Last Call For Trump Goes Viral, Con't

As the US comes up on 200,000 dead from COVID-19, journalist Bob Woodward's book on the Trump regime, "Rage", confirms that Trump knew the virus was deadly back in February, but downplayed it on purpose, wasting months that could have saved thousands of lives.

President Donald Trump admitted he knew weeks before the first confirmed US coronavirus death that the virus was dangerous, airborne, highly contagious and "more deadly than even your strenuous flus," and that he repeatedly played it down publicly, according to legendary journalist Bob Woodward in his new book "Rage." 

"This is deadly stuff," Trump told Woodward on February 7.

In a series of interviews with Woodward, Trump revealed that he had a surprising level of detail about the threat of the virus earlier than previously known. "Pretty amazing," Trump told Woodward, adding that the coronavirus was maybe five times "more deadly" than the flu.

Trump's admissions are in stark contrast to his frequent public comments at the time insisting that the virus was "going to disappear" and "all work out fine."

The book, using Trump's own words, depicts a President who has betrayed the public trust and the most fundamental responsibilities of his office. In "Rage," Trump says the job of a president is "to keep our country safe." But in early February, Trump told Woodward he knew how deadly the virus was, and in March, admitted he kept that knowledge hidden from the public.

"I wanted to always play it down," Trump told Woodward on March 19, even as he had declared a national emergency over the virus days earlier. "I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic."

If instead of playing down what he knew, Trump had acted decisively in early February with a strict shutdown and a consistent message to wear masks, social distance and wash hands, experts believe that thousands of American lives could have been saved.

We now know, in his own words, what Trump is guilty of.

Donald Trump intentionally misled the nation on the threat of COVID-19.

Frankly, this should be the end of Trump, but if there was any chance of his resignation it would have happened years ago. Luckily, we have an election in order to make that happen. In case you need a recap:

The startling revelations in "Rage," which CNN obtained ahead of its September 15 release, were made during 18 wide-ranging interviews Trump gave Woodward from December 5, 2019 to July 21, 2020. The interviews were recorded by Woodward with Trump's permission, and CNN has obtained copies of some of the audio tapes. 

"Rage" also includes brutal assessments of Trump's presidency from many of his former top national security officials, including former Defense Secretary James Mattis, former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Mattis is quoted as calling Trump "dangerous" and "unfit" to be commander in chief. Woodward writes that Coats "continued to harbor the secret belief, one that had grown rather than lessened, although unsupported by intelligence proof, that Putin had something on Trump." Woodward continues, writing that Coats felt, "How else to explain the president's behavior? Coats could see no other explanation."

The Director of National Intelligence thought Donald Trump was compromised by Putin.

Trump fired him as a result.

We get to fire Trump in less than eight weeks.

Biden, His Time, Con't

The election will come down to eight swing states: Arizona, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Florida we all know, but Politico's team is wisely adding Georgia and Minnesota as the "canary" states. Inside those eight states, there are counties that will decide the entire state. Like it or not, the hard math of the Electoral College means these counties will almost certainly decide the President in November.

Minnesota’s Iron Range. Wisconsin’s “WOW” counties. Suburban Charlotte. The city of Philadelphia. 

Each is a shorthand for the building blocks of victory in the swing states that will determine the presidential election. 

At the traditional, post-Labor Day start of the fall campaign, POLITICO is zeroing in on eight critical battlegrounds where the 2020 election will be won or lost: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The selection of these swing states is based on a variety of factors — polling, demography, past and recent election history, voter registration, interviews with state and local party officials, strategists and pollsters. The individual campaigns have also revealed the places they are prioritizing through staffing, resource allocation, TV and radio advertising and candidate visits. 

Within each of these swing states, the roadmap ahead for President Donald Trump and Joe Biden is clear. The president must max out his performance with rural voters. Biden needs a robust turnout in the big cities, particularly among African-American voters. Trump must halt his erosion in the suburbs, and turn out white working-class voters who didn’t vote in 2016. Biden has to increase his current share among Latino voters and recapture some of the places that flipped to Trump after twice voting for President Barack Obama. 

Together, these eight states represent 127 electoral votes — and a departure from the fairly static map of the pre-Trump era. Missing from this swing state list are familiar presidential battlegrounds like Colorado, Ohio and Virginia. In their stead are states like Arizona and Georgia — which haven’t voted for a Democratic nominee since the 1990s — and Minnesota, which hasn’t voted for a Republican in nearly a half-century. 

The contours of the 2020 map reflect the disruptive political forces unleashed by Trump. His path to victory in 2016 revealed the limits of the Obama coalition, and drew sharp lines of demarcation around what’s been called the diploma divide: the gap between white voters with a college degree and those without one.

Race, class and educational attainment have always played pivotal roles in presidential voting. But, as with everything else, Trump has accelerated and amplified existing differences — while harnessing them to his political advantage. 

The question is whether his brand of smash-mouth, feed-the-base politics has gone too far — or whether there is still room to grow his base. His campaign is convinced it there is. 

Still, while national polls have generated a portrait of Biden holding a commanding lead, it’s something of a mirage. In the swing states that matter, it is trench warfare: Biden’s advantage, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average, is within the margin of error in half of the eight states. And Trump is a president whose support has been notoriously difficult for pollsters to survey. 

Consider this fact: From July 2016 until Election Day in the three Rust Belt states that Trump unexpectedly picked off — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — 94 public polls were released. Trump led in just three of them.

It's not 2016. The battle is different.  Trump is hurting with seniors on COVID-19, but Biden is still underperforming significantly with Latino voters because Trump treating Cruz and Rubio like trash in 2016 hurt him, and now both have come crawling back to his boots to lick, so we're getting back to normal Latino voting percentages in Florida and Arizona.

Having said that, Trump is behind in both states.

Even if you give Trump Florida and Georgia, Biden wins with the other six states in a cake walk.

Trump knows this.  He knows a late October Surprise can win this for him, the problem is he's terrible at keeping secrets. He's already blown his Post Office mail ballot delay and COVID-19 vaccine scenarios, and he's running out of options.

That makes him extraordinarily dangerous.

Trump Goes Postal, Con't

House Democrats would definitely like to take a look at Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's alleged campaign finance felonies, as well as his apparent lying to Congress.

The House Oversight and Reform Committee is launching an investigation into embattled Postmaster General Louis DeJoy following a report alleging he pushed employees at the logistics company he led to make campaign contributions to Republican candidates and reimbursed them for the donations. 

Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat from New York who chairs the Oversight panel, said in a statement DeJoy "could face criminal exposure" for the scheme reported by The Washington Post, as well as for lying to her panel under oath, if the accusation are true. 

"We will be investigating this issue, but I believe the Board of Governors must take emergency action to immediately suspend Mr. DeJoy, who they never should have selected in the first place," she said.

Like I said earlier this month, Louis DeJoy is facing prison time from a state investigation in North Carolina over this too.

The problem is Trump can't steal the election without rigging the postal service to "lose" votes from particular ZIP codes, something a professional logistics man like DeJoy was hired to sabotage.  Trump has to cover him until after the election at least. Since Trump has appointed all seven of USPS Board Governors (Thanks again Bernie Sanders!) there's no way they will suspend DeJoy, so while this is necessary oversight, it comes far too late in order to save the voting process.

Again, a reminder to get your ballots requested and into the post office this month, rather than waiting until October. Election Day is less than eight weeks away.

StupidiNews!

• Donald Trump called on his supporters at a NC rally to become poll watchers and to report "thieving, stealing, and robbing" by Democratic voters.
• University of San Diego researchers believe last month's Sturgis Bike Rally in South Dakota may be responsible for over a quarter-million new COVID-19 cases.
• Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, stepping down for health reasons, appears to be ready to be succeeded by his lieutenant, current chief cabinet secretary Yoshihida Suga.
• UK PM Boris Johnson is facing massive pushback on his Brexit plan that would break EU and international law by revoking his promise to keep Northern Ireland under EU customs rules.
• Apple's battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games continues as the tech giant has filed a countersuit accusing the game company of breach of contract and theft.

Last Call For Orange Meltdown, Con't

As Joe Biden continues to lead the polls, Donald Trump has decided that scaring voters into reelecting him or else he leaves America in a position where Democrats can't save the economy from a depression is his best choice for winning in November.

President Trump seems to believe that stirring up “American carnage” benefits him. He imagines he’ll be better off as things get worse for the rest of us. Is that a winning strategy?

It would be a mistake to overestimate Trump’s ethics (non-existent) and to underestimate his political talent (considerable). He beat down the Republican establishment and defeated a favored opponent in 2016. Four years ago, he knowingly took advantage of foreign interference in the campaign. Back then, Americans wondered whether the Russian intervention was about Trump or about chaos. It was about both.

Chaos was the plan. The worse for America, the better for Russia.

Today, Trump faces a totally different situation in this campaign than he did in 2016, and he knows it. Four years ago, he did not have to win. Had he lost, he could have claimed victory, mocked Hillary Clinton on Twitter, and schlocked his way to retirement. The carefree attitude he evinced back then is notably absent today. The advisers of 2016 are now convicted felons or charged with felonies. By now, Trump himself has been thoroughly investigated, and the prosecutors are lining up. Only the office of the presidency saves him, as he understands.

Like all authoritarians, he aims to die in a comfortable bed rather than in prison. He cannot bear to lose, and he is smart enough to know he is losing. Since he cannot coast and expect victory, he has two options: the democratic one of making things better to attract votes, and the lawless one of courting strife.

He is certainly not making things better. He let covid-19 spread on the logic that it would spare “his people,” but does nothing now even though it is killing his constituents. He could save countless lives by modeling good hygiene, but he will not. He could improve the economy by insisting on meaningful unemployment compensation, but he will not. A democratic politician would work against pestilence and depression; Trump understands that rage can be redirected.

The worse, the better: from the Leninists to the Putinists, one tyrannical tactic has remained the same — let people suffer, transform the anger into killing, blame an invisible conspiracy for your own deeds, and then try to pick up the pieces.

If Trump goes down, he's leaving America an ungovernable wasteland with massive unemployment, deep in the throes of a deadly pandemic, and on the edge of a white supremacist race war. He has now given up on improving anything before the election.

President Trump told reporters at a Labor Day briefing on Monday that he is "taking the high road" by not meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats to negotiate the next coronavirus stimulus package.
Why it matters: Unemployment benefits have expired for millions of Americans, but House Democrats and the White House are no closer to a deal — while nearly one in eight households are struggling to get enough to eat.

What he's saying: "I don't need to meet with them to be turned down," Trump told reporters. "They don't want to make a deal because they think if the country does as badly as possible ... that's good for the Democrats." 

"I am taking the high road. I'm taking the high road by not seeing them," he added.

If he goes down, he's taking millions of us with him.  And he could coerce millions of votes this way.

He knows the only thing awaiting him is Hell.

He wants us to make the journey with him.

Trump's Race To The Bottom, Con't

NY Times columnist Peter Baker finally calls Trump what he is: the most vocal defender of a white America.

Not in generations has a sitting president so overtly declared himself the candidate of white America. While Mr. Trump’s campaign sought to temper the culture war messaging at the Republican National Convention last month by showcasing Black and Hispanic supporters who denied that he is a racist, the president himself has increasingly made appeals to the grievances of white supporters a centerpiece of his campaign to win a second term.

The message appears designed to galvanize supporters who have cheered what they see as a defiant stand against political correctness since the days when he kicked off his last presidential campaign in 2015 by denouncing, without evidence, Mexicans crossing the border as “rapists.” While he initially voiced concern over the killing of George Floyd under the knee of a white police officer in Minneapolis this spring, which touched off nationwide protests, he has focused since then almost entirely on defending the police and condemning demonstrations during which there have been outbreaks of looting and violence.

He has described American cities as hotbeds of chaos, played to “suburban housewives” he casts as fearful of low-income people moving into their neighborhoods, sought to block a move — backed by the Pentagon and Republican lawmakers — to rename Army bases named for Confederate generals, criticized NASCAR for banning the Confederate flag, called Black Lives Matters a “symbol of hate” and vowed to strip funding from cities that do not take what he deems tough enough action against protesters.

In effect, he is reaching out to a subset of white voters who think the news media and political elites see Trump supporters as inherently racist. Mr. Trump has repeatedly rejected the notion that America has a problem with systemic racial bias, dismissing instances of police brutality against Black Americans as the work of a few “bad apples,” in his words.

“Trump is the most extreme, and he has done something that is beyond the bounds of anything we have seen,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, the president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “Playing with racism is a dangerous game. It’s not that you can do it a little bit or do it slyly or do it with a dog whistle. It’s all dangerous, and it’s all potentially violent.”

Aides said Mr. Trump’s actions were aimed at eliminating pernicious views that actually exacerbate prejudice. “President Trump believes that all men and women are created equal, and he will stand against anti-American philosophies of all kinds that promote racial division,” Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, said on Sunday.

Public views of Mr. Trump flow through a racial prism. A poll by CBS News last week found that 66 percent of registered voters believed Mr. Trump favored white people, versus 4 percent who said he worked against their interests. By contrast, 20 percent thought he favored Black people and 50 percent said he worked against Black people. Among Black voters, 81 percent said he worked against their interests.

In the poll, Mr. Trump led former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., his Democratic challenger, among white voters by 51 percent to 43 percent, but trailed among Black voters with just 9 percent support, compared with 85 percent for Mr. Biden. Among Hispanic voters, Mr. Biden led by 63 percent to 25 percent.

I mean I've been saying this for years now, but to see a white Times columnist admit it is something else. And yes, he's 100% correct. Trump is the candidate of white grievance politics, pure and simple. It's a smart move on his part, the American electorate is 70% white, and in battleground states it's at least 70% white, if not 80% or even 90%. It's basic math.

Let's take a look at 2016 Wisconsin, where Trump won by 23k votes out of almost 3 million total votes, or 0.75%. CNN's exit poll of the state shows a pretty bleak picture for one of the biggest Rust Belt union manufacturing states.



Wisconsin's electorate was 86% white then. It's probably going to be a couple points less now, but even a small shift in these categories could have changed the race.  Also, Libertarian Gary Johnson's presence almost certainly made Trump's victory smaller than it would have been without him in the race.

Biden is specifically doing better than Clinton with white college-educated men, and with non-college educated white women. That's where he's getting his lead from.  But Trump doesn't need a lot in order to shift the race back to him in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and even Minnesota.

So far, Biden's lead in Wisconsin polling is remaining remarkably steady at right at seven points.



That also means that there remains a healthy chunk of undecided/other voters out there too. And they all broke for Trump in the last two weeks of the election. Trump is playing the final strategy, and it's his best card for a reason.

What I'm saying is, we have work to do up to the election and for years afterward.

Climate Of Destruction, Con't

Over the weekend, California broiled like the desert it is, with temps in the LA basin hitting 121 degrees.

As a historic heat wave left Southern California broiling, Woodland Hills on Sunday recorded an all-time high of 121 degrees, which the National Weather Service said was the hottest temperature recorded at an official weather station in Los Angeles County.
It broke the old record of 119 degrees set in July of 2006 and was one of several records to fall on Sunday. The NWS said Riverside hit its highest temperature ever for September at 117 degrees; Santa Ana hit a record high for the day at 106.

Escondido achieved an all-time high of 115 degrees, shattering a record set in 1909. Idyllwild hit 103, tying an all-time record.

Woodland Hills is one of the hottest parts of Los Angeles and often records extreme temperatures. But the 121 degree reading — taken at Pierce College — marked the highest temperature from an official NWS station from both only L.A. County but also Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.
In some areas, Sunday was even hotter than Saturday, where the mercury hit historic levels in some areas. Officials said at least three areas tied or topped all-time record highs Saturday: Alpine (113), El Cajon (114) and Idyllwild (103). The weather service said Burbank appeared to tie an all-time record at 114 degrees.

A slight cooling trend should begin Monday. Even though areas could see temperatures drop by 10 degrees, many locations will remain in the triple digits.

Officials, meanwhile, are warning of possible rolling blackouts because of demand on the power supply brought on by the heat.

The California Independent System Operator, which runs the electric grid for much of the state, declared a Stage 2 Emergency on Saturday night and warned it could order utilities to institute rotating power outages.

Keep in mind also that this is happening in September, and not July.

Extreme climate change is already here, now.  Temps will only get hotter in the years ahead. Large parts of the US will be rendered unsustainable pretty soon unless we do something about it.

And I know this sounds like a broken record, but that all starts with getting rid of Trump and taking back the Senate. Republicans will never allow us to deal with climate change, period.

They have to go.

StupidiNews!

• A federal judge has ordered the Trump regime to continue the 2020 Census, the regime had previously stated that it would "wind down" door-to-door surveys this month.
• Japan's top Olympic official says that the Tokyo Summer Games should be held "at any cost" next year rather than being canceled, the Games have been suspended due to COVID-19 concerns.
• New Hampshire and Rhode Island voters go to the polls today for primary contests, New Hampshire is a battleground state and Trump has endorsed both GOP Senate and House candidates there.
• Multiple pharmaceutical companies have joined together to pledge that there will be no safety shortcuts in the COVID-19 vaccine process as the race to bring one to market continues.
• Microsoft is confirming the existence of the Xbox Series S, a less-expensive model of the next-gen XBox Series X game console scheduled for release next year.