"After 22 years of serving the citizens of Washington, I am being asked to leave because I am dirty.... And Jay Inslee can kiss my ass."

Says Robert LaMay, of Washington State Patrol, signing off on his last day, as he is forced out of his job by his refusal to comply with a mask mandate.

 

I got that through "A trooper defying his state’s vaccine mandate uses his final dispatch to tell off the governor" (WaPo).

LaMay, who went public with his opposition to the mandate in August, told The Post that he was skeptical about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines... He said he was concerned that “the people pushing it are politicians.” 

Biden's frustrating campaign by podcast.

I was listening to the NYT "Daily" podcast this morning. The episode is called "Biden's Campaign of Isolation." Because of the lockdown, Biden can't do any of the conventional campaign activities, and his main idea seems to be this podcast. But is anyone listening? I love podcasts, but not all podcasts. I need to hear a voice that's got something podcasty about it. The host of "The Daily," Michael Barbaro has it.  Obviously, Joe Rogan has it. You can name some others. I enjoy Scott Adams. Marc Maron. Etc.

That special quality could be a lot of different things, but it's not going to be a politician carefully shaping his message around the goal of getting elected. That's so unappetizing.

But listening to "The Daily," I heard some snippets of Biden's podcast, specifically his interview with Washington Governor Jay Inslee, and they were talking about — I think they were talking about — the very subject I was just saying I wanted to hear more talk about. Here's what I wrote 3 days ago:

Why aren't people saying that when we emerge in phases from this lockdown — as we must, or we face economic doom — we should not attempt to go back to everything that we were doing before but go forward into some livable, workable form of the Green New Deal?

Shouldn't the Democrats be saying this? Where's Joe Biden?

I know how to listen to the Biden podcast with Inslee, but I'm not motivated to the point where I'm going to do that, partly because I value my time and hate to give a speaker control over it and partly because as a blogger, I need text. But I will read, because I can scan it at my own speed, and because I can copy and paste. I don't have to do my own transcription to write about it. So where is the transcript?! I can see one transcript at Joe Biden's podcast page — it happens to be with Ron Klain — but I can't find the Inslee transcription.

Did Biden embrace a Green New Deal approach to emergence from the lockdown? I can't believe I'm supposed to slog through a podcast to understand. So frustrating!

Why is Trump encouraging protests that put pressure on Governors when he just got done imposing a duty on them to follow a carefully structured process before reopening?

Yesterday, Trump's tweeted "LIBERATE MINNESOTA!," "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!" an "LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!"

And the Governor of Washington, Jay Inslee, said, "The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies even while his own administration says the virus is real and is deadly, and that we have a long way to go before restrictions can be lifted.”

At yesterday's Task Force press briefing — transcript — Trump was asked how tweeting "encouraging liberation" — "fomenting domestic rebellion" — "squares with the sober and methodical guidance that you issued yesterday." Good question!

Donald Trump: Well, I think we do have a sobering guidance, but I think some things are too tough. And if you look at some of the states you just mentioned, it’s too tough. Not only relative to this, but what they’ve done in Virginia with respect to the Second Amendment is just a horrible thing. They did a horrible thing, the governor, and he’s a governor under a cloud to start off with. So, when you see what he said about the Second Amendment, when you see what other states have done. No, I think I feel very comfortable. Go ahead.

That seems to say that some Governors have overdone the repressiveness of the shutdown and relieving the excesses of shutting down is different from the reopening process. For example, in Michigan, there was an arbitrariness to what you could and couldn't buy in stores that were open (e.g., liquor and lottery tickets but not plant seeds and paint). Governors can amend their shutdown orders — Wisconsin's Governor just extended our shutdown but changed some rules (you can play golf now) — without entering into the phases of reopening described by the Task Force.

Trump gets a second question and — though he's a bit inarticulate — I'm pretty sure my interpretation of what he's asserting is correct:

Speaker 8: Thank you, Mr. President. Just to be clear, when you talk about these states, Michigan, Minnesota, Virginia, do you think that they should lift their stay at home orders or can you talk—

Donald Trump: No, but I think elements of what they’ve done are too much. It’s just too much. You know the elements because I’ve already said, but certainly a Second Amendment and Second Amendment having to do with the state of Virginia. What they’ve done in Virginia is just incredible. Okay, please.

Of course, there's plenty of reason to see a subtext. He's still campaigning for reelection, and he's talking to his people. He can't do his rallies anymore — not for a while anyway — and these protests are Trump rallies of a sort. Trumpsters coming out in force and cheering for freedom and gun rights.

In fact, Trump talked about his longing for old-style rallies. He was asked at yesterday's briefing about a statement from his campaign that said there would be more rallies before the election, and he said, he hoped to do rallies. They're "great for the country" and "an important part of politics actually."

There’s nothing like it. So I certainly hope we can have rallies. We’ll find out. I don’t like the rallies where we’re sitting like you’re sitting. I mean, you’ve got many reporters outside trying to get into this room, and I come in, I’m looking at this room, and I see all this. It loses a lot of flavor. It loses to me, a lot of flavor....

Flavor.

Donald Trump wants you to be appreciative. Could you just be appreciative and stop constantly chirping about what's wrong?

Let's dip into the rhetoric from yesterday's task force press briefing. Donald Trump was full of energy, ready to talk and talk until you just can't stand it anymore. And his word of the day was "appreciative." Why won't people appreciate him?!

From the transcript:

TRUMP: Well, I think we’ve done a great job for the State of Washington and I think the governor, who is a failed presidential candidate as you know, he leveled out at zero in the polls, he’s constantly chirping, and I guess complaining would be a nice way of saying it. We’re building hospitals. We’ve done a great job for the State of Washington. Michigan, she has no idea what’s going on. And all she does is say, “Oh, it’s the federal government’s fault.” And we’ve taken such great care of Michigan. You know the care we’ve taken of New Jersey. I think if you ask Governor Murphy of New Jersey, “How are we doing?” I think he’d say great. I think. He’s a Democrat. Governor Cuomo has really said we’re really doing a great job... and Governor Cuomo has been appreciative. But a couple of people aren’t.

"Trump has been the great doctor, stitching up our scars and healing us organically."

Said Washington Governor Jay Inslee, chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, quoted in "Democratic Party’s liberal insurgency hits a wall in Midwest primaries" by David Weigel in WaPo.

Such an absurd and colorful quote. Stitching up scars?! If your wounds are already scars, it would be freaky to stitch them up. Inslee's metaphor sent me looking for images in that genre of tattoo that includes things like this:

A post shared by Dr. Andrés Sosa (@hombroycodo) on Mar 18, 2017 at 4:52pm PDT

Also, "organically." He's not only crediting Trump as the "great doctor" but putting him in what sounds like some alternative medicine category of doctor.

By the way, when did David Weigel start looking like Edgar Allan Poe?



"You are young yet, my friend... but the time will arrive when you will learn to judge for yourself of what is going on in the world, without trusting to the gossip of others. Believe nothing you hear, and only one-half that you see" — a quote from my favorite Edgar Allan Poe story, "The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether."