The Commentariat -- June 27, 2021

Afternoon Update:

Burgess Everett of Politico: "President Joe Biden's domestic agenda appears back on track in Congress, with Republicans praising his newly clarified approach to their bipartisan infrastructure plan and a key Democrat endorsing work on a separate, larger spending package. Two GOP negotiators [Mitt Romney & Rob Portman] on the bipartisan infrastructure deal said Sunday that they were mollified by Biden's Saturday statement vowing to support the bipartisan framework on its own merits, rather than withholding his signature until he also received a larger, partisan proposal. Many Republicans interpreted his remarks in the aftermath of their deal on Thursday as an implicit veto threat."

Marie: Even though I'm no fan of Jonathan Karl's, and even though I don't have a subscription to the Atlantic, where this interview is published, I'm using one of my few Atlantic freebies and linking it here. It's worth a read: ~~~

If there was evidence of fraud, I had no motive to suppress it. But my suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there. It was all bullshit. -- Bill Barr, to Jon Karl ~~~

You know, you only have five weeks, Mr. President, after an election to make legal challenges. This would have taken a crackerjack team with a really coherent and disciplined strategy. Instead, you have a clown show. No self-respecting lawyer is going anywhere near it. It's just a joke. That's why you are where you are. -- Bill Barr, to Donald Trump, Dec. 1, 2020

~~~ Jonathan Karl, in the Atlantic: "... few betrayals have enraged [Donald Trump] more than what his attorney general did to him. To Trump, the unkindest cut of all was when William Barr stepped forward and declared [on the record, to Michael Balsamo of the AP,] that there had been no widespread fraud in the 2020 election, just as the president was trying to overturn Joe Biden's victory by claiming that the election had been stolen. In a series of interviews with me this spring, Barr spoke ... about the events surrounding his break with Trump." Barr & Mitch McConnell both confirmed to Karl that Barr had made the public statement at McConnell's request. McConnell had been telling Barr that if he -- McConnell -- made the statement, Trump might sabotage the two Georgia Senate runoffs. Karl relates Trump's meeting with Barr right after the Balsamo story hit the fan. ~~~

     ~~~ Tom Sullivan republishes some of Karl's story in Hullabaloo. John Amato of Crooks & Liars has a bit more of it. ~~~

     ~~~ Tom Boggioni of the Raw Story publishes some reactions to Barr's rehabilitation interview. Cheryl Rofer of Balloon Juice has more of the same. ~~~

     ~~~ Rick Hasen: "As is typical in pieces where people from Barr world are sources (in this case Barr himself), this paints Barr in the best possible light. The piece does not even mention how Barr put forward outrageous and ludicrous statements about voter fraud before the election, suggesting that foreign governments would be mailing in thousands of absentee ballots. Barr continues on his rehabilitation tour.... [Meanwhile,] Mitch McConnell utterly failed in squelching the Trump voter fraud claims because he was trying to preserve his Senate majority.... As Quinta Jurecic put it: '... this reads like ... the senate majority leader asking the attorney general for political help in an upcoming election. Not great!' But it's even worse than that. McConnell knew Trump's claims were bogus and endangering the country. And he refused to speak up because he put politics before country."

~~~ Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "Donald Trump's 'big lie' that he lost the 2020 US election because of voter fraud is 'a bit like WWF', Mitt Romney said on Sunday, referring to the gaudy and artificial world of professional wrestling, an arena in which Trump starred before entering politics. 'It's entertaining,' said the Utah senator and 2012 Republican presidential nominee. 'But it's not real.' Appearing on CNN's State of the Union, Romney was asked about former attorney general William Barr's assertion to the Atlantic on Sunday that Trump's claims were always 'bullshit'.... Romney suggested most Americans have always known Trump is lying about electoral fraud, which he was told about by conspiracy theorists -- 'the MyPillow guy [Mike Lindell and] Rudy Giuliani' -- rather than any official source." Romney went on to say that autocrats around the world are using Trump's lies about the election to undermine democratic principles. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Of course Romney is wrong. As Pengelly points out, most Republican voters still believe Trump won. But worse, the January 6 insurrection probably would not have happened had Republicans all accepted Biden's win in November and isolated Trump as nearly the only Republican official in the U.S. who didn't have the guts & grace to congratulate Joe Biden.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Sunday is here.

Adam Clymer of the New York Times: "Mike Gravel, a two-term Democratic senator from Alaska who played a central role in 1970s legislation to build the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline but who was perhaps better known as an unabashed attention-getter, in one case reading the Pentagon Papers aloud at a hearing at a time when newspapers were barred from publishing them and later mounting long-shot presidential runs, died on Saturday at his home in Seaside, Calif. He was 91."

Jason Horowitz of the New York Times: "A leader in the Roman Catholic Church's effort to reach out to L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics revealed on Sunday that Pope Francis had sent him a deeply encouraging note, capping an especially disorienting week on the Vatican's attitude toward gay rights. On Tuesday, the Vatican confirmed that it had tried to influence the affairs of the Italian state by expressing grave concerns about legislation currently in Parliament that increases protections for L.G.B.T.Q. people. And days later, the Vatican's second in command insisted the church had nothing against gay rights, but was protecting itself from leaving the church's core beliefs open to criminal charges of discrimination. Nearly eight years after Pope Francis famously responded, 'Who am I to judge?' on the issue of gay Catholics, it has become increasingly difficult to discern where he stands on the issue. A growing dissonance has developed between his inclusive language and the church's actions."

~~~~~~~~~~

Emily Cochrane, et al., of the New York Times: "... in a stray comment during a news conference [Thursday] an hour [after announcing a bipartisan infrastructure deal], the president blurted out that he would not approve the compromise bill without the partisan one. 'If this is the only thing that comes to me, I'm not signing it,' he said, answering a question about the timing of his legislative agenda. 'I'm not just signing the bipartisan bill and forgetting about the rest.'... It was enough to upend Mr. Biden's proud bipartisan moment.... 'We never had an inkling that there would be any kind of linkage,' Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and a key negotiator, said in an interview.... Liberal Democrats scoffed at the Republican frustration and accused their counterparts of looking for an excuse to oppose the deal, even though the Democrats' pursuit of reconciliation had long been public.... The drama does not appear to have sunk the deal, but Mr. Biden admitted that his comments on Thursday left 'the impression that I was issuing a veto threat on the very plan I had just agreed to.' That was 'certainly not my intent.'..." he added.... On Saturday, Mr. Biden finally acknowledged his mistake as lawmakers and aides signaled they would move forward with writing text and securing support. 'The bottom line is this,' he said. 'I gave my word to support the infrastructure plan, and that's what I intend to do. I intend to pursue the passage of that plan, which Democrats and Republicans agreed to on Thursday, with vigor.'" ~~~

~~~ Natasha Korecki & Christopher Cadelago of Politico: "Not 48 hours after President Joe Biden had appeared to seal a landmark deal with Republicans, he was on the phone trying to save it. Biden himself was making calls to members of Congress in an effort to salvage a nearly $600 billion infrastructure package, two people with knowledge of the calls said. That was just one of the many steps Biden, top aides and allies were taking to avoid an unraveling of an agreement after the president in a press availability infuriated Republicans by threatening not to sign it if he wasn't also sent a Democrat-only spending bill. Biden acknowledged he erred in a lengthy statement he released on Saturday where he issued a complete reversal to his previous comments." ~~~

     ~~~ Here's President Biden's statement.

Pride is back at the White House. -- President Biden, Friday ~~~

~~~ Annie Linskey of the Washington Post: "Standing at a lectern adorned with the presidential seal in the East Room of the White House, a transgender activist announced his pronouns before introducing the president. President Biden started his remarks by wishing a belated happy birthday to the husband of Pete Buttigieg, his transportation secretary. Later, the commander in chief of the world's most powerful military recognized a transgender lieutenant colonel who attended in full dress uniform, saying to her, 'Thank you for your service to our nation.' Those acts were part of an event billed by the White House as a commemoration of LGBTQ+ Pride Month, and each would have prompted headlines just a few years ago -- and some just a few months ago. Yet on Friday, none of it was particularly remarkable.... A key part of Biden's remarks was a call to the Senate to pass the Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation and gender identity. 'Our work is unfinished when a same-sex couple can be married in the morning but denied a lease in the afternoon for being gay,' Biden said, urging Senate approval. 'Something is still wrong.'" Politico's report is here.

Hanna Trudo of the Hill: "Democrats pressuring Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) to abandon her defense of the filibuster say there's little evidence to support her recent argument that getting rid of it would be an invitation for partisan seesawing on major legislation. ObamaCare has endured the test of time, the Democrats note. And while there might be some nibbling on former President Trump's tax-cut law without a filibuster and Democrats in control of the White House and Congress, large portions of the law are considered safe. Such lasting legislative victories suggest Sinema is wrong, the Democrats say, when she argues that ending the procedural Senate rule would prevent Republicans or Democrats from passing laws that have proven to be durable."

Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "For weeks, Michael Fanone, a Washington police officer who was seriously injured during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, had asked to meet privately with Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the top House Republican, to discuss the assault, to no avail. So on Friday, when Officer Fanone finally got his session with Mr. McCarthy at the Capitol, he had a clear request at the ready: for the minority leader to publicly denounce the lies Republican lawmakers have been telling about the deadly attack.... He wanted Mr. McCarthy to push them to stop downplaying the storming of the building, blaming left-wing extremists for an assault carried out by ... Donald J. Trump's right-wing supporters and spreading the baseless conspiracy theory that the F.B.I. secretly planned it. He came away disappointed. 'He said he would address it at a personal level, with some of those members,' Officer Fanone told reporters after the roughly hourlong meeting. 'I think that as the leader of the House Republican Party, it's important to hear those denouncements publicly.' Mr. McCarthy, who phoned Mr. Trump during the riot to plead with him to call off the mob and days later said the president bore responsibility for the rampage, has since swung wildly in the other direction.&" The AP's story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Don't know how I missed this, but I did: ~~~

~~~ Katelyn Polantz of CNN (June 23): "An alleged member of the Oath Keepers pleaded guilty on Wednesday to charges related to the January 6 insurrection, the first plea deal among the Capitol riot cases against extremist groups. Graydon Young, a 54-year-old from Florida who went by 'GenXPatriot,' is charged in a 16-person conspiracy case alleging members of the Oath Keepers plotted to carry out the January 6 insurrection. It is the first guilty plea among any defendants in the major Capitol riot conspiracy cases and is a significant development as investigators continue to pursue leads on extremist groups that they believe planned for an armed attack to help ... Donald Trump and stop Congress from certifying the 2020 election."

To Protect & Serve. Chris Joyner of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "When FBI agents in San Diego seized the cell phone of a suspected white supremacist last year, they discovered text messages with a Georgia sheriff's deputy boasting of racial violence and preparations for a civil war. The text message chain, called 'Shadow Moses,' between San Diego plumber Grey Zamudio, 33, and 28-year-old Cody Griggers, a former Marine and sheriff's deputy in Wilkinson County, revealed plans to steal explosives, dry runs with illegal silencers and boasts of racial violence.... Twin federal investigations resulted in the arrests and guilty pleas of G[r]iggers and Zamudio on illegal weapons charges that could put them in federal prison for a decade. Zamudio will be sentenced in July; Griggers in August. But Griggers' involvement shines a light on the growing concern inside the intelligence community about the far-right radicalization of service members and law enforcement officers.... The FBI described 'Shadow Moses' ... as a 'prepper' group where Griggers, Zamudio and possibly others discussed building illegal weapons, acquiring explosives, and plotting potential attacks. It was also where they expressed their white supremacist and anti-Semitic beliefs." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If there's one humorous note here it's that these anti-Semites are so stupid they don't seem to know that "real" Moses was Jewish. (I could be wrong here, but to find out, I'd have to learn way more about military video games than I care to know.) In the meantime, guys like Griggers are why I've always been afraid of the cops.

** Republicans, Still "Protecting Democracy Against 'Negro Domination.'" Adam Serwer Atlantic, in a New York Times op-ed: "Donald Trump has claimed credit for any number of things he benefited from but did not create, and the Republican Party's reigning ideology is one of them: a politics of cruelty and exclusion that strategically exploits vulnerable Americans by portraying them as an existential threat, against whom acts of barbarism and disenfranchisement become not only justified but worthy of celebration. This approach has a long history in American politics. The most consistent threat to our democracy has always been the drive of some leaders to restrict its blessings to a select few. This is why Joe Biden beat Mr. Trump but has not vanquished Trumpism. Mr. Trump's main innovation was showing Republicans how much they could get away with...."

If you'd care to read about Trump's first MAGA rally since voters forcibly removed him from the White House, Meredith McGraw of Politico obliges with this report.

Because Everything They Did Was Corrupt. Alex Guillen of Politico: "Two high-ranking Trump political appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency arranged for a pair of agency employees to reap tens of thousands of dollars in salaries even after they were fired, according to a report from EPA's Office of Inspector General. The improper payments were directed by former chief of staff Ryan Jackson and carried out by former White House liaison Charles Munoz, and totaled almost $38,000, according to the March report obtained by Politico via a Freedom of Information Act request. In addition, Munoz also received an improper raise and submitted 'fraudulent timesheets' that cost EPA almost $96,000, the OIG calculated. Federal prosecutors declined to press charges over any of the OIG's findings, and both men have since left the agency -- Jackson in February 2020 to be vice president for government and political affairs at the National Mining Association, and Munoz on Jan. 20, when the Biden administration took office." MB: The National Mining Association? Perfect.

Sarah Nir of the New York Times: "Johnson & Johnson will pay New York State more than $230 million in a settlement that also ensures the company will permanently get out of the opioid business in the United States, the state attorney general's office announced on Saturday. The settlement comes at a time when the opioid industry is facing over 3,000 lawsuits across the nation for its contribution to an epidemic of prescription and street opioid abuse that has killed more than 800,00 Americans in the last 20 years, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And it came just days before opening arguments in a sweeping New York trial in which the company was to be a defendant. That trial will be the first of its kind to go before a jury, and the first targeting the entire opioid supply chain, from the drugmakers who manufactured the pills, to the distributors that supplied them, and a pharmacy chain that filled prescriptions for them." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The Pandemic, Ctd.

Jan Hoffman of the New York Times: "The vaccination of children is crucial to achieving broad immunity to the coronavirus and returning to normal school and work routines. But though Covid vaccines have been authorized for children as young as 12, many parents, worried about side effects and frightened by the newness of the shots, have held off from permitting their children to get them. A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that only three in 10 parents of children between the ages of 12 through 17 intended to allow them to be vaccinated immediately.... But with many teenagers eager to get shots that they see as unlocking freedoms denied during the pandemic, tensions are crackling in homes in which parents are holding to a hard no. Forty states require parental consent for vaccination of minors under 18, and Nebraska sets the age at 19.... Now, because of the Covid crisis, some states and cities are seeking to relax medical consent rules, emulating statutes that permit minors to obtain the HPV vaccine.... Increasingly, frustrated teenagers are searching for ways to be vaccinated without their parents' consent." MB: Where are you, CDC?

Berkeley Lovelace of CNBC: "The World Health Organization on Friday urged fully vaccinated people to continue to wear masks, social distance and practice other Covid-19 pandemic safety measures as the highly contagious delta variant spreads rapidly across the globe." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Carl Zimmer of the New York Times: "Researchers have found evidence that a coronavirus epidemic swept East Asia some 20,000 years ago and was devastating enough to leave an evolutionary imprint on the DNA of people alive today. The new study suggests that an ancient coronavirus plagued the region for many years, researchers say. The finding could have dire implications for the Covid-19 pandemic if it's not brought under control soon through vaccination.... 'What is going on right now might be going on for generations and generations,' ... said David Enard, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona.... Scientists looking for drugs to fight the new coronavirus might want to scrutinize the 42 genes that evolved in response to the ancient epidemic, Dr. [Yassine] Souilmi [of the University of Adelaide in Australia] said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Scientists make really amazing discoveries. I hope a lot of them will get to work on a cure for the stupid gene, the one that makes people denigrate science & scientists.

Beyond the Beltway

Florida. Mike Baker & Anjali Singhvi of the New York Times: "Three years before the deadly collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium complex near Miami, a consultant found alarming evidence of 'major structural damage' to the concrete slab below the pool deck and 'abundant' cracking and crumbling of the columns, beams and walls of the parking garage under the 13-story building. The engineer's report helped shape plans for a multimillion-dollar repair project that was set to get underway soon -- more than two and a half years after the building managers were warned -- but the building suffered a catastrophic collapse in the middle of the night on Thursday, trapping sleeping residents in a massive heap of debris. The complex's management association had disclosed some of the problems in the wake of the collapse, but it was not until city officials released the 2018 report late Friday that the full nature of the concrete and rebar damage -- most of it probably caused by years of exposure to the corrosive salt air along the South Florida coast -- became chillingly apparent." The AP's story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Steven Mufson, et al., of the Washington Post: "Surfside officials worried about the potential for new disasters ordered inspections of buildings near the collapsed Champlain Towers South on Saturday, as fires at the disaster site smoldered and hopes of finding survivors faded. Rescue workers, armed with sonar and cameras, found three more sets of remains, bringing the total to five people dead and 156 others missing inside a haphazard heap of concrete and steel rebar. Officials warned that picking apart the heavy sandwiched apartments was a delicate and dangerous task and that progress would be slow. Officials said DNA samples collected from relatives of the missing would help in the speedy identification of those found.... Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett suggested residents of Champlain Towers North evacuate.... Miami-Dade County will launch an audit of all buildings five or more stories high and 40 years and older, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava announced at a Saturday morning news conference.... The collapse in Surfside could be a wake-up call for towns along America's coastlines." ~~~

~~~ Russ Bynum & Freida Frisaro of the AP: "The mayor of Surfside, Florida, said Saturday he is working on a plan to temporarily relocate residents of a condominium tower built by the same developer of the nearby building that collapsed earlier in the week. But Mayor Charles Burkett said he was not yet prepared to order everyone in the building to evacuate. Burkett had sought an emergency inspection of Champlain Towers North, which was constructed the same year and by the same developer as the crumbled 12-story Champlain Towers South. It sits about 100 yards (about 91 meters) away, along Collins Avenue, which runs parallel to the Atlantic Ocean north of downtown Miami."

Texas. Cassandra Pollock of the Texas Tribune: "A group that includes Texas House Democrats and legislative staffers is asking the Texas Supreme Court to override Gov. Greg Abbott's recent veto of a portion of the state budget that funds the Legislature, staffers there and legislative agencies. More than 60 Democratic members of the House signed a petition for a writ of mandamus, which was filed Friday morning, as did the House Democratic Caucus and the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, four state employees and the Texas AFL-CIO.... The petition argues that Abbott exceeded his executive authority and violated the state's separation of powers doctrine." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Since 1961 was the last time I had to know what a "writ of mandamus" was, I looked it up on the Googles: "A writ of mandamus ... is a court order issued by a judge at a petitioner's request compelling any government, corporation, or public authority to execute a duty that they are legally obligated to complete." So thanks, Greg, I guess.

Way Beyond

Turkey. MEANWHILE, in Istanbul. Kareem Fahim & Antonia Farzan of the Washington Post: "Riot police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disrupt the annual Pride parade, intensifying a crackdown on the march at a time of rising government hostility toward LGBTQ individuals in Turkey, advocacy groups say. At least 20 people were detained, local media reported. The Istanbul governor's office had refused to grant a permit for the parade, which has been held since 2003 but banned for the last seven years. Even so, hundreds of people, many waving rainbow flags, marched Saturday in the city's historical Beyoglu district, playing cat-and-mouse in back alleys with battalions of police officers who tried to prevent them from congregating on Istiklal Avenue, a hub for shopping and tourism."

U.K. Oops! Sex in the Age of Covid. Toby Helm, et al., of the Guardian: "Matt Hancock has resigned as health secretary after Tory MPs, ministers and grassroots Conservatives defied Boris Johnson and demanded he be dismissed from the government. The minister fell on his sword after a day that began with senior Tories observing a deliberate silence over Hancock's future -- seemingly to test public opinion in their constituencies -- before many later broke ranks to insist he had to go.... It is understood that Hancock had been considering resigning since Friday after his apology for kissing his closest aide, Gina Coladangelo, in his ministerial office -- in breach of his own Covid-19 rules -- failed to quell public outrage. The resignation is a massive blow to the authority of the prime minister, who had stood by the 42-year-old following his apology, declaring the matter to be 'closed'.... There were also reports that Hancock had told his wife of 15 years on Thursday night that he was leaving her. Before the story of his affair was reported in the Sun, Martha Hancock is said to have been unaware of it. It is understood that Coladangelo is also leaving her role as a non-executive director of the health department...." MB: But, but they had their shots!

News Lede

The New York Times is liveblogging developments in the Surfside, Florida condominium collapse.

The Commentariat -- June 26, 2021

Afternoon Update:

Mike Baker & Anjali Singhvi of the New York Times: "Three years before the deadly collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium complex near Miami, a consultant found alarming evidence of 'major structural damage' to the concrete slab below the pool deck and 'abundant' cracking and crumbling of the columns, beams and walls of the parking garage under the 13-story building. The engineer's report helped shape plans for a multimillion-dollar repair project that was set to get underway soon -- more than two and a half years after the building managers were warned -- but the building suffered a catastrophic collapse in the middle of the night on Thursday, trapping sleeping residents in a massive heap of debris. The complex's management association had disclosed some of the problems in the wake of the collapse, but it was not until city officials released the 2018 report late Friday that the full nature of the concrete and rebar damage -- most of it probably caused by years of exposure to the corrosive salt air along the South Florida coast -- became chillingly apparent." The AP's story is here.

Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "For weeks, Michael Fanone, a Washington police officer who was seriously injured during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, had asked to meet privately with Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the top House Republican, to discuss the assault, to no avail. So on Friday, when Officer Fanone finally got his session with Mr. McCarthy at the Capitol, he had a clear request at the ready: for the minority leader to publicly denounce the lies Republican lawmakers have been telling about the deadly attack.... He wanted Mr. McCarthy to push them to stop downplaying the storming of the building, blaming left-wing extremists for an assault carried out by ... Donald J. Trump's right-wing supporters and spreading the baseless conspiracy theory that the F.B.I. secretly planned it. He came away disappointed. 'He said he would address it at a personal level, with some of those members,' Officer Fanone told reporters after the roughly hourlong meeting. 'I think that as the leader of the House Republican Party, it's important to hear those denouncements publicly.' Mr. McCarthy who phoned Mr. Trump during the riot to plead with him to call off the mob and days later said the president bore responsibility for the rampage, has since swung wildly in the other direction." The AP's story is here.

Sarah Nir of the New York Times: "Johnson & Johnson will pay New York State more than $230 million in a settlement that also ensures the company will permanently get out of the opioid business in the United States, the state attorney general's office announced on Saturday. The settlement comes at a time when the opioid industry is facing over 3,000 lawsuits across the nation for its contribution to an epidemic of prescription and street opioid abuse that has killed more than 800,000 Americans in the last 20 years, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And it came just days before opening arguments in a sweeping New York trial in which the company was to be a defendant. That trial will be the first of its kind to go before a jury, and the first targeting the entire opioid supply chain, from the drugmakers who manufactured the pills, to the distributors that supplied them, and a pharmacy chain that filled prescriptions for them."

Berkeley Lovelace of CNBC: "The World Health Organization on Friday urged fully vaccinated people to continue to wear masks, social distance and practice other Covid-19 pandemic safety measures as the highly contagious delta variant spreads rapidly across the globe."

Carl Zimmer of the New York Times: "Researchers have found evidence that a coronavirus epidemic swept East Asia some 20,000 years ago and was devastating enough to leave an evolutionary imprint on the DNA of people alive today. The new study suggests that an ancient coronavirus plagued the region for many years, researchers say. The finding could have dire implications for the Covid-19 pandemic if it's not brought under control soon through vaccination.... 'What is going on right now might be going on for generations and generations,' ... said David Enard, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona.... Scientists looking for drugs to fight the new coronavirus might want to scrutinize the 42 genes that evolved in response to the ancient epidemic, Dr. [Yassine] Souilmi [of the University of Adelaide in Australia] said." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Scientists make really amazing discoveries. I hope a lot of them will get to work on a cure for the stupid gene, the one that makes people denigrate science & scientists.

~~~~~~~~~~

Marie: I've set up this page as a sort of skeleton Commentariat. I should be back sometime Saturday afternoon to somewhat fill in the blanks. Anything you want to contribute in the Comments section will be appreciated.

Jeff Stein & Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post: "Congressional Republicans erupted on Friday after President Biden pledged to reject a bipartisan infrastructure deal unless Congress also approves a broader Democratic spending package.... Republicans said Friday that the White House's stance came as a surprise to them and could unravel the entire bipartisan agreement.... Still, the White House has been clear on its intentions for months that it hoped to pass both the bipartisan deal and the Democratic reconciliation package, and Republicans have known both bills were likely coming. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said earlier this month: 'We are anticipating at some point getting a reconciliation bill.'" The AP's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'm not sure it's the best strategy to holler, "We've been snookered!" especially when Democrats have been talking about this "two-track" package for at least a month. If they chose not to ask, I can see how these senators might have been confused about what was going on with the proposed reconciliation bill -- I know I was. But it seems to me that when you're playing with a trillion dollars and more of taxpayer money, you want to have some idea of the rules of the game. Purposely signaling you have no idea what you're doing seems like self-inflicted harm.

Friday in Photo Ops. Brett Samuels & Rafael Bernal of the Hill: "Vice President Harris on Friday made a closely watched trip to the southern border, where she met with border agents and young migrants and doubled down on the need to focus on the reason people are making the journey to the U.S. from Mexico and Central America.... Harris met with border agents at a central processing center and received a briefing on the facility's operations and the technology being used to combat transnational crime."

Katie Benner, et al., of the New York Times: "The Justice Department sued Georgia on Friday over a sweeping voting law passed by the state's Republican-led legislature, the first significant move by the Biden administration to challenge state-level ballot restrictions enacted since the 2020 election. 'The rights of all eligible citizens to vote are the central pillars of our democracy,' Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a news conference at the Justice Department. 'They are the rights from which all other rights ultimately flow.' The complaint accuses the Georgia law of effectively discriminating against Black voters and seeks to show that state lawmakers intended to violate their rights. It says that several of the law's provisions 'were passed with a discriminatory purpose,' Kristen Clarke, the head of the department's civil rights division, said at the news conference." The AP's story is here. See also Patrick's commentary in yesterday's thread.

Joshua Kaplan & Joaquin Sapien of ProPublica: "ProPublica has obtained new details about the Trump White House's knowledge of the gathering storm [before the January 6 insurrection], after interviewing more than 50 people involved in the events .. and reviewing months of private correspondence. Taken together, these accounts suggest that senior Trump aides had been warned the Jan. 6 events could turn chaotic, with tens of thousands of people potentially overwhelming ill-prepared law enforcement officials. Rather than trying to halt the march, Trump and his allies accommodated its leaders, according to text messages and interviews with Republican operatives and officials."

Michael Schmidt & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Responding to interest from ... Donald J. Trump, White House aides drafted a proclamation last year to invoke the Insurrection Act in case Mr. Trump moved to take the extraordinary step of deploying active-duty troops in Washington to quell the protests that followed the killing of George Floyd, two senior Trump administration officials said. The aides drafted the proclamation on June 1, 2020, during a heated debate inside the administration over how to respond to the protests. Mr. Trump, enraged by the demonstrations, had told the attorney general, William P. Barr, the defense secretary, Mark T. Esper, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, that he wanted thousands of active-duty troops on the streets of the nation's capital, one of the officials said." A CNN story is here.

William Rashbaum, et al., of the New York Times: "The Manhattan district attorney's office has informed Donald J. Trump's lawyers that it is considering criminal charges against his family business, the Trump Organization, in connection with fringe benefits the company awarded a top executive, according to several people with knowledge of the matter. The prosecutors had been building a case for months against the executive, Allen H. Weisselberg, as part of an effort to pressure him to cooperate with a broader inquiry into Mr. Trump's business dealings. But it was not previously known that the Trump Organization also might face charges. If the case moves ahead, the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., could announce charges as soon as next week..."

Michelle Boorstein of the Washington Post:"... leading U.S. Catholic bishops working on an upcoming document about the sacrament are now de-emphasizing direct confrontation with President Biden or other Catholic politicians who support abortion rights. Seventy-five percent of members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted during their annual spring meeting on June 17 to go ahead with the drafting of a position paper on the 'meaning of the Eucharist.'... The idea for the document came from a committee the USCCB created after the November election in order to deal with the 'problem' of Biden and his abortion policy, and what some bishops see as a confusing scandal for other Catholics watching the country's most prominent member of their faith.... Four days after the vote, on June 21, the USCCB released a Q&A excising past mention of Biden, a national policy or a focus on abortion. 'There will be no national policy on withholding Communion from politicians.'"

The Pandemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here.

Beyond the Beltway

Florida. Joshua Partlow, et al., of the Washington Post: "The 12-story condominium tower that crashed down early Thursday near Miami Beach was built on reclaimed wetlands and is perched on a barrier island facing an ocean that has risen about a foot in the past century because of climate change. Underneath its foundation is sand and organic fill -- over a plateau of porous limestone -- brought in from the bay after the mangroves were deforested. The fill sinks naturally, and the subsidence worsens as the water table rises.... Experts on sea-level rise and climate change caution that it is too soon to speculate whether rising seas helped destabilize the oceanfront structure.... But it is already clear that South Florida has been on the front lines of sea-level rise and that the effects of climate change on the infrastructure of the region -- from septic systems to aquifers to shoreline erosion -- will be a management problem for years."

Minnesota. Tim Arango of the New York Times: "The killing of George Floyd on a Minneapolis corner led to nationwide protests, a reckoning over racial injustice touching on virtually every aspect of American life and, on Friday, a substantial prison sentence -- 22 and a half years -- for the former police officer, Derek Chauvin, who ignored Mr. Floyd's desperate cries for help and pressed his knee into Mr. Floyd's neck for what seemed an eternity.... In delivering Mr. Chauvin's sentence on Friday, Judge Peter A. Cahill referred to the 'particular cruelty' of the crime, which was captured in a widely shared cellphone video, as Mr. Chauvin held Mr. Floyd down for more than nine minutes in May 2020. Mr. Floyd could be heard crying out more than 20 times that he could not breathe." The AP's story is here.

News Lede

The New York Times is live-updating developments in the condo collapse near Miami Beach, Florida. The Washington Post's live updates for Saturday are here. Related stories in today's Commentariat.

The Commentariat -- June 25, 2021

Marie: I'm going on sort of a road trip this morning and probably won't be back till late Saturday afternoon. During this time I will have limited or no access to the Internet. So see you Saturday night!

Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post: "President Biden announced a bipartisan infrastructure agreement Thursday after meeting with Democratic and GOP senators at the White House, marking a victory in his quest to work across the aisle with Republicans who oppose most of his agenda. 'We have a deal,' Biden said Thursday alongside the 10 senators, who agreed on a package featuring hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending on the nation's roads, bridges and other infrastructure." MB: Not sure what this means. Last night, Elizabeth Warren was on Rachel Maddow's show, and I got the impression she wasn't going along with any such deal. We'll see. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Oh, President Biden doesn't know, either. ~~~

     ~~~ Morgan Chalfant & Alex Gangitano of the Hill: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that the House would not vote on a bipartisan infrastructure bill until the Senate passes a larger set of Democratic priorities through budget reconciliation. Biden said following the meeting with senators, 'We'll see what happens in the reconciliation bill and the budget process,' adding that the legislation will move in a 'dual track' with this infrastructure bill." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Alex Gangitano & Morgan Chalfant of the Hill: "President Biden on Thursday said he won't sign the bipartisan infrastructure deal if Congress doesn't also pass a reconciliation bill, committing to a dual track system to get both bills passed. 'I expect that in the coming months this summer, before the fiscal year is over, that we will have voted on this bill, the infrastructure bill, as well as voted on the budget resolution. But if only one comes to me, this is the only one that comes to me, I'm not signing it. It's in tandem,' Biden told reporters at the White House. 'The bipartisan bill from the very beginning was understood, there's going to have to be the second part of it. I'm not just signing the bipartisan bill and forgetting about the rest that I proposed. I proposed a significant piece of legislation in three parts and all three parts are equally important,' the president said. Biden's remarks are likely to ease concerns among progressive Democrats who are wary of the bipartisan agreement because it does not include other Democratic priorities, like measures to expand access to child care, free education and paid family leave." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: IOW, this "bipartisan" bill is a chimera. It covers only a piece of a larger package Democrats plan to pass through reconciliation. We all agree to fix the Queensboro Bridge, but we won't fix it till the kids on both sides get free education.

Guardian: "Joe Biden has vowed that Afghans who helped the US military 'are not going to be left behind' as his administration stepped up planning to evacuate thousands of Afghan interpreters while their applications for US entry are processed. Planning has accelerated in recent days to relocate the Afghans and their families to other countries before the US military completes its withdrawal from Afghanistan, according to officials. The evacuation of the at-risk Afghans will include their family members for a total of as many as 50,000 people, a senior Republican lawmaker said. 'They're going to come,' Biden said in an exchange with reporters after an event to highlight a bipartisan agreement reached on infrastructure legislation. 'We've already begun the process. Those who helped us are not going to be left behind.'"

Jeff Schogul of Task & Purpose: "Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin put his foot down when asked by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) on Wednesday what the military and critical race theory -- a loosely defined term used by many conservatives to claim that liberals espouse the belief that America is fundamentally racist. 'We do not teach critical race theory,' Austin said at a House Armed Services Committee hearing about the Defense Department's proposed budget. 'We don't embrace critical race theory and I think that's a spurious conversation.'" An enjoyable read. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ James Clark of Task & Purpose: "During Wednesday's House Armed Services Committee hearing on the Defense Department's proposed budget, an angrier-than-usual-looking Gen. Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, responded to questions from two Republican lawmakers about the teaching of critical race theory at West Point, the United States Military Academy.... Milley seemed to be particularly ticked off at the notion that you can't read a book without suddenly becoming indoctrinated by the ideas contained in said text. (For anyone who needs this spelled out for them: That is not how books work, as the Navy's top officer recently pointed out during another Congressional hearing that played out much the same way.) 'I've read Mao Zedong, I've read Karl Marx, I've read Lenin. That doesn't make me a communist,' Milley said." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Notes from the Right-Wing Bubble. Jeremy Barr of the Washington Post: "Over the past few months, and particularly through June, hosts and anchors on Fox have ramped up the conversation about [critical race] theory, an academic legal framework for examining systemic and institutional racism that has become a hot-button issue for political conservatives. The concept has been around for more than 40 years, according to EducationWeek, but it has become a major programming theme on Fox News only in recent months as parents, buoyed by conservative activists and groups, have vocally opposed the teaching of the theory -- or something similar to it -- in schools throughout the country. Republican-led state legislatures have voted to outlaw it. The term 'critical race theory' was mentioned just 132 times on Fox News shows in 2020. In 2021, it has been mentioned 1,860 times, according to a tally using the media monitoring service Critical Mention."

Katy O'Donnell of Politico: "President Joe Biden will nominate housing nonprofit executive Julia Gordon to be the commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration, the White House said Thursday. Gordon is the president of the National Community Stabilization Trust, which facilitates the rehabilitation of homes in underserved markets. She was also the housing director at the Center for American Progress and managed the single-family policy team at the Federal Housing Finance Agency."

Christine Hauser & Isabella Paz of the New York Times: "The United States will search federal boarding schools for possible burial sites of Native American children, hundreds of thousands of whom were forcibly taken from their communities to be culturally assimilated in the schools for more than a century, the interior secretary announced on Tuesday. The initiative is likely to resemble a recent effort in Canada.... Addressing a virtual conference of the National Congress of American Indians, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said the program would 'shed light on the unspoken traumas of the past, no matter how hard it will be.'" See related story linked under "Way Beyond the Beltway."

Felicia Sonmez & Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced Thursday that House Democrats will form a select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, one month after Senate Republicans blocked an effort to form an independent, bipartisan commission.... About 10,000 people laid siege to the Capitol on Jan. 6, and nearly 800 of them broke into the Capitol building.... The select committee -- which will require a majority vote in the Democratic-led House to be formed -- is a signal that Pelosi wants to centralize [committee] investigations in one body that will be equipped with subpoena power and tasked with publishing its findings." Politico's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a pair of bills Thursday that would dramatically expand video coverage of federal court trials and other proceedings while putting Supreme Court arguments on camera for the first time. Both bills have bipartisan support, including the endorsement of the panel's chair, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), and the longstanding backing of the committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa. It's the first time such legislation has cleared the Senate committee in more than a decade, according to Fix the Court, a group advocating for more transparency in the judicial system.... Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a former Supreme Court litigator, warned that allowing TV broadcast of arguments there would lead to showboating by lawyers and justices." MB: Ha ha. Why, what would Ted Cruz know about showboating for the cameras?

Laura Reiley of the Washington Post: "Black and other minority farmers were dealt a new legal blow on Wednesday when a Florida federal court issued a preliminary injunction halting a key part of the Biden administration's federal stimulus relief package that forgave agricultural debts to farmers of color. U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard halted loan forgiveness payments and debt relief for disadvantaged farmers anywhere in the United States, according to the Middle District Court of Florida ruling. The lawsuit was filed by White farmer Scott Wynn of Jennings, Fla., who also has farm loans and has faced financial hardship during the pandemic. He said the debt relief program discriminates against him by race.... The program was already temporarily on hold, due to a separate restraining order in a case by a White farmer in Wisconsin.... The Florida case is considered the first nationwide preliminary injunction, said lawyers for the group Pacific Legal Foundation, which filed the lawsuit in May." MB: George W. Bush appointed Howard to the federal bench. (Also linked yesterday.)

** Nicole Hong & Ben Protess of the New York Times: "A New York appellate court suspended Rudolph W. Giuliani's law license on Thursday after a disciplinary panel found that he made 'demonstrably false and misleading' statements about the 2020 election as Donald J. Trump's personal lawyer. The court wrote in a 33-page decision that Mr. Giuliani's conduct threatened 'the public interest and warrants interim suspension from the practice of law.'... Mr. Giuliani now faces disciplinary proceedings and can fight the suspension. But the court said in its decision that Mr. Giuliani's actions had posed 'an immediate threat' to the public and that it was likely he would face 'permanent sanctions' after the proceedings conclude." A CNN story is here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Annie Karni & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Speaking at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., [Mike] Pence defended the constitutionally mandated role he played in certifying the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6, when a violent mob of Trump loyalists -- some chanting 'Hang Mike Pence' -- stormed the Capitol while the president did nothing for hours to stop them. 'I will always be proud that we did our part on that tragic day to reconvene the Congress and fulfilled our duty under the Constitution and the laws of the United States,' Mr. Pence said, noting that as vice president, he had no constitutional authority to reject or return electoral votes submitted to Congress by the states. 'The truth is, there is almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.' It was the furthest that Mr. Pence, a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2024, has gone yet in defending his role that day or distancing himself from Mr. Trump, to whom he ingratiated himself during their four years together in office." A CBS News story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Mikey, I do believe you just insinuated that your beloved leader was "un-American."

The Big Lie Won't Die. Rosalind Helderman, et al., of the Washington Post: Wealthy right-wing Trump supporters continue to pour millions of dollars into propaganda on various platforms promoting the false claim that Donald Trump won the 2020 election. "The baseless assertion ... is reverberating across this alternative media ecosphere five months after Trump and many of his backers were pushed off Facebook and Twitter for spreading disinformation that inspired a mob to attack the U.S. Capitol.... These falsehoods are now seeping into civic life, spurring citizens in multiple states to demand that local officials review the 2020 results.... The constant stream of purported evidence being cited by pro-Trump allies helps keep true believers engaged...." MB: This is a long piece, filled with familiar characters, but worth a read, or at least a skim. (Also linked yesterday.)

"Economics in a Post-truth Nation." Paul Krugman of the New York Times: "Despite some growing pains, the U.S. economy is clearly on a vaccine-and-stimulus-fueled tear, with just about every measure indicating rapid recovery from the pandemic slump.... Overall, we're clearly in a much better place economically than we were just a few months ago. Yet according to the long-running University of Michigan survey of consumers, on average self-identified Republicans assess the economic situation much less positively now than they did before the 2020 elections.... Whatever the explanation, post-truth politics has expanded its domain to the point that it overrides everyday experience."

"Just Shoot Them." Zachary Cohen of CNN: "The top US general repeatedly pushed back on then-President Donald Trump's argument that the military should intervene violently in order to quell the civil unrest that erupted around the country last year. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley often found he was the lone voice of opposition to those demands during heated Oval Office discussions, according to excerpts of a new book, obtained by CNN, from Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender.... The book reveals new details about how Trump's language became increasingly violent during Oval Office meetings as protests in Seattle and Portland began to receive attention from cable new outlets. The President would highlight videos that showed law enforcement getting physical with protesters and tell his administration he wanted to see more of that behavior, the excerpts show. 'That's how you're supposed to handle these people,' Trump told his top law enforcement and military officials, according to Bender. 'Crack their skulls!' Trump also told his team that he wanted the military to go in and 'beat the f--k out' of the civil rights protesters, Bender writes. 'Just shoot them,' Trump said on multiple occasions inside the Oval Office, according to the excerpts." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: So here you have the POTUS* demanding the military -- who are under his command -- murder protesters who disagreed with his policies. What we thought was going on -- was going on. Trump was trying to turn a nominal democracy into a dictatorship.

Jeanna Smialek of the New York Times: "As Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin scrambled to save faltering markets at the start of the pandemic last year, America's top economic officials were in near-constant contact with a Wall Street executive whose firm stood to benefit financially from the rescue. Laurence D. Fink, the chief executive of BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, was in frequent touch with Mr. Mnuchin and Mr. Powell in the days before and after many of the Fed's emergency rescue programs were announced in late March. Emails obtained by The New York Times through a records request, along with public releases, underscore the extent to which Mr. Fink planned alongside the government for parts of a financial rescue that his firm referred to in one message as 'the project' that he and the Fed were 'working on together.'... BlackRock's ability to directly profit from its regular contact with the government during rescue planning was limited.... But how the Fed and Treasury devised their rescue package mattered to BlackRock." (Also linked yesterday.)

We Have Met the Enemy, and He Is Us. Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times: "... it's great that we again have a president respected by the world. But we are not 'back,' and we must face the reality that our greatest vulnerability is not what other countries do to us but what we have done to ourselves.... In terms of our well-being at home and competitiveness abroad, the blunt truth is that America is lagging. In some respects, we are sliding toward mediocrity.... The latest Social Progress Index, a measure of health, safety and well-being around the world, ranked the United States No. 28. Even worse, the United States was one of only three countries, out of 163, that went backward in well-being over the last decade.... [President] Biden's proposals for a refundable child credit, for national pre-K, for affordable child care and for greater internet access would help address America's strategic weaknesses. They would do more to strengthen our country than the $1.2 trillion plan pursued by American officials to modernize our nuclear arsenal. Our greatest threats today are ones we can't nuke.... To truly bring America back, we should worry less about what others do and more about what we do to ourselves." (Also linked yesterday.)

The Pandemic, Ctd.

Carla Johnson & Mike Stobbe of the AP: "Nearly all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. now are in people who weren't vaccinated, a staggering demonstration of how effective the shots have been and an indication that deaths per day -- now down to under 300 -- could be practically zero if everyone eligible got the vaccine. An Associated Press analysis of available government data from May shows that 'breakthrough' infections in fully vaccinated people accounted for fewer than 1,200 of more than 853,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations. That's about 0.1%." MB: People don't get vaccinated for various reasons, but one is that some of these dead people listened to Tucker Carlson's vaccine disinformation special segments. Yes, Tucker is killing people to get ratings.

Lena Sun of the Washington Post: "Federal health officials said Wednesday there is a 'likely association' between two coronavirus vaccines and increased risk of a rare heart condition in adolescents and young adults, the strongest assertion so far on the link between the two. Data presented to advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention adds to recent findings, most notably from Israel, of rare cases of myocarditis -- inflammation of the heart muscle -- predominantly in males ages 12 to 39, who experience symptoms after the second dose of the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Most cases have been mild and have taken place several days to a week after the second shot, officials said. Chest pain is the most common symptom. Patients generally recover from symptoms and do well.... Getting covid-19 puts someone at far greater risk of heart inflammation and other serious medical problems than the risk of getting myocarditis from vaccination, [experts & health officials] said." The story is free to nonsubscribers.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here: "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday approved a one-month extension of the national moratorium on evictions, scheduled to expire on June 30, but administration officials said this will be the final time they push back the deadline." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live Covid-19 updates for Thursday are here. (Also linked yesterday.)

As He Lay Dying. Damian Paletta & Yasmeen Abutaleb of the Washington Post in an adapted excerpt from their book on how the Trump administration dealt with the pandemic: "A five-day stretch in October 2020 -- from the moment White House officials began an extraordinary effort to get Trump lifesaving drugs to the day the president returned to the White House from the hospital -- marked a dramatic turning point in the nation's flailing coronavirus response. Trump's brush with severe illness and the prospect of death caught the White House so unprepared that they had not even briefed Vice President Mike Pence's team on a plan to swear him in if Trump became incapacitated. For months, the president had taunted and dodged the virus, flouting safety protocols by holding big rallies and packing the White House with maskless guests. But just one month before the election, the virus that had already killed more than 200,000 Americans had sickened ... [him]. Trump's medical advisers hoped his bout with the coronavirus, which was far more serious than acknowledged at the time, would inspire him to take the virus seriously.... Instead, Trump emerged from the experience triumphant and ever more defiant." (Also linked yesterday.)

Beyond the Beltway

Wisconsin. Scott Bauer of the AP: "Retired police officers hired by Wisconsin Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos are being paid $3,200 a month to investigate 'potential irregularities and/or illegalities' in the 2020 presidential election.... The investigators will be paid $9,600 each over three months.... Vos signed two contracts in recent days and has said he intends to hire a third investigator and an attorney to oversee the probe. Vos last month announced plans to have officers investigate the election results as part of the Republican response to ... Donald Trump's narrow loss in Wisconsin. Republicans have also ordered a review by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau and they have passed several bills tightening rules for absentee voting, measures Democratic Gov. Tony Evers is all but certain to veto."

Way Beyond

Canada. Amanda Coletta & Michael Miller of the Washington Post: "A First Nation in Canada says it has found 751 unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school in the prairie province of Saskatchewan, at least the second such discovery here in less than a month as the country again confronts one of the darkest chapters of its history. The Cowessess First Nation made the 'horrific and shocking discovery' at the site of the former Marieval Indian Residential School in the southeastern part of the province, according to a statement released Wednesday by the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, which represents 74 First Nations in Saskatchewan." (Also linked yesterday.) The Guardian's story is here.

News Lede

The New York Times' live updates of developments in the condo collapse near Miami Beach, Florida, are here: "An intense search operation with trained dogs and sonar looking for any signs of life continued overnight and into Friday morning after the partial collapse of the Champlain Towers condo complex just north of Miami Beach. The disaster left at least one person dead and 99 unaccounted for."