Domestic Warfare

Seatbelt Time:  Yesterday, thirteen home grown extremists, not Muslim radicals,  BLM members nor members of antifa, but men with right wing Boogaloo ties, were arrested for plotting to kidnap, torture and maybe even kill Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a plan that also called for triggering a civil war because that’s what 2020 is missing, all out domestic warfare.  Beyond frightening, but today may well turn out to be even more nutzoid as Speaker Pelosi is talking about creating a commission to evaluate Trump’s sanity, VP Pence has cancelled his travel plans and is racing back to Washington, DC and Trump lost the Nobel, or as he likes to call it the Noble, Peace Prize to the UN World Food Plan because apparently the prize committee believes that addressing world hunger during a pandemic trump’s reaching “peace” agreements between countries not at war.   

Liberation? Getting back to Michigan, apparently the FBI became aware of the plot to take out Governor Whitmer a few months ago, around the time that a scary group of long gun toting white “militia” members responded to Trump’s tweets to “liberate Michigan” by occupying the state’s capitol to protest against the Governor’s pandemic response restrictions.  The FBI then successfully infiltrated the terrorist group observing as its members cased out Whitmer’s home and progressed with their nefarious plans. It doesn’t appear that Trump, who began yesterday by tweet attacking FBI Director Wray for putting ensuring election security ahead of arresting his “enemies,” knew about the plot or the impending bust. Of course, instead of responding with an announcement congratulating the FBI for a job well done, he took to Twitter to rant against Governor Whitmer some more, apparently because he was particularly offended that she connected his earlier calls for action against her and her shelter in place orders to the extremists’ plot.  Attorney General Barr, was uncharacteristically silent, but then again we haven’t heard much from him over the past few days, raising the possibility and, dare I say hopes and prayers of some, that he’s tested COVID positive, though to be clear, he may just be quarantining.  It’s fair to assume that celebrating the capture of white supremacist Trump supporters, particularly on a day when Trump tweet attacked him for not following any of his despotic orders to arrest Obama, Biden and Hillary Clinton for crimes against humanity, probably wasn’t something Barr wanted to do.  Trump’s increasingly frantic tweet attacks, combined with his flip flopping on debate plans, and his insistence that he’s ready to hit the campaign trail as soon as tomorrow are among the rather long list of wacko actions that have Speaker Pelosi on edge and explain why she and Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin, a former Constitutional Law professor, plan to introduce legislation today that would create what they are calling the Commission on Presidential Capacity to Discharge the Powers of and Duties of Office to “help ensure effective and uninterrupted leadership.” Sounds like a “what to do when the president is crazy as a loon” commission to me. It’s not clear if it’s those plans or a COVID positive test result that have Pence rushing back to DC.  Pence’s people have not addressed the reason that he’s scurrying back but have denied that he’s COVID positive, an idea that gained traction after Deadline released what they now assert was just an “accidental” report that he had the virus but who didn’t notice that the VP appeared to be suffering from conjunctivitis, a sometimes symptom of COVID, in at least one of his eyes during his Wednesday night debate?  Has anyone checked in on the fly? 

Debate Flipping: Early yesterday, after the Debate Commission surprised both Biden and Trump by announcing plans to turn the planned October 15 townhall style debate into a virtual event, an angry Trump said he wouldn’t participate largely over his concern that he wouldn’t be able to pull off his bombastic interruption shtick in a virtual setting. He threatened to instead hold one of his super-spreader rallies while his increasingly panicked team, or at least those not incapacitated by the virus, pushed for the rescheduling of the two remaining debates.  Biden’s team rejected the notion of rescheduling, instead responding to Trump’s shenanigans by working out a deal with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos for a Biden only townhall on October 15.  Realizing that his gambit had failed, and that he had ceded Biden a valuable TV audience, Trump then produced a doctor’s note saying that he would be out of quarantine by this weekend and would therefore be up for participating in the originally scheduled in person debate.  But as far as the Commission and Biden are concerned, the note is suspect and that ship has sailed.  Last night, between coughing fits, Trump told Fox pundit Sean Hannity that he plans to move ahead with some rallies, as early as tomorrow and why not, as spreading COVID, that minor inconvenience, is still his thing which likely explains why some herd immunity advocates recently met with HHS Head Azar to press their case that millions more dying would be a good thing in the long run.  As for that doctor’s note, the medical community doubts its conclusions, few believe that it’s anything other than Trump propaganda. Notably, we still don’t know when Trump had his last pre-turning positive negative test, he’s still on craze inducing, fever reducing steroids and hasn’t had the two in a row negative tests that would indicate that he’s no longer shedding virus.  Adding to the medical opacity, yesterday NBC reported that in 2019 when Trump took that still mysterious trip to Walter Reed, the one that he insisted was for the first half of his annual physical, he demanded that his Walter Reed medical team sign non-disclosure agreements. Two doctors who refused to cooperate were removed from his case. 

As if We Need More:  Trump’s one time fund raiser, the guy who had one time Trump lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen help him pay off a playmate that he or maybe someone he was covering for impregnated has agreed to plead guilty to a federal criminal charge related to a scheme to influence the Trump administration on behalf of a Malaysian businessman at the center of a massive international money laundering conspiracy. If you are counting, he’s the gazillionth member of the Trump orbit to be indicted or plead guilty.  Earlier in the week, we learned that Barr, wherever he is hiding, gave federal prosecutors more leeway to take public action on suspected election fraud before ballots are in, “a move that some legal analysts worry could foreshadow an effort to bolster Trump’s exaggerated claims of fraud via mail-in voting.” On the super-spreader front,  Chris Christie is still in the hospital, another member of the White House press corps has COVID and the jury is still out on Rudy’s status.  Though there are reports that Jared has been seen donning hazmat gear to visit his father in law, it’s not clear if that’s true or just a rumor and no one has seen Ivanka nor heard from Melania in days.

Stay safe. #WearAMask