The Commentariat -- May 16, 2020

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Friday are here. The Washington Post's live updates for Friday are here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

David Lim & Zachary Brennan of Politico: "... Donald Trump formally announced the former head of vaccines at GlaxoSmithKline and a general in charge of Army readiness will lead the government's effort to speed the development of potential coronavirus vaccines. Moncef Slaoui, who left GlaxoSmithKline in 2017, will be chief scientist of what the administration has deemed Operation Warp Speed. "That means big and it means fast," Trump said, comparing the operation to the Manhattan Project, a program to develop an atomic bomb that employed more than 100,000 people. Army Gen. Gustave Perna will be the chief operating officer for the project." Mrs. McC: I watched a few minutes of Trump's self-congratulatory press event (yes, I know that's redundant). I don't know if he needs glasses or has dyslexia or what. He reads like a second-grader. A child stumbling over new words is not at all remarkable; an adult stumbling again & again is disconcerting. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Carolyn Johnson, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump formally unveiled an initiative Friday afternoon aimed at making hundreds of millions of doses of a coronavirus vaccine broadly available by year's end — a goal that many scientists say is unrealistic and could even backfire by shortchanging safety and undermining faith in vaccines more broadly. The Rose Garden news conference added to a week of confusing and contradictory remarks about the prospects and timeline for a vaccine, which is seen as the key to returning to normal life. A day earlier, a former top U.S. vaccine official testified before Congress that he was doubtful about the 12-to-18-month time frame frequently touted as a goal. The head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases testified Tuesday that 12 to 18 months was possible but there was no guarantee a vaccine would work at all.... Outside scientists said it was dangerous to set public expectations that a vaccine could be available by any deadline, given the many scientific unknowns and the fact that the first candidates are just now being injected into humans." The article is free to nonsubscribers.

M-Beep Beep. Daniel Dale & Holmes Lybrand of CNN: "When blaring truck horns intruded on ... Donald Trump's Friday speech in the White House Rose Garden about the search for a coronavirus vaccine, Trump [falsely] claimed that this was the sound of a pro-Trump protest. 'And you hear that outside, that beautiful sound -- those are truckers that are with us all the way. They are protesting in favor of President Trump, as opposed to against,' Trump said. 'There's hundreds of trucks out there, and that's the sign of love. Not the sign of your typical protest. So I want to thank our great truckers. They like me and I like them.' At another Rose Garden speech later in the day, Trump said, 'Those are friendly truckers. They're on our side. It's almost a celebration, in a way.' Trump had made a similar claim about the protesters in an interview he taped Wednesday with Fox Business's Maria Bartiromo.... 'Well, they're not protesters. They're supporters of me.'... All three of Trump's claims were false. The truckers who have lined streets near the White House since May 1 are indeed protesters, not people holding any kind of celebration -- and they are protesting a variety of issues affecting their jobs, not protesting in favor of Trump.... 'This is a protest,' [trucker Greg] Anderson said. 'Mr. Trump elaborated that we were here to support him. Our message to him would be this is a protest against bad regulation, broker transparency, truck insurance, so on and so forth. This is not here to support Trump. We're here to get resolution and bring awareness to our problem and fix our problems.'" ~~~

~~~ A Few Other Odd and/or Untrue Things Donald Trump Said During the Briefing.

We think we're going to have a vaccine in the pretty near future. And if we do, we're going to really be a big step ahead. And if we don't, we're going to be like so many other cases where you had a problem come in, it'll go away.

The vast majority, many people don't even know they have it [Covid-19]. They have it or they have sniffles or they have a very minor sign and they recover. Not only recover, they probably have immunity, whether it's short term, long term, but they have probably immunity. And I think people have to understand that. That's why I think the schools should be back in the fall.

Scientists at the NIH began developing the first vaccine candidate on January 11th, think of that, within hours of the virus's genetic code being posted online. So January 11th, most people never even heard what was going on January 11th. And we were out there trying to develop a vaccine, not even knowing what we were up against.

We have a great plan to prevent the spread, but that doesn't mean we're going to close our country for five years.

Jill Colvin, et al., of the AP: "Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Friday the White House still has confidence in a rapid COVID-19 test it has been using despite new data suggesting the test may return false negatives. The head of the Food and Drug Administration [Steve Hahn] said Friday his agency has provided new guidance to the White House after data suggested that the test used by ... Donald Trump and others every day may be inaccurate and provide false negatives. The test by Abbott Laboratories is used daily at the White House to test Trump, key members of his staff as well as any visitor to the White House complex who comes in close proximity to the president or Vice President Mike Pence.... White House officials on Friday continued using the Abbot ID Now test.... FDA commissioner Steve Hahn said that if a person is suspected of having the disease caused by the coronavirus, 'it might be worth, if the test is negative, getting a second confirmatory test. That's what our guidance is about.' Hahn, asked on CBS on Friday whether he'd continue to recommend using the test at the White House, said, 'That will be a White House decision.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "Recently people on the right have started pushing a ludicrous pseudo-scandal they're calling Obamagate. It holds that investigations by Barack Obama's administration into Russia's attack on the 2016 U.S. presidential election were a form of illicit sabotage of Donald Trump and his team. The story doesn't really make sense, which is why, when asked about Obamagate, President Trump couldn't describe it.... But Obamagate is also a way to distract at least some segment of the country from a very real and very grave scandal: Trump's calamitous mishandling of the coronavirus crisis.... On Thursday, as Trump was on Twitter asking Senator Lindsey Graham to drag Obama before Congress, [Dr. Rick] Bright testified before a House subcommittee.... He described months of government lassitude early in the coronavirus outbreak, and an administration that has yet to even formulate -- never mind execute -- a plan for containing the pandemic....The real scandal of a looted government leaving citizens prey to death and destitution will fuel ever more histrionic fake ones." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Lenny Bernstein, et al., of the Washington Post: "The meager guidelines for safely reopening the country released this week are the latest sign of the Trump administration's efforts to sideline >the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the increasing tension between the White House and the world-renowned public health agency. With Americans waiting for expert advice on how to resume a semblance of normal life during the pandemic, the CDC released just six short 'decision trees' Thursday while the rest of its lengthy proposal remains under review at the White House, where it has been for weeks. Instead of assuming its traditional lead role in a public health crisis, the 73-year-old agency has become just one of many voices providing often contradictory instructions to a confuse and imperiled public.... Some in the White House, including coronavirus task force coordinator Deborah L. Birx and Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, have begun to take aim at the leadership and communication skills of the CDC's director, Robert Redfield." ~~~

~~~ Perhaps this is the kind of "communication skill" that irks Birx & Meadows: ~~~

     ~~~ Susannah Luthi of Politico: "The United States is heading toward more than 100,000 coronavirus deaths by June 1, with leading mortality forecasts still trending upward, CDC Director Robert Redfield tweeted on Friday. His assessment cited 12 different models tracked by his agency and marked the first time Redfield has explicitly addressed the grim milestone of 100,000 deaths, even as the Trump administration turns its strategy toward reopening the economy.... 'As of May 11, all [12 models] forecast an increase in deaths in the coming weeks and a cumulative total exceeding 100,000 by June 1,' he tweeted.... The CDC director has been mostly sidelined in the government's public-facing response to the Covid-19 pandemic."

Tal Axelrod of the Hill: "The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) halted a coronavirus testing program promoted by billionaire Bill Gates and Seattle health officials pending reviews. The program sought to send test kits to the homes of people both healthy and sick to try to bring the country to the level of testing officials say is necessary before states can begin safely reopening. The program, which had already gone through thousands of tests, found dozens of cases that had been previously undiagnosed. The Seattle Coronavirus Assessment Network (SCAN) said on its website that the FDA had asked it to pause testing while it receives additional authorizations, but maintained its procedures are safe.... The pause is emblematic of the fractured national response to the coronavirus, with federal officials proposing guidelines but leaving much of the implementation and administering of tests to states and localities.... An FDA spokesperson told The New York Times, which was the first to report on the pause, that the home testing kits raised concerns over safety and accuracy of the results." ~~~

~~~ Mike Baker of the New York Times: "... the Seattle program ... has wide backing, including from public health leaders, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Mr. Gates, whose foundation has been deeply involved in fighting the pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also provided an in-person technical adviser to the project.... The Seattle partnership that is conducting the testing, the Seattle Coronavirus Assessment Network, said in a statement that it had been in conversation with the Food and Drug Administration about its program for about 10 weeks and submitted data a month ago."

Calling Dr. Trump. Toluse Olorunnipa, et al., of the Washington Post: "For two months, President Trump repeatedly pitched hydroxychloroquine as a safe and effective treatment for coronavirus, asking would-be patients 'What the hell do you have to lose?' Growing evidence shows that, for many, the answer is their lives. Clinical trials, academic research and scientific analysis indicate that the danger of the Trump-backed drug is a significantly increased risk of death for certain patients. Evidence showing the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in treating covid-19 has been scant. Those two developments pushed the Food and Drug Administration to warn against the use of hydroxychloroquine outside of a hospital setting last month, just weeks after it approved an emergency use authorization for the drug. Alarmed by a growing cache of data linking the anti-malaria drug to serious cardiac problems, some drug safety experts are now calling for even more forceful action by the government to discourage its use. Several have called for the FDA to revoke its emergency use authorization, given hydroxychloroquine's documented risks."

Erica Green of the New York Times: "Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is using the $2 trillion coronavirus stabilization law to throw a lifeline to education sectors she has long championed, directing millions of federal dollars intended primarily for public schools and colleges to private and religious schools.... She has directed school districts to share millions of dollars designated for low-income students with wealthy private schools. And she has nearly depleted the 2.5 percent of higher education funding, about $350 million, set aside for struggling colleges to bolster small colleges -- many of them private, religious or on the margins of higher education -- regardless of need.... On the Senate floor this week, Senator Chuck Schumer ... accused Ms. DeVos of 'exploiting congressional relief efforts.' He said she had been 'using a portion of that funding not to help state or localities cope with the crisis, but to augment her push for voucherlike programs, a prior initiative that has nothing to do with Covid-19.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

** Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "The House on Friday approved the most radical change to its rules in generations, allowing its members to cast committee and floor votes from afar -- the culmination of a months-long struggle to adapt the 231-year-old institution to the coronavirus pandemic. Despite bipartisan frustrations with the virus's effect on the legislative process, the changes, which include temporarily authorizing remote committee work and proxy voting on the House floor, were adopted along party lines. The vote was 217 to 189. Democratic leaders pushed forward with the changes this week after failing to come to terms in two weeks of negotiations with Republicans, who firmly opposed several key measures in the proposal. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and top Democrats said the changes were temporary and tailored to the current crisis...." A Hill story is here.

Erica Werner of the Washington Post: "House Democrats on Friday passed a $3 trillion tax cut and spending bill aimed at addressing the devastating economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak by directing huge sums of money into all corners of the economy. But the White House and Senate Republicans have decried the measure's design and said they will cast it aside, leaving uncertain what steps policymakers might take as the economy continues to face severe strains. The sweeping legislation ... passed 208-199. Fourteen Democrats defected and opposed the bill, reflecting concerns voiced both by moderates and liberals in the House Democratic caucus about the bill's content and the leadership-driven process that brought it to the floor. The bill won support from just one Republican: Rep. Pete King of New York." A Politico story is here. Update: the New York Times story is here. ~~~

~~~ Juliegrace Brufke of the Hill: "The House on Friday evening defeated a Republican effort to prevent undocumented immigrants from retroactively receiving stimulus payments amid the coronavirus pandemic. Thirteen Democrats broke party lines and voted in favor of the GOP effort to strip language about the payments from Democrats' $3 trillion coronavirus relief bill. The effort to amend Democrats' broader HEROES Act at the eleventh hour failed in a 198-209 vote."

Maggie Severn of Politico: "The insider trading investigation stemming from Sen. Richard Burr's sale of stocks ahead of the coronavirus pandemic highlights the North Carolina Republican's long record of investing in companies with business before his committees, according to a Politico review of eight years of his trades. While Burr sat on committees focused on health care, taxes and trade, he and his wife bought and sold hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock in an array of health care companies, banks and corporations with business overseas. At times, Burr owned stock in companies whose specific industries he advanced through legislation. Those trades are entirely legal, as long as he can prove that he didn't act on private information. But the co-mingling of legislative responsibilities and personal financial dealings has long worried ethics specialists, who insist that such trading amounts to a serious conflict of interest, even if it doesn't reach the level of insider trading."

Sapna Maheshwari & Michael Corkery of the New York Times: "J.C. Penney, with its budget-friendly clothing for families and reliable home furnishings, was for years a cornerstone of American malls and an undeniable success story. What started as a humble dry goods store in Wyoming in 1902 was a century later a national chain with a household name and more than 1,000 locations. But on Friday, the company filed for bankruptcy protection after a prolonged decline over the past 20 years, becoming the latest and largest retailer to fall during the coronavirus pandemic, which has devastated the industry. The chain has more than 800 stores and nearly 85,000 employees."

Covid-19 Is a Message from God. Elana Schor & Hannah Fingerhut of the AP: "The coronavirus has prompted almost two-thirds of American believers of all faiths to feel that God is telling humanity to change how it lives, a new poll finds." Mrs. McC: But will there be pilgrimages to Wuhan? (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Your Friday Night News Dump. Trumpists Euthanize Another Watchdog. Meredith McGraw & Nahal Toosi of Politico: "State Department Inspector General Steve Linick has been fired, according to a senior administration official and a congressional aide. Linick, a Justice Department veteran appointed to the role in 2013 by then President Barack Obama, is the latest of a slew of inspectors general to be ousted in recent months.... A State Department spokesperson said that Amb. Stephen Akard, a former career Foreign Service officer, 'will now lead the Office of the Inspector General at the State Department,' noting that Akard was previously confirmed by the Senate as head of the department's Office of Foreign Missions." ~~~

~~~ Update. Michael Shear & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump continued his purge of inspectors general late Friday, moving to oust Steve A. Linick, who had served in that post at the State Department since 2013, and replacing him with an ambassador with close ties to Vice President Mike Pence.... The decision to remove Mr. Linick, first reported Friday night by Politico, is the latest in a purge of inspectors general whom Mr. Trump has deemed insufficiently loyal to his administration, upending the traditional independence of the internal watchdog agencies whose missions are to conduct oversight of the nation's sprawling bureaucracy.... The removals of the inspectors general -- and their replacements by allies of the president's -- are part of an aggressive move by Mr. Trump and his top aides against who he considers to be 'deep state' officials in many key agencies and who he believes are opposed to his agenda.... 'The late-night, weekend firing of State Department IG Steve Linick is an acceleration of the President's dangerous pattern of retaliation against the patriotic public servants charged with conducting oversight on behalf of the American people,' [Speaker Nancy Pelosi] said in a statement on Twitter.... In his statement, [Rep. Eliot] Engel [(D-Mass.), chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs,] said that he had learned that Mr. Linick's office had opened an investigation into [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo. Mr. Engel said that 'Mr. Linick's firing amid such a probe strongly suggests that this is an unlawful act of retaliation.'"

Evan Perez & David Shortell of CNN: "Before the Justice Department moved last week to drop the charges against Michael Flynn..., department officials and the FBI were in sharp disagreement over whether prosecutors and agents had improperly withheld documents relevant to the case. Behind the scenes, a set of documents produced late last month in a review of the case ordered by Attorney General William Barr, including notes handwritten by a senior FBI official and emails between investigators, divided the officials who handled them and argued over their importance, multiple US officials briefed on the matter said.... When the motion to dismiss was filed last week, the signatures of career prosecutors who had handled the case for months were conspicuously absent, and one prosecutor had withdrawn from the case entirely. Justice Department officials say the career prosecutors didn't support the legal theory ultimately cited to toss the case.... Now, some of the lawyers involved in the matter believe the department has left open the prospect that prosecutors and agents who oversaw the Flynn case could face disciplinary action."

Burr's Revenge. Ken Dilanian of NBC News: "In a final act before stepping down as chairman, Sen. Richard Burr R-N.C., has asked the Trump administration to quickly declassify the last portion of the Senate Intelligence Committee's bipartisan report on Russian election interference, a 1,000-page volume on the committee's 'counterintelligence findings.'... The executive branch gets to decide what is and isn't classified, and some Democrats immediately expressed skepticism that the Senate volume report would be made public before November.... A joint announcement with ranking Democrat Mark Warner of Virginia ... said [the committee had] prepared what they have deemed to be an unclassified version of the report, which, in theory, they could release on the Senate floor whether or not the DNI [Trump lackey Richard Grenell] agrees. Under the Constitution's Speech and Debate Clause, lawmakers may not be prosecuted for things they say as part of the legislative process. In 1971, an Alaska senator entered 4,000 pages of the classified Pentagon Papers into the Congressional record."

Presidential Race

Mike Memoli of NBC News: "... Joe Biden said Thursday that he would not pardon ... Donald Trump if elected and insisted any prosecutorial decisions would be left to a more independent Justice Department. Answering questions in a virtual town hall-style event on MSNBC Thursday..., Biden, while not speaking to any specific potential charge, committed to ensuring that any prosecutorial decisions would be dictated by the law, in contrast to what he called the 'dereliction of duty' by Trump and his attorney general, William Barr. 'It's hands off completely. The attorney general is not the president's lawyer. It's the people's lawyer,' Biden said. 'We never saw anything like the prostitution of that office like we see it today.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Natasha Korecki of Politico: "Over the past decade, [Tara] Reade[, who has accused Joe Biden of sexually abusing her,] has left a trail of aggrieved acquaintances in California's Central Coast region who say they remember two things about her -- she spoke favorably about her time working for Biden, and she left them feeling duped. As part of an investigation into Reade's allegations against Biden -- charges that are already shaping the contours of his campaign against a president who has been accused of sexual assault and misconduct by multiple women -- Politico interviewed more than a dozen people, many of whom interacted with Reade through her involvement in the animal-rescue community.... A number of those in close contact with Reade over the past 12 years ... laid out a familiar pattern: Reade ingratiated herself, explained she was down on her luck and needed help, and eventually took advantage of their goodwill to extract money, skip rent payments or walk out on other bills. The people quoted in this article provided ... [documentation]. Politico also reviewed dozens of public records.... Many of those who knew her well in recent years said she frequently lied or sought to manipulate them...." ~~~

~~~ Daniel Bush & Lisa Desjardins of PBS NewsHour: "The PBS NewsHour spoke with 74 former Biden staffers, of whom 62 were women, in order to get a broader picture of his behavior toward women over the course of his career, how they see the new allegation, and whether there was evidence of a larger pattern. None of the people interviewed said that they had experienced sexual harassment, assault or misconduct by Biden. All said they never heard any rumors or allegations of Biden engaging in sexual misconduct, until the recent assault allegation made by Tara Reade.... Many said that her sexual assault allegation was at odds with their knowledge of Biden's behavior toward women. The interviews revealed previously unreported details about the Biden office when Reade worked there, such as an account that she lost her job because of her poor performance, not as retaliation for lodging complaints about sexual harassment, as Reade has said.... Overall, the people who spoke to the NewsHour described largely positive and gratifying experiences working for Biden, painting a portrait of someone who was ahead of his time in empowering women in the workplace.... Ben Savage, who said his desk was next to Reade's in the Biden mailroom, disputed her charge that she was forced out of her job in retaliation for a sexual harassment complaint she claims to have filed.... 'Of all the people who held that position, she's the only one during my time there who couldn't necessarily keep up or who found it frustrating,' said Savage, who worked in the office for three years, from 1993 to 1996."

Now, here's an effective & honest way to report out Trump's fake Obamagate conspiracy theory:~~~

     ~~~ Josh Feldman of Mediaite: "Mediaite founder and ABC News chief legal analyst Dan Abrams went on a tear during his SiriusXM show Friday calling the idea of the 'Obamagate' scandal '100 percent bullshit.' 'Fox News and conservative media have been talking about it incessantly, and yet then you get the left media or the middle media sort of ignoring it because they don't think it's worthy of addressing...,' Abrams said. 'There's some coverage of it, but it doesn't allow you to really dig in and understand what's going on.... This is a really important thing to focus on because it now appears it's going to be a central part of President Trump's arguments going forward.'"

Alexander Burns, et al., of the New York Times: "Even by President Trump's standards, it was a rampage: He attacked a government whistle-blower who was telling Congress that the coronavirus pandemic had been mismanaged. He criticized the governor of Pennsylvania, who has resisted reopening businesses. He railed against former President Barack Obama, linking him to a conspiracy theory and demanding he answer questions before the Senate about the federal investigation of Michael T. Flynn. And Mr. Trump lashed out at Joseph R. Biden Jr., his Democratic challenger. In an interview with a supportive columnist, Mr. Trump smeared him as a doddering candidate who 'doesn't know he's alive.'... That was all on Thursday. Far from a one-day onslaught, it was a climactic moment in a weeklong lurch by Mr. Tru​mp back to ​​the darkest tactics that defined his rise to political power​. Even those who have grown used to Mr. Trump's conduct in office may have found themselves newly alarmed by the grim spectacle of a sitting president deliberately stoking the country's divisions and pursuing personal vendettas in the midst of a crisis that has Americans fearing for their lives and livelihoods." The reporters go on to describe Trump's re-election "strategy," one he often steps on with his weird outbursts & off-message remarks.

Stephen Colbert interviews John Lithgow about his upcoming illustrated book of poems, Humpty Dumpty Wanted a Crown. Thanks to P.D. Pepe for the link:

Tom Sykes of the Daily Beast: "Hackers who broke into the networks of a celebrity law firm have doubled their ransom demand to $42 million and threatened to reveal 'dirty laundry' on Donald Trump in a week if they are not paid in full. On Thursday, the hackers of Grubman, Shire, Meiselas & Sacks posted a new message, saying 'The ransom is now $42,000,000.... The next person we'll be publishing is Donald Trump. There's an election going on, and we found a ton of dirty laundry.' They added, 'Mr. Trump, if you want to stay president, poke a sharp stick at the guys, otherwise you may forget this ambition forever.... Grubman, we will destroy your company down to the ground if we don't see the money.' It is not clear why the hackers connected Trump to the firm as he has never been a client, [the New York Post's] Page Six says."

News Lede

Hollywood Reporter: "Fred Willard, the clever comic actor who played clueless characters to perfection on Fernwood 2 Night, Everybody Loves Raymondand as a member of a great ensemble in several Christopher Guest mockumentaries, has died. He was 86. Willard died Friday night in Los Angeles of natural causes, his agent Michael Eisenstadt told The Hollywood Reporter." Willard's New York Times obituary is here.

The Ides of May, 2020

Afternoon Update:

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Friday are here. The Washington Post's live updates for Friday are here.

Mike Memoli of NBC News: "... Joe Biden said Thursday that he would not pardon ... Donald Trump if elected and insisted any prosecutorial decisions would be left to a more independent Justice Department. Answering questions in a virtual town hall-style event on MSNBC Thursday..., Biden, while not speaking to any specific potential charge, committed to ensuring that any prosecutorial decisions would be dictated by the law, in contrast to what he called the 'dereliction of duty' by Trump and his attorney general, William Barr. 'It's hands off completely. The attorney general is not the president's lawyer. It's the people's lawyer,' Biden said. 'We never saw anything like the prostitution of that office like we see it today.'"

Jill Colvin, et al., of the AP: "Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Friday the White House still has confidence in a rapid COVID-19 test it has been using despite new data suggesting the test may return false negatives. The head of the Food and Drug Administration [Steve Hahn] said Friday his agency has provided new guidance to the White House after data suggested that the test used by ... Donald Trump and others every day may be inaccurate and provide false negatives. The test by Abbott Laboratories is used daily at the White House to test Trump, key members of his staff as well as any visitor to the White House complex who comes in close proximity to the president or Vice President Mike Pence.... White House officials on Friday continued using the Abbot ID Now test.... FDA commissioner Steve Hahn said that if a person is suspected of having the disease caused by the coronavirus, 'it might be worth, if the test is negative, getting a second confirmatory test. That's what our guidance is about.' Hahn, asked on CBS on Friday whether he'd continue to recommend using the test at the White House, said, 'That will be a White House decision.'"

David Lim & Zachary Brennan of Politico: "... Donald Trump formally announced the former head of vaccines at GlaxoSmithKline and a general in charge of Army readiness will lead the government's effort to speed the development of potential coronavirus vaccines. Moncef Slaoui, who left GlaxoSmithKline in 2017, will be chief scientist of what the administration has deemed Operation Warp Speed. "That means big and it means fast," Trump said, comparing the operation to the Manhattan Project, a program to develop an atomic bomb that employed more than 100,000 people. Army Gen. Gustave Perna will be the chief operating officer for the project." Mrs. McC: I watched a few minutes of Trump's self-congratulatory press event (yes, I know that's redundant). I don't know if he needs glasses or has dyslexia or what. He reads like a second-grader. A child stumbling over new words is not at all remarkable; an adult stumbling again & again is disconcerting.

Erica Green of the New York Times: "Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is using the $2 trillion coronavirus stabilization law to throw a lifeline to education sectors she has long championed, directing millions of federal dollars intended primarily for public schools and colleges to private and religious schools.... She has directed school districts to share millions of dollars designated for low-income students with wealthy private schools. And she has nearly depleted the 2.5 percent of higher education funding, about $350 million, set aside for struggling colleges to bolster small colleges -- many of them private, religious or on the margins of higher education -- regardless of need.... On the Senate floor this week, Senator Chuck Schumer ... accused Ms. DeVos of 'exploiting congressional relief efforts.' He said she had been 'using a portion of that funding not to help states or localities cope with the crisis, but to augment her push for voucherlike programs, a prior initiative that has nothing to do with Covid-19.'"

Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "Recently people on the right have started pushing a ludicrous pseudo-scandal they're calling Obamagate. It holds that investigations by Barack Obama's administration into Russia's attack on the 2016 U.S. presidential election were a form of illicit sabotage of Donald Trump and his team. The story doesn't really make sense, which is why, when asked about Obamagate, President Trump couldn't describe it.... But Obamagate is also a way to distract at least some segment of the country from a very real and very grave scandal: Trump's calamitous mishandling of the coronavirus crisis.... On Thursday, as Trump was on Twitter asking Senator Lindsey Graham to drag Obama before Congress, [Dr. Rick] Bright testified before a House subcommittee.... He described months of government lassitude early in the coronavirus outbreak, and an administration that has yet to even formulate -- never mind execute -- a plan for containing the pandemic....The real scandal of a looted government leaving citizens prey to death and destitution will fuel ever more histrionic fake ones."

Covid-19 Is a Message from God. Elana Schor & Hannah Fingerhut of the AP: "The coronavirus has prompted almost two-thirds of American believers of all faiths to feel that God is telling humanity to change how it lives, a new poll finds." Mrs. McC: But will there be pilgramages to Wuhan?

~~~~~~~~~~

Brett Samuels & Jessie Hellmann of the Hill: "President Trump on Thursday suggested the practice of widespread coronavirus testing may be 'overrated,' even as health experts insist it is critical to safely loosen restrictions and reopen businesses. Trump boasted about the United States's testing capabilities during remarks at a Pennsylvania medical equipment distribution center, where he announced the country has administered 10 million tests since the outbreak began. 'We have the best testing in the world, Trump told employees at Owens & Minor Inc. in Allentown. 'Could be that testing's, frankly, overrated. Maybe it is overrated.'... Trump's remarks often took on the tone of a campaign rally. The president walked on stage to 'God Bless the U.S.A.,' the same song that blares at his arena rallies when he enters. He also left the stage to the tune of his typical rally exit song, 'You Can&'t Always Get What You Want.' In between, Trump swiped at presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden by calling him 'Sleepy Joe' and criticizing the Obama administration's response to the swine flu pandemic a decade ago." Mrs. McC: On your tax dime.

Jamie Ross of the Daily Beast: "President Trump was wary of making preparations for the coronavirus pandemic because he was concerned doing so would sent the stock market into a panic, the Financial Times reports. In a quote attributed to an unnamed Trump confidant who is said to speak to the president frequently, it's claimed: 'Jared [Kushner] had been arguing that testing too many people, or ordering too many ventilators, would spook the markets and so we just shouldn't do it... That advice worked far more powerfully on [Trump] than what the scientists were saying. He thinks they always exaggerate.'" Read it at Financial Times. Mrs. McC: This is one conspiracy story that sounds completely legit. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Guidelines Without Guidance. Rachel Roubein of Politico: "The CDC on Thursday released previously withheld guidance documents on reopening schools, restaurants and other institutions locked down during the pandemic, one week after the White House ordered the agency to revise an earlier draft it deemed 'too prescriptive.' The new CDC guidelines, which appear to be watered down from previously leaked versions, provide brief checklists meant to help key businesses and others operating in public reopen safely.... In many instances, they are shorter and less specific than previously reported drafts.... The White House had rejected at least two prior CDC drafts providing more detailed recommendations for reopening, according to documents published by the Associated Press in the previous week." Mrs. McC: So it isn't just that Trump is an incompetent president*; it's that even when a competent measure is placed under his nose, he insists that a useless measure replace it.

Dareh Gregorian of NBC News: "An ousted top Health and Human Services official testified before Congress Thursday that the Trump administration's timeline for a coronavirus vaccine is likely too optimistic -- and said there's currently 'no plan' in place for mass production and distribution of such a drug. Dr. Rick Bright told a House Energy and Commerce Committee subcommittee that hopes for a vaccine within 12-18 months assumes 'everything goes perfectly.... We've never seen everything go perfectly,' Bright said." Mrs. McC: No one seriously expects the Trump administration to plan for something for the public good that is months away and will occur after he might have lost the election. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ CNN reports four key takeaways from Bright's testimony. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "Dr. Bright's testimony was the first time a federal scientist -- or any federal official -- had gone before Congress and openly accused the administration of endangering American lives by bungling its coronavirus response.... After holding back for nearly a month, President Trump; his health secretary, Alex M. Azar II; and his trade adviser, Peter Navarro, all hit back at Dr. Bright, in a three-pronged assault that elevated the confrontation. Mr. Trump dismissed Dr. Bright as a 'disgruntled employee' and Mr. Navarro, whom Mr. Bright considered an ally in the White House, called him a 'deserter in the war on the China virus.' Mr. Azar insisted officials followed through on the scientist's ideas.... Mr. Azar and Dr. Bright's immediate supervisor at the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert Kadlec, declined invitations to testify, as did Mr. Navarro.... Shortly before Dr. Bright took the witness stand, his lawyers disclosed that the Office of Special Counsel ... had made a preliminary determination of a 'substantial likelihood of wrongdoing' regarding the cronyism allegation and had asked Mr. Azar to investigate."

The Case of the Disappeared Doctors. Oliver Darcy of CNN: "The nation's top physicians have stopped appearing on national television for interviews as the White House exerts increased control over communications during the coronavirus pandemic and refocuses its message toward reopening the economy. The last national television appearance from a doctor on the coronavirus task force was a full week ago on May 7 when Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, appeared on CNN for a town hall." Also disappeared: Doctors Anthony Fauci, Robert Redfield (CDC), Stephen Hahn (FDA), and Jerome Adams, surgeon general.

Ed Mazza of the Huffington Post: "Former President Barack Obama on Wednesday urged a better government response to the coronavirus pandemic, just days after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told him he 'should've kept his mouth shut' about the issue. McConnell also called Obama 'classless' for criticizing ... Donald Trump. Obama hasn't publicly criticized Trump by name and didn't do so on Wednesday. Instead, he urged 'better policy decisions' to fight the infections and protect people from the economic fallout as he shared a Vox report with expert ideas on countering the COVID-19 virus." Mrs. McC: "Classless"? Didn't you mean "uppity," Mitch? And this while Trump is accusing President Obama of "the greatest political scam in the history of our country." (Related stories linked below.)

** Edward Luce of the Financial Times: "At some point, Congress is likely to establish a body like the 9/11 Commission to investigate Trump's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.... Any report would probably conclude that tens of thousands of deaths could have been prevented -- even now as Trump pushes to 'liberate' states from lockdown. 'It is as though we knew for a fact that 9/11 was going to happen for months, did nothing to prepare for it and then shrugged a few days later and said, "Oh well, there's not much we can do about it,"' says Gregg Gonsalves, a public health scholar at Yale University. 'Trump could have prevented mass deaths and he didn't.'... Trump says America is fighting a war against Covid-19. In practice, he is stoking national disunity.... For the next six months, America's microbial fate will be in the hands of its president's erratic re-election strategy. There is more than a whiff of rising desperation." (Firewalled) --s

Be Still My Heart. Paul LeBlanc of CNN: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell conceded Thursday night that he was wrong to claim that the Obama administration had not left behind a plan to deal with a pandemic in the US. 'I was wrong. They did leave behind a plan, so I clearly made a mistake in that regard,' McConnell said during an interview with Fox News' Bret Baier. The concession comes days after he falsely accused the Obama administration of failing to leave the Trump administration 'any kind of game plan' for something like the coronavirus pandemic during a Trump campaign online chat with Lara Trump, the President's daughter-in-law.... In reality, former President Barrack Obama's White House National Security Council left the Trump administration a detailed document on how to respond to a pandemic.... The playbook contains step-by-step advice on questions to ask, decisions to make and which federal agencies are responsible for what. It includes sample documents that officials could use for inter-agency meetings. And it explicitly lists novel coronaviruses as one of the kinds of pathogens that could require a major response. Additionally, outgoing senior Obama officials also led an in-person pandemic response exercise for senior incoming Trump officials in January 2017 -- as required by a new law on improving presidential transitions that Obama signed in 2016."

Katie Benner & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "Senator Richard M. Burr, Republican of North Carolina, temporarily stepped down as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, a day after F.B.I. agents seized his cellphone as part of an investigation into whether he sold hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of stocks using nonpublic information about the coronavirus. The seizure and an accompanying search for his electronic storage accounts, which were confirmed by an investigator briefed on the case, represented a significant escalation of the inquiry by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission and suggests Mr. Burr, one of the most influential members of Congress, may be in serious legal jeopardy. Given the sensitivity surrounding the decision to obtain a search warrant on a sitting senator, the move was approved at the highest levels of the department, a senior Justice Department official said, meaning that Attorney General William P. Barr signed off on it." The Hill's report is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Oh, guess what. Mitch McConnell gets to pick Burr's temporary replacement. Let's see if he chooses someone likely to spend every waking minute discrediting the Russia probes & "investigating" Biden, Obama and anyone else Trump wants to discredit.

Marianne Levine & Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "Sen. Kelly Loeffler has turned over documents to the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Senate Ethics Committee amid ongoing scrutiny over her stock trades, according to her spokesperson."

Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "Sen. Dianne Feinstein has turned over documents to the FBI and answered questions from law-enforcement officials about her husband's controversial stock trades, a spokesman for the California Democrat said on Thursday. Feinstein, a former chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, spoke with the agency 'voluntarily' and 'provided additional documents to show she had no involvement in her husband's transactions,' the spokesman added." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Roni Rabin of the New York Times: "Neurologists in New York City, Detroit, New Jersey and other parts of the country have reported a flurry of ... cases [of strokes in young, fairly healthy people, probably tied to Covid-19]. Many are now convinced that unexplained strokes represent yet another insidious manifestation of Covid-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. The cases add to evidence that the coronavirus attacks not just the lungs, but also the kidneys, brain, heart and liver.... Patients with severe Covid-19 may develop clots in the legs and lungs that can be life-threatening, doctors said.... In rare cases, it seems to trigger a life-threatening inflammatory syndrome in children." ~~~

~~~ Mara Gay of the New York Times: "Young, healthy people like me are getting very, very sick from the disease caused by the coronavirus. The day before I got sick, I ran three miles, walked 10 more, then raced up the stairs to my fifth-floor apartment as always, slinging laundry with me as I went.The next day, April 17, I became one of the thousands of New Yorkers to fall ill with Covid-19. I haven't felt the same since.... [Twenty-seven] days later..., I can't walk more than a few blocks without stopping.... When I see photographs of crowds packing into a newly reopened big-box store in Arkansas or scores of people jammed into a Colorado restaurant without masks, it's clear too many Americans still don't grasp the power of this disease."

Michigan. David Neiwert of Daily Kos: "It was billed to Michiganders as 'Judgement Day' in Lansing on Thursday, the day when hordes of 'Patriots' opposed to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's COVID-19 lockdown orders were supposed to descend on the state Capitol and force the state government to back down. State lawmakers, fearing a repeat of the April 30 protest when hundreds of armed militiamen attempted to invade the House chambers, had even canceled the day's legislative session and closed down the Capitol building. Yet if the size of the crowd is any indication -- a handful of people numbering less than 200 at best -- any judgement rendered was entirely on the side of the authorities who ordered the lockdown. Moreover, the absurd behavior of the protesters -- including a brawl involving one protester who tied a flag onto a fishing rod and decorated it with a noose and a doll intended to represent Whitmer -- confirmed once again that they are mainly a small, fringe collection of ridiculous, addlepated conspiracy theorists with a disturbing violent streak and zero popular support."

New York. Bob Brigham of RawStory: "Reporter Kevin Vesey reported on anti-lockdown protests in Commack, New York for News 12 Long Island on Thursday. 'I'll probably never forget what happened today,' Vesey posted on Twitter. 'I was insulted. I was berated. I was practically chased by people who refused to wear masks in the middle of a pandemic,' he explained." --safari: Includes video that is well worth watching. It's surreal, like a zombie apocalypse, but for lobotomized pod people.

If I were a Senator or Congressman, the first person I would call to testify about the biggest political crime and scandal in the history of the USA, by FAR, is former President Obama. He knew EVERYTHING. Do it @LindseyGrahamSC , just do it. No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more talk! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet Thursday ~~~

~~~ Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Trump has embarked on an aggressive new drive to rewrite the narrative of the Russia investigation by making dark and unsubstantiated accusations that former President Barack Obama masterminded a sinister plot to bring him down. On Twitter, on television, in the Rose Garden and even on an official White House social media page, Mr. Trump in recent days has taken aim at his most recent predecessor in a way that no sitting president has in modern times, accusing Mr. Obama of undefined and unspecified crimes under the vague but politically charged catchphrase 'Obamagate.' The president went even further on Thursday by demanding that Mr. Obama be hauled before the Senate 'to testify about the biggest political crime and scandal in the history of the USA,' a scenario that itself has no precise precedent in American history. Within hours [Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)], Mr. Trump's most faithful Republican ally in the Senate, promptly announced that he would indeed investigate, although he would probably not summon Mr. Obama.... 'This was all Obama, this was all Biden,' Mr. Trump said in an interview on Fox Business Network that aired on Thursday. 'These people were corrupt, the whole thing was corrupt, and we caught them.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "Sen. Lindsey Graham on Thursday brushed back ... Donald Trump's pleas for the Judiciary Committee chairman to haul in former President Barack Obama for testimony about the origins of the Russia investigation and the FBI's handling of the investigation into Michael Flynn. Just moments after Trump appealed directly to the South Carolina Republican on Twitter, Graham reiterated that he does not intend to call Obama before his committee -- and he warned of the precedent such an action would set. '... I have grave concerns about the role of executive privilege and all kinds of issues,' Graham said in a brief interview. 'I understand President Trump's frustration, but be careful what you wish for....'" ~~~

~~~ Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: Acting DNI Richard Grenell hand-carried to AG Bill Barr a list of names of Obama-era officials who had requested the identity of a person who was cited in an intel report for making clandestine contacts with Russian and other foreign officials. The person was Michael Flynn. "A Fox News camera was pre-positioned at the entrance [of the 'Justice" Department's headquarters], seemingly tipped off to record footage of the dramatic scene.... The practice, known as unmasking, is commonplace in government. But in the case of Flynn, Trump and his allies used the list of names to claim Barack Obama, [Joe] Biden and their appointees deliberately sought to sabotage the incoming Trump administration as part of a long-running conspiracy they have dubbed 'Obamagate.'... These efforts are being amplified by wall-to-wall coverage on Fox News Channel and elsewhere in conservative media.... 'We sort of have the smoking gun because we now have the declassified document with Joe Biden's name on it,' Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Thursday.... And in a remarkable turn Thursday, Trump urged Congress to call Obama to testify and even suggested those involved -- including Biden..., former FBI director James B. Comey and former CIA director John Brennan -- go to prison. 'I'm talking with 50-year sentences,' Trump said in an interview with Fox Business Network that aired Thursday. 'It's a disgrace what's happened. This is the greatest political scam, hoax in the history of our country.... People should be going to jail for this stuff.'"

~~~ Greg Sargent of the Washington Post tutors political reporters (and headline writers) on how to write copy that doesn't falsely "boost" Trump's fake attacks. Sargent uses the stories about the release of the "unmasking" document, which -- since it's a nothingburger -- "actually does not 'boost' Trump's claims about the Russia investigation or 'discredit' it. And if there is 'no evidence of wrongdoing,' then it cannot legitimately be 'turned into an election issue.'" Mrs. McC: Sargent's admonitions would apply to electronic media reporters, too. Thanks to Anonymous for the link. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: In the NYT & WashPo stories linked above, Baker does a fairly good job of pooh-poohing the conspiracy theory; Rucker, et al., mess it up badly. (Pissed me off so much I complained to Rucker about it.) And none of these stories ever mentions that another person who got the story on Flynn, albeit in general terms, was Donald Trump. Who told him? Barack Obama. Two days after the presidential election, at a meeting in the Oval Office, Obama warned Trump off Flynn. Worse than the media, however, are Democrats, who are doing a remarkably poor job of pushing back on the Trump ruse. They keep treating Trump as if he's a normal president*. According to the WashPo report, "'This is all about diversion,' Biden said [in an interview on ABC's 'Good Morning America'].... 'This is a game this guy plays all the time. The country is in crisis.... He should stop trying to always divert attention from the real concerns of the American people.'" That's not nearly sufficient to bat down a fake story. This is not a "diversion." It's an utterly false narrative. Express outrage. Say you would have been derelict in your duty had you not inquired about who the subversive miscreant was. Say Obama warned Trump about Flynn the first moment he could. Say the real wrongdoer was Trump, who -- knowing what Obama told him about Flynn -- hired Flynn anyway. ~~~

~~~ The headline on this NBC News story is good, but the reporting is mostly he-said/he-said. ~~~

     ~~~ "Trump Allies Push 'Obamagate,' But Record Fails to Back Them Up." Carol Lee, et al.: "... President Donald Trump and his allies have begun escalating their attacks against former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden..., by accusing them and other Obama administration officials of conspiring against Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn. Trump and his allies call it 'Obamagate,' and the claims are multifold: ... [blah-blah]. Former Obama administration officials say it is false that Biden or Obama knew in advance about the FBI's interview of Flynn, which took place four days after Trump took office -- a contention that is corroborated by a review of the very documents that Trump and his allies are citing to bolster their claims. The Obama officials also argue that there was nothing improper about requests ... to 'unmask' the name of the American who turned up in intelligence collected from the phone of Russia's then-ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak. Unmasking is a routine procedure approved each year by the National Security Agency for authorized purposes -- amounting to several thousand requests each year." ~~~

~~~ Jerry Lambe of Law & Crime: "The federal judge overseeing Michael Flynn's criminal prosecution has directed the law firm that Flynn fired to reappear as an interested party in the controversial proceeding. On Thursday, that firm complied by filing a notice of appearance. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan of the District of Columbia on Thursday ordered the clerk of the court to 'add Covington & Burling LLP ('Covington') as an interested party in this matter and directed counsel for Covington to file a notice of appearance on behalf of Covington as an interested party.'"

Emoluments! Trump's Million-Dollar Boondoggle. David Fahrenthold & Joshua Partlow of the Washington Post: "The U.S. government has paid at least $970,000 to President Trump's company since Trump took office -- including payments for more than 1,600 nightly room rentals at Trump's hotels and clubs, according to federal records obtained by The Washington Post. Since March, The Post has catalogued an additional $340,000 in such payments. They were almost all related to trips taken by Trump, his family and his top officials. The government is not known to have paid for the rooms for Trump and his family members at his properties but it has paid for staffers and Secret Service agents to accompany the president. The payments create an unprecedented business relationship between the president's private company and his government -- which began in the first month of Trump's presidency, and continued into this year, records show." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: It's bad enough that Trump gets supplicants to take rooms in his hotels, but this is you & I involuntarily supplementing his income.

All the Best People, Ctd. Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post: "A nonprofit organization run by President Trump's nominee to lead a federal media agency with oversight of Voice of America and other news outlets is under investigation by the District of Columbia's attorney general, a senior U.S. senator said Thursday. Michael Pack is a conservative filmmaker with ties to Stephen K. Bannon whom Trump has picked to lead the U.S. Agency for Global Media. The D.C. attorney general's office is investigating whether Pack's use of funds from his nonprofit, Public Media Lab, was 'unlawful and whether he improperly used those funds to benefit himself,' Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement Thursday. Menendez said the D.C. attorney general's office informed the committee of the active investigation earlier Thursday, the same day Pack was scheduled to face a key panel vote on his nomination, before that vote was postponed. Pack has been under scrutiny for tax issues since at least September, when CNBC reported that at least $1.6 million in donations from his nonprofit were sent to his independent production company, Manifold Productions."

Jacob Bogage & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "Weeks before a Republican donor and top White House ally becomes postmaster general, the U.S. Postal Service has begun a review of its package delivery contracts and lost its second-highest executive, which will leave its board of governors without any officials who predate President Trump.... Democratic vice chairman David Williams resigned April 30, fed up with Trump's approach to the agency, according to people familiar with his thinking.... Also, Deputy Postmaster General Ronald A. Stroman submitted his resignation on May 8. Stroman had years of experience working with congressional Democrats and had become the agency point man on vote-by-mail initiatives for the November election.... The moves, confirmed by six people..., underscore how Trump is moving closer to reshaping an independent agency he has dubbed 'a joke.'... Trump has recently threatened to withhold a $10 billion line of credit approved by Congress in a coronavirus stimulus package unless the Postal Service quadruples what it charges to deliver packages. Independent analysts warn that such a change would devastate the agency, which has increasingly relied on such deliveries for a fast-growing portion of its business." ~~~

~~~ Zack Budryk of the Hill: "Trump has frequently accused the [USPS] without evidence of undercharging for package delivery and accused them of giving Amazon, whose founder Jeff Bezos owns the Post, preferential treatment."

Adam Schiff's chilling warning about Donald Trump comes true. If you have time to watch Chris Hayes' opening segment from last night's show, please do. He does a good job of showing how just the news of the last few days demonstrates Trump's increasing lawlessness & the willingness of his compliant cronies to carry out his malevolent wishes:

Marty Johnson of the Hill: "The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed suit against the Education Department on Thursday, saying that the recent rule changes to Title IX by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos 'sharply limit educational institutions' obligations to respond to reports of sexual harassment and assault.' 'Betsy DeVos has created a double standard that is devastating for survivors of sexual harassment and assault, who are overwhelmingly women and girls. We are suing to make sure this double standard never takes effect,' Ria Tabacco Mar, director of the ACLU's Women's Rights Project, said in a statement."

News Lede

New York Times: "Jerzy Glowczewski, 97, flew 100 missions for the No. 308 'City of Krakow' Polish fighter squadron, according to Poland's Institute of National Remembrance. He was widely believed to have been the last surviving member of the valiant brotherhood of exiles who fought with the Royal Air Force when he died on April 13 of Covid-19 in a nursing home in Manhattan. On New Year's Day in 1945, Mr. Glowczewski helped turn back the final major offensive on the Western front by the German Luftwaffe, shooting down a Focke-Wulf 190 over Belgium from his Spitfire fighter plane.... 'It was probably one of the last classic dogfights in which survival depended on the acrobatic skill and lightning reflexes of the pilot, he [said]." Mrs. McC: A life well-lived and another obituary to warm your heart.

The Commentariat -- May 14, 2020

Afternoon Update:

Jamie Ross of the Daily Beast: "President Trump was wary of making preparations for the coronavirus pandemic because he was concerned doing so would sent the stock market into a panic, the Financial Times reports. In a quote attributed to an unnamed Trump confidant who is said to speak to the president frequently, it's claimed: 'Jared [Kushner] had been arguing that testing too many people, or ordering too many ventilators, would spook the markets and so we just shouldn't do it... That advice worked far more powerfully on [Trump] than what the scientists were saying. He thinks they always exaggerate.'" Read it at Financial Times. Mrs. McC: This is one conspiracy story that sounds completely legit.

Dareh Gregorian of NBC News: "An ousted top Health and Human Services official testified before Congress Thursday that the Trump administration's timeline for a coronavirus vaccine is likely too optimistic -- and said there's currently 'no plan' in place for mass production and distribution of such a drug. Dr. Rick Bright told a House Energy and Commerce Committee subcommittee that hopes for a vaccine within 12-18 months assumes 'everything goes perfectly.... We've never seen everything go perfectly,' Bright said." Mrs. McC: No one seriously expects the Trump administration to plan for something for the public good that is months away and will occur after he might have lost the election. ~~~

~~~ CNN reports four key takeaways from Bright's testimony.

Katie Benner & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "Senator Richard M. Burr, Republican of North Carolina, temporarily stepped down as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, a day after F.B.I. agents seized his cellphone as part of an investigation into whether he sold hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of stocks using nonpublic information about the coronavirus. The seizure and an accompanying search for his electronic storage accounts, which were confirmed by an investigator briefed on the case, represented a significant escalation of the inquiry by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission and suggests Mr. Burr, one of the most influential members of Congress, may be in serious legal jeopardy. Given the sensitivity surrounding the decision to obtain a search warrant on a sitting senator, the move was approved at the highest levels of the department, a senior Justice Department official said, meaning that Attorney General William P. Barr signed off on it." The Hill's report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Oh, guess what. Mitch McConnell gets to pick Burr's temporary replacement. Let's see if he chooses someone likely to spend every waking minute discrediting the Russia probes & "investigating" Biden, Obama and anyone else Trump wants to discredit.

Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "Sen. Dianne Feinstein has turned over documents to the FBI and answered questions from law-enforcement officials about her husband's controversial stock trades, a spokesman for the California Democrat said on Thursday. Feinstein, a former chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, spoke with the agency 'voluntarily' and 'provided additional documents to show she had no involvement in her husband's transactions,' the spokesman added."

Greg Sargent of the Washington Post explains to political reporters (and headline writers) how to write copy that doesn't falsely "boost" Trump's fake attacks. Sargent uses the stories about the release of the "unmasking" document, which -- since it's a nothingburger -- "actually does not 'boost' Trump's claims about the Russia investigation or 'discredit' it. And if there is 'no evidence of wrongdoing,' then it cannot legitimately be 'turned into an election issue.'" Mrs. McC: Sargent's admonitions would apply to electronic media reporters, too. Thanks to Anonymous for the link.

~~~~~~~~~~

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Thursday are here. The Washington Post's live updates for Thursday are here. The WashPo is carrying on its front page the hearing of a subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce featuring testimony from Dr. Rick Bright.

Jeff Cox of CNBC: "New filings for unemployment claims totaled just shy of 3 million for the most recent reporting period, a number that while still high declined for the sixth straight week, according to Labor Department figures Thursday. The total 2.981 million new claims for unemployment insurance brought the coronavirus crisis total to nearly 36.5 million, by far the biggest loss in U.S. history. Last week's count was revised up by 7,000 to 3.176 million, putting the weekly decline at 195,000. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting 2.7 million new claims."

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Wednesday are here. The Washington Post's live updates for Wednesday are here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Courtney Subramanian & David Jackson of USA Today: "... Donald Trump is set to tour a medical supply distributor in the political battleground state of Pennsylvania on Thursday as he pressures the state's Democratic governor to move faster on reopening the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic. Trump will tour the Owens and Minor Inc. medical equipment factory in Allentown, where he's expected to deliver remarks on replenishing the nation's stockpile of medical personal protective equipment like masks, gloves, and surgical gowns, all of which are distributed by the 137-year-old Pennsylvania company. The trip comes as Trump has encouraged local protesters and some state Republicans who have threatened to defy Gov. Tom Wolf's plans for a phased reopening of the state's economy. It's just the latest spat between the president and a Democratic governor."

Calling Doctor Trump. Lauren Egan of NBC News: "... Donald Trump on Wednesday criticized comments Dr. Anthony Fauci made during a congressional hearing about the risks of reopening the country too soon as 'not an acceptable answer.' 'I was surprised by his answer, actually, because, you know, to me it's not an acceptable answer, especially when it comes to schools,' Trump said during a meeting Wednesday afternoon with North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis in the Cabinet Room of the White House. 'He wants to play all sides of the equation,' Trump said of Fauci before emphasizing his confidence that the economy would quickly rebound from the coronavirus pandemic."

Timothy Bella of the Washington Post: "Hours after his remarks to Time magazine [that he couldn't commit to a promise that the presidential election would take place in November, Jared] Kushner..., issued a clarification, saying he was unaware of and not involved in any 'discussions' about changing the date of the 2020 election.... The brief and disconcerting episode raised doubts about Kushner's familiarity with the laws and constitutional provisions governing U.S. presidential elections. As the Congressional Research Service says, 'The text of the Constitution does not appear to contain a constitutional role for the Executive Branch in such decisions.'... 'Kushner's statement reveals amazing ignorance of the Constitution and law,' tweeted Bill Kristol, the neoconservative political commentator and editor at large of the Bulwark. 'It reveals startling arrogance in taking for granted he gets to have some say about when the election is held. It also reveals an utter lack of understanding of his very subordinate role in our democracy.'" Mrs. McC: But nobody is surprised. Everyone already knew that Kushner was remarkably arrogant & ignorant. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Rick Bright, a former top vaccine official removed from his post last month, will testify to Congress on Thursday that the United States faces the' darkest winter in modern history' if it does not develop a more coordinated national response to the coronavirus before an expected resurgence later this year. 'Our window of opportunity is closing,' Bright says in prepared testimony submitted to a subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. 'If we fail to develop a national coordinated response, based in science, I fear the pandemic will get far worse and be prolonged, causing unprecedented illness and fatalities....'" A CNN story is here. ~~~

~~~ All the Best People, Ctd. Zeke Miller of the AP: "... Donald Trump is set to name a former pharmaceutical executive to lead his administration's all-out effort to produce and distribute a coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year. Moncef Slaoui, a former GlaxoSmithKline executive, will lead 'Operation Warp Speed,' Trump's push to accelerate the vaccine development process for COVID-19, according to an administration official. Slaoui is to serve in a volunteer capacity, and will be assisted by Army Gen. Gustave Perna, the commander of United States Army Materiel Command. The move comes as the president and White House aides hope to produce vaccines for the coronavirus faster than what many scientists believe is realistic. The administration is aiming to have 300 million doses to distribute to Americans by the end of the year, believing a reliable vaccine is the only way to promote an economic rebound.... The initiative is being promoted by ... Jared Kushner...." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Kushner? Great. That gives me a lot of confidence in whatever dangerous and/or fake vaccine the gang may approve. I suspect there's a good chance Rick Bright would not have signed off on some of the shortcuts "Operation Warp Speed" will have to take to get out a vaccine by the end of the year.

All the Best People, Ctd. A Blind Watchdog with No Sense of Smell. Jason Dearen & Michael Biesecker of the AP: "A former chemical industry executive nominated to be the nation's top consumer safety watchdog was involved in sidelining detailed guidelines to help communities reopen during the coronavirus pandemic, internal government emails show. Now the ranking Democrat on the Senate Commerce. Science and Transportation Committee [-- Maria Cantwell (Wash.) --] is questioning the role played by nominee Nancy Beck in the decision to shelve the guidelines. Beck is not a medical doctor and has no background in virology.... Donald Trump has nominated Beck to be chairwoman and commissioner of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, a position that requires Senate confirmation. Beck is scheduled to appear before the Senate committee later this month. Emails obtained by The Associated Press show that Beck was the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's main point of contact in the White House about the proposed recommendations."

Matthew Chapman of RawStory: "On CNN Wednesday, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) slammed new claims from the White House that state reopening guidelines are being 'edited' -- and suggested there's a more cynical reason why the guidelines have been withheld.... 'As somebody who works in television, has worked in television almost 30 years, a lot of stuff dies in editing,' said anchor Anderson Cooper. 'That's a way to kill stuff. Say yeah, it's being edited. We'll work on it more in editing.'... 'I think this is ultimately about the president wanting to be able to have clean hands,' said Murphy. 'The president doesn't want to lead, so he can armchair quarterback, criticize and critique states and try to pass the buck to somebody else.' --s

Stephen Miller isn't at the office because immigrants his wife exposed him to the coronavirus, but his work goes on ~~~

~~~ Nomaan Merchant & Sonia Perez of the AP: "... the Trump administration is quickly expelling [young migrants & asylum seekers] under an emergency declaration citing the coronavirus pandemic, with 600 minors expelled in April alone. The expulsions are the latest administration measure aimed at preventing the entry of migrant children, following other programs such as the since-rescinded 'zero tolerance' policy that resulted in thousands of family separations.... Meanwhile, as the virus has spread through immigration detention facilities, the U.S. has deported at least 100 people with COVID-19 to Guatemala, including minors."

Del Quentin Welber & Jennifer Haberkorn of the Los Angeles Times: "Federal agents seized a cellphone belonging to a prominent Republican senator [Richard Burr] on Wednesday night as part of the Justice Department's investigation into controversial stock trades he made as the novel coronavirus first struck the U.S., a law enforcement official said.... The seizure represents a significant escalation in the investigation into whether Burr violated a law preventing members of Congress from trading on insider information they have gleaned from their official work.... The law enforcement official said the Justice Department is examining Burr's communications with his broker.... Under the STOCK Act, lawmakers are required to disclose their stock market activity but are still allowed to own stock, even in industries they might oversee. The law passed the Senate in 2012 in a 96-3 vote. Among the three senators to oppose the bill was Burr." --s  The story is firewalled. The Hill's summary report is here. ~~~

~~~ Sarah Burris of RawStory: "Given sweet legal deals have been handed to the allies of President Donald Trump, reporters and analysts are wondering why the case against a staunch Republican senator [Richard Burr] is even moving forward with an FBI warrant. It was a question Mother Jones reporter Mark Follman asked if it was really more 'about Bill Barr targeting the one powerful Republican who authenticated the Russia investigation.'" --s  See also Ken W.'s comment at the end of yesterday's thread.

Calling Doctor Trump. Carolyn Johnson & Steven Mufson of the Washington Post: "The Abbott coronavirus test hailed by President Trump and used by the White House failed to detect infected samples in a large number of cases that were caught by a rival firm, a preliminary study says. The speedy Abbott test, which is supposed to determine in five to 13 minutes whether a person has the virus, missed a third of the positive samples found by the diagnostic company Cepheid when both tests used nasopharyngeal swabs, said the study done by a group from New York University. It missed more than 48 percent when both firms' tests used dry nasal swabs. The former penetrates deeply into the nasal passages, while the latter is less invasive. The study, while preliminary and not yet peer-reviewed, raised questions about a test that has been praised by Trump, who displayed it at a Rose Garden news conference on April 2 and said it created 'a whole new ballgame.'" A Raw Story report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: The fact that this and other reported studies have not been peer-reviewed doesn't mean the studies would not pass a review, although of course they might not. When legitimate researchers release their work before peer review, they are trying to get their results out quickly, in this case during an emergency.

Heather Long of the Washington Post: "Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell gave a dire warning Wednesday that the U.S. economy could become stuck in a painful multi-year recession if Congress and the White House do not approve more aid to address the coronavirus pandemic's economic fallout. 'Additional fiscal support could be costly, but worth it if it helps avoid long-term economic damage and leaves us with a stronger recovery,' Powell said in a videoconference with the Peterson Institute for International Economics." An AP story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Katherine Burton, et al. of Bloomberg: "The biggest names in finance are coming around to a view that seemed unlikely a few weeks ago: Stocks are vastly overvalued.... And it's coming as investors start to suspect that the Federal Reserve's support, as well as $3 trillion in Treasury stimulus, may not be enough to compensate for soaring unemployment, a wave of bankruptcies and no end in sight to the pandemic.... And the warnings have caught the attention of President Donald Trump, who's facing re-election and has seen his plans to run on a booming economy shredded by the virus. Trump attacked 'so-called "rich guys"' in a tweet Wednesday." --s Story is firewalled.

Bob Herman of Axios: "Roughly 27 million people ... likely have lost job-based health coverage since the coronavirus shocked the economy, according to new estimates from the Kaiser Family Foundation.... Most of these people will be able sign up for other sources of coverage, but millions are still doomed to be uninsured in the midst of a pandemic.... For the 27 million people who are losing their job-based coverage, about 80% have other options, said Rachel Garfield, a health policy expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation and lead author of the report." Mrs. McC: And you thought we needed national health care for all. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Jonathan O'Connell of the Washington Post: "The Aspen Institute think tank accepted more than $8 million in federal small-businesses funds despite having a $115 million endowment and a board of trustees populated by billionaires. As with other larger employers -- including public companies, the Los Angeles Lakers and private prep schools -- it does not appear that the Aspen Institute violated the rules of the program, managed by the Treasury Department and the Small Business Administration." Mrs. McC: C'mon. To a board full of billionaires, an $8MM gift is a pittance. It's so wrong to complain they taking money that would otherwise go to a few dozen struggling mom & pop shops in the hinterlands. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Alison Rourke of the Guardian: "The World Health Organisation has warned that coronavirus 'may never go away' as its experts predicted that a global mental health crisis caused by the pandemic was looming.... A report by the WHO's mental health department to the UN ... said the world could expect to see an upsurge in the severity of mental illness, including amongst children, young people and healthcare workers." --s

Michigan. Beth LeBlanc of the Detroit News: The lawyer for Owosso barber Karl Manke announced that "a Shiawassee County Circuit judge had denied a request for a temporary restraining order from state Attorney General Dana Nessel that would have resulted in the barbershop's immediate closure. The order by Shiawassee County Circuit Judge Matthew Stewart came several hours after Nessel requested the judge issue a court order backing a Friday Michigan Department of Health and Human Services shutdown edict under the public health code for violating of Whitmer's stay-home order." Manke's barbershop drew national attention when armed citizens sporting Trump paraphernalia threatened to shoot local police if they tried to close down the shop." Mrs. McC: Just guessing, but I suspect Judge Stewart is an elected official up there in Trump country. Update: Yup, and his current term ends at the end of this year. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Bobby Lee's remarks in yesterday's Comments thread are instructive.~~~

     ~~~ Update. Michigan Isn't Done with Covid Karl. Michael Levenson of the New York Times: "A Michigan barber who reopened his shop in defiance of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's orders had his business and professional licenses suspended on Wednesday, the latest step in his escalating battle with the state. The barber, Karl Manke, 77, who has been cutting hair in Owosso, Mich., for almost 60 years, likened Michigan under Ms. Whitmer, a Democrat, to 'a police state.' He said he planned to keep cutting hair, despite the suspension of his licenses.... [Michigan AG Dana] Nessel's office declined to say how it would enforce the suspension of the licenses, stating, 'Our office is involved in pending legal action against Mr. Manke, so we cannot comment on these issues.'... David A. Kallman, Mr. Manke's lawyer, said his client was contesting the various actions in court. He said Mr. Manke won an initial victory on Monday, when a judge denied the state's request to immediately shut Mr. Manke's shop and gave Mr. Manke until May 22 to respond in court."

Nebraska. How to Keep the Case Count Down: Don't Report It. Peter Whoriskey of the Washington Post: "For weeks, people in rural communities in Nebraska charted the rise of coronavirus cases at the state's several meatpacking plants.... As of the first week of May, public health officials reported 96 at the Tyson plant in Madison; 237 at the JBS plant in Grand Island; and 123 arising from the Smithfield plant in Crete. There were other cases around the state, too, and the counts were climbing. At least three were reportedly dead. Then the numbers stopped. In a change initiated last week, Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) announced at a news conference that state health officials would no longer share figures about how many workers have been infected at each plant. The big companies weren't sharing numbers either, creating a silence that leaves workers, their families and the rest of the public blind to the severity of the crisis at each plant.... Ricketts ... recommended that local health departments withhold the case counts unless they get permission from the plants." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

UPDATE: Shortly after this story was published, Tyson and the Elkhorn Logan Valley Public Health Department announced the results of testing at the company's plant in Madison, Neb. Of the employees and contractors who work at the Madison plant, 212 tested positive for coronavirus. The company said that it would also release the results of testing at its other plants to employees, government officials and other stakeholders.

New Mexico. Rebecca Klar of The Hill: "New Mexico will require face coverings in all public spaces starting Saturday as the state moves forward with the first phase of its reopening plan, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) said Wednesday.... The state is mandating everyone wear face coverings in indoor and outdoor public spaces. People exercising outdoors are exempt from the requirement." --s

Texas. Marty Johnson of the Hill: "Texas, which began to open its businesses at the beginning of May, has reported more than 1,000 new cases of COVID-19 for five consecutive days as the state struggles to curb the coronavirus pandemic.... On Tuesday, Anthony Fauci ... appeared before the Senate Health Committee and warned that states who reopen their economies too quickly could see new outbreaks of the disease that could result in 'needless suffering and death.'... Fauci stressed that states follow the reopening guidelines released by the White House, specifically citing that states should see a 14-day consecutive decline in daily new COVID-19 cases before beginning to reopen. Texas has failed to reach that benchmark. Also on Tuesday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) warned cities to not enforce stricter coronavirus restrictions than those the state government has mandated during the state's first reopening phase, which Abbott has slated to run through May 18." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: "Struggles to curb the coronavirus pandemic"? It seems more like Texas state officials are "struggling" to ensure that more Texans get sick. ~~~

~~~ Manny Fernandez & David Montgomery of the New York Times: "When Jamie Williams decided to reopen her East Texas tattoo studio last week in defiance of the state's coronavirus restrictions, she asked Philip Archibald for help. He showed up with his dog Zeus, his friends and his AR-15 semiautomatic rifle. Mr. Archibald established an armed perimeter in the parking lot outside Crash-N-Burn Tattoo, secured by five men with military-style rifles, tactical shotguns, camouflage vests and walkie-talkies.... In at least a half dozen cases around the state in recent days, frustrated small-business owners have turned to heavily armed, militia-style protesters like Mr. Archibald's group to serve as reopening security squads.... Similar situations have unfolded in other states -- armed members of the Michigan Liberty Militia challenged Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's stay-at-home orders recently inside the State Capitol, and armed members of the Michigan Home Guard helped reopen a barbershop in the town of Owosso. But Texas appears to be turning such goings-on into a cottage industry." If you have a NYT subscription, read on.

Wisconsin. State Conservo-Supremes Move to Kill off Residents. Colby Itkowitz of the Washington Post: "The Wisconsin Supreme Court's conservative majority sided with Republican legislators and struck down on Wednesday the decision by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers's administration to extend a stay-at-home order intended to quell the spread of the novel coronavirus. The 4-3 decision limits Evers's ability to make statewide rules during emergencies such as a global pandemic, instead requiring him to work with the state legislature on how the state should handle the outbreak. The justices wrote that the court was not challenging the governor's power to declare emergencies, 'but in the case of a pandemic, which lasts month after month, the Governor cannot rely on emergency powers indefinitely.' Evers condemned the court's decision...." A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report is here.

Helen Davidson of the Guardian: "Organisations conducting research into Covid-19 may be targeted by computer hackers linked to the Chinese government, according to the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security ... warn[ing] on Wednesday that institutions and companies involved in vaccines, treatments and testing for the coronavirus should take additional security measures to protect data and be aware of the potential threat. 'China's efforts to target these sectors pose a significant threat to our nation's response to Covid-19,' the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said...." --s

Where's the Beef? David Garcia & P.J. Huffstutter of Reuters: "More Mexican steaks and other beef cuts are headed north of the border after the coronavirus outbreak has hobbled U.S. meat processing plants, potentially offsetting fears of shortages ... but angering American ranchers.... [I]n the United States just four major beef-packing companies -- Cargill Inc..., Tyson Foods Inc..., JBS ... and National Beef Packing... -- control more than 80% of the business. The shift toward foreign supplies has angered many U.S. ranchers, who argue the consolidation of the meatpacking sector and shuttering of processing plants is limiting access to their own marketplace." --s

Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Tom Polansek of Reuters: "U.S. President Donald Trump ordered meat processing plants to stay open to protect the nation's food supply even as workers got sick and died. Yet the plants have increasingly been exporting to China while U.S. consumers face shortages, a Reuters analysis of government data showed.... While pork supplies tightened as the number of pigs slaughtered each day plunged by about 40% since mid-March, shipments of American pork t China more than quadrupled over the same period, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data." --s

Wear a Mask or STFU. Neel Patel in MIT's Technology Review: "Thousands of droplets from the mouths of people who are talking loudly can stay in the air for between eight and 14 minutes before disappearing, according to a new study. The research, conducted by a team with the US National Institutes of Health and published in PNAS Wednesday, could have significant impact on our understanding of covid-19 transmission." A coronavirus carrier will release droplets containing the virus into the air when "coughing and sneezing.... But speech can release thousands of oral fluid droplets into the air too."

Harper Neidig of the Hill: "A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled against President Trump in a lawsuit alleging that he's violated the Constitution's Emoluments Clauses. The decision from the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals keeps the case alive, rejecting the president's efforts to preserve immunity from the suit, which was filed by the attorneys general from Washington, D.C., and Maryland. The court did not rule on the merits of the case against Trump."

** Judge Sullivan Is Not Amused. Katie Benner of the New York Times: "The federal judge overseeing the case against President Trump's former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn appointed a hard-charging former prosecutor and judge on Wednesday to oppose the Justice Department's effort to drop the case and to explore a perjury charge against Mr. Flynn. Judge Emmet G. Sullivan's appointment of the former judge, John Gleeson, was an extraordinary move in a case with acute political overtones. Mr. Flynn pleaded guilty twice to lying to investigators as part of a larger inquiry into Russia's interference in the 2016 election.... Judge Sullivan also asked Judge Gleeson to explore the possibility that by trying to withdraw his pleas, Mr. Flynn opened himself to perjury charges.... 'This is extraordinary for the judge to appoint somebody to argue against a prosecutors' motion to dismiss a criminal case,' [former federal prosecutor Samuel] Buell said. 'But it's extraordinary for a prosecutor to move to dismiss this sort of criminal case.'... Judge Gleeson, who served on the federal bench in Brooklyn and ran the criminal division in the federal prosecutor's office there, has already made plain his skepticism of the Justice Department's motion to dismiss the Flynn case. He co-wrote an op-ed article this week in The Washington Post urging Judge Sullivan to scrutinize it." Axios has a summary report here. Law & Crime has a story here. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: When the story of the DOJ's decision to drop charges against Flynn broke last week, reports generally discounted the possibility that Judge Sullivan would "do something" other than approve the "Justice" Department's decision. ~~~

~~~ Adam Goldman & Katie Benner of the New York Times: "A key former F.B.I. official cast doubt on the Justice Department's case for dropping a criminal charge against ... Michael T. Flynn during an interview with investigators last week, according to people familiar with the investigation. Department officials reviewing the Flynn case interviewed Bill Priestap, the former head of F.B.I. counterintelligence, two days before making their extraordinary request to drop the case to Judge Emmet G. Sullivan. They did not tell Judge Sullivan about Mr. Priestap's interview.... The department's motion referred to notes that Mr. Priestap wrote around the bureau's 2017 questioning of Mr. Flynn, who later pleaded guilty to lying to investigators during that interview. His lawyers said Mr. Priestap's notes ... suggested that the F.B.I. was trying to entrap Mr. Flynn, and Attorney General William P. Barr said investigators were trying to 'lay a perjury trap.' That interpretation was wrong, Mr. Priestap told the prosecutors reviewing the case. He said that F.B.I. officials were trying to do the right thing in questioning Mr. Flynn and that he knew of no effort to set him up." A Raw Story summary report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Now that Barr's bagmen at DOJ have been caught hiding Priestap's interview from Judge Sullivan, "A Justice Department official said that they were in the process of writing up a report on the interview and that it would soon be filed with the court," according to the Goldman-Benner report. Yeah, right. Whenever my mother asked my little sister why she hadn't done some assigned chore, my sister-- who was a child -- would say, "I was just about to." Barr & His Bagmen are trying that obviously fake -- and childish -- excuse to cover up their cover-up. They are so corrupt that they should be prosecuted. ~~~

~~~ Emily Bazelon & Eric Posner in a New York Times op-ed: "This week, more than 2,000 former officials of the Justice Department and the F.B.I. called on Attorney General William Barr to resign for dropping the prosecution of Michael Flynn, who had pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I.... It's easy to grow numb to the abuses of the Trump era. But Mr. Barr's intervention in the Flynn and Stone cases is a deviation even from the standards at the outset of Mr. Trump's presidency.... Congress erred by allowing the independent counsel statute to expire. The potential that political considerations could warp decisions by the president and attorney general require this extra check on the executive branch. The best way to stop the downward spiral of the Justice Department is to protect it from its own boss." Mrs. McC: The writers seem to suggest that Barr is the most corrupt AG since Nixon's pal John Mitchell held the job. Mitchell went to jail; I'd be satisfied if Barr had to wear an ankle bracelet & be confined to his home except on any approved outing, when he would have to wear a striped prisoner's outfit. ~~~

~~~ Andrew Desiderio & Betsy Swan of Politico: "Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell on Wednesday sent top Republican senators a list of former senior Obama administration officials who might have been involved in efforts that 'unmasked' former national security adviser Michael Flynn -- including former Vice President Joe Biden. The release comes amid a furious campaign by ... Donald Trump and his allies to accuse former President Barack Obama and his top deputies of illegally targeting the Trump campaign and the incoming Trump administration. In recent days, the president has coined the term 'Obamagate' to accuse his predecessor of seeking to undermine him and target his top associates -- though he has struggled to articulate or prove any specific wrongdoing. Grenell sent the list ... to Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) a day after the lawmakers wrote to Grenell and Attorney General William Barr calling on them to release information about efforts by Obama administration officials to 'unmask' U.S. citizens who were subject to government surveillance. The list ... also includes high-level officials such as former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI Director James Comey and former White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough. Thirty-nine people in total are listed, ranging from White House officials to diplomats and Treasury Department officials. Grenell declassified the list last week." A New York Times story is here. ~~~

~~~ Matthew Chapman of the Raw Story: "On Wednesday..., Donald Trump's acting spy chief Richard Grenell sent top Republican senators a memo outlining all of the people who may have been involved in the 'unmasking' of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn..., a clear attempt to boost the president's 'Obamagate' conspiracy theory. But experts were quick to note that the memo itself blows a huge hole in Trump's narrative, by showing how Obama administration officials acted completely legally and through proper channels to investigate a national security risk." Many of the cited tweets also point out that the unmasking of Flynn was routine & went through ordinary channels. As Eli Honig wrote, "'Unmasking' sounds vaguely sinister but it means intel agents flagged Flynn's suspicious contacts with Russia - which Flynn would later lie to the VP and FBI about, for some reason - and officials found out who he was, with proper approvals and through authorized channels."

Presidential Election. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court seemed ready on Wednesday to allow states to require members of the Electoral College to cast their votes for the presidential candidates they had pledged to support. In two arguments concerning 'faithless electors' from the states of Washington and Colorado, several of the justices focused on the practical consequences of their ruling or, as Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh put it, 'the avoid-chaos principle of judging.' 'If it's a close call or a tiebreaker,' he said, 'we should not facilitate or create chaos.'... Several justices said neither the words of the Constitution nor historical materials provided a clear answer. That meant, they said, that the matter should be left to the states." A CNN story is here.

Congressional Race. Jennifer Medina of the New York Times: "Mike Garcia, a former military pilot and newcomer to Republican electoral politics, has defeated his Democratic opponent in a special election to fill a House seat in Southern California. The victory is the first time the G.O.P. has flipped a Democratic held seat in California since 1998 and is a significant win in an election that was primarily conducted by mail and reflected the country's bitter partisan mood. Mr. Garcia and Christy Smith, a Democratic member of the State Assembly, competed to replace former Representative Katie Hill, who resigned last year after admitting to an affair with a campaign staff member. The two candidates will meet again in November, when both are planning to run for a full term." A Politico story is here.

Some Good News. Brad Plumer of the New York Times: "The United States is on track to produce more electricity this year from renewable power than from coal for the first time on record, new government projections show, a transformation partly driven by the coronavirus pandemic, with profound implications in the fight against climate change. It is a milestone that seemed all but unthinkable a decade ago, when coal was so dominant that it provided nearly half the nation's electricity. And it comes despite the Trump administration's three-year push to try to revive the ailing industry by weakening pollution rules on coal-burning power plants."