Something for Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana to watch.

Oregon is now at 900,000 acres burned…

Welcome to the tropics, with 9 convenient locations.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown is invoking the Conflagration Act for the entire state, for the first time ever. This is a 1941 law that will allow the state fire marshal to muster resources for firefighting

515,000 acres burned in Oregon and Washington yesterday.

Tropics are still active.

“Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes - men who despise you - enslave you - who regiment your lives - tell you what to do - what to think and what to feel! Who drill you - diet you - treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate - the unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!”

First day of remote school here. Many kids and teachers out due to rampant power outages.

2020!

It’s going to be that kind of week… or two…

Food for thought about our current times…

“If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy.”

David Frum, former speechwriter for George W. Bush

New storm in the Atlantic……

Omar is gone. Part of Hurricane Nana is now alive in the Pacific as Tropical Storm Julio. In addition, three areas to watch.

24-hour loop of Super Typhoon Haishen.

Haishen is predicted to peak at 160 MPH winds (currently 150) and is an immanent threat to the Japanese island of Kyushu and South Korea.

A summary of Trump’s position on military matters, by user victorvictor1 on Reddit.

ALL SOURCES FOUND HERE: Part 1: https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/im2uc1/trump_americans_who_died_in_war_are_losers_and/g3wws5g/ Part 2: https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/im2uc1/trump_americans_who_died_in_war_are_losers_and/g3wwuru/

says Americans who died in war are “losers” and “suckers.”

“Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers” he said about a U.S. military cemetery

called John McCain “a fucking loser” when asked to lower flags to half staff

called President George H.W. Bush a loser for being shot down during WWII

“That guy is smart. Why did he join the military?” Trump said of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

asked his staff to not include wounded veterans because amputees make him uncomfortable

“I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” Trump said to Gen. John Kelly about dead veterans, while visiting Kelly’s son’s grave at Arlington

Trump knew since Mar 2020 that Russia paid bounties to kill American troops. On July 29, Trump defended Russia arming the Taliban against the US saying the US once did the same thing

In May ‘20, the White House ended National Guard deployments one day before they could claim benefits

The Trump admin seized 5mil masks intended for VA hospitals. Kushner distributes these masks to private entities for a fee, who then sells the masks to the government

Trump fired the captain of the USS Theodore Roosevelt after he warned superiors that COVID19 was spreading among his crew

After Iran’s retaliatory strike, 109 US troops suffered brain injuries. Trump dismissed these as “headaches”

On July 20, 2017, in room 2E924 of the Pentagon, Trump told a room full of Generals, “You’re a bunch of dopes and babies”

Said 26,000 military sexual assaults were to be ’expected’ bc America lets women serve

Invited the Taliban to Camp David on the anniversary of 9/11

Claimed that his military budget made up for his lack of military experience

Claimed if a Humvee was hit by an IED, soldiers “go for a little ride upward & they come down.”

Pardoned multiple war criminals, which betrayed the men of the 1st Platoon who helped convict him for violating long standing military values, discipline, and command (May&Nov, 2019)

Trump mocked Lt. Col. Vindman for his rank and uniform. He threatened said purple heart officer resulting in the Army providing him protection. The Admin sent opposition research to the Pentagon to derail his promotion

Trump’s Chief of Staff worked—in secret—to deny comprehensive health coverage to Vietnam Vets who suffered from Agent Orange.

There is a facility in Tijuana for US veterans that Trump deported.

Russia took control of the main U.S. military facility in Syria abandoned on Trump’s orders. Russia now owns the airstrip we built

On 10/7/19, Trump abruptly withdrew from Syria after a phone call with Turkey’s president (Erdogan). Turkey subsequently bombed US Special Forces.

sent thousands of American troops to defend the oil assets of the country that perpetrated 9/11

In Sept 2019, he made an Air Force cargo crew stop in Scotland (where there’s no U.S. base) to refuel at a commercial airport (where it costs more), so they could stay overnight at a Trump property (which isn’t close to the airport). Trump’s golf courses are losing money so he’s forcing the military to pay for 5-star nights there.

In Sept, 2019, Pentagon pulled funds for military schools, military housing funds, and daycare to pay for Trump’s border wall.

In Aug, 2019, emails revealed that 3 of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago pals, running the VA, are rampant with meddling. None of them served in the military, have experience in the VA, nor underwent any approval process. Yet they directed operations without any oversight.

Vet graves will be “dug up” for the border wall, after Trump instructed aides to seize private property. Trump told officials he would pardon them if they illegally seizing property

Children of deployed US troops no longer guaranteed citizenship (August 28, 2019)

On 8/2/19 Trump requisitioned military retirement funds for the border wall

On 7/31/19 Trump ordered the Navy rescind medals to prosecutors who were prosecuted war criminals

denied a U.S. Marine of 6 years entry into the United States for his citizenship interview (Reported 7/17/19)

made the U.S. Navy Blue Angels violate ethics rules by having them fly at his July 4th political campaign event (July 4, 2019)

demanded US military chiefs stand next to him at 4th of July parade (reported July 2, 2019)

In June 2019, Trump sent troops to the border to paint the fence for a better “aesthetic appearance”

used his D-Day interview at a cemetery commemorating fallen US soldiers to attack a Vietnam veteran (6/6/19)

started his D-Day commemoration speech by attacking a private citizen (Bette Midlere) (2019)

made his 2nd wife, Marla Maples, sign a prenup that would have cut off all child support if Tiffany joined the military (reported June 4th, 2019)

On May 27, 2019, Trump turned away US military from his Memorial Day speech bc they were from the destroyer USS John S. McCain

ordered the USS John McCain out of sight during his visit to Japan (May 15, 2019). The ship’s name was subsequently covered. (May 27, 2019)

purged 200,000 vets’ healthcare applications (reported 5/13/19)

deported a spouse of fallen Army soldier killed in Afghanistan, leaving their daughter parentless (April 16, 2019)

On 3/20/19 Trump complained that a deceased war hero didn’t thank him for his funeral

Between 12/22/2018, and 1/25/2019 Trump refused to sign his party’s funding bill, which shut down the government, which made USCG service members rely on food pantries. However, his appointees got a $10k pay raise

banned troops from serving based on gender identity (1/22/2019)

denied female troops access to birth control to limit sexual activity (on-going. Published 1/18/19)

tried to deport a marine vet who is a U.S.-born citizen (Jan 16, 2019)

When a man was caught swindling veterans pensions for high-interest “cash advances," Trump’s CFPB let him go for $1 (1/26/19)

called a retired general a ‘dog’ with a ‘big, dumb mouth’ (1/1/19)

increased privatization of the VA, leading to longer waits and higher taxpayer cost (2018)

finally visited troops 2 years after taking office, but only after 154 vacation days at his properties (10/26/18)

revealed a covert Seal Team 5 deployment, including names and faces, on Twitter during his visit to Iraq (Dec 26, 2018)

lied to deployed troops that he gave them a 10% raise (12/26/2018). Tried giving a raise that was lower than the standard living adjustment. Congress told him that wasn’t going to work. After giving them the raise that Congress made him, he lied about it pretending that it was larger than Obama’s. It wasn’t

fired service members living with HIV just before the 2018 holidays

tried to slash disability and unemployment benefits for Veterans to $0 and eliminate the unemployability extrascheduler rating (Dec 17, 2018)

called troops on Thanksgiving and told them he’s most thankful for himself (Thanksgiving, 2018)

urged Florida to not count deployed military votes (Nov 12, 2018)

canceled an Arlington Cemetery visit on Veterans Day due to light rain (Nov 12, 2018)

While in Europe commemorating the end of WWI, he didn’t attend the ceremony at a US cemetery due to the rain. Other world leaders went anyway (Nov 10, 2018)

sent troops on a phantom mission to the border and made them miss Thanksgiving with their families (Oct-Dec, 2018). He stopped using troops as a political prop after the election, but the troops remained in muddy camps on the border (Nov 7, 2018)

changed the GI Bill through his Forever GI Act causing the VA to miss benefits, including housing allowances. This caused many vets to run out of food and rent. (reported 10/7/18)

doubled the rejection rate for veterans requesting family deportation protections (July 5, 2018)

deported active-duty spouses (11,800 military families face this problem as of April 2018)

forgot a fallen soldier’s name (below) during a call to his pregnant widow, then attacked her the next day (Oct 23-24, 2017)

“They knew what they signed up for.” re: dead troops (10/18/17)

sent commandos into an ambush w/ lack of intel, and sent contractors to pick them up, resulting in a commando being left behind, tortured, and executed. He approved the mission bc Bannon told him Obama didn’t have the guts to do it. 10/4/17

Doesn’t stand during retreat bugle, continues to talk. “What a nice sound that is. Are they playing that for you [Sean Hannity] or me?” 10/11/17

blocked a veteran group on Twitter (June 2017)

ordered the discharge of active-duty immigrant troops with good records (2017-present)

deported veterans (2017-present)

said he knows more about ISIS than American generals (Oct 2016)

On 10/4/16 Trump said vets get PTSD because they aren’t strong

Trump accepted a Purple Heart from a fan at one of his rallies and said: “I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier.” (Aug 2, 2016)

Trump attacks Gold Star families: Myeshia Johnson (gold star widow), Khan family (gold star parents) etc. (2016-present)

In Jan 2016, Trump sent funds raised from a veterans benefit to the Donald J Trump Foundation (the foundation was subsequently ordered shut down)

said he has “more training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military” because he went to a military-style academy (2015 biography)

said he doesn’t consider POWs heroes because they were caught. He said he prefers people who weren’t caught (July 18, 2015)

Trump said having unprotected sex was his own personal Vietnam (1998)

For a decade, Trump sought to kick veterans off of Fifth Avenue because he found them unsightly nuisances. 1991

Trump dodged the draft 5 times by having a doctor diagnose him with bone spurs.

No Trump in America has ever served in the military; this spans 5 generations and every branch of the family tree. In fact, the reason his grandfather immigrated to America was to avoid military service

Two storms on their way out and four areas to watch. Super active time in the tropics.

If you’re not familiar with the cyclone naming scheme, when you run out of names for the season you begin using the Greek alphabet. This has only happened once (2005). After we use the remaining six (Paulette, Rene, Sally, Teddy, Vicky, and Wilfred), the next storms will be named Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta… that is how far 2005 got into the Greek alphabet.

Nana made landfall last night as a category 1 hurricane.

One storm breaking apart, another one making landfall.

Busy busy

Activity increase with four areas to watch.

😢

I filled up my car today. This was only the second time since mid-March. I’m getting about two months per tank.

Major Hurricane Laura keeps strengthening. It still has about 12 hours over water.

☹️

Eek. It’s going to be a bad week.

This feels close enough that they’d begin interacting with each other. I imagine these forecasts will continue to change from update to update.

All locations along the Gulf of Mexico need to keep an eye on Laura and Marco. It should be noted that there is great difficulties in modeling and forecasting tropical systems interacting with each other. This does not happen very often and human forecasters and computer models do not have a lot of historical events to go on.

I just watched Biden’s speech from last night. He wasn’t my first, or tenth, or even maybe 15th choice during the primary. This speech won me over. There never was any doubt that I would vote for Joe Biden, but after this convention and his speech last night,I’ll be proud to vote for him.

Of COURSE we’ll get two landfall hurricanes at once in 2020…….

So I’ve developed a plan to keep my sanity and remain to touch with you fine folk. I’ve pruned my list of friends pretty significantly. If you see this, I love you. I’ve also been slowly unfollowing a vast majority of pages I’ve subscribed to over the years, just keeping ones related to role playing games, weather, and sports.

Next, I’ve removed ALL social media from my phone and grabbed some extensions for Chrome and Firefox to weed out additional stuff that had been placing my already constant baseline of anxiety up about 50 notches.

After a time of reflection, I’ve come to realize that I had used social media to fill a hole in my life that was no longer there. However, I still obsessively scrolled through Facebook. No rhyme or reason, just habit. Now I have to be at my desk to browse and I have filters in place. My brain doctor would be proud.

Just in case you’re curious what kind of content Facebook thinks should be allowed on their website… I seen a local news report about someone police had arrested related to the protests here in Portland. In the comment section, people were posting his apartment address and telling people they should go pay him a visit.

I reported these and was told they do not violate the community standards.

Doxing is not against the community standards. Now you know.

My satellite videos on Tropical Storm Josephine and Kyle are now up on YouTube.

Josephine: https://youtu.be/RvvAoMkoOGo Kyle: https://youtu.be/Pu4DUyxHcgM

https://www.facebook.com/TheHurricaneShack

Tropical Storm Kyle has formed off the east coast. It is expected to rapidly move away from land.

Kyle breaks the record for earliest named 11th storm of the season, beating Hurricane Katrina of 2005 by 10 days.

As I plan to leave Facebook, I do intend to continue with my hobby of everything hurricane. So, here is a page I made that will be maintained long after my personal profile is gone.

Doug’s Hurricane Shack: https://www.facebook.com/TheHurricaneShack

I’m in the process of deleting my social media accounts, for the sake of my sanity.

I’ll figure out how to keep in touch soon.

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” -JFK, March 13, 1962.

Now that the democratic party’s ticket is finalized - albeit unofficially, you will be seeing a lot of tricks coming out to try to muddy the waters against Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Look, I’m not a big fan of either of them. However, this is what we have. Like something I shared a few minutes ago, this isn’t a team sport. My side winning isn’t the end of this. These are leaders elected by us and >>>TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE BY US<<<.

The right-wing of this country will begin pulling out their little tricks that will fool the least engaged people in this country. They will pull out their “both sides are the same” whataboutism, they’ll grind hard at that one. I can also guarantee with 100% certainty that you will see brigading, sea lioning, concern trolling, ad hominems, etc.

Since this is the right, you can also expect a healthy dose of appeal to fear, appeal to ridicule, circular reasoning, slippery slopes, and the ever-popular strawman argument. We’ve already seen a few of these. No, Biden doesn’t support the Defund Police movement. No, the pictures of riots are not what it would look like under Biden…. it is literally what it looks like under Trump.

These next few months are going to be harrowing. However, if you find Trump to be repugnant to every atom of your being, quit fucking around and support Biden/Harris.

No, they aren’t perfect. No, they’re not who I wanted. But you know what else is a no? No, you’re not going to change our system overnight and get your non-major party person elected. It isn’t happening. It can’t happen. Not in our system, not the way it is set up. You have to work with the system as we have it and change it from the inside.

Otherwise, you’re just helping everyone get another four years of (gestures at every fucking thing) this.

For the next few days I would expect that the news is going to be talking about Biden and his newly picked VP running mate Harris. Since this will push Trump out of the news cycle for a few days, I fully expect that he will do something or say something so ridiculously asinine that it puts him back into the spotlight because his childish ass can not handle people not talking about him.

More federal troops somewhere? Deciding to choose a different VP then Pence? Hawking his fake cure for covid-19? Ramping up a new war with (insert country here)?

Remember when Dan Quale accidently spelled potato as “potatoe” and everyone was absolutely apoplectic that he would even consider running for president when he couldn’t spell correctly?

Remember how Gary Johnson got railed for not knowing what Aleppo was?

But sure, we’ll excuse all of Trump’s shit because…. ?? I don’t know, because “he’s trying really hard guyzzz” or some nonsense.

Sex Ed in the United States is just human anatomy 095 and infectious diseases 095.

No real education on sex at all.

095 because they’re not even good enough to be basic entry college courses, they’re remedial.

Soooooo…. someone is going to go ahead and explain to me how Trump can extend a law set to expire by executive order. Does not compute. As far as I know, there is no legal basis for this.

Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later that debt is paid.

That was unexpected. Hurricane hunters have found that Isaias is a hurricane with 80 MPH sustained winds. 😲

000 WTNT64 KNHC 310340 TCUAT4

Hurricane Isaias Tropical Cyclone Update NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL AL092020 1140 PM EDT Thu Jul 30 2020

…AIR FORCE HURRICANE HUNTER FINDS ISAIAS IS A HURRICANE…

Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft data indicate that the tropical storm has strengthened to a hurricane. The maximum winds are estimated to be 80 mph (130 km/h) with higher gusts.

The government of the Bahamas has issued a Hurricane Warning for the central and southeastern Bahamas.

A special advisory will be issued shortly.

SUMMARY OF 1140 PM EDT…0340 UTC…INFORMATION

LOCATION…20.3N 72.1W ABOUT 70 MI… 110 KM ESE OF GREAT INAGUA ISLAND MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS…80 MPH…130 KM/H PRESENT MOVEMENT…NW OR 305 DEGREES AT 18 MPH…30 KM/H MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE…995 MB…29.38 INCHES

$$ Forecaster Blake

True for any city Trump’s Gestapo has arrived in.

The mayor of Portland was tear gassed last night by Trump’s goons.

BREAKING: The collision of two airplanes over Missouri has killed an estimated 850 people.

Actually, there were no airplanes. That was yesterday’s U.S. Coronavirus death toll.

Without the airplanes does it become no big deal?

[This write-up was found on the internet in the wild]

Chickenpox is a virus. Lots of people have had it, and probably don’t think about it much once the initial illness has passed. But it stays in your body and lives there forever, and maybe when you’re older, you have debilitatingly painful outbreaks of shingles. You don’t just get over this virus in a few weeks, never to have another health effect. We know this because it’s been around for years, and has been studied medically for years.

Herpes is also a virus. And once someone has it, it stays in your body and lives there forever, and anytime they get a little run down or stressed-out they’re going to have an outbreak. Maybe every time you have a big event coming up (school pictures, job interview, big date) you’re going to get a cold sore. For the rest of your life. You don’t just get over it in a few weeks. We know this because it’s been around for years, and been studied medically for years.

HIV is a virus. It attacks the immune system and makes the carrier far more vulnerable to other illnesses. It has a list of symptoms and negative health impacts that goes on and on. It was decades before viable treatments were developed that allowed people to live with a reasonable quality of life. Once you have it, it lives in your body forever and there is no cure. Over time, that takes a toll on the body, putting people living with HIV at greater risk for health conditions such as cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, diabetes, bone disease, liver disease, cognitive disorders, and some types of cancer. We know this because it has been around for years, and had been studied medically for years.

Now with COVID-19, we have a novel virus that spreads rapidly and easily. The full spectrum of symptoms and health effects is only just beginning to be cataloged, much less understood.

So far the symptoms may include: Fever Fatigue Coughing Pneumonia Chills/Trembling Acute respiratory distress Lung damage (potentially permanent) Loss of taste (a neurological symptom) Sore throat Headaches Difficulty breathing Mental confusion Diarrhea Nausea or vomiting Loss of appetite Strokes have also been reported in some people who have COVID-19 (even in the relatively young) Swollen eyes Blood clots Seizures Liver damage Kidney damage Rash COVID toes (weird, right?)

People testing positive for COVID-19 have been documented to be sick even after 60 days. Many people are sick for weeks, get better, and then experience a rapid and sudden flare up and get sick all over again. A man in Seattle was hospitalized for 62 days, and while well enough to be released, still has a long road of recovery ahead of him. Not to mention a $1.1 million medical bill.

Then there is MIS-C. Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children is a condition where different body parts can become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, or gastrointestinal organs. Children with MIS-C may have a fever and various symptoms, including abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, neck pain, rash, bloodshot eyes, or feeling extra tired. While rare, it has caused deaths. This disease has not been around for years. It has basically been 6 months. No one knows yet the long-term health effects, or how it may present itself years down the road for people who have been exposed. We literally do not know what we do not know.

For those in our society who suggest that people being cautious are cowards, for people who refuse to take even the simplest of precautions to protect themselves and those around them, I want to ask, without hyperbole and in all sincerity:

How dare you?

How dare you risk the lives of others so cavalierly. How dare you decide for others that they should welcome exposure as “getting it over with”, when literally no one knows who will be the lucky “mild symptoms” case, and who may fall ill and die. Because while we know that some people are more susceptible to suffering a more serious case, we also know that 20 and 30-year-olds have died, marathon runners and fitness nuts have died, children and infants have died.

How dare you behave as though you know more than medical experts, when those same experts acknowledge that there is so much we don’t yet know, but with what we DO know, are smart enough to be scared of how easily this is spread, and recommend baseline precautions such as: Frequent hand-washing Physical distancing Reduced social/public contact or interaction Mask wearing Covering your cough or sneeze Avoiding touching your face Sanitizing frequently touched surfaces

The more things we can all do to mitigate our risk of exposure, the better off we all are, in my opinion. Not only does it flatten the curve and allow health care providers to maintain levels of service that aren’t immediately and catastrophically overwhelmed; it also reduces unnecessary suffering and deaths, and buys time for the scientific community to study the virus in order to come to a more full understanding of the breadth of its impacts in both the short and long term.

I reject the notion that it’s “just a virus” and we’ll all get it eventually. What a careless, lazy, heartless stance.

I mean, common sense right? … Right?

Remember when the biggest scandal with COVID-19 was that we had people stranded on cruise ships.

……. Those were the days…

Yes, but they’re not MY children, so why should I care…….

😡

The briefcase of Meatballs sounds delicious.

Back into the inferno with you!

Stung by a bee right in the middle of the sole of my foot.

That certainly didn’t tickle…

From https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/hngv1n/trump_pushed_cia_to_give_intelligence_to_kremlin/fxbkfza

Trump was over a billion in debt and the Russians bailed him out.

► Trump was first compromised by the Russians in the 80s. In 1984, the Russian Mafia began to use Trump real estate to launder money. In 1987, the Soviet ambassador to the United Nations, Yuri Dubinin, arranged for Trump and his then-wife, Ivana, to enjoy an all-expense-paid trip to Moscow to consider possible business prospects. Only seven weeks after his trip, Trump ran full-page ads in the Boston Globe, the NYT and WaPO calling for, in effect, the dismantling of the postwar Western foreign policy alliance. The whole Trump/Russian connection started out as laundering money for the Russian mob through Trump’s real estate, but evolved into something far bigger.

► In 1984, David Bogatin — a convicted Russian mobster and close ally of Semion Mogilevich, a major Russian mob boss — met with Trump in Trump Tower right after it opened. Bogatin bought five condos from Trump at that meeting. Those condos were later seized by the government, which claimed they were used to launder money for the Russian mob. (NY Times, Apr 30, 1992)

► Felix Sater is a Russian-born former mobster, and former managing director of NY real estate conglomerate Bayrock Group LLC located on the 24th floor of Trump Tower. He is a convict who became a govt cooperator for the FBI and other agencies. He grew up with Michael Cohen–Trump’s former “fixer” attorney. Cohen’s family owned El Caribe, which was a mob hangout for the Russian Mafia in Brooklyn. Cohen had ties to Ukrainian oligarchs through his in-laws and his brother’s in-laws. Felix Sater’s father had ties to the Russian mob. This goes back more than 30 years.

► Trump was $4 billion in debt after his Atlantic City casinos went bankrupt. No U.S. bank would touch him. Then foreign money began flowing in through Bayrock (mentioned above). Bayrock was run by two investors: Tevfik Arif, a Kazakhstan-born former Soviet official who drew on bottomless sources of money from the former Soviet republic; and Felix Sater, a Russian-born businessman who had pleaded guilty in the 1990s to a huge stock-fraud scheme involving the Russian mafia. Bayrock partnered with Trump in 2005 and poured money into the Trump organization under the legal guise of licensing his name and property management.

► In July 2008, the height of the housing bust, Trump sold a mansion in Palm Beach for $95 million to Dmitry Rybolovlev, a Russian oligarch. Trump had purchased it four years earlier for $41.35 million. The sale price was nearly $54 million more than Trump had paid for the property. Again, this was the height of the recession when all other property had plummeted in value.

► Semion Mogilevich was the brains behind the Russian Mafia. Mogilevich operatives have been using Trump real estate for decades to launder money. That means Russian Mafia operatives have been part of his fortune for years. Many of them owned condos in Trump Towers and other properties. They were running operations out of Trump’s crown jewel.

► From Craig Unger’s AMA: “Early on, a source told me that all this was tied to Semion Mogilevich, the powerful Russian mobster. I had never even heard of him, but I immediately went to a database that listed the owners of all properties in NY state and looked up all the Trump properties. Every time I found a Russian sounding name, I would Google, and add Mogilevich. When you do investigative reporting, you anticipate drilling a number of dry holes, but almost everyone I googled turned out to be a Russian mobster. Again and again. If you know New York you don’t expect Trump Tower to be a high crime neighborhood, but there were far too many Russian mobsters in Trump properties for it to be a coincidence.”

► So many Russians bought Trump apartments at his developments in Florida that the area became known as Little Moscow. The developers of two of his hotels were Russians with significant links to the Russian mob. The late leader of that mob in the United States, Vyacheslav Kirillovich Ivankov, was living at Trump Tower.

► According to a Bloomberg investigation (3/16/2017) into Trump World Tower, “a third of units sold on floors 76 through 83 by 2004 involved people or limited liability companies connected to Russia and neighboring states.”

► In 2013, Federal agents busted an “ultraexclusive, high-stakes, illegal poker ring” run by Russian gangsters out of Trump Tower. They operated card games, illegal gambling websites, and a global sports book and laundered more than $100 million. A condo directly below one owned by Trump reportedly served as HQ for a “sophisticated money-laundering scheme” connected to Semion Mogilevich.

► The Russia Mafia is part and parcel of Russian intelligence. Russia is a mafia state. that is not a metaphor. Putin is head of the Mafia. So the fact that they have been operating out of the home of the president of the United States is deeply disturbing.

► Rudy Giuliani famously prosecuted the Italian mob while he was a federal prosecutor, yet the Russian mob was allowed to thrive. Now he’s deeply entwined in the business of Trump and Russian oligarchs. Giuiani appointed Semyon Kislin to the NYC Economic Development Council in 1990, and the FBI described Kislin as having ties tot he Russian mob. Of course, it made good political sense for Giuliani to get headlines for smashing the Italian mob.

► A lot of Republicans in Washington are implicated. Boatloads of Russian money went to the GOP–often in legal ways. The NRA got as much as $70M from Russia, then funneled it to the GOP. The Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee lead by McConnel got millions from Leonard Blavatnik. In the 90s, the Russians began sending money to top GOP leaders, like Speaker of the House Tom Delay. Unger’s book alleges that most of the GOP leadership has been compromised by RU money.

► At the Cityscape USA’s Bridging US and the Emerging Real Estate Markets Conference held in Manhattan, on September 9, 10, and 11, 2008, Trump Jr. was frank about the tide of Russian money supporting the family business, saying “…And in terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.”

► Eric Trump told golf reporter James Dodson in 2014 that the Trump Organization was able to expand during the financial crisis because “We don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.”

► Russian oligarchs co-signed Trump’s Deutsche Bank loans

Trump now gleefully takes cues from Putin:

► At the end of 2018, Putin and his allies started making a strong push for a resolution that would justify their country’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan and reverse an 1989 vote backed by Mikhail Gorbachev that condemned it. The Putinists’ goal was to pass the resolution by Feb. There is no one on this side of the Atlantic who thinks the USSR was justified in invading Afghanistan. And out of nowhere, on January 2nd, Trump came out strongly supporting Russia’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan.

► Trump went against American intelligence on North Korean missiles. He told the FBI he didn’t believe their intelligence because Putin told him otherwise. “I don’t care, I believe Putin”

► Trump met in secret with Putin the G20 summit in November 2018, without note takers. 19 days later, he announced a withdrawal from Syria. As a note, Trump conducted FIVE completely private meetings and conferences with Putin, and has gone to great lengths to prevent literally anyone, even people in his administration, from learning what was discussed.

► Trump refused to enforce sanctions legally codified into law - and in some cases reversed standing sanctions on Russian companies.

► He has denounced his own intelligence agencies in a press conference with Putin on election meddling - and publicly endorsed Putin’s version of events.

► Trump pulled out of the INF treaty with no explanation, which allows Putin to create long-range hypersonic missiles that threaten Europe with impunity. The US already has all the weaponry that the INF would ban the development of, so this offers us literally nothing, while allowing Russia to develop powerful new weapons to challenge our allies.

► Demanded Russia get invited back into G7

► Pushed the CIA to give American intelligence to the Kremlin

► Withdrew from the Open Skies treaty

► Received intelligence in 2019 that Russia was paying bounties for dead American soldiers, and hasn’t done anything about it by the time of this writing.

► Announced troop withdrawal from Germany (America’s missile defense from Russia and forward operating base against Russian aggression)

► And of course, Trump continues to threaten to pull out of NATO, a move so catastrophically stupid, so inconceivably cosmically myopic, I truly can’t express the profundity of the idiocy. Suffice to say, pulling out of NATO would be like the only guy in a prison yard with a shotgun just throwing it over the fence for absolutely no reason, suddenly giving the people with crude homemade shivs complete power.

“He strikes me as a distillation of everything that is wrong with the American character. This could be, in large measure, a caricature, but he has brought the caricature to life. If you take our materialism, and our ignorance about the rest of the world, and our satisfaction in our ignorance, our overconfidence, our pretention to greatness even when we’re being merely petty, our vanity, our sexism, boorishness, narcissism – I mean – these are the antithesis of the kind of project you’re articulating in your book. A kind of childishness that doesn’t have the virtues of childhood; it’s a kind of malignant childhood that is just all boastfulness and all “me, me, me, me” without any of the curiosity or sympathy that you meet in actual children. He is the living embodiment of a kind of American grotesque. And again, I’m a little self-conscious about this calumny against American or the “ugly American” but it’s almost like he’s a golem that has been conjured by the worst things that have ever been said about us as a country; it’s like if he can’t grope it or put gold letters on it doesn’t exist.”

“If you took professional wrestling, McDonalds french fries, the NRA, infomercials about bogus products that don’t work, mix them all together, stick them in the back of a tacky white limousine, and drive it around Central Park 500 times. Open the door and out would step Donald Trump.”

-Sam Harris

An interesting take, one that makes sense.

Aaaahhhhh, back when we could laugh about Trump, not experience dread.

Mississippi has officially changed their flag, removing the traitor’s emblem.

They were obviously moved by business interests and the fact that various college athletic groups were moving to ban post-season games in Mississippi until the flag changed, but a win is a win.

Turn on CBS right now and watch my Portland Thorns play. It only took a damn global pandemic to get women’s soccer on broadcast TV…

Texas is currently running on its 15th consecutive day of record breaking hospitalization numbers. Houston ICU beds are completely filled up.

The persecution complex is strong in them. 😆

If you have every - once in your life - utter the words I’m about to paraphrase, and you haven’t spoken out about this, you have proven yourself a hypocrite and a fraud. If you’ve spoken up about the use of your second amendment rights to protect yourself from government overreach and the need for a fully armed populace to protect the rights of humans from the tyranny of a powerful government and have seen the events unfolding without a peep, you are a damned liar.

Bill Barr, not an actual General, commanded un-named and un-identifiable regiment of militarized “police forces” from an FBI bunker and used chemical weapons on a citizenry exercising their first amendment right of protest. If that isn’t grabbing the fascist saddle and strapping it on a tyrannical horse and going to town, I don’t know what is.

Truly scary…

I was looking around the internet for a method to disable my Linux box’s power button… since my cat keeps stepping on it and shutting it down.

I found several places explaining the process… and a few of those people mentioned the same thing: their cat keeps turning off their home server. I’m just happy to see that I’m not the only one.

Three years ago, we spent our first night in Oregon.

You can’t have a second wave of COVID-19 if the first wave never finished!

A lot less cholera maybe, but I sure didn’t see that SARS pandemic coming.

Food for thought as we go into the hurricane season. Forecasters are predicting a more active season than average. In addition, the formation of Cristobal is the earliest formation of the third storm since semiaccurate records began in 1851.

I hope we don’t see something similar to 2005…

So where are all these second amendment assholes I see constantly?

Oh yeah, they just like to go cosplay when nothing real is on the line.

Today is the official start of the 2020 Atlantic Hurricane season.

ZCZC MIATWOAT ALL TTAA00 KNHC DDHHMM

Tropical Weather Outlook NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL 200 AM EDT Mon Jun 1 2020

For the North Atlantic…Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico:

1. The remnants of Eastern Pacific Tropical Storm Amanda are currently located inland near the Guatemala-Yucatan Border. This large disturbance is forecast to move slowly northward this morning, followed by a northwestward motion later today, and the center of the low pressure system could emerge over the southeastern Bay of Campeche by this evening. If the remnants move back over water, environmental conditions appear conducive to support some development, and a new tropical depression could form while the system moves little through the middle of this week. Regardless of tropical cyclone formation, heavy rainfall is likely to continue over portions of southern Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Belize, and western Honduras during the next few days. For additional information on the rainfall threat, see products from your national meteorological service.

• Formation chance through 48 hours…medium…60 percent.
• Formation chance through 5 days…high…70 percent.

Today marks the first day of the Atlantic hurricane season, which will run until November 30. Long-term averages for the number of named storms, hurricanes, and major hurricanes are 12, 6, and 3, respectively.

The list of names for 2020 is as follows:

Name Pronunciation

Arthur AR-thur Bertha BUR-thuh Cristobal krees-TOH-bahl Dolly DAH-lee Edouard ed-DWARD Fay fay Gonzalo gohn-SAH-loh Hanna HAN-uh Isaias ees-ah-EE-ahs Josephine JOH-seh-feen Kyle KY- Laura LOOR-ruh Marco MAR-koe Nana NA-na Omar OH-mar Paulette pawl-LET Rene re-NAY Sally SAL-ee Teddy TEHD-ee Vicky VIH-kee Wilfred WILL-fred

Two tropical storms, Arthur and Bertha, already formed this year in May. The next named storm that develops this season will be Cristobal.

This product, the Tropical Weather Outlook, briefly describes significant areas of disturbed weather and their potential for tropical cyclone formation during the next five days. The issuance times of this product are 2 AM, 8 AM, 2 AM, and 8 PM EDT. After the change to standard time in November, the issuance times are 1 AM, 7 AM, 1 PM, and 7 PM EST.

A Special Tropical Weather Outlook will be issued to provide updates, as necessary, in between the regularly scheduled issuances of the Tropical Weather Outlook. Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued under the same WMO and AWIPS headers as the regular Tropical Weather Outlooks.

A standard package of products, consisting of the tropical cyclone public advisory, the forecast/advisory, the cyclone discussion, and a wind speed probability product, is issued every six hours for all ongoing tropical cyclones. In addition, a special advisory package may be issued at any time to advise of significant unexpected changes or to modify watches or warnings.

The Tropical Cyclone Update is a brief statement to inform of significant changes in a tropical cyclone or to post or cancel watches or warnings. It is used in lieu of or to precede the issuance of a special advisory package. Tropical Cyclone Updates, which can be issued at any time, can be found under WMO header WTNT61-65 KNHC, and under AWIPS header MIATCUAT1-5.

All National Hurricane Center text and graphical products are available on the web at https://www.hurricanes.gov/ You can also interact with NHC on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/NWSNHC. Notifications are available via Twitter when select National Hurricane Center products are issued. Information about our Atlantic Twitter feed (@NHC_Atlantic) is available at https://www.hurricanes.gov/twitter.shtml.

Forecaster Stewart

When did it become cool to be a boot licker?

Go ahead and tell me how much you advocate hitting children. See how quickly I disown your ass.

Bill! Bill! Bill!

😱

Give me a subject to write an essay on.

Something you’ve always been curious about, or something ridiculous. I want to write but feeling uninspired.

😮

In order to sleep… you must first lay down and pretend to sleep for a while.

I kid you not: if you are expecting to get a paper check in the mail for the COVID-19 stimulus, it’s going to be later than expected…

… because Trump wanted his name to be on the physical checks.

Seriously.

As I’m leaving to go to the grocery store, Ryker and Aurora both say to me, “make sure you don’t get the virus.” (This isn’t the first time)

If that doesn’t sum up 2020, I don’t know what does.

Okay Animal Crossing friends, not only am I looking for a superb turnip prices, I’m also looking for pear, apple, and/or peach trees to add variety to our family island.

Let me know.

Animal Crossing players: is the going rate of your Stalk Market good?

I bought in at 108 bells, but the prices on my island dropped to 100.

I have a lot of turnips to move.

Waiting in line at a grocery store…. So I’m going to list 4 cars that I’ve owned and ONE that is a lie. Which is the lie?

1 Chevrolet Corsica 2 Dodge Charger 3 Ford Mustang 4 Mercedes E-class 5 Ford Contour

British Prime Minister is now in ICU due to COVID-19.

Seeing churches, especially these ridiculous mega churches, still holding their services is absolutely mind-boggling.

About 60% of the cases in South Korea come from a single person that attended two church services.

😂

The people that think COVID-19 isn’t a serious issue are the same people that would get bit by a zombie and then not tell anyone.

It’s true. My mid-Atlantic accent disappeared pretty quickly.

We’ve now hit 1,000,000 known cases of COVID-19. Nearly 25% of those are here in the US.

Meow.

The United States has sailed past 100,000 cases of SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19. The WHO hasn’t made it official yet, but this makes us the epicenter of the pandemic

I retract my previous comment about using the guillotine. Social distancing will require a more modern solution

Folding@home has broken the 1 exaflops barrier (1,000,000,000,000,000,000 (1 quintillion) floating-point operations per second) with everyone donating processing power to help “simulating the dynamics of COVID-19 proteins to hunt for new therapeutic opportunities”.

The first quarantine was instituted in what is now Dubrovnik, Croatia, in 1377, against the bubonic plague. This temporary buffer was originally 30 days. When that proved too short, it was extended to 40 days, Italian: quaranta giorni, from which we derive the word “quarantine.”

Reminder: a virus doesn’t spread on its own. Stay away from people.

I now understand you, Howie Mandel. I understand you.

All of California is now shelter in place beginning immediately.

I imagine Oregon is coming soon.

Two sports related things happening now that I love:

Our local professional soccer team, Timbers and Thorns, will be broadcasting/streaming themselves playing the video game FIFA 20 while this halt in play continues.

Major League Rugby has cancelled outright the rest of the 2020 season and have begun the MLR 2020: Virtual. One player from each MLR team with play in a Twitch broadcasted tournament using the video game Rugby 20.

For all of you with music instruments at home that haven’t been touched in a while…

I want to see a surge in the number of new bands after all of this. I don’t care what kind of music you make or how well you sound, let’s make some music (or noise).

CoronaJam 2020

Our schools are now closed through April 28th.

Based on polling, it’s looking like those who consider themselves Republican / right wing by almost a two-to-one margin do not feel this virus is a threat, and they believe this is nothing more than the common flu.

Funny, the party known to be anti-science is the one not taking this seriously. I’d say to the grave with all of you, but you are going to take everyone else down with you.

Our education system has failed us. People lack basic scientific understanding.

No, this virus isn’t a hoax. No, it wasn’t created by the [insert name of nation here] government. No, it isn’t media hype. This thing is spreading and it’s already doing terrible things overseas. We here in Oregon just lost our first victim to SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19, a 70 year old veteran that had been diagnosed four days ago and had died at the Portland Veterans’ Affairs Medical Center.

He had no travel history or contact with any one that did. This was community spread. He got it from someone that was undiagnosed, and that person likely got it from someone undiagnosed as well.

About 17% of the US population is 70 years old or over. That is roughly 55 million people. The rampant inaction is putting these people, and the rest of us, at risk.

I’m just ranting. I don’t expect my words are going to change anything. People will cling to anything in order to hope that there is someone controlling things whether it be a government conspiracy, god, media distraction, whatever.

The biggest reason I worry about SARS-CoV-2 is:

We already have community spread

Tests, when uninsured, run over $1000 in every instance I’ve seen

If you’re uninsured and working, you’re probably working the kind of job you don’t get days off for

Many of these jobs are service industry

Thus, more unchecked community spread

Don’t be comfortable with the numbers reported. We know these are criminally under reported numbers, and unless you’re young and healthy, this is NOT “just the flu”.