Song of the Day 6/23: The Ramones, “Somebody Put Something in My Drink”

Hey, kids, ‘memba that story last week about the three New York cops who got “poisoned” at Shake Shack? Turns out it wasn’t just embellished, it was made up out of whole cloth. This story — from the New York Post, so you know it’s not fake news — details the real chain of events: The cops told the manager their shakes tasted funny, they threw them away, the manager apologized and gave them a voucher for free shakes later.

But when the cops told their sergeant about the incident, the supervisor called in the Emergency Service Unit to set up a crime scene at the fast-food joint for an evidence search around 9:20 p.m. — nearly two hours after they first got the sour shakes.

The three were rushed to Bellevue Hospital, where they were examined and released without ever showing symptoms, sources said. Meanwhile, a lieutenant from the Bronx blasted out an email to the unions that six cops “started throwing up after drinking beverages they got from shake shack on 200 Broadway.”

Detectives easily closed the case after interviewing five employees and reviewing surveillance footage showing the shakes were made normally, sources said. The machine was cleaned before the officers ordered, according to sources, and it still contained residual milkstone remover — a typically acidic solution used to combat buildup in dairy equipment.

But by 10:45 p.m., the Detectives Endowment Association was declaring that Finest had become “ill” after being “intentionally poisoned by one or more workers at the Shake Shack” — as Police Benevolent Association president Pat Lynch made a show of visiting Bellevue while his union declared at 10:47 p.m. that police officers came “under attack” from a “toxic substance, believed to be bleach.”

In their honor, I offer today’s song, which appeared on the Ramones’ 1986 LP “Animal Boy.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBFdvcF7auY

DL Open Thread: Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Trump Suspends Work Visas, Pisses Off Chamber Of Commerce.  It makes no sense, but whaddaya expect?:

But the directive, which has been expected for several weeks, is fiercely opposed by business leaders, who say it will block their ability to recruit critically needed workers from countries overseas for jobs that Americans are not willing to do or are not capable of performing.

“This is a full-frontal attack on American innovation and our nation’s ability to benefit from attracting talent from around the world,” said Todd Schulte, the president of FWD.us, a pro-immigration group supported by technology companies.

“Putting up a ‘not welcome’ sign for engineers, executives, IT experts, doctors, nurses and other workers won’t help our country, it will hold us back,” said Thomas J. Donohue, the chief executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “Restrictive changes to our nation’s immigration system will push investment and economic activity abroad, slow growth and reduce job creation.”

Who Is On Trump’s Campaign (S)Hit List?  Will Jared Survive?

It’s A Miracle…In Air Purification!  RWNJ pastors claim that Trump supporters have nothing to fear at today’s Trump church rally. For you science purists, here’s why the system won’t work:

Marr pictured two attendees at the Tuesday event, one infected with COVID-19 but not showing any symptoms, and the other healthy. In order for the air purification system to work, she said, the droplets coming from the infected person’s mouth would have to travel through the purification system before the healthy neighbor breathed them in — an unlikely feat in a large, crowded space.

COVID Rises Among The Thirty-Somethings.  Rethug govs express alarm, do nothing.  American coronavirus cases are up 32% in the past two weeks.  The new hot spots include Chatham County, GA, home of Savannah; Beaufort County, SC, home of Hilton Head; Grant County, WA. And Maricopa County, AZ?  Where Trump is holding that rally in that Pentecostal church? 1,754 cases daily over the past two weeks.  The latest sources for transmission–bars, strip clubs and churches.  Kids, if you go out on Saturday night, don’t go to church on Sunday. Especially in Florida (a must-read).

Millions Of Americans Can’t Even Afford Water.  Essential reporting from The Guardian. Read it. An excerpt:

Our research found that between 2010 and 2018 water bills rose by at least 27%, while the highest increase was a staggering 154% in Austin, Texas, where the average annual bill rose from $566 in 2010 to $1,435 in 2018 – despite drought mitigation efforts leading to reduced water usage.

Meanwhile, federal aid to public water utilities, which serve around 87% of people, has plummeted while maintenance, environmental and health threats, climate shocks and other expenditures have skyrocketed.

“A water emergency threatens every corner of our country. The scale of this crisis demands nothing short of a fundamental transformation of our water systems. Water should never be treated as commodity or a luxury for the benefit of the wealthy,” said water justice advocate Mary Grant from Food and Water Watch, reacting to the Guardian’s research.

Water is a necessity, and should be a right.

House Committee Passes Bill Outlawing Chokeholds.  House will consider the bill, along with this Constitutional Amendment, this week.  Both the Budget Bill and Bond Bill  have been introduced and are scheduled to be considered today in the Senate. (Guess it’s time to peruse that Epilog language…)  In fact, there’s a lengthy scheduled Senate agenda, including a couple of consent agendas.

What do you want to talk about?

 

Trump Tulsa Speech with the word “salute” replaced with “grab them by the pussy”

They make speeches. Then, I make a speech that lasted a long time. I don’t know, maybe 45 minutes, maybe longer. I don’t know, but a long time. The sun is pouring down on me, OK? But they said to me before the speech, sir, would you like to grab each cadet by the pussy, each single cadet or maybe, they’ll be in groups of two?

Would you like to grab them by the pussy? Like this, yes, like this, almost 600 times, you know what that is? 600 times. Thank God they were in twos. Because let me tell you, you do that 600 times you go home and you say, well, it’s like a workout without a weight, right? 600 times. So, I did that. Then, the incredible helicopters, brand new, gorgeous helicopters, the Apaches and the other new ones that we just bought.

I grab them by the pussy for probably an hour and a half, maybe more, but around that. Watch, if I’m off like two minutes, They’ll say, he exaggerated. It was only an hour and twenty five minutes. He exaggerated, he lied, he lied. He’s a liar. These people are sick, the fake news. So then, so then, I finish grabbing them by the pussy my final pussy grab, I said, thank goodness.

Song of the Day 6/22: Johnniqua Charles, “Lose Yo Job”

The Black Lives Matter protests have a new theme song, thanks to Johnniqua Charles. When a security guard detained her outside a strip club back in February, the 27-year-old Charles broke into an impromptu chant and dance that was recorded by another security guard on the scene. He posted to social media with the note, “I’m posting it cause that rap was lit 😂😂😂😂😂 like I wish I could put a beat to it lol.”

So DJ iMarkkeyz and DJ Suede The Remix God did. The result has become a popular part of the soundtrack at rallies where protesters face off with the po-po.

“You can’t hear me? Then I’m going to sing it to you,” Charles told Pitchfork. “The words just came. And I already know, if this went to your supervisor, you about to lose your job. I know my rights and I know the law.”

The security guard did not lose his job, but the incident did help turn around Johnniqua Charles’ life. Before the video, she was homeless and her 3-year-old was being cared for by family, but a GoFundMe campaign started when the song went viral raised $50,000 for her.

DL Open Thread: Monday, June 22, 2020

NASCAR Can’t Escape Its Racist Fans.  Noose found in garage of NASCAR’s only black driver.  This organization celebrated the Confederacy…until last week.  Its remaining fans aren’t taking kindly to this culture shock.  A sport that deserves to die. 

What Happened To The MAGAts? Yeah yeah, I know, we need to remain diligent, but I hereby grant you permission to bask in the glow of Trump’s Tulsa Travesty.  Who will face the axe?

Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn of the White House after returning from the Tulsa rally.

Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn of the White House after returning from the Tulsa rally. Photograph: Patrick Semansky/AP

Trump Claims His Niece Is ‘Not Allowed’ To Publish Book:

The book’s page on Amazon promises to detail “the dark history” of the Trump family “in order to explain how her uncle became the man who now threatens the world’s health, economic security, and social fabric.”

Does anyone seriously think that the dirty details won’t leak?  All Trump has done is to hype up interest.

US COVID Cases Up 20% In Last Two Weeks.  Whoa.  Things are getting demonstrably worse.  Take Duval County, FL. Please. You know, where the President plans to deliver his big acceptance speech.  In the past two weeks, the 7-day average of new cases has gone from 21.7 per day to 130.3 cases per day.  Must be all those migrant workers enjoying their beach time.  Two counties in Florida’s NW panhandle are now hot spots: Escambia County and Santa Rosa County. Yep, Trump Country. Also, Indian River County on the east coast of Florida. The premature reopening of Florida is now a demonstrated public health disaster.  Check out the exploding red in both Oklahoma and Texas.  I also see some new outbreaks in rural counties in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.

Voter Suppression Alive And Well In Kentucky:

All in all, according to the Washington Post, Kentucky officials have reduced the number of polling places in the state from 3,700 in a typical election year to fewer than 200 this month. Meanwhile, though thousands of voters have requested mail-in ballots in an attempt to avoid in-person voting, some have yet to receive them just days before the election date of June 23, when they must be postmarked.

What do you want to talk about?

Song of the Day 6/21: Broadway cast of Hamilton, “The Room Where It Happens”

The title John Bolton chose for his White House tell-all turns out to be ironic. Bolton won a Pyrrhic victory Saturday when a court ruled “The Room Where It Happened” could be released over White House objections, mainly because it was already out there. His problem is that he has no supporters to buy it; most liberals are satisfied with press excerpts, and conservatives despise him for turning on Trump. Adding insult to injury, Lin-Manuel Miranda trolled him for swiping the title from this song in “Hamilton.”

DL Open Thread: Sunday, June 21, 2020

“MAGA Less MEGA”: That was the Drudge Report headline on Trump’s flop of a rally. According to the NYTimes report to which I linked, Trump spent close to 15 minutes talking about his slow walk down that ramp, decried the removal of confederate monuments, and referred to the pandemic as the ‘Kung Fu Flu’.  That’ll cause a surge in his polls. I so hope that this story is true.  I think it is–“Best senior prank ever!”  You have to wonder what city will want to be next in line after Tulsa.

Kirk Rudell @krudell

How Barr Botched Firing Of Berman.  He’s ended up with someone who, on paper, would be less ‘loyal’ to Trump than Berman. And he flat-out lied when he said that Berman was ‘stepping down’. Not to mention, Trump denied having had anything to do with the firing.  This entire Administration is melting down.

Trump Says He’s Asked His Administration To ‘Slow Down Testing’.  Can’t have the pandemic making him look bad.  The numbers haven’t slowed down. The latest hot spots: St. Johns County, FL, home of St. Augustine; Boulder County, CO; St. Martin Parish, LA; in fact, Louisiana is looking like a disaster.  You may have missed it, but 30 LSU football players are in quarantine. Q: “How many LSU football players does it take to change a light bulb?” A: “Only one, but he gets three credits for changing it.”

Police Union Girds For War; Timid Delaware Dems, Not So Much.  There is one notable exception to the ‘timid’ remark, and that’s AG Kathleen Jennings. which is why the FOP President is going after her:

Fred Calhoun, president of Delaware’s Fraternal Order of Police, said he is willing to negotiate, but Jennings must decide whether she’s the attorney general or “an activist.”

Calhoun does not intend to “compromise” on suggested reforms while “people are showboating” and furthermore said problems with police abuse exist largely outside of Delaware – a claim sharply challenged by police reformers.

When it comes to timidity, Rep. Franklin Cooke, who Speaker Pete has appointed to head up a new police task force, takes the cake.  If he didn’t already exist, Schwartzkopf would have had to invent him:

Cooke, a 30-year police veteran and a Black man, said he expects the group to hold difficult discussions before ultimately recommending a compromise on reforms to be legislated next year.

The perspective is common in state politics, where the act of bringing influential stakeholders into a room to hammer out deals has been long dubbed “the Delaware Way.”

Asked what specific problems the task force will address, Cooke first said police should end their practice of distributing the mugshots of children and teens, an ask included in the proposal from the Delaware Legislative Black Caucus. He then turned to a need to find a “common goal” with respect to use of force and police accountability.

The police bill of rights is “one of the biggest things we have to look at,” he said. 

Jesus Christ. Schwartzkopf has set up this task force to fail.  Anyone surprised? Can someone who is less in the pockets of the cops primary this Franklin Cooke guy?

What do you want to talk about?

 

 

 

 

 

On this day in DL History: Blevins Pulls a Sneaky Pete – June 21st 2016

On this day in 2016 El Som documented how Patti Blevins killed a bill that would have tried to stop the practice of civil forfeiture in Delaware. The cops, being a co-equal branch of government according to Schwartzkopf, prevailed but Blevins went on to lose her next election. So at least there is that.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Welcome to a Very Special Primal Scream Edition of the Pre-Game Show. Time to cue my best Howard Beale/Howard Dean:

1. General Assembly Refusing to Stop Cops from Just Stealing Stuff.

This is on Patti Blevins and the Senate leadership.  I don’t give a bleep what you or they think about Colin Bonini. We all know he’s unfit to be Governor (although, come to think of it, how much worse could he be than John Carney?). HowEVER, that’s a pathetic excuse to keep SB 222 buried in the Public Safety Committee.  Blevins has pulled a ‘Schwartzkopf’ here by putting the bill in an inhospitable committee.  Besides, the bill’s other two prime sponsors are D’s (Townsend and Baumbach). I mean, check out the sponsors on the bill.  As bipartisan as it gets. There is only one reason why this bill has been buried: The cops who have been doing the stealing don’t want it. Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. Here is the bill’s synopsis:

Civil forfeiture laws represent one of the most serious assaults on private property rights in the nation today. Under civil forfeiture, police and prosecutors can seize your car or other property, sell it and use the proceeds to fund agency budgets—often without so much as charging you with a crime. This Act protects individual liberty and property rights by standardizing forfeitures across all crimes, simplifying procedures, and addressing counterproductive incentives in the law that distort policing priorities. Importantly, this Act does not change the authority of law enforcement to seize property suspected of being associated with crime or limit in any way prosecutors’ ability to charge and prosecute suspected criminals. Moreover, it ensures that those individuals proven guilty of a crime do not keep the fruits of their crime. In doing so, it strikes the right balance between the individual property rights and public safety.

Committee Chair Bob Marshall must bring this bill up in committee.  He seems to be reverting to Tom Sharp circa 1988, which is an especially bad role model. There appear to be enough votes to release it if Marshall and Sen. McBride vote for it, especially since Townsend and Lawson (!) are on the bill as co-sponsors. That’s 4 out of 6. It’s time to  chip away at the police state that Delaware has become.  As for John Carney, maybe he could exercise some leadership and come out in favor of this bill–except (a) he’s still not an official candidate and (b) you can bet that this empty suit is sure to be in mindless (redundant, I know) thrall to law enforcement.  Failure to work this bill is a fucking disgrace.

Trump Isn’t Funny

I watched that Tulsa shitshow. As much as I could stomach, anyway. It is tough not to laugh at that dummy. His fucking crazy orange spray tan. His nonsensical, rambling stories. It is comical on some level.

But I need to guard against laughing. He isn’t funny. He is a despicable sociopath actively undermining our democracy with every breath.

And when I call them animals, I said they’re animals and Nancy Pelosi, they cut up a young woman. They cut up a young woman and her friend cut him up with a knife because it was more painful. They cut him up with a knife because it’s more painful, takes longer than shooting a gun. They cut him up. I said these are animals and Nancy Pelosi said these are human beings are not animals.
If I lose an election over that you know what this country’s in big trouble, big trouble. They want to disarm law abiding citizens and dismantle our police forces while freeing vicious MS 13 gang members in Joe Biden’s America, rioters, looters and criminal aliens have more rights than law abiding citizen.

 

Song of the Day 6/20: Eric Clapton, “Tulsa Time”

Donald Trump, flailing about for a way to stop his losing streak, takes his circus to Tulsa tonight, and I swear the press hasn’t slavered for blood this intently since Evel Knievel’s attempt to jump the Snake River Canyon. Let’s hope tonight is just as big a dud (if you’re too young to remember it, the parachute on Knievel’s rocket-cycle deployed on launch, causing it to land in the canyon).

Oklahoma’s second-largest city has a somewhat nasty reputation these days, thanks to renewed interest in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre after it was used as a plot device in “The Watchmen” TV show. But it wasn’t always so. This song, a No. 1 country hit for Don Williams in 1978, equated Tulsa with a laid-back lifestyle that compared favorably for the singer to the bustle of Los Angeles.

The tune was written by Williams’ touring guitarist, Danny Flowers. “We were staying in the Tulsa Sheraton, I think, when a blizzard came up,” Flowers said. “We were all snowed in, and there was absolutely nothing to do. I was sitting there in my room, watching ‘The Rockford Files,’ with some hotel stationery beside me, just bored, and I started writing out some verses.” He said it took about a half-hour to write.

When he played it for Williams the next day, Williams, known as the “gentle giant of country music,” wanted to record it. Soon after Williams was booked to open an Eric Clapton concert in Nashville. The bands were hanging out together when Williams and Flowers played it for Clapton, who said he wanted to record it, too. His version came out on his “Backless” LP three months after Williams’ single debuted.

DL Open Thread: Saturday, June 20, 2020

BREAKING!: Barr Fires US Attorney For Southern District Of New York.  The US Attorney Says He’s Not Leaving.  The story of the firing first broke in the 9 pm hour last night.  Here are the pertinent facts:

Mr. Berman, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, and his team have been at the forefront of corruption inquiries in Mr. Trump’s inner circle. They successfully prosecuted the president’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, who went to prison, and have been investigating Mr. Trump’s current personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani.

Mr. Berman’s office has taken an aggressive approach in a number of cases that have vexed the Trump administration, from the prosecution and guilty plea obtained from Mr. Cohen to a broader investigation, growing out of that inquiry, which focused on Mr. Trump’s private company and others close to him.

Over the last year, Mr. Berman’s office brought indictments against two close associates of the president’s current lawyer, Mr. Giuliani, and began an investigation into Mr. Giuliani himself, focusing on whether his efforts to dig up dirt in Ukraine on the president’s political rivals violated laws on lobbying for foreign entities.

Now, you may say, ‘Well, El Som, that’s all well and good, but how can he simply refuse to resign’?  Here’s how and why:

In 2018, the attorney general at the time, Jeff Sessions, appointed Mr. Berman as interim United States attorney in Manhattan. But Mr. Trump never formally sent Mr. Berman’s nomination to the Senate. After 120 days, his formal appointment to the post was made by the judges of the United States District Court.

Mr. Berman took note of the nature of his appointment to the position in explaining why he was refusing to step down.

This is gonna be fascinating.

Berman’s message to Barr:

I Am Dreading What Is Gonna Happen In Tulsa Today.  The President chose the time and the President chose the place.  Lest anyone doubt his motives:

Trump on Friday threatened protesters preparing to greet him in Tulsa, warning on Twitter: “Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma, please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle or Minneapolis. It will be a much different scene!”

In other words, he wants confrontation. 

Tulsa Is A COVID-19 Hot Spot. Daily cases have gone from an average of 21.6 new cases per day to 81.9 new cases per day over the last two weeks.  Here’s the new math some two weeks hence: When the Great Unwashed return home from the rally, the map will show where they traveled from to go to the rally b/c those locales will become new hot spots.  Natural selection? You decide.  BTW, just look at that map.  Jeezusland is Ground Zero for the pandemic now.  Also, remember those plans for MLB to play all their games in Arizona or Florida? How’s that looking right now?  Right on cue, Florida Governor DeSantis blames spike on Hispanic agriculture workers. I’ve got an idea: Let the governor’s staff pick the fuckin’ oranges.

Being Tulsa’s Mayor Is A Tough Job. Now. Real good profile of Mayor G. T. Bynum.

Trump’s Bills Becoming Due.  Literally. A must-read.

More Proof That Live Nation Is Ee-Vil.  The amoral concert juggernaut shifts more risk to the artists.

Delaware Bond Bill Committee Approves Truncated Capital Improvements Bill.  There will be less construction, fewer jobs.

What do you want to talk about?