Tracker

John Ratcliffe confirmed as Trump’s new intel chief despite being ‘manifestly unqualified’ and having no real intel expertise Written by Alex Henderson May 26, 2020 4 The GOP-controlled U.S. Senate, on May 21, confirmed former Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe as the United States’ new director of national intelligence — and journalist Garrett M. Graff, known for his extensive reporting on intel and security matters, slams Ratcliffe as a “Trump loyalist” who is “manifestly unqualified” for the position. Graff, author of the 2001 book “The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11,” explains why he finds Ratcliffe’s confirmation so troubling in an article published by Wired on May 26. According to Graff, the 54-year-old Ratcliffe was nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the U.S. Senate not because of his intel expertise, but because he is a strident partisan. “Perhaps the clearest sign that three-term Texas Congressman Ratcliffe is manifestly unqualified to serve as the nation’s director of national intelligence isn’t the fact that he embellished his resumé, nor that only a minority of the U.S. Senate would vote to confirm him — nor that the first time he was floated for the post last summer, he was so soundly rejected that he withdrew almost immediately,” Graff warns. “Instead, it’s that years before…. the 108th Congress tried to stop a man like Ratcliffe from assuming that very role in the first place.” https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/john-ratcliffe-confirmed-as-trumps-new-intel-chief-despite-being-manifestly-unqualified-and-having-no-real-intel-expertise-national-security-journalist/

And another woman called 911 to report a black guy with binoculars birdwatching.

Reports out of the GOP committee that is organizing the upcoming convention state that Trump is doing everything he can to undermine the current location and divert the convention to one of his facilities. Typical Trump.

Well, if your parents didn't have any kinds, there's pretty good chance you won't either. role modeling and all that.

Of course. Karen and her other sister Karen.

AMERICA TODAY! (North Dakota)

Just as a matter of caution, I think that visitors from Saskatchewan should be required to pass through a trough of sheep dip at the Manitoba border. It wouldn't stop the Coronavirus, but I just like the idea of de-lousing them.

But the clients looked mmaaarrvelous.

But some of the bad movies are so, so bad that they are unintentionally hilarious. When I was in the hospital recovering from abdominal surgery, I rented a small TV. That evening, a real honest-to-God spaghetti western was shown and it was so bad that I could not stop myself from laughing but was afraid I would pop my stitches. My "laughter" consisted of snorts and gasps to the point where a nurse felt compelled to come check on me.

The Crispr technology has proven to be nowhere as good as promised.

You obviously haven't seen "Battlefield Earth", "Spies" or "Cats" to name a few culprits. As an interesting aside, the original costumes for the cats had prominent buttholes, and at the last minute before release, the studio spent several hundred thousand dollars to digitally erase them. It didn't help. At all.

We are viewing this insanity from what is probably a safe distance, but for those Americans who are committed to staying in the US and can see Trump and his brownshirts for what they are it must be little short of horrifying. Their electoral system has betrayed them, as has the GOP and Trump. And their kids have to grow up in this morass. their best, brightest hopes (Warren and Sanders) have been sidelined and everything rides on a doddering Biden and a broken and corrupted electoral system where corporations are considered "persons" and money rules. Way beyond sad.

Trump implores ‘forensic geniuses’ to investigate former GOP congressman for murder President Donald Trump on Saturday urged “forensic geniuses” to investigate one of his critics for murder. Earlier in the month, Trump asked, “When will they open a Cold Case on the Psycho Joe Scarborough matter in Florida? Did he get away with murder? Some people think so. Why did he leave Congress so quietly and quickly? Isn’t it obvious? What’s happening now?” Trump tweeted. “A total nut job!” https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-implores-forensic-geniuses-to-investigate-former-gop-congressman-for-murder/

A couple of things: it is quite possible that there will never be a vaccine, and even if there is, a poll last week of Trump supporters indicated that 24% would not take the vaccine for one reason and another. Also, there has never been a pandemic where there was not a second wave. It ain't over til its over.

Husband of Reopen NC leader ‘willing to kill people’ in resistance to emergency orders Written by Jordan Green / Raw Story May 25, 2020 The husband of the woman who leads the Reopen NC movement says people should be willing to kill, if necessary, to resist the “New World Order” and emergency orders imposed by state government to contain the coronavirus pandemic. Adam Smith posted a string of Facebook Live videos on Facebook on Friday, May 22, 2020 that culminated with a chilling threat. https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/husband-of-reopen-nc-leader-willing-to-kill-people-in-resistance-to-emergency-orders/ (Such is the level of social discourse in the US)

Trump’s Five Simple Tricks for Stealing the Election Sure, he could use ordinary cheating to eke out another narrow Electoral College win and popular vote loss. But he has other cards up his sleeve if that doesn't work out this time. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-fifth-simple-trick-for-stealing-the-election-will-give-you-nightmaresand-tear-america-apart?ref=home (Bottom Line: the US electoral system is so screwed up that Trump could still resume his presidency even of he loses the election again)

If they voted en masse for Trump, they are not bad, they have the collective IQ of a turnip.

There will always be the those who are willing to sell out their principles in exchange for perceived gain- it happened with Jews in Hitler's Germany, French in France, and doctors in Jonestown gave poison to their own children. In my experience, abusers and megalomaniacs have an uncanny instinct for finding both vulnerable victims and enablers.

It will also depend on social gatherings where precautions have not been taken, and the US has a lot of gospel meetings where masks are discouraged, so that is also a flashpoint.

This is, by definition, a global pandemic. Damned few countries and economies are or will be free of the effects, and governments will have to choose between massive death rates or deficits, and I think that most people will choose the deficits with the attendant higher taxes. But then, that's socialism, isn't it? Unless taxpayer moneys are used to prop up businesses, some of whom have managed to avoid paying any sort of taxes but still line up at the trough.

We have not seen the worst out of the US yet. There is an unholy alliance there of the fundamentalist preachers, neo-nazis and business to push for a relaxing of pretty much all restrictions, and these are Trump/GOP core supporters. Even before now, there was a lot of disregarding of restrictions in Trump's heartland. Moreover, the pandemic is set to ravage the deep south and poor white communities as the health services are rudimentary at best- did you know that Doctors Without Borders have set up tent clinics in west Virginia where the life expectancy hovers in the 50's and the infant mortality is that of a third world. And these clinics were met with hostility and even threats. Someone described the US as a third-world country with Iphones.

This would explain why some clusters of fatalities have occurred: ‘Up to a Dozen’ COVID-19 Variants in the United States As the lockdown settled in, so did the coronavirus. And then it began mutating into all sorts of local strains. Six months after the novel coronavirus first leaped from animals to people in Wuhan, China, and three months after the virus began spreading across the United States, scientists are finally beginning to understand the overall shape of the pandemic. Drawing samples from tens of thousands of COVID-19 patients and decoding the samples’ genomes, scientists are making so-called “phylogenetic” maps of the pandemic over time. The maps help researchers start to answer some important questions.

Out of boredom and desperation, I watched the 2017 CFL Riders at Ticats game this evening and was struck by several things: Henich Muamba was darned good, Brandon Bridge didn't look all that bad, and Jeff Hecht (a Rider then) was as bad or worse than he was as a Bomber. Still, it was entertaining and welcome. TSN should do more of this sort of thing.