WARNING: VOTING TWICE IS A FEDERAL OFFENSE  -  "ONE MAN, ONE VOTE"

While AG Barr warns that voting by mail is "playing 🔥 with fire" Trump was suggesting to supporters in North Carolina that they vote twice in the General Election -- once by mail and once in person -- to test that their vote by mail was counted and the mail-in system.
Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign have sued multiple states to stop voting by mail.

WARNING: VOTING TWICE IS A FEDERAL OFFENSE  -  "ONE MAN, ONE VOTE"

When is enough, enough?  
To see a maskless Trump in a maskless crowd mock Biden for wearing a mask during the pandemic is disheartening.  
We are "suckers" and "losers" to call Trump "President."    
He is not a leader, apparently his listeners find his irresponsibility entertaining.

Fires 🔥 are burning,  
and Trump fans the flames 🔥 .    
People are dying,  
and Trump fans a culture war.
Trump breathes life into hate and division.  
He is not a leader, he is a provocateur.

The words of a president matter.    
Trump is deconstructing our democracy.    
He lacks credibility and creates chaos.    
He undermines the presidency and American leadership.    
In the midst of his presidency, when everything happens and nothing matters, who are we?

Rick Stengel has a question for the "birther-in-chief":      
"Where were you born, Donald?"

Is there a presidential norm Trump hasn't broken?
Does he not understand or honor the service of our armed forces?

Not one of "his" Generals has stepped forward to vouch for him.

"If what is written in the Atlantic is true, the president should humbly apologize to every Gold Star mother and father, and every Blue Star family that he's denigrated and insulted."   -- Joseph Biden

Trump is a useful voice for his supporters.
He speaks the words they want spoken,
indulges in name calling and telling lies OK by them.
Trump supporters celebrate his lawlessness
and the division he stokes.

2020 has been rough everywhere, but Californians have had it tougher than most - a once-in-a century pandemic and the worst wildfires ever, and peak burn season hasn't even begun.

California, like Australia earlier this year, is suffering from climate change. Warmer weather, doughts, and longer dry seasons mean the vegetation that fuels fires is more prone to bursting into flame, rapid burning, and bigger blazes.

Social distancing can't be the first priority for firefighters, who work in groups and come into contact with many different people. Uncontrolled fire has forced the evacuation of an entire town and parts of several communities.

In previous years, inmate firefighting teams were a key force multiplier - to avoid cononavirus transmission in jails, early release of prisoners has complicated fighting fires in many areas since these firefighting teams aren't available.

Trump's lies to the American people about the coronavirus and downplaying the threat of covid-19 has been worse than if he'd said nothing.  
Had Trump said nothing to the American people, we might have been able to hear Dr Fauci.

For some reason Trump told Bob Woodward the truth about the coronavirus.  
He cannot call audio of his own voice "fake news."

Somehow Trump who campaigns on fear and panic, told Bob Woodward he wanted to avoid panic about the deadly pandemic... we've paid for his lies with American lives.  
Trump lied and people died.

Trump does not seem to grasp that the President has the responsibility to protect the American people.

How many lives could have been saved if Trump had told us the truth?

Why do we not yet have a plan?

Thomas Edison received a patent for an "electric lamp" in January 1880. His incandescent electric light bulb burned out quickly.    
Lewis Latimer, an African American inventor who worked with Alexander Bell and later with Thomas Edison, received a patent for "new and useful improvements in incandescent electric lamps" in September 1881. Lewis Latimer created a light bulb with a durable carbon filter which was practical to use.    
Though today's light bulbs use filaments of tungsten which last even longer than carbon, 
it is Lewis Latimer's carbon filament that made widespread use of electric light feasible in public and at home.    
Lewis Latimer is a member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame.      
 

Trump has long required that his supporters cease to care about the truth. Now he is asking that they not care about American lives.    
Trump told Bob Woodward the truth about COVID-19 and lies to the American people.

U.S. President engages in "Negligent Homicide".  
His deceit is laid bare.    
His focus is on the stock market,   
says the American people should be happy.

Fifty days 'til November 3rd.

VOTE EARLY.

Tell me why pizza is made round,  
                 packed in a square box,    
              and eaten as a triangle.

"The Electoral College is a legacy of 'distrust of the people' that must be addressed: the antidemocratic distortions of the Electoral College threaten our country's integrity. Trump's presidency, and the chance that it will recur despite his persistent unpopularity, reflects a problem in our Constitution that looks increasingly unsustainable."

"James Madison, who helped conceive the Electoral College, later admitted that delegates had written the rules while impaired by 'the hurrying influence produced by fatigue and impatience.'  Between 1800 and 2016, members of Congress have introduced more than 800 constitutional amendments to either fix or altogether abolish the Electoral College. The most egregious deficit of the Electoral College: the undermining of one person, one vote. We should elect a president who wins the largest number of votes in the United States, not just in the handful of battleground or swing states.

"The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact calls for individual states and the District of Columbia to pledge to cast their electoral votes for the Presidential candidate who wins the most votes nationally. The jurisdictions which have embraced the compact currently have one hundred ninety-six electoral votes among them. The constitutional powers of state governments and the role of the Senate, whose membership advantages small states, would insure that the U.S. remains a 'consensus democracy' with the role of federalism and the need to grapple with divided power intact."

-- Steve Coll, The New Yorker

"Trump is the wrong man for the job."   -- Bob Woodward  
(Trump loves brands, Woodward has been the gold standard for 50 years of investigative journalism around the presidency.    
(Trump was convinced he could shape Woodward's book if he did the talking; he eagerly spoke with Woodward for nine hours across 18 interviews, most frequently in late night phone calls he made from the White House.

Scientific American, for the first time in its 175 year history, felt compelled to endorse a presidential candidate. In a scathing condemnation of Trump, accusing him of rejecting "evidence and science," their endorsement states that Biden will be better for the environment, the economy, and the nation's health.  
Trump's dishonest and inept response to the COVID-19 pandemic has made the national health crisis "catastrophic". His efforts to eliminate the Affordable Care Act, as well as his proposal to cut funding for the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, further indicate Trump is not fit for office.
In contrast, Joe Biden comes prepared with plans; "he solicits expertise and has turned that knowledge into solid policy proposals."

It's a dark day: Ruth Bader Ginsburg died.

McConnell has already put out a statement that Trump's nominee will receive a vote on the Senate floor.

"...to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet." -- Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Nina Totenberg, friend of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, tweeted:    
"A Jewish teaching says those who die just before the Jewish new year are the ones God has held back until the last moment because they were needed most & were the most righteous. And so it was that #RBG died as the sun was setting last night marking the beginning of Rosh Hashanah."

What is your word worth, Mitch McConnell?   
Lindsey Graham, Chuck Grassley, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Tom Cotton, Thom Tillis?  
Is politics a system designed to ensure that corruption, greed, and deceit are the only way forward?  
Will voters reward McConnell, Graham, Grassley, Cruz, Rubio, Cotton, and Tillis if they reverse themselves and show an utter lack of character?

Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death has thrown our country into deeper turmoil.