A company run by Trump’s digital director was caught sending thousands of incendiary texts to Trump supporters telling them to amass in Philadelphia and falsely demonstrate that Dems were stealing the election. This will pretty much shoot down Giuliani’s claims of voter fraud.
Must read. A great article today by Jennifer Rubin the the Washington Post about stopping right wing myth making.
Social media is still laughing about the Trump boat parade turned mass shipwreck Saturday on Lake Travis. The memes are making the rounds and some of my favorites are Poseidon For Biden, Klan overboard!, Lake Travesty, and Make 
America Sink Again. The real irony of the day, though, were the metaphors for Trump’s America…it was the perfect Libertarian event; poorly organized, and poorly managed. No one knows how many boats participated, how many where swamped, and how many people went into the water. The clearest metaphor, though, was how people acted – the wealthy, in flag festooned boats as long as 60 feet sped through the water with no regard for the every day folks in smaller boats in the parade. The resulting wakes are what caused heavy swell that engulfed those smaller boats, sinking at least 4, and swamping an untold number.
The wealthier people did what they wanted, without regard to their effect on others. Those others lost, but no one knows how many because, Freedumb. Just like today’s economy under Trump.
One of the best videos of the day, though, was by comedian Brent Terhune, who plays a MAGhat of the first order. Here he tearfully describes the loss of his beloved boat, the SS MAGAritaville.
“Uplifting and Positive” in 75 seconds.
Trump's America in 75 seconds. pic.twitter.com/lxUklU7gW8
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) August 25, 2020
The latest:
The birthers are back, and this time with a vengeance. Trump repeated the lie that Kamala Harris was not born in the US from the podium in the White House briefing room.
Trump’s goon, Louis DeJoy, continues his dismantling of the Post Office, happy to inconvenience 300 million Americans and all businesses for his boss’s benefit. After the uproar, today he put out a letter acknowledging “unintended consequences” for his actions. Translation: “Exactly what Trump wanted.” DeJoy’s letter is laughable since, just yesterday…
Trump admitted he was withholding funds from the Post Office to make it harder for Americans to vote. The one feature of Trump’s presidency is that he really doesn’t do anything to hide his criminality and corruption. He just does it and admits it on national television. Trumpists believe, “He’s just saying it like it is.”
At the same time, he and Melania applied for vote by mail ballots in Florida. Yeah. They really did that.
Presidency by Chaos continues as the invertebrates in the Senate started their 6 week Labor Day vacation after doing diddly squat for suffering Americans. We’re truly living in a post democracy country.
In an alarming turn of events, management of the Texas Medical Center in Houston has halted the reporting of real time COVID-19 data. They haven’t reported new data since Thursday. That’s right, folks; as COVID-19 new case rate goes almost vertical and ICUs are being overrun, TMC has halted real time data reporting. Why, you ask? Apparently, the heads of TMC cut a deal with Greg Abbott. As we know, Abbott awoke from his Stupid Coma on Thursday and shut down all elective surgeries in the state to relieve the load on hospitals in the state. He also ordered bars throughout the state to close again after he had stupidly allowed them to reopen starting in May.
Doctors within TMC have been ringing the alarm bells for weeks as new case rate increased. Leadership also provided public warnings about capacity, reporting that they were going to exceed surge ICU capacity by the first week of July. Late Thursday, though, TMC management reversed themselves, saying they had plenty of capacity. What happened? I’m hearing that Abbott built in a huge loophole in his shutdown policy to allow elective surgeries in TMC and affiliates as long as the hospitals have “enough capacity”. Apparently “enough capacity” is pretty damn vague. Methodist Hospital even sent out a “don’t worry, be happy” post on Thursday that they had plenty of room and elective surgeries (translated “very profitable”. As I’m sure is a complete coincidence, TMC simultaneously halted realtime reporting of COVID-19 case rates and ICU capacity utilization in Houston. Hmm.
All of this is going on as ICU capacity at TMC and other is overrun. TMC hospitals are even moving adult patients into Texas Children’s hospital, turning kids away. It’s like we’ve fallen down the rabbit hole into the Greg Abbott version of Trumpland. I continue to shake my head at the willful ignorance and magical thinking coming from our elected leadership. It’s an alternate reality where Abbott/Patrick/Paxton & Company run us into a brick wall at 100 miles an hour only for them to say, “Oops, that didn’t work.” My jaw is aching from dragging on the floor.
Jesus.