The Commentariat -- January 5, 2021
Afternoon Update:
Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "President Trump on Tuesday escalated his efforts to force Vice President Mike Pence to overturn President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s victory, falsely asserting that Mr. Pence had the power to unilaterally throw out electoral votes on Wednesday when Congress meets to certify the election results.... 'The Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors,' the president tweeted on Tuesday. That's not how it works."
William Booth & David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "... on Tuesday, the leader of Scotland, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, was asked if Trump was headed her way and what might be her message to him?... Sturgeon warned Trump he might be breaking the law if he came: 'We are not allowing people to come into Scotland now without an essential purpose, which would apply to him, just as it applies to everybody else. Coming to play golf is not what I would consider an essential purpose.' Scotland, alongside Northern Ireland, Wales and England are in lockdown, with stay-at-home orders...." See Patrick's comment in today's thread. Patrick suspects it is not Trump who will be traveling to Scotland on January 19th, but some of his secret, incriminating presidential* papers White House staff have refused to shred.
Trump Relies on QAnon for Election Fraud "Research." Ben Collins, et al., of NBC News: "... Donald Trump cataloged a series of false conspiracy theories during an hourlong call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Saturday in which he sought to overturn the state's election results, and they were familiar to anyone following the far fringes of the internet. Trump floated fragments of several baseless conspiracy theories that were primarily pushed by QAnon followers over the last two months, including a widely debunked theory about voting machines from Dominion Voting Systems. The wide-ranging slew of theories, spawned on extremist forums like 4chan, were repeatedly referred to by Trump as 'rumors' that are 'trending on the internet.' He claimed they were reasons Raffensperger should 're-examine it [the election] with people that want to find answers.' Saturday's call offered a look at just how much he is now relying on some of the most outlandish theories from obscure corners of the internet to make his case for election fraud."
Kyle Cheney & Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Attorneys for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Monday lit into a 'thirteenth hour' effort by ... Donald Trump to decertify the results of the state's Nov. 3 election, calling it a belated bid to nullify the ballots of millions of voters."
Tierney Sneed of TPM: "Following the abrupt Monday resignation of Byung Jin 'BJay' Pak, the U.S. attorney in Atlanta, President Trump is bypassing his first assistant, a career prosecutor, to name a new acting leader from outside the office. The announcement came early Tuesday morning in an internal email obtained by TPM. The new acting U.S. attorney in Atlanta will be Bobby Christine, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Georgia, according to the email. Christine will continue simultaneously in both roles, according to the email."
Teo Armus of the Washington Post: "The activists said they had staged a peaceful vigil on Monday night to protest a GOP plan to object to Congress's certification of the presidential electoral vote this week. On the sidewalk in a Northern Virginia suburb, a group of 15 people chanted while holding candles and signs saying, 'Protect democracy.' But Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) had a different description for the scene outside his family's home in Fairfax County: 'leftwing violence.' 'Tonight while I was in Missouri, Antifa scumbags came to our place in DC and threatened my wife and newborn daughter,' he wrote on Twitter late Monday. 'They screamed threats, vandalized, and tried to pound open our door.' Demonstrators with ShutDownDC, which organized the protest, told The Washington Post that they did not engage in vandalism or even knock on Hawley's door." The Hill's story is here.
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Georgia Senate Races
Steve Peoples & Bill Barrow of the AP: "Georgia voters are set to decide the balance of power in Congress in a pair of high-stakes Senate runoff elections that will help determine President-elect Joe Biden's capacity to enact what may be the most progressive governing agenda in generations.... At a rally in northwest Georgia on the eve of Tuesday's runoffs, Trump repeatedly declared that the November elections were plagued by fraud that Republican officials, including his former attorney general and Georgia's elections chief, say did not occur. The president called Georgia's Republican secretary of state 'crazy' and vowed to help defeat him in two years. At the same time, Trump encouraged his supporters to show up in force for Georgia's Tuesday contests. 'You've got to swarm it tomorrow,' Trump told thousands of cheering supporters, downplaying the threat of fraud." MB: One of the many ways to tell Donald Trump is crazy: he described a supposed opponent as crazy. Trump usually projects his most serious shortcomings onto people he doesn't like. More on Trump's Georgia rally linked under "Last Days."
Georgia, the whole nation is looking to you. The power is literally in your hands. One state can chart the course, not just for the next four years, but for the next generation. -- President-elect Joe Biden, at an Atlanta rally Monday
The Washington Post's presidential transition liveblog for Monday is here: Reis Thebault: "Georgia elections officials, who have been beating back unfounded claims of fraud and malfeasance since the November election, say they're prepared to be in the spotlight once again after Tuesday's runoffs. 'All the counties in Georgia are in the spotlight right now, so we are all prepared for this as well as we can be,' Richard Barron, Fulton County's elections director, said at a news conference Monday afternoon. Trump has attacked Fulton County, the most populous in Georgia, repeatedly since he lost the state two months ago in the presidential election -- including in his call to the secretary of state. Barron said his staff has endured a bomb threat, death threats and repeated racial slurs in the run-up to Tuesday's vote." ~~~
~~~ Michelle Lee: "On the eve of the Senate runoff elections in Georgia, Biden emphasized the importance of the election in determining party control of the upper chamber and the fate of the negotiations in Congress over a third coronavirus stimulus package. Biden urged Georgians to vote for the two Democrats running in Tuesday's contests, Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock, noting that a Democratic-controlled Senate would support the $2,000 covid-19 stimulus checks that Senate Republicans have opposed."
Once Again, It's the Whistleblower's Fault. Nick Niedzwiadek of Politico: "Sen. David Perdue tore into Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Monday for recording a phone call with President Donald Trump over the weekend, calling it 'disgusting' to do so. 'I guess I was raised differently,' Perdue, a Republican, said on Fox News. 'To have a statewide elected official, regardless of party, tape without disclosing a conversation -- private conversation -- with the president of the United States, and then leaking it to the press is disgusting.'... Perdue and fellow Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler have gone all-in with Trump as they seek to save their seats ahead of Tuesday's run off." MB: Perdue is an odd person to question anybody else's morals: he has used his Senate seat to gain insider knowledge to enhance his stock portfolio, and he has a long professional history of underpaying American employees and outsourcing labor to Asia. By anyone's standards, these are far more immoral than blowing the whistle on a corrupt president* who falsely defamed him.
Faker's Dozen. Loeffler to Join Dirty Dozen. Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) said Monday that she will object to the presidential election results when Congress convenes a joint session on Wednesday to formally count the Electoral College vote.... Former Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) has also endorsed challenging the election results, but, unlike Loeffler, he will forfeit his seat until the Georgia races are certified, meaning he will not be in Congress on Wednesday."
The Last Days of the Mad Kaiser
Astead Herndon & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Trump used a campaign rally on the eve of two critical Senate runoffs in Georgia to once again vent his debunked grievances about the outcome of November's presidential election, as he continued his assault on the peaceful transfer of power. In an appearance that was supposed to bolster the fortunes of the two Republican candidates ... Mr. Trump instead turned the nearly 90-minute rally into a rambling lecture filled with conspiracy theories, rumors, unproven assertions and personal attacks on Democrats, the news media and Georgia's Republican officials. 'There's no way we lost Georgia,' Mr. Trump said just after taking the stage. 'I've had two elections. I've won both of them. It's amazing.' Moments later, after briefly mentioning the two Republican senators, he shifted back to his own, losing election: 'They're not going to take this White House. We're going to fight like hell, I'll tell you right now.'" ~~~
~~~ Marie: It's impossible to guess what Trump will do January 20 because he doesn't know from moment to moment what stunt he may pull. There was his Churchillian "We will fight them on the beaches" remark last night (see above); on the other hand, there are indications he will flee the country on your dime (see story linked below).
~~~ Glenn Kessler & Meg Kelly of the Washington Post: "President Trump's campaign rally Monday night in Dalton, Ga., on behalf of Sen. Kelly Loeffler and David Purdue, whose Senate term expired Sunday, was filled with his usual collection of scores of falsehoods. We will focus mostly on his election-related claims, along with a selection of statements that turn up at virtually all his recent rallies, as documented in our database of Trump's false or misleading claims. (We are still trying to catch up but as of Nov. 5, the count stands at 29,508 claims.)"
Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "... Donald Trump on Monday continued his public meltdown over the results of the 2020 presidential election with yet another angry broadside against members of the Republican Party who aren't supporting his efforts to launch a coup against President-elect Joe Biden. Writing on Twitter, the president called out Republicans who are refusing to go along with plans to block the certification of Biden's victory in Congress this week. 'The "Surrender Caucus" within the Republican Party will go down in infamy as weak and ineffective "guardians" of our Nation, who were willing to accept the certification of fraudulent presidential numbers!' the president wrote.... Earlier on Monday, Trump warned Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) that his voters would 'NEVER FORGET' that he declined to help Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) in their plans to block Biden's win from being certified."
Mike's Dilemma. Annie Karni & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "'I know we all have got our doubts about the last election,' Mr. Pence said Monday [at a rally] in Georgia, attempting to assuage Trump supporters. 'I want to assure you that I share the concerns of millions of Americans about voting irregularities. I promise you, come this Wednesday, we will have our day in Congress.' It was not clear, perhaps by design, what he meant. Mr. Pence does not have unilateral power to affect the outcome of Wednesday's proceedings. But he has carefully tried to look like he is loyally following the president's lead even as he goes through a process that is expected to end with him reading out a declaration that Mr. Biden is the winner.... Two people briefed on the discussions said Mr. Trump had directly pressed Mr. Pence to find an alternative to certifying Mr. Biden's win, such as preventing him from having 270 electoral votes and letting the election be thrown to the House to decide. In Georgia on Monday night at a rally for Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, Mr. Trump openly pressured the vice president, saying, 'I hope Mike Pence comes through for us, I have to tell you.' He added, 'Of course, if he doesn't come through, I won't like him as much.'... Mr. Pence ... met with Senate parliamentarians for hours on Sunday to prepare himself and the president for what he would say while on the Senate floor."
Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "Almost 200 of the country's top business leaders urged Congress to certify the electoral results for President-elect Joe Biden in a letter Monday, arguing that 'attempts to thwart or delay this process run counter to the essential tenets of our democracy.' The letter marked the business community's most significant push yet to ensure President Trump's efforts to overturn the November election are unsuccessful. Signers included a wide array of executives of Fortune 500 companies, from the leaders of banks, airlines, investment firms, pharmaceutical companies, professional sports leagues, real estate conglomerates, top law firms and media companies."
The Cost of a Failed Impeachment. David Graham of the Atlantic: "The memory of impeachment is back with a vengeance this week.... The president continues to try to overturn Biden's victory. In a phone call on Saturday that was eerily reminiscent of Trump's July 2019 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump tried to pressure Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger of Georgia (the state, not the country) to do something, anything, to throw the state's results back to him.... The president's MO has not changed since July 2019 -- in fact, it has scarcely changed over the course of his career.... [In his call to Raffensperger,] Trump speaks like a mob boss, making his desire clear but never saying explicitly what he wants, so as to maintain deniability.... Trump's current, shambling coup attempt is the price of the Senate's failure to remove him.... The post-election moves, and especially the coup call, are the most brazen and direct echo of the Ukraine plot, and they show why acquittal was so dangerous to the republic.... All of this could have been prevented." Firewalled. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Contributor RAS reminded me yesterday of Rep. Adam Schiff's (D-Calif.) remarkable closing argument for impeachment of Donald Trump, which I re-watched in its entirety yesterday. By contrast, here's Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) in February 2020, whom Mainers in their collective wisdom returned to her job: ~~~
~~~ Neal K. Katyal & Sam Koppelman in a New York Times op-ed: "Whether he acknowledges it or not, President Trump is leaving the White House on Jan. 20 -- but right now, there is nothing stopping him from running in 2024. That is a terrifying prospect, because the way he has conducted himself over the past two months, wielding the power of the presidency to try to steal another term in office, has threatened one of our republic's most essential traditions: the peaceful transfer of power. Fortunately, our founders anticipated we would face a moment like this, which is one reason Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution entrusts Congress with the power not only to remove a president but also to prevent him or her from ever holding elected office again. Mr. Trump's conduct over the past two months has left our legislators with no choice but to use it. That impeachment inquiry would take time, far more than Mr. Trump has left in office. But it would be well worth it.... We must establish a precedent that a president who tries to cheat his way to re-election will be held accountable.... We also need to set a precedent that a lame duck president can still be held accountable.... We cannot risk Mr. Trump's becoming president again...." ~~~
~~~ Marie: I guess I like this op-ed because it jibes with what I wrote yesterday, even if Katyal & Koppleman write far more elegantly, convincingly & completely than I did. ~~~
~~~ Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "Taken on their own, most excuses for not investigating or prosecuting Trump make at least some sense.... Yet if there is no penalty for Republican cheating, there will be more of it. The structure of our politics -- the huge advantages wielded by small states and rural voters -- means that Democrats need substantial majorities to wield national power, so they can't simply ignore the wishes of the electorate. Not so for Republicans, which is why they feel free to openly scheme against the majority. During impeachment, Republicans who were unwilling to defend the president's conduct, but also unwilling to penalize him, insisted that if Americans didn't like his behavior they could vote him out. Americans did, and now Trump's party is refusing to accept it. It's evidence tha you can't rely on elections to punish attempts to subvert elections. Only the law can do that, even if it's inconvenient."
~~~ Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Trump's relentless effort to overturn the result of the election that he lost has become the most serious stress test of American democracy in generations, led not by outside revolutionaries intent on bringing down the system but by the very leader charged with defending it. In the 220 years since a defeated John Adams turned over the White House to his rival, firmly establishing the peaceful transfer of power as a bedrock principle, no sitting president who lost an election has tried to hang onto power by rejecting the Electoral College and subverting the will of the voters -- until now. It is a scenario at once utterly unthinkable and yet feared since the beginning of Mr. Trump's tenure. The president has gone well beyond simply venting his grievances or creating a face-saving narrative to explain away a loss, as advisers privately suggested he was doing in the days after the Nov. 3 vote, but instead has pressed the boundaries of tradition, propriety and the law to find any way he can to cling to office beyond his term that expires in two weeks. That he is almost certain to fail does not mitigate the damage he is doing to democracy by undermining public faith in the electoral system." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: When Peter Both-Sides-Do-It Baker is as alarmed as this, you can be assured the situation is alarming.
Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump is effectively sabotaging the Republican Party on his way out of office, obsessed with overturning his election loss and nursing pangs of betrayal from allies whom he had expected to bend the instruments of democracy to his will. Trump has created a divide in his party as fundamental and impassioned as any during his four years as president, with lawmakers forced to choose between certifying the results of an election decided by their constituents or appeasing the president in an all-but-certain-to-fail crusade to keep him in power by subverting the vote. As Republican lawmakers took sides ahead of Wednesday's joint session of Congress to certify the electoral college results, some on Monday voiced rare criticism of Trump for his attempt to pressure Georgia elections officials to change vote totals there during a Saturday phone call.... Even one of Trump's most loyal defenders, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), said it was 'not a helpful call.'... The president is ... exhorting his supporters to travel to Washington for mass protests Wednesday. He is planning to speak to the crowd on the Ellipse around midday Wednesday...." ~~~
~~~ AP: "Bracing for possible violence, the nation's capital has mobilized the National Guard ahead of planned protests by ... Donald Trump's supporters in connection with the congressional vote expected Wednesday to affirm Joe Biden's election victory. Trump's supporters are planning to rally Tuesday and Wednesday, seeking to bolster the president's unproven claims of widespread voter fraud. 'There are people intent on coming to our city armed,' D.C. Acting Police Chief Robert Contee said Monday.... With downtown D.C. businesses boarding up their windows, Mayor Muriel Bowser ... Monday ... asked that local area residents stay away from downtown D.C., and avoid confrontations with anyone who is 'looking for a fight.' But, she warned, 'we will not allow people to incite violence, intimidate our residents or cause destruction in our city.'... On Monday, Metropolitan Police Department officers arrested the leader of the Proud Boys, Henry 'Enrique' Tarrio, 36, after he arrived in Washington ahead of this week's protests. Tarrio was accused of burning a Black Lives Matter banner that was torn down from a historic Black church in downtown Washington during the December protests."
"Yet the President* Persists." Paulina Firozi of the Washington Post (from the WashPo's live transition updates, also linked above): "Gabriel Sterling, Georgia&'s voting systems manager, pulled no punches during a Monday news conference as he point by point dismissed numerous unsubstantiated claims of election fraud, some of which Trump repeated during an hour-long phone call with Georgia's secretary of state Saturday. Sterling called it 'anti-disinformation Monday' and said he wanted to set the record straight, especially ahead of a pair of Senate runoff elections, because 'we want to make sure people understand their votes count.... The secretary wants me to make clear that everybody's vote is going to count and everybody's vote did count,' Sterling said." The New York Times' story is here. Sterling's full remarks are recorded in this YouTube video.
Marie: What if the GOP state official Trump called was not straightlaced Brad Raffensperger but former Kansas secretary of state & voter suppression aficionado Kris Kobach? Or for that matter, former Missouri attorney general & Electoral College challenger Josh Hawley? The Republican party is littered with officials who didn't need Donald Trump to teach them how to undermine or even overturn the voters' will.
In a Twitter thread, NBC News' Geoff Bennett writes that Trump had tried to telephone Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger 18 times during the past two months. People in Raffensperger's office recorded the call, and he told them not to release it unless Trump mischaracterized the call. MB: Trump did mischaracterize Raffensperger's responses in a tweet, which Ryan Nobles of CNN reported in a story linked below. None of these previous efforts has been previously reported, so I this implies an answer to a question I asked below: has Trump called other state officials around the country trying to overturn the results in their states? I'd guess yes, yes and yes. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Allan Smith & Alex Moe of NBC News: "A pair of House Democrats are asking FBI Director Christopher Wray to open a criminal probe into ... Donald Trump after a leaked phone call showed him pleading with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn his state's election. 'As members of Congress and former prosecutors, we believe Donald Trump engaged in solicitation of, or conspiracy to commit, a number of election crimes,' Reps. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., and Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y., wrote in a letter to Wray on Monday. 'We ask you to open an immediate criminal investigation into the president.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Morgan Gstalter of the Hill: “The district attorney overseeing Atlanta said Monday that she will 'enforce the law without fear or favor' if a case is referred to her office regarding President Trump's controversial phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R.) In a statement obtained by local outlet WSBTV, Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis said she found news reports about the weekend phone call 'disturbing.' 'Anyone who commits a felony violation of Georgia law in my jurisdiction wil be held accountable,' Willis said. 'Once the investigation is complete, this matter, like all matters, will be handled by our office based on the facts and the law.'"
Worse Than Watergate: ~~~
Marie: Andrew Weissmann, a former Mueller prosecutor appearing on MSNBC, made a point that supports the illegality of Trump's ask of Raffensperger. According to Weissmann, Trump attorneys who were on the call repeatedly asked Raffensperger to provide them with data and other information to back up Georgia's contention that the election count was proper. Trump, however, shut down his lawyers and told Raffensperger what he wanted was not information but a "recalculated" vote count that would give him at least one more vote than they credited to Biden. That is, Trump's lawyers were not asking the secretary of state to overturn the election results; Trump was. ~~~
~~~ Nevertheless.... Daniel Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "A Milwaukee-based law firm is distancing itself from one of the attorneys involved in ... Donald Trump's disturbing call trying to overturn the results of the Georgia election. Cleta Mitchell, a partner at Foley & Lardner, participated in the Saturday call in which Trump pressured the Georgia secretary of state to 'find' 11,780 votes to help Trump win that state's election. In a statement, a spokesman for Foley said the firm does not represent 'any parties seeking to contest the results of the presidential election.... We are aware of, and are concerned by, Ms. Mitchell's participation in the Jan. 2 conference call and are working to understand her involvement more thoroughly,' Dan Farrell, director of communication for Foley, said in a statement Monday. Farrell added that the firm made a decision in November not to take on any clients involved in any matters related to the November presidential election."
Coincidence??? Tierney Sneed of TPM: "The U.S. attorney in Atlanta departed his post Monday, TPM has learned, after previously indicating that he would not leave until Inauguration Day. The reason for U.S. Attorney Byung 'BJay' Pak's change of plans are not clear. In an internal email announcing his departure obtained by TPM, Pak cited only 'unforeseen circumstances' as the reason he was leaving Monday rather than Jan. 20." MB: Seems likely the "unforeseen circumstances" were Trump's call to Raffensperger & having to decided whether or not to prosecute Trump. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Trump to Flee U.S.? Peter Swindon of the Dundee, Scotland, Sunday Post: "... Donald Trump could be planning a trip to Scotland to avoid attending his successor Joe Biden's inauguration, according to aviation sources. Prestwick airport has been told to expect the arrival of a US military Boeing 757 aircraft, that is occasionally used by Trump, on January 19 -- the day before his Democratic rival takes charge at the White House. Speculation surrounding Trump's plans has been fuelled by the activity of US Army aircraft, which were based at Prestwick airport for a week and said to be carrying out 3D reconnaissance of the president's Turnberry resort." MB: The new AG should be checking our extradition treaties with Scotland. I don't think Trump is going to play golf. The average high temp in Ayrshire in January is 43 degrees & the average low is 34. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Dan Primack of Axios: "Dominion Voting Systems plans to sue attorney Sidney Powell 'imminently' for defamation, and it's continuing to explore similar suits against President Trump and others, company founder and CEO John Poulos told the Axios Re:Cap podcast on Monday.... Dominion, which makes the voting machines used in Georgia and elsewhere, has been the subject of baseless accusations of malfeasance during last November's elections. Trump, during his leaked call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, called the U.S.-based company 'corrupt' and had to be corrected by Raffensperger after claiming machines had been recently removed and/or altered by Dominion employees."
The Radical Right. Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post: "... the true radicals are the enablers of President Trump's ongoing attempted coup: the media bloviators on Fox News, One America and Newsmax who parrot his lies about election fraud; and the members of Congress who plan to object on Wednesday to what should be a pro forma step of approving the electoral college results.... But instead of being called what they are, these media and political figures get a mild label: conservative.... In applying this innocuous-sounding description, the reality-based media does the public a terrible disservice. Instead of calling out the truth, it normalizes; it softens the dangerous edges.... I'd call them members of the radical right." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
The Trumpidemic, Ctd.
The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here: "More than 128,000 people across the United States are currently hospitalized with covid-19 on Monday, according to data tracked by The Washington Post. That number is a record and represents an increase of 2,800 patients in a single day."
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here: "California's daily coronavirus case tallies remain around four times what they were during the state's summer surge, and officials predict that the aftereffects of a December surge linked to holiday gatherings will worsen as the winter drags on.... Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles said on Sunday that the county's latest surge was infecting a new person every six seconds, and that many transmissions were occurring in private settings." MB: Heard on MSNBC this morning: in Los Angeles County, someone is dying of Covid-19 every 15 seconds. Update: CNN is reporting that a person dies in L.A. County every 15 minutes. That's bad, but it's different.
Carolyn Johnson of the Washington Post: "The U.S. government's top infectious-disease doctor, a leading drug regulator and the Health and Human Services secretary are dismissing suggestions that the second shot of authorized coronavirus vaccines could be delayed to make more doses available faster to more people. In recent days, some public health experts have debated whether it is worth taking a scientific gamble by altering the two-dose regimen that proved highly effective in trials to maximize the number of people partially protected with at least one shot as the pandemic surges. The debate is playing out as the United States struggles with administering the doses it already has. More than 15 million doses of vaccine have been distributed, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data updated Monday morning, but only about 4.5 million have been administered." MB: IMO, this decision is a relief. Having most Americans half-vaccinated did not seem like a very smart decision.
The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Monday are here: "Several health experts in recent days have suggested delaying the second dose of the coronavirus vaccine in order to inoculate more people, to at least some extent, sooner rather than later. The advice comes amid concerns about the highly transmissive U.K. variant which has been reported in more than 30 countries, including the United States." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Wisconsin. Shaila Dewan & Kay Nolan of the New York Times: "A pharmacist who was arrested on charges that he intentionally sabotaged more than 500 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine at a Wisconsin hospital was 'an admitted conspiracy theorist' who believed the vaccine could harm people and 'change their DNA,' according to the police in Grafton, Wis., where the man was employed. The police said Steven Brandenburg, 46, who worked the night shift at the Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, Wis., had twice removed a box of vials of the Moderna vaccine from the refrigerator for periods of 12 hours, rendering them 'useless.'... Although the Moderna product is sometimes described as a 'genetic' vaccine, it does not alter a person's genes in any way." The AP's story is here.
U.K. AP: "England is facing a third national lockdown that will last at least six weeks, as authorities struggle to stem a surge in COVID-19 infections that threatens to overwhelm hospitals around the U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday announced a tough new stay-at-home order for England that won't be reviewed until at least mid-February to combat a fast-spreading variant of the coronavirus. It takes effect at midnight Tuesday. Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon imposed a lockdown that began Tuesday. Johnson and Sturgeon said the lockdowns were needed to protect the National Health Service as a new, more contagious variant of COVID-19 sweeps across Britain. On Monday, hospitals in England were treating 26,626 coronavirus patients, 40% more than during the first pandemic peak in April."
Kate Conger of the New York Times: "More than 225 Google engineers and other workers have formed a union, the group revealed on Monday, capping years of growing activism at one of the world's largest companies and presenting a rare beachhead for labor organizers in staunchly anti-union Silicon Valley. The union's creation is highly unusual for the tech industry, which has long resisted efforts to organize its largely white-collar work force. It follows increasing demands by employees at Google for policy overhauls on pay, harassment and ethics, and is likely to escalate tensions with top leadership." The Hill's story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
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