The Ledes

Thursday, October 10, 2024

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

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

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

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

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The Ledes

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

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

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

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

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

Sorry, forgot this yesterday: ~~~

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

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Public Service Announcement

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click on photo to enlarge.

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

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

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

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Dec172020

The Commentariat -- December 18, 2020

Afternoon Update:

The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here: "Vice President Pence and second lady Karen Pence got the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at the White House on Friday, on live TV in an effort to vouch for the vaccine’s safety and efficacy." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: And MSNBC is reporting that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, third in line to the presidency, has received her first vaccination.

Mike Allen & Jonathan Swan of Axios: "Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller ordered a Pentagon-wide halt to cooperation with the transition of President-elect Biden, shocking officials across the Defense Department, senior administration officials tell Axios.... A top Biden official was unaware of the directive. Administration officials left open the possibility cooperation would resume after a holiday pause. The officials were unsure what prompted Miller's action, or whether President Trump approved.... Miller's move ... was the biggest eruption yet of animus and mistrust toward the Biden team from the top level of the Trump administration.... In a statement released after the publication of this story, Miller said: 'At no time has the Department cancelled or declined any interview.... After the mutually-agreed upon holiday, which begins tomorrow, we will continue with the transition and rescheduled meetings from today.'"

Jeff Stein, et al., of the Washington Post: "Congress appears likely to let funding for the federal government expire Friday at midnight, triggering the beginning of a shutdown, as lawmakers scramble to complete a $900 billion economic relief package, multiple aides and lawmakers involved in deliberations.... Lawmakers had hoped to introduce the relief legislation as early as Thursday but have been delayed by numerous contentious issues, particularly a push from Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) to curb the emergency lending authority of the Federal Reserve.... The nation would face a ... significant disruption if the federal shutdown continued on Monday, when shutdown orders would go into effect." Politico has a related story here.

Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post: "We are not off to a good start in the coverage of the Republican Party in the post-Trump era.... It is time to stop giving air to Republicans' phony outrage and to hold them accountable for their own language and conduct on race and gender. First, as a general rule, when Republicans say they are upset or outraged, they almost never are. They do not care about foul language (after four years of President Trump), or about deficits (after four years of Republican government), or comity in the Senate (after more than four years being led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky). The media should stop taking seriously politicians' harping, especially from those who have lied about the election, about Trump's record, about Trump's own words and about their knowledge of Trump's words. Second, it is no coincidence that the Republican or right-wing columnists who complain about Democratic women are almost always men.... Third, throughout the last four years, the media seemed to gloss over the appalling lack of diversity in Republican ranks."

Supremes (More or Less) Decide Not to Decide. Again. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's plan to exclude unauthorized immigrants from the calculations used to allocate seats in the House, saying it was premature. The court's ruling handed the Trump administration an interim victory, allowing it to continue to pursue an effort that could shift the allotment of both congressional seats and federal money to states that are older, whiter and typically more Republican.... 'We express no view on the merits of the constitutional and related statutory claims presented,' the opinion said. 'We hold only that they are not suitable for adjudication at this time.' The court's three liberal members dissented. They said the case was far enough along for a decision and that they would have ruled the plan unlawful."

Annals of "Journalsim," Ctd. David Folkenflik of NPR: "The New York Times has retracted the core of its hit 2018 podcast series Caliphate after an internal review found the paper failed to heed red flags indicating that the man it relied upon for its narrative about the allure of terrorism could not be trusted to tell the truth. The newspaper has reassigned its star terrorism reporter, Rukmini Callimachi, who hosted the series. Caliphate relayed the tale about the radicalization of a young Canadian who went to Syria, joined the Islamic State and became an executioner for the extremist group before escaping its hold. Canadian authorities this fall accused the man, Shehroze Chaudhry, of lying about those activities. He currently faces criminal charges in a federal court in Ontario of perpetrating a terrorism hoax.... Caliphate made a huge splash for The Times, winning awards, acclaim, new listeners for its podcasts and new paying subscribers. And it further propelled Callimachi into the journalistic stratosphere.... The Times resisted revisiting Chaudhry's story until his arrest this fall, when Canadian officials charged him with lying about participating in terrorist activities. It then published the findings into Chaudhry's activities by its distinguished national security reporter, Mark Mazzetti, who cast significant doubt on the Canadian's claims." ~~~

~~~ Mark Mazzetti, et al., of the New York Times: "... Shehroze Chaudhry, the central figure in the 2018 podcast 'Caliphate,' by The New York Times, was a fabulist who spun jihadist tales about killing for the Islamic State in Syria, Canadian and American intelligence and law enforcement officials contend. Mr. Chaudhry, they say, was not a terrorist, almost certainly never went to Syria, and concocted gruesome stories about being an Islamic State executioner as part of a Walter Mitty-like escape from his more mundane life in a Toronto suburb and in Lahore, Pakistan, where he spent years living with his grandparents." ~~~

~~~ Marc Tracy, et al., of the New York Times: "After an internal review that took more than two months, The New York Times has determined that 'Caliphate,' its award-winning 2018 podcast, did not meet the standards for Times journalism. The 12-part audio documentary featuring Rukmini Callimachi, a Times correspondent who has frequently reported from conflict zones, sought to shed light on the Islamic State terrorist group. The Times found that 'Caliphate' gave too much credence to the false or exaggerated accounts of one of its main subjects, Shehroze Chaudhry, a resident of Canada who claimed to have taken part in Islamic State executions. Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The Times, said the blame fell on the newsroom's leaders, including himself.... The Times started its review of 'Caliphate' after Canadian authorities arrested Mr. Chaudhry on Sept. 25 and charged him with perpetrating a terrorist hoax. In an Editors' Note on Friday, The Times said its investigation had 'found a history of misrepresentations by Mr. Chaudhry and no corroboration that he committed the atrocities he described in the "Caliphate" podcast.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Funny, I don't see anything in the reporting about how the Times is going to return the awards -- including a Peabody -- it received for its fake reporting.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here: "After accelerating through the fall, the coronavirus is spreading in the United States at a consistently rapid rate, with each day bringing an average of more than 200,000 new reported cases.... The total number of confirmed infections surpassed 17 million on Thursday, five days after eclipsing the 16-million mark.

S.N.A.F.U. Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post: "Officials in multiple states said they were alerted late Wednesday that their second shipments of Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine had been drastically cut for next week, sparking widespread confusion and conflicting statements from Pfizer and federal officials about who was at fault.... A senior administration official ... said the revised estimates were the result of states' requesting an expedited timeline.... But Pfizer released a statement Thursday ... saying, 'We have millions more doses sitting in our warehouse but, as of now, we have not received any shipment instructions [from the federal government] for additional doses.'... Another person involved in the planning ... said Pfizer executives were baffled that the administration was not immediately distributing all of its vaccine, instead leaving much of it on the shelves." An AP story is here.

Denise Grady, et al., of the New York Times: "As the nation buckled from uncontrolled spread of the disease, with 3,611 deaths on Wednesday setting yet another horrific record, a panel of independent experts recommended by a vote of 20 in favor and one abstention, that the Food and Drug Administration authorize the Moderna vaccine for emergency use. The formal decision, expected on Friday, would clear the way for some 5.9 million doses to be shipped around the country starting this weekend.... The Moderna vaccine can be distributed more widely because it can be stored at normal freezer temperatures and, unlike the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, does not require ultracold storage. It also comes in much smaller batches, making it easier for hospitals in less populated areas to use quickly." A CNN story is here.

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

One-Man Superspreader. Celine Castronuovo of the Hill: "Department of Interior Secretary David Bernhardt has tested positive for COVID-19 following days of meetings with political appointees, a department spokesman confirmed to The Washington Post Wednesday. Interior spokesman Nicholas Goodwin told the Post in an email that Bernhardt, 51, received the diagnosis ahead of a scheduled Cabinet meeting with President Trump Wednesday, which Bernhardt did not attend following his positive test."

Sarah Mucha & Kate Sullivan of CNN: "Louisiana Rep. Cedric Richmond, who will join the incoming Biden administration as a White House senior adviser and director of the Office of Public Engagement, tested positive for Covid-19, Biden transition spokesperson Kate Bedingfield said Thursday in a statement. Richmond recently traveled to Atlanta for a Tuesday campaign event for the Senate runoff elections in Georgia, where President-elect Joe Biden was also present. Bedingfield said that Biden on Thursday underwent PCR testing for Covid-19 and the virus was not detected. 'Richmond's interactions with the President-elect happened in open air, were masked and totaled less than 15 consecutive minutes, the CDC's timeframe for close contact,' Bedingfield said."

Tuning Out Covid. Neal Rothschild of Axios: "States that voted for President Trump tend to have high coronavirus caseloads compared to how much COVID content they read online, while the opposite is true of states that voted for President-elect Biden, according to ... social media management platform SocialFlow.... The trend highlights a widespread rejection of coronavirus news and information in states that supported Trump, even in areas where the virus has gotten particularly deadly."

Fred Imbert of CNBC: "Jobless claims unexpectedly rose last week as states reimposed coronavirus restrictions as lawmakers struggle to push through new government aid, according to a Labor Department report Thursday. The number of first-time unemployment-benefits filers totaled 885,000 in the week ending Dec. 12, the most since the week of Sept. 5. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected initial claims to fall to 808,000. Initial claims for the previous week were revised higher by 9,000 to 862,000."

Sweden. Reuters: "Sweden's king said his country had failed in its handling of COVID-19, in a sharp criticism of a pandemic policy partly blamed for a high death toll among the elderly. Carl XVI Gustaf, whose son and daughter-in-law tested positive last month, used an annual royal Christmas TV special to highlight the growing impact of the virus, in a rare intervention from a monarch whose duties are largely ceremonial. Sweden has stood out from most countries by shunning lockdowns and face masks, leaving schools, restaurants and businesses largely open and relying mainly on voluntary social distancing and hygiene recommendations to slow the spread. An official commission said on Tuesday systemic shortcomings in elderly care coupled with inadequate measures from the government and agencies contributed to Sweden's particularly high death toll in nursing homes."

More Real News

This is looking like it's the worst hacking case in the history of America. They got into everything. -- U.S Official ~~~

~~~ "A Grave Risk." David Sanger & Nicole Perlroth of the New York Times: "Federal officials issued an urgent warning on Thursday that hackers, who American intelligence agencies believed were working for the Kremlin, used a far wider variety of tools than previously known to penetrate government systems, calling the cyberoffensive 'a grave risk to the federal government.' The discovery suggests that the hacking, which now appears to have extended to the Energy Department agency that designs nuclear weapons and the federal agency that protects the nation's power grid, vastly complicates the challenge for federal investigators as they search through computer networks trying to assess the damage and understand the scope of what had been stolen. A central question is whether the access could go beyond espionage, to destructive attacks.... Minutes after the statement from the cybersecurity arm of the Department of Homeland Security, President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. issued a strong statement -- especially in comparison with Mr. Trump, who has said nothing about the attacks. Mr. Biden warned that his administration would impose 'substantial costs' on those responsible.... After playing down the episode -- in addition to Mr. Trump's silence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has deflected the hacking as one of the many daily attacks on the federal government, suggesting China was the biggest offender -- the government's new alert left no doubt the assessment had changed." ~~~

     ~~~ Politico broke the story. The Washington Post's story is here. More under "The Last Days...." ~~~

~~~ Ben Fox of the AP: "Members of Congress said they feared that taxpayers' personal information could have been exposed because the IRS is part of Treasury, which used SolarWinds software. Tom Kellermann, cybersecurity strategy chief of the software company VMware, said the hackers are now 'omniscient to the operations' of federal agencies they've infiltrated 'and there is viable concern that they might leverage destructive attacks within these agencies' in reaction to U.S. response. Among the business sectors scrambling to protect their systems and assess potential theft of information are defense contractors, technology companies and providers of telecommunications and the electric grid. A group led by CEOs in the electric power industry said it held a 'situational awareness call' earlier this week to help electric companies and public power utilities identify whether the compromise posed a threat to their networks." ~~~

~~~ Anne Gearan, et al., of the Washington Post: "Democrats and some Republicans raised the alarm Thursday about a massive and growing cybersecurity breach that many experts blame on Russia, with President-elect Joe Biden implicitly criticizing the Trump administration for allowing the hacking attack to occur. 'We need to disrupt and deter our adversaries from undertaking significant cyber attacks in the first place,' Biden said in a statement. 'Our adversaries should know that, as president, I will not stand idly by in the face of cyber assaults on our nation.'... The president's silence about an organized attack on the U.S. government marks the latest example of his persistent reluctance to criticize Russia.... Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) ... assailed the administration's handling of the attack." Here's Biden's full statement.

Hamed Aleaziz of BuzzFeed News: "Nearly a dozen immigrants arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement were kept in solitary confinement for more than two months, including two people who were isolated for more than 300 days, according to a draft Department of Homeland Security Inspector General's report obtained by BuzzFeed News. The draft, which highlighted a February inspection of the Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Calexico, California, also documented how food at the facility had expired and gone moldy."

Rebecca Beitsch of the Hill: "Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) has been selected to lead the Interior Department in President-elect Joe Biden's administration, making history as the first Native American tapped for a Cabinet position. Haaland, who has been backed by a number of progressive groups as well as tribes, would take over a sprawling, 70,000-person agency with a mandate from Biden to help deliver on his climate promises. If confirmed by the Senate, Haaland would likely deliver a significant turnaround for an agency that has rolled back environmental and endangered species protections and expanded oil and gas drilling. Biden has pledged to bar any new oil and gas leasing on public lands -- an effort likely to require action from Interior." * The New York Times story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ * Marie: Yeah But. We did have a Native American vice president.

Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. will nominate Michael S. Regan, secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, according to three people on the Biden transition team. Mr. Regan became Mr. Biden's top choice only in recent days, two people familiar with the selection process said.... A longtime air quality specialist at the E.P.A. working under both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, Mr. Regan later worked for the Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit advocacy group. In 2017, Roy Cooper, a Democrat, defeated Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, in North Carolina and tapped Mr. Regan to lead the state environmental agency. There he replaced Donald R. van der Vaart, a Trump administration ally who has questioned the established science of climate change and fought Obama-era rules limiting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and championed a pro-business agenda of deregulation in North Carolina. Supporters of Mr. Regan said he improved low morale and emphasized the role of science at the department. Several called it an obvious parallel to what he would be expected to do at E.P.A." MB: As to Regan's improving morale, the photo of Regan that accompanies the article depicts a man who could make me smile on my worst day. Politico's story is here.

Marie: Joe Biden's administration really is going to "look like America," and it will come as a shock to white Americans. White Americans' answer to Stephen Colbert's "I don't see color" is "The only color I see is white."

Marina Pitofsky of the Hill: "Jennifer Horn, the former chairwoman of the New Hampshire Republican Party and a co-founder of the anti-Trump GOP group The Lincoln Project, announced Thursday in a new op-ed that she is leaving the Republican Party as President Trump and his allies continue their efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election. Horn said she 'became a Republican' because she viewed the party's values as 'a voice for equality, freedom and constitutional conservatism, with a rich history of fighting for what was right because it was right.... For the past five years, however, I have found myself fighting for what I thought were the principles of my party in the face of the ever-deteriorating character and integrity of party representatives,' Horn wrote in the op-ed published Thursday by USA Today. 'They have revealed their impotence and decrepitude as they have fallen, one by one, at the feet of the most corrupt, destructive and unstable president in the history of our country.'"

Supremes Decide Not to Decide. Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Thursday denied a Kentucky Christian academy's plea that it should be exempt from the governor's order requiring all K-12 institutions to temporarily cease in-person classes because of rising coronavirus cases. The Danville Christian Academy, joined by Kentucky's attorney general [R], said it should not be compared to other schools, but to businesses that have been allowed to remain open with reduced capacities, and doing otherwise was a violation of religious rights. But the court, in an unsigned order, noted that schools are about to begin their holiday breaks, and Gov. Andrew Beshear's mandate expires before schools reopen Jan. 4. If Beshear (D) reissues the restriction, the court said, the plaintiffs could return to court. Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch ... agreed with the Christian schools' argument that they were being treated differently than businesses." The New York Times' story is here.

Joanna Walters of the Guardian: "Two of a group of billionaire Sackler family members that own Purdue Pharma, the US pharmaceutical manufacturer of the prescription painkiller OxyContin, refused to apologize for their role in the opioids crisis that has killed almost half a million Americans, during a hearing in Washington on Thursday. Kathe Sackler and David Sackler, former board members of Purdue, both said sorry for the pain endured by individuals suffering from addiction and those who lost loved ones to overdoses, but they avoided admitting any personal culpability. It was the first time members of the family faced such public scrutiny in person for their alleged role in the opioid epidemic.... The House committee hearing is part of a congressional investigation into 'the role of Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family in the opioid epidemic'."

The Last Days of the Mad Kaiser

As it was in the beginning ...AWOL, as Usual. Kevin Liptak of CNN: "When ... Donald Trump convened his Cabinet at the White House Wednesday as Washington absorbed news of a massive data breach, the heads of most agencies relevant to the intrusion -- including the Department of Defense, the State Department, the Justice Department, the director of national intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency -- were absent. After the meeting, Trump said nothing about the attack, which went undetected by his administration's intelligence agencies for months. As those agencies now mobilize to assess the damage..., the President himself remains silent on the matter, preoccupied instead with his election loss and his invented claims of widespread voter fraud. The massive data breach, revealed in the final weeks of Trump's administration, amounts to a dramatic coda for a presidency clouded by questions of deference to Russia and unsuccessful attempts to warm relations with its President, Vladimir Putin. Just as he has largely ignored the latest surge in coronavirus cases, Trump appears to have all but abdicated responsibility in his final weeks in office." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I don't think Trump ever grasped, even for a minute, that the presidency is the most burdensome job in the U.S. He always thought it was about pomp, perks & parades. He thought it was about bossing everybody around & his "Article II right to do whatever I want." While he did hold the title of "president," he never, ever was president. ~~~

     ~~~ Red Painter of Crooks & Liars: "Was this Donald Trump's final payment to Putin? Turning a blind eye to the literal hack of our national secrets, including nuclear weapons? We were worried about him selling national secrets and intelligence AFTER he left office. No one considered he would let it happen while he was STILL IN OFFICE." MB: I don't think Trump gave away all of our secrets on purpose; I think he did it through wilful negligence and sabotage. Trump believes the "deep state," especially within the intelligence community, was trying to undo him, so he behaved in kind, doing his best to scramble their work to the point they became ineffective.

Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "White House aides intervened Thursday to prevent President Trump from issuing a statement calling for substantially larger stimulus payments for millions of Americans, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity.... On a phone call Thursday afternoon, Trump told allies that he believes stimulus payments in the next relief package should be 'at least' $1,200 per person and possibly as big as $2,000 per person, the officials said. Congressional leadership is preparing a stimulus package that would provide checks of $600 per person. Trump was in the middle of formally drafting his demand for the larger payments when White House officials told him that doing so could imperil delicate negotiations over the economic relief package...." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Remember that Trump favors these "stimulus checks" because he wants millions of Americans to see his big fat scrawl at the bottom of a fat bonus check. The checks are not nearly as effective at alleviating financial suffering as, say, additional unemployment benefits would be, because the checks go out to everyone below a certain income level, whether or not s/he's lost income because of the virus. An out-of-work waitperson gets the same check as a delivery truck driver who got a raise to $75,000/year.

Maeve Reston of CNN: "When the history of the pandemic is written, one of the great mysteries will be what ... Donald Trump was doing in the waning days of his presidency as the number of Covid-19 deaths in the US soared past 3,000 each day, the virus spread unchecked and Congress dithered over the details of an emergency relief package that could be the difference between people being able to eat and being forced to sleep on the streets this holiday season. Trump ran for president pretending he was the consummate dealmaker.... He will go down in history as a president who worsened the grief and tragedy of the most consequential pandemic in 100 years by being contemptuous of masks and the safety precautions designed by his own administration -- a man incapable of empathy, who chose to remain cocooned in his White House bubble at a time when leadership would have mattered." And so forth. MB: Reston is fairly unsparing of Trump, but she let's Mitch McConnell & John Thune get away with their lying spin.

Mark Follman of Mother Jones: "... Donald Trump is engaged in a deliberate campaign of terrorism aimed at Americans who oppose him politically. That ... is the assessment of veteran national security experts, whose view of the political violence being stoked by the outgoing president is echoed by law enforcement and political leaders. As Trump has pushed a litany of lies and conspiracy theories claiming that the 2020 election was 'stolen' from him through 'massive fraud,' he has stirred his most extreme supporters into menacing public officials, election workers, and his Democratic and Republican critics alike. Over the past four years, numerous perpetrators of threats and violence have directly invoked the president and his rhetoric, and recent gatherings by far-right groups in support of Trump's efforts to reverse his election defeat have led to beatings, stabbings and a shooting. Trump is using a tactic known as 'stochastic terrorism,' says Juliette Kayyem, a ... former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security. It's a method of political incitement that provokes random acts of extremist violence, in which the instigator uses rhetoric ambiguous enough to give himself and his allies plausible deniability for any resulting bloodshed. Violent threats or attacks linked to the rhetoric usually generate muted denials and equivocal denunciations, or claims to have been 'joking,' as Trump and those speaking on his behalf have routinely hidden behind."

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "Dominion Voting Systems sent a blistering letter on Wednesday night to the right-wing lawyer Sidney Powell, demanding that she publicly retract her 'wild, knowingly baseless and false accusations' about the company's voting machines, which have repeatedly found themselves at the heart of conspiracy theories surrounding the election. The letter, a preparatory step to formal legal action, accused Ms. Powell of engaging in 'reckless disinformation' about Dominion's machines at news conferences, rallies in support of President Trump and on conservative media outlets.... Ms. Powell has also filed unsuccessful federal lawsuits seeking to overturn the election in four key swing states, lodging claims that were 'predicated on lies,' the letter says, and that have 'endangered Dominion's business and the lives of its employees.'" ~~~

~~~ Marie: There must be corporations and wealthy people who can't wait for January 20, when they can sue Donald Trump for defamation for false statements he has made about them.

Gabby Orr & Nahal Toosi of Politico: "On Jan. 6, Vice President Mike Pence will oversee final confirmation of President-elect Joe Biden's victory. Then he'll likely skip town.... According to three U.S. officials familiar with the planning, the vice president is eyeing a foreign trip that would take him overseas for nearly a week, starting on Jan. 6.... For Pence, visiting [Middle East] countries is ... a way to bolster already-strong credentials with the Christian right, which strongly supports Israel. And it allows Pence -- once again -- to put distance between himself and Trump's complaints about the election outcome that are likely to intensify after Congress affirms Biden's win."

Quint Forgey & Matthew Choi of Politico: "Jen O'Malley Dillon, President-elect Joe Biden's campaign manager and incoming White House deputy chief of staff, walked back comments [link fixed] she made in a recent interview suggesting that congressional Republicans were 'a bunch of f---ers.'... O'Malley Dillon acknowledged she 'used some words that I probably could have chosen better' when speaking with author Glennon Doyle for a Glamour magazine interview published Tuesday.... O'Malley Dillon's remarks became that target of fierce condemnation this week from Republican officials and conservative media figures.... But the backlash to the Glamour interview also in turn provoked its own fury from Democrats and some pundits, who accused O'Malley Dillon's critics of faux outrage -- especially those who had remained largely silent for years of ... Donald Trump's incendiary and often off-color rhetoric.... After Sen. Marco Rubio criticized O'Malley Dillon's language on Twitter, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) accused the Florida Republican of having a double standard for failing to speak out when Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) called her a 'f---ing b---'. '.@marcorubio you stood by in total silence when your GOP colleague called a Congresswoman a 'f- b-' on the Capitol steps in front of press.... BTW that is the right word for those who fleece & scam working families,' Ocasio-Cortez tweeted." ~~~

~~~ If you have a subscription to the Washington Post, it's worth reading Karen Tumulty's commentary on Marco Rubio's (and other Republicans') taking umbrage at Jennifer O'Malley Dillon -- soon to be a top Biden staffer -- use of the word "fuckers" in a Glamour magazine interview. Tumulty is surprised Marco is reading way down to the last grafs of a Glamour story, but later she hints that maybe he didn't really read the interview because he took Dillon's remark out of context. MB: Here again, it's fine with me if Marco wants to wet himself over a woman's using blue language. He can complain about Dillon every day, just as Tucker Carlson complains about Dr. Jill Biden's using an honorific she earned.

Georgia Senate Race. Turns out Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) really enjoys posing for photos with far-right extremists & white supremacists. She does so often. Christopher Mathias of the Huffington Post reports.

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Reader Comments (15)

Have to give him credit.

It's been a couple of years since the Pretender first suggested Russia and the United States work together on cybersecurity, and now, just months before there end of his term, by God he's gone and done it.

December 18, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

The rootin’-tootin’, six gun shootin’ white supremacist Cliven Bundy types must be fit to be tied given the likelihood of a Native American WOMAN running Interior. All those rough tough manifest destiny John Waynes must have gotten an instant case of exploding head syndrome when they heard that.

December 18, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Hey, any of you kids heard the Evangelicals’ favorite fat man squawking about the War on Christmas this year? It’s been a lead pipe cinch in years past that Fatty would promise to take Christmas back from the heathens who want to imprison anyone saying “Merry Christmas”. Goddam liberals!

Guess that was just another in the long line of insincere, jive talk stink bombs tossed by God’s best friend. I guess he’s more concerned about the non-existent War on Donald than the non-existent War on Christmas. Think the Evangelicals who were ready to lay down their lives for Fatty notice that in a choice between Jesus and Trump, the fat man will always come first?

Prob’ly not. But if so, it’s Obama’s fault. Or Hillary’s. Fatty would never bullshit his biggest supporters about his love for Jesus’ birthday just to get their votes, now would he?

They must have missed Mrs. Trumpy’s screed about how no one gives a fuck about Christmas.

Happy Hollandaise, y’all.

December 18, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Two thoughts for the morning:

Is kneecapping the distribution of the vaccine the Administration*s way of making people want to get the vaccine?

If T**** steps down so mikey can pardon him, does that make mikey the 46th President* and all of Biden’s “46” merch will be wrong?

December 18, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterNiskyGuy

@NiskyGuy: I'd say so. William Henry Harrison served only a month, during which time he was deathly ill, but he still is counted as the 9th president. But don't throw out your Biden 46 merch, especially if it's still in the original packaging. Those T-shirts & mugs will become valuable collectors' items one day.

I wonder if pence will use his President* for a Day job to also pardon all those evangelical preachers who either ended up in jail or are headed that way.

December 18, 2020 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Hesitate to recommend a Brooks here, but am doing it anyway.

Always liked that Shields guy. And apparently so did Brooks.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/17/opinion/mark-shields-liberalism.html?

December 18, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

THE INDOMITABLE SNOW MAN

We have a very long, very steep driveway and in years past our snow plow guy would only clear it when the snow was high and heavy. But he has moved to Florida and we hadn't contacted anyone else. So yesterday my mister donned his snow gear, rived up his machina and proceeded to do the job. The snow was heavy but the problem was the ice underneath which meant the snow blower had a heck of a time getting through––many starts and stops and plowing ahead. Watching from the window I thought, gawd!, give it up! But no, this man forged ahead, took him over three hours, but he did the job! And if Marie was our neighbor he would have cleaned out her VW bug hidden under a blanket of snow. I'm telling you this because to witness this kind of tenacity and this kind of perseverance at accomplishing a job well done is the exact opposite of this moribund malicious Trump administration whose sense of duty, sense of honor and sense of just plain decency was missing in action from the get-go. We have witnessed a complete dereliction of duties for four fucking years; not one of these bastards would have gotten even half way up that hill of ours nor would they have tried.

There have become mumbles of criticism re: Biden's picks but I think we can be assured these contenders will take their jobs seriously and judiciously. The era of scamming on thin ice is over, I hope. Now we just have to put on our defensive gear and get up that damn hill!

Is there a doctor in the house?

December 18, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

Speaking of Cliven 'Inbred' Bundy: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/12/17/deb-haaland-interior-secretary-biden/. And: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deb_Haaland. With her Dad having been a decorated Marine, I bet she can put a blow hard in his place. Because Interior has so many moving parts, the Deep State at Interior that keeps greasing the wheels for oil and gas and all the exploiters, I'm sure she'll be busy. Ryan Zinke she is not.

December 18, 2020 | Unregistered Commentercitizen625

For a while now, I have been calling the Pandemic a Holocaust. Our numbers of those killed in this first year of pandemic are so large that a comparison comes to mind. So at first I went to the googles, looking for numbers killed by nazis. I found that there is no written archive of the numbers of those who died, year by year. So I went to The Jewish Virtual Library and selected 1941, which looks like the first year that the nazis had established murdering units all over Europe. There are documented deaths of tens to hundreds of people in all areas on many days. It was not until the next year, 1942, that the 1.2 million Jews were killed in 3 months: the nazis had perfected their killing system by then.
So here we are in 2020, where 3,000 people a day are being killed by an implacable foe, way more than Jews were killed in 1941 at the beginning of the holocaust. And now we are learning that the president**** actually INTENDED this, to develop "herd." And for reasons unclear, he is withholding distribution of the remedy. What do we call this?
The perpetrators of the holocaust were hanged. What are we going to do with Trump?

December 18, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterVictoria

Victoria: ...sauce for the goose...ha!
Actually would like to see Fatso imprisoned for as long as possible. I don't want him dead, really...but in an orange jumpsuit. Someone yesterday suggested the back of the jumpsuit be a sentence: I really don't care, do you? Which is a comma splice, but in this case, I would allow it.

December 18, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterJeanne

Since we're covering important questions here today -- like will mike pence be the 46th president*, thus rendering Biden the 47th whilst making obsolete items emblazoned with "Biden 46," here's another:

How can Doug Emhoff become the "second gentleman" when there will be no "first gentleman"?

December 18, 2020 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

This is why elections matter so much. Don't read this unless you steel yourself about what soulless bastards the Republicans are who put people to death in the name of the state: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/opinion/lisa-montgomery-execution.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage.

These are supposed Christians putting this poor soul to death!

December 18, 2020 | Unregistered Commentercitizen625

Vladimir Putin receives an update on Donald Trump and the 2020 election.

December 18, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

@AK: Had you glanced at the comics before your second post this morning or was "Happy Hollandaise" an incredible coincidence?

December 18, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterBobby Lee

A look into the Pretender's Deep State (hint: it's nuts):

https://www.npr.org/2020/12/17/947251937/trump-bemoaned-water-pressure-now-his-administration-has-eased-standards

Who cares about a Covid pandemic or cybersecurity when you have important things like water pressure on your mind?

December 18, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes
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