Daily Beast: “Supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro answered the far-right leader’s rallying cry on Tuesday and took to the streets in cities across Brazil, stoking fears of violence at the hands of his most radical fans and sowing uncertainty over the country’s democratic health. Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians poured into the streets of major cities across the country, clad in the yellow-and-green soccer jerseys that have become a symbol of the Brazilian far-right. Some draped massive Brazilian flags over their shoulders or wore face masks stamped with the colors.”

“Bolsonaro appeared at the protests in Brasilia and São Paulo, amid cheers and applause, firing up his fans with a tirade against his enemies. ‘I want to say to those who want to make me ineligible in Brasília: only God can get me out of there,’ he told the crowd of supporters in São Paulo. ‘Warning to the scoundrels: I will not be arrested.’ In Rio de Janeiro, the president’s supporters spilled into the city’s iconic ocean-front promenade, singing and chanting the president’s name. Some waved signs demanding the dismantling of the Supreme Court and a return to paper ballots – echoing Bolsonaro’s bitter attacks on democratic institutions. ‘We are here supporting our president but we are also here supporting our democracy,’ said Kátia Menezes, a retired government worker who came out in support of Bolsonaro, clad in a soccer jersey printed with the word ‘Brazil’ on the back. ‘We are here fighting for our democracy, for our institutions which are being corrupted.’ ‘Gut the whole Supreme Court – none of them are worth anything,’ said Maria da Silva, a shop worker who came to the protest unmasked but clad in yellow-and-green from head to toe. ‘Our president needs to govern and they won’t let him.'”

In an interview on Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt Tonight (which really seems like it should have an unnecessary exclamation point after it) former president and Howard Cosell wannabe Donald Trump said, with no evidence, that the California recall election for governor is rigged because Gavin Newsom remains popular.  It may sound static-y on the video, but if you listen closely, you’ll discover that it’s actually Trump sucking his dentures.

“Well, it’s probably rigged.  They’re sending out all ballots. Slizththth [sic] all.  The.  The ballots are, y’know, mail-out mail-in ballots.  In fact, I guess you even have a case where you make your own ballot.  When that happens… ahhhhhh….. nobody’s gonna win but these Democrats, so… y’know…. look, they’re… they’re very good, the one thing they’re good at is rigging elections, so I predict it’s a rigged election.  Let’s see how it turns out.”

The US Geological Survey reports a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck the coast of Guerrero state, Mexico, 14 km southeast of Acapulco Tuesday. Preliminary reports indicate the interruption of a highly anticipated luchadore wrestling match en la Catedral de la Lucha Libre, la Arena México. The National Weather Service reports there’s no tsunami danger to the West Coast.

The statue of Robert L. Lee that stands on Richmond, Virginia’s Monument Avenue on Wednesday will be cut into multiple pieces and then shipped for storage at Goochland Women’s Correctional Institute located in Goochland, Virginia, WRIC ABC-8 Richmond reports.

The 12-ton statue is being removed from the famous street in Richmond as local governments, many in the South, come to terms with the fact that the Confederates lost the war.  Lee will undergo another humility as his carved-up visage sits in a warehouse in Goochland, much as Lee was humiliated in life by having his family’s plantation designated as a graveyard for Union soldiers.

Lee’s statue will be cut in half at the waist; the legs of the horse he’s riding will be removed; and the torso of the statue will be taken apart with a blowtorch.  The fate of the pieces of the statue, which will be stored at Goochland, is not yet determined.

“Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Jeff Bartos launched a charged personal attack against a leading GOP opponent Tuesday, arguing that Sean Parnell is ‘unelectable’ because of protective orders Parnell’s wife sought against him as their marriage splintered. Bartos’ criticism centers on two temporary protection-from-abuse orders issued against Parnell in 2017 and 2018. Neither was extended after a full hearing involving both parties, and both were later expunged. It remains unclear what Parnell’s wife accused him of doing when the temporary orders were issued.”

“Parnell and his wife are in an ongoing divorce and custody battle. Word of the protective orders has been quietly simmering in political and media circles for months, but Bartos made them public for the first time in an interview Tuesday. He planned to release a memo Wednesday on the matter and why it should steer Republicans away from Parnell. Temporary protective orders are issued after brief hearings before a judge involving only the accuser, not the accused. They can become permanent after a hearing involving both parties, but neither of the orders against Parnell went that far. None of the documents describe the alleged actions that led to those initial orders. The new, highly personal line of attack comes days after Parnell, a former Army ranger, secured a coveted endorsement from Trump in the Republican primary – a potential turning point in the race. Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate contest is one of the most competitive in the country and will help determine control of the chamber after next year’s midterm elections.'” – Philadelphia Inquirer.

How can we miss him if he never leaves?  Donald Trump and his son Don Jr. have signed a contract to provide commentary on a “gamecast” of the upcoming boxing match between Evander Holyfield and Vitor Befort, the New York Daily News reports.

“Donald Trump has signed a contract to call a ‘gamecast’ of Saturday’s boxing event headlined by Evander Holyfield-Vitor Belfort, Triller tells ESPN,” ESPN fight reporter Mike Coppinger tweeted. “The former president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., will join him. Both Trumps will be in person in Hollywood, Florida.”

Triller is an upstart video sharing service.

Protesters from Hawaii to Florida have assembled in the streets, at town halls, and during school board meetings to voice their opposition to (and fear of) so-called “vaccine passports” that, they claim, will be used to determine if they’re eligible to go places or do things.  They make it sound like proof of vaccination hasn’t been required anywhere in the history of the country, and that such a document would be fatally traumatic to their children.  Just today, the paragon of virtue Jim Jordan declared “Vaccine mandates are un-American.”

Rummaging through an old box, I found my personal “vaccine passport” that allowed me to go to school in the 1970s and 1980s.  It documents the mandatory vaccines I needed to have to attend classes:  DTP, oral polio, measles, rubella, and mumps.  (And just for the record, the nurse noted I was also inoculated against small pox.)   If vaccine passports are “un-American,” the nation has been un-American since my childhood.

A Georgia school district will start all-virtual classes after three members of the transportation team were diagnosed with coronavirus, putting a strain on the ability to bus students to school, the Associated Press reports.

The Griffin-Spalding County School District, with 9,700 students, will become part of the 210,000 Georgia students who have had their school years disrupted because of coronavirus outbreaks.  Shutdowns or virtual classes have been implemented in 51 of Georgia’s 181 school districts and charter networks.

Two bus drivers and a bus monitor in Griffin-Spalding County have been diagnosed with COVID in the last week.  The district started in-person classes during the first week of August.

“Jedidiah ‘Jed’ Duggar and wife Katey (Nakatsu) Duggar have caused quite the stir after sharing their pregnancy announcement. Jed, 22, and Katey announced on Instagram Monday that they’re expecting their first child together. As the couple kissed in their announcement photo, Katey held up a sign that read: ‘And then there were 3. Baby Duggar. Spring ’22.'”

“Jed used a winky face emoji as he wrote alongside the post: ‘She tested positive, but not for Covid.’ Though Jed and Katey largely received congratulatory comments from loved ones and fans alike, some followers took issue with the post’s controversial caption. Without a Crystal Ball host Katie Joy called out Jed and Katey for being ‘so insensitive’ amid the current COVID-19 surge in the pair’s native Arkansas. ‘Arkansas is facing some of the worst with Covid right now due to low vaccination rates,’ Joy wrote on Instagram. ‘656,000 Americans have died from Covid since the virus hit 18 months ago'” – People.

Idaho public health officials enacted a provision quietly on Monday that allows hospitals in the northern part of the state to withhold lifesaving care to some patients suffering from coronavirus to direct those resources to other patients, the Associated Press reports.

A deep-red state, Idaho decided to ration care because the rural hospitals in the area are close to full and the providers don’t have the facilities to treat all patients.  The move, which comes more than 11 years after the United States passed the Affordable Care Act and which is independent of the ACA even through Republicans said it would have government rationing health care, is known as the “crisis standard of care” and allows medical professionals to triage patient need.

The ruling impacts 10 hospitals and medical care groups in the panhandle of Idaho and northcentral counties.  With the rule, doctors can determine if a patient merits the usage of life saving equipment over another patient.  The rule also allows hospitals to put patients in various rooms in the hospital such as conference room and classrooms that would not meet state standards as a medical care bed. 

“Former President Donald Trump is set to return to Iowa next month where he will hold a rally in Des Moines, a source familiar with the former president’s political operation has confirmed to Fox News. The rally, first reported by the Des Moines Register, will be held on October 9 at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. This will be Trump’s first trip back to the first-in-the-nation caucus state since the 2020 election. As reported by the Des Moines Register, Trump returned to Iowa frequently in the closing days of the 2020 election, holding a rally in Des Moines on Oct. 15, 2020. He last visited Iowa for a rally in Dubuque on Nov. 1, 2020 – two days before the election'” – Fox News.

This is NOT the “pro-Life” response that Texans deserve. pic.twitter.com/kfycwoQRFS

— Katrina Pierson (@KatrinaPierson) September 7, 2021

AP: “Far from tiptoeing toward the middle to appease the Democratic-leaning Texans driving population growth, the party is embracing its base and vowing to use a new round of redistricting to ensure things stay that way through 2030 – becoming a national model for staying on the offensive no matter how political winds may eventually shift. ‘Texas, obviously, is a national leader as it concerns the laws that we pass and other states follow,’ Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who is fond of vowing to make Texas the ‘freedom capital of America,’ said Tuesday. Abbott, who is up for reelection next year and often mentioned as a possible 2024 presidential contender, signed voting legislation Tuesday that empowers partisan poll watchers and prohibits a host of measures that made casting ballots easier in heavily Democratic cities amid the coronavirus pandemic.”

“Republicans argue that the new rules boost election security and charged ahead to pass them, even as Democratic state lawmakers fled the state for weeks to block them. The voting law was nearly overshadowed by national debate over another new Texas law – the nation’s toughest set of abortion restrictions. By banning the procedure in most instances and leaving no exceptions for cases of rape and incest, the state has mounted perhaps the strongest threat yet to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision establishing a woman’s right to an abortion.”

“Another new law allows virtually any Texan age 21 and older to carry guns without licenses. Other legislation banned schools from teaching about institutional racism and limited the state’s own cities from making decisions on police funding, environmental budgeting and mask mandates. These policy victories are poised to become cemented for the foreseeable future. Because Republicans control both chambers of the Legislature, the party will decide new congressional and statehouse districts based on 2020 census figures – seeking to make the boundaries as favorable as possible so the GOP can hold statehouse majorities for the next decade and beyond.”

Washington Post has the story about Wheelchair Nero’s neighbors going in a different direction on the hot button issue.

“Volusia County Councilman Fred Lowry is hospitalized with COVID-19, County Chair Jeff Brower announced Tuesday. ‘He is in the hospital wrestling with COVID-19. It’s been about three weeks now,’ Brower said as Tuesday’s council meeting kicked off with Lowry’s chair empty for another week. Lowry missed last week’s special meeting on the budget. He last attended a meeting Aug 17.”

“Lowry, a 66-year-old registered Republican, is midway though his second four-year term on the Volusia County Council, representing Deltona, Enterprise and parts of DeBary and Osteen. He was a Deltona City Commissioner from 2010 until his 2014 election to the county seat. He attracted controversy this summer for promoting conspiracy theories, including some about the coronavirus pandemic, in a sermon at Deltona Lakes Baptist Church. ‘We did not have a pandemic, folks. We were lied to,’ Lowry said in the May 30 sermon. He referred to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as ‘Dr. Falsey’ – ‘I did not mispronounce that. That’s the way I wanted to say it.’ – and labeled him a liar and pervert. He also took issue with media coverage of the COVID-19 treatment hydroxychloroquine” – Daytona Beach News-Journal.

Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham said that the United States is destined to return to Afghanistan to quell violence between the Taliban and ISIS, as a way to reduce the risk of the country becoming a terrorist incubator, the Washington Post reports.

“We will be going back into Afghanistan,” Graham said in an interview with the BBC Monday. “We’ll have to, because the threat will be so large.”  Graham said Afghanistan is destined to “be a cauldron for radical Islamic behavior.”

President Joe Biden ordered the withdrawal of US troops from the nation after American forces fought a 20 year war following the attack on the US by al Qaeda, which was based in Afghanistan.  Graham said that the Taliban will again harbor al Qaeda and other extremist groups in the country.

“The Taliban are not reformed, they’re not new,” Graham said. “They’re going to give safe haven to al-Qaeda who have ambitions to drive us out of the mid-east writ large, and attack us because of our way of life.”

Yahoo News: “Eleven Republican lawmakers sent a letter to Yahoo urging the company not to cooperate with a House investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection, except they addressed it to a CEO who left more than four years ago. The lawmakers, including Reps. Mo Brooks (of Alabama), Madison Cawthorn (N.C), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Paul Gosar (Ariz.) and Lauren Boebert (Colo.), sent letters to 13 businesses telling them not to comply with requests from the House select committee investigating the events of Jan. 6. The committee requested that certain phone and social media companies preserve the records of individuals not publicly identified as linked to the insurrection as well as those involved in the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally.”

“The House probe is attempting to determine who was actively involved in planning the violence aimed at overturning the presidential election. Some of the relevant subjects could involve Republican lawmakers, including some of those who sent the letters. In the letters, the GOP lawmakers reportedly threatened the companies, saying they would use “all legal remedies” to go after them if they comply with the committee’s requests. The letter that was addressed to Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, which was obtained by Forbes, revealed some of the Republican Party’s strong-arm tactics being used against businesses to persuade them to obstruct justice, critics said. Except Mayer departed from Yahoo in 2017. Yahoo’s current CEO is Guru Gowrappan.”

Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott attempted to respond to a question from a reporter about denying victims of rape and incest more than six weeks to get an abortion by claiming Texas is tough on crime.

Asked by the new Texas law requires a victim of rape or incest to carry the pregnancy to term, Abbott responded, “It doesn’t require that at all because, obviously, it provides at least six weeks for a person, ah, to be able to, ah, get an abortion.  So for one, it doesn’t provide that.  That said, however, let’s make something very clear:  rape is a crime and Texas will work tirelessly to make sure that we eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas by aggressively going out and arresting them and prosecuting them and getting them off the streets.”

According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, Texas “cleared” just 21% of reported rape cases in 2019.  This is a mix of convictions, dropped cases, acquitals and cases where they identified a likely attacker but could not develop enough evidence to proceed with a prosecution.  Oh, and the clearance rate has nothing to do with determining whether the victim has a legal right to seek an abortion.