There is no way to read it other than as corrupt

The nasty guy held a campaign rally in Tulsa yesterday.

Before the rally Mark Sumner of Daily Kos discussed all the ways the campaign staff was making things worse for the coronavirus (worse for humans, better for the virus). The campaign says it sent out 800,000 tickets for a venue that seats 19,200, none of them assigned. Which means attendees must mingle together for hours in hopes of being part of the first 19,000 to get in. Because seats weren’t assigned there was no way to block off seats for proper distancing. Masks were to be handed out, but wearing them is not required and they’re unlikely to be worn.

As for the rally itself…

Alyosha Karamazov of the Kos community titled her post, Trump Tulsa Turnout Tragically Tanks. Titter. Tee-hee. Reporters Report Ridiculous Rally. Really. This post includes a few photos and excerpts from various news sources that highlight some things:

That 19,200 seat venue had under 6,200 people. It was about 1/3 full – really low numbers.

There were plans the nasty guy would speak inside (which he did for nearly two hours) then go to an outside stage to speak to those who didn’t make it in. The outside plans were scrapped.

The campaign blamed protesters for blocking the entrances to the arena to explain the low turnout. But the plaza outside was empty.

Jen Hayden of Kos created a post of pictures and videos of the empty plaza and the sparse arena.



On Friday William Barr, head of the Department Formerly Known as Justice, said Geoffrey Berman, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, was resigning. Berman responded, no I’m not.

The SDNY is the federal court for a region that includes New York City, so gets all sorts of financial corruption cases. And because the nasty guy used to run his businesses from the city Berman has been looking into various nasty guy cronies, such as Rudy Giuliani.

Barr announced Berman is to be replaced by Jay Clayton, someone without any courtroom experience.

A big question: Why did Barr lie? Important people are asking.

On Saturday Barr announced “I have asked the president to remove you as of today, and he has done so.” The nasty guy said he’s not involved. Either Barr or the nasty guy is lying. Both have a track record making a lie from either one of them plausible.

Somewhere in there it sounds like Barr offered Berman another job away from SDNY. Berman declined.

Late Saturday Berman resigned. His statement says his deputy (not the person Barr nominated) would take his place.

Hunter of Kos explains the whole thing. He wrote:

There is no other way to read the move to install Clayton other than as corrupt, given the proximity of SDNY to at this point an unknowable number of investigations that tie directly into Trump, Clayton's status as Barr ally, Barr's bizarre announcement of a resignation that did not happen, and Barr's now well-reported moves to "reach down" into numerous federal prosecutions that Trump, personally, has objected to.

Hunter concludes:

House Judiciary Committee chair Jerry Nadler has already indicated that Berman will be summoned to testify on these events, and soon. There still seems no urgency to force Barr's own testimony, however, part of a continued reluctance on the part of the committee and House Democrats to truly pressure Barr on even the most brazenly corrupt moves, whether it be the gassing of a peaceful protest on Trump's apparent orders or the order to drop charges against Trump ally Michael Flynn outright. That is not good enough. The premise by House Democrats appears to be that no matter what criminality Barr and Trump get up to, it can be tolerated until November under an assumption that it can later be undone.

There is no assurance of either. Barr's corrupt acts are focused on paving the way for further corruption by Trump, who has given ample evidence that would certainly again participate in crimes, in order to gain reelection. And Barr's current acts, sabotaging each federal probe into potential Trump criminality one-by-one, will have consequences that an election cannot so easily paper over.

In another article Hunter discusses an article from the New York Times that talks about mid level government managers telling scientists to remove references to human causes to climate change. The reason is these managers are trying to follow what their bosses want. They are scared because jobs, or at least career advancement, are based on pleasing the bosses.

Hunter concludes:

The takeaways here are twofold, perhaps. One: We cannot count on our institutions to save us. Not from corruption, not from mismanagement, not from ideology-premised sabotage. Two: If government agencies can adapt within the span of a few years to extremist positions, it seems reasonable to expect the same agencies will adapt just as quickly when the wind blows from another direction.

That last bit doesn't negate the true damage being done here, of course. The problem with incompetent management is that it makes competent people want to leave even as the incompetent ones hang on for dear life. It is self-fulfilling. Those who are taking early retirement or drifting off into Literally Anything Else as their departments struggle with their new deadbeat between-lobbying-jobs overlords will probably not be eager to come back. The long-term effects of Trump's demands for incompetent government done boorishly will outlast him by two decades, at least.

Rev. William Barber tweeted:

Some are calling for Juneteenth to be a national holiday. How about we go further & pass healthcare & living wages for all, a fully restored Voting Rights Act & reparations, etc. Please don’t just ask for a holiday. Let’s make it a holy day of repentance & reconstruction.

I heard a radio broadcast of a recent concert – recent as in just a couple weeks ago. The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, directed by Sir Simon Rattle, didn’t play from their concert hall. Instead they played from Bavarian Radio’s Studio 1. The instrumentalists, the strings in one piece, the winds in another, were spread around the room keeping more than six feet apart with the director in the middle. Live orchestra music is still possible, though I would want to be in the room with them.



Amazing Maps tweeted a map showing the amount of land where 5% of the world’s population lives that is least and most densely packed. I figure 5% is about 350 million people. That number live in Bangladesh, and around Kolkata, India. Another 350 million are spread out over combined Canada, Alaska, central continental US (though not Colorado), Amazon rainforest, Patagonia, Sahara, the Namib Desert, Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia, Siberia, Tibet, Papua New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, and a few more.