Oh, What A Tangled Web

Tough week for Chief O'Hara

Like most Americans, I have a lotta rocks rattling around my head these days. The murder of children in prayer in the church of Annunciation School has rocked the Twin Cities in new and horrible ways. That Robin Westman was in transition only shifted blame calling to a new low, implying that all trans people are mentally ill. Really? How about the guy who shot in a crowd standing on a sidewalk the night before? From ABC NEWS:

A gunman opened fire with a high-velocity rifle at a group standing on a sidewalk in Minneapolis on Tuesday, killing one person and injuring six others, police said.

At least one of the seven victims appears to have been the target of the shooting, according to Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara, who called the incident "deeply troubling."

That shoot has all but disappeared into the mists, and I don't even think he's been apprehended. It took a whole lotta hunting around to even find this from KARE-11

A man and woman are accused of being accomplices in a deadly south Minneapolis shooting last week, in which the gunman has not been arrested. 

Ryan Timothy Quinn, 33, and Tiffany Lynn Marie Martindale, 30, have both been charged with the felony of aiding an offender to avoid arrest in connection with the shooting that left one person dead and six more injured.

Funny thing about all this. Minneapolis, the city of George Floyd, Philando Castile, and Annunciation School is not even on the list of most violent cities in the US. Stay with me here. 

On August 11th, Newsweek published a list of the 30 most violent cities in the US. Thankfully, both Minneapolis and Saint Paul are absent from the list. But the list is worth mentioning. Notice that of the 30 cities, 9 are in blue states, and one is in a purple state. Washington, D.C. is not on that list. All the other cities are in deeply red states, yet President Felon has not ordered National Guard troops to any of those cities, but he has fingered #16-Chicago and #26-Baltimore as his next targets. Why is that?

Maybe it's because he doesn't want to risk upsetting his devotees? Or is he worried about managing the midterm elections in states he's less likely to win?

Defending our cities from crime,
weeds, and trash.

Or maybe, he just needs really, really expensive groundskeepers and trash collectors he doesn't have to pay? Maybe he'll be sending them over to his golf courses next. It doesn't much matter, but using the National Guard as groundskeepers and trash collectors is obscene. Who the hell do you think is paying for this? While government programs are slashed, burned, and ripped away from locations that are desperate for help, this is another colossal waste of capital. 

Is it possible the deployment of troops, Guard or federal, is a slow move toward manipulating the midterms?  But wait! There are other ways to undermine a nation. No matter how you dice up the optics, this is a power grab.

But it's not just the deployment of troops that undercut the sense of security and safety. It's financial and it hits the middle class directly. Cuts in renewable energy and transportation projects that are already underway and headed toward completion ultimately cost the government more than it saves. Thousands of workers are laid off. They lose that great golden egg of health insurance. Food security becomes an issue when you cannot buy groceries. In her Substack, Letters From An American, Heather Cox Richardson writes:

Another cut last week sums up the repercussions of the administration’s attack on renewable energy. On August 22 the Interior Department suddenly and without explanation stopped construction of a wind farm off the coast of Connecticut and Rhode Island that was 80% complete and was set to be finished early next year. As Matthew Daly of the Associated Press noted yesterday, Revolution Wind was the region’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm. It was designed to power more than 350,000 homes, provide jobs in Connecticut and Rhode Island, and enable Rhode Island to meet its goal of 100% renewable energy by 2033.

The Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut expressed their dismay at the decision, noting that Revolution Wind employed more than 1,000 local union workers and is part of a $20 billion investment in “American energy generation, port infrastructure, supply chain, and domestic shipbuilding and manufacturing across over 40 states” by Ørsted, a Danish multinational company.

“Stopping this fully permitted, important project without a clear stated reason not only seriously undermines the state’s efforts to work towards a carbon neutral energy supply but equally important it sends a message to investors from all over the world that they may want to rethink investing in America. The message resulting from the President’s action is a lack of trust, uncertainty, and lack of predictability,” they wrote.

Connecticut governor Ned Lamont and Rhode Island governor Dan McKee, both Democrats, are working together to save the project. In a statement, Lamont said: “We are working closely with Rhode Island to save this project because it represents exactly the kind of investment that reduces energy costs, strengthens regional production, and builds a more secure energy future—the very goals President Trump claims to support but undermines with this decision.”

“It’s an attack on our jobs,” McKee said. “It’s an attack on our energy. It’s an attack on our families and their ability to pay the bills.”

Taking a page from Hitler's playbook, deny your population a way to earn a living and they will become desperate to feed their families and keep them sheltered. Denying Jews the ability to work made it infinitely easier to herd them into ghettos and concentration camps. Deny an entire political population the ability to earn a living and over time, they, too, will cave. 

Vote for me, and I will employ you.

This is one of the oldest ploys in the book, right up there with free ice cream at lunch; when you put families at risk, people will do whatever is needed to protect their own.

Sounds a bit draconian? Sure. But look around you. It's already happening. Although North Carolina is technically a red state, their AG is bright blue.  He's suing FEMA on behalf of his state:

I’m suing FEMA.

Why?

Because they illegally cancelled more than $200 million that was headed to North Carolina for water and sewer upgrades.

It was basically a flood preparation fund. Congress created it, funded it, and told FEMA to run it.

Before FEMA pulled the plug, they had approved over 60 projects across our state - mostly moving pump stations and sewer lines to higher ground.

A few examples:

• $22.5m for Salisbury to move a pump station. The city already spent $3m of its own funds getting started.
• $5.9m for Gastonia to move sewer lines out of the floodplain.
• $4m for Mt. Pleasant to improve drainage in the town center, which regularly floods and damages businesses.

And then there’s the Hillsborough pump station, where I spoke yesterday. It was set to receive $6m to move to higher ground. Also cancelled by FEMA.

But here’s the thing:

Three weeks ago, a tropical storm hit. The nearby river rose 24 feet and submerged the entire station. Millions of gallons of untreated sewage poured into the river.

I spotlighted this pump station because it’s a perfect example of why this funding matters - and what happens when it’s taken away.

Most people agree that keeping drinking water flowing and sewage contained is a legitimate use of public dollars. I appreciate that Sen. Tillis and Rep. Edwards have also urged FEMA to reverse course.

Heck, President Trump signed this program into law in his first term. He wanted it.

So we’re going to court, along with a number of AGs, and I’ll report back.

There is no way in hell that I do NOT believe this is scheduled manipulation. This is an attempt to restrict potable water for a large portion of North Carolina. There's a pattern of municipal control being established. It's easy to roll in troops with trucks of clean water and then call yourself a savior. Nothing happens unless there is something in it for Feckless President Felon. 

Without FEMA and other government agency assistance, come hurricane season, people will become violently desperate for aid and relief. What better way to cement your image as hero than to provide it...with strings. There are always strings. 

I used to think he was simply blind to the needs of the poorest states in the Union. Now, I think he knows exactly what he's doing. Voter suppression and disenfranchisement are useful tools with this administration. The push for paper ballots only, cessation of early voting, understaffed and undersupplied voter sites are all methods of stopping voters from casting ballots. The MAGA corps operates under the idea that they can control the outcome of any election if they can prevent voters from exercising their right to vote, and to some degree this is true. The attempts to overthrow the last two presidential elections point to that very issue. And if you think the MAGA GOP is not learning how to master electoral manipulation from those last two events, guess again. 

Scare enough people and they will elect the status quo. Feckless President Felon and his cabal are counting on that. 

Meanwhile, back at the Himalayas....

Someone is upset because President Felon claims to have negotiated the India/Pakistan ceasefire. That someone, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had a terse call with the former Nobel Peace Prize Would-be Candidate. From the New York Times:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India was losing patience with President Trump.

Mr. Trump had been saying — repeatedly, publicly, exuberantly — that he had “solved” the military conflict between India and Pakistan, a dispute that dates back more than 75 years and is far deeper and more complicated than Mr. Trump was making it out to be.

During a phone call on June 17, Mr. Trump brought it up again, saying how proud he was of ending the military escalation. He mentioned that Pakistan was going to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize, an honor for which he had been openly campaigning. The not-so-subtle implication, according to people familiar with the call, was that Mr. Modi should do the same.

The Indian leader bristled. He told Mr. Trump that U.S. involvement had nothing to do with the recent cease-fire. It had been settled directly between India and Pakistan.

Mr. Trump largely brushed off Mr. Modi’s comments, but the disagreement — and Mr. Modi’s refusal to engage on the Nobel — has played an outsize role in the souring relationship between the two leaders, whose once-close ties go back to Mr. Trump’s first term.

Now, I guess plan B is to bring peace by removing all of the Palestinians from Gaza to make it into the Riviera of the Middle East. 

The leaked image from the Great Trust proposal 

The plan even has a name: GREAT TRUST- Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation Trust. And who, exactly, do you think benefits the most from this scheme? It ain't the US and it sure as hell ain't the Israelis. Just think of it as a bigger golf course and enterprise destined to bankruptcy.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

If you had a lovely holiday weekend, thank all those pesky labor unions. 

No, they're not perfect, but they did a helluva a good job protecting We, the People.