Another Brave Trumpanzee

A Florida man accused of threatening an Escambia County Grocery Advantage employee with an ax because he was asked to wear a mask was arrested on Monday.

Michael Brad Evans, 42, was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon Monday after employees and witnesses say the man caused a scene, yelled racial slurs and broke a large bottle of alcohol after being asked to wear a mask inside the store.

A victim, who works at the 4320 Lillian Highway grocery store, told Escambia County Sheriff's Office (ECSO) deputies that Michael Bevans and the female he entered the store with Monday became "belligerent" when asked to wear a mask and both refused to do so.

Bevans allegedly cursed, yelled and made threatening gestures with an ax.

You don't want to wear a mask in a store that requires it? Try leaving and finding a store that doesn't give a fuck about whether or not you're spreading disease, you fucking scumbags.

The overlap between Covidiots and Trumpanzees is almost total.

Xi Goes Full-On Trump

The Hong Kong government has postponed September's parliamentary elections by a year, saying it is necessary amid a rise in coronavirus infections.

China's hand-picked puppet, Carrie Lam, says that she made the decision, but that's a laugh. Lam doesn't wipe her ass without the consent of Chairman Xi.

(You know, sort of like the dynamic between Trump and Putin.)

Xi, er, Lam, is also removing non-Beijing-approved candidates from the ballot, so whenever they get around to holding the election, it will be essentially meaningless.

Almost Blew By That Date

This blog turned thirteen today. Thirteen years, 15,295 posts, including this one. I didn't use tags early on and I've not been diligent about retro-tagging, so I'm not certain as to the most-blogged subjects. But I'm pretty certain that it's cats, guns and airplanes.

The stat counters are mostly useless; the two that supposedly track things here differ widely. It's safe to say that this blog isn't widely read. I do this mostly for reasons between my own amusement and because it beats standing on a soapbox outside of Terminal Tower.

Because It's Friday

British steam:

At This Point, If You Still Support Trump, You Have Betrayed the Constitution

This is what King Donald the First just tweeted out:

We haven't delayed an election for wars, economic calamities and insurrections. Not for the last 232 years.

Trump is facing a shellacking and he is trying to come up with any rationale to avoid that. Canceling the election (and make no mistake, that's what he's really talking about) is the opening move of a wannabee autocrat.

If you agree with what Trump says, you are not a loyal American citizen. You are a Trumpanzee. Whenever you say the Pledge of Allegiance, you are lying. If you ever swore an oath to "preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies", you have broken it. You should emigrate to Russia or Hungary in order to live in a country that is run under Trumpist principles.

Trump is a traitor. If you support him, that sticks to you, as well.

Some Pointed Humor

Just a Friendly Reminder

Trump and Maxwell

If they put that one on Fox in the evening, Trump's going to be bleeding from the ears.

Joyeux Anniversaire à Moi

Well, it was awhile back. And I'm of an age where it doesn't seem worth the time to mark the date.

But it's still an excuse to splurge on something nice for myself.

And I did:

That's a Model 14-4. That version was the last in the line for awhile, as the Model 14 went out of production in 1982. S&W began putting 6" barrels on guns marked as Model 15s. When they went back to selling Model 14s in the early 1990s, they had the L-frame style full underlug.

I like the looks of the older guns. Model 14s were commonly used for the centerfire portion of Bullseye matches. A number were made with single-action only triggers for those matches. The LAPD, among other departments, used them for a number of years. (If you've ever watched Adam-12, they're carrying Model 14s for the first three seasons.)

The timing on this gun is excellent, there's no endshake. The trigger is as sweet as one would want for a target gun.

I'll shoot this in matches if this damned pandemic is ever brought under control.

Anyhoo, the guy at the gunshop had no issues getting through to the state fuzz for permission to proceed with the transfer, a far cry from how things were last Winter. When I asked about that, he said that nobody has inventory to sell. Some Glocks are going for $150 or better over MSRP.

Korea v. Japan

A Korean perspective.

If you believe that the two countries should be friends and allies, you should read it and learn why you're laboring under a misapprehension. The best they can be is co-belligerents.

Short-Bus Trump Wants More Coronavirus Cases in Other States

How else to interpret this remark:

President Trump told reporters Monday that more states should be easing their restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus, as some governors and local leaders facing rising cases and death tolls tighten their rules and ponder new stay-at-home orders.

“I really do believe a lot of the governors should be opening up states that they’re not opening,” Trump said as he answered questions at a biotech company in Morrisville, N.C.

Well, that's definitely a "special" opinion. The restrictions in states that have not swung the doors wide is why those states have gotten a handle on the spread of the pandemic. The states that opened widely, like Texas, Florida and Arizona, are having crisis-level hospitalizations.

A number of the states that were hard-hit early on have since seen in the Trump states what happens when you say "OK, we don't have a lot of cases, so let's open the bars and not encourage social distancing and not require masks." They're not going to do that stupid shit. They've seen first-hand what it's like to flood the ICUs, to have to erect pop-up hospitals to handle the cases, to have reefer trucks parked outside of the morgues to hold the overflow. There is no appetite to repeat that experience.

But that's what Trump, in his infinite awfulness, would have them do.

This pandemic has shown that Trump, and the GOP's version of the national government, has made America into a global laughing stock. We are on the road to becoming a failed state, thanks to them.

But that's a subject for another time.

Donald Trump Never Misses an Opportunity to Miss an Opportunity

In a solemn display of bipartisan unity, congressional leaders praised Democratic Rep. John Lewis as a moral force for the nation on Monday in a Capitol Rotunda memorial service rich with symbolism and punctuated by the booming, recorded voice of the late civil rights icon.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Lewis the “conscience of the Congress” who was “revered and beloved on both sides of the aisle, on both sides of the Capitol.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell praised the longtime Georgia congressman as a model of courage and a “peacemaker.”

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” McConnell, a Republican, said, quoting the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “But that is never automatic. History only bent toward what’s right because people like John paid the price.”

But because Lewis beefed with Trump in the past, Trump is churlishly and childishly refusing to pay his respects. He's sending "mini-me" Pence, instead.

In a time when a little bit of grace and simple courtesy would go some way in helping to heal the country, Trump is going to stay in his bunker and rage-tweet.

Why Trump Canceled the Jacksonville Convention

Not because he was worried about attendees spreading the coronavirus.

But because it had the potential to be another Tulsa, with Trump addressing a shitload of vacant seats.

And that would make him look bad.

(H/T)

It's an argument that makes a lot of sense.

Fuck, It's Been 40 Years??!?

Airplane! was released on this day in 1980.

If you've never seen the movie, surely you must be joking. Your cultural education has been seriously deficient. Go rent it.

1980 was a good year for film comedies. Airplane! was the #3 movie for domestic box office in that year. 9 to 5, another comedy, was #2. The runaway champ that year was The Empire Strikes Back, the high-water mark for Star Wars movies. (They descended rapidly into suckitude ever since.)

Slavery Was Not That Long Ago

Not when there are living children of slaves who remember the stories.

The article's an interesting one.

Meanwhile, Tom Cotton continues his quest to push the history of slavery into a corner. Much of this country was built on slavery. Following the fall of that vile institution, the freed slaves and their descendants suffered discrimination of all kinds, much of which continues to this day. If people are going to pretend, as Cotton seems to, that the 13th Amendment fixed everything, then there will never be a fair reckoning of it.

An easy example that the 15th Amendment was ignored throughout much of the country for almost a century, until Congress, over vociferous opposition, passed the Voting Rights Act, among other legislation. The opposition to voting rights continues to this day.

Pretending that the past is the past and should be shoved away is foolish.

(And this)

Cal Thomas is Engaging in Wingnut Pearl-Clutching

He has taken the McCloskey case to argue that Democrats are truly coming for everyone's guns.

{Sigh} That's Wayne LaPierre-grade paranoia and hyperbole and is, frankly, unworthy of anyone who isn't residing in a locked ward.

The McCloskeys, arguably, committed crimes. Pointing guns at people without just cause is illegal damn near everywhere. After they did that, and it is well-documented, the cops investigated. The cops served a search warrant to seize the instrumentalities of possible crimes. There is nothing unusual in that. Search warrants are often executed before charges are brought. The St. Louis cops, from the accounts that I've read, did not go rooting through the Mccloskey's home, trashing the inside, the way that is sometimes done when the searched property is the residence of someone who isn't (or can't afford) a high-priced lawyer.

Whether or not the McCloskeys should or should not have been charged isn't the point of this post.[1] What is the point is that using what is common procedure in a criminal case to argue that the Democrats are going to seize everyone's guns is somewhere betwerrn gross hyperbole and drooling insanity.
_________________________________________
[1] If you go there, that's an automatic Red Card for you. Fair Warning, Cobber

Your Sunday Morning Turboprop Noise

Airbus A400M operating on a beach

Trump Knows Beans

And on other subjects dear to the Covidiots:

Seems People Don't Like Their Governors when They Suck at Their Jobs; Ron DeathSantis Ed.

Republican governors four states with surging coronavirus case numbers have seen their approval ratings sink in recent weeks, according to survey data obtained by Axios.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp all had disapproval ratings of 55 percent or higher in the survey taken between July 13 and July 19.

Ducey and DeSantis have the highest disapproval rating among the group, at 62 percent and 58 percent, respectively. All four governors are in the middle of their terms, which expire in 2022.

New Legos? (Edited)

Also...

About the Arrest (or Abduction) that DHS Claims Was Not an Arrest

A Lawfare analysis, which you should read.

If masked goods grab you off the street and stuff you into a pedophile van, you're either being arrested or abducted. There's no third category.

"We're All Gonna Get Laid!" Plus 40 Years

Caddyshack was released on this day in 1980.

Caturday

Meet Jasmine, the new step-grandcat:

You Have to Love Randy Rainbow

Only Covidiots and Trumpanzees won't like this one.

Because It's Friday

A tug-o-war:

The Nuclear Trigger

Sleep well tonight!

Remember the Bundy Protesters?

Those conservatives would have lost their collective shit if President Obama had sent in the Federal cops to break up the Bundy Moocher Armed Protest in Nevada six years ago.

But send in Federal cops to break up black Lives Matter protests? They're all in favor of that.

Karen, Wear Your Freaking Mask

I'm going to bet that "Karen" drops to near the bottom of the preferred baby names list over the next few years.

What Does Ghislane Maxwell Have On Donald Trump?

After Trump said what he said about Maxwell (wishing an alleged procurer of children well), one has to wonder what she has on Trump.

Think of it: If you're accused of throwing paint on a statue of a Confederate traitor, or even if all you do is demonstrate against its current display, Trump will call you a thug and an antifa radical.

But procure underage women for Epstein and his buddies, and Trump would wish you well?

That suggests that a signal is being sent to Maxwell: Keep your yap shut and our Criminal-in-Chief will protect your ass.

Trump's Veto Threat

Wait, What? (Trump Loves Sex Offenders?)

President Donald Trump on Tuesday offered sympathetic words to Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime companion of Jeffrey Epstein who stands accused of facilitating the abuse of girls by the now-deceased sex offender.

“I just wish her well, frankly,” Trump said when asked about Maxwell during a news conference.

What Maxwell has allegedly done doesn't bear repeating, not unless you want to have the feeling of needing to dip yourself in bleach.

But let this marinate in your brain: Trump is wishing Epstein's procurer well.

Could it be because Trump has the same predilections as Epstein did?

Is Trump Trying to Start a "Racial Holy War"?

Trump is not seeking to preserve order in cities, he is trying to cause disorder. President Donald Trump is planning to deploy federal agents to Chicago and possibly other Democrat-run cities as he continues to assert federal power and use the Department of Homeland Security in unprecedented, politicized ways.

DHS is slated to send about 150 Homeland Security Investigations agents to Chicago to help local law enforcement deal with a spike in crime, according to an official with direct knowledge of the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. "Help", my ass. Federal secret police, hereinafter "the Trumpstapo", are not welcome in the cities that Trump is ordering them to go to.

This is a desperate move by Trump to provoke violent civil unrest, so see if he can get his Reichstag moment. The proof is that that the Trumpstapo's operations in Portland is causing more demonstrations. The Trumpstapo has been energizing the demonstrators, giving them something else to demonstrate about.

The Trumpstapo deployment is a naked attempt to reverse Trump's sagging poll numbers. He is incapable of doing anything to help people, it is not in his nature. Trump is bored by the pandemic. Fighting an infectious disease takes dedication and diligence, things that Trump lacks in spades.

But sparking unrest in the streets, unrest that would play out on television? Unrest that would air 24/7 on Fox? Trump will revel in that. The Trumpstapo has already shown all of the restraint of Alabama State Troopers during the civil rights protests. Trump is using his Trumpstapo to create disorder, to give him something to campaign on, to give him an issue to try and raise up his currently-failing campaign.

The Trumpstapo can't go out and club down the coronavirus or the people caring for COVID patents. So Trump will just have to try and gin up a crisis to motivate his fearful base that "the darkies are coming for your wimmin". The white supremacists have been yammering for decades about a racial holy war. It would seem that Trump has been listening to them.

Here comes the Trumpstapo!

ETA:

Listen to the Doctor

About That Test Trump Brags of "Acing"..

Dr. Ziad Nasreddine in 1996 developed and copyrighted the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) test, which is a 10-minute examination usually performed with pen and paper that measures the strengths of different areas of the brain related to cognitive domains, such as short-term memory, spatial awareness and executive functioning.
...
“It is,” he said, “supposed to be easy for someone who has no cognitive impairment.”

Or, as other professionals have put it:

I'm a psychologist. I've administered this test (the MOCA) hundreds, if not thousands of times. Let me tell you, bragging about acing this test is the equivalent of bragging that you tied your own shoes this morning. https://t.co/ldzfcq9RGk

— chuuch (@ch000ch) July 19, 2020

I see the president is bragging about “acing” the MoCA again. I’m a doctor, we use this test all the time. You can’t “ace” the MoCA. You either get perfect or we take away your driver’s license.

— Ty Berry (@tberry3) July 19, 2020

I assume that Trump is bragging because this is the first test in his life that someone else didn't take for him.

That the doctors even saw a reason to give Trump the MoCA test says something about his mental acuity.

Warning, Brian Kemp! Mike Parsons is Seeking to Dethrone You as "The Dumbest Governor In America!"

“These kids have got to get back to school,” Parson told Cox. “They’re at the lowest risk possible. And if they do get COVID-19, which they will — and they will when they go to school — they’re not going to the hospitals. They’re not going to have to sit in doctor’s offices. They’re going to go home and they’re going to get over it.”

First off, not all kids are going to ;get over it". Quite a few will get sick and die.

Second, even if they do "get over it", those little contagion-spreaders will give the virus to their families, including their elderly relatives, who have a higher risk of getting seriously ill and dying. Their fathers and mothers may get sick and die, which means that Parsons will have had a hand in creating Covid orphans.

Parsons is a four-barreled covidiot. Brian Kemp is sitting down to dinner tonight, clucking and thinking that at least he didn't say something so eminently stupid.

Brave, Brave, Brave Federal Officers

Christopher J. David had largely ignored the protests in downtown Portland, Ore., but when he saw videos of unidentified federal agents grabbing protesters off the street and throwing them into rented minivans, he felt compelled to act.

Mr. David, a Navy veteran, said that federal agents’ use of violent tactics against protesters, without the support of the mayor, the governor or local law enforcement, was a violation of the oaths that agents take to support, uphold and defend the Constitution.

And so, on Saturday, he took a bus downtown to ask the officers how they squared their actions with that oath.

Instead of getting an answer, Mr. David was beaten with a baton by one federal officer as another doused him with pepper spray, according to video footage of the encounter. After he walked away from the confrontation, Mr. David was taken to a nearby hospital, where a specialist said his right hand was broken and would require surgery to install pins, screws and plates. He declined pain medication.

Federal police strike protester with baton, use pepper spray and tear gas outside courthouse in Portland pic.twitter.com/VX2xTVaaYq

— Zane Sparling (@PDXzane) July 19, 2020

Mr. David is one seriously brave man. Every last one of those masked, faceless, gutless cowards should be sent to a hellhole of a prison somewhere.

Along with their leaders, but that's, in part, up to us.

It's a Good Thing That Trump Wasn't President 80 Years Ago

He would have gotten bored with the Second World War by June of 1942.

“The president got bored with it,” David Carney, an adviser to the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, a Republican, said of the pandemic. He noted that Mr. Abbott directs his requests to Mr. Pence, with whom he speaks two to three times a week. https://t.co/DLM96aZKhw

— Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) July 19, 2020

The language spoken today in continental Europe would be German. Or Russian. In a good chunk of Asia and Oceania, Japanese would be spoken.

Dealing with a global crisis requires hard work and dedication to the task, two things that Trump has never been known for. Trump is presiding over the largest failure of presidential leadership, if not since Herbert Hoover, then since James Buchanan. Trump and the GOP have made this country into a global laughingstock.

It's not just Trump, of course. The GOP has been pushing a platform of "we don't need no science or book-larnin'!" since Nixon. Gingrich began the fight to cripple the Federal government's ability to handle problems. The utter failure of the Federal government to deal with the pandemic, to knock it back to the levels of cases and deaths now seen in almost every other First World nation, is a result of Trump's willful inattention and the GOP's unrelenting war on science and competence.

This is a prime example of the GOP's choice of willful ignorance:

While local health officials have the authority to keep school districts closed for in-person instruction through the fall, Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a letter to schools Friday that private religious schools are free to decide for themselves whether to reopen.

The idea that infectious disease has a religious component is an idea that is stuck in the 14th Century. (Funny how conservatives blast Muslims for "being stuck in the 7th Century", when the evidence shows that the evangelicals are hardly any different in that regard.)

it's no accident that COVID-19 is rampaging through this country. It is by the design of Trump and the GOP. It is by design of the know-nothings who believe that Their dear and Fluffy Lord will protect them from diseases.

And it is why the rest of the world is looking upon the U.S.A. with a mixture of horror, pity and, yes, schadenfreude.

(H/T)

If You Believe that COVID-19 is the "Kung Flu"...

Then please execute several copies of this waiver and ensure that your doctor and the local hospital have copies on file. If you don't, then you're tacitly acknowledging that your bleatings about "kung flu" and "it's just the flu" and similar things are not what you truly believe, that you're only saying that because you are a slavish follower of All Things Trump.

But if you truly believe that COVID-19 isn't a real threat, sign the waiver.

Funny Thing About The Right-Wing

Mandating wearing masks to prevent the spread of an infectious disease: Tyranny! Grab the ARs and march on the state capitol!

Require everyone to have health insurance: Tyranny! Grab the ARs, etc.

Send Federal goons out wearing unmarked uniforms in pedophile-vans to snatch people up off the streets: Crickets.

Funny how tangible police-state actions upset them not one bit. Makes one wonder if they really do give a shit about liberty and freedom.

The proof would seem to be that they do not.

Don't Come At a Cop With a Knife

If you do, you will have a bad day.

It's hard to get a sense of distance, as the camera lens seems to be a wide-angle one. That makes sense for a bodycam.

This definitely wasn't a NYPD-style "spray and pray" shooting.

No Mask, No Service-- Is That Too Hard to Comprehend?

It is in North Carolina. People yell at store clerks, claim bogus ADA exemptions and are, generally, assholes.

It causes me to wonder, during the Second World War, how many people were cheating on their ration stamps, dodging the draft and dealing in black-market goods. I wonder how many people regarded the war effort as a huge inconvenience.

I'm betting that, based on how dickish people are now, that it was in the millions, if not tens of millions. Only after the war did they delude themselves into thinking that they willingly did their part to achieve victory.

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

B-1B full-burner takeoffs:

Trump's Plan to Hide COVID-19 Data May Be Working

Just as the number of people hospitalized for COVID-19 approaches new highs in some parts of the country, hospital data in Kansas and Missouri is suddenly incomplete or missing.

The Missouri Hospital Association reports that it no longer has access to the data it uses to guide statewide coronavirus planning, and the Kansas Hospital Association says its hospital data reports may be delayed.

It's all about doing whatever Trump can do to obscure and falsify data so he can continue to pretend that all is well.

Welcome to the richest shithole on Earth: Trump's America.

Two Lions Are Gone

John Lewis, a leader of the civil rights movement and one of the survivors of the 1965 Selma-Montgomery March, where the cops, on horseback, charged peaceful marchers and beat them with truncheons. He later served in Congress for 34 years until his death yesterday.

Reverend C.T. Vivian, who, during a push to register voters, was punched in the face by notoriously racist Sheriff Clark, while cameras were rolling, also died Friday. He was 95.

These were men who risked their lives pushing for freedom in a nation that holds up freedom to be a core value, but denied it to people for centuries because of the color of their skin, their ethnicity and their gender. It was not an abstract risk. Blacks who sought to vote and to better their economic standing were routinely beaten, exiled and often murdered. Where Blacks did gain economic power, they were burned out at massacred by white mobs with the tacit if not overt approval of local and state government.

People like Rep. Lewis and Rev. Vivian were far, far braver than most people ever have to be. They could have gone along to get along, but they stood up.

Most of us were not and are not fit to shine their boots.

And that most assuredly include the current resident of 1600 Penna Ave. and everyone who works for him.

Federal Secret Police, Coming to a City Near You

That's what the DHS is saying in this interview. The"violent crimes" that the DHS is claiming as justification for cruising around in pedophile-vans and grabbing people off the street are mostly acts of graffiti.

Here is what I saw in Portland yesterday. pic.twitter.com/B0xvTTYvIj

— Acting Secretary Chad Wolf (@DHS_Wolf) July 17, 2020

This is the sort of shit that people have been warning about since the Department of Homeland Security was created, with its creepy Soviet-style name. We've been warning that having secret Federal cops running around, unaccountable to local authority, was dangerous to a free society. (We've also been warning about the blatant racism of the TSA and the CPB, too.) DHS has been monitoring nonpolitical marches. They decided to become air cops.

DHS = Our own home-grown Gestapo. It was bad enough when they staffed the TSA with mall-cop rejects. Now they're doing their own shadow-version of martial law-- dressing up like members of a white-supremacist militia, arresting people at random and hoping that they can find something actionable. It's sort of like the NYPD's discredited stop-and-frisk program, but for morons.

We are one staged event away from shit getting real.

I sure hope that I'm wrong on this. But still, I'll close with the words of my co-blogger, Eck!: Keep your powder dry.

ETA: Also this analysis, which is long, but is worth reading.

Caturday; Humor Ed.

Famous Last Words

"Ow!"

There are some good takeaways in that video.

1) If someone is charging you, move in the other direction, even as you shoot. That critter might have been able to stab the deputy with his huge-ass knife if she hadn't backed up.

2) Know how to clear jams and keep shooting.

3) The argument against large-capacity magazines is just fucking retarded. It can take a lot of rounds to stop a single motivated attacker.

The dead critter was a non-mask-wearing idiot who thought that it was worth stabbing an old guy when the old guy asked the soon-to-be dead critter to wear a mask.

On the surface, it looks like a good shoot, even though Trump's going to complain that the cop shot a white guy.

Trump's Federal Goons

Federal goons in unmarked vehicles are snatching people off the streets of Portland. Smart victims don't waive their rights and ask for lawyers. Then they're let go, with no record of being arrested made.

This seems to be the brainchild of Chad Wolfe, the DHS Secretary who seems to have been named for an aspiring Bond villain.

Apparently, to DHS, the Constitution is just another goddamned piece of paper, to be ignored whenever they feel like it.

Betcha that the Wingnuts who were frothing about Jade Helm 15 won't give a shit about this.

BHR Fire Out, Now Comes the Giant Fid

The fire is out. Crews are overhauling where the fires were burning, which is squid-speak for looking for hot spots.

In response to the fire, [CNO] Gilday ordered the heads of Fleet Forces Command, U.S. Pacific Fleet and Naval Forces Europe to solicit direct feedback from ships’ commanding officers to ensure they have the people and adequate training to protect ships in port from fire and flooding.

“What I had the fleet commanders do this week was to say: We need to make sure our equipment is ready, we need to make sure our people are trained and we need to make sure our procedures are rehearsed and sound so that we are able to handle flooding or fire.”

This is, frankly, somewhat foreseeable from the Navy's push to cut the size of the crews, one of the dumber ideas of the Rumsfeld era. The Navy needed somebody to speak truth to power, that cutting the size of the ships' crews would lead to deficiencies in maintenance, cleanliness (warships began looking like Third-World trash-haulers) and the ability to handle emergencies.

None of this shit is at the level of rocket science. But there was a progression of SecNavs who had less time at sea than a commuter on the Staten Island Ferry and they didn't know jack-point-shit about life at sea. So all they did was ram Rumsfeld's bad ideas down everyone's throats.

This is what I foresee: The size of the in-port damage control parties will be increased. That can't come from the sailors who are assigned to the in-port security teams. The option available will be to increase the number of sailors on board as part of a duty section, which means reducing the number of duty sections.

So, stand by for three-section duty year-round and,possibly, port-and-starboard during high leave times (holidays, post-deployments).

And you guys on the LCSs? You ain't never going home.

(What a Fid is)

Because It's Friday

Oregon Coast Scenic RR:

The One Thing That the Vietnam War and the Pandemic Have in Common

That is easy: Trump has been AWOL for both.

Some day, he may understand that one of the major reasons that his poll numbers are cratering is because he's been absent from the fight against the pandemic. When he appears on camera, all he can do is whine about how unfair the media has been to him.

Some Truth in Humor

The same truth applies to hard hat zones.

Has NASA Learned From Its History?

The James Webb telescope is going through testing.

NASA cheaped out and canceled some testing on the Hubble to save on time and to save a million dollars. It cost over a billion dollars to fix what would have been caught in those tests. But unlike Hubble, the Webb will be too far away for any repair mission.

(If we even had the capability. Which we don't.)

So let's hope that NASA tests everything possible to test this time.

BHR Fire Continues

Two tweets of interest:

Out of an abundance of caution the pier and ship were cleared of personnel due to an initial shift in the ship’s list. Personnel are now pier side. We will continue to monitor as the ship settles. pic.twitter.com/WC1XWTERFu

— Naval Surface Forces (@SurfaceWarriors) July 16, 2020

As of 06:00 a.m. Pacific time July 16, firefighting teams are on board USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6) continuing operations. The total personnel treated for minor injuries remains 63, 40 Sailors and 23 civilians.Will continue to provide updates via our social media platforms. pic.twitter.com/lIlaSRls1b

— Naval Surface Forces (@SurfaceWarriors) July 16, 2020

Nice that they highlighted the ship's motto of "I have not yet begun to fight", but four days into the fire, that's ironic at best.

The story seems to have fallen out of the news cycle.

As USNI reports, fires during maintenance availabilites are not uncommon.

Also, this from my other blog.

Look, You COVID Dumbasses, Smarten Up

• Most of the stores have arrows on the aisles to indicate which way you are to go, in order to promote social distancing. If you don't know how that works and you drive, you don't know how one-way streets (or the Interstate highways) work. Please surrender your drivers license.
• Wearing a face mask and not pulling it up over your nose is like poking pinholes in a condom before using it.
• Listening to Republicans on matters related to measures to combat the pandemic runs the risk of killing you and your loved ones. They don't give a fuck about science or epidemiology; they only care about ideology.

Republicans are deliberately ignoring the reality that COVID-19 is a new disease (that's why it's called "the novel corona virus"). It's not like measles, which has been studied for decades. This is new shit, which means that our understanding of the virus and what measures to take to fight it will change over time. The GOP is either too stupid or too afraid of their Idiot-in-Chief to understand that.

Possibly the dumbest governor in the country, Brian Kemp of Georgia, is a walking example of that. He only realized that the coronavirus was being transmitted by those without symptoms months after that information was known. Now, with more and more evidence that the virus is being spread by airborne transmission, Kemp is denying mayors in Georgia the power to mandate wearing masks.

Maybe Kemp should make speed limits, stop signs, traffic signals and driving on the right side of the road advisory only. Surely Georgians are smart enough to know that it's not a good idea to blow through traffic lights or drive at 120MPH through a residential area, so why do they need laws to tell them that? Think of all of the money they could save on traffic enforcement! It's in the Ten Commandments that murder and theft are wrong, everyone should know that such acts are wrong, so why do we need laws against murdering and stealing?

This all lands on Trump, but not only on him. Whenever he sees an opportunity to divide Americans, whenever he sees a chance to start another political fight, he takes it. In that regard, he has only been following the playbook of OxyBoy and the rest of the American version of radio Rwanda, going all the way back to Hitler's favorite priest in the 1930s-- Spew hatred of "those people" at every possible opportunity.

But you want to pretend that COVID-19 is a hoax, that you don't need to wear a mask, that the virus will magically go away, then you, like Trump, have surrendered to the virus.

There will be lots of contenders for the Darwin Awards from this. Like this kid. And these people.

Trumpanzees, Who Decry Defacing Monuments Honoring Traitors, Have No Problem With Debasing Things

The "Black Lives Matter" mural on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue directly in front of Trump Tower -- a project President Donald Trump blasted as a "symbol of hate" -- has been defaced with a large splash of red paint.

Photos and videos posted to social media at lunchtime Monday showed red paint all over the letters "liv" in Lives. One video, obtained by News 4, shows a person dressed in dark colors and hat, dump a single can of paint across the mural before running away; the NYPD is investigating.

I'm going to bet that the NYPD is going to put their version of Inspector Clouseau on it, some guy who is one screwup away from going on the Rubber Gun Squad.

The City repainted it in short order.

More Corruption, Lying and Hiding the Truth

Hospital data on coronavirus patients will now be rerouted to the Trump administration instead of first being sent to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed to CNN on Tuesday. https://t.co/vCnTIaKhb1

— CNN (@CNN) July 15, 2020

The Orange Baboon hates the CDC, because they won't bend to his desire to lie and spin about the coronavirus. So this is another one of his dick moves to try and hide data that he thinks is unfavorable. And somehow, Cadet Bone Spurs thinks it's a good idea to use the National Guard to collect data from hospitals? Every governor worth is or her salt should say something between "thanks, but no thank you" and "shove it up your ass". Which means DeSantis and Ducey will do it.

Destroying science for political reasons is a time-worn trick of autocrats. Look for "nope, no reported cases, everything is fine" from Trump and his political lackeys.

The shades of Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan must be grinning, as their status as the worst presidents in American history has been superceded.

BHR, That Will Not Buff Out

An overhead shot of the BHR flight deck. It looks as though it was hit by a Kamikaze.

The fire is still burning.

Heckuova Job, Donnie

We're #1 for new COVID cases.

If Florida was its own country, it would be #3 in the world. For sheer number of new cases, one won't find a non-shithole country until you get to #23, the UK, which is run by a baby-Trumper

For intensity, let's look at cases compared to the size of the population:

You don't find a non-tiny First-World country until you get to Sweden (#18), which decided to play it Trump's way and just let people die.

À la Bastille, Mes Amis!

Today is the French National Day.

A version that is more familiar to American audiences:

Allons enfants de la Patrie
Le jour de gloire est arrivé !
Contre nous de la tyrannie
L'étendard sanglant est levé
Entendez-vous dans nos campagnes
Mugir ces féroces soldats ?
Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras.
Égorger vos fils, vos compagnes !

Aux armes citoyens
Formez vos bataillons
Marchons, marchons
Qu'un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons

(Full translation, which makes The Star-Spangled Banner look pacifistic.)

The Bastille was torn down very soon afterwards. Very little of it survives. The key to the fortress was given by Marquis de Lafayette to President Washington.

BHR Continues to Burn

As you can see here, the superstructure, where a lot of the command and control stuff probably his, is fully alight.

This is a schematic of the LHD-1 Class:

(Credit)

The Navy has said that the fire started in "Deep-V" storage, which is probably #18 on the schematic. Everything above that is likely gone: Sick Bay, Officer's Country, all of the command and control spaces, staff quarters, etc, etc. The spooks may regard all of the crypto stuff as being compromised, which will require Fleet-wide replacement whatever encodes that. (I have no idea how that stuff works.)

On the personnel side, figure that everyone with orders to the BHR is now in limbo.

BHR Fire

Most of the sailors injured in a massive fire aboard the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard Sunday suffered from smoke inhalation, Rear Adm. Philip Sobeck, commander of Expeditionary Strike Group 3, told reporters Sunday evening in San Diego, where the ship had been burning for nearly 12 hours.
...
While the precise cause remained unknown Sunday night, Sobeck said there was “nothing toxic” in the ship, and that the black smoke billowing from the amphib all day was caused by office and berthing items burning.

The fire is believed to have started below those spaces, in the lower cargo hold of the ship, known as the “Deep V,” Sobeck said.

It is a “huge open area where you store a lot of (Marine Corps) equipment and everything else,” he said. “That’s where we believe it was started.”

"Nothing toxic"...suure.

I've not seen any reports that the fire is out. The longer it burns, the more likely that the ship will end up being scrapped, like the USS Miami was.

Edited to add: She's still burning.

She was finishing up a major overhaul that cost a quarter-billion.

Ron DeSantis Tries to Wish Away the Pandemic

Gov. Ron DeSantis said Sunday the state remains on the right track in its response to the coronavirus outbreak despite a mounting number of new cases.

Right. Case numbers are skyrocketing in Florida, the state is setting records, it's the global hotspot and all DeSantis can say is "all is well".

Trump and DeVos are lying as though there is a prize for it and that paralyzes DeSantis, because he's not going to get out of lockstep with His Orange Master.

Well, if they ever make a movie about this, we know who has a lock on the role as Ron DeSantis:

Fire, Fire, Fire On Board the USS Bonhomme Richard

In port at the San Diego Naval Base.

I don't have any other details, yet. There are casualties, the number keeps changing.

It Is to Laugh; Conservatives and Free Speech

I get a real laugh out of conservatives, like Senator and alleged insider-trader Kelly Loeffler, complaining about "cancel culture". They are about the most reekingly hypocritical posturers on that as there can be.

Conservatives have been big on censoring books, movies and anything else that offends their senses of self. If a TV personality expresses an opinion that offends them, they demand that that person be removed from the show and the show canceled. If a college professor says or writes anything that discomforts them, they demand that the professor be fired and, if tenured, that tenure be revoked.

If you want a single person that personifies that in action, I give you Colin Kapernick. Conservatives, right up to our fake president, demanded and got him out of the NFL after he dared to take a stand against police brutality.

So when the Slavery-Sympathetic Right yammers on about "cancel culture" when it comes to police brutality and symbols of Their Hollowed 19th Century Traitors, they can blow it out of their asses.

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

A big-ass R/C Concorde:

Back of the envelope, this is a 1/6th scale model. Which, as others have noticed, makes it the largest flying Concorde in the world.

Three Words That Sum Up the Republican Plan For Dealing With This Pandemic

Die, Fucker, Die!

A long-expected upturn in U.S. coronavirus deaths has begun, driven by fatalities in states in the South and West, according to data on the pandemic.

Trump has no plan, other than run his yap about how well he is doing, touting ineffective drugs and turn precautions into a culture war. Gov. Ducey (AZ) finally emerged on Thursday after spending more than a week hiding out in his bunker. GOP states skipped over the guidelines regarding how to open their states safely and now they're reaping the whirlwind.

Thanks to Trump and his suck-up GOP governors, the pandemic levels in the U.S. are making this country look like one of the Third-World shitholes that Trump has derided. Republicans have equated wearing a mask to being a Holocaust victim.

As for Trump, all he can do is whine to his friends about how the pandemic is affecting him. Over 100,000 Americans have died and to Trump, it's a tragedy that affects him. A cop kills a Black man and to Trump, it's all about making him look bad.

But as to a plan to deal with any of these crises?

Three words:

Die, Fucker, Die!

This Should Not Come As a Surprise to Anyone; Tucker Carlson Ed.

Tucker Carlson's top writer is a racist, homophobic incel:

The top writer for Fox News host Tucker Carlson has for years been using a pseudonym to post bigoted remarks on an online forum that is a hotbed for racist, sexist, and other offensive content, CNN Business learned this week.

Just this week, the writer, Blake Neff, responded to a thread started by another user in 2018 with the subject line, "Would u let a JET BLACK congo n****er do lasik eye surgery on u for 50% off?" Neff wrote, "I wouldn't get LASIK from an Asian for free, so no." (The subject line was not censored on the forum.) On June 5, Neff wrote, "Black doods staying inside playing Call of Duty is probably one of the biggest factors keeping crime down." On June 24, Neff commented, "Honestly given how tired black people always claim to be, maybe the real crisis is their lack of sleep." On June 26, Neff wrote that the only people who care about changing the name of the NFL's Washington Redskins are "white libs and their university-'educated' pets."

There is a hell of a lot of detail in the story about what a complete piece of work Neff is. Given the tenor of Fox News's Premier Chickenhawk, this shouldn't startle anyone.

(H/T)

Shameful Political Deeds Are Always Done on Friday Evenings

If you want to determine whether or not a political announcement stinks: of corruption and malfeasance, look to when it was announced. Dirty deeds are announced on Friday evenings, on the belief that by Monday, they will be forgotten.

And so, we have this:

President Donald Trump has commuted the sentence of his longtime political confidant Roger Stone...

I have no doubt that the only thing standing between Stone and a pardon is the election. Once that's over, Trump will pardon him. You can bet heavily on that.

If this were a righteous act, Trump would have done it during the middle of the week. A Friday evening announcement is proof enough that even Trump knows that this stinks of corruption.

Stone worships Richard Nixon. Nixon got off scot-free for his crimes. And now, so shall Stone.

ETA: Others are arguing that if Trump pardons Stone, then Stone could then be compelled to testify against Trump. I don't think that Trump is capable of thinking that through. If Stone whines enough on Fox News, Trump will pardon him.

Caturday

Priss is taking her ease in the shade on a summer Sunday morning.

Is Rich Self-Entitled White Man/CEO Man Replacing Florida Man for Acts of Public Stupidity?

A San Francisco tech CEO issued an apology this week after he was seen in a viral video yelling racial slurs and expletives at an Asian American family on the Fourth of July.

Raymond Orosa and his family were celebrating his wife's birthday at Bernardus Lodge and Spa's Lucia restaurant when Michael Lofthouse can be seen on camera harassing them, saying, "F— you Asians," "Go back to whatever f— Asian country you're from" and "You don't belong here."

The video begins with the woman who filmed the vulgar encounter asking Lofthouse, sitting one table over, to repeat what he had just said to them. He stares at the camera for a few seconds, then extends his middle finger and said, "This is what I say."

Lofthouse then said, "Trump's gonna f— you," as he stood up to leave, followed by "You f— need to leave! You f— Asian piece of s***." A server then yells at him, "No, you do not talk to our guests like that. Get out of here."

There seem to be more and more incidents of self-entitled white guys acting like assholes in public.

Or, as the cops are finding out, almost everyone nowadays has a video camera and the knowledge to use it.

Rich Guys With Guns, Keep a Lid On it

GPS directions led Chris Ochoa to the wrong home while looking for a wedding rehearsal, prompting the homeowner to chase him down in a truck, cut him off and allegedly point a gun to his head, according to law enforcement records obtained by 9Wants to Know.
...
In the Douglas County Sheriff's Office (DCSO) incident report, Ochoa told deputies homeowner Paul Favret chased him down in a truck and yelled, “I want to blow your f*****g head off.”

Ochoa told deputies Favret didn’t listen to his apology but continued to act in an aggressive manner while waving the gun around.
...
In the incident report, Favret initially denied to a responding deputy that he pulled out his gun when confronting Ochoa. He changed his story when the sheriff's deputy showed him the photos taken by Ochoa’s girlfriend. Favret told the deputy he didn’t remember that part of the incident. According to the report, Favret told officers he was on pain medication.

Nice way to talk one's self into DWI charges, on top of kidnapping and whatnot.

Waving a gun at people, especially after they've driven off and are on a street (you can see the stop sign on a cross-street) is pretty much illegal everywhere.

Obstruction of justice charges may also be in the works, if the DA wants to play hardball:

Ochoa said he initially wanted to press charges, but was told not to do so by the owner of the home where the wedding was being held.

"I was in disbelief that she put me in the position of choosing between ruining my best friend's wedding or doing what is right," he wrote.

And while you're at it, rich guys, why don't you at least invest in something other than a Taurus POS and some training in the legality of pointing your heater at other people? This particular asswipe was explaining his actions because of illegal elk-hunters on his land; so he's going to go up against guys with 7mm Magnums and similar rifles with a 9mm or .380 cheap-jack semiautomatic? And who the hell goes elk-hunting in the back country with a sedan, let alone driving up to the house on the property?

Putz.

Because It's Friday

South African steam:

Two Human Pieces of Shit

President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, was returned to federal prison Thursday, after balking at certain conditions of the home confinement he was granted because of the coronavirus pandemic.

If you're in the joint and the Man tells you that you can get out early if you agree to X, Y and Z, that's not generally up for negotiation. You can agree or sit your ass in stir.

On to the next one:

The Democratic senator and Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth, who was awarded the Purple Heart medal after losing her legs during combat operations in 2004 as a helicopter pilot, has been targeted in an apparent smear campaign from leading Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who labelled her a “coward” during a segment on his show on Tuesday evening.

Carlson was 31 years old when the Twin Towers fell. Nothing stopped him from dragging his pasty ass down to the recruiting office and signing up to do his part in the War on terror. Carlson, a prep-school brat, has been just another right-wing troll, cheering on as other people do the fighting, the bleeding and the dying. His only combat has been as one of the Fighting Keyboardists of the 101st Chickenhawks.

Tammy Duckworth, who is a year older than Carlson, was flying a UH-60 when a RPG hit the helo, blowing off both of her legs. She came close to losing her right arm, as well. Her patriotism has been documented in the blood that she shed for his country, in the body parts that she left in the wreckage of her helicopter.

Chickenhawks like Carlson have no right, morally or otherwise, to question anyone else's patriotism, most certainly if the person they're slamming has a DD-214. That most emphatically applies to Carlson and his master, the Donald.

DeSean Jackson and Stephen Jackson Can Both Eat Bags of Rancid Dicks (S.J. Can Have the More Rancid Ones)

DeSean Jackson posted an anti-Semitic fake-Hitler quote and now, Stephen Jackson is digging in with his defense that basically boils down to "it's OK to be anti-Semitic if you're Black."

This crap--

Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson said he has no hatred toward the Jewish community and issued two separate statements of apology with "a promise to do better" after he posted on social media Monday an anti-Semitic message that he attributed to Adolf Hitler and admiration for Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

--does not fly. This isn't a hell of a lot different from Trump posting his racist shit and then proclaiming that he "loves all Blacks" as he points to the one Black guy attending his rally. Saying that one didn't recognize racist bullshit as being racist bullshit is not believable. Neither is his apparently self-professed ignorance about who Hitler was.

Being part of any minority group does not give one a free pass to spout racist bullshit.

Here are a couple of pro tips: If you are going to say anything that ascribes a specific behavior or characteristics to any racial or ethnic group, then what you are about to say is racist and you should both shut your gob and reflect on why you were about to say that. If you are prefacing any remark with the words "I'm not a racist, but..", you have just proven that your first five words are lies.

Trump Signals He's Open to Taking Children Hostage (Plus Some Tab-Clearing)

Determined to reopen America’s schools despite coronavirus worries, President Donald Trump threatened on Wednesday to hold back federal money if school districts don’t bring their students back in the fall. He complained that his own public health officials’ safety guidelines are impractical and too expensive.

Shortly afterward, Vice President Mike Pence announced that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would be issuing new guidance next week “that will give all new tools to our schools.” The advice will keep students safe, he said, but “the president said today we just don’t want the guidance to be too tough.”

Trump is going to hold school children, teachers and parents hostage to his desire to show that the pandemic is under control-- "Either your kids physically go back to school or your school gets it!" That's about a despicable as it gets. And of course, Trump and his first ass-kisser are going to press the CDC to revise their guidance to line up with Trump's orders.

Along similar lines, Trump and his Minister of Xenophobia are using the threat of deportation to force colleges to have in-person classes. It's all about getting people to pretend that there is no pandemic to worry about.
--------------------------------------
Trump's indoor virus spreadathon in Tulsa did just that.
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Meanwhile, the goons in Customs have been using their drones to spy on protesters. Customs denied that their surveillance drones were being used for surveillance, which is about as nonsensical a denial as one can get.

“The worst part for me is when we’re made out to be storm troopers,” said David Fulcher, the deputy director for air operations at the National Air Security Operations Center in Grand Forks. “We believe in peaceful protests.”

That is laughable. CBP has been playing at being the nation's storm troopers for years, and now they're not happy about it? GMAFB.

Pro tip: If you don't want people to call you storm troopers, don't act like storm troopers.

And it's also funny that, after all these years of them bragging how good the optics are on those drones, that they're now claiming that they aren't really that good.
--------------------------------------
China is quietly carrying out a campaign of genocide against the Uighurs:

A new report in Foreign Policy says that China's suppression of Uighurs, Kazakhs and other chiefly Muslim ethnic minorities in northwest China now meets the United Nations definition of genocide, mass sterilization, forced abortions and mandatory birth control part of a campaign that has swept up more than 1.5 million people and what researcher Adrian Zenz calls probably the largest incarceration of an ethnoreligious minority since the Holocaust.

The very same people who get so outraged over Israel's treatment of Palestinians have not uttered a peep about China's genocidal campaign against its Muslim minorities. Because Chinese gold buys a lot of closed moths and averted eyes.

And yes, Trump approves. He always has when the Chinese Communists use force against their own people.

Well, This is Fucking Cheery to Contemplate

(There are links embedded in the original)

So, in June 30 percent of Americans couldn’t make their rent. July 25th, federal eviction protection ends. There may be another check, but another $1,200 (or even $2k) isn’t going to cut it, just as people couldn’t pay rent event with the $600 unemployment benefit top-up.
...
So, expect a huge wave of evictions, homelessness, and hunger. Food banks will be overwhelmed, people will go hungry.

Your lords and masters have decided that if you aren’t useful to them (aren’t employed, can’t make rent) that you don’t deserve anything, including life. This has been the case for a long time, it’s just that, in the middle of a pandemic, they see a lot of you as useless eaters towards whom they have no responsibility.

Besides, why should they care? Billionaires have actually gained wealth during the pandemic. Covid isn’t much of a problem for the rich, it’s mostly an opportunity.
...
I really hope I'm wrong about this, but the numbers on this are staggering. Assume that even five percent of Americans lost their housing over two months, that would be almost 17 million people. Each doubling is another 17 million. A ten percent loss is 34 million.

If anything like that happens, I cannot see how it does not turn into mass hunger and civil disorder.

I hope he's really wrong on this. But it makes a twisted bit of sense. If shit really gets weird in the next couple of months, one party will push to go full-on fascist with the promise of cracking down to restore control for the rich. You know who will be promising that.


(H/T)

Donnie, Lad, Everybody Working For You Hates You (Even Stephen Miller)

Isn't It Clear, Now, Why Trump Has Been Ignoring the Pandemic?

Early numbers had shown that Black and Latino people were being harmed by the virus at higher rates. But the new federal data — made available after The New York Times sued the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — reveals a clearer and more complete picture: Black and Latino people have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus in a widespread manner that spans the country, throughout hundreds of counties in urban, suburban and rural areas, and across all age groups.

Latino and African-American residents of the United States have been three times as likely to become infected as their white neighbors, according to the new data, which provides detailed characteristics of 640,000 infections detected in nearly 1,000 U.S. counties. And Black and Latino people have been nearly twice as likely to die from the virus as white people, the data shows.
...
The data also showed several pockets of disparity involving Native American people. In much of Arizona and in several other counties, they were far more likely to become infected than white people. For people who are Asian, the disparities were generally not as large, though they were 1.3 times as likely as their white neighbors to become infected.

The article goes into some of the possible reasons for the disparity.

What is pretty evident, by now, as more and more data comes out that shows that people of color are being sickened and killed by the coronavirus than whites, the less and less Trump is interested in doing anything to slow the rate of the pandemic. You can bet the farm that if the coronavirus was more severely impacting white people, that Trump would have nothing else on his mind. But ever since the first data came out about the racial disparities of the victims of the coronavirus, Trump turned away.

Instead of concerning himself with matters associated with the pandemic, Trump is laser-focused on preserving the statues of dead traitors and of ensuring that the Flag of Treason continues to be displayed. Trump is running the most overtly race-baiting campaign for the presidency since George Wallace, if not Strom Thurmond. When he addresses the pandemic at all, he lies about the number of cases, he claims that there would be no pandemic if there was no testing and he lies that 99% of the people who get the virus don't even get sick.

Trump's turned his back on Texas, Florida (his new home state), and Arizona. If cases are rising in your state, don't look to either Trump or Jared the Prince of Merde for help. Trump's decided that he can write off a few hundred thousand dead Americans as the cost of his getting reelected. Trump's betting that his batshit-crazed supporters will go along with him and will turnout in numbers that will drown out his historically low approval ratings for a president running for reelection.

The best evidence that Trump is wrong in his bet comes from America's Greatest Political Weathervane, Lindsey Graham.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Monday defended NASCAR and Bubba Wallace, one of the sport's top Black stars, as both come under criticism from President Trump.

During an interview with Fox News Radio, Graham said it "made perfect sense" that Wallace was concerned about a noose found in his garage stall. He also argued that by banning the Confederate flag at its events, NASCAR was trying to "grow" its fan base.

For Graham to disagree with Trump on, well, anything, signifies that Graham is sensing a change in the political winds.

But Trump will do what he thinks will work: He'll double down on his race-baiting and white-supremacist steam-whistling. Because he thinks it'll work for him one more time.

And one more time is all that he and Vladimir Putin need.