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.”

Help!

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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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The Commentariat -- December 30, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

James Gallagher & Nick Triggle of BBC News: "The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has been approved for use in the UK, with the first doses due to be given on Monday. There will be 530,000 doses available from next week, and vaccination centres will now start inviting patients to come and get the jab. Priority groups for immunisation have already been identified, starting with care home residents, the over-80s, and health and care workers."

John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) announced Wednesday that he would object next week when Congress convenes to certify the electoral college vote, a move that all but ensures at least a short delay in cementing President-elect Joe Biden's victory." Politico's story is here. MB: When little Josh heard Missouri was called the "show-me state," he thought it meant, "Show me! Show me!" What an ass.

Old McConnell Has a Trick, E I E I O. Phil Mattingly of CNN: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell introduced legislation Tuesday to combine two additional demands from ... Donald Trump to an expansion of direct stimulus payments as part of the Covid-19 relief package, raising Democratic concern the pathway for expanded stimulus payments would soon be short-circuited. The Kentucky Republican, shortly before adjourning the Senate on Tuesday afternoon, introduced a bill that would combine increased direct payments with a repeal of the online liability protections known as Section 230 and the establishment of a commission to study voter fraud. The latter two issues have been significant drivers of Trump's ire in the wake of his general election loss -- the latter of which with zero evidence presented to this point. While the move doesn't guarantee McConnell will bring the bill up for a vote, it provides a substantive option should time -- and the political winds -- press the chamber in that direction. It's also one that would be all but certain to fail to garner the votes for passage. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York called the bill a 'cynical gambit' and said it would serve as 'a blatant attempt' to ensure the $2,000 direct payments were not signed into law."

Reuters: "... Donald Trump's pardon of four American men convicted of killing Iraqi civilians while working as contractors in 2007 violated U.S. obligations under international law, U.N. human rights experts said on Wednesday.... The Geneva Conventions oblige states to hold war criminals accountable for their crimes, even when they act as private security contractors, the U.N. experts said. 'These pardons violate U.S. obligations under international law and more broadly undermine humanitarian law and human rights at a global level.'"

Joseph Guzman of the Hill: "President Trump reportedly plans to hold his annual black-tie New Year's Eve gala at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., despite the raging coronavirus pandemic that has left more than 330,000 Americans dead.... While there's no official word on how many guests will be in attendance this year, a member of Mar-a-Lago told [CNN] at least 500 reservations have been confirmed so far for the event where attendees reportedly paid about $1,000 per ticket in 2019." MB: Trump doesn't care if the event is a Covid superspreader as long as the checks clear before the guests die.

Shayna Jacobs & Jonathan O'Connell of the Washington Post: "The Manhattan District Attorney's Office has retained forensic accounting specialists to aid its criminal investigation of President Trump and his business operations, as prosecutors ramp up their scrutiny of his company's real estate transactions, according to people familiar with the matter. District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. opened the investigation in 2018 to examine alleged hush-money payments made to two women who, during Trump's first presidential campaign, claimed to have had affairs with him years earlier. The probe has since expanded, and now includes the Trump Organization's activities more broadly.... Vance's office has suggested in court filings that bank, tax and insurance fraud are areas of exploration."

Max Greenwood of the Hill: "President Trump called for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp's (R) resignation on Wednesday, hammering him for refusing to back up the president's claim that he carried Georgia in the November presidential election -- despite his loss by 12,000 votes, a result that has survived multiple recounts and court challenges. '@BrianKempGA should resign from office,' Trump tweeted. 'He is an obstructionist who refuses to admit that we won Georgia, BIG! Also won the other Swing States.'"

Rep. Jim Jordan (Rabid-Ohio) asked what one supposes was a rhetorical question when complaining in a tweet about stay-at-home orders necessitated by the pandemic. "What would the Founders say?" asked Jim. Bad news for Jimbo; smarter people than he follow him on Twitter. Amee Vanderpool wrote, "George Washington established quarantine guidelines, travel bans and isolated those infected with smallpox during the Revolutionary War-the colonists even passed a law in 1731 that made reporting the illness mandatory." And Ethan Bearman tweeted, "The Founders passed An Act Related to Quarantine during the 3rd Congress in 1796, signed by PRESIDENT GEORGE WASHINGTON. It directed the feds to help states enforce quarantines." MB: My sentiments are with the Rude Pundit: "It would have taken you less than a fucking minute to google this shit and discovered that George Washington ordered quarantines during the small pox epidemic in the 1770s-80s." Thanks to PD Pepe for the link to this HuffPost story.

Tal Axelrod & Naomi Jagoda of the Hill: "Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that stimulus payments from the most recent coronavirus relief package could begin landing in Americans' bank accounts as early as Tuesday night [i.e., yesterday]. Mnuchin said in a tweet that the Treasury Department had delivered a payment file to the Federal Reserve in association with the package and that 'payments may begin to arrive in some accounts by direct deposit as early as tonight and will continue into next week.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Update: In today's Comments, Bobby Lee says a friend in Georgia already already has received the $600. Bobby Lee, a cynic, thinks that on accounta the upcoming senatorial election, checks went out to Georgia first. Nah!

~~~~~~~~~~

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Wednesday are here.

Christina Maxouris of CNN: "The US set two more devastating Covid-19 records as it counted down the hours to the end of what has been a calamitous year for the nation. On Tuesday, it recorded more than 3,700 new deaths linked to the virus, a chilling new high. The US also reported the most Covid-19 hospitalizations, with more than 124,600 patients nationwide, according to the COVID Tracking Project."

Alexandra Jaffe of the AP: "President-elect Joe Biden criticized the Trump administration Tuesday for the pace of distributing COVID-19 vaccines and predicted that 'things will get worse before they get better' when it comes to the pandemic. 'We need to be honest -- the next few weeks and months are going to be very tough, very tough for our nation. Maybe the toughest during this entire pandemic,' Biden said during remarks in Wilmington, Delaware on Tuesday." (Also linked yesterday.) The New York Times story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ What's to Criticize? Joe Murphy & Corky Siemaszko of NBC News: "The Trump administration's Covid-19 vaccine distribution program needs a major shot in the arm because at the current rate, it would take almost 10 years to inoculate enough Americans to get the pandemic under control, a jarring new NBC News analysis showed Tuesday. The goal of Operation Warp Speed, a private-public partnership led by Vice President Mike Pence to produce and deliver safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines to the public, is to ensure that 80 percent of the country's 330.7 million people get the shots by late June.... So far, only about 2 million people -- most of them front-line health care workers and some nursing home residents -- have gotten their first shots of the 11.5 million doses that were delivered in the last two weeks, a review by NBC News of data from federal and state agencies showed."

Dan Diamond of Politico: "President-elect Joe Biden is expanding his White House Covid-19 Response team, tapping three senior officials to coordinate vaccine, testing and supply chain strategy.... The officials are set to play a major role in Biden's response to the worsening pandemic, which the president-elect has made his top priority ahead of taking office.... Biden has selected Bechara Choucair, a Kaiser Permanente executive, to be the nation's Covid-19 vaccine coordinator.... The president-elect chose Carole Johnson, the commissioner of New Jersey's human services department and a former senior health adviser in the Obama-Biden White House, as the nation's new Covid-19 testing coordinator.... Additionally, Biden picked Tim Manning, who served as deputy administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency for all eight years of the Obama-Biden administration, to be the nation's new Covid-19 supply coordinator."

Nick Niedzwiadek of Politico: "Vice President-elect Kamala Harris received a coronavirus vaccination on Tuesday in Washington, joining President-elect Joe Biden, Vice President Mike Pence and other leaders who have been inoculated. Harris took the shot at United Medical Center in Southeast D.C., an area of the nation's capital that is home to a large proportion of the city's African American residents. People of color have disproportionately been affected by the toll of Covid-19, and public health officials have sought to combat vaccine hesitancy in these groups.... Harris received a dose of the vaccine manufactured by Moderna, as did her husband, Doug Emhoff, who received his shot out of public view."

Mike DeBonis & Tony Romm of the Washington Post: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday blocked consideration of a House bill that would deliver $2,000 stimulus payments to most Americans -- spurning a request by President Trump even as more Senate Republicans voiced support for the dramatically larger checks. McConnell's move was just the beginning of a saga that is likely to engulf the Senate for the rest of the week. Democrats are pushing for an up-or-down vote on the House bill, while more Republicans acknowledge a need for larger stimulus checks. Tension within the Republican party spilled into public view on Tuesday, with Trump leveling pointed attacks at GOP leaders for failing to act, accusing them of being 'pathetic' and suggesting they had a 'death wish.'... 'WE NEED NEW & ENERGETIC REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP,' he wrote. New proponents of the $2,000 checks include Georgia's two embattled Republican senators -- David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler...." The AP's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.)

The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here: "Colorado officials on Tuesday reported the first known case in the United States of a person infected with the mutation-laden coronavirus variant that has been circulating rapidly across much of the United Kingdom and has led to a lockdown of much of southern England. The case involves a male in his 20s who is currently in isolation in Elbert County and has no travel history, according to a tweet from the office of Gov. Jared Polis." (Also linked yesterday.)

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here: "Dozens of research papers published over the past few months have found that people whose bodies were teeming with the coronavirus more often became seriously ill and were more likely to die, compared with those who carried much less virus and were more likely to emerge relatively unscathed.... The results suggest that knowing the so-called viral load -- the amount of virus in the body -- could help doctors...." (Also linked yesterday.)

Sam Karlin of the New Orleans Times-Picayune: "Congressman-elect Luke Letlow [R] died Tuesday evening from complications with COVID-19, shaking the Louisiana political world weeks after his election to represent Louisiana's 5th District in Congress as the state's youngest U.S. representative. Letlow, 41, died at Ochsner-LSU Health Shreveport from 'complications from COVID-19,' his spokesman, Andrew Bautsch, said in a statement."

Sarah Polus of the Hill: "A Massachusetts GOP leader who has COVID-19 says he most likely contacted it at a White House Hanukkah party on Dec. 9, local station WJAR reported last week. Tom Mountain, the vice chairman of the Massachusetts Republican State Committee, was hospitalized and almost put on a ventilator just a few days after attending the event, one of the 25 holiday parties thrown at the White House this month, according to The Washington Post.... Photos of Mountain from the gathering show him and many others around him without masks on. While masks were required while in line, many partygoers removed them upon entry, according to the Post." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Like every Republican, Mountain doesn't see something -- even an international crisis -- as real unless it touches him personally: "Mountain is now urging others to heed the advice of health experts of social distancing. 'I didn't listen to the warnings of my own family, and now I’m paying the price,' Mountain told The Boston Globe.

California. Alejandra Reyes-Velarde, et al., of Yahoo! News: "The crisis at Los Angeles County hospitals hit new levels as patients continued to stream in during the holiday weekend, and the medical system is bracing for a new wave of coronavirus spread arising from Christmas travel and gatherings. L.A. County's cumulative COVID-19 death toll is expected to climb past 10,000 this week. Hospitals are so inundated that they've resorted to placing patients in conference rooms and gift shops. But even so, many facilities are running out of space. Virtually all hospitals in L.A. County are being forced to divert ambulances with certain types of patients elsewhere during most hours. On Sunday, 94% of L.A. County hospitals that take in patients stemming from 911 calls were diverting some ambulances away."

Last Days of the Mad Kaiser

Toluse Olorunnipa & Jabin Botsford of the Washington Post review Trump's year that was.

Whiney-Prez* Knocks Congressional Republicans. Morgan Chalfant of the Hill: "President Trump on Tuesday sharply criticized Republican leaders for allowing a vote to override his veto of a must-pass defense policy bill, calling them'weak' and 'tired' and accusing them of a 'disgraceful act of cowardice.' The House on Monday evening voted 322-87 to override Trump's veto of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), teeing up what may be the first and only veto override of Trump's presidency. 'Weak and tired Republican "leadership" will allow the bad Defense Bill to pass,' Trump tweeted Tuesday morning, apparently referring to GOP Senate leadership." (Also linked yesterday.)

AP: "... Donald Trump' campaign asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to take its failed lawsuit challenging election results in swing state Wisconsin. Trump lost the state to Democrat Joe Biden by about 21,000 votes. The president's campaign filed a lawsuit with the state Supreme Court seeking to disqualify more than 221,000 ballots in Dane and Milwaukee counties, the state's two most heavily Democratic counties. Trump wanted to disqualify absentee ballots cast early and in-person, saying there wasn't a proper written request made for the ballots; absentee ballots cast by people who claimed 'indefinitely confined' status; absentee ballots collected by poll workers at Madison parks; and absentee ballots where clerks filled in missing information on ballot envelopes. The state Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit, ruling 4-3 that Trump's challenge to voters who were indefinitely confined was without merit and that the other claims came too late."

Oh, Dear, Will Pence Foil the Gohmert Plot? Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Lawyers for Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and Arizona's 11 Republican electors revealed Tuesday that Vice President Mike Pence declined to sign onto their plan to upend Congress' certification of President-elect Joe Biden's victory. It's the first indication that Pence is resisting some of the most extreme calls to reverse the presidential election results, thus relying on his role as the presiding officer on Jan. 6, when Congress meets to finalize Biden's win.... Pence still has not publicly weighed in on his plans for presiding over the Jan. 6 session, when Congress will count electoral votes expected to certify Biden's victory. He also has not publicly commented on Trump's repeated calls to reverse the results of the democratic process and install himself for a second term." ~~~

~~~ Rosalind Helderman & Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: “President Trump and his allies are growing increasingly desperate as Congress prepares to formally receive the votes that will confirm his election loss next week, filing lawsuits against nonexistent entities and even Trump's own vice president as they try to come up with new ways to overturn the vote.... Trevor Potter, a Republican election law expert ... said the remedy [Rep. Louis] Gohmert [R-Texas] is seeking 'would stand the Constitution on its head. It would effectively deliver to the vice president the right to determine who won the presidential election. If the vice president has authority to pick his favorite electors, then you wouldn't need a Congress or a Constitution.'"

Georgia. WSB-TV Atlanta News: "... the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has finished the signature audit in Cobb County over the November election. Earlier in the month, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said his office had investigated credible allegations that Cobb County improperly performed signature matches during the June primary, so he ordered a signature audit for the November election in that county.... Raffensperger ... said there were only two mismatched signatures among the more than 15,000 votes in the audit.... The inaccuracy came from a wife who signed her name to ballots for both her and her husband, the Secretary of State said.... The audit found no fraudulent absentee ballots with a 99% confidence threshold, Raffensperger's office said in a news release Tuesday."

Matt Naham of Law & Crime: "A senior U.S. District judge called Donald Trump a 'criminal' during a phone call with the Associated Press as he discussed the 45th president's recent pardons of political allies who were convicted in former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. Senior U.S. District Judge Robert W. Pratt, a Bill Clinton appointee who had been the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa before assuming senior status in 2012, said..., 'It's not surprising that a criminal like Trump pardons other criminals.'" The AP story is here." (Also linked yesterday.)

Will Sommer of the Daily Beast: "Former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is going all in on the QAnon conspiracy theory, promoting an online store to sell QAnon hats and T-shirts, the proceeds of which will benefit his partnership with a prominent QAnon booster. Flynn's drawn-out legal battle with Special Counsel Robert Mueller turned him into a hero for QAnon believers. Many QAnon supporters, who rely on mysterious online clues to construct a worldview where the Democratic Party and other institutions are controlled by a cabal of pedophile-cannibals, claim that Flynn is 'Q', the anonymous figure behind the conspiracy theory. They also took a previously obscure Flynn quote about the American military's 'digital soldiers' as their banner, adopting the phrase to refer to QAnon believers themselves."MB: Other than that & a few other itty-bitty lapses (secretly representing Turkey, dining with Putin, for instance), Flynn was a perfectly well-qualified National Security Advisor, and President Obama should not have fired him.

Peter Grant of the Wall Street Journal: "Kushner Cos., the family business of White House senior aide Jared Kushner, filed papers to raise at least $100 million by selling bonds in Israel. The deal would be Kushner Cos.' first capital raise on the Israeli bond market, as well as the largest unsecured capital raise by the family-controlled business that owns billions of dollars worth of apartments, office buildings and other commercial property in the U.S. Kushner Cos. filed the papers this month with the Israel Securities Authority and would sell the bonds on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. The company has raised other forms of capital in Israel in the past from both banks and equity partners.... The move by Kushner Cos. is likely to rekindle the criticism of the potential conflicts of interest between Mr. Kushner's role in the White House and his family's business.... Mr. Trump this month pardoned Mr. Kushner's father, Charles Kushner, who was sentenced in 2005 to two years in prison after pleading guilty to tax evasion and witness tampering." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The story is ostensibly firewalled, but I was able to call it up twice. ~~~

~~~ "Open & Transparent," Trump-style. Joseph Krauss of the AP: "The United States sold the ambassador's residence in Israel for more than $67 million in July, according to an official Israeli record of the sale that shines new light on a transaction that has been shrouded in secrecy. The State Department confirmed the sale in September but refused to identify the buyer or disclose the sale price of the sprawling beachfront compound in the upscale Tel Aviv suburb of Herzliya. On Tuesday, it said the sale had been 'open and transparent.' The Israeli business newspaper Globes has identified the buyer as the U.S. casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a strong supporter of both ... Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.... It appears to be the most expensive single residence ever sold in Israel. Congressional aides told The Associated Press in September that lawmakers in the House and Senate were looking into whether the sale of the residence complied with regulations. The sale helped to cement Trump's controversial decision to relocate the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to contested Jerusalem in 2018 and to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. By selling the residence, it would make it harder for future presidents to reverse the decision to move the embassy. President-elect Joe Biden has criticized the decision to move the embassy to Jerusalem but says he will not reverse it." ~~~

~~~ Speaking of Sheldon Adelson. AP: "Jonathan Pollard, who spent 30 years in U.S. prison for spying for Israel, arrived in Israel early Wednesday with his wife, triumphantly kissing the ground as he exited the aircraft in the culmination of a decades-long affair.... 'We are ecstatic to be home at last after 35 years,' Pollard said as he was greeted at Israel's international airport by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli leader jubilantly presented Pollard and his wife Esther with Israeli ID cards, granting them citizenship.... Pollard arrived on a private plane provided by American casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.... Pollard's arrival was first reported by Israel Hayom, a newspaper owned by Adelson.... Pollard, a civilian intelligence analyst for the U.S. Navy, sold military secrets to Israel while working at the Pentagon in the 1980s. He was arrested in 1985 after trying unsuccessfully to gain asylum at the Israeli Embassy in Washington and pleaded guilty. The espionage affair during the Reagan years embarrassed Israel and tarnished its relations with the United States for years."

Georgia Senate Race. Kyle Cheney & Josh Gerstein of Politico: "A federal judge in Georgia on Monday ordered two counties to reverse a decision removing more than 4,000 voters from the rolls ahead of the Jan. 5 runoff elections that will decide control of the U.S. Senate. The judge, Leslie Abrams Gardner -- the sister of former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, a prominent ally of President-elect Joe Biden who has led voter registration efforts across the state -- concluded that the counties appeared to have improperly relied on unverified change-of-address data to invalidate registrations in the two counties." ~~~

~~~ David Corn of Mother Jones: Kelly Loeffler is just about the swampiest swamp creature in Washington, D.C.: As a U.S. senator, "Loeffler was overseeing regulators at the same time they were engaged in activity affecting a company she was intimately tied to as a current shareholder, former executive, and spouse of its CEO. That's very swampy."

Beyond the Beltway

Kentucky. Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs of the New York Times: "The Louisville police officer who fired the shot that killed Breonna Taylor, a Black emergency room technician whose death set off a wave of protests on American streets, was told on Tuesday that the department was moving to oust him from the force, as was a second officer who obtained a judge's approval for the poorly planned nighttime raid on her home. The move is the most significant acknowledgment by the department that its officers had committed serious violations when they burst through Ms. Taylor's door late one night in March, encountered gunfire, and then fired a volley of shots at her and her boyfriend. The terminations mark an effort by the city's interim police chief, Yvette Gentry, to achieve the reckoning she promised when she came out of retirement to lead the troubled department into the beginning of the new year. Lawyers for Detective Myles Cosgrove, one of the officers who shot Ms. Taylor, and Detective Joshua Jaynes, who prepared the search warrant for the raid, said each had received notices of termination. Both have been on administrative reassignment as the investigations have been underway." The Louisville Courier Journal story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Malachy Browne, et al., of the New York Times: "None of the police officers who raided Breonna Taylor's home wore body cameras, impeding the public from a full understanding of what happened. The Times's visual investigation team built a 3-D model of the scene and pieced together critical sequences of events to show how poor planning and shoddy police work led to a fatal outcome." This is a video report, and it is as disturbing as you might expect.

Ohio. Neil Vigdor of the New York Times: "Two Cleveland police officers will avoid federal criminal charges for their role in the killing of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old Black boy who had been carrying a pellet gun when he was shot in 2014, the Justice Department announced on Tuesday, citing a lack of evidence in the high-profile case. The announcement drew to a close a five-year federal investigation into the actions of then-Officer Timothy Loehmann and his partner, Officer Frank Garmback, one that has been criticized by Tamir's family and government watchdogs as deeply flawed and politically influenced.... In 2019, two career prosecutors in the Justice Department's civil rights division were denied permission to use a grand jury to issue subpoenas for documents or witness testimony.... Justice Department officials said in a lengthy statement on Tuesday that they could not establish that the officers involved in Tamir's killing willfully violated his civil rights or that they knowingly made false statements with the intent of obstructing a federal investigation." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: "were denied permission to use a grand jury": The use of the passive voice here is maddening. "Were denied"? By whom? A career mid-level DOJ lawyer? A political appointee? Bill Barr?

Tennessee. Natalie Allison of the Tennessean: "Sixteen months before Anthony Quinn Warner's RV exploded in downtown Nashville on Christmas morning, officers visited his home in Antioch after his girlfriend reported that he was making bombs in the vehicle, according to documents obtained by The Tennessean.... In the aftermath [of the Nashville bombing], The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said Warner was 'not on our radar' prior to the bombing. But a Metro Nashville Police Department report from August 2019 shows that local and federal authorities were aware of alleged threats he had made.... On Aug. 21, 2019, the girlfriend told Nashville police that Warner 'was building bombs in the RV trailer at his residence,' the MNPD report states.... Officers saw his RV behind the house, but the vehicle was fenced off and police were unable to see inside of it, the [police] report said.... Nashville police then forwarded the information to the FBI." A New York Times story is here.

Beyond the Beltway

Dharna Noor of Gizmodo: "This past autumn, people all across the U.S. southwest were finding an astounding number of dead birds littered along roads, on golf courses, and in their own driveways. Some estimated that hundreds of thousands of the creatures perished.... Lab results on bird necropsies from the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center ... suggest that starvation was a cause of the mass die-off seen in August and September. 80% of the carcasses the researchers analyzed showed signs of starvation.... The findings are a warning sign of difficult times ahead for birds. As the climate crisis worsens, studies show the American West and South will see far more frequent and severe dry spells. Seemingly random spurts of cold weather will also become more common.... A 2019 report found that North America has already lost 30% of its birds since 1970[.]" --s

Way Beyond the Beltway

** China. Communist Capitalism is Awesome, Slave State Edition. Alison Killing & Megha Rajagopalan of Buzzfeed News: "China has built more than 100 new facilities in Xinjiang where it can not only lock people up, but also force them to work in dedicated factory buildings right on site, BuzzFeed News can reveal based on government records, interviews, and hundreds of satellite images. In August, BuzzFeed News uncovered hundreds of compounds in Xinjiang bearing the hallmarks of prisons or detention camps, many built during the last three years in a rapid escalation of China's campaign against Muslim minorities including Uighurs, Kazakhs, and others.... Collectively, the factory facilities identified by BuzzFeed News cover more than 21 million square feet -- nearly four times the size of the Mall of America.... Xinjiang's industry is booming, and the region has one of the fastest GDP growth rates in China. Xinjiang exports a range of products, from clothing to machinery, and the US is one of the region's fastest-growing markets." --s ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I see where Ivanka Trump is thinking of running for public office. The Chinese system sounds like one she would heartily endorse (or enforce, if it were in her power).

News Lede

CBS News: "Dawn Wells, best known for portraying the girl-next-door castaway Mary Ann Summers on the iconic 1960s CBS sitcom 'Gilligan's Island,' died Wednesday of complications related to COVID-19. She was 82."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (15)

Being the upright (uptight?) Christian that he is, Pence will surely do the right thing on Jan 6th. But then, a Republican's idea of the right thing is sometimes the polar opposite of what the right thing actually is, and the trump crime ring seems to think that doing anything must enrich them.
Jan 20 can't come soon enough.

December 30, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterForrest Morris

@Forrest Morris: Quite right. It's funny how pence has figured out that God always decides that "the right thing" is what works out to mike pence's advantage. Maybe that's what some evangelicals mean when they claim to have "a personal relationship with God."

December 30, 2020 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

It's always good to have a laugh after reading the news of the day. Here's a guffaw about Jim Jordan, that motor mouth in Congress that wrestles with issues large and small like a sweating psychopath.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jim-jordan-founders-
lockdowns_n_5febd9a6c5b64e4421074d08

I'm on the seat of my pants waiting to see the outcome of this stand-off in Congress: WHAT will the shell bearing reptile do? And why is he doing what he's doing? He's getting a slap on his lily white bottom from the bigly Boss with whom he has laid down and spread his arms out for four years. Power plays like this makes the game of "working for the people" a sham operation. Me- myself- and- I is the song they sing even though they know it's off key.

December 30, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

Regarding the spike in cases and travel, I traveled for work in mid-December, an April trip that was postponed for various reasons and taking place in December because it was the least populated time at the work site.

The layover airport was the scariest part of the trip, especially on the way back. Most people in the gate areas were good about masks, but the bars and restaurants were full of people yapping away without their masks on. It was horrifying.

At one point, a big fellow in a grey T-shirt and a flag mask sat near me. I was contemplating whether I should move, when he opened a bag of chips and carefully slipped one under his mask. We sat quietly and watched the game on TV together.

December 30, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterNiskyGuy

Marie,

Very. very tangential, but you reminded me of the bright remark made by a parent of one of my students many years since at a high school basketball game at a Seattle area private Christian school.

Not held to the same geograpnic boundaries as public schools, private schools were often suspected of recruiting athletes, which in my experience with our states's athletic oversight body--an NCAA for high schools-- they in fact did.

When they came on the court, the array of tall players this very small school sported aroused my usual suspicion. All were 6 foot three or above. As they say, it strained credulity.

"Isn't it amazing, " I said to the parent standing next to me, "that those Christian kids are so tall?"

He unhesitatingly responded:

"Well Ken, that's because they're closer to God."

December 30, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

@NiskyGuy: My heart does go out to people who must travel for work or other essential reasons. It's sensible to travel by car when possible, but you can't drive cross-country or across continents.

December 30, 2020 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

It is amazing that the "always-working" Dumptruck admin just hasn't found the right rhythm for the distribution of the vaccines and the construction of PPE for the workers. Why, everybody knows that the "best people" work (or don't work) for the "best administration" as hired by the Dumptruckies. Is anyone surprised that they are doing the job for the nation that they were (not) hired to do? It's very hard to work when your boss is always on the links, shuffling his fat a** into and out of a golf cart all day. No one knows what to do OR how to accomplish what is needed. There has never been an outfit so incompetent and led by the biggest loser incompetent racist crapweasel of them all.

December 30, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterJeanne

I got an e mail from a friend in Georgia this morning that the 600$ was already in her account. We agreed that Georgia was probably at the front of the line so as to boost Loeffler and Purdue before the election. You can be sure Trump will be bellowing all about it when he's at his big rally in a blood red section of North Georgia on Monday.

December 30, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterBobby Lee

@Jeanne

Your comment provokes this scary thought:

What if the Pretender and his gang of corrupt incompetents had been at the helm during WWII?

Oh, I guess I know. We would have had no war effot to fuck up.

He would have joined the other side.

December 30, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

@Ken: I, too, observed the discrepancy in basketball players when going to my grandson's games, although the extra tall players were from the public schools and most were black. Guess that Christian god spreads his preference for athletic prowess all round.

YOUR antidote reminds me of a remark from a mother of one of the football players on my son's high school team. We were watching a game in which the other side was losing and I said, "Wow, it's amazing how our guys are beating them–-they have a reputation of winning most of their games."

"Well," she said, "that's because most are black and play dirty."

I let that sink in for a moment and then, in a tone that was icy and curt, said: "what a shame racism is rearing its ugly head when some thought it was done with and dead."

She never responded and soon moved away to sit elsewhere.

December 30, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

Someone must be screwing with the USPS in Georgia prior to the upcoming election. I received a Christmas card today from my sister in Georgia, postmarked 10 days ago.
Would this be intentional? Nah, who would do that?

December 30, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterForrest Morris

Bernie talks about Moscow Mitch & T*** without using the word asshole: https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/12/29/bernie-sanders-stimulus-checks-mcconnell-tsr-vpx.cnn

December 30, 2020 | Unregistered Commentercitizen625

Jeanne,

C’mon now. We hear all the time that the Fat Fascist is having “many calls and meetings”. Everyday. Even while riding in a golf cart surrounded by secret service agents who are using our tax dollars to further enrich the Trump Crime Family.

What we’re not told is those “many calls and meetings” have nothing to do with insignificant things like saving the lives of Americans not named Trump, or time wasting stuff like national security. They’re all about how Fatty can further enrich himself at our expense. The only thing he’s ever actually worked at while in office. Oh, and the destruction of democracy. And pardoning serial killers.

December 30, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

WHEN YOUR VOTERS DON'T CARE WHETHER GOVERNMENT IMPROVES THEIR LIVES, YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU WANT
"And because they don't expect to get anything from government except validation of their hatred of liberals and the Democratic Party, they'll be fine. They won't care that the checks didn't go through. They'll still vote for Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in the Georgia Senate runoffs. They won't punish Republicans for this in any upcoming elections."

December 30, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

I see that Senator josh hawley has declared he will challenge the election results. He's the prick who testified at the Senate election committee meeting that his constituents "felt" as if they had been disenfranchised because their guy lost. Miserable folk.

December 30, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterNiskyGuy
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