Donald Trump's latest attempt to subvert the mail-in vote in November is just another trick pony. We really don't need the post office to mail back our ballots.

Every town and city and rural county in America has at least a town hall if not a city hall or a city administration building or a county courthouse. Every one of these places can install a ballot drop-off box in front with a blocked off parking space or two in front so people can drive up, get out of their car for 10 seconds to mail the ballot and drive off. All but the elderly and infirm should drop their ballots off this way. [More...]

Joe Biden:

I have the great honor to announce that I’ve picked @KamalaHarris — a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants — as my running mate.

They are ready to hit the ground running. In terms of picking a running mate who will bring him votes he might otherwise not receive, he made the right choice. She will enthuse and excite the base in ways he does not.[More...]

Writing about Donald Trump is like listening to a broken record. Over and over the media exposes his lies and incompetence, his narcisism and delusions of grandeur, the danger he poses to the global stature of he United States and even to our democracy. At least since the start of COVID-19 (which is when I began watching cable news again after an absence of many years), every night on CNN, in broadcasts distributed around the world, not one, but three prime time hosts brand Donald Trump all these things and worse.

Everyone except his marginalized, fanatical base knows he's a charlatan. Everyone knows he lost the popular vote in 2016. Everyone knows he appoints unqualified people to key staff positions and his administration has the higest turnover rate of any recent occupant of the oval office. Everyone belittles his aides, his nepotism, his adult children, and his apathy to anything that doesn't line his own coffers or ego. Everyone knows he doesn't care about America.

Yet, every morning we wake up and he's still here. He's still dominating the news. He's still lying about COVID-19. Why isn't he gone?

It will take a generation or more to recover from the damage Donald Trump has inflicted on America at every level -- from our physical and economic health to our educational system, our personal and professional lives, the social fabric of our nation and our standing in the world. If we recover at all.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Trump held a signing ceremony Saturday to sign four executive orders he claimed provide COVID-19 relief. Not one of them does what he says it does.

The Order on evictions: It doesn't reinstate the band the expired in July. It doesn't prevent evictions. It doesn't authorize or fund assistance with mortgage or rent payments. It merely "makes suggestions to federal agencies."

Trump's executive order on unemployment benefits takes $50 million from FEMA to pay states to provide $400 a week (instead of the $600 per week the feds provided from March through July) -- which according to experts will be used up in just 5 weeks. Plus, the order requires states to create new programs, which will take time, so it's anyone's guess when anyone will receive any of this money. For those who need money now, it's no help at all. [More...]

On the court case over the release of Trump's tax returns, the New York Times reports today:

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 office of the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., made the disclosure in a new federal court filing arguing Mr. Trump’s accountants should have to comply with its subpoena seeking eight years of his personal and corporate tax returns.

[More...]

We've now passed 150,000 deaths in the U.S. from Coronavirus. The virus is going to be with us for a long time. It's still unclear how much it will change our professional and personal lives in the future.

The virus mutates -- a new form is already spreading in Vietnam, and causing great concern. I'd like to know which of the virus vaccines the U.S. is financially backing, if any, will work on mutations of COVID-19.

Is it possible we will spend billions for a vaccine that works on the disease as it existed when the vaccine testing began, but not on the mutated disease that exists months or a year later when it's approved?

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

No, Trump cannot unilaterally delay the November 2020 election. Even Republicans are shooting that possibility down.

Trump grows more desperate by the day.

Herman Cain got the "Tulsa Virus" two weeks after attending Trump's rally in Tulsa. After a month in the hospital, he has died. RIP, Mr. Cain.

Cain did not wear a mask at the rally. Masks and sanitizers were reportedly available but not mandatory. The article has a photo he posted on his Twitter feed sitting with a group of people, smiling, and none are wearing masks.

Cain was a four time cancer survivor and former contender for the Republican nomination for President.

Some of Joe Biden's biggest donors are trying to derail Kamala Harris's chances of becoming his running mate.

I hope they succeed. Given that Biden has been a crime warrior his entire 35 career in the Senate, the last thing I want is a former career prosecutor in the second highest spot.

I could care less about how she treated Biden in a debate. Plus, from all the transcripts of congressional hearings I've read on the subject of busing from back then, she accurately described his opposition to court-ordered busing).

[More...]

There's Covid, Covid and Covid news, never-ending, always spreading. California has not outpaced New York as the state with the largest number of infections.

Michael Cohen will be going home to be placed on home confinement again. The judge in his ruled the book restriction was retaliation.

Hellerstein in ordering Cohen’s release, said that he found that “the purpose of transferring Mr. Cohen from furlough and home confinement to jail is retaliatory, and it’s retaliatory because of his desire to exercise his First Amendment rights to publish a book and discuss anything about the book or anything else he wants on social media and others.”

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

The suspect in yesterday's shooting of the son and husband of a federal judge in New Jersey has committed suicide.

He was a lawyer named Roy Den Hollander who billed himself as "anti-feminist".The Daily Beast reports he had a pending case with Salas.

Also, he may have been terminally ill with cancer: [More...]

Fox News' Chris Wallace interviewed Donald Trump today. Here are the top 4 minutes.

Here's the Washington Post's account of the entire interview

Trump says he is implementing a new health care plan within two weeks, and an immigration plan as the Supreme Court gave him the authorization.

He also would not commit to accepting the election results if Biden won.

So, who made Joe Biden's "heart go boom" when he saw her standing there? And, will he pick his heart throb for his running mate or will his head take over and make him choose someone else?**

I've taken the week off from blogging. I'm Trump-ed out, Biden-ed out and virus-ed out. The attention being given to the selfish, ignorant segment of the American people who object to wearing masks is just so aggravating. When the respirator shortage comes, can we send them to the back of the line? (yes that's snark).

But on that topic, I really hoped more people would follow guidelines and stop congregating in large numbers without masks so states will not have to implement their Crisis Standards of Care guidelines, which determine whose life is most worth saving, when due to a shortage of respirators or other equipment or medicine, you can't save them all. Reading these guidelines may be the most depressing wake-up call of this pandemic yet. [More...]

Donald Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was blindsided today by the U.S. Marshals and taken into custody, to await return to a federal prison.

Cohen was furloughed by the U.S. Bureau of Prison back in May, due to the coronavirus. A furlough is temporary. BOP decides what happens when it's over. Sometimes you go back to prison. Sometimes you go home to serve the remainder of your sentence on home confinement.

BOP decided Cohen could serve the rest of his sentence on home confinement and not return to prison when the furlough was up.

Home confinement has restrictions. The conditions are spelled out in a agreement between you and BOP. Cohen apparently had not yet begun his home confinement because he and BOP had not agreed on the terms.

According to Cohen's lawyer, Cohen and his lawyer went down to the U.S. Marshal's office today to sign the agreement. [More...]

There were 60,000 new cases of COVID-19 yesterday.
The United States is like a rudderless ship. Scientists now warn that it may result in permanent cognitive impairment (brain damage) even to young people. Also, the disease is linked to strokes, heart attacks and blood clots.

Are we getting to the point where masks, or even new lockdowns, will be too little too late?

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.