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.

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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!

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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


Sunday
Nov292020

The Commentariat -- Nov. 30, 2020

Afternoon Update:

Geoff Bennett & Rebecca Shabad of NBC News: "President-elect Joe Biden on Monday will receive his first presidential daily briefing since winning the 2020 election after the Trump administration delayed approving the transition process. The report, which Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is also scheduled to receive, is a classified document outlining high-level intelligence and analysis on a range of national security issues. It's prepared by the director of national intelligence and includes information from the CIA and other elements of the intelligence community." MB: I wonder if Biden & Harris will get real PDBs or copies of the same coloring/picture books Trump receives. ~~~

A recently-released early PDB tailored for Donald Trump. By the Onion, via the Verge.

The Latest from the Mad Kaiser. Charlie Nash of Mediaite: "... Donald Trump called on 'hapless' Republican Georgia Governor Brian Kemp to 'use his emergency powers' to search for alleged 2020 election fraud in the state on Monday. 'Why won't Governor @BrianKempGA, the hapless Governor of Georgia, use his emergency powers, which can be easily done, to overrule his obstinate Secretary of State, and do a match of signatures on envelopes,' questioned Trump on Twitter, claiming, 'It will be a "goldmine" of fraud, and we will easily WIN the state.... Also, quickly check the number of envelopes versus the number of ballots. You may just find that there are many more ballots than there are envelopes. So simple, and so easy to do,' he continued. 'Georgia Republicans are angry, all Republicans are angry. Get it done!'... Business Insider ... reporter Grace Panetta soon pointed out to the president that Kemp 'does not have this power,' and, 'Signature matching already happened twice, first when the voter applied for the ballot and then the ballot was received.... It's impossible to do signature matching *again* because the ballots have already been separated from the envelopes with the voter's name and signature on them.'" ~~~

~~~ So Then. Greg Bluestein of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Gov. Brian Kemp's office responded Monday to ... Donald Trump's demands to help him overturn Georgia's election results with a reminder that state law 'prohibits the governor from interfering in the election.'... 'Georgia law prohibits the governor from interfering in elections. The Secretary of State, who is an elected constitutional officer, has oversight over elections that cannot be overridden by executive order,' said Kemp spokesman Cody Hall.... The governor has been largely silent for weeks over Trump's attacks, which have escalated after he became the first Republican to lose Georgia in a presidential vote in nearly 30 years.... Kemp has had little backup from other GOP officials."

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Monday are here: "Dr. [Anthony] Fauci, during an appearance on the Sunday news program 'This Week,' said the best course for Thanksgiving travelers might be 'to quarantine yourself for a period of time.' Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said that travelers 'have to assume that you were exposed and you became infected and you really need to get tested in the next week.' She urged that travelers avoid anyone in their family over 65 or with underlying illnesses."

Maggie Fox & John Bonifield of CNN: "Advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have called an emergency meeting for Tuesday to vote on who they recommend should be the first to get a coronavirus vaccine once one is authorized. The CDC's Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices wants to have advice out to the public ahead of any decision from the US Food and Drug Administration about emergency authorization of a vaccine, ACIP chair Dr. Jose Romero told CNN.... 'This is not something that is being rushed. We have already discussed the groups within the first tier. We are simply going over the data once again and having a vote primarily on the first tier group 1a -- healthcare providers and the people in the long term, congregate facilities.'"

Lauren Feiner of CNBC: "Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai will step down from his post on Jan. 20, the day President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated, he announced Monday. The announcement means that the FCC could reach a Democratic majority sooner than it would otherwise be able to. Pai's term was slated to expire in June 2021, though Biden will be able to choose a Democrat to chair the commission once in office.... Pai's decision to step down could have significant implications on net neutrality, an issue that helped define his term as chairman. In 2017, Pai voted with his fellow Republican commissioners to remove rules that prohibited internet providers from blocking or slowing traffic to particular sites and offering higher speed 'lanes' at higher prices. Many major internet providers have not yet taken advantage of that rule change, however.... Pai had recently said that the FCC could move forward with rule-making around ... Donald Trump's executive order targeting social media companies.... Pai's departure makes it much less likely that significant action on the executive order will take place anytime soon, given that the two Democratic commissioners opposed Pai's decision."

~~~~~~~~~~

Real Political News (+ Commentary on Nitwits)

Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "President-elect Joe Biden sprained his right foot Saturday while playing with his dog, his transition team said Sunday after Biden was taken to an orthopedist 'out of an abundance of caution.' Biden, 78, slipped while playing with his dog Major, one of his two German shepherds, his office said. Late Sunday afternoon, Biden visited Delaware Orthopaedic Specialists in Newark, Del., about a half-hour from his home near Wilmington. There, initial X-rays showed 'no obvious fracture,' according to a statement from his physician, Kevin O'Connor.... A Biden spokesperson said the president-elect visited the doctor's office on Sunday to avoid disrupting the clinic's regularly scheduled appointments on Monday. After spending about two hours at the orthopedics office, Biden traveled to a nearby imaging facility to have a CT scan. A cameraperson traveling with the press pool observed him walking with a limp." ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Annie Karni of the New York Times: “President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. twisted his ankle playing with one of his dogs over the holiday weekend, an injury that his doctor said on Sunday resulted in hairline fractures in his foot that would most likely require him to wear a walking boot for several weeks. Although initial X-rays showed no obvious fracture, a 'follow-up CT scan confirmed hairline (small) fractures of President-elect Biden's lateral and intermediate cuneiform bones, which are in the midfoot,' Dr. Kevin O'Connor, the director of executive medicine at GW Medical Faculty Associates, said in a statement distributed by Mr. Biden's office." MB: Speaking from personal experience, I can tell you that teeny-weeny foot fractures really hurt when you move it or try to put weight on it.

Annie Linskey & Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: President-elect Joe "Biden is expected to nominate Neera Tanden, the chief executive of the left-leaning Center for American Progress, as director of the influential Office of Management and Budget, according to people familiar with the matter.... Tanden, whose parents immigrated from India, would be the first woman of color to oversee the agency. In addition, Biden is set to appoint Princeton University labor economist Cecilia Rouse as chair of the three-member Council of Economic Advisers, with economists Jared Bernstein and Heather Boushey serving as the other members. Rouse, who is African American, would be the first woman of color to chair the council, which will play a key role in advising the president on the economy...." Politico's story is here.

Annie Karni of the New York Times: "President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Sunday announced an all-female White House communications staff, with Jennifer Psaki, a veteran of the Obama administration, in the most visible role as White House press secretary. 'Communicating directly and truthfully to the American people is one of the most important duties of a president,' Mr. Biden said in a statement, drawing an implicit contrast with the Trump administration's use of the White House briefing room to disseminate falsehoods and try to undermine the credibility of the news media. The transition team also announced that Kate Bedingfield, 39, who served as a deputy campaign manager for Mr. Biden, will serve as the White House communications director. Karine Jean Pierre, who previously served as the chief public affairs officer for MoveOn.org, will be the principal deputy press secretary. Pili Tobar, a former immigrant advocate with the group America's Voice, will serve as the deputy White House communications director. Symone Sanders, a senior adviser to Mr. Biden on the campaign, will serve as the senior adviser and chief spokeswoman for Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. Ashley Etienne, a former senior adviser to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, will serve as the communications director for Ms. Harris."

Biden's Unique Path to Victory. Harry Enten of CNN (Nov. 26): Joe "Biden has won in a way that was perhaps surprising to some. He was the first candidate to win without taking at least Florida or Ohio since 1960. Biden did considerably worse with Hispanics than Hillary Clinton in municipalities throughout the country. And Biden won the presidency even as President Donald Trump's base largely stuck with him. So how'd he do it? Biden's pathway to victory intensified the gains Clinton made in 2016. In doing so, he became the seventh Democrat in eight times to win the popular vote, which is the first time since 1828 that one party won the popular vote that often in eight straight elections." --s ~~~

~~~ The End of White Grievance Hegemony? Juan Cole: "Now that the judges have laughed Trump's challenges and conspiracy theories out of court, it is time to consider further why Biden won.... In short, 2016 may have been one of the the last times a candidate like Trump could run primarily on white grievance and win. Non-Hispanic whites will be a minority by 2045, by which time the strategy will be entirely useless.... [An estimated] 86 percent of Trump's voters were white.... Biden won 90 percent of the African-American vote.... Biden's electorate looked more like America, which benefited him [according to John Johnson]: '63% of his supporters were white and 37% were people of color.' Johnson points out that 80 percent of Americans live in urban areas.... Trump only got 27% of the Hispanic vote.... George W. Bush got 40% of the Hispanic vote in 2000." --s

Wisconsin. Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "The recount of presidential ballots in Wisconsin's two largest counties finished Sunday, reconfirming that President-elect Joe Biden defeated President Trump in the key swing state by more than 20,000 votes. After Milwaukee County completed its tally Friday and Dane County concluded its count Sunday, there was little change in the final breakdown of the more than 800,000 ballots that had been cast in the two jurisdictions. As a result of the recount, Biden's lead over Trump in Wisconsin grew by 87 votes. Under Wisconsin law, Trump was required to foot the bill for the partial recount -- meaning his campaign paid $3 million only to see Biden's lead expand. The results of the Wisconsin recount cemented Trump's failure to alter the results of the November election in a series of states where he has falsely alleged there was widespread fraud and irregularities.... The Wisconsin Election Commission is scheduled to meet on Tuesday, at which time state law says the election results will be certified by the chairwoman of the six-member panel, who is a Democrat." An AP story is here.

Marie: I'm no fan of Fred Hiatt's but good on him for this: ~~~

~~~ Fred Hiatt of the Washington Post: "Let's say you're a Republican senator who ... [has] spent four years excusing and supporting a president who fawned over North Korea's odious dictator, encouraged China's ruling tyrant to build his concentration camps, took the word of Russia's strongman over U.S. intelligence agencies and celebrated the Saudi despot who orchestrated the dismemberment of a dissident journalist. And let's posit that, on top of all that, you've been a profile in cowardice as your president tried to nullify a democratic election here at home. Now the president-elect appoints a team of seasoned, moderate foreign policy experts who support democracy and American leadership in the world.... It shouldn't surprise us to see [Marco] Rubio [Fla.], along with Tom Cotton (Ark.), Josh Hawley (Mo.) and other Republican senators, disparaging the incoming Biden team.... But there is something particularly galling about this instant pivot to attack mode from senators who couldn't even bring themselves to acknowledge the results of the election.... Almost no Republicans on the national stage had the integrity or courage to offer backup for ... local officials ... [who] had the integrity and courage to resist Trump's pressure.... Instead..., Rubio is already suiting up for the politics of destruction...." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Brianna Keilar of CNN on Little Marco:

The Last Days of the Kaiser

Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "In his first television interview since the Nov. 3 election, President Trump suggested Sunday that he will never accept his loss to Democrat Joe Biden and continued to fling baseless accusations of election fraud. 'My mind will not change in six months,' Trump told host Maria Bartiromo by telephone.... 'There was tremendous cheating here.'... 'Joe Biden did not get 80 million votes,' Trump declared Sunday, providing no evidence for his assertion. He claimed that some foreign leaders have been calling and telling him that this was the most 'messed-up' election they have ever seen, although he did not name any of the leaders. The White House has not released the details of any such calls, and most U.S. allies have congratulated Biden on his win. Bartiromo did not dispute any of Trump's false claims." ~~~

~~~ Alexis Benveniste of CNN: "... Donald Trump on Sunday spoke with Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo -- his first TV interview since the election. The conversation was riddled with lies and conspiracy theories. Bartiromo opened the interview with a question about election fraud, telling Trump, 'The facts are on your side.' Trump responded, falsely saying, 'This election was a fraud; it was a rigged election.' The Fox anchor then reflected the president's anger, saying, 'This is disgusting and we cannot allow America's election to be corrupted.' The interview highlighted that Trump is 'unable or unwilling to accept reality,' CNN's Chief Media Correspondent Brian Stelter said on 'Reliable Sources' Sunday. Trump spewed misinformation throughout the conversation." MB: On-air, CNN -- which shares responsibility for the rise of Trump the Phony Politician -- can't get enough of calling out his lies. ~~~

~~~ Ken Meyer of Mediaite: "... Donald Trump gave a wild interview on Sunday where he complained that federal law enforcement isn't doing anything to validate his unsubstantiated 2020 election claims, in addition to suggesting that the FBI and the Department of Justice were 'involved' somehow with how things went.... After complaining about his old enemies in the intelligence community, Trump whined, '[I]t's inconceivable. You would think if you're in the FBI or Department of Justice, this is the biggest thing you could be looking at.... Where are they? I've not seen anything. I mean, they just keep moving along and they go on to the next president,' he said. 'All I can say is with all of the fraud that's taken place, no one has come to me and said the FBI has nabbed the people that are doing this scheme.'" At another point, Trump asserted the FBI was "looking at it." ~~~

~~~ Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. ~~~

~~~ Jeremy Barr of the Washington Post: "... Bartiromo's questions were few and far between. Trump spoke for much of the [45-minute] interview.... The host nodded agreeably throughout the conversation, saying 'right' after the president relayed a claim about 'cheating' in Pennsylvania's elections, particularly in the Philadelphia area, claiming that 'you have to allow five points for cheating.'... At another point, Trump said, 'We won the election easily.' The president praised Bartiromo, whom he called 'brave' for covering claims about election fraud, claiming that the media does not want to cover the story.... While th president made baseless claims of fraud and made notable attacks on Republicans such as Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, the interview made very little news, in line with Trump's past conversations with such opinion shows as 'Fox & Friends.' But Trump seems to have been a fan. As of Sunday afternoon, he has tweeted four clips from his interview with Bartiromo."

Andrew Solender of Forbes has a timeline of the seven times that Trump has falsely cried foul of election fraud against conservatives or his sad, pathetic self. --s

Trump's Hustler Buddy Relies on the High Birthrate of Suckers. Ben Smith of the New York Times: "The chief executive of Newsmax and part of President Trump's South Florida social circle, [Chris] Ruddy has capitalized on the anger of Mr. Trump's supporters at Fox News for delivering the unwelcome news ... that Mr. Trump had lost his re-election campaign. On Newsmax, however, the fight is still on, the imaginary election-altering Kraken is yet to be released, Mr. Trump is striving valiantly for four more years and the ratings are incredible. Newsmax's prime-time ratings, which averaged 58,000 before Election Day, soared to 1.1 million afterward for its top shows.... But Mr. Ruddy ... is not the sort of true-believing ideologue his viewers may imagine in the foxhole alongside them. He is, rather, perhaps the purest embodiment of another classic television type, the revenue-minded cynic for whom the substance of programming is just a path to money and power.... When Trumpism turned this month from an electoral strategy into a hallucinatory attempt to overturn the election, Mr. Ruddy saw opportunity: Newsmax, available on cable in most American households and streaming online, became the home of alternate reality."

Scott Pelley of CBS News' "60 Minutes" interviewed Christopher Krebs, the life-long Republican whom Trump fired for calling the 2020 election "the most secure in American history." Video & transcript here. ~~~

~~~ Mad Kaiser Still Mad. John Bowden of the Hill: "President Trump ripped CBS News's '60 Minutes' on Sunday after an interview with his former cybersecurity chief was broadcast on the program.... '.@60Minutes never asked us for a comment about their ridiculous, one sided story on election security, which is an international joke. Our 2020 Election, from poorly rated Dominion to a Country FLOODED with unaccounted for Mail-In ballots, was probably our least secure EVER!' the president claimed [in a tweet] Sunday evening."

Marie's Mea Culpa: Sadly, I allowed that leftist, elitist rag New York Times to mislead me the other day, and I misused Reality Chex to pass along an apparently Photoshopped image. Fortunately, contributor Forrest M. caught me out and sent along the real, original, undoctored photo, which I share with you now. Thanks, Forrest! ~~~

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

** Elizabeth Cohen of CNN: "Pharmaceutical company Moderna intends to apply Monday to the US Food and Drug Administration for authorization of its Covid-19 vaccine. The company will ask the FDA to review an expanded data set showing the vaccine is 94.1% effective at preventing Covid-19 and 100% effective at preventing severe cases of the disease."

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Sunday are here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Way Beyond the Beltway

AFP: "At least 110 people have been killed in an attack on a village in north-east Nigeria blamed on the Boko Haram jihadist group, according to the UN humanitarian coordinator in the country.... The attack took place in the village of Koshobe near the main city of Maiduguri, with assailants targeting farmers on rice fields. The Borno state governor, Babagana Umara Zulum, attended the burial on Sunday in the nearby village of Zabarmari of 43 bodies recovered on Saturday, saying the toll could rise after search operations resumed. The assailants tied up the agricultural workers and slit their throats, according to a pro-government anti-jihadist militia. The victims were among labourers from Sokoto state in north-west Nigeria, about 1,000km (600 miles) away, who had travelled to the north-east to find work, it said. Six others were wounded in the attack and eight remained missing as of Saturday."

Iran. Najhem Bozorgmehr & Mehul Srivstava of the Financial Times: "The hit squad behind last week's deadly attack on the man long thought to be the mastermind of Iran's alleged military nuclear programme left nothing to chance. As nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh's black Nissan sedan car approached a boulevard in the Damavand region, about 60km from the capital Tehran, an automatic machine gun, installed inside a blue pick-up truck parked under an electric transmitter, began firing. The pick-up truck, packed with explosives, was then detonated by remote control. Assailants then opened fire, according to Fereydoon Abbasi-Davani, a nuclear scientist who survived an attempt on his life in 2010, and domestic media. Javad Mogouei, a documentary maker close to hardliners, said there were as many as 12 attackers, including those on motorbikes, in a Hyundai SUV as well as hidden snipers." [Firewalled] --s

Middle East. Tim O'Donnell of Yahoo!: "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly flew to Saudi Arabia last week for a secret meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Saudi Crown prince Mohammed bin Salman in the hopes of striking a deal that would normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. But he came home empty handed after Prince Mohammed backed out, The Wall Street Journal reports. His reasoning ... was President-elect Joe Biden's victory.... Prince Mohammed reportedly wants to build ties with Biden and was reluctant about following suit while Trump is still in office, although the chances of that happening reportedly aren't impossible." --s

Earth. "Capitalism is Awesome," Ctd. Jonathan Watts, et al. of the Guardian (Nov. 27): "Supermarkets and fast food outlets are selling chicken fed on imported soya linked to thousands of forest fires and at least 300 sq miles (800 sq km) of tree clearance in the Brazilian Cerrado, a joint cross-border investigation has revealed. Tesco, Lidl, Asda, McDonald's, Nando's and other high street retailers all source chicken fed on soya supplied by trading behemoth Cargill, the US's second largest private company. The combination of minimal protection for the Cerrado -- a globally important carbon sink and wildlife habitat -- with an opaque supply chain and confusing labelling systems, means that shoppers may be inadvertently contributing to its destruction." --s

Comments Off
Sunday
Nov292020

The Commentariat -- Nov. 29, 2020

Late Morning Update:

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

Marie: I'm no fan of Fred Hiatt's but good for him for this: ~~~

~~~ Fred Hiatt of the Washington Post: "Let's say you're a Republican senator who ... [has] spent four years excusing and supporting a president who fawned over North Korea's odious dictator, encouraged China's ruling tyrant to build his concentration camps, took the word of Russia's strongman over U.S. intelligence agencies and celebrated the Saudi despot who orchestrated the dismemberment of a dissident journalist. And let's posit that, on top of all that, you've been a profile in cowardice as your president tried to nullify a democratic election here at home. Now the president-elect appoints a team of seasoned, moderate foreign policy experts who support democracy and American leadership in the world.... It shouldn't surprise us to see [Marco] Rubio [Fla.], along with Tom Cotton (Ark.), Josh Hawley (Mo.) and other Republican senators, disparaging the incoming Biden team.... But there is something particularly galling about this instant pivot to attack mode from senators who couldn't even bring themselves to acknowledge the results of the election.... Almost no Republicans on the national stage had the integrity or courage to offer backup for ... local officials ... [who] had the integrity and courage to resist Trump's pressure.... Instead..., Rubio is already suiting up for the politics of destruction...." ~~~

~~~ Brianna Keilar of CNN on Little Marco:

~~~~~~~~~~

Tal Axelrod of the Hill: "President-elect Joe Biden announced Saturday he is adding three new members to his transition team's coronavirus task force as the incoming administration focuses on preparation to tackle the coronavirus pandemic. The transition said in a statement that Jane Hopkins, Jill Jim and David Michaels are joining the team, which is co-chaired by David Kessler, former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and Marcella Nunez-Smith. The task force is charged with helping Biden, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and the transition cobble together a 'robust and aggressive response to contain the virus.'... Hopkins, a Sierra Leonean immigrant, has worked for more than 20 years as a bedside nurse and has a long history in union work.... Jim is the executive director at the Navajo Nation Department of Health and has worked for 18 years in nonprofit, state and federal agencies and tribal government.... Michaels is an epidemiologist and professor ... at George Washington University."

Jordan Williams of the Hill: "President-elect Joe Biden is reportedly eyeing Cindy McCain to serve as ambassador to the U.K., according to multiple reports citing The Times of London. McCain, the widow of the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), has been a vocal critic of President Trump and endorsed Biden during his campaign. She is a known Anglophile, the Independent noted, and is thought to be a front-runner in return for helping Biden flip Arizona. 'It's hers if she wants it,' a source told the Times. 'She delivered Arizona. They know that.'"

David Sanger of the New York Times: "The assassination of the scientist who led Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon for the past two decades threatens to cripple President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s effort to revive the Iran nuclear deal before he can even begin his diplomacy with Tehran. And that may well have been a main goal of the operation. Intelligence officials say there is little doubt that Israel was behind the killing -- it had all the hallmarks of a precisely timed operation by Mossad, the country's spy agency. And the Israelis have done nothing to dispel that view.... 'There must be no return to the previous nuclear agreement,' [Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] declared shortly after it became clear that Mr. Biden -- who has proposed exactly that -- would be the next president."

The Last Days of the Kaiser

Incredible Shrinking Man lashes out at conspirators who downsized his desk. "Twenty Days of Fantasy & Failure." Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "Sequestered in the White House and brooding out of public view after his election defeat, rageful and at times delirious in a torrent of private conversations, Trump was, in the telling of one close adviser, like 'Mad King George, muttering, "I won. I won. I won."' However cleareyed Trump's aides may have been about his loss to President-elect Joe Biden, many of them nonetheless indulged their boss and encouraged him to keep fighting with legal appeals.... Trump's allegations and the hostility of his rhetoric -- and his singular power to persuade and galvanize his followers --; generated extraordinary pressure on state and local election officials to embrace his fraud allegations and take steps to block certification of the results. When some of them refused, they accepted security details for protection from the threats they were receiving.... All the while, Trump largely abdicated the responsibilities of the job he was fighting so hard to keep.... The 20 days between the election on Nov. 3 and the greenlighting of Biden's transition exemplified some of the hallmarks of life in Trump's White House: a government paralyzed by the president's fragile emotional state; advisers nourishing his fables; expletive-laden feuds between factions of aides and advisers; and a pernicious blurring of truth and fantasy."

Peter Baker & Kathleen Gray of the New York Times: "If the president hoped Republicans across the country would fall in line behind his false and farcical claims that the election was somehow rigged on a mammoth scale by a nefarious multinational conspiracy, he was in for a surprise. Republicans in Washington may have indulged Mr. Trump's fantastical assertions, but at the state and local level, Republicans played a critical role in resisting the mounting pressure from their own party to overturn the vote after Mr. Trump fell behind on Nov. 3.... In the end, the system [-- although vulnerable --] stood firm against the most intense assault from an aggrieved president in the nation's history because of a Republican city clerk in Michigan, a Republican secretary of state in Georgia, a Republican county supervisor in Arizona and Republican-appointed judges in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. They refuted conspiracy theories, certified results, dismissed lawsuits and repudiated a president of their own party, leaving him to thunder about a supposed plot that would have had to include people who had voted for him, donated to him or even been appointed by him." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Pretty much what I wrote in a comment yesterday morning, albeit Baker & Gray do it with better words.

Marie (with a little help from my friends): Trump has not had time to take care of the nation's business because he was otherwise occupied designing his library. It's quite nice, although I'm pretty sure Trump will be adding plenty more faux gold finishes. While the lie-berry is not yet open, you can order Christmas presents (not "holiday gifts") from the grift shop. No money-back guarantees, but Trump assures us that mail orders, unlike mail-in ballots, are totally safe and will not be ripped off by criminal Democrat mail carriers. Thanks to RAS for the link. And do click on it. Whoever put this together did a great job.

Pennsylvania. Elise Viebeck of the Washington Post: "The Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismissed with prejudice a Republican lawsuit seeking to invalidate more than 2.5 million votes cast by mail in the general election, the latest in a string of legal defeats for the GOP as President Trump fails to undo his losses in key battleground states. Justices on the state high court ruled unanimously late Saturday that Republican petitioners waited too long to file their suit challenging Act 77, the 2019 law that established universal mail voting in Pennsylvania. Trump allies had asked the court to invalidate all votes cast by mail in the most recent election or direct the majority-Republican legislature to choose a slate of presidential electors. The ruling with prejudice means that the plaintiffs are barred from bringing another action on the same claim. The court's written order called the latter option 'extraordinary,' noting that it would disenfranchise 6.9 million voters.... Concurring [with the opinion,] Justice David N. Wecht noted that the GOP petitioners 'failed to allege that even a single mail-in ballot was fraudulently cast or counted.'" A Guardian story is here.

Donald Trump, White House TV Critic. Natalie Colarossi of Newsweek: In a tweet Saturday, Donald Trump wrote, "'@FoxNews daytime is virtually unwatchable, especially during the weekends. Watch@OANN ,@newsmax, or almost anything else. You won't have to suffer through endless interviews with Democrats, and even worse!.... Trump's [criticism of Fox 'News'] grew increasingly worse throughout the final months of his presidential campaign, as he slammed the network for showing what he called 'fake' polls that projected Democratic rival Joe Biden ahead in key swing states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin."

Andrew Solender of Forbes: "Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-Va.) pulled no punches against President Trump and his fellow Republicans in Congress in an interview with Forbes, accusing them of a 'massive grift' in refusing to acknowledge the results of the election and claiming Trump appeals to groups that are 'anti-Semitic' and 'anti-American.' Riggleman, one of just 10 GOP House members acknowledging Joe Biden's victory, said the Republican refusal to acknowledge the result is 'just money-making for the 2024 election' and 'completely unethical,' saying he's spoken to 30 or 40 GOP members of Congress who privately acknowledge the result despite public silence.... Riggleman was even harsher toward colleagues who are 'true believers' of Trump/s unfounded claims..., asserting it 'really speaks to where your intelligence level is ... to believe in that type of operation.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

It Takes a Crackpot. Will Sommer of the Daily Beast: "Former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne left behind a cloud of confusion when he resigned in 2019 from the internet retailer he'd founded after panicking investors with his bizarre claims that he had romanced a Russian agent at the behest of 'Men in Black' working for the United States government. Now he's back, with what he has described as his own personal 'army,' touting what he claims is proof that Democrats stole the election from Donald Trump. 'I've funded a team of hackers and cybersleuths, other people with odd skills,' Byrne said in a Tuesday interview at One America News, where OAN personality Chanel Rion praised Byrne as the head of an 'elite shadow cyber security team.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)


Trump Is Wasting Taxpayer Dollars as Fast as He Can. Simon Romero & Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has said he hopes to halt construction of the [U.S.-Mexican] border wall, but the outgoing administration is rushing to complete as much wall as possible in its last weeks in power, dynamiting through some of the border's most forbidding terrain. The breakneck pace at which construction is continuing all but assures that the wall, whatever Mr. Biden decides to do, is here to stay for the foreseeable future, establishing a contentious legacy for Mr. Trump in places that were crucial to his defeat."


Eric Tucker of the AP: "A former Trump campaign associate who was the target of a secret surveillance warrant during the FBI's Russia investigation says in a federal lawsuit that he was the victim of 'unlawful spying.' The suit from Carter Page alleges a series of omissions and errors made by FBI and Justice Department officials in applications they submitted in 2016 and 2017 to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to eavesdrop on Page on suspicion that he was an agent of Russia. 'Since not a single proven fact ever established complicity with Russia involving Dr. Page, there never was probable cause to seek or obtain the FISA Warrants targeting him on this basis,' the lawsuit says...."


Georgia Senate Races. Marty Johnson of the Hill: "Activist groups in Georgia that were the backbone of the effort to turn Georgia blue this election cycle haven't slowed down, their newest goal being to drive Georgians to the polls once again on Jan. 5 for the state's Senate runoff elections.... Nse Ufot, New Georgia Project's CEO, told The Hill the equation for success hasn't changed, that 'elections in Georgia are determined by who shows up, and whose votes get counted.... There's no world where a [12,670] vote difference, a 0.25 percent vote difference, would have resulted in a Biden victory, but for the work of groups like New Georgia Project and Fair Fight Action and the Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda to protect the integrity of our elections,' Ufot said, referring to [Joe] Biden's tight margin of victory. 'We're talking about, you know, millions of text messages, millions of phone calls. We knocked on nearly half a million doors in the middle of a pandemic, millions of impressions with our digital ad content that was designed to neutralize the disinformation and misinformation that black voters and brown voters are subject to,' Ufot explained. 'And we're going to have to do it again.'" ~~~

~~~ Donald Judd & Ryan Nobles of CNN: "At a Saturday campaign stop in Marietta, Georgia, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna [Romney] McDaniel attempted to persuade Republicans to vote in the Georgia Senate runoff elections, even as voters expressed ambivalence about expanding 'money and work when it's already decided.' Incumbent Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are facing tough reelection battles in two January runoff elections that could determine control of the US Senate. 'It's not decided. This is the key -- it's not decided,' McDaniel told a fiery crowd of Republicans who turned the RNC chair's meet-and-greet session Saturday into a public airing of grievances surrounding the November 3 election.... Donald Trump, who announced Thursday he'd travel to Georgia next week to campaign for Loeffler and Perdue, has leveled baseless claims of widespread fraud in Georgia, calling Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, 'the enemy of the people.' 'Well, I told (Sens. Loeffler and Perdue) today, I think you're dealing in a very fraudulent system. I'm very worried about that,' the President said during a news conference Thursday...."


Nicole Winfield of the AP: "Pope Francis raised 13 new cardinals to the highest rank in the Catholic hierarchy Saturday and immediately warned them not to use their titles for corrupt, personal gain, presiding over a ceremony marked from beginning to end by the coronavirus pandemic. Two new 'princes' of the church, from Brunei and the Philippines, didn't make it to Rome because of COVID-19 travel restrictions, though they were shown on giant screens watching it from home in the nearly empty St. Peter's Basilica. Throughout the socially distanced ceremony, which clocked in at an unusually quick 45 minutes, cardinals new and old wore protective masks. Most removed their masks when they approached a maskless Francis to receive their red hats, but Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the first African-American cardinal, kept his on. Gregory also was one of the only new cardinals who kept his mask on when the group paid a singing courtesy visit to retired Pope Benedict XVI."

Gillian Brassil of the New York Times: "Sarah Fuller became the first woman to play during a regular-season game in one of college football's Power 5 conferences by booting a kickoff on Saturday for Vanderbilt to start the second half against Missouri. Fuller, a senior and the starting goalkeeper for Vanderbilt's women's soccer team, was tapped to play football this week after every member of the Commodores' kicking squad was forced to stop practicing when at least one of them came into contact with someone who tested positive for the coronavirus. Fuller wore the No. 32 -- the same number she wears on her soccer jersey -- and a helmet with the phrase 'Play Like a Girl.'... Fuller is not the first woman to play college football in the top tier of Division I, the Football Bowl Subdivision...." MB: Playing a dangerous, violent sport seems a dubious feminist achievement; nonetheless, had I had Fuller's skills, I'm sure I would have done as she did.

Beyond the Beltway

Bryan Pietsch of the New York Times: "As mysteriously as it arrived, a metal monolith that was discovered last week by Utah public safety workers is now gone, officials said on Saturday. The three-sided metal structure was removed on Friday evening 'by an unknown party' from the public land it was found on, the federal Bureau of Land Management's Utah office said in a statement. The bureau said it had not removed the monolith.... 'IT'S GONE!' the Department of Public Safety said, reacting to the news in an Instagram post. 'Almost as quickly as it appeared it has now disappeared,' the department said, adding, 'I can only speculate' that aliens took it back, using the emoji for extraterrestrials."

News Lede

AP: "Black Friday online sales hit a new record this year as pandemic-wary Americans filled virtual carts instead of real ones. Consumers spent an estimated $9 billion on U.S. retail websites on Black Friday, according to Adobe Analytics, which tracks online shopping. That was a 22% increase over the previous record of $7.4 billion set in 2019. Meanwhile, traffic to physical stores plummeted as retailers tried to prevent crowds by cutting their hours and limiting doorbuster deals. U.S. store visits dropped by 52% on Black Friday, according to Sensormatic Solutions, a retail tracker. Traffic was slower in the Northeast and West than in the Midwest and South...."

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Friday
Nov272020

The Commentariat -- Nov. 28, 2020

Afternoon Update:

Incredible Shrinking Man lashes out at conspirators who downsized his desk.Peter Baker & Kathleen Gray of the New York Times: "If the president hoped Republicans across the country would fall in line behind his false and farcical claims that the election was somehow rigged on a mammoth scale by a nefarious multinational conspiracy, he was in for a surprise. Republicans in Washington may have indulged Mr. Trump's fantastical assertions, but at the state and local level, Republicans played a critical role in resisting the mounting pressure from their own party to overturn the vote after Mr. Trump fell behind on Nov. 3.... In the end, the system [-- although vulnerable --] stood firm against the most intense assault from an aggrieved president in the nation's history because of a Republican city clerk in Michigan, a Republican secretary of state in Georgia, a Republican county supervisor in Arizona and Republican-appointed judges in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. They refuted conspiracy theories, certified results, dismissed lawsuits and repudiated a president of their own party, leaving him to thunder about a supposed plot that would have had to include people who had voted for him, donated to him or even been appointed by him." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Pretty much what I wrote in a comment this morning, albeit Baker & Gray do it with better words.

Marie (with a little help from my friends): Trump has not had time to take care of the nation's business because he was otherwise occupied designing his library. It's quite nice, although I'm pretty sure Trump will be adding plenty more faux gold finishes. While the lie-berry is not yet open, you can order Christmas presents (not "holiday gifts") from the grift shop. No money-back guarantees, but Trump assures us that mail orders, unlike mail-in ballots, are totally safe and will not be ripped off by criminal Democrat mail carriers. Thanks to RAS for the link. And do click on it. Whoever put this together did a great job.

Andrew Solender of Forbes: "Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-Va.) pulled no punches against President Trump and his fellow Republicans in Congress in an interview with Forbes, accusing them of a 'massive grift' in refusing to acknowledge the results of the election and claiming Trump appeals to groups that are 'anti-Semitic' and 'anti-American.' Riggleman, one of just 10 GOP House members acknowledging Joe Biden's victory, said the Republican refusal to acknowledge the result is 'just money-making for the 2024 election' and 'completely unethical,' saying he's spoken to 30 or 40 GOP members of Congress who privately acknowledge the result despite public silence.... Riggleman was even harsher toward colleagues who are 'true believers' of Trump's unfounded claims of widespread election fraud, asserting it 'really speaks to where your intelligence level is --- to believe in that type of operation.'"

It Takes a Crackpot. Will Sommer of the Daily Beast: "Former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne left behind a cloud of confusion when he resigned in 2019 from the internet retailer he'd founded after panicking investors with his bizarre claims that he had romanced a Russian agent at the behest of 'Men in Black' working for the United States government. Now he's back, with what he has described as his own personal 'army,' touting what he claims is proof that Democrats stole the election from Donald Trump. 'I've funded a team of hackers and cybersleuths, other people with odd skills,' Byrne said in a Tuesday interview at One America News, where OAN personality Chanel Rion praised Byrne as the head of an 'elite shadow cyber security team.'"

~~~~~~~~~~

Robert Hart of Forbes: "Less than a day after saying he would leave the White House should President-elect Joe Biden be voted in by the electoral college..., Donald Trump backtracked, baselessly insisting Friday that Biden 'can only enter the White House as President if he can prove' his 80 million votes were not 'fraudulently or illegally obtained,' and effectively recanting his closest admission to electoral defeat." MB: That's fine with me as long as whoever frog-marches the Kaiser out of the White House allows cameras to roll. Watching Trump kick, scream & wail as officers drag him across the White House lawn as Joe Biden delivers his inaugural address would be the best split screen in television history.

Michael Shear & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. moved quickly this past week to name the first two members of his cabinet, picking one of his closest confidants to be the nation's top diplomat and choosing an immigrant to lead the Department of Homeland Security for the first time. But as he fills out the rest of his team in the days and weeks ahead, the task will get more complicated, forcing him to navigate tricky currents of ideology, gender, racial identity, party affiliation, friendship, competence, personal background and past employment.... Republicans in the Senate will try to reject some of Mr. Biden's nominees. But his team is just as worried about opposition from Democrats.... Whom Mr. Biden will tap to be the next attorney general is among the most talked about -- and politically fraught -- decisions that the president-elect will make as civil rights issues roil the country and some Democrats expect investigations into President Trump and his associates." The article names contenders for various top jobs.

The "Deep State" Fights Back. Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "With two months left of the Trump administration, career E.P.A. employees find themselves where they began, in a bureaucratic battle with the agency's political leaders. But now, with the Biden administration on the horizon, they are emboldened to stymie Mr. Trump's goals and to do so more openly.... Current and former E.P.A. staff and advisers close to the transition said Mr. Biden's team has focused on preparing a rapid assault on the Trump administration's deregulatory legacy and re-establishing air and water protections and methane emissions controls. 'They are focused like a laser on what I call the "Humpty Dumpty approach," which is putting the agency back together again,' said Judith Enck, a former E.P.A. regional administrator who served in the Obama administration." MB: Sorry, Donald, real people don't go to work for the EPA because they hate science.

The Last Days of the Kaiser
Like Groundhog Day All Over Again

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "In a blistering decision, a Philadelphia appeals court ruled on Friday that the Trump campaign could not stop -- or attempt to reverse -- the certification of the voting results in Pennsylvania, reprimanding the president's team by noting that 'calling an election unfair does not make it so.' The 21-page ruling by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals was a complete repudiation of Mr. Trump's legal effort to halt Pennsylvania's certification process and was written by a judge that he himself appointed to the bench.... Judge Stephanos Bibas [-- MB: a Trump appointee --] wrote on behalf of the appeals court in a unanimous decision, 'Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.' Many courts have used scathing language in tossing out a relentless barrage of lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign and its supporters since Election Day; but even so, the Third Circuit's ruling was particularly blunt. 'Voters, not lawyers, choose the president,' the court declared.... 'Ballots, not briefs, decide elections.' The court accused the Trump campaign of engaging in 'repetitive litigation' and pointed out that the public interest strongly favored '... not disenfranchising millions of Pennsylvania voters who voted by mail.'... ~~~

~~~ "The Pennsylvania decision came on a day of baseless tweets from Mr. Trump that the election was 'a total scam,' that he 'won by a lot' and that the news media 'refuse to report the real facts and figures.'... Moments after the three-judge panel from the Third Circuit handed down its ruling, Jenna Ellis, one of Mr. Trump's lawyers, wrote on Twitter that she and Rudolph W. Giuliani ... planned to appeal to the Supreme Court. In her Twitter post, Ms. Ellis accused 'the activist judicial machinery in Pennsylvania' of covering up 'allegations of massive fraud' despite the fact that all three judges on the panel were appointed by Republicans." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Uh, Jenna, the "activist judicial machinery" is covering up "allegations"? That doesn't make sense. You made the allegations. The pleadings you presented, chockful of said allegations, are public records, and rather than hiding those allegations, the appeals court ruling highlights the falsity of said allegations & excoriates you & Rudy for repeatedly making them. ~~~

     ~~~ A BuzzFeed News story is here. A Politico story is here. ~~~

~~~ KDKA Pittsburgh: "Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers have introduced a resolution intending to dispute the 2020 election results on Friday. The resolution intends to declare the 2020 election results as being 'in dispute,' delay the certification of votes from Pennsylvania for both the state and presidential races and asks for the U.S. Congress to also declare the 2020 presidential race to be in dispute.... They also accuse Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar [D] of certifying the results of the election 'prematurely ... despite ongoing litigation.' The resolution does not specify how the state or presidential electors would be determined if the resolution were to pass.... The resolution ... is not expected to get a vote before lawmakers' terms end on Monday." MB: Am I missing something or are these people not too bright?

Wisconsin. Losing Loser Pays $3MM to Lose Bigger. Alison Dirr of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Milwaukee County's recount of the presidential election vote tally came to an end Friday, with Democratic President-elect Joe Biden adding 132 votes to his margin of victory over ... Donald Trump in Milwaukee County. In all, Biden gained 257 votes and Trump added 125.... The Dane County [Madison] recount was expected to continue into the weekend, after a day off for Thanksgiving. Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell tweeted Friday morning that the recount was about 65% done and he expected to finish Sunday.... Trump's campaign paid $3 million for the partial recount in the Nov. 3 presidential election, requesting a retallying of the votes only in the state's largest and most liberal counties of Milwaukee and Dane. Trump lost the state by nearly 21,000 votes to Biden.... Political observers believe the challenges Trump representatives lodged during the recount process were intended to set the stage for a lawsuit.... [During the recount,] there were tense exchanges between board Chairman Tim Posnanski, a Democrat, and Trump campaign attorney Joe Voiland, a former Ozaukee County judge, over the enforcement of a policy limiting the taking of photos by observers. At one point, Posnanski told Voiland he was reminded of the peasant from 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' who yells, 'Help, help I'm being repressed.' And, of course, there was the brief squabble over the poop emoji wristbands handed out Tuesday by the Wisconsin Center to denote that those who entered the building were fever-free."

Georgia. Sidney Files Claim in Distrcoict Court. Colin Kalmbacher of Law & Crime: "Former Trump campaign and alleged freelance attorney Sidney Powell filed her so-called 'Kraken' lawsuit in a Georgia federal court on Friday. The case seeks to de-certify the Peach State's 2020 election results which indicated Joe Biden won a slim but decisive victory. The lawsuit was previewed late Wednesday evening when it was made available on the conservative lawyer's personal website -- around the same time that a similar complaint was filed in Michigan federal court. Initially hyped up to intense fanfare among Trump's stalwart followers, the Georgia petition ... quickly led to a cascade of Twitter-based mockery and scorn as legal observers noted several clumsy formatting and typographical errors. Freshly filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, the actually-submitted lawsuit appears to repeat each and every one of those ... errors. 'If you thought Sidney Powell and her Kraken team of lawyers might have fixed the typos prior to filing their Georgia lawsuit, you were wrong,' noted Democratic election attorney Marc Elias via Twitter."


Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "The outgoing Trump administration is racing to enact the biggest change to the federal civil service in generations, reclassifying career employees at key agencies to strip their job protections and leave them open to being fired before Joe Biden takes office. The move to pull off an executive order the president issued less than two weeks before Election Day -- affecting tens of thousands of people in policy roles -- is accelerating at the agency closest to the White House, the Office of Management and Budget. The budget office sent a list this week of roles identified by its politically appointed leaders to the federal personnel agency for final sign-off. The list comprises 88 percent of its workforce -- 425 analysts and other experts who would shift into a new job classification called Schedule F.... If enough employees are viewed as disloyal to the outgoing administration, they could be fired or reassigned, leaving Biden with an empty budget office.... The Office of Personnel Management is also rushing to shuffle many of its own roughly 3,500 employees into the new category, a senior administration official said.... Democrats on Capitol Hill are trying to block the effort [to reclassify career employees]."

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here: "The number of coronavirus infections in the United States shot past 13 million on Friday, worsening the world's largest outbreak. The milestone came a day after Americans celebrated Thanksgiving against a backdrop of national travel patterns that, while diminished, still raised the prospect of an even greater rise in infections around the country.... And every day for more than two weeks, the country has set records for the number of people in the hospital, with the latest figure surging past 90,000 for the first time on Thursday."

Reed Richardson of Mediaite: "United Airlines has now begun flying charter flights to pre-position initial doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine all around the country. According to the Wall Street Journal, the airline has taken this step so that once the FDA issues the expected emergency use authorization for public distribution of the vaccine, it can be pushed out rapidly. Pfizer's vaccine, it should be noted, requires it to be stored at extremely cold temperatures for it to remain viable up to the point of inoculation."

Kent Babb of the Washington Post: "... when it comes to coronavirus testing, this is a nation of haves and have-nots. Among the haves are professional and college athletes, in particular those who play football. From Nov. 8 to 14, the NFL administered 43,148 tests to 7,856 players, coaches and employees. Major college football programs supply dozens of tests each day, an attempt -- futile as it has been -- to maintain health and prevent schedule interruptions. Major League Soccer administered nearly 5,000 tests last week, and Major League Baseball conducted some 170,000 tests during its truncated season. [Meanwhile, nurses & other front-line coronavirus workers are among the have-nots.]... This month, registered nurses gathered in Los Angeles to protest the fact that UCLA's athletic department conducted 1,248 tests in a single week while health-care workers at UCLA hospitals were denied testing. Last week National Nurses United, the country's largest nursing union, released the results of a survey of more than 15,000 members. About two-thirds reported they had never been tested. (Also linked yesterday.)~~~

~~~ MEANWHILE, in the U.K. Karla Adam of the Washington Post: The city of Liverpool, England, "[is] attempt[ing] to quash its [coronavirus] outbreak by swabbing its entire population.... After three weeks of screening, British politicians say the campaign is a success. [Mayor Joe] Anderson said nearly 1,000 people who hadn't known they were infected had tested positive and are 'self-isolating and not spreading the virus.' Prime Minister Boris Johnson said mass testing in Liverpool contributed to a 'very substantial' fall in infections and was a 'success story we want other parts of the country to replicate.'" MB: Donald Trump was playing golf on his private course. ~~~

~~~ Denis Campbell of the Guardian: "Hospitals [in England] have been told to prepare for the rollout of a coronavirus vaccine [manufactured by Pfizer/BioNTech] in as little as 10 days' time, with [National Health Service] workers expected to be at the front of the queue.... Regulatory approval [is] anticipated within days.... One senior hospital executive told the Guardian: 'We've been told to expect the vaccine on 7 December and plan to start vaccinating our staff all that week. However, it's the Pfizer vaccine we're getting, so it can't be moved again once it gets to us and we then have to use it within five days, as that's its shelf life.'"

Julie Turkewitz & Isayen Herrera of the New York Times: "... millions of migrants -- Afghans, Ethiopians, Nicaraguans, Ukrainians and others -- have lost work in their adopted countries and headed home.... International aid groups have begun to call these people the pandemic's 'stranded migrants' -- men, women and children who have been trying to get home since the virus began to spread. The International Organization for Migration said recently there are at least 2.75 million of them. Among the most affected have been Venezuelans, who even before the pandemic formed one of the largest migration waves in the world. As the oil-rich nation crumbled in the grip of its authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, hunger became widespread and nearly five million people fled."

Words to the Wise. James Gorman & Carl Zimmer of the New York Times: "In a 1988 essay on pandemics Joshua Lederberg, Nobel laureate and president of The Rockefeller University, reminded the medical community that when it comes to infectious disease, the laws of Darwin are as important as the vaccines of Pasteur. As medicine battles bacteria and viruses, those organisms continue to undergo mutations and evolve new characteristics.... But vaccines won't put an end to the evolution of this coronavirus, as David A. Kennedy and Andrew F. Read of The Pennsylvania State University ... wrote in PLoS Biology recently. Instead, they could even drive new evolutionary change. There is always the chance, though small, the authors write, that the virus could evolve resistance to a vaccine, what researchers call 'viral escape.' They urge monitoring of vaccine effects and viral response, just in case." (Also linked yesterday.)

No Lives Matter. Marie: In a peculiarly cruel nod to racial equality, Donald Trump has made "I can't breathe!" a cry by millions of Americans of all races & political persuasions.


Daniel Burke & Delia Gallagher of CNN: "During an installation ceremony planned for 4pm [Saturday] in Rome, [the Archbishop of Washington, D.C., Wilton] Gregory, will become the first African American cardinal in Catholic history. Gregory will be one of 13 men -- and the only American -- elevated to the College of Cardinals during Saturday's ceremony. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, two bishops will not be in Rome, another first in church history, according to Vatican News. In keeping with the Pope's concerns for Catholics who have been historically marginalized, the other soon-to-be cardinals include men from Rwanda, Brunei, Chile and the Philippines." A Washington Post story is here.

Way Beyond the Beltway

Patrick Wintour & Oliver Holmes of the Guardian: "An Iranian nuclear scientist described as the guru of Iran's nuclear programme has been gunned down in the street in a town near Tehran. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was ambushed in the town of Absard, about 40 miles east of Tehran. Four assailants opened fire after witnesses heard an explosion.... An adviser to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed that the country would retaliate against the perpetrators.... Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, identified Israel as the likely culprit. 'Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today,' he tweeted. 'This cowardice -- with serious indications of Israeli role -- shows desperate warmongering of perpetrators. Iran calls on international community -- and especially EU -- to end their shameful double standards & condemn this act of state terror.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Julian Borger of the Guardian: "The assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh may not much have impact on the Iranian nuclear programme he helped build, but it will certainly make it harder to salvage the deal intended to restrict that programme, and that is -- so far - the most plausible motive. Israel is widely agreed to be the most likely perpetrator. Mossad is reported to have been behind a string of assassinations of other Iranian nuclear scientists -- reports Israeli officials have occasionally hinted were true. According to former officials, the Obama administration leaned on Israel to discontinue those assassinations in 2013, as it started talks with Tehran that led two years later to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), by which Iran accepted constraints on its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. It would be a fair guess that Joe Biden would also oppose such assassinations when he takes office on 20 January and tries to reconstitute the JCPOA -- which has been left wounded but just about alive in the wake of Donald Trump's withdrawal in 2018."

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