Red Alert 

Crazy Day:  In Kentucky, the Breonna Taylor Grand Jury failed to indict the police who shot her dead after breaking into her apartment with a warrant obtained based on out of date information that had led them to believe that her ex-boyfriend, a drug dealer, was with her. He wasn’t with her but their forced entry led to a confrontation that left her dead, and later in an effort to further blur the facts they tried to get the former boyfriend to implicate her in his drug dealing activities in exchange for a lighter sentence, he refused.  The jury did indict one now former policeman for wanton endangerment, not for Taylor’s death but for shooting off a round of bullets that endangered her neighbors.   In Washington, Virus Guru Fauci very effectively called out the extremely annoying Senator Rand Paul for making false scientific assertions about coronavirus herd immunity in New York during a Senate Health Committee hearing.  In New York a judge rejected Eric Trump’s assertions that he was too busy working on his dad’s campaign to respond to a subpoena, telling him that he had to give a deposition about the Trump family business’ financial finagling before the election.  We also learned that the Trump administration wrongly intervened in the publication of former security advisor John Bolton’s book something that should make AG Barr’s efforts to indict him for violating secrecy laws that much more difficult; that the face mask dissing Governor of Missouri and his very symptomatic wife both have COVID; that the Department of Homeland Security granted acting head Chad Wolf’s wife’s firm $6 million in contracts while he was illegally acting; and that Republican Senator Ron Johnson’s report on Hunter and Joe Biden’s alleged illegal Ukraine activities, the one that was much anticipated by Trump’s echo chamber in Congress, at Fox News and at Rupert Murdoch’s publications and that “benefited” from cooperation from Russian spies and the like, found no illegalities and nothing new.  And Trump signaled that he might block the FDA from tightening vaccine approval procedures to help his election prospects naturally.  But all of that pales in comparison with the really BIGLY story of the day – that Trump with the help of the RNC and their 1000 or so election lawyers are planning to undermine the results of the election. 

Election Upheaval:    According to The Atlantic’s Barton Gellman, Trump and his RNC minions plan to question and delay the finalization of results in as many of those swing key states that he loses as he can.  Then to the extent those states have Republican led legislatures, his plan is to bypass the actual election results, appointing new local electors who would then cast their electoral college votes in his favor.  Sound crazy?  It’s not, apparently, a number of Republican legislators in the very swingy Pennsylvania confirm that they have been contacted about implementing such a plan and they seem to think the plan is a good one.  And to further dispel any doubt that Trump is moving in this direction, yesterday when asked, he would not commit to providing a peaceful transition of power after Election Day, instead he said “Well, we’re going to have to see what happens.” He added “You know that I've been complaining very strongly about the ballots and the ballots are a disaster.  Get rid of the ballots and you'll have a very ... there won't be a transfer, frankly. There'll be a continuation."  Of course most in Republican leadership conveniently ignored his remarks, well that is most except for Mitt Romney who tweeted "Fundamental to democracy is the peaceful transition of power; without that, there is Belarus.  Any suggestion that a president might not respect this Constitutional guarantee is both unthinkable and unacceptable." Of course, that’s the same Mitt Romney who announced his support for Trump’s plan to install another Justice on the Supreme Court even though early voting has already begun in a number of states and who also seems to be ignoring that Trump has now said several times that he need “his” ninth Justice in place to insure that SCOTUS rules in his favor when he contests the election results.  

That Trump plans to question the results of any election that he loses isn’t a surprise. To be clear, his intent is alarming, it’s just not surprising.  After all he threatened to do so in 2016 and even after trouncing Hillary Clinton in the electoral college he continued to question the legitimacy of her popular vote win, especially those three million extra “fraudulent” voters that put her over the top, well the top of the vote that didn’t matter.  He was so angry about that loss that he actually set up a commission to prove voter fraud, the commission that faded away when no fraud could be found.  So why should we doubt that someone who’s already suggested that the election be delayed due to the pandemic that his ineptitude amplified, verbally attacks mail-in voting daily except of course mail-in voting from Republican led states he expects to win, and who has diminished the capability of the USPS to deliver ballots on time by appointing a major donor/destroyer to the Postmaster General role would have any qualms about usurping the election?      

Et Cetera:  Getting back to Kentucky, there were demonstrations there and elsewhere last night.  Two policemen were shot, though thankfully it appears that neither was killed.  Joe Biden responded by saying violence is never the answer, Trump tweeted out “LAW & ORDER.” And by that he means that only he gets to break the law and cause disorder. 

Forty Days.