;)
The Commentariat -- November 18, 2020
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Lauren Aratani of the Guardian: "More than 900 employees at Mayo Clinic, a top research hospital that is based in Rochester, Minnesota, have contracted Covid-19 in the last two weeks. At a press briefing on Tuesday, Dr Amy Williams, dean of clinical practice at the hospital, said that the vast majority of staff who were infected -- 93% -- were not infected at work, according to the St Paul Pioneer Press. Most of those who were infected at work contracted the virus while eating without a mask during their breaks, Williams said. The hundreds of employees who have contracted the virus over the last two weeks make up over a third of all employees who were infected since the start of the pandemic. The hospital is experiencing a shortage of 1,000 employees at its headquarters in Rochester, according to the Pioneer Press."
Aram Roston of Reuters: "Before William Barr became President Donald Trump's choice to lead the U.S. Department of Justice, he represented Caterpillar Inc ... in a federal criminal investigation by the department. Much was at stake for Caterpillar: Since 2018, the Internal Revenue Service has been demanding $2.3 billion in payments from the company in connection with the tax matters under criminal investigation.... A week after Barr was nominated for the job of attorney general, Justice officials in Washington told the investigative team in the active criminal probe of Caterpillar to take 'no further action' in the case.... The decision, the email said, came from the Justice Department's Tax Division and the office of the deputy attorney general, who was then Rod Rosenstein." --s
Sarah Ferris & Heather Caygle of Politico: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi secured her caucus' nomination for another term leading the House on Wednesday as Democrats kicked off their multiday leadership elections for the new Congress. Pelosi is running unopposed and only needed a simple majority of the Democratic Caucus during the secret ballot vote. But she'll still have to clinch 218 votes on the House floor in January to officially become speaker -- and she has a much narrower majority to work with this time around after Democrats lost more than half a dozen seats on Election Day."
Jeff Zeleny & Casey Tolan of CNN: "The Trump campaign said Wednesday that it will seek a limited recount of some Wisconsin counties. The campaign needs to officially request the recount, any pay an upfront fee, by 5 p.m. CT Wednesday. Wisconsin election officials confirmed on Wednesday that they received a partial payment of $3 million from the Trump campaign. These officials said last week that the price tag for a statewide recount would be approximately $7.9 million. 'The Wisconsin Elections Commission has received a wire transfer from the Trump campaign for $3 million. No petition has been received yet, but the Trump campaign has told WEC staff one will be filed today,' the election commission said. CNN projected that President-elect Joe Biden will win Wisconsin. According to unofficial results, Biden leads ... Donald Trump by 20,470 votes, or 0.62%."
Trump Could Not Be Bothered to Pick up the Phone. Josh Rogin of the Washington Post: "When it comes to diplomacy in Asia, showing up is half the battle. But President Trump couldn't be bothered to attend two key Asia-related summits last weekend, even though they were held virtually. This was the lame-duck president's latest and hopefully last insult to the United States' Asian allies -- and an unforced error in the greater competition with China. For the third year in a row, Trump declined to participate in the annual summit of the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which includes a meeting between leaders of the group's 10 member nations and the United States. The president was also a no-show for the East Asia Summit, which President Barack Obama began attending in 2011. And Trump wasn't the only one. For the first time in this administration, no Cabinet-level official participated in either event. No travel was required; all they had to do was call in to corresponding video forums."
Jake Bleiberg of the AP: "The FBI is investigating allegations that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton [R] broke the law in using his office to benefit a wealthy donor, according to two people with knowledge of the probe. Federal agents are looking into claims by former members of Paxton's staff that the high-profile Republican committed bribery, abuse of office and other crimes to help Austin real estate developer Nate Paul, the people told The Associated Press.... Each of Paxton's accusers has resigned, been put on leave or been fired since reporting him. Last week, four of them filed a state whistleblower lawsuit against the attorney general, claiming he ousted them as retribution.... The full nature of Paxton and Paul's connection remains unclear. In 2018, Paul donated $25,000 to the attorney general's reelection campaign. The developer also said in a recent deposition that Paxton recommended a woman for her job with his company. Two people previously told The Associated Press that Paxton acknowledged in 2018 having an extramarital affair with the woman, who was then a state Senate aide."
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Back to the Future. Steve Peoples, et al., of Politico: "... Donald Trump's refusal to cooperate with his successor is forcing President-elect Joe Biden to seek unusual workarounds to prepare for the exploding public health threat and evolving national security challenges he will inherit in just nine weeks. Blocked from the official intelligence briefing traditionally afforded to incoming presidents, Biden gathered virtually on Tuesday with a collection of intelligence, defense and diplomatic experts. None of the experts is currently affiliated with the U.S. government, raising questions about whether Biden is being provided the most up-to-date information about dangers facing the nation. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris received a more formal briefing on Tuesday as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, though still has relatively limited information about the specific threats Biden will inherit."
Alice Ollstein of Politico: "The leaders of President-elect Joe Biden's coronavirus advisory board said Tuesday the Trump administration's continued refusal to allow the transition to move forward is hurting their preparedness planning on multiple fronts, from addressing mask shortages to recommending targeted closures in hot spots and laying the groundwork to distribute prospective vaccines. The transition team is unable to consult with federal health officials or access real-time data on available hospital beds, the status of the National Strategic Stockpile and therapeutics, among other things. For now, they said that's forcing them to rely on piecemeal data from state and local officials and public sources like the Covid Tracking Project."
Our Bananas Republic
Don the Dysfunctional Despot. Kevin Liptak, et al., of CNN: "... Donald Trump's agenda listed 'no public events' on Tuesday -- the 10th time since the election that those words have appeared on his daily schedule. He has answered no questions from reporters, invited no cameras into the Oval Office and ventured no further than his namesake golf course, 25 miles from the White House in Virginia.... Trump has even canceled his plans to travel to Mar-a-Lago for Thanksgiving, administration officials told CNN. The President and first lady were scheduled to spend the holiday at their South Florida resort, but have decided to stay in Washington instead.... Trump has demonstrated little interest in adding more to his schedule, people familiar with the matter said, and few aides have raised the idea with him because of his dark mood and preoccupation with his loss." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Bear in mind that Donnie's dysfunction -- which is in itself a nearly-adequate definition of insanity -- has not been caused by some terrible, unpredictable catastrophe that befell him. He lost an election he was expected to lose, and he lost it by less than expected. Perhaps, mired in his megalomania, he forgot that elections were cyclical things, and he knew this one was coming. It is too bad he hasn't figured out his election loss was a win for the country. Maybe someone should tell him that & give him a reason to celebrate.
Will Steakin, et al., of ABC News: "As ... Donald Trump's legal efforts challenging the election results continue to hit dead ends, his campaign and legal teams have descended into chaos..., multiple sources tell ABC News.... President Trump has suffered a dizzying barrage of court losses and setbacks around the country, leading him late last week to install Rudy Giuliani ... to lead the legal efforts going forward. But Giuliani's ascent has led to an explosion of infighting and disillusionment among the president's longstanding legal team and top campaign officials, resulting in dueling factions emerging from inside the president's dwindling campaign.... Over the weekend, Giuliani and his own team of lawyers, which also includes Trump campaign legal adviser Jenna Ellis, attempted what was described to ABC News as an internal campaign 'coup'.... Ellis told the remaining campaign staff [at the campaign's HQ in Arlington, Va.,] that they should only follow orders from people named 'Rudy or Jenna' and to ignore any other directives from campaign leadership.... The directive sparked outrage from senior campaign aides including Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien and senior adviser Jason Miller, sources said. The attempted power grab hit a boiling point on Saturday when Miller, who's been the campaign's chief strategist for months, and Ellis got into what sources said was a 'screaming match' in front of other staffers."
Katelyn Polantz & Jessica Schneider of CNN: "Rudy Giuliani, representing ... Donald Trump's campaign, delivered a sweeping broadside against mail-in voting Tuesday in a federal courtroom as part of the campaign's long shot case to block Pennsylvania from certifying votes. Giuliani argued in a courtroom in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, that the Trump campaign has been blocked from observing ballot processing in key cities and saying Democrats could have conspired to commit election fraud by counting absentee votes -- both assertions others judges have rejected repeatedly in court as unfounded or wrong. With Giuliani's entrance in court, the hearing may be the grand finale of the Trump campaign's flailing effort in court to stop the formalization of President-elect Joe Biden's win.... [It was Giuliani's] his first oral arguments before a trial judge in decades.... Giuliani jumping in to argue the case is the latest in a wild legal scramble for Trump.... Trump and his backers have faced ridicule from the legal community for bringing meritless lawsuits to challenge the election and spread disinformation to undermine Biden's win...." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Based on various remarks I heard on the teevee, Giuliani's "sweeping broadside" was all conspiracy theory & no evidence. Giuliani argued that Republicans' "lack of access" in Democratic-led counties should invalidate 700,000 votes in those counties, but later upped the number of votes to be tossed to 1.2 million. ~~~
~~~ Pennsylvania. Pam Fessler of NPR: "Things did not go well Tuesday for the Trump campaign's effort to stop certification of the Pennsylvania vote count -- which has Joe Biden ahead by more than 73,000 votes. At almost the same time the president's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was in federal court in Williamsport, Pa., complaining that Republican observers were illegally denied access to vote counting in Philadelphia and other Democratic areas, the state Supreme Court in Harrisburg concluded otherwise. By a 5-2 vote, it ruled that Philadelphia election officials had acted properly in their handling of the observation process. The Trump campaign had argued that GOP representatives were kept too far away to see whether there were any irregularities, but the court said they were able to view election workers 'performing their duties,' as required. It was a major loss for the president and his campaign's flailing effort to overturn the election results.... [Giuliani] alleged, without providing any evidence, that voting in Pennsylvania was riddled with fraud. He said it was 'not an isolated case' either, but part of 'widespread national voter fraud' involving other jurisdictions, including Detroit and Milwaukee. However, Giuliani later admitted to the judge that the Pennsylvania lawsuit was 'not a fraud case.'"
Clown Car Driver Demands $20,000/Day Salary. Michael Schmidt & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Rudolph W. Giuliani, who has helped oversee a string of failed court challenges to President Trump's defeat in the election, asked the president's campaign to pay him $20,000 a day for his legal work, multiple people briefed on the matter said. The request stirred opposition from some of Mr. Trump's aides and advisers.... Since Mr. Giuliani took over management of the legal effort, Mr. Trump has suffered a series of defeats in court and lawyers handling some of the remaining cases have dropped out. A $20,000-a-day rate would have made Mr. Giuliani ... among the most highly compensated attorneys anywhere.... There is little to no prospect of any of the remaining legal cases being overseen by Mr. Giuliani altering the outcome in any of the states where Mr. Trump is still fighting in court, much less of overturning President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s Electoral College and popular vote victory." Mrs. McC: Tuck in your shirt, Rudy. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: BTW, $20K-per-Day Rudy misrepresented his qualifications on his application to appear in the Pennsylvania case. He represented that he was "currently a member in good standing" of the District of Columbia Bar. In fact, the D.C. bar suspended him for non-payment of dues. That, of course, means he is not a member in good standing. (He is, however, a member of other bars which would qualify him to appear in a federal court.) Maybe Rudy figured he needed that fat per diem to pay off his bar dues.
Arizona. Jacques Billeaud of the AP: "The Arizona Republican Party has asked a judge to bar Maricopa County from certifying its Nov. 3 election results, including Democrat Joe Biden's win over ... Donald Trump, until the court issues a decision about the party's lawsuit seeking a new hand-count of a sampling of ballots. The GOP made the request Monday night after the county revealed officials planned to approve the returns on Thursday or Friday. A judge is scheduled to hear arguments in the lawsuit Wednesday afternoon. The county faces a Nov. 23 deadline for certifying its results."
Nevada. Ed Komenda & James DeHaven of the Reno Gazette Journal: "Despite showing no evidence of fraud or wrongdoing in court filings..., Donald Trump's campaign in Nevada has leveled a flurry of allegations in a new lawsuit filed Tuesday questioning the integrity of Nevada's general election. The lawsuit is asking that Trump be named the winner of the election -- or that the results of the presidential race in Nevada are annulled and no winner is certified there. Former Vice President Joe Biden won Nevada by a 33,596-vote margin, according to the Nevada Secretary of State's office.... Nevada's state and federal courts have recently rebuffed at least a half-dozen similar legal challenges filed by Team Trump and the Nevada Republican Party."
Georgia. Kate Brumback of the AP: "A second Georgia county has uncovered a trove of votes not previously included in election results, but the additional votes won't change the overall outcome of the presidential race, the secretary of state's office said Tuesday. A memory card that hadn't been uploaded in Fayette County, just south of Atlanta, was discovered during a hand tally of the votes in the presidential race that stems from part of a legally mandated audit to ensure the new election machines counted the votes accurately, said Gabriel Sterling, a top official in the secretary of state's office. The memory card's 2,755 votes are not enough to flip the lead in the state from Democrat Joe Biden to Republican ... Donald Trump. The breakdown of the uncounted ballots was 1,577 for Trump, 1,128 for Biden, 43 for Libertarian Jo Jorgensen and seven write-ins, Sterling said.... The counties have until 11:59 p.m. Wednesday to complete the hand count. The secretary of state's office originally said the results of the hand tally would be certified." ~~~
~~~ ** Wes Bruner & Marshall Cohen of CNN: "A staffer for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger said Tuesday that he participated in a controversial phone call with Sen. Lindsey Graham and said he heard Graham ask if state officials could throw out ballots. The comments from the staffer, election implementation manager Gabriel Sterling, corroborate Raffensberger's recent claims about the phone call with Graham, who is one of President Donald Trump's most outspoken allies. Earlier this week, Raffensberger accused Graham of asking him to 'look hard and see how many ballots you could throw out,' referring to absentee ballots that skewed heavily in favor of President-elect Joe Biden. Graham denied the claim.... Sterling said on Tuesday, 'What I heard was basically discussions about absentee ballots and if a potentially ... if there was a percentage of signatures that weren't really, truly matching, is there some point we could get to, we could say somebody went to a courtroom could say well, let's throw (out) all these ballots because we have no way of knowing because the ballots are separated.'" ~~~
~~~ Stephanie Saul of the New York Times: "In 2016, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina praised the integrity of the nation's elections system, criticizing claims by Donald J. Trump that the vote was 'rigged.'... Mr. Graham, who has transformed during that time to become one of Mr. Trump's most loyal allies, now seems determined to reverse the election's outcome on the president's behalf.... The phone call to [Georgia Secretary of State Brad] Raffensperger was one in a string of episodes in which Mr. Graham ... has tried to cast doubt on the presidential election's outcome, demanding that Mr. Trump not concede the race to Mr. Biden despite the Democrat's decisive Electoral College victory.... A longtime advocate of states' rights, Mr. Graham had interjected his Senate voice into a role historically delegated to states -- administering elections.... On Tuesday, Mr. Graham's office said he had raised concerns about vote counting in Georgia as well as in Arizona and Nevada...." ~~~
~~~ Lindsey's One-Man Band. Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) started off the day by saying he had talked with the secretaries of state in Arizona and Nevada, in addition to the conversation he had acknowledged earlier with Georgia's top election official. A little later, Graham ... [said] he had actually talked to Arizona's governor and some other officials..., and he wasn't sure which officials from Nevada had briefed him about that state's 2020 election procedures.... By midafternoon Tuesday, Graham realized he had never spoken to anyone from the Silver State about its 2020 vote. This is the state of Graham's solo investigation into election laws in states that President Trump narrowly lost in this month's election.... Graham's colleagues increasingly saw this latest version of his activities as somewhat farcical, rather than political extortion." ~~~
~~~ Jessica Huseman & Mike Spies of ProPublica:"Long before Republican senators began publicly denouncing how Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger handled the voting there, he withstood pressure from the campaign of Donald Trump to endorse the president for reelection. Raffensperger, a Republican, declined an offer in January to serve as an honorary co-chair of the Trump campaign in Georgia, according to emails reviewed by ProPublica. He later rejected GOP requests to support Trump publicly, he and his staff said in interviews. Raffensperger said he believed that, because he was overseeing the election, it would be a conflict of interest for him to take sides. Around the country, most secretaries of state remain officially neutral in elections. The attacks on his job performance are 'clear retaliation,' Raffensperger said. 'They thought Georgia was a layup shot Republican win. It is not the job of the secretary of state's office to deliver a win -- it is the sole responsibility of the Georgia Republican Party to get out the vote and get its voters to the polls. That is not the job of the secretary of state's office.'" ~~~
~~~ Zack Budryk of the Hill: "Georgia's Republican secretary of state said Tuesday that President Trump's attacks on the integrity of mail-in voting contributed to his loss in the Peach State. 'Twenty-four thousand people did not vote in the fall; either they did not vote absentee because they were told by the president "don't vote absentee, it's not secure,"' Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) said in an interview with WSB-TV, an Atlanta-area ABC affiliate. 'But then they did not come out and vote in person. He would have won by 10,000 votes. He actually depressed, suppressed his own voting base."
** Michigan. Kayla Ruble & Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "Democrats and voting rights advocates expressed outrage Tuesday after the Wayne County Board of Canvassers deadlocked on whether to certify its ballot count, punting the question of who won the state's most densely populated region to a state regulatory board that meets Nov. 23. The four-member board's two Republicans voted against certification, while its two Democrats voted to certify the results. Joe Biden holds a lead of nearly 148,000 votes in Michigan.... Mark Brewer, a leading Democratic election lawyer in Michigan, called the vote 'outrageous, unprecedented and racist.' He said the two White Republicans on the Wayne County board 'have essentially disenfranchised Black voters.... They had a legal duty to certify' a vote that was fair he said.... President Trump's false claims about widespread fraud have reverberated with his supporters, putting white-hot attention on the usually mundane vote certification process across Michigan." The article is free to non-subscribers. ~~~
~~~ Update. New Lede: Republican appointees on a key board in Michigan's most populous county Tuesday night reversed their initial refusal to certify the vote tallies in the Detroit area, striking a last-minute compromise with Democrats that defused a political fight over the process to formalize President-elect Joe Biden's victory in the state." The AP's story is here.
"It's the Monday, Stupid." Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "... even as we throw cold water on [the conventional wisdom]..., we're still left with the unanswered question of how Trump performed as well as he did [in the election]/ He may not have transformed the Republican coalition, but he held onto much of his 2016 support and even enlarged it, if not in percentage terms then in absolute ones.... I want to propose an alternative explanation for the election results, one that accounts for the president's relative improvement as well as that of the entire Republican Party. It's the money, stupid. At the end of March, President Trump signed the Cares Act, which distributed more than half a trillion dollars in direct aid to more than 150 million Americans, from stimulus checks ($1,200 per adult and $500 per child for households below a certain income threshold) to $600 per week in additional unemployment benefits.... Now, the reason this many Americans received as much assistance as they did is that Democrats fought for it over the opposition of Republicans.... But voters, and especially the low-propensity voters who flooded the electorate in support of Trump, aren't attuned to the ins and outs of congressional debate.... All they knew is that Trump signed the bill (and the checks), giving them the kind of government assistance usually reserved for the nation's ownership class."
The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 Election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud -- including dead people voting, Poll Watchers not allowed into polling locations, 'glitches' in the voting machines which changed votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more. Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. -- Donald Trump, on Twitter, this evening, tweets Twitter later labeled as inaccurate ~~~
~~~ Tweet-Fired for Doing His Job. Ellen Nakashima & Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Tuesday fired a top Department of Homeland Security official who led the agency's efforts to help secure the election and was vocal about tamping down unfounded claims of ballot fraud. In a tweet, Trump fired Christopher Krebs, who headed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at DHS, and led successful efforts to help state and local election offices protect their systems and to rebut misinformation. Earlier in the day, Krebs in a tweet refuted allegations that election systems were manipulated, saying that '59 election security experts all agree, "in every case of which we are aware, these claims either have been unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent."' Krebs' statement amounted to a debunking of Trump's central claim that the November election was stolen." An NPR story is here. Mrs. McC: The liar has set Krebs free.
California. City New Service, published by KNBC-TV Los Angeles: "A man who tried to run for mayor in Hawthorne[, California,] is among two people charged in a voter fraud case in which thousands of fraudulent voter registration applications were allegedly submitted on behalf of homeless people, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office announced Tuesday. Carlos Antonio De Bourbon Montenegro -- also known as Mark Anthony Gonsalves -- was set to be arraigned Tuesday in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom on 18 felony counts of voter fraud, 11 felony counts of procuring a false or forged instrument, two felony counts of perjury and one felony count of conspiracy to commit voter fraud, along with nine misdemeanor counts of interference with a prompt transfer of a completed affidavit, according to the District Attorney's Office. Montenegro, 53, allegedly submitted more than 8,000 fraudulent voter registration applications between July and October, as well as allegedly falsifying names, addresses and signatures on nomination papers under penalty of perjury to run for mayor in Hawthorne.... No votes were ever actually cast. The registrar caught on quickly and flagged the applications...."
The Trumpidemic, Ctd.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Wednesday are here: "The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday gave an emergency green light to the first rapid coronavirus test that can run from start to finish at home, paving a potential path for more widespread testing outside of health care settings. The test, developed by the California-based company Lucira Health, requires a prescription from a health care provider. People under the age of 14 also cannot perform the test on themselves. But with a relatively simple nasal swab, the test can return results in about half an hour, and is projected by the company to cost $50 or less, according to the product's website. Clinicians can also run the test on patients, including children under the age of 14, potentially delivering answers during a single visit to a care center or pharmacy, instead of routing a tough-to-collect sample through a lab."
Katie Thomas of the New York Times: "The drug maker Pfizer said on Wednesday that its coronavirus vaccine was 95 percent effective and had no serious side effects -- the first set of complete results from a late-stage vaccine trial.... The data showed that the vaccine prevented mild and severe forms of Covid-19, the company said. And it was 94 percent effective in older adults, who are more vulnerable to developing severe Covid-19 and who do not respond strongly to some types of vaccines. Pfizer, which developed the vaccine with its partner BioNTech, said the companies planned to apply to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency authorization 'within days,' raising hopes that a working vaccine could soon become a reality. The trial results -- less than a year after researchers began working on the vaccine -- shattered all speed records for vaccine development, a process that usually takes years." An AP story is here.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here: "Chuck Grassley [R-Iowa], the oldest Senate Republican, will quarantine after exposure to the virus." (Also linked yesterday.)
Best Headline: "After Big Thanksgiving Dinners, Plan Small Christmas Funerals, Health Experts Warn." Ashton Pittman of the Mississippi Free Press: "Mississippians should plan 'to have very small Thanksgiving gatherings' with only nuclear family members this year to stay safe amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Mississippi State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs and other public health officials warned on Friday. 'You're going to have a lot of sick folks who caught (COVID-19) during Thanksgiving. We know this is the perfect milieu, having young folks and old folks and folks with chronic illness around the table -- and then death,' Dobbs said during a sober Mississippi State Medical Association Zoom meeting with fellow physicians on Nov. 12. The state's top health official urged even Mississippians who are having small holiday gatherings to observe 6 feet of social distancing and to hold the gatherings outdoors, where the chance of transmission is lower." (Also linked yesterday.)
Jessie Hellmann of the Hill: "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has quietly removed controversial guidance from its website that pushed for schools to reopen in the fall and downplayed the transmission risks of COVID-19 to children and others. The documents, one of which was reportedly written by political appointees outside of the CDC, stated that children appear to be at lower risk for contracting COVID-19 compared to adults and that children are unlikely to be major spreaders of the virus. The CDC removed two guidance documents from its website in late October with no public announcement. When reached for comment, a CDC spokesperson said, 'Some of the prior content was outdated and as new scientific information has emerged the site has been updated to reflect current knowledge about COVID-19 and schools.'"
Dan Diamond of Politico: "The Health and Human Services department has scrapped a planned ad campaign featuring celebrities discussing Covid-19, a senior HHS official told a congressional oversight panel in a letter shared with Politico. The abandoned $15 million contract with Atlas Research, part of a larger $300 million taxpayer-funded campaign aimed at 'defeating despair' over the pandemic, was conceived by a close political ally of ... Donald Trump this summer. It was met with outrage from Democratic lawmakers, who charged it was an attempt to boost lagging public opinion of Trump's coronavirus response ahead of the election.... HHS did not respond to questions about why the Trump administration vetted celebrities' political views as part of the campaign."
Dan Lamothe & Missy Ryan of the Washington Post: "The U.S. military will halve the number of troops it has in Afghanistan within the next two months, Pentagon officials said Tuesday, as President Trump seeks to move closer to keeping a promise to end wars abroad despite concerns that the decision could undermine negotiations with the Taliban. Pentagon officials also said they would make smaller cuts in Iraq, where U.S. forces have focused on countering the Islamic State.... Acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller ... Miller said the military will carry out Trump's orders in both countries by Jan. 15, with troop numbers reduced from about 5,000 to 2,500 in Afghanistan and from about 3,000 to 2,500 in Iraq." ~~~
~~~ Adam Taylor & Michael Birnbaum of the Washington Post: "Afghanistan could once again become a haven for international terrorist organizations that seek to harm Western countries if foreign forces leave too abruptly, the head of NATO said Tuesday in a rare rebuke of U.S. policy, following reports that the Trump administration would withdraw thousands of troops from the country. 'We now face a difficult decision. We have been in Afghanistan for almost 20 years, and no NATO ally wants to stay any longer than necessary,' NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement. 'But at the same time, the price for leaving too soon or in an uncoordinated way could be very high.'"
Senate Blocks Gold Bug Lady's Confirmation. Seung Min Kim & Rachel Siegel of the Washington Post: "Judy Shelton's nomination to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors was blocked in the Senate on Tuesday, with bipartisan opposition to the controversial economist and GOP absences prompted by the coronavirus imperiling her candidacy. The vote had been expected to be razor-thin for Shelton, who was nominated by President Trump despite her past criticism of the central bank and her unorthodox views of monetary policy. But after the vote was scheduled, two Republicans, Sens. Rick Scott (Fla.) and Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), announced they were quarantining themselves after being exposed to the coronavirus and could not attend. (Grassley on Tuesday evening announced he had tested positive for the virus.) Two Republican senators [-- Susan Collins & Mitt Romney --] voted against advancing Shelton on Tuesday; a third GOP senator who does not support her, Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), was not in attendance for the vote Tuesday. The last-minute shifts proved too much for Republicans to overcome, at least for now. Although the GOP holds 53 seats in the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was able to muster only 48 Republican senators to end the filibuster on Shelton's nomination."
Alan Fram of the AP: "House Democrats seem certain to nominate Nancy Pelosi for two more years as speaker, but she'll be leading a smaller majority divided along ideological lines as it tries shepherding President-elect Joe Biden's agenda toward enactment. Pelosi, D-Calif., faced no announced rivals for the post Wednesday as the chamber's Democrats planned their first-ever virtual leadership elections in response to the pandemic. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and No. 3 party leader Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., were also on track to retain their positions." ~~~
~~~ Lisa Mascaro of the AP: "Rep. Kevin McCarthy easily won reelection as House Republican leader, a stunning turnaround as the entire GOP leadership team was rewarded by their colleagues for reducing the Democrats' House advantage in the November election. McCarthy faced no opposition Tuesday to return as minority leader during the closed-door gathering under COVID-19 protocols. After a quick vote, he won a standing ovation, according to an aide who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private session."
Mark Sherman of the AP: "The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives is asking the Supreme Court to put off upcoming arguments about whether Congress should have access to secret grand jury testimony from special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. The House Judiciary Committee that takes office in January 'will have to determine whether it wishes to continue pursuing the application for the grand-jury materials that gave rise to this case,' Douglas Letter, the top lawyer for the House said in a written filing Tuesday. Letter noted that ... Donald Trump's defeat in his bid for reelection could affect the committee's decision." (Also linked yesterday.)
News Lede
NBC News: "The Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday that the Boeing 737 Max will be recertified, the end of a two-year road to redemption after the craft was grounded following two fatal overseas crashes. The Max was grounded worldwide in March 2019 after a Lion Air crash in October 2018 in Indonesia killed 189 people and was followed five months later by an Ethiopian Airlines crash, shortly after takeoff, that caused the death of all 157 people aboard." A New York Times story is here.
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Reader Comments (14)
Marie speculates that Psycho Rudy is demanding $20K a day to pay off his bar dues. Given the delirium that ensues whenever he opens his mouth, I’m guessing that he’s trying to pay off his bar tab as well.
Can you imagine the tawdry dementia and screaming paranoia in the Blight House right now? People, the few who are left, that is, shouting at each other and battling over who gets to sit in the cabin of the train wreck and pretend to be driving. It’s like the gravedigger and the crypt keeper going mano a mano to see who gets the to sleep in the last plot in the cemetery. For the next eight weeks.
And right in the middle of this wreckage, a fat, demented infant screaming and crying, sitting in his dirty diaper, still dreaming of world conquest.
Wow. The end game here is gonna make Tricky Dick’s last days in power, when he was a wandering the corridors a drunken mess, crying and talking to the paintings, look like the picture of dignified decorum.
I would not be a bit surprised if Fatty tries to blow something up before they drag him out of the nursery. One last hurrah in the mad house, just to show how brave and manly he is.
Other thoughts on the "unity," let's make nice discussion from yesterday:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/18/trump-biden-political-civility-republicans-democrats
There was a piece in Esquire that I read yesterday that sent me into the stratus of total disbelief. This was a piece reporting out some speech made by Elissa Slotnick, whom I generally don't trust-- she fancies herself a military/intelligencc expert by profession, I think. It was the usual, oft-heard blather from Blue Dogs advocating that Biden let bygones be bygones, and to put ourselves in the place of people who just need "understanding" as to why they are trumpies, because, damn it, we Dems are just so bloodthirsty and don't empathize with the people in small towns. I don't know when I have been so worked up. I left a nasty message on her office answering machine, as she is from Michigan and doesn't want emails from nonconstituents. Usually it is the GOP that do that-- I was surprised. Anyhow, if Biden gets sucked into that mindset as Obama did, no one will pay any price for their criminality. After the 2016 election, nothing made me madder than to see interviews with the "forgotten people" who had "economic concerns" and we should be strung up for not kowtowing to them. It has started again and it makes me furious. Democrats ALWAYS fight for people's rights, and have been trying to get stimulus money for people, and DID, earlier on, and then yes, they turned around and voted for the Creep cuz he put his friggin' name on the checks and demanded adoration. I don't trust Joe Biden not to do the "understanding" thing either. I simply do not. Those voters are lost to Democrats, and rightfully so-- we don't like them! They are ignorant and stupid, stubborn and WRONG. And now they are dying because of the entire cult. I don't care that they are-- it is their own damn fault.
A little (not so universally Left-Coast) history:
https://crosscut.com/2020/07/mask-wars-1918-flu-pandemic
@Jeanne: I share your frustration but perhaps given the way the Republicans have shown their "screw you" methods, first during the Obama reign, and then four years of Fatty's foray into destruction, the Dems and particularly Biden and his new administration will have gotten some tough muscle and are ready to forge ahead and hold feet to fire.
This corresponds to Ken's mention of corporate greed yesterday. We have a continuing failure to hold senior executives responsible for crimes they committed in pursuit of corporate profits. Here is one example:
"In 2015 General Motors entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice for having concealed from regulators its inclusion in more than 30 million cars of a faulty ignition switch that could shut off the engine while the car was being driven. The faulty switch had resulted in at least 124 documented deaths. Yet although the government alleged that various GM executives had known about the flaw for many years before its public exposure, not one was prosecuted."
If we as a nation let "bygones by bygones" not only in the corporate world but in our three pillars of governing nothing will change and what we once called a democracy will be as flimsy as that flag in tatters during a hurricane.
I have always believed in this country's strength to fight off the rats that want to devour its flesh and take over ––and the "take overs" occur in small increments that we complain about, write about, until the job is done and we find we have lost. If we study how the Nazis proceeded, we can see how skillfully this can be accomplished.
As far as those "others" that you, Jeanne, mention, they did not spring up after a good rain––they have been part of this country forever; it takes someone like Trump to help them flourish, along with his minions that continue to feed them.
Return to Jonestown
Since Jeanne mentioned that story about Trumpies swearing with their last gasp that the disease they were dying from wasn’t real, I’ve seen a number of such reports. It seems like a kind of madness, but really, it’s mostly tribal laws that are affecting the ability of these people to accept facts in the real world. The tribal chief is Fatso Trump and his adherents believe anything he says.
He’s been saying for almost a year that there was no such thing as a pandemic, that the coronavirus was a hoax, no worse than a cold, that this hoax was being spread by evil people intent on stealing the freedom of real Americans, of brainwashing them and turning their minds away from making America great again.
He could just as easily have stood up and said, masks are a good thing, social distancing will help stop the spread of this pathogen until we can get a handle on it. He could have stood on the side of life.
But he didn’t. He still doesn’t. What we have here is a death cult, run by an malicious, mendacious, narcissistic cult leader. Every day I see idiots going into stores, no masks, strutting around daring someone to say something. Often these idiots are wearing Trump regalia. Surprise, right?
If you’ve ever wondered how Jim Jones, self appointed religious savior and power-mad zealot, convinced almost a thousand people to kill themselves, now you know. I’m sure plenty of Jones’ followers, as they made their children drink his cyanide laced Kool-Aid, believed he was the answer. And what Jones told these people (look it up) was eerily similar to the spiel Trump pumps out to his followers: evil people are out to get us, you and me. They hate us. They fear our beliefs. They will come here and brainwash your kids, torture you, kill you (he left out the Mexican rapists and murderers part, that’s a Trump innovation).
Of course there are similarities to both sets of followers, notably a religious element. Certainly not all religious people are easily led nut jobs, but those who are seem to gravitate to the Trump/Jones type of demagogue.
Trump oversees a death cult just as Jones did. All he had to do was instruct his flock to be careful, follow the medical experts’ guidelines, and thousands of people would still be living; people he killed just as surely had he ordered them to drink poison.
But his Kool-Aid, Republican approved, is far more deadly than Jim Jones’s. Jones didn’t even kill a thousand. Trump does that in a day.
This is more than just ignorance on his part. This is a willful act designed to make him feel better about himself. If people have to die so he can preen in front of the mirror, so what?
There has to be some kind of justice here. But there won’t be. But I guaran-fucking-tee you, if Joe Biden so much as considers giving cover, never mind employment, to a single distributor of the deadly Trump Kool-Aid, I will bust a gasket.
At least Jim Jones had the decency to blow his brains out after the mass suicide he initiated. Trump will continue to advocate for people to die for his self-image long after Biden has the White House fumigated.
Unlike Jonestown, Trumptown is still in the business of spreading death.
@Akhilleus: Of course the quite frightening irony is that if Trump had done all he could to stem the spread of the virus, he would have won re-election. I realize you can't prove a "what-if," but I think Jamelle Bouie's point is well-taken: Trump's one act of signing the Cares act into law may have garnered him all those extra votes he received in 2020 (over 2016). If Trump had tried to stop the pandemic, no one would have blamed him for the illness & deaths that did occur, & few would have blamed him for the downturn in the economy. (Of course, I never gave him credit for the good parts of the economy, but that's beside the point.)
If the quarter-million Americans who have died from Covid-19 died for any purpose (and they didn't), it might be that they died to preserve democracy.
No surprise that an egomaniac who got too big for his britches is now flailing about, wondering what in hell happened to him, grasping at any lifeline no matter how rotten and frayed that he might follow to safety's shore.
But there is no safety. All he can do is tweet more obvious lies, lash out at his enemies, make things as difficult as possible for his successor, and cower in his Whitey House, desperately trying to keep his life-long con alive, when at least seventy five million Americans have told him it's all over in a mere sixty days.
As much as I fear the harm he will do while yet in office and as maddening as it is to witness the near-universal acceptance of his demented behavior by a political party still in his thrall, there is sweet justice in seeing a man who craved and throughout his life benefitted from the faux limelight of media fame ultimately exposed by its unsparing brilliance.
@Akhilleus
I might have posted this one before, but your reference to Jim Jones brought it back to mind, so here it is (again?).
"Co-dependency has a bad name for good reasons.
At its extreme we find Jim Jones and those who followed his dark vision to Jonestown’s carnage (britannica.com) or the suicidal cult that saw the Hale-Bopp comet as heaven-sent (rollingstone.com), but not all unhealthy and abusive “relationship addiction” (Wikipedia.com) is on the fringe. There’s plenty closer to home.
Yesterday I escaped Covid-19 confinement long enough to talk with someone I hadn’t seen in a long time. Naturally, Covid’s recent spread came up, but when he said it was caused by “those Black Lives Matter protesters.” I knew we were off the solid ground of fact and on the slippery slope of blind belief.
Maybe I should have said the evidence didn’t support his claim (time.com), but it didn’t seem the right time or place.
It reminded me, though, of the strong co-dependency relationship between Trump and his devotees. No matter how outlandish Trump’s remarks, his MAGA minions don’t question what he says.
In the last few weeks, Trump has said again he “knows” Covid will “magically disappear,” that the economy is “roaring back,” that Obama did nothing to “fix policing.” None of that is true [Trump himself reversed Obama’s police reform measures (nbcnews.com.)] but millions nonetheless believe him.
How about the many things and people Trump knows nothing about? Nothing about the intelligence linking Russian bounties to dead American soldiers, nothing about the recently fired Southern District of New York US Attorney, nothing about dozens of former acquaintances he’s “never met” (usatoday.com). A whole lot of nothing, all accepted by millions more.
With a president and a political party that treats reality with contempt, there has to be a right time for a nation to say we’ve had enough of this abusive and perilous relationship.
Maybe that time is coming in November."
Coda: And we did.
Marie,
I’ve always felt that that would have been the case. Had Trump risen to the task, had he made even a half-hearted effort to save lives, he would very likely have been re-elected. But he was/is too stupid, too self-absorbed. This is why I also harbor such fear for the coming of Trump 2.0, a smarter, more strategic, less obviously malicious (though much more, in fact, if that’s possible) demagogue. Trump has demonstrated that there is a hunger for religious based authoritarianism in this country, with true believers who will follow the “right” person unquestioningly.
He has provided the playbook, however imperfectly constructed. The Powell Memo has generated a huge culture based on hatred and lies. The original skepticism toward things like regulation of industries has morphed into raging paranoia and distrust of any outside the tribe.
I don’t believe there will be any way to bring most of these people back into the world of fact based critical thinking. We may have to simply work with the new generation of voters and wait for the Trumpist species to die off.
Dear Mrs. Bea McCrabbie,
Thank you for all the work you do I very much appreciate it and am so so grateful for all you do each day. You, your excellent commentary and contributors are wonderful!
Wishing you all the best!
Like many I am furious at the lawbreaker Emily Murphy at GSA.
Call (you do get a person I pressed 1after menu) or email
1-844-GSA-4111
1-844-472-4111
Email emily.murphy@gsa.gov
Trump's legal team
Video: Sing along if you can–-"We didn't start the fire" parody:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJmPw0YZo4M
An interesting piece in Vanity Fair about Princess* by a former close friend of hers. It's not favorable and shows that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.