Yesterday we lost Dolly Parton, an icon, a superstar, and a kind, generous woman. She was 80 years old. I’m hoping JJ will do one of her tribute posts tomorrow, so I’ll just share a couple of articles.
Dolly Parton, the beloved country superstar, was surrounded by loved ones when she died in Nashville after a brief bout with cancer, representatives said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Our beloved Dolly Parton spent her life and career bringing joy, laughter, hope and integrity into everything she touched,” the statement said.
A spokesman did not provide additional details about Parton’s illness but said she had been admitted to the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville on Friday.
Starting from her recording debut in 1959, Parton built a career as a honey-toned vocalist with a gift for songwriting and a big-haired, rhinestone-studded style. She broke into Hollywood, established a business empire and, well into the seventh decade of her career, still managed to charm both sides of America’s widening cultural divide.
It is unclear when Parton received the cancer diagnosis. Just over a week ago, she missed a scheduled appearance at Dollywood, the amusement park she built near her hometown in eastern Tennessee. In a video played for attendees at the park, Parton said that she had been dealing with dizziness and dehydration, and that her doctors had advised her against travel.
Several days before her death, Parton said in a statement to People magazine that even while she was focused on her health, she was still working. “I still have so many things I want to achieve,” she said, “so I’m gonna keep on working as long as I can to see everything come to life.”
One of Parton’s most important philanthropic activities was her literacy program for children, which she call the Imagination Library. That work will continue.
“Everywhere I go, the kids call me ‘the book lady.’”
Dolly Parton wore the moniker like a badge of honor, and she earned it too. Through her Imagination Library program, launched by the Dollywood Foundation in 1995, she put more than 330 million books into the hands of children across America, Canada, the U.K., Australia and the Republic of Ireland.
The program is rooted in a childhood of poverty and illiteracy — roots that those who knew Parton said she never denied or abandoned….
In 2023, the American Library Assn. awarded the singer-songwriter, book lady and philanthropist its highest honor — lifetime membership — to recognize her lasting impact on literacy and inspiring a love of reading in children.
“Dolly Parton represented the very best of America,” ALA President Maria McCauley told The Times on Tuesday, adding that, like people all over the world, she’s been playing Parton’s music since news of her death broke, particularly the song “I Can See the Light of a Clear Blue Morning.”
“That song has so much resonance right now,” she said, noting its lyrics capture a theme of resilience and faith in overcoming dark times.
“We want to make sure that Dolly’s vision, that reading is for everyone, becomes a reality. That’s something that we can all carry forward in memory of Dolly.”
A bit more:
Parton’s Imagination Library gifts a book a month to children signed up for the program from the time they are born until they are 5 years old. Parton described the program best when speaking with librarian Carla Hayden in 2018. “We send the book in the mail with their name on it. It’s not in the care of Mom and Dad — it’s got their little name on it, and they love to think, ‘This is mine.’ They wait at the mailbox. They get their little books, and to them, it’s personal.”
Dolly Parton meets young children at the Magna Science Adventure Centre in England. Pool Getty Images
Parton understood the novelty of owning your very own book. Growing up in the Great Smoky Mountains town of Sevierville in east Tennessee, Parton was the fourth of 12 kids. Her father, a tobacco sharecropper, couldn’t read or write, and the family lived in a one-room cabin with no electricity. There were no books in the home, aside from the Bible.
The singer’s upbringing, particularly her father’s illiteracy and his shame around what he considered a shortcoming, was what inspired her to launch the Imagination Library. With the help of her dad, they set out to foster a love of reading in the kids of Sevier County. Reading, she believed, was the gateway to dreaming, and dreaming, the first step in the path toward success.
By 2000, the program had expanded beyond the Smoky Mountains and into a nationwide movement. By 2003, the Imagination Library had mailed 1 million books to budding readers. After the United States, the gifting initiative launched in Canada in 2006, then the U.K. in 2007, Australia in 2013 and the Republic of Ireland in 2019.
There’s more at the LA Times link.
Yesterday, Dakinikat wrote about the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday to allow Trump to continue working with DHS and the Postal Service to create lists of voters who are permitted to receive mail ballots and use them to vote. Now blue state AG’s are fighting back against Trump’s efforts to limit voting by mail and otherwise rig the midterm elections.
Democratic-controlled states on Wednesday filed another lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to limit mail voting in this year’s midterm elections.
The action, filed by about two dozen states against the U.S. Postal Service, marked a new phase in the high-stakes litigation just two days after the Supreme Court ruled against them in a separate case, but did not say Trump’s order was legal.
Vote-by-mail ballots await sorting in trays at the King County Elections headquarters in Renton, Wash.,Aug.5, 2020
“Across the country, states are already deep into preparations for the 2026 elections. Now, at the last moment, the federal government is attempting to meddle in those preparations and potentially threaten countless Americans’ right to vote,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of 25 Democratic attorneys general filing the lawsuit, said in a statement. “USPS has no authority to decide who can and cannot vote by mail.”
Trump’s executive order remains barred from taking effect under a separate injunction that the administration argues needs to be immediately rescinded in light of the high court’s ruling in the previous Democratic state lawsuit. It also had succeeded in a third case filed in May in the District of Columbia, convincing a judge that it was too early to prevent its implementation of the executive order.
All previous challenges were filed before the administration published its mail ballot rule Friday night. The rule says that if states want their mail ballots delivered, they will need federal approval of the design of their envelopes and must give the Postal Service a list of voters eligible to receive them.
Of course, the Constitution reserves control of elections to the states, but Trump couldn’t care less about the Constitution.
The Trump administration in recent weeks has warned states that it would withhold federal funding and even arrest and prosecute election officials if noncitizens cast ballots in federal elections.
Now, with high-stakes midterm elections only months away, private voting rights attorneys and some attorneys general in Democratic states are gearing up to defend election officials and file lawsuits against the federal government if they believe the Trump administration is attempting to undermine the elections.
Election workers at the Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections Office on Aug. 18 during Florida’s primaries. Lynne Sladky, AP
While the administration casts its efforts as a way to preserve election integrity, voting rights groups and others see a threat to public servants working to carry out elections. President Donald Trump has claimed noncitizens are voting in large numbers despite numerous reviews showing it rarely happens in state and federal elections.
The Washington Litigation Group — a nonprofit law firm that formed last year to more broadly challenge the Trump administration in court — is hiring lawyers to focus on protecting polling officials, government workers and voters ahead of the November elections.
The D.C.-based group, which raises money from individuals and foundations, is adding about six attorneys to focus on election litigation. The new hires include former prosecutors, constitutional law experts and public interest lawyers.
Their preparation includes consulting with state and local election workers in case they end up needing representation and training election workers on how to respond if federal officials approach them.
“We won’t know until we know,” said Nathaniel Zelinsky, senior counsel at Washington Litigation Group. “But what we have seen from DOJ is concerning.”
Trump and his allies made election security a cornerstone of the Justice Department and his administration, claiming, without evidence, that the he, not Joe Biden, is the rightful winner of the 2020 presidential election.
The Trump administration has devoted significant resources to relitigating the 2020 presidential election — and has sought to sow doubt in the security of the upcoming elections. The Justice Department seized earlier this year election records stored in warehouse in Georgia’s Fulton County, which has been central to right-wing conspiracy theories about Trump’s loss in 2020.
Use the gift link to read more, if you’re interested.
I have to admit, I’m confused by all this nonsense about mail voting. It’s important to me, because I am physically unable to go to the polling place to vote. I have a lot of faith in my state (Massachusetts) to protect my voting rights, but all this confusing news is very disconcerting. A couple more voting stories:
A federal judge in Massachusetts on Tuesday issued a setback to the Trump administration’s plans to issue sweeping new restrictions on mail-in balloting for November’s crucial midterm elections.
The ruling is not the final word in a complex and rapidly escalating legal fight over the president’s executive order that would bar the U.S. Postal Service from sending mail-in ballots to voters not on lists of citizens created by federal agencies.
A separate case challenging the order has already reached the Supreme Court, which for now cleared one legal hurdle that has blocked its implementation.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama administration nominee, found the Trump administration violated her earlier preliminary injunction blocking the executive order when it issued rules on how the Postal Service should implement it.
The rules were set to take effect Wednesday.
In June, Talwani sided with the League of Women Voters and other voting rights groups challenging the order, finding the president did not have the constitutional authority to alter how states administer elections.
After the new Postal Service rules were announced late Friday, the voting groups asked Talwani to intervene.
The Trump administration argued in court filings that it had not violated Talwani’s injunction because it stipulated it would not take any action to implement the rules for November’s election unless Talwani’s order was lifted.
“These arguments ignore the court’s explicit directive not to ‘initiat[e] or complet[e]’ rulemaking,” Talwani wrote Tuesday. “And Defendants cannot contend that they misunderstood the scope of the court’s order.”
A preliminary order Monday by the Supreme Court granting President Trump the authority to move ahead with aspects of his plan to restrict mail-in ballots is unlikely the final verdict on his efforts to overhaul the voting process.
But the emergency opinion did immediately help Mr. Trump in one clear way.
People sort through ballots at a ballot processing center during a statewide special election in California last year.
Whether the president ultimately wins or loses in the courts, the latest ruling bolstered his longstanding efforts to seed doubt about the voting process, voting rights advocates said, a campaign that Mr. Trump has ramped up ahead of midterm elections that could see significant gains for Democrats.
“The purpose is not for legal victory,” said Michael McNulty, the senior policy director for Issue One, a nonpartisan group that tracks election issues. “The purpose is exactly to sow chaos, to create fear and confusion and confuse voters and attempt to undermine confidence” in the outcome.
The president’s attempt to have the U.S. Postal Service determine whether voters can cast ballots by mail this fall will likely alarm and confuse the public as multiple court fights play out, according to state officials.
Tobias Read, Oregon’s Democratic secretary of state, noted that his state would in a matter of weeks be sending out ballots to overseas voters and members of the military.
“Now is not the time to make major changes to how elections are run in Oregon,” Mr. Read said at a news conference Tuesday, adding: “This election is effectively underway.”
A bit more:
In March, Mr. Trump signed an executive order that sought to restrict who could vote by mail. It called on the Department of Homeland Security to compile state-by-state citizen lists to help determine voter eligibility and send that information to the states, and instructed the Postal Service to verify which ballots could be mailed, based on voter roll lists provided by the states.
The order has been challenged through multiple lawsuits filed by Democratic state attorneys general and voting rights groups. They have argued that the move amounts to a federal intrusion into the voting process, which the Constitution says is the domain of the states. The plaintiffs have also said that the order could disenfranchise people who rely on voting by mail to participate in elections….
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Yes, it’s me today! Thankfully, JJ stepped in for me yesterday when a huge truck taking something out of the Navy Base project took down my entire cable line. I was without it and was looking at student time during the first week of class at 5 p.m. So, I called Cox and was given a time for later on today, after another class started up. Needless to say, I was pretty panicked.
Since Cox was so unhelpful, I went over to the construction site, which was even more insulting, as I was shown a map indicating that trucks were allowed on my avenue. It was a truck route. Tell it to the City Council, which drew the maps. Needless to say, these trucks are far bigger than what I’ve ever seen coming and going the 25 years I’ve lived here, which includes when the Navy base was open and military equipment for the shock and awe attack on Iraq was being taken off the railroad line there and driven by trucks to the merchant marine ships waiting on the Mississippi River to take them to the Middle East.
So, with two strikes out with Big Corporations, I headed to my neighbor’s house across the street to talk to the couple who live there. Luckily, one of them works at home, like I do, and the other was at City Hall, working for the City Council. I’m like, good to see you, but I really need your husband. He called hubby immediately for me and explained my situation. So, guess what, New Orleans City Hall worked. I called my Councilman’s office, and my neighbor contacted the regional Cox bigwigs. About three o’clock, a Cox bucket truck pulled up with the most skilled technician I’ve ever seen, who got it done right before some severe weather kicked in. All of the guys really went to work to help me, while I’m thinking that if I miss the first two days of a fall semester, I’ll never teach again.
So, again, JJ came to my rescue while I spent the enter afternoon chasing all these folks down. I did my thing and went to bed early. It’s nice to know my local government works when everything else is MAGA chaos. So, since I was raised in the Beef state and the Corn state, and I’m an economist with all degrees in agriculture states, riddle me this. How does importing more beef to this country help American ranchers and farmers who are in financial trouble right now? And if every import is subject to tariffs, how does this help households? Trumps been giving all the tariff revenue to big businesses and my guess is they don’t pass the cash forward. This keeps making me glad I’m mostly doing finance things these days although it blows my mind that a sitting president and his family might get a bank just for having crypto which is a risky asset and not real money. Trying to teach econ during this regime is like reading fairy tales while trying to teach about data-based reality.
So, I’m going to dive right in with the economic mess we’re in and the policies making it worse. He must be so secure in the idea that he can rig elections that he’s not even concerned about his own base. This is from the New York Times. “G.O.P. Lawmakers Rebuke Trump on Plan to Increase Beef Imports. Republicans who have mostly refrained from criticizing the president’s actions have been vocal in opposition to the move, which they say will harm their constituents.” Catie Edmondson has the story.
Congressional Republicans are leveling some rare and uncharacteristically harsh criticism of President Trump for his decision to increase imports of ground beef at a lower tariff rate, warning that the move will hurt American ranchers.
The decision, announced late last week, appeared to be a bid to lower costs across the country before the midterm elections in which Republicans are fighting to preserve their narrow majorities. But it has drawn dissent from even reliable allies of Mr. Trump, many of them from states and districts with large cattle-raising areas, who fear that the move could harm another important constituency: the producers they represent.
“Americans want U.S. beef on the table — not foreign imports,” Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 2 Republican, said in a statement on Monday. “Wyoming ranchers produce the highest-quality beef in the world. Our ranchers don’t ask for special treatment. They simply want a fair marketplace.”
Senator Tim Sheehy, Republican of Montana, said in a lengthy statement that he had “advised President Trump against this course of action for a year because American ranchers have been struggling against the packer monopoly for decades, and this will further harm them.”
“Most of whom are MAGA Republicans,” he added.
The cascade of statements — including from Senators Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, Steve Daines of Montana and Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi — amounted to an unusual chorus of protest from Republicans who have otherwise routinely deferred to Mr. Trump on nearly every major issue, from the war with Iran to his trade wars.
This major Trade War with Canada is equally stupid. This is from Greg Sargent writing for The New Republic. “How Trump’s Crazed Fury at Canada Is Already Backfiring Badly for Him. The escalating trade war with Canada will hit hard in the Midwest—right where some of the most important contests in the midterms will be decided.” Pack the West Wing and the Oval office with idiots and this is what you get.
Here’s a bit of poetic justice for you: The Democratic bid for control of Congress just might end up running right through the very heart of Trump country. We’re talking about parts of the Midwest that helped drive Donald Trump’s two successful presidential bids—states like Iowa and Ohio, which he drove deeper into the red column, and states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, which Trump flipped outright twice.
That reality explains why Trump’s extended eruption of fury at Canada—he has now redoubled trade hostilities with our longtime ally—is very bad news for the GOP. Trump’s new trade war with Canada threatens fresh harms to local economies in the Midwest—and it’s handing Democrats a weapon in the homestretch of these contests to win over rural Americans and others who are experiencing all this endless derangement in very concrete ways.
“It’s a really dangerous time to be a farmer in the Midwest,” Josh Turek, the Democrat who is challenging Representative Ashley Hinson for the open Senate seat in Iowa, told me.
On Monday, Trump exploded wildly at Canada over the implosion of trade negotiations between the two countries. That collapse in talks over the weekend unleashed 50 percent tariffs by the United States on a large range of Canadian goods, and Canada will now retaliate with tariffs on targeted American exports. Talks are reportedly suspended until after the midterms.
What triggered Trump is that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney had refused to be cowed by the American threat of tariffs. So Trump threatened yet more tariffs on still more Canadian goods next year, raging: “WE DON’T NEED CANADA, THEY NEED US!”
Whether we “need” Canada or not, the fact remains that a lot of trade currently takes place between the two countries. You know who actually can’t afford for all this to be upended right now? Republican incumbents and candidates in the Midwest, that’s who. So “we” may not “need” Canada, but Republicans in the region really “need” Trump to not rupture trade relations with our ally for the next two months.
Here’s why: Control of the House will turn in no small part on three very competitive House races in Iowa, one in Wisconsin, and three or four in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, Turek is locked in a dead heat in the Iowa Senate race, and winning there could be pivotal to a Democratic Senate takeover. So could a win by Sherrod Brown, who leads slightly in Ohio. And anything that helps Abdul El-Sayed keep the highly contested Michigan Senate seat blue will also be critical.
These areas will very likely feel the political impact of Trump’s new trade war. Canada’s retaliatory tariffs are expected to hit American exports of agricultural machinery, and that could hit Iowa manufacturers. The state’s very competitive 2nd congressional district, for instance, includes facilities run by John Deere, Altorfer (which deals in Caterpillar products), and other farm equipment concerns.
“Tariffs don’t just hurt our farmers, they hurt our manufacturers, as well,” Lindsay James, the Democratic candidate in that district, told me. She added that her GOP opponent, businessman Joe Mitchell, will be a “rubber stamp” for Trump’s trade wars, which she labeled “impulsive.”
Such messages could land disproportionately in Iowa because Trump’s trade wars have already given the state’s agricultural economy a thorough pounding.
Turek, meanwhile, also singled out the coming impact of trade hostilities on farm equipment manufacturers. He noted that tariffs are contributing to a perfect storm in Iowa, which also includes Trump’s war on Iran, which is driving up fertilizer and diesel prices, and his effort to reduce beef prices by importing huge amounts of it, which will undercut American producers.
“You talk to farmers, and they’ll tell you it’s one gut punch after another,” Turek told me, adding that he constantly hears Iowans tell him: “This is betrayal.”
I can only imagine what kind of hit to the owner of what once was my Dad’s small town Iowa Ford Dealership would be. I like to remind everyone that the sale of Ford F-150s basically funded my school and young life. Those trucks were all over eastern Iowa doing farm and ranch work all the time. My youngest daughter’s son-in-law was the grandson of the biggest Pig Ranch in the area. Guess who he used to buy his trucks from? This will really go straight to the heart of every small midwestern town. Most John Deere Tractors are built in this country. I’m sure most of you have never heard of Waterloo, Iowa but you can crush a small town like that when you ruin business for the factory that keeps the town on the map.
So, this is some real nonsense in a situation where trade really defines countries ability to survive. This is from the Washington Post. “Trump says U.S. could rename Lake Ontario as Lake America amid Canada trade war. The president cited his tariff fight in a social media post, saying the United States doesn’t expect to be “doing much business with Ontario any longer.” How petty and stupid is that? Who actually thinks this is funny? You may see how consequential renaming the Gulf of Mexico was to map makers and everyone else. This is another middle finger fight rather than real policy. Sammy Westfall has the lede.
President Donald Trump said he is considering changing the name of Lake Ontario, the easternmost of the Great Lakes spanning the U.S.-Canada border, to Lake America, as the U.S.-Canada trade fight escalates.
The threat adds to a long list of things — bodies of water, mountains, cultural centers, battleships, transit hubs, federal agencies — the Trump administration has renamed or proposed to rebrand.
“The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don’t expect to be doing much business with Ontario any longer,” he wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday morning.
Over the weekend, Canada and the United States were thrown into a heated trade war after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney walked away from negotiations over tariffs — a rare example of a foreign leader telling Trump “enough,” after the U.S. demanded what Carney said was a mounting list of concessions.
“An attitude at the negotiation table that Canada is a subsidiary of the United States … that’s not something we’re going to accept,” Carney said in a statement posted Tuesday.
So, here’s an interesting fact for you from USA Facts. We’re basically creating chaos with the two countries that send us oil and of course, there is the current war between Israel and the United States on Iran with its control of the Straights of Hormuz. Wow, am I glad I don’t rely on a car. The St Claude Bus and Street car look better to me every day.
Top Oil Exporters to the US
Canada: Supplies about 57% of total U.S. petroleum imports.
Mexico: Ranks second, providing roughly 6% of imports.
Saudi Arabia: Accounts for about 4% of U.S. petroleum imports.
Most importantly is this bit of fact posted today on Politico. “Canada has one important edge in the North American trade war. Canadians are united in standing up to Trump’s tariffs. The reverse cannot be said for the U.S.”
President Donald Trump is threatening Canada with economic destruction amid an escalating trade war. He’s not factoring in one key U.S. disadvantage.
Americans are not nearly as gung-ho for a tariff stand-off as their northern neighbors, who have been seething for months over Trump’s rhetoric against their country.
“The U.S.A. will always be far bigger, richer, and stronger than Canada,” Trump wrote in a second Truth Social post. “Someone should get these clowns to ‘fall in line’ or, the consequences for Canada will be far WORSE!
The U.S. economy certainly dwarfs its northern neighbor’s. And while Ottawa has managed to support big sectors such as aluminum and forestry to keep them afloat amid tariffs Trump launched last year, it’s not clear how long the Canadian government can support small and medium-sized businesses in a prolonged tariff tit for tat. But poll after poll shows Canadians across the political spectrum are willing to accept those impacts in order to stand up to the U.S. government.
The opposite is true in the U.S., where even many in the president’s own party oppose Trump’s trade agenda — particularly his tariffs on Canada. And unlike Carney, the president faces a voter referendum in November, in the form of midterm elections.
As the two countries settle in for a long-term standoff, the outcome is likely to be defined by each government’s ability to endure pain: economic in Ottawa and political in Washington.
“I think right now the U.S. has more to lose because we have the election coming up in November, where the economy and tariffs are already an issue,” said one former official at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks. “If it spirals, Congress would be the one to feel the impact.”
But again, I believe he’s thinking he’s got the ability to rig the election and it may be somewhat true. Especially, with the Supreme Court on his side. This analysis is from “Balls and Strikes” and the keyboard of Jay Willis. “The Supreme Court Thinks You Are Stupid. The conservative justices are reserving for themselves the power to decide whether Trump can hijack the 2026 midterms.”
A key component of President Donald Trump’s plan for preserving the Republican Party’s power and influence is making it as difficult as possible for Democrats to vote. As the 2026 midterms approach, he is still pushing the unhinged lie that widespread fraud both cost him the 2020 presidential election and also explains every Republican loss in every election since.
This delusion is partially responsible for his obsession with mail-in voting. In March, Trump told Republican lawmakers that passing legal restrictions on mail-in voting would “guarantee the midterms.” Their failure to do so, he continued, would mean “big trouble.”
That same month, Trump did his part, issuing an executive order that would impose onerous requirements on states that allow their residents to vote by mail. And in an unsigned opinion on Monday, the Supreme Court did him yet another favor, turning away a legal challenge that had temporarily blocked the order from taking effect.
The result in Trump v. California does not give Trump everything he wants. But it shows just how far this six-justice conservative supermajority is willing to go to help its favorite president’s political movement—all while reserving for itself the right to decide how much of the Constitution remains in place for the midterms, and how much Trump gets to rewrite as he sees fit.
Trump’s order seeks to do three main things. First, it requires the Department of Homeland Security to provide states with lists of voters whom the federal government has “confirmed” as eligible to vote. Second, it directs Attorney General Todd Blanche and the Justice Department to “prioritize” investigations of state officials who provide ballots to anyone who is not eligible to vote. Finally, it orders the U.S. Postal Service to propose a rule that would require states to send mail ballots in a particular type of envelope and with a special barcode, ostensibly for the purposes of “tracking” the ballot. Trump’s order specifically requires that the Postal Service’s rule prevent the agency from processing a ballot—as in, submitting it for counting—unless a voter has been “enrolled” by the Postal Service first.
This is admittedly confusing, because the order is kind of an executive power matryoshka doll: Instead of directly requiring the Postal Service to refuse to deliver certain mail ballots, it adds a step, requiring the Postal Service to come up with an administrative rule for when it will refuse to deliver those ballots. Perhaps even the Trump brain trust understood that a president ordering an agency with a statutory obligation to provide “prompt, reliable, and efficient services” to “all communities” to simply ignore votes in blue states would be, legally speaking, not a good look.
That said, given that Trump’s order prescribes the content of the Postal Service’s “proposal” in exacting detail, the real-world impact is the same. Under the Constitution, states have the power to administer elections. If Trump gets his way, his federal government would be deciding who does and does not get to vote.
Lisa Needham of Public Notice puts it this way. “John Roberts sticks two more knives in democracy’s back. The mail voting and ballroom decisions are a travesty.”
President Trump is catastrophically, comprehensively, wrecking our democratic order, but he couldn’t do it without the Worst Chief Justice of All Time, John Roberts, and the rest of the Supreme Court’s MAGA majority.
Trump should probably send the nation’s highest jurists a fruit basket or something as a wee bit of thanks for their latest gifts: the right to wreck the midterm elections and the right to keep building the bribe-funded ballroom.
The former is courtesy of the Court’s six conservatives, but the latter is a solo Roberts joint. Put another way, the mail-in ballots case is a shadow docket travesty, while the ballroom is an administrative stay travesty. Both are corrosive to democracy.
Up first: teeing up letting Trump screw with the midterms in an extremely unconstitutional fashion, because of course Trump will suffer immense harm if he can’t get his way.
First, let’s be clear about a smallish silver lining here: the mail-in ballots decision is both reprehensible and a mess, but it doesn’t quite do what some of the reporting says it does. It doesn’t mean that the US Postal Service Final Rule, promulgated last Friday, goes into effect. A different case, brought by the League of Women Voters, still enjoins the administration from implementing that rule, and as Steve Vladeck notes, the litigation on that is yet to come.
But that doesn’t really make things better, at least as far as the whole constitutional crisis part goes. That’s because the Court’s right-wingers continue to swallow the Trump administration’s laughable lies about what they are doing, lies that contradict both their own public statements and the dictates of logic.
Okay, this is certainly way too long but the chaos continues in so many places. It’s important we know the where, when, and how of it all.
Have a good week! I hope the weather is being better to you than us. I’ve never seen such heat except when I visited Arizona in August. Plus, the humidity down here is beyond description. Even Temple, who loves her walkies, wants to cut them short these days. So, be safe out there!
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
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I’m sure if a comic image could illustrate what Dakinikat looks like today…it would be this picture up top.
You all got me, JJ, filling in for Dak. Since some city truck came down her street and completely wiped out her internet hardwire connection.
So bear with me as this post will be a bit wonky…and on the thin side.
First up, this tidbit from Meidas Touch. That shows all the insider trading Trump has done lately:
Trump reported 1,051 trades in his June disclosure. These two stood out:— June 18: Bought $250K–$500K in Boeing, the same day the Navy awarded Boeing an $880 million contract— June 23: Bought $15K–$50K in SpaceX, the same day NASA recorded a $425.6 million award to SpaceX
I think there have been at least 4 black men found hanging in north Georgia. All “suicides” …which is bullshit. Yeah these guys are going to drive up to a pretty much white KKK town and hang themselves.
During the era when we now recognize that black people were being lynched, many of those lynchings were officially declared suicides. Historical context is critical. http://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020…
I will try to get a gift link to that wapo post, and put it in the comments below.
Hanging? We need to call this what it is: LYNCHING. Ten Black Americans in less than two years.Every one of these deaths deserves answers, transparency, and scrutiny. No one should look at these images and expect Black Americans to shrug this off, especially in light of our history.
Repost: @atlblackstar Roanoke Rapids police say they are treating the death of 38-year-old Demetrius Fleming as an open investigation and have not reached any conclusions about what happened.
In an emotional message, Fleming’s daughter thanked supporters for their prayers and generosity but urged people to stop spreading assumptions online until the autopsy is complete, saying she doesn’t want speculation to overshadow the facts.
She also asked people to continue sharing the family’s GoFundMe and keep them in their prayers.
Go to that link to hear more about the latest man found hanging in North Carolina.
Cartoons via Cagle:
And a side note. We have reached a point where there are people doing public service announcements on informing us about the difference between horse meat and beef:
Russian artist Alexander Sokht, Between books and cats
Today’s top stories:
Trump’s war on Canada escalated yesterday as he ordered 50 percent tariffs on Canadian goods. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called his bluff, and the tariffs have taken effect for now.
Trump’s war on the free press also escalated Friday, after Whiskey Pete Hegseth fired the editor and publisher of Stars and Stripes because of their coverage of the dire conditions on the carrier S.S. Lincoln and their criticism of the Pentagon’s interference in their coverage.
Trump is threatening Iran with economic sanctions and Iran is threatening a “devastating response.” Iran also responded to Trump’s claim that the Strait of Hormuz is a “U.S. territory.”
ICE is getting a new weapon to use against immigrants and citizens who get in the way of their fascist attacks: shock gloves.
The disaster in Indiana is still going on after massive storms, flooding, and power outages.
The Trump administration’s latest round of tariffs against billions of dollars worth of Canadian goods took effect just after midnight Saturday, after the two countries failed to seal a last-minute trade deal that satisfied both sides.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said Ottawa would retaliate “dollar for dollar” after the White House delivered on its threat to impose crushing 50 per cent tariffs on a wide range of products. The two governments’ trade representatives said they had come close to finalizing an agreement in recent days, but Carney said Ottawa ultimately couldn’t accept the terms on the table.
“I have decided to suspend trade negotiations with the U.S. and have directed Canada’s negotiators to return to Ottawa,” the prime minister said in a statement.
“They have worked hard, in good faith, to defend the interests of Canadians throughout these negotiations up until the very last minute. However, last-minute changes in the U.S. proposed terms were unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal.” [….]
In his own statement, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said talks crumbled because Canada didn’t accept the agreement the administration had offered.
“Tonight, Canada declined to finalize the trade deal under the terms agreed earlier this week, despite the U.S. offer to Canada to receive the best treatment of any major exporter to our market, new demands and walk backs of other commitments by Canada have upended the careful balance reached in the past days,” Greer said in a statement.
“In addition, Canada is continuing to maintain its prolonged retaliation against the United States, including, among other things, flat out prohibitions on certain American goods and services.”
Now we wait for Trump to TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out), likely right before the stock market opens on Monday.
Crucial trade talks between the United States and Canada to stave off punishing new tariffs by the Trump administration on Canadian goods collapsed late Friday, with Canada saying it would retaliate “dollar for dollar.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada said he had decided to suspend the talks because the American side had introduced last-minute terms that were “unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal.”
By Merle Keller
He added that the talks, which had been going on for weeks and had intensified in the past few days, had marked important progress but had ultimately “not been enough to meet our objectives for Canadians.”
United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told reporters that Canada had walked away from the negotiating table, minutes before a deadline ushering in new 50 percent tariffs by the Trump administration on a broad range of Canadian goods.
“Tonight, Canada declined to finalize the trade deal under the terms agreed earlier this week, despite the U.S. offer to Canada to receive the best treatment of any major exporter to our market,” Mr. Greer said on a virtual briefing with the press.
“New demands and walk backs of other commitments by Canada have upended the careful balance reached in the past days,” Mr. Greer added.
Shortly before Mr. Greer’s statement to the press, U.S. Customs and Border Protection sent out guidance for importers saying that the Canadian products that the president had identified would face tariffs after 12:01 a.m.
Use the gift link to read more if you’re interested. I still expect Trump to TACO.
Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon on Friday fired the publisher and editor of the independent military news outlet Stars and Stripes for “insubordination.”
Long-time publisher Max Lederer and Editor-in-Chief Erik Slavin were given “separation notices” that allow five days to appeal the decision, CBS News reports. Reporter Lara Korte announced on social media that she had also been fired.
Korte and Slavin traced the decision back to interviews they did that aired on CBS Sunday Morning in July.
“According to the notice, I am being fired for stating in a CBS interview that censorship of news for service members would constitute a red line. The Pentagon’s public affairs office has charged me with insubordination,” Slavin told CBS.
“I stand by the principle that Stars and Stripes must remain editorially independent, as required by law and by the department’s own policies.” [….]
Portrait of Kolya with a Cat, by Arkady Plastov
“It’s a shame for the institution and service members, who swore to defend the Constitution and deserve the right to a free and independent press,” Korte wrote in a series of posts about her firing.
Although the newspaper operates within the Department of Defense, it is legally mandated by Congress to remain editorially independent.
Lederer had announced on Wednesday his intention to step down from the post he’s held since 2007, since his opinions on how to run the media organization differed in “fundamental ways” to the Pentagon’s plans for Stars and Stripes, the newspaper reported.
“I think the right step is for me to step down, get out of the way, and let different leadership step in and continue to make this, the great organization that it is, even better,” he said.
Lederer was slated to finish up his tenure on Sept. 30, but now both he and his editor-in-chief have been turfed out.
The move comes after President Donald Trump, Hegseth, and other military leaders downplayed reporting on dire conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln reported by families of service members.
The Pentagon on Friday fired the editor-in-chief of Stars and Stripes and a top reporter for insubordination after they spoke publicly against any interference by the Defense Department in the military news outlet that has a long history of editorial independence. It was the latest move by an administration that has grown increasingly aggressive toward the news media.
Erik Slavin, editor-in-chief of the military newspaper that is partly funded by the Pentagon, told The Associated Press he was dismissed for insubordination after an interview he gave that objected to potential censorship by the U.S. military. He received a notice of separation, as did publisher Max Lederer — who had just announced his upcoming retirement — and Middle East reporter Lara Korte, Slavin said.
Slavin said he was being fired “for stating in a CBS interview that hypothetical censorship of news for service members would constitute a red line.” Korte participated in the same interview.
“I stand by the principle that Stars and Stripes must remain editorially independent, as required by law and by the department’s own policies,” Slavin said.
Grocery shelves have been empty for days. Children who had just started school haven’t seen their classrooms in more than a week. Insulin has spoiled in warm refrigerators, and people who depend on oxygen cannot pump it from their tanks.
Electricity has been out for 10 days throughout much of Gary, Ind., since deadly storms ripped through, knocking down trees and power lines. On Friday, residents said they were growing increasingly desperate, even as another round of rain was on the way.
Lecture en fauteuil rouge, by French artist Flora Merleau
“Every day I’m crying,” Renita Theus, 41, said outside her darkened apartment, where her car remained trapped under a fallen tree. “It’s hot in the house. I toss and turn and can’t sleep. I walked to the dollar store and they’re all out of candles and batteries.”
Storms on Aug. 11 caused flooding and havoc throughout the Chicago area and neighboring northern Indiana, hitting Gary, where one-third of residents live in poverty, especially hard. More than a week later, the regional power company said its crews were working tirelessly to restore electricity but were overwhelmed by unprecedented levels of damage.
The utility, Northern Indiana Public Service Co., said on Friday that 43,400 of its customers remain without power in the region, down from more than 300,000 in the storm’s immediate aftermath. Service is expected to be restored to Gary by Tuesday, the company said, calling it a “monumental undertaking.”
On Friday, Gov. Mike Braun said that he had requested an expedited major disaster declaration from the Federal Emergency Management Agency that would allow more assistance to pour into the state. Last week, President Trump granted an emergency declaration for Indiana counties affected by the disaster, and a state relief fund is providing emergency aid grants of as much as $5,000.
“I will do everything in my power to ensure Hoosiers have the resources needed to recover,” said Mr. Braun, a Republican.
Local officials warned that cleanup would likely take months.
“It’s just widespread devastation throughout the city of Gary,” said Larry E. Tillman, the chief of the fire department.
Use the gift link to read more if you’re interested. So far, Trump has said nothing publicly about this disaster. I guess he’s too busy with his building projects.
That’s all I have for today. Take care everyone!
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
This major Trade War with Canada is equally stupid. This is from Greg Sargent writing for 
I can only imagine what kind of hit to the owner of what once was my Dad’s small town Iowa Ford Dealership would be. I like to remind everyone that the sale of Ford F-150s basically funded my school and young life. Those trucks were all over eastern Iowa doing farm and ranch work all the time. My youngest daughter’s son-in-law was the grandson of the biggest Pig Ranch in the area. Guess who he used to buy his trucks from? This will really go straight to the heart of every small midwestern town. Most John Deere Tractors are built in this country. I’m sure most of you have never heard of Waterloo, Iowa but you can crush a small town like that when you ruin business for the factory that keeps the town on the map.
So, here’s an interesting fact for you from 
But again, I believe he’s thinking he’s got the ability to rig the election and it may be somewhat true. Especially, with the Supreme Court on his side. This analysis is from 
Lisa Needham of 
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