Are You Ready

for some football … and the stadium crowds

for the election … and the lengthy voter line waits

for the winter flu season … and the sneezes and snuffles at the mall?

The test that counts

Attribution: Covid/flu Vaccine by Pat Bagley, The Salt Lake Tribune, UT

Share

59 thoughts on “Are You Ready”

  1. in the meantime while you cram for the test, here’s stephen

    Diplomats at the United Nations are concerned about another Trump presidency, the former president is trying to appeal to women by promoting fertility treatments, and Republicans are pulling their support for scandal-plagued North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson.

     

  2. Well, Well, Well, Jack Smith Will Get to Present His Jan. 6 Findings After All (msn.com)

    Judge Tanya Chutkan is plainly ready to get on with presiding over something. Since the Supreme Court’s unconscionable decision regarding presidential immunity dumped the case back in her chambers with one of its legs chopped away, Judge Chutkan seems to have responded by getting it on. So on Tuesday afternoon, she ruled in favor of special counsel Jack Smith and allowed him to present a nearly two-hundred-page brief of the evidence his office compiled supporting the insurrection charges against the former president*. From ABC News:

    Smith faces a Thursday deadline to file his opening brief about how the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity applies to the former president’s criminal case. Smith had sought the judge’s permission to file an oversized brief, including more than 30 pages of exhibits. Filings are normally limited to 45 pages. While U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is allowing the lengthy filing, the materials will likely be filed under seal—with a public version likely to be released, with redactions, at a later date. Trump’s lawyers had opposed the request, calling the proposed filing a “monstrosity” and a “biased list of grievances,” and arguing that the filing would allow prosecutors to unfairly publicize evidence.
    Smith needed Judge Chutkan’s approval to file his mega brief, and in granting that approval, she tossed a nifty little elbow in the direction of the Supreme Court.

    The judge, in granting the government’s request for an oversized brief, said that the unique challenge of applying the Supreme Court’s ruling justifies the unusually long document. “The length and breadth of the Government’s proposed brief reflects the uniquely ‘challenging’ and factbound nature of those determinations,” Judge Chutkan wrote. In the same order, Judge Chutkan denied Trump’s request to reconsider her schedule addressing the immunity issue.
    “If you guys hadn’t made such a dog’s breakfast out of the immunity question, I wouldn’t need to know absolutely everything about how guilty the former president* really is.”

    Judge Chutkan’s got some game.

    By the end of the week, if the current status quo is maintained, some people will know everything Jack Smith has on the alleged perp. It won’t be us, alas, at least not for the moment. (And if the Trump team starts leaking carefully selected bits from the brief, Judge Chutkan should immediately toss them in the clink.) But somebody will know, and there’s nothing anyone can do about that.

  3. Good on Judge Chutkan. Takes some cajones to call out both SCROTUS and the CS legal team. And she’s got the cajones to expose what’s going on. Good to see it.

  4. Here’s WaPo’s take on the Chutkan ruling. 

    A federal judge on Tuesday granted prosecutors’ request to file an up-to-180-page legal brief this week arguing why Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election should not be immune from criminal prosecution, rejecting the former president’s claims that its timing was unfair or politically motivated with the election fast approaching.

    U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan agreed with special counsel Jack Smith’s office, which argued that the extra-long briefing was necessary because the Supreme Court’s July ruling on presidential immunityrequired her as trial judge to decide what allegations and evidence against Trump could be admissible.

    “The Supreme Court directed this court to conduct a ‘close’ and ‘fact specific’ analysis ‘of the indictment’s extensive and interrelated allegations,’” including Trump’s alleged interactions with state officials and private actors and his communications, Chutkan wrote in a nine-page opinion that quoted from the Supreme Court ruling. “The length and breadth of the Government’s proposed brief reflects the uniquely ‘challenging’ and factbound nature of those determinations. The briefs’ atypical sequence and size thus both serve the efficient resolution of immunity issues in this case ‘at the earliest possible stage.’”
    …
    In opposing the government’s request Monday, Trump’s defense pointed out that a 180-page brief would be four times the usual 45-page limit and repeated previously overruled objections that a “180-page false hit piece” was fundamentally unfair before the election. They had wanted to initiate the action in the case, with prosecutors responding to legal filings they made seeking to throw out prosecutors’ slimmed-down indictment. The special counsel’s office had proposed that Chutkan weigh all immunity-related issues at once, warning that serial appeals by Trump otherwise could bog down his case for years.

    Chutkan rebutted claims raised by Trump lawyers John Lauro and Todd Blanche one by one. Allowing the government to go first was not “contrary to law, procedure and custom” the judge said, “It is simply how litigation works.” Each side would have a fair chance to present arguments and evidence on whether Trump’s conduct involved official acts and deserved immunity, and no single filing would establish anything, she wrote.
    Similarly, Trump’s arguments that “the absolute nature of immunity” require the court to first consider tossing out the indictment, as well as all conversations with his vice president, Mike Pence, “necessarily require the very briefing that the court has ordered,” Chutkan wrote. “Trying to resolve those issues before the scheduled immunity briefing would put the cart before the horse.”
    Trump’s legal team had characterized prosecutors’ proposed brief as a “premature and improper special counsel report” that would present privacy concerns for potential witnesses and uncharged parties, and they asserted that the former president would be barred from responding to it on the campaign trail because he is under a limited gag order in the case. Chutkan, though, noted that both sides fall under a protective order limiting disclosure of sensitive information in the case, and she asserted that the defense gave no explanation for how its proposal to brief first would not raise the same concerns.

    Elegant way to call out Lauro & Blanche idiotic arguments.

  5. Drooling……Marius 

    Olbermann:
    DURING CAMPAIGN SPEECH, Trump starts drooling, then says he just learned Russia beat Napoleon AND Hitler

  6. Yesterday’s Trump fiasco was yet another lie-fest: “Biden and Kamala got us into that war in Ukraine and now they can’t get us out. We’re stuck in that war.”

  7. I concur with the glee about Chutkan’s ruling, but sadly we still have to be patient. The good stuff will be under seal at first, and if not, heavily redacted. But this judge is on a path to get at least most of it out before the election.

  8. sturge, here’re the links for those who want to hear more about the slobbering genius of the stable and to read the full KO take about it:


    Donald Trump just literally drooled on himself during an unhinged speech in which he fawned over Russia and made multiple trademark unhinged statements. He’s BEYOND embarrassing. NOTE: drool closeup at 5:01 on vid.

    TRUMP STARTS DROOLING DURING CAMPAIGN SPEECH – 9.25.24 – Countdown with Keith Olbermann – Omny.fm

    SERIES 3 EPISODE 35: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
    A-Block (1:44) I wish these were metaphors.
    In his latest fugue-state multi-hour you-know-how-old-he-is-he’s-206 campaign speech at Savannah, Trump first literally drooled on himself in the middle of a sibilant “S” and a scant 45 minutes later revealed that he just found out that Russia beat Napoleon AND Hitler and suddenly he’s the director in “The Producers” who says “I never knew the Third Reich meant Germany! I mean the play is drenched with historical goodies like that!”
    CNN’s coverage of this latest evidence that Trump’s cheese has slid off his Ritz Cracker? “Trump focuses on economy at stop in battleground Georgia.” The term is sane-washing. If Biden had done this the replays would still be running on a loop on CNN.
    And this doesn’t even get to his insanity on issues of substance: the stalker language towards women. The first oblique promise to jail people who criticize the Supreme Court. The continued insistence he will send the legal migrants in Ohio who are from Haiti “back” to Venezuela because he evidently thinks that’s where Haiti IS.
    The stuff about the courts will re-surge in the next two days because Judge Tanya Chutkan has ruled Jack Smith can submit the phone book as his preliminary briefing in his revised Insurrection Case against Trump. 180 pages, probably, filled with evidence. Chutkan smacked Trump’s lawyers around, too. Stand by for fun.
    There’s been more hacking of Trump campaign stuff and it won’t be published either but the recipient at least characterizes it. The auteur of Project 2025 reportedly told colleagues he killed a dog with a shovel because he barked too loudly. And just for laughs, what the Prime Minister of the U.K. meant to say was “return of the HOSTAGES” but he must have been hungry.

    [continues with pblockss B, and C]

    and all this time I thought his drooling was about eating dogs and cats and/or how he envisions how he will “protect” women.

  9. “If you guys hadn’t made such a dog’s breakfast out of the immunity question, I wouldn’t need to know absolutely everything about how guilty the former president* really is.”

    Ha!

    “Allowing the government to go first was not “contrary to law, procedure and custom” the judge said, “It is simply how litigation works.”

    Ha! Ha!

  11. https://www.actionnews5.com/2024/04/03/tenn-election-commission-felons-must-have-gun-rights-restored-before-they-can-vote/
     
    “Tennessee is one of only a handful of states that requires people with felony convictions to complete their sentence, probation and parole, and go through a post-sentence process to regain their voting rights.”

    “In Tennessee, nearly 10% of the voting population is excluded from the polls because of felony convictions, a rate second only to Mississippi, and one that especially affects people of color.”

     
     “A new voting restriction is making it more difficult for some Tennesseans to cast their ballots. The state now requires convicted felons who want their voting rights restored to have their gun rights restored first, which is most harmful to minority voters specifically.”
     
     

  14. Stephanie will no doubt drill down on economic and fiscal issues and put  them to the test and to rest. 

  15.  
    Long paragraph just to say oh shit. No word on who exactly was the “private citizen.” Auburn fan, likely. 
     
    “Former President Donald Trump is set to make an appearance for his second game at Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday. No. 4 Alabama (3-0) will face No. 1/2 Georgia (3-0) at 6:30 p.m. CT on ABC.

    Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer was asked about Trump’s planned visit on Monday.  “I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of celebrity-type people here, people that want to come be a part of what’s happening on gameday,” DeBoer said. “It’s going to be, everyone’s watching. So it’d be great to have everyone who wants to come watch be here. For us, I told the guys this, with (College) GameDay and everything coming here as well, for the guys to try to take as much off their plate, other than maybe a few extra interviews towards the end of the week. The main thing is they get prepared to play the best football game that they’ve played this year. I always challenge them to play the best football game they’ve ever played in their career. That’s what matters when it comes down to what we can control. But yeah, it is kind of cool to have a lot of people who want to come be part of the atmosphere and add to the excitement and energy that the game will bring.” 
    Trump’s campaign confirmed the planned visit a week ago, and UA also shared in a statement that it has been notified that Trump plans to attend the game after receiving an invitation from a private citizen.”

    https://www.al.com/alabamafootball/2024/09/what-kalen-deboer-said-with-trump-set-to-attend-alabama-georgia-game.html

  16. NYTimes: Republicans’ Electoral College Edge, Once Seen as Ironclad, Looks to Be Fading

    NYT Polling Director Nate Cohn: “It does not seem that Kamala Harris will necessarily need to win the popular vote by much to prevail. A review of the evidence shows that Donald Trump’s advantage relative to the national popular vote has declined significantly.  If polling trends hold, the Republican advantage in the Electoral College will be at its lowest level in a decade.”

    free link…
    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/25/upshot/trump-electoral-college-harris.html?smid=em-share

  17. WSJ Editorial: A Deere in Trump’s Political Headlights

    Wall Street Journal:

    Hard to believe, but Donald Trump is giving U.S. companies a reason to think Kamala Harris might be better for their business.

    On Monday he gave her an assist by threatening tariffs on Deere & Co. for shifting some of its U.S.-based production to Mexico.

    “As you know, they’ve announced a few days ago that they are going to move a lot of their manufacturing business to Mexico,” Mr. Trump said in Pennsylvania. “I am just notifying John Deere right now that if you do that, we are putting a 200% tariff on everything that you want to sell into the United States.”

    The back story is that Deere this summer said it plans to move manufacturing of compact construction equipment to Mexico from Iowa. The company is also laying off more than 2,000 workers after bulking up during the pandemic recovery. It blamed “lower commodity costs, lower order volumes and a softening construction market.”

    Deere is trying to stay globally competitive after striking a costly labor agreement in 2021 with the United Auto Workers that included a 30% raise over six years, cost-of-living adjustments, $8,500 signing bonuses and paid parental leave. Deere also provides health coverage with no premiums, deductibles and coinsurance, plus defined-benefit pensions.

    At the time Deere had a $14.8 billion order backlog. But demand for its equipment has cooled amid a slump in commodity prices and rising interest rates. Deere’s rising labor costs have become more of a burden. Laid-off workers can thank their UAW leaders.

    What Mr. Trump fails to understand is that U.S. manufacturers compete in global markets. Many customers aren’t in the U.S. and don’t care if a product is stamped “made in America.” Chinese equipment makers are increasingly vying for business in those markets.

    Deere’s competitors are also expanding south of the border. Caterpillar has nearly doubled its workforce in Latin America since 2016. Farm equipment manufacturer CNH plans to shift work from Racine, Wis., to Mexico. Bobcat last year announced a $300 million investment in Mexico for compact construction equipment.

    Mr. Trump thinks he can bully Deere as he did Carrier, which in 2016 wanted to move air-conditioning manufacturing from Indiana to Mexico. He threatened to impose tariffs on Carrier imports. Carrier scaled back U.S. job cuts after Indiana dangled subsidies.

    But Washington and the states can’t afford to subsidize every U.S. manufacturing job, and slapping tariffs on imports from Mexico would violate the USMCA trade agreement. It would also raise U.S. prices. Meantime, his threats help Democrats argue that Ms. Harris would be friendlier to business.

    On Tuesday Mr. Trump promised to personally recruit foreign companies to move manufacturing to the U.S., which plays into his self-image as an expert deal-maker. But businesses fundamentally make decisions based on costs and expected return on capital.

    That’s no easy feat given the punitive Biden-Harris regulatory and tax policies, and it’s political malpractice for Mr. Trump not to highlight how the Administration’s green-energy agenda harms U.S. manufacturers. Or how Ms. Harris’s proposed increase in the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21% would hit American workers. He sometimes talks about deregulation and extending his 2017 tax reform, but he doesn’t explain how they will help U.S. manufacturers invest more at home and raise wages.

    The former President’s biggest selling point is the first-term economy his supply-side policies helped promote. But these days he’s making tariffs his highest priority, and that won’t help the economy if he wins.

    https://www.wsj.com/opinion/donald-trump-tariffs-john-deere-mexico-79daf213?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

  24. slapping tariffs on imports from Mexico would violate the USMCA trade agreement

    Remind me, who signed that trade agreement – twice?

  25. Trump event coming up in NC. I guess they figure a gigantic sign on stage with JOBS JOBS JOBS in gigantic letters will remind Grandpa to actually talk about jobs instead of of windmills causing cancer..

  29. Renee, they won’t boo him.* Last time my friends in the crowd said they felt it necessary to show respect in person to the office. 

    He is interjecting himself in what should be a non-partisan event. I don’t want to know who is the private citizen who took this upon themself.

    * I will amend my statement. I recall my friend saying there were some boos, but the majority was not happy for the disrespect.

  31. It’s important to rack up Kamala’s popular vote count as high as possible, regardless of any cheating or rigging the magas might achieve in the electrical college. 

  32. Trump just now in Mint Hill NC blames America for Putin’s war in Ukraine: “Biden and Kamala allowed this to happen by feeding Zelensky money and munitions like no country has ever seen before.”

    Nailing that women’s vote. Donald Trump: “We got great marks on that debate. We had a woman debating, she just talked about, like, the birds and the bees…There was never an answer. There was never any knowledge.”

  34. https://newrepublic.com/post/186342/trump-lost-total-grasp-things-state-louisiana-georgia

    “After another rambling speech in Georgia on Tuesday, Donald Trump took to Truth Social to pat himself on the back.”

    “Except, he appeared to forget where he just had been.”

    “A great day in Louisiana!” Trump posted around midnight, following his rally in Savannah, Georgia.”
     
    Why doesn’t the media hammer him about his cognitive decline the way they did President Biden? 
     
     

  35. Ivy – Yep, yep!   It’s harder to cheat in a landslide. Plus, all of those down ballot races.
     
    ps – This morning, there was a Harris/Walz lawn sign in the tRUMP-addled town of one of my relatives.   Brave folks.  
     

  37. BID, if nothing else, the ever-growing quadrennial disparity between the popular vote and the electoral college counts may serve to underscore the need for its abolition. 

  39. Why doesn’t the media hammer him about his cognitive decline the way they did President Biden? 

    catering to their boomer audience

  40. BID, Mr. Ivy is the regular recipient of unsolicited campaign mail from the orange ogre. I doubt he has ever voted for any republican, unlike me who once had to request a new ballot because I accidentally voted for a corrupt democrat and wanted to change my vote to the worthy republican district attorney I had served under on the grand jury. 
    I digress. Any mail you get that’s not what you want others to see, you can always claim is unsolicited. If Mr. Ivy gets to it before me, it goes straight into the garbage. If I see it, I fish it out and harvest it for my scrap note paper and grocery lists. 

  41. you want a hard-hitting political ad?  here’s the daily show’s concept today of an expose`ad the rumpsters might air:

    People think vice presidential candidate Tim Walz is nice. But is he… too nice? From his dangerously folksy upbringing, to the National Guard, to teaching America’s future enemies in China, Tim Walz’s “nice” act isn’t fooling anyone. This is the Dailyshowography of Tim Walz.

  42. the trumpies are the cowards, it’s why they like a strongman and vote based on fear
     
    half of them just walk that walk to fit in with the other half of them

  43. Kamala Harris just now…

    “For Donald Trump, our economy works best if it works for those who own the big skyscrapers. Not those who actually build them, not those who wire them, not those who mop the floors.”

  44. Notes so far on this Kamala speech…

    I like Democrats finally talking about small business, not ceding them to Republicans who do nothing for them. 

    So many nuggets. “Skills, not just degrees”. Well written speech, nice mix of thematic and granular

    I don’t see how voters in economic need could buy Trump’s phony promises, compared to the thoughtful persistence she’s committing to 

  46. https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/25/politics/trump-return-butler-pennsylvania-assassination-attempt/index.html

    “ 
    Donald Trump’s campaign has officially announced that the former president plans to return to Butler, Pennsylvania – the location of the first assassination attempt on his life this year – for a rally on October 5.”

    Remember that thing that probably didn’t happen to his ear because there’s no scar and he had no PTSD? He’s going to try to remind everyone. He trying to coast on his alleged victimization.

  47. “Not those who actually build them, not those who wire them, not those who mop the floors.”

    The winner of last night’s America’s Got Talent is a school janitor from Indiana. He bears a passing resemblance to Shawn Fain. Could he be a bellwether?

  49. The media needs to start covering Harris’ actual policies, and Orange Adolf’s lies with regard to Project 2025, and everything else. 
    Wake up, MSM! You’re on!  Time take the donut offa the bat and step up to the plate! 

  50. Because i’m not that smart, i just realized that RFK Jr. obviously leaked the Nuzzi story to distract from trump’s Loomer affair
     
    It worked, i bit, because Nuzzi is traditionally attractive, and Olbermann bit, too, because apparently it’s important for him to convey he is emotionally crippled dated her 10 years, ago.
     
    i’m wise now, though 🕵️‍♂️

    (i know what you’re thinking: “what about his marriage to Cheryl Hines??”. Does it seem like he cares more about that or his profile?)

    (btw he’s been leaking stuff on HIMSELF the whole season, it’s a pattern)

  51. Distraction is about the only thing RFKjr has to offer CS.  So was his dating Nuzzi contemporaneous with the brain worm eating his temporal lobe (or whatever)?

    Funny twist – from Newsweek:

    However, on Monday, The New York Post reported that Kennedy might sue Nuzzi, who allegedly “bombarded him with increasingly pornographic photos and videos” while tricking him into unblocking her numbers, according to Jessica Reed Kraus, a mutual friend.

    Do what?

  52. Bink – Spot on with rfjk on all counts, including ko. 

    Project 2025 It’s what everyone should be talking about.

  53. Observe: RFK Jr’s polling results stayed constant for months (about 4% max) but he only stopped entertaining the futile notion that he was electable when data showed he was taking that 4% from trump and not Dems

    So, as much as it seems like he’s just on some Shakespearean quest to destroy his family’s legacy permanently, i think he’s yet another plant

  55. Yeah, they’ve been closing in on Adams for quite awhile.  He’s been a disaster as a mayor.  

Comments are closed.