August 5, 2020

New poll shows Harrison in striking distance of Graham, tight 2020 presidential race

New poll shows Harrison in striking distance of Graham, tight 2020 presidential race
By Emily Bohatch
August 04, 2020 12:22 PM , Updated August 04, 2020 01:20 PM



A new poll from Morning Consult put Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jaime Harrison within one percentage point of incumbent Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham.

According to the poll, 43% of voters said they would vote for the former South Carolina Democratic Party chairman, while 44% said they would go for the Seneca Republican.

Though pollsters called the race “statistically tied,” many S.C. voters have not committed to either candidate, according to the poll.

Four percent of the 741 likely South Carolinian voters surveyed online from July 24 to Aug. 2 said they would vote for someone else, and 8% said they don’t know or have no opinion. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Read more here: https://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/article244709757.html#storylink=cpy

August 5, 2020

Senate Seats Most Likely to Flip

Make it so!

https://politicalwire.com/2020/08/05/senate-seats-most-likely-to-flip/

Senate Seats Most Likely to Flip
August 5, 2020 at 9:59 am EDT By Taegan Goddard

August 5, 2020

If you've tested positive for 'rona,

have you regained your sense of smell and taste? My sister had to go for a test because she was sick with a cough, exhaustion, and loss of these senses. She was told she likely has it, will find out in a few days but meanwhile she sent me this and is worried. Thanks for any insight!

COVID-19: Loss of Smell, Taste Might Be Long-Term
By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter


THURSDAY, June 4, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, it's become clear that many people with the infection lose their sense of smell and taste. And doctors are concerned that some will never get back to normal.

At this point, it's hard to know how common the symptom is. First, there were anecdotal reports of COVID-19 patients who had lost their ability to smell or taste, said Dr. Nicholas Rowan, an assistant professor of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

And then, he said, studies started to confirm "there's a lot of truth to it."

Rowan pointed to one study of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 that used objective tests to detect smell "dysfunction." Nearly all patients -- 98% -- showed some loss of smell.

But the problem isn't limited to severely ill patients. It appears to be common, and even a "cardinal" symptom, among people with milder COVID-19 infections. Cardinal symptoms are the key ones from which a diagnosis is made.

more...

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200604/covid19-loss-of-smell-taste-might-be-long-term#1

August 5, 2020

Pentagon Officials Say Trump Was Talking Nonsense When He Called Beirut Explosion an Attack

He needs to STFU.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/pentagon-officials-say-trump-was-talking-nonsense-when-he-called-beirut-explosion-an-attack?ref=home?ref=home

Pentagon Officials Say Trump Was Talking Nonsense When He Called Beirut Explosion an Attack
LOOSE CANNON
Jamie Ross
Updated Aug. 05, 2020 7:13AM ET /
Published Aug. 05, 2020 7:12AM ET


Pentagon officials have reportedly said that they have absolutely no idea what President Donald Trump was talking about when he described the gigantic and deadly Beirut explosion as a “terrible attack” carried out using a “bomb of some kind.” On Tuesday, hours after the explosion killed at least a hundred people and wounded thousands, Trump said: “I've met with some of our great generals and they just seem to feel that it was not... some kind of manufacturing explosion type of event... They seem to think it was an attack.” But CNN has reportedly spoken to U.S. defense officials who said there is absolutely no indication that it was an attack and, if there was, efforts would have already been made to protect U.S. troops and assets in the region. That hasn’t happened. Lebanese officials have reportedly raised concerns with U.S. diplomats about Trump’s “attack” language. Lebanon has blamed the explosion on the accidental detonation of more than 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate.

August 5, 2020

The Rude Pundit: Another Week, Another Batshit Trump Interview

https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2020/08/another-week-another-batshit-trump.html


The Rude Pundit
Proudly lowering the level of political discourse
8/04/2020
Another Week, Another Batshit Trump Interview

snip//

But prior to that was just Trump's blatantly racist, insidious fucking attempt to assfuck American history until it is contorted around his deformed goddamned image. Trump was once again lying about how "I did more for the Black community than anybody with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln, whether you like it or not," and Swan asked him:



There's so much to say here that it's almost impossible to articulate it. First, Trump has no fucking clue what's in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, let alone the Voting Rights Act or the 1968 Civil Rights Act, all signed by LBJ (although he might know the last one since it prohibited the very race discrimination in housing that he and his shitbird father engaged in). More importantly, Trump looks at his minor adjustments in laws as huge triumphs, not giving a damn that whatever African Americans have accomplished during his presidency comes from a long fuckin' line of struggles and triumphs involving more presidents than just him. But as far as Trump is concerned, African American history goes from Lincoln freeing the slaves, which he allows is possibly more important than Opportunity Zones, to him.

In a rational nation, this kind of embarrassing stupidity in a leader would cause an upheaval that would force them to run for freedom before the pitchforks and torches caught up with them. And while those of us who already despise Trump more than the dictionary has words to express are justifiably nauseated by the interview, in MAGA world, this was Trump just givin' it to the fake news who were trying to set him up to fail.

You have to choose your reality in this America. And there are still tens of millions of people who want to live in the one filtered through Donald Trump's anus-mouth. Fuck them.

August 4, 2020

McConnell has 17-point lead over Democratic challenger McGrath: poll

McConnell has 17-point lead over Democratic challenger McGrath: poll
By Alexander Bolton - 08/04/20 10:08 AM EDT


Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is leading his Democratic opponent, Amy McGrath, by a commanding 17 points in a new poll that shows the GOP leader ahead 53 to 36 percent.

Eighty-four percent of Republicans polled by Morning Consult said they support McConnell while 79 percent of Democrats said they back McGrath. Twelve percent of Democrats said they also support McConnell.

The GOP leader also has more support among independents than McGrath, with 45 percent backing McConnell and 33 percent favoring McGrath.

The survey of 700 likely voters in Kentucky, reported on by the Louisville Courier Journal, was conducted online from July 24 to Aug. 2 and had a margin of error of 3.5 percent.

more...

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/510418-mcconnell-has-17-point-lead-over-democratic-challenger-mcgrath-poll

August 4, 2020

David Corn: The Republican Party Is Racist and Soulless. Just Ask This Veteran GOP Strategist.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/08/racism-republican-party-stuart-stevens/

The Republican Party Is Racist and Soulless. Just Ask This Veteran GOP Strategist.
Stuart Stevens says he now realizes the hatred and bigotry of Trumpism were always at the heart of the GOP.
David Corn
September/October 2020 Issue

snip//


Asked if the Republican Party in the Trump years has become an outfit free of governing ideas, Stevens went even further: “It was all a lie.” He noted that this was word-for-word the title of his forthcoming book, It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump. The modern GOP, he said, never truly cared about the ideas it claimed to care about.

This was a stunning indictment coming from a longtime political consul­tant who had toiled on five Republican presidential campaigns and numerous Senate and gubernatorial races. “The Republican Party has been a cartel,” Stevens said excitedly. “And no one asks a cartel, ‘What’s your ideological purpose?’ You don’t ask OPEC, ‘What’s your ideology?’ You don’t ask a drug gang, ‘What’s your program?’ The Republicans exist for the pursuit of power for no purpose.”

snip//

Stevens now argues that Trump’s rise was not a fluke that the party can sidestep or survive. “This is the complete moral collapse of a governing party of a major superpower,” he remarked. He wonders how he could have been blind to the GOP’s racism and turpitude for so long. “It is hard to see this when you’re in the middle of it,” he said. “The only analogy I can find is the collapse of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union, when the difference between reality and what is believed became so disjointed. I should’ve seen this. I did see this, but I wanted to believe the crazies were a minority.”

Stevens conceded that had Trump not come along, he still might not have been fully aware of the structural immorality of the GOP: The Republican Party was “a comfortable place for a lot of us. If Trump had lost, I’d probably still be working for a Republican candidate. But Trump made it impossible to deny what the party is. I just don’t get why these Republican senators don’t stand up to him. What’s the worst thing? You’ll be an ex-senator? They are the Trump Generation. It’s how they will be remembered. Like the segregationists of old.”

It was hard to slow Stevens down as he spoke. He had so much to confess. He forecast a bleak future for the party. Citing the demise of the Repub­lican Party in California (where more voters are now registering “no party preference” than Republican), he observed that the GOP was becoming a “regional/Sun Belt party.” And he shared his fear that young political operatives working for the party have drawn the lesson that a candidate must emulate Trump to win—that what most matters is not policy ideas but the ability to attack and exploit fears, divisions, tribalism, and resentments. “Elizabeth Warren can articulate a coherent theory of government,” Stevens said. “There is no coherent theory of government for Republicans right now. Usually a coherent theory versus an incoherent theory carries the day.”

“It’s really incredible how this had happened,” Stevens told me, as I realized I had received far more material from him than anticipated. “This is the last book in the world I wanted to write. It is tough to come to terms with this, and incredibly depressing. If we say we believe in personal responsibility, you have to take personal responsibility and start with yourself. We created this. It didn’t just happen.” Stevens was not pleased or satisfied with his epiphany: Ideas are not the currency for today’s GOP and never truly were. And Trump alone could not be blamed for that. “Republicans only exist to elect Republicans,” Stevens remarked with sadness. “They are down to one idea: How can we win?”

August 4, 2020

Administration wants West Wing remodel money in virus bill

NOW they want to remodel? Just Say No! They have horrible taste to boot.


Administration wants West Wing remodel money in virus bill
By ZEKE MILLER
July 29, 2020


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration wants $377 million in the next coronavirus relief bill for a long-delayed modernization of the West Wing, but the timetable for construction is yet to be determined.

The sum, included in the draft aid legislation from Senate Republicans, would also cover a new security screening facility for the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in the White House complex.

While lawmakers, including Republicans, have balked at the administration’s request for more than $1 billion in the bill for a new FBI headquarters in Washington, the West Wing plan has drawn relatively little scrutiny. The administration says the White House work would “increase the White House campus’s ability to detect, mitigate and alleviate external security and pandemic threats.”

more...

https://apnews.com/589692882c67650b87daeec5765660c5?fbclid=IwAR2_DyPiHxfbyLafJwu_PNiC-CYbxGJK56EmmzvDMpFr2eJMzF7jbpv2YqE

August 4, 2020

Nevada governor signs mail-in voting bill after Trump threatens lawsuit

https://www.axios.com/nevada-gov-mail-in-voting-bill-trump-sue-threat-e0b6987a-c993-4730-ada3-fb95e85b95cb.html


Nevada governor signs mail-in voting bill after Trump threatens lawsuit
Rebecca Falconer


Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) announced Monday evening that he's signed a bill enabling all registered voters in the state to vote by mail in November's elections.

Why it matters: President Trump told reporters Monday he'd sue Nevada in a bid to stop the mail-in measure. After Sisolak's announcement, Trump retweeted his earlier tweet stating: "In an illegal late night coup, Nevada's clubhouse Governor made it impossible for Republicans to win the state. Post Office could never handle the Traffic of Mail-In Votes without preparation. Using Covid to steal the state. See you in Court!"

August 3, 2020

Trump Under Investigation for Bank and Insurance Fraud by Manhattan District Attorney...

https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2020/08/trump-under-investigation-for-bank-and-insurance-fraud-by-manhattan-district-attorney-legal-filing-suggests/

Trump Under Investigation for Bank and Insurance Fraud by Manhattan District Attorney, Legal Filing Suggests
Published
on August 3, 2020 at 01:16 PM ET
By David Badash


Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. on Monday moved to dismiss a lawsuit by President Donald Trump’s attorneys, and in that legal filing suggested he is investigating the president and his company for possible bank and insurance fraud.

Vance “made the disclosure in a new federal court filing arguing Mr. Trump should have to comply with its subpoena seeking eight years of his personal and corporate tax returns,” The New York Times reports. “Mr. Trump has asked a judge to declare the subpoena invalid.”

The filing cites “undisputed” news reports to make clear that Vance has a legal basis for his subpoena ordering Trump’s accounting firm to hand over 8 years of the president’s personal and corporate tax returns.

The U.S. Supreme Court last month supported Vance’s attempts to obtain the documents.

A nearly two-year old New York Times investigation found that “President Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents,”