The Commentariat -- October 24, 2020

Afternoon Update:

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Saturday are here: "The latest coronavirus surge is raging across the American heartland, most acutely in the Midwest and Mountain West. This harrowing third surge, which led to a U.S. single-day record of more than 85,000 new cases Friday, is happening less than two weeks from Election Day, which will mark the end of a campaign dominated by the pandemic and President Trump's much-criticized response to it.... The virus will be front of mind for voters in several key states: in Ohio, where more people are hospitalized than at any other time during the pandemic, and especially Wisconsin, home to seven of the country's 10 metro areas with the highest numbers of recent cases. On Friday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court blocked Gov. Tony Evers' emergency order restricting the size of indoor gatherings to 25 percent capacity on Friday.... President Trump and many supporters blame restrictions on business activity, often imposed by Democratic governors and mayors, for prolonging the economic crisis initially caused by the virus. But the experience of states like Iowa, which recently set a record for patients hospitalized with Covid-19, shows the economy is far from back to normal even in Republican-led states that have imposed few business restrictions."

** Jenny Gross of the New York Times: "White supremacists and other like-minded groups have committed a majority of the terrorist attacks in the United States this year, according to a report by a security think tank that echoed warnings made by the Department of Homeland Security this month. The report, published Thursday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, found that white supremacist groups were responsible for 41 of 61 'terrorist plots and attacks' in the first eight months of this year, or 67 percent. The finding comes about two weeks after an annual assessment by the Department of Homeland Security warned that violent white supremacy was the 'most persistent and lethal threat in the homeland' and that white supremacists were the most deadly among domestic terrorists in recent years." Mrs. McC: Meanwhile, Trump & Barr continue to cite Black Lives Matter & antifa as the sources of lethal violence.

Edgar Sandoval & Troy Closson of the New York Times: "New Yorkers flooded polling places on Saturday, the first day of early voting in the state.... Saturday was the first time New Yorkers were allowed to vote early in a presidential election, which is expected to produce record voter turnout.... Recent mishaps involving absentee ballots drove many voters to the polls on Saturday.... Late last month, the city's Board of Elections came under fire after as many as 100,000 voters in Brooklyn received absentee ballots with the wrong names and addresses.... Unlike in many other states and the rest of New York, where people can cast ballots at any early voting center in their county, voters in New York City are allowed to vote early only at assigned locations."

Shawn Boburg of the Washington Post: "In the days leading up to the Sept. 30 [Trump rally] in Duluth, Minn., local officials had privately pressed the campaign to abide by state public health guidelines aimed at slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus, documents show. In response, the campaign signed an agreement pledging to follow those rules, limiting attendance to 250 people. On the day of the rally, however, Trump supporters flooded onto the tarmac at Duluth International Airport. They stood shoulder to shoulder, many without masks.... Held two days before Trump was diagnosed with covid-19, the rally was attended by more than 2,500 people, airport officials estimated.... Emails and other documents obtained by The Washington Post through open-records requests show that Duluth officials insisted on adherence to the rules, and that the campaign responded by making commitments it ultimately did not keep. The documents also show that local officials suspected the campaign would violate the agreement, but shied away from enforcing public health orders for fear of provoking a backlash." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Officials always should have made the Trump campaign turn over at least a $1 million bond before any event. You can't trust those people as far as a mouse could throw President Fatso.

Trump's Bad Bet. David Fahrenthold, et al., of the Washington Post: "As Trump fights to save his political career, another key part of his life -- his business -- is also under growing stress. In the next four years, Trump faces payment deadlines for more than $400 million in loans -- just as the pandemic robs his businesses of customers and income, according to a Washington Post analysis of Trump's finances. The bills coming due include loans on his Chicago hotel, his D.C. hotel and his Doral resort, all hit by a double whammy: Trump's political career slowed their business, then the pandemic ground it down much further. If Trump is reelected, these loan-saddled properties could present a significant conflict of interest: The president will owe enormous sums to banks that his government regulates. National security experts say Trump's debts to Deutsche Bank, a German company, and foreign deals may constitute security risks if they make him vulnerable to influence by foreign governments."

Barbie & Ken Very Upset Their Indifference to National Pandemic Makes Them Look Bad. Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are threatening to sue the Lincoln Project over billboards the anti-Trump group put up in Times Square assailing them over the White House's coronavirus response. In a letter to the group posted on Twitter on Friday night, an attorney for the president's daughter and son-in-law demanded the 'false, malicious and defamatory' billboards be taken down. Marc Kasowitz warned that if the ads stay up, 'we will sue you for what will doubtless be enormous compensatory and punitive damages.' The Lincoln Project was defiant, saying in a scathing public statement that the billboards would stay up."

They Learned from the Master to Whine & Deflect Responsibility. Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "... Donald Trump's top advisers have plunged into a bitter round of finger-pointing and blame-shifting ahead of an increasingly likely defeat. Accusations are flying in all directions and about all manner of topics -- from allegedly questionable spending decisions by former campaign manager Brad Parscale, to how White House chief of staff Mark Meadows handled Trump's hospitalization for Covid-19, to skepticism that TV ads have broken through. Interviews with nearly a dozen Trump aides, campaign advisers and Republican officials also surfaced accusations that the president didn't take fundraising seriously enough and that the campaign undermined its effort to win over seniors by casting Democrat Joe Biden as senile. Finger-pointing is a common feature of campaigns that think they're losing, but it's happening at an uncommon level in this campaign. Shifting responsibility has been a staple of the Trump presidency -- and his lieutenants are now following suit."

The Definition of Self-Dealing. Stephen Gandel of CBS News: "Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's former company landed a $5 million highway-shipping contract last month with the United States Postal Service. DeJoy continues to own a multimillion-dollar stake in XPO Logistics as of early October. The $5 million deal is the first regular contract for a postal route that XPO Logistics has signed with the USPS in more than a year. XPO's last highway contract with the USPS was in December and was temporary. The one before that was signed in July 2019.... The USPS database shows the contract has one of the highest annual rates out of more than 1,600 contracts the Postal Service initiated with outside firms in its most recent quarter, which is the first full quarter DeJoy has served as head of the agency." --s

Jack Stubbs & Christopher Bing of Reuters: "Russian hackers piggy-backed on an Iranian cyber-espionage operation to attack government and industry organizations in dozens of countries while masquerading as attackers from the Islamic Republic, British and U.S. officials said on Monday. The Russian group, known as 'Turla' and accused by Estonian and Czech authorities of operating on behalf of Russia's FSB security service, has used Iranian tools and computer infrastructure to successfully hack in to organizations in at least 20 different countries over the last 18 months, British security officials said. The hacking campaign, the extent of which has not been previously revealed, was most active in the Middle East but also targeted organizations in Britain, they said." --s

Loveday Morris of the Washington Post: "Polish President Andrzej Duda has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, his spokesman announced on Saturday, the latest in a string of world leaders to be infected.... In addition to President Trump, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko are among other world leaders to have contracted the virus." Mrs. McC: Not coincidentally, every one of them is a careless, authoritarian right-winger.

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race, Etc.

Sydney Ember of the New York Times: "... Joseph R. Biden Jr. sought Friday to amplify the closing argument he delivered on the debate stage a night earlier, accusing President Trump of failing to stem the ballooning coronavirus crisis and vowing more aggressive federal action for the 'dark winter ahead.' In a speech near his home in Wilmington, Del., Mr. Biden denounced Mr. Trump's familiar assertion that the pandemic was 'rounding the corner' and 'going away' even as cases surge across the country, placing the blame for the rising death toll squarely at the president's feet.... During his address, Mr. Biden laid out the immediate steps he would take to rein in the coronavirus if elected. He also said he would ask Congress to put a bill on his desk by the end of January outlining the resources needed for the country's public health and economic response to the virus. Mr. Biden said he would ask every governor to institute mask mandates; if they refused, he said, he would work with local officials to get local mandates in place nationwide. And he said he would require masks in federal buildings and on interstate transportation." This is an item from Friday's debate live updates. ~~~

~~~ Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "Joe Biden pledged Friday that if elected president he will begin reaching out to state and local leaders during the transition to begin crafting a coronavirus relief bill that he could sign by the end of January. In remarks in Wilmington, Del., after the final presidential debate, the Democratic nominee said he would look to gauge 'what support they need and how much of it they need.'... Biden again skewered President Donald Trump's handling of the virus.... 'If this is a success, what's a failure look like?' he [asked]. 'We're more than eight months into this crisis, and the president still doesn't have a plan.'"

Holly Otterbein, et al., of Politico: "Joe Biden's plan to move to a clean energy economy isn't new to those who've been paying attention: For months, he's promised to put the country on a path to be carbon-neutral by 2050. But Biden, who's been extraordinarily cautious throughout the campaign while talking about fossil fuels, clearly believes he botched his own strategy on Thursday night. Within minutes of the debate, where he said he wanted to transition away from the oil industry, Biden walked back his remarks with reporters. On Friday, his running mate Kamala Harris reaffirmed the ticket's support for fracking. And two members of Congress from oil- and gas-rich areas immediately distanced themselves from the Democratic nominee.... Donald Trump's campaign has spent the day rejoicing at Biden's remarks, crowing on a call with media outlets on Friday it 'put the nail in the coffin' for him in Pennsylvania. But in a sign of their confidence here in the presidential race, many Democrats in the critical battleground state, including those in fracking country, are largely shrugging it off."

We're going to quickly end this pandemic, this horrible plague that came in from China.... You look at what is going on and we're rounding the turn, we're rounding the corner. We're rounding the corner beautifully. -- Donald Trump at a superspreader rally in Florida's huge retirement community the Villages, Friday, the day of the highest number of reported coronavirus cases reported ~~~

~~~ ** Superspreader-in-Chief. Erin Mansfield, et al., of USA Today: "As ... Donald Trump jetted across the country holding campaign rallies during the past two months, he didn't just defy state orders and federal health guidelines. He left a trail of coronavirus outbreaks in his wake. The president has participated in nearly three dozen rallies since mid-August, all but two at airport hangars. A USA TODAY analysis shows COVID-19 cases grew at a faster rate than before after at least five of those rallies in the following counties: Blue Earth, Minnesota; Lackawanna, Pennsylvania; Marathon, Wisconsin; Dauphin, Pennsylvania; and Beltrami, Minnesota.... The earliest post-rally spikes occurred even as the nation's overall case counts were in decline from a peak in mid-July. When U.S. cases started climbing in mid-September, Trump did not alter his campaign schedule but continued holding an average of four rallies a week."

Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "President Trump ... had a ready deflection for the 'kids in cages' accusation [when the topic came up at the presidential debate Thursday]. It was Mr. Biden's fault. 'They said, "Look at these cages; President Trump built them,"' Mr. Trump said. 'And then it was determined they were built in 2014. That was him.'... The Obama administration separated children from adults at the border only in cases when there was a doubt about the familial relationship between a child and an accompanying adult or if the adult had a serious criminal record. Mr. Trump's 'zero tolerance' policy was a deliberate act of family separation, meant to deter migrants from trying to enter the United States. It directed prosecutors to file criminal charges against everyone who crossed the border without authorization, including parents, who were then separated from their children when they were taken into custody. That policy was ended amid international outcry, but its repercussions remain."

Elahe Izadi & Jeremy Barr of the Washington Post: "During the final presidential debate, President Trump made reference to 'the laptop from hell,' 'AOC plus three' and 'Russia, Russia, Russia.'... The material was very familiar to -- and maybe only familiar to -- regular viewers of Fox News opinion hosts such as Sean Hannity. 'I feel like he almost was speaking the language of Fox prime time,' Chuck Todd ... said on NBC after the debate. 'If you watch a lot of Fox prime time, you understand what he's saying. If you don't, you have no idea.'... 'Some of the punches he threw at Joe Biden I don't think landed, because unless you were Sean Hannity, you probably had no idea what he was talking about,' CNN host Jake Tapper said." Mrs. McC: We thought Trump's vocabulary had grown more and more limited, but it turns out he's just dropped a normal English vocabulary & replaced it with right-wing buzzwords & phrases. (Also linked yesterday.)

Prize for Best String of Words in the Debate Goes to Donald Trump: "I take full responsibility. It's not my fault...."

Prize for Audacity Goes to Donald Trump: To Kristen Welker: "I am the least racist person in this room."

Presidential Election 2016. Sarah Blaskey, et al. of the Miami Herald: "Donald Trump’s team knew they couldn't win the 2016 election simply by persuading people to vote for Trump.... So the campaign and its allies used big data to target Black communities along Miami-Dade County's historically disenfranchised Interstate 95 corridor. There, residents became some of the 12.3 million unwitting subjects of a groundbreaking nationwide experiment: A computer algorithm that analyzed huge sums of potential voters' personal data -- things they'd said and done on Facebook, credit card purchases, charities they supported, and even personality traits -- decided they could be manipulated into not voting. They probably wouldn't even know it was happening.... They called it 'deterrence.'... Behind the 2016 deterrence campaign was Cambridge Analytica ... at a time when Stephen Bannon, eventually hired to lead the Trump campaign, was the firm's vice president[.]" --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "... Republicans are hostile to greater democracy, where democracy means equal representation in a federal system of separated powers. Name a proposal that would enlarge the scope of American democracy -- more states, a national popular vote, a larger House of Representatives -- and Republicans (or their conservative allies) are almost certain to oppose it.... The Republican Party ... is a minority party representing a demographically narrow segment of the American electorate. It needs stasis -- institutional and constitutional -- to survive. Democrats do not.... The question of whether Democrats will abolish the filibuster or expand the courts or create new states, should they win power, is actually a question of whether Democrats will bring dynamism to the American political system.... But if they have any desire to reverse the damage of the past four years -- if they want to return to something like normalcy -- then the path to stability begins with transformation."

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Davey Alba of the New York Times: "... Fox News is giving more airtime to the unverified Hunter Biden emails than it did to the hacked emails from [John] Podesta in 2016, according to an analysis from the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, which studies disinformation.... In contrast, most viewers of CNN and MSNBC would not have heard much about the unconfirmed Hunter Biden emails, according to the analysis.... As for online news outlets, 85 percent of the 1,000 most popular articles about the Hunter Biden emails were by right-leaning sites, according to the analysis. Those articles, which were shared 28 million times, came from The New York Post, Fox Business, Fox News and The Washington Times, among other outlets."

Florida. Mary Ellen Klas of the Miami Herald: "A generation more familiar with TikTok, Instagram and XBox has the potential to make the difference in Florida's toss-up presidential race between two seventy-somethings. Younger voters this year have been registering and casting ballots in bigger numbers than previous years and, if the presidential race in Florida is as close as polls predict, it will be decided by the margins. There about 1.1 million additional new Florida voters between 18 and 34 in 2020 than there were in 2016.... According to an analysis by Catalist, a progressive polling organization that is monitoring Florida's voting trends among a slightly broader age group, ages 18 to 39, turnout has increased 44% among those voters compared to 2016." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Georgia. Frank Bajak of the AP: "A ransomware attack that hobbled a Georgia county government in early October reportedly disabled a database used to verify voter signatures in the authentication of absentee ballots. It is the first reported case of a ransomware attack affecting an election-related system in the 2020 cycle. Federal officials and cybersecurity experts are especially concerned that ransomware attacks -- even ones that don't intentionally target election infrastructure -- could disrupt voting and damage confidence in the integrity of the Nov. 3 election." --s ~~~

~~~ Republicans Donate to Crazy Candidate. Sam Stein of the Daily Beast: "After weeks of wavering, the national Republican party has formally thrown its support behind Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican House candidate who is openly supportive of QAnon. The National Republican Congressional Committee donated $5,000 to Greene's congressional campaign on September 25, according to campaign finance records -- the maximum amount the committee can donate. The donation formalizes the GOP's acceptance of Greene's candidacy after top officials in the party had signaled hesitancy in backing her."

Iowa. Trip Gabriel & Astead Herndon of the New York Times: "Iowa's governor [Kim Reynolds] is not on the ballot next month. But her defiant attitude toward the advice of health experts on how to fight the coronavirus outbreak, as her state sees a grim tide of new cases and deaths, may be dragging down fellow Republicans who are running, including Mr. Trump and Senator Joni Ernst. Ms. Reynolds, the first woman to lead Iowa, is an avatar of the president's approach to the pandemic, refusing to issue mandates and flouting the guidance of infectious disease experts, who say that universal masking and social distancing are essential to limiting the virus's spread. Defying that advice has eroded support for both Mr. Trump and Ms. Reynolds in Iowa, especially among voters over 65, normally a solid Republican constituency, according to public and private polls."

Pennsylvania. State Supremes Are Getting Sick of the Trump Campaign's Whining. Zach Montellaro of Politico: "The Pennsylvania state Supreme Court ruled Friday that ballots in the state cannot be rejected because of signature comparisons, backing up guidance issued by the state's chief elections officer heading into Pennsylvania's first presidential election with no-excuse mail voting. The ruling is a defeat for ... Donald Trump's campaign and other Republicans, who had challenged the decision by Pennsylvania election officials.... [The opinion was] signed by six of the seven justices, including five Democrats and one Republican. The seventh justice, another Republican, concurred with the ruling." Mrs. McC: This is the fifth or sixth voter case the Trump campaign has lost in state court.

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

Campbell Robertson, et al., of the New York Times: "The United States is in the midst of one of the most severe surges of the coronavirus to date, with more new cases reported across the country on Friday than on any other single day since the pandemic began. Since the start of October, the rise in cases has been steady and inexorable, with no plateau in sight. By Friday evening, more than 82,000 cases had been reported across the country, breaking a single-day record set on July 16 by more than 6,000 cases. By that measure, Friday was the worst day of the pandemic, and health experts warned of a further surge as cold weather sets in."

Trump Eliminated Vaccine Safety Office. Carl Zimmer of the New York Times: "For now, Operation Warp Speed, created by the Trump administration to spearhead development of coronavirus vaccines and treatments, is focused on getting vaccines through clinical trials in record time and manufacturing them quickly. The next job will be to monitor the safety of vaccines once they're in widespread use. But the administration last year quietly disbanded the office with the expertise for exactly this job, merging it into an office focused on infectious diseases. Its elimination has left that long-term safety effort for coronavirus vaccines fragmented among federal agencies, with no central leadership, experts say. [Plus:] In 2016, President Barack Obama set up a global health security office at the National Security Council. But in 2018, the Trump administration disbanded that office, saying it was streamlining bureaucratic bloat." ~~~

      ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: The irresponsibility of All the Best People is breathtaking. With any luck, Trump will be living in an undisclosed location somewhere in Moscow by the time Americans have access to vaccines, but it will be a big, expensive job to re-establish the "safety central command" that the Trumpies disbanded.

The Trump Plan to Defeat the Coronavirus. Thanks to RockyGirl for the link. And thanks to the Biden campaign.

The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here: "The average number of covid-19 hospitalizations has risen in at least 38 states over the past week -- a trend that cannot be explained by more widespread testing -- according to data tracked by The Washington Post." (Also linked yesterday.)

Lena Sun & Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration has been pressuring health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to endorse the use of border hotels to hold migrant children before deporting them, a practice the government halted last month under court order, according to federal health officials. Career CDC officials have declined to sign off on a declaration requested by the Department of Health and Human Services affirming that the use of hotels to detain migrant children is the best way to protect them from the spread of the novel coronavirus, according to one HHS official who has seen the declaration.... The request from HHS is the latest example of the administration's efforts to use government scientists and physicians to advance the president's political agenda." (Also linked yesterday.)

Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post: A scatter graph produced by "Carnegie Mellon's CovidCast, an academic project tracking real-time coronavirus statistics, yields a particularly vivid illustration of how mask usage influences the prevalence of covid-19 symptoms in a given area. For all 50 states plus D.C., this chart plots the percentage of state residents who say they wear a mask in public all or most of the time (on the horizontal axis) and the percentage who say they know someone in their community with virus symptoms (on the vertical axis).... [For those of you who passed Statistics 101:] The R-squared of CovidCast's mask and symptom data is 0.73, meaning that you can predict about 73 percent of the variability in state-level covid-19 symptom prevalence simply by knowing how often people wear their masks." Ingraham points out several factors that could have influenced the results. "Nevertheless, the chart is particularly useful in the context of all the other high-quality evidence showing that masks reduce the transmission of the coronavirus and other respiratory diseases." (Also linked yesterday.)

Susanne Craig, et al., of the New York Times: "In President Trump's telling, he is a committed philanthropist with strong ties to many charities.... And according to his tax records, he has given back at least $130 million since 2005, his second year as a reality TV star. But the long-hidden tax records, obtained by The New York Times, show that Mr. Trump did not have to reach into his wallet for most of that giving. The vast bulk of his charitable tax deductions, $119.3 million worth, came from simply agreeing not to develop land -- in several cases, after he had shelved development plans.... The New York attorney general is investigating whether the appraisals on two of Mr. Trump's easement donations were improperly inflated to win larger tax breaks, according to court filings. Mr. Trump's pronouncements of philanthropic largess have been broadly discredited by reporting, most notably in The Washington Post, that found he had exaggerated, or simply never made, an array of claimed contributions. His own charitable foundation shut down in 2018 amid allegations of self-dealing to benefit Mr. Trump, his businesses and his campaign."

I don't make money from China. You do. -- Donald Trump, to Joe Biden, presidential debate Thursday ~~~

~~~ ** Dan Alexander of Forbes: "... Donald Trump, who declared 'I don't make money from China' in Thursday night's presidential debate, has in fact collected millions of dollars from government-owned entities in China since he took office. Forbes estimates that at least $5.4 million has flowed into the president's business from a lease agreement involving a state-owned bank in Trump Tower. The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China signed a lease for space in 2008, years before the president took office, paying about $1.9 million in annual rent. Trump is well-aware of the deal.... Government-owned entities in China hold at least 70% of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. Suddenly, a routine real estate deal became a conduit for a foreign superpower to pay the president of the United States." Even though Eric Trump said in early 2017 that his father would donate to the U.S. Treasury profits from "all the properties," Donald Trump has not donated the profits from the Chinese bank lease. "Trump has other financial connections to China." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Biden has released decades of his tax returns. There's no evidence Biden has "made money from China." This is just the 999th iteration of Trump's infamous & despicable projection.

So it's now my great honor to sign the VA Mission Act, or as we all know it, the Choice Act, and to make Veterans Choice the permanent law of our great country. -- Donald Trump, June 6, 2018 ~~~

~~~ "Trump's Mendacity Is a Hallmark of His Presidency." Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "The first time President Trump claimed false credit for the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act -- which President Barack Obama signed into law in 2014 -- was on June 6, 2018. That day, as Trump signed the Mission Act, a modest update to the bipartisan VA Choice legislation, he seemed to conflate the two.... In the coming weeks, Trump began systematically erasing from the legislation's history not just Obama but also the late senator John McCain (R-Ariz.).... That didn't stop Trump from falsely claiming -- as he did at a tank factory in Lima, Ohio, in March 2019 -- that McCain, his frequent political rival, failed to make any progress on the VA Choice Act. 'McCain didn't get the job done for our great vets and the VA, and they knew it,' Trump said. More than two years after signing the Mission Act..., Trump has repeated some version of his VA Choice Act mistruth more than 156 times.... The president's handling of the VA Choice legislation offers a crystalline window into the anatomy of a Trump lie: the initial false claim, the subsequent embellishment and gilding, the incessant repetition and the clear evidence that he knows the truth but chooses to keep telling the falsehood -- all enabled by aides either unwilling or unable to rein him in."

Lisa Rein, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump's extraordinary directive allowing his administration to weed out career federal employees viewed as disloyal in a second term is the product of a four-year campaign by conservatives working from a little-known West Wing policy shop. Soon after Trump took office, a young aide [-- James Sherk --] hired from the Heritage Foundation with bold ideas for reining in the sprawling bureaucracy of 2.1 million came up with a blueprint. Trump would hold employees accountable, sideline their labor unions and give the president more power to hire and fire them, much like political appointees.... The result this week threatens to be the most significant assault on the nonpartisan civil service in its 137-year history: a sweeping executive order that strips job protections from employees in policy roles across the government. Exactly which roles would be affected will be up to personnel officials at federal agencies, who were tasked on Friday with reviewing all of their jobs and deciding who would qualify."

Caitlin Dickerson of the New York Times: "... about 600 people [are] stranded in ... a refugee camp on the doorstep of the United States, one of several that have sprung up along the border for the first time in the country's history. After first cropping up in 2018, the encampment across the border from Brownsville, Texas, exploded to nearly 3,000 people the following year under a policy that has required at least 60,000 asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for the entirety of their legal cases, which can take years.... Many have been living in fraying tents for more than a year.... The Trump administration has said the 'remain in Mexico' policy was essential.... The Mexican authorities have blamed the American government for the situation. But they have also declined to designate the outdoor areas as official refugee camps in collaboration with the United Nations, which could then have provided infrastructure for housing and sanitation.... The U.S. Supreme Court agreed this week to review the policy after it was successfully challenged in the federal Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit."

Deb Reichmann & Matthew Lee of the AP: "... Donald Trump announced Friday that Sudan will start to normalize ties with Israel, making it the third Arab state to do so as part of U.S.-brokered deals in the run-up to Election Day. The deal, which would deepen Sudan's engagement with the West, follows Trump's conditional agreement this week to remove the North African nation from the list of state sponsors of terrorism if it pays compensation to American victims of terror attacks. It also delivers a foreign policy achievement for Trump just days before the U.S. election and boosts his embattled ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Recently, the United States brokered diplomatic pacts between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Jordan recognized Israel in the 1990s." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: A photo accompanying the story pictures Trump in the Oval surrounded by 11 men & one woman applauding Donald Trump. They appeal to be Cabinet members & aides. They are standing close together, and none is wearing a mask except the woman, who is seated & appears to be pregnant. There is nothing Trump would change about his response to the coronavirus because he has saved millions of lives by cancelling some flights from China. ~~~

~~~ Sounds as if Bibi thinks Joe will will the election:

     ~~~  Quint Forgey of Politico: "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday passed up an opportunity to knock Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, seemingly deflating ... Donald Trump in the presence of reporters in the Oval Office.... Trump asked Netanyahu: 'Do you think Sleepy Joe could have made this deal, Bibi? Sleepy Joe? I think -- do you think he would have made this deal somehow? I don't think so.' Netanyahu hesitated before offering a halting answer: 'Well, Mr. President, one thing I can tell you is we appreciate the help for peace from anyone in America. And we appreciate what you've done enormously.' The smile on the president's face faded as he listened to the prime minister's response."

     ~~~ Just after Netanyahu shoots down Trump's flagrant attempt to get him to interfere in the U.S. presidential election, Trump makes fun of reporter Jeff Mason's mask. ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Oh, wait. The whole "agreement" may be fake, nothing more than Trump's attempt at a mini-October surprise. It seems one of the party's to the agreement has not agreed to it:

~~~ ** Times of Israel: "Following the announcement of Sudan's normalization agreement with Israel on Friday, Sudan's acting foreign minister said the agreement still depends on approval from the Sudanese legislative council, which has not yet been formed as the government goes through transition.... It remains unclear when a transitional parliament will be formed amid negotiations between the civilian and military parts of the transitional government. Whether or not to normalize ties with Israel has been a matter of vehement debate within Sudan's transitional government, with its military wing, headed by Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman al-Burhan, said in favor, but [Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla] Hamdok opposed. Trump announced the Israel-Sudan deal on Friday at the White House in a call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sudan's leaders." --s

All the Best Friends. Nicole Hong & Jesse Drucker of the New York Times: "Ken Kurson, a close friend of ... Jared Kushner, was taken into federal custody on Friday and charged with cyberstalking in connection with his divorce. Mr. Kurson, who now runs a media company and works in the cryptocurrency industry, helped write a speech for the president's 2016 campaign. When Mr. Kushner owned The New York Observer, the weekly newspaper, he appointed Mr. Kurson to be its editor in chief in 2013. Mr. Kurson was also a longtime associate of Rudolph W. Giuliani.... Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn accused Mr. Kurson of sending threatening and stalking messages to several people.... The F.B.I. has also gathered evidence that Mr. Kurson engaged in a similar pattern of harassment during his divorce proceedings in 2015, including installing software on someone's computer to monitor keystrokes, the criminal complaint said. He also used aliases to contact that person's employer to report false allegations of misconduct, according to the complaint." (Also linked yesterday.)

Justice System For Sale. Robert Maguire of CREW: "A close informal advisor [Leonard Leo] to President Trump who has been deeply involved in all three of his Supreme Court nomination battles is the sole trustee of a mysterious group [Rule of Law Trust (RLT)] that brought in more than $80 million in 2018, according to a previously unreported tax return uncovered by CREW. The filing vastly expands the amount of money known to be flowing into the growing constellation of dark money groups tied to Federalist Society co-chairman Leonard Leo and provides new details about his role in a secretive firm that was responsible for one of the largest donations received by President Trump's inaugural committee.... [The group] claimed it had no employees and no volunteers in its first year and listed what appears to be a virtual office in Virginia as its main address.... There's no apparent public information to demonstrate what that work entails, not even a website." --s

Ted Barrett & Clare Foran of CNN: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did not answer questions about his health Thursday, only saying there were 'no concerns' after reporters asked him about what appeared to be bruises and bandages on his hands in recent days. 'Of course not,' McConnell told reporters in the Capitol when asked if he had any health issues people should know about.... In 2019, McConnell fractured his shoulder after he tripped and fell at his Kentucky home. He also underwent triple heart bypass surgery in 2003." With photos. --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Lois Beckett of the Guardian & Agency: "A rightwing extremist boasted of driving from Texas to Minneapolis to help set fire to a police precinct during the George Floyd protests, federal prosecutors said. US attorney Erica MacDonald said on Friday that she had charged Ivan Harrison Hunter, a 26-year-old Texas resident, with traveling across state lines to participate in a riot. The charges are the latest example of far-right extremists attempting to use violence to escalate national protests against police brutality into an uprising against the government, and even full civil war. The case also reveals the extent of the coordination between violent members of the nascent far-right 'Boogaloo Bois' movement operating in different cities across the country.... Video shot [the night of May 28] shows a person later identified as Hunter firing 13 rounds from a semiautomatic assault-style rifle on the 3rd precinct police station while people believed to be looters were inside."

Way Beyond the Beltway

Russia. Bellingcat: "On October 15, 2020, the European Union imposed sanctions on six senior Russian officials and a leading Russian research institute over the alleged use of a nerve agent from the Novichok family in the poisoning of opposition leader Alexey Navalny.... Russian officials said the country had nothing to do with Navalny's poisoning.... [In 2018] Russia had ... stated that it had no ongoing chemical weapons program and had destroyed all of its prior arsenals.... A year-long investigation by Bellingcat and its investigative partners ... has discovered evidence that Russia continued its Novichok development program long beyond the officially announced closure date.... Crucially for our conclusions, we have identified evidence showing close coordination between ... two institutes and a secretive sub-unit of Military Unit 29155 of Russia's military intelligence, the GRU." --s

Vatican. Jason Horowitz & Natalie Kitroeff of the New York Times: "Pope Francis was an hour into a sprawling interview with a Mexican journalist at his Vatican residence in 2019 when he was asked if he had changed since his time as archbishop of Argentina, when he staunchly opposed gay marriage. Francis responded that he had always defended the church's teaching on marriage, then began to delve into the question of legalizing same-sex relationships when suddenly the video skipped forward. 'One changes in life,' he said. The words that went missing -- expressing support for same-sex civil unions -- surfaced only this week in a new documentary.... But the clip also became the subject of sudden intrigue over when and where the pope made the remarks, and why they were only now being made public. Two people close to the [Mexican broadcaster Televisa]..., said that the Vatican had required that the interview be filmed with Vatican cameras and that the Vatican be given control over the footage. The Vatican cut out the pope's remarks on same-sex unions in the edited version provided to Televisa, the two people said.... The Church allowed a documentary filmmaker access to the Vatican archives, including the raw footage of the Televisa interview. The filmmaker put the clip in a new documentary...." (Also linked yesterday.)

News Lede

NBC News: "Colorado has seen three of its largest wildfires in state history occur this year, two of which are still growing. The largest wildfire currently burning in the state is the Cameron Peak Fire, which has scorched more than 206,000 acres, according to the fire-reporting site InciWeb. As of Friday morning, it was 57 percent contained. The blaze erupted on Aug. 13 and flared up recently due to warm and dry weather, prompting evacuation warnings for several areas. The cause of the fire is still being investigated. Firefighters in the state have also been responding to the East Troublesome Fire, which has grown to more than 170,000 acres, now the second-largest in Colorado. It was only 5 percent contained as of Friday morning."

The Commentariat -- October 23, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Prize for Best String of Words in the Debate Goes to Donald Trump: "I take full responsibility. It’s not my fault...."

Prize for Audacity Goes to Donald Trump: To Kristen Welker: "I am the least racist person in this room."

The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here: "The average number of covid-19 hospitalizations has risen in at least 38 states over the past week — a trend that cannot be explained by more widespread testing — according to data tracked by The Washington Post."

Elahe Izadi & Jeremy Barr of the Washington Post: “During the final presidential debate, President Trump made reference to 'the laptop from hell,' 'AOC plus three' and 'Russia, Russia, Russia.'... The material was very familiar to — and maybe only familiar to — regular viewers of Fox News opinion hosts such as Sean Hannity. 'I feel like he almost was speaking the language of Fox prime time,' Chuck Todd ... said on NBC after the debate. 'If you watch a lot of Fox prime time, you understand what he’s saying. If you don’t, you have no idea.'... 'Some of the punches he threw at Joe Biden I don’t think landed, because unless you were Sean Hannity, you probably had no idea what he was talking about,' CNN host Jake Tapper said.” Mrs. McC: We thought Trump's vocabulary had grown more and more limited, but it turns out he's just dropped a normal English vocabulary & replaced it with right-wing buzzwords & phrases.

Lena Sun & Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration has been pressuring health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to endorse the use of border hotels to hold migrant children before deporting them, a practice the government halted last month under court order, according to federal health officials. Career CDC officials have declined to sign off on a declaration requested by the Department of Health and Human Services affirming that the use of hotels to detain migrant children is the best way to protect them from the spread of the novel coronavirus, according to one HHS official who has seen the declaration.... The request from HHS is the latest example of the administration’s efforts to use government scientists and physicians to advance the president’s political agenda."

Deb Reichmann & Matthew Lee of the AP: "... Donald Trump announced Friday that Sudan will start to normalize ties with Israel, making it the third Arab state to do so as part of U.S.-brokered deals in the run-up to Election Day. The deal, which would deepen Sudan’s engagement with the West, follows Trump’s conditional agreement this week to remove the North African nation from the list of state sponsors of terrorism if it pays compensation to American victims of terror attacks. It also delivers a foreign policy achievement for Trump just days before the U.S. election and boosts his embattled ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Recently, the United States brokered diplomatic pacts between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Jordan recognized Israel in the 1990s." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: A photo accompanying the story pictures Trump in the Oval surrounded by 11 men & one woman applauding Donald Trump. They appeal to be Cabinet members & aides. They are standing close together, and none is wearing a mask except the woman, who is seated & appears to be pregnant. There is nothing Trump would change about his response to the coronavirus because he has saved millions of lives by cancelling some flights from China. ~~~

~~~ Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post: A scatter graph produced by "Carnegie Mellon’s CovidCast, an academic project tracking real-time coronavirus statistics, yields a particularly vivid illustration of how mask usage influences the prevalence of covid-19 symptoms in a given area. For all 50 states plus D.C., this chart plots the percentage of state residents who say they wear a mask in public all or most of the time (on the horizontal axis) and the percentage who say they know someone in their community with virus symptoms (on the vertical axis).... [For those of you who passed Statistics 101:] The R-squared of CovidCast’s mask and symptom data is 0.73, meaning that you can predict about 73 percent of the variability in state-level covid-19 symptom prevalence simply by knowing how often people wear their masks." Ingraham points out several factors that could have influenced the results. "Nevertheless, the chart is particularly useful in the context of all the other high-quality evidence showing that masks reduce the transmission of the coronavirus and other respiratory diseases."

Nicole Hong & Jesse Drucker of the New York Times: "Ken Kurson, a close friend of ... Jared Kushner, was taken into federal custody on Friday and charged with cyberstalking in connection with his divorce. Mr. Kurson, who now runs a media company and works in the cryptocurrency industry, helped write a speech for the president’s 2016 campaign. When Mr. Kushner owned The New York Observer, the weekly newspaper, he appointed Mr. Kurson to be its editor in chief in 2013. Mr. Kurson was also a longtime associate of Rudolph W. Giuliani.... Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn accused Mr. Kurson of sending threatening and stalking messages to several people.... The F.B.I. has also gathered evidence that Mr. Kurson engaged in a similar pattern of harassment during his divorce proceedings in 2015, including installing software on someone’s computer to monitor keystrokes, the criminal complaint said. He also used aliases to contact that person’s employer to report false allegations of misconduct, according to the complaint."

Jason Horowitz & Natalie Kitroeff of the New York Times: “Pope Francis was an hour into a sprawling interview with a Mexican journalist at his Vatican residence in 2019 when he was asked if he had changed since his time as archbishop of Argentina, when he staunchly opposed gay marriage. Francis responded that he had always defended the church’s teaching on marriage, then began to delve into the question of legalizing same-sex relationships when suddenly the video skipped forward. 'One changes in life,' he said. The words that went missing — expressing support for same-sex civil unions — surfaced only this week in a new documentary.... But the clip also became the subject of sudden intrigue over when and where the pope made the remarks, and why they were only now being made public. Two people close to the [Mexican broadcaster Televisa]..., said that the Vatican had required that the interview be filmed with Vatican cameras and that the Vatican be given control over the footage. The Vatican cut out the pope’s remarks on same-sex unions in the edited version provided to Televisa, the two people said.... The Church allowed a documentary filmmaker access to the Vatican archives, including the raw footage of the Televisa interview. The filmmaker put the clip in a new documentary....”

Ted Barrett & Clare Foran of CNN: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did not answer questions about his health Thursday, only saying there were 'no concerns' after reporters asked him about what appeared to be bruises and bandages on his hands in recent days. 'Of course not,' McConnell told reporters in the Capitol when asked if he had any health issues people should know about.... In 2019, McConnell fractured his shoulder after he tripped and fell at his Kentucky home. He also underwent triple heart bypass surgery in 2003. A statement released by his office at the time described the operation as a success." With photos. --s

Sarah Blaskey, et al. of the Miami Herald: "Donald Trump’s team knew they couldn’t win the 2016 election simply by persuading people to vote for Trump.... So the campaign and its allies used big data to target Black communities along Miami-Dade County’s historically disenfranchised Interstate 95 corridor. There, residents became some of the 12.3 million unwitting subjects of a groundbreaking nationwide experiment: A computer algorithm that analyzed huge sums of potential voters’ personal data — things they’d said and done on Facebook, credit card purchases, charities they supported, and even personality traits — decided they could be manipulated into not voting. They probably wouldn’t even know it was happening.... They called it 'deterrence.'... Behind the 2016 deterrence campaign was Cambridge Analytica ... at a time when Stephen Bannon, eventually hired to lead the Trump campaign, was the firm’s vice president[.]" --s

Florida. Mary Ellen Klas of the Miami Herald: "A generation more familiar with TikTok, Instagram and XBox has the potential to make the difference in Florida’s toss-up presidential race between two seventy-somethings. Younger voters this year have been registering and casting ballots in bigger numbers than previous years and, if the presidential race in Florida is as close as polls predict, it will be decided by the margins. There about 1.1 million additional new Florida voters between 18 and 34 in 2020 than there were in 2016.... According to an analysis by Catalist, a progressive polling organization that is monitoring Florida’s voting trends among a slightly broader age group, ages 18 to 39, turnout has increased 44% among those voters compared to 2016." --s

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Debate

Alexander Burns & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: “President Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr. delivered starkly divergent closing arguments to the country in the final presidential debate on Thursday, offering opposite prognoses for the coronavirus pandemic and airing irreconcilable differences on subjects from rescuing the economy and bolstering the health care system to fighting climate change and reshaping the immigration policy.... Mr. Trump, who badgered Mr. Biden with increasing aggression over the course of the debate, appeared determined to cast his opponent as a career politician who was, as he jabbed toward the end of the debate, 'all talk and no action.' And the president used the event as his most prominent platform yet for airing unsubstantiated or baseless attacks about the finances of Mr. Biden and members of his family. Mr. Trump, however, did little to lay out an affirmative case for his own re-election, or to explain in clear terms what he would hope to do with another four years in the White House. He frequently misrepresented the facts of his own record, and Mr. Biden’s. And on his most important political vulnerability — his mismanagement of the pandemic — Mr. Trump hewed unswervingly to a message that happy days are nearly here again....” Here's the AP's main story by Jonathan Lemire & others.

The Guardian's summary report by Lauren Gambino is here. ~~~

      ~~~ Guardian opinion writers offer their takeaways here. Jill Filipovic: “If one single thing shone through in Thursday’s debate, it was that Donald Trump has absolutely nothing to say. He has no agenda. He has no plan. He has no ideals or hopes or purpose. All he has is the raw pursuit of power – for his own benefit, no one else’s. Trump failed to put forward even one specific policy he will push in his second term. He offered some vague hand-waving – he (or the US supreme court) will get rid of Obamacare and he’ll replace it with something better, no you haven’t seen his plan..., but he’s working on it, it’s almost done, he swears.... Instead, he was purely reactive. Joe Biden would put forward an idea, and Trump’s response was: 'Well why didn’t you do that when you were in office?' Trump is in office, and while a lot has changed in four years, there’s little he can be proud of.”

Rev has a full transcript of the debate.

Bill Barrow & Zeke Miller of the AP outline key takeaways. Here's one: “Trump’s difficulty articulating a defense of his handling of the coronavirus remains a drag on his campaign. The opening topic of the debate was entirely predictable — Trump has received variations of the same question in interviews and has rarely delivered a clear answer. Asked to outline his plan for the future, Trump instead asserted his prior handling was without fault and predicted a rosy reversal to the pandemic, which has killed more than 223,000 people in the United States. 'We’re rounding the turn, we’re rounding the corner,' Trump claimed, even as cases spike again across the country. 'It’s going away.' Biden, who has sought to prosecute Trump’s handling of the virus in his closing pitch to voters, came prepared. 'Anyone who’s responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America,' he said. Biden added: 'He says we’re, you know, we’re learning to live with it. People are learning to die with it.'”

Trump Can Behave Himself for up to an Hour When His Political Life Depends upon It. Morgan Chalfant of the Hill: “President Trump adopted a more measured tone at the start of the final presidential debate as he and ... Joe Biden sparred in the first section focused on the coronavirus pandemic. The debate grew more combative and personal as it continued, as Biden brought up Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, claiming he was being used as a 'Russian pawn,' and Trump went on to press Biden on his son Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings. Still, the debate seemed more organized and less contentious than the first one, perhaps due in part to the new rule implemented by the Commission on Presidential Debates that muted candidates’ microphones so that each could have two minutes of uninterrupted time to speak at the beginning of each 15-minute segment.”

New York Times reporters' fact-check is here. The lede: “... President Trump unleashed an unrelenting series of false, misleading and exaggerated statements as he sought to distort former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s record and positions and boost his own re-election hopes. The president once again relied heavily on well-worn talking points that have long been shown to be false. The president appeared determined to reinvent the reality of the last four years — and the history of the pandemic in 2020 — as he faces judgment on his actions in just 12 days. He once again falsely dismissed the Russia investigations as a 'phony witch hunt.' He insisted that aside from Abraham Lincoln, 'nobody has done more for the Black community,' an assertion that people in both parties find laughable. And he tried again to wish away the pandemic, saying 'we are rounding the turn' even as daily cases of the virus this week topped 70,000 in the United States for the first time since July.” ~~~

~~~ Glenn Kessler, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump yet again broke the fact-check meter at the second presidential debate, while Democratic nominee Joe Biden made relatively few gaffes. Here’s a roundup of 25 of the most noteworthy claims that initially caught our interest, virtually all of them by Trump."

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but this debate -- moderated by a woman -- was a debate targeting American women. Rachel Maddow, Joy Reid & Nicolle Wallace did post-debate analysis for MSNBC, and besides pointing out many of Trump's bald-faced lies, his callousness on the coronavirus, Black Lives Matter & children in cages brought them to tears. Trump is getting kudos for not blowing up until the last half-hour of the debate, and for not calling Welker a POS, without accounting for what he was actually saying/lying about his terrible administration & certainly without providing any outline for his plans for a second term. I guess when your one & only plan is More Graft & Corruption, you don't want to let on.

Jeremy Stahl of Slate: “At Thursday’s debate, moderator Kristen Welker asked ... Donald Trump about his since discontinued and unlawful policy of separating children from their parents at the border without any plan to return them as a 'deterrent' for undocumented immigration.... At first, Trump blamed smugglers for bringing children over the border, not admitting that these children had come with their parents and been taken from them on orders from his administration. When the president finally acknowledged the reality, though, he ... [said,] 'They are so well taken care of.... They’re in facilities that were so clean.'... His administration has also argued in court that it need not provide detained children with a 'toothbrush,' 'towels,' 'dry clothing,' 'soap,' or 'sleep.'... He did not mention the at least six children who have died in CBP custody in less than a year.... After further discussion of [President] Obama’s harsh deportation policies — which ... did not include family separation — [Joe] Biden ... [said,] 'You have 525 kids not knowing in God’s name where they’re going to be and lost their parents,' he said. After an evening in which Trump repeatedly interrupted Welker and Biden to try to get the last word in nearly every exchange, this was one subject he was eager to move on from. 'Go ahead,' he said as Welker attempted to change topics.”

Trump Lost This Debate by Less Than He Lost the First Debate. Jennifer Agiesta of CNN: "Joe Biden did a better job in the final debate on Thursday, according to a CNN Instant Poll of debate watchers. Overall, 53% of voters who watched the debate said that Biden won the matchup, while 39% said that ... Donald Trump did. Viewers once again said that Biden's criticisms of Trump were largely fair (73% said they were fair, 26% unfair), and they split over whether Trump's attacks on Biden were fair (50% said yes, 49% no). That's a more positive outcome for Trump. In a CNN Instant Poll after the first presidential debate, just 28% said they thought the President had won the debate, and 67% called his criticism of Biden unfair."

The New York Times' live updates of the debate are here. ** New York Times reporters' live analysis is here. The page has live video of the debate.

Washington Post opinion columnists are liveblogging the debate here. The page has live video of the debate.

The Guardian's live updates of the debate are here.

~~~ Presidential Race, Etc.

Annie Linskey of the Washington Post: “Joe Biden said Thursday he would name a bipartisan commission to propose an overhaul of the Supreme Court and federal judiciary because the current system is 'getting out of whack,' following weeks of pressure to endorse or reject a push by liberals to expand the court. Biden has repeatedly avoided saying directly whether he would accept a court expansion plan promoted by Democrats angry at Republicans’ speedy confirmation process for Amy Coney Barrett, who is expected to be approved by the full Senate within days. Thursday’s comments to CBS’s '60 Minutes' were Biden’s fullest response on the subject.” Mrs. McC Note to Ken W.: Biden has not yet released video of the interview nor tweeted about the interviewer's bias, hatred and rudeness.

Jeremy Barr & Elahe Izadi of the Washington Post: “President Trump followed through on his threat, or promise, to release video of his interview with CBS News journalist Lesley Stahl before it is set to air on '60 Minutes' on Sunday night.... On Thursday morning, after he again teased a release of the video ('the vicious attempted “takeout” interview of me'), a 37-minute clip of the interview appeared on the president’s Facebook page. In posting the interview, Trump and the White House violated an agreement with CBS News that the White House was taping the interview 'for archival purposes only,' said a network source with knowledge of the interview.... 'The White House’s unprecedented decision to disregard their agreement with CBS News and release their footage will not deter “60 Minutes” from providing its full, fair and contextual reporting which presidents have participated in for decades,' the network said.” Mrs. McC: Why, you might think Trump can't be trusted to honor even the simplest, clearest agreement. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

Look at the bias, hatred and rudeness on behalf of 60 Minutes and CBS. Tonight’s anchor, Kristen Welker, is far worse! -- Donald Trump, Thursday, in a tweet ~~~

     ~~~ Jill Colvin of the AP: “The footage shows Trump growing increasingly prickly as CBS anchor Lesley Stahl presses him on a host of topics, including his response to the coronavirus pandemic, his slipping support among suburban women, the lack of masks at his rallies, and the 'Obamacare' replacement plan he has long promised but failed to unveil.... And he again preemptively criticized the moderator of Thursday night’s final presidential debate.... As Trump continued to throw unsubstantiated allegations at [Joe] Biden and former President Barack Obama, Stahl tried to explain: 'This is “60 Minutes” and we can’t put on things we can’t verify.'... 'Leslie [Lesley], you’re discrediting yourself,' he said.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: “... Donald Trump on Thursday released video footage of the tense interviews he and Vice President Mike Pence had separately with '60 Minutes' correspondent Lesley Stahl, including a particularly combative exchange in which Stahl accuses both men of having 'insulted' her and the news program. In Stahl’s interview with Pence, which took place after Trump cut short his earlier conversation with Stahl and would not film what was supposed to be a joint appearance..., [Stahl said,] 'This was not a rally. This was not just a campaign speech to the public. This was supposed to be an interview, and the same with the president.... And I feel that you both have insulted “60 Minutes” and me by not answering any of our questions and by giving set campaign speeches that we’ve heard both of you give at rallies and not answering our questions.'” ~~~

~~~ AP: “... Donald Trump says 'it will be so good' if the Supreme Court puts an end to the Obama-era health law when the justices hear challenges to the Affordable Care Act next month. Trump made the comment in an interview with CBS’ '60 Minutes' that’s set to air Sunday night. The president posted the full, unedited interview on Facebook on Thursday.... With [Amy] Barrett on the path to confirmation in the coming days, Trump is signaling that he’s confident that court’s expected swing to the right portends the demise of the health law. Trump says in the interview: 'I think it’ll end' and 'I hope that they’ll end it.'” (Also linked yesterday.)

** Julian Barnes, et al., of the New York Times: "While senior Trump administration officials said this week that Iran has been actively interfering in the presidential election, many intelligence officials said they remained far more concerned about Russia, which in recent days has hacked into state and local computer networks in breaches that could allow Moscow broader access to American voting infrastructure. The discovery of the hacks came as American intelligence agencies, infiltrating Russian networks themselves, have pieced together details of what they believe are Russia’s plans to interfere in the presidential race in its final days or immediately after the election on Nov. 3. Officials did not make clear what Russia planned to do, but they said its operations would be intended to help President Trump, potentially by exacerbating disputes around the results, especially if the race is too close to call.... Some U.S. intelligence officials view Russia’s intentions as more significant than the announcement Wednesday night by the director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, that Iran has been involved in the spreading of faked, threatening emails...." ~~~

~~~ Wherein Trump Loyalist Mr. Rat Points Out Trump Is Trying to Undermine the Election. Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: “The centerpiece of [DNI John] Ratcliffe’s announcement [Wednesday] was that Iran — and Russia, which was mysteriously downplayed — has obtained voter data enabling Iran to send emails to voters that were faked to seem like right-wing efforts to menace them into voting for Trump. Ratcliff[e] noted that this was 'designed to intimidate voters, incite social unrest and damage President Trump.' The idea is that these emails are supposed to associate Trump with right-wing efforts to intimidate voters.... But the other thing Ratcliffe said about Iran is ...: 'Iran is distributing other content to include a video that implies that individuals could cast fraudulent ballots, even from overseas. This video, and any claims about such allegedly fraudulent ballots, are not true.'... Who else has been making such claims about fraudulent ballots? Why, Trump has, of course. And so has ... William P. Barr ... and ... Donald Trump Jr.... The Post viewed the video: 'The video ... shows Trump making disparaging comments about mail-in voting, followed by a logo with the name of the Proud Boys....' So, to be as clear as possible, this video circulated by Iran, which Ratcliffe has denounced for spreading false information about voter fraud, features Trump himself making such claims.” Emphasis added. Thanks to Ken W. for the link. (Also linked yesterday.)

Will Sommer of the Daily Beast: "With less than two weeks before Election Day and Trump lagging in the polls, some of the president’s most prominent allies are going all in on QAnon.... At his NBC town hall last week, Trump refused to disavow QAnon, which the FBI considers a potential source of domestic terrorism. On Sunday, Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel sidestepped a question from ABC host George Stephanopoulos on whether she would denounce QAnon.... And nothing has proven to be more of a nexus for the GOP’s QAnon conspiracy-mongering than Hunter Biden’s supposed laptops.... Rudy Giuliani has recently begun claiming that the laptop contains images of lurid, illegal pictures of underage women.... The unverified claims about Biden’s laptop are a near-identical echo of an earlier conspiracy theory embraced by QAnon and Pizzagate supporters about former Rep. Anthony Weiner's (D-NY) laptop. In that story, Weiner's laptop featured a video of Hillary Clinton and aide Huma Abedin abusing children, in scenes so gruesome that NYPD officers who viewed it eventually killed themselves." ~~~

~~~ Ben Collins & Brandy Zadrozny of NBC News: "Some of the same people who pushed a false conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton that first emerged in 2016 are now targeting Hunter Biden, Joe Biden's son, with similar falsehoods. Their online posts are garnering astronomical numbers of shares on social media.... There is an important difference, however. The pizzagate-style rumors in 2016 were largely confined to far-right message boards like 4chan and parts of Reddit. But the Hunter Biden iteration of the same conspiracy theory took off last weekend with the help of speculation from conservative TV hosts and members of Congress. Their theorizing can be traced back to a new website [-- Revolver News --] that has been promoted by ... Donald Trump and his surrogates.... The child abuse conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden that emerged from the fringes of the internet began swirling before the New York Post article and can be traced to associates of former White House aide Steve Bannon." ~~~

~~~ ** Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer: “QAnon believers hunting for child kidnappers should start at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.... QAnon’s core followers believe there’s a Satanic cult among Democratic Party elites and Hollywood that’s protected by a 'deep state' cabal and which engages in rampant pedophilia (at minimum) and maybe rituals where small children are killed by monsters who then drink their blood.... NBC News almost [broke through the pre-election bombast] this week with its explosive report that advocates who’ve been scouring records, the internet, and even the backstreets of Central America have been unable to find the parents of 545 kids, many of them under age 6, who were wrenched away by federal agents during Trump’s crackdown at the southern border.... 'Let’s not mince words,' the Washington Post editorialized Thursday. 'The Trump administration kidnapped children.'... The real child-abusers are bland bureaucrats rendered into cowards by a system, a political machine that defends the narcissistic authoritarianism of its leader that QAnon fantasizes is protecting their white suburban kids even as real brown ones are traumatized.” Firewalled.

Washington Post: "At least 47.1 million have voted nationwide, and there are still 12 days until Election Day, surpassing the total number of early ballots cast in 2016." Includes a map & other graphics so you can check out how voting is going in your state.

New Jersey. Matt Friedman of Politico: “A federal judge on Thursday tossed the Trump campaign’s lawsuit against New Jersey’s primarily mail-in election, ruling that most of its arguments were speculative and that the campaign failed to show how it‘s being harmed. The lawsuit, filed in August by the Trump campaign as well as the Republican State Committee and Republican National Committee, was basically moot anyway. The plaintiffs did not seek an injunction to keep New Jersey from changing the way it was conducting its election. County clerks began mailing out ballots weeks ago and about 2 million have been cast so far. 'Plaintiffs have alleged nothing more than the possibility of future injury to their members,' U.S. District Court Judge Michael Shipp wrote in his ruling.”

Pennsylvania. Danny Hakim & Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: “The Trump campaign has been videotaping Philadelphia voters while they deposit their ballots in drop boxes, leading Pennsylvania’s attorney general to warn this week that the campaign’s actions fall outside of permitted poll watching practices and could amount to illegal voter intimidation. The campaign made a formal complaint to city officials on Oct. 16, saying a campaign representative had surveilled voters depositing two or three ballots at drop boxes, instead of only their own. The campaign called the conduct 'blatant violations of the Pennsylvania election code,' according to a letter from a lawyer representing the Trump campaign that was reviewed by The New York Times. The campaign included photos of three voters who it claimed were dropping off multiple ballots.... But city officials rejected the assertion that the voters who had been photographed had necessarily done something improper.... Earlier this month, a Trump campaign official told The Times that the campaign would be videotaping drop boxes but was only interested in people who were dumping large numbers of ballots — not in those bringing an extra ballot or two. That assertion appears to have been false.”

Outer Space. Ruby Mellen of the Washington Post: "American [astronaut] Kate Rubins said she plans to cast her vote from the International Space Station in the upcoming presidential election. Some 250 miles below, many voters are struggling to do the same.... Since 1997, U.S. astronauts have been able to cast their votes from space, after John Blaha raised the issue with NASA ahead of the 1996 presidential election, during which he would be aboard the Russian Space Station Mir." Mrs. McC: The Trump campaign will probably challenge Rubins' ballot.

Senate Races. Alyssa Fowers of the Washington Post: "Hundred of thousands of donors rushed to back Democratic Senate campaigns after Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, many spreading their donations across several candidates. Seven times as many people gave to Democratic candidates in competitive races the day after Ginsburg’s death than the day before, according to an analysis of data from the Federal Election Commission. Donations were often small, averaging $17.82 during the rush, compared with $55.08 two days before. The most common donation on the day after Ginsburg’s death was $1.92, suggesting that donors made a single contribution via the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue to split between candidates. Donors may have hoped that spreading the wealth across multiple candidates, rather than focusing on a single race, would help Democrats take control of the Senate, giving them the power to confirm or vote down future Supreme Court justices."

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here: “More than 75,000 cases of the coronavirus were announced in the United States on Thursday, the second-highest daily total nationwide since the pandemic began. Eight states set single-day case records, and 13 states have added more cases in the past week than in any other seven-day stretch. The bleak numbers came as President Trump declared at the final presidential debate on Thursday that, despite evidence, the virus was 'going away,' while his challenger, Joseph R. Biden Jr., warned of a 'dark winter' ahead that required aggressive federal action.” ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: NBC News puts the number of 78,000+ cases yesterday & the highest national daily total ever.

Giulia Nieto del Rio & Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs of the New York Times: "A hospital in Idaho is 99 percent full and warning that it may have to transfer coronavirus patients to hospitals in Seattle and Portland, Ore. Medical centers in Kansas City, Mo., turned away ambulances on a recent day because they had no room for more patients. And in West Allis, just outside Milwaukee, an emergency field hospital erected on the grounds of the Wisconsin State Fair admitted its first virus patient this week. More than 41,000 people are currently hospitalized with the coronavirus in the United States, a 40 percent rise in the past month, and cooler weather that pushes more people indoors is threatening to expand the outbreak still more. At least 14 states saw more people hospitalized for the virus on a day in the past week than on any other day in the pandemic, according to the Covid Tracking Project. Seven more states are nearing their peaks."

Blake Montgomery of the Daily Beast: “A new report from Columbia University on COVID-19 deaths estimates that hundreds of thousands of Americans died because the United States’ response to the pandemic was an 'abject failure,' particularly the actions of ... Donald Trump. With an adequate response, the United States could have avoided tens of thousands of deaths and an incalculable amount of suffering, the researchers said. Dr. Irwin Redlener, the lead author on the study and the founding director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, laid the blame at the feet of the White House in an interview with The Daily Beast: 'We believe that this was a monumental, lethal screwup by an administration that didn’t want to deal with reality.' In the report, titled '130,000–210,000 Avoidable COVID-19 Deaths — and Counting — in the U.S.', researchers at Columbia’s NCDP studied 'the staggering and disproportionate nature of COVID-19 fatalities in the United States.' The researchers compared the coronavirus response of the U.S. to that of six other countries— South Korea, Japan, Australia, Germany, Canada, and France — and found that the American government’s response to the pandemic rated unfavorably against them all.” The report is here.

Maggie Fox of CNN: "The US Food and Drug Administration approved remdesivir for the treatment of coronavirus infection, the drug's maker, Gilead Sciences, said Thursday. The drug, sold under the brand name Veklury, has been used under emergency use authorization. It is the first drug to be approved for treating Covid-19.... 'Veklury should only be administered in a hospital or in a healthcare setting capable of providing acute care comparable to inpatient hospital care,' [the company said in a statement.] Earlier this month, a World Health Organization-sponsored global study found remdesivir did not help patients survive or even recover faster, but a US study found the infused drug shortened recovery time for some patients by about a third."

Christopher Rugaber of the AP: "The number of laid-off Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell last week to 787,000, a sign that job losses may have eased slightly but are still running at historically high levels. Last week’s figure was down from 842,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said Thursday. The government also revised down the number of people who sought aid in the two weeks before that. The revised total for the week that ended Oct. 3 was 767,000, the fewest since the viral pandemic erupted in March, though still more than three times the levels that preceded the pandemic. Economists welcomed the declines as evidence that the job market is still recovering from the pandemic recession. But some cautioned that the improvement could prove short-lived." (Also linked yesterday.)

Donald Trump Doesn't Know How to Pick a Password. Adam Gabbatt of the Guardian: “Donald Trump’s Twitter account was allegedly hacked last week, after a Dutch researcher correctly guessed the president’s password: 'maga2020!', Dutch media reported. Victor Gevers, a security expert, had access to Trump’s direct messages, could post tweets in his name and change his profile, De Volkskrant newspaper reported. Gevers – who previously managed to log into Trump’s account in 2016 – apparently gained access by guessing Trump’s password. He tried 'maga2020!' on his fifth attempt and it worked.... Twitter, however, denied the report. However, Gevers told De Volkskrant the ease with which he accessed Trump’s account suggested the president was not using basic security measures like two-step verification.” Gevers said he warned the White House, CIA, FBI & Twitter of the easy hack. “A day later, Gevers noticed that two-step verification had been activated on Trump’s account.... Two days later, the Secret Service got in touch. According to De Volkskrant, they thanked him for bringing the security problem to their attention. [In 2016,] Trump’s password was 'yourefired.'” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Obviously, in choosing a password, you pick something you can remember but that would be so meaningless to others that couldn't just guess it. As for whether or the not the story is true, it's hard to say. When I change computers or locations, I get e-mail notifications from a few companies, like Google. I'm not sure if Twitter has sent me such notifications.

Eric Lipton of the New York Times: “President Trump signed an executive order this week that could substantially expand his ability to hire and fire tens of thousands of federal workers during a second term, potentially allowing him to weed out what he sees as a 'deep state' bureaucracy working to undermine him. The executive order, issued late Wednesday and described by one prominent federal union leader as 'the most profound undermining of the Civil Service in our lifetimes,' would allow federal agencies to go through their employee rosters and reclassify certain workers in a way that would strip them of job protections that now cover most federal employees.... Mr. Trump’s new executive order would create a new class of federal worker, known as 'Schedule F' employees, that would be made up of career staff members who are involved in 'confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating' work. This would most likely include the thousands of federal employees who write the regulations that translate federal laws into formal rules, as well as economists, scientists, lawyers and manager....”

Mike Schneider of the AP: "For the second time in two months, a panel of federal judges on Thursday blocked ... Donald Trump’s effort to exclude people in the U.S. illegally from being counted during the process of divvying up congressional seats by state. The decision from a panel of three district judges in California went further than last month’s ruling by a panel of three federal judges in New York by saying that Trump’s order in July not only was unlawful but also violated the constitution. The New York judges ignored the question of the order’s constitutionality and just said it was unlawful.... The Trump administration has appealed the New York decision to the Supreme Court, and the nation’s high court agreed to hear the case next month. Other challenges to Trump’s order are pending in Maryland, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia." (Also linked yesterday.)

Julian Borger of the Guardian: "US immigration officers allegedly tortured Cameroonian asylum seekers to force them to sign their own deportation orders, in what lawyers and activists describe as a brutal scramble to fly African migrants out of the country in the run-up to the elections. Many of the Cameroonian migrants in a Mississippi detention centre refused to sign, fearing death at the hands of Cameroonian government forces responsible for widespread civilian killings, and because they had asylum hearings pending. According to multiple accounts, detainees were threatened, choked, beaten, pepper-sprayed and threatened with more violence to make them sign.... Lawyers and human rights advocates said there had been a significant acceleration of deportations in recent weeks, a trend they see as linked to the looming elections and the possibility that Ice could soon be under new management." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Thursday to advance Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination after Democrats boycotted the vote. The panel voted 12-0 to send Barrett’s nomination to the full Senate, paving the way for President Trump’s nominee to be confirmed to the Supreme Court early next week. Every Republican on the panel supported her nomination and no Democratic senator voted. Every GOP senator was present for the vote, meeting the committee's rule that 12 members of the panel must be present to report a nomination to the full Senate. But the committee also requires two members of the minority party to be present in order to conduct business. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), however, made it clear that he would move forward regardless of the committee's rules. 'As you know, our Democratic colleagues informed the committee last night that they will not participate in the hearing. That was their choice. It will be my choice to vote the nominee out of committee. We're not going to allow them to take over the committee,' Graham said on Thursday." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "The Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Thursday to advance President Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, with majority Republicans skirting the panel’s rules to recommend her confirmation as Democrats boycotted the session in protest." This is an update of a story linked yesterday. (Also linked yesterday.)

Adam Serwer of the Atlantic: Because "the Supreme Court is helping Republicans rig elections, adding more justices to the bench might be the only way to stop them." Thanks to Anonymous for the link. Anonymous says (yesterday's Comments) that Serwer's essay should be required reading for Joe Biden. But John Roberts should read it, too, because Serwer gets to the rancid meat of Roberts' judicial philosophy: "The chief justice may claim that only deliberate discrimination counts as racism, but in practice he rules even overt racism acceptable if sufficiently competent attorneys clean it up first. And Roberts is the most sympathetic conservative justice when it comes to voting rights." The essay is firewalled, but it's worth using up one of your few freebies.

Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: "Goldman Sachs, one of Wall Street’s oldest and most prestigious banks, will pay $2.9 billion in penalties and fees to settle federal charges over its involvement in a Malaysian bribery scheme, the Justice Department announced Thursday. Prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York charged the bank with conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which forbids companies or individuals from paying foreign governments to retain business. The settlement includes the largest monetary penalty ever assessed under corporate criminal bribery law. The Justice Department alleged that Goldman Sachs ignored signs of fraud among some of its senior bankers in a scheme that ultimately led to a Malaysian government-backed economic development corporation being defrauded out of $2.7 billion. About $1.6 billion of the $2.7 billion was used to pay officials in Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates to secure work issuing and selling bonds in international markets."

Pilar Melendez & Seamus Hughes of the Daily Beast: “A 19-year-old who was busted with a car full of guns and explosives ... debated killing Joe Biden online, traveling to a Wendy’s mere miles from the former vice president’s home and penning a checklist that ended in 'execute,' federal authorities allege in court documents. Alexander Hillel Treisman, originally from Seattle, was indicted by a federal grand jury in September on a child pornography charge after authorities stumbled upon his abandoned van at a Third Bank in Kannapolis, North Carolina. Inside, officers with the Kannapolis Police Department found a trove of weapons, including an AR-15 style rifle behind the driver’s seat, a canister of Tannerite, an explosive material, and more than $500,000.... 'Should I kill joe biden?' Treisman allegedly wrote on April 15, 2020, alongside an image posted on iFunny, according to a search-warrant application. The application also details how the 19-year-old went to Wilmington, Delaware — Biden’s hometown — on at least one occasion and discussed his need to 'save' Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.”

Way Beyond the Beltway

Russia, Etc. Jonathan Watts of the Guardian: "For the first time since records began, the main nursery of Arctic sea ice in Siberia has yet to start freezing in late October. The delayed annual freeze in the Laptev Sea has been caused by freakishly protracted warmth in northern Russia and the intrusion of Atlantic waters, say climate scientists who warn of possible knock-on effects across the polar region.... The downward trend is likely to continue until the Arctic has its first ice-free summer, said Meier. The data and models suggest this will occur between 2030 and 2050." --s (Also linked yesterday.) 

The Commentariat -- October 22, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Jeremy Barr & Elahe Izadi of the Washington Post: "President Trump followed through on his threat, or promise, to release video of his interview with CBS News journalist Lesley Stahl before it is set to air on '60 Minutes' on Sunday night.... On Thursday morning, after he again teased a release of the video ('the vicious attempted "takeout" interview of me'), a 37-minute clip of the interview appeared on the president's Facebook page. In posting the interview, Trump and the White House violated an agreement with CBS News that the White House was taping the interview 'for archival purposes only,' said a network source with knowledge of the interview.... 'The White House's unprecedented decision to disregard their agreement with CBS News and release their footage will not deter "60 Minutes" from providing its full, fair and contextual reporting which presidents have participated in for decades,' the network said." Mrs. McC: Why, you might think Trump can't be trusted to honor even the simplest, clearest agreement. ~~~

Look at the bias, hatred and rudeness on behalf of 60 Minutes and CBS. Tonight's anchor, Kristen Welker, is far worse! -- Donald Trump, Thursday, in a tweet ~~~

     ~~~ Jill Colvin of the AP: "The footage shows Trump growing increasingly prickly as CBS anchor Lesley Stahl presses him on a host of topics, including his response to the coronavirus pandemic, his slipping support among suburban women, the lack of masks at his rallies, and the 'Obamacare' replacement plan he has long promised but failed to unveil.... And he again preemptively criticized the moderator of Thursday night's final presidential debate.... As Trump continued to throw unsubstantiated allegations at [Joe] Biden and former President Barack Obama, Stahl tried to explain: 'This is "60 Minutes" and we can't put on things we can't verify.'... 'Leslie [Lesley], you're discrediting yourself,' he said." ~~~

~~~ AP: "... Donald Trump says 'it will be so good' if the Supreme Court puts an end to the Obama-era health law when the justices hear challenges to the Affordable Care Act next month. Trump made the comment in an interview with CBS' '60 Minutes' that's set to air Sunday night. The president posted the full, unedited interview on Facebook on Thursday.... With [Amy] Barrett on the path to confirmation in the coming days, Trump is signaling that he's confident that court's expected swing to the right portends the demise of the health law. Trump says in the interview: 'I think it'll end' and 'I hope that they'll end it.'"

Wherein Trump Loyalist Mr. Rat Points Out Trump Is Trying to Undermine the Election. Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "The centerpiece of [DNI John] Ratcliffe's announcement [Wednesday] was that Iran -- and Russia, which was mysteriously downplayed -- has obtained voter data enabling Iran to send emails to voters that were faked to seem like right-wing efforts to menace them into voting for Trump. Ratcliff[e] noted that this was 'designed to intimidate voters, incite social unrest and damage President Trump.' The idea is that these emails are supposed to associate Trump with right-wing efforts to intimidate voters.... But the other thing Ratcliffe said about Iran is ...: 'Iran is distributing other content to include a video that implies that individuals could cast fraudulent ballots, even from overseas. This video, and any claims about such allegedly fraudulent ballots, are not true.'... Who else has been making such claims about fraudulent ballots? Why, Trump has, of course. And so has ... William P. Barr ... and ... Donald Trump Jr.... The Post viewed the video: 'The video ... shows Trump making disparaging comments about mail-in voting, followed by a logo with the name of the Proud Boys....' So, to be as clear as possible, this video circulated by Iran, which Ratcliffe has denounced for spreading false information about voter fraud, features Trump himself making such claims." Emphasis added. Thanks to Ken W. for the link.

Christopher Rugaber of the AP: "The number of laid-off Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell last week to 787,000, a sign that job losses may have eased slightly but are still running at historically high levels. Last week's figure was down from 842,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said Thursday. The government also revised down the number of people who sought aid in the two weeks before that. The revised total for the week that ended Oct. 3 was 767,000, the fewest since the viral pandemic erupted in March, though still more than three times the levels that preceded the pandemic. Economists welcomed the declines as evidence that the job market is still recovering from the pandemic recession. But some cautioned that the improvement could prove short-lived."

Mike Schneider of the AP: "For the second time in two months, a panel of federal judges on Thursday blocked ... Donald Trump's effort to exclude people in the U.S. illegally from being counted during the process of divvying up congressional seats by state. The decision from a panel of three district judges in California went further than last month's ruling by a panel of three federal judges in New York by saying that Trump's order in July not only was unlawful but also violated the constitution. The New York judges ignored the question of the order's constitutionality and just said it was unlawful.... The Trump administration has appealed the New York decision to the Supreme Court, and the nation's high court agreed to hear the case next month. Other challenges to Trump's order are pending in Maryland, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia."

Donald Trump Doesn't Know How to Pick a Password. Adam Gabbatt of the Guardian: "Donald Trump's Twitter account was allegedly hacked last week, after a Dutch researcher correctly guessed the president's password: 'maga2020!', Dutch media reported. Victor Gevers, a security expert, had access to Trump's direct messages, could post tweets in his name and change his profile, De Volkskrant newspaper reported. Gevers -- who previously managed to log into Trump's account in 2016 -- apparently gained access by guessing Trump's password. He tried 'maga2020!' on his fifth attempt and it worked.... Twitter, however, denied the report. However, Gevers told De Volkskrant the ease with which he accessed Trump's account suggested the president was not using basic security measures like two-step verification." Gevers said he warned the White House, CIA, FBI & Twitter of the easy hack. "A day later, Gevers noticed that two-step verification had been activated on Trump's account.... Two days later, the Secret Service got in touch. According to De Volkskrant, they thanked him for bringing the security problem to their attention. [In 2016,] Trump's password was 'yourefired.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Obviously, in choosing a password, you pick something you can remember but that would be so meaningless to others that couldn't just guess it. As for whether or the not the story is true, it's hard to say. When I change computers or locations, I get e-mail notifications from a few companies, like Google. I'm not sure if Twitter has sent me such notifications.

Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Thursday to advance Judge Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court nomination after Democrats boycotted the vote. The panel voted 12-0 to send Barrett's nomination to the full Senate, paving the way for President Trump's nominee to be confirmed to the Supreme Court early next week. Every Republican on the panel supported her nomination and no Democratic senator voted. Every GOP senator was present for the vote, meeting the committee's rule that 12 members of the panel must be present to report a nomination to the full Senate. But the committee also requires two members of the minority party to be present in order to conduct business. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), however, made it clear that he would move forward regardless of the committee's rules. 'As you know, our Democratic colleagues informed the committee last night that they will not participate in the hearing. That was their choice. It will be my choice to vote the nominee out of committee. We're not going to allow them to take over the committee,' Graham said on Thursday." ~~~

~~~ Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "The Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Thursday to advance President Trump's nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, with majority Republicans skirting the panel's rules to recommend her confirmation as Democrats boycotted the session in protest." This is an update of a story linked below.

Julian Borger of the Guardian: "US immigration officers allegedly tortured Cameroonian asylum seekers to force them to sign their own deportation orders, in what lawyers and activists describe as a brutal scramble to fly African migrants out of the country in the run-up to the elections. Many of the Cameroonian migrants in a Mississippi detention centre refused to sign, fearing death at the hands of Cameroonian government forces responsible for widespread civilian killings, and because they had asylum hearings pending. According to multiple accounts, detainees were threatened, choked, beaten, pepper-sprayed and threatened with more violence to make them sign.... Lawyers and human rights advocates said there had been a significant acceleration of deportations in recent weeks, a trend they see as linked to the looming elections and the possibility that Ice could soon be under new management." --s

Jonathan Watts of the Guardian: "For the first time since records began, the main nursery of Arctic sea ice in Siberia has yet to start freezing in late October. The delayed annual freeze in the Laptev Sea has been caused by freakishly protracted warmth in northern Russia and the intrusion of Atlantic waters, say climate scientists who warn of possible knock-on effects across the polar region.... The downward trend is likely to continue until the Arctic has its first ice-free summer, said Meier. The data and models suggest this will occur between 2030 and 2050." --s

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race, Etc.

Adam Nagourney of the New York Times: "President Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr. will meet on Thursday for their second and final presidential debate. Kristen Welker of NBC News will moderate the debate, which will take place in Nashville. It will begin at 9 p.m. Eastern and run for 90 minutes. The announced topics include fighting the coronavirus, American families, race in the United States, climate change, national security and leadership.... The debate will be televised on channels including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, C-SPAN, Fox News and MSNBC. Many news outlets, including ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Fox News and C-SPAN, will stream the debate on YouTube." Here's Wired's how-to-watch guide.

Nick Niedzwiadek of Politico: "Former President Barack Obama unloaded on his successor Wednesday in Philadelphia as Democrats' biggest luminary hit the campaign trail in support of his vice president. Obama lambasted Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic.... 'Donald Trump isn't suddenly going to protect all of us,' Obama said at a drive-in rally in the city's stadium district. 'He can't even take the basic steps to protect himself.'... He also said that his administration left a 'pandemic playbook,' drafted after the Ebola outbreak, that was largely ignored by his successor. 'They probably used it to -- I don't know -- prop up a wobbly table somewhere,' Obama said. Obama contrasted his criticisms by praising the current Democratic torchbearers, Joe Biden and running mate Kamala Harris, as steady hands to shepherd the country through Covid-19 and its aftermath.... [Obama's] speech seemed tailor-made to provoke a response from Trump.... 'He hasn't shown any interest in doing the work or helping anybody but himself and his friends, or treating the presidency like a reality show he can use to get attention,' Obama said. 'And by the way, even then his TV ratings are down. So you know that upsets him.'" ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's story, by David Nakamura, is here. ~~~

Joshua Partlow of the Washington Post: "In an election year clouded with anxieties about voter intimidation and the possibility of election-related violence, the first days of early voting have unfolded with dozens of accusations of inappropriate campaigning and possible voter intimidation in at least 14 states. The reports, though anecdotal, illustrate the tensions unfolding as more than 33 million Americans have already cast ballots two weeks before Election Day.... A wide array of complaints have been reported around the country, many involving Trump supporters, according to tips reviewed by ProPublica's Electionland project and shared with other news organizations.... Thea McDonald, a spokeswoman for President Trump's campaign, said the campaign had no objection to actions at the polls as long as they are legal. Trump has sometimes encouraged confrontational behavior among his supporters." Partlow cites a number of examples. ~~~

~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: A reader sent me this copy of an e-mail he received from a trusted person. I trust the reader, so I feel fairly confident this is a copy of an e-mail a registered Florida Democrat received. I blocked out the recipient's name in two places, & someone else redacted what also apparently is identifying information. Update: According to Rachel Maddow (who received copies of 16 of these e-mails), this previously redacted info was the voter's physical address. As you can tell, the e-mail is pretty creepy. (See updates below): ~~~

~~~ Update. Ellen Nakashima, et al., of the Washington Post: "The U.S. government has concluded that Iran is behind a series of threatening emails arriving this week in the inboxes of Democratic voters, according to two U.S. officials. Department of Homeland Security officials told state and local election administrators on a call Wednesday that a foreign government was responsible for the online barrage, according to the U.S. officials and state and local authorities who participated in the call, who all spoke on the condition of anonymity.... A DHS official also said authorities had detected holes in state and local election websites and instructed those participating to patch their online services. The emails claimed to be from the Proud Boys, a far-right group supportive of President Trump, but appeared instead to be a deceptive campaign making use of a vulnerability in the organization's online network." ~~~

~~~ Update 2. Julian Barnes & David Sanger of the New York Times: "Iran and Russia have both obtained American voter registration data, and Tehran used it to send threatening, faked emails to voters that were aimed at influencing the presidential election, top national security officials announced on Wednesday evening.... John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence..., said the effort was aimed at hurting President Trump, and intelligence officials have said Iran opposes the president's re-election. But if the emails had the effect of intimidating Democrats, they could also have hurt Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic nominee." An NBC News story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Uh, yeah. Sorry, Director Rat, but a letter threatening Democratic voters if they don't vote for Trump does not appear to be aimed at harming Trump. As Frank Figliuzzi pointed out on MSNBC, Ratcliffe kept secret what Russia was doing. My guess is that's because there was no way Mr. Rat could pretend that Russian actions were designed to hurt Trump. Sen. Chuck Schumer, also appearing on MSNBC, said that he attended a classified briefing on the foreign actions & that -- although he could not talk about what he learned in the briefing -- it was his observation, based on the briefing, that the foreign actions were not taken against Donald Trump but to undermine confidence in our elections. He also said that, to this end, Russia had done far more than Iran had. BTW, FBI Director Christopher Wray, who also spoke briefly at the hastily-called "press conference" (no one took questions), said essentially nothing, and did not back up Ratcliffe's odd assertion that Iranians had attempted to damage Trump. I thought Wray looked sorta like he was starring in a hostage video. ~~~

~~~ So Then. Devlin Barrett & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "President Trump and his advisers have repeatedly discussed whether to fire FBI Director Christopher A. Wray after Election Day -- a scenario that also could imperil the tenure of Attorney General William P. Barr as the president grows increasingly frustrated that federal law enforcement has not delivered his campaign the kind of last-minute boost that the FBI provided in 2016, according to people familiar with the matter. The conversations among the president and senior aides stem in part from their disappointment that Wray in particular but Barr as well have not done what Trump had hoped -- indicate that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden or other Biden associates are under investigation, these people say.... In the campaign's closing weeks, the president has intensified public calls for jailing his challenger...."

Trump's Planned Election Bribe to Seniors Is "Legally Dubious." Margot Sanger-Katz & Noah Weiland of the New York Times: "A month ago, President Trump surprised much of his own government when he announced in North Carolina that he would soon send $200 discount cards to more than 30 million older Americans to offset the cost of prescription drugs. The promise set off a scramble among health and budget officials unaware that such a policy was being considered.... When many questioned its prudence before an election, they then tried to hand off the president's $8 billion hot potato. Now, less than two weeks before the election, officials acknowledge that Medicare recipients will not be getting their $200 cards this month.... Many of the officials assigned to enact the policy view it as legally dubious. Generally, major changes in Medicare policy require Congress to pass legislation." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: So once again what we have for a president* is a rudderless jerk who blurts out (or tweets) a fantasy project that is probably illegal, but aides have to scramble to try to make it happen. And once again, it most likely won't happen.

Anita Kumar of Politico: "The Trump campaign's last-ditch effort to win back the suburban women fleeing the president in the polls has fallen to one person: Ivanka Trump. In the past six weeks, Trump has made personal appeals for her father at 17 campaign stops, engaging in intimate question-and-answer sessions where she tells stories about the president. She's made stops at local businesses to pose with children in Halloween costumes. She&'s bought cider and doughnuts. She's rolled out bread for baking." Mrs. McC: Sorry I voted early. I'm a suburban woman who might have voted for Trump if I'd seen Ivanka rolling out bread. P.S. I've baked a lot of bread, and you don't normally roll out the dough (although if you were making, say, dinner rolls, you could). Update: It appears Ivanka's electioneering is illegal; as a White House aide, any campaigning she does violates the Hatch Act.

Manu Raju & Paul LeBlanc of CNN: "Sen. Mitt Romney said Wednesday he did not vote for ... Donald Trump's reelection, the latest break between the GOP's 2012 presidential nominee and the leader of his party. The first-term Republican senator, who already voted in Utah, declined to say if he voted for Democratic nominee Joe Biden or wrote in another candidate. But he made clear that Trump did not get his vote."

Alabama. Jessica Gresko of the AP:"The Supreme Court on Wednesday put on hold a lower court order that would have permitted curbside voting in Alabama in November. The justices' vote was 5-3, with the court's three liberals dissenting. As is typical when the Supreme Court acts on an emergency basis, the justices in the majority did not explain their decision. It was not clear how many counties might have offered curbside voting, allowing people to vote from their car by handing their ballot to a poll worker. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a dissent joined by Justice Stephen Breyer and Justice Elena Kagan, described the lower court's order allowing curbside voting in November as 'modest,' and she said she would not have put it on hold."

Florida. WFLA Tampa: "A Trump campaign spokesperson says two men dressed as armed security guards who set up in a tent outside an early voting location in downtown St. Petersburg were not hired by the campaign.... Julie Marcus, the Pinellas County Supervision of Elections, [said in an interview,] 'The Sheriff [Bob Gualtieri] told me the persons that were dressed in these security uniforms had indicated to sheriff's deputies that they belonged to a licensed security company and they indicated -- and this has not been confirmed yet -- that they were hired by the Trump campaign.'... Marcus, a Republican, is running to keep her seat as supervisor after being appointed in May of this year by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Gualtieri, also a Republican, is running for re-election as well.... In the first presidential debate last month, President Trump encouraged his supporters to go to the polls to watch what happens there.... It is illegal in the state of Florida to bring a gun to a polling place, and Gualtieri says intimidation won't be allowed either."

Pennsylvania. Ryan Deto of the Pittsburgh City Paper republished in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star: "A roadside billboard in Fayette County repeating a Republican accusation that Democratic nominee presidential Joe Biden suffers from diminished mental capacity has a deficiency of its own:... 'Biden's dimensia is worsening, he is not fit,' the billboard reads, misspelling 'dementia.' The billboard also repeats two denigrating nicknames that ... Donald Trump has used to refer to the former vice president and his running-mate, U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif. As a matter of policy, the Capital-Star does not repeat those nicknames.... The billboard is owned by Penneco Outdoor Advertising, which is based in Delmont, Pa. in Westmoreland County. The company has a 1-star rating on Google Reviews.... Penneco has a history putting up right-wing billboards." Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. In his commentary below, Akhilleus picks on the spelling-challenged. So mean.

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here: "Tabulating the ages of Americans known to have died of Covid-19, and tallying the number of years they might have lived had they reached a typical life expectancy, the report concluded that the virus had claimed more than 2.5 million years of potential life in the United States." ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Thursday are here. ~~~

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

Lena Sun of the Washington Post: "Federal health officials issued new guidance on Wednesday that greatly expands the pool of people considered at risk of contracting the novel coronavirus by changing the definition of who is a 'close contact' of an infected individual. The change by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is likely to have its biggest impact in schools, workplaces and other group settings where people are in contact with others for long periods of time. It also underscores the importance of mask-wearing to prevent spread of the virus, even as President Trump and his top coronavirus adviser continue to raise doubts about such guidance. The CDC had previously defined a 'close contact' as someone who spent at least 15 consecutive minutes within six feet of a confirmed coronavirus case. The updated guidance, which health departments rely on to conduct contact tracing, now defines a close contact as someone who was within six feet of an infected individual for a total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period, according to a CDC statement Wednesday." The article is free to non-subscribers.

"The Art of the Deal." Christopher Miller of Buzzfeed News: "As the US was bracing for a major wave of seriously ill coronavirus patients in March, President Donald Trump asked President Vladimir Putin in a phone call for help. In response, Moscow sent 45 ventilators and other medical supplies in crates stamped 'From Russia, With Love.' They were part of a lopsided aid deal between the countries that would ultimately see Russia delivering a little more than $1 million worth of supplies to the US in April, followed by the US sending about $5.6 million to Russia over the following two months.... [T]here were problems with the Aventa-M ventilators from the moment they landed and they were never used.... First, the Aventa-M ventilators required an electrical voltage not compatible in the US, meaning they could not be used without an adapter that hospitals did not have. Weeks later, several of the same models caught fire in Russian hospitals, causing the deaths of six people and prompting the government to halt their manufacture. Moreover, they were made by a Russian company under US sanctions.... Now, according to FEMA, they have essentially been tossed in the trash." --s

Erica Werner of the Washington Post: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday downplayed chances of Congress passing a big new economic stimulus bill before the election, even as Democrats voted to block a slimmed-down GOP relief measure in the Senate. The vote in the Senate was 51-44, well short of the 60 votes that would have been needed to advance the approximately $500 billion measure. It was the same outcome as last month, when Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) tried to advance a nearly identical bill in the Senate. McConnell and Senate GOP leaders largely oppose a giant new spending bill in the range of $2 trillion which President Trump has been demanding and Pelosi has been negotiating with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Alabama. Tim Elfrink of the Washington Post: "When Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) ordered a statewide mask mandate in July as coronavirus deaths surged to record levels, her second-in-command blasted the move. 'Wearing a face mask and maintaining social distancing are among the best ways to slow the spread of COVID-19,' tweeted Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth (R) at the time. 'However, it's an overstep that infringes upon the property rights of business owners and the ability of individuals to make their own health decisions.' Now, as Alabama once again sees an alarming rise in covid-19, Ainsworth, 39, announced on Wednesday that he is among the newly confirmed cases." Mrs. McC: So Ainsworth, who is rabidly against abortion, thinks a woman has no right to make her own life-altering health decision about pregnancy even in cases of incest & rape, but people with a deathly illness do have a right to pass it on to others, possibly killing them. And that's why we spell it "freedumb."

Marianne Levine of Politico: "Senate Democrats plan to boycott Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett's Judiciary Committee vote Thursday in an act of protest, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Wednesday. 'We will not grant this process any further legitimacy by participating in a committee markup of this nomination just 12 days before the culmination of an election that is already underway,' the New York Democrat said. The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to vote at 1 p.m. to advance Barrett's nomination to the floor. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said this week that the Senate will hold a final vote on Barrett's nomination Monday. The boycott won't prevent Barrett's nomination from moving ahead, with Republicans on the committee vowing to confirm her." Mrs. McC: Under the Judiciary Committee's rules, the Democratic boycott will mean the committee will not have a quorum, but Republicans will probably go & ahead & change th rules, according to Schumer, who appeared on Rachel Maddow's show Wednesday. ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee were prepared on Thursday to advance the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, planning to skirt the panel's rules and vote to recommend her confirmation as Democrats boycott the session. Though the panel was not scheduled to convene until 9 a.m., all 12 Republicans had already signaled that Judge Barrett had their enthusiastic backing. Their action would set up a vote by the full Senate on Monday to confirm Judge Barrett.... Democrats planned to hold a news conference on the steps of the Capitol galvanizing opposition to the process. Left in their places in th hearing room will be large posters of Americans whose health care coverage they argue could evaporate if Judge Barrett were to side with conservative majority on the court to strike down the Affordable Care Act when it hears a Republican challenge to the law next month."

Stephanie Kirchgaessner of the Guardian, republished in Yahoo! News: "Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the supreme court has prompted former members of her secretive faith group, the People of Praise, to come forward and share stories about emotional trauma and -- in at least one case -- sexual abuse they claim to have suffered at the hands of members of the Christian group.... The historic sexual abuse allegations and claims of emotional trauma do not pertain specifically to Barrett, who has been a lifelong member of the charismatic group, or her family. But some former members who spoke to the Guardian said they were deeply concerned that too little was understood about the 'community' of People of Praise ahead of Barrett's expected confirmation by the Senate next week.... Barrett was not asked about her involvement in People of Praise during her confirmation hearings last week, and has never included her involvement with the group in Senate disclosure forms[.]" --s

Scott Stedman of Forensic News: "Corporate documents exclusively obtained by Forensic News show that the Trump Organization's formal legal advisor who was tapped as Trump's Representative for International Negotiations in the Middle East managed the Delaware LLC with a Chinese bank account recently revealed by the New York Times. The advisor, Jason Greenblatt, was just one of four Trump aides with access to the highly secretive Middle East peace plan, alongside Jared Kushner and two others." --s

Pay No Attention to Donald Trump. Josh Gerstein of Politico: "A federal judge ruled Wednesday that a pair of tweets ... Donald Trump issued earlier this month that appeared to call for the declassification of all documents related to the probe of Russian influence on the 2016 presidential election won't trigger any further release of information to the public. U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton lamented the president's sweeping language, but said a clarification White House chief of staff Mark Meadows submitted to the court Tuesday amounted to a retraction of the tweets." (Also linked yesterday.)

** This Is Extraordinary. Nahal Toosi of Politico: "The Trump administration is considering declaring that several prominent international NGOs -- including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Oxfam -- are anti-Semitic and that governments should not support them, two people familiar with the issue said. The proposed declaration could come from the State Department as soon as this week.... Critics of the possible move also worry it could lead other governments to further crack down on such groups. The groups named, meanwhile, deny any allegations that they are anti-Semitic. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is pushing for the declaration, according to a congressional aide with contacts inside the State Department. Pompeo is eyeing a future presidential run and has taken a number of steps to gain favor with pro-Israel and evangelical voters who make up a key part of Trump's electoral base. But the proposal is drawing opposition from career State Department employees."

American Oversight: "Last week, as the president dredged up his favorite accusations about Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo promised to release the former secretary's emails ahead of the November election. Pompeo scoffed at accusations that the move would be a violation of the Hatch Act, claiming the release would be 'for the sake of transparency.' But professed concerns about transparency have not led to the release of any of his own State Department emails.... American Oversight has submitted dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests for his emails. We've also sued multiple times after the department failed to comply with such requests, and have received not a single email sent from Pompeo's official State Department account. Our litigation has, however, recently produced nearly 400 pages of his personal emails from his time as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. These records not only reveal a problematic amount of official business being conducted over private email -- a major issue of the 2016 presidential election that ... Donald Trump continues to bring up, despite his own administration's rampant disregard for the rules. They also show Pompeo fielding questionable investigation requests as well as the involvement of his wife, Susan Pompeo, in official government activities."

Another Stupid Trump Trick. Ken Vogel & Lara Jakes of the New York Times: "Richard Grenell, a close Trump ally who has served numerous roles in the administration, quietly embarked on a pre-election mission last month that was at least partly intended to persuade President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela to give up power. Mr. Grenell, a vocal and combative supporter of President Trump's re-election campaign, met near Mexico City on Sept. 17 with Jorge Rodríguez, a former Venezuelan vice president and close ally of Mr. Maduro, to facilitate a peaceful transition of power, a White House official said. Had Mr. Maduro agreed to stand down, it could have been a major foreign policy victory for Mr. Trump in the weeks before the election. But there is no evidence that Mr. Grenell's trip had any effect, and it was not clear why Mr. Maduro, a socialist strongman who has maintained power despite international opposition, would suddenly consider stepping down. The trip, which was reported by Bloomberg News on Wednesday night, caught the State Department and even some White House officials off guard and created confusion about its purpose.... Mr. Grenell's trip to Mexico City surprised senior administration officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo."

This Is Extraordinary, Too. Adam Goldman & Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times: "A British former spy recruited by Erik Prince, the security contractor close to the Trump administration, played a central role in a secretive effort to hire dozens of operatives for the conservative group Project Veritas, deposition testimony shows. Job applicants traveled to Wyoming in 2017 for interviews with the former intelligence officer, Richard Seddon, as Project Veritas sought to expand its operations early in the Trump administration, according to a lawsuit deposition.... The new details about Project Veritas show the extent of the group's ambitions to build an intelligence-gathering apparatus to infiltrate Democratic congressional campaigns, labor organizations, news media and other groups. Project Veritas is known for its sting operations aimed at such groups, which have prompted allegations that it has published deceptively edited videos.... Beginning in 2016, Mr. Prince contacted several former intelligence officials -- including Mr. Seddon -- and pitched them on teaching Project Veritas employees how to operate like spies.... Project Veritas claims that its employees are journalists who conduct stings in the long tradition of undercover, muckraking journalism. But court documents show how the group has turned to former soldiers and spies for their operations."

Mrs. McCrabbie: I thought I could get through my fake life as a fake person without linking to anything about Borat. Well, thanks to Rudy, that was a false assumption: ~~~

~~~ Catherine Shoard of the Guardian: "The reputation of Rudy Giuliani could be set for a further blow with the release of highly embarrassing footage in Sacha Baron Cohen's follow-up to Borat. In the film, released on Friday, the former New York mayor and current personal attorney to Donald Trump is seen reaching into his trousers and apparently touching his genitals while reclining on a bed in the presence of the actor playing Borat's daughter, who is posing as a TV journalist.... Even before he reaches into his trousers, Giuliani does not appear to acquit himself especially impressively during the encounter. Flattered and flirtatious, he drinks scotch, coughs, fails to socially distance and claims Trump's speedy actions in the spring saved a million Americans from dying of Covid. He also agrees -- in theory at least -- to eat a bat with his interviewer." There's more. Mrs. McC: This must be a bit of a relief for Jeff Toobin, if being on a par with Rudy can be a relief to anyone. ~~~

     ~~~ "I Was Tucking in My Shirt!" -- Rudy. Matt Wilstein of the Daily Beast: "Rudy Giuliani issued his first public defense after details emerged from his big cameo appearance in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm. While it may look like he was touching himself inappropriately with his hands down his pants in a hotel room alongside an actress posing as a reporter, he swore that he was actually just tucking in his shirt. 'I had to take off the electronic equipment,' Giuliani said in a radio interview on Wednesday. 'And when the electronic equipment came off, some of it was in the back and my shirt came a little out, although my clothes were entirely on. I leaned back, and I tucked my shirt in, and at that point, at that point, they have this picture they take which looks doctored, but in any event, I'm tucking my shirt in. I assure you that's all I was doing." Mrs. McC: This beats "the dog ate my homework." Kudos to Rudy! ~~~

     ~~~ Update: A New York Times story is here. ~~~

~~~ Simon Shuster of Time: At the same time Rudy Giuliani was tooling around Ukraine last year searching for dirt on Joe Biden, "explicit photos and emails purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden were circulating in" the country. The probably-fake proferred documents may (or may not) have been the same ones Rudy claims he got from a Delaware computer repairman & passed on to the New York Post & other right-wing outlets. Mrs. McC: Fortunately for Rudy, as we learned yesterday, it doesn't matter if the docs are real or fake.

Jan Hoffman & Katie Benner of the New York Times: "Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, has agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges and face penalties of roughly $8.3 billion, the Justice Department announced on Wednesday, a move that could pave the way for a settlement of thousands of lawsuits brought against the company for its role in the opioids epidemic. The company's owners, members of the wealthy Sackler family, will pay $225 million in civil penalties. Federal prosecutors said the settlement did not preclude criminal charges against Purdue executives or individual Sacklers. Wednesday's announcement does not conclude the extensive litigation against Purdue, but it does represent a significant advance in the long legal march by states, cities and counties to compel the most prominent defendant in the opioid epidemic to help pay for the public health crisis that has resulted in the deaths of more than 450,000 Americans since 1999, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

It's a Miracle! Pretty Much. Jason Horowitz of the New York Times: "Pope Francis expressed support for same-sex civil unions in remarks made in a documentary that premiered on Wednesday, a significant break from his predecessors that staked out new ground for the church in its recognition of gay people. The remarks, coming from the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, had the potential to shift debates about the legal status of same-sex couples in nations around the globe and unsettle bishops worried that the unions threaten traditional marriage. 'What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered,' Francis said, reiterating his view that gay people are children of God. 'I stood up for that.' Many gay Catholics and their allies outside the church vigorously welcomed the pope's remarks, even as they said they understood Francis's opposition to gay marriage within the church remained absolute." The Washington Post's story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I realize that many people will see this as half- or less-than-half measure, but I'm sure many more are asking, "Is the Pope Catholic?" I think it's a big step toward marriage equality worldwide. Meanwhile, Ken W. is wondering, "What will Amy think?" Good question. Her crummy little church club or sect or whatever it is must be whirling like dervishes.

Way Beyond the Beltway

Greece. Helena Smith of the Guardian: "Behind the bench, before her mostly male audience, as the marathon trial of Golden Dawn entered its last act, supreme court justice Maria Lepenioti ... kept the peace.... [She] has had to pull off an extraordinary balancing act presiding over a case that has put more Nazi leaders and sympathisers in the dock than at any time since Nuremberg.... When historians look back they will see a nation whose political class was slow in dealing with the rightwing menace and a society whose silence was deafening. A police force whose complicity enabled the extremists to act with impunity.... Officers who sympathised with the group, covering up attacks on leftists, migrants and refugees and the LGBTQ community, were among the hearing's 68 defendants. Instead..., 'Justice stepped in where others should have stepped before,' [Maria] Stratigaki [professor of gender studies at Panteion University] told the Guardian. 'And our justice system is full of female judges because it is they who do better at exams and rise to the top.' --safari: Another reason why it's so dangerous McConnell is filling our judgeships with unqualified, right wing ideologues.