As a fan of both Star Trek: The Next Generation and Cheech and Chong, this made me chortle.
References:
Yesterday afternoon, former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale was “Baker Acted”. That’s a term that I’d never heard of before moving to Florida, and it refers to the Baker Act, the colloquial name for the Florida Mental Health Act of 1971. It’s for involuntarily institutionalizing a person who may have a mental illness and is posing a threat to themself or others.
The Fort Lauderdale Police Department said in a statement to Business Insider that officers responded to Parscale’s home shortly before 4 p.m. local time after his wife called the police.
Parscale, who was the only person inside the home at the time, “had access to multiple firearms inside the residence and was threatening to harm himself,” according to the statement.
“Officers made contact with the male, developed a rapport, and safely negotiated for him to exit the home,” the department said in the statement. “The male was detained without injury and transported to Broward Health Medical Center for a Baker Act.”
If you watched the Netflix dramatized documentary The Social Dilemma, you might be wondering who the advertisers who helped turned Facebook into a cesspool are. Parscale is chief among them, as he’s credited as the one who came up with the 2016 campaign’s Facebook strategy.
“I was the digital-media director,” he said at California Republican Party’s fall convention in 2019. “So, yes, all that crazy Facebook stuff was my idea.”
“We have turned the R.N.C. into one of the largest data-gathering operations in United States history.”
For more, see The New Yorker’s March 2020 article, The Man Behind Trump’s Facebook Juggernaut.
Prior to meeting the Trumps, Parscale ran a modestly successful web marketing company. It was a chance encounter on a flight that changed his destiny:
One of Parscale’s customers sat on a flight next to a passenger who would soon join the Trump Organization. Parscale’s work came up, and eventually he got an email from the seatmate asking whether he wanted to bid on developing a website for Trump’s company.
Parscale, a regular viewer of Trump’s reality show, “The Apprentice,” jumped at the chance.
“I just made up a price,” said Parscale, offering to do it for $10,000. He told Trump’s son Eric that the money was refundable if the work was unsatisfactory. “I recognized that I was a nobody in San Antonio, but working for the Trumps would be everything.”
Eric Trump became Parscale’s biggest supporter. “He wowed me,” Eric Trump said in an interview. “I found myself going to Brad over and over again.”
Over the next five years, the Trump Organization sent hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of website-related work to Parscale.
In mid-2015, Parscale got a call from Jared Kushner asking how he would run the Trump campaign’s digital strategy:
“If he wants to be the next president, he has got to harness Facebook,” Parscale said he told Kushner. “Give me the power, and I can help you win.”
Since that time, Parscale’s companies — and yes, that plural companies — have been raking in millions from the Trump campaign, and he’s done well as a result.
As much as I hate to link to the Daily Mail (also known as “The Daily Heil”), there’s no better explainer of Parscale’s change in fortunes has been spending his money that their fawning, bootlicking article from August 2019 titled How Donald Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale went from family bankruptcy to splashing out millions on mansions, condos and luxury cars through his companies that get a hefty cut of the president’s $57M campaign contributions.
He’s been spending money like a drunken sailor on shore leave, and The Lincoln Project have used it as fodder in one of their anti-Trump campaign ads:
And then the rally at Tulsa happened. Or more accurately, failed to happen.
First, I’ll let these stories do the talking:
Then, I’ll let these stories do the talking:
Last night’s incident is probably the result of the convergence of a number of things:
Yesterday’s New York Times exposé of Trump’s tax records and debt may also have been a factor.
Yesterday’s article, Long-Concealed Records Show Trump’s Chronic Losses And Years Of Tax Avoidance, got a lot of people talking about how little tax Trump has paid over the past couple of decades.
While the tax issue is irksome, what concerns me more is Trump’s debt. A key part of his campaign was that he was a successful businessman, and as a rich person, he couldn’t be bought.
Trump is personally responsible for over $300 million in loans which are due for payment over the next four years, and his sources of revenue are in the hospitality industry, which has taken a big hit due to the pandemic.
What we have are two men with similar back-stories…
…Parscale’s accounts of his life and his work for the president comprise a classic Trumpian tale: They’re a combination of hyperbole, half-truths and the occasional fiction. Indeed, Parscale shares more than one trait with his most important client. He has embraced political beliefs not in evidence before the 2016 campaign. Like Trump, he has adapted to opportunities as they arose. And like Trump, Parscale is largely unencumbered by the concerns for consistency and accuracy that are the hobgoblins of smaller minds.
…who find themselves in similar situations:
Faced with this crisis, Parscale had a meltdown. What happens when the President* has to reckon with a similar situation?
On September 17th, Congress passed a measure that demands the condemnation of all forms of racism and scapegoating and calls on public officials to denounce any anti-Asian sentiment, which has become a problem with COVID-19.
It passed in a 243-164 vote, with all 164 “nay” votes coming from…well, guess which party:
The resolution did not reference Trump by name or the presidency, yet it passed on a largely party-line vote — with 164 Republicans voting against it.
Some responses from the Asian-American community:
I just read this bill. All it basically says is that Anti-Asian sentiment, racism and discrimination is wrong. It asks for nothing more than that. Yet 164 members of Congress (all Republican) voted against it. #vote https://t.co/GzSCEc8c77
— Daniel Dae Kim (@danieldaekim) September 18, 2020
Take note of the 163 Republicans who refused to condemn anti-Asian rhetoric. (And thank you to those from all parties who did.) https://t.co/cKONSTJgar
— Celeste Ng (@pronounced_ing) September 18, 2020
I compiled the 164 House Repubs who just voted AGAINST a resolution to condemn anti-Asian sentiment, racism, & discrimination. An easy slamdunk vote to publicly support our community as attacks on us rise. They were the ONLY “NO” votes. This is what unashamed racism looks like. pic.twitter.com/gaxFOIpiJl
— philipwang (@philipwang) September 22, 2020
This resolution had no action attached to it and was merely symbolic. It was a pittance to the Asian community that 164 Republican representatives in Congress refused to give.
Absolutely disgraceful… https://t.co/TuL59B09xn
— Ray Liu (@RayLiuNYC) September 24, 2020
I just need any As Ame contemplating voting for a Republican (either at the top of the ballot and/or down ticket) this Nov to know that 164 House members — ALL Republican — voted AGAINST a bill condemning anti-Asian racial violence in the wake of COVID19. https://t.co/gCaQynKtmU
— Reappropriate (@reappropriate) September 17, 2020
First, I’m going to say “thanks” to the 14 Republicans who broke ranks and voted “yea” on the measure:
| REPRESENTATIVE | PARTY | STATE | VOTE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brooks (IN) | Republican | YEA | |
| Fitzpatrick | Republican | YEA | |
| Gonzalez (OH) | Republican | YEA | |
| Herrera Beutler | Republican | YEA | |
| Hurd (TX) | Republican | YEA | |
| Katko | Republican | YEA | |
| McCaul | Republican | YEA | |
| Smith (NJ) | Republican | YEA | |
| Stivers | Republican | YEA | |
| Upton | Republican | YEA | |
| Wagner | Republican | YEA | |
| Walden | Republican | YEA | |
| Webster (FL) | Republican | YEA | |
| Woodall | Republican | YEA |
…and hey, there’s a Florida representative in there, and he’s from the district just north of mine!
And now, the racist a-holes who couldn’t even bring themselves to make a symbolic gesture condemning anti-Asian discrimination.
If you can, please vote them out.
| REPRESENTATIVE | PARTY | STATE | VOTE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aderholt | Republican | NAY | |
| Allen | Republican | NAY | |
| Amodei | Republican | NAY | |
| Armstrong | Republican | NAY | |
| Arrington | Republican | NAY | |
| Babin | Republican | NAY | |
| Bacon | Republican | NAY | |
| Baird | Republican | NAY | |
| Balderson | Republican | NAY | |
| Banks | Republican | NAY | |
| Barr | Republican | NAY | |
| Bergman | Republican | NAY | |
| Biggs | Republican | NAY | |
| Bilirakis | Republican | NAY | |
| Bishop (NC) | Republican | NAY | |
| Bishop (UT) | Republican | NAY | |
| Bost | Republican | NAY | |
| Brady | Republican | NAY | |
| Brooks (AL) | Republican | NAY | |
| Buchanan | Republican | NAY | |
| Buck | Republican | NAY | |
| Bucshon | Republican | NAY | |
| Budd | Republican | NAY | |
| Burchett | Republican | NAY | |
| Burgess | Republican | NAY | |
| Calvert | Republican | NAY | |
| Carter (GA) | Republican | NAY | |
| Carter (TX) | Republican | NAY | |
| Chabot | Republican | NAY | |
| Cheney | Republican | NAY | |
| Cline | Republican | NAY | |
| Cloud | Republican | NAY | |
| Cole | Republican | NAY | |
| Collins (GA) | Republican | NAY | |
| Comer | Republican | NAY | |
| Conaway | Republican | NAY | |
| Crawford | Republican | NAY | |
| Crenshaw | Republican | NAY | |
| Curtis | Republican | NAY | |
| Davis, Rodney | Republican | NAY | |
| DesJarlais | Republican | NAY | |
| Diaz-Balart | Republican | NAY | |
| Emmer | Republican | NAY | |
| Estes | Republican | NAY | |
| Ferguson | Republican | NAY | |
| Fleischmann | Republican | NAY | |
| Flores | Republican | NAY | |
| Fortenberry | Republican | NAY | |
| Foxx (NC) | Republican | NAY | |
| Fulcher | Republican | NAY | |
| Gallagher | Republican | NAY | |
| Garcia (CA) | Republican | NAY | |
| Gianforte | Republican | NAY | |
| Gibbs | Republican | NAY | |
| Gohmert | Republican | NAY | |
| Gooden | Republican | NAY | |
| Gosar | Republican | NAY | |
| Granger | Republican | NAY | |
| Graves (LA) | Republican | NAY | |
| Graves (MO) | Republican | NAY | |
| Green (TN) | Republican | NAY | |
| Griffith | Republican | NAY | |
| Grothman | Republican | NAY | |
| Guest | Republican | NAY | |
| Guthrie | Republican | NAY | |
| Hagedorn | Republican | NAY | |
| Harris | Republican | NAY | |
| Hartzler | Republican | NAY | |
| Hern, Kevin | Republican | NAY | |
| Hice (GA) | Republican | NAY | |
| Higgins (LA) | Republican | NAY | |
| Hill (AR) | Republican | NAY | |
| Holding | Republican | NAY | |
| Hollingsworth | Republican | NAY | |
| Hudson | Republican | NAY | |
| Huizenga | Republican | NAY | |
| Jacobs | Republican | NAY | |
| Johnson (LA) | Republican | NAY | |
| Johnson (OH) | Republican | NAY | |
| Johnson (SD) | Republican | NAY | |
| Jordan | Republican | NAY | |
| Joyce (OH) | Republican | NAY | |
| Joyce (PA) | Republican | NAY | |
| Keller | Republican | NAY | |
| Kelly (MS) | Republican | NAY | |
| Kelly (PA) | Republican | NAY | |
| King (IA) | Republican | NAY | |
| King (NY) | Republican | NAY | |
| Kinzinger | Republican | NAY | |
| Kustoff (TN) | Republican | NAY | |
| LaHood | Republican | NAY | |
| Lamborn | Republican | NAY | |
| Latta | Republican | NAY | |
| Lesko | Republican | NAY | |
| Long | Republican | NAY | |
| Loudermilk | Republican | NAY | |
| Lucas | Republican | NAY | |
| Luetkemeyer | Republican | NAY | |
| Marshall | Republican | NAY | |
| Massie | Republican | NAY | |
| Mast | Republican | NAY | |
| McCarthy | Republican | NAY | |
| McClintock | Republican | NAY | |
| McKinley | Republican | NAY | |
| Meuser | Republican | NAY | |
| Miller | Republican | NAY | |
| Mitchell | Republican | NAY | |
| Moolenaar | Republican | NAY | |
| Mooney (WV) | Republican | NAY | |
| Mullin | Republican | NAY | |
| Murphy (NC) | Republican | NAY | |
| Newhouse | Republican | NAY | |
| Norman | Republican | NAY | |
| Nunes | Republican | NAY | |
| Palmer | Republican | NAY | |
| Pence | Republican | NAY | |
| Perry | Republican | NAY | |
| Posey | Republican | NAY | |
| Reed | Republican | NAY | |
| Reschenthaler | Republican | NAY | |
| Rice (SC) | Republican | NAY | |
| Rodgers (WA) | Republican | NAY | |
| Roe, David P. | Republican | NAY | |
| Rogers (AL) | Republican | NAY | |
| Rogers (KY) | Republican | NAY | |
| Rooney (FL) | Republican | NAY | |
| Rose, John W. | Republican | NAY | |
| Rouzer | Republican | NAY | |
| Roy | Republican | NAY | |
| Rutherford | Republican | NAY | |
| Scalise | Republican | NAY | |
| Schweikert | Republican | NAY | |
| Scott, Austin | Republican | NAY | |
| Sensenbrenner | Republican | NAY | |
| Shimkus | Republican | NAY | |
| Simpson | Republican | NAY | |
| Smith (MO) | Republican | NAY | |
| Smith (NE) | Republican | NAY | |
| Smucker | Republican | NAY | |
| Stauber | Republican | NAY | |
| Stefanik | Republican | NAY | |
| Steil | Republican | NAY | |
| Steube | Republican | NAY | |
| Stewart | Republican | NAY | |
| Taylor | Republican | NAY | |
| Thompson (PA) | Republican | NAY | |
| Thornberry | Republican | NAY | |
| Tipton | Republican | NAY | |
| Turner | Republican | NAY | |
| Van Drew | Republican | NAY | |
| Walberg | Republican | NAY | |
| Walorski | Republican | NAY | |
| Waltz | Republican | NAY | |
| Watkins | Republican | NAY | |
| Weber (TX) | Republican | NAY | |
| Wenstrup | Republican | NAY | |
| Westerman | Republican | NAY | |
| Williams | Republican | NAY | |
| Wilson (SC) | Republican | NAY | |
| Wittman | Republican | NAY | |
| Womack | Republican | NAY | |
| Yoho | Republican | NAY | |
| Young | Republican | NAY | |
| Zeldin | Republican | NAY |
Florida Senator Rick Scott — or, as I like to call him, “Senator Skeletor” — has proposed a new bill whose desired effect appears to be to reduce the number of eligible votes.
On Thursday, he proposed the ironically-named Help America Vote Act of 2020 (aren’t they always named ironically now?), which:
This bill drastically cuts the window of time for counting votes down to just over a day. Any votes not counted during this period are simply not counted.
This is a drastic reduction from the the way it is now, where the period to count votes can be weeks, because of advance absentee and mail-in voting. For example,
This runs against a lot of election statutes across the U.S., where federal elections are handled at the local level and subject to local laws.
It’s probably too late to pass this law, as advance and absentee voting has already started, but there’s no reason why Senator Skeletor and company can’t try to get it enacted for the next election.
As to why the Republicans seem to like minimizing the number of votes counted, I present you with some reading material:
Florida’s governor, Ron “DipShantis” DeSantis, in a bid to help win the state for his lord and master Donald Trump in the upcoming election, has been pushing some really bad ideas this week.
First, he proposed the Combatting Violence, Disorder and Looting and Law Enforcement Protection Act, whose primary purpose seems to be discouraging and criminalizing dissent.
Among other things:
While he’s not so keen on first amendment rights, the governor is a big fan of university students’ right to party. He wants a “bill of rights” to protect college kids who might get expelled for breaking the no-parties rule that universities in the state are trying to enforce.
“I personally think it’s incredibly draconian that a student would get potentially expelled for going to a party,” he said on Thursday. “That’s what college kids do.”
But proposing that we deny bail to protesters and charge protest organizers as if they were mobsters? That’s what corrupt governors do.
And finally, there’s the surprise announcement yesterday that he signed an executive order lifting major restrictions on restaurants. Local governments can still restrict restaurant capacity, but they can only restrict capacity to no lower than 50%, and if they’re trying to restrict capacity at all, they need to clear it with the state.
President Donald Trump found a new applause line at his Florida rally this week: “Normal life. O! I love normal life. We want to get back to normal life.” The next day, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis moved to deliver on that promise — or the appearance of it.
The Republican governor of the president’s must-win battleground responded 24 hours later by canceling all state coronavirus restrictions Friday without warning, catching local governments and epidemiologists off-guard amid their own strategies to keep the coronavirus contained.
As of yesterday, we had over 18,000 cases in the past 7 days.
I used to think that the mayor of the beach town of Amity from Jaws was a bit over-the top. “No real-world politician would be that deadly a combination of foolish, power-hungry, and popular,” I thought, but I was wrong. We’ve got them in spades right now, and the governor is among the worst of them.
As Florida author, podcaster, and former Republican strategist Rick Wilson tweeted five months ago:
1/ Look at any ambitious GOP governor — and all the one’s jockeying either for re-election, Senate, or a 2024 WH run (a la DeSantis, which is the worst-kept secret in Tallahassee) and they’re all VASTLY more concerned with Trump than with the health of their states.
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) April 23, 2020
At this point, you’re probably wondering “What can I do?” And the answer, thankfully, is “plenty”.
Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation.
Reading Shakespeare is torture. He wrote in verse, in 16th-century English, for a 16th-century audience whose only other entertainment options were bear-baiting and public executions.
That’s why there’s an entire industry devoted to deciphering his Elizabethan gibberish. Having gone to high school in Toronto, my fellow students — which included Keanu Reeves, who was a couple of years ahead of me — relied on Coles Notes, the Canadian equivalent of CliffsNotes.
Today’s high school students have it a little easier. Each of his plays has at least a dozen performances on YouTube (an example: Titus Andronicus, performed by the Seoul Shakespeare Company — and yes, that’s Seoul as in South Korea) and dozens of explainer pages.
One of the newer Shakespeare resources to appear is ForcedEntertainment, a group of six artists based in Sheffield. They’ve decided to tell the stories in all of Shakepeare’s plays, aided only by household items on their tabletops.
So far, they’ve done:
The next plays in their series will be:
I’ll be teaching programming for the rest of the year, and may have to steal a few tricks from these people.