Sunday, August 30, 2020

And another  ____________  (adjective) day in America comes to a close:

"The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” — George Orwell, 1984

Deaths

US: 187,224 (+369)

World: 850,588 (+3831)

Cases

US: 6,173,236 (+24,158)

World: 25,383,993 (+219,175)

Countdown: 65 days.

Americans love Social Security but fear 'socialism.' Trump is exploiting that. Those overheated warnings conceal another irony. In recent decades, the free-enterprise system has performed better under Democratic presidents who favor government action to ease struggling Americans' economic burdens than under Republican presidents who oppose it...The economy added more jobs during the 16 years Bill Clinton and Barack Obama served as president than during the more than 23 years of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Trump..."It just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats," Trump said in 2004, before he became a Republican politician.

“It wasn't simply that they violated the Hatch Act. It's that they did it so brazenly, in our faces, on TV, in the most arrogant way possible. On purpose. To prove their power is bigger than mere law. A powerful symbol of what is to come.” — Joe Hagan 

‘Fanning the flames’: Dems accuse Trump of stoking violence. Democrats on Sunday accused President Donald Trump of trying to inflame racial tensions and incite violence to benefit his campaign as he praised supporters who clashed with protesters in Portland, Oregon, where one man died overnight, and announced he will travel to Kenosha, Wisconsin, amid anger over the shooting of another Black man by police.

“This is Trump's America. He has to own the incompetence around coronavirus: 180,000 American deaths & almost 38 million jobless claims. He has to own it. How do you break this country & then run for re-election saying I want to fix everything that I destroyed.” — Cedric Richmond

Portland mayor excoriates Trump: "Do you seriously wonder, Mr. President, why this is the first time in decades that America has seen this level of violence? It's you who have created the hate and the division. It's you who have not found a way to say the names of Black people killed by police officers even as people in law enforcement have. And it's you who claimed that White supremacists are good people. Your campaign of fear is as anti-democratic as anything you've done to create hate and vitriol in our beautiful country." -- He had more to say.

What is Patriot Prayer? Victim wore hat with group’s insignia. Patriot Prayer is a loosely organized right-wing group that has repeatedly been involved in brawls with left-wing antifascist groups.

Wisconsin governor urges Trump not to visit Kenosha: "I, along with other community leaders who have reached out, are concerned about what your presence will mean for Kenosha and our state. I am concerned your presence will only hinder our healing. I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together.” -- You bring division and destruction wherever you go, Donald. Go home.

‘Small events add up to a lot': Limited gatherings quietly emerge as source of coronavirus infections. There’s no generally accepted definition of what’s a small gathering – it may range from five to 30 people – and the vast majority of these activities are taking place behind closed doors. That makes it difficult to garner hard data about them. — Bottom line: even small get-togethers are dangerous for spreading the virus.

Rosenstein curtailed counterintelligence probe into Trump's Russia ties. Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told special counsel Robert Mueller in May 2017 to only conduct a criminal investigation of possible coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, secretly curtailing an FBI counterintelligence probe into President Trump's ties to Russia.

Huge crowds of protesters flooded Belarus' capital Minsk again on Sunday calling for President Alexander Lukashenko to step down, defying a heavy deployment of security forces and threats of a crackdown.

Sexual assault victims who publicly discuss their experiences using their real names could face up to four months in prison, under a new law passed in the Australian state of Victoria, sparking outrage among activists. Changes to the state's Judicial Proceedings Reports Act, which were made quietly in February, make it an offense for anyone to publicly disseminate information that leads to the identification of a victim of sexual assault.

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.