;)
The Commentariat -- October 31, 2020
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Max Greenwood of the Hill: "Former President Obama laid into President Trump on Saturday over his claim that doctors have tried to profit off of the coronavirus pandemic by intentionally inflating the number of COVID-19 cases. Speaking at a drive-in rally for former Vice President Joe Biden in Flint, Mich., Obama hammered Trump for complaining about the media coverage of his administration's handling of the coronavirus pandemic.... 'His closing argument this week is that the press and people are too focused on COVID,' Obama said to cheers and honking cars. '"COVID, COVID, COVID," he's complaining. He's jealous of COVID's media coverage. And now he's accusing doctors of profiting off of this pandemic.... He does not understand the notion that somebody would risk their lives to save others without making a buck.'..."
Trump's Encouragement of Violence Is Working Already. Tommy Christopher of Mediaite: "Texas Democrats canceled several campaign events after a group of Trump flag-festooned trucks and cars swarmed the Biden/Harris bus on a Texas highway. A campaign bus carrying congressional candidates Wendy Davis and Roland Gutierrez, and Rep. Lloyd Doggett was swarmed by supporters of ... Donald Trump, who have been following the Biden/Harris bus all over Texas. But things reportedly got so dangerous on I-35 Friday that the campaign decided to cancel several events[.]... A member of the MAGA vehicular armada posted several videos showing the so-called 'Trump Train' pursuing and surrounding the bus[.]... A Biden supporter ... also captured video of a MAGA truck bumping a white vehicle that had been drafting the Biden bus, trying to keep a safe distance between it and the pursuers[.]" Mrs. McC: The Biden campaign should have requested police escorts, tho I don't know how much good this would do in Texas. ~~~
~~~ Jerry Lambe of Law & Crime: "Several videos have since circulated on the internet showing the Biden bus being surrounded by multiple large pickup trucks, almost all of which displayed pro-Trump flags and decals. One clip showed a vehicle flying a 'Thin Blue Line' flag side-swiping the car of a campaign volunteer.... Following the incident a Biden campaign spokesperson released a statement to Forbes saying that the pro-Trump trucks 'attempted to slow the bus down and run it off the road.'... On Wednesday Donald Trump Jr., called for members of the 'Trump Train' to show Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) how strong Texas supports the president." Mrs. McC: Was that "Thin Blue Line" driver a cop? Since there are videos, the Highway Patrol should investigate & make arrests.
Trump's Judges Do Trump's Bidding. And Suppress Your Vote. Ann Marimow of the Washington Post: "Federal judges nominated by President Trump have largely ruled against efforts to loosen voting rules in the 2020 campaign amid the coronavirus pandemic and sided with Republicans seeking to enforce restrictions, underscoring Trump's impact in reshaping the judiciary. An analysis by The Washington Post found that nearly three out of four opinions issued in federal voting-related cases by judges picked by the president were in favor of maintaining limits. That is a sharp contrast with judges nominated by President Barack Obama, whose decisions backed such limits 17 percent of the time. The impact of Trump's court picks could be seen most starkly at the appellate level, where 21 out of the 25 opinions issued by the president's nominees were against loosening voting rules. The pattern shows how Trump's success installing a record number of judges in his four years in office has played a critical role in determining how people can vote this year and which ballots will be counted."
Jesselyn Cook of the Huffington Post: "Under mounting pressure to quell the flood of partisan misinformation coursing through its platform, Facebook announced a new policy in September: It would stop accepting all new political ads during the week preceding the presidential election.... [I]t has been a disaster. The ban went into effect at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday. Chaos ensued almost immediately: Thousands of previously approved ads from Democratic nominee Joe Biden's campaign and multiple progressive groups were wrongly blocked due to a 'technical flaw,' potentially costing hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations. President Donald Trump's campaign managed to launch new ads post-ban. And in violation of its own rules, Facebook approved ads from the president's campaign prematurely declaring victory, as well as hundreds of ads bearing the misleading text 'ELECTION DAY IS TODAY' or 'Vote Today.'... The company's stunning failure to properly enforce its own high-profile policy at such a critical time has raised alarm about its preparedness for the fallout of the election[.]" --s
Dell Cameron of Gizmodo: "Login credentials belonging to several Martin County, Florida, election officials were inadvertently exposed by what an election security researcher says was an unsecured backup database that had likely been publicly accessible since 2017.... The data included email address, hashed passwords, and timestamps indicating each users' creation date and last login. Chris Vickery, UpGuard's director of risk research, said he discovered the database while hunting for potentially sensitive election materials online. He notified Martin County officials of the exposure on September 18 and the database was secured shortly after. Only those with control of the database can confirm whether anyone else gained access, he said." --s
Ken Dilanian & Tom Winter of NBC News, in a sort of meta-report, relate what happened when NBC News tried to verify Rudy Giuliani's "bombshell" Hunter/Joe Biden story: "Leaving aside the many questions about their provenance, the materials offered no evidence that Joe Biden played any role in his son's dealings in China, let alone profited from them, both news organizations concluded." Besides Rudy's refusal to turn over the purloined laptop, there was not much new in the emails' "revelations." Hunter Biden's dodgy international influence-peddling was well-reported months ago. ~~~
~~~ Speaking of meta-stories, David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post reports on the State Department's extraordinary stonewalling of requests to release records of payments to Donald Trump. After State refused to provide records of taxpayer expenditures, the Post sued for the records. State provided only two pages of documentation. Finally, Fahrenthold made a public appeal on Twitter, and that's how the Post got records that showed how your taxpayer dollars were spent on an event that took place two-and-a-half years ago: "In April 2018, President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club charged taxpayers $3 so that Trump could drink water.... In this case, Trump's club sold the water. Trump drank the water. Then Trump's club billed the taxpayers. But, although that purchase happened 2½ years ago, taxpayers didn't know until Tuesday."
Christopher Rowland, et al., of the Washington Post: "The White House decision to set aside the mandatory safety controls [for the off-label use of the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine] put in place by the Food and Drug Administration fueled one of the most disputed initiatives in the administration's response to the pandemic: the distribution of millions of ineffective, potentially dangerous pills from a federally controlled cache of drugs called the Strategic National Stockpile. Over a span of four days in early April, the White House ordered the distribution of 23 million hydroxychloroquine tablets from the stockpile to a dozen states, enough pills for 1.4 million covid-19 patients, according to public records obtained by The Post in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The Post review found that the process was marked by haphazard planning, little or no communication to local authorities about the flow of pills into their communities, and a lack of public accounting about where they ended up.... The FDA withdrew its emergency authorization in June, after it found hundreds of adverse events linked to the drug's use in covid-19 patients, including dozens of deaths." Mrs. McC: The driving force behind this foolish initiative was Peter Navarro, who is a doctor of ... economics.
Katie Bo Williams of Defense One: "Two D.C. National Guard helicopters that flew low over protesters in Washington, D.C., on the night of June 1 were not properly authorized to be there -- and were directed by a lieutenant colonel who was far from the scene, driving home in his car, according to an initial investigation by the D.C. National Guard. The superior officer who authorized the deployment claimed he didn't know that the regulations required him to have higher-level approval to use the helicopters at all, and that in any case, he in no way told the lieutenant colonel that the helicopters should be used for crowd dispersal. Now the D.C. National Guard and the Defense Department Inspector General's office appear to be at odds over who should take responsibility for the incident, which became one of the most high-profile examples of ... Donald Trump's militarized response to protests over the killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by police officers in Minneapolis in May."
James Meek, et al., of ABC News: "An American citizen abducted last week in Niger has been rescued during a high-risk U.S. military raid in neighboring Nigeria, officials told ABC News early Saturday. The mission was undertaken by elite commandos as part of a major effort to free the U.S. citizen, Philip Walton, 27, before his abductors could get far after taking him captive in Niger on Oct. 26, counterterrorism officials told ABC News. The operation involved the governments of the U.S., Niger and Nigeria working together to rescue Walton quickly, sources said. The CIA provided intelligence leading to Walton's whereabouts and Marine Special Operations elements in Africa helped locate him, a former U.S. official said. Then the elite SEAL Team Six carried out a 'precision' hostage rescue mission and killed all but one of the seven captors, according to officials with direct knowledge about the operation."
~~~~~~~~~~
Presidential Race, Etc.
The New York Times' live election updates Saturday are here. It's a big day on the campaign trail. most of it happening in Pennsylvania.
David Eggert, et al., of the AP: "Joe Biden enters the final weekend of the presidential campaign with an intense focus on appealing to Black voters whose support will be critical in his bid to defeat ... Donald Trump. The Democratic presidential nominee is teaming up with his former boss, Barack Obama, for a swing through Michigan on Saturday. They'll hold drive-in rallies in Flint and Detroit, predominantly Black cities where strong turnout will be essential to return this longtime Democratic state to Biden's column after Trump won here in 2016."
Thomas Kaplan & Annie Karni of the New York Times: "... the chilly Midwest looms again as the principal battleground of the election, and on Friday Mr. Trump and former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. crisscrossed the region campaigning in states that are not only must-win for the president but also central to the identities of both parties.... As the country reported a record number of coronavirus cases in the past week, Mr. Trump continued to insist on Friday that the disease the virus causes was not serious. At a rally in Michigan, a state that reported a 91 percent increase in new cases from the average two weeks earlier, he made the extraordinary and unfounded accusation that American doctors were profiteering from coronavirus deaths, claiming they were paid more if patients die. He also mocked the Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who attended the rally, for wearing a mask. 'I've never seen her in a mask,' he said. 'She's being very politically correct.'... Later in Minnesota, Mr. Biden lashed Mr. Trump for his comments about doctors profiting from virus deaths. 'Doctors and nurses go to work every day to save lives,' he said. 'They do their jobs. Donald Trump should stop attacking them and do his job.'&" A Politico story is here. More on Trump's attacks on doctors linked under "The Trumpidemic, Ctd."
Spooky Halloween Stories. Ron Suskind, in a long New York Times opinion piece, lays out some of the scenarios that Trump could instigate on November 4 if he doesn't rout Biden on November 3. What makes Suskind's projections all the more frightening is that they are not Suskind's ideas; they come from "senior officials, mainly in jobs that require Senate confirmation.... They are worried that the president could use the power of the government -- the one they all serve or served within -- to keep himself in office or to create favorable terms for negotiating his exit from the White House." Mrs. McC: If you enjoy getting upset about speculations on what a madman might do, and in any case are beyond your control, this article is for you! OR, you might want to read it on the theory that forewarned is forearmed. The news that Trump is apparently cancelling his election-night victory party, which came out after Suskind wrote his piece, suggests to me that Trump indeed will be hunkered down with Jared, et al., in the White House, plotting his post-election strategy. (Also linked yesterday.)
Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: Donald Trump Jr.'s rant on Fox "News" Thursday night, when he claimed that Covid-19 deaths were "almost nothing," was "a particularly vivid illustration of the true nature of the case his father is making for reelection, and why Americans should reject it.... The careful reader will note that, in addition to being dismissive about death numbers, he claimed the media is not discussing the 'almost nothing' death levels precisely because it's such an admirable accomplishment.... Media figures are hyping coronavirus as part of a broader effort to deliberately discourage Trump rallies, he and [host Laura] Ingraham agreed.... The idea that elites -- whether we're talking about scientists, media figures, Democratic governors, what have you -- are deliberately discouraging conservatives from associating with one another, that they are enemies of conservative community, is a mainstay of Trumpist propaganda.... [Junior] is telling us exactly what reelecting his father stands for: the proposition that the current level of viral spread, sickness, misery and death constitute an acceptable trade-off for resuming total normalcy and reaping the benefits of doing so, as if that were eve possible amid pandemic conditions in the first place." (Also linked yesterday.)
Rosalind Helderman, et al., of the Washington Post: "For months, Republicans have pushed largely unsuccessfully to limit new avenues for voting in the midst of the pandemic. But with next week's election rapidly approaching, they have shifted their legal strategy in recent days to focus on tactics aimed at challenging ballots one by one, in some cases seeking to discard votes already cast during a swell of early voting.... Democrats ... accused Republicans of targeting valid votes in Democratic strongholds in a blatant bid to gain an electoral advantage.... '... This isn't about rooting out any mythical voter fraud. It never was,' [said Chad Dunn, general counsel for the Texas Democratic Party and co-founder of the UCLA Voting Rights Project]. 'This is about raw power and obtaining power by any means necessary.'" Mrs. McC: No kidding.
Jacob Bogage & Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post: "Absentee ballots are taking longer to reach election offices in key swing states than in the rest of the country, new data shows, as the U.S. Postal Service rushes to deliver votes ahead of strict state deadlines.... Those delays loom large over the election: 28 states will not accept ballots that arrive after Election Day, even if they are postmarked before. Continued snags in the mail system could invalidate tens of thousands of ballots across the country and could factor into whether President Trump or Democratic nominee Joe Biden captures crucial battleground states and, ultimately, the White House. In Michigan, for example, the Detroit postal district — which includes some of the state's largest concentrations of Black voters, who are crucial to Biden's campaign -- had delivered only 72.8 percent of ballots on time over the past five days...."
Giovanni Russonello of the New York Times: "Four years ago, voters [who were] undecided until the 11th hour and guided by their gut more than by policy -- decided the election. This year, polling shows far fewer undecided voters remain, but in close battleground states they could still be pivotal. And while voters who were negative on both major candidates in 2016 broke big for Mr. Trump as the 'lesser of two evils,' particularly in the Midwest, they appear generally disinclined to do so again.... Undecideds leaning toward Mr. Biden outweighed those leaning toward Mr. Trump, though not by an overwhelming margin. Perhaps more meaningfully, Mr. Biden had a slight advantage among voters who had not expressed a favorable view of either candidate. The largest share of those voters -- a little more than half -- hadn't settled on one to support, meaning there was room for movement."
Reed Richardson of Mediaite: "Some Biden campaign officials are expressing concern about lagging Black and Latino turnout in the early vote totals so far in some key swing states. According to new article in Bloomberg, Biden aides have identified three states -- Arizona, Florida and Pennsylvania -- where the African-American and Hispanic vote totals are lower than they would prefer at this point. Early voting across the country has soared in many places amid the coronavirus pandemic and Democrats are seeing massive surges among key demographics like young voters in states like Georgia and Texas. '... In Florida, half of Latino and Black registered voters have not yet voted but more than half of White voters have cast ballots, according to data from Catalist, a Democratic data firm. In Pennsylvania, nearly 75% of registered Black voters have not yet voted, the data shows.'" ~~~
~~~ Maya King of Politico: "The Democratic Party is inundating Black male voters with the Biden-Harris message on radio, television and digital platforms. Meanwhile, the NAACP, the Congressional Black Caucus PAC and the Black voter-focused organization BlackPAC have shelled out seven figures each in the final stretch of the campaign. Their efforts amount to a combined $17 million in ads and get-out-the-vote efforts this month targeted to infrequent Black voters -- and young Black men in particular."
Florida. Mark Caputo & Matt Dixon of Politico: "Democrats are sounding the alarm about weak voter turnout rates in Florida's biggest county, Miami-Dade, where a strong Republican showing is endangering Joe Biden's chances in the nation's biggest swing state. No Democrat can win Florida without a huge turnout and big winning margins here to offset losses elsewhere in the state. But Democrats are turning out at lower rates than Republicans and at lower rates than at this point in 2016, when Hillary Clinton won by 29 percentage points here and still lost the state to Donald Trump.... Part of the problem, according to interviews with a dozen Democratic elected officials and operatives, is the Biden campaign's decision to discourage field staff from knocking on doors during the pandemic and its subsequent delay in greenlighting -- and funding -- a return to door-to-door canvassing." (Also linked yesterday.)
Texas. From the New York Times' live election updates Friday: "Texas, a 2020 jump-ball state once considered a layup for Republicans, is shattering turnout records, with the number of early in-person and mail-in ballots now exceeding the total number of votes cast statewide in the 2016 election. Early-voting turnout has been enormous across the country, spurred by the coronavirus pandemic and one of the most bitterly contested presidential races in history, accelerating a years-in-the-making shift away from Election Day-only voting.... Though ... Senator Kamala Harris, is making a late swing through the state today, with visits to Houston, McAllen and Fort Worth, the Biden campaign has not put significant time or money into the state, arguing that it is a bad investment: Texas has multiple expensive media markets and is not an essential stop on Mr. Biden's path to 270 electoral votes." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Will Weissert & Paul Weber of the AP: "Texans have already cast more ballots in the presidential election than they did during all of 2016, an unprecedented surge of early voting in a state that was once the country's most reliably Republican, but may now be drifting toward battleground status.... Texas is the first state to hit the milestone. This year's numbers were aided by Democratic activists challenging in court for, and winning, the right to extend early voting by one week amid the coronavirus pandemic." (Also linked yesterday.)
Trump Can't Handle the Truth. He Won't Even Listen to It. Julian Barnes & Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "President Trump has dispensed with intelligence briefings from a career analyst in favor of updates from political appointees including John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence and a longtime partisan defender of his, in the closing weeks of an election targeted by intensifying foreign interference, according to interviews. While the president has long distrusted the intelligence community and displayed frustration with head of the C.I.A. and antipathy toward the F.B.I. director, Mr. Ratcliffe has served as a more supportive figure. He secured influence in part by delivering on the president's political agenda, chiefly by declassifying documents related to the Russia investigation, moves said to please Mr. Trump. Critics have attacked Mr. Ratcliffe's embrace of Mr. Trump, saying Mr. Ratcliffe cannot be trusted to deliver unvarnished facts in this highly polarized election and is focused on politics in what is supposed to be an apolitical role."
Kids in Cages Was Horrific. This Is Worse. Caitlin Dickerson of the New York Times: "U.S. border authorities have been expelling migrant children from other countries into Mexico, violating a diplomatic agreement with Mexico and testing the limits of immigration and child welfare laws. The expulsions, laid out in a sharply critical internal email from a senior Border Patrol official, have taken place under an aggressive border closure policy the Trump administration has said is necessary to prevent the coronavirus from spreading into the United States. But they conflict with the terms upon which the Mexican government agreed to help implement the order, which were that only Mexican children and others who had adult supervision could be pushed back into Mexico after attempting to cross the border. The expulsions put children from countries such as Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador at risk by sending them with no accompanying adult into a country where they have no family connections."
The Trumpidemic, Ctd.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here: "The United States recorded over 99,000 coronavirus cases on Friday, a level reached for the first time since the pandemic began. After eight months battling the virus, nearly two dozen states are reporting their worst weeks for new cases -- and none are recording improvements. Sixteen states reported single-day records for new cases on Friday.... And the numbers in states like New Hampshire and Maine remain low, but they are backsliding after long periods of stability.... Hospitalizations and deaths are also trending upward.... On Thursday, more than 1,000 Americans died from Covid-19, an increase of 16 percent from two weeks ago. On the same day, the president's son Donald Trump Jr. sought to downplay the severity of the virus, saying that deaths were 'almost nothing' in an appearance on Fox News."
The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here: "The United States reported nearly 100,000 new coronavirus cases in a day on Friday, setting a record as a fall wave of infections surge in every swing state that will be crucial to next week's presidential election. The number of infections nationwide surpassed 9 million reported infections on Friday, just 15 days after the tally hit 8 million. At least 229,000 deaths have been linked to the coronavirus." (Also linked yesterday.)
Demonizing Doctors. Kathryn Krawczyk of the Week: "While rallying in Michigan on Friday, Trump once again ... claim[ed] that doctors are only driving up death counts to make money.... 'Our doctors get more money if somebody dies from COVID,' Trump said to nods and agreement from the crowd. So doctors apparently claim 'everybody dies of COVID-19' to drive numbers up, Trump said, with no proof whatsoever -- and to the disgust of doctors who heard it.... Early in the pandemic, hospitals did receive more money from an insurer or Medicare if they were treating a person with COVID-19 -- it was part of the coronavirus relief legislation Trump signed. But doctors are most definitely not trying to boost their paychecks as they fight a deadly, super contagious pandemic, the American Medical Association made clear." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: The rationale behind the legislation was that hospitals had extraordinary expenses associated with Covid-19 cases: purchasing extra ventilators & PPE at premium prices, paying staff overtime, etc. ~~~
~~~ Julia Reinstein of BuzzFeed News: "In a statement following the president's comments [when he made them at a rally on Thursday], the American Medical Association pushed back on the false claim. 'Throughout this pandemic, physicians, nurses, and frontline health care workers have risked their health, their safety and their lives to treat their patients and defeat a deadly virus,' Susan R. Bailey, the association's president, said in a statement. "They did it because duty called and because of the sacred oath they took. 'The suggestion that doctors -- in the midst of a public health crisis -- are overcounting COVID-19 patients or lying to line their pockets is a malicious, outrageous, and completely misguided charge.'... The American College of Emergency Physicians also said it was 'appalled by President Trump's reckless and false assertions that physicians are overcounting deaths related to COVID-19.'" ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump has a phony excuse for each of his many failures, but this one is in a class by itself. Our medical personnel are doing extraordinary work & giving up everything -- including their very lives in many cases -- to treat patients sickened precisely because Trump, believing negligence would help his re-election chances, refused to take necessary steps to curb the virus. Blaming the very people stuck with cleaning up after his narcissistic & cynical neglect of our safety is beyond disgusting.
Paula Reid, et al., of CBS News: "Dr. Deborah Birx warned the nation's governors on Friday of a 'broad surge' of the COVID-19 pandemic across the country as the weather cools, contradicting President Trump's claim that the U.S. is 'rounding the turn.' Birx, the White House Coronavirus Task Force coordinator, said on a call that nearly one-third of the nation is in a COVID-19 hot spot, and things aren't getting any better as people turn to indoor activities. 'This is a broad surge across every state where it is cooling,' Birx said in audio of the call obtained by CBS News.... The pandemic will only plateau if 'every single person in your states' takes wearing masks, social distancing and hygiene seriously, Birx said, according to audio of the call. She told governors that people must decrease indoor gatherings with family and friends. The goal is to 'form a bridge of human behavior change over the next few weeks,' she said. On the call, Dr. Anthony Fauci said the U.S. should know in December whether we have a safe and effective vaccine, likely from either Moderna or Pfizer.... Mr. Trump's language on COVID-19 has become, if anything, less cautious after he won his battle against the virus with the aid of the country's best medical treatment."
Matt Phillips & Eshe Nelson of the New York Times: "Stocks fell on Friday, dropping for the fourth time in the past five days in a retreat that has added up to Wall Street's worst week since March, as rising pandemic cases, new shutdowns and a sell-off in large technology stocks all dragged the major benchmarks lower. The S&P 500 fell 1.2 percent Friday, bringing its loss for the week to 5.6 percent. That's its biggest weekly drop since the week through March 20, when stocks plunged 15 percent before they began to rebound after the Federal Reserve and lawmakers in Washington stepped in to bolster the economy. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 6.5 percent for the week, also its worst decline since March." A CNBC story is here.
Michael Tarm of the AP: "A 17-year-old from Illinois accused of killing two demonstrators in Kenosha, Wisconsin, has been extradited to stand trial on homicide charges, with sheriff's deputies in Illinois handing him over to their counterparts in Wisconsin shortly after a judge on Friday approved the contested extradition. In his afternoon ruling that rejected Kyle Rittenhouse's bid to remain in Illinois, Judge Paul Novak noted that defense attorneys had characterized the Wisconsin charges as politically motivated.... Immediately after Novak issued the ruling at the courthouse in Waukegan, Illinois, deputies with the Lake County Sheriff's Office picked up Rittenhouse and drove him five miles (eight kilometers) to the Illinois-Wisconsin border, sheriff's office spokesman Christopher Covelli told The Associated Press." ~~~
~~~ Robert O'Harrow & Kim Bellware of the Washington Post: "The teenager accused of killing two men during protests in Kenosha, Wis., in August used an assault rifle that a friend had bought for him, according to police records made public Friday. Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, enlisted the friend's help several months earlier because he was too young to legally buy the gun, an AR-15, himself, the records say.... 'I shot two White kids,' the records quote him as saying.... Rittenhouse and the friend who bought him the gun, identified in the records as Dominick Black, 18, each told police they had been hired by a local business owner to provide security that night."
Gillian Flaccus of the AP: "The [fatal] shooting of a Black man by law enforcement in Washington state threatened to increase tensions around Portland, Oregon, where protesters against racial injustice have clashed repeatedly with right-wing groups. Friends and family identified the dead man as Kevin E. Peterson Jr., 21, and said he was a former high school football player and the proud father of an infant daughter. The shooting happened in Hazel Dell, an unincorporated area of Vancouver, Washington, about 12 miles (19 kilometers) north of Portland. In a statement, Clark County Sheriff Chuck Atkins said a joint city-county narcotics task force was conducting an investigation just before 6 p.m. Thursday and chased a man into the parking lot of a bank, where he fired a gun at them. A firearm was recovered at the scene, Atkins said. Authorities have not named the person who was shot, but Kevin E. Peterson Sr. told The Oregonian/OregonLive the person was his son, Kevin E. Peterson Jr. Atkins referenced the Peterson family in his remarks but did not confirm Peterson was the person who was killed."
News Lede
New York Times: "Sean Connery, the irascible Scot from the slums of Edinburgh who found international fame as Hollywood's original James Bond, dismayed his fans by walking away from the Bond franchise and went on to have a long and fruitful career as a respected actor and an always bankable star, died on Saturday. He was 90."
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Reader Comments (14)
Story over in Politico that Trump surrogates are being told to keep their calendars open for campaign events after next Tuesday. IOW, Trump is going to keep campaigning even after Tuesday. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/30/trumps-maga-roadshow-ballots-tallied-433720
"Almost nothing." "...doctors get more money if somebody dies from Covid." Putting aside the contrary messaging, the cruelty shatters my soul.
The man who directed the choirs at my family church died yesterday, and Covid contributed to his passing. He started me on a singing path that has been an essential part of my life. In addition to the church choir, he conducted high school choirs and formed a community chorus. He leaves behind generations of singers and music lovers who cannot celebrate and mourn him with communal singing, where breathing deeply and projecting boldly is hazardous to everyone's health. I am saying a quiet, sad "thank you" and remembering the joy of being part of the chorus, contributing my part to something bigger than any one person can do.
The November issue of Vanity Fair has a nine page article on Jared Kushner's shadow coronary task force which ran parallel to prince's official one. It's basically about his March 21 plan for the federal government to supply the country with PPE, ventilators and millions of test kits.
His task force was composed of a Morgan Stanley banker, a cancer researcher, Silicon valley types and his college roommate. No epidemiologists.
They got commitments from dozens of major corporations to manufacture ventilators (GM), create a system for contact tracing, make POT and more.
Then surprise, surprise, the virus hit hardest in New York and Ca. And other blue states. Kushner then held a meeting with all the interested parties and announced that the federal government would not be involved in procurement of supplies. Let the state governors fight it out and we'll have somebody to blame when things go wrong. Basically, he said screw it, let 'em die, they're not our voters. Everyone was gobsmacked, couldn't believe it became so political so fast.
According to one participant, Kushner sat at the head of the table in an elevated chair and they were thinking-----does this guy think he's president, making life and death decisions?
So I guess we can add manslaughter to the list of this crime family's accomplishments.
@Nisky Guy: Could you do a Zoom memorial? The singing won't turn out great because some computer audio systems have "lag," but it's the thought that counts. Besides, there are some hymns that might sound better with voices not exactly in sync! And you could have quite a few solos. There's probably someone affiliated with the church who could do the technical parts of setting up & directing the Zoom meeting.
It would allow everyone to feel they had paid their proper respects, and that, after all, is one of the main purposes of memorials.
I have to admit to a feeling close to panic as we get closer to the end of voting.
The panoply of high crimes and scurrilous scheming perpetrated by the Trump Crime Family and the power mad charlatans of the Party of Traitors provided them all with plenty of reasons to be concerned. But the suppression attempts continue as do the plans for stealing power no matter the will of the people. The lesson they’ve learned, the biggest lesson, is that they can get away, literally, with murder. They do it every day.
And they’ve learned that, with a rubber stamp, traitor controlled Supreme Court in their pocket, they don’t have to worry about losing something as insignificant and anathema to their purposes as a democratic election.
They’re prepared for claims of voter fraud loud enough to have R controlled states use hand picked electors to shove Trump and his family of crooks and murderers back into the White House. And they have their confederates on the high court to stamp everything as “legitimate”. This isn’t hypothetical; they’ve done it before.
They’ll do it again.
I put nothing past these anti-American criminals.
A mild counter, Akhilleus, to the fears we all feel.
Just checked the early voting totals updated this AM, which are now close to 90 million or 2/3 of the 2016 total. The people are energized.
(And that total doesn't include all those ballots DeMisery has stored at USPS facilities, presumably for safe-keeping.)
Happy Halloween to All.
@Ken Winkes: Hi-ho, the derry-o, the House stands alone. My psyche is right where Akhilleus' is. Trump controls the executive, the courts & the Senate. In ordinary circumstances, this wouldn't matter too much. But these are extraordinary times, and, as Akhilleus writes, a criminal, power-mad cabal headed by a person entirely devoid of scruples is inclined toward pulling out all the stops.
I still think it's slightly more likely that Biden, not Trump, will be sworn in January 20, but I wouldn't make a $5 bet on it. We may look back on today as our last 85-some hours of anything approaching normality (did you know you can successfully Google "how many hours between now & November 4"?)
Bea,
Yeah, it's impossible to shake the feeling of impending doom that sixty percent of the nation has lived with for the last four years.
Ah hell, make that longer. Bush II's antics gave me the moral and geopolitical willies, and McConnell's Senate shenanigans in Obama's last six years only deepened my overall pessimism.
Worry. Angst. Fear. Pessimism. All of it.
And no wonder. We've been trained to it for the first fifth of our last (speaking punningly and personally) century.
When is the last time you read about a Facebook "error" that did not benefit Trump and the Confederates?
Ominously, adding to the already voluminous playbook of Republican election stealing schemes, Fatty is planning campaign events even after the election. Should the vote totals be at all close (whatever the margin of error might be), Trump will no doubt use these super spreader events to scream Fraud! and demand an instant halt to the proceedings, especially if it looks like he’s ahead or close in electoral college votes.
Naturally, the confederate “umpires” on the Court will recognize this as their cue to take center stage, and like some warped version of the authority figures Shakespeare uses to close out his tragedies, restoring order from the dark and sad doings (Malcolm in “Macbeth“, Prince Escalus in “Romeo and Juliet”, Lodovico in “Othello”), they will announce that peace is restored to the land and the Lord Trump has been rightfully restored to the throne, praise be to god.
The grifting can resume as if democracy doesn’t exist. Because in TrumpLand it never has.
RAS,
Excellent point. Zuckerberg knows he has nothing to fear from Democrats, but he’s seen up close and personal how nasty and underhanded Republicans can be, and he wants no part of that.
JUDGING EUGENE:
When Alex Acosta resigned as Secretary of Labor due to his handling of the Epstein case, the son of Antonin Scalia, Eugene, who had the credentials that "suggested an antagonism toward the agency he was appointed to run" was given the job, whose role is "to foster, promote and develop the welfare of the wage earners, job seekers, and retirees of the United States." For decades, as an attorney, Eugene was "helping corporations gut or evade government regulations, including worker protection."
"Sounds like my kind of guy!" says the King–-"with brains to boot!"
This is an long excellent New Yorker piece on how one man has had the power to ruin lives and is certainly responsible for losing them. Since the pandemic began, "OSHA has received more than ten thousand complaints alleging unsafe conditions related to the virus. It has issued just two citations under the General Duty Clause."
I urge you to read this–-it opened my eyes to the kind of manipulation and sheer disregard of fellow humans by this man. Take your time, and when you're through, pour yourself something like that sparkling white that Jeanne and her daughter buy in bulk or perhaps something stronger–-you'll need it!
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/10/26/trumps-labor-secretary-is-a-wrecking-ball-aimed-at-workers
As to our fears that Fatty stays put–-I couldn't imagine Hillary losing and when she did I was shocked and distraught–- todayI can very well imagine this monstrosity happening all over only this time we know the monster's footprints and feel the terror. But somehow I want to believe justice will prevail––it's that old American mindset that we can't quite let go of.
Haven't heard this on the campign trail. Has anyone?
We sure should have.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/31/opinion/republicans-biden-taxes.html?
Deep fakes from the guys at South Park