The Ledes

Friday, October 11, 2024

Washington Post: “Floridians began returning to damaged and waterlogged homes on Thursday after Hurricane Milton carved a path of destruction and grief across the state, the second massive storm to strike Florida in as many weeks. At least 14 storm-related deaths were attributed to the hurricane, which made landfall south of Sarasota at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, officials said. Six of them were killed when two tornadoes touched down ahead of the storm in St. Lucie County on Florida’s central Atlantic coast. The deadly tornadoes, rising waters, torrential rain and punishing winds battered the state from coast to coast as Milton churned eastward before heading out to sea early Thursday.”

Washington Post: “Twelve people were rescued from an inactive Colorado gold mine after they were trapped 1,000 feet underground for about six hours following an elevator malfunction. One person was killed in the accident, which happened about 500 feet underground at the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine near Cripple Creek, Colo., Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell said at a Thursday news conference. The site is a tourist attraction. Eleven other people aboard the elevator at the time, including two children, were rescued shortly after the mechanical malfunction, which Mikesell said 'created a severe danger for the participants.' He said four suffered minor injuries.... Twelve others in a separate group remained trapped in a mine shaft 1,000 feet underground for several hours after the incident, before they were rescued Thursday evening, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said.”

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The Ledes

Thursday, October 10, 2024

CNBC: “The pace of price increases over the past year was higher than forecast in September while jobless claims posted an unexpected jump following Hurricane Helene and the Boeing strike, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The consumer price index, a broad gauge measuring the costs of goods and services across the U.S. economy, increased a seasonally adjusted 0.2% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 2.4%. Both readings were 0.1 percentage point above the Dow Jones consensus. The annual inflation rate was 0.1 percentage point lower than August and is the lowest since February 2021.”

The New York Times' live updates of Hurrucane Milton consequences Thursday are here: “Milton was still producing damaging hurricane-force winds and heavy rainfall to parts of East and Central Florida, forecasters said early Thursday, even as the powerful storm roared away from the Atlantic coast and left deaths and widespread damage across the state. Cities along Florida’s east coast are now facing flash flooding, damaging winds and storm surges. Some had already been battered by powerful tornadoes spun out by the storm before it made landfall on the Gulf Coast on Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane. In [St. Lucie] county [Fort Pierce], several people in a retirement community were killed by a tornado, the police said.... More than three million customers were without power in Florida as of early Thursday.” ~~~

     ~~~ Here are the Weater Channel's live updates.

CNN: “The 2024 Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to Han Kang, a South Korean author, for her 'intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.' Han, 53, began her career with a group of poems in a South Korean magazine, before making her prose debut in 1995 with a short story collection. She later began writing longer prose works, most notably 'The Vegetarian,' one of her first books to be translated into English. The novel, which won the Man Booker International Prize in 2016, charts a young woman’s attempt to live a more 'plant-like' existence after suffering macabre nightmares about human cruelty. Han is the first South Korean author to win the literature prize, and just the 18th woman out of the 117 prizes awarded since 1901.” The New York Times story is here.

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Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

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The Commentariat -- September 5, 2020

Afternoon Update:

The Omen. Colin Kalmbacher of Law & Crime: "Police in Austin, Texas say they have received several 911 calls about boats sinking into the waters of a large local lake during a boat parade being held in support of ... Donald Trump. According to local CBS affiliate KEYE-TV, the Travis County Sheriff's Office (TSCO) has received numerous distress calls from sinking boats -- apparently all along the route of the aquatic parade.... 'Several have sunk,' the TSCO reportedly told KVUE's Pattrik Perez.... According to citizen journalists who took stock of live updates from EMS response crews via the aptly-titled Citizen app, the parade participants were 'unruly' and 'not adhering to safety measures.'"

Trump Again Urges North Carolina Republicans to Commit Felony Voter Fraud. Dianne Gallagher, et al., of CNN: "... Donald Trump suggested to his supporters on Friday night that if they vote by mail they should also attempt to vote in person as a way to check that their vote is counted, which risks causing chaos at the polls and undermining confidence in the election. In a North Carolina 'telerally' Friday night, which was later posted on Facebook, Trump spent the first few minutes of the call explaining in detail how he wanted his voters to vote. If they vote by mail, they should go to their polling place anyway to 'see whether or not your mail-in vote has been tabulated or counted,' Trump said, noting that if it's been counted, they won't be able to vote. It's a federal crime to vote twice in the same election, and it's also a felony in almost every state, including North Carolina. Trump also addressed the possibility that a voter's mail-in ballot would be tabulated after they had voted in person."

... Jennifer Griffin should be fired for this kind of reporting. Never even called us for comment. Fox News is gone! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet late Friday ~~~

~~~ Kill the Messenger. Daniel Politi of Slate: "... Donald Trump is calling for a Fox News reporter to be fired after she confirmed some details of a bombshell story that said he disparaged veterans.... Jennifer Griffin [of Fox 'News'] wrote a Twitter thread and also went on the network to lay out how she had confirmed several claims in the [Atlantic] piece."

Steve Benen of MSNBC: "Asked if he supports the military, Trump is quick to point to symbols and gestures: he has military flags in the Oval Office, for example, and his interest in military parades is borderline creepy. But there's no depth of thought or seriousness of purpose. It's what leads Trump to celebrate those accused of war crimes, while ridiculing those who serve honorably."

Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "Former FBI agent Peter Strzok alleges in a new book that investigators came to believe it was 'conceivable, if unlikely' that Russia was secretly controlling President Trump after he took office -- a full-fledged 'Manchurian candidate' installed as America's commander in chief. In the book, 'Compromised,' Strzok describes how the FBI had to consider 'whether the man about to be inaugurated was willing to place his or Russia's interests above those of American citizens,' and if and how agents could investigate that. Strzok opened the FBI's 2016 investigation into whether Trump's campaign had coordinated with the Kremlin to help his election and later was involved in investigating Trump personally. He was ultimately removed from the case over private text messages disparaging of the president.... [Even now, Strzok says,] '... I do think the president is compromised, that he is unable to put the interests of our nation first, that he acts from hidden motives, because there is leverage over him, held specifically by the Russians but potentially others as well.'" ~~~

~~~ Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "A former senior F.B.I. agent [Peter Strzok] at the center of the investigations into Hillary Clinton's email server and the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, defends the handling of the inquiries and declares President Trump a national security threat in a new memoir, while admitting that the bureau made mistakes that upended the 2016 presidential election.... In a scathing appraisal, Mr. Strzok concludes that Mr. Trump is hopelessly corrupt and a national security threat. The investigations that Mr. Strzok oversaw showed the president's 'willingness to accept political assistance from an opponent like Russia -- and, it follows, his willingness to subvert everything America stands for.'"

Bad News for the My Pillow Huckster. Jen Christensen & Jamie Gumbrecht of CNN: "The US Food and Drug Administration has rejected a submission from Phoenix Biotechnology Inc. to market oleandrin as a dietary supplement ingredient, citing 'significant concerns' about the safety evidence the company presented. Last month, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who recently joined the board of Phoenix Biotechnology and has a financial stake in the company, said he had participated in a July meeting at the White House with ... Donald Trump regarding the use of oleandrin as a potential therapeutic for the coronavirus. The extract comes from the Nerium oleander plant; the raw oleander plant is highly toxic and consuming it can be fatal. There are no peer-reviewed, published studies on the impact of oleandrin on Covid-19, and there's no public evidence it has been studied in patients with Covid-19.... Lindell ... has no scientific background or medical training...." Mrs. McC: So it's potentially fatal and completely untested. Otherwise, it's a great snake oil! Worth remembering: after Trump had kicked most of the scientists & doctors off his made-for-TV fake coronavirus briefings, he let the My Pillow guy lead off one of the briefings.

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race, Etc.

~~~ Thomas Kaplan & Katie Glueck of the New York Times: "Joseph R. Biden Jr. strained to contain his disgust with President Trump on Friday over a report that Mr. Trump had made extraordinarily disrespectful remarks about fallen soldiers. Then he turned to the coronavirus pandemic and the financial pain it had inflicted on millions of Americans. Mr. Trump, he said, 'just doesn't care.' And a day earlier, in Kenosha, Wis., Mr. Biden presented himself as a unifying force determined to confront racial injustice -- a very different message from the one Mr. Trump sent during his visit to the city two days earlier.... Over two days, in a key battleground state and in his own backyard, Mr. Biden drew unmistakably sharp contrasts with Mr. Trump -- not just about policy ideas or management competence, but also about showing respect and understanding Americans' struggles. On Friday, in a fiery speech and a subsequent news conference, Mr. Biden expressed outrage over a report by The Atlantic that Mr. Trump had referred to American soldiers killed in combat during World War I as 'losers' and 'suckers' and had repeatedly shown disdain for military service at other points in his presidency.... Ticking through a list of other well-documented instances in which Mr. Trump has dismissed the sacrifices of military veterans..., Mr. Biden continued, 'President Trump has demonstrated he has no sense of service, no loyalty to any cause other than himself.'" More on Biden's remarks in Baker & Haberman's NYT report, linked below.

Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "Long before The Atlantic published an article on Thursday night depicting President Trump disparaging America's war dead, liberal veterans groups had been feverishly working in battleground states to appeal to veterans and military family members, a cornerstone of President Trump's base.... By Friday morning, Democrats, especially those with a military background, were reacting with both outrage and a sense of opportunity denouncing Mr. Trump in news conferences and press releases and assuring veterans and military families that they had their backs.... On Friday, less than 12 hours after The Atlantic published its article, the largest liberal veteran organization, VoteVets, released an online ad featuring the parents of troops slain in Iraq and Afghanistan.... In the first five hours after it went up, the group said it raised $100,000 from 2,500 donors. The Democratic Party is also leaning heavily on its most popular veterans, like Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., and a former Democratic presidential candidate, to attack the president on his treatment of veterans and the military -- something that would traditionally be a strength for an incumbent Republican president but which is increasingly becoming a weak spot for Mr. Trump." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: You may recall that during the Obama presidency, Jill Biden & Michelle Obama made helping military families their No. 1 priority.

He cannot understand selflessness because he is selfish. He cannot conceive of courage because he is a coward. He cannot feel duty because he is disloyal.... We owe it not only to those who have served and sacrificed for our nation, but to ourselves and to succeeding generations to vote him out. -- Sully Sullenberger, in a series of tweets about Donald Trump ~~~

~~~ Reed Richardson of Mediaite: "Capt. Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger III unleashed a blistering tweetstorm on ... Donald Trump on Friday night, condemning him -- without ever naming him -- for the 'utter and vulgar contempt' he has reportedly shown to the military and urging Americans to 'vote him out.' Sullenberger, a former Air Force fighter pilot and captain, became a worldwide celebrity for his 'Miracle on the Hudson' emergency landing of US Airways Flight 1549 on January 15, 2009. He retired in 2010 after 30 years as a commercial pilot. Earlier this year, Sullenberger joined ... Joe Biden at a Nevada caucus rally, endorsing his 2020 run."

Ursula Perano of Axios: "Over 190 law enforcement officials on Friday endorsed Joe Biden for president, per a campaign statement.... The endorsements rebut a theme of the Trump re-election campaign, which has falsely claimed that Biden wants to defund the police.... It's a blow to Trump, who's sought to brand himself as the law-and-order candidate.... 'Joe Biden has always stood on the right side of the law and is offering a much needed vision for our Nation. When asked the question, would you feel safe in Joe Biden's America? The answer is yes,' said Tom Manger, Retired Chief and former President of the Major Cities Chiefs Association." (Also linked yesterday.)

Shane Harris & Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "Russia is seeking 'to undermine public trust in the electoral process' by spreading false claims that mail-in-ballots are riddled with fraud and susceptible to manipulation, according to a new intelligence bulletin by the Department of Homeland Security. Many of the claims made by Russian sources are identical to repeated, unsupported public statements aired by President Trump and Attorney General William P. Barr, who have said that mailed ballots aren't trustworthy while warning of the potential for rampant fraud in November's elections.... The bulletin doesn't cite any particular statements by Trump, Barr or other U.S. officials, but it states that Russia is 'amplifying' claims that mail-in voting is prone to fraud." An ABC News report on the same topic is linked below. The Post story notes that ABC was first to report on the bulletin. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ AND Count Pompeo In. Laura Kelly of the Hill: "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday said there is a 'real risk' to the U.S. elections if states mail ballots to registered voters, echoing President Trump's criticism of efforts by states to ramp up mail voting amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Pompeo, speaking on Fox News' 'Fox and Friends,' was responding to a question about whether he shared Trump's worries about mail-in voting. The president has attacked the idea of mail-in voting as ripe for fraud despite little to no evidence of such risks. 'It's a little out of my lane as secretary of State, but it's a matter of logic,' Pompeo, a former Republican congressman from Kansas, told the program." (Also linked yesterday.)

Providing Aid & Comfort to the Enemy. Reuters in the Guardian: "China has taken the most active role among countries seeking to interfere in the US election and has the biggest program to influence domestic politics, the US national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, said on Friday, without providing any details. 'We know the Chinese have taken the most active role,' O'Brien told reporters at a briefing. He said China had 'the most massive program to influence the United States politically' followed by Iran and then Russia.... Attorney general, William Barr said on Wednesday he believed China was more of a threat than Russia when it came to election interference, also without offering details." --s ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: O'Brien & Barr have proved before that they are trained seals, and they bark when Trump orders then to. The unsupported assertions about China sound like (1) B.S. and (2) dangerous B.S. We should be able to count on the national security advisor & the attorney general to remain about the fray and give us the unbiased truth. We can't.

Georgia Congressional Race. QAnon Candidate Threatens Lives of Liberal Congresswomen. Rachel Bade & John Wagner of the Washington Post: "A House candidate whom President Trump recently called 'a future Republican Star' posted an image of herself holding a rifle with photos of three liberal congresswomen of color and the vow to 'go on the offense' against members of the 'Squad,' an unprecedented threat against lawmakers from a probable future colleague. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the GOP candidate for a Georgia congressional seat in a heavily Republican district and a professed QAnon conspiracy believer, posted the photoshopped image Thursday on Facebook. The image includes Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.). On Friday, the post had been taken down. Before it was removed, the caption under the gun-toting Greene read: 'Squad's worst nightmare.'... House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called on Republicans to 'immediately condemn this dangerous threat of violence against Democratic Congresswomen.'"


Peter Baker & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump >confronted a political crisis on Friday that could undercut badly needed support in the military community for his re-election campaign as he sought to dispute a report that he privately referred to American soldiers killed in combat as 'losers' and 'suckers.' Mr. Trump, who has long portrayed himself as a champion of the armed forces and has boasted of rebuilding a military depleted after years of overseas wars, came under intense fire from Democrats and other opponents who said a report in The Atlantic demonstrated his actual contempt for those who serve their country in uniform.... While Mr. Trump demanded that allies knock down the article, aides recognized that few senior military officers were willing to openly defend the president....

"The president's foes organized conference calls, blasted out statements, flocked to television studios and quickly posted advertising online calling attention to the reported comments. At a news conference, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. ... grew emotional as he said that his son Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer in 2015, 'wasn't a sucker' for serving in the Army in Iraq.... Mr. Biden called the reported comments 'disgusting,' 'sick, 'deplorable,' 'un-American' and 'absolutely damnable,' adding that he was closer to losing his temper than at any point during the campaign. 'I've just never been as disappointed in my whole career with a leader that I've worked with, president or otherwise.'"

Lara Seligman of Politico: "Trump and other administration officials moved quickly on Thursday and into Friday to blast a report from The Atlantic, which cited anonymous sources saying the president disparaged wounded and fallen U.S. service members on multiple occasions and that he asked that disabled veterans be excluded from military parades. 'It's a fake story and it's a disgrace that they're allowed to do it,' Trump said Friday, although reporters from The Associated Press, The Washington Post and Fox News confirmed elements of the story independently."

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Here's Trump once again complaining that the pesky First Amendment is a "disgrace." If we suspend disbelief for a moment & pretend that Trump's denials are true while Goldberg's sources are lying, it's still almost certainly true that the sources said what they said to Goldberg. He didn't just make up citations out of whole cloth. So unless Goldberg believes his sources are unreliable, he has a right to cite them. That is not a "disgrace." It's journalism. And it's journalism that was quickly confirmed, at least in part, by other journalists.

~~~ Bob Brigham of the Raw Story reposts a string of tweets by Fox "News" national correspondent Jennifer Griffin confirming much of the Atlantic's reporting. Also, Melania Trump is upset about the Atlantic report, charging that it's "activism," not journalism. ~~~

     ~~~ Paul Campos in LG&$: "This is the kind of thing that could matter at the margin, given Fox's considerable influence all across Wingnuttia."

Annie Karni of the New York Times: "John F. Kelly left the White House barely on speaking terms with President Trump. In the months since, Mr. Kelly, a retired four-star general and former White House chief of staff, has stayed mostly silent as other senior military figures have publicly and harshly criticized the president. Much to the consternation of friends and associates who have been pushing him to speak out, Mr. Kelly continued his silence on Friday about a report in The Atlantic that the president had privately referred to American troops killed in combat as 'losers' and 'suckers.' Mr. Kelly refused on-the-record interview requests about his of comments Mr. Trump had reportedly made when Mr. Kelly was with him on a 2018 trip to France. According to the report, the president said that he had decided against visiting a cemetery for American soldiers killed in World War I because 'it's filled with losers,' and that Marines slain in combat at Belleau Wood were 'suckers' for getting killed.... Mr. Kelly's silence did not save him from the president's wrath. 'This man was totally exhausted,' Mr. Trump said of Mr. Kelly at a news conference on Friday. 'He wasn't even able to function in the last number of months.'"

Fred Kaplan of Slate: "A new article by the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg could sink President Donald Trump's prospects for reelection -- but only if one more thing happens.... [A]ll of Goldberg's sources -- some of them generals, including at least one four-star general -- spoke to him on background (meaning they could be quoted but not identified by name). And so, it becomes a matter of Goldberg's word versus Trump's -- or, in the eyes of Trump supporters, a 'fake-news reporter' versus 'mypresident.' As a result, the story, which would otherwise be political dynamite so close to an election, might shift few, if any, votes.... If these stories are true, Goldberg's sources -- especially the generals, the more highly decorated, the better -- must go on the record.... One or more of these generals should weigh the competing values: their loyalty to the president versus their loyalty and lifelong dedication to the security of the nation and the lives of their fellow service members. It shouldn't be a tough choice." --s ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: If Kaplan had read Karni, he would have better understood these top officers' reluctance to speak on the record: they don't want to be seen as directly interfering in a political campaign. However, plenty of retired top guys have got involved in political campaigns -- like, say, Dwight Eisenhower -- so I don't think the excuse holds for, say, Kelly & Mattis.

David Mack of BuzzFeed News: "In a Twitter thread late Thursday night, [Donald Trump] denied that he had ever called McCain a loser.... 'I never called John a loser,' Trump wrote on Twitter.... But Trump, of course, famously did call McCain a loser. 'He lost [the 2008 election], so I never liked him as much after that because I don't like losers,' Trump said in 2015 as he ran for president in Iowa. 'He's not a war hero. He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured.' At the time, Trump even reshared his comments on Twitter." (Also linked yesterday.)

It's Because Trump Is an Inarticulate Pacifist! Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "In The Daily Beast's interviews with eleven senior administration officials, Trump aides, Republican operatives, and former and current friends of the president, several of them mounted a curious defense of Trump. Yes, they admitted, the commander in chief at times makes callous, tone-deaf comments about American military personnel behind closed doors. But it's because he hates the wars they're forced to fight, not the service members themselves. 'The president means no disrespect to our troops; it's just that the way he speaks, he can sound like an asshole sometimes,' one of these sources, a current senior administration official, told The Daily Beast. 'That's how he is [when the cameras are off] ... It's his style.'... Three people with direct knowledge of the president’s private remarks in the past three years about Robert Kelly, [John Kelly's son,] as well as other Americans who've died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, said that Trump had made similar-sounding comments to them, too.... For all of Trump's talk about putting an end to these 'endless wars,' he has yet to actually end any of them...."

** Kathy Kiely in USA Today: "In a heretofore unpublicized recent memo, the Pentagon delivered an order to shutter Stars and Stripes, a newspaper that has been a lifeline and a voice for American troops since the Civil War. The memo orders the publisher of the news organization (which now publishes online as well as in print) to present a plan that 'dissolves the Stars and Stripes' by Sept. 15 including 'specific timeline for vacating government owned/leased space worldwide.' 'The last newspaper publication (in all forms) will be September 30, 2020,' writes Col. Paul Haverstick Jr., the memo's author.... The memo ordering the publication's dissolution claims the administration has the authority to make this move under the president's fiscal year 2021 defense department budget request. It zeroed out the $15.5 million annual subsidy for Stars and Stripes.... [The budget] the House approved earlier this summer explicitly overruled the decision to pull the plug on Stars and Stripes, restoring funding for the paper.... So far, the Senate hasn't acted." --s (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: As Kiely points out, normally funding for Stars & Stripes -- which is a tiny portion of the Pentagon's $700-billion budget -- would be folded into a continuing resolution. But instead of following SOP, the Trump administration has gone out of its way to shut down a publication that "is not answerable to the brass." But, gee, I'll bet Trump doesn't like the paper's top headline today: "More than 3,000 VA patients have now died from the coronavirus." And he likes the most popular headline even less: "Trump denies reports that he disparaged U.S. war dead as 'losers,' 'sucker.'" ~~~

     ~~~ UPDATE. Saved by Political Expediency. Oliver Darcy of CNN: "President Trump overrode his defense secretary and vowed to continue funding Stars and Stripes, the military's editorially independent newspaper that covers issues relevant to members of the armed forces, after news the administration ordered the organization to shutter leaked to the public. Trump tweeted Friday afternoon that the US 'will NOT be cutting funding' to the outlet. The President's tweet came as he faces significant uproar over a report in The Atlantic that said he disparaged military members." A New York Times story is here.

Black Lives Matter

~~~ But Not to Donald Trump. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump has directed administration officials to make significant changes to sensitivity training sessions across the government, calling such efforts that often focus on promoting awareness of racism 'divisive' and 'un-American propaganda.' The directive was laid out on Friday afternoon in a memo from the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell T. Vought, to executive branch agency heads. The brief memo -- which repeatedly referred to 'press reports,' not government documents -- tells the agencies to 'begin to identify all contracts or other agency spending related to any training on 'critical race theory,' 'white privilege,' or any other training or propaganda effort that teaches or suggests either (1) that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country or (2) that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil.'... 'It has come to the president's attention that executive branch agencies have spent millions of taxpayer dollars to date "training" government workers to believe divisive, anti-American propaganda,' Mr. Vought wrote.... The memo comes at a time of a national discussion about race, in which Mr. Trump has been firmly against systemic changes in policing and government." An AP story is here.

Thugs on a Plane. Julia Ainsley of NBC News: "In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Customs and Border Protection chief Mark Morgan said that 'groups like Antifa' are sending organized protestors by plane to cities around the country to incite violence.... But when asked by NBC News to provide examples of groups sending protestors by plane to cause violence, a CBP spokesman said there was no information to support Acting Commissioner Morgan's claim. Instead, the spokesman said Morgan was referring generally to the fact that many protestors at protests around the country are from out of state.... On Wednesday, Fox News host John Roberts asked Morgan about Trump's claim [about a plane 'almost completely loaded with thugs wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms with gear'], and Morgan ... [said], 'So I don't have any information with respect to that specific incident.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Antifa is not an organization like, say, the NRA, with a treasury & a budget for paying airfare for thugs on a plane.

New York. Gwynne Hogan of WNYC & Jake Offenhartz of the Gothamist: "The vehicle used by a driver to plow through a crowd of Black Lives Matter marchers in Times Square on Thursday was carrying a group of Trump-supporting counterprotesters who had just received an NYPD escort, according to police and videos of the incident. A spokesperson for the NYPD said the black Ford Taurus was filled with several counterprotesters, who had been told to leave the area shortly after 8 p.m. They were being ushered by police officers through the parking lot of a nearby hotel, but 'missed the turn,' the spokesperson said, and instead drove straight toward the crowd of protesters.... Video taken at the scene shows an NYPD officer helping the counter-demonstrators into the vehicle.... NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said on Friday morning that police were still investigating whether a crime was committed. The vehicle has not been located and no arrests have been made, the department confirmed.... The vehicle's license plate matches that of another car frequently shared on social media by Hakim Gibson, a pro-NYPD activist who currently runs a 'law enforcement support page.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: "Missed the turn"? I'll bet. Sorta like I "missed the turn" when I accidentally drove into a Dunkin' Donuts drive-thru while I was on a diet. Oh, my mistake. Make that a Boston cream-filled, please. And a hazelnut latte.

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Friday are here: "On Friday, a team of Russian scientists published the first report on their controversial Covid-19 vaccine. Writing in the Lancet, they reported that volunteers produced a relatively modest amount of antibodies to the coronavirus. In August, President Vladimir V. Putin announced with great fanfare that the vaccine -- called Sputnik V -- 'works effectively enough' to be approved. He declared to be a 'very important step for our country, and generally for the whole world.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Friday are here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Katie Thomas, et al., of the New York Times: "A group of drug companies competing with one another to be among the first to develop coronavirus vaccines are planning to pledge early next week that they will not release any vaccines that do not follow rigorous efficacy and safety standards, according to representatives of three of the companies. The statement, which has not yet been finalized, is meant to reassure the public that the companies will not seek a premature approval of vaccines under political pressure from the Trump administration. President Trump has pushed for a vaccine to be available by October -- just before the presidential election -- and a growing number of scientists, regulators and public health experts have expressed concern over what they see as a pattern of political arm-twisting by the Trump administration in its efforts to combat the virus."

Joel Achenbach & William Wan of the Washington Post: "The global death toll from the coronavirus> pandemic could triple by year's end, with an additional 1.9 million deaths, while a fall wave of infections could drive fatalities in the United States to 410,000, according to a new forecast from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.... The institute's forecasts were influential earlier in the pandemic in guiding policies developed by the White House coronavirus task force, but they have been criticized by some experts as projecting further into the future than can be done reliably."

Eduardo Porter of the New York Times: "As companies reconsider their long-term need to have employees on site, low-wage workers depending on office-based businesses stand to lose the most.... If white-collar America doesn't return to the office, service workers will be left with nobody to serve. The worry is particularly acute in cities, which for decades have sustained tens of millions of jobs for workers without a college education.... And having discovered Zoom, what company will fly a manager across the country for a day's worth of meetings? A lasting reduction in business travel will endanger the ecosystem of hotel and restaurant workers serving corporate travelers."

Drusilla Moorhouse & Emerson Malone of BuzzFeed News explain why BuzzFeed will begin calling QAnon a "collective delusion" rather than a "conspiracy theory." Their post helpfully explains QAnon.

News Lede

CNN: "Labor Day may be the unofficial end of summer, but it won't feel like it in the West, where hundreds of heat records are likely to be broken....Heat warnings include nearly all of California and stretch from Arizona to Oregon. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency ahead of the heat, with the goal of alleviating heat-induced demands on the power grid. An alert has been issued to California residents to conserve power between 3 p.m. and 10 p.m., when demand is highest."

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Reader Comments (12)

QAnon reminds me of a game some friends and I played for a couple of afternoons when we were 8 or 9 years old. At the end of our street there was a busy roadway that was built on a rise to keep it from flooding. There was a lot of building going on then in South Florida, so the road got a lot of truck traffic. When the game started, the idea was that the first of us to espy a red truck & run down the hill & away from the truck won that round. After a while, one of us decided that the drivers of the red trucks were bad guys and they would endanger us. This was a great improvement to the game, as it allowed us to run down the hill shrieking in mock fright.

At one point, a younger child said that she didn't believe the guys in the red trucks were really bad guys, but we older kids assured her they were. I don't think we convinced her.

We older kids never thought the drivers of the red trucks imposed any real danger. It was just a game. This is something that QAnon followers don't understand. It's just a game. Any normal person would know Hillary Clinton is not the top dog in a gang of blood-sucking child-eaters. She is not going to jump out of her red truck and harvest them for a light lunch. QAnon believers have not figured out what 8-year-olds get. Or even the 6- or 7-year old who joined us. QAnon nuts are still running down the hill, shrieking. Maybe it makes their afternoons more exciting, as the game did for us. But it's still batshit crazy.

September 5, 2020 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Nice analogy, Bea. Thanks. But the part of me still given to childhood fantasy does wish the Evil Hillary would eat all of them, or at least grind their bones to make her pizza dough...

Noticed last night that "Stars and Stripes" had been invited back on stage, a cancellation uncancelled, after the blowback (and the military poll numbers).

But this morning the Pretender was back at his favorite pastime, this time cancelling critical race theory training in the federal government. Be like teaching his administration about climate change, he must figure.

Not needed. They already know everything there is to know about it.

Racism is a hoax.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/04/us/politics/trump-race-sensitivity-training.html

September 5, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

Cannot, for the life of me, understand why John Kelly remains mum following the revelations in the Atlantic article, none of which can be news to him. Even if he’s staying quiet because he doesn’t want to appear to be helping Democrats, what about his son, and others like him, who are being viciously insulted by this draft dodging sociopath? Does honor count for nothing?

Kelly has always struck me as an odd character. He clearly knows that Trump is dangerously unfit for the job (recall his unmistakable facial reactions to the fat man’s verbal tirades and lies), but he has been unable, even in retirement, to say what he thinks about this thug in the White House.

Maybe, deep down, he’s all in on most of Trump’s other treasonous, bigoted, and illegal activities.

Whatever the reason, there should be no let up on the responses to the revelations of Trump’s perfidious statements of his belief that money is king and anyone willing to serve a cause other than their own (or his) enrichment, are losers and suckers.

In fact, his use of the word suckers offers an even pronounced impression of how Trump thinks. As a lifelong con man, he sees suckers everywhere, just waiting to be taken, to be conned, to be fleeced. Referring to members of the military as suckers indicates his belief that they’re not very smart and have been taken in by a con job. Of course, he, the Great Donald, Cadet Bonespurs, would never fall for cheap tricks like patriotism, loyalty, honor, or sacrifice.

A loser is someone who tries and fails, or maybe just a schmuck, in Trump’s world view. But a sucker is a mark. A dull target ripe to be plucked.

Like Kelly and his son.

Honor, in Trump World, does count for nothing.

September 5, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

I suspect Kelly is ashamed and does not want to revisit it all in public.

But, also, he seems to be a true believer in the exclusion of immigrants based on his DHS tenure. But that is not the same as associating with traitors, cowards and liars, which is shameful. And he knows he became one of them by his fealty.

He bears an Irish surname after all, so his upbringing taught him all about shame and the sin of pride, the deadliest sin, of which his ex-boss is the embodiment.

Sad.

September 5, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterPatrick

Patrick,

Your analysis, I expect, has a lot going for it (especially the reference to Kelly’s fondness for immigrant bashing).

He might also figure that opening his mouth now, at long last, would expose him to renewed criticism as to why he said and nothing when he had a chance to make a difference, or at least to expose the rank mindset of his master. Also, if and when he went on the record, he’d be bombarded by both sides. From the left for further corroboration of presidential perfidies, and from the right as a Trumpist apostate.

Better to keep low and not make a sound. Still, being Irish myself, the one thing you learn early and often is that you can say what you like about a family member—to other family members—but let an outsider—especially a proven liar and career douchebag—cast a stone at the family, and it’s break out the truncheons and let the bastard have it.

Kelly must forgot that part of his Irish upbringing.

September 5, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Re: John Kelly: I think Patrick, in his mention of Kelly being Irish and Catholic might have something there to explain John's silence. That Catholic victimization thing that's embedded in the Irish psyche could have prevented Kelly from responding to Trump at the time of his remark at the gravesite and responding now. He will not allow himself to be embroiled in such asininity nor will his son become a victim in Donald Trump's deranged world.

And yes, Ak, I, too, found Kelly to be a puzzle: You could almost see the fury and frustration on his face when dealing with Trump. but keep in mind what he said about "his Boston" in the old days when "people came together and women were honored"–––that sounded old fashioned to me and disingenuous because the next thing we knew was his harsh dealing with a certain congress woman. I always sensed a rigidity in him.

So today I'm wondering––was the Atlantic story a ball buster? Or will we still have to deal with Marie's red truck crazies screaming down the hill–– that it's the end of the world if Biden and the democrats come to power––"they will take your guns, your house, your big ole car, your money, and they will kill your puppy."

Enjoy your weekend people––if you can.

September 5, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

Democrats Hold Secret Edge if Election is Too Close to Call: (Bloomberg)
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/democrats-hold-secret-edge-if-election-is-too-close-to-call/ar-BB18JOdH

September 5, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

Marie,

Loved your story about red truck villains and the thrill they gave your gang in running away from them. So many kids’ games (back in the day) involved running (no video games back then). We had a panoply of such exercises (about 15 different versions of Tag, my favorite being Freeze Tag). We also loved War. The best thing that could happen to you in War was to get killed. Since we usually played on a big hill behind a school parking lot, the most fun involved getting “shot” so you could die in the most operatic way possible, make unseemly gurgling noises, then roll down to the bottom of the hill. Unlike in real war, of course, you popped up and ran back up the hill to do it again.

And, of course, you and your pals never had to worry about the evil men in the red trucks really coming after you, but the Qanon idiots seem to believe that that is the case. The danger there being that such nonsense gives their adherents permission to arm themselves and go out into the world, at the behest of truly evil men like Donald Trump, and unleash violence from which no one will get up and run back up the hill.

Remember that picture of Fatty sitting in a big truck, making noises like a six year old (vroom, vroom!) and pretending to be a great big truck driving man? Was that a red truck?

September 5, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

@Ak, you're right. It was red.

September 5, 2020 | Unregistered Commenterunwashed

Unwashed,

Hahahahaha...too perfect. Look out the way! Here comes truck boy donnie! Beep-beeeeeep. Gotta mow down them Democrat guvners and mayors standin’ in my way. Beeeeep beeeep!! Weeeeeee....

September 5, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Another strong possibility for John Kelly's silence is money. I bet he is planning to cash in (even more) in the next couple of years. And I bet that a lot of the defense contractors who love to hire former military brass are a bunch of Trump sychophants. If he speaks out against Trump his potential opportunities might dry up at all of those right wing lobbying groups and in the industry of war.

September 5, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

Daughter in law just showed me two face masks whe received from a (formerly?) Republican friend in SoCal.

One was imprinted with images of RBG; the other with Dr. Fauci.

I asked her if she's seen the Dr. Atlas masks. When she said no, I told her she ought to get one because they last forever.

She asked why.

Easy to explain, I said. You don't wear them.

September 5, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes
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