Unsightly Mental Blemishes

Like, how you learn about the mascot for a sports team:

… [director of the Wisconsin Elections Commission Meagan Wolfe] said Wisconsin’s ban on “electioneering” at polling sites applies to campaigning for candidates and issues. It doesn’t apply to general pushes to encourage people to vote, she said.

The issue has surfaced because the state Republican Party has warned Milwaukee officials that it believes athletes, the Bucks mascot Bango and the Brewers’ Racing Sausages cannot be present at Fiserv Forum and Miller Park when they are used as voting sites. [milwaukee journal sentinel]

The Racing Sausages. I’d never heard of them. They sound better than the St. Paul Saints‘ pig, whatever it’s called.

See, being a student of the election can lead to all sorts of revelations! Well, at least laughter – on my part.

Panoply:

A panoply of things is a wide range of them, especially one that is considered impressive.
[formal]
He was attended, as are all heads of state, by a full panoply of experts. [Collins English Dictionary]

Noted in “Considerations for the Structure of the Bureau of Cyber Statistics,” Chas Kissick and Paul Rosenzweig, Lawfare:

The Cyberspace Solarium Commission completed its work earlier this year, with a panoply of recommendations for improving the national cybersecurity posture of the United States. As one might expect for a federal commission, many of the more readily implementable recommendations focused on matters that lie exclusively within the control of the federal government. A number of those recommendations will soon become reality through either executive action or legislative decision.

An update on the legal aspects of the confirmation process of a SCOTUS nominee from lawyer and former conservative pundit Jennifer Rubin:

If three Republicans are incapacitated, the Senate would lack a quorum to vote on the nomination. If only two are out, a single Republican senator nevertheless could put an end to this wantonly dangerous behavior. Two Republicans have already said they oppose holding a vote for the nominee before Election Day, given the principle that McConnell used to deny Obama nominee Merrick Garland a confirmation hearing in 2016. We need a single Republican to step forward and say, Enough! Don’t bother endangering each other, because I won’t show up to jam this through. That would definitively end the whole reckless exercise. We will not have to rely on the good judgment of characters like Johnson, Lee and Tillis to absent themselves for a full 14 days or longer if need be.  [WaPo]

The plot thickens. It may only be morbid curiosity, but how this all plays out will be most interesting – and, no doubt, the subject of many stories, plays, movies, and even Fringe shows, nationwide.

I wonder, if Barrett is ultimately denied a seat on SCOTUS, if those who are viewing these events through a religious lens will take this to mean that God did not mean what they thought it meant, or if it’s all the work of evil divinities. My money’s on the latter.

Well, not really. We eat them. But this part amuses me.

Oh, so ugly. Misshapen. Given a few days, though, and it’ll be tasty.

For those who are wondering, it’s a variety of paste tomato named Opalka. The non-deformed specimens have the shape, but not the coloration, of bananas. We generally turn them into paste.

This caught my eye:

BREAKING — Sen Thom Tillis also tests positive for covid-19, his office says. Tillis is also a member of the Judiciary Committee, was at the White House SCOTUS event Saturday, met with Barrett on Wednesday. pic.twitter.com/FMGFWkOiFA

— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) October 3, 2020

Currently, the SCOTUS confirmation hearings have yet to start, and while Senator Tillis and Senator Lee (R-UT) have tested positive for Covid-19, the Judiciary Committee has a 12-10 Republican majority, so, assuming either Lee or Tillis is still functional at vote time, Barrett will make it out of the committee.

But then comes the floor vote. Currently Republicans hold the Senate 53-47 (yes, two Independents caucus with the Democrats, but I don’t think that’ll be relevant). Suppose one of the Senators is hurting so badly he can’t vote.

52-47.

And, remember, Murkowski and Collins have committed to voting against the nominee, not because they don’t like the nominee, but because they believe rules made up by Republicans should apply to Republicans. While I’ve heard that Murkowski has wavered, there’s no definite retraction of promises.

All of a sudden it’s 50-49 for the nominee.

And if one Republican Senator switches sides, nominee Barrett’s dreams of being a Justice go down the tubes, and there’s literally no time to gin up another candidate.

But this gets even more interesting. Suppose confirmation has either failed or not been held yet on November 4^th. Special elections result in the installation of the victories Senator immediately upon vote certification, and that can happen rapidly, according to what I read. There are two special elections this go around. The first is in Arizona, where Republican appointed incumbent and Trump-clinger Martha McSally, currently in Senator McCain (R-AZ) old seat, is polling poorly against first time politician and retired astronaut Mark Kelly. I would be surprised if Kelly is not Senator Kelly (D-AZ) in the near future.

But the surprise could be in Georgia, the site of the other special election. Republican appointed incumbent Kelly Loeffler, involved in a jungle primary in which there’s a runoff if no one exceeds 50%, had been in a battle, a war, not with a Democrat, of which no one of note had shown up, but with fellow Republican, House member & Trump ally Doug Collins.

This had been going along quite sleepily until Pastor Raphael Warnock (D-GA) entered the race. At first, he had a solid third place, not good enough to make the runoff. And then, following some high profile endorsements, polls showed Warnock suddenly leading the pack with numbers in the 30s – and some polls in the high 30s.

High enough that if the voters preferring the other Democratic candidates, of which there are two or three, were to transfer their preference to Warnock, he might possibly scrape together a large enough victory to avoid the runoff.

Suddenly, the Republican majority in the Senate is 51-49, and if Collins and Murkowski remain persistent in their insistence upon the importance of principle in the conduct of the Senate, Senator McConnell’s dreams of helping Trump to a third SCOTUS appointment would implode in a most shocking and dramatic fashion.

Sure, a lot of unlikely things have to occur for McConnell’s final (I hope) fiasco to be blighted – but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility. The next few weeks should be vertiginous fascinating.

In the wake of the revelation that President and Melania Trump, among others, have tested positive for Covid-19, there’s been a lot of speculation that it’s actually a lie. Professor Richardson summarizes:

This story proves how crucial it is to have a White House we trust. Immediately, Twitter users noted that someone had suggested this very scenario back in September as a way for Trump to steal headlines away from Biden, emerge victorious over the virus, and claim credit for a new treatment that had cured him. Elections almost always feature an “October Surprise” to move voters in the last few weeks of the election when it is too late for the other side to challenge that surprise move. And while this news certainly looks genuine—the White House doctor issued a statement after Trump announced the test results—there is plenty that the Trump campaign would like to distract us from.

And while this is not an unlikely scenario, so far I haven’t seen anyone treat this as an exit strategy.

That is, if President Trump “dies”, then he doesn’t have to face and acknowledge defeat in the November election. The White House announces his demise and that his corpse will be released quickly for a public viewing – just like his tax returns, perhaps, or some substitute will be found.

Meanwhile, Trump, in dramatic, undercover fashion, leaves the country, escaping prosecution, he hopes, forever.

It seems unlikely, and yet I could see him making a go of it.

There’s been some commentary, some public worry, about right wing violence perpetrated on Election Day, and I’m not sure I approve of that commentary. What I think should be said, and communicated very, very clearly, is this:

To anyone who thinks Election Day means you get to go out and commit mayhem for free, this is what will happen:

Local police, who are sworn to their duty to keep the public peace, will descend upon anyone committing political violence, and then one of two things will happen to those who think committing political violence is cool.

1. They’ll arrest your ass, or
2. They’ll shoot you dead.

Doubt that? Look up and remember what’s happened recently to Boogaloo Boys and white supremacists who thought they could get away with mayhem and murder. The police tried to arrest them, and then shot them dead.

For those of you who are merely arrested, you’ll then go through the court system, and no doubt end up spending lots of years doing hard time in a state penitentiary. Judges will not be lenient, because political violence is never tolerated in the United States. PERIOD.

And, while it’ll never happen, I’d be in favor of a law that stated that all such convicts would be subject to having their citizenship stripped, and being deported to Russia. Or Iran. Either works for me.

For all that police reputations have suffered over the last few years, I remain confident that those who are not explicit racists will step up and do their jobs when called upon.

And, if they’re insufficient to the job, there’s always the National Guard.

I do not expect any violence on Election Day, and in the days afterward the only violence will be to the patience of judges and voters, but if there are incidents, those who think they’ll effect some sort of political change through violence will run into the hard fist of law enforcement. And they won’t like it.

Fox News White House Correspondent John Roberts, apparently quite tired of Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany dodging questions about whether or not President Trump will denounce white supremacy:

On Fox News, @johnrobertsFox is visibly angry that @PressSec won't offer a clear denunciation of white supremacy: "Stop deflecting. Stop blaming the media. I'm tired of it. " pic.twitter.com/GcPcOsAHqJ

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) October 1, 2020

It’s not good when the news media that has consistently backed Trump is expressing frustration with his Administration. They may realize the dollars will stop flowing as advertisers flee any association with racist people.

Keep the chin up, Mr. Roberts. And remember – every other Twitter account is a ‘bot controlled by Russians frantic to control the American election. The last thing V. Putin wants is a clear-eyed American in the White House, ready to shut him down. Twitter criticism is the least important thing criticism in the world.

Another mass nomination.

The House adopted a resolution on Tuesday to affirm the chamber’s support for a peaceful transfer of power after President Trump last week declined to commit to it if he loses reelection.

Lawmakers adopted the measure in a bipartisan 397-5 vote, with all of the votes in opposition coming from Republicans.

Tuesday’s vote followed one last week on a virtually identical measure in the Senate, which lawmakers in that chamber passed unanimously.

Passage of the resolution in the Democratic-led House also came less than an hour before Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden were set to face off in the first of three presidential debates.

The five Republicans who voted against the resolution were Reps. Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Louie Gohmert (Texas), Clay Higgins (La.), Steve King (Iowa) and Thomas Massie (Ky.). [The Hill]

Loving the tyrant more than one’s freedoms.

Outside of the scale of these numbers, why am I not surprised?

They made a list of more than 30 celebrities including Justin Timberlake, Taylor Swift and Billy Joel to appear in their ad campaign to “inspire hope” about coronavirus, but they ended up with only Dennis Quaid, CeCe Winans and Hasidic singer Shulem Lemmer.

The health department’s $300 million-plus, taxpayer-funded vehicle to boost confidence in President Donald Trump’s response to the pandemic is sputtering. Celebrities are refusing to participate, and staff are arraying against it. Some complain of the unstated aim of helping Trump’s re-election. Others point to an ill-prepared video team and a 22-year-old political appointee who has repeatedly asserted control despite having no public health expertise, according to six people with close knowledge of the campaign and documents related to its operations.

Interviews with participants and others in the Health and Human Services Department paint a picture of a chaotic effort, scrambling to meet an unofficial Election Day deadline, floundering in the wake of the medical leave of its architect, Michael Caputo, and running up against increasing resistance among career staff. [Politico]

I hope that not all the money has been spent, but I suspect it has been. And this is what turns it into probable corruption for me.

A central problem: The video firm recommended by HHS to execute the campaign has struggled to meet deadlines, retain staff and even find the contact information of celebrities to participate in the videos, said three people with knowledge of the operation and documents reviewed by POLITICO.

That firm, DD&T, is led by a filmmaker who had no prior experience making U.S. public health campaigns and is also the business partner of Caputo, the Trump loyalist who served as the health department’s spokesperson before taking leave this month.

“They had no reason being the people working on this campaign,” the person involved in the process added. “They did not have any connections to filming crews, companies or anything.”

But they had connections to Caputo. That’s all it takes, doesn’t it?

I see some of the most desperate Republicans incumbent Senators are trying to build separation from the Administration on one of the hottest rails of the season:

Senate Democrats’ largely symbolic bid to cut off the Trump administration’s support for a Supreme Court challenge to Obamacare failed as expected Thursday, but several Republicans facing tough reelections crossed party lines to back the measure.

Sens. Martha McSally of Arizona, Susan Collins of Maine, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Joni Ernst of Iowa and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, who are trying to reassure voters about their defense of insurance protections for preexisting conditions, backed the Democrats’ measure. Another Republican, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who opposed Obamacare repeal efforts three years ago, also supported the bill.

But the bill fell 51-43, short of the 60 votes needed to advance. [Politico]

It’s interesting that Senator Graham (R-SC), who has authored some pathetic calls for campaign donations, was not in the list of Senators declaring a small shred of independence. Does he see his allegiance to Trump as his ticket back to Congress?

Less surprisingly, Senator Loeffler (R-GA), who has clung to Trump even though he’d prefer to see Rep Collins (R-GA) occupying the Senate seat, is also not on the list. Nor is her colleague in the same state, Senator Perdue (R-GA), who is considered a close ally of Trump’s. Much like Loeffler, he is in a hot race, and it’s important to remember that Georgia went to Trump by only 5 points in 2016. Republicans may be in danger of losing the state and both Senate seats to the Democrats in November.

It all comes down to where the Republican Senators see their political fortunes tied – to Trump, or to, well, competency.

This is an early step in the desperate fight to survive politically for these Senators (Murkowski is not up for reelection this year, but I think it counts for her next reelection effort). Will they dare take another step, and what will it be? Party loyalty can only go so far when your Party is shrinking. It’s too late for any of them to switch parties, so some of their options are gone. But they can still express disloyalty to Trump by denouncing his anti-democracy statements. Will they dare?

Here’s some morning glories to brighten the day:

Senator Tim Scott (R-SC)

The political world – at least on the non-Trump cult side – has been quite fixated on what appeared to be President Trump’s endorsement of the Proud Boys terrorist group at the debate. In view of leading questions by reporters of Trump that he repudiate the Proud Boys, and the evident failure of same, I want reporters to follow this up:

Asked if he found Trump’s comments on white supremacists concerning, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said, “I think he misspoke, I think he should correct it. If he doesn’t correct it, I guess he didn’t misspeak.” [NBC News]

The followup should be fucking obvious:

Senator Scott, in view of President Trump’s endorsement of a group whose goal is to start a race war, do you plan to resign from the Republican Party and caucus with the Democrats?

A negative answer would probably signal the imminent end of his political career.

The unsurprising debate specifics I’ve been reading, such as this one, make it clear that the next debate will require just one thing.

Shock collars.

I’m guessing Biden’s won’t need to be used.

Debates are almost never about convincing your adversary of the rightness of your position, but of convincing the audience.

Therefore, I didn’t watch tonight’s debate. 20,000+ lies, 200,000+ American lives lost, that’s all I need to know. It’s Biden who should be the next President.

I have seen inevitable snippets, sadly. Trump made me quite ill. It’s as if he’s five steps behind everyone else, and doesn’t realize it.

But I cannot comment on it. I have been convinced of his utter failings since the Republican primary debates of 2016. So what’s the point?

For the audience to see what a shitshow the Trump Administration has turned into.

I hope that in the following two debates, Biden, at some point, will get to ask the pro-Trumpers a simple question: How can you live with the knowledge that you voted for someone who has lied 20,000 times in 4 years? Weren’t you taught any morals, any ethics?

One more thing: I received a Jason Lewis phone call a day or two ago, and I’m embarrassed to say I was not ready. See, you have to have a line or two rehearsed. I started yelling at him, and he hung up, but that’s not so great. The real best line is this:

Does your mother know what you’re doing, shilling for a Trump Republican? Isn’t she ashamed of you? How did you turn out so bad.

I’d guess I’d never get to say the third line to a live phone.

Not the Messiah (He’s a Very Naughty Boy) (2010) is the oratorio based on the classic Monty Python’s Life Of Brian (1979), featuring a full orchestra and A-list singers, along with members of the Monty Python troupe, all coordinated by the inimitable Eric Idle. I thought was great fun; my Arts Editor called it genius.

If you like Monty Python, it’s worth a gander.

The best information is from experienced reporters on the ground, and that’s what Art Cullen, editor of the Storm Lake Times, can deliver about the Senate race involving incumbent Republican Joni Ernst and Democratic challenger Theresa Greenfield (D-IA) in our neighbor to the south, Iowa. Here he’s writing for WaPo:

Ernst trails Greenfield among women by 20 points in the Iowa Poll; all those votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act left some bruises; rural hospitals are on the verge of closing, and urban hospitals are shutting down maternity wards to cut costs. Duly noted.

Then there’s the court vacancy. The Republicans think this vote will help them with the pro-life crowd. I am not sure I follow that logic. In Iowa, abortion is already factored into the calculus for Ernst. People who vote on that issue have been energized and organized since 1973. They’re the reason Trump is even in the equation in Iowa. That support is maxed out, I believe.

I’ve come to regard abortion as the existential crowbar of American politics. All it takes is some incompetent, even malicious, third-rate boob running around proclaiming their pro-life credentials, and, in many parts of the country, the single issue anti-abortion voters will happily ignore the highly experienced and competent candidate who happens to be pro-choice and vote for the boob.

And then again. And again. Even among the smoking ruins caused by the boob. Thus, existentiality.

At some point, you’d think that someone has to sit down and realize that incompetency has consequences, and what lead to the incompetent getting into power needs to be analyzed, and conclusions drawn.

It seems to me that if anti-abortion was this magic position, this sacred life thing, then simply always following the rule of voting for the pro-lifer should lead to positive outcomes; when it doesn’t, and doesn’t repeatedly, that suggests that the anti-abortion position may not be the top-of-the-mountain issue that pro-lifers continually screech over.

But will that occur? I’m talking about rationality here; rationality is a tool in our toolbox, but not our essence. Someone talks about how life is sacred, and no one really wants to be the person who said, Wait, what? The social consequences can be severe. And so the herd goes trotting that-a-way.

All that said, I suspect that not only is Cullen right, but the turnout for the anti-abortion faction may be smaller than expected. This would be the result of two factors: first, the aforementioned disasters will certainly catch the attention of some anti-abortion single issue voters, and some of them will drop the latter clause, if not the former clause, and choose to vote Biden and Greenfield, even if they’re biting their tongues.

Second, the upcoming confirmation of Barrett, assuming it goes through, will ratchet down the tension about voting for Ernst and Greenfield. No open seat, why vote for the scoundrel Trump, and his henchwoman, Ernst? It’s already morally distasteful, and while there’s a distinct possibility that the next President may appoint up to four SCOTUS Justices, the fact that it’s not being talked about suggests it won’t be on voters’ minds.

So I have some cautious hopes that Trump-enable Senator Ernst will end her political career in November. The tide seems to be running that way. The bet is off if Barrett fails confirmation, though…

I was a little dumbfounded at this naive remark:

I don't get the "Trump has big debts, therefore he could be blackmailed, or do something reckless to pay them off" argument. He's always owed lots of money. He's shown no compunction about declaring bankruptcy. Why do we think it'll be different this time around?

— James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) September 28, 2020

Listen, not all sources of funds are banks. Some are what we so quaintly call loan sharks. A loan shark doesn’t care if you declare bankruptcy, he just sends a dude with a rifle to make an example of you.

And Trump knows this. He already owes money up the wazoo, and he’s proven himself to be quite a foolish person, so it’s not beyond imagination that he’s into someone – say, some petty dictator – that would take great umbrage at losing money at any substantial scale.

And, of course, there’s more than one way to make an example of someone. Over the last four years it’s become clear, from the examples set by Jeffrey Epstein, President Trump, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, and others, that reputation is another greatly valued possession, and while virtually no one wants a bad reputation, up there in the financially rarified atmosphere where Trump and other billionaires – or wannabes – fly, many actually value their reputation as billionaires almost as much as the billions themselves.

And this is not even foolish: Such reputations can make or break deals.

The leak of his tax returns has not had their identity revealed, which leads me to speculate that what we’re seeing right now could be the beginning of the end of Trump the Billionaire Deal Maker, as orchestrated by another billionaire – or as a very public lesson in why you pay back borrowed money. Oh, I don’t think the chances are great that either speculation will turn out to be true, and I wouldn’t put any money on either, but it’s not impossible.

It’s no secret that most movies made in the last thirty years cost absurd amounts of money.

Absurd. Megan McArdle reports that the recently released Tenet (2020), directed by Christopher Nolan, required revenues of around $400 million in order to break even, and it didn’t even get close. McArdle goes on:

Which leaves us with two open questions: First, how long will it take to get enough people vaccinated that we can once again blithely sit down in the dark with a bunch of strangers who are probably pulling down their masks to munch popcorn? In the United States, at least, the numbers keep getting more discouraging. Fewer than 40 percent of Americans say they’ll get a vaccine when it’s available, a decline that seems to be driven by partisan fear as much as medical uncertainty.

The longer it takes, the more urgent becomes the second question: Will theaters still be around when viewers are ready to go back? Theater chains are already facing a debt crisis that will become dire if they have to go another year without any significant revenue, as are the shopping malls where many of those theaters are housed. The modern movie business has been tuned to operate at vast scale, opening mega-budget blockbusters on thousands of screens at once. It’s unclear what happens if a significant portion of that capacity simply vanishes in the course of a year or two.

Parlous:

very bad, dangerous, or uncertain:

• Relations between the two countries have been in a parlous state for some time.
• I’d like to buy a new car, but my finances are in such a parlous state that I can’t afford to. [Cambridge Dictionary]

Noted in “Donald Trump Has Been Losing Money Every Year Since 2012,” Kevin Drum, Mother Jones:

Trump’s story turns out to be pretty simple. After screwing everybody in sight during the ’90s, he entered 2000 in parlous shape. What saved him was The Apprentice, which earned him a boatload of money and formed the foundation of his flurry of licensing and endorsement deals over the next few years. But as revenue from the show faded, so did Trump’s finances, and since 2012 he’s been losing money every year. Long story short, Trump has lost money at pretty much everything he’s ever done. The only exception is The Apprentice and the licensing money it enabled—which probably owes more to reality show mogul Mark Burnett than to Trump himself.

… by mere plexiglass.

Just the tongues alone are enough to inspire terror!

And yet this lady won’t do a thing about it.

My Arts Editor at work.

Arts Editor: [Cats] are Scions of Entropy.

Me: True, but are they green or blue?

AE: Eh?

Me: Are they traffic scions or hospital scions?

AE: …

The New York Times report on the tax information of President Trump, which paints him as a con man extraordinaire, would, for a rational people, be the final nail in the coffin of a politician who has proven to be little more than incompetent at his job, a showman, and a con man.

We are not a rational people.

I’m looking for just a small dip in approval ratings, if that. For the typical Trump cultist, it’s been dinned into them that the mainstream news is fake news.

They are too deeply invested to pull their support in terms of social standing and the local power structure. They might give up on Trump if they were harboring doubts, but even if they had based their support on the now-revealed lie that Trump was a successful business man, they’re in too deep. Just mention Trump’s name and they experience an endorphin rush.

And if they’ve achieved an elected position based on their support of Trump, they’ll clutch his knees all the harder. His success is their success; they’ll simply go along with Trump’s claims that this is fake news, as he claimed at a news conference yesterday.

The most interesting reactions will come from elected officials – such as members of Congress – who were already in office when Trump was elected, and have not associated themselves with Trump. So I’m not talking about Jordan or Gaetz or lickspittle Graham, but Romney, Senator Lee (R-UT), maybe Senator Sasse (R-NE), maybe Senator Sullivan (R-AK). Do they stick to the President, or do they walk away?

I’m guessing they’re too conditioned to condemn him, with the possible exception of Senator Romney (R-UT), although his decision to support Trump’s wish to appoint the next SCOTUS Justice leaves me doubtful.

The last possibility is that Senators locked in harsh reelection battles may distance themselves from Trump, but that may be difficult for some, such as Loeffler and McSally, two appointed Senators trying to win their special elections. They’ve locked themselves to Trump, and may find themselves going down with the ship.

But look for long-time Maine Senator Collins to distance herself even more. Heavens knows she’s been the most disloyal of the Republican Senators to Trump.

So … yes, I don’t expect much to come of this. Trump loyalists have too much invested. Hell, National Review, a former NeverTrump publication, this morning has lead articles headlined:

Why the Federalist Society and Other Institutions Matter (with a secondary of how the President’s success is dependent on those conservative institutions, rather than, like, his own behavior?)

New Project Veritas Video: Voter Fraud in Ilhan Omar’s District (nothing in the local StarTribune – at least not yet)

Revolution by Shenanigan (or, how the Democrats have rewritten the Constitution and will impose it on us)

But nothing on the tax return revelations. A pity. Maybe they’re just not fast. Or maybe they’re looking for the proper spin.

Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) sets fire to Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX):

Watching Amy destroy lying Ted is delicious
pic.twitter.com/R8qbx49ZLG

— Molly Jong-Fast🏡 (@MollyJongFast) September 26, 2020