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Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Four Years Ago Today

Published by digby on April 20, 2024

These people were not better off. And there were many more to come.

Death Notices

Published by digby on April 21, 2020

CNN reports:

Sunday’s edition of The Boston Globe contained a shocking visualization of the coronavirus pandemic: page after page after page of death notices.

The obituary section in Sunday’s print edition spanned 16 pages. This time last year, there were seven. The increase is a stark illustration of the devastating toll the pandemic is having on Massachusetts and New England.”It’s literally showing it in black and white how deadly this virus can be,” said Jaclyn Reiss, the Globe’s digital editor, in an interview with CNN.

And while Reiss noted there was no immediate way to determine how many of the death notices that filled pages A-13 to A-28 came from coronavirus victims — death notices don’t always say how the person died — several of them mentioned a battle with the virus.

The section has “been growing every Sunday since the coronavirus pandemic has been surging here in Massachusetts,” Reiss said, adding that the previous Sunday, the paper ran 11 pages of death notices.

Reiss explained that besides the increased death toll — 1,706 people have died as of Monday afternoon — the uptick in death notices could be because families aren’t able to hold wakes and funerals now. With no time constraint to publish a death notice before a scheduled memorial service, families could be submitting their death notices to be published on Sunday when the paper gets higher readership.

The Globe, of course, isn’t the only paper to mark an increase. Newspapers in other hot spots around the country are seeing a drastic rise in the number of obituaries and death notices they are publishing.

“On the same weekend last year, there were about four pages devoted to obituaries,” according to an article in the Advocate. There were approximately 25,000 cases and 1,328 deaths in the state as of Monday afternoon.

And then there’s this. Good lord:

By coincidence, I watched a bunch of documentaries about the 1918 flu pandemic about six months ago. I knew we would inevitably have one like this although I had no idea it would be so soon. And in one of them (I don’t remember which one it was) it talked about the death notices. I wondered how people lived through such a thing and carried on with life. Now I know.

It’s like it never happened. Except, of course, to the millions of people who lost loved ones. I guess we just don’t want to look in that review mirror. Half the country apparently wants the good old days of the president telling us to inject household disinfectant and encouraging the country to take up arms against public health officials.

What’s Next?

Published by digby on April 20, 2024

They passed the national security bills in the House and the MAGA extremists are pissed. (What else is new?) Here’s Politico on the state of play with the defenestration of Mike Johnson:

Right now, however, Capitol Hill’s gossip du jour continues to center on whether Speaker MIKE JOHNSON can keep his job.

There’s been some speculation that Rep. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-Ga.) could file a privileged motion to vacate later today, teeing up a vote when the House returns from a weeklong recess.

But we caught up with her fellow rebel Rep. THOMAS MASSIE yesterday, and the Kentucky Republican laid out a different, slow-burn strategy.

Yesterday Rep. PAUL GOSAR (R-Ariz.) made the openly anti-Johnson camp into a trio, and Massie said he was confident their ranks will grow. Expect a number of conservatives, he said, to endorse the Johnson ouster over the coming days.

“This is like a ratchet — the pressure will just keep building,” he said. “The speaker’s overdrawn on political capital. He’s gonna go bankrupt after this vote.”

Massie’s expectation is that by the time their numbers reach about a dozen, Johnson will see the writing on the wall and, just as former Speaker JOHN BOEHNER did nine years ago, resign on his own accord rather than face his own demise at the hands of his rank and file.

There are some gaping holes in this strategy, we’ll point out: For one, Johnson insists he won’t resign; Massie simply predicts that will change as the pressure builds. For another, there’s the expectation that he will have significant backup from House Democrats on any ouster vote.

In fact, our colleagues Olivia Beavers and Jordain Carney report that if Democrats end up saving Johnson’s job, the speaker just might be able to hold on through the November election — a potential reset moment for the House GOP leadership fracas.

Massie’s response to the Dems-save-the-speaker scenario was simple: Republicans, he predicted, won’t stand it and will join the anti-Johnson movement in protest.

“Every Democrat who walks across the aisle to try to save the Republican speaker is going to cause two or three more Republicans to join the effort because, at that point, you’re … ceding control of the House of Representatives to a contingent of Democrats,” Massie said.

Notably, Massie wouldn’t say how long he’d give Johnson to exit on his own terms before forcing a vote. And remember that Greene — who isn’t exactly known for her patience — could reject this plan entirely and press the matter on the floor at any time once MAGA-world outrage reaches critical mass. (Note that STEVE BANNON joined the dump-Johnson bandwagon last night.)

As with just about everything in Republican politics these days, it all might come down to DONALD TRUMP.

We reported last week that Trump was upset with Greene over her threats to throw the House into chaos with another speaker brawl, and Trump himself stood next to Johnson days later and said, “I stand with the speaker.”

But more recently, Trump appears to have stepped back into wait-and-see mode as those around him — including son DONALD TRUMP JR. — slam Johnson all over social media. That, Massie said, suggests the winds from Mar-a-Lago could shift at any time.

“My understanding is that Donald Trump is mostly neutral on this,” Massie said. “And just a couple of days ago, when asked about this issue, former President Trump said, ‘We’ll see what happens.’”

No, the truth is that Trump doesn’t give a shit because he’s worried about his legal troubles and trying to get back into the White House by any means necessary. Keep yoru eyes on his allies. They’ll tell the story.

Finally

Published by digby on April 20, 2024

112 members of congress are objectively pro-Putin. There really is no other explanation for this other than reprehensible fealty to that Orange Monster — who is objectively pro-Putin. It’s one of the most bizarre changes of

Trump Out Of His Bubble

Published by digby on April 20, 2024

He has to sit there and take it:

He seems “selfish and self-serving,” said one woman.

The way he carries himself in public “leaves something to be desired,” said another.

His “negative rhetoric and bias,” said another man, is what is “most harmful.”

Over the past week, Donald Trump has been forced to sit inside a frigid New York courtroom and listen to a parade of potential jurors in his criminal hush money trial share their unvarnished assessments of him.

It’s been a dramatic departure for the former president and presumptive 2024 GOP nominee, who is accustomed to spending his days in a cocoon of cheering crowds and constant adulation. Now a criminal defendant, Trump will instead spend the next several weeks subjected to strict rules that strip him of control over everything from what he is permitted to say to the temperature of the room.

“He’s the object of derision. It’s his nightmare. He can’t control the script. He can’t control the cinematography. He can’t control what’s being said about him. And the outcome could go in a direction he really doesn’t want,” said Tim O’Brien, a Trump biographer and critic.

While Trump is occasionally confronted by protesters, generally he lives a life sheltered from criticism. After leaving the White House, Trump moved to his Mar-a-Lago waterfront club in Palm Beach, Florida, where he is surrounded by doting paid staff and dues-paying members who have shelled out tens of thousands of dollars to be near him.

Many days, Trump heads to his nearby golf course, where he is “swarmed by people wanting to shake his hand, take pictures of him, and tell him how amazing he is,” said Stephanie Grisham, a longtime aide who broke with Trump after the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

When he returns to Mar-a-Lago in the afternoon, members lunching on the patio often stand and applaud. He receives the same standing ovation at dinner, which often ends with Trump playing DJ on his iPad, blasting favorites like “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” by James Brown.

Grisham, who spent long stretches traveling with Trump and at Mar-a-Lago during his 2016 campaign and as White House press secretary, described staff constantly serving as cheerleaders and telling Trump what he wanted to hear. To avoid angry outbursts, they requested motorcade routes that avoided protests and they left a stack of positive press clips every morning on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.

Now, Trump faces a trial that could result in felony convictions and possible prison time. And he will have to listen to more critics, without being able to punch back verbally — something he revels in doing.

Among the expected witnesses in the trial are his former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, and the porn actor who alleged she had sex with him, Stormy Daniels. Both have savaged him in interviews and books as well as on social media.

It’s driving him nuts:

Apparently, he thinks once being president should be a get out of jail free card forever, even for crimes committed before they are in office? What a nice scam that would be.

I guess nobody ever pointed out to him that a president has never had immunity and yet it’s never been a problem until he started committing all his crimes.

Who’s The Little Fear Demon?

Published by Tom Sullivan on April 20, 2024

Not actual size

Gachnar: “I am the dark lord of nightmares! (Buffy tries not to laugh) The bringer of terror! Tremble before me. Fear me!”

C’mon, MAGAstinians. Buy another ticket for the Trump Train. Buy some more crappy merch! Sink a few more of your boats! It’ll be fun. Your enemies will tremble as Trump makes the flag you wrap yourselves in mean fascism instead of freedom. C-O-O-L, huh?

Lara Trump promises “four years of scorched earth when Donald Trump retakes the White House” (if he stays out of jail). It’s a helluva campaign pitch:

Trump has been persuaded to turn down the volume on the threats of vengeance, but his allies are continuing to advance this message. Lara Trump, the candidate’s daughter-in-law whom he installed as co-chair of the Republican National Committee because the incumbent merely cast doubt on the 2020 election without going so far as to conclusively say Trump won, unleashed this terrifying promise:

He showed us a whole lot that we didn’t know was going on — within the media, within Washington, D.C. He exposed a lot of people. So they have to do everything they can to keep him out of that White House ’cause they know Donald Trump gets in for four more years, the jig is up for them. The gloves are off. There are no holds barred here. He is going full-throttle. He’s not worried about winning another election. It’s four years of scorched earth when Donald Trump retakes the White House.

Doesn’t that sound like fun? People are tired of the toxicity of national politics, I get it. Enough to stay home and not get their shiny, white vinyl souls tainted by voting this November. Remind them what MAGA is selling.

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