The Ledes

Thursday, October 10, 2024

CNBC: “The pace of price increases over the past year was higher than forecast in September while jobless claims posted an unexpected jump following Hurricane Helene and the Boeing strike, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The consumer price index, a broad gauge measuring the costs of goods and services across the U.S. economy, increased a seasonally adjusted 0.2% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 2.4%. Both readings were 0.1 percentage point above the Dow Jones consensus. The annual inflation rate was 0.1 percentage point lower than August and is the lowest since February 2021.”

The New York Times' live updates of Hurrucane Milton consequences Thursday are here: “Milton was still producing damaging hurricane-force winds and heavy rainfall to parts of East and Central Florida, forecasters said early Thursday, even as the powerful storm roared away from the Atlantic coast and left deaths and widespread damage across the state. Cities along Florida’s east coast are now facing flash flooding, damaging winds and storm surges. Some had already been battered by powerful tornadoes spun out by the storm before it made landfall on the Gulf Coast on Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane. In [St. Lucie] county [Fort Pierce], several people in a retirement community were killed by a tornado, the police said.... More than three million customers were without power in Florida as of early Thursday.” ~~~

     ~~~ Here are the Weater Channel's live updates.

CNN: “The 2024 Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to Han Kang, a South Korean author, for her 'intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.' Han, 53, began her career with a group of poems in a South Korean magazine, before making her prose debut in 1995 with a short story collection. She later began writing longer prose works, most notably 'The Vegetarian,' one of her first books to be translated into English. The novel, which won the Man Booker International Prize in 2016, charts a young woman’s attempt to live a more 'plant-like' existence after suffering macabre nightmares about human cruelty. Han is the first South Korean author to win the literature prize, and just the 18th woman out of the 117 prizes awarded since 1901.” The New York Times story is here.

The Wires
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The Ledes

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

Washington Post: “Hours before Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida, a spate of unusually strong and long-lived tornadoes touched down across the state, flipping tractor-trailers and ripping off roofs. The twisters surprised anxious residents, even as the storm’s eye still loomed. Authorities said there had been 'multiple' deaths after the intense and destructive tornadoes.” MB: I'm still on Florida's emergency-call list, and I received several calls from Lee County, urging me to shelter in place.

The Washington Post's live updates of Hurricane Milton developments are here: “Hurricane Milton, which has strengthened to a 'catastrophic' Category 5 storm, is closing in on Florida’s west coast and is expected to make landfall Wednesday night or early Thursday, the National Hurricane Center said. The hurricane, which could bring maximum sustained winds of nearly 160 mph with bigger gusts, poses a dire threat to the densely populated zone that includes Tampa, Sarasota and Fort Myers. As well as 'damaging hurricane-force winds,' coastal communities face a 'life-threatening' storm surge, the center said.” ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' live updates are here: “Milton carved a path of destruction after crashing ashore Wednesday evening on Florida’s Gulf Coast, making landfall near Sarasota as the second powerful hurricane to pound the region in less than two weeks. The storm battered the state for much of the day, with heavy winds, pelting rain and a spate of tornadoes.... By around midnight, the storm had destroyed more than 100 homes, killed several people in a retirement community and ripped the roof off Tropicana Field, the home of the Tampa Bay Rays.”

Washington Post: “The Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to David Baker at the University of Washington and Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper of Google DeepMind.... The prize was awarded to scientists who cracked the code of proteins. Hassabis and Jumper used artificial intelligence to predict the structure of proteins, one of the toughest problems in biology. Baker created computational tools to design novel proteins with shapes and functions that can be used in drugs, vaccines and sensors.”

Sorry, forgot this yesterday: ~~~

Reuters: “U.S. scientist John Hopfield and British-Canadian Geoffrey Hinton won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for discoveries and inventions in machine learning that paved the way for the artificial intelligence boom. Heralded for its revolutionary potential in areas ranging from cutting-edge scientific discovery to more efficient admin, the emerging technology on which the duo worked has also raised fears humankind may soon be outsmarted and outcompeted by its own creation.”

Help!

To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.

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OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, then Akhilleus found one, but it too bit the dust. He found yet another, which I've linked here, and as of September 23, 2024, it's working.

OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.

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Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.

Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

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Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns


Friday
Dec112020

The Commentariat -- December 12, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

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

Jim Rutenberg & Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court repudiation of President Trump's desperate bid for a second term not only shredded his effort to overturn the will of voters: It also was a blunt rebuke to Republican leaders ... who were willing to damage American democracy by embracing a partisan power grab over a free and fair election.... Much of the G.O.P. leadership now shares responsibility for the quixotic attempt to ignore the nation's founding principles and engineer a different verdict from the one voters cast in November.... With direct buy-in from senior officials like Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and the Republican leader in House, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the president;s effort required the party to promote false theory upon unsubstantiated claim upon outright lie about unproved, widespread fraud -- in an election that ... officials agreed was notably smooth given the challenges of the pandemic. And it meant that Republican leaders now stand for a new notion: that the final decisions of voters can be challenged without a basis in fact if the results are not to the liking of the losing side, running counter to decades of work by the United States to convince developing nations that peaceful transfers of power are key to any freely elected government's credibility."

Maggie Haberman & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "President Trump on Saturday excoriated Attorney General William P. Barr, castigating him on Twitter for not violating Justice Department policy to publicly reveal an investigation into President-Elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s son.... Mr. Trump benefited from [the DOJ's] policy [of not discussing ongoing inquiries] himself in 2016, when officials kept quiet the inquiry into possible conspiracy between his campaign and Russian officials.... In the weeks after the election, Mr. Barr refused to refute Mr. Trump's specious claims of widespread voter fraud. But this month, after Mr. Trump raised the prospect that the Justice Department and F.B.I. may have been involved in tipping the election to Mr. Biden, Mr. Barr ... said that he saw no examples of widespread voter fraud that could have meaningfully affected the election." ~~~

~~~ Kevin Liptak of CNN: "... Donald Trump raised the prospect of firing Attorney General William Barr in a meeting on Friday, but it's unclear whether he'll choose to dismiss Barr before the end of his term next month. A person familiar with the matter told CNN that Trump was furious in the meeting with advisers at the White House that Barr had worked to keep the federal investigation into Hunter Biden's taxes from becoming public before the November election. Trump was also upset at reports Barr was considering departing the administration before January 20, believing the leaks to be self-serving. Trump told officials he is serious about replacing Barr, but whether he actually goes ahead with the move remains in question. He has been encouraged by advisers over the past several months not to do so."

Tweets So Bad.... Celine Castronuova of the Hill: "Twitter on Saturday prevented users from liking and replying to a series of tweets from President Trump in which he repeated false claims that he won the election and that the race was 'stolen' from him, though the company later reversed the move. In three separate tweets Saturday morning, Trump responded to the Supreme Court's decision to throw out a lawsuit from Texas aiming to nullify President-elect Joe Biden's win in Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania..... 'This is a great and disgraceful miscarriage of justice,' Trump wrote. 'The people of the United States were cheated, and our Country disgraced. Never even given our day in Court!' In separate tweets limited by Twitter, the president claimed that he 'won the election in a landslide' and that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) allowed votes to be 'stolen' from him."

~~~~~~~~~~

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

** Katie Thomas, et al., of the New York Times: "The Food and Drug Administration authorized Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use on Friday, according to three people with knowledge of the decision.... The action means millions of highly vulnerable people will begin receiving the vaccine within days.... With the decision, the United States becomes the sixth country -- in addition to Britain, Bahrain, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Mexico -- to clear the vaccine. Other authorizations, including by the European Union, are expected within weeks. The action followed an extraordinary sequence of events on Friday morning when the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, told the F.D.A. commissioner, Dr. Stephen Hahn, to consider looking for his next job if he didn't get the emergency approval done on Friday.... Dr. Hahn then ordered vaccine regulators at the agency to do it by the end of the day." ~~~

~~~ Josh Dawsey & Laurie McGinley of the Washington Post: "White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Friday told Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, to submit his resignation if the agency does not clear the nation's first coronavirus vaccine by day's end.... The White House actions once again inject politics into the vaccine race, potentially undermining public trust in one of the most crucial tools to end the pandemic...." In a tweet, Trump ordered Hahn to "get the dam vaccines out NOW." No, Trump cant spel. ~~~

~~~ The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here: "The Food and Drug Administration is accelerating the timeline for issuing an emergency authorization for Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine, aiming to issue it by Friday evening after planning as recently as Thursday night to finalize the move on Saturday. On Friday morning, President Trump lashed out at the F.D.A. in a tweet, attacking the agency's commissioner, Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, by name for not approving a Covid-19 vaccine faster. Continuing his practice of publicly upbraiding subordinates with whom he is displeased, Mr. Trump told Dr. Hahn to 'stop playing games and start saving lives!!!' He called the F.D.A. 'a big, old, slow turtle,' flush with funds but mired in bureaucracy. On Friday morning Mr. Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows..., told Dr. Hahn that he may as well start working on his next job if Dr. Hahn didn't get it done on Friday.... The timing of the announcement appears unlikely to speed up the shipment of the initial doses of the vaccine..., raising questions about the purpose of expediting the authorization." (MB: the "purpose," of course, is to make Trump thinks it appears he is doing something, which he isn't. Trump thinks "yelling at people" & "humiliating subordinates" is the same as "doing something." ~~~

~~~ Earlier That Same Day: "Barring last-minute snags, the F.D.A. is expected to issue an emergency authorization [for Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine] on Saturday. And that means the first Covid-19 vaccinations to be administered in the U.S. outside the confines of an experiment are likely to begin early next week. First in line to get it are health care workers and nursing home residents." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here: "The Trump administration announced Friday that it will purchase an additional 100 million doses of a Moderna vaccine that will be issued to all Americans free of charge, when approved, upping the expected number of vaccines in the federal government's arsenal to 300 million. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a news release that the new purchase expands the stock of doses as part of Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration's program for helping create a vaccine and distributing it as fast as possible."

DHS: Partying to Make the U.S. Less Secure. Maria Sacchetti of the Washington Post: "The Department of Homeland Security hosted a holiday party on Thursday, with acting secretary Chad Wolf mingling indoors with other Trump administration appointees despite warnings from federal and local health authorities that such gatherings could spread the coronavirus. Wolf, who frequently appears on social media without a mask, did not publicize the party.... DHS Chief Financial Officer Troy Edgar, one of the few leading department officials who has been confirmed by the Senate, posted a photograph of himself, Wolf and chief information officer Karen Evans on Twitter. All three were smiling while standing in proximity. None were wearing masks." A spokesperson called the party a "meeting"; MB: frankly, these yokels don't know the difference.

Gina Colata of the New York Times: "The coronavirus is more prevalent in minority communities, and infections, illnesses and deaths have occurred in these groups in disproportionate numbers. But the new studies do suggest that there is no innate vulnerability to the virus among Black and Hispanic Americans, Dr. [Gbenga] Ogedegbe [of New York University] and other experts said. Instead, these groups are more often exposed because of social and environmental factors.... Among many other vulnerabilities, Black and Hispanic communities and households tend to be more crowded; many people work jobs requiring frequent contact with others and rely on public transportation. Access to health care is poorer than among white Americans, and rates of underlying conditions are much higher. The toll on Black and Hispanic Americans 'could easily have been ameliorated in advance of the pandemic by a less threadbare and cruel approach to social welfare and health care in the U.S.,' [said epidemiologist Jon Zelner]." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Early in the pandemic, an acquaintance asked me, more or less rhetorically, why Black people were more likely to get Covid-19. His implication was that they "weren't careful enough." I disabused him of that idea by giving him exactly the reasons the study found. You can bet there are millions of white Americans who still believe what my acquaintance did: that Black people are "too lazy" to take precautions. This makes me crazy.

More Real News

Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "The Senate overwhelmingly passed a sweeping military policy bill on Friday that would require that Confederate names be stripped from American military bases, clearing the measure for enactment and sending it to President Trump's desk in defiance of his threats of a veto. The 84-13 vote to approve the legislation reflected broad bipartisan support for the measure that authorizes pay for American troops and was intended to signal to Mr. Trump that lawmakers, including many Republicans, were determined to pass the critical bill even if it meant potentially delivering the first veto override of his presidency.... The scene that played out on the Senate floor on Friday underscored how Republicans, who have been reluctant to challenge the president on any other issue during his four years in office, have been extraordinarily willing to break with Mr. Trump over one of the party's key orthodoxies -- projecting military strength." Politico's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Jeanne Whalen of the Washington Post: "A groundbreaking measure to ban anonymous shell companies in the United States cleared Congress on Friday as the Senate joined the House in passing a defense-spending bill with a veto-proof margin. The Corporate Transparency Act, which was tacked onto the defense bill, would require corporations and limited liability companies established in the United States to disclose their real owners to the Treasury Department, making it harder for criminals to anonymously launder money or evade taxes. The rule applies to future and existing entities alike.... Tolerance of anonymous shell companies has long helped drug- and human- traffickers, organized crime groups and foreign kleptocrats launder their ill-gotten gains through the U.S. financial system, supporters of the legislation say. It took Michael Cohen, President Trump's former lawyer, only a few days to set up and use an anonymous Delaware LLC to pay hush money to Stormy Daniels, in violation of campaign finance laws." ~~~

~~~ Caitlin Emma, et al., of Politico: "The Senate cleared a one-week government funding bill on Friday by voice vote, forestalling the threat of a government shutdown at midnight and capping off hours of drama after several senators threatened to hold up the resolution. The last-minute agreement to fast-track the short-term funding fix came after a handful of senators dropped efforts to tack on other provisions.... Earlier Friday, Sen. Rand Paul dropped his opposition to the stopgap spending bill and annual defense policy legislation." (Also linked yesterday.)

Li'l Randy Has Not Been Getting Enough Attention. Andrew Desiderio, et al., of of Politico: "Rand Paul is at it again. And his moves could force another brief government shutdown. The Kentucky Republican is objecting to swift passage of the annual defense policy bill, forcing senators to remain in Washington for an extra day as he filibusters the $740 billion legislation. But the government needs to be funded past Friday -- and the short one-week spending bill can't be passed before then without agreement from all 100 senators to vote.... Other senators are also seeking to use the shutdown deadline to push their priorities. Conservatives want votes on legislation to prevent government shutdowns, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is pushing for a vote on a new round of stimulus checks.... Republicans are hopeful that Paul will, at most, stretch things out right up to the Friday shutdown deadline." Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. See his commentary in yesterday's thread. MB: Maybe if the Senate would pass by unanimous consent an agreement to purchase a little plastic trophy that said, "Rand Paul -- Best Senator Ever," they could get on with the real business at hand. (Also linked yesterday.)

The Last Days of the Mad Kaiser

** Supremes to Trump, Paxton, et al.: Adios, Mo-fos. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Friday rejected an audacious lawsuit by Texas that had asked the court to throw out the presidential election results in four battleground states captured by President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. The court, in a brief unsigned order, said Texas lacked standing to pursue the case, saying it 'has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections.' The move, coupled with a one-sentence order on Tuesday turning away a similar request from Pennsylvania Republicans, signaled that the court has refused to be drawn into President Trump's losing campaign to overturn the results of the election last month. There will continue to be scattered litigation brush fires around the nation from Mr. Trump's allies, but as a practical matter the Supreme Court's action puts an end to any prospect that Mr. Trump will win in court what he lost at the polls." ~~~

     ~~~ Nina Totenberg & Barbara Sprunt of NPR: "Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote that in their view the court does 'not have discretion to deny the filing of a bill of complaint in a case that falls within our original jurisdiction.' But the two said that while they would have allowed the filing of the complaint, they would not have granted Trump or Texas, any of the relief they sought." MB: IOW, all nine justices agreed that the case was without merit. ~~~

~~~ Josh Gerstein & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "The decision brings an abrupt, unceremonious end to Trump's legal effort to essentially scrap the democratic process in order to preserve his presidency, a six-week-long crusade in which he has spread false conspiracies about voter fraud to drive up distrust of the U.S. election system. Trump dubbed the Supreme Court gambit 'the big one' and had publicly pressed the justices to rule for him to 'save America.'... Texas's audacious legal move, lodged by its scandal-plagued attorney general Ken Paxton, won Trump's endorsement and the backing of 126 Republican members of the House, including GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy. However, the attempt also prompted an angry reaction from the targeted states and led many Democrats and some GOP officials to denounce the effort as a dangerous assault on the foundation of American democracy." ~~~

~~~ Burgess Everett & Melanie Zanona of Politico: "Not a single GOP senator signed a 'friend of the court' brief for the long-shot Texas lawsuit to throw out other states' results in a bid to keep ... Donald Trump in power. And there was no coordinated effort to get Republicans on board, according to interviews with more than a half-dozen Republican senators before the Supreme Court rejected the case Friday night.... While some had hedged on whether they supported the lawsuit, and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas had even offered to argue the case, a serious Senate companion to House Republicans' jaw-dropping effort never emerged.... The split screen between the two chambers was hardly surprising. For instance, House members in gerrymandered districts are far more fearful of a 2022 primary challenge if they don't go with Trump than the senators who serve entire states in six-year terms."

Trump's Last Act. Marie: Thursday, we had a discussion in the Comments about how the Congress could alter the presidential election results. I relied on a WashPo story to attempt to explain it. However, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a constitutional scholar by trade, explains the Congress's role in more detail & somewhat differently from the WashPo's explanation. He does conclude, as I did, that it's very unlikely Congress will overturn the election:

Bill Chappell & Vanessa Romo of NPR: "Hours after a Wisconsin lower court rejected another of President Trump's attempts to overturn his loss to President-elect Joe Biden on Friday, the state Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in the case over the weekend. The decision by the conservative-controlled court on Friday means Trump's case will skip over the Wisconsin Court of Appeals as the president pursues his quest to invalidate more than 221,000 ballots. That reversal could win him an additional 10 electoral votes, but Trump would still trail Biden, who would have 296. Biden currently has 306 electoral votes to Trump's 232. Electoral College votes are set to be cast on Monday."

Sidney Powell's "Expert Intelligence Analyst" Is Just Some Guy. Emma Brown, et al., of the Washington Post: "The witness is code-named 'Spyder.' Or sometimes 'Spider.' His identity is so closely guarded that lawyer Sidney Powell has sought to keep it even from opposing counsel. And his account of vulnerability to international sabotage is a key part of Powell's failing multistate effort to invalidate President-elect Joe Biden's victory. Powell describes Spyder in court filings as a former 'Military Intelligenc expert,' and his testimony is offered to support one of her central claims.... Spyder, it turns out, is Joshua Merritt, a 43-year-old information technology consultant in the Dallas area.... Records show that Merritt is an Army veteran and that he enrolled in a training program at the 305th Military Intelligence Battalion.... But he never completed the entry-level training course, according to Meredith Mingledorff, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, which includes the battalion. 'He kept washing out of courses,' said Mingledorff, citing his education records. 'He's not an intelligence analyst.'"

Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "We have learned that the Republican Party, or much of it, has abandoned whatever commitment to electoral democracy it had to begin with. That it views defeat on its face as illegitimate, a product of fraud concocted by opponents who don't deserve to hold power. That it is fully the party of minority rule, committed to the idea that a vote doesn't count if it isn't for its candidates, and that if democracy won't serve its partisan and ideological interests, then so much for democracy. None of this is new -- there is a whole tradition of reactionary, counter-majoritarian thought in American politics to which the conservative movement is heir -- but it is the first time since the 1850s that these ideas have nearly captured an entire political party. And while the future is unwritten, the events of the past month make me worry that we're following a script the climax of which requires a disaster." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: "Republicans have gone beyond the indulge-the-toddler-while-he-cries-it-out phase of this debacle to a dangerous new stage: Incentivize the toddler. Reward his bad behavior. Encourage his belief, as poisonous to democracy as it is delusional, that the election was stolen. And they are laying the predicate for a contentious new phase ... in which election results ... are no longer accepted. Instead they merely open the door for a second phase of legal and political guerrilla warfare in which no tactic, no lie, no baseless claim is off-limits. Democracy cannot function this way." Marcus names them all. MB: IMO, Democrats should start running ads now, branding the miscreants in their home bases, as the anti-patriotic, anti-voter assholes they are. Probably an ad-writer can state the case more effectively. The ads should never stop till these jerks are out of office. ~~~

~~~ Orlando Sentinel Editors: "We apologize to our readers for endorsing Michael Waltz in the 2020 general election for Congress. We had no idea, had no way of knowing at the time, that Waltz was not committed to democracy. During our endorsement interview with the incumbent congressman, we didn't think to ask, 'Would you support an effort to throw out the votes of tens of millions of Americans in four states in order to overturn a presidential election and hand it to the person who lost, Donald Trump?' Our bad.... Waltz, to our horror, was one of the 10 Florida Republican members of Congress who, on Thursday, signed up to support a lawsuit brought by Texas in the U.S. Supreme Court that attempted to throw out the election results in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania -- all states where Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden.... Our nation has been teetering on the edge of constitutional disaster, thanks to the likes of Waltz and the Florida members of Congress who also signed up to support the lawsuit brought by Texas...." ~~~

~~~ James Wigderson of RightWisconsin: "In a January 20 editorial..., RightWisconsin made several errors in describing Tom Tiffany, then a candidate in Wisconsin's 7th Congressional District. In the endorsement editorial, editor James Wigderson described Tiffany as 'a solid conservative legislator.'... Tiffany was also described as 'the only candidate deserving of Republican votes in the February 18 GOP primary.' However, a review of the facts of Tiffany's brief time in Congress leads us to believe those statements were made in error.... Tiffany recently signed onto a statement supporting a federal lawsuit to overturn the November 3 presidential election in Wisconsin and three other states: Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan. The federal lawsuit, filed by the ethically challenged Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, would disenfranchise Wisconsin's voters, including those in the 7th Congressional District, if successful. A 'conservative' political leader would understand that Paxton&'s lawsuit is ... a naked attempt at preserving power for a president that lost the November 3 election (even as Tiffany won re-election in his district)."


William Rashbaum, et al., of the New York Times: "State prosecutors in Manhattan have interviewed several employees of President Trump's bank and insurance broker in recent weeks, according to people with knowledge of the matter, significantly escalating an investigation into the president that he is powerless to stop. The interviews with people who work for the lender, Deutsche Bank, and the insurance brokerage, Aon, are the latest indication that once Mr. Trump leaves office, he still faces the potential threat of criminal charges that would be beyond the reach of federal pardons. It remains unclear whether the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., will ultimately bring charges."

Adam Goldman, et al., of the New York Times: "As federal investigators in Delaware were examining the finances of Hunter Biden during his father's campaign for president, a similar inquiry ramped up this year in Pittsburgh, fueled by materials delivered by President Trump's personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani. Attorney General William P. Barr had asked the top federal prosecutor in Pittsburgh, Scott W. Brady, to accept and vet any information that Mr. Giuliani had on the Biden family, including Hunter Biden. Mr. Brady hosted Mr. Giuliani for a nearly four-hour meeting in late January to discuss his materials. The arrangement immediately raised alarms within the F.B.I. and the Justice Department.... Some prosecutors and agents in Pittsburgh regarded Mr. Brady as a Trump loyalist who was thought to be angling to run for office, and they expressed concern that Mr. Brady was wielding the F.B.I. as a weapon to damage Mr. Biden's candidacy.... Mr. Brady has not brought any criminal charges, and Mr. Barr has not publicly discussed the investigation's status since revealing in February that the department would accept Mr. Giuliani's material.... The president-elect is not under investigation."

Leo Shane of the Military Times: "A day after the Veterans Affairs Inspector General blasted VA Secretary Robert Wilkie for his handling of a sexual assault allegation at a department hospital, most of the country's major veterans organizations called for his immediate firing, citing a lack of confidence in his leadership. 'Secretary Wilkie and several members of his executive staff violated the trust of a fellow veteran who came forth with serious allegations of sexual assault,' said Veterans of Foreign Wars Executive Director B.J. Lawrence in a statement Friday night. 'Instead of taking this veteran's allegations seriously, the Secretary and his key staff sought to discredit and vilify the veteran. We will not tolerate this behavior at our VA.'" MB: Sorry, folks. Trump pretends to care about veterans from time to time, but there is no way he will fire a Cabinet member for covering up an (alleged) sexual assault against a female veteran.

News Lede

New York Times: "Charley Pride, a son of sharecroppers who rose to become country music's first Black superstar with hits including 'Kiss an Angel Good Mornin' and 'Is Anybody Goin' to San Antone,' died on Saturday in hospice care in Dallas. He was 86."

Comments Off
Thursday
Dec102020

The Commentariat -- December 11, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Josh Dawsey & Laurie McGinley of the Washington Post: "White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Friday told Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, to submit his resignation if the agency does not clear the nation's first coronavirus vaccine by day's end.... The White House actions once again inject politics into the vaccine race, potentially undermining public trust in one of the most crucial tools to end the pandemic...." In a tweet, Trump ordered Hahn to "get the dam vaccines out NOW." No, Trump cant spel. ~~~

~~~ The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here: "The Food and Drug Administration is accelerating the timeline for issuing an emergency authorization for Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine, aiming to issue it by Friday evening after planning as recently as Thursday night to finalize the move on Saturday. On Friday morning, President Trump lashed out at the F.D.A. in a tweet, attacking the agency's commissioner, Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, by name for not approving a Covid-19 vaccine faster. Continuing his practice of publicly upbraiding subordinates with whom he is displeased, Mr. Trump told Dr. Hahn to 'stop playing games and start saving lives!!!' He called the F.D.A. 'a big, old, slow turtle,' flush with funds but mired in bureaucracy. On Friday morning Mr. Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows..., told Dr. Hahn that he may as well start working on his next job if Dr. Hahn didn't get it done on Friday.... The timing of the announcement appears unlikely to speed up the shipment of the initial doses of the vaccine..., raising questions about the purpose of expediting the authorization." (MB: the "purpose," of course, is to make Trump thinks it appears he is doing something, which he isn't. Trump thinks "yelling at people" & "humiliating subordinates" is the same as "doing something." ~~~

~~~ Earlier That Same Day: "Barring last-minute snags, the F.D.A. is expected to issue an emergency authorization [for Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine] on Saturday. And that means the first Covid-19 vaccinations to be administered in the U.S. outside the confines of an experiment are likely to begin early next week. First in line to get it are health care workers and nursing home residents."

Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "The Senate overwhelmingly passed a sweeping military policy bill on Friday that would require that Confederate names be stripped from American military bases, clearing the measure for enactment and sending it to President Trump's desk in defiance of his threats of a veto. The 84-13 vote to approve the legislation reflected broad bipartisan support for the measure that authorizes pay for American troops and was intended to signal to Mr. Trump that lawmakers, including many Republicans, were determined to pass the critical bill even if it meant potentially delivering the first veto override of his presidency.... The scene that played out on the Senate floor on Friday underscored how Republicans, who have been reluctant to challenge the president on any other issue during his four years in office, have been extraordinarily willing to break with Mr. Trump over one of the party's key orthodoxies -- projecting military strength." Politico's story is here. ~~~

~~~ Caitlin Emma, et al., of Politico: "The Senate cleared a one-week government funding bill on Friday by voice vote, forestalling the threat of a government shutdown at midnight and capping off hours of drama after several senators threatened to hold up the resolution. The last-minute agreement to fast-track the short-term funding fix came after a handful of senators dropped efforts to tack on other provisions.... Earlier Friday, Sen. Rand Paul dropped his opposition to the stopgap spending bill and annual defense policy legislation."

Marie: Yesterday, we had a discussion in the Comments about how the Congress could alter the presidential election results. I relied on a WashPo story to attempt to explain it. However, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a constitutional scholar by trade, explains the Congress's role in more detail & somewhat differently from the WashPo's explanation. He does conclude that it's very unlikely Congress will overturn the election:

Li'l Randy Has Not Been Getting Enough Attention. Andrew Desiderio, et al., of of Politico: "Rand Paul is at it again. And his moves could force another brief government shutdown. The Kentucky Republican is objecting to swift passage of the annual defense policy bill, forcing senators to remain in Washington for an extra day as he filibusters the $740 billion legislation. But the government needs to be funded past Friday -- and the short one-week spending bill can't be passed before then without agreement from all 100 senators to vote.... Other senators are also seeking to use the shutdown deadline to push their priorities. Conservatives want votes on legislation to prevent government shutdowns, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is pushing for a vote on a new round of stimulus checks.... Republicans are hopeful that Paul will, at most, stretch things out right up to the Friday shutdown deadline." Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. See his commentary below. MB: Maybe if the Senate would pass by unanimous consent an agreement to purchase a little plastic trophy that said, "Rand Paul -- Best Senator Ever," they could get on with the real business at hand.

Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "We have learned that the Republican Party, or much of it, has abandoned whatever commitment to electoral democracy it had to begin with. That it views defeat on its face as illegitimate, a product of fraud concocted by opponents who don't deserve to hold power. That it is fully the party of minority rule, committed to the idea that a vote doesn't count if it isn't for its candidates, and that if democracy won't serve its partisan and ideological interests, then so much for democracy. None of this is new -- there is a whole tradition of reactionary, counter-majoritarian thought in American politics to which the conservative movement is heir -- but it is the first time since the 1850s that these ideas have nearly captured an entire political party. And while the future is unwritten, the events of the past month make me worry that we're following a script the climax of which requires a disaster."

~~~~~~~~~~

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

** Katie Thomas, et al., of the New York Times: "Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine passed a critical milestone on Thursday when a panel of experts formally recommended that the Food and Drug Administration authorize the vaccine. The agency is likely to do so within days, giving health care workers and nursing home residents first priority to begin receiving the first shots early next week. The F.D.A.'s vaccine advisory panel, composed of independent scientific experts, infectious disease doctors and statisticians, voted 17 to 4, with one member abstaining, in favor of emergency authorization for people 16 and older. Although the F.D.A. does not have to follow the advice of its advisory panel, it usually does."

The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here. Free to non-subscribers, they include video of the FDA panel's deliberations of emergency use authorization (EUA) of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The hearing is expected to take most of the day. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here: "Late Wednesday in the United States, the daily death toll exceeded the record set just one week earlier, 2,885. By midnight it had climbed to 3,053, and total deaths since the coronavirus spread into the country at the beginning of the year and began laying siege had reached 289,529. If American hospitals were any guide, those numbers are unlikely to dip any time soon." (Also linked yesterday.)

Dan Diamond of Politico: "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield instructed staff to delete an email from a Trump political appointee seeking control over the agency's scientific reports on the pandemic, a senior CDC official told congressional investigators this week. Redfield's apparent instruction was revealed in a Monday closed-door interview with the House subcommittee probing the White House's coronavirus response, which includes the Trump administration's interference at the federal public health agency. It came following an Aug. 8 email sent by Paul Alexander, who was then the scientific adviser to Health and Human Services spokesperson Michael Caputo, aiming to water down the CDC's famed Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports to match ... Donald Trump's efforts to downplay the virus.... Rep. Jim Clyburn, who chairs the House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, on Thursday warned Redfield and HHS Secretary Alex Azar that instructing staff to delete documents is unethical and possibly a violation of federal record-keeping requirements...." (Also linked yesterday.)

"Hey, Maude, Donald Trump Sent Me $600!" Paul Krugman writes a whole column that eventually gets down to what I said the other day about the Mnuchin/Trump plan to muck up Congress's attempt to pass a skinny Covid relief bill: "... the administration proposal completely eliminated the most important piece of any relief deal -- expanded benefits for the unemployed -- replacing it with one-time $600 checks that would be sent to everyone.... For Americans who won't be able to return to work while the pandemic is still raging, a one-time payment of $600 is grossly inadequate, while for those who haven't lost their jobs it's unnecessary.... So what is Mnuchin thinking? We can't rule out sheer ignorance.... And in his madness [Trump] may imagine that he will gain more politically from sending everyone another check with his name on it than from helping those truly in need." MB: While the signature is the main thing, the other part is that many more voters will get the measly $600 checks than would have received unemployment benefits; ergo, more people will "be grateful" to Trump.

New Hampshire. Will Wright & Lucy Tompkins of the New York Times: "The New Hampshire State Legislature was already fiercely divided over the coronavirus when the new Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, Richard Hinch, died suddenly on Wednesday. Then came the news on Thursday that the cause of his death was Covid-19. Mr. Hinch, who was 71, died just a week after he was sworn in as speaker -- and about three weeks after an indoor meeting of his caucus that led to several members contracting the virus, an event that Mr. Hinch had tried to play down in public remarks.... The news will undoubtedly heighten tensions among state lawmakers, who have been at odds over the refusal of many Republican lawmakers to wear masks or take other pandemic precautions seriously. Splits have opened not just along partisan lines but also within the Republican ranks.... Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican..., was critical of lawmakers who refuse to wear masks.'For those who are out there doing just the opposite, just to make some sort of bizarre political point, it's horribly irresponsible,' he said. 'Use your heads, don't act like a bunch of children.'" A Boston.com story is here.

Marie: Here's a story I missed (Dec. 1-2), so I'll present it as a test: You are President* of the United States. You hear that a Nevada hospital is so crowded with Covid patients that it has set up a field hospital in its parking garage. You (a) thank the doctors, nurses & other personnel for working under extreme conditions; (b) offer federal aid to the afflicted region; (c) retweet a tweet that describes the parking-garage hospital as "fake" & add that the state's election results are fake, too. If you chose (c), congratulations! You, too, are qualified to be the worst president* in U.S. history.

More Real News

Tyler Pager of Politico: "President-elect Joe Biden has tapped Obama's former national security adviser Susan Rice to run the White House Domestic Policy Council, according to people familiar with the decision. Rice, who also served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was vetted to serve as Biden's vice president and was a contender to be secretary of State, a position that went to Antony Blinken. The director of the Domestic Policy Council is not a Senate-confirmed position.... The ... top domestic policy job comes as a surprise given her expertise and experience in foreign policy." (Also linked yesterday.)

Megan Cassella & Alex Thompson of Politico: "President-elect Joe Biden will nominate longtime Obama aide Denis McDonough for secretary of Veterans Affairs, according to two people with knowledge of the decision. McDonough served as former President Barack Obama's chief of staff from 2013 until 2017." (Also linked yesterday.)

Biden to Disinfect White House. Alice Ollstein & Daniel Lippman of Politico (Dec. 9): "The [Biden] team only plans to have a skeleton staff working on [the White House] campus at first, with most continuing to work remotely from home. They also plan to have the building -- which has seen numerous virus outbreaks among staffers and top officials this year -- meticulously sanitized. Because the coronavirus can linger on surfaces for multiple days, a team deployed by the General Services Administration will go over every part of the White House's East and West Wings touched by human hands in the hours after Trump departs and Biden moves in, a spokesperson from the agency confirmed.... That includes plans to 'thoroughly clean and disinfect' all furniture, doorknobs, handrails and light switches, before Biden and his team move in. Additionally, a private contractor will provide 'disinfectant misting services' to clear the air of lingering droplets."

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "Unless President Trump's Justice Department clears Hunter Biden of wrongdoing before leaving office, the new president will confront the prospect of his own newly installed administration deciding how or whether to proceed with an inquiry that could expose his son to criminal prosecution. Already some Republicans are demanding a special counsel be appointed to insulate the case from political influence. On the campaign trail, [Joe] Biden excoriated Mr. Trump's efforts to use the F.B.I. and Justice Department to go after his enemies and go easy on his friends, vowing to restore a measure of autonomy for law enforcement if he won the election. News of the investigation into Hunter Biden now focuses even more attention on the incoming president's choice for attorney general, and it will inevitably raise questions if he appoints someone perceived as a political ally.... The inquiry originally focused on possible money laundering but did not gather enough evidence for a prosecution, according to people close to the case. Instead, it turned to tax matters. The federal government and the city of Washington, D.C., issued liens against Hunter Biden for unpaid taxes but have since released them.... Mr. Trump, who has himself engaged in dubious schemes to avoid paying taxes, including instances of outright fraud, seized on the issue to claim that journalists and even his own administration should have revealed the Hunter Biden investigation in time to help him win the election ... before going on to falsely claim that he won anyway." ~~~

     ~~~ Bob Brigham of the Raw Story: "The attorney general had personal knowledge about investigations into Hunter Biden months before the 2020 election, according to a new report. 'Attorney General William Barr has known about a disparate set of investigations involving Hunter Biden's business and financial dealings since at least this spring, a person familiar with the matter said, and worked to avoid their public disclosure during the heated election campaign. Republicans and President Trump have pressed Mr. Barr for months to pursue Mr. Biden, especially as his father, Joe Biden, gained momentum in his ultimately successful bid for president,' The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. 'Mr. Barr has staved off pressure from Republicans in Congress for information into the investigations, the person said, without elaborating on his actions.'" The WSJ story is subscriber-firewalled.

Toljaso. Aamer Madhani & Zeke Miller of the AP: Dr. Deborah "Birx has made clear that she wants to stick around to help the Biden administration roll out vaccines and persuade the American people to be inoculated. She has reached out to Biden advisers in recent days as she tries to make the case for a role in the incoming Democratic president's virus response effort, according to a person familiar with the Biden team's personnel deliberations and a Trump administration coronavirus task force official.... When ... Birx was brought into ... Donald Trump's orbit to help fight the coronavirus pandemic, she had a sterling reputation as a former U.S. Army physician, a globally recognized AIDS researcher and a rare Obama administration holdover. Less than 10 months later..., the White House coronavirus task force coordinator's reputation is frayed. And after serving every president since Ronald Reagan, her future in the incoming Joe Biden administration is uncertain." (Also linked yesterday.)


The Only Real Museums Are About White Men. Paul LeBlanc of CNN: "Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah on Thursday blocked consideration for legislation to establish a National Museum of the American Latino and an American Women's History Museum as part of the Smithsonian Institution, reasoning that the US does not need 'separate but equal museums.' The National Museum of the American Latino legislation had passed the House by voice vote in July following decades of efforts to establish the museum.... Lee's opposition to the bill drew immediate scorn from Sen. Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat and ... [from] GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine...."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled in favor of three Muslim men who say they were put on the no-fly list in retaliation for refusing to become government informants. The court also dismissed a challenge to Delaware's court system, which takes account of the political affiliations of judges in an attempt to achieve ideological balance. The decisions were among four unanimous rulings issued Thursday, the first ones in cases argued in the term that started in October. Justice Amy Coney Barrett did not participate in any of the cases, which were argued before she joined the court. The decision concerning the Muslim men, Tanzin v. Tanvir, No. 19-71, said they were entitled to seek damages from officers they say tried to force them to violate their religious beliefs by spying on other Muslims. The men had sued under a federal law protecting religious liberty, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, and the legal question was whether it allows suits for money against government officials."

Neil Vigdor of the New York Times: "Time magazine on Thursday named President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as its persons of the year, citing the weight of the pandemic and racial injustice that will be shouldered by the history-making Democratic ticket. Bruce Springsteen, who narrated a television ad for Mr. Biden during the campaign, revealed the magazine's choice at the end of an hourlong television special on NBC." MB: Trump so covets a Time cover that he mocked up one, pretended it was real, & hung repros in at least five of his golf course clubhouses. So I hope the Biden/Harris cover is the straw that causes Trumpelstiltskin to rend himself in half. ~~~

     ~~~ Time's story, by Charlotte Alter, is here.

The Last Days of the Mad Kaiser

David Nakamura & Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "With his legal options dwindling and time running out before a key electoral college deadline, President Trump on Thursday ramped up pressure on the Supreme Court to help overturn Joe Biden's victory, gaining the support of more than 100 congressional Republicans in the unprecedented assault on the U.S. election system. In a morning tweet, Trump called on the court to 'save our Country from the greatest Election abuse in the history of the United States,' repeating his baseless claims of widespread fraud. He had a private lunch at the White House with some of the attorneys general from 18 Republican-led states asking the court to dismiss the results in four swing states that Biden won, an effort supported by the Trump administration.... 'Texas's effort to get this court to pick the next President has no basis in law or fact,' Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D) said in a court filing that labeled the case a bid to construct a 'surreal alternate reality.'He added that the court 'should not abide this seditious abuse of the judicial process, and should send a clear and unmistakable signal that such abuse must never be replicated.'" ~~~

~~~ Trump Continues to Try to Force Constitutional Crisis. Rachel Bade, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump is shifting his focus to Congress after the courts roundly rejected his bid to overturn the results of the election, pressuring congressional Republicans into taking a final stand to keep him in power. Trump's push is part of a multipronged approach as he also seeks to lobby state lawmakers and officials to give him cover for his unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud, as well as rally support for a last-gasp legal challenge in the Supreme Court that election law experts almost universally dismiss. The president has been calling Republicans, imploring them to keep fighting and more loudly proclaim the election was stolen while pressing them on what they plan to do.... The president also has enlisted Vice President Pence to reach out to governors and other party leaders ... to see what else can be done to help the president. A person familiar with the calls said Pence has not exerted pressure on lawmakers to take specific actions.... Meanwhile..., Trump's conservative allies in the House have been privately buttonholing GOP senators, seeking to enlist one to join in objecting to slates of electors on Jan. 6.... On that day, Congress will meet in a joint session to count the electoral votes and declare Joe Biden as the 46th president.... If a member of the House and a member of the Senate challenge a state's results, the whole Congress would vote..., forcing Republicans to choose between accepting the election results or Trump's bid to overturn the outcome." (Also linked yesterday.)

George Conway, in a Washington Post op-ed: "'We will be INTERVENING in the Texas (plus many other states) case. This is the big one. Our Country needs a victory!' tweeted the soon-to-be-ex-president of the United States. A filing at the Supreme Court soon followed.... It's the big one, all right, the biggest farce of all.... Trump and his allies have lost just about every lawsuit they've brought to try to keep him in office. By one Democratic election lawyer's count, they have just one win and 55 losses to show for their efforts.... The Trumpistas' solitary victory was a piddling, technical one that affected just a tiny number of ballots, nowhere near enough to change the result. Sad!... Their problem is they have nothing to sue about, and never did." ~~~

~~~ John Amato of Crooks & Liars: Thursday "morning Trump rage tweeted nonsense, conspiracy theories and lies about why he got pummeled in the 2020 general election. His tweets included comments about how this is a 'dangerous moment in time' and anger is going to 'escalate dramatically.' Is that a threat of violence coming from law enforcement or the military?... This is sedition. Period."

Terry Gross of NPR interviews New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman: "White House correspondent Maggie Haberman, who has reported on Trump over the past 20 years, sheds light on his refusal to concede.'" [Trump] can't handle the concept of the label "loser,"' Haberman says. 'He has never before encountered a problem that he couldn't sue away through the court system or spin away. ... This is just an objective fact that he can't do anything about. It is roiling him.' Haberman has covered Trump for The New York Times for more than four years. Before then, she wrote about him for the New York Post, New York Daily News and Politico. She describes the president as a 'self-destructive' individual who tends to crave most what he does not -- or cannot -- have." Includes highlights from the interview & an audio recording of the full interview.

Zoe Richards of TPM: "... Donald Trump is said to have warned Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr (R) not to rally other Republican officials against a Texas lawsuit seeking to discard the state's election results, according to a report from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution late Wednesday. Trump's plea to the attorney general on Tuesday, came after Carr's office had called the request filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) which aims to toss out election results in four battleground states 'constitutionally, legally and factually wrong.' According to the Journal-Constitution, Trump had also called Georgia Sens. David Perdue (R) and Kelly Loeffler (R) and complained about Carr's opposition to the lawsuit. Two Republican officials told the Journal-Constitution that the President had been 'furious' in his call with Loeffler.... The senators issued a joint statement later on Tuesday saying they 'fully support' the Texas lawsuit to reject election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin...." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Adam Liptak & Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "In blistering language denouncing Republican efforts to subvert the election, the attorneys general for Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to reject a lawsuit [filed by Texas AG Ken Paxton (R)] that seeks to overturn the victories in those states by President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., calling the audacious effort an affront to democracy and the rule of law.... The responses by the four states -- represented by three Democratic attorneys general and, in Georgia, a Republican one -- comprehensively critiqued Texas's unusual request to have the Supreme Court act as a kind of trial court in examining supposed election irregularities with the goal of throwing out millions of votes..... The briefs said Texas was in no position to tell other states how to run their elections, adding that its filing was littered with falsehoods.... The lawsuit, filed by the Republican attorney general of Texas and backed by his G.O.P. colleagues in 17 other states and 106 Republican members of Congress, represents the most coordinated, politicized attempt to overturn the will of the voters in recent American history." CNN's story is here. ~~~

~~~ Jeremy Pelzer of Cleveland.com: Ohio's "Attorney General Dave Yost on Thursday filed a legal brief with the U.S. Supreme Court opposing a Texas lawsuit's goal to effectively delay the Electoral College from voting Joe Biden the next U.S. president. Yost, a Columbus Republican, stated in the brief that the Supreme Court lacks authority to order state legislatures in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to appoint presidential electors.... However..., Yost ... encouraged the Supreme Court to rule on whether the election changes made by the states are unconstitutional." Includes a reproduction of Yost's brief. MB: Trump won Ohio's vote. ~~~

~~~ Amber Phillips of the Washington Post: The Texas suit may be the most outlandish effort yet to overturn the presidential election. "But more than 100 House Republicans signed on to a brief supporting the effort.... Republican attorneys general from 17 other states have already joined in.... It's a legitimate question what right Texas even has to bring such a lawsuit against other states.... And then you get into the substance of it, which is more like a Newsmax reel than actual legal arguments, said Jessica Levinson, a law professor at Loyola Law School.... Much of [the] evidence [Texas AG Ken Paxton alleges] has been reviewed and thrown out by various courts." Phillips runs down Paxton's main allegations, like this one: "Paxton pulls an accusation straight out of Trump's Twitter feed -- not even something Trump's lawyers dared make in a courtroom -- that it was odd that Biden took late-night leads in states after Trump initially was leading." And this: "Paxton alleges that 'the statistical improbability of Mr. Biden winning the popular vote in these four states collectively is 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000.' It's unclear, even in the lawsuit, where and how he got that number, says The Post's Philip Bump.'" ~~~

~~~ Colin Kalmbacher of Law & Crime: "Republican elected officials across the country filed multiple briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday in support of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's freewheeling lawsuit against Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin which seeks to overturn the results of the 2020 election in each state -- thereby keeping ... Donald Trump in the White House.... Republicans are climbing over one another to sign onto the Lone Star State's bid to disregard the will of the voters in four swing state Trump lost. Citing allegations of fraud and corruption and Alexander Hamilton's words in The Federalist Papers concerning 'the threat posed by foreign governments to influence the selection' of the U.S. president, 106 GOP members of the U.S. House of Representatives filed in support of Texas, telling the nine justices that it is their 'solemn duty' to 'provide an objective review of these anomalies and to determine for the people if indeed the Constitution has been followed and the rule of law maintained.'"

~~~ The GOP Has Become a Monster. Kevin Drum of Mother Jones: "... more than half of all Republicans in the House ... [are] signing onto a brief that reads like it was written by a ten-year-old, all for no reason except to demonstrate a slavish hatred of Democrats to their base. They aren't signing it because they're otherwise afraid of retribution from Donald Trump -- he's a powerless lame duck at this point -- they're signing it because they've created both a base and an entertainment complex that will punish them if they don't continue to feed it ever larger and bloodier chunks of red meat." ~~~

~~~ A Reminder from Emma Platoff of the Texas Tribune: "Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had fallen into political peril this fall, facing another set of criminal allegations after eight of his top aides said they believed he broke the law by using the agency's resources to do favors for a political donor. The allegations have reportedly sparked an FBI investigation that escalated this week when FBI agents served at least one subpoena at the attorney general's office.... And he was reelected as attorney general in 2018 despite the felony indictment that has dogged him for years.... 'It looks like a fella begging for a pardon filed a PR stunt rather than a lawsuit -- as all of its assertions have already been rejected by federal courts and Texas' own solicitor general isn't signing on,' U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., said."

Adam Klasfeld of Law & Crime: "The last of the four lawsuits filed by President Donald Trump's former lawyer Sidney Powell bit the dust late Wednesday in Wisconsin, where a federal judge noted that voters choose who goes to the White House in the United States. 'Federal judges do not appoint the president in this country,' U.S. District Judge Pamela Pepper wrote in a 45-page ruling.... The decision fell hours after a similar decision by a federal judge in Arizona, who found Powell's claims of voter fraud entirely unsupported. 'Not only have Plaintiffs failed to provide the Court with factual support for their extraordinary claims, but they have wholly failed to establish that they have standing for the Court to consider them,' U.S. District Judge Diane Joyce Humetewa said." (Also linked yesterday.)

Georgia. A State Legislator Decimates a Central Trump Argument. Michelle Lee of the Washington Post: "When Georgia state Rep. Bee Nguyen (D) reviewed a list of voters who President Trump's campaign claimed cast illegal ballots in the state, three names caught her eye: two friends and a constituent. For days, Nguyen pored over public records, spoke with voters by phone and even knocked on doors in person to vet the Trump list. She found that it included dozens of voters who were eligible to vote in Georgia -- along with their full names and home addresses. On Thursday..., data analyst [Matt Braynard] who compiled the list told a panel of state lawmakers that it proved thousands of voters cast ballots in Georgia who should not have.... [Braynard's] research has been cited in numerous suits filed by Trump and his allies, several of which have been tossed out of the courts. Nguyen's 10-minute dissection of the data offered a rare real-time fact check of the unsubstantiated claims of widespread fraud that the president's allies have promoted.... 'If you are going to take the names of voters in the state of Georgia and publish their first, middle and last name, their home address, and accuse them of committing a felony, at the very minimum there should have been an attempt to contact these voters,' she said in an interview after the hearing. 'There was no such attempt.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: It does seem to me that everyone whose name & address was published in court filings as having voted illegally has a good defamation case against the Trump campaign. I know I would not be amused if I found out my name & address were on one of Trump's list of felons. When the POTUS* or his representatives falsely accuse you of committing a felony, it seems like a big deal. The false accusation could even come up in records that might be searched when you apply for a job or a bank loan, for instance.

Marie: It looks as if Susan Glasser of the New Yorker & David Graham of the Atlantic each has written an essay on how the Republican party has abandoned democracy. I do not have subscriptions to either publication, so I can't link the articles, but for those of you who do have subscriptions, these essays do look to be worthy of your time.

Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "Attorney General William P. Barr has told others he plans to remain in his post through the end of the Trump administration, setting aside his deliberations about stepping down by the end of the year, according to a person told of his decision. Mr. Barr had been weighing whether to leave this month. But President Trump -- already angry with the attorney general's refusal to help overturn the election -- was said to be irritated with Mr. Barr's contemplation of an early departure, according to the person.... Mr. Barr's unwillingness to do more to help Mr. Trump try to overturn the election result has forced the president to turn to state legislatures, state attorneys general and a series of lawsuits." MB: I suppose there is some significance to the fact that Trump is joining the crazy Texas election lawsuit "in his personal capacity," & despite the fact that 17 GOP state attorneys general have signed on, Barr & the DOJ have not.

Republicans Still Don't Want You to Vote. Michael Wines of the New York Times: "President Trump's barrage of losses in court cases trying to undermine the election has not stopped Republicans from ... attempts to limit or undermine the future use of the vote-by-mail ballots that so infuriated Mr. Trump. Absentee ballots constituted nearly half the votes cast in the 2020 election, and the experiment in mass voting by mail has been viewed by election experts as a remarkable success, one that was less prone to errors than expected and had almost no documented fraud.... This week in Georgia..., Republican state senators promised to make getting and casting mail ballots far more difficult.... In Pennsylvania, Republicans preparing for the legislative session that convenes on Jan. 11 are seeking co-sponsors for bills to stiffen identification requirements for mail ballots.... Michigan Republicans have signaled that they want to review a 2018 ballot initiative approved by two-thirds of voters that authorized no-excuse absentee balloting as well as same-day registration and straight-ticket voting. Texas already has some of the nation's toughest restrictions on voting by mail. But Republicans have filed bills ... that would crimp officials' ability to distribute absentee ballot applications and even make it a felony to offer to help a voter fill out a ballot." (Also linked yesterday.)


Mark Berman of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration Thursday executed Brandon Bernard, one of five death sentences the federal government hopes to carry out before President-elect Joe Biden takes office next month. This schedule has spurred significant pushback, with critics arguing against carrying out a wave of executions in the narrow window before Biden, who opposes capital punishment, takes office. Three of the executions are set for the week before Biden's inauguration Jan. 20. Bernard's case had drawn high-profile condemnation, with Kim Kardashian West, among others, tweeting about his case and sharing a petition calling for his death sentence to be commuted to life in prison. On Thursday evening, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Bernard's stay request, clearing the way for his execution to proceed. The court's three liberal justices -- Stephen G. Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor -- said they would have granted the stay. An hour later, officials said Bernard's execution had been carried out and he was pronounced dead at 9:27 p.m. Bernard was the ninth federal death-row inmate executed this year." A Huffington Post story is here.

John Hudson of the Washington Post: "The State Department's acting inspector general is leaving his job Friday following an attack on his office by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's spokesperson concerning a report about official trips Pompeo took with his wife, according to a memo obtained by The Washington Post. Inspector General Matthew Klimow told colleagues that he is leaving 'a little bit earlier than I anticipated,' noting that 'it was determined' that he must relinquish his duties in compliance with the Vacancies Reform Act, a law that allows acting officials to serve for 210 days after a vacancy is declared." Thanks to safari for the lead. A Raw Story summary report is here. ~~~

~~~ Conor Finnegan of ABC News: "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is claiming that he and his wife Susan have been 'fully vindicated' after a watchdog investigation of her travel on his official trips. But according to the report, that's not what the ... Inspector General found. After a year-long probe, the OIG said that the department lacked documentation that Susan Pompeo's presence was properly authorized on most of the trips she's made during Pompeo's time as the top U.S. diplomat."

Beyond the Beltway

California. John Branch of the New York Times: "The giant sequoia. The Joshua tree. The coast redwood. They are the three plant species in California with national parks set aside in their name, for their honor and protection. Scientists already feared for their future. Then came 2020. The wildfires that burned more than four million acres in California this year were both historic and prophetic, foreshadowing a future of more heat, more fires and more destruction. Among the victims, this year and in the years to come, are many of California's oldest and most majestic trees, already in limited supply.... This past summer in the Sierra Nevada, a fire ecologist named Kristen Shive camped in one of the few remaining ancient groves of giant sequoias, among trees as old as the Bible. This fall she revisited the grove, and stood somberly among the dead. 'They've lived through literally hundreds of fires in their lifetimes,' Dr. Shive said. 'Now we're seeing them killed in one fell swoop.'"

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Wednesday
Dec092020

The Commentariat -- December 10, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Marie: Here's a story I missed (Dec. 1-2), so I'll present it as a test: You are President* of the United States. You hear that a Nevada hospital is so crowded with Covid patients that it has set up a field hospital in its parking garage. You (a) thank the doctors, nurses & other personnel for working under extreme conditions; (b) offer federal aid to the afflicted region; (c) retweet a tweet that describes the parking-garage hospital as "fake" & add that the state's election results are fake, too. If you chose (c), congratulations! You, too, are qualified to be the worst president* in U.S. history.

The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here. Free to non-subscribers, they include video of the FDA panel's deliberations of emergency use authorization (EUA) of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The hearing is expected to take most of the day. ~~~

~~~ The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here: "Late Wednesday in the United States, the daily death toll exceeded the record set just one week earlier, 2,885. By midnight it had climbed to 3,053, and total deaths since the coronavirus spread into the country at the beginning of the year and began laying siege had reached 289,529. If American hospitals were any guide, those numbers are unlikely to dip any time soon."

Republicans Still Don't Want You to Vote. Michael Wines of the New York Times: "President Trump's barrage of losses in court cases trying to undermine the election has not stopped Republicans from ... attempts to limit or undermine the future use of the vote-by-mail ballots that so infuriated Mr. Trump. Absentee ballots constituted nearly half the votes cast in the 2020 election, and the experiment in mass voting by mail has been viewed by election experts as a remarkable success, one that was less prone to errors than expected and had almost no documented fraud.... This week in Georgia..., Republican state senators promised to make getting and casting mail ballots far more difficult.... In Pennsylvania, Republicans preparing for the legislative session that convenes on Jan. 11 are seeking co-sponsors for bills to stiffen identification requirements for mail ballots.... Michigan Republicans have signaled that they want to review a 2018 ballot initiative approved by two-thirds of voters that authorized no-excuse absentee balloting as well as same-day registration and straight-ticket voting. Texas already has some of the nation's toughest restrictions on voting by mail. But Republicans have filed bills ... that would crimp officials' ability to distribute absentee ballot applications and even make it a felony to offer to help a voter fill out a ballot."

Tyler Pager of Politico: "President-elect Joe Biden has tapped Obama's former national security adviser Susan Rice to run the White House Domestic Policy Council, according to people familiar with the decision. Rice, who also served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was vetted to serve as Biden's vice president and was a contender to be secretary of State, a position that went to Antony Blinken. The director of the Domestic Policy Council is not a Senate-confirmed position.... The ... top domestic policy job comes as a surprise given her expertise and experience in foreign policy."

Megan Cassella & Alex Thompson of Politico: "President-elect Joe Biden will nominate longtime Obama aide Denis McDonough for secretary of Veterans Affairs, according to two people with knowledge of the decision. McDonough served as former President Barack Obama's chief of staff from 2013 until 2017."

Toljaso. Aamer Madhani & Zeke Miller of the AP: Dr Deborah "Birx has made clear that she wants to stick around to help the Biden administration roll out vaccines and persuade the American people to be inoculated. She has reached out to Biden advisers in recent days as she tries to make the case for a role in the incoming Democratic president's virus response effort, according to a person familiar with the Biden team's personnel deliberations and a Trump administration coronavirus task force official.... When ... Birx was brought into ... Donald Trump's orbit..., she had a sterling reputation as a former U.S. Army physician, a globally recognized AIDS researcher and a rare Obama administration holdover. Less than 10 months later..., the White House coronavirus task force coordinator's reputation is frayed And after serving every president since Ronald Reagan, her future in the incoming Joe Biden administration is uncertain."

Trump Continues to Try to Force Constitutional Crisis. Rachel Bade, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump is shifting his focus to Congress after the courts roundly rejected his bid to overturn the results of the election, pressuring congressional Republicans into taking a final stand to keep him in power. Trump's push is part of a multipronged approach as he also seeks to lobby state lawmakers and officials to give him cover for his unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud, as well as rally support for a last-gasp legal challenge in the Supreme Court that election law experts almost universally dismiss. The president has been calling Republicans, imploring them to keep fighting and more loudly proclaim the election was stolen while pressing them on what they plan to do.... The president also has enlisted Vice President Pence to reach out to governors and other party leaders ... to see what else can be done to help the president. A person familiar with the calls said Pence has not exerted pressure on lawmakers to take specific actions.... Meanwhile..., Trump's conservative allies in the House have been privately buttonholing GOP senators, seeking to enlist one to join in objecting to slates of electors on Jan. 6.... On that day, Congress will meet in a joint session to count the electoral votes and declare Joe Biden as the 46th president.... If a member of the House and a member of the Senate challenge a state's results, the whole Congress would vote..., forcing Republicans to choose between accepting the election results or Trump's bid to overturn the outcome."

Zoe Richards of TPM: "... Donald Trump is said to have warned Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr (R) not to rally other Republican officials against a Texas lawsuit seeking to discard the state's election results, according to a report from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution late Wednesday. Trump's plea to the attorney general on Tuesday, came after Carr's office had called the request filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) which aims to toss out election results in four battleground states 'constitutionally, legally and factually wrong.' According to the Journal-Constitution, Trump had also called Georgia Sens. David Perdue (R) and Kelly Loeffler (R) and complained about Carr's opposition to the lawsuit. Two Republican officials told the Journal-Constitution that the President had been 'furious' in his call with Loeffler.... The senators issued a joint statement later on Tuesday saying they 'fully support' the Texas lawsuit to reject election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin...."

Adam Klasfeld of Law & Crime: "The last of the four lawsuits filed by President Donald Trump's former lawyer Sidney Powell bit the dust late Wednesday in Wisconsin, where a federal judge noted that voters choose who goes to the White House in the United States. 'Federal judges do not appoint the president in this country,' U.S. District Judge Pamela Pepper wrote in a 45-page ruling.... The decision fell hours after a similar decision by a federal judge in Arizona, who found Powell's claims of voter fraud entirely unsupported. 'Not only have Plaintiffs failed to provide the Court with factual support for their extraordinary claims, but they have wholly failed to establish that they have standing for the Court to consider them,' U.S. District Judge Diane Joyce Humetewa said."

Dan Diamond of Politico: "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield instructed staff to delete an email from a Trump political appointee seeking control over the agency's scientific reports on the pandemic, a senior CDC official told congressional investigators this week. Redfield's apparent instruction was revealed in a Monday closed-door interview with the House subcommittee probing the White House's coronavirus response, which includes the Trump administration's interference at the federal public health agency. It came following an Aug. 8 email sent by Paul Alexander, who was then the scientific adviser to Health and Human Services spokesperson Michael Caputo, aiming to water down the CDC's famed Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports to match ... Donald Trump's efforts to downplay the virus.... Rep. Jim Clyburn, who chairs the House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, on Thursday warned Redfield and HHS Secretary Alex Azar that instructing staff to delete documents is unethical and possibly a violation of federal record-keeping requirements...."

~~~~~~~~~~

Seung Min Kim & Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "President-elect Joe Biden, introducing his pick for defense secretary, launched Wednesday into what could be a tough, weeks-long sales pitch to persuade members of both parties that retired Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III is the right choice despite the long-standing principle of civilian leadership at the Pentagon. 'I fully understand and respect' the law requiring service members to be retired for at least seven years before heading the Defense Department, Biden said. But Austin, the retired former head of U.S. Central Command, was uniquely qualified and deserved the once-in-a-generation exception, Biden said. 'I would not be asking for this exception if I [thought] this moment in our history didn't call for it,' Biden said. 'It does call for it.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Michael Crowley & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "Mr. Biden's team has already begun making its case to lawmakers, where Democratic leaders have expressed strong support for the nomination, and believe General Austin's prospects are good. 'Lloyd Austin served our nation for more than four decades and his willingness to serve his country again is admirable,' the Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said on the chamber floor on Wednesday. 'He will make an excellent secretary of defense.' On Tuesday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, also declared her support for General Austin in a statement that did not address his recent retirement. Some lawmakers have acknowledged that it was hard to justify opposing a waiver for General Austin after Congress approved one for [the recently retired former Marine general Jim] Mattis.... But many Democrats still have qualms."

Gavin Bade, et al., of Politico:"President-elect Joe Biden will nominate House Ways and Means Committee trade lawyer Katherine Tai as U.S. trade representative, according to two people familiar with the decision. Biden's pick will be responsible for repairing economic ties with allies chastened by ... Donald Trump's trade wars while fulfilling his campaign pledge to stay tough on China."

Scott Wong & Mike Lillis of the Hill: "President-elect Joe Biden's decision to tap Reps. Cedric Richmond (D-La.) and Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) for his new administration will mean Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) fragile House majority -- already decimated in the November elections — will temporarily shrink by a couple more seats next month. Democrats will easily refill those deep-blue seats in New Orleans and Cleveland, but they'll have to wait for special elections to do so. The looming vacancies mean Democrats will likely hold a precarious 220-213 majority, the slimmest in modern history, just as they kick off the 117th Congress and Biden and his Hill allies grapple with twin public health and economic crises." --s

Evan Perez & Pamela Brown of CNN: "After pausing in the months before the election, federal authorities are now actively investigating the business dealings of Hunter Biden, a person with knowledge of the probe said. His father, President-elect Joe Biden, is not implicated. Now that the election is over, the investigation is entering a new phase. Federal prosecutors in Delaware, working with the IRS Criminal Investigation agency and the FBI, are taking overt steps such as issuing subpoenas and seeking interviews, the person with knowledge said. Activity in the investigation had been largely dormant in recent months due to Justice Department guidelines prohibiting overt actions that could affect an election, the person said." The New York Times' story is here. MB: Pretty amazing that news of this probe didn't leak during the election cycle. That must mean that neither Bill Barr nor Trump's man at the IRS Charles Rettig clued in Trump. So something else to infuriate Trump.

Cecilia Kang & Mike Isaac of the New York Times: "The Federal Trade Commission and more than 40 states accused Facebook on Wednesday of buying up its rivals to illegally squash competition, and they called for the deals to be unwound, escalating regulators' battle against the biggest tech companies in a way that could remake the social media industry. Federal and state regulators of both parties, who have investigated the company for over 18 months, said in separate lawsuits that Facebook's purchases, especially Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and WhatsApp for $19 billion two years later, eliminated competition that could have one day challenged the company's dominance. Since those deals, Instagram and WhatsApp have skyrocketed in popularity, giving Facebook control over three of the world's most popular social media and messaging apps." CNN's story is here.

The Last Days of the Mad Kaiser

Dan Mangan & Kevin Breuninger of CNBC: "Seventeen states whose elections were won by ... Donald Trump told the Supreme Court on Wednesday that they support Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's bid to file a lawsuit that could effectively reverse President-elect Joe Biden's projected Electoral College victory. The filing backing Paxton by those states came a day after he asked the Supreme Court for permission to sue Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all of which Biden won, over their voting processes. Later Wednesday, Trump filed a motion to intervene in the case 'in his personal capacity' as a presidential candidate. The Supreme Court has yet to rule on Paxton's request.... After Trump asked to intervene in the case, 17 former officials and lawmakers filed their own brief supporting the four swing states."; MB: I suppose we should be grateful nobody has fired on Fort Sumpter. Meanwhile, as to the real intent of the attorneys' general suit, maybe it's to wise up the last naif who believed the main job of an AG was to uphold the law. ~~~

     ~~~ Jeremy Peters & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "The show of support, in a brief filed with the Supreme Court, represented the latest attempt by Trump loyalists to use the power of public office to come to his aid as he continues to deny the reality of his loss with baseless claims of voter fraud.... Legal experts ... have largely dismissed [the suit] as a publicity stunt.... That these political allies are also elected officials whose jobs involve enforcing laws, including voting rights, underscores the extraordinary nature of the brief to the court..... Late Tuesday, the president asked Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican, if he would be willing to argue the case, according to a person familiar with their conversation. Mr. Cruz agreed, this person said." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: In case the Supremes need guidance in drafting their order of dismissal, here's my suggestion: "The application for injunctive relief is denied, although the Court unanimously regrets foregoing the opportunity to tear Ted Cruz to shreds."

     ~~~ Ariane de Vogue & Paul LeBlanc of CNN: "... Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday [link fixed] to block millions of votes from four battleground states that voted for President-elect Joe Biden. Trump's request came in a filing with the court asking to intervene in a lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton seeking to invalidate millions of votes cast in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The President is being represented by a new attorney, John Eastman, who is known for recently pushing a racist conspiracy theory questioning whether Vice President-elect Kamala Harris was eligible for the role because her parents were immigrants."

She Wants to Be Alone. Kate Bennett of CNN: "While the President is busy figuring out a way to stay in the White House, the first lady is determining what to put in storage, what goes to Trump's New York City digs, and what should be tagged for shipment to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. 'She just wants to go home,' said another source familiar with Melania Trump's state of mind."

Adam Klasfeld of Law & Crime: "... Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Joaquin Castro opened up a new probe on Wednesday focusing on Jared Kushner's potentially compromising dealings with Qatar and other Middle Eastern governments. The latest investigation looks into whether Kushner pushed his father-in-law Trump to support a Qatari blockade while Kushner Companies sought a more than billion-dollar bailout from officials from that and other Middle Eastern governments."

Jessica Corbett of Common Dreams: "Capping off nearly four years of Trump and members of his administration working to roll back over 100 environmental and public health protections in the service of corporate polluters..., the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday finalized a rule that critics are calling a last-minute attempt to 'sabotage' future efforts by President-elect Joe Biden's incoming administration to tackle the intertwined climate and pollution crises.... [T]he new rule changes how the EPA calculates the costs and benefits of new policies on air pollution under the Clean Air Act." --s

Lisa Rein & Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "The Veterans Affairs inspector general informed federal prosecutors this fall of possible criminal conduct by Secretary Robert Wilkie stemming from an investigation into whether he worked to discredit a congressional aide who said she was sexually assaulted, according to three current and former federal officials. The Justice Department has not pursued a case against Wilkie, a former senior Pentagon official who has served since 2018 as President Trump's second veterans chief. Prosecutors told Inspector General Michael J. Missal they did not think there was enough evidence presented to bring charges, according to two federal officials with direct knowledge of the case. But Missal's outreach to prosecutors suggests the seriousness of a probe that has engulfed the secretary and his top political staff for almost a year, these people said.... Missal launched his inquiry into Wilkie's conduct in February after a request from House Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Mark Takano (D-Calif.), who said Wilkie had worked to damage the credibility of his senior policy adviser, Navy veteran Andrea Goldstein."

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Wednesday are here (also linked yesterday): "After weeks of surging infections and rising levels of virus hospitalizations, the United States recorded more than 3,000 covid-19 deaths in a single day, a pandemic record, according to a Washington Post analysis.... The new death record, as well as a new high of more than 106,000 covid-19 patients in hospitals, are grim reminders of the pandemic's devastating toll."

Some Are Far More Equal Than Others. Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "Ben Carson, Chris Christie and Donald J. Trump are not the sturdiest candidates to conquer the coronavirus: older, in some cases overweight, male and not particularly fit. Yet all seem to have gotten through Covid-19, and all have gotten an antibody treatment in such short supply that some hospitals and states are doling it out by lottery. Now Rudolph W. Giuliani, the latest member of President Trump's inner circle to contract Covid-19, has acknowledged that he received at least two of the same drugs the president received. He even conceded that his 'celebrity' status had given him access to care that others did not have. 'If it wasn't me, I wouldn't have been put in a hospital frankly,' Mr. Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, told WABC radio in New York.... Mr. Giuliani's candid admission once again exposes that Covid-19 has become a disease of the haves and the have-nots. The treatment given Mr. Trump's allies is raising alarms among medical ethicists...." ~~~

~~~ MEANWHILE. Lauren Leatherby, et al., of the New York Times: "More than a third of Americans live in areas where hospitals are running critically short of intensive care beds, federal data show.... Hospitals serving more than 100 million Americans reported having fewer than 15 percent of intensive care beds still available as of last week, according to a Times analysis.... Many areas are even worse off: One in 10 Americans -- across a large swath of the Midwest, South and Southwest -- lives in an area where intensive care beds are either completely full, or fewer than 5 percent of beds are available. At these levels, experts say maintaining existing standards of care for the sickest patients may be difficult or impossible."

Florida. Teo Armus & Melissa Iati of the Washington Post: "A Republican lawyer resigned Tuesday from a Florida judicial panel in objection to police raiding the home of a data scientist. That scientist was previously ousted from the state health department in what she has characterized as retribution for objecting to unethical requests during the pandemic.Ron Filipkowski, who served on a nominating commission for the state's 12th Circuit, wrote in a pointed resignation letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis's general counsel that he considered the search warrant executed on Rebekah Jones's home 'unconscionable.' He also said it was indicative of the state's 'reckless and irresponsible' handling of the coronavirus pandemic."

Canada. Ian Austen of the New York Times: "Canada on Wednesday become only the second Western country to approve a coronavirus vaccine, a week after Britain did so and a day before U.S. regulators will meet to consider taking that step, opening the possibility that Canadians will start being inoculated next week.The regulatory agency Health Canada approved the same vaccine, created by the American company Pfizer and a German firm, BioNTech, that was authorized in Britain and is up for a decision in the United States." MB: That's odd. Just yesterday we learned that Donald Trump "all but declared victory over the pandemic, hailing new vaccines as a 'medical miracle' and congratulating himself for doing what 'nobody has ever seen before.'" Apparently Trump's supposedly unique "medical miracle" has "been seen before": in the U.K. & Canada.

Way Beyond the Beltway

Earth. Big Foot. Sandra Laville of the Guardian: "The giant human footprint stamped across the world in 2020 is greater than the impact on the planet of all other living things, research suggests. The amount of plastic alone is greater in mass than all land animals and marine creatures combined, the study estimates.... Their research shows that human activity including production of concrete, metal, plastic, bricks and asphalt has brought the world to a crossover point where human-made mass -- driven mostly by enhanced consumption and urban development -- exceeds the overall living biomass on Earth.... On average, every person in the world is responsible for the creation of human-made matter equal to more than their bodyweight each week, the paper published in Nature says. The research found that the stamp of humanity has been increasing in size rapidly since the beginning of the 20th century, doubling every 20 years." --s

News Lede

CNBC: "The pace of weekly jobless claims jumped last week after filings caught up with a decline due in part to the Thanksgiving holiday. First-time claims for unemployment insurance totaled 853,000, an increase from the upwardly revised 716,000 total a week before, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting 730,000. This was the highest weekly total since Sept. 19 and reflects the job market's struggles lately as coronavirus cases have spiked and local and state governments have imposed restrictions on some activities.Continuing claims increased by 230,000 to 5.76 million, the first time that number has gone up since late August."

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