Do You Know The Phrase "Running Around Like A Chicken Without A Head?" That's The State Of The Current Republican Party

 

Totally In Control by Nancy Ohanian

Hillary didn't seriously contest Ohio. That campaign mindset is how our country was hurled into the pit of fiery hell we've been in for nearly 4 years. Her husband won Ohio both times he ran and so did Obama-- 51.50% to 46.91% against McCain in 2008 and 50.67% to 47.69% against Romney in 2012. Trump didn't do as well as Obama's 2008 run but Hillary (43.24%) did a lot worse in the Buckeye State than than Romney, McCain, Kerry or Gore. (Establishment Democrats still don't want to acknowledge she was the worst possible candidate they could have nominated. They haven't learned-- and incapable of learning-- from their mistakes. They Democratic Party is so lucky that Biden's opponent is Donald.) Anyway, early on in this cycle, the Party Establishment literally tried writing off Ohio again. I.AM.NOT.KIDDING. The Ohio polling averages show Biden up over a point and it's just a point because the averages including the absurd Trafalgar polling-- which is nothing but a GOP propaganda machine that has nothing whatsoever to do with legitimate polling. The the Fox News poll from late September. Among likely voters, Trump is losing 45% to 50%.

Republicans don't win the presidency without two states: Ohio and Florida. Trump is losing both. And he just stopped advertising in Ohio, cancelling planned TV ads. According to a report from CNN, Trump has spent almost $15 million to date in Ohio, a lot less than in the 3 states he's spent the most in: $77 million in Florida, $36 million in North Carolina and $29 million in Pennsylvania. Biden, meanwhile, has spent a little more than $7 million in Ohio, compared to $95 million in Florida, $55 million in Pennsylvania and $43 million in North Carolina. Biden, though, just opened the floodgates in Ohio, expanding his ad buys-- as early voting began yesterday-- into every corner of the state.

The new spots will air on radio in rural, traditionally Republican areas of the state, the campaign told The Associated Press, as well as on TV in Dayton. That adds to television advertising already announced in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati and on Black radio stations.

...Part of the more-competitive-than-expected Ohio landscape is owed to Trump’s decline in support across the state’s suburbs, surrounding its largest cities Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland but also its midsize and smaller metros, such as Akron, Dayton and Toledo.

Some Republicans have argued that Trump can win by turning out more supporters in the rural and small-town regions that carried him in 2016. However, some Republicans say Trump likely cannot recoup his suburban losses given how he set 40-year Republican vote percentage records, or near-records, in two-thirds of Ohio’s 88 counties four years ago.

...The Biden ads will reach 56 of Ohio’s 88 counties-- as well as four counties in neighboring West Virginia-- with the positively toned spots, the campaign said. They’ll air across southeast Ohio’s Appalachian region, western Ohio’s farm fields and in blue-collar Mahoning County, home to Youngstown, a formerly loyal Democratic area that Trump swung into the Republican column in 2016.

With the only state Democratic Party on a level of incompetence even close to Florida's, Ohio has no noteworthy down ballot races this cycle. They have a conservative Dem running in Cincinnati who could be swept into office in an anti-Trump tsunami, but that's it. What a shame!

In other states, the anti-Trump tsunami is helping down-ballot races and Democratic candidates across the country are telling me they're feeling it on all levels. In Texas, for example, the Biden campaign just committed to a $6 million budget that is going to be crucial not just for his own campaign, but in helping Democrats win back the state House and flip several congressional seats, including TX-10, TX-23, TX-24 and TX-25, where Mike Siegel, Gina Ortiz Jones, Candace Valenzuela and Julie Oliver are looking like winners in their bids to replace Trump tools Michael McCaul, Will Hurd, Kenny Marchant and Roger Williams.

Alaska Senate candidate Al Gross hired man old friend of mine to run his campaign, David Keith. When I asked David today how the Supreme Court nomination is playing our politically in his race, he told me that "Alaskans are pro-choice. Alaskans understand that healthcare-- and most importantly pre-existing conditions-- are on the table. Doctor Al Gross isn’t going to shy away from this fight. He’s going to lean right the hell into it. He’s going to stand up for women’s reproductive freedom like there’s no tomorrow. He’ll fight-- and beat-- anyone trying to rip healthcare away from Alaskans. We’re going to win this race on these very key issues that effect everyone."

It didn't hurt yesterday that his GOP opponent, Dan Sullivan, who is supposedly quarantined in Anchorage was caught, out shopping and-- dull-minded Republican sociopath that he is-- maskless!





And other more vulnerable GOP senators than John Cornyn are feeling the pressure big time. In fact, some of them are not exactly rejoicing over Trump's selection of far right extremist Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court. Safe without an election this cycle, clowns like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are exalting in the fascism, but endangered incumbents like Thom Tillis (NC), Dan Sullivan (AK), Steve Daines (MT), Joni Ernst (IA), not to mention Susan Collins (ME) and Cory Gardner (CO) are dancing around that nomination. ABC News' Kendall Karson reported that these Republicans not outwardly gloating over the end of Roe v Wade or the Affordable Care Act, which is exactly what Coney Barrett is being hired to achieve. Karson wrote that these Republicans "are downplaying a possible conservative shift on the court in an attempt to avoid a potential backlash on Election Day." Some, like Joni Ernst, Thom Tillis and Steve Daines are just flat-out lying to their constituents:

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who sits on the Judiciary Committee and is currently wrestling for her seat with Democrat Theresa Greenfield, suggested Roe would not be overturned with Barrett on the court. Two thirds of Americans believe the landmark decision should remain intact, according to a June CBS News poll.

"I think the likelihood of Roe v. Wade being overturned is very minimal," Ernst, who is trailing Greenfield slightly in recent polling, said at a debate last week. "I don't see that happening, truly. I don't see that happening. But what we can do is certainly educate the public on how important life is ... I'm adamantly pro-life. I will stand behind that."

In North Carolina, where Republican Thom Tillis is competing in a closely-watched contest with Cal Cunningham, a former Democratic state senator and Army veteran, the first-term senator contended that it's not certain how Barrett would vote on Roe if she were confirmed.

"I've heard my opponent talk about Justice Barrett will get on the bench and overturn Roe v. Wade," he said in the race's final debate Thursday night. "Nobody knows how she's going to rule on that."

Tillis, one of the two GOP members of the Judiciary Committee who contracted the virus, instead raised the possibility of chipping away at existing abortion rights-- potentially slowly eroding the breadth of the landmark Roe decision.

"What's likely to occur are cases that are going to go up to say, maybe we should improve standards for clinics that perform abortions," he said. "Maybe we should require doctors to have admitting privileges at a hospital nearby, in case the abortion goes bad. Maybe we should reconsider the extreme position that Cal Cunningham takes on partial birth abortion and on late-term abortions."

...[I]n reliably-red Montana, which voted for Trump by 20 points in 2016 and is known for its independence and split-ticket voters, Republican Sen. Steve Daines is fighting for his political life against Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock.

Pressed on what will happen to the 23 million Americans insured under the Affordable Care Act if the Supreme Court, which hears the Trump administration's challenge to President Barack Obama's signature legislative accomplishment on Nov. 10, strikes it down, Daines used a similar argument as Ernst and Tillis, but this time about the ACA.

Minutes after he said, "I support the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, she's exactly the kind of justice I want to see on the Supreme Court," Daines asserted that the Supreme Court, even with the addition of Barrett, might not overturn the ACA.

"I've spoken to experts who are looking at this case. This is a very big case. It's going to go before the United States Supreme Court regarding the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare," he said at a debate last week. "The experts are saying it's highly unlikely they'll overturn the ACA, that that's the consensus of many legal experts."

...At a time when protecting both abortion rights and the health care law are popular, some Republican strategists are critical of the GOP's efforts in the final stretch of the election, suggesting it's misleading.

"I think it's the worst poker playing I've ever seen," said Jeff Timmer, a veteran GOP strategist and former executive director of the Michigan Republican Party, in an interview Friday. "They're bluffing... She has a clear paper trail on abortion... I mean, is Trump going to withdraw the lawsuit? It's ludicrous to say that it's not going to happen. That's the impetus for getting her confirmed ahead of time because it's politically dangerous for them to rush forward."

...Despite the moves by some members of his own party, McConnell said on Thursday he believes Barrett's nomination will be "a big asset" in "states around the country."

The sudden injection of the Supreme Court into the election is not only a tightrope for endangered Republican senators, though, who will ultimately have to vote on her nomination if, and more likely when, one comes to the floor. It's also emerging as a complication for GOP challengers, too.

...After recently appearing at a Trump rally in Freeland, Michigan, John James-- the Republican running to oust Sen. Gary Peters, one of two Democrats in a competitive race this cycle-- broke ranks with the president, telling a local ABC affiliate that he does not support the administration's lawsuit that will come before the Supreme Court without a replacement health care plan enacted.

"I do not believe that you should pull the rug out from under people, and I don't support this move without a plan in place," he said, without criticizing Trump. "We have to protect people with pre-existing conditions and keep our promises to our seniors. I don't think the ACA is perfect it needs improvement."

James' resistance to supporting the White House's efforts to dismantle the ACA entirely, Timmer said, is indicative of Republicans knowing "this is a losing political issue."

"He has the luxury of having cake and eating it too," he said. "He doesn't have to vote on Barrett...But the fact is that all this is going to happen regardless. Even if John James were to win, he doesn't have take a stand on any of this. And so he has the luxury of saying the politically safe position in the end."

Democrats are leveraging the process to refocus the remaining weeks of the election as a referendum on protecting the ACA, an issue that landed them control of the House and is central to their strategy for winning back the presidency and the Senate. It's also emerged as key to their case against Barrett.

"Keep the argument very simple-- McConnell and Republicans are trying to rush through a confirmation of a justice who will overturn protections for preexisting conditions," a memo circulated by House Democrats' campaign arm outlines. "If McConnell and Republicans get their way, millions of Americans will lose healthcare coverage-- in the midst of a pandemic."

Healthcare is a great issue but so is Trump's real economic record. Democrats have failed to get that out effectively

Late last week, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer used a procedural maneuver to force a vote on blocking the Trump administration's support of the ACA lawsuit, which was mostly symbolic and put Republicans on the record about where they stand on the issue. Some of the most endangered GOP incumbents sided with Democrats, including Ernst, Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, Maine Sen. Susan Collins, Arizona Sen. Martha McSally, and Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, in an apparent move to put distance between them and Trump's efforts to overturn the ACA.

Both Tillis and Daines toed their party line and voted against the measure.

Democrats are eager to highlight the GOP's tough position, as both the ACA and Roe cut against Republicans' top priorities, party strategists say.

"Senate Republicans are blatantly trying to deceive voters about their own records and the intended consequences of their rush to fill this Supreme Court vacancy with a nominee hostile to the Affordable Care Act and women’s reproductive rights," said Stewart Boss, a spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, in a statement. "These vulnerable incumbents are racing to distance themselves from their own rigid positions because there’s an election around the corner and they know their anti-health care stances are harmful and out of touch with voters."

Ohio's House Speaker Just Got Caught In A $60 Million Bribery Scam But His Backward District Is So Right Wing That He Would Win Again If He Could Run From Prison

One Ohio legislator told me that watching Householder shovel food into his maw was one of the most disgusting sights she had ever experienced

It's not nice to call anyone a putrid bag of shit. But Sheldon Silver is a putrid bag of shit. I couldn't cover up the stink if I tried. And we've never tried. We've been covering his political demise since January of 2015 when the powerful and incredibly corrupt Democratic Speaker-for-life of the New York state Assembly was arrested and forced to resign from the speakership and then his Assembly district. He was 71 back then and his lawyers argued-- unsuccessfully-- that he should not be found guilty because the southern District of New York (when it was still a law and order operation instead of a Trump Mob arm) was charging him with activity that state legislators routinely engage in and are not thought of as criminal, i.e., bribery. Now the Yeshiva boy is 76 and has still not served a day in prison. Presumably that will end in late August when he starts serving his six and a half year prison sentence, having been sentenced to that-- and a million dollar fine-- on Monday.

Having denied, denied, denied for years, Silver told the judge on Monday that "My use of my office for personal gain was improper, selfish and ethically indefensible... I'm sorry." The judge pointed out that he had been using his office for corrupt purposes for at least 15 years, taking money from real estate developers-- Glenwood Management and the Witkoff Group-- in return for favorable treatment and special legislation to help their businesses.

That was Monday. The next day, a very similar kind of action exploded in Ohio, where Republican putrid bag of shit/Speaker of the House, Larry Householder, was arrested. He had served as Speaker from 2001 to 2004 but had only been Speaker time time since January 2019. He represents the 72nd state House district east of Columbus-- Coshocton and Perry counties and part of Licking County. The district is 96% white and solidly Republican. Trump's 2016 vote in each of the counties should tell you all you need to know about the people who put Householder in office:

• Coshocton- 69.4%
• Licking- 62.1%
• Perry- 68.1%

And then came the big blue wave of 2018... and no one told the folks in this backward part of Ohio. Sherrod Brown, who won statewide, didn't do as well in the 3 Householder counties:

• Coshocton- 39.5%
• Licking- 43.0%
• Perry- 40.0%

During his first speakership, Householder, a notorious anti-LGBTQ bigot and hate-monger, was best known for passing the first legislation anywhere in America defunding Planned Parenthood-- and for passing a concealed-carry gun law, making it easier for Buckeyes to kill each other. He nearly went to prison in 2004-- for the same kind of monkey business he was arrested for yesterday-- money laundering and bribery. He was arrested by the Feds Tuesday morning at his farm and taken into custody as part of a $60 million bribery scheme that bailed out two nuclear power plants while gutting subsidies for renewable energy projects and increasing rate-holders power bills substantially.

Reporting for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Andrew Tobias wrote that federal prosecutors charged Householder with conspiracy to commit racketeering in connection to the nuclear bailout bill he shepherded through the state legislature last year right after he became speaker. He faces up to 20 years in prison and a quarter million dollar fine-- same as former Ohio Republican Party Chair-turned-lobbyist Matt Borges, prominent lobbyist Neil Clark, FirstEnergy Solutions lobbyist Juan Cespedes and Householder aide Jeff Longstreth.

Householder is one of Ohio’s most powerful politicians, and the investigation against him, news of which broke Tuesday morning, sent shockwaves through Ohio political circles.

...Prosecutors did not seek a monetary bond, although as a condition of their release, Bowman ordered them to surrender their firearms, to remain in the Southern District of Ohio, and to not have contact with other defendants or potential witnesses. This would mean Householder, one of the state’s most powerful politicians, could not travel the entire state or have contact with lobbyists or conceivably even other state lawmakers.

O-H-I-O Created DEVO-- Will The State Be Trump's Political Crypt?

In 2008, Obama's message of "Hope and Change" resonated in Ohio and he took the state, 51.5% to 46.9%. Four years later it was a little closer-- 50.7% to 47.7%-- but Buckeyes were still looking for the change Obama was promising. In 2016, the candidate promising change was Trump, while Hillary represented the status quo of an establishment the Midwest was sick of. Ohio-- like other Midwestern states that had backed Obama-- peeled off and gave Trump the presidency. Hillary took just 43.24% of the vote, a shockingly low number for a swing state. In fact, after Ohio slammed the door so loudly on her campaign, overnight "everyone" decided Ohio was no longer a swing state.

True, Ohio has the worst and least effective Democratic Party of any large state in the country-- even worse than Florida's. Although Democrat Sherrod Brown managed to hold onto his U.S. Senate seat-- he has his own organization and doesn't depend on the state party-- Republicans have come to dominate state elections. All six statewide constitutional elected leaders-- from governor to auditor-- are Republicans. The General Assembly is no longer competitive with Republicans holding 24 state Senate seats (to the Democrats' 9) and 61 state House seats to the Democrats 38. The gerrymandered districts are horrific for the congressional map and today Democrats hold just a pathetic 4 of Ohio's 16 seats, with no obvious changes in sight even if Trump loses in a November wave election. Recruitment, grassroots organizing and party support guarantee that Ohio could stay red even if Trump loses the state. Will he though?

The Associated Press piece, Trump's trouble in suburbs key to suddenly competitive Ohio by Thomas Beaumont and Dan Sewell, was picked up by the NY Times over the weekend. They wrote that "less than four months until this November's election, Trump is facing an unexpectedly competitive landscape in Ohio because he has lost ground in metropolitan and suburban areas, threatening the overwhelming advantages he has in rural areas, state data show. Trump's campaign has budgeted $18.4 million in television advertising in Ohio for this fall, second only to Florida, according to campaign advertising tracking data."

That's lot of money that would otherwise be spent in Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, states that-- even if the Trump campaign won't acknowledge it-- are all but lost already, making Ohio a do-or-die state, more likely a do-or-die-really-badly state. Trump has turned Ohio, North Carolina, Arizona, Iowa and even Texas into swing states. Not Biden, Trump. Biden hasn't even booked air time in Ohio and isn't counting on its 18 electoral votes as part of its path to victory.

Although Beaumont and Sewell made a half-assed attempt to mislead their readers into thinking Ohio experienced "a series of midterm" wins by Democrats in 2018, the Ohio Democratic Party didn't even put up a convincing fight anywhere, let alone win a single congressional seat in the midst of the anti-red wave.

This year the Democrats have weak, old-news candidates offering nothing different from more of what got Hillary rejected in the few districts that should be winnable. OH-01-- Cincinnati-- should be a blue seat but the Democrats have a typical DCCC yawn for a candidate, Kate Schroder. At least she's financially competitive, unlike the other Democratic candidates:

• OH-1 (Cincinnati- R+5)-- Steve Chabot (R)- $1,974,536, Kate Schroder (D)- $1,431,582
• OH-02 (southern Ohio- R+9)- Brad Wenstrup (R)- $1,212,781, Jaime Castle (D)- $124,641
• OH-04 (central and western Ohio- R+14)- Gym Jordan (R)- $9,114,164, Shannon Freshour (D)- $712,180
• OH-05 (Toledo- R+11)- Bob Latta (R)- $1,150,153, Nick Rubando (D)- $142,363
• OH-06 (Ohio River Valley- R+16)- Bill Johnson (R)- $1,408,761, Shawna Roberts (D)- $262
• OH-07 (Canton and Cleveland suburbs- R+12)- Bob Gibbs (R)- $579,047, Quentin Potter (D)- nothing as of June 30
• OH-08 (North Central Ohio- R+17)- Warren Davidson (R)- $737,880, Vanessa Enoch (D)- $15,729
• OH-10 (Dayton- R+4)- Michael Turner (R)- $1,107,654, Desiree Tims (D)- $596,527
• OH-12 (Columbus suburbs- R+7) Troy Balderson (R)- $1,333,727, Alaina Shearer (D)- $450,941
• OH-14 (Cleveland and Akron suburbs- R+5)- David Joyce (R)- $2,221,238, Hillary O'Connor Mueri (D)- $354,665
• OH-15 (Columbus suburbs- R+7)- Steve Stivers (R)- $2,192,653, Joel Newby (D)- $13,373
• OH-16 (northern Ohio suburbs- R+8)- Anthony Gonzalez (R)- $1,684,672, Aaron Godfrey (D)- $15,189

Beaumont and Sewell wrote that "Republican presidential candidates have been steadily losing support in Ohio's once reliably GOP suburbs around Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati. But Trump's fall was particularly sharp, according to state voting data and census records compiled by Mike Dawson, a public policy consultant and creator of ohioelectionresults.com. For instance, in the affluent northern Columbus-area suburb of Upper Arlington, Republican George H. W. Bush won by 34 percentage points in 1992. Twenty years later, Republican Mitt Romney's winning margin there was 8 percentage points. In 2016, Trump lost Upper Arlington to Hillary Clinton by 16 percentage points. A similar picture emerged in the 10 wealthiest suburbs outside Cleveland in Cuyahoga County. In Franklin County outside Columbus, Trump lost nine of the 10 most affluent suburbs, a sharp decline from other Republicans over the past 24 years. The trend was worst in suburban Hamilton County outside Cincinnati, where Trump's losing margin in the 10 richest suburbs was at least 50% of Republicans' total decline since 1992." And yet... none of the Democratic candidates look like any of those suburbs are going turn to them, even as they turn against Trump. Disgust with Trump could throw the election to a worthless Democrat like Biden, but that isn't going to do the track for the kinds of congressional candidates running against GOP incumbents.

Murder/Suicide by Nancy Ohanian

“College educated suburbanites in Ohio, particularly college educated women, were not as supportive of the president in 2016 as they’ve traditionally been of Republican presidential nominees, and that will continue in 2020," said Karl Rove, senior adviser to President George W. Bush's presidential campaign in 2004, when the Republican won election in part by narrowly carrying Ohio. “Trump has a problem with them.”

...Rove said that Trump maintains a clear path to carrying Ohio: “It’s to repeat his 2016 performance in 2020."

That includes matching and, in some instances, exceeding his overwhelming margins in the GOP-heavy counties along the Indiana border and the struggling industrial Mahoning River Valley corridor and along the Ohio River to the south.

But Rove said Trump must also “do what he did in 2016 in suburban Cincinnati, Dayton, Cleveland and Columbus."

History suggests that's going to be hard, some Ohio Republicans say.

“Can the electoral leakage for Republicans in these first- and second-ring suburbs continue to be offset by running up the score along the Ohio River?” said former state Republican Party Chair Kevin DeWine, a former state representative and second cousin to Republican Gov. Mike DeWine. “We have to be honest as Republicans and say we are dangerously close to that tipping point.”

During an August 2018 special election, Danny O'Connor came within 1,700 votes out of more than 200,000 of becoming the first Democrat in 36 years to win Ohio's 12th Congressional District, which includes once solidly Republican Delaware County. Trump came to campaign for O'Connor's opponent, Rep. Troy Balderson, and helped pull him to victory.

Democrats continued making inroads in 2018, picking up six suburban state legislative seats.

That November, Erik Yassenoff, in losing his bid for a northern Columbus-area district, became the first Republican candidate for Ohio General Assembly to lose Upper Arlington.

“I think you’re seeing people in the suburbs align more with the urban populations," Yassenoff said.

Ohio Democratic Party Chair David Pepper has watched as younger, educated and often more racially and ethnically diverse families have sought the top schools and other comforts of Ohio's booming suburbs since the mid-2000s.

The trend was especially clear last year as Democrats scored victories in local suburban elections.

"This is where the fundamental shift has happened, what used to be the base of the Republican Party, these larger, generally white-collar suburbs around Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland and Akron," Pepper said.

In Yassenoff's Upper Arlington, voters elected their first Democrats to its City Council. In nearby Hilliard, Democrats won their first seat on the City Council in three decades. There were similar Democratic municipal gains in Republican-leaning suburbs around Toledo and Dayton, as well as in communities outside Cleveland.

Perhaps most telling, southeast of Columbus in the old Republican suburb of Reynoldsburg, Democrats swept the municipal elections and elected three Black female council members, a first for the city.

“What it tells us is that more people are becoming engaged and involved," said Meredith Lawson-Rowe, among the new Reynoldsburg council members.

Even as Trump’s standing began to fall after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, Ohio was not seen as a concern, campaign officials said. But polls in other states showing close races in Iowa, Georgia and even Texas have also now shaken the firm grip on Ohio.

Ohio started off well in the pandemic. Gov. DeWine was one of the most pragmatic and science-oriented governors in the country. The Republicans in the legislature and Trump destroyed all his work and now Ohio is spiking out of control. On Friday, Ohio reported 1,720 new cases and yesterday another 1,537, bringing the state's total to 73,858-- 6,319 cases per million Buckeyes, a little better the Spain (6,573 cases per million), a lot worse than Italy Italy (4,039 cases per million). Ten counties are pandemic hotspots (total confirmed cases) + 2016 Trump percentage:

• Franklin- 13,778 (34.7%)
• Cuyahoga- 10,438 (30.8%)
• Hamilton- 7,703 (43.0%)
• Lucas- 3,387 (38.7%)
• Montgomery- 2,939 (48.4%)
• Marion- 2,774 (64.6%)
• Summit- 2,570 (43.8%)
• Pickaway- 2,263 (69.2%)
• Butler- 2,091 (62.0%)
• Mahoning- 2,073 (46.8%)

Trump's response to his problem with college-educated voters in the suburbs is simple-- to beat loudly and incoherently on his racism drum while claiming that Biden-- or a nonsensical caricature of Biden that Trump's campaign team is trying to create-- and the Democrats want to abolish the suburbs. "Trump has launched a slash-and-burn campaign against an exaggerated caricature of his Democratic opponent," wrote Josh Dawsey in the Washington Post, casting former vice president Joe Biden as a destroyer of basic freedoms and a threat to voter’s safety who would 'let terrorists roam free' and 'abolish the American way of life.' His new dystopian vision, with militant and extreme language not typical in American politics, marks a sharp departure from Trump’s previous effort to cast Biden as 'Sleepy Joe,' an establishment politician with deteriorating mental abilities. It marks the latest effort, orchestrated by the Trump’s advisers, to shift the conversation from rising coronavirus infections and deteriorating public support for the president’s pandemic response. In new advertising, tweets and public statements that began to appear earlier this month, Trump has argued that the presumptive Democratic nominee is a harbinger of chaos and destruction, depicting a fantastical scarecrow largely divorced from reality."

Trump And His Enablers Are Making Everything Worse-- And Now It E

5-Watt Bulb by Nancy Ohanian

Getting COVID-19 can be extremely serious to your health, even if you don't die. NPR rerouted yesterday that as the pandemic continues, we're learning more about what it means to survive the disease. "For many patients who fall seriously ill, the virus' impact does not end upon discharge from the hospital. Some are struggling with a host of residual symptoms and challenges... Even two to three months after leaving the hospital... many patients who were seriously ill have only recovered a fraction of their former strength. Some suffer from daunting neurological challenges as well."

What we don't know is where this leads for these people. Obviously no one knows what happens a year or ten years from now. Will people recover over time? But we do know this: "The amount of inflammatory response that [the virus] creates that causes significant damage in various organs of our body is unprecedented."

That said, the last thing we need is untrustworthy politicians consumed with their own careers, making decisions for society. Public health experts should be making these calls, not slime like Trump or, in California, Gavin Newsom. This week, the L.A, Times reported that 77% of Californians worry that they could come down with the disease and that a significant number of residents believe Newsom reopened the state's economy too early. Here in L.A., as the surge of cases started rising, it became harder and harder to get tested. Last month was a breeze. I don't know if it's Mayor Eric Garcetti or Newsom pulling the strings, but now it's virtually impossible.

Neo-liberals behaving like Republicans is pretty depressing-- although not something that should surprise anyone who knows anything about Newsom besides that fact that in the gayest city in America he was pro-LGBTQ. Yesterday Bloomberg News reported how another always disappointing neo-liberal, Joe Biden "will call for a moderate approach toward reviving the U.S. economy if elected president that includes spurring manufacturing and encouraging innovation, shelving for now the more ambitious proposals pushed by progressive Democrats." Wow-- and the same day the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Forces submitted recommendations to the DNC Platform Committee and to Biden directly on working together on key economic policies. No one can ever say DWT didn't warn you from day-one that the only sack of putrid shit worse than Biden was Trump.

And meanwhile, California is bracing for a spike in coronavirus deaths, which is what inevitably follows big increases in infection rates. On Tuesday, California reported another 8,631 confirmed new cases (7,277 cases per million Californians). Wednesday it was another 8,561 (7,493 cases per million). Today another 7,248 cases (7,677 per million residents). Or, as the L.A. Times put it, "New coronavirus cases roughly doubled in California over the last month. Hospitalizations have soared 88%, filling some medical centers close to capacity. Now, public health officials are bracing for the grimmest phase of the cycle: a spike in COVID-19 fatalities... Experts say it can take three to four weeks after exposure to the virus for infected people to become sick enough to be hospitalized, and four to five weeks after exposure for some of the most vulnerable patients to die from the disease.

More younger people are also testing positive for the virus, a trend that has become apparent as the economy has reopened and working-age adults returned to jobs and resumed social gatherings.

Early in the pandemic, in March, about half of California’s new infections were identified among people ages 18 to 49, a Times data analysis found. In June, as the number of new cases began to climb sharply, that share increased to nearly 62%. So far in July, roughly 65% of new infections have been diagnosed among those 18 to 49. That’s despite the fact that just 45% of Californians fall into that age range.

“These are individuals who tend not to be as likely to get serious disease or require either hospitalization or to die from COVID-19,” said Timothy Brewer, professor of medicine and epidemiology at UCLA. “So particularly the 18- to 50-year-old age group is a group that has relatively low mortality rates, but there has been a big surge in infections.”

These kids today! Judd Legum's PopularInformation explained how Facebook and YouTube have been masking reality. Despite all the scientific proof that masks are the only viable option we have to slow down the pandemic, both platforms keep disseminating false information about masks being useless or even harmful. After all, the Republican Party has spent 2 decades and countless amounts of money persuading people with low IQs that science is their enemy and not to be trusted. Now they think some moron with a MAGA hat on YouTube is a better person to get medical advise from than a professional or, God forbid-- expert. Only 65% of Americans say they were masks "most of the time" when inside a business.

"How," asked Legum, "did so many Americans become misinformed about the efficacy of masks? Some of the confusion is driven by Trump, who has refused to wear a mask publicly and questioned their efficacy. He has also resisted calls to impose a national mask mandate. Another factor is that false information about masks is proliferating on social media. Facebook and YouTube announced strong policies banning misinformation about COVID-19 transmission and prevention. The platforms recognize this kind of misinformation puts lives at risk. But these policies are not being effectively enforced, exposing millions to false and dangerous information.

[O]n June 30, Ohio State Representative Nino Vitale posted a lengthy rant on Facebook that claimed masks "drop oxygen below danger levels in 5 seconds." The post was tagged #masksdoharm and #masksdonotwork. In just a few days, the post was shared more than 13,000 times across Facebook.  The claim that masks interfere with your ability to get enough oxygen is false. Christopher Labos, a doctor affiliated with McGill University, explains:

There are actually only two ways to develop low oxygen levels in the blood. One is to deliver less oxygen into the lungs, and the other is to impair the lungs’ ability to allow oxygen to diffuse into the bloodstream. A mask will obviously not impair gas exchange within the lungs, and the cloth face coverings advocated by public health experts do not provide an airtight seal that would impair oxygen delivery into the airways. Furthermore, masks are designed to filter out large particles, like water droplets, and cannot stop tiny molecules like oxygen that can infiltrate between the weave of any fabric...It is frankly implausible to think that wearing a mask is dangerous. Think of all the surgeons, nurses, anesthetists, and perfusionists that have worn masks during long operations and suffered no ill effects.

In response to a request for comment by Popular Information, Facebook removed Vitale's post and two others with similar claims. “We removed several of these posts for violating our policies against making false claims about COVID-19 that could lead to imminent physical harm, including the suggestion that wearing a mask can make you sick," a Facebook spokesman told Popular Information.

But the fact that these kinds of posts were able to make dangerously false claims about masks-- and rack up more than 13,000 shares-- suggests that Facebook's enforcement of its policy is ineffective. Moreover, Facebook left up two posts by Vitale that also claimed masks are dangerous, including a post from July 3, claiming "there is overwhelming scientific evidence showing masks actually do harm."

A Facebook spokesperson said this post did not make a specific enough claim about the harms of masks to be removed.

YouTube has been full of insane videos by Vitale and other Trumpist Death Cult freaks. When Legum complains, YouTube removes them, but when he doesn't catch them in time, hundreds of thousand of morons view them. Vitale is upper reelection in November, but the geniuses who called themselves the Ohio Democratic Party are probably the ones who admire Vitale's videos and screeds; they aren't bothering to run anyone against him. (They didn't even run someone against him in 2016 when the GOP refused to endorse him! Fed up, a high school student finally ran against him in 2018.) He's the chair of the Ohio House's Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Over 90% of his district (HD-85)-- Champaign County and portions of Logan and Shelby counties-- is white. The closest thing to a city is Champaign's county seat, Urbana (pop- 11,400); Gym Jordan was born there. Since 1856, when it was established, Champaign Co. has only voted for 3 Democratic presidential candidates, once for Woodrow Wilson (1912), once for FDR (1932) and once for LBJ (1964). Trump beat Hillary 69.2% to 25.2% and that should give you an idea about why someone like Vitale is in public office.

Vitale says he refuses to wear a mask in the Ohio House because it interferes with his religious beliefs. "This is the greatest nation on earth founded on Judeo-Christian Principles. One of those principles is that we are all created in the image and likeness of God. That image is seen the most by our face. I will not wear a mask." Outside of his own district, most people consider him certifiably insane and more than a few people think also criminally insane, since he seems to delight in endangering the health of everyone he comes into contact with.

Ohio had another 1,250 confirmed new cases yesterday and 1,114 more today-- 5,247 cases per Ohioan. Vitale doesn't appear to give it a second thought, other than how to use it to boost his own career with far right extremists and GOP morons by whining about his liberty... liberty to spread the contagion far and wide with no constraints from society. This is a video he posted as part of his absurdist war against the Ohio Republican establishment.





Earlier today, CNN reported that Nino is at it again-- on Facebook, trying his damn best to cause more death and destruction in Ohio. Nino Vitale is a plague Ohioans brought on themselves. Facebook hasn't removed the series of memes yet, like these two:

The second is the kind of misleading pandemic news that Facebook has pledged to remove. What set nutty-Nino off this time was DeWine's new announcement of a mask mandate. "This is what happens when people go crazy and get tested. STOP GETTING TESTED!," Vitale shrieked. "It is giving the government an excuse to claim something is happening that is not happening at the magnitude they say it is happening." People will die in Ohio because of Nino Vitale and his sick brain. Voters in his district should take responsibility for defeating him in November by writing in someone else's name.

Florida Is Once Again At The Legal Vortex Of A Potential Stolen Election

-by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman

Florida has long been a vortex for stealing elections. Now a Florida-based legal case that is likely to go to the US Supreme Court could once again decide the presidency.

The case centers on how our votes will be counted in an election that will be conducted largely with mailed-in paper ballots. In particular, its focus is on electronic scanning machines that are in at least 80% of US precincts.

From a paper ballot, the scanners produce a digital image. That image can then be electronically read, yielding an overall election result in less than ten seconds. The paper ballots themselves are preserved for recounts.

But according to a lawsuit filed July 1, election boards are illegally choosing to discard the images. The plaintiffs want the courts to stop that.

Signed by three Florida Democratic legislators, the suit demands that electronic ballot images be preserved in accordance with federal law.

By federal law the ballot images are considered part of the public record and, like the actual paper ballots, must be retained at least 22 months. The machines are used in at least 80 percent of the nation's voting stations.

But many Secretary of States and/or State election boards around the country simply erase the images, allowing local officials considerable leeway in determining the vote count. In Florida, which has been notoriously fluid in the accuracy of its outcomes, only 27 out of the 67 counties that we know of are preserving the ballot images.

This suit was filed under the leadership of John Brakey, founder and director of AUDIT Elections USA, a nationwide election protection coalition specializing in digital imaging.

"These records called ballot images will help verify the accuracy of the 2020 presidential election," says State Representative Joseph S. Geller (D-Aventura). Geller is joined in the lawsuit by State Representative Geraldine Thompson (D-Windermere) and State Senator Victor M. Torres (D-Kissimmee) as well as Dan Helm, a candidate for Supervisor of Elections in Pinellas County. Geller said the destruction of these images is clearly in violation of state and federal law.

"Governor DeSantis has just signed a new law that allows digital ballot images to be used in recounts," says Susan Pynchon, Director of Florida Fair Elections Coalition, "and yet there is nothing in the law requiring the ballot images to be preserved for 22 months. This new law adds urgency to the preservation of ballot images as vital election records."

Says Brakey: "Florida been the scene of numerous razor-close elections, including the 2000 presidential election decided by just 537 votes and the 2018 U.S. Senate election decided by only 10,033 votes.

Preservation of voting materials has been a widespread problem. In 2004 the King-Lincoln-Bronzeville civic organization sued the state of Ohio to preserve ballots for audits and a recount. Ohio’s then-Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner ordered all county election boards to bring all ballots and other related materials to a special repository in Columbus. The demand was supported by the federal courts.

But 56 of Ohio’s 88 counties failed to comply, claiming they were missing all or some of the necessary election material needed for a recount. There were no ensuing prosecutions.

Allen County claimed some of its materials got water damage, and then all were destroyed by a contractor. Guernsey County said a trash collector picked up the ballot boxes in error. The Mahoning County Board of Elections blamed environmentalists who "accidentally" picked up ballots when recycling. Hamilton County "accidentally" shredded its ballots. Holmes County took the "dog ate my homework" prize by claiming a carafe of coffee spilled on the ballots as they were stored in a vault.

In Florida, 2018, Broward County "lost" 2,040 ballots. Brakey noted that the voting machine companies themselves have marketed digital voting equipment that creates ballot images that can help in "auditing and adjudication….Had Broward County saved their ballot images in 2018, the mystery of the missing 2,040 ballots could have been solved."

Florida defendants include the Supervisors of Elections in Broward, Miami-Dade, Duval, Orange, Lee, Pinellas, Palm Beach, and Hillsborough Counties, who say they have no legal obligation to save the ballot images, and admit to destroying them.

"The ballot images are a critical component for system diagnostics," said Ray Lutz, an electrical engineer who is one of the nation's top experts on ballot images. "If errors or discrepancies are discovered, the images are needed to pinpoint the source of those errors, whether it's faulty equipment, software bugs, or other external reasons.

"Ballot images can also be a check on the paper ballots," Lutz added. "Paper ballots can be modified with a pen, accidentally destroyed or inappropriately shredded. Having the original image created when the vote is cast protects against modification of the paper ballots."

Ballot images are public records that can easily allow anyone to verify election results. Some places, such as Dane County, WI, and San Francisco, CA, and 15 counties in Florida, provide ballot images with a public records request or post all the ballot images on their websites so that voters can verify election results for themselves.

“Unfortunately, at least one vendor has built a self-destruct mechanism into their voting systems that allows election officials to destroy evidence that is public records that can help determine if election results are accurate,” Brakey said. “Our success in this lawsuit will go a long way towards reducing cynicism about elections. Our country needs elections that are transparent, trackable, and publicly verified.”

Links to Case # 2020 CA 001238:

The Complaint Filing # 109701662, E-Filed 07/01/2020 09:55:22 PM

This Complaint with Hyperlinks to all Exhibits.



UPDATE From Howie:

I asked three of the most prominent Democratic challengers running for office, congressional candidates Adam Christensen and Cindy Banyai and Bob Lynch who is running for a Republican-held state legislative seat in a south Florida swing district, about the danger of election theft Wasserman and Fitrakis are warning about. Adam told me that "the largest election frauds that have occurred in history involved the incumbent governments (and dictatorships) burning the boxes of ballots so that no one could ever verify that the votes were counted correctly. This is the digital version of burning ballots to hide results. If you care about living in a democracy then destroying election results is something that we cannot allow to happen."

Dr. Cindy Banyai has been raising awareness on issues in Florida elections since earlier this year recognizing that the DeSantis administration could use the COVID-19 pandemic to suppress votes. "We absolutely need to check every process and ensure there is integrity in our elections in Florida. There are simply too many people trying to skirt the system and use the bureaucracy to eliminate votes. These types of backups are needed to dissuade any potential vote suppression and check any discrepancies."

Bob Lynch noted that "Of all the people who have been spot on about what is happening right before our eyes, there has been no bigger Cassandra than Jenny Cohn. She has been talking to everyone about this since At least 2018. I realize that the cable news stations have decided that Malcolm Nance and Sarah Kendzior are bad for business, but Jenny never even got on. She has written the manual on all of the different ways our voting machines can be hacked or compromised and yet nobody on either side seems to care. It makes you wonder. There is a Pulitzer out there for any half-assed reporter who wants to chase down this story. Follow the money and the patents."

Another GOP Crackpot, An Ohio State Rep., Refuses To Wear A Mask-- Gets Bounced From Gettysburg Museum

Candice Keller won a seat in the Ohio state House in 2016 to represent an overwhelmingly Republican 89% white district in Butler County (Hamilton, Middletown, Monroe, Oxford and Trenton) north of Cincinnati. The PVI is R+10. Keller is a garden variety right-wing Republican-- an anti-Choice and anti-LGBTQ fanatic and gun nut who denigrates the role of government. On April 28, she was defeated in the Republican primary by state Rep. George Lang for an open state Senate district (SD 4), bringing in 32.7% of the vote to Lang's 49.4%. Outside of the far right fever swamps, coverage of her loss was celebratory. "One of the most controversial figures in Ohio's General Assembly won't be back next term after a sound defeat in a Republican primary contest for a state Senate seat," reported CityBeat. "Keller has found herself at the center of political fights multiple times since she was first elected in 2016-- often due to her own controversial statements. Keller once compared Planned Parenthood to the Nazi Party, appeared on a radio program hosted by a white supremacist and, last August, blamed President Barack Obama, same sex marriage and drag queens for the deadly mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio. The Ohio GOP called on Keller to step down after the latter statement, and in January announced it would endorse Lang instead."





A couple of days ago, she and her husband were visiting Gettysburg, Pennsylvania as part of the 4th of July holiday. According to this Facebook video she put up, they were evicted from the Gettysburg Visitor Center and Museum because they refused to wear masks. She insists mandating people to wear masks is "an unconstitutional idea our leaders have come up with." Their tickets were refunded. (She previously refused to get her temperature checked when entering the Ohio state House in Columbus, claiming it would be an invasion of her privacy. Do you know what the word "idiot" means? Candice Keller's photo should be next to the definition in the dictionary.

The museum's visitors guide clearly state's that "For the health and safety of all, individuals who enter the building should wear a face covering. Face coverings are not required for children under the age of 2 or for those with medical issues." Butler County, where this walking freak show lives, has had 1,547 confirmed cases and another 36 on Saturday.

Racial Stereotyping Is So Lame

Sen. Stephen Huffman: so wrong... on so many levels

In 1969, my girlfriend Martha and I were driving my VW van through a remote mountainous region of northeastern Morocco, far from the tourist destinations of Marrakech, Fès and Agadir. It was the dangerous bandit-infested, kif-growing Rif region in Al Hoceïma Province near Ketama. We saw 2 American hitchhikers and picked them up, thinking 4 of us would be safer than just the two of us. Once they ascertained we were, like them, from New York City, they almost immediately started telling offensive racist jokes. Just as immediately, Martha signaled she wanted them out of the van. She was far less tolerant of that kind of thing than I was-- and I felt badly about dumping them out in such a dangerous region. She she was adamant. So I told them a racist joke of my own-- except one that was anti-Semitic. They were horrified and demanded I stop the van and let them out. Problem solved.

Yesterday, writing for Bloomberg News, Timothy O'Brien recalled how in 2005 Señor Trumpanzee "proposed producing a season of The Apprentice that would pit white contestants against black contestants. "Trump said on his own syndicated radio show in 2005 that although the idea was 'fairly controversial,' he wanted to host 'a team of successful African-Americans versus a team of successful whites. Whether people like that idea or not, it is somewhat reflective of our very vicious world.' ... [During a Howard Stern show] he also explored the possibility of airing white-against-black competition on The Apprentice... 'And it would be nine blacks against nine whites, all highly educated, very smart, strong, beautiful. Do you like it?' Stern said he did. Stern’s African-American co-host, Robin Quivers, had a different response: 'Well, I think you’re gonna have a riot.'"

“It would be the highest-rated show on television,” Trump replied.

Stern prodded the future president for more information: “Very dark blacks, or light-skinned blacks?”

“Assortment, against whites,” Trump said, adding that he wanted all of the white contestants to be blondes.

“Wouldn’t that set off a racial war?” Stern asked.

“Actually, I don’t think it would,” responded Trump. “I think it would be handled very beautifully by me. Because, as you know, I’m very diplomatic. … Also, I think you’d have 35 million people a night watching.”

Stephen Huffman is a Jewish Republican living in Tipp City, Ohio. The whole idea of Jews being members of fascist and, more recently, neo-fascist organizations has always perplexed me. Maybe I-- like Huffman-- need to stop thinking in terms of ethnic stereotypes. One stereotype about Jews is that they're more intelligent than other groups. Huffman is the personification of the fallacy of that one. A graduate of the University of Toledo and a physician, Huffman is a clod who began his political career as the Miami County Coroner.

Because the Ohio Democratic Party is the very worst Democratic Party in America-- sorry Florida, sorry New Jersey, sorry all of you who make valid cases about how excruciatingly incompetent and venal your state's Democratic Party is, there is literally nothing like Ohio-- Huffman is a state senator in a D+6 district that includes all of Miami and Preble counties and some of Darke and Montgomery counties (including the whole of solidly blue Dayton, where most of the voters live).

Huffman ran for the state House in 2014 when a seat opened up with a retirement. He won a three-way primary with 45% of the vote and 4 years later a state Senate seat for SD-5 opened up the same way and he ran in the more competitive district., The 5th district had been a Democratic stronghold until 2010, as the state party was in the process of disintegrating and Huffman beat Paul Bradley, 53% to 47%.

Huffman's first brush with national notoriety came last year when he "wrote" an OpEd for a local paper, the Sidney Daily News, savaging Medicare-for-All. Huffman became a laughing stock when he was forced to admit it didn't write the OpEd, which was actually penned by a lobbyist Kathleen DeLand who was being paid by a Big PhRMA front group, Partnership for America’s Health Care Future. Huffman was never charged with taking a bribe and was instead made vice chair of the Ohio Senate's Healthcare Committee.

This week, Huffman was back in the news-- with some racial stereotyping that made it into the national news for a racist remark he made on Tuesday about "colored people" getting more COVID-19 because they don't their hands: "Could it just be that African-Americans or the colored population do not wash their hands as well as other groups or wear a mask or do not socially distance themselves? Could that be the explanation of why the higher incidence?"

Two days later, TeamHealth, the crooked firm which employed Huffman as an emergency room doctor, fired him for the remarks and Ohio's Republican governor, Mike DeWine, put out a statement saying Huffman's "words were inappropriate and hurtful to so many Ohioans. Words do matter. So do actions. He is a doctor and is in a unique position because of that to play a significant role in the legislature to work to change this serious health disparity. I hope that he will." Most others hope that he won't. State Senator Hearcel Craig (D-Columbus), a member of the Legislative Black Caucus, called the remarks an example of systemic racism at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected African-Americans. "Senator Huffman also needs to understand why 'colored' is offensive. Our nation has faced a painful segregationist history of 'colored only' restrooms and water fountains, just to cite two examples. These practices were reprehensible and so many fought to remove them from our culture." Black Caucus President Stephanie Howse added that "The fact that a well-educated legislator-- a Vice Chair of the Health Committee and a practicing medical doctor-- would, in a public setting, nonchalantly use such antiquated terminology paired with a hurtful, racist stereotype all in one breath reflects how unconscious this problem of racism is for too many."

Trip Gabriel: "Among Ohio’s 38,837 reported coronavirus cases as of Monday, 56.3 percent of patients are white and 27.3 percent are black, according to Cleveland.com, which cited the state health department. Ohio’s population is 82 percent white and 13 percent black. The death rate has more closely tracked the state’s population. Of the deaths in which race was reported, 78.8 percent were white, and 18 percent were black."

Many Republican Senators Would Like To Distance Themselves From Trump-- But It's WAY Too Late For That

Several states run by governors refusing the work on flattening the curve are seeing an increase in confirmed coronavirus cases already-- and it's going to get a lot worse in these states. On Monday, Texas saw new 535 confirmed new cases. Yesterday there were 655 new cases. Florida has 610 new cases Monday and 708 yesterday. Iowa had 392 new cases Monday and 508 Tuesday. Oklahoma had 27 Monday, 130 yesterday. South Dakota had 33 Monday, 68 Tuesday.

Trump has been interfering to make it worse, primarily by encouraging his death cult base to "liberate" themselves from social distancing restrictions and by pressuring governors to discard them and open for business. Yesterday, though, he took a bigger step, announcing that he was ready to take aggressive action to force meat processing and packing plants to stay open, despite rampant contagion in the industry. He says he'll use the Defense Production Act to order the companies to stay open and also claims-- no one believes him-- that he'll provide additional protective gear for employees. He's aiming at processing plants supplying beef, chicken, eggs and pork.

Illnesses in the meat-processing industry and shifts in demand after restaurants closed have disrupted the supply chain. Dairy farmers are dumping milk that can’t be sold to processors, broiler operations have been breaking eggs to reduce supplies and some fruit and vegetables are rotting in fields amid labor and distribution disruptions.

Many low-income Americans, meanwhile, have been waiting in long lines at food banks, which have reported shortages.

Asked about the country’s food supply, Trump said: “There’s plenty of supply.”

The Defense Production Act allows the government broad power to direct industrial production in crises. Trump has previously invoked the law-- or threatened to invoke it-- in order to increase the supply of medical gear including ventilators, masks and swabs to test for coronavirus infection.

...Trump acted one day after Iowa’s two U.S. senators and its governor urged the administration to invoke the DPA to keep meatpackers open and reopen closed facilities “as soon as it is possible to do so safely.” Iowa produces one-third of the nation’s pork supply, according to the state officials.

Across the country, at least 6,500 meat processing employees have been impacted by the virus, meaning they either tested positive for the disease or had to go into self-quarantine, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, the largest private-sector union. Twenty workers have died.

At least 22 meat plants have closed within the past two months, reducing pork processing capacity by 25% and beef processing capacity by 10%, according to UFCW. Farmers have animals with nowhere to go as a result, and the situation is so dire that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is setting up a center to help growers with “depopulation and disposal methods” for animals.

Mike Siegel is the progressive candidate running in a central Texas congressional district represented by Michael McCaul one of the GOP clowns who refused to wear a mask on the floor of the House last week. Last week Mike told us that "every day, across Texas and this country, our workers are making a terrible choice: earn a paycheck or protect your health. You can’t do both. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government’s role in protecting worker safety was limited. As one steelworker told me, even when a facility like a chemical plant had a major accident or release of toxic chemicals, OSHA wasn’t likely to show up. If a worker filed an anonymous complaint, OSHA would send a fax to the company and ask for a remediation plan. The company would fax back its remediation plan. Case closed."

Greg Abbott declaring that businesses are open and workers should be careful is far from "case closed." Mike also reminded us that "In response to COVID-19, OSHA has issued Guidelines on Preparing Workplaces, but takes pains to say how they are recommendations only. Here in Texas, the state has not developed its own occupational safety agency, so we are stuck with what the federal government offers. Cities and counties have code enforcement departments, and places like Austin have made efforts to respond to COVID-19 concerns at work places, but there is no agency that is equipped to make sure workers have the PPE they need, or the space necessary to avoid spreading the virus. For the last week, I’ve been working with unions to raise awareness of the lack of workplace safety, at the same time that Texas Governor Greg Abbott publicizes his plans to 're-open' the state. Building on the efforts of Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin and over 50 House Democrats, who filed a 'Reopen America Act of 2020' to ensure testing and PPE before the country attempts to return to normal, I joined with Texas unions, labor councils and regional federations to propose expanded OSHA compliance and investigative capacity to ensure safe workplaces in the COVID era."

Tony Corbo, an official of Food and Water Action told the media that" Trump’s plan to instruct slaughter plants to stay open despite causing major outbreaks of COVID-19 is even worse than his suggestion to use disinfectant to treat sick people. It’s deadly and foolish and will cause catastrophic harm. The consolidated and profit-driven agricultural industry has made our food system weak. It’s crucial the food industry protects workers by closing plants when necessary in order to keep the food system from collapsing entirely. Companies have proven they cannot be trusted to take the necessary measures to continue functioning safely amidst this pandemic. Even Tyson Foods admitted in their full-page ad in the New York Times that they are failing to meet safety standards in every single plant. In most plants, social distancing is impossible and fast line speeds make safety precautions impractical. Furthermore, most workers have not been supplied with proper personal protective equipment to work in these dangerous conditions. Thousands of food workers have tested positive for COVID-19, and at least 17 have died. One hundred of those workers are federal meat inspectors, two of whom have died. Even more workers have been exposed to the virus already, but a lack of testing is hiding the true scope of infection. The federal government should be stepping in to supplement food distribution networks to get our abundant frozen meat supplies to stores and food banks that need them. Instead, they’re currying favor with giant corporations that have continuously put their bottom line above worker workers’ health, food safety, and the vitality of our food supply chain. It’s simple: if unsafe food plants remain open, more food workers will die."

Personally, I'd suggest Americans will be a lot healthier and the environment would be way better, if Americans consumed much less meat and much more fruits, grains, beans and vergatables. Can you imagine someone like Trump (or Biden) ever saying anything like that?

That's half a trillion-- with no strings attached

Can the Trumpist regime force reluctant workers back into dangerous situations? They've told unions that any worker who doesn't get back to work in any industry the government opens up will lose their unemployment benefits. The regime is certainly much kinder to corporate giants and their top executives than they are with workers. Jeff Stein and Peter Whoriskey, reporting for the Washington Post yesterday, wrote that "A Federal Reserve program expected to begin within weeks will provide hundreds of billions in emergency aid to large American corporations without requiring them to save jobs or limit payments to executives and shareholders... Unlike other portions of the relief for American businesses, however, this aid will be exempt from rules passed by Congress requiring recipients to limit dividends, executive compensation and stock buybacks and does not direct the companies to maintain certain employment levels. Critics say the program could allow large companies that take the federal help to reward shareholders and executives without saving any jobs. The program was set up jointly by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin defended the corporate aid program, saying that the lack of restrictions on recipients had been discussed and agreed to by Congress. “This was highly discussed on a bipartisan basis. This was thought through carefully,” he said in an interview with the Washington Post. “What we agreed upon was direct loans would carry the restrictions, and the capital markets transactions would not carry the restrictions.”

Democrats asked for restrictions on how companies can use the money from the central bank’s bond purchases but were rebuffed by the administration during negotiations about the Cares Act, said a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-NY). The spokesman said Democrats won meaningful concessions from the administration on reporting transparency in the final agreement. (Transparency requirements do not apply to the small-business loans, the biggest business aid program rolled out to date.)

...Bharat Ramamurti, an aide to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) who was appointed to the board overseeing the bailout, said in a statement: “Big corporations have shown time and again that they will put their shareholders and executives ahead of their workers if given the choice. That’s why I’m so concerned that the Treasury and the Fed have chosen to direct hundreds of billions of dollars to big companies with no strings attached.”

Speaking generally and not about this particular bamboozle by the regime, former Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) told the Washington Post that "I don’t know anyone who thinks that this is the future of the party." Flake was driven out of the Senate by Trump so his comments aren't coming as a surprise to anyone. But other Republicans smell the rot and failure and are beginning to distance themselves from the source. In yesterday's NY Times Trip Gabriel noted that when Ohio's Republican governor, Mike DeWine, began social distancing himself from Trump, his popularity rose.

For 40 years, Mike DeWine rose steadily if blandly up the ladder of Ohio politics, finally landing his dream job as governor. He took office last year as a familiar figure in the state, not because of any indelible political identify, but because, at 72, he had been around forever.

But the coronavirus crisis has made Mr. DeWine something that decades in elected offices never did: a household name. A Republican, he took early and bold actions to lock down his state, even as the head of his party, President Trump, dismissed the threat of the pandemic.

Mr. DeWine’s decisiveness-- closing schools before any governor in the country, postponing the state’s March 17 primary election to protect voters-- sent his popularity soaring. The folksy governor, previously best known for an annual ice cream social at his rural home, became something of a cult figure on social media. Ohioans tuned into his five-day-a-week briefings to celebrate “Wine With DeWine,” a ritual whose motto is “It’s 2 o’clock somewhere.”

Now, Mr. DeWine is charting a way out of the shutdown, taking cautious steps while facing pressure from business leaders, conservative activists and some Republican lawmakers who vociferously question the economic costs of a state in quarantine.

Seven weeks into the crisis, Mr. DeWine is being guided by health experts while avoiding partisan fissures over stay-at-home orders that have been encouraged by Mr. Trump, who hopes a rebounding economy will carry him to re-election. The Ohio governor is the rare Republican official who does not automatically fall in step with Mr. Trump, an independence he shares with two other Republican governors, Larry Hogan of Maryland and Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, both of whom lead solidly Democratic states where bipartisanship is needed to survive. Unlike them, Mr. DeWine has gone his own way in a red-hued state.

He also split decidedly with Mr. Trump by encouraging a nearly all-mail primary election on Tuesday. While the president has spread the false claim that voting by mail entails “a lot” of fraud, Mr. DeWine pushed universal absentee ballots for voters’ safety. Ohio’s secretary of state on Monday called the effort a success, with nearly 1.5 million mail ballots cast.

...In a poll of Ohio voters released on Monday, 35 percent of Republicans said they were worried that the United States would take too long to loosen restrictions and that the economy would spiral further downward, compared with 14 percent of Democrats.

The poll, by Baldwin Wallace University, also showed overwhelming support for the governor. Eighty-five percent of respondents approved of his handling of the coronavirus, 89 percent said they trusted him as a source of information about the outbreak, and three out of four said he was doing a better job than Mr. Trump.

The poll also measured favorability among politicians. These were the favorable results among Ohio voters:

• DeWine- 75.1%
• Fauci- 59.9%
• Pence- 45.6%
• Trump- 43.1%
• Biden- 42.1%
• Cuomo- 37.6%

Related-- Alex Isenstadt reported in Politico that McConnell is telling Republican senators through the NRSC to stop defending Trump's coronavirus nonsense and just attack China instead. Trump flipped out so badly that his "political adviser Justin Clark told NRSC executive director Kevin McLaughlin that any Republican candidate who followed the memo’s advice shouldn’t expect the active support of the reelection campaign and risked losing the support of Republican voters." The NRSC backed down but Jonathan Swan pointed to another likely rift between Republican senators and Trump: infrastructure. On a conference call with his colleagues yesterday, McConnell "panned the idea of using a coronavirus stimulus bill to fund major infrastructure investment," something Trump sees as another way for him to loot the treasury.

On today's call, McConnell said he won't support infrastructure in a COVID-19 bill. "We need to keep the White House in the box," he told senators, according to two sources familiar with the call... This is not the first time McConnell has privately told his colleagues he's uncomfortable with the White House's attitude towards spending.

One of the sources said that on a call with senators last week, "McConnell was essentially saying that, while the president will be willing to spend any amount of money between now and November, it was going to be up to Senate Republicans to act like Republicans and resist crazy spending."

...McConnell blocked additional money to state and local governments in the last coronavirus bill. And he said it's time to think about the national debt.

McConnell is going to use aid to states and local governments as a bargaining chip to get the Democrats to agree to limiting employer liabilities for dead and injured workers.