;)
The Commentariat -- December 6, 2020
Afternoon Update:
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Sunday are here.
Felicia Sonmez & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump's personal lawyer, has contracted the coronavirus, the president said Sunday in a tweet.... Giuliani traveled to states including Michigan and Georgia last week and met indoors with state legislators in an effort to persuade them to overturn President-elect Joe Biden's victory. Videos of the appearances showed Giuliani was not wearing a mask during the meetings. Hours before Trump's tweet, Giuliani appeared on Fox News's 'Sunday Morning Futures,' where he repeated the president's false claims of election fraud.... When he has been around others who have tested positive, Giuliani has not quarantined, including after a news conference last month at the Republican National Committee's headquarters when his son tested positive."
Harry Enten of CNN: " A new Gallup poll finds that President-elect Joe Biden has a 55% favorable rating and a 41% unfavorable rating. The same poll gives ... Donald Trump a 42% favorable rating and a 57% unfavorable rating.... Biden is more popular than Trump has been at any point since he started running for president in June 2015."
David Edwards of the Raw Story: "Fox News viewers expressed outrage at ... Chris Wallace on Sunday after he repeatedly insisted that Joe Biden is the rightful president-elect. Wallace made the remarks during an interview with Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who referred to Biden as a former vice president. 'He's president-elect,' Wallace told Azar multiple times."
Matthew Choi & Daniel Lippman of Politico in Politico Magazine: "Presidents have generally succeeded in ... managing to project an image of executive competence no matter how absurd the backstage dynamics. And then came Donald Trump. 'Every day was like a Veep episode,' said one former senior administration official, recounting his time working for Trump. 'You tried to win each day, but like most Veep episodes, it typically ended in disaster.' Maintaining the normal veneer of smooth competence proved impossible in a White House that struggled from the start to find disciplined aides, and where the boss's whims and ego made even Veep's Selina Meyer seem levelheaded. As for keeping it hidden, not even close: Trumpworld's constant leaks and backstabbing ensured that all of America saw its dirty laundry.... From the administration's very first press conference to its last ham-handed attempts to reverse its loss at the polls, the Trump show kept delivering nuggets that could easily have slid into a Veep script -- and in at least one case literally replicated a Veep plot point.... Here's Politico Magazine's unscientific, non-exhaustive reconstruction of Trump's four years in office, told through its most Veep-worthy moments."
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The Trumpidemic, Ctd.
Christopher Rowland, et al., of the Washington Post: "Federal officials have slashed the amount of coronavirus vaccine they plan to ship to states in December because of constraints on supply, sending local officials into a scramble to adjust vaccination plans and highlighting how early promises of a vast stockpile before the end of 2020 have fallen short. Instead of the delivery of 300 million or so doses of vaccine immediately after emergency-use approval and before the end of 2020 as the Trump administration had originally promised, current plans call for availability of around a tenth of that, or 35 to 40 million doses. Two vaccines, from manufacturers Pfizer and Moderna, which both use a novel form of mRNA to help trigger immune response, are on the verge of winning Food and Drug Administration clearance this month. Approval would cap an unprecedented sprint by government and drug companies to develop, test and manufacture a defense against the worst pandemic in a century -- part of the Operation Warp Speed initiative that promised six companies advance purchase orders totaling $9.3 billion.... Lower-than-anticipated allocations have caused widespread confusion and concern in states, which are beginning to grasp the level of vaccine scarcity they will confront in the early going of the massive vaccination campaign."
Jocelyn Gecker of the AP: "The vast region of Southern California, much of the San Francisco Bay area and a large swath of the Central Valley are about to be placed under a sweeping new lockdown in an urgent attempt to slow the rapid rise of coronavirus cases. The California Department of Public Health said Saturday the intensive care unit capacity in Southern California and Central Valley hospitals had fallen below a 15% threshold that triggers the new measures, which include strict closures for businesses and a ban on gathering with anyone outside of your own household. The new measures will take effect Sunday evening and remain in place for at least three weeks, meaning the lockdown will cover the Christmas holiday.... Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the new plan Thursday. It is the most restrictive order since he imposed the country's first statewide stay-at-home rule in March. But the situation is bleaker than in March.... Under the new order, schools that are currently open can continue to provide in-person instruction; retailers including supermarkets and shopping centers can operate with just 20% customer capacity.... With a new lockdown looming, many rushed out to supermarkets Saturday and lined up outside salons to squeeze in a haircut before the orders kicked in."
Brianna Ehley of Politico: "The CDC on Friday for the first time recommended that people wear masks at all times when they're not home, saying the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. has entered a phase of 'high level transmission.' The guidance, included in a new report, advised state and local officials to impose mask mandates for indoor settings as part of broader mitigation efforts to control the spread of the virus. It echoes President-elect Joe Biden's call for mask orders that a number of red state governors have rejected. This is the first time the CDC has recommended universal mask-wearing, including indoors. The agency for months has endorsed face coverings, and in July released a study touting their effectiveness in community settings to reduce transmission of the virus."
Hannah Knowles of the Washington Post: "Deriding mask-wearing, Steven LaTulippe has touted his credentials as a 'practicing physician.' Last month, he urged Trump supporters gathered in Salem, Ore., to 'take off the mask of shame' -- though hardly a covered face was in sight -- and said proudly, to claps and cheers, that none of his clinic staff wore the simple accessories shown to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.... LaTulippe's license to practice medicine has now been suspended. Explaining the suspension in a written order Friday, the Oregon Medical Board said LaTulippe's disdain for public health measures went far beyond staff going maskless. The Dallas, Ore.-based doctor not only fails to take basic precautions, the board said, but 'actively promotes transmission of the virus within the extended community' by his poor example." MB: Wake up, California Medical Board. There's this guy at Stanford named Scott Atlas....
The Last Days of the Mad Kaiser
Peter Baker of the New York Times: "Over the past week, President Trump posted or reposted more than 130 messages on Twitter lashing out at the results of an election he lost. He mentioned the coronavirus pandemic now reaching its darkest hours four times -- and even then just to assert that he was right about the outbreak and the experts were wrong. Moody and by accounts of his advisers sometimes depressed, the president barely shows up to work, ignoring the health and economic crises afflicting the nation and largely clearing his public schedule of meetings unrelated to his desperate bid to rewrite the election results. He has fixated on rewarding friends, purging the disloyal and punishing a growing list of perceived enemies that now includes Republican governors, his own attorney general and even Fox News. The final days of the Trump presidency have taken on the stormy elements of a drama more common to history or literature than a modern White House.... He has been enabled by Republican leaders unwilling to stand up to him, even if many privately wish he would go away sooner rather than later.... Only 25 of 249 Republican members of Congress surveyed by The Washington Post publicly acknowledged Mr. Biden's victory." ~~~
~~~ Marie: A good dramatist could make something of this farce, but her work necessarily would be fiction because the character Trumpo would have no have some, well, character. The @RealDonaldTrump has no redeeming qualities. ~~~
~~~ The Cowardly Courtiers. Paul Kane & Scott Clement of the Washington Post: "Just 27 congressional Republicans acknowledge Joe Biden's win over President Trump a month after the former vice president's clear victory of more than 7 million votes nationally and a convincing electoral-vote margin that exactly matched Trump's 2016 tally. Two Republicans consider Trump the winner despite all evidence showing otherwise. And another 220 GOP members of the House and Senate -- about 88 percent of all Republicans serving in Congress -- will simply not say who won the election.... More than 70 percent of Republican lawmakers did not acknowledge The Post's questions as of Friday evening. In response to the congressional Republicans who have called Biden president-elect identified in the Post survey, Trump tweeted Saturday: 'I am surprised there are so many. We have just begun to fight. Please send me a list of the ... RINOS.'..."
Jonathan Martin & Astead Herndon of the New York Times: "One month before a pair of Georgia runoffs that will determine the Senate majority, President Trump used a rally for the Republican senators on Saturday to complain about his own loss last month, insisting he would still prevail and, with notably less ardor, encouraging voters here to re-elect the two lawmakers. Taking the stage for his first rally as a lame duck president, Mr. Trump immediately, and falsely, claimed victory in the presidential race. 'You know we won Georgia, just so you understand,' he said.... Speaking for an hour and 40 minutes, the president did read a series of scripted lines about the two Republican senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, and repeatedly urged his supporters in Georgia to vote next month, even mentioning the deadlines for the mail-in ballots he has so often scorned. Yet he embedded those dutiful remarks of support in a deep thicket of conspiracy-mongering about his defeat and even aired a lengthy montage of video of clips from the conservative news outlets Newsmax and One America News Network, which also depicted a sinister plot of electoral theft." ~~~
~~~ Cleve Wootson, et al., of the Washington Post: "... Trump spent most of his time airing grievances and falsehoods about the presidential race, occasionally weaving in mention of the Senate runoffs. He knocked [Democrats Jon] Ossoff and [Raphael] Warnock as 'radical Democrats' who would be 'total pawns' of Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). He also attacked Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, both Georgia Republicans who have repeatedly vouched for the integrity of the state's elections.... Trump was introduced Saturday night by a surprise guest -- first lady Melania Trump -- who seemed to stick to prepared remarks, encouraging the crowd to vote for [Kelly] Loeffler and [David] Perdue without mentioning her husband's claims of a 'rigged' election." MB: Read "pawns of elite New York City Jew." The AP's story is here.
Kristen Holmes & Veronica Stracqualursi of CNN: "... Donald Trump on Saturday called Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, pushing him to convince state legislators to overturn President-elect Joe Biden's win in the state, a source familiar with the conversation told CNN. Trump asked Kemp to call a special session and convince state legislators to select their own electors that would support him, according to the source. He also asked the Republican governor to order an audit of absentee ballot signatures. Kemp explained that he did not have the authority to order such an audit and denied the request to call a special session, the source said.... The President appeared to reference the call in a tweet Saturday, attacking Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and calling for a signature audit of the absentee ballot envelopes in the state -- while making false or misleading claims about the potential process. The governor, in response, tweeted that he has already 'publicly called for a signature audit three times' -- leading Trump to then double down on his request for Kemp to call for a special session of the state's Legislature." A Washington Post story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: While we have the luxury to laugh at Trump's (and his supporters') hamfisted attempts to overturn the results of this year's presidential election, we must bear in mind that this election could have been much closer, with only one state determining the winner. That's not at all unlikely in a future presidential election. And in that case, a Trumpian-style pressure campaign could break state & local officials. Some new laws might serve to further discourage Trumpish behavior, but the most effective way to minimize such stunts might be a Constitutional Amendment to select the president & veep by popular vote, eliminating the pesky, outdated Electoral College altogether. It would be a lot more difficult to take every bite out of a half-million- or million-vote difference in the national count. ~~~
~~~ Update: Ben Ginsberg, the bad boy of the 2000 Florida recount, agrees in a Washington Post op-ed: "The country was lucky that President Trump and his reelection campaign were so inept. He ultimately lost by a wide margin, and his challenges to the results have been farcical. His rhetoric ramped up in inverse proportion to his ability to produce evidence supporting his charges of systemic 'fraud' or 'rigged' elections. The United States might not be so lucky next time. What if the 2020 election had been as close as it was in 2000, and the outcome hinged on a state (or states) with a truly narrow margin? How would the country have fared under a Trump-style assault on democracy's foundations?" Ginsberg has suggestions for measures that would strengthen election law.
Right before the election, the fake populist Kaiser found his inner fake Johnny Cash. (The real Johnny Cash was an actual populist.) Thanks to PD Pepe for the link:
Georgia. Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Erik Wemple of the Washington Post is amused by the Fox "News" conspiracy theory "proving" "suitcases full of ballots" were pulled out from hiding places under tables in the Fulton County, Georgia, elections processing room & counted in the dead of night.
Pennsylvania. Dueling Letters. Stephen Caruso of the Pennsylvania Capital-Star: "Repeating a point they have made for the past month, Pennsylvania's Republican legislative leadership released a letter Thursday affirming that the General Assembly cannot overturn the results of the 2020 election in the Keystone State.... GOP legislative leadership -- including House Speaker Bryan Cutler, of Lancaster County, and Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman, of Centre County, publicly rejected the argument that they could appoint pro-Trump electors to the Electoral College, overriding the popular vote this week.... But, just 24 hours later, the top two House Republicans turned around and signed a letter calling for Congress to reject Pennsylvania's electors sent to the state's 18 representatives and two U.S. senators.... The same concerns in the congressional lette[r] have been included in [a] Trump campaign [lawsuit] to delay the certification of Pennsylvania's results. A federal judge rejected the claims, and tossed the suit. It is now on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court."
Arizona. Ryan Randazzo, et al., of the Arizona Republic (in USA Today): "Republican Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives Rusty Bowers said Friday that pleas from some GOP lawmakers to overturn the results of the state's presidential election are illegal and 'cannot and will not' happen. Republican state Reps. Mark Finchem and Kelly Townsend spent much of the day imploring their fellow legislators on social media to overturn the election results in favor of ... Donald Trump. Bowers said such action would be both illegal and inappropriate. 'As a conservative Republican, I don't like the results of the presidential election,' Bowers said in a prepared statement. 'I voted for President Trump and worked hard to reelect him. But I cannot and will not entertain a suggestion that we violate current law to change the outcome of a certified election.'"
Dave Itzkoff of the New York Times: "... "S.N.L." faithful couldn't help but draw comparisons between [Rudy Giuliani's 'simply not credible' witness Melissa] Carone's distinctive cadence and the speech patterns of the Girl You Wish You Hadn't Started a Conversation With at a Party, the recurring character played by Cecily Strong. And sure enough, Strong took center stage in this weekend's opening sketch, playing Carone in a parody of the Michigan hearing." The sketch is here (and is embedded in the story). (MB: I didn't think the opener was funny enough to embed, but to each her own.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Just in case you think maybe Strong didn't get Carone quite right, here's a clip of the real Carone:
The Punk Behind a Trumpian Attack on National Security. Courtney Kube & Carol Lee of NBC News: "A Trump loyalist who was recently appointed as Pentagon chief of staff is controlling the Biden transition's team access to Pentagon officials, even blocking some career officials and experts from giving information about key defense issues to the transition team and telling political appointees to take the lead instead, say two current and two former U.S. officials. In some instances, the chief of staff, Kash Patel, who was assigned to the Pentagon after last month's election, has recast policy descriptions to include content that reflects favorably on Trump's policies before the information is shared with the Biden transition, two of the officials said. 'He told everybody we're not going to cooperate with the transition team,' one of the former officials said of Patel, and he has 'put a lot of restrictions on it.'" Patel is a protégé of Rep. Devin Nunes (or possibly Devin Nunes' cow). ~~~
~~~ Greg Miller & Missy Ryan of the Washington Post: "Pentagon officials said Saturday that leaders of the military's intelligence services will begin meeting with members of President-elect Joe Biden's transition team Monday, ending what some current and former officials said was an impasse that undermined the transfer of control. Officials said that advisers to the incoming Biden administration are scheduled to meet with officials at the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other spy services at their headquarters. The Defense Department and acting defense secretary Christopher Miller issued statements Saturday denying that the Pentagon had resisted giving the Biden team access to the agencies or information about their operations and budgets." This is a follow-up to a story by Miller & Ryan linked yesterday.
Gillian Brockell of the Washington Post: "Two historian groups, an independent archive and a watchdog organization are suing President Trump and other administration officials to ensure compliance with records laws, the groups announced this week. With Trump facing 'potential legal and financial exposure once he leaves office,' the groups said, 'there is a growing risk that he will destroy records of his presidency before leaving.' The American Historical Association, the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations and the National Security Archive and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington -- a frequent plaintiff in Trump-related legal challenges -- joined in the lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia."
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Reader Comments (6)
So this Kash Patel guy who was appointed Trump something, something at the Pentagon, (and who has been in the job for, what, two weeks?) is gumming up the works, because that’s what Trump appointees do, right? But where did he learn how to be such a shithead? And how was he able to fuck things up so royally after being on the job only a couple of weeks?
Oh! He’s a Devin Nunes protégé. No wonder. He’s learning about public service from Devin Nunes? Isn’t that like taking fire safety lessons from Mrs. O’Leary’s cow? (Possibly an ancestor of Devin Nunes’ cow.)
@Akhilleus: Good work! If we do this right, we can blame Donald Trump for the Great Chicago Fire, just as his people blamed (dead) Hugo Chavez for fixing voting machines for Joe Biden or something. Seems fair to me. Oohhh, one dark night when we were all in bed....
According to Evan Osnos, who wrote a piece for the New Yorker on violence in America, the conflict between persuasion and force. He cites the Fund for Peace, a think tank, that ranked the political "cohesion" of various countries between 2008 and 2018; they measured the entrenchment of factions, trust in the security forces, and the level of popular discontent. They found that the U.S. recorded the largest drop in cohesion among any of the many countries studied. In Obama's first year in office, the number of anti-government "patriot" groups more than tripled. And something that made my hair stand up on end was this: Since 2001, right-wing terrorists have killed more people in this country than Islamic extremists have. Two years ago a team of political scientists found that fifteen per cent of Republicans and twenty per cent of Democrats believed that the U.S. would be better off if large numbers of the opposing party "just died."
And then there's the peril of ignorance––something we have been seeing and hearing first hand ––we need no statistics to tell us the demise of intelligence in this country. When we read that two-thirds of Americans could not name the three branches of government in a study taken in 2005 or that scarcely a third of high school seniors read at or above the level of proficiency then....
Bill Moyers, in a speech on "end-times" rhetoric in evangelical politics lamented:
"One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal."
So here we are witnessing the degradation of anything resembling reason. This country is not only ill with a virus but, as Susan Jacoby in her book, "The Age of American Unreason" says, "ill with a powerful mutant strain of intertwined ignorance, anti- rationalism and anti-intellectualism."
So far we have seen Biden's campaign send messages that ideas matter, that words matter: "To make progress, we have to stop treating our opponents as enemies," he said which echos Lincoln's words at his first Inaugural Address. And I wonder how long it will take for a healing to begin or is it too late for this country to get its shit together and wake the hell up! "
"Are we there yet, Daddy?"
"No, my boy, we have miles to go –go back to sleep, I'll wake you when we get there.
"Bringing a high-profile criminal to justice can actually be healing for our collective mental health. After four years of 'alternative' realities toppling our sense of right and wrong, health and pathology, almost half of the nation finds refuge in his cult of supremacy and anger, while the other half is traumatized. "
The statistic about the lack of American "cohesion" shouldn't be surprising. No other western nation is as young and a nation of immigrants like the US. The closest comparison would be Australia/New Zealand. We immigrants have all been dreamers - many delusional with religious idealism, or pure fantasy (e.g. the millions of early Seventh Day Adventists who followed a leader prophesying the precise date of the second coming - or the Mormons), or opportunity to survive starvation and make a dignified living, or earn freedom from the English poorhouses. I suspect that in the 1880s to the early 1920s there was a greater lack of cohesion with the huge influxes of non English speaking European immigrants.
The Renaissance and Enlightenment didn't start here. There is are no historically preserved buildings and institutions here to reinforce those revered traditions. The semblances are borrowed and expropriated. It wasn't that long ago when the centers of the western intellectual world were located in the cities of western Europe - the World Wars changed that when many thought leaders and scientists immigrated to the US.
So I agree with PD in that we have a long long way to go, but I also think that the alarmist rhetoric about American decline that permeates the opinion media needs to be tempered with an historical review of where we came from and what we can expect.
Tots and Pears, Rudy. You sooooo deserve the disease. Daughter's friend thinks he may have had it for a while, which means that he has likely spread it to untold thousands...