[Admin Note: I will be at WorldCon in Anaheim this week so my repostings of Connieâs emails may be done later at night for the next week – Connieâs Webmaster, Lee Whiteside]
Dear Everybody:
The big news was the Supreme Court ruling in Trump’s favor (sort of) on the mail-in ballots issue:
–Justice Roberts issued a ruling which removed one of the stays against Trump’s executive order, but said the Court was not venturing any opinion about the order’s constitutionality. He left the other injunction intact.
–The Supreme Court struck down one injunction, but there is still one in place.
–The administration then issued the proposed rule, and the left leaped to challenge it in court.
–MuellerSheWrote; “The USPS is still blocked from following Trump’s directive under a nationwide ruling by Judge Talvani. In other words, this is a small win for the Trump administration, but NOT a ruling that fully clears the way for Trump to mess with mail-in votes come November.”
–Norm Eisen: “Please don’t overreact to Roberts court decision on contesting USPS ballot moves. They simply held that the injunction came too early in the process, before there was a final rule. Now we HAVE a final rule, and we will litigate.”
–Public Notice: “So the states have to wait to see if Trump wrecks the court order, ten weeks before the midterms…the majority’s opinion pretends to be a narrow one based on technical concept of standing–the executive order doesn’t do anything yet–and cannot be challenged till it does.”
–Just a reminder for the Court: It is totally unconstitutional for the executive branch to interfere with the conduct of elections.
The other big news today was the trade war with Canada:
–Canada slapped $20 billion dollars in retaliatory tariffs on the United States. They will begin September 8th.
–Trump said, well, oh, yeah? I’m changing Lake Ontario’s name. Trump: “The US is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don’t expect to be doing much business with Ontario any longer. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President Donald J. Trump.”
–Hortense Montague: “That is an impotent an act as he has ever performed.”
–Daily Kos; “Trade war with Canada reaches the ‘Trump wants to rename things’ Trump level of dumb.”
–Sam Stein: “He’s out of ideas.”
–The head of Ontario, Doug Ford, was not at all cowed by Trump’s threat. He said, “Well, he can kiss my ass, as far as I’m concerned.”
–Really American: “None of it is working. Canada will not fold, and Trump is out of leverage. So he is renaming a lake. This is not a man negotiating from strength. it is a man who got beaten by his own neighbor and is now picking a fight with a body of water to save face. The lake will be fine. His trade war is a smoldering crater.”
–The Dispatch’s Stephen Hayes: “it’s still astonishing–ten years into the Trump era–that our president so often behaves like a 10-year-old. And that so much of our national policy making is based on the juvenile emoting of an adult who functions like a pre-teen.”
–Aaron Rupar: “President Trump has spent the morning on Truth Social trashing Canada and praising totalitarian dictator Kim Jong Un. Congrats, America.”
–Roland Levy–Trump is “the greatest idiot I have witnessed in my lifetime.”
–Flavio Volpe: “(Trump’s) unrelenting disrespect to Canada’s sovereignty has acted as the number one source of generational Canadian resilience in the face of conflict.”
–Even Trump’s major backers aren’t happy about this deal. Major donor David Eberhart said, “Republicans are better with Trump holding rallies and holding off on a trade war with Canada.”
–Anthony Scaramucci: “Carney now leads the West.”
–Washington Post: “The shocking collapse of US-Canadian trade talks is the latest sign that President Donald Trump’s bulldozer approach to remaking the nation’s trade relations may be reaching its limits.”
–My FAVORITE comment, from right-winger Jack Miladia: “Had Canada been treating us fairly, this never would have happened. So buckle up, Canada, you’re taking on Goliath.” (It is so clear none of these guys have ever read the Bible, even though they constantly quote it. If they had read it, they would know that DAVID. a mere kid with nothing but a slingshot, defeated Goliath.)
Trump has now backed down on his 50% tariffs on all Canadian goods, and says he won’t actually put any tariffs or sanctions on Canada till January first AFTER THE MIDTERMS.
–Ron Filipkowski: “In other words, never.”
–(Note: That means saner people have gotten to him and told him this is madness, but who knows how long it will last.)
–US Trade Rep Jamieson Greer: “There’s no possible way it can really affect US well-being.”
–lesterryan: “Until they shut off the electricity to Minnesota.” (Too late. Storms in the Midwest already did that two weeks ago, and they STILL don’t have the electricity back on because Trump’s FEMA won’t lift a finger to help. Note: Can you imagine no air conditioning (forget no lights and no internet connections or phones) in the terminally humid Midwest in the middle of August? For over two weeks?)
–Canada is the United States’ biggest supplier of foreign oil, a whopping 61%. It also accounts for 13% of our trade, and is the world’s top buyer of US exports.
–heathencanadian2: “Not any more.”
–LindasHadEnough: “I really liked it a lot better when people in our government knew that Canada was our second leading trading partner. Having morons in charge isn’t working out.”
–Sam Stein: “NEW: A dispatch from Canada, where the emerging view is that Trump can’t win this trade war.”
–stumblywumbly: “No impact. That’s why they’re begging Canadian liquor stores to put US products back on the shelves.”
In Epstein/Trump news:
–In very good news, a federal judge rejected Ghislaine Maxwell’s bid for release from prison.
–Trump gave a speech on vaccinating children and said, “We’re telling people when you get your shots for young children…that you go to the doctor for five small shot instead of one big massive shots where those beautiful little bodies can handle it.” (Not typos, that’s what he said.)
–audrey333: “What we’re all thinking…’beautiful little bodies’ is a tell and a creep creeping.”
–Patty Coughanour: “It makes my skin crawl whenever he says anything about children. He has such a pervy way of describing things that he should not be talking about.”
–A new poll on “Do you think the Epstein files should be released?” came out, and the answer was “Yes” for MAGA Republicans–82%, Republicans in general–83%, Independents–86%, and Democrats–90%.
–Mark Hamill: “In a country so deeply divided, isn’t it nice to have something we can all agree on?”
In Natalie Harp news:
–The story isn’t going away. In fact, it’s picking up steam as the media realizes what it’s all about–that the story isn’t just a tabloid story but one about just how much influence she has with the President and how big a role she plays in his administration. (Hint: It’s a huge one.)
–Reporters are now looking at the metadata on Trump’s documents to see which ones Natalie Harp wrote, and they have determined that she wrote the document in which Trump defied the January 6th committee’s subpoena. She wrote the 14-page memo Trump sent the January 6 Committee declaring that the presidential election of 2020 was rigged and stolen, attacking members of the committee as partisan hacks, and calling the January 6 insurrectionists patriots.
–She has more access to classified documents than anyone other than the President.
–Foreign leaders text Harp when they can’t reach Trump directly.
–She is the chief decider of what the President sees, decisions which according to staffers “play into the less productive and more troublesome parts of his nature.” What she shows him is not vetted in any way.
–The White House will not allow her to be interviewed by the press. When asked what her position in the administration is, they have said she is the Executive Assistant to the President, the White House Appointments Secretary, and the Special Assistant to the President, and that she is being groomed to be White House Secretary (a serious position for which she has no qualifications at all.)
–The White House cropped her out of all the pictures taken at the Nascar race. She was visible in the television footage taken on the day, but no longer there when the photos came out. That shows just how worried the White House is about this story.
–Fox has completely stopped mentioning her, even though the network was who introduced her to Trump in the first place.
–Tom Nichols: “When you’re hiding from the Iranians in a fuel container and the three people you chose to bring with you are your caddy, your butler, and Natalie Harp, it’s not an attack to notice that.”
–The Iranians released a new Lego video about Natalie Harp that’s just devastating: https://www.facebook.com/lisa.baker.1460/videos/-the-iranian-lego-guys-just-made-a-natalie-harp-videoi-genuinely-wasnt-prepared-/2276836923119580/
In historical news:
–One of the reasons the Natalie Harp story is so important is because Trump apparently gets all his information from her–that’s why he thinks Iran is in an imminent state of collapse and his standing in the polls is at 100%. This echoes both Hitler and Tsar Nicholas II in their last days.
–Tsar Nicholas II and his wife took a Siberian peasant into their home after he told them he could cure their hemophiliac son Alexander’s disease. He told them to stop giving the boy aspirin (which prevents clotting of the blood), it worked, and from then on they believed everything he told them and refused to listen to their other advisers. Rasputin told them the growing fury of the Russian peasants wasn’t anything to worry about, and, as a result, Nicholas was completely blindsided by the Russian Revolution–and his and his family’s being lined up against a basement wall and shot.
–As the war went south, Hitler hid in his bunker (sound familiar?) and only listened to people who told him good news and punished anyone with bad news, and as a result, everyone under him was afraid to tell him the truth. As a result, Hitler was still giving orders that couldn’t possibly be fulfilled and ordering around armies that no longer existed as the Allies entered Germany and headed for Berlin.
In other news:
–Two people have died from measles in Pennsylvania, the first in 35 years.
–Mitch McConnell has still not been heard of. When I googled “Mitch McConnell news,” the most recent article was from four weeks ago.
–The head of the CIA, John Ratcliffe, flew secretly to Russia to meet with Putin, though it wasn’t much of a secret since everybody found out about it. Both sides refuse to say what the visit was about.
In good news:
–Lebanon voted to abolish the death penalty, the first country in the Middle East to do so. (Though it’s a disgrace that they beat us to the punch.)
–A Michigan judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Republican National Committee that sought to make it easier for partisan challengers to dispute voter eligibility and interrupt the state’s ballot-counting process.
–New research finds companies that resisted Trump and kept DEI practices–Costco, Apple, Delta–performed just as well as companies who pulled back. (Target, we’re looking at you! And Walmart.)
Finally, some really sad news today–Dolly Parton has died:
–Dolly (and I think everybody thinks of her as Dolly) grew up in the mountains of East Tennessee, so poor that, as she often said, the only time she was warm at night was when one of the other kids peed the bed. She wrote her song, “Coat of Many Colors” about the ragged, pieced-together clothes she had to wear.
–Dolly sang in church as a child and was singing on local radio and TV shows by the age of 13 and made her debut at the Grand Ole Opry at the same age, where she first met Johnny Cash. She sang with Porter Waggoner, wrote songs for Bill Owens and other country stars, including “I Will Always Love You,” which became a huge hit for Whitney Houston, and then became a superstar on her own.
–She went on to become “the Queen of Country Music,” and then everybody’s favorite with songs like, “Workin’ 9 to 5” and “Jolene” and “Here You Come Again.” She sold over 100 million records and won 11 Grammy Awards.
–Two of her best albums are “Trio” and “Trio II”, which she made with Linda Ronstadt and Emmy Lou Harris. (I’ve practically worn them out listening to them.)
–She was also a Hollywood star, appearing in the movies NINE TO FIVE and THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS, STEEL MAGNOLIAS, STRAIGHT TALK, and JOYFUL NOISE.
–Her father never learned to read, and that was one of the reasons she established her reading programs for children, including her Imagination Library, which started out giving free books to children in Tennessee and eventually expanded to mail free books to children around the US, Canada, the UK, and Ireland.. She created the Dollywood Foundation to provide poverty relief and fund educational programs in Tennessee.
–She made a $1 million dollar donation to fund COVID vaccine research at Vanderbilt University, which led to the development of Moderns’ COVID vaccine and saved countless lives.
–She was a stout supporter of the LGBTQ+ community. Dolly: “I keep saying, if you’re the fine Christian that you think you are, why are you judging people? That’s God’s job.”
–She was always outspoken and very funny, with a wonderful, self-deprecating humor, making comments like, “I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb–and I’m not dumb either.” And “It’s a good thing I was born a girl, otherwise I’d be a drag queen.” One of my favorite Dolly moments was at an awards ceremony, where, just as she got up to go to the stage and accept an award, the top of her dress split. She managed to cover up somehow and said gamely, “Well, that’s what you git for trying to put ten pounds of mud in a two-pound sack!”
–She had twice turned down being given the Medal of Honor by Trump.
Accolades poured in from everywhere:
–Singer Jack White: “Instant Sainthood.”
–Reba McIntyre: “There will never be another you. We will remember and cherish every memory and every note you ever played and sang. Thank you, Lord, for Dolly. She’s gonna have a blast in heaven singing all her favorite songs with all her family and friends who have gone on before her…”
–Julia Roberts (who acted with her in STEEL MAGNOLIAS): “Dolly was a magical and joyous human. I hold knowing her as a treasure in my life. The sun has dimmed today.”
–Henry Winkler: “What a sad day for America! What a sad day for the world!”
–Windweaver: “This country has lost not only one of the greatest women that ever lived, but a great singer and composer as well.”
–Stillrelaxin: “Dolly was easily one of the nicest people who’ve ever lived.”
–Alfalfamalethe3rd; “I’m not usually affected when a celebrity passes, but damn, this hit me hard.”
–Magatas Imbecilis: “I’m not even a country fan but loved Dolly. Massive respect and appreciation for her incredible work ethic, talents, and most of all kindness, humanity, generosity, and love. RIP.”
–When her spokesman announced her death, he said she “lived in the light and is in the arms of Jesus, surely met by (her late husband) Carl, her parents, and countless others. Rest in peace, Aunt Dolly–Aunt, Granny, Gigi. May God bless Dolly Parton, and may God bless you all. She will always love you.”
–Rest in peace, Dolly. We will always love you, too.
Best comment of the day, from Dolly Parton: “You’ll never do a whole lot unless you’re brave enough to try.”
Keep calm and carry on,
Connie Willis
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