The Commentariat -- October 12, 2020

Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "A deeply divided Senate Judiciary Committee will kick off four days of contentious confirmation hearings on Monday for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court, drawing battle lines that could reverberate through the election.... Monday's hearing will begin at 9 a.m., and is expected to take most of the day as each member of the Judiciary Committee gets 10 minutes to deliver an opening statement. Judge Barrett will be the last to speak, and is expected to give a short, mostly biographical statement before taking questions later in the week." ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I'm certain not to watch, but I'll link stories related to the proceedings. Also, how surprising that Trump didn't postpone the hearings so everyone could celebrate Indigenous Heritage Day. Why, he might even have invited Sen. Pocahontas to the White House for the corona cocktail hour to show that he had heh-heh buried the hatchet. ~~~

~~~ The New York Times' live updates of the hearing Monday are here. The Washington Post's live updates are here. CNN's live updates are here. ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: So here's the only part of the hearing I watched. Judge Amy looks very mean:

~~~ Marissa Lang of the Washington Post: "More than a dozen protesters calling on senators to reject the confirmation of ... Judge Amy Coney Barrett were arrested Monday moments before the first day of Senate Judiciary Committee hearings began.... The public was not allowed to watch the hearings in person because of the coronavirus pandemic. Demonstrators instead took their dissent to the entrances of Senate office buildings and the marble steps of the Supreme Court. About 8:45 a.m., anti-Barrett protesters were handcuffed and removed from the doorway of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, where a sit-in was underway. They carried signs and wore cloth face masks bearing the likeness of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.... Across the street, conservative women cheered as they held up signs that said 'confirm Amy' and 'women for Amy.' The group, dotted with maskless students and women holding their children, chanted 'law and order' from behind a police line as officers lifted protesters to their feet, one at a time. For hours, competing chants of 'let the people decide' and 'fill that seat' filled the cold, wet air outside government buildings. Tense debates broke out among members of the two groups as others resorted to shouting."

Presidential Race, Etc.

Paul Sonne of the Washington Post: "When President Trump ... welcomed hundreds of people on Saturday to what resembled a campaign rally on the White House grounds, the guests filed onto the South Lawn past a military band in resplendent red, its horns blasting the tune 'America' from 'West Side Story.' The use of the United States Marine Band for a de facto political rally, where guests donned 'Make America Great Again' hats and 'Blexit' T-shirts -- backing a movement that urges Black Americans to exit the Democratic Party -- marked another instance of the president pushing the boundaries of U.S. law and the military tradition of political neutrality.... Federal regulations bar the use of government resources for, and the coercion of federal employees into, political activities aimed at a candidate's reelection -- and taxpayer-funded military bands cannot be used for campaign events. Members of the U.S. military are prohibited from wearing military uniforms at political campaign events.... 'The United States Marine Band provided musical support for the Peaceful Protest for Law and Order event, an official event on the South Lawn of the White House,' Capt. Joseph Butterfield, a spokesman for the Marine Corps, said in a statement." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: "Pushing the boundaries"? How about "stepping way over the line"? ~~~

     ~~~ Rachel Scott & Will Steakin of ABC News: "Some guests for Saturday's White House event on the South Lawn, which [was] President Donald Trump's first since testing positive for the coronavirus, had their travel and lodging paid for by controversial conservative activist Candace Owens' group BLEXIT, according to emails obtained by ABC News." --s

Kaitlin Collins of CNN: "The Trump campaign released [a] new ad last week after the President was discharged from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center following treatment for Covid-19. The 30-second ad, which is airing in Michigan, touts Trump's personal experience with the virus and uses a quote from [Dr. Anthony] Fauci in an attempt to make it appear as if he is praising Trump's response.... Fauci did not consent to being featured in .. [the] advertisement.... Instead, the nation's leading infectious disease expert told CNN his words were taken out of context. 'In my nearly five decades of public service, I have never publicly endorsed any political candidate. The comments attributed to me without my permission in the GOP campaign ad were taken out of context from a broad statement I made months ago about the efforts of federal public health officials,' Fauci said in a statement provided exclusively to CNN when asked if he agreed to be featured in the ad." ~~~

~~~ Kelly O'Donnell of NBC News: "In the ad, a clip of Fauci plays in which the infectious disease expert says he 'can't imagine that anybody could be doing more.' That comment, however, came from a March interview Fauci conducted with Fox News in which the expert is speaking about the whole of government response, not specifically Trump's efforts.... Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh told NBC News that they will continue to run the ad despite Fauci's objections." Mrs. McC: I suppose at some time between 2009 & 2016, Joe Biden said, "The President did a great job." Expect that to end up in a Trump campaign ad touting Trump. ~~~

~~~ Fadel Allassan of Axios: "The White House refused to allow Anthony Fauci or any of the medical experts on the coronavirus task force to appear on ABC's 'This Week,' host Jon Karl said Sunday.... President Trump has previously faced criticism for silencing Fauci, and White House officials have refused to answer basic questions about President Trump's COVID test results, as it scrambles to respond to an outbreak within its own ranks."

... when Joe Biden was vice president, we had an opportunity to save Kayla Mueller. It breaks my heart to reflect on it, but the military came into the Oval Office, presented a plan. They said they knew where Kayla was. Baghdadi had held her for 18 months, abused her mercilessly before they killed her. But when Joe Biden was vice president, they hesitated for a month. And when armed forces finally went in, it was clear she'd been moved two days earlier. -- Vice President Pence, in remarks during his debate with Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), October 7

There is no evidence that the military presented the plan to the 'Oval Office' and no action was taken by Obama for a month. Moreover, Pence ignored the most detailed report on the rescue mission, which states that Obama approved the plan as soon as it was presented to him in the Situation Room.... Whatever delays took place appear to have happened before Obama learned of the proposed rescue. -- Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post

South Carolina Senate Race. James Arkin of Politico: "South Carolina Democrat Jaime Harrison raised a staggering $57 million in the third quarter of this year, shattering the previous record for a Senate candidate as he seeks to unseat GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham. The haul only increases Harrison's massive financial advantage over Graham, who is seeking a fourth term in the Senate and facing the most competitive reelection race of his career."

California. Look Who's Stealing the Election. Alicia Robinson & Brooke Staggs of the Orange County Register: "The California Secretary of State has received reports in recent days about possible unauthorized ballot drop boxes in Fresno, Los Angeles and Orange counties.... Reports place such boxes at local political party offices, candidate headquarters and churches.... Reports came out Saturday night about a metal box in front of Freedom's Way Baptist Church in Castaic that had a sign matching the one on the Orange County box. The church posted on social media that the box was 'approved and brought by the GOP.' The post said church officials don't have a key to the box and that GOP officials picks up the ballots.... On its website, the Fresno County Republican Party also shared a list of 'secure' ballot collection locations. None are official county drop box sites, with the local GOP instead listing its own headquarters, multiple gun shops and other local businesses." --s  A Washington Post story is here.

Massachusetts. Arsonists for Trump. Teo Armus of the Washington Post: "After several Joe Biden yard signs went missing near his family farm, Dicken Crane decided to do one better. On the sprawling property in the Berkshires, Crane and his employees used more than a dozen bales of hay to erect a giant sign last Thursday in support of the Democratic presidential candidate. Wrapping the bundles in white plastic and stacking them 15 feet high, he wanted to ensure the endorsement stood out to the cars passing by on Route 9.... Police announced Sunday that they had arrested Lonnie Durfee, 49, and charged the local resident with burning personal property."

Nate White, a British writer, explains in the London Daily News what the Brits don't like about Donald Trump. Here's a sample: "He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.... Rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws -- he would make a Trump." Thanks to Ken W. for the link. Mrs. McC: Today we are all Brits.

Michael Rosenwald of the Washington Post finds a way Trump is like Abraham Lincoln, after all: they probably both transmitted deadly diseases to their "body men." This is a terrific story; I recommend it to anyone who has a WashPo subscription.

David Sanger & William Broad of the New York Times: "President Trump's long rants and seemingly erratic behavior last week -- which some doctors believe might have been fueled by his use of dexamethasone, a steroid, to treat Covid-19-- renewed a long-simmering debate among national security experts about whether it is time to retire one of the early inventions of the Cold War: the unchecked authority of the president to launch nuclear weapons. Mr. Trump has publicly threatened the use of those weapons only once in his presidency, during his first collision with North Korea in 2017. But it was his decision not to invoke the 25th Amendment and turn control over to Vice President Mike Pence last week that has prompted concern inside and outside the government. Among those who have long argued for the need to rethink presidents' 'sole authority' powers are former Defense Secretary William J. Perry, considered the dean of American nuclear strategists, who has cited the fragility of a nuclear-weapons control chain and the fear that it can be subject to errors of judgment or failure to ask the right questions under the pressure of a warning of an incoming attack.... The 'sole authority' tradition is unusual among the world's nine nuclear powers; even Russia requires two out of three designated officials to sign off on a nuclear launch."

Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Marshall Cohen, et al., of CNN: "While most of the nation was largely fixated over the past week on ... Donald Trump's coronavirus diagnosis, the President and his allies in right-wing media have been engrossed with something else entirely. Trump, with the help of outlets like Fox News, has been pushing a dishonest narrative in touting intelligence documents that his administration declassified last month on the eve of the first presidential debate. They claimed the information was a supposed smoking gun proving that Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration sought to frame Trump with a Russian collusion scandal. But when examined closely the documents indicate no such thing. In fact, by the Trump administration's own admission, they are based on unverified Russian intelligence that could be totally bogus. Which is to say that the President and Fox News personalities such as Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson are hyping and disseminating information that originates from a foreign adversary to bludgeon top Democratic officials."

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live Covid-19 updates for Monday are here.

Connor O'Brien of Politico: "Regeneron chief executive Leonard Schleifer on Sunday said ... Donald Trump's treatment with the company's experimental antibody cocktail is 'a case of one,'" but stressed ongoing clinical trials still need to show its efficacy. 'The president's case is a case of one, and that's what we call a case report, and it is evidence of what's happening, but it's kind of the weakest evidence that you can get,' Schleifer said in an interview on CBS' 'Face the Nation.'... 'The real evidence has to come about how good a drug is and what it will do on average has to come from these large clinical trials, these randomized clinical trials, which are the gold standard. And those are ongoing,' Schleifer said. 'We've got some preliminary evidence that we've talked with the FDA, and we're going for an emergency use authorization, because we think it's appropriate at this time.' Trump ... was treated with the experimental antibody drug and touted it as a 'cure.'"

Colorado. Bryan Pietsch & Christina Morales of the New York Times: "A private security guard hired by a Denver television news station was being held by the authorities in connection with a fatal shooting that happened on Saturday after opposing rallies between far-right and far-left activists. The guard, Matthew Dolloff, 30, was being investigated for first-degree murder, the Denver Police Department said on Twitter on Sunday. He was being held in the Denver County Jail, according to court records.... The security guard was contracted through the company Pinkerton, Mark A. Cornetta, president and general manager of 9News, said on Saturday.... Mr. Dolloff has never held the required license with Denver to work as a security guard, said Eric Escudero, a spokesman for the city and county licensing department. 'If he was operating as a security guard, he was in violation of the law, he said." The victim was identified as Lee Keltner; he owned a business in Brighton, Colorado.

Oregon. So-Called Liberals Are Idiots, Too. Shane Kavanaugh of the Oregonian: "A group of protesters toppled statues of former presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln and shattered the entrance to the Oregon Historical Society in Portland's South Park Blocks late Sunday before moving into other areas of downtown, smashing storefronts and engaging in other acts of destruction. Police declared the event a riot and ordered people rampaging through the city's streets to disperse but did not directly intervene until nearly an hour after the first statue fell. The crowd scattered when police cruisers flooded the area, and officers in tactical gear appeared to make several arrests. Protest organizers had promoted the event on social media as an 'Indigenous Peoples Day of Rage.'"

Pennsylvania. Jaclyn Peiser of the Washington Post: "Normally, state troopers accompany Pennsylvania's second lady whenever she leaves the house. But on Sunday, when Gisele Barreto Fetterman realized it was her last chance to get golden kiwis on sale at her neighborhood grocery store, she decided to run out for a few minutes on her own. While she waited in line, she said, a woman recognized her as the wife of Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) and began yelling insults at her, including racist slurs. 'She said, "There's that n-word that Fetterman married. You don't belong here. No one wants you here. You don't belong here,"' Fetterman, who was born in Brazil, said in an interview with The Washington Post. Upset and shaken, Fetterman managed to film the woman accosting her again outside her car. She posted a video of the abuse to Twitter Sunday night, along with a description of what happened." Fetterman also snapped a picture of the attacker's license plate.

** Damian Carrington of the Guardian: "One-fifth of the world's countries are at risk of their ecosystems collapsing because of the destruction of wildlife and their habitats, according to an analysis by the insurance firm Swiss Re..., one of the world's biggest reinsurers and a linchpin of the global insurance industry.... Natural 'services' such as food, clean water and air, and flood protection have already been damaged by human activity. More than half of global GDP -- $42tn (£32tn) -- depends on high-functioning biodiversity, according to the report, but the risk of tipping points is growing.... Among the G20 leading economies, South Africa and Australia were seen as being most at risk, with China 7th, the US 9th and the UK 16th." --s

News Lede

New York Times: "Two American economists, Paul R. Milgrom and Robert B. Wilson, were awarded the Nobel in economic science on Monday for improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats -- innovations that have had huge practical applications when it comes to allocating scarce resources. The pair, close collaborators who are both affiliated with Stanford University, have pioneered new auction formats that governments have since used to auction off radio frequency."

The Commentariat -- October 11, 2020

Presidential Race, Etc.

Bill Barrow of the AP: "With the backdrop of a union facility in a key battleground county of Pennsylvania, Joe Biden on Saturday blistered ... Donald Trump as only pretending to care about the working-class voters who helped flip the Rust Belt to the Republican column four years ago. 'Anyone who actually does an honest day's work sees him and his promises for what they are,' Biden told a masked, socially distanced crowd at a training facility for plumbers and other tradespeople.... He lamented 'the most unequal recovery in American history' since COVID-19 ground the economy to a halt in the spring. The investor class and top wage earners are fine, Biden said, 'but what did the bottom half get?' The former vice president and his aides believe it's critical for voters to connect the pandemic to the economy.... Nowhere could Biden's arguments prove more decisive than in Erie County. Long a Democratic bastion, it was among the most populous counties in the nation to flip from the Democratic column to Republicans in 2016.... Erie County rebounded strongly to Democrats in the 2018 midterms."

Just What You'd Expect from a Sickly Dictator. Annie Karni & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "... Mr. Trump, eager to prove he has fully recovered a week after being hospitalized for Covid-19, appeared briefly on Saturday afternoon in front of hundreds of chanting supporters gathered at the White House.... Mr. Trump ... re-enter[ed] the arena with his signature bluster and without any acknowledgment that he might still be contagious to those around him. His short speech, delivered from the Blue Room balcony overlooking the South Lawn, was the first time he has been seen in public since leaving the hospital on Monday. (A television interview with Fox News that aired Friday night had been pretaped.)... But the event ... was uncharacteristically brief.... The gathering ... was not a campaign event, White House officials said, although most attendees wore 'Make America Great Again' red caps, and the president's speech was filled with attacks against his Democratic rival, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.... The White House physician has not released any update about President Trump's health since Thursday, nor has the White House made public the results of his latest coronavirus test, which he claims he took on Friday....

This was the plan. Really.~~~ "In several phone calls last weekend from the presidential suite at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Mr. Trump shared an idea he was considering: When he left the hospital, he wanted to appear frail at first when people saw him, according to people with knowledge of the conversations. But underneath his button-down dress shirt, he would wear a Superman T-shirt, which he would reveal as a symbol of strength when he ripped open the top layer. He ultimately did not go ahead with the stunt."

~~~ A Politico story is here. ~~~

~~~ Toluse Olorunnipa of the Washington Post: "President Trump held his first public event since contracting the novel coronavirus, gathering a crowd of hundreds of supporters at the White House on Saturday despite providing no evidence that he was no longer infectious.... Speaking from the balcony of the building where he is under isolation, Trump continued to downplay the coronavirus pandemic. 'It's going to disappear,' he said, repeating a line he first uttered in February, or more than 213,000 deaths ago. 'It is disappearing.'"

~~~ Update. Jonathan Lemire & Aamer Madhani of the AP: "The White House doctor said Saturday night that ... Donald Trump is no longer at risk of transmitting the coronavirus, a diagnosis that comes as the president prepares to resume campaign rallies and other activities. In a memo released by the White House, Navy Cmdr. Dr. Sean Conley said Trump meets the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention criteria for safely discontinuing isolation and that by 'currently recognized standards' he is no longer considered a transmission risk.... The memo followed Trump's first public appearance since returning to the White House after being treated for the coronavirus." ~~~

~~~ Maeve Reston of CNN: "The latest memo from ... Navy Cmdr. Dr. Sean Conley said that the President has met US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention criteria for 'the safe continuation of isolation.' But it does not say Trump has received a negative coronavirus test since first testing positive for the virus, although that is not a criteria for clearing isolation, according to the CDC.... But the memo's opacity, the inability for reporters to question the doctor and the fact that the White House still will not say when Trump last tested negative before his positive diagnosis only adds to the confusion over his case.... Trump leaned into his law-and-order message in a speech threaded with falsehoods on Saturday that was clearly a campaign rally disguised as a White House event. Trump claimed that if the left gains power, they'll launch a crusade against law enforcement. Echoing his highly inaccurate campaign ads that suggest that Democratic nominee Joe Biden would defund 911 operations and have a 'therapist' answer calls about crime, Trump falsely claimed that the left is focused on taking away firearms, funds and authority from police.... He made no mention of the growing power of right-wing hate and anti-government extremist groups...." See Akhilleus' comment below on the truthiness of Conley's memo. ~~~

     ~~~ Drs. Ezekiel Emanuel & Vin Gupta, in a USA Today op-ed, speculate on Trump's prognosis, based on woefully incomplete information the White House has released.

A Bad Omen for Trump. Tamara Lush of thHouse e AP: "The Villages, [a huge Florida retirement community] where the median age is 66, is built on the American dream of a golden retirement.... Politically, it long has been considered a conservative redoubt, so entrenched that it's a must-stop for any national or statewide Republican running for office. One clear measure of its importance: Vice President Mike Pence's scheduled visit Saturday.... But on Wednesday..., an armada of as many as 500 golf carts gathered at the Sea Breeze Recreation Center to caravan to the nearby elections office, so folks could drop off ballots for [Joe] Biden.... Not only has Florida been slammed by the virus, but also no other demographic has been affected more than older people. About 93% of Florida's 15,100 deaths from the virus have been people 55 and older, and many are scared -- and enraged." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

BUT Trump Has Expanded His Base! Sami Yousafzai of CBS News: "Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told CBS News in a phone interview, 'We hope he will win the election and wind up U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.' The militant group expressed some concern about Mr. Trump's bout with the coronavirus. 'When we heard about Trump being COVID-19 positive, we got worried for his health, but seems he is getting better,' another Taliban senior leader told CBS News."

Just What You'd Expect from a Tinpot Dictator. David Sanger of the New York Times: "President Trump's order to his secretary of state to declassify thousands of Hillary Clinton's emails, along with his insistence that his attorney general issue indictments against Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr., takes his presidency into new territory -- until now, occupied by leaders with names like Putin, Xi and Erdogan. Mr. Trump has long demanded -- quite publicly, often on Twitter -- that his most senior cabinet members use the power of their office to pursue political enemies. But his appeals this week ... were so blatant that one had to look to authoritarian nations to make comparisons. He took a step even Richard M. Nixon avoided in his most desperate days: openly ordering direct, immediate government action against specific opponents, timed to serve his re-election campaign. 'There is essentially no precedent,' said Jack Goldsmith, who led the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel under President George W. Bush... 'but it's no different from what he has been saying since the beginning of his presidency. The only thing new is that he has moved from talking about it to seeming to order it.'"

** Perfect! Blake Montgomery of the Daily Beast: "As Mike Pence spoke to retirees [at the Villages] in Florida on Saturday, a banner towed by a plane flew over his head: 'Pence is why you can't see your grandkids.'" Thanks to Bobby Lee for the lead.

Let's See What GOP Senators Are Saying

Rats ... Sinking Ship. John Harris & Melanie Zanona of Politico: "For Republicans, fearful of a possible electoral disaster just weeks away, it has become safe at last to diss Donald Trump -- or at least to distance themselves from him in unmistakably purposeful ways. A barrage of barbed comments in recent days shows how markedly the calculus of fear has shifted in the GOP. For much of the past four years, Republican politicians were scared above all about incurring the wrath of the president and his supporters with any stray gesture or remark that he might regard as not sufficiently deferential. Now, several of them are evidently more scared of not being viewed by voters as sufficiently independent.... And so far, there's little evidence the strategy is working." The reporters cite how well a number of senators do the backstroke. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

Mississippi. Army of the Confederacy. Ashton Pittman of the Mississippi Free Press: "The day before ... Donald Trump announced Amy Coney Barrett as his U.S. Supreme Court pick, U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith [R-Miss.] said Republican senators would come with'guns loaded' and 'packed' to ensure the president's nominee is confirmed. 'You can expect anything possible in the tactics that (Democrats) can come up with' to delay the vote, the senator from Mississippi told American Family Radio Host Tony Perkins on his Washington Watch radio program on Sept. 25. AFR, a branch of the Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Association, later uploaded the interview to SoundCloud. The senator told Perkins, whose organization the Southern Poverty Law Center calls a hate group, that 'it wouldn't surprise (her) at all' if Democrats try to stop Republicans from confirming Barrett before the election." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

South Carolina. Whistling Dixie. Jessica Glenza of the Guardian: "In a televised campaign event US senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said African Americans and immigrants can 'go anywhere' in his home state but they 'just need to be conservative'. Graham made the comment in a televised 'conversation' with his political rival, former South Carolina Democratic party chair Jaime Harrison, the first African American to serve in the role.... '... To young people out there, young people of color, young immigrants, this is a great state, but one thing I can say without any doubt, you can be an African American and go to the Senate but you just have to share our values.... If you're a young, African American or an immigrant, you can go anywhere in this state, you just need to be conservative, not liberal'." Thanks to Akhilleus for the link.

Ohio. Appeals Court Orders Voter Suppression in Populous Counties. Andrew Tobias of Cleveland.com: "A federal appeals court has agreed to reinstate Ohio's limit on ballot drop boxes at least temporarily while it considers whether to make a more permanent ruling on the case. U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Judges Richard Griffin and Amul Thapar in an order Friday night sharply criticized a Thursday decision from a federal judge in Cleveland who struck down the drop box limit as unconstitutional after early voting had already begun. Griffin and Thapar said Secretary of State Frank LaRose's decision to limit ballot drop boxes, used to store completed absentee ballots, to one site per county was reasonable, and sided with LaRose's arguments that making a change during an election would pose a security risk. They also said legal precedent weighs against making late-stage changes to election procedures through the courts.... Judge Helene White dissented.... Griffin and White are appointees of President George W. Bush, while Thapar is an appointee of ... Donald Trump." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Pennsylvania. Amy Gardner of the Washington Post: "A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Trump campaign in Pennsylvania seeking to block the use of drop boxes as receptacles for mail ballots, require ballot signatures to match voter registration records and allow nonresident poll watchers at polling places, ruling that the president's claims of potential fraud were 'speculative.' In a sharply worded opinion issued Saturday morning, U.S. District Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan of the Western District of Pennsylvania ruled that the Trump campaign has no standing because of the lack of evidence of actual fraud." A CNN report is here.

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live Covid-9 updates for Sunday are here.

The New York Times' live Covid-9 updates for Saturday are here.

Minyvonne Burke of NBC News: "The daily rise in coronavirus cases set new records in six U.S. states and worldwide. Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma and West Virginia all had record single-day increases in cases on Friday, according to NBC News' tally. The World Health Organization meanwhile announced that 350,766 new infections were reported Friday, surpassing by nearly 12,000 a record set earlier in the week. The new cases include more than 109,000 from Europe alone.... Coronavirus cases have nearly doubled over a two-week period in New Mexico, New Hampshire, and Vermont." Mrs. McC: And Donald Trump won't talk about it because Covid-19 is so yesterday. He's cured.

Burgess Everett & Jake Sherman of Politico: "Senate Republicans lashed out at a potential framework for a new coronavirus deal between the Trump administration and Speaker Nancy Pelosi on a conference call Saturday, warning that there was little support for a big spending bill right before the election.... 'There's no appetite right now to spend the White House number or the House number,' said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), according to two sources briefed on the call. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said that giving into Pelosi on anything seen as expansion of Obamacare in the next recovery bill will be seen as 'an enormous betrayal by our supporters,' according to people familiar with the call." Mrs. McC: Yes, boys, what with your humungous tax cut for the rich, there just isn't enough in the piggy bank to come to the aid of ordinary Americans. Funny how it always works out that way.

Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "Pressure is mounting on the leaders of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- from inside and outside the agency -- to speak publicly against the White House's manhandling of C.D.C. research and public health decisions, with career scientists so demoralized they are talking of quitting if President Trump wins re-election. The situation came to a boiling point this week when William H. Foege, a giant in public health who led the C.D.C. under Democratic and Republican presidents, called for its current director, Dr. Robert R. Redfield, to 'stand up to a bully' — he meant Mr. Trump -- even at the risk of being fired. 'Silence becomes complicity,' he said in an interview, after a private letter he wrote to Dr. Redfield leaked to the news media." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Sheila Kaplan of the New York Times: "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention drafted a sweeping order last month requiring all passengers and employees to wear masks on all forms of public and commercial transportation in the United States, but it was blocked by the White House, according to two federal health officials. The order would have been the toughest federal mandate to date aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus, which continues to infect more than 40,000 Americans a day. The officials said that it was drafted under the agency's 'quarantine powers' and that it had the support of the secretary of health and human services, Alex M. Azar II, but the White House Coronavirus Task Force, led by Vice President Mike Pence, declined to even discuss it." Mrs. McC: So mike pence also doesn't care if you get sick & die. Better take your family sleigh over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house this Thanksgiving. Public transportation is a bad bet. (Sorry, forgot to link this earlier.) (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Veronica Stracqualursi of CNN: "Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said he was released from the hospital Saturday morning following treatment for the coronavirus. '... I will have more to say about all of this next week,' the former Republican governor tweeted Saturday.... Christie, who is overweight and asthmatic, checked himself into Morristown Medical Center as a precautionary measure. He remained under doctors' observations for the week and was prescribed the anti-viral drug remdesivir. He had helped Trump prepare for the first presidential debate; no one wore masks during the debate preparation sessions. He had also attended a Supreme Court nomination ceremony for Judge Amy Coney Barrett on September 26, now believed to have been a superspreader event." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

"The Swamp That Trump Built." Nicholas Confessore, et al., of the New York Times: "Campaigning for president as a Washington outsider, Mr. Trump electrified rallies with his vows to 'drain the swamp.' But Mr. Trump ... reinvented [the swamp], turning his own hotels and resorts into the Beltway's new back rooms, where public and private business mix and special interests reign.... As president, he built a system of direct presidential influence-peddling unrivaled in modern American politics.... An investigation by The Times found over 200 companies, special-interest groups and foreign governments that patronized Mr. Trump's properties while reaping benefits from him and his administration.... Just 60 customers with interests at stake before the Trump administration brought his family business nearly $12 million during the first two years of his presidency, The Times found. Almost all saw their interests advanced, in some fashion, by Mr. Trump or his government.... Some of Mr. Trump's patrons lost out to better-favored interests, to the chaos of his White House or to the president's own fleeting attention span.... But whether they won or lost, Mr. Trump benefited financially." The reporters provide many examples. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-Michigan) in a Washington Post op-ed: "When I addressed the people of Michigan on Thursday to comment on the unprecedented terrorism, conspiracy and weapons charges against 13 men, some of whom were preparing to kidnap and possibly kill me, I said, 'Hatred, bigotry and violence have no place in the great state of Michigan.' I meant it. But just moments later, President Trump's campaign adviser, Jason Miller, appeared on national television accusing me of fostering hatred. I'm not going to waste my time arguing with the president. But I will always hold him accountable. Because when our leaders speak, their words carry weight." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

"Justice" in the Age of Trump/Barr. Katie Benner of the New York Times: "The Justice Department suspended all diversity and inclusion training for its employees and managers this week, complying with President Trump's recent executive order to eliminate any training that suggests that implicit racial and gender biases exist in the workplace, according to a memo distributed to the department's executive officers. The guidance, sent on Thursday to Justice Department leaders, seemingly goes further than the president's executive order -- which pertains only to diversity training -- to include work-related programs, activities and events that touch on diversity."

Beyond the Beltway

Colorado. Bryan Pietsch & Concepción de León of the New York Times: "One person was fatally shot in Denver on Saturday against the backdrop of opposing rallies between far-right and far-left activists, though the police did not immediately connect the shooting to the dueling demonstrations. The shooting happened at 3:37 p.m. local time near the courtyard of the Denver Art Museum as the protests were winding down, officials said. A video shows a single shot being fired and several police officers rushing to the scene, shouting, 'Drop the gun!' A man can be seen lying down on the sidewalk as officers surround him. The victim was taken to a hospital, where he later died...." ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: "A private security guard working for a TV station was in custody Saturday after a person died from a shooting that took place during dueling protests in downtown Denver.... The KUSA TV station said on its website that it had contracted the private security guard who was arrested in connection with the shooting." A KUSA story is here.

Way Beyond

Brad Lendon of CNN: "North Korea unveiled what analysts believe to be one of the world's largest ballistic missiles at a military parade celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Workers' Party broadcast on state-run television on Saturday. The massive weapon was carried by an 11-axle truck at the climax of the almost two-hour ceremony and military parade in the capital of Pyongyang. Analysts said the new missile is not known to have been tested, but a bigger weapon would allow North Korea to put multiple warheads on it, increasing the threat it would pose to any targeted foe. 'Largest *road-mobile* liquid-fueled missile anywhere, to be clear," tweeted Ankit Panda..., of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace." Mrs. McC: Just can't figure out why Trump didn't win the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Commentariat -- October 10, 2020

Afternoon Update:

The New York Times' live Covid-9 updates for Saturday are here.

Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "Pressure is mounting on the leaders of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- from inside and outside the agency -- to speak publicly against the White House's manhandling of C.D.C. research and public health decisions, with career scientists so demoralized they are talking of quitting if President Trump wins re-election. The situation came to a boiling point this week when William H. Foege, a giant in public health who led the C.D.C. under Democratic and Republican presidents, called for its current director, Dr. Robert R. Redfield, to 'stand up to a bully' -- he meant Mr. Trump — even at the risk of being fired. 'Silence becomes complicity,' he said in an interview, after a private letter he wrote to Dr. Redfield leaked to the news media."

Sheila Kaplan of the New York Times: "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention drafted a sweeping order last month requiring all passengers and employees to wear masks on all forms of public and commercial transportation in the United States, but it was blocked by the White House, according to two federal health officials. The order would have been the toughest federal mandate to date aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus, which continues to infect more than 40,000 Americans a day. The officials said that it was drafted under the agency's 'quarantine powers' and that it had the support of the secretary of health and human services, Alex M. Azar II, but the White House Coronavirus Task Force, led by Vice President Mike Pence, declined to even discuss it." Mrs. McC: So mike pence also doesn't care if you get sick & die. Better take your family sleigh over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house this Thanksgiving. Public transportation is a bad bet.

"The Swamp That Trump Built." Nicholas Confessore, et al., of the New York Times: "Campaigning for president as a Washington outsider, Mr. Trump electrified rallies with his vows to 'drain the swamp.' But Mr. Trump ... reinvented [the swamp], turning his own hotels and resorts into the Beltway's new back rooms, where public and private business mix and special interests reign.... As president, he built a system of direct presidential influence-peddling unrivaled in modern American politics.... An investigation by The Times found over 200 companies, special-interest groups and foreign governments that patronized Mr. Trump's properties while reaping benefits from him and his administration.... Just 60 customers with interests at stake before the Trump administration brought his family business nearly $12 million during the first two years of his presidency, The Times found. Almost all saw their interests advanced, in some fashion, by Mr. Trump or his government.... Some of Mr. Trump's patrons lost out to better-favored interests, to the chaos of his White House or to the president's own fleeting attention span.... But whether they won or lost, Mr. Trump benefited financially." The reporters provide many examples.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-Michigan) in a Washington Post op-ed: "When I addressed the people of Michigan on Thursday to comment on the unprecedented terrorism, conspiracy and weapons charges against 13 men, some of whom were preparing to kidnap and possibly kill me, I said, 'Hatred, bigotry and violence have no place in the great state of Michigan.' I meant it. But just moments later, President Trump's campaign adviser, Jason Miller, appeared on national television accusing me of fostering hatred. I'm not going to waste my time arguing with the president. But I will always hold him accountable. Because when our leaders speak, their words carry weight."

Ashton Pittman of the Mississippi Free Press: "The day before ... Donald Trump announced Amy Coney Barrett as his U.S. Supreme Court pick, U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith [R-Miss.] said Republican senators would come with 'guns loaded' and 'packed' to ensure the president's nominee is confirmed. 'You can expect anything possible in the tactics that (Democrats) can come up with' to delay the vote, the senator from Mississippi told American Family Radio Host Tony Perkins on his Washington Watch radio program on Sept. 25. AFR, a branch of the Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Association, later uploaded the interview to SoundCloud. The senator told Perkins, whose organization the Southern Poverty Law Center calls a hate group, that 'it wouldn't surprise (her) at all' if Democrats try to stop Republicans from confirming Barrett before the election."

A Bad Omen for Trump. Tamara Lush of the AP: "The Villages, [a huge Florida retirement community] where the median age is 66, is built on the American dream of a golden retirement.... Politically, it long has been considered a conservative redoubt, so entrenched that it's a must-stop for any national or statewide Republican running for office. One clear measure of its importance: Vice President Mike PenceJoe] Biden.... Not only has Florida been slammed by the virus, but also no other demographic has been affected more than older people. About 93% of Florida's 15,100 deaths from the virus have been people 55 and older, and many are scared -- and enraged."

Ohio. Appeals Court Orders Voter Suppression in Populous Counties. Andrew Tobias of Cleveland.com: "A federal appeals court has agreed to reinstate Ohio's limit on ballot drop boxes at least temporarily while it considers whether to make a more permanent ruling on the case. U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Judges Richard Griffin and Amul Thapar in an order Friday night sharply criticized a Thursday decision from a federal judge in Cleveland who struck down the drop box limit as unconstitutional after early voting had already begun. Griffin and Thapar said Secretary of State Frank LaRose's decision to limit ballot drop boxes, used to store completed absentee ballots, to one site per county was reasonable, and sided with LaRose's arguments that making a change during an election would pose a security risk. They also said legal precedent weighs against making late-stage changes to election procedures through the courts.... Judge Helene White dissented.... Griffin and White are appointees of President George W. Bush, while Thapar is an appointee of ... Donald Trump."

Rats ... Sinking Ship. John Harris & Melanie Zanona of Politico: "For Republicans, fearful of a possible electoral disaster just weeks away, it has become safe at last to diss Donald Trump -- or at least to distance themselves from him in unmistakably purposeful ways. A barrage of barbed comments in recent days shows how markedly the calculus of fear has shifted in the GOP. For much of the past four years, Republican politicians were scared above all about incurring the wrath of the president and his supporters with any stray gesture or remark that he might regard as not sufficiently deferential. Now, several of them are evidently more scared of not being viewed by voters as sufficiently independent.... And so far, there's little evidence the strategy is working."

Veronica Stracqualursi of CNN: "Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said he was released from the hospital Saturday morning following treatment for the coronavirus. '... I will have more to say about all of this next week,' the former Republican governor tweeted Saturday.... Christie, who is overweight and asthmatic, checked himself into Morristown Medical Center as a precautionary measure. He remained under doctors' observations for the week and was prescribed the anti-viral drug remdesivir. He had helped Trump prepare for the first presidential debate; no one wore masks during the debate preparation sessions. He had also attended a Supreme Court nomination ceremony for Judge Amy Coney Barrett on September 26, now believed to have been a superspreader event."

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race, Etc.

Quint Forgey of Politico: "The Commission on Presidential Debates on Friday canceled the second pre-election showdown between ... Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden, according to a person familiar with the situation. The debate, initially scheduled for Oct. 15 in Miami, was changed to a virtual format following the president's coronavirus diagnosis last week. Trump and his campaign protested against a virtual debate, calling the change a ploy to help Biden.... The commission said the format change was to ensure the health and safety of everyone involved. In a statement Friday evening, the commission acquiesced to the campaign's protests, writing: 'It is now apparent there will be no debate on October 15, and the CPD will turn its attention to preparations for the final presidential debate scheduled for October 22.' The co-chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates had rejected earlier Friday efforts by Trump's campaign to clear him for in-person participation in the town hall-style forum -- noting that the White House still has not provided basic information about the president's recent coronavirus tests."

Toluse Olorunnipa, et al., of the Washington Post: "... Trump has brushed aside his advisers' calls for caution, instead embracing a political strategy built on playing down the virus and using his own battle with it to argue that the nation has already overcome the pandemic. 'People are going to get immediately better like I did. I mean, I feel better now than I did two weeks ago. It's crazy,' Trump told Rush Limbaugh on his talk radio show Friday, a day when more than 850 Americans died of the coronavirus....The president has claimed to be immune, called his infection with the virus a 'blessing from God' and falsely claimed that a cure exists for a disease that continues to kill thousands of Americans each week. His campaign has continued to hold large indoor events with surrogates, shunning social distancing. It has made little effort to engage in contact tracing after dozens of White House officials and campaign surrogates contracted the disease.... His surrogates have already returned to traveling across the country and holding events that flout public health guidelines. Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. headlined a crowded rally Thursday in Panama City Beach, Fla., with several dozen unmasked people gathered indoors. Vice President Pence has also been holding frequent events, often indoors." ~~~

~~~ Meredith McGraw of Politico: "Guests for Saturday's [South Lawn] event won't be tested for the virus and won't be required to wear masks, setting off fresh concerns that the White House itself has become a vector for the disease.... Trump is resuming his campaign schedule only 10 days after he was first diagnosed with Covid-19, which he acknowledged this week had made him 'very sick' while shrugging off a lingering cough and insisting he now feels 'perfect.'... It's unclear if the president has tested negative since falling ill, or whether he is still contagious."

Trump to Hold a Second White House Super-spreader Event Today. Will Steakin, et al., of ABC News: "... Donald Trump is scheduled to host his first in-person event since testing positive for the coronavirus on Saturday at the White House discussing 'law and order,' despite evidence of a growing coronavirus outbreak at the White House this week.... The gathering is scheduled to take place on the South Lawn of the White House in conjunction with a previously planned event organized by controversial conservative activist Candace Owens' group Blexit, a campaign to urge Black Americans to leave the Democratic Party, sources said. Trump according to a source is expected to address the crowd from the balcony of the White House." Mrs. McC: So it's going to be a Mini-Mussolini event, too! (Or, if you prefer, another Covita moment.) And another gross politicization of the "People's House."

Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump will hold a campaign rally on Monday in Florida, his first time hitting the campaign trail since testing positive for COVID-19. The announcement comes despite the fact that the White House has yet to say whether Trump is still infectious or when he last tested negative for the highly contagious virus that has killed more than 210,000 people in America. The president will gather in Sanford, Fla., with supporters on Monday evening, the campaign announced. Officials have declined to specify whether they would move forward with events regardless of if Trump has tested negative. Trump on Thursday night had floated the possibility of traveling to Florida as early as Saturday. Public health officials advise that an individual who had the virus obtain two negative tests before interacting in public again, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines suggest individuals should remain isolated for 10 days after the onset of symptoms in mild cases and up to 20 days for more severe cases."

Peter Baker, et al., of the New York Times: "Trailing badly in the polls and eager to change the subject from the coronavirus, Mr. Trump succeeded in compelling Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to announce that he would make public the [Hillary Clinton] emails even as Attorney General William P. Barr resisted pressure[*] from the president to prosecute Democrats like former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.... Beyond his public comments, the president has also conveyed to Mr. Barr, directly and through surrogates, that he wanted 'scalps,' according to two government officials familiar with the conversations.... [But] three government officials briefed on the investigation said that they had been told that it was unlikely that John H. Durham, the prosecutor tapped by Mr. Barr to lead the inquiry [of the Russia inquiry], would produce indictments or any other developments that could affect the trajectory of the election before Nov. 3.... Neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Pompeo explained why they ... would seek to prove that Mrs. Clinton was too casual with emails containing classified information by releasing emails containing classified information." ~~~

     ~~~ * Mrs. McCrabbie: I don't think it's accurate to say that Barr "resisted pressure." Andrew Weissmann, a former federal prosecutor on the Mueller team, appeared on MSNBC yesterday & surmised that it was John Durham, not Barr, who "resisted pressure." This was my thought, too, even before Weissman confirmed it.

~~~ When Trump Says "Jump," Pompeo Asks "How High?" Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday vowed to track down and release information regarding tens of thousands of emails former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent and received over a private email server while in office, a day after ... Donald Trump lambasted Pompeo for not having done so. In an interview on Fox News, Pompeo laughed off Trump's criticism from a day earlier, telling anchor Dana Perino that 'we've got the emails, we're getting them out.' He added: 'We'll get all of this information out so the American people can see it.'... During a nearly hourlong interview on Fox Business..., 'Forget about the fact they were classified. Let's go. Maybe Mike Pompeo finally finds them, OK?'... Moments before Pompeo's interview, Trump reiterated his position on Clinton during a marathon, two-hour interview with conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, telling Limbaugh that Clinton 'should be in jail.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Thank goodness Trump is saving us from Hillary Clinton again. I suppose the texts of some of those emails will be interesting to some political scientists & historians and, if they contain classified materials, maybe to some U.S. adversaries. But the rest of us could not care less.

Democrats Have Big Advantage in Absentee Voting, So Far. Reid Epstein, et al., of the New York Times: "The yawning disparities in [absentee] voting across Wisconsin and several other key battlegrounds so far are among the clearest signs yet this fall that the Democratic embrace of absentee voting is resulting in head starts for the party ahead of Election Day. For Republicans, the voting patterns underscore the huge bet they are placing on high turnout on Nov. 3, even as states like Wisconsin face safety concerns at polling sites given the spikes in coronavirus cases.... The Democratic enthusiasm to vote is not limited to Wisconsin. Ballot return data from heavily Democratic cities like Pittsburgh; Chapel Hill, N.C.; and Tampa, Fla., and the long lines of cars waiting at a Houston arena to drop off ballots, are signs that many voters have followed through on their intentions to cast ballots well ahead of Nov. 3. There is still time for Republicans to catch up in many places, and they are expected to vote in strong numbers in person on Election Day.... As of Friday, more than 8.3 million ballots had already been received by elections officials in the 30 states that have made data available." ~~~

~~~ BUT. Danny Hakim & Stephanie Saul of the New York Times highlight the many ways Trump, his campaign & other Republicans have ramped up voter suppression tactics, especially plans for marshaling intimidating poll-watchers. Mrs. McC: It strikes me that one reason to vote absentee is to avoid having some Trumpbot screaming at you & spewing coronavirus beasties while you wait in a long line at your polling place.

South Carolina Senate Race. Jason Easley of Politics USA: "The scheduled Senate debate between Jaime Harrison and Lindsey Graham has been canceled after Graham refused a COVID test." Mrs. McC: Speculation is that Graham is refusing to be tested because he is concerned a positive test would derail the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Amy Coney Barrett. Graham chairs the committee. ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Konstantin Toropin & Chandelis Duster of CNN: "The South Carolina Senate debate scheduled for Friday night between Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and his Democratic challenger Jamie Harrison has changed formats after Graham rejected Harrison's request to take another Covid test. The two candidates will now 'take part in individual interviews ... where they will be asked a series of questions from the forum moderator and panelists,' a live blog for the forum, which is hosted by local TV station WSPA, announced.... The announcement comes after Harrison issued a statement on Thursday stating he would not debate in person if Graham -- the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who attended an October 1 hearing with Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican who tested positive for the virus last week -- did not get a Covid test. In the statement, Harrison said he, the moderators and the panelists all agreed to get tested and questioned why Graham would not.

Pennsylvania. Matt Wargo & Maura Barrett of NBC News: "A Philadelphia judge has denied President Trump's campaign the right to have poll watchers inside the city's satellite elections offices. A spokesperson for the Trump campaign tells NBC News that they immediately appealed the decision, calling it 'irresponsible.'"

Texas. Chuck Lindell of the Austin-American Statesman: "A federal judge issued an order Friday night barring enforcement of Gov. Greg Abbott's Oct. 1 proclamation that limited counties to one mail-in ballot drop-off location." Mrs. McC: No link. The Statesman is subscriber-firewalled, & I can't find another source for a report, but it's a new story (Friday night), so surely one will pop up. U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman said Abbott's order placed an unacceptable burden on the voting rights of elderly and disabled Texans, who are most likely to request a mail-in ballot and to hand deliver those ballots early to ensure that they are counted. These voters are also particularly vulnerable to COVID-19, the judge said.... 'By forcing absentee voters to risk infection with a deadly disease to return their ballots in person or disenfranchisement if the (Postal Service) is unable to deliver their ballots in time, the October 1 Order imposes a burden on an already vulnerable voting population,' he said. This is a developing story." ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Republicans Determined to Suppress Democratic Vote. Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The state of Texas is appealing a federal judge's ruling that overturned Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's order limiting absentee ballot drop-off sites to one per county.... Within hours of [Judge Robert] Pitman's ruling, Texas Secretary of State Ruth Hughs appealed to the New Orleans-based 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals."

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

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

Must-Not-Watch TV. Jamie Ross of the Daily Beast: "... Donald Trump is apparently going to have a 'medical evaluation' on television. In an announcement from Fox News, the network said Trump is set to do his first on-camera interview since his COVID-19 diagnosis with Tucker Carlson tonight. But, in a significantly more interesting bit of the announcement, Fox News confirmed: 'Dr. Marc Siegel will conduct a medical evaluation and interview during the program.'.... Despite his insistence that he's totally fine, Trump hacked and coughed his way through a phone interview with Fox on Thursday night." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Ted Johnson of Deadline: "Donald Trump went through a reality TV-like 'medical evaluation' with Dr. Marc Siegel on Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tonight, and claimed that he was medication free and that he was recently retested for COVID-19.'I haven't found out numbers or anything yet, but I have been retested and I know that I am at either of the bottom of the scale or free,' Trump said in his first on-camera interview since testing positive for the coronavirus on Oct. 1. But there still were a number of questions that were unanswered, in part because Siegel didn't ask them. Chief among them was when Trump last tested negative before he tested positive for the coronavirus last week. That is information that the White House has declined to release. Trump's appearance was billed as an on-camera 'medical evaluation,' with Siegel asking about the president's symptoms and recovery. But the segment largely was a traditional interview. 'I feel really good. I feel very strong,' said Trump, appearing at the White House as Siegel was in studio." The New York Times story, by Annie Karni, is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: As far as I can tell, every single "medical evaluation" Trump has "released" to the public has been one he himself reported, dictated or substantially restricted. News reports should matter-of-factly describe Trump's medical condition as "unknown, but dire & humiliating."

Dr. Trump, Medicine Man, & His Miracle Cure. A. G. Gancarski of Florida Politics: Donald Trump told Rush Limbaugh Friday, "'We have a cure' for COVID-19, he told the conservative talk master. 'We have a cure, some call it a therapeutic. I call it a cure that most have never heard of that's going to be out very soon,' Trump assured Limbaugh in the noon hour. 'I was in not great shape, but we had a medicine that healed me,' Trump said of the Regeneron antibody cocktail he was given at Walter Reed Hospital this week. That cure will be widely available soon, Trump asserted. 'Hundreds of thousands of vials are being sent to hospitals all over the country.... We can go into hospitals and clean up the hospitals,' Trump said. 'I had a meeting with the doctors today. These eleven guys, they showed me stats, it was amazing.... We're sending that to all our hospitals,' Trump said. 'This is stuff that's so good it wiped out the virus.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Kathryn Watson & Steven Portnoy of CBS News: "Dr. Anthony Fauci said in an interview with CBS News that referring to a cure for COVID-19 may cause 'confusion,' and he also weighed in on the health status of President Trump, who contracted the virus but is eager to return to in-person events as the presidential campaign reaches its closing weeks. Fauci also identified the White House ceremony for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett as a 'super spreader' event.... '"We had a super-spreader event in the White House and it was in a situation where people were crowded together and were not wearing masks. So the data speak for themselves.'"

Phil Mattingly & Ted Barrett of CNN: "... Donald Trump has signed off on a roughly $1.8 trillion stimulus offer to be presented to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, according to two people with knowledge of the decision, marking the highest topline dollar figure the administration has put on the table to this point. The direct involvement of Trump himself and his willingness to put down an offer far above the preferences of congressional Republicans adds a dynamic new element to long-stalled negotiations.... The $1.8 trillion figure is up from a $1.6 trillion offer from earlier this week, though it remains below the $2.2 trillion in the bill passed last week by House Democrats -- and Pelosi has been unwilling to go below $2 trillion in negotiations up to this point, people familiar with the matter say. The details in the offer remain as important, if not more so, than the topline dollar figure.... And the President appeared to undermine his own proposal Friday afternoon when he said that he would like to see a bigger stimulus than what is currently being put forth by either Democrats or his administration." Emphasis added. ~~~

~~~ Sarah Ferris, et al., of Politico: "Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin delivered a $1.8 trillion proposal to Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday -- the GOP's most substantial offer yet to Democrats, just days after Trump declared the talks were over until after the November election.... But even if the two reach an agreement on a stimulus package, Pelosi and Mnuchin will be facing strong headwinds in the GOP-controlled Senate, where Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been skeptical of the prospects of muscling through a massive bill this month. McConnell reiterated Friday that it was 'unclear' whether a deal would get through before Nov. 3 and emphasized that the Senate's priority is the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court."

Mike Lillis of the Hill: "House Democrats on Friday unveiled legislation creating a panel to gauge a president's capacity to perform the job -- and potentially remove the commander in chief from office in cases of decided debility. The commission would be permanent, applying to future administrations, but it's a clear shot at President Trump, whose treatments for the coronavirus have raised questions about their effects on his mental acuity. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a sharp critic of the president, has fueled those questions in the the days since Trump returned to the White House after three nights in the hospital, floating the idea that Trump's drug regimen -- which includes a steroid linked to mood swings -- might be affecting his decisionmaking.... The Democrats' legislation invokes the 25th Amendment, which empowers Congress to create 'a body' which, working with the vice president, can remove a president deemed 'unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.' Sponsored by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a former professor of constitutional law, the bill would create a 17-member panel charged with judging the president's fitness -- and empowered to remove that figure when deficiencies are determined. In such a case, the vice president would take over. 'This is not about President Trump; he will face the judgment of the voters,' Pelosi told reporters Friday. 'But he shows the need for us to create a process for future presidents.' The proposal has no chance of being enacted...." The Washington Post's story is here.

Susanne Craig, et al., of the New York Times: Donald Trump's "long-hidden tax records, obtained by The New York Times..., reveal ... how [-- in 2016 --] he engineered a sudden financial windfall -- more than $21 million in what experts describe as highly unusual one-off payments from the Las Vegas hotel he owns with his friend the casino mogul Phil Ruffin.... In [his presidential campaign's] waning days, as his own giving had slowed to a trickle, Mr. Trump contributed $10 million, leaving many people wondering where the burst of cash had come from....[It may have been an illegal campaign contribution, laundered through the venture with Ruffin.] The bulk of the [$21 million windfall] went through a company called Trump Las Vegas Sales and Marketing that had little previous income, no clear business purpose and no employees. The Trump-Ruffin joint venture wrote it all off as a business expense [which] ... could be legally problematic.... Mr. Trump's tax records reveal that when he decided to leverage his brand in the political arena, its true bottom line bore little resemblance to the gold-plated success story he was hawking to the American people. Most of his core businesses were losing money.... Mr. Trump was furiously moving money, his tax records show." After he became president*, "the Transportation Department's Credit Council approved the sale of $1 billion in tax-free bonds" to a bullet-train project in which Ruffin maintained an interest.

Joshua Partlow, et al., of the Washington Post: "Five years ago, Donald Trump promised to preserve more than 150 acres of rolling woodlands in an exclusive swath of New York suburbia.... In exchange for setting aside this land on his estate known as Seven Springs, Trump received a tax break of $21.1 million, according to court documents. The size of Trump's tax windfall was set by a 2016 appraisal that valued Seven Springs at $56.5 million -- more than double the value assessed by the three Westchester County towns that each contained a piece of the property. The valuation has now become a focal point of what could be one of the most consequential investigations facing President Trump as he heads into the election. New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) is investigating whether the Trump Organization improperly inflated the value of Seven Springs as part of the conservation easement on the property.... The investigation also scrutinizes valuations, tax burdens and conservation easements at Trump's holdings in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City.... The Seven Springs appraisal ... appears to have relied on unsupported assertions and misleading conclusions that boosted the value of Trump's charitable gift -- and his tax break.... [Trump's appraiser] established the value of the 212-acre estate by assuming a future buyer could build and sell 24 mansions on the land, without providing evidence that such a subdivision would meet local regulations" [and there was ample evidence it would not].

Andrew Kaczynski & Em Steck of CNN: "Judge Amy Coney Barrett failed to disclose two talks she gave in 2013 hosted by two anti-abortion student groups on paperwork provided to the Senate ahead of her confirmation hearing to become the next Supreme Court justice. Barrett..., Donald Trump's nominee to succeed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, gave the talks -- a lecture and a seminar -- in 2013 in her capacity as a law professor at the University of Notre Dame. The seminar was co-sponsored by the school's Right to Life club and constitutional studies minor.... CNN's KFile found advertisements for two lectures on social media and in a weekly Notre Dame faculty newsletter. It is not known what was said in the two events, though both centered on abortion court cases. In a separate instance, CNN's KFile found a publicized talk that Barrett gave to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade -- a seminar Barrett disclosed in her Senate paperwork -- was removed by the university from YouTube in 2014. A school spokesman told CNN the video is now lost.

Kim Bellware, et al., of the Washington Post sort of profile some of the men who allegedly planned to kidnap, try & perhaps kill Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, as well as carrying on other mayhem in order to take over the Michigan government." Mrs. McC: I doubt many of them excelled in their school civics classes.

News Lede

Weather Channel: "More than 800,000 Gulf Coast homes and businesses were left without power Saturday morning as the remnants of Hurricane Delta continued to push inland across Louisiana and into the South. Delta, now a tropical storm, already dumped record amounts of rain in some parts of the state, causing flash flooding that stranded cars, made roads impassable and sent water into homes. More than a foot of rain fell in parts of Lake Charles, Louisiana."