Lindybeige on Autumn.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

Columbus lands in Americas; USS Cole bombed in Yemen; Soviet leader Khrushchev bangs shoe at UN; Blast rips Bali nightclub; Opera’s Luciano Pavarotti born; Singer John Denver dies in plane crash.

Hell hath no fury like a liberal scorned.

Dick Gregory

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Keith Olbermann is back with a three part Worst Person in the World.

While Trump is claiming getting Covid was a “gift from God,” the reality is, he’s an inhuman creature and a terrorist whose fear of wearing a mask will kill thousands unnecessarily. His reign of terror must end.

How today’s news of a Right Wing terrorist plot against Michigan, its governor, and its government, fits into Donald Trump’s desperate attempts to retain the presidency no matter what the election determines. And the unavoidable reality that if he is foiled or concedes, he’ll still immediately announce… he’s running in 2024.

Trump’s Thug Bill Barr has just informed him that “The Durham Report” which Trump believes will allow him to arrest Obama, Biden, Hillary, Emperor Palpatine, Emmanuel Goldstein, Tracy Flick and everybody else he doesn’t like, won’t be issued until AFTER the election. An in-depth look at Barr, yet another Trump toady who will now be thrown into the bottomless pit for displeasing Clorox Don.

Eh, overbroad and a little on the physical/fart jokes side for my taste.

New Normal

Sam Adams

Sports Debate

Don Pauly

Enough Is Enough

I hear you, you want news.

The one thing I really, really missed this year.

2019 Pioneer Hi-Bred World Mens Curling – USA vs. Canada

2019 LGT World Womens Curling Championship – Switzerland vs. Sweden

I love vegetables.

Mom’s Basement is not all it’s cracked up to be.

Accused leader of plot to kidnap Michigan governor was struggling financially, living in basement storage space
By Kim Bellware, Alex Horton, Devlin Barrett, and Matt Zapotosky, Washington Post
October 9, 2020

The purported leader of an extremist plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor was struggling financially and living in a storage space underneath a friend’s vacuum shop after his girlfriend kicked him out of her home, according to people who know him.
…
Fox had recently suffered personal setbacks in his life, and federal investigators often worry that in cases of domestic extremists and terrorists, such reversals can act as triggering events, propelling them to turn their violent ideas into action. In Fox’s case, there were two such issues – his apparently rocky relationship with his girlfriend and near homelessness.

In the 24 hours since Fox’s arrest, the store where he’d been living has been flooded with hate calls accusing the owner of enabling Fox, who was about to be homeless with two large dogs, before the business’ owner Brian Titus allowed Fox to stay temporarily, according to an employee of the store, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of privacy and safety concerns.

“People have said, ‘How did you not know you were housing a white supremacist?’ ” said the employee, who said Fox could be erratic and arrogant, but there was no indication his views crossed into the kind of violent plans described in court papers by federal investigators.

“He was afraid the government was going to take his guns,” the employee said. Those at the store were aware of Fox’s Second Amendment views and involvement with a group of armed men, which did not strike them as unusual for the area.

Support for local self-styled militia groups and the Second Amendment right to bear arms have a long history in the state, especially in western Michigan where strains of social and political conservatism intermingle with gun owner culture.

Titus, the owner of the Vac Shack, has stressed in interviews to local media he would have alerted officials if he had gotten wind of any plans to commit violence. He also said he didn’t know about a June 20 meeting in the basement of his store, described by the FBI in court papers, in which Fox and others allegedly discussed plans for attacking the state capital.

The store employee allowed The Washington Post to enter the basement, which was accessed through a cellar-door-style entrance, though authorities have called it a trap door. Fox had a small area in the basement where he slept amid boxes, old filing cabinets and spare vacuum parts. He kept a mini refrigerator and several large dog crates nearby, but appeared to have few personal belongings beyond some clothing. It was unclear what, if anything, federal agents might have confiscated at the time of his arrest.

One of alleged plotters, 23-year-old Daniel Harris, attended a Black Lives Matter protest in June, telling the Oakland County Times he was upset about the killing of George Floyd and police violence.

Parker Douglas, a lawyer for Harris, said his client was a former Marine who lived at home with his parents and did construction work. Douglas said Harris told him some things described in the FBI affidavit were taken out of context while others he “thinks just didn’t happen.” Douglas said his client believes “not everybody mentioned in this knew everything that is described in this complaint.” He said his client, in a brief meeting, had suggested he had voted for candidates from both parties, had not expressed a view on President Trump and seemed to favor small government.

Did I mention I come from Circus Folk?

Relax, it’s Verdi. Most people consider Falstaff a comedic character, personally I think he’s kind of tragic.

Not so long ago. It debuted in 1893. This performance from January 26, 2020.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

Vice President Spiro Agnew resigns; Imperial rule ends in China; Achille Lauro hijackers forced to land; Movie legend Orson Welles dies; Opera composer Giuseppe Verdi born; Actor Christopher Reeve dies.

Misogyny is at the reptilian brain stem of a lot of right-wing politics.

Bradley Whitford

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It’s a menace if you have a Pre-Existing Condition

The secret Republican health-care plan, revealed
by Paul Waldman, Washington Post
October 9, 2020

It’s true, as Democrats insist, that there is no Republican “plan,” if like some kind of nerd you define it as a series of specific steps written down somewhere that lay out a health care policy that will be followed by the government and the country.

But in another sense, Republicans actually do have a plan. It’s not the kind of “plan” that involves legislation or regulations. Here’s what it is: Nothing.

This plan may be more clever than you realize. First, it’s important to understand that even if Trump wins the election and Republicans hold the Senate, they have almost no chance of taking back the House. And even when they held the House in 2017-2018, they couldn’t get their repeal plan passed. So they won’t try that again.

Indeed, in July 2017 when Sen. John McCain killed Obamacare repeal, much of the Republican Party issued a sigh of relief. Republicans had to try repeal because they’d promised it to their base for so long, but they had given little thought to a serious replacement. They knew repeal would throw the entire U.S. health-care system into chaos. The political repercussions would have been catastrophic.

So the optimal strategy was to try to repeal the ACA, but fail. And if they don’t have complete control of Congress in the near future, it’s not even worth the trying part.

Those senators run all those ads because they know that the more the ACA is an issue, the worse it is for them; they’re not trying to win the argument, just muddy the waters enough to minimize the damage they suffer.

Which is why all smart Republicans also want to lose the lawsuit against the ACA that the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear just after the election, just as they lost that 2017 vote. Which they just might, since at least some of the conservative justices — such as Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh — are smart enough to know how dangerous it is for their party.

To be clear, if Trump is reelected, his administration will continue to use its regulatory and administrative power to undermine health security, especially by trying to push people off Medicaid. But as for a plan to remake the health-care system? They’re offering nothing. And that isn’t going to change.