Convention disappears -- like a miracle!

Despite many perfectly fine suggestions (the Lobbyists, the Monuments, the Bureaucrats), the Washington football team has chosen to be called the Washington Football Team.  Maybe they want to see how the election plays out, maybe they're in search of a corporate sponsor (the Washington Depends?).  The point is, the old racist name has been pried from Dan Snyder's warm, sticky fingers.  Progress!

All quotations are attributed to Churchill, Oscar Wilde or Yogi Berra, so I don't know which one said that impending death focuses the mind wonderfully.  (Dorothy Parker?  Mark Twain?)  So does impending defeat, apparently, because after only seven months, four million cases and nearly 150,000 deaths, Trump has decided that acting serious about covid can only improve his poll numbers.  He is backing away from the demand that children be crowded back into classrooms right now, and has even suggested that people other than himself might think about wearing masks.  Yesterday he made the ultimate sacrifice and announced the cancellation of the Republican National Convention, which would have combined a Roman triumph with a really good Olympic opening ceremony.   So many people wanting to be there, with tears in their eyes no doubt, that you would never have noticed the absence of so many prominent party members and donors.  "I have to protect the American people.  That's what I've always done," he went on, his large orange face as straight as he can make it.  Protect us from what?  "From the China virus or the radical-left mob that you see in Portland." 

Too late for Gary Tibbetts, a staff member of Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL), who died of covid in a Manatee hospital.  Right now, Florida is ground zero for coronavirus because its governor is a slavish Trumpanzee who just got the rug pulled out from under him.  Abbott, Kemp, Doocy, you're next.  Lifting restrictions and refusing to make masks mandatory will soon be your idea and yours alone.  Just remember, no one has died or been disabled by the "radical-left mob" that lives in Trump's head.

Speaking of shifting alliances, Mayor Ted Wheeler of Portland angered that "radical-left mob" when his police used tear gas on them.  Last night he joined them on the street and was himself gassed by the federal troops who have invaded Oregon.  This time he called it an "egregious overreaction."  I'd say "Tear Gas Teddy" has been well and truly woke, even before Stephen Miller pronounced him a "secessionist."  By next week he'll be painting BLACK LIVES MATTER in front of the federal building, still standing despite all the violent graffiti.

Here's how it's done in two of Trump's favorite countries.  Ruslan Kostylenkov was beaten and sodomized by Putin's secret police for opposition to the regime, after which he "confessed" to being an anarchist.  Meanwhile, police in Jerusalem used high-pressure hoses (euphemistically called "water cannon") to break up an anti-Netanyahu demonstration.  Israel (population 9 million) has more than 58,000 coronavirus cases and many people blame government mishandling of the pandemic.  The response of the Knesset has been legislation allowing a state of emergency, mostly to end the protests by "radical-left mobs."  Small world.

If Trump heard of Zimbabwe he would probably call it a "shithole country," but he should be impressed with the way it reins in the press.  Reporter Hopewell Chin'ono was investigating government corruption -- yes, apparently it goes on even after Robert Mugabe -- when he was arrested for promoting demonstrations that police say will turn violent, although they aren't scheduled to happen for another week.  Not surprisingly, covid profiteering is involved.

Anthony Fauci had a mixed Thursday.  He threw out the first pitch at the Yankees-Nationals opening game, provoking many witticisms about "flattening the curve."  Then he found out that certified  conspirologist Judy Mikovits is suing him for creating coronavirus at Ft. Dietrick, mailing it to Wuhan to be weaponized, and then raking in the rewards that come from killing thousands of people worldwide.  Why a lawsuit?  It sounds like the crime of the century.  Why hasn't Mikovits shown her evidence to the Justice Department?  Or at least tweeted about it so Trump can RT her?  What's her game?  I demand an investigation.  Maybe I should sue her.  (Dr. Fauci is still getting death threats, as are his wife, their daughters, and probably a lot of random people named Fauci.  This batshit can only make them more frequent.)

The Senate passed a $740 billion defense bill yesterday 86-14, which is a lot of Republican support for a requirement to rename bases currently named for traitors -- even Fort Bragg, where soldiers trained to fight "beautiful world wars that were vicious and horrible."  (The others are here.)  There are many American generals who could be honored instead.  I nominate Smedley D. Butler, at his death in 1940 the most decorated Marine in history.  He would be better known today if he had not given a speech, "War Is a Racket," in 1933, a year before he derailed a right-wing coup aimed at installing him in place of Roosevelt.  Fascinating man.  I wonder what he would have said about a $740 billion defense budget.  Since he was a Republican, probably something pithy.

Robert E. Lee High School in Fairfax County, Virginia, will be re-named for John Lewis.  See?  That wasn't so hard.

Stephen Miller, who organizes Trump's ravings into texts he can read off the Teleprompter, is not just a Southern Poverty Law Center-certified dispenser of hate.  He's also a covid denier.  His grandmother Ruth Glosser, a retired neuropsychologist, died July 4 of covid-19 according to the death certificate.  Miller, who certainly was not there because the family long ago sat shiva for him, calls this "categorically false."  Because nobody dies of "the sniffles," by Trumpean decree, I guess.

UFOs -- are we at the crossroads?