It has been quite awhile since I did an Open Thread but there is just so much going on that I could not keep quiet. I am not American and I get frustrated with all the BS I see coming out of the White House and Senate. I certainly can appreciate that Americans will be a hundred times more frustrated than me. The late John Turner, the 17th Prime Minister of Canada and a Liberal, who died two weeks ago at age 91 said “Democracy does not happen by accident. Become involved! Get out there! Give something back!” That is the only way Trump and Republicans will be defeated.
Vote like your life depends on it, because it does!
Cartoon
From Common Dreams
Just send my royalties to the Biden Harris Campaign!!! I am ready for my closeup now, Mr DeMille!
The Guardian — Donald Trump suggested on Thursday that relatives of fallen soldiers could have given him coronavirus after they visited the White House ,..
In a phone interview with the Fox Business TV channel on Thursday morning, Trump complained about coming into close contact with the veterans’ families in a gathering one day after an event at the White House where Trump nominated a new supreme court judge. Many senior figures in attendance later tested positive for Covid-19.
Of the Gold Star families event at the White House on Sunday 27 September, Trump told Fox he “went through, like 35 people” whose family members had died, “and everyone had a different story”, adding: “I can’t back up and say: ‘Give me room. I want room. Give me 12 feet. Stay 12 feet away when you talk,’” he said.
Of course it was the Gold Star families that gave Trump the corona virus. Give me a break! After the better part of a year downplaying the virus and not wearing a mask, even at packed rallies, the idiot Trump (I know, that is an insult to real idiots) has the temerity to try to blame Gold Star families who likely had to be tested before entering the WH. The super spreader event the day before to introduce Judge Amy Coney Barrett as his SCOTUS nominee to replace the deceased Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, after which multiple people have since tested positive, were not at the reception for the Gold Star families. This is classic Trump modus operandi, blame someone else and do not accept responsibility for anything! There is additional information at Slate about the two events. I wonder why the Gold Star families were not wearing masks and if any of them have developed COVID-19.
CNN — President Donald Trump has been celebrating the dose of experimental monoclonal antibodies he was given last Friday, saying he thinks it helped him vanquish his coronavirus infection in record time.
“It was incredible the impact it had,” he said in a video he tweeted Thursday.
What he didn’t say is that the treatment was developed using technology his administration has worked for four years to ban.
It has to do with abortion politics, and the science of using human tissue to test and to make medicines. Regeneron’s therapy indirectly relied on tissue taken from an abortion.
Trump’s base, of course, is strongly against abortion rights and his administration acted quickly to reverse many Obama era policies — including policies that moved forward scientific research involving human fetal tissue. …
People against abortion rights oppose both uses, as does the Trump administration. The US Department of Health and Human Services has stopped the National Institutes of Health from obtaining any more fetal tissue for research and has set up a board that has virtually stopped it from funding any academic groups that use it.
How do you spell HYPOCRISY? T-R-U-M-P and R-E-P-U-B-L-I-C-A-N-S! The only good Republican is an unemployed Republican!!!
Common Dreams — Law enforcement officials announced Thursday they had charged 13 suspects with conspiracy to commit kidnapping and terrorism crimes, after an investigation revealed the right-wing plotters had planned to overthrow the state government of Michigan and take Gov. Gretchen Whitmer hostage.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Thursday afternoon that while six men—all of whom were arrested by agents on Wednesday night—were being charged in federal court related to the kidnapping plot, another seven men, all linked to a group called Wolverine Watchmen and allegedly planning an attack on the Michigan State Capitol, are being charged in state court.
According to an affidavit filed as part of a federal criminal complaint on Thursday, hours after FBI agents raided one of the suspects’ homes in Hartland Township, Michigan, the men began plotting a coup earlier this year and had been making preparations for a violent takeover since the summer. …
“This is a pattern: Trump paints a target. An attack or plot follows,” tweeted Washington Post national security correspondent Greg Miller—one of several observers who connected the president’s rhetoric to the violent plot. [emphasis added]
Do you remember this picture? Right-wing protestors tried to storm the Michigan Capitol in April 2020 with the intent to gain access to the Assembly floor after Trump tweeted “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” ON 17/04/2020. They were confined to the rotunda but that was not the end of the story.
As we see today, the FBI have made arrests — 6 who face federal charges and 7 who face state charges. This is not a spur of the moment action, but an organised action, well planned and about to be unleashed by these domestic terrorists. In some ways, there is little difference between the actions of Sarah Palin when Gabby Giffords and 17 others were shot or killed by Jared Loughner in Tucson, Arizona in 2011. Palin put a bullseye on Gifford and Loughner reacted. This time it was Trump who put a bullseye on Gov Gretchen Witmer and stoked the flames with his rhetoric. Words have power! Is this what “the American experiment” now means? Trump golfs while the nation burns because of his demagoguery, stupidity, narcissism and lust for power!
As follow-up to these arrests and Witmer’s comments about Trump’s rhetoric (CNN), the “Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller lambasted the governor, who had tied Trump’s rhetoric to the plot in earlier televised remarks,” Later, in an interview with CNN, Witmer said:
“”I think that tells you everything that’s at stake in this election,” she said. “It tells you everything you need to know about the character of the two people on this ballot that we have to choose from in a few weeks.”” [emphasis added]
For his part, Trump responded with a series of tweets:
“Governor Whitmer of Michigan has done a terrible job. She locked down her state for everyone, except her husband’s boating activities,” he wrote, urging her in another tweet to “open up your state, open up your schools, and open up your churches!”
Nancy Pelosi. as noted in The Guardian, is setting up a commission in Congress to determine whether Trump can be removed from office under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution. While the House can do this, it would be up to the Vice President and members of the cabinet to carry it out. That will never happen. Pence has his nose so far up Trump’s ass, I am surprised he can even breathe.
Good luck America! You’re going to need it until the Squatter in the White House is gone!!!
Vote Blue No Matter Who Top to Bottom!!!
