The Ledes

Friday, October 11, 2024

Washington Post: “Floridians began returning to damaged and waterlogged homes on Thursday after Hurricane Milton carved a path of destruction and grief across the state, the second massive storm to strike Florida in as many weeks. At least 14 storm-related deaths were attributed to the hurricane, which made landfall south of Sarasota at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, officials said. Six of them were killed when two tornadoes touched down ahead of the storm in St. Lucie County on Florida’s central Atlantic coast. The deadly tornadoes, rising waters, torrential rain and punishing winds battered the state from coast to coast as Milton churned eastward before heading out to sea early Thursday.”

Washington Post: “Twelve people were rescued from an inactive Colorado gold mine after they were trapped 1,000 feet underground for about six hours following an elevator malfunction. One person was killed in the accident, which happened about 500 feet underground at the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine near Cripple Creek, Colo., Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell said at a Thursday news conference. The site is a tourist attraction. Eleven other people aboard the elevator at the time, including two children, were rescued shortly after the mechanical malfunction, which Mikesell said 'created a severe danger for the participants.' He said four suffered minor injuries.... Twelve others in a separate group remained trapped in a mine shaft 1,000 feet underground for several hours after the incident, before they were rescued Thursday evening, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said.”

The Wires
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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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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


Thursday
Nov122020

The Commentariat -- November 13, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

CNN has called Georgia for Joe Biden & North Carolina for the other guy: ~~~

~~~ Gregory Krieg of CNN: "Joe Biden will win Georgia, CNN projected Friday, striking at the heart of what has been a Republican presidential stronghold for nearly three decades. The former vice president is the first Democratic nominee to triumph in Georgia since Bill Clinton did it in 1992. Biden's victory adds 16 electoral votes to his tally, bringing him to 306 -- matching ... Donald Trump's 2016 total. With CNN's projection that Trump will win North Carolina, the final tally is 306-232. ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post has now also called Georgia & North Carolina. So has NBC News. Also too CBS News. ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: In 2016, Trump called his win over Clinton by exactly the same numer -- 306 - 232 -- a MASSIVE Electoral College landslide victory! So Congratulations, Mr. President-elect on your MASSIVE landslide victory! Biden, BTW, has already bested Trump in the popular vote by more than 5.3 million votes and counting, while Trump lost the popular vote to Clinton by nearly 2.9 million votes.

Another One Bites the Dust. Harper Neidig of the Hill: "The Trump campaign dropped its lawsuit on Friday in Arizona seeking a review of ballots cast in the state's biggest county in the presidential race just hours after multiple outlets projected President-elect Joe Biden to carry the state.  The campaign, which filed the complaint Saturday, said in a new filing that it would no longer seek a court order for a review of presidential votes over its allegation that poll workers had mishandled ballots rejected by tabulation machines. 'Since the close of yesterday’s hearing, the tabulation of votes statewide has rendered unnecessary a judicial ruling as to the presidential electors,' Trump campaign lawyers wrote Friday in the filing."

Tommy Tuberville Is Dumber than a Rock, Plans to Break Law, Too. Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: “In his first big interview as a senator-elect, Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, misidentified the three branches of the federal government, claimed erroneously that World War II was a battle against socialism and wrongly asserted that former Vice President Al Gore was president-elect for 30 days.... 'Our government wasn’t set up for one group to have all three branches of government — wasn’t set up that way,' Mr. Tuberville said. 'You know, the House, the Senate, and the executive.'... Mr. Tuberville said[,] 'I tell people, my dad fought 76 years ago in Europe to free Europe of socialism.' World War II was a global battle against fascism. Mr. Tuberville also said he planned to use his Senate office to raise money for two Republican senators in Georgia who are facing runoff elections that will determine control of the chamber. Senate ethics rules bar the use of official resources for campaign purposes.”

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Say, it's Friday, Sen. Jim Lankford. What are you doing to make sure President-elect Biden gets his daily intel briefings?

David Enrich, et al., of the New York Times: “Porter Wright Morris & Arthur, the law firm leading the Trump campaign’s efforts to cast doubt on the presidential election results in Pennsylvania, abruptly withdrew from a federal lawsuit that it filed days earlier on behalf of President Trump.... The law firm on Monday filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania on behalf of the Trump campaign. The suit, which is pending, alleged that there were 'irregularities' in the presidential vote across the state, which President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. won by more than 50,000 votes. The Democratic National Committee has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Previously, Porter Wright had filed a number of other actions in Pennsylvania courts challenging aspects of the state’s voting process. It isn’t clear if the firm will continue to represent Mr. Trump’s campaign on those cases.” ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Apparently these lawyers are averse to losing their licenses to practice or being fined for bringing frivolous suits.

Does This Orange Jumpsuit Go with My Hair? William Rashbaum & Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "President Trump lost more than an election last week. When he leaves the White House in January, he will also lose the constitutional protection from prosecution afforded to a sitting president. After Jan. 20, Mr. Trump ... will be more vulnerable than ever to a pending grand jury investigation by the Manhattan district attorney into the president’s family business and its practices, as well as his taxes. The two-year inquiry, the only known active criminal investigation of Mr. Trump, has been stalled since last fall, when the president sued to block a subpoena for his tax returns and other records, a bitter dispute that for the second time is before the U.S. Supreme Court. A ruling is expected soon.... [Trump's] pardon power does not extend to state crimes, like the possible violations under investigation by [the Manhattan DA's] office.... In addition to [the DA’s] inquiry, Mr. Trump also faces continuing scrutiny by New York State’s attorney general — who he has also claimed has targeted him out of partisan rancor."

Trump Sickens His Security Details. Carol Leonnig & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "More than 130 Secret Service officers who help protect the White House and the president when he travels have recently been ordered to isolate or quarantine because they tested positive for the coronavirus or had close contact with infected co-workers, according to three people familiar with agency staffing. The spread of the coronavirus — which has sidelined roughly 10 percent of the agency’s core security team — is believed to be partly linked to a series of campaign rallies that President Trump held in the weeks before the Nov. 3 election, according to the people.... Trump went on a travel blitz in the final stretch of the campaign, making five campaign stops on each of the last two days. On Nov. 2, Trump’s campaign schedule required five separate groups of Secret Service officers — each numbering 20 to several dozen -- ... to screen spectators and secure the perimeter around the president’s events. President-elect Joe Biden made two campaign stops that day that also required Secret Service protection, but in smaller numbers. The agency is also examining whether some portion of the current infections are not travel-related..., but instead trace back to ... the White House." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Turns out Trump isn't shooting people on Fifth Avenue in plain sight; he's figuratively doing it all over the country, including in the White House. These officers may have signed up to "take a bullet for the president," but surely they never anticipated the bullet would come from Trump's own gun.

Annie Gowan & Holly Bailey of the Washington Post: "As coronavirus cases grow across the United States — up 70 percent on average in the past two weeks, with an average of 130,000 cases per day nationally — the situation is particularly acute now in the Upper Midwest and Plains states, with North and South Dakota leading the nation in new cases and deaths per capita over the past week, according to Washington Post data. Experts say that cases are surging in the region as the weather has turned colder and more people are forced inside — into more poorly ventilated indoor spaces where transmission thrives — with the virus arriving even in remote areas in largely conservative states where Republican leaders have resisted mask mandates or business closures, asking their residents to rely instead on personal responsibility.... Doctors and health-care providers across the Upper Midwest grappling with rising caseloads and staff shortages continue to urge leaders in their states to do more to stem the tide of the virus, as many in these hardy, wind-swept states where independence is prized still refuse to wear masks."

Time-out for a Feel-good Story. Courtney Kube of NBC News: “When a bystander collapsed at the Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery Wednesday, a nurse happened to be nearby and rushed to his aid. She ... was the wife of the nation’s top military officer, Gen. Mark Milley.... 'When I first got there, he was breathing in a very erratic way that he wasn’t really taking air into his lungs as he should have been,' [Hollyanne Milley] said. 'And then he stopped breathing.' The man had no pulse. Milley said she directed someone to call 911 and started chest compressions. 'I did about two cycles of CPR, and then he just took a big, deep breath and kind of groaned a little bit and then started moving around.'... Milley spoke with him the next morning and said he was doing very well. She said the man, a veteran who asked to remain anonymous, has since been discharged [from a local hospital].”

~~~~~~~~~~

The Presidency, Ctd.

CNN, the major networks, the New York Times & the Washington Post finally called the presidential race for Joe Biden Thursday night. The AP & Fox "News" called it last week. After Georgia's hand-recount, Biden also is likely to win the state, bringing Biden's total Electoral College vote to 306. Donald Trump will win North Carolina, the only other state the AP & networks have not called. ~~~

The New York Times' live election updates Thursday are here: "President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has narrowly won Arizona, capturing the state’s 11 electoral votes and strengthening his Electoral College margin as President Trump continues to make baseless attacks on the vote counts favoring Mr. Biden. Mr. Biden, whose margin in Arizona is currently about 11,000 votes, or 0.3 percentage points, is the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since President Bill Clinton in 1996. Four years ago, Mr. Trump won the state by 3.5 percentage points. That Arizona — the home of the late Senator John McCain and Senator Barry Goldwater, a founder of the 20th century conservative political movement and the 1964 Republican presidential nominee — was in play for Democrats at all is remarkable. Before the state voted for Mr. Clinton, the last Democrat it had supported for president was Harry S. Truman in 1948." A CNN story is here.

Nicole Via y Rada of NBC News: "President-elect Joe Biden spoke with Pope Francis on Thursday, according to his transition team. Biden, a devout Catholic, thanked the Pope for 'extending blessings and congratulations,' saying he expressed a desire to work together 'on the basis of a shared belief in the dignity and equality of all humankind.'" Here's a readout of the conversation provided by the Biden-Harris transition team.

Chimamanda Adichie, a Nigerian fiction & non-fiction writer, reviews Barack Obama's memoir A Promised Land for the New York Times: "It is not merely that this book avoids being ponderous, as might be expected, even forgiven, of a hefty memoir, but that it is nearly always pleasurable to read, sentence by sentence, the prose gorgeous in places, the detail granular and vivid. From Southeast Asia to a forgotten school in South Carolina, he evokes the sense of place with a light but sure hand. This is the first of two volumes, and it starts early in his life, charting his initial political campaigns, and ends with a meeting in Kentucky where he is introduced to the SEAL team involved in the Abbottabad raid that killed Osama bin Laden." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Martin Pengelly of the Guardian writes more of a book report. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ The Atlantic publishes an "adapted & updated" excerpt from Barack Obama's memoir, which is to be published Tuesday. It includes audio of the preface, as appears in the book, read by President Obama. (Firewalled.) (Also linked yesterday.)

The Farce, Ctd.

One Good Thing: We haven't heard the Voice of Trump for six days. Macho Man is cowering in a corner of his bunker or hiding under the Resolute Desk (sadly, no corners in the Oval, as pence explained to the Fat King in soothing tones).

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: “At a meeting on Wednesday at the White House, President Trump ... press[ed his advisors] on whether Republican legislatures could pick pro-Trump electors in a handful of key states and deliver him the electoral votes he needs to change the math and give him a second term, according to people briefed on the discussion.... 'He knows it’s over,' one adviser said. But instead of conceding, they said, he is floating one improbable scenario after another for staying in office while he contemplates his uncertain post-presidency future. There is no grand strategy at play, according to interviews with a half-dozen advisers and people close to the president. Mr. Trump is simply trying to survive from one news cycle to the next, seeing how far he can push his case against his defeat and ensure the continued support of his Republican base.” ~~~

~~~ David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "On Thursday, six American service members were killed in a helicopter crash during a peacekeeping mission in Egypt. Tropical Storm Eta made landfall in North Florida, contributing to severe flooding. The number of Americans infected with the novel coronavirus continued at a record-setting pace, sending the stock market tumbling. At the White House, President Trump spent the day as he has most others this week — sequestered from public view, tweeting grievances, falsehoods and misinformation about the election results and about Fox News’s coverage of him.... The contrast between the nation grappling with an ongoing global crisis and a president consumed with his own political problems highlighted a fundamental contradiction at the heart of Trump’s assault on the integrity of the U.S. election system: He is leveraging the power of his office in a long-shot bid to stay in the job while ignoring many of the public duties that come with it.... His public schedule has not included the daily presidential security briefing since early October, even as his administration has refused to launch the formal transition, depriving President-elect Joe Biden’s team of access to national security information."

David Sanger, et al., of the New York Times: “Hours after President Trump repeated a baseless report that a voting machine system 'deleted 2.7 million Trump votes nationwide,' he was directly contradicted by a group of federal, state and local election officials, who issued a statement on Thursday declaring flatly that the election 'was the most secure in American history' and that 'there is no evidence' any voting systems were compromised. The rebuke, in a statement by a coordinating council overseeing the voting systems used around the country, never mentioned Mr. Trump by name. But it amounted to a remarkable corrective to a wave of disinformation that Mr. Trump has been pushing across his Twitter feed. The statement was distributed by the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is responsible for helping states secure the voting process. Coming directly from one of Mr. Trump’s own cabinet agencies, it further isolated the president in his false claims that widespread fraud cost him the election.” The AP's story is here.

Trump Has “Already Lost.” Reid Epstein of the New York Times: “Five days after television networks and other major news organizations called the presidential election for Joseph R. Biden Jr., President Trump continues to maintain that he 'will win.' That is false. Mr. Biden’s winning margins in the key battleground states he has captured — 20,000 votes in Wisconsin, 54,000 votes in Pennsylvania and 148,000 votes in Michigan — are well above the thresholds of votes that have been changed in previous recounts. Even in Georgia, where officials are preparing for a hand recount of the ballots, Mr. Biden leads by 14,000 votes, a margin that is unlikely to be reversed. (Mr. Biden also leads by 11,000 votes in Arizona, but elections officials there are still counting absentee votes that arrived by mail.)... The former vice president has won enough states by enough votes that Mr. Trump cannot overcome those deficits through legal challenges or recounts.... The largest margin to be overturned in a recent recount came in Minnesota’s 2008 Senate contest, when a 215-vote margin for Senator Norm Coleman, the incumbent Republican, was reversed, becoming a 312-vote advantage for Al Franken, the Democratic candidate, after a court ruled that hundreds of absentee ballots were wrongly rejected.” ~~~

~~~ It's the Cyber! Or Something. Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "President Trump has transitioned from insisting that he will win the 2020 presidential election once all the votes are counted (he will not) to claiming that the results were muddied by rampant voter fraud (they were not) to a new set of claims: The results were altered by the use of computers and perhaps, more frightening, algorithms.... It’s important to note that the president’s track record on matters of technology is a bit spotty.... None of [the allegations Trump & his allies are pushing] ... is reinforced by any robust evidence. Adherents will insist that such evidence exists, because that’s what conspiracy theorists do. But it’s all just an effort to rationalize Trump’s loss, which, obviously, is why it appeals to Trump."

"The Golden Goose." Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump on Thursday unleashed on Fox News, retweeting a dozen messages attacking the network and sharing one himself lamenting that Fox 'forgot the Golden Goose' that made them successful." Mrs. McC: This would be a good place to remind ourselves that this is what the POTUS* was doing on yet another day in which more Americans than ever tested positive for the coronavirus. I hate that guy. ~~~

~~~ AND Why Was the Goose Attacking Fox "News"? Mike Allen of Axios: "President Trump has told friends he wants to start a digital media company to clobber Fox News and undermine the conservative-friendly network, sources tell Axios.... 'He plans to wreck Fox. No doubt about it,' said a source with detailed knowledge of Trump's intentions.... Trump is considering a digital media channel that would stream online, which would be cheaper and quicker to start [than would a cable network like Fox 'News.']" ~~~

~~~ Brian Stelter of CNN: "President Trump's fans who don't think Fox News is right-wing enough have another option on cable and satellite: Newsmax TV.... On Newsmax, voter fraud innuendo is everywhere. Conspiracy theory chatter is constant. And perhaps most importantly, Joe Biden is not the president-elect. The channel is tapping into a real vein of rage on the right. And Trump is encouraging it by retweeting Twitter users who are trashing Fox and promoting Newsmax."

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Benjamine Wittes of Lawfare notes in an analysis, “The administrator of the General Services Administration, Emily Murphy, has refused to 'ascertain' (in the language of the law) that Biden is the 'apparent' winner of the election, thus blocking transition funding and preventing certain other transition activity from beginning.” This has been annoying me all morning. Murphy and the media don't “declare ” a winner, as Republicans have said or implied; Murphy just has to acknowledge that Biden is the “apparent ” winner. That's obvious to anyone with access to a newspaper, a TV or the Internet. Even if you think Biden didn't win and Trump's goofy lawsuits will prove it, Biden is -- according to 50 state top election officials -- the apparent winner. Unlike Trump, who won by fewer Electoral College votes than Biden already has got, both Biden & Harris have or have had high-level security clearances, so there's no danger whatsoever in giving them access to national security briefings. In the past, these transition accommodations have been accorded to Trump & to other incoming administrations several weeks before the last states have certified their results. The only excuse for withholding them is to assuage Donnie's widdle feelings. That's corrupt. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Here's the segment PD Pepe mentions in yesterday's Comments, wherein Brian Williams tries (in vain, we can be sure) to explain to Donald Trump "how graciousness works": ~~~

Two Days Ago, We Learned This: Natasha Bertrand of Politico: "Since Election Day..., Donald Trump and his allies have pushed numerous merit-free allegations of voting irregularities. The Department of Homeland Security’s top cyber official [Chris Krebs] is swatting them down in near real-time — contradicting the president in a way that often ends in a pink slip...." ~~~

~~~ Now Read This. Christopher Bing & Joseph Menn of Reuters: "Top U.S. cybersecurity official Christopher Krebs has told associates he expects to be fired by the White House, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters." ~~~

~~~ AND This. Christopher Bing of Reuters: "A senior U.S. cybersecurity official is leaving government after being asked to resign, an official familiar with the matter said Thursday, part of a wider thinning of President Donald Trump’s administration following Joe Biden’s election win. Bryan Ware, the Assistant Director for Cybersecurity for the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), confirmed to Reuters that he had handed in his resignation on Thursday." ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Nick Miroff & Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: “The White House has forced out two top Department of Homeland Security officials as part of a widening purge of anyone suspected of lacking complete loyalty to President Trump, three people familiar with the removals said Thursday. Valerie Boyd, the top official for international affairs at DHS, was asked for her resignation, as well as Bryan Ware, a senior policy aide at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The requests came from the White House’s Presidential Personnel Office, whose 30-year-old director, John McEntee, has recently intensified efforts to purge appointees who have failed to demonstrate sufficient fealty to the president.... Boyd, in a resignation letter obtained by The Washington Post, wrote to DHS acting secretary Chad Wolf that she hopes government officials will 'act with honor' during the transition to a new presidency.” ~~~

     ~~~ No, Virginia, there is no honor in Trumpsville. Mrs. Bea McCrabbie 

WhoopDeeDoo. Shane Goldmacher & Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "The first small cracks have begun to appear in the Republican wall of support for President Trump and his unfounded claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, with a growing number of elected officials and party leaders signaling on Thursday that they would indulge Mr. Trump’s conspiracy theories for only so long. A few were willing to openly contradict him. Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio said that it was time to call Joseph R. Biden Jr. the 'president-elect.' The Republican attorney general of Arizona said that Mr. Trump would not end up winning his state, despite the president’s protestations. And on Capitol Hill, several Republican senators have begun, in measured tones, to say that Mr. Biden should be entitled to classified intelligence briefings as the incoming commander in chief or that it is time to recognize he will soon be certified as president-elect." ~~~

~~~ Felicia Sonmez & Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "An increasing number of Senate Republicans said Thursday that President-elect Joe Biden should be granted access to classified briefings during the presidential transition, an acknowledgment of the election results despite President Trump’s insistence that he will win. Republicans have sought to delegitimize Biden’s victory, amplifying Trump’s baseless claims about widespread election fraud and endorsing the president’s legal challenges as he refuses to concede. Only four of the 53 Senate Republicans have congratulated Biden. But several Republicans said Thursday that Biden should be afforded some of the privileges of an incoming president while still declining to say he won." Biden received some form of classified briefings during the campaign, and now that he has been elected, Trump is withholding them. How much sense does that make? ~~~

~~~ Ted Barrett of CNN: “Sen. Lindsey Graham [R] told CNN Thursday he thinks President-elect Joe Biden should get intelligence briefings starting now. 'Yeah, I think he should,' said Graham, a close ally of President Trump.... Another influential Republican, Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, said, 'yeah, I don’t think that would hurt,' for Biden to start getting the briefings now, as a handful of other Republicans have said they support this.” (Also linked yesterday.)

Manu Raju & Ted Barrett of CNN: "Two top GOP senators told CNN on Thursday that Joe Biden should have access to classified briefings, the latest indication that Republicans acknowledge the President-elect is likely on his way to the White House despite ... Donald Trump's refusal to accept the results.'I would think -- especially on classified briefings -- answer is yes,' said Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who as president pro tempore is the most senior Republican in the chamber. Senate Majority Whip John Thune of South Dakota also told CNN that Biden should have access to classified briefings. Those comments follow GOP Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma who made a similar comment Wednesday on a local radio station, and several other Republicans have signaled it's time to begin the transition process." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Lauren Egan & Nicole Via y Rada of NBC News: "Senate Republicans and former national security officials Thursday increased the pressure on the General Services Administration to grant President-elect Joe Biden access to presidential-level intelligence briefings, a key step in the transition to the White House.... Over 150 former national security officials urged the GSA in a letter Thursday to recognize Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as the winners of the election, giving them access to the President's Daily Brief and allowing them to begin to obtain the security clearances necessary for members of the transition team.... The group, which includes several former Trump administration officials, warned of serious national security risks as a result of the delay in Biden's transition. Other signatories include retired lawmakers and national security officials who served in both Republican and Democratic administrations."

** Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post: “... the [Republican] party [has] lurch[ed] away from democratic ideals and practices, a shift that predates Trump but one that has accelerated precipitously since. Now, according to data released by an international team of political scientists just before the Nov. 3 election, it’s possible to quantify the extent to which the Republican Party no longer adheres to such principles as the commitment to free and fair elections with multiple parties, the respectful treatment of political opponents and the avoidance of violent rhetoric. 'The Republican Party in the U.S. has retreated from upholding democratic norms in recent years,' said Anna Lührmann, a political scientist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and a former member of the German parliament. 'Its rhetoric is closer to authoritarian parties, such as AKP in Turkey and Fidesz in Hungary.'... Lührmann points out that the Republican Party score [as conveyed in a chart republished by the WashPo] started to edge downward during the Obama administration but fell off a cliff in 2016 with the ascent of Trump.” Mrs. McC: This is something we've been observing & remarking on (yelling! sometimes) for years, and now political scientists have quantified it.

Arizona. Justin Price of the Arizona Republic: "Results from newly counted ballots in Maricopa County released Wednesday night favored ... Donald Trump, but not by a wide enough margin to overtake President-elect Joe Biden in Arizona.... Trump would need about 74% of the 24,738 ballots left to tabulate statewide, in order to surpass Biden and win the state's 11 Electoral College votes. Since Election Day, Trump has been unable to garner such a large share of the results released by Maricopa County. The county has 6,715 ballots remaining to be tallied." ~~~

~~~ Adam Klasfeld of Law & Crime: “A Trump campaign attorney conceded in court on Thursday morning that he tried to enter hundreds of dodgy form-filed affidavits into evidence, even though their own investigation found that a subset of the sworn statements that they received were filled with lies and 'spam.'... 'How is that a reliable process of gathering evidence?' the judge asked, later blocking admission of the so-called evidence.... 'This is not a fraud case,' [attorney Kory] Langhofer said, casting the lawsuit instead as allegations of flaws within the voting system. 'It is not a stealing-the-election case.'... The Trump campaign’s admission came toward the beginning of a daylong evidentiary hearing in a case that began as the so-called 'Sharpiegate' lawsuit, the outlandish speculation that election workers handed markers to Trump voters to invalidate their votes on Election Day. The hearing is expected to last for five hours.” ~~~

~~~ Yvonne Sanchez of the Arizona Repubic: "Rae Chornenky, the chair of the Maricopa County Republican Party, has resigned from her position after Democrats called her out for skipping a meeting ahead of the election where the county’s ballot tabulation machines were tested. Chornenky, an attorney backed by the state's more establishment Republicans, had long clashed with the further-right-leaning figures within the state’s Republican Party. Calls for her to step down started after Maricopa County Democratic Party chair Stephen Slugocki reminded the public in a Twitter post that in October she had not attended a logic and accuracy test of election equipment. That equipment — new ballot tabulators from Dominion Voting Systems — are at the center of claims about software glitches that some Republicans have asserted changed votes from ... Donald Trump to Democrat Joe Biden. There is no credible evidence that happened."

Pennsylvania. Mick Stinelli of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "The Trump campaign on Thursday won a case attempting to disqualify a small number of mail-in ballots for first-time Pennsylvania voters who were unable to confirm their identification by Nov. 9. These ballots had been segregated pending the judge’s decision and have not yet been counted, so their disqualification will not affect the current vote count in Pennsylvania. Joe Biden won the state, and subsequently the election, on Saturday and currently leads President Trump by more than 53,000 votes."

Marissa Lang & Peter Hermann of the Washington Post: “Demonstrations in support of President Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the presidential election will descend on downtown Washington this weekend. The events have been promoted by far-right media personalities, white nationalists and conspiracy theorists — several of whom announced plans to attend. Counterdemonstrations organized by anti-fascist and anti-racism groups are being planned nearby.... The pro-Trump rallies have garnered support from Fox News host Sean Hannity as well as more fringe figures, including Enrique Tarrio, chairman of the Proud Boys; self-described 'American Nationalist' and social media agitator Nicholas Fuentes; conservative provocateur Jack Posobiec, who promoted the 'Pizzagate' conspiracy theory tied to the 2016 shooting at D.C. pizzeria Comet Ping Pong; Scott Presler, a pro-Trump activist who works with anti-Muslim group ACT for America; and Infowars founder and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.” Mrs. McC: The company Hannity keeps. ~~~

~~~ Timothy Johnson of Media Matters: “Oath Keepers militia leader Stewart Rhodes said that he has armed men on standby outside of Washington, D.C., to supposedly prevent the 2020 presidential election from being stolen from ... Donald Trump. Echoing elements of the QAnon conspiracy theory during an appearance on far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ program, Rhodes said the only way to prevent his men from engaging in a 'bloody fight' would be Trump declassifying information to supposedly expose pedophiles in the 'deep state' and allow the president to stay in power. Rhodes also indicated his militia will be involved in a rally to support Trump planned for this weekend in the nation's capital. Rhodes’ Oath Keepers militia, which comprises 'former law enforcement officials and military veterans,' is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as 'one of the largest radical antigovernment groups in the U.S. today.' But, as Rhodes recent public comments have made clear, the organization’s purpose has shifted from opposing the government to instead act as a pro-Trump vigilante group that is willing to violently support Trump’s unjust attempts to stay in power after losing the 2020 election.”

Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Too Fake for Fox. Justin Baragona of the Daily Beast: “After a tumultuous year at Fox News that included the network’s own 'Brain Room' warning hosts and anchors not to trust his 'disinformation,' pro-Trump columnist John Solomon is no longer a paid contributor with the network.... As the chief creative officer for Circa News, he teamed up with current Fox News contributor Sara Carter on a number of articles that set the table for Trumpworld’s 'Spygate' narrative, resulting in his becoming a fixture on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program. After joining The Hill ... in 2017, Solomon’s questionable reporting — which repeatedly pushed narratives that Trump was the victim of a liberal 'deep state' plot—caused tension in the newsroom, prompting The Hill to move him to the opinion side in 2018.... [But] Hannity would continue to call Solomon an 'investigative reporter' during his guest appearances, despite Fox management reportedly telling him to stop. Solomon’s opinion pieces at The Hill, meanwhile, helped fuel Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to dig up dirt on now-President-elect Joe Biden, something that was laid out in full during the impeachment hearings.”

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here: "Public health officials in the United States announced more than 160,000 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, the first day over 150,000 since the pandemic began — an alarming record that came just over a week after the country first experienced 100,000 cases in a single day. The pandemic has risen to crisis levels in much of the nation, especially the Midwest, as hospital executives warn of dwindling bed space and as coroners deploy mobile morgues. More than 100,000 coronavirus cases have been announced nationwide every day since Nov. 4, and six of the last nine days have broken the previous record.

"The United States set a record for new coronavirus cases and blew past the record for hospitalizations on Wednesday as the pandemic continued to balloon unabated, and a long list of cities and states imposed new restrictions on public life. More than 142,000 new cases were detected on Wednesday for the first time, according to data compiled by The New York Times, continuing a harrowing increase as the Northern Hemisphere enters a period of cold weather, indoor life, colds and flus that are expected to add fuel to the contagion." (Also linked yesterday.)

Aamer Madhani & Zeke Miller of the AP: "... Donald Trump has publicly disengaged from the battle against the coronavirus at a moment when the disease is tearing across the United States at an alarming pace. Trump, fresh off his reelection loss to President-elect Joe Biden, remains angry that an announcement about progress in developing a vaccine for the disease came after Election Day. And aides say the president has shown little interest in the growing crisis even as new confirmed cases are skyrocketing and hospital intensive care units in parts of the country are nearing capacity. Public health experts worry that Trump’s refusal to take aggressive action on the pandemic or to coordinate with the Biden team during the final two months of his presidency will only worsen the effects of the virus and hinder the nation’s ability to swiftly distribute a vaccine next year."

Brett Samuels of the Hill: "Corey Lewandowski, a senior adviser to President Trump's reelection campaign, has tested positive for coronavirus, a source familiar with the matter confirmed on Thursday.... Lewandowski was at a White House party on the night of the election, and he has mostly been in Pennsylvania in recent days as part of an effort to challenge the outcome there.... The White House election night party has emerged as the latest super-spreader event inside the building...." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Monica Alba of NBC News: "Republic[an] National Committee chief of staff Richard Walters has tested positive for coronavirus, according to a GOP official.... Unlike other Trump allies who have recently tested positive, Walters was not at the White House election night party."

Yereth Rosen of Reuters: “The Alaska congressman who once ridiculed the seriousness of the novel coronavirus, calling it the 'beer virus,' said on Thursday he is now infected with it. The announcement by Representative Don Young comes as the state’s governor on Thursday warned that health-care and public-safety systems were at risk of being overwhelmed by the rapid spread of the virus across Alaska. Young, the 87-year-old Republican who is Alaska’s sole U.S. House of Representatives member, made the announcement on Twitter.”

Shannon McMahon of the Washington Post: “The first cruise in the Caribbean since March has halted its journey after passengers tested for the coronavirus 'returned assumptive positive results' on Wednesday, yachting company SeaDream said in a news release. The cruising ship, the SeaDream I, returned to port in Barbados on Wednesday after administering rapid tests on all passengers as part of its routine testing protocol, which requires testing before and during the journey. The reported outbreak is a major setback for the cruise industry, which has been touting testing as a path to the return to sea.” A BuzzFeed News story is here.

Freeeedumb! Teo Armus of the Washington Post: "As coronavirus infections surge again across the country, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) ... said during a Fox News interview on Thursday evening..., 'We should tell [Americans who had recovered from Covid-19] to celebrate.... We should tell them to throw away their masks, go to restaurants, live again, because these people are now immune.' That medically suspect comment from Paul, who tested positive for the virus in March, contradicts widespread public health guidance as well as consistent messaging from many doctors and scientists: There is no evidence that people who have already contracted the virus are now immune to it, they have repeatedly said. And there is a possibility they can still spread the virus to others.... Peter Hotez, an infectious-disease specialist at Baylor University College of Medicine, wrote on Twitter that Paul’s remarks amounted to 'anti-science disinformation.'... It is far from the first time that Paul, a self-certified ophthalmologist, has been accused by doctors of spreading misinformation regarding a pandemic.... During a Senate hearing in September, he was singled out by Anthony S. Fauci ... for repeatedly misconstruing scientific data to serve a political talking point — in this case, about 'herd immunity' in New York.” A shorter version of the story appears in the WashPo's non-firewalled daily Covid-19 developments, linked above.

Freeeedumb! Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: “Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. told the Federalist Society on Thursday night that the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in previously 'unimaginable' restrictions on individual liberty.... He repeated his criticism of the court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges that granted same-sex couples the right to marry. He told those watching that he predicted at the time that those who continued to hold to the notion that marriage is only between a man and a woman would be seen as bigots. 'That is just what is coming to pass,' he said.... Alito said he was not criticizing officials for their policy decisions — 'I’m a judge, not a policymaker' — and said before launching into the speech that he hoped his remarks would not be 'twisted or misunderstood.'” Mrs. McC: No, Sam, I think we understand quite well. And, yes, Sam, you are a bigot. Thanks to Akhilleus for the lead. ~~~

~~~ Josh Gerstein of Politico: “Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito delivered an unusually inflammatory public speech Thursday night, starkly warning about the threats he contends religious believers face from advocates for gay and abortion rights, as well as public officials responding to the coronavirus pandemic.... Alito also seemed to minimize the significance of a refusal of a Colorado baker to produce a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. The justice noted that the couple involved 'was given a free cake by another bakery' and that the high-profile standoff prompted 'celebrity chefs' to come to their defense.” Mrs. McC: Sorta like saying it's okay if a Black woman's boss refuses to promote her & calls her racist & sexist names, but after awhile the company promotes her to another department & keeps the first boss on. 


Mike Baker of the New York Times: "... Russian military operations in August inside the U.S. economic zone off the coast of Alaska were the latest in a series of escalated encounters across the North Pacific and the Arctic, where the retreat of polar ice continues to draw new commercial and military traffic. This year, the Russian military has driven a new nuclear-powered icebreaker straight to the North Pole, dropped paratroopers into a high-Arctic archipelago to perform a mock battle and repeatedly flown bombers to the edge of U.S. airspace. As seas warmed by climate change open new opportunities for oil exploration and trade routes, the U.S. Coast Guard now finds itself monitoring a range of new activity: cruise ships promising a voyage through waters few have ever seen, research vessels trying to understand the changing landscape, tankers carrying new gas riches, and shipping vessels testing new passageways that sailors of centuries past could only dream of."

Letting a well-connected billionaire get away with child rape and international sex trafficking isn’t ‘poor judgment’ – it is a disgusting failure. Americans ought to be enraged. -- Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) ~~~

~~~ Matthew Goldstein & Katie Benner of the New York Times: “A former top federal prosecutor in Miami 'exercised poor judgment' by allowing the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein to evade federal child trafficking charges more than a decade ago, a Justice Department review revealed on Thursday, but it found no other wrongdoing, prompting criticism that the department dodged responsibility for its light treatment of Mr. Epstein, who died last year of an apparent suicide after his arrest on similar charges. The department’s Office of Professional Responsibility did not find any professional misconduct by R. Alexander Acosta, the U.S. attorney in Miami who oversaw the 2006 investigation into Mr. Epstein and who later served as labor secretary under President Trump until he resigned last year amid a renewed uproar over the Epstein case.” An NBC News story is here.

Bianca Quilantan of Politico: “A federal appeals court on Thursday agreed with a lower court ruling that Harvard University does not intentionally discriminate against prospective Asian American students. Two judges from the First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the district court was correct in ruling that Harvard’s limited use of race in its admissions process in order to achieve diversity 'is consistent with the requirements of Supreme Court precedent.'” (Also linked yesterday.) 

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Wednesday
Nov112020

The Commentariat -- November 12, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Chimamanda Adichie, a Nigerian fiction & non-fiction writer, reviews Barack Obama's memoir A Promised Land for the New York Times: "It is not merely that this book avoids being ponderous, as might be expected, even forgiven, of a hefty memoir, but that it is nearly always pleasurable to read, sentence by sentence, the prose gorgeous in places, the detail granular and vivid. From Southeast Asia to a forgotten school in South Carolina, he evokes the sense of place with a light but sure hand. This is the first of two volumes, and it starts early in his life, charting his initial political campaigns, and ends with a meeting in Kentucky where he is introduced to the SEAL team involved in the Abbottabad raid that killed Osama bin Laden." ~~~

~~~ Martin Pengelly of the Guardian writes more of a book report. ~~~

~~~ The Atlantic publishes an "adapted & updated" excerpt from Barack Obama's memoir, which is to be published Tuesday. It includes audio of the preface, as appears in the book, read by President Obama. (Firewalled.)

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here: "The United States set a record for new coronavirus cases and blew past the record for hospitalizations on Wednesday as the pandemic continued to balloon unabated, and a long list of cities and states imposed new restrictions on public life. More than 142,000 new cases were detected on Wednesday for the first time, according to data compiled by The New York Times, continuing a harrowing increase as the Northern Hemisphere enters a period of cold weather, indoor life, colds and flus that are expected to add fuel to the contagion."

Brett Samuels of the Hill: "Corey Lewandowski, a senior adviser to President Trump's reelection campaign, has tested positive for coronavirus, a source familiar with the matter confirmed on Thursday.... Lewandowski was at a White House party on the night of the election, and he has mostly been in Pennsylvania in recent days as part of an effor to challenge the outcome there.... The White House election night party has emerged as the latest super-spreader event inside the building...."

Ted Barrett of CNN: "Sen. Lindsey Graham [R] told CNN Thursday he thinks President-elect Joe Biden should get intelligence briefings starting now. 'Yeah, I think he should,' said Graham, a close ally of President Trump.... Another influential Republican, Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, said, 'yeah, I don't think that would hurt,' for Biden to start getting the briefings now, as a handful of other Republicans have said they support this."

Manu Raju & Ted Barrett of CNN: "Two top GOP senators told CNN on Thursday that Joe Biden should have access to classified briefings, the latest indication that Republicans acknowledge the President-elect is likely on his way to the White House despite ... Donald Trump's refusal to accept the results. 'I would think -- especially on classified briefings -- answer is yes,' said Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who as president pro tempore is the most senior Republican in the chamber. Senate Majority Whip John Thune of South Dakota also told CNN that Biden should have access to classified briefings. Those comments follow GOP Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma who made a similar comment Wednesday on a local radio station, and several other Republicans have signaled it's time to begin the transition process."

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Benjamine Wittes of Lawfare notes in an analysis also linked below, "The administrator of the General Services Administration, Emily Murphy, has refused to 'ascertain' (in the language of the law) that Biden is the 'apparent' winner of the election, thus blocking transition funding and preventing certain other transition activity from beginning." This has been annoying me all morning. Murphy and the media don't "declare" a winner, as Republicans have said or implied; Murphy just has to acknowledge that Biden is the "apparent" winner. That's obvious to anyone with access to a newspaper, a TV or the Internet. Even if you think Biden didn't win and Trump's goofy lawsuits will prove it, Biden is -- according to 50 state top election officials -- the apparent winner. Unlike Trump, who won by fewer Electoral College votes than Biden already has got, both Biden & Harris have or have had high-level security clearances, so there's no danger whatsoever in giving them access to national security briefings. In the past, these transition accommodations have been accorded to Trump & to other incoming administrations several weeks before the last states have certified their results. The only excuse for withholding them is to assuage Donnie's widdle feelings. That's corrupt. ~~~

~~~ Here's the segment PD Pepe mentions in today's Comments, wherein Brian Williams tries (in vain, we can be sure) to explain to Donald Trump "how graciousness works": ~~~

Bianca Quilantan of Politico: "A federal appeals court on Thursday agreed with a lower court ruling that Harvard University does not intentionally discriminate against prospective Asian American students. Two judges from the First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the district court was correct in ruling that Harvard's limited use of race in its admissions process in order to achieve diversity 'is consistent with the requirements of Supreme Court precedent.'"

~~~~~~~~~~

The President-Elect

Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. will name Ron Klain, a veteran Democratic operative and a decades-long confidant, to be his White House chief of staff as early as Thursday morning, according to several people familiar with Mr. Biden's decision. Mr. Klain, a lawyer with deep experience on Capitol Hill, advising President Barack Obama and in corporate board rooms, has been seen for months as the likeliest choice to manage Mr. Biden's team in the White House. Known for steady nerves, he also has a fierce wit, which he has frequently unleashed on President Trump on Twitter. He was particularly critical of Mr. Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, having served as the 'Ebola czar' under Mr. Obama during an outbreak of the deadly disease in his second term. A video of Mr. Klain lecturing Mr. Trump about the pandemic was widely seen during the campaign." A CNN story is here.

Lankford Steps Up. Jordain Carney of the Hill: "GOP Sen. James Lankford (Okla.) said that there was 'nothing wrong' with President-elect Joe Biden getting intelligence briefings and pledged to 'step in' if the former vice president doesn't have access by Friday. Asked about Biden not getting the briefings, Lankford told Oklahoma radio station KRMG, in an interview that aired Wednesday, that it 'should be resolved' by Friday. 'There is no loss from him getting the briefings and to be able to do that and if that's not occuring by Friday I will step in as well, and to be able to push and to say this needs to occur so that regardless of the outcome of the election ... people can be ready for that actual task,' Lankford said.... Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, Lankford noted, is also a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, meaning that 'she has all the clearances that she needs.' Lankford is a former member of the Intelligence panel...."

The Farce Be with Us

How is it, she asked rhetorically, that a person who prides himself on being the ultimate macho strong man is spending his days in hiding where he sulks, whines & tweets preposterous conspiracy theories & makes absurd claims of victory?

Georgia. The Washington Post's live election updates Wednesday are here: "Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced a hand-counted audit of the vote in his state, where President-elect Joe Biden currently leads by more than 14,000 votes.... The goal is to have the recount completed by Nov. 20, the state deadline for certification. President Trump is projected to win Alaska and its three electoral votes, and Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan is projected to hold onto his seat in the state, according to Edison Research. That means Republicans are ensured 50 seats in the Senate, with the two runoffs in Georgia determining the majority." The page is free to non-subscribers. (Also linked yesterday.)

Alaska. CNN projects that Trump will win Alaska. No surprise there. (Also linked yesterday.)

Arizona. Another Law Firm Dumps Trump. David Thomas of Reuters: "The largest law firm representing the Trump campaign or its allies in post-election litigation challenging votes in key states has withdrawn from an election lawsuit in Maricopa County, Arizona. Associate Presiding Civil Judge Daniel Kiley on Tuesday granted Snell & Wilmer's request to withdraw as counsel of record for the Republican National Committee." Mrs. McC: My guess is they quit because they have no case. As Michigan AG Dana Nessel reminded me when she appeared on MSNBC yesterday, judges may sanction & fine lawyers who clog their courts with completely frivolous suits. ~~~

~~~ So Then Comes This. Maria Polletta of the Arizona Republic: "An attorney representing ... Donald Trump's reelection team, in a lawsuit alleging poll workers 'incorrectly rejected' Election Day votes, asked a Maricopa County Superior Court judge on Tuesday to seal the evidence he says will support that claim. But attorneys representing the election officials being sued convinced the judge to reject the request after arguing the public 'has a right to know how flimsy Plaintiffs' evidence actually is.'" Mrs. McC: Sure enough, one of the firms representing the plaintiffs in the case is Snell & Wilmer.

Michigan. Trump's Election Challenges Are Racist. Dave Boucher of the Detroit Free Press: "Michigan's top law enforcement officer [-- Attorney General Dana Nessel --] blasted the legal efforts of ... Donald Trump in the state on Wednesday, saying they include no evidence of misconduct, unfairly attack Black voters and workers in Detroit and will not change the outcome of the election.... 'Really the themes that we see, that persist, are this: Black people are corrupt, Black people are incompetent and Black people can't be trusted. That's the narrative that is continually espoused by the Trump campaign and their allies in these lawsuits,' Nessel said during a press call. Nessel noted the lawsuits focus on allegations of misconduct in Detroit, a city that typically votes for Democrats and that has a majority Black population." The Trump campaign has not brought suit against counties with majority-white populations that heavily favored Biden. ~~~

~~~ David Fahrenthold, et al., of the Washington Post: :On Wednesday, President Trump's campaign asked a federal judge to take a drastic step: block the state of Michigan from certifying the results of its presidential election. President-elect Joe Biden now leads Trump by about 148,000 votes there. To back up that lawsuit, Trump's campaign had promised 'shocking' evidence of misconduct. Instead, the campaign produced 238 pages of affidavits from Republican poll watchers across Michigan containing no evidence of significant fraud but rather allegations about ballot-counting procedures that state workers have already debunked -- and in some cases, complaints about rude behavior or unpleasant looks from poll workers or Democratic poll watchers.” The complaints were in the vein of "That big Black man is looking at me" and "The loudspeaker is too loud." ~~~

~~~ Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post has more examples of the contents of the affidavits, which don't seem to address voter fraud but do illuminate how the Black people hurt their feelings. The GOP poll watcher who came closest to addressing the issue at hand was a guy who estimated that 80% of the military ballots he saw were for Biden. "I had always been told that military personnel tended to be more conservative, so this stuck out to me as the day went on," the guy wrote. Mrs. McC: You know, Sherlock, I'll bet 80% of the military ballots of Detroit residents were not completed by your traditional "conservatives." ~~~

~~~ Jon Ward of Yahoo! News: "The city of Detroit has rejected claims of cheating brought by Trump supporters, stating in a court filing that ... 'Most of the objections raised in the submitted affidavits are grounded in an extraordinary failure to understand how elections function,' wrote attorneys for the city in a response filed Wednesday in Wayne County Circuit Court. The lawyers pointed out that President Trump received almost three times as many votes in Detroit in the 2020 election than he did four years ago: 12,654, up from 4,972 in 2016." The article includes the whats & why-fors.

Pennsylvania. Shawn Boburg, et al., of the Washington Post: "In an interview this week with federal agents, a Pennsylvania postal worker walked back his allegation that a supervisor had tampered with mailed ballots, saying he had made 'assumptions' based on overheard snippets of conversation, according to an audio recording of the interview posted online Wednesday by activists who have championed his cause. The two-hour recording shows that Richard Hopkins recanted claims he had made in a sworn affidavit that top Republicans cited over the weekend as potential evidence of widespread election irregularities and fraud. Hopkins told federal investigators on Monday his allegations were based on fragments of conversation among co-workers in a noisy mail facility in Erie, Pa., according to the recording.... On Tuesday, following a story in The Washington Post [also linked here yesterday] that quoted officials as saying Hopkins had recanted his earlier claims, Hopkins said in a YouTube video that he had not done so, and that the recording of the interview would show as much." It did not do so. And here's the coup de grâce: Hopkins, in explaining how he came to make his allegations in his original affidavit, "He told agents the affidavit was written by Project Veritas." ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: A neighbor stopped by to ask me if Pennsylvania could just send a troop of "faithless Electors" to the Electoral College who would give the state's votes to Trump., even though Biden won the popular vote. This is a rumor that's going around the Internets. I told him no & sort of explained why. Greg Sargent of the Washington Post has a fuller explanation here: "What happens if, say, the GOP legislature in Pennsylvania goes rogue and appoints a separate pro-Trump slate of electors for the electoral college, in defiance of the state's popular vote?... The relevant state law ... assigns the role of certifying the electors chosen by that statewide vote count to the governor, who is also a Democrat." Sargent then goes through scenarios in which multiple Republican states tried to send their own slate of Electors to the Electoral College. He concludes: "Everyone absolutely should remain on alert, to be clear. But a Trump win along these lines is absurdly, monumentally implausible." ~~~

~~~ Ben Wittes of Lawfare offers his own analysis of the likelihood of any state legislature fielding a slate of faithless Electors & explains why that's highly implausible. However, he too warns that in the age of Trump, one has to watch out for implausible outcomes.

Texas. Almost Too Stupid to Believe. Richard Luscombe of the Guardian: "An ultra-conservative Texas politician who believes seniors would rather die from Covid-19 than allow the pandemic to harm the economy is pushing another baseless theory, and dangling a million-dollar bounty for proof that Donald Trump is being cheated of victory in the presidential election. Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of the lone star state, says he is offering the money to 'incentivize, encourage and reward' citizens who can provide evidence of voter fraud, even though the president beat Joe Biden in Texas by almost 650,000 votes."

     ~~~ Thanks to RAS for the link.

The Man with No Plan. Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump declared Wednesday on Twitter, 'WE WILL WIN!' But, in fact, the president has no clear endgame to actually win the election -- and, in an indication he may be starting to come to terms with his loss, he is talking privately about running again in 2024. Trump aides, advisers and allies said there is no grand strategy to reverse the election results, which show President-elect Joe Biden with a majority of electoral college votes, as well as a 5 million-vote lead in the national popular vote.... Republican officials have scrambled nationwide to produce evidence of widespread voter fraud that could bolster the Trump campaign's legal challenges, but no such evidence has surfaced. And Biden's lead in several states targeted by the Trump campaign has expanded as late-counted votes are reported. In all-important Pennsylvania, the Democrat now leads by more than 50,000 votes." ~~~

     ~~~ Oh, Wait. There Is a Plan. Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "President Trump isn't really trying to overturn the election. He's simply running one more scam before he leaves office that would enable him to enrich himself. That's the way it appears, at least, from the scores of fundraising emails his campaign has sent out since the election. He seems to be asking for funds to challenge the election, but the fine print shows that the money could let him line his own coffers. The tin-pot-dictator routine looks more as if it's about passing the tin cup." Read on.

Bad Company. Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: "When [Aleksandr G. Lukashenko,] the strongman ruler of Belarus, declared an implausible landslide victory in an election in August, and had himself sworn in for a sixth term as president, the United States and other Western nations denounced what they said was brazen defiance of the voters' will. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last month [that Lukashenko's 'victory'] was 'fraud.'... Just a month on, Mr. Pompeo's boss, President Trump, is now borrowing from Mr. Lukashenko's playbook, joining a club of truculent leaders who ... declare themselves the winners of elections.... When [autocrats] do hold genuinely competitive votes and the result goes against them, they often ignore the result, denouncing it as the work of traitors, criminals and foreign saboteurs, and therefore invalid. By refusing to accept the results of last week's election and working to delegitimize the vote, Mr. Trump is following a similar strategy.... The United States has never before had to force an incumbent to concede a fair defeat at the polls. And merely by raising the possibility that he would have to be forced out of office, Mr. Trump has shattered the bedrock democratic tradition of a seamless transition. The damage already done by Mr. Trump's obduracy could be lasting."

Josh Feldman of Mediaite: "Karl Rove ... wrote in the Wall Street Journal Wednesday that the election outcome is not likely to be overturned, saying, 'The president's efforts are unlikely to move a single state from Mr. Biden's column, and certainly they're not enough to change the final outcome.'... He closes by advising Trump to 'do his part to unite the country by leading a peaceful transition and letting grievances go.'" Rove's WSJ opinion piece is here. Firewalled, of course.

AWOL. Betsy Klein of CNN: "The President of the United States is absent without leave.... Donald Trump is set to make his first public appearance in six days Wednesday when he visits Arlington National Cemetery to commemorate Veterans Day alongside first lady Melania Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. But as he mounts a fierce battle to remain in office and refuses to concede the election he lost, Trump has shown little interest in the work of being President. Since he vowed to fight the election results in the wee hours after Election Day, Trump ... has made few efforts to show the American people he is still governing. Instead, he is firing off inflammatory and baseless claims on his social media accounts, many of which have been flagged by Twitter as misinformation, and hitting his golf course." Mrs. McC: Yeah, any of those veterans he is supposedly honoring today could have been courtmartialed for being AWOL, but Trump gets atta-boys from the same senators who refused to courtmartial him for attempting to consort with a foreign government. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I thought pence was AWOL, too, but the NYT reports that "Vice President Mike Pence canceled a vacation at the last minute this week as the virus numbers grew worse, but the White House coronavirus task force that he leads has been all but publicly silent."

Crazy Becomes the GOP Norm. David Siders of Politico: "It was just noise when it started -- Donald Trump spouting wild, unsubstantiated claims about election fraud, his lawyer seething at an almost comical press conference in the parking lot of a Philadelphia landscaping business. But one week after an election in which Joe Biden received close to 5 million more popular votes than Trump and captured more than 270 electoral votes, the president and top Republican Party officials are nowhere near conceding. And with his posturing -- and statements of Cabinet officials like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- Trump is fueling a bonfire that's consuming the GOP and disrupting the traditional transfer of power.... A majority of Republicans, according to new polling, are convinced the election wasn't fair. Party officials are attacking one another for failing a litmus test of defending Trump's interests.... Many top GOP officials ... often [suggest] to the party rank-and-file that the election was stolen, or that the outcome stands to be reversed." (Also linked yesterday.)

Stephen Collinson of CNN: "... Donald Trump's administration is taking on the characteristics of a tottering regime -- with its loyalty tests, destabilizing attacks on the military chain of command, a deepening bunker mentality and increasingly delusional claims of political victory. In response, a visibly confident President-elect Joe Biden is going out of his way to project calm amid the deepening chaos, even as Trump and senior Republicans still refuse to acknowledge the President's defeat in a stunning break with America's democratic traditions.... Biden said he had a simple message for all the world leaders: 'I am letting them know America is back.'... But the Trump team only dug itself deeper into a bizarre parallel universe -- one where the President has already secured a second term -- consistent with the embrace of misinformation and alternative facts that has characterized the last four years." (Also linked yesterday.)

More Trump Paranoia. Laurie McGinley, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump is lashing out at the Food and Drug Administration following a disclosure Monday that an experimental coronavirus vaccine from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is more than 90 percent effective, convinced the timing -- six days after Election Day -- proves the 'medical deep state' deliberately tried to sabotage his electoral prospects by delaying the results. Shortly after Trump heard the news Monday, he demanded Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar 'get to the bottom' of what happened with Pfizer.... A few hours later, the issue was front and center at a meeting of the White House coronavirus task force when FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn briefed members about the vaccine data.... [At the meeting, Azar blamed Hahn for delaying the Pfizer announcement & implied Hahn and/or Pfizer had manipulated the timing for political reasons.] Trump weighed in Monday night, tweeting without evidence that the FDA and Pfizer intentionally withheld the news until after the election.... There is no proof decisions were made with the intent of imperiling Trump's reelection prospects." Pfizer didn't have access to the data until the Sunday following the election.

Erin Banco, et al., of the Daily Beast: "... Donald Trump continues to refuse to cede the election. His national security adviser Robert O'Brien is enabling the mayhem, four senior officials told The Daily Beast.... O'Brien -- once viewed as a potential check on Trump's erratic national security demands -- endorsed the installation of a pair of Trumpists at the Pentagon's highest levels, while a defense secretary O'Brien has long opposed was fired by tweet.... Officials familiar with the matter noted that O'Brien has also pushed national security officials to publicly embrace the absurd Trump message that the election has not been certified and that there are still legal battles playing out across the country that could turn in the president's favor. 'If you even mention Biden.s name ... that's a no go. You'd be fired,' one national security official said. 'Everyone is scared of even talking about the chance of working with the [Biden] transition.'" Not firewalled.

Insane Pettiness. "President Macron Calling"; "Sorry, He's Not In & He Never Will Be." Kylie Atwood of CNN: "A stack of messages from foreign leaders to President-elect Joe Biden are sitting at the State Department but the Trump administration is preventing him from accessing them, according to State Department officials familiar with the messages. Traditionally, the State Department supports all communications for the President-elect, which is why many countries began sending messages to State over the weekend. But with Biden prohibited from accessing State Department resources by the Trump administration, because ... Donald Trump refuses to accept Biden's victory, dozens of incoming messages have not been received. Biden's team is in touch with foreign governments without State Department involvement, and he has held numerous calls with leaders, including Germany's Angela Merkel and Canada's Justin Trudeau. But they are operating without the logistical and translation support that the State Department operations center provides." ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: It is true that there are some important elements of a transition that these petty people are withholding: classified briefings, funds, office space, phone messages, and perhaps most important, the ability to have candidates for office vetted, which is quite time-consuming. But even if the little Trumpettes allow the Biden administration access where access is due, this won't be an ordinary transition, because the people who holds the top jobs are not only hostile, they're also stupid. They might be able to show the Biden people where the paperclips & restrooms are, but after that, faggedaboudit.

Barr v. Public Integrity. Katie Benner of the New York Times: "As the scandal over President Trump's dealings with Ukraine unfolded in Washington last fall and prompted his impeachment, public corruption prosecutors in the Justice Department ... [intended] to pursue a potentially explosive inquiry into whether he had broken any ... laws. But Attorney General William P. Barr and other top officials held them back while Congress investigated the same matter during impeachment hearings.... Compounding the prosecutors' dissatisfaction was a stalled case around that time against a member of Mr. Trump's cabinet, the former interior secretary Ryan Zinke.... The boiling frustration was a critical moment in the long-running tensions between the Public Integrity Section and the Trump administration that ... spilled into the open this week Mr. Barr issued a memo authorizing prosecutors to investigate voter fraud claims before the results of the presidential race are certified, prompting the section's lawyer who oversees voter fraud investigations, Richard Pilger, to step down from the post in protest.... The encounters were the latest example of Trump appointees ... overruling career prosecutors, drawing criticism that the administration was eroding the department's typical separation from politics."

The Confederate Nation of Mississippi. Ted Armus of the Washington Post: "Instead of being governed by President-elect Joe Biden, Mississippi state Rep. Price Wallace (R) reportedly said on Twitter that Mississippi should 'succeed' from the rest of the United States and form its own country." (Also linked yesterday.) Mrs. McC: Mississippi has found itself another country to be part of:

But What About Don Junior? Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "Ronna [Romney] McDaniel is expected to seek a third term as Republican National Committee chair, according to a person familiar with her thinking, and she has ... Donald Trump's backing to keep her post. McDaniel, who[m] ... Donald Trump picked to lead the RNC after he won the 2016 election, received Trump's endorsement for another term on Wednesday evening, all but guaranteeing her reelection. Trump's endorsement shows how he is determined to play a central role in Republican Party politics even after losing his bid for reelection." Mrs. McC: Yesterday, we learned that Donnie Junior & his Lapdance Lady friend were considering taking over the RNC; now we find out Senior has shut down that coup attempt. Must be that Daddy doesn't think the Boy Wonder is up to the job.

Rachel Sharp of the Daily Mail & the AP: "Donald Trump is being offered book and TV deals worth around $100 million as part of a 'plan B' if his election legal battle fails to secure him a second term, according to a source close to the president. The source told Page Six Tuesday the president is being 'bombarded' with lucrative book deal offers about his time in the White House as well as offers from right-wing TV outlets.... Former-President Barack Obama and Former First Lady Michelle Obama are rumored to have bagged a $65 million deal with Crown in 2017...." Mrs. McC: A friend pointed out these stories to me yesterday, but she also noted that this sounded like just another White House plant designed to make it appear Trump had bested president Obama. I would note that Michelle Obama's book was a super-best-seller, far exceeding expectations. Barack Obama's book is scheduled to come out next week and based on PD Pepe's review of one chapter, it should do well, too. The amount of the advance does not determine the payoff; it's an estimation of the publisher's worst-case bet on what the author will earn in royalties. Besides, the Obamas also have at least one TV deal, so I'm not sure Trump could "beat" them in the numbers game. And I'll bet the Obamas could not care less either way.

Here's another huge downside of the Republicans' likely retention of Senate control: ~~~

~~~ Kyle Cheney & Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "In the Senate, where GOP control hinges on two Jan. 5 runoffs in Georgia, Republican lawmakers are plotting ways to expand and intensify their investigations targeting the former Obama administration and President-elect Joe Biden and his son Hunter, with Senate Republicans saying they will use the lame duck period to ramp up their probes. 'We're not going to stop,' Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said as he concluded a hearing this week on the FBI's handling of its investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign's ties to Russia.... 'Because this is fundamental to democracy that the law enforcement community acts based on evidence, not based on bias.'"

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

** The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Wednesday are here: "In one week, new daily coronavirus cases in the United States went from 104,000 to more than 145,000 on Wednesday, the latest all-time high. Almost every metric is trending in the wrong direction as states add restrictions and health officials warn of a dangerous fall ahead. The rise in infections comes with new highs in the number of deaths reported in a single day at 1,549, the highest since May 14. Tennessee, Alabama and Minnesota all reached new highs in the number of deaths reported in a single day."

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Wednesday are here: "Covid-19 hospitalizations in the United States hit an all-time high of 61,964 on Tuesday, and new daily cases passed 139,000 for the first time, as the raging pandemic continued to shatter record after record and strain medical facilities." (Also linked yesterday.)

Amy Walker & Matthew Conlen of the New York Times: "Three more White House staffers have tested positive for the coronavirus, bringing the latest outbreak among President Trump's aides and advisers to 12 people. At least four of them -- Mr. Trump's chief of staff, his political director, a campaign adviser leading the efforts to challenge election results and the housing secretary — attended an election night party at the White House where hundreds of people mingled for hours, many without masks. They join at least 20 members of Mr. Trump's administration, campaign and inner circle who have contracted the virus since late September, after an earlier outbreak among White House residence staff.... The recent spate of cases reflects a lax approach to preventing infections at the nation's highest level of government -- including an overreliance on rapid testing and the dismissal of mask-wearing and social distancing -- that did not appear to change even after the president himself was hospitalized with Covid-19 in early October." The article names those who have been infected.

Sheryl Stolberg, et al., of the New York Times: "... as the country enters what may be the most intense stage of the pandemic yet, the Trump administration remains largely disengaged. President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is trying to assume a leadership mantle, with the appointment of a coronavirus advisory board and a call for all Americans to wear masks, but until his inauguration on Jan. 20, he lacks the authority to mobilize a federal response.... Mr. Trump is at war with his own health officials. He was furious after the drug maker Pfizer announced Monday that early clinical trial data suggested its coronavirus vaccine was more than 90 percent effective.... White House aides were particularly incensed that Mr. Biden publicly said his public health advisers knew of Pfizer's results on Sunday, before aides said the news had reached the White House.... Meantime, the Strategic National Stockpile, the nation's emergency reserve, has only 115 million N95 masks, far short of the 300 million the administration had hoped to amass by winter.... Governors are once again competing with one another and big hospital chains for scarce gear. Nursing homes are grappling with staff shortages, which have left hospitals unable to discharge patients to their care." (Also linked yesterday.)

All the Best People, Florida Edition. DeSantis Hires "Crackpot" Anti-Masker to Do Covid-19 Research. Katie Shepherd of the Washington Post: "Last week, Kyle Lamb, a little-known sports blogger who moonlights as an anti-masker, announced he had been hired to do data analysis, 'including but not limited to Covid-19 research,' for the governor of Florida. Lamb would be joining a team of analysts under Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times reported, many of whom have been working to monitor the coronavirus pandemic. Lamb, 40, is not a data scientist by trade or training. In his own words, he is 'not an "expert."' His public statements about the pandemic have frequently contradicted advice from public health officials, and he has dedicated much of his coronavirus commentary to undermining experts.... Ryan Donnelly, a former sportswriter who worked with Lamb at a sports publication in 2018, told The Washington Post in a Twitter direct message that the podcast host has no background in data analysis or epidemiology. 'He is totally unfit for the role and appears to have been hired because he enjoyed posting charts and graphs on Twitter and offering misleading analysis alongside them,' Donnelly told The Post.... Lamb's former colleagues in the Ohio sports world, where he previously worked as a blogger and podcast host, have characterized him in interviews with the Herald and Tampa Bay Times as 'a nobody,' 'an amateur,' an 'Internet weirdo,' and a 'crackpot.'"


A Civil War Among Trump's Favorite Racists. Ewan Palmer of Newsweek: "Infighting has broken out between two leading members of the Proud Boys group, with one announcing he will be taking control of the far-right organization to address 'White Genocide' and the 'failures of multiculturalism.' White nationalist Kyle Chapman -- who set up the 'tactical defense arm' of the Proud Boys, the Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights (FOAK) -- has criticized the group's chairman Enrique Tarrio while announcing a so-called rebranding of the organization. Writing on encrypted messaging app Telegram, Chapman used racial slurs against Tarrio and other neo-Nazi rhetoric while announcing that ... the group would be renamed the Proud Goys.... 'We will no longer cuck to the left by appointing token negroes as our leaders. We will no longer allow homosexuals or other 'undesirables' into our ranks. We will confront the Zionist criminals who wish to destroy our civilization. We recognize that the West was built by the White Race alone and we owe nothing to any other race.'... Elsewhere, the Proud Boys and other far-right groups are planning a 'Million MAGA March' in Washington on Saturday in support of ... Donald Trump's baseless claim that he lost the election because of voter fraud."

Annals of Journalism, Ctd. It's Not So Neat to Beat Your Meat on the Electric Zoom Machine. Dominick Mastrangelo of the Hill: "Journalist Jeffrey Toobin has been fired by The New Yorker after being placed on suspension following an incident in which he exposed himself to colleagues during a virtual meeting last month. Toobin confirmed he had been fired in a tweet on Wednesday.... Toobin also serves as a legal analyst for CNN and did not appear as part of the network's coverage of the 2020 presidential election."

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: A neighbor stopped by to ask me if Pennsylvania could just send a troop of "faithless Electors" to the Electoral College who would give the state's votes to Trump., even though Biden won the popular vote. This is a rumor that's going around the Internets. I told him no & sort of explained why. Greg Sargent of the Washington Post has a fuller explanation here: "What happens if, say, the GOP legislature in Pennsylvania goes rogue and appoints a separate pro-Trump slate of electors for the electoral college, in defiance of the state's popular vote?... The relevant state law ... assigns the role of certifying the electors chosen by that statewide vote count to the governor, who is also a Democrat." Sargent then goes through scenarios in which multiple Republican states tried to send their own slate of Electors to the Electoral College. He concludes: "Everyone absolutely should remain on alert, to be clear. But a Trump win along these lines is absurdly, monumentally implausible."

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Tuesday
Nov102020

The Commentariat -- November 11, 2020

Late Morning Update:

The Washington Post's live election updates Wednesday are here: "Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced a hand-counted audit of the vote in his state, where President-elect Joe Biden currently leads by more than 14,000 votes.... The goal is to have the recount completed by Nov. 20, the state deadline for certification. President Trump is projected to win Alaska and its three electoral votes, and Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan is projected to hold onto his seat in the state, according to Edison Research. That means Republicans are ensured 50 seats in the Senate, with the two runoffs in Georgia determining the majority." The page is free to non-subscribers.

CNN projects that Trump will win Alaska. No surprise there.

AWOL. Betsy Klein of CNN: "The President of the United States is absent without leave.... Donald Trump is set to make his first public appearance in six days Wednesday when he visits Arlington National Cemetery to commemorate Veterans Day alongside first lady Melania Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. But as he mounts a fierce battle to remain in office and refuses to concede the election he lost, Trump has shown little interest in the work of being President. Since he vowed to fight the election results in the wee hours after Election Day, Trump ... has made few efforts to show the American people he is still governing. Instead, he is firing off inflammatory and baseless claims on his social media accounts, many of which have been flagged by Twitter as misinformation, and hitting his golf course." Mrs. McC: Yeah, any of those veterans he is supposedly honoring today could have been courtmartialed for being AWOL, but Trump gets atta-boys from the same senators who refused to courtmartial him for attempting to consort with a foreign government. ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I thought pence was AWOL, too, but the NYT reports that "Vice President Mike Pence canceled a vacation at the last minute this week as the virus numbers grew worse, but the White House coronavirus task force that he leads has been all but publicly silent."

Crazy Becomes the GOP Norm. David Siders of Politico: "It was just noise when it started — Donald Trump spouting wild, unsubstantiated claims about election fraud, his lawyer seething at an almost comical press conference in the parking lot of a Philadelphia landscaping business. But one week after an election in which Joe Biden received close to 5 million more popular votes than Trump and captured more than 270 electoral votes, the president and top Republican Party officials are nowhere near conceding. And with his posturing -- and statements of Cabinet officials like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- Trump is fueling a bonfire that's consuming the GOP anddisrupting the traditional transfer of power.... A majority of Republicans, according to new polling, are convinced the election wasn't fair. Party officials are attacking one another for failing a litmus test of defending Trump's interests.... Many top GOP officials ... often [suggest] to the party rank-and-file that the election was stolen, or that the outcome stands to be reversed."

Stephen Collinson of CNN: "... Donald Trump's administration is taking on the characteristics of a tottering regime -- with its loyalty tests, destabilizing attacks on the military chain of command, a deepening bunker mentality and increasingly delusional claims of political victory. In response, a visibly confident President-elect Joe Biden is going out of his way to project calm amid the deepening chaos, even as Trump and senior Republicans still refuse to acknowledge the President's defeat in a stunning break with America's democratic traditions.... Biden said he had a simple message for all the world leaders: 'I am letting them know America is back.'... But the Trump team only dug itself deeper into a bizarre parallel universe -- one where the President has already secured a second term -- consistent with the embrace of misinformation and alternative facts that has characterized the last four years."

The Confederate Nation of Mississippi. Ted Armus of the Washington Post: "Instead of being governed by President-elect Joe Biden, Mississippi state Rep. Price Wallace (R) reportedly said on Twitter that Mississippi should 'succeed' from the rest of the United States and form its own country." Mrs. McC: Mississippi has found itself another country to be part of:

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Wednesday are here: "Covid-19 hospitalizations in the United States hit an all-time high of 61,964 on Tuesday, and new daily cases passed 139,000 for the first time, as the raging pandemic continued to shatter record after record and strain medical facilities."

Sheryl Stolberg, et al., of the New York Times: "... as the country enters what may be the most intense stage of the pandemic yet, the Trump administration remains largely disengaged. President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is trying to assume a leadership mantle, with the appointment of a coronavirus advisory board and a call for all Americans to wear masks, but until his inauguration on Jan. 20, he lacks the authority to mobilize a federal response.... Mr. Trump is at war with his own health officials. He was furious after the drug maker Pfizer announced Monday that early clinical trial data suggested its coronavirus vaccine was more than 90 percent effective.... White House aides were particularly incensed that Mr. Biden publicly said his public health advisers knew of Pfizer's results on Sunday, before aides said the news had reached the White House.... Meantime, the Strategic National Stockpile, the nation's emergency reserve, has only 115 million N95 masks, far short of the 300 million the administration had hoped to amass by winter.... Governors are once again competing with one another and big hospital chains for scarce gear. Nursing homes are grappling with staff shortages, which have left hospitals unable to discharge patients to their care."

~~~~~~~~~~

Fact & Farce

Biden Calls Trump's Mega-tantrum an Embarrassment. Annie Linskey of the Washington Post: “President-elect Joe Biden said Tuesday he is hoping to name several Cabinet-level nominees before Thanksgiving and downplayed the difficulties that his team is having amid a lack of cooperation by President Trump in the transfer of power. 'We're already beginning the transition,' Biden said. 'We are well underway.' Biden said that Republican leaders who are not acknowledging the legitimacy of his victory are 'mildly intimidated by the sitting president' and that Trump's refusal to concede the election is 'an embarrassment.' Speaking to reporters for the first time since declaring victory in the presidential election Saturday night, Biden sought to show that he is hard at work preparing for his new role and is unencumbered by Trump's attempts to block a transfer of power.... Biden was joined by Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris, who spoke briefly when she introduced him and made a point of underscoring his victory." Politico's story is here. ~~~

How can I say this tactfully? ... It will not help the president's legacy. -- President-elect Joe Biden, speaking to journalists Tuesday about Trump's behavior

'How can I say this tactfully?' Those are words you've never heard at a Trump press conference. -- Former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), speaking Tuesday on MSNBC (slight paraphrase)

     ~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Speaking on MSNBC, Frank Figliuzzi, a former top FBI official, described Biden's approach to Trump's antics as just like the initial stages of the FBI's method of dealing with a "barricaded subject": an armed & dangerous (and possibly mentally-ill) individual whom law enforcement officers were trying to safely coax out of a hiding place.

Michael Crowley of the New York Times: "President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. fielded congratulatory calls from European leaders on Tuesday, even as some of President Trump's authoritarian allies maintained a conspicuous silence about the election that could foreshadow coming tensions with the Biden administration. Mr. Biden spoke on Tuesday with President Emmanuel Macron of France, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain and Prime Minister Micheal Martin of Ireland. He offered the leaders messages of support and cooperation, his transition team said in a statement, including expressing to Mr. Macron 'his interest in reinvigorating bilateral and trans-Atlantic ties, including through NATO' and the European Union -- institutions Mr. Trump has repeatedly derided. The conversations offered a clear reaffirmation of U.S.-European ties and a signal of a broader return to normalcy in foreign relations ahead. Coupled with the conspicuous silence of more authoritarian leaders, they also provided early hints of a reordering of American allies and antagonists back to their state before Mr. Trump's disruptive foreign policy sank trans-Atlantic relations to their lowest point since World War II."

Peter Baker & Lara Jakes of the New York Times: "President Trump ... is harnessing the power of the federal government to resist the results of an election that he lost, something that no sitting president has done in American history. In the latest sign of defiance, the president's senior cabinet secretary [Mike Pompeo] fueled concerns on Tuesday that Mr. Trump would resist handing over power to President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.... Mr. Trump's attorney general has at the same time authorized investigations into supposed vote fraud, his general services administrator has refused to give Mr. Biden's team access to transition offices and resources guaranteed under law and the White House is preparing a budget for next year as if Mr. Trump will be around to present it. The president has also embarked on a shake-up of his administration, firing Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper as well as the heads of three other agencies while installing loyalists in key positions at the National Security Agency and the Pentagon.... 'What we have seen in the last week from the president more closely resembles the tactics of the kind of authoritarian leaders we follow,' said Michael J. Abramowitz, the president of Freedom House, a nonprofit organization that tracks democracy around the world. 'I never would have imagined seeing something like this in America.'"

Michael Schmidt, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump's refusal to concede the election to President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has already affected Mr. Biden's transition, particularly on national security issues. Mr. Biden has yet to receive a presidential daily briefing, and it was unclear whether his team would have access to classified information, the most important pipeline for them to learn about the threats facing the United States.... No law states that Mr. Biden must receive [the PDB], though under previous administrations dating to at least 1968, presidents have authorized their elected successors to be given the briefing after clinching victory.... In the aftermath of the contested 2000 election, while votes in Florida were being recounted, President Bill Clinton authorized George W. Bush to receive the President's Daily Brief. As vice president, Al Gore already had access to the intelligence.... Like previous presidents-elect, Mr. Biden is receiving Secret Service protection, and a no-fly zone has been established over his home in Delaware. But if Mr. Trump's administration continues its refusal to recognize Mr. Biden as the winner, it could complicate his security until his inauguration." Biden is not receiving the level of Secret Service protection normally afforded to presidents-elect. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Amy Gardner, et al., of the Washington Post: "Six states where President Trump has threatened to challenge his defeat continued their march toward declaring certified election results in the coming weeks, as his advisers privately acknowledged that President-elect Joe Biden's official victory is less a question of 'if' than 'when.' Trump began the day tweeting about 'BALLOT COUNTING ABUSE' as he and his allies touted unproven claims that fraud had tainted the election in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Vice President Pence gave a presentation to Republican senators on Capitol Hill about new litigation expected in Pennsylvania Michigan and Georgia -- imploring them to stick with the president, according to several Republicans in the room.... Trump met with advisers again Tuesday afternoon to discuss whether there is a path forward, said a person with knowledge of the discussions.... The person said Trump plans to keep fighting but understands it is going to be difficult. 'He is all over the place. It changes from hour to hour,' the person said." The story is free to non-subscribers. ~~~

~~~ ** Fred Kaplan of Slate: "President Trump's campaign to challenge the results of the election is not merely a salve to his wounded ego, but a serious attempt to stay in power -- if not from inside the Oval Office for another four years, then through confederates well placed in what he has called the 'deep state.'... Meanwhile, Trump has convinced tens of millions of his followers that the election was 'stolen,' thus delegitimizing Biden's term in their eyes from the get-go. And through his firings and blockings, he is weakening, if not sabotaging, Biden's first few months at an administrative level. Whatever Trump believes happened on Nov. 3, he seems to have decided that if he goes down, he'll do his damnedest to take his successor and much of the country down with him." --s  Firewalled. ~~~

~~~ Unfortunately, the people who might be in positions to coax Trump out of his catatonic state for anything other than to fire somebody who is an essential part of the national security apparatus do get this or any other consequences of the Long Trumpertantrum. Ergo, ~~~

~~~ Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Speaking about President Trump's and his legal team's myriad and baseless claims of massive voter fraud, an anonymous senior Republican official offered a rhetorical shrug. 'Wha is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time? No one seriously thinks the results will change,' the official said. 'He went golfing this weekend. It's not like he's plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on Jan. 20. He's tweeting about filing some lawsuits, those lawsuits will fail, then he'll tweet some more about how the election was stolen, and then he'll leave.' Indeed, what's a little undermining of democracy between friends?... The problem, though, is that ... Trump's enablers [like Bill Barr] are breathing life into Trump's and his legal team's haphazard and specious claims of fraud.... Pacification comes with a price. Just because it's difficult to quantify or fully grasp doesn't mean it won't have lasting implications."(Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Let's Pretend We Won, Ctd. Jeff Stein, et al., of the Washington Post: "The White House budget office has instructed federal agencies to continue preparing the Trump administration's budget proposal for the next fiscal year, according to multiple administration officials.... The White House budget proposal is typically issued in February, which would be at least two weeks after President Trump is scheduled to depart the White House.... The decision to proceed with Trump's budget for the 2022 fiscal year has rankled and surprised several career staffers given Biden's victory, as well as the fact that the incoming Biden administration is expected to submit its budget plan to Congress early next year. The insistence on budget planning, even though Trump won’t be in office to offer a budget in February, is part of a recent pattern of behavior from White House officials and senior political appointees who have sought to reject the election results. On Monday, the Trump White House also instructed senior government officials to not cooperate with Biden's transition team, igniting a potential legal battle." A Politico story is here. ~~~

~~~ Let's Pretend We Won, Ctd. Harriet Alexander of the (U.K.) Independent, republished on MSN: "The Trump administration is continuing to vet potential nominees for a second term, maintaining the charade of electoral victory despite the election being called for Joe Biden. Two sources told The Daily Beast that the White House Presidential Personnel Office (PPO) was still processing candidates for jobs across the federal government which would be taken up in early 2021.... The PPO has, since February, been headed by John McEntee, a 30-year-old ultra loyalist who joined the Trump team in the early days of the campaign, but was fired by the then-chief of staff, John Kelly, in March 2018 for financial malfeasance.... He was escorted out of the White House without even being allowed to fetch his jacket." ~~~

~~~ U.S. Secretary of State Jokes (Maybe) about a Coup. Nahal Toosi & Quint Forgey of Politico: "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday became the latest senior U.S. official to resist accepting the results of last week's presidential election. The chief U.S. diplomat even suggested — falsely, but possibly jokingly -- that ... Donald Trump had defeated Joe Biden. 'There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration,' Pompeo said during a news conference Tuesday afternoon. When pressed on whether he and his department are preparing to hand over power to President-elect Biden and his team, Pompeo, who at times grew irritated at the questions, made it clear he didn't see the contest as having concluded. At one point, he referred to the importance of counting 'every legal vote' -- phrasing other Trump allies have used to suggest without evidence that widespread voter fraud helped Biden." ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: For all of the Trumpies' claims about Democrats -- and more specifically "urban" Democrats -- stealing the election, this is simply Trumpish projection. Rather than sending in the troops -- so far, anyway -- they are claiming rhetorically & in court that "urban" Democrats across the nation systematically committed voter fraud. Trump & his minions are actively engaged in stealing votes to effect a coup by refusing to engage in the orderly transfer of power from one "administration" to the succeeding administration.

Trump Appointee Shoots Down Trump's Conspiracy Theories. Natasha Bertrand of Politico: "Since Election Day..., Donald Trump and his allies have pushed numerous merit-free allegations of voting irregularities. The Department of Homeland Security's top cyber official [Chris Krebs] is swatting them down in near real-time -- contradicting the president in a way that often ends in a pink slip.... Krebs has been using his agency's 'Rumor Control' website -- and his personal Twitter feed -- to take on the viral conspiracies that are circulating widely in conservative circles, some of which have been promoted by the president and his top allies. Launched prior to the election to help voters navigate domestic and foreign misinformation, the website has now essentially morphed into a post-election fact-checking operation for the outgoing president and his supporters."

Nick Corasaniti, et al., of the New York Times: "Election officials in dozens of states representing both political parties said that there was no evidence that fraud or other irregularities played a role in the outcome of the presidential race, amounting to a forceful rebuke of President Trump's portrait of a fraudulent election. Over the last several days, the president, members of his administration, congressional Republicans and right wing allies have put forth the false claim that the election was stolen from President Trump and have refused to accept results that showed Joseph R. Biden Jr. as the winner. But top election officials across the country said in interviews and statements that the process had been a remarkable success despite record turnout and the complications of a dangerous pandemic.... What emerged in The Times's reporting was how, beyond the president, Republicans in many states were engaged in a widespread effort to delegitimize the nation's voting system.... On Monday, the Trump campaign accelerated their legal efforts, filing a lawsuit in the seven Pennsylvania counties where the president lost that claimed mail voting created an unfair, 'two-tiered' system during the election -- though the system is also in place in counties the president won. The campaign also announced plans to file another suit in Michigan." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Former Solicitor General Neal Katyal, speaking on MSNBC, said Trump's lawsuits, long on accusations & devoid of evidence, amounted to nothing more than "tweets with a filing fee."

Arizona. Colin Kalmbacher of Law & Crime: "... Donald Trump's reelection campaign is fighting a legal battle in Arizona over a number of ballots so infinitesimally small that even were the outcome to go entirely the president's way, those efforts would have no cognizable impact on the outcome of the race whatsoever. According to The Arizona Republic, tabulations from a ballot-counting system show there a total number of 180 ballots at issue in the president's litigation -- out of a 14,746 vote margin for Joe Biden. In other words, the Trump campaign -- along with the Republican National Committee and the Arizona Republican Party -- is hinging its Grand Canyon State legal strategy on less than one percent of Biden's overall victory margin."

Pennsylvania. Experts Say Trump's Suit Is DOA. Kevin McCoy, et al., of USA Today: "... Donald Trump's campaign launched its broadest challenge yet to the results of the election that appears destined to push him from office, accusing Pennsylvania officials of running a 'two-tiered' voting system -- in-person and mail -- that violates the U.S. Constitution. [Nine] legal experts said the case has little chance of succeeding, for a variety of reasons: Courts are wary of invalidating legally cast ballots. The issues raised, even if true, don't represent a constitutional question. And mail voting, used in many states, is both common and constitutional."

Shawn Boburg & Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: "A Pennsylvania postal worker whose claims have been cited by top Republicans as potential evidence of widespread voting irregularities admitted to U.S. Postal Service investigators that he fabricated the allegations, according to three officials briefed on the investigation and a statement from a House congressional committee. Richard Hopkins's claim that a postmaster in Erie, Pa., instructed postal workers to backdate ballots mailed after Election Day was cited by Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) in a letter to the Justice Department calling for a federal investigation.... Republicans held up Hopkins's claims as among the most credible because he signed an affidavit.... The Trump campaign also cited reports of the allegation in a federal lawsuit filed Monday against Pennsylvania election officials that seeks to prevent them from certifying the states' election results.... In a YouTube video [Hopkins] posted Tuesday night, he denied recanting. 'I'm here to say I did not recant my statements. That did not happen,' he said.... Hopkins's allegations, without his name, were first aired last week by Project Veritas, an organization that uses deceptive tactics to expose what it says is bias and corruption in the mainstream media."

Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Thousands of ballots continued to stream into U.S. Postal Service facilities Monday, according to newly filed court documents, too late in many states to be counted, even if postmarked by Election Day. According to the new data, compiled as part of a lawsuit to monitor mail voting, ballots arriving Monday included hundreds meant for closely fought contests in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona, where President-elect Joe Biden has held small but significant leads. Those ballots include: 121 in Atlanta, 293 in Philadelphia, 109 in Central Pennsylvania, 171 in Central Arizona and 83 in Detroit. Though the number of ballots is too small to affect the outcome of the election in any of these states they could -- along with hundreds of others that arrived in these states in the days since the election -- affect the margins of victory for Biden. Of these states, only Pennsylvania accepted ballots after Election Day, so long as they were postmarked by Nov. 3. But even Pennsylvania's extension, ordered by the state Supreme Court, expired on Friday." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Richard Cowan of Reuters: "Top Republicans in the U.S. Congress for now are supporting ... Donald Trump's attempt to challenge President-elect Joe Biden's victory, but some senior aides said Trump must soon produce significant evidence or exit the stage.... Many [U.S. senators] ... are suggesting limits to their patience in giving Trump the benefit of the doubt. Mrs. McC: This is the kind of targeted "leak" that is supposed to make you step back & think, "Well, I guess Republicans are patriots, after all, and they are so compassionate in allowing Trump "some time to process his loss." ~~~

~~~ Steve M.: "You can argue that Republican senators are backing Trump because they want to rally their voters for the Georgia Senate runoffs and the 2022 midterms, and they're doing this even though they know Trump will lose in court. But what's Barr's motivation? If he assumes Trump's challenges will fail, what does he get out of fighting on? He avoids being fired? He's out of a job in January no matter what.... Unless he thinks his lawyers can gin something up.... But even if that's true, 47% of the country will have an even darker view of Democrats and cities and black voters and 'the Deep State.' Then we'll be even more divided and the right will be even angrier and more paranoid (and better armed...). But these cynics don't care that they're encouraging a state of permanent cold civil war. They're sure they won't be harmed by this." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Bob Mayo of WTAE Pittsburgh: "Republican Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey believes the Trump administration and the federal government should start cooperating with the Biden presidential transition team. 'We're on a path it looks likely Joe Biden is going to be the next president of the United States. It's not 100% certain but it is quite likely. So I think a transition process ought to begin,' Toomey told Pittsburgh's Action News 4 reporter Bob Mayo in an interview Monday via Zoom.... Toomey did not refer to Biden as president-elect during the Pittsburgh's Action News 4 interview."

Oregon. Andrew Selsky of the AP: "Oregon's elections director was abruptly fired in a text message by the secretary of state after he pointed out serious issues with the state's aging and vulnerable technology for running elections. Elections Director Stephen Trout learned in a text message Thursday night -- as his department and county elections officials were still counting votes from the Nov. 3 election -- that he was out.... Election officials in the state were stunned." --s

** Shane Harris of the Washington Post: "As president, Donald Trump selectively revealed highly classified information to attack his adversaries, gain political advantage and to impress or intimidate foreign governments, in some cases jeopardizing U.S. intelligence capabilities. As an ex-president, there's every reason to worry he will do the same, thus posing a unique national security dilemma for the Biden administration, current and former officials and analysts said.... No new president has ever had to fear that his predecessor might expose the nation's secrets as President-elect Joe Biden must with Trump, current and former officials said. Not only does Trump have a history of disclosures, he checks the boxes of a classic counterintelligence risk: He is deeply in debt and angry at the U.S. government, particularly what he describes as the 'deep state' conspiracy that he believes tried to stop him from winning the White House in 2016 and what he falsely claims is an illegal effort to rob him of reelection.... After he leaves office, he still will have access to the classified records of his administration. But the legal ability to disclose them disappears once Biden is sworn in January." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Read on. There has seldom, if ever, been a front-page (online, anyway), major-media story so chilling. The idea that a former president*, even this one, would go to work for international adversaries is stunning. I haven't cared much for any Republican president who served during my lifetime, but I have not once worried about any of them might become a spy for U.S. enemies.

QAnon Has a Massive Sad. Kevin Roose of the New York Times: "These are trying times for believers in QAnon, the baseless conspiracy theory that falsely claims the existence of a satanic pedophile cult run by top Democrats. For years, they had been assured that Mr. Trump would win re-election in a landslide and spend his second term vanquishing the deep state and bringing the cabal's leaders to justice. Q, the pseudonymous message board user whose cryptic posts have fueled the movement for more than three years, told them to 'trust the plan.' But since Mr. Trump's defeat, Q has gone dark. No posts from the account bearing Q's tripcode, or digital user name, have appeared on 8kun, the website where all of Q's posts appear. And overall QAnon-related activity on the site has slowed to a trickle. (On a recent day, there were fewer new posts on one of 8kun's QAnon boards than on its board for adult-diaper fetishists.)... Q's sudden disappearance has been jarring for QAnon believers, who have come to depend on the account's posts, or 'drops,' for updates and reassurance.... And without an enabler in the White House, it remains to be seen whether the movement's days are numbered." ~~~

~~~ Drew Harwell & Craig Timberg of the Washington Post: "President Trump's election loss and the week-long silence of 'Q,' the QAnon movement's mysterious prophet, have wrenched some believers into a crisis of faith, with factions voicing unease about their future or rallying others to stay calm and 'trust the plan.' The uncertainty has been compounded by the abrupt public resignation, also last Tuesday, of Ron Watkins, the administrator of Q's online sanctuary on the message board 8kun.... Some QAnon proponents have begun to publicly grapple with reality and question whether the conspiracy theory is a hoax."

Not Guilty! Jones Day Has a Massive Sad. Mrs. McCrabbie: Yesterday, we read this in the Paper of Record: "Now Jones Day is the most prominent [law] firm representing President Trump and the Republican Party as they prepare to wage a legal war challenging the results of the election. The work is intensifying concerns inside the firm about the propriety and wisdom of working for Mr. Trump.... Some senior lawyers at Jones Day ... are worried that it is advancing arguments that lack evidence and may be helping Mr. Trump and his allies undermine the integrity of American elections, according to interviews with nine partners and associates...." Today, we read this Jones Day statement: "Jones Day is not representing President Trump, his campaign, or any affiliated party in any litigation alleging voter fraud. Jones Day also is not representing any entity in any litigation challenging or contesting the results of the 2020 general election. Media reports to the contrary are false." The statement goes on to explain its representation of Pennsylvania's Republican party on a state "constitutional question."

Natasha Bertrand of Politico: "From tearing up documents and hiding transcripts of calls with foreign leaders to using encrypted messaging apps and personal email accounts for government business, the Trump White House's skirting of records preservation rules could limit the incoming Biden administration's visibility into highly sensitive foreign policy and national security secrets.... The Presidential Records Act, which requires a sitting president to preserve and ultimately make public all records relating to the performance of their official duties ... has no real enforcement mechanism and relies on the president's good faith compliance[.]" --s

Jeff Stein of Spy Talk: "Christopher Miller, the counterterrorism expert tapped to lead the Defense Department during a tumultuous presidential transition period, won't help President Donald Trump stay in office with the aid of military troops, a former Green Beret comrade [Jason Amerine] says.... Miller was a Green Beret battalion commander.... Fears are widespread, including among prominent former military officers, that Trump replaced Secretary of Defense Mark Esper on Monday in order to grease the skids for him to deploy troops to quell protests or otherwise help keep himself in power. 'Chris would resign' if Trump ordered him to deploy troops to crush protests or otherwise stay in power, said Amerine, who retired as a lieutenant colonel in 2015. 'That's not him at all. He's not a yes man. He's a very principled individual.'" --s

Missy Ryan & Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "The top policy official at the Defense Department resigned suddenly Tuesday, a day after President Trump abruptly fired his defense secretary, compounding uncertainty at the Pentagon during a sensitive transition period. Several officials said that James Anderson, who served as acting undersecretary of defense for policy, informed colleagues of his immediate departure just hours after Christopher Miller, an intelligence official, started his first full day as acting defense secretary." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Lara Seligman & Daniel Lippman of Politico: "Anthony Tata, a retired brigadier general whose nomination for a top Pentagon job collapsed this summer due to Islamophobic tweets and other controversial statements, began overseeing policy for the Defense Department on Tuesday. The move is part of a high-level civilian leadership shakeup that began on Monday when ... Donald Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper.... Tata's ascension to temporary head of policy is sure to revive deep concerns among members of Congress who opposed his nomination for the job this summer. After the White House announced his nomination, Tata came under fire for tweets calling former President Barack Obama a 'terrorist leader' and for referring to Islam as the 'most oppressive violent religion I know of,' among other controversial statements." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) --safari: Putting radical rightwing idelogues in charge of Pentagon policy seems dangerous. ~~~

~~~ Trump Dispatches a Clown Car to Run DOD. Dartunorro Clark of NBC News: "Several loyalists to ... Donald Trump were promoted to top roles in the Defense Department on Tuesday after officials resigned following the unceremonious ouster of Defense Secretary Mark Esper. The Pentagon confirmed the resignations of the department's top officials for policy and intelligence in a statement. The resignations include those of James Anderson, the acting undersecretary for policy; Joseph Kernan, the undersecretary for intelligence; and Jen Stewart, Esper's chief of staff.... Retired Army Gen. Anthony Tata, a frequent Fox News guest, will replace Anderson. Ezra Cohen-Watnick, who works in the Defense Department and was an aide to the disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn, will replace Kernan. Kash Patel, a former National Security Council official and former aide to Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., who worked on the controversial House investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, will replace Stewart." Mrs. McC: How better to celebrate Veterans Day than leaving the Defense Department in shambles? ~~~

~~~ Josh Rogin of the Washington Post: "It's becoming clear that President Trump's firing of Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper by tweet Monday was only the first step in an effort to remove the entire top Defense Department leadership team and replace it with officials loyal to the president.... On Tuesday, the purge widened dramatically as the White House asked for the resignations of three more top Pentagon officials: Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John Anderson, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Joseph Kernan and Pentagon Chief of Staff Jen Stewart. All three are being replaced by staffers more loyal to Trump's political agenda. Officials said Deputy Secretary of Defense David Norquist could be the next White House target for dismissal.... By installing themselves in top jobs, these officials are stalling the transition, settling scores and advancing their own ambitions. Many officials in the agencies they are taking over are also now wondering whether the loyalists' plan includes helping Trump resist leaving office."

AND Still Conning the Schmos. Kate Riga of TPM: "The Trump campaign has been unrelenting in recent days with its all-caps, bold font, exclamation-point-ridden fundraising appeals: 'THE DEMOCRATS WANT TO STEAL THIS ELECTION!' 'We can't allow the Left-wing MOB to undermine our election.' They urge supporters to make donations to ... Donald Trump's election integrity defense, to ensure he has the 'resources' he needs to keep the election from being 'stolen.' In reality, there is no election defense fund; the donations are siphoned into a mix of various committees. Up until Tuesday, some of the money was being used to pay down the Trump campaign's debt. As of Tuesday morning though, the formula was changed to funnel most of the money into Trump's new leadership PAC called Save America.... 'Not a penny is dedicated to a legal expense account unless donors have maxed out their contributions to the first two committees, $5,000 to the leadership PAC and $35,500 to the RNC,' said Paul Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation at Common Cause.... Calling leadership PACs 'notorious' for being abused as slush funds, Ryan predicted that Trump will keep the coffers full by teasing a possible 2024 run, all the while finding ways to funnel money back to his businesses and family members." ~~~

~~~ MEANWHILE. Jim Acosta of CNN: "Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle are making moves to expand their influence at the Republican National Committee, three GOP sources, including advisers to the President tell CNN. Some sources say they may seek to take over the party structure themselves.... Donald Trump's eldest son and his girlfriend, a Trump campaign fundraiser and former Fox News host, have made it clear to campaign and White House officials they are unhappy with RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, who they view as not having done enough to win a close race. Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle could seek leadership roles at the RNC to position the committee for a comeback run for the President in 2024, the sources said. 'Don Jr. and Kimberly have an eye on the RNC, through themselves taking over or somebody close to them taking over,' a well-placed Republican Party source close to the White House said."

Whitney Kimball of Gizmodo: "Steve Bannon has been outed for his involvement in running a network of misinformation pages on Facebook.... Facebook has talked a big game about monitoring election misinformation, and yet the independent activist network Avaaz said it had to alert the company to the pages before it removed them for coordinated inauthentic behavior.... Last week, Facebook removed two videos posted to Bannon's official page, including one in which Bannon suggested the beheading of Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray. CNN reported that the video had amassed over 200,000 views before Facebook removed it." --s

Bad News. James Arkin of Politico: "GOP Sen. Thom Tillis won a second term in North Carolina, after Democrat Cal Cunningham conceded defeat Tuesday in what was the most expensive Senate election in the country this year. The victory gives the GOP at least 49 senators in the new Congress, with GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska leading his race to become the 50th Republican. Control of the Senate will come down to two Jan. 5 runoffs in Georgia."


Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The bulk of the Affordable Care Act ... appeared likely to survive its latest encounter with the Supreme Court in arguments on Tuesday. It was not clear whether the court would strike down the so-called individual mandate, which was rendered toothless in 2017 after Congress zeroed out the penalty for failing to obtain insurance. But at least five justices, including two members of the court's conservative majority, indicated that they were not inclined to strike down the balance of the law. In legal terms, they said the mandate was severable from the rest of the law. 'It does seem fairly clear that the proper remedy would be to sever the mandate provision and leave the rest of the law in place,' said Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. made a similar point."(Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Robert Barnes, et al., of the Washington Post agree with Liptak: "'I think it's hard for you to argue that Congress intended the entire act to fall if the mandate were struck down when the same Congress that lowered the penalty to zero did not even try to repeal the rest of the act,' [CJ John] Roberts told Kyle D. Hawkins, the Texas solicitor general leading the red-state effort. 'I think, frankly, that they wanted the court to do that. But that's not our job.'" A concurring Politico story by Susannah Luthi is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Joan Biskupic of CNN: "Chief Justice John Roberts twice saved Obamacare, and he appears ready to uphold it again. But Roberts is growing weary of it all. His message to the many parties represented at the court on Tuesday was essentially: Just stop. Stop asking the justices to do the work of Congress. Stop pulling the court into the partisan fracas. And perhaps especially, stop forcing this chief justice to return to the days when, as Roberts said Tuesday, 'we spent all that time talking about broccoli.'... The cautious, strategic Roberts does not want the court to drive someone else's policy agenda, for example, by killing Obamacare when Trump and congressional Republicans failed."

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

** The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here (also linked yesterday): "Covid-19 hospitalizations in the United States hit an all-time high of 61,964 on Tuesday, as the raging pandemic continued to shatter record after record and strain medical facilities. The number of people hospitalized with the coronavirus, tallied by the Covid Tracking Project, has more than doubled since September, and now exceeds the peak reached early in the pandemic, when 59,940 hospitalized patients were reported on April 15. A second peak in the summer fell just short of matching that record. Those spikes in April and July lasted only a few days and quickly subsided, but as winter approaches experts do not expect that this time. The United States, which surpassed 10 million known cases on Sunday, is averaging more than 111,000 new cases a day, a record. As hospitalizations have shot up, deaths have been steadily rising, as the daily U.S. average approaches 1,000."

Texas. David Goodman of the New York Times: "El Paso, a border city of 680,000, now has more people hospitalized with Covid-19 than most states -- 1,076 as of Tuesday -- and is more than doubling its supply of mobile morgues, to 10 from four.... Texas recently surpassed one million confirmed cases of the virus, with 19,000 dead. Of the 6,100 patients hospitalized across the state, one out of every six are in El Paso.... The city has brought in more than 1,400 health care workers from around the state, and about 60 more arrived over the weekend in three teams sent by the Defense Department. But new patients have strained even those additional resources.... The situation reflects the broader difficulty of trying to battle a national crisis in the absence of a national strategy.... A pandemic response philosophy focused on local control and personal responsibility, starting with the Trump administration and reinforced by Texas' Republican governor, Greg Abbott, has at times left local leaders at odds over how to deal with the serial outbreaks."


One Good Thing. Danielle Garrand of CBS News: "Veterans and Gold Star families will soon be able to access the country's national parks, wildlife refuges and other public lands for free for the rest of their lives. The program starts on a fitting day -- Veterans Day. 'With the utmost respect and gratitude, we are granting veterans and Gold Star Families free access to the iconic and treasured lands they fought to protect starting this Veteran's Day and every single day thereafter,' Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt said in a statement last month." Mrs. McC: While I'm happy to see veterans getting lifetime free passes, pardon my cynicism, but I suspect Bernhardt's purpose is to further cash-strap the national parks.

Katie Shepherd of the Washington Post: "When Kyle Rittenhouse allegedly shot and killed two people and seriously wounded another man in August during racial justice protests in Kenosha, Wis., he used an assault rifle that authorities said a friend had bought for him.... Prosecutors have charged that friend, 19-year-old Dominick David Black, with two felony counts of intentionally selling a gun to a minor. Black made his first court appearance on Monday in the Kenosha County Circuit Court." The Hill's summary story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

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