;)
Thursday
Dec032020
The Commentariat -- December 4, 2020
Afternoon Update:
From Friday's WashPo Covid-19 updates, also linked below: "'We have not yet seen the post-Thanksgiving peak,' Anthony S. Fauci said Friday. 'That's the concerning thing, because the numbers in and of themselves are alarming.'"
Axios: "The government's top infectious-disease expert Anthony Fauci said Friday that he 'absolutely' will accept the offer from President-elect Joe Biden to serve as his chief medical adviser, telling NBC's 'Today' that he said yes 'right on the spot.'"
Where There's Smoke, There's Smoke. Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "To date, the [Trump] campaign has done little more than throw smoke bombs and insist there's a fire. In a triumphant appearance on Sean Hannity's Fox News program Thursday night, however, Giuliani announced that all of that had changed. 'Today's video was really explosive,' he said.... The video at issue is a collection of feeds from security cameras apparently recording a ballot-counting operation in Fulton County, Ga. In it, an individual is seen directing others to pull black containers from either a shelving unit or from under a table. The containers are then taken to nearby tables, opened and apparent ballots removed. It's hard to tell what happens next, but a voice-over suggests that the half-dozen individuals in the room then scanned the ballots. What Giuliani and others claim happened is that observers were cleared from the room and that ballots hidden in suitcases were then brought out to be counted without oversight.... The fact-checking site Lead Stories dug into the claims, speaking with several Georgia officials about what the video showed. '... the work you see is the work you would expect,' said Gabriel Sterling, the state's voting systems manager, 'which is you take the sealed suitcase-looking things in, you place the ballots on the scanner in manageable batches and you scan them.'... Another official ... also denied that anyone had been told to leave the room. A monitor from the state election board also told Lead Stories that he was present the entire time."
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. Matt Naham of Law & Crime: "The Georgia Kraken, when arguing on Friday that the Eleventh Circuit has jurisdiction to hear its appeal, said Dominion Voting Systems rigged the election against Joe Biden. The assertion can be found in the first paragraph of Sidney Powell and Lin Wood's background presentation of their case.... '[T]here were all imaginable varieties of voting fraud,' appellants said, 'including machine-controlled algorithms deliberately run by Dominion Voting Systems that generally took more than 2.5% of the votes from Mr. Biden and flipped them to Mr. Trump for a more than 5% fraudulent increase for Mr. Biden.' To be clear, this line says that Dominion took votes from Biden and gave them to Trump -- to increase Biden's vote. That's an ... interesting theory and 'epic fail.'" Thanks to NiskyGuy for the laugh.
Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post, who enjoys thumbing her nose at Trump as much as anyone, now takes on Mitch & his confederate mob: "The refusal by Republicans to acknowledge President-elect Joe Biden's election victory is remarkable in its contempt for democracy and defiance of reality.... Biden not only received a majority of the popular vote, but also cleared 51 percent -- the largest vote percentage obtained against an incumbent president since 1932 and a bigger percentage of the popular vote than any Republican president since George H.W. Bush in 1988, when Bush was essentially running for a third Ronald Reagan term. In the process, Biden amassed the largest total number of ballots in U.S. history. He pummeled Trump by more than 7 million votes (and exceeded Barack Obama's 2008 vote total by more than 11 million).... Biden's victory..., far from narrow..., represents the overwhelming verdict of the voters. If there is such a thing as a mandate, Biden has one.... Treating Biden as anything but the president-elect and denying him ample latitude to compile the Cabinet and senior staff of his choosing represents an outlandish attempt to preempt the will of more than 80 million Americans."
Nathan McDermott, et al., of CNN: "... Donald Trump's nominee to become a senior Pentagon official spread debunked conspiracies on Twitter that called Trump's election loss to Joe Biden a 'coup' attempt and shared tweets that suggest Trump should declare martial law. Scott O'Grady, a former fighter pilot and Trump loyalist, repeatedly retweeted tweets that falsely stated Trump won the election in 'landslide fashion' and that millions of votes were stolen from the President.... O'Grady was nominated by the White House to become an assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs at the Pentagon.... CNN's KFile reviewed O'Grady's tweets and media appearances and found that O'Grady shared other debunked election conspiracies and that he also degraded top military and intelligence officials. In a radio interview, he called former President Barack Obama and military generals 'sworn socialists,' and advocated that the military justice system should bring back treason charges. He retweeted a tweet that called former Defense Secretary James Mattis a 'traitor.'" And so forth. Lotsa so-forth. MB: I'm just thinking top DOD jobs should go to people who are (1) fairly apolitical and (2) fairly sane.
~~~~~~~~~~
The Trumpidemic, Ctd.
Stuart Thompson in a New York Times op-ed: "A vaccine may be around the corner, but how long will it be until you get the shot? Health officials are considering vaccine timelines that give some Americans priority over others. If you're a healthy American, you may wait many months for your turn. To put this in perspective, we worked with the Surgo Foundation and
The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here: "Nearly 213,000 new coronavirus cases were reported across the United States on Thursday, the highest number yet. And at least 2,500 covid-19 deaths were reported for the third consecutive day -- the deadliest stretch since the pandemic began."
Jeff Cox of CNBC: "Nonfarm payrolls increased by just 245,000 in November, well below Wall Street estimates as rising coronavirus cases coincided with a considerable slowdown in hiring.... Though the U.S. is coming off its fastest growth quarter ever, economists worry that the next quarter or two could see flat or even negative growth before rebounding strongly in the latter part of 2021. The November job gains would be considered strong under normal circumstances, but the pandemic has left millions of Americans out of work from jobs lost in the early stages of the crisis. The total represents the slowest job growth since the employment recovery began in May." The Washington Post's report is here.
Dan Merica of CNN: "President-elect Joe Biden told CNN's Jake Tapper on Thursday that he will ask Americans to wear masks for his first 100 days after he takes office, in a sign of how Biden's approach to the virus will be dramatically different to ... Donald Trump's response. 'Just 100 days to mask, not forever. 100 days. And I think we'll see a significant reduction,' Biden told Tapper during his first joint interview with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris since winning the election. The full interview will air at 9 p.m. ET [Thursday]. Biden said that where he has authority, like in federal buildings or in interstate transportation on airplanes and buses, he will issue a standing order that masks must be worn.... Biden also said he has asked Dr. Anthony Fauci to be a chief medical adviser and part of his Covid-19 response team when his administration begins next year."
Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, talked on Thursday about reaching agreement on must-pass government funding legislation and on another coronavirus relief package, amid pressure from rank and file members for a bipartisan compromise.... But Mr. McConnell appeared to be [interested in] a much smaller stimulus proposal he began circulating earlier this week that he said would be able to secure President Trump's signature, not the compromise measure being developed by a group of moderate senators in both parties.... Mr. McConnell has been largely removed from discussions with Ms. Pelosi over another stimulus bill since the two chambers enacted a sweeping $2.2 trillion stimulus law in March.... Later on Thursday, more Republican senators signaled openness to embracing the $908 billion framework that Democratic leaders had endorsed as a baseline for restarting negotiations." This is an item in the Times' Biden transition live updates. ~~~
~~~ Patricia Cohen of the New York Times: "The coronavirus pandemic has inflicted an economic battering on state and local governments, shrinking tax receipts by hundreds of billions of dollars. Now devastating budget cuts loom, threatening to cripple public services and pare work forces far beyond the 1.3 million jobs lost in eight months. Governors, mayors and county executives have pleaded for federal aid before the end of the year. Congressional Republicans have scorned such assistance, with the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, calling it a 'blue-state bailout.' But it turns out ... six of the seven states that are expected to suffer the biggest revenue declines over the next two years are red -- states led by Republican governors and won by President Trump this year, according to a report from Moody's Analytics."
Best Excuse Ever for Holding Crowded Parties. Lydia O'Connor of the Huffington Post (12/2): "The White House plans at least 25 indoor holiday parties this month. All will include more than 50 guests, The Washington Post reported, and few attendees will be tested in advance. Invitations make no mention of coronavirus precautions.... A reporter who asked [White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany] at a news briefing how the White House could continue with planned holiday parties while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asks Americans to forgo celebrations to slow the spread of COVID-19. 'If you can loot businesses, burn down buildings, engage in a protest, you can also go to a Christmas party,' McEnany responded. 'You can celebrate the holiday of Christmas, and you can do it responsibly.'" ~~~
~~~ Marie: Love the way Mac-a-Ninny equates protests with looting & burning down buildings. Perhaps more important: equating looting & burning down buildings with hosting unprotected, crowded parties may be a fair comparison, but it's not a great argument.
Ariane de Vogue of CNN: "The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with a California ministry that argued the state's Covid-related restrictions on indoor services violated its religious liberty rights, the court's second such ruling on pandemic guidelines for churches in two weeks. In an unsigned order, the justices sent the dispute between the Harvest Rock International Ministry and California Gov. Gavin Newsom back to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals to further consider the case in light of its ruling from last week when the court blocked similar restrictions in New York. There were no noted dissents.... To make their point [the ministry] included in the legal filing a picture of Newsom at a restaurant with a large gathering where no one was wearing masks." (Also linked yesterday.)
Return to Normality
Morgan Chalfont of the Hill: "President-elect Joe Biden pledged Thursday that the Justice Department will be run independently and not be influenced by politics when he takes office. 'It's not my Justice Department. It's the people's Justice Department,' Biden told CNN's Jake Tapper. The president-elect said the officials he chooses to lead the Justice Department will have the 'independent capacity to decide who gets prosecuted and who doesn't.'"
Toluse Olorunnipa & Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post: "President-elect Joe Biden has selected a close adviser to help lead the nation's response to the coronavirus crisis, tapping a veteran of the Obama administration to serve as America's top doctor as the country suffers from a surging pandemic. Vivek H. Murthy, a former U.S. surgeon general, has been asked to reprise the role in an expanded version in the new administration, according to an individual familiar with the decision. Murthy is expected to be part of a team of health-care officials charged with tackling the issue Biden has said would be his top priority upon taking office, according to people with knowledge of the matter, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because decisions have not been officially announced. On Thursday, Biden told CNN that Anthony S. Fauci, the nation's top infectious-disease expert, would serve as a chief medical adviser and help his administration with its coronavirus response plan. Fauci, who served on President Trump's coronavirus task force, has been attacked by the president in recent months as he has contradicted the White House's message that the pandemic is under control and on the verge of disappearing."
Jim Tankersley & Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has officially selected Brian Deese, who played a leading role in bailing out the automotive industry and negotiating the Paris climate agreement under President Barack Obama, to head the National Economic Council, his transition team said Thursday. The appointment, which does not require Senate confirmation, highlights Mr. Biden's plans to use economic policy initiatives to drive climate policy. It also defies pre-emptive criticism from some environmental groups, which have targeted Mr. Deese for his work in recent years as the sustainability director for the asset-management giant BlackRock."
Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post: "Vice President-Elect Kamala D. Harris will name Tina Flournoy Chief of Staff, the transition team announced Thursday, tapping a trailblazer with decades of Washington experience to help run the vice presidential operation. Harris's longtime aide Rohini Kosoglu will serve as domestic policy advisor, and former ambassador to Bulgaria Nancy McEldowney will advise her on national security. Flournoy had been serving as Chief of Staff to former President Bill Clinton, hovering out of the direct Washington spotlight for a few years after serving in several prominent roles in the Democratic party throughout the 1990s and 2000s."
The Last Days of the Kaiser
Pardon Us. All of Us. Anita Kumar & Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "... Donald Trump is considering preemptively pardoning as many as 20 aides and associates before leaving office.... Still, Trump is hesitant to pardon any of them, particularly [Rudy] Giuliani, because it may appear that members of his inner circle are criminals, said one of the three people, who spoke to Trump this week. The Giuliani pardon has been discussed more seriously, the person added." MB: Much of this story is dedicated to how upset "Republicans" are about Trump's wholesale (well, okay, he likely charges retail) pardons. Upset? Seems like the reporters' wishful thinking. The senators they cited hardly expressed outrage. ~~~
~~~ Pardons for Dollars. Michael Schmidt, et al., of the New York Times: "The Justice Department investigated as recently as this summer the roles of a top fund-raiser for President Trump and a lawyer for his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in a suspected scheme to offer a bribe in exchange for clemency for a tax crimes convict, according to two people familiar with the inquiry. A federal judge in Washington unsealed heavily redacted court documents on Tuesday that disclosed the existence of the investigation into possible unregistered lobbying and bribery. The people said it concerned efforts by the lawyer for Mr. Kushner, Abbe Lowell, and the fund-raiser, Elliott Broidy, who pleaded guilty in October to a charge related to a different scheme to lobby the Trump administration. A billionaire real estate developer from the San Francisco area, Sanford Diller, enlisted their help in securing clemency for a Berkeley psychologist, Hugh L. Baras, who had received a 30-month prison sentence on a conviction of tax evasion and improperly claiming Social Security benefits.... Mr. Diller ... died in February 2018, and there is no evidence that the effort continued after his death.... Mr. Baras did not receive clemency."
"Very Bad Criminal Stuff." Morgan Chalfant of the Hill: "President Trump said Thursday he is disappointed in Attorney General William Barr for saying that the Justice Department had not uncovered evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.... 'He hasn't done anything, so he hasn't looked. When he looks, he'll see the kind of evidence that right now you are seeing in the Georgia Senate. They are going through hearings right now in Georgia and they are finding tremendous volumes,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. 'So, they haven't looked very hard. Which is a disappointment, to be honest with you, because it's massive fraud.' The president also declined to offer a vote of confidence in Barr when asked. 'Ask me that in a number of weeks from now. They should be looking at all of this fraud,' he said. 'This is not civil. He thought it was civil. This is not civil. This is criminal stuff. This is very bad criminal stuff.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ DOJ Throws Trump Aide Out of the Building. Michael Balsamo & Zeke Miller of the AP: "The official serving as ... Donald Trump's eyes and ears at the Justice Department has been banned from the building after trying to pressure staffers to give up sensitive information about election fraud and other matters she could relay to the White House, three people familiar with the matter tell The Associated Press. Heidi Stirrup, an ally of top Trump adviser Stephen Miller, was quietly installed at the Justice Department as a White House liaison a few months ago. She was told within the last two weeks to vacate the building after top Justice officials learned of her efforts to collect insider information about ongoing cases and the department's work on election fraud, the people said. Stirrup is accused of approaching staffers in the department demanding they give her information about investigations, including election fraud matters...." ~~~
~~~ Marie: In case you're thinking, "But maybe Heidi is a good person," there's this near the end of the AP story: "Stirrup, a close ally of [Stephen] Miller, previously served as the acting director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement...." Nuf said. ~~~
~~~ So Then. Lachlan Markay of the Daily Beast: "... Donald Trump has rewarded some of his top fundraisers [& other loyalists] with plumb federal positions that will outlast his single term in office.... [Among] 24 appointments to various federal bodies announced on Thursday: Heidi Stirrup, a White House liaison to the Department of Justice, landed a spot on the Board of Visitors to the United States Air Force Academy."
"Incontrovertible Evidence" of Election Fraud! Jeffrey Martin of Newsweek: "Former Trump adviser Roger Stone claimed on Wednesday that North Korea had interfered in the U.S. presidential election.... 'I just learned of absolute incontrovertible evidence of North Korean boats delivering ballots through a harbor in Maine, the state of Maine,' Stone said. 'If this checks out, if law enforcement looked into that and it turned out to be true, it would be proof of foreign involvement in the election.'" MB: Wait, wait, Roger; I'm all confused. If the evidence is "incontrovertible," why does it need to be "checked out" to see if "it turned out to be true"? Sounds a tad "controvertible" to me. (Also linked yesterday.)
The Trump Clown Car Takes on Excellent Ghostbuster Witness. Will Sommer of the Daily Beast: "Truck driver Jesse Morgan thrust himself into the middle of the post-2020 election drama on Tuesday when he claimed at a press conference that he had unwittingly driven a truck full of suspicious mail-in ballots from New York to Pennsylvania ahead of Election Day.... The appearance at a voter fraud event hosted by the right-wing Thomas More Center turned Morgan into the latest viral star on the Trumpist right. And, soon enough, his claims were being amplified by the president, his legal team, conservative groups unaffiliated with the campaign, and Trump supporters themselves all of whom have argued that nearly 300,000 bogus mail-in ballots were used in Pennsylvania, Morgan's home state, to put Joe Biden over the top.... In addition to witnessing supposed voter fraud, the man believes his family has been stalked cross-country by ghosts. Before he became a hero in MAGAworld, Morgan was an amateur ghost-hunter." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ So that's Trump's star witness in Pennsylvania. But what about Michigan? you ask. ~~~
~~~ Teo Armus of the Washington Post: "Weeks after Melissa Carone was tapped by the Trump campaign as a star witness in Michigan, little appeared to be going as planned with the contract IT worker's testimony -- an unverified series of claims about ballot fraud at Detroit's vote-counting center. In interviews with conservative-leaning media, last month, her offbeat tale suggesting ballots were being smuggled inside food vans seemed to baffle even Fox Business host Lou Dobbs. Two days later, a Wayne County judge ruled that her allegations 'simply are not credible.' Yet, there she was in front of a Michigan House panel on Wednesday, dressing down a Republican lawmaker as she loudly insisted, without proof, that tens of thousands of votes had been counted twice. At one point, she was audibly shushed by ... Rudolph W. Giuliani.... On social media, her pointed declarations, Midwestern lilt and poofy, blond updo drew comparisons to 'Saturday Night Live' characters played by Victoria Jackson and Cecily Strong." (Also linked yesterday.)
Wisconsin. State Supremes Throw Trump Out of Court. Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday declined to take up a challenge to the presidential election filed by President Trump's campaign, finding that under state law, it should have sought a hearing first in a lower-level court. Trump's campaign could still seek to challenge President-elect Joe Biden's more than 20,000-vote lead in the state in Wisconsin circuit court. But the refusal of the state's highest court to take up Trump's petition is a new blow to Trump's foundering efforts to overturn the election -- and a particularly stinging rebuke, given that conservatives hold a 4-to-3 majority on the elected panel. One conservative member of the panel, Brian Hagedorn, joined the court's three more liberal members in declining to take the case." An AP story is here. The New York Times' story is here.
Georgia Senate Race. A Florida Man Is up to No Good Again. Nicole Carr of WSB-TV Atlanta: "A Florida attorney is at the center of a new state investigation after elections officials say he recently attempted to register to vote in Georgia and instructed other Florida Republicans on how to do it. Bill Price is seen in a now-deleted Facebook Live video, speaking to the Bay County GOP members in Florida on Nov. 7th. It was about half an hour after the election was called for the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris ticket. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger confirmed the video is being investigated....'Those who move to Georgia just to vote in the Senate runoffs with no intention of staying are committing a felony that is punishable with jailtime and hefty fines....' ''We absolutely have to hold the Senate and we have to start fighting back, and we have to do whatever it takes,' Price said in the video. 'And if that means changing your address for the next two months, so be it. I'm doing that. I'm moving to Georgia and I'm gonna fight and I want you all to fight with me.' Price told the group he's moving to his brother's address in Hiram, Georgia in order to register to vote in the January runoff. He repeats and spells and his brother's name and address, as members of the group jot it down."
~~~ Marie: In case you have any friends who are Georgia voters & who think "divided government" will lead to "moderate" outcomes, send them E.J. Dionne's Washington Post column to disabuse them of that idea. (Also linked yesterday.)
Russ Buettner of the New York Times: "President Trump will face a raft of potential legal challenges when he leaves office.... Now add to that Leonie Green of the Westminster Apartments in Brooklyn. Ms. Green is among a group of tenants in rent-regulated apartments once owned by Mr. Trump's father who have filed a lawsuit against the president and his siblings, accusing the Trumps of a decade-long fraud to win artificially high rent increases through an invoice-padding scheme. The scheme, first revealed in a 2018 investigation by The New York Times, involved tacking at least 20 percent onto the cost of materials purchased for the apartments, with Mr. Trump, his siblings and a cousin splitting the extra proceeds. The maneuver generated millions of dollars for each sibling, with no work required. While the siblings were still liable for income taxes, the maneuver allowed them to evade far-higher gift and estate taxes on part of the fortune they received from their father. But the tenants paid a price. New York laws governing rent-regulated apartments allow owners to increase rents based on the costs of major capital improvements.... The new lawsuit ... seeks the extra rent paid, plus interest and triple damages, for current and former tenants in more than 30 apartment complexes that belonged to the president's father, Fred C. Trump."
Jacqueline Alemany & David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "Ivanka Trump was questioned for more than five hours this week by investigators from the D.C. attorney general's office, which has accused President Trump's Inaugural Committee of wasting donated money on an overpriced ballroom at the president;s D.C. hotel, Ivanka Trump said on Twitter Thursday.... On Twitter on Thursday, D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine (D) replied to Ivanka Trump's post with a message calling the Trump hotel's bills 'grossly overpriced.' 'Our investigation revealed the Committee willfully used nonprofit funds to enrich the Trump family. It's very simple: They broke the law. That's why we sued,' Racine wrote in another tweet. In a lawsuit filed in January, Racine said that the Trump Inaugural Committee -- legally a nonprofit, using donated money -- and the Trump hotel took advantage of that arrangement. Racine said the Inaugural Committee spent more than $1 million on a ballroom at the hotel over several days. The rate was $175,000 per day, plus about $300,000 in charges for food and beverages." ~~~
~~~ Marie: According to Emily Fox of Vanity Fair, who appeared on MSNBC, Ivanka was responsible for approving the price charged to the inaugural committee, which Fox said was 35 times the price the hotel normally charges to non-profits.
Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "White House communications director Alyssa Farah resigned from her post Thursday after 3½ years in the Trump administration. Farah, 31, began her White House tenure as press secretary under Vice President Pence before joining the Defense Department as press secretary last September, and she returned to the White House as communications director in April. She is the first person to serve in these three roles in one administration, and the youngest Pentagon press secretary. Farah's departure, with little over a month remaining in President Trump's administration, amounts to a tacit acknowledgment that ... Trump lost the 2020 election, and much of his team is now pondering their post-White House future." ~~~
~~~ Marie: I wondered why Farah would resign with fewer than seven weeks left of this pathetic administration. Then, I saw this near the end of Parker's report: "Much of Farah's final months focused on the coronavirus pandemic...." So I'm guessing Farah has nothing to do and is not that enthusiastic a thumb-twiddler.
That's the Way It Always Goes. Matt Bonesteel of the Washington Post: "In September, prosecutors in Florida dropped misdemeanor prostitution charges against New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft after a state appeals court ruled that footage of Kraft from a police-installed video camera inside the Orchids of Asia spa had been obtained using unconstitutional methods and would be inadmissible at trial. The case didn't end there, however. Three Orchids of Asia employees, including two women Kraft was accused of patronizing, have pleaded guilty to prostitution-related charges. They must pay thousands of dollars in fines, court fees and cash forfeitures and face months of probation. One other employee already had pleaded guilty in February and was sentenced to the 60 days she had spent in custody awaiting an outcome of her case."
Beyond the Beltway
California. Mystery Monolith Updates. Samir Ferdowsi of Vice: "Another unexplained monolith has been spotted, this time in Atascadero, California. The ever-familiar silver silhouette stands atop Pine Mountain, which is located between the Bay Area and Los Angeles. It closely resembles the first monolith found in Utah, but the haste at which it was seemingly placed mimics that of its Romanian counterpart." ~~~
~~~ Samir Ferdowsi: "The new California monolith was torn down overnight by a group of right-wing young men who livestreamed their vandalism in a grainy video posted on the blockchain streaming site DLive. In the video, a group of three men are seen pushing the statue over and chanting 'America First' and 'Christ is King.' The men, one of whom was wearing a 'Make America Great Again' headband, called part of the monolith's construction 'gay' then replaced it monolith with a wooden cross.... Throughout the video they mentioning burning crosses and white power.... It is a decidedly bleak turn in the ongoing monolith saga that has generally been a delightful distraction for a world wracked by a pandemic."
News Lede
New York Times: "Betsy Wade, the first woman to edit news copy for The New York Times and the lead plaintiff in a landmark sex discrimination lawsuit against the newspaper on behalf of its female employees, died on Thursday at her home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She was 91. Her death was confirmed by her husband, James Boylan, who said she had learned in 2017 that she had colon cancer. In a 45-year Times career, Ms. Wade also became the first woman to lead the Newspaper Guild of New York, the largest local in the national journalism union (now known as the NewsGuild). She was revered among peers for her role in the 1974 class-action suit against The Times, one of the industry's earliest fights over women's rights to equal treatment in hiring, promotion, pay and workplace protections under federal antidiscrimination laws."
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Reader Comments (11)
Marie,
A possible edit?
"Perhaps more important: equating looting (a country) & burning down nbuildings (and over five million acres in CA, WA and Oregon this year alone) with hosting unprotected, crowded parties may be a fair comparison, but it's not a great argument".
I am intrigued by the thoughts about the North Korea vessel showing up somewhere on the coast of Maine...ayah... I would think that a boat from NK might be considered somewhat of a surprise, so you would think that the coast guard or someone would be interested in that, and most likely be forbidding such a vessel to land on our shores. Last I heard, apart from Fatman walking over the line (oh so brave!) we don't really have much of a relationship with that particular country. Also, how did they get the right ballots, and were they just thrown willy-nilly into the hold, or what? I really hope someone nails this down, cuz it could be the story of the year...(Is this another Sidney fictional tale?) Bonkers. All of 'em. It would be hilarious but it is getting not so...
@Jeanne: As you may have seen, contributor Elizabeth wrote of a couple of young Mainers during WWII, who might have been the inspiration for Roger's fictional North Koreans.
"Re: Roger Stone and North Korea and the State of Maine. I just had a properly distanced cup of tea with my mother and friends, and my mother mentioned the case of a young woman and teenage boy in Hancock County, Maine, who in 1944 alerted authorities of two suspicious characters they'd seen down on Hancock Point. The two men turned out to be spies and were arrested in NYC. Maybe Stone decided to take the old story and spruce it up for the twenty-first century. But trying to pull a fast one among skeptic Mainers is pretty much a nonstarter."
https://bangordailynews.com/2020/11/29/news/hancock/how-a-down-east-boy-scout-and-his-neighbor-helped-foil-the-plans-of-two-nazi-spies/
Marie: Considering that the young people of 1944 thought the German spies' clothing made them look out-of-place, it seems possible that some passing Mainers might have thought it odd that a bunch of emaciated N.K. sailors offloading boxes of ballots would have seemed out-of-the-norm.
I must say, all of trump's family and criminal associates have become oh so polite after the election. All we hear is
"pardon me" "pardon me" "pardon me".
I hear there's a boatload of pardons on the way from North
Korea looking for a place to dock. Mar-A-Lago?
Re Roger Stone: he is clearly just trolling, seeing how ludicrous he can be and get ink on it.
That a guy who is a long-time self-admitted liar and provocateur gets any press or any credence from anybody is strong testimony that US politics is about entertainment and not about classic democratic politics: establishing representative government to effect the people's business and organize efforts for their welfare.
And, Roger is not even entertaining anymore, and neither are his fans and cohort. They are boring.
GASLIGHTING:
As Rudy pursues his pleas for "please fess-up to all those stolen ballots" it appears that along with the embarrassment of black dye dripping down his face he now has passed gas–-twice–-during yesterday's court hearing. Sitting to his right was Melissa Carone, that crackpot succubus whom Judy Holiday could have played so very well. Did she smell the gas or was she busy yapping at those moments of bad air quality. As crazy as all these performances are they provide us with late night hilarity. I find myself laughing at so much of this "beyond the pale" stuff because I'm weary of feeling frustrated, furious, and vengeful. As serious as this division is––and boy, is it serious!–-it helps to look at it as absurd comedy ––if only for moments–-kind of clears the cobwebs of absolute horror.
And nothing would please me more than finding out that Ivanka, during those five hour chit chats, had lied.
Roger Stone's Maine story seems straight out of The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming.
Rockygirl: that was exactly what I was envisioning...I loved that movie! Remember movies? They were fun, weren't they? Of course, I had not been to one in months when all the theaters closed, so it is certainly a long-ago exercise in entertainment.
Husband is reporting that Lowe's is out of Christmas lights, as all the homes around us are going wild with the outdoor decor...and Costco and Giant are out of peanut butter and paper towels... I expect PA to do a CA soon... Must organize the Christmas list of purchases to make differently this year. Thanks, Fatso-- really love your attention to this-- Did not listen to the diatribe but it reminded me of the fact that the man at the "head" of the government has not expressed one word of sympathy or empathy as a person dies every 30 seconds. Not only is he a fractured person, but he has managed to break so many others. McConnell has come in as a tie. His only sign of human compassion was for that flunkie Lamar. Not a milk-of-human-kindness thing in sight with the GOP. Revolting. I will not forget what they are.
As usual, confederates trafficking in lies and winger mythologies, feed the hunger of red state Trumpers for proof that they are the real Americans, the warriors of the true American spirit, not those blue state commies who voted for Biden, who stole the election from their hero.
Moscow Mitch is painting a Covid relief bill as a “blue state bailout”. In fact, red state bailouts happen all the time, every day. Every hour of every day.
According to the Brookings Institute, counties that voted for Biden, blue ones, that is, account for 70% of the American economy. Trump counties, red ones, only 30%. Tax revenues come, by an equally enormous margin, from blue states, while red states, by far and away, account for the largest share of government handouts, aka bailouts.
So, “blue state bailout”, Turtle Man? Yeah. When red states, including yours, contribute as much to the economy, and cut their mooching by half, at least, then come talk to me about blue state bailouts.
Fucking liar.
Bwaaahaahaahaahaa! The link says it all:
https://lawandcrime.com/2020-election/sidney-powells-georgia-kraken-filing-began-by-saying-dominion-flipped-votes-from-biden-to-trump/
Ace lawyer team you got there, T****.
"Trump is hesitant to pardon any of them, particularly [Rudy] Giuliani, because it MAY appear that members of his inner circle are criminals"
I hope that after the pardons every reporter identifies the Trump Gang as "Admitted criminal (fill in the name)." Accepting a pardon from Donny is accepting the guilt.