BREAKING: U.S. Army Coming Soon to a Street Near You! UPDATED.

Multiple notifications popped onto my screen yesterday announcing that the Loser-In-Chief had fired his defense secretary Mark Esper. I was working on something else (and also trying and failing miserably to observe a news blackout for personal reasons*) so I didn’t dig any deeper than the headlines.

But my mind kept on poking at me with a big stick and asking “Why?” “Why?” “Why?” For sure, the reason would be sad, funny, fascist, illegal, counterproductive, enraging, ridiculous or some combination of those. However, this morning as I looked over a few of these notifications before deleting them, our Liberal Media™ informed and enlightened me further only with something about Commander Cheetohead bashing Esper on Twitter. Which, okay, ticked A LOT of those boxes if not all of them but did nothing to shut up my shouty, stabby stick. And It’s not like I was going to click on actual links to read actual stories! I got shit to do, people.

Enter The New York Times to save the day! (Not really.) From this morning’s Times email briefing:

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Happy Election Armageddon Day! + UPDATE, + MOAR UPDATEZ.

I hope you’re hunkered down and staying safe, today and in the days to come.

Here at Death to Squirrels Central™, it’s as if a massive blizzard or Cat 5 hurricane had been predicted: we were already sort of well-stocked with staples and essentials due to COVID, but we’re now very well-stocked. We’re also charging all devices, checking flashlights/putting out candles and just generally being extra-EXTRA-paranoid. We have no fucking idea what today may bring – and neither does anyone else.

I have heard a few sharp and contentious-sounding conversations outside my window on Hudson Street this morning, which would not be unusual generally, but is highly unusual on a morning weekday. Then again, the water in my building is shut off to fix a drain pipe or something, so it could just be a couple of my pissed-off neighbors yelling at the super and the plumber. That would be totally normal.

Fuck. I just heard more yelling. What was I saying about extra-EXTRA-paranoid? Yeah. I think it might be klonopin o’clock.

I will NOT be hoping or praying for you (because hope is not a plan and nothing fails like prayer). But for whatever it’s worth I will be thinking and worrying about you, good people of the lefty persuasion (godless or not).

Remember, Iris loves you! Unless of course she doesn’t!

__________

UPDATE 1:

This just in:

New York Daily News "Breaking News" header, including black and red "Daily News" logo and "NYDAILYNEWS.COM"NYC Election Day: Long lines, lots of voters, plenty of angst across the five boroughs

Lines outside some city polling locations already came with a long wait within three hours of the 6 a.m. start opening, with the sites open until 9 p.m.

Read the Latest

Where’s that klonopin?

__________

UPDATE 2:

I clicked the link to Read the Latest:

Voters wore masks and observed social distancing in the year of pandemic and a presidential race pitting President Trump against ex-Vice President Joe Biden.

Voters who wear masks and observe social distancing are almost certainly not Trump voters. So, you know, that’s good.

Also: klonopin achieved.

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Conservatives Eat Their Own, Hilarity Ensues.

Oh noez! Jared and Ivanka are not happy.

Seems some gaggle of wealthy, well-connected #NeverTrumpers started a PAC last year called The Lincoln Project. These self-styled “ex-Republicans” just put up two billboards in Times Square:

Photo of 2 billboards in Times Square. 1) Ivanka happily and gesturing toward statistics: "33,366+ NEW YORKERS. 221,247+ AMERICANS." 2) Jared smiling smugly next to quote: "[NEW YORKERS]" ARE GOING TO SUFFER AND THAT'S THEIR PROBLEM." (photo: Twitter via New York Daily News)

In case it’s hard to make out in the image, on one billboard Ivanka is smiling blithely while gesturing toward bold block print:

33,366+
NEW YORKERS.
221,247+
AMERICANS.

On the other billboard, Jared smiles smugly next to a quote:

“[NEW YORKERS] ARE GOING TO

SUFFER

AND THAT’S THEIR PROBLEM.”

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Conservatives caught on video owning their $#!+.

Here’s something we hardly ever get to see: powerful conservatives owning the fact that they are terrible people. And I am 100% here for it.

Conservatives, especially elite conservatives, normally hide or deny their racism, lawbreaking, lying, hatred for democracy and… hmm, how should I put this?… Moral flexibility.

But I received this “Breaking News” email alert from WaPo:

Videos show closed-door sessions of top conservative activists: ‘Be not afraid of the accusations that you’re a voter suppressor’

Footage obtained by The Post, covering dozens of hours of Council for National Policy meetings in February and August, offers an inside view of activists’ obsessions, fears and plans at a pivotal moment in the conservative movement.

I clicked through to read the full article. And voter suppression? JFC that isn’t even the half of it. In fact, if I were writing that email blurb, “voter suppression” might not even make it in (although “open hatred for democracy” might). But that’s probably only because I am interested in things like truth and calling things exactly what they are. Unlike, say, editors at The Washington Post.

Investigative journalist Robert O’Harrow Jr. wrote the piece after viewing dozens of hours of video obtained by The Post from two secretive conferences put on this year by some Very Big Willies in the conservative movement. This Council for National Policy (CNP) sounds sort of like CPAC, only much more exclusive. You know, without all the riff-raff. Let’s dive right in and have a look, shall we? C’mon, it’ll be fun.

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Indigenous Peoples Day 2020.

On Friday, the preferred president of assholes everywhere issued a shitty proclamation declaring that today’s federal holiday is exclusively a celebration of Italian-American contributions to our nation and the exploits of a particular 15th century Italian explorer, said exploits necessarily encompassing the ensuing brutal colonization and genocide of Indigenous people in the Americas. This proclamation is much, much worse than I even imagined. (And I write this as a person with significant Italian-American heritage.) If you choose to read on, you will first want to ensure that your irony meter is in excellent working order and – this is the important part – still under warranty.

For one thing, consider what Pres. Alpha Asshole and his Merry Minions of Masklessness would be saying and doing about Italian immigration a hundred years ago. You know: before Italians suddenly and miraculously became white. I’m pretty sure my grandmother, who happened to be exceptionally dark-skinned even for southern Italy, would have been locked up in a cage along with her sister and all the other Italian immigrant children.

Of course those among us who think we should instead recognize and reckon with the truth of our nation’s history are deemed “radical activists” and “extremists” who “seek to squash any dissent from their orthodoxy” and instead promote a “radical ideology” and “revisionist history” just to “spread hate and division.”

Let us pause for a moment here so that you can recalibrate your irony meter and/or attempt to extinguish the flames emanating therefrom.

Okay now? Good. The preceding was merely setting the stage for what I really want to talk about on this Indigenous Peoples Day. If you guessed that is “Indigenous people,” you win all the internetz! 🏆⭐️🏅

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NYPD Beat, Arrest Peaceful Protesters in Planned Assault.

[CONTENT NOTE: police violence against peaceful protesters, lying police liars who lie.]

A new report from Human Rights Watch documents the NYPD’s brutal assaults against peaceful George Floyd protesters at a June 4 rally in the Bronx (via New York Daily News):

NYPD trapped over 300 George Floyd protesters in the Bronx and waited until after curfew to ‘assault and arrest’ them: report

The NYPD trapped over 300 protesters in the Bronx marching for George Floyd and waited until the 8 p.m. citywide curfew to arrest them for breaking the law, a human rights group wrote in a scathing report released Wednesday.

Human Rights Watch said Bronx cops surrounded protesters on June 4 in a tactic known as kettling, refused to let them disperse, then began “whaling their batons, beating people from car tops, shoving them down to the ground and firing pepper spray in their faces” as soon as the curfew hit.

The 8 p.m. shutdown was imposed a few days earlier to stem widespread looting amid marches against the death of George Floyd, who died in Minneapolis police custody.

“As protesters cried out — some with blood dripping down their faces — the police began to arrest them. They forced people to sit on the street with their hands zip-tied behind their backs, at times so tight that their hands went numb,” said Human Rights Watch in their report.

[Human Rights Watch] said they questioned 81 protesters and reviewed 81 videos and police scanner calls for the report. They also released a 12-minute video filled with diagrams of the Mott Haven clash, interviews with witnesses and protesters, and cellphone videos taken at the scene.

Here is video from Human Rights Watch detailing the sequence of events on June 4.

CONTENT NOTE (from the filmmakers):

“This video contains violent and disturbing images and profanity. Viewer discretion is advised.”

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Trump only paid $750 in taxes in 2016 and 2017 – UPDATED.

Via New York Daily News:

Bombshell report shows Trump’s years of tax avoidance

President Trump paid just $750 in taxes in 2016 and the same sum in 2017, according to a bombshell New York Times report published Sunday.

He paid a big fat zero in income tax in 10 of the 15 previous years, the publication found.

Seems legit.

UPDATE.

From today’s New York Times email briefing:

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BREAKING: Steve Bannon in Federal Custody! HAPPY DANCE EVERYONE!

Our good friends at The New York Daily News have just made my day:

BREAKING:

Steve Bannon, former Trump advisor, in federal custody on charges of defrauding donors in fundraising scheme: US Attorney SDNY

Stephen Bannon and three others “orchestrated a scheme” that raised more than $25 million to build a wall along the southern border according to charges contained in an indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal court.

Read the Latest

My “religion” requires me to find joy in every day. It turns out I never need to look very far for it, but some days it gets handed to me on a silver platter.

Of course Mr. “Breitbart” has more claims to infamy than “former Trump advisor. But right now, who even cares? Let’s dance!

   

Have a joyous day.