;)
The Commentariat -- December 20, 2020
Afternoon Update:
Apoorva Mandavilli of the New York Times: "... officials in Britain on Saturday sounded an urgent alarm about what they called a highly contagious new variant of the coronavirus circulating in England.... In South Africa, a similar version of the virus has emerge.... Several experts ... [said] it would take years -- not months -- for the virus to evolve enough to render the current vaccines impotent."
Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "President Trump said Sunday that he has spoken with Sen.-elect Tommy Tuberville, the Alabama Republican who suggested last week that he supports a potential challenge to the electoral vote count when the House and Senate convene next month to formally affirm President-elect Joe Biden's victory.... The conversation is the latest signal that Trump is exerting pressure on Republicans to overturn the results of November's presidential election.... the president and his supporters are redoubling their efforts to block the normal transfer of power, including a potential challenge on Jan. 6, when both chambers of Congress conduct the final tally of electoral votes."
Alexander Burns & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Seldom has the leader of an American political party done so much to strike fear into the hearts of his allies, but done so little to tackle challenges facing the country during his final days in office. Far from presenting the vaccine breakthroughs from Pfizer and Moderna as testaments to private-sector ingenuity and innovation -- once a conservative creed -- [Donald Trump] was fixated on menacing Republicans who might dare to acknowledge Joseph R. Biden Jr. as president-elect. That duality in Mr. Trump's behavior -- acting as a bystander while other leaders answered a crisis and simultaneously raging at Republicans who have inched away from him -- also amounts to a preview of Mr. Trump's post-presidency."
~~~~~~~~~~
A Very Special Solstice. Charles Choi in Scientific American: "On December 21, Jupiter and Saturn will meet in a 'great conjunction,' the closest they could be seen in the sky together for nearly 800 years.... 'If you have a telescope, you'll be able to see both the rings of Saturn and the Galilean moons of Jupiter close together at the same moment,' says astronomer Jackie Faherty at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.... 'But the best part about it is we'll be able to watch it with the naked eye.'... The last time Jupiter and Saturn appeared so close was July 16, 1623, back when Galileo was still alive, a little more than a decade after he first used a telescope to discover Jupiter's four largest moons that now collectively bear his name. The odds are low, however, that Galileo or anyone else on Earth managed to witness that great conjunction, which was virtually impossible to see because of its apparent position near the sun. The last great conjunction to appear as close and as visible as the upcoming one occurred on March 4, 1226."
Real Government-in-Waiting. Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "President-elect Joe Biden on Saturday introduced members of his climate and energy teams in Wilmington, Del., nominees and appointees he said would lead his administration's plans to address climate change, 'the existential threat of our time.'... He noted that, this year alone, wildfires had burned more than 5 million acres across the West, hurricanes and tropical storms had pummeled the East and Gulf coasts, and droughts had ravaged parts of the Midwest.... His climate and energy teams would be ready on day one, he said, with a focus on creating new jobs in 'climate-resilient infrastructure' and clean energy. [Biden's team -- Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM), Michael Regan, Brenda Mallory, Jennifer Granholm, Gina McCarthy & Ali Zaidi] shared the stage with Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris on Saturday at the Queen Theater in Wilmington. As in past events, where Biden introduced his Cabinet picks, the would-be nominees and appointees spoke as much about their personal histories as their qualifications and plans for the job." ~~~
~~~ The New York Times' story is here. Politico's report is here.
Frank Bajak of the AP: "It's going to take months to kick elite hackers widely believed to be Russian out of the U.S. government networks they have been quietly rifling through since as far back as March in Washington's worst cyberespionage failure on record. Experts say there simply are not enough skilled threat-hunting teams to duly identify all the government and private-sector systems that may have been hacked. FireEye, the cybersecurity company that discovered the intrusion into U.S. agencies and was among the victims, has already tallied dozens of casualties. It's racing to identify more." More on Vlad's Greatest Hack linked below.
Sam Mintz & Stephanie Beasley of Politico (Dec. 18): "The FAA has stymied congressional investigators, allowed Boeing to coach pilots so they performed better on simulator tests of the Boeing 737 MAX, and continued a decades-long pattern of punishing whistleblowers -- all at the expense of the safety of millions of passengers, a damning Senate report released Friday found. There are 'numerous systemic deficiencies in FAA oversight,' that could put the flying public at risk, the report from the Senate Commerce Committee read. And in some cases, it appears that agency supervisors have been aware of and sometimes complicit in efforts to impede that oversight, according to the report. It is a scathing indictment of the FAA's management, which the report suggests presided over a safety culture that allowed line inspectors to be overruled in favor of the companies the agency oversees and detailing a lack of understanding of whistleblower complaints or how to handle them. The report also accuses FAA 'senior leaders' of possibly obstructing a DOT Inspector General investigation into the MAX crashes."
The Trumpidemic, Ctd.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Saturday are here: "Gen. Gustave F. Perna, who heads Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration's multiagency effort to get coronavirus vaccines out to Americans, apologized repeatedly on Saturday morning for confusion over vaccine deliveries to states. He attributed some of the problems to the federal government's miscalculation of how many doses of Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine could be shipped. The discrepancies disrupted vaccination plans and stirred consternation in at least 14 states. General Perna is in charge of the logistics for distributing the coronavirus vaccines to the states, and he took full and sole responsibility for the delays and confusion around the vaccine rollout, and for the discrepancies between the number of doses states were expecting and what they are receiving. 'It was my fault,' he said. 'It was a planning error, and I am responsible.'
~~~ "On Saturday, General Perna noted that boxes of the Moderna vaccine, which was approved for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration on Friday, were being packed and loaded, and that truckloads would begin rolling out on Sunday. He said that the government remained on track to allocate about 20 million vaccine doses across the country by the end of December, and that the distribution of those doses would be 'pushing into the first week of January.'" An AP story is here.
Yasmeen Abutaleb, et al., of the Washington Post: The deployment of coronavirus vaccines this week "does not conceal the difficult truth, that the virus has caused proportionately more infections and deaths in the United States than in most other developed nations -- a result, experts say, of a dysfunctional federal response led by a president perpetually in denial.... The story of how America arrived at this final season of devastation ... is based on interviews over the past month with 48 senior administration officials, government health professionals, outside presidential advisers and other people briefed on the inner workings of the federal response. The catastrophe began with Trump's initial refusal to take seriously the threat of a once-in-a-century pandemic. But, as officials detailed, it has been compounded over time by a host of damaging presidential traits -- his skepticism of science, impatience with health restrictions, prioritization of personal politics over public safety, undisciplined communications, chaotic management style, indulgence of conspiracies, proclivity toward magical thinking, allowance of turf wars and flagrant disregard for the well-being of those around him.... The administration's overall response is likely to be scrutinized for years to come as a case study in crisis mismanagement."
Mike DeBonis, et al., of the Washington Post: "Senior lawmakers attempting to complete an emergency coronavirus relief package this weekend slammed into a major roadblock on Saturday over Republican demands to limit the authority of the Federal Reserve. A late push from Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) to rein in the nation's central bank had already divided lawmakers over the last several days. But the impasse appeared to grow significantly wider on Saturday, as congressional leadership and rank-and-file senators on both sides of the aisle dug in over the issue, imperiling prospects for a deal before Monday. Toomey, a conservative lawmaker on the Senate's banking committee, has demanded provisions be included in the covid relief package that would curb the ability of the Fed to restart emergency lending programs for localities and small businesses. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told Senate Republicans on a private call Saturday afternoon that the party should stick by Toomey's plan, according to two people who requested anonymity to share details of the call. But senior Democrats have balked at agreeing to what they see as a nakedly political attempt to limit the economic tools available to the Biden administration." Politico's story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Note to Joe: No, Mitch is not going to be your friend. ~~~
~~~ Update. Marianne Levine, et al., of Politico: "Republican and Democratic senators on Saturday resolved a dispute over the Federal Reserve's emergency lending powers, according to congressional aides -- a significant breakthrough after a series of weekend negotiations on a broader coronavirus relief package. With the Fed compromise, negotiators cleared the final major hurdle on a nearly $1 trillion stimulus package ahead of a Sunday night government funding deadline.... A senior Democratic aide said [Sen. Pat] Toomey [R-Pa.] 'agreed to drop' some of his demands and said negotiators were finalizing 'compromise language.' As a result, the aide added, 'a final agreement on an emergency relief package is significantly closer.'" A CNN analyst said Democrats caved to Toomey's demands.
Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Lydia O'Connor of the Huffington Post: "Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul behind Fox News, received the COVID-19 vaccine on Friday, even as hosts on his network stoke fears about it and spread vaccine misinformation. Murdoch, 89, received the coronavirus vaccine in the United Kingdom, where people over 80 years of age are among those deemed priority recipients.... Tucker Carlson, arguably the network's biggest star, veered into anti-vaccine territory on his show Thursday night.... [Carlson said Thursday night that] the vaccine's 'marketing campaign' seems 'a bit much, it feels false, because it is; it's too slick.'... He warned that two Alaska health care workers had an allergic reaction to the vaccine, the first doses of which have already been given to 2.9 million people across the U.S. Carlson is a huge moneymaker for Fox News and, in turn, for Murdoch.... Laura Ingraham, another one of Fox News' most well-known hosts, is also spreading vaccine misinformation. Earlier this week, she posited on her show that people in North and South Dakota don't need to get the COVID-19 vaccine because they're nearing herd immunity status, a claim that is dangerous and untrue." ~~~
~~~ Marie: A reader sends along this very nice ad, which might help Tucker overcome his fear of the Covid-19 vaccine. (Pfizer makes Viagra):
U.K. Mark Landler & Stephen Castle of the New York Times: "Alarmed by a fast-spreading variant of the coronavirus, Prime Minister Boris Johnson abruptly reversed course on Saturday and imposed a wholesale lockdown on London and most of England's southeast, banning Christmas-season gatherings beyond individual households. The decision, which Mr. Johnson announced after an emergency meeting of his cabinet, came after the government got new evidence of a variant first detected several weeks ago in Southeast England, which the prime minister asserted was as much as 70 percent more transmissible than previous versions. The new measures, which take effect on Sunday, are designed, in effect, to cut off the capital and its surrounding counties from the rest of England. They are the most severe measures the British government has taken since it imposed a lockdown on the country back in March, and reflect a fear that the new variant could supercharge the transmission of the virus as winter takes hold."
The Last Days of the Mad Kaiser
** Maggie Haberman & Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "President Trump on Friday discussed naming Sidney Powell, who as a lawyer for his campaign team unleashed conspiracy theories about a Venezuelan plot to rig voting machines in the United States, to be a special counsel overseeing an investigation of voter fraud, according to two people briefed on the discussion.... Most of his advisers opposed the idea, two of the people briefed on the discussion said, including Rudolph W. Giuliani.... In recent days Mr. Giuliani has sought to have the Department of Homeland Security join the campaign's efforts to overturn Mr. Trump's loss in the election. Mr. Giuliani joined the discussion by phone, while Ms. Powell was at the White House for a meeting that became raucous and involved people shouting at each other at times, according to one of the people briefed on what took place. Ms. Powell's client, retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser whom the president recently pardoned, was also there.... During an appearance on the conservative Newsmax channel this week, Mr. Flynn pushed for Mr. Trump to impose martial law and deploy the military to 'rerun' the election. At one point in the meeting on Friday, Mr. Trump asked about that idea. The White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, and the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, repeatedly and aggressively pushed back on the ideas being proposed...." ~~~
~~~ The Guardian has a summary report here. A Politico report is here. ~~~
~~~ Kevin Drum of Mother Jones questions the NYT's editorial decision to bury this story "below the fold" (so to speak, inasmuch as Drum is referring to the online front page) and burying the lede in Paragraph 6: "The president of the United States asked a bunch of his advisors about the feasibility of imposing martial law and having the Pentagon run a new election. In other words, staging a military coup. Sure, everyone at the table shot it down, because even Rudy Giuliani isn't that far gone. But he asked! The president of the United States! What does Trump have to do these days to rate a bigger headline? Invade Canada?" MB: The thing is, Kevin, "Trump Said Something Dangerous & Crazy" is hardly news. As Paul Campos notes In LG&$, we're suffering from "Battered Nation Syndrome." I will say that after CNN confirmed the story, they aired it repeatedly, using adjectives like "deranged"; and at 5:30 am ET, it's still at the top of their home Webpage.
~~~ Jonathan Swan of Axios: "Senior Trump administration officials are increasingly alarmed that President Trump might unleash -- and abuse -- the power of government in an effort to overturn the clear result of the election.... These officials tell me that Trump is spending too much time with people they consider crackpots or conspiracy theorists and flirting with blatant abuses of power.... Their fears include Trump's interest in former national security adviser Michael Flynn's wild talk of martial law; an idea floated of an executive order to commandeer voting machines; and the specter of Sidney Powell, the conspiracy-spewing election lawyer, obtaining governmental power and a top-level security clearance. A senior administration official said that when Trump is 'retweeting threats of putting politicians in jail, and spends his time talking to conspiracy nuts who openly say declaring martial law is no big deal, it's impossible not to start getting anxious about how this ends.'" MB: And this is the lunatic most elected Republicans are afraid to confront. ~~~
~~~ Marie: I'd like to hear one of those so-called advisors tell Trump, "C'mon, you're the worst president* in American history. Look upon your defeat as the majority of Americans do: as a great national correction. It's a blessing. Thank the Fates for Joe Biden & get out."
Kaitlan Collins of CNN: "... Donald Trump's campaign legal team sent a memo to dozens of staffers Saturday instructing them to preserve all documents related to Dominion Voting Systems and Sidney Powell in anticipation of potential litigation by the company against the pro-Trump attorney. The memo, viewed by CNN, references a letter Dominion sent to Powell this week demanding she publicly retract her accusations and instructs campaign staff not to alter, destroy or discard records that could be relevant. A serious internal divide has formed within Trump's campaign following the election with tensions at their highest between the campaign's general counsel, Matt Morgan, who sent the memo Saturday, and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Though the campaign once distanced itself from Powell, Trump has been urging other people to fight like she has, according to multiple people familiar with his remarks. He has asked for more people making her arguments, which are often baseless and filled with conspiracy theories, on television."
** "Everything Is Well under Control." Trump Remains Largest National Security Risk. David Sanger & Nicole Perlroth of the New York Times: "Hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told a conservative radio show host that 'we can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians; behind the vast hack of the federal government and American industry, he was contradicted on Saturday by President Trump, who sought to muddy the intelligence findings by raising the possibility that China was responsible. Defying the conclusions of experts inside and outside the government who say the attack was a cybersecurity breach on a scale Washington has never experienced, Mr. Trump also played down the severity of the hack, saying 'everything is well under control,' insisting that the news media has exaggerated the damage and suggesting, with no evidence, that the real issue was whether the election results had been compromised. 'There could also have been a hit on our ridiculous voting machines during the election,' he wrote on Twitter in his latest iteration of that unfounded conspiracy theory. He tagged Mr. Pompeo, the latest cabinet member to anger him, in his Twitter post. With 30 days left in office, Mr. Trump's dismissive statements made clear there would be no serious effort by his administration to punish Russia for the hack, and national security officials say they are all but certain to hand off the fallout and response to President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr." ~~~
~~~ Evan Semones of Politico: "Trump, in his first public comment since reports of the wide-scale breach surfaced last week, downplayed the attack in a series of tweets, suggesting without evidence that China may have been responsible and hacks on U.S. voting systems might have occurred as well. 'The Cyber Hack is far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality....' Trump wrote. 'Russia, Russia, Russia is the priority chant when anything happens because Lamestream is, for mostly financial reasons, petrified of discussing the possibility that it may be China (it may!).'... Chris Krebs, who ran the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security agency until the president fired him last month, appeared to respond to Trump in a tweet, writing that the cyberattack neither affected the results from November's election nor any of the subsequent recounts the Trump campaign requested in numerous states. 'Do not conflate voting system security and SolarWinds. The proof is in the paper,' Krebs tweeted." ~~~
~~~ Veronica Stracqualursi, et al., of CNN: "White House officials had drafted a statement assigning blame to Russia for the attack and were preparing to release it Friday afternoon but were told to stand down, according to people familiar with the plans. Officials initially weren't told why the statement was pulled back. The statement, the people said, placed blame on Russia for orchestrating the attack but left open the possibility that other actors were involved. The people familiar told CNN on Saturday it wasn't clear whether the statement will be released, and instead described a scramble inside the administration as officials work to reconcile the competing statements from Trump and Pompeo. The President was briefed on the attack on Thursday."
Eric Lipton of the New York Times: "The Trump administration is rushing to approve a final wave of large-scale mining and energy projects on federal lands, encouraged by investors who want to try to ensure the projects move ahead even after President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. takes office.... These projects, and others awaiting action in the remaining weeks of the Trump administration, reflect the intense push by the Interior Department, which controls 480 million acres of public lands, and the Forest Service, which manages another 193 million acres, to find ways to increase domestic energy and mining production, even in the face of intense protests by environmentalists and other activists. When he takes office on Jan. 20, Mr. Biden, who has chosen a Native American -- Representative Deb Haaland, Democrat of New Mexico -- to lead the Interior Department, will still have the ability to reshape, slow or even block certain projects."
Colin Jost reviews some of Trump's greatest moments:
Share Article
Reader Comments (14)
Why in the world would Senate Republicans now want to curtail the Fed's ability to create more money in the form of credit in order to goose the staggering economy?
Must be the sudden return of their eight-, or this time around, four-year itch to tighten credit and balance budgets....
Should make a good ad for the Georgia Senate races...See what your good buddy Republicans are doing for, err, to you now?
Presidential Traits Needed for Becoming the Worst Leader of the Free World:
Skepticism of science, impatience with health restrictions, prioritization of personal politics over public safety, undisciplined communications, chaotic management style, indulgence of conspiracies, proclivity toward magical thinking, allowance of turf wars and flagrant disregard for the well-being of those around him.
{ thanks to Yasmeen Abutaleh for the listing}
So brush up on your skills Senator Cruz, Cotton and Rubio for the next run for your money campaigns cuz you, too, can be Dickheads for Disaster.
And I'm wondering: Fatty's consistent care for his buddy boy Putin smacks of something BIG: I wonder if Steele was right about the pee-pee tapes or something similar sex wise OR Fatty still fancies building a Trump tower in Russia or––––but it's something and that something has been the leash around Fatty's neck for four years.
And maybe Biden in his "let's all get together" message could cite the coming together of Jupiter and Saturn after 800 years: "If they can do it, We can do it!"
P.S. I think Jupiter would be a wonderful name for a dog and if you got another, name it Saturn. Co-mingling pups in a fractured universe.
Hold on (so to speak...). Tucker Carlson has a penis?
PD,
A Trump Tower (a true oxymoron; the only thing towering about Trump is his greed) in Moscow? Sure. Why not. And each room will come with its very own bugs. Not the bed kind, the other kind. The pee-pee tape kind.
Sure to be frequented by idiots the world over.
Another triumph for the Trump Crime Family. However, Uncle Vlad will get his 50% cut right off the top.
PD,
Wake each morning to the prospect of your bright and often poetic thoughts.
Don't think the anticipation derives only from the three hour jump you have on me, where when I first access RC the land and my brain are still dark. What you have to say is invariably interesting.
Thanks again for kick-starting my day.
I too wonder if we'll ever know what the Pretender-Putin thing is/was really all about. As we know, the core claims of the Steele dossier have never been proven untrue.
Another reason to live long enough...
So Fatty is finally admitting that he has overseen—and been largely responsible for—not one, but two enormous catastrophes. The pandemic and the hack of the US government. Or is he? Pompouseo, anxious to get out of Dodge before he’s completely covered in horseshit, sez “Yeah, I guess it was the Russians”. Fatty though is not sure. Could be “other actors”. Who? That 400 lb guy sitting on his bed in New Jersey? A fucking clown right to the very end.
@Akhilleus: Re: Tucker, think Emily Litella. Not that Tucker is a handsome prince, but you get the idea.
Actually, a "Tucker" is like a penis, only smaller.
Marie,
Hahaha. So, a very small, teeny, tiny, itty-bitty, wee little penis.
Patrick,
So, colloquially, that would make him a dick, correct? Albeit a very small one. Maybe a dickie.
Someone needs to tell Trump to look on the bright side of all this. After four years he's finally moving out of public housing.
What do you think are the chances we would see this at a martial law rerun election?
@RAS: Hard to say. Trump himself (who admittedly votes by absentee ballot so skin tone is hidden) would flunk the test, depending on which shade of make-up he chose for the day.
I'm sure there would be an exception for anyone that registered in the Garfield color spectrum.
@RAS: Good point. I've carefully studied this photo, for instance (which Snopes authenticated), and Tan Man appears to fall well within the Garfield spectrum you cite.