as genocide is no different from convincing poor whites to oppose national health insurance because it only hurts people of color. Hmmmm… the political class of both parties work in the interest of the same folks.

                  • NorskieFlamethrower says:

                    What the hell Rayne??!!! Of course gender plays a role….huh? Where did that come from, seriously??!!

                    • Rayne says:

                      Your harping on class, that’s what happened. It’s not class when it’s about xenophobia. It’s not about class when the economic divide is 5% v 95%.

                      Your harping on it keeps it inside a stale, false frame which excuses xenophobia and obstructs the view of a consolidating oligarchy.

                      I am so done with white dudes yammering about class and economic anxiety.

                • Tracy Lynn says:

                  Norskie, please educate me. How is the “political class” of the Democratic Party working in the interest of the same people as the “political class” of the Republicans? Not exactly getting what ur selling here.

                  • NorskieFlamethrower says:

                    Seriously??!! The money that supports the Democratic Party as an institution and it’s leadership and defines their interests doesn’t come from the same place that does the money that supports the Republican Party and it’s entire elected leadership??!!! Well, maybe the Dems don’t get any Russian Russian cashmoney but I think you get the point!

  4. graham firchlis says:

    Sometimes less is more. Fauci struggled with Jordan’s irrationalities from a rational POV, the hesitant search for polite deflection now seen by those who wish to as evasiveness. No knock on Fauci. Jordan is a practiced performer, Fauci isn’t.

    An alternative response to propaganda is keeping to the message you want to convey while leaving the indefensible hanging out, twisting in the wind.

    Each of Jordan’s taunts could have been answered by restating best public practices and nothing more:

    Wear a mask.

    Social distance, at least 6 feet.

    Avoid crowds, especially indoors.

    Clean hands often.

    And repeat, no more. Turning that advice into public policy and law is Jordan’s responsibility. Put it back on him.

    Repeat the advice, relentlessly, at every opportunity. Stay on message. Avoid equivocation. Don’t get drawn scrabbling down a rhetorical rabbit hole.

    [The above entirely based on personal experience.]

    • Wm. Boyce says:

      I feel sorry for Dr. Fauci. In spite of his best efforts, and he has been extraordinarily diplomatic as his position demands, the right-wing drooling fanatics heedlessly push on w/their campaign to kill people.
      Our country is just this side of turning into a fascist state.

  5. earlofhuntingdon says:

    I like the Guardian, It’s the best free English language newspaper on the web. But Katharine Viner’s post-Snowden editorship has moved it well toward the namby-pamby right. The apparent credulousness of her headline writers is in a class of its own. What credible journalist, for example, would write this headline: “Media to be banned from Republican Convention due to coronavirus restrictions.” It’s LOL funny. Has Donald Trump ever done anything in his life because of his concern for someone else? Has he ever banned press coverage when he thinks he can take advantage of it?

    Trump lives for press coverage. It’s the hot air that turns his empty sack into a balloon. Trump hates the press only when he can’t control it. Trump is banning the press because he’s afraid of what the pictures would show: The sparse attendance. The forced closeness and maskless camaraderie. The absence of older politicos, afraid that what happened to Herman Cain will happen to them. The resignation in the voice as it acclaims the nomination of the god-emperor who might destroy the GOP.

    Holding a major party’s nominating convention in conclave, as if it were voting for pope, would be an ominous first. Did it really take place, were votes actually cast or counted? But before noting that, the Guardian might have asked, “What convention?” The GOP’s Charlotte convention was abandoned because local officials responsibly sought to impose health restrictions. The Jacksonville convention never got off the ground: it wasn’t cancelled, it never existed. Credible arrangements for Plan C have yet to be announced. But the Guardian, like a charter member of the MSM, is sticking with what the campaign says it’s doing, leaving people to sort out reality on their own.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/02/media-to-be-banned-from-republican-convention-due-to-coronavirus-restrictions

    • klynn says:

      So, if the country could not view it, it did not happen!

      Biden runs uncontested!

      (Snark and serious)

    • ducktree says:

      Do you think anyone in the media will take an interest in where all those donor funds raised and spent for the “events” of plans A and B went? Up in smoke ~ or down who’s snake hole that lucre was euchred?

      EDT: They’re still searching for all that inaugural event cash of 2016 . . .

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      One would think raising and spending money from the public for a federal election would be a federal matter. I hope that Joe Biden’s administration either admits that conventions are there to launder money or properly investigates how Trump and his GOP raised and spent the money for his inauguration and its convention. Because if it involves Trump, the graft will be there somewhere.

      • P J Evans says:

        The GOP convention this year certainly seems to be a money-laundering event. Past conventions – I don’t want to go there, and in any case, you’d have to be able to get *the parties* to cooperate.

      • Rugger9 says:

        Well, the convention specifics are run by the parties, but I would think that since the contributions and spending crossed several state lines, federal charges like wire fraud might apply.

        One wonders whether all of those donors would be willing to continue shoveling their money into DJT’s pocket if his campaign goes down in flames by self-inflicted stupidity. Either they pull their cash or sue over the lack of effort by DJT’s campaign (read: Jared) to make an honest effort. I’m sure there are a few skinflints in the bunch.

        As noted by Ducktree, we still don’t know what happened to all of the 2016 campaign cash and especially the 2017 inaugural cash. As others have also noted and I’ve done myself, there is always a purpose to DJT and WH machinations, and it almost always involves more money for DJT (and friends). That’s why Kodak is getting money to make chemicals for make HCQ which is still not a valid treatment for COVID-19.

    • Chetnolian says:

      The piece seems pretty well sourced to me. It’s a news item not op ed and says”reportedly” quoting a GOP spokesperson and including doubts. As to the namby pamby right if that means not supporting Momentum, so be it.

      • earlofhuntingdon says:

        As is also common in the US, the reporting and the headline writers do not see eye-to-eye. Many readers only gets as far as the headline. The sourcing appears to come from Tom McCarthy and the AP, though it provides more context than the average American story.

        My criticism was about the disconnect between the claimed rationale for banning all journalists – public health concerns – and Trump’s inconsistent efforts to get states to promptly reopen their schools and businesses. It is also about Trump’s lifelong manipulation of the press. When he can’t manipulate it, he cries foul and tries to ban or disrupt it, as he does with any popular criticism of him, such as the video distribution service, Tik Tok.

        If Trump saw value in the press coverage, rather than ban it entirely, he would have proposed some sort of lottery. And LOL about the reference to Momentum, which has as much to do with today’s Guardian as Tony Benn or Michael Foot.

    • posaune says:

      Conclave is the right word, Earl. Besides bad optics and their bent for secrecy, is there any procedural complaint to be made? I’m having trouble getting my head around this and what could happen: anoint Pence instead? Betsy deVos as VP? Seems ripe for trickery in any case. Are the MAGA’s just supposed to wait for the white smoke?

  6. Molly Pitcher says:

    In addition to the obvious racial callousness, I would say that the wanton disregard for the elderly in this pandemic nicely suits the GOP objective of wiping out Social Security. Eliminate a lot of the users and you don’t have to deal with that pesky future insolvency.

    • Rugger9 says:

      That was TX Lt Governor Patrick’s point as well, echoed by the rest of the GOP in quiet or somewhat louder voices: the old folks ought to be honored to clear out for the younger generation. My response: you first.

  7. skua says:

    Beside JJ being a bufon (best pronounced with a nasal, expectorant, Spanish-French inflection), I was disturbed to hear important distinctions being swept aside with Rep. A. Kim asking of Fauci, and the others being questioned, “is the federal government was doing everything possible to respond to the coronavirus crisis?”

    AIUI any mature adult is going to see this question as either begging for a fairytale in reply or as a “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?” type question.

    “Everything possible” goes way beyond “Everything reasonable”. And it is the deficits in reasonable responses by Trump that need to be highlighted with the aim of having them addressed.

  8. NorskieFlamethrower says:

    The “clown show” will not stop until we understand that everyone who is not in the 5% that owns the country is owned by the 5%. It’s that simple!

  9. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Donald Trump screws up everything he touches: family, business, politics, governance. Yet he keeps rising from his failures, like some Hammer film Dracula. Predictions of his destruction have always been premature.

    The next administration ought not blithely assume, then, like some aged professor of the occult, that once frozen in the castle moat, he will stay there. It should follow him to his crypt with its bag of legal powers, investigate him properly, follow the money, and impose appropriate consequences for his conduct. And don’t spare the garlic, because the Republican Party has turned itself into ‘Salem’s Lot.

    That’s not being vindictive or “criminalizing politics,” the self-serving phrase used by Bush Sr. to undercut his Iran-Contra critics. It is an appropriate response to the probable cause Trump leaves littered round him like McDonald’s wrappers. That should also serve as a deterrent to those who would use Trump as a model for their own assault on the rule of law and representative government. John Yoo and Tom Cotton come to mind.

    • MB says:

      The strategic question to be asked of all who might oppose Trump is: what is the most effective way to deal with someone, who despite his support of white supremacy, racism and the whole laundry list of abhorrent ideologies, essentially has no principled personal ideology and whose overall meta-strategy, when you get right down to it, is to create chaos with whatever method works. This produces the desired effect of overwhelm, confusion, apathy, distraction, deflection etc. It’s almost like we need to develop an effective national psychological strategy to counter his methods, rather than a solely political one…

      • AndTheSlithyToves says:

        Funny you should ask, MB. Apparently, there are some folks who are thinking along these lines. From a Salon article linked below: “Earlier this summer, a bipartisan group of former government officials and political scientists gathered together for the Transition Integrity Project, which largely consisted of a series of war games to project possible outcomes if and when Trump refuses to concede.”
        Her analogy that Trump is an abusive partner who knows the gig is up, and, as a result, is even more dangerous, is an interesting take.
        https://www.salon.com/2020/08/03/trump-is-getting-truly-desperate–and-that-means-hes-increasingly-dangerous/

        • MB says:

          The head of the TIP group (forget his name at the moment) was interviewed this morning on Democracy Now. He outlined 4 possible scenarios ranging from less-than-rosy to moderately difficult to worrisome to dangerous. It’s good people are starting to strategize now, though…

    • drouse says:

      It’s what should be done but Biden by his nature is going to be tempted by the siren call of “we must look forward not back” and “we must heal the nation”. Which will start the instant the election results are in. I’m sure that it hasn’t escaped the notice of everyone here that the lack of any real consequences beyond temporary reputational loss has only encouraged subsequent Republican administrations to push the boundaries even further. There is a real need to come down hard and make a few examples as a pour encourager les autres but I’m not hopeful. Even if Biden can withstand the media shitstorm the right will raise, there is a reason the right has been stacking the courts. We might get some convictions but they will be tossed upon appeal.

      • Fenix says:

        This is what I’ve been fearful of since the announcement of Biden as the Dem nominee. Both he and Pelosi have histories of looking ‘forward not back’, but as you point out this only emboldens Republicans into pushing the envelope further the next time simply because doing so results in far more positive rewards than negative consequences.

        Also @AndTheSlithyToves the analogy of Trump as an abusive partner who becomes more dangerous as he realizes the gig is up is very apt from my perspective.

  10. OldTulsaDude says:

    One list that needs to be kept so it is never forgotten or those on it never forgiven is a list of all those who were Trump apologists. I submit Hugh Hewitt to that list.

    • Chris.EL says:

      Hewitt! Seconded!! Read his recent love note for Trumplestiltkin in Wapo and was thinking who is this guy?

      Off topic perhaps: Coronavirus covid-19 immunity or a individual’s ability to fight off an infection may be augmented by past immunizations such as TB, flu, or pneumonia vaccinations.

      It’s possible that POC have not been receiving the immunizations in the past and that is why they are being impacted harder by the pandemic virus.

      I remember getting the polio sugar cube at school in Oakland CA before fifth grade.

      I’ve been going to my local California health department for my flu shot last few years now. Cost: $2.00!!!

      • joulie says:

        HughHew is the poster child for polite creeps tryin’ to be acceptable to all. Please make no comparisons to 1930’s

        Germany. Or mayb

  11. Epicurus says:

    “What Jordan did with his typical filibuster is to continue to obstruct development of a national response to COVID-19.” There is never going to be a “national response” to COVID-19 as long as Trump is in power because he has neither the desire nor the intent nor the ability to develop such a program. He only wants a machina ex deus in the form of a vaccine he can praise as personally accomplished. I would add Trump is feeding JJ’s misanthropy by taking away Obamacare in the middle of a pandemic. Sort of like a Scrooge request – die and decrease the surplus population.

    Right now the Democrats are in the scenario of the old Untouchables movie w/ Sean Connery. They are and have been bringing a knife to a Republican gun fight. The country will both lose and gain something when the Dems figure out they need to bring a bigger gun to the gun fight. DJT and his enabler JJ are only going to hang around and make life miserable for America post election until the Dems find a bigger gun. For Trump it is most likely drowning him in lawsuits and indictments post election. Give him his own medicine. For JJ make life miserable for him and his staff every second they are on Capitol grounds. Heck start investigating him now on ethical grounds for his Ohio State activities. Make him suffer at a bare minimum rotten publicity in his home district and make other Republicans stand up and defend a sex abuse apologist.

  12. Molly Pitcher says:

    Buckle your seat belts, major deflection and distraction is sure to be coming from the White House today after multiple sources are reporting that Cyrus Vance Jr is very busy.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/03/nyregion/donald-trump-taxes-cyrus-vance.html

    “D.A. Is Investigating Trump and His Company Over Fraud, Filing Suggests”

    “The office of the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., made the disclosure in a new court filing arguing Mr. Trump’s accountants should turn over his tax returns.

    The Manhattan district attorney’s office suggested on Monday that it has been investigating President Trump and his company for possible bank and insurance fraud, a significantly broader inquiry than the prosecutors have acknowledged in the past.

    The suggestion by the office of the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., came in a new federal court filing arguing that Mr. Trump’s accountants should have to comply with a subpoena seeking eight years of his personal and corporate tax returns. Mr. Trump had asked a judge to declare the subpoena invalid.”

    • P J Evans says:

      They’re using Cohen’s testimony about property valuations and the reporting at WaPo and NYT, as the basis.
      (I’d rather it be Letitia James and NYS doing this.)

      • posaune says:

        I thought it interesting that in the Michael Cohen hearing, AOC asked him if Trump inflated property values for building insurance policy applications. Cohen replied that Trump’s SOP was to over-inflate value for insurance. I’d be interested to know if that aspect is part of this filing. I’m pretty sure that in NYS, insurance fraud will invalidate a C of O.

  13. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Donald Trump is maneuvering Trump toady Tata into being eligible to become Acting SecDef three days before the November election. Why might he want to change his SecDef so soon before he’s voted out of office? Could he be planning some really crazy shit for the election, and wants his toady-in-waiting there to authorize it?

    Congress, the service chiefs, and everyone else might bear that in mind. For Trump, this election is double or nothing. If he can’t cheat enough to win, he won’t sleep until it’s less than nothing for everyone else. He thinks laws and restraint are for suckers. Bill Barr and a bunch of toadies and gun-totin’ yahoos agree with him.

  14. OldTulsaDude says:

    There is some good news today – MSNBC has moved Chuck Todd to 1 pm and elevated Nicole Wallace to 2 hours. Why Todd is still anywhere is a mystery, though.

    • NorskieFlamethrower says:

      And where is Katy Tur? And for that matter why is Brian Williams still allowed at least two hours a day? And Why is Steve Kornake not back at his alma mater reporting college football scores for the school newspaper?

    • graham firchlis says:

      Could do entirely without Nicole Wallace. Long time true believer flack for Jeb and GW Bush, she tirelessly normalized the horrific danger of Sarah Palin one heartbeat from the presidency.

      No use for Rick Wilson or Michael Steele either. They all eagerly aided and abetted the rise of the Radical Right, resulting in Donald Trump.

      Shedding crocodile tears for big bucks on TV is insufficient penance. Can’t bear the hypocrisy,

  15. nehoa says:

    I have only been in Ohio once as an adult. I went to visit a hospital system in Gallipoli, on the border with W. Virginia. I got off a plane in Columbus, and drove to Gallipoli. Lots of farmland, mostly corn, for about 3/4 of the trip. Then it started to get hilly, then big hilly. All the highway signs were about church camps, and elder care. Finally, I got to Gallipoli. I had a 1:00 pm meeting at the hospital. Drove around to look for a restaurant to eat lunch. Nothing! Went to the hospital to see if they had a cafeteria. Fortunately they did. Had a big special on different kinds of cheese for your sandwiches. Had a burger with Swiss. So daring! Had my meeting. They were not interested in medical research despite my having been told they were. Left.
    Later found found out that I had relatives who had lived and died there. Deliverance city my friends. Don’t ever want to cross the river to W. Virginia.

  16. earlofhuntingdon says:

    People are raving about Jonathan Swan’s interview with Donald Trump for Axios/HBO. A major theme is their surprise that Donald Trump, even after repeated questioning, refused to allow Swan to, “access his humanity.”

    I’m a wee bit surprised. Donald Trump was showing Swan his humanity. That’s all he’s got. He wishes Ghislaine Maxwell well because he knows her well. He doesn’t know John Lewis because Lewis never wanted anything from him or paid and praised him to get it. He doesn’t care that 158,000 people are dead – many of them owing to his personal failures – and he won’t care about the next 158,000. That’s what he is.

    https://twitter.com/jpierni/status/1290599160362696704
    https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1290659718193713153

    • Tom says:

      I kept waiting for Mr. Swan to ask the President if he could still repeat those five words from his dementia screening test. Hint: “Person …”

      Otherwise, I enjoyed hearing the new Trumpisms–“Going herd”; “We’re lower than the world”; and “We’re last, meaning we’re first”.

    • Tom says:

      The President was obviously uncomfortable discussing the passing of the late John Lewis and the legacy he left to the nation. Perhaps Trump was thinking of how his own funeral service eulogies are likely to go when the time comes. Imagine a line-up of people coming up to the microphone to stand by the casket, one at a time, only to offer a variation of the same statement: “I’d like to say a few words to celebrate the life and accomplishments of the late Donald J. Trump, but you see, I signed this non-disclosure agreement …”

      • Tom says:

        Also, I’ve heard reports of slowdowns, delays in delivery, and cuts to service at the U.S. Postal Service, now under the direction of Postmaster General Louis deJoyboy, but maybe what’s really going on is sabotage.

        • P J Evans says:

          DeJoy (AKA DeLay) was put in to sabotage it before the election. The Dems aren’t happy.
          ht tps://twitter.com/alizaslav/status/1291122535560617984 (thread)

  17. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Aurora, CO, cops can’t seem to tell the difference between a soccer mom’s van and a stolen motorcycle. They don’t stop to ask before arresting and handcuffing the black teens and children inside. SNAFU for Aurora. The Secret Service rammed a mid-size car in NW DC yesterday. Also mistakenly claimed it was stolen. Two black moms and their babies inside. The SS’s remit does not normally include grand theft auto. I wonder what they were really doing. Or were they both using the same faulty license plate scanner and database.

    https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/aurora-police-detain-black-family-after-mistaking-their-vehicle-as-stolen
    https://crooksandliars.com/2020/08/secret-service-rams-young-mothers-parked

    • P J Evans says:

      The Aurora chief has apologized and blamed the license-plate scanner. Which conveniently can’t report the lies. (Shouldn’t they have checked the vehicle description?)

    • Eureka says:

      There are no words. ‘Soul-chilling’ might fit but that’s not even enough.

      In shared tragic unfairness, it reminds of the separate but not entirely unrelated (as minorities are disproportionate targets) issue of rental car corporations using the police for repo services of actually non-stolen, paid-for vehicles. People’s lives are forever altered, jobs and homes lost over this … practice. “Oh well” say those with the power to change it:

      Bankrupt Hertz is still wrongly accusing customers of stealing its cars, lawsuit claims
      https://www.inquirer.com/business/retail/hertz-stolen-car-grand-theft-auto-malofiy-bankruptcy-lawsuit-20200803.html

      (Sidenote, the plaintiffs’ attorney here is the same guy who unsuccessfully sued Led Zep over STH ‘plagiarism’.)

    • P J Evans says:

      They’ve done recounts of areas before. I’ve seen it for NYC 1870 and Philly 1870; they probably aren’t the only places it’s been done.

      • ducktree says:

        That’s an interesting census vintage, 1870 … let’s see, what else was in the news in the prior decade. Hmm.

        • P J Evans says:

          It’s interesting when you can find the same people in both the first count and the second one, in the same area. As much fun as finding them counted twice but in different places, even different states.

          • ducktree says:

            My immediate ancestors were counted in the 1880 census at the same address as on my 1954 birth certificate in the Bronx. My maternal Grandmother (then 8 yo) born in Athens, PA, was the anchor baby – her parents and little sister Mary (at 2 yo in 1880) were born in Ireland. The 1890 Census were burned up in a conflagration – so the story goes.

            Them were the days…

            • P J Evans says:

              The 1890 census really did burn – most of it. There’s some left, but it’s not really useful. (My personal head canon is that the fire was due to short circuits from time-traveling genealogists who were tryign to scan all of it with portable hardware. But it was probably something mundane, like the courthouses that burned down.)

  18. Eureka says:

    hashtag Isaiah’s an ass-kicker, hope you Carolinians, Delmarvans, & the rest of you points north made it through the other side, and (now) the upstate NYers/ Vermonsters & Quebecois come out ok. So many tornadoes, warnings, floods, rescues, and all that; whitecapped ‘rivers’ running down the roads.

    Thinking of y’all, hoping you are safe and sheltered.

  19. earlofhuntingdon says:

    In its US coverage, the Guardian’s headline writers continue to toe an inoffensive line. They insist, for example, that Trump holding his nominating convention speech on the South Lawn of the White House, “would further blur the line” between government and his personal business.

    No, it would not. It would be another crossing or erasure of the line, not a blurring of it. Everyone involved, except Trump and Pence, would be committing an illegal act – by violating the Hatch Act, which the body of the Guardian article nicely points out. When Trump does these things, he is committing a theft of property. He is asserting personal ownership and use rights over government property. He does it all the time.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/05/trump-republican-national-convention-speech-white-house-south-lawn

  20. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Today’s separate but equal doctrine: qualified immunity.

    The case is Jamison v. McClendon. Clarence Jamison is a Pennsylvania welder. He was stopped in 2013 and racially profiled by white Mississippi police officer Carlton Reeves. The encounter lasted two hours. His car was strip searched, drug dog-sniffed, and Jamison held and interrogated. All to no avail. He had committed no crime and several computer searches backed him up. Jamison sued McClendon for damages and lost, owing to the S.Ct.’s expansive interpretation of “qualified immunity.” The magical thing is that Jamison survived. He wasn’t shot while trying to escape, he wasn’t beaten or formally arrested. That welder from Pennsylvania has some composure.

    The thing that most seemed to upset officer McClendon is not that Jamison was driving a stolen car, speeding, operating a vehicle with faulty lights or without proper documentation, or running drugs. He wasn’t. He was driving home across country. The thing that most seemed to upset officer McClendon was that Jamison was driving a Mercedes-Benz, a twelve-year old convertible. In McClendon’s worldview, Jamison should only have been able to do that by stealing it or running drugs. In effect, Jamison violated a sumptuary law that prohibited him from driving like a white man. Qualified immunity is a giant hole in the civil rights of Americans, mostly people of color.

    https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/federal-judge-likens-qualified-immunity-to-segregation-in-brutal-opinion-criticizing-supreme-court-precedent/

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      Mea culpa. In the second line, second para, I mistakenly said Carlton Reeves, instead of Nick McClendon. McClendon is the officer who made the stop. Reeves is the US district court judge for southern MS, who wrote the scathing opinion about qualified immunity.

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