The Commentariat -- December 5, 2020

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

Kate Sullivan of CNN: "President-elect Joe Biden said Friday that the Trump administration had shared information with his transition team about distributing a vaccine to various states, but Biden said his team had not seen a 'detailed plan.' 'There is no detailed plan that we've seen, anyway, as to how you get the vaccine out of a container, into an injection syringe, into somebody's arm,' Biden said at an event in Wilmington, Delaware. 'It's going to be very difficult for that to be done and it's a very expensive proposition,' Biden said. He noted, 'There's a lot more that has to be done.' Biden stressed the importance of distributing the vaccine in an equitable manner across the country, noting that Black and Hispanic people infected with the virus have died& at disproportionately higher rates than White people. He said his team is also looking at getting health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities the vaccine first, as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently advised." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: No one should be surprised by this, of course, but here's where we stand: (1) Trump is taking credit for the rapid development of anti-Covid vaccines (and urging the public not to give Biden credit). But of course it was drug companies who developed vaccines. (2) The Trump administration has no "detailed plan" to coordinate & facilitate distribution of vaccination units. That's the government's job. That is, Trump wants credit for something he didn't do, and isn't doing what he must do. You can bet that before the end of January, Trump will be down at Mar-a-Lago complaining that Biden hasn't distributed the vaccinations that He Trump developed. Congressional Republicans will amplify the fake complaint, reporters will report it, and millions of Republicans will buy into the lie.

The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here: "'We have not yet seen the post-Thanksgiving peak,' Anthony S. Fauci said Friday. 'That's the concerning thing, because the numbers in and of themselves are alarming.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Axios: "The government's top infectious-disease expert Anthony Fauci said Friday that he 'absolutely' will accept the offer from President-elect Joe Biden to serve as his chief medical adviser, telling NBC's 'Today' that he said yes 'right on the spot.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Real Political News

Michael Blood & Nicholas Riccardi of the AP: "California certified its presidential election Friday and appointed 55 electors pledged to vote for Democrat Joe Biden, officially handing him the Electoral College majority needed to win the White House. Secretary of State Alex Padilla's formal approval of Biden's win in the state brought his tally of pledged electors so far to 279, according to a tally by The Associated Press. That's just over the 270 threshold for victory. These steps in the election are often ignored formalities. But the hidden mechanics of electing a U.S. president have drawn new scrutiny this year as ... Donald Trump continues to deny Biden's victory and pursues increasingly specious legal strategies aimed at overturning the results before they are finalized."

Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President-elect Joe Biden on Friday urged Congress to pass a $900 billion coronavirus relief bill during the lame-duck session as a starting point in public remarks notable for their care in dealing with GOP and Democratic objections to the emerging compromise. Biden said it was critical to get a bill passed soon to provide relief to Americans hours after a new labor report showed slowing job growth as coronavirus cases spike across the country. He repeatedly dodged questions about whether he's spoken to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), while deflecting questions about progressive concerns that the legislation does not provide enough immediate help to families in need."

Dylan Stableford of Yahoo! News: "President-elect Joe Biden says he thinks it's important for the sake of appearances that President Trump attend his inauguration -- although as far as he's concerned 'it's of no personal consequence.'... In an interview that aired on Thursday night, Biden told CNN's Jake Tapper that the gesture would be 'important in the sense that we are able to demonstrate, at the end of this chaos that he's created, that there is peaceful transfer of power, with the competing parties standing there, shaking hands and moving on.'"

Greg Miller & Missy Ryan of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration has refused to allow members of President-elect Joe Biden's transition team to meet with officials at U.S. intelligence agencies that are controlled by the Pentagon, undermining prospects for a smooth transfer of power, current and former U.S. officials said. The officials said the Biden team has not been able to engage with leaders at the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other military-run spy services with classified budgets and global espionage platforms.... The delays came even as Biden advisers spent much of this week meeting with officials at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA, intelligence agencies that are independent of the Defense Department." CNN's story is here.

Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post, who enjoys thumbing her nose at Trump as much as anyone, now takes on Mitch & his confederate mob with a dose of reality: "The refusal by Republicans to acknowledge President-elect Joe Biden's election victory is remarkable in its contempt for democracy and defiance of reality.... Biden not only received a majority of the popular vote, but also cleared 51 percent -- the largest vote percentage obtained against an incumbent president since 1932 and a bigger percentage of the popular vote than any Republican president since George H.W. Bush in 1988, when Bush was essentially running for a third Ronald Reagan term. In the process, Biden amassed the largest total number of ballots in U.S. history. He pummeled Trump by more than 7 million votes (and exceeded Barack Obama's 2008 vote total by more than 11 million).... Biden's victory..., far from narrow..., represents the overwhelming verdict of the voters. If there is such a thing as a mandate, Biden has one.... Treating Biden as anything but the president-elect and denying him ample latitude to compile the Cabinet and senior staff of his choosing represents an outlandish attempt to preempt the will of more than 80 million Americans." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ To be fair, Senate Republicans have cobbled together a swell abdication excuse: it's not in their job description to call elections.

Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "The final draft of the bicameral, bipartisan-approved defense authorization bill contains a number of rebukes of President Trump's actions as commander in chief, in addition to defying him over both of the grounds on which he has threatened to veto the legislation. Topping the list is a prohibition on reducing the number of troops stationed in Germany and South Korea below current levels unless Congress receives certain guarantees that it is strategically safe and lawmakers are given ample time to consider the drawdown. The proscription against troop movements was written in response to the Trump administration's summer announcement that it planned to move about 12,000 U.S. troops out of Germany.... The defense bill directs the president within 30 days to impose sanctions against Turkey for its purchase of S-400 missile systems from Russia, a reflection of how both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have been frustrated by the administration's reluctant approach to addressing Ankara's challenges to NATO. It also orders the defense secretary to submit an annual report about any Russian-sponsored bounties for attacks against U.S. military personnel. Trump came under fire this summer for dismissing intelligence about such a scheme in Afghanistan as 'not credible.'"

Natalie Fertig of Politico: "The House on Friday passed a landmark bill that would remove federal penalties on marijuana and erase cannabis-related criminal records. The bill passed by a vote of 228-164, with several Republicans on board. While the MORE Act is not expected to come up in the Senate this year, and likely won't in the next session of Congress either, its passage nevertheless marks a monumental step in marijuana policy.... Friday's vote reflects the shift in American and global views on marijuana over the past decade...." The New York Times report is here.

Tal Axelrod of the Hill: "A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to fully restore the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which protects undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as minors from deportation, scoring a key win for immigrant advocacy groups. The ruling from U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis, a Clinton appointee, restores the Obama-era program and also mandates that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) post a public notice by Monday saying it is accepting new applicants. It would mark the first time since 2017 that the government has admitted new immigrants into the program." This is a developing story. The Washington Post's story is here. The New York Times' story is here.

** Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Dan Froomkin, a great critic of U.S. journalism, excoriates the major media for their failure to call out Trump's lies & for giving major kudos to the few reporters who occasionally, in hit-or-miss fashion, manage to write a sentence or two that point to Trumpian mendacity. "Acting with courage and integrity would have entailed news reporters and organizations calling Trump out when they would have taken some heat for it, rather than now, when Trump is quite literally a loser. And it would not reserve truth-telling for the leader alone, but for his entire movement." MB: The way I see it, we're moving almost seamlessly from he-said/she-said Trump "journalism" to he-said/she-said Biden "journalism," with a few reporters taking a short break to lick their wounds after Trump -- for five years -- called them "fake news" and "enemies of the state" and lashed out at some individual reporters.

The Last Days of the Kaiser

Everything Is Going Very Smoothly. Kyle Cheney & Josh Gerstein of Politico: "... Donald Trump and his legal allies earned a platinum sombrero Friday, striking out five times in a matter of hours in states pivotal to the president's push to overturn the election results -- and losing a sixth in Minnesota for good measure.... Several of the most devastating opinions, both Friday and in recent weeks, have come from conservative judges and, in some federal cases, Trump appointees. The losses included a rejection in Wisconsin from the state Supreme Court, where the majority was gobsmacked at the effort by a conservative group to invalidate the entire election without any compelling evidence of voter fraud or misconduct." The Washington Post's story is here.

The Party of Weanies. Amanda Carpenter, a serious winger, of the Bulwark: "Why aren't more Republicans standing up and speaking out about Donald Trump's reprehensible acts?... They're fine with it. All of it.... Take your pick of the worst events of the Trump presidency. Charlottesville, Lafayette Square, kids in cages, Trump's egging on of militiamen, pipe bombers, mass shooters, and vigilantes. None of it led to a significant break between Trump and elected Republicans.... [In Georgia,] two Republican elections officials are speaking out against Trump for the looney conspiracy theories he's pushing about how the election was supposedly stolen from him. But, one has to ask, would they be saying anything if they weren't the ones being targeted?... You see, I remember Trump calling lots of other Americans 'an enemy of the people' and putting them in danger before he attached that label to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. For some reason, though, it didn't matter to Raffensperger until it happened to him." ~~~

~~~ Georgia. Where There's Smoke, There's Smoke. Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "To date, the [Trump] campaign has done little more than throw smoke bombs and insist there's a fire. In a triumphant appearance on Sean Hannity's Fox News program Thursday night, however, Giuliani announced that all of that had changed. 'Today's video was really explosive,' he said.... The video at issue is a collection of feeds from security cameras apparently recording a ballot-counting operation in Fulton County, Ga. In it, an individual is seen directing others to pull black containers from either a shelving unit or from under a table. The containers are then taken to nearby tables, opened and apparent ballots removed. It's hard to tell what happens next, but a voice-over suggests that the half-dozen individuals in the room then scanned the ballots. What Giuliani and others claim happened is that observers were cleared from the room and that ballots hidden in suitcases were then brought out to be counted without oversight.... The fact-checking site Lead Stories dug into the claims, speaking with several Georgia officials about what the video showed. '... the work you see is the work you would expect,' said Gabriel Sterling, the state's voting systems manager, 'which is you take the sealed suitcase-looking things in, you place the ballots on the scanner in manageable batches and you scan them.'... Another official ... also denied that anyone had been told to leave the room. A monitor from the state election board also told Lead Stories that he was present the entire time." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. Matt Naham of Law & Crime: "The Georgia Kraken, when arguing on Friday that the Eleventh Circuit has jurisdiction to hear its appeal, said Dominion Voting Systems rigged the election against Joe Biden. The assertion can be found in the first paragraph of Sidney Powell and Lin Wood's background presentation of their case.... '[T]here were all imaginable varieties of voting fraud,' appellants said, 'including machine-controlled algorithms deliberately run by Dominion Voting Systems that generally took more than 2.5% of the votes from Mr. Biden and flipped them to Mr. Trump for a more than 5% fraudulent increase for Mr. Biden.' To be clear, this line says that Dominion took votes from Biden and gave them to Trump -- to increase Biden's vote. That's an ... interesting theory and 'epic fail.'" Thanks to NiskyGuy for the laugh. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Matt Naham: "A federal appellate court bookended a roller coaster of a week by rejecting Sidney Powell and Lin Wood's appeal in the so-called Kraken case that they filed in the state of Georgia. First Powell and Wood ran to the U.S. District Court over the weekend and asked for a temporary restraining order so they could conduct forensic analyses of Dominion Voting Systems machines in 10 Peach State counties. When they didn't get the order they really wanted, they went to the Eleventh Circuit with an interlocutory appeal and filed a brief just before midnight on Wednesday, asking the appellate court to decertify the presidential election. On Friday morning, Powell et al. managed to claim that Dominion had actually rigged the election against Joe Biden. By Friday evening, a ... Trump-appointed circuit judge penned the opinion of the court flatly denying their appeal on grounds that the court lacked jurisdiction."

Georgia Senate Race. Allan Smith & Dareh Gregorian of NBC News: "Former President Barack Obama and Vice President Mike Pence held dueling rallies courting Georgia voters on Friday, seeking to drum up support in the battle for control of the Senate. Obama joined 2018 gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams and the two Democratic Senate candidates, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, for a virtual rally Friday afternoon. At roughly the same time, Pence joined Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., for an in-person rally in Savannah. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., was slated to attend as well but changed plans after a campaign staffer, Harrison Deal, died in a car accident, she announced in a statement.... Donald Trump will hold a rally on Saturday in Valdosta with the two Republicans in the runoff, which is about a month away."

~~~ Marie: I didn't link this story yesterday because a U.S. senator accidentally "admitting" Joe Biden won the presidential election is no longer remarkable. Amy Gardner of the Washington Post: "Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) appeared to tacitly acknowledge President-elect Joe Biden's victory in a video recording obtained by The Washington Post on Thursday.... In a video meeting recorded Wednesday with members of the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), Perdue spoke pragmatically about the role a GOP-controlled Senate could play as a check on the Biden administration." BUT there is something remarkable in Gardner's story: the walk-back: "Perdue spokesman John Burke called the video a 'non-story,' adding: 'Senator Perdue totally supports President Trump and his fight for transparency and accuracy in this election.'" The state of the federal government is that a U.S. senator has to have a staffer go out & self-pretzelize in order to downplay a fact that everyone but the Mad Kaiser accepts.

Making the World Less Safe for Democracy. Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "President Trump, pressing his end-of-term troop withdrawals from conflicts around the world, will pull American forces out of Somalia, where they have been trying to push back advances by Islamist insurgents in the Horn of Africa. The Pentagon announced on Friday that virtually all of the approximately 700 troops in Somalia -- most Special Operations forces who have been conducting training and counterterrorism missions -- will be leaving by Jan. 15, five days before President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is scheduled to be inaugurated. The withdrawal from Somalia followed Mr. Trump's orders to reduce the American presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, and reflected the president's longstanding desire to end long-running military engagements against Islamist insurgencies in failed and fragile countries in Africa and the Middle East, a grinding mission that has spread since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.... Mr. Trump's push to leave Somalia before he leaves office comes at a delicate time for the East African nation: It is preparing for parliamentary elections next month and a presidential election scheduled for early February.... Many of the American troops will be 'repositioned' to nearby Kenya, a Defense Department official said Friday." MB: Looks like "deep-state" Pentagon push-back. An AP story is here.

Lara Seligman, et al., of Politico: "The White House removed nine members of the Pentagon's Defense Business Board on Friday and installed people loyal to ... Donald Trump in their place, including presidential allies Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie. The firings marked the latest effort by the Trump administration to clean out the Defense Department in the final weeks of the president's term.... 'A number of board members have been terminated with a form letter. In my experience, I was very surprised that the White House would, at the eleventh hour, adjust an advisory board that for 19 years has had a record of nonpartisan support with the department,' Michael Bayer, who until today was board chair, told Politico. 'This kind of a move really will weigh heavily on people in the future and their willingness to serve on these outside advisory boards if they're going to be subjected to political loyalty tests. It's unprecedented. I'm just saddened,' he added."

Nathan McDermott, et al., of CNN: "... Donald Trump's nominee to become a senior Pentagon official spread debunked conspiracies on Twitter that called Trump's election loss to Joe Biden a 'coup' attempt and shared tweets that suggest Trump should declare martial law. Scott O'Grady, a former fighter pilot and Trump loyalist, repeatedly retweeted tweets that falsely stated Trump won the election in 'landslide fashion' and that millions of votes were stolen from the President.... O'Grady was nominated by the White House to become an assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs at the Pentagon.... CNN's KFile reviewed O'Grady's tweets and media appearances and found that O'Grady shared other debunked election conspiracies and that he also degraded top military and intelligence officials. In a radio interview, he called former President Barack Obama and military generals 'sworn socialists,' and advocated that the military justice system should bring back treason charges. He retweeted a tweet that called former Defense Secretary James Mattis a 'traitor.'" And so forth. Lotsa so-forth. MB: I'm just thinking top DOD jobs should go to people who are (1) fairly apolitical and (2) fairly sane. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

John Hudson of the Washington Post: "The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee called on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to cancel several holiday parties, saying they violate his own guidelines against holding 'non-mission critical' gatherings during a raging pandemic and needlessly jeopardize the health of federal employees. 'I am concerned that these parties pose a significant health risk, not only to attendees, but to the employees and workers who must staff these events, as well as to State Department employees who may feel pressured to attend,' Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey said in a letter addressed to Pompeo on Thursday.... 'We plan to fully enforce social distancing measures at this reception, and face coverings are mandatory for admittance,' said a State Department spokesman.... When asked how he could expect attendees to keep masks on at a reception that includes food and drinks, the spokesman did not offer a response. He also did not explain how the department would enforce social distancing, if even a fraction of the 900 guests [for one event] show up." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Here's something I really don't get: why are the Pompeos doing this? There is ample evidence that most Republicans are sadists. But still.

Betsy DeVos Does Something Decent. Michael Stratford of Politico: "The Trump administration on Friday granted an extra month of student loan relief to the 41 million Americans who have been benefiting from a freeze on monthly payments and interest that was set to expire at the end of the year. That relief was set to expire on Dec. 31 but will now end on Jan. 31. The last-minute extension averts what could have been a potentially chaotic resumption of payments just weeks before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.... Biden has not committed to any specific executive action on student loans, but he is widely expected to further continue in some form the same freeze on monthly payments and interest the Trump administration has now twice extended through executive action." MB: The full loan repayments will still come due, so the government is losing no more than the use of the money for a period of time. But still, it's something. My guess is that Betsy doesn't want to be bothered with making the effort to to dun the loan recipients.

Lachlan Markay of the Daily Beast: "The Republican National Committee paid more than $300,000 in October to a company owned by Donald Trump Jr. to purchase copies of his new, self-published book. Autographed copies of the book, Liberal Privilege, were given out to donors who contributed between $50 and $100 to the RNC, according to a source familiar with the arrangement.... It's common for political groups to buy books written by prominent public officials and offer them as gifts for their financial supporters.... But the RNC's payment to Trump Jr.'s company in October was the largest single payment -- out of more than 700 -- that the committee has ever reported for donor 'mementos' or 'gifts,' according to Federal Election Commission filings." MB: Darn! I didn't contribute to the RNC, but I sure could use an autographed copy of Junior's book. I lost a back foot on a small refrigerator, & Junior's book might be just right to "stand in" for the foot.

The Commentariat -- December 4, 2020

Afternoon Update:

From Friday's WashPo Covid-19 updates, also linked below: "'We have not yet seen the post-Thanksgiving peak,' Anthony S. Fauci said Friday. 'That's the concerning thing, because the numbers in and of themselves are alarming.'"

Axios: "The government's top infectious-disease expert Anthony Fauci said Friday that he 'absolutely' will accept the offer from President-elect Joe Biden to serve as his chief medical adviser, telling NBC's 'Today' that he said yes 'right on the spot.'"

Where There's Smoke, There's Smoke. Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "To date, the [Trump] campaign has done little more than throw smoke bombs and insist there's a fire. In a triumphant appearance on Sean Hannity's Fox News program Thursday night, however, Giuliani announced that all of that had changed. 'Today's video was really explosive,' he said.... The video at issue is a collection of feeds from security cameras apparently recording a ballot-counting operation in Fulton County, Ga. In it, an individual is seen directing others to pull black containers from either a shelving unit or from under a table. The containers are then taken to nearby tables, opened and apparent ballots removed. It's hard to tell what happens next, but a voice-over suggests that the half-dozen individuals in the room then scanned the ballots. What Giuliani and others claim happened is that observers were cleared from the room and that ballots hidden in suitcases were then brought out to be counted without oversight.... The fact-checking site Lead Stories dug into the claims, speaking with several Georgia officials about what the video showed. '... the work you see is the work you would expect,' said Gabriel Sterling, the state's voting systems manager, 'which is you take the sealed suitcase-looking things in, you place the ballots on the scanner in manageable batches and you scan them.'... Another official ... also denied that anyone had been told to leave the room. A monitor from the state election board also told Lead Stories that he was present the entire time."

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. Matt Naham of Law & Crime: "The Georgia Kraken, when arguing on Friday that the Eleventh Circuit has jurisdiction to hear its appeal, said Dominion Voting Systems rigged the election against Joe Biden. The assertion can be found in the first paragraph of Sidney Powell and Lin Wood's background presentation of their case.... '[T]here were all imaginable varieties of voting fraud,' appellants said, 'including machine-controlled algorithms deliberately run by Dominion Voting Systems that generally took more than 2.5% of the votes from Mr. Biden and flipped them to Mr. Trump for a more than 5% fraudulent increase for Mr. Biden.' To be clear, this line says that Dominion took votes from Biden and gave them to Trump -- to increase Biden's vote. That's an ... interesting theory and 'epic fail.'" Thanks to NiskyGuy for the laugh.

Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post, who enjoys thumbing her nose at Trump as much as anyone, now takes on Mitch & his confederate mob: "The refusal by Republicans to acknowledge President-elect Joe Biden's election victory is remarkable in its contempt for democracy and defiance of reality.... Biden not only received a majority of the popular vote, but also cleared 51 percent -- the largest vote percentage obtained against an incumbent president since 1932 and a bigger percentage of the popular vote than any Republican president since George H.W. Bush in 1988, when Bush was essentially running for a third Ronald Reagan term. In the process, Biden amassed the largest total number of ballots in U.S. history. He pummeled Trump by more than 7 million votes (and exceeded Barack Obama's 2008 vote total by more than 11 million).... Biden's victory..., far from narrow..., represents the overwhelming verdict of the voters. If there is such a thing as a mandate, Biden has one.... Treating Biden as anything but the president-elect and denying him ample latitude to compile the Cabinet and senior staff of his choosing represents an outlandish attempt to preempt the will of more than 80 million Americans."

Nathan McDermott, et al., of CNN: "... Donald Trump's nominee to become a senior Pentagon official spread debunked conspiracies on Twitter that called Trump's election loss to Joe Biden a 'coup' attempt and shared tweets that suggest Trump should declare martial law. Scott O'Grady, a former fighter pilot and Trump loyalist, repeatedly retweeted tweets that falsely stated Trump won the election in 'landslide fashion' and that millions of votes were stolen from the President.... O'Grady was nominated by the White House to become an assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs at the Pentagon.... CNN's KFile reviewed O'Grady's tweets and media appearances and found that O'Grady shared other debunked election conspiracies and that he also degraded top military and intelligence officials. In a radio interview, he called former President Barack Obama and military generals 'sworn socialists,' and advocated that the military justice system should bring back treason charges. He retweeted a tweet that called former Defense Secretary James Mattis a 'traitor.'" And so forth. Lotsa so-forth. MB: I'm just thinking top DOD jobs should go to people who are (1) fairly apolitical and (2) fairly sane.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

Stuart Thompson in a New York Times op-ed: "A vaccine may be around the corner, but how long will it be until you get the shot? Health officials are considering vaccine timelines that give some Americans priority over others. If you're a healthy American, you may wait many months for your turn. To put this in perspective, we worked with the Surgo Foundation and vaccine tool to calculate the number of people who will need a vaccine in each state and county -- and where you might fit in that line." MB: The article includes a swell interactive feature that allows you to enter some personal information to find out where you stand in line, according to parameters identified by the researchers.

The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here: "Nearly 213,000 new coronavirus cases were reported across the United States on Thursday, the highest number yet. And at least 2,500 covid-19 deaths were reported for the third consecutive day -- the deadliest stretch since the pandemic began."

Jeff Cox of CNBC: "Nonfarm payrolls increased by just 245,000 in November, well below Wall Street estimates as rising coronavirus cases coincided with a considerable slowdown in hiring.... Though the U.S. is coming off its fastest growth quarter ever, economists worry that the next quarter or two could see flat or even negative growth before rebounding strongly in the latter part of 2021. The November job gains would be considered strong under normal circumstances, but the pandemic has left millions of Americans out of work from jobs lost in the early stages of the crisis. The total represents the slowest job growth since the employment recovery began in May." The Washington Post's report is here.

Dan Merica of CNN: "President-elect Joe Biden told CNN's Jake Tapper on Thursday that he will ask Americans to wear masks for his first 100 days after he takes office, in a sign of how Biden's approach to the virus will be dramatically different to ... Donald Trump's response. 'Just 100 days to mask, not forever. 100 days. And I think we'll see a significant reduction,' Biden told Tapper during his first joint interview with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris since winning the election. The full interview will air at 9 p.m. ET [Thursday]. Biden said that where he has authority, like in federal buildings or in interstate transportation on airplanes and buses, he will issue a standing order that masks must be worn.... Biden also said he has asked Dr. Anthony Fauci to be a chief medical adviser and part of his Covid-19 response team when his administration begins next year."

Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, talked on Thursday about reaching agreement on must-pass government funding legislation and on another coronavirus relief package, amid pressure from rank and file members for a bipartisan compromise.... But Mr. McConnell appeared to be [interested in] a much smaller stimulus proposal he began circulating earlier this week that he said would be able to secure President Trump's signature, not the compromise measure being developed by a group of moderate senators in both parties.... Mr. McConnell has been largely removed from discussions with Ms. Pelosi over another stimulus bill since the two chambers enacted a sweeping $2.2 trillion stimulus law in March.... Later on Thursday, more Republican senators signaled openness to embracing the $908 billion framework that Democratic leaders had endorsed as a baseline for restarting negotiations." This is an item in the Times' Biden transition live updates. ~~~

~~~ Patricia Cohen of the New York Times: "The coronavirus pandemic has inflicted an economic battering on state and local governments, shrinking tax receipts by hundreds of billions of dollars. Now devastating budget cuts loom, threatening to cripple public services and pare work forces far beyond the 1.3 million jobs lost in eight months. Governors, mayors and county executives have pleaded for federal aid before the end of the year. Congressional Republicans have scorned such assistance, with the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, calling it a 'blue-state bailout.' But it turns out ... six of the seven states that are expected to suffer the biggest revenue declines over the next two years are red -- states led by Republican governors and won by President Trump this year, according to a report from Moody's Analytics."

Best Excuse Ever for Holding Crowded Parties. Lydia O'Connor of the Huffington Post (12/2): "The White House plans at least 25 indoor holiday parties this month. All will include more than 50 guests, The Washington Post reported, and few attendees will be tested in advance. Invitations make no mention of coronavirus precautions.... A reporter who asked [White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany] at a news briefing how the White House could continue with planned holiday parties while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asks Americans to forgo celebrations to slow the spread of COVID-19. 'If you can loot businesses, burn down buildings, engage in a protest, you can also go to a Christmas party,' McEnany responded. 'You can celebrate the holiday of Christmas, and you can do it responsibly.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Love the way Mac-a-Ninny equates protests with looting & burning down buildings. Perhaps more important: equating looting & burning down buildings with hosting unprotected, crowded parties may be a fair comparison, but it's not a great argument.

Ariane de Vogue of CNN: "The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with a California ministry that argued the state's Covid-related restrictions on indoor services violated its religious liberty rights, the court's second such ruling on pandemic guidelines for churches in two weeks. In an unsigned order, the justices sent the dispute between the Harvest Rock International Ministry and California Gov. Gavin Newsom back to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals to further consider the case in light of its ruling from last week when the court blocked similar restrictions in New York. There were no noted dissents.... To make their point [the ministry] included in the legal filing a picture of Newsom at a restaurant with a large gathering where no one was wearing masks." (Also linked yesterday.)

Return to Normality

Morgan Chalfont of the Hill: "President-elect Joe Biden pledged Thursday that the Justice Department will be run independently and not be influenced by politics when he takes office. 'It's not my Justice Department. It's the people's Justice Department,' Biden told CNN's Jake Tapper. The president-elect said the officials he chooses to lead the Justice Department will have the 'independent capacity to decide who gets prosecuted and who doesn't.'"

Toluse Olorunnipa & Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post: "President-elect Joe Biden has selected a close adviser to help lead the nation's response to the coronavirus crisis, tapping a veteran of the Obama administration to serve as America's top doctor as the country suffers from a surging pandemic. Vivek H. Murthy, a former U.S. surgeon general, has been asked to reprise the role in an expanded version in the new administration, according to an individual familiar with the decision. Murthy is expected to be part of a team of health-care officials charged with tackling the issue Biden has said would be his top priority upon taking office, according to people with knowledge of the matter, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because decisions have not been officially announced. On Thursday, Biden told CNN that Anthony S. Fauci, the nation's top infectious-disease expert, would serve as a chief medical adviser and help his administration with its coronavirus response plan. Fauci, who served on President Trump's coronavirus task force, has been attacked by the president in recent months as he has contradicted the White House's message that the pandemic is under control and on the verge of disappearing."

Jim Tankersley & Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has officially selected Brian Deese, who played a leading role in bailing out the automotive industry and negotiating the Paris climate agreement under President Barack Obama, to head the National Economic Council, his transition team said Thursday. The appointment, which does not require Senate confirmation, highlights Mr. Biden's plans to use economic policy initiatives to drive climate policy. It also defies pre-emptive criticism from some environmental groups, which have targeted Mr. Deese for his work in recent years as the sustainability director for the asset-management giant BlackRock."

Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post: "Vice President-Elect Kamala D. Harris will name Tina Flournoy Chief of Staff, the transition team announced Thursday, tapping a trailblazer with decades of Washington experience to help run the vice presidential operation. Harris's longtime aide Rohini Kosoglu will serve as domestic policy advisor, and former ambassador to Bulgaria Nancy McEldowney will advise her on national security. Flournoy had been serving as Chief of Staff to former President Bill Clinton, hovering out of the direct Washington spotlight for a few years after serving in several prominent roles in the Democratic party throughout the 1990s and 2000s."

The Last Days of the Kaiser

Pardon Us. All of Us. Anita Kumar & Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "... Donald Trump is considering preemptively pardoning as many as 20 aides and associates before leaving office.... Still, Trump is hesitant to pardon any of them, particularly [Rudy] Giuliani, because it may appear that members of his inner circle are criminals, said one of the three people, who spoke to Trump this week. The Giuliani pardon has been discussed more seriously, the person added." MB: Much of this story is dedicated to how upset "Republicans" are about Trump's wholesale (well, okay, he likely charges retail) pardons. Upset? Seems like the reporters' wishful thinking. The senators they cited hardly expressed outrage. ~~~

~~~ Pardons for Dollars. Michael Schmidt, et al., of the New York Times: "The Justice Department investigated as recently as this summer the roles of a top fund-raiser for President Trump and a lawyer for his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in a suspected scheme to offer a bribe in exchange for clemency for a tax crimes convict, according to two people familiar with the inquiry. A federal judge in Washington unsealed heavily redacted court documents on Tuesday that disclosed the existence of the investigation into possible unregistered lobbying and bribery. The people said it concerned efforts by the lawyer for Mr. Kushner, Abbe Lowell, and the fund-raiser, Elliott Broidy, who pleaded guilty in October to a charge related to a different scheme to lobby the Trump administration. A billionaire real estate developer from the San Francisco area, Sanford Diller, enlisted their help in securing clemency for a Berkeley psychologist, Hugh L. Baras, who had received a 30-month prison sentence on a conviction of tax evasion and improperly claiming Social Security benefits.... Mr. Diller ... died in February 2018, and there is no evidence that the effort continued after his death.... Mr. Baras did not receive clemency."

"Very Bad Criminal Stuff." Morgan Chalfant of the Hill: "President Trump said Thursday he is disappointed in Attorney General William Barr for saying that the Justice Department had not uncovered evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.... 'He hasn't done anything, so he hasn't looked. When he looks, he'll see the kind of evidence that right now you are seeing in the Georgia Senate. They are going through hearings right now in Georgia and they are finding tremendous volumes,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. 'So, they haven't looked very hard. Which is a disappointment, to be honest with you, because it's massive fraud.' The president also declined to offer a vote of confidence in Barr when asked. 'Ask me that in a number of weeks from now. They should be looking at all of this fraud,' he said. 'This is not civil. He thought it was civil. This is not civil. This is criminal stuff. This is very bad criminal stuff.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ DOJ Throws Trump Aide Out of the Building. Michael Balsamo & Zeke Miller of the AP: "The official serving as ... Donald Trump's eyes and ears at the Justice Department has been banned from the building after trying to pressure staffers to give up sensitive information about election fraud and other matters she could relay to the White House, three people familiar with the matter tell The Associated Press. Heidi Stirrup, an ally of top Trump adviser Stephen Miller, was quietly installed at the Justice Department as a White House liaison a few months ago. She was told within the last two weeks to vacate the building after top Justice officials learned of her efforts to collect insider information about ongoing cases and the department's work on election fraud, the people said. Stirrup is accused of approaching staffers in the department demanding they give her information about investigations, including election fraud matters...." ~~~

    ~~~ Marie: In case you're thinking, "But maybe Heidi is a good person," there's this near the end of the AP story: "Stirrup, a close ally of [Stephen] Miller, previously served as the acting director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement...." Nuf said. ~~~

     ~~~ So Then. Lachlan Markay of the Daily Beast: "... Donald Trump has rewarded some of his top fundraisers [& other loyalists] with plumb federal positions that will outlast his single term in office.... [Among] 24 appointments to various federal bodies announced on Thursday: Heidi Stirrup, a White House liaison to the Department of Justice, landed a spot on the Board of Visitors to the United States Air Force Academy."

"Incontrovertible Evidence" of Election Fraud! Jeffrey Martin of Newsweek: "Former Trump adviser Roger Stone claimed on Wednesday that North Korea had interfered in the U.S. presidential election.... 'I just learned of absolute incontrovertible evidence of North Korean boats delivering ballots through a harbor in Maine, the state of Maine,' Stone said. 'If this checks out, if law enforcement looked into that and it turned out to be true, it would be proof of foreign involvement in the election.'" MB: Wait, wait, Roger; I'm all confused. If the evidence is "incontrovertible," why does it need to be "checked out" to see if "it turned out to be true"? Sounds a tad "controvertible" to me. (Also linked yesterday.)

The Trump Clown Car Takes on Excellent Ghostbuster Witness. Will Sommer of the Daily Beast: "Truck driver Jesse Morgan thrust himself into the middle of the post-2020 election drama on Tuesday when he claimed at a press conference that he had unwittingly driven a truck full of suspicious mail-in ballots from New York to Pennsylvania ahead of Election Day.... The appearance at a voter fraud event hosted by the right-wing Thomas More Center turned Morgan into the latest viral star on the Trumpist right. And, soon enough, his claims were being amplified by the president, his legal team, conservative groups unaffiliated with the campaign, and Trump supporters themselves all of whom have argued that nearly 300,000 bogus mail-in ballots were used in Pennsylvania, Morgan's home state, to put Joe Biden over the top.... In addition to witnessing supposed voter fraud, the man believes his family has been stalked cross-country by ghosts. Before he became a hero in MAGAworld, Morgan was an amateur ghost-hunter." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ So that's Trump's star witness in Pennsylvania. But what about Michigan? you ask. ~~~

~~~ Teo Armus of the Washington Post: "Weeks after Melissa Carone was tapped by the Trump campaign as a star witness in Michigan, little appeared to be going as planned with the contract IT worker's testimony -- an unverified series of claims about ballot fraud at Detroit's vote-counting center. In interviews with conservative-leaning media, last month, her offbeat tale suggesting ballots were being smuggled inside food vans seemed to baffle even Fox Business host Lou Dobbs. Two days later, a Wayne County judge ruled that her allegations 'simply are not credible.' Yet, there she was in front of a Michigan House panel on Wednesday, dressing down a Republican lawmaker as she loudly insisted, without proof, that tens of thousands of votes had been counted twice. At one point, she was audibly shushed by ... Rudolph W. Giuliani.... On social media, her pointed declarations, Midwestern lilt and poofy, blond updo drew comparisons to 'Saturday Night Live' characters played by Victoria Jackson and Cecily Strong." (Also linked yesterday.)

Wisconsin. State Supremes Throw Trump Out of Court. Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday declined to take up a challenge to the presidential election filed by President Trump's campaign, finding that under state law, it should have sought a hearing first in a lower-level court. Trump's campaign could still seek to challenge President-elect Joe Biden's more than 20,000-vote lead in the state in Wisconsin circuit court. But the refusal of the state's highest court to take up Trump's petition is a new blow to Trump's foundering efforts to overturn the election -- and a particularly stinging rebuke, given that conservatives hold a 4-to-3 majority on the elected panel. One conservative member of the panel, Brian Hagedorn, joined the court's three more liberal members in declining to take the case." An AP story is here. The New York Times' story is here.

Georgia Senate Race. A Florida Man Is up to No Good Again. Nicole Carr of WSB-TV Atlanta: "A Florida attorney is at the center of a new state investigation after elections officials say he recently attempted to register to vote in Georgia and instructed other Florida Republicans on how to do it. Bill Price is seen in a now-deleted Facebook Live video, speaking to the Bay County GOP members in Florida on Nov. 7th. It was about half an hour after the election was called for the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris ticket. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger confirmed the video is being investigated....'Those who move to Georgia just to vote in the Senate runoffs with no intention of staying are committing a felony that is punishable with jailtime and hefty fines....' ''We absolutely have to hold the Senate and we have to start fighting back, and we have to do whatever it takes,' Price said in the video. 'And if that means changing your address for the next two months, so be it. I'm doing that. I'm moving to Georgia and I'm gonna fight and I want you all to fight with me.' Price told the group he's moving to his brother's address in Hiram, Georgia in order to register to vote in the January runoff. He repeats and spells and his brother's name and address, as members of the group jot it down."

~~~ Marie: In case you have any friends who are Georgia voters & who think "divided government" will lead to "moderate" outcomes, send them E.J. Dionne's Washington Post column to disabuse them of that idea. (Also linked yesterday.)

Russ Buettner of the New York Times: "President Trump will face a raft of potential legal challenges when he leaves office.... Now add to that Leonie Green of the Westminster Apartments in Brooklyn. Ms. Green is among a group of tenants in rent-regulated apartments once owned by Mr. Trump's father who have filed a lawsuit against the president and his siblings, accusing the Trumps of a decade-long fraud to win artificially high rent increases through an invoice-padding scheme. The scheme, first revealed in a 2018 investigation by The New York Times, involved tacking at least 20 percent onto the cost of materials purchased for the apartments, with Mr. Trump, his siblings and a cousin splitting the extra proceeds. The maneuver generated millions of dollars for each sibling, with no work required. While the siblings were still liable for income taxes, the maneuver allowed them to evade far-higher gift and estate taxes on part of the fortune they received from their father. But the tenants paid a price. New York laws governing rent-regulated apartments allow owners to increase rents based on the costs of major capital improvements.... The new lawsuit ... seeks the extra rent paid, plus interest and triple damages, for current and former tenants in more than 30 apartment complexes that belonged to the president's father, Fred C. Trump."

Jacqueline Alemany & David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "Ivanka Trump was questioned for more than five hours this week by investigators from the D.C. attorney general's office, which has accused President Trump's Inaugural Committee of wasting donated money on an overpriced ballroom at the president;s D.C. hotel, Ivanka Trump said on Twitter Thursday.... On Twitter on Thursday, D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine (D) replied to Ivanka Trump's post with a message calling the Trump hotel's bills 'grossly overpriced.' 'Our investigation revealed the Committee willfully used nonprofit funds to enrich the Trump family. It's very simple: They broke the law. That's why we sued,' Racine wrote in another tweet. In a lawsuit filed in January, Racine said that the Trump Inaugural Committee -- legally a nonprofit, using donated money -- and the Trump hotel took advantage of that arrangement. Racine said the Inaugural Committee spent more than $1 million on a ballroom at the hotel over several days. The rate was $175,000 per day, plus about $300,000 in charges for food and beverages." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: According to Emily Fox of Vanity Fair, who appeared on MSNBC, Ivanka was responsible for approving the price charged to the inaugural committee, which Fox said was 35 times the price the hotel normally charges to non-profits.

Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "White House communications director Alyssa Farah resigned from her post Thursday after 3½ years in the Trump administration. Farah, 31, began her White House tenure as press secretary under Vice President Pence before joining the Defense Department as press secretary last September, and she returned to the White House as communications director in April. She is the first person to serve in these three roles in one administration, and the youngest Pentagon press secretary. Farah's departure, with little over a month remaining in President Trump's administration, amounts to a tacit acknowledgment that ... Trump lost the 2020 election, and much of his team is now pondering their post-White House future." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I wondered why Farah would resign with fewer than seven weeks left of this pathetic administration. Then, I saw this near the end of Parker's report: "Much of Farah's final months focused on the coronavirus pandemic...." So I'm guessing Farah has nothing to do and is not that enthusiastic a thumb-twiddler.

That's the Way It Always Goes. Matt Bonesteel of the Washington Post: "In September, prosecutors in Florida dropped misdemeanor prostitution charges against New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft after a state appeals court ruled that footage of Kraft from a police-installed video camera inside the Orchids of Asia spa had been obtained using unconstitutional methods and would be inadmissible at trial. The case didn't end there, however. Three Orchids of Asia employees, including two women Kraft was accused of patronizing, have pleaded guilty to prostitution-related charges. They must pay thousands of dollars in fines, court fees and cash forfeitures and face months of probation. One other employee already had pleaded guilty in February and was sentenced to the 60 days she had spent in custody awaiting an outcome of her case."

Beyond the Beltway

California. Mystery Monolith Updates. Samir Ferdowsi of Vice: "Another unexplained monolith has been spotted, this time in Atascadero, California. The ever-familiar silver silhouette stands atop Pine Mountain, which is located between the Bay Area and Los Angeles. It closely resembles the first monolith found in Utah, but the haste at which it was seemingly placed mimics that of its Romanian counterpart." ~~~

~~~ Samir Ferdowsi: "The new California monolith was torn down overnight by a group of right-wing young men who livestreamed their vandalism in a grainy video posted on the blockchain streaming site DLive. In the video, a group of three men are seen pushing the statue over and chanting 'America First' and 'Christ is King.' The men, one of whom was wearing a 'Make America Great Again' headband, called part of the monolith's construction 'gay' then replaced it monolith with a wooden cross.... Throughout the video they mentioning burning crosses and white power.... It is a decidedly bleak turn in the ongoing monolith saga that has generally been a delightful distraction for a world wracked by a pandemic."

News Lede

New York Times: "Betsy Wade, the first woman to edit news copy for The New York Times and the lead plaintiff in a landmark sex discrimination lawsuit against the newspaper on behalf of its female employees, died on Thursday at her home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She was 91. Her death was confirmed by her husband, James Boylan, who said she had learned in 2017 that she had colon cancer. In a 45-year Times career, Ms. Wade also became the first woman to lead the Newspaper Guild of New York, the largest local in the national journalism union (now known as the NewsGuild). She was revered among peers for her role in the 1974 class-action suit against The Times, one of the industry's earliest fights over women's rights to equal treatment in hiring, promotion, pay and workplace protections under federal antidiscrimination laws."

The Commentariat -- December 3, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Ariane de Vogue of CNN: "The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with a California ministry that argued the state's Covid-related restrictions on indoor services violated its religious liberty rights, the court's second such ruling on pandemic guidelines for churches in two weeks. In an unsigned order, the justices sent the dispute between the Harvest Rock International Ministry and California Gov. Gavin Newsom back to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals to further consider the case in light of its ruling from last week when the court blocked similar restrictions in New York. There were no noted dissents.... To make their point [the ministry] included in the legal filing a picture of Newsom at a restaurant with a large gathering where no one was wearing masks."

"Very Bad Criminal Stuff." Morgan Chalfant of the Hill: "President Trump said Thursday he is disappointed in Attorney General William Barr for saying that the Justice Department had not uncovered evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.... 'He hasn't done anything, so he hasn't looked. When he looks, he'll see the kind of evidence that right now you are seeing in the Georgia Senate. They are going through hearings right now in Georgia and they are finding tremendous volumes,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. 'So, they haven't looked very hard. Which is a disappointment, to be honest with you, because it's massive fraud.' The president also declined to offer a vote of confidence in Barr when asked. 'Ask me that in a number of weeks from now. They should be looking at all of this fraud,' he said. 'This is not civil. He thought it was civil. This is not civil. This is criminal stuff. This is very bad criminal stuff.'"

"Incontrovertible Evidence" of Election Fraud! Jeffrey Martin of Newsweek: "Former Trump adviser Roger Stone claimed on Wednesday that North Korea had interfered in the U.S. presidential election.... 'I just learned of absolute incontrovertible evidence of North Korean boats delivering ballots through a harbor in Maine, the state of Maine,' Stone said. 'If this checks out, if law enforcement looked into that and it turned out to be true, it would be proof of foreign involvement in the election.'" MB: Wait, wait, Roger; I'm all confused. If the evidence is "incontrovertible," why does it need to be "checked out" to see if "it turned out to be true"? Sounds a tad "controvertible" to me.

The Trump Clown Car Takes on Excellent Ghostbuster Witness. Will Sommer of the Daily Beast: "Truck driver Jesse Morgan thrust himself into the middle of the post-2020 election drama on Tuesday when he claimed at a press conference that he had unwittingly driven a truck full of suspicious mail-in ballots from New York to Pennsylvania ahead of Election Day.... The appearance at a voter fraud event hosted by the right-wing Thomas More Center turned Morgan into the latest viral star on the Trumpist right. And, soon enough, his claims were being amplified by the president, his legal team, conservative groups unaffiliated with the campaign, and Trump supporters themselves all of whom have argued that nearly 300,000 bogus mail-in ballots were used in Pennsylvania, Morgan's home state, to put Joe Biden over the top.... In addition to witnessing supposed voter fraud, the man believes his family has been stalked cross-country by ghosts. Before he became a hero in MAGAworld, Morgan was an amateur ghost-hunter." ~~~

~~~ So that's Trump's star witness in Pennsylvania. But what about Michigan? you ask. ~~~

~~~ Teo Armus of the Washington Post: "Weeks after Melissa Carone was tapped by the Trump campaign as a star witness in Michigan, little appeared to be going as planned with the contract IT worker's testimony -- an unverified series of claims about ballot fraud at Detroit's vote-counting center. In interviews with conservative-leaning media, last month, her offbeat tale suggesting ballots were being smuggled inside food vans seemed to baffle even Fox Business host Lou Dobbs. Two days later, a Wayne County judge ruled that her allegations 'simply are not credible.' Yet, there she was in front of a Michigan House panel on Wednesday, dressing down a Republican lawmaker as she loudly insisted, without proof, that tens of thousands of votes had been counted twice. At one point, she was audibly shushed by ... Rudolph W. Giuliani.... On social media, her pointed declarations, Midwestern lilt and poofy, blond updo drew comparisons to 'Saturday Night Live' characters played by Victoria Jackson and Cecily Strong."

Marie: In case you have any friends who are Georgia voters & who think "divided government" will lead to "moderate" outcomes, send them E.J. Dionne's Washington Post column to disabuse them of that idea.

~~~~~~~~~~

Nahal Toosi, et al., of Politico: "Now that he's chosen a big chunk of his Cabinet nominees, President-elect Joe Biden's transition team is focusing increasingly on selecting candidates for government positions that do not require Senate confirmation. Concerned about Republicans slow-walking confirmation hearings ... and hollowed-out federal agencies, Biden and his aides are eager to place mid- to lower-level officials across the federal government, particularly in national security roles, to ensure his administration can begin to enact his agenda immediately, according to three people familiar with the situation. By quickly selecting candidates for slots that don't require Senate confirmation, such as deputy assistant secretaries, the transition team also can try to ensure that many of those hired can obtain security clearances by the time Biden takes office. The shift in focus to filling positions that do not require confirmation reflects the urgency with which the Biden team sees its staffing conundrum.... It also signals Biden's anxiousness to replace Trump appointees and fill long-empty positions as soon as possible so he can enact his agenda." (Also linked yesterday.)

Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: "President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has no plans to remove Christopher Wray, the F.B.I. director installed by President Trump if he is still in the job when the new administration comes in, according to a senior adviser to Mr. Biden with knowledge of the process. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said Mr. Biden's team was 'not removing the F.B.I. director unless Trump fired him' -- signaling a return to pre-Trump norms of continuity at a core domestic law enforcement agency that is supposed to operate without political meddling." This is an item in the Times' transition updates Wednesday. (Also linked yesterday.)

Alex Thompson & Theodoric Meyer of Politico: "A former colleague of Heather Boushey, a top economic adviser to President-elect Joe Biden, is publicly airing prior accusations that Boushey mismanaged the think tank she runs and verbally abused her and other subordinates, saying she wants to prevent future White House employees from enduring a similar experience. Claudia Sahm, a former director of macroeconomic policy at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, Boushey's think tank, published an account of her and other former employees' experiences working with Boushey on her personal website Tuesday night.... Former subordinates and employees have alleged that Boushey was 'phenomenally incompetent as a manager' and had 'frequent episodes of yelling and swearing.' The complaints were serious enough that the think tank where she worked hired a management coach to work with her to improve her management style around 2015.... The revelations resurfaced Tuesday night, just hours after the president-elect publicly introduced Boushey as a member of his Council of Economic Advisers."

The Last Days of the Kaiser

The Kaiser Has No Clothes. Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Trump on Wednesday released a 46-minute videotaped speech that denounced a 'rigged' election and was filled with lies the day after his own attorney general joined election officials across the country in attesting to his defeat. Mr. Trump recorded what he said 'may be the most important speech I've ever made' in the Diplomatic Room of the White House and delivered it behind a lectern bearing the presidential seal. He then posted a two-minute version on Twitter, with a link to the full version on his Facebook page. The president once again refused to concede defeat in his bid for re-election almost a month after Election Day, repeating a long list of false assertions about voter fraud and accusing Democrats of a conspiracy to steal the presidency. Twitter quickly labeled the post 'disputed.' Facebook added a note that President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., who received almost 81 million votes and 306 electoral votes, is the projected winner of the election. The video, which a White House official said was recorded last week, was the in-person embodiment of Mr. Trump's staccato tweets over the past three weeks: one falsehood after another about voting irregularities in swing states, attacks on state officials and signature verifications, and false accusations against Democrats." ~~~

~~~ Aamer Madhani & Kevin Freking of the AP: "Increasingly detached from reality..., Donald Trump stood before a White House lectern and delivered a 46-minute diatribe against the election results that produced a win for Democrat Joe Biden, unspooling one misstatement after another to back his baseless claim that he really won." ~~~

~~~ Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "Over the length of a 46-minute video posted to social media Wednesday, President Trump read and riffed on a prepared script lambasting those who had the audacity to suggest that receiving fewer votes than his opponent meant he shouldn't serve a second consecutive term in office.... It was, almost literally, a distillation of the past four weeks of rants, allegations and accusations, including countless examples of claims which have already been soundly debunked.... It was a cri de coeur which, given the season, begs comparisons to the Festivus airing of grievances from George Costanza's father on 'Seinfeld' -- another older Queens man unable to gracefully accept the nature of the world around him."

The Veep Is Not Amused. Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: VP Mike Pence's name no longer appears on Trump fundraising letters & some recent campaign literature has appeared with a logo changed from "Trump-Pence" to "Trump." "According to four people with knowledge of the matter, they reflect an effort by the vice president and his team to distance Pence from some of the president's more outlandish claims about a conspiracy to undermine the election and illegally deny him a second term in office.... A senior administration official [said,] 'The vice president doesn't want to go down with this ship ... and believes much of the legal work has been unhelpful.'... And, as a former governor himself, he has been particularly uncomfortable with Trump's attacks on Republican governors in some of the key battleground states that he lost.... On Wednesday, Pence went to Capitol Hill where he participated in the swearing in of Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) -- an act that implicitly conceded the validity of the elections in Arizona."

Trump's Patriotic Friends. Peter Montgomery of Right Wing Watch: "Lin Wood, an Atlanta-based lawyer who says ... Donald Trump asked him to join the effort to challenge Joe Biden's election victory, is promoting a right-wing group's call for Trump to declare martial law and use the military to oversee a new election. Retired Gen. Michael Flynn also promoted the call for martial law [in a tweet] just a day after the Justice Department released the language of the extremely broad pardon Flynn received from Trump[.]" MB: Wingers are getting crazier by the day. (Also linked yesterday.)

Katherine Faulders & Alexander Mallin of ABC News: "While at the White House for meetings Tuesday, Attorney General Bill Barr had a meeting with ... Donald Trump following an interview with the Associated Press in which Barr disclosed that the Department of Justice has not uncovered evidence of widespread voter fraud that would change the election results, multiple sources ... tell ABC News.... One source briefed on the meeting described Barr's interaction with the president as 'intense,' but would not elaborate on any additional details about the content of their discussion." ~~~

~~~ Matt Zapotosky, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump remained livid at Attorney General William P. Barr on Wednesday, with one senior administration official indicating there was a chance Barr could be fired -- not just for his public comments undercutting Trump's unfounded claims of election-shifting fraud, but also for steps he did not take on a probe of the FBI's 2016 investigation into Trump's campaign. A day after Barr told the Associated Press that he had 'not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,' Trump continued to complain about his attorney general, people familiar with the matter said." ~~~

~~~ Dan Mangan & Kevin Breuninger of CNBC: "... Donald Trump's spokeswoman refused to say Wednesday whether Trump still has faith in Attorney General William Barr, a day after Barr said the Justice Department has not found evidence that widespread ballot fraud led to President-elect Joe Biden's victory. Barr's statement badly undercut baseless allegations by Trump and his campaign legal team that the Republican president was swindled out of reelection by voting fraud." MB: And Bill Barr is smiling. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Stone Pegs Barr as a Deep-state Shill. Jamie Ross of the Daily Beast: "Remember in February when Attorney General Bill Barr trashed his department's reputation to override the recommended prison term for Roger Stone and push for a much shorter sentence? Because, apparently, Stone has forgotten -- and has gone on the attack against the AG.... Stone, one of Trump's longest standing allies, is particularly angry even though Barr did him a huge favor.... In a video posted to Parler, Stone said he's not surprised that Barr has 'suddenly determined' there is no voter fraud, adding: 'Bill Barr's job is to block for the "deep state."' Stone, who had his prison sentence commuted by Trump in July, also complained of a 'two-tiered justice system.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Annie Karni of the New York Times: "Brad Parscale, the former Trump campaign manager who was demoted in July, claimed in a Fox News interview on Tuesday night that President Trump would have handily won the election if he had expressed more empathy about the coronavirus pandemic.... Mr. Parscale also appeared to blame those who succeeded him in running Mr. Trump's campaign for failing to file lawsuits before Election Day. In fact, the campaign filed multiple lawsuits during the early voting period seeking to block mail-in ballot rule changes.... At other points in the interview, Mr. Parscale refused to concede that the president had lost the election, claiming that Mr. Trump was 'in a position that he might be able to pull this off." A Politico story is here. MB: Brad says he wants to go back to flipping houses. If you live in Southeast Florida, you might want to be careful whose flip you buy. (Also linked yesterday.)

Susan Rice, in a New York Times op-ed: "While President Trump rages relentlessly about election 'fraud,' many Republican leaders continue to parrot false denials of the validity of President-elect Joe Biden's clear victory. Yet, so far, our democracy has withstood the greatest stress test of our lifetimes.... Still, the lesson we must learn is not a reassuring one: A determined autocrat in the White House poses a grave threat to our democratic institutions and can severely undermine faith in our elections, particularly when backed by partisans in Congress.... Bolstering our democracy depends in large part on the people of Georgia voting out their incumbent senators on Jan. 5. If the Senate flips to Democratic control, Congress will be able to apply the lessons of our democracy's near-death experience." (Also linked yesterday.)

Jerry Lambe of Law & Crime: "The federal judge presiding over Sidney Powell and L. Lin Wood's lawsuit challenging Wisconsin's election results issued a ruling on Wednesday that reads like a laundry list of embarrassing procedural failures and omissions, highlighting what could well represent the nadir of post-election legal ineptitude.... On Wednesday, Chief U.S. District Judge Pamela Pepper, an appointee of Barack Obama, took the attorneys to task, bluntly laying out the litany of basic mistakes made in the complaint."

Elahe Izadi of the Washington Post: "Joseph diGenova, the Trump campaign lawyer who had been a fixture in Washington legal circles for decades, resigned under pressure Tuesday from the elite Gridiron Club after an uproar over his comments suggesting a former government official should be executed.... The White House denounced the statement, Krebs said he would consider legal action -- and the 135-year-old Gridiron Club asked diGenova to step down.... On Wednesday, U.S. Reps. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.) and Ted W. Lieu (D-Ca.), both former prosecutors, called on the disciplinary arm of the D.C. bar to immediately open an investigation into diGenova's statements as an incitement to violence and a violation of rules of professional conduct." MB: It's useful to bear in mind, as Rice & Lieu do, that diGenova was representing the POTUS* when he issued his call for extreme violence against a former federal official whom said POTUS* had just fired. ~~~

~~~ Colleen Long & Calvin Woodward of the AP: "The last throes of Donald Trump's presidency have turned ugly -- even dangerous. Death threats are on the rise. Local and state election officials are being hounded into hiding. A Trump campaign lawyer is declaring publicly that a federal official who defended the integrity of the election should be 'drawn and quartered' or simply shot. Neutral public servants, Democrats and a growing number of Republicans who won't do what Trump wants are being caught in a menacing postelection undertow stirred by Trump's grievances about the election he lost." ~~~

~~~ Michelle Lee & Emma Brown of the Washington Post: "Intensifying attacks on the integrity of the vote by President Trump and his allies are fueling deep alarm among state and local officials, who have watched with dread in recent weeks as election workers have been targeted by fast-spreading conspiracy theories. They echoed calls by Gabriel Sterling, a top Republican election official in Georgia who on Tuesday urged Trump and other GOP politicians to tamp down their baseless claims of widespread fraud. In an impassioned statement, Sterling blamed the president for 'inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence.'... White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Wednesday that the president condemns violence, adding that there have been threats against Trump's lawyers.... But later in the day, Trump released a 46-minute taped address ... in which he repeated baseless claims ... promoting the same conspiracy theories that have led to the targeting of election workers. He also filed yet another legal challenge attempting to challenge the results, this time a federal lawsuit in Wisconsin arguing that state officials ran the election so poorly it amounted to a constitutional violation."

Georgia. NPR: "NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with Georgia election official Gabe Sterling on his plea to President Trump and fellow Republicans to condemn threats against election officials." Here's a piece of Sterling's remarks, which contributor NiskyGuy highlighted at the end of yesterday's Comments thread: "... I am a Republican. That's one of the things about this that makes it so frustrating. And I will still vote for them (Sens. Perdue & Loeffler) because some things are bigger than this.... It's just - they are in campaign mode. They are terrified they're going to lose the Trump base, so they do not want to cross President Trump. So I feel bad for them that they're kind of stuck in that terrible box of a position because if you piss off the Trump voters, in their opinion, you lose those Trump voters." NiskyGuy: "I believe 'this' refers to the death threats against election workers. Yes, Mr. Sterling, you believe party is the most important thing. More important than the lives of your fellow election workers, more important than country. You are nothing more than a small, self-righteous enabler. Baaaaaah." ~~~

~~~ Georgia Senate Race. Fox 5 Atlanta: "The campaigns for [Sens. David] Perdue [R] and [Kelly] Loeffler [R] both issued statements Tuesday evening condemning violence but also criticizing election officials, according to news outlets. They previously called for [Georgia state election official Gabriel] Sterling's boss, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to resign over what they call a mismanagement of the statewide election.... [Democrat] Stacey Abrams released the following statement: 'Fair Fight and I condemn in the strongest terms possible all threats against election workers, contractors, and election officials.... Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who have echoed election conspiracies without evidence and contributed to the culture of intimidation and fear, should join us in condemning those who engage in these despicable attacks.'" The Rev. Raphael Warnock (D), who is challenging Loeffler, also issued a statement condemning the threats of violence against election officials. Jon Ossoff (D), who is running against Perdue, did not. See related stories linked below. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ I Like Being Senator Because ... the Correct Answer Is (a) Insider Trading Opportunities. Stephanie Saul, et al., of the New York Times: "An examination of [Sen. David] Perdue's [R-Ga.] stock trading during his six years in office reveals that he has been the Senate's most prolific stock trader by far, sometimes reporting 20 or more transactions in a single day.... Mr. Perdue's [2,596] transactions accounted for nearly a third of all Senate trades reported in the past six years.... The data also shows the breadth of trades Mr. Perdue made in companies that stood to benefit from policy and spending matters that came not just before the Senate as a whole, but before the committees and subcommittees on which he served.... Mr. Perdue's Democratic challenger, Jon Ossoff, has seized on the trading as a campaign issue. In a news conference on Monday, he accused Mr. Perdue of 'using his office to enrich himself' through the stock trades." (Also linked yesterday.)

Killing Them Quickly. Matt Berman & Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "After nearly two decades without any federal executions, the Justice Department reversed course this summer by carrying out three death sentences in four days. Now the department is planning a similarly busy schedule of executions during the Trump administration's final days, before a president who staunchly backs capital punishment is succeeded by one who opposes it. The Justice Department's push to carry out executions during the run-up to President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration -- including scheduling three during the week before he takes office -- has drawn sharp condemnation from critics who denounced these actions during the lame-duck window."

Kylie Atwood of CNN: "A senior US administration official said Israel was behind the assassination of Iran's top nuclear scientist but declined to give details about whether the Trump administration knew about the attack before it was carried out or provided support. The official said that in the past, Israelis have shared information with the US about their targets and covert operations before carrying them out but would not say if they did so in this instance. The Iranian nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was killed Friday, had been a target for the Israelis for a long time, the official added." (Also linked yesterday.)

Kara Scannell of CNN: "Ivanka Trump ... sat for a deposition Tuesday with investigators from the Washington, DC, attorney general's office as part of its lawsuit alleging the misuse of inaugural funds, according to a court filing. In January, the DC attorney general's office sued the Trump Organization and Presidential Inaugural Committee alleging they abused more than $1 million raised by the nonprofit by 'grossly overpaying' for use of event space at the Trump hotel in Washington for the 2017 inauguration. Depositions of witnesses as part of the lawsuit have been underway over the past several weeks. Tom Barrack, chairman of the inaugural committee, was deposed on November 17, according to the court filing. The attorney general's office has also subpoenaed records from Barrack, Ivanka Trump, first lady Melania Trump, and Rick Gates, the former inaugural committee deputy chairman, the filing said." MB: According to a TV lawyer, Donald Trump has no pardon power here. Besides, this is a civil suit.

David Folkenflik of NPR: "The U.S. Office of Special Counsel, a federal watchdog, disclosed Wednesday that it had found 'a substantial likelihood of wrongdoing' at the parent agency of the Voice of America under the leadership of the CEO appointed by President Trump. Since taking over the U.S. Agency for Global Media, CEO Michael Pack has turned it upside down, sidelining top executives, firing network chiefs, and deep-sixing requests for visa extensions for foreign staffers. Most notably, Pack had two senior political aides with records of strongly pro-Trump ideological statements investigate journalists for perceived anti-Trump bias and push for sympathetic news coverage of the president during the campaign. The finding ... is not a final determination. In late November, U.S. Judge Beryl Howell ruled that Pack had acted unconstitutionally in investigating his own journalists on political grounds. She ordered him to stop intervening inside VOA's newsrooms."

Julia Ainsley & Jacob Soboroff of NBC News: "Legal advocates tasked by a federal judge with helping to find migrant families separated at the U.S. border in 2017 and 2018 say that after months of pleas, the government last week handed over new data that could be critical to helping them find the families.... 'We have been repeatedly asking the Trump administration for any additional data they might have to help locate the families and are only finally getting these new phone numbers and addresses," said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project.... 'Everyone's been asking whether the Trump administration has been helping to find these families. Not only have they not been helping, but they have been withholding this data forever,' Gelernt said."

Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "Democrat Mark Kelly was sworn in to the Senate on Wednesday, marking the first time in more than 67 years that Arizona will have two Democratic senators. Kelly, 56, a former astronaut and the husband of former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), defeated Sen. Martha McSally (R) in a special election last month. The seat was once held by longtime Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who died in 2018.... Vice President Pence administered the oath in the Senate chamber, and Arizona's senior senator, Kyrsten Sinema (D), accompanied Kelly and held the Bible. All three wore masks. Republicans and Democrats stood and applauded." (This is an update of a story also linked yesterday.)

Emily Cochrane & Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "The top Democrats in Congress on Wednesday endorsed a bipartisan $908 billion stimulus compromise as a baseline for talks, offering a significant concession in an effort to pressure Republicans to revive stalled talks on providing additional relief before the end of the year. After months of publicly insisting that another stimulus package must provide at least $2 trillion, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, called on Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, to return to the negotiating table with a bill less than half that size as a starting point. President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., whose advisers had pushed privately in recent weeks for lawmakers to make compromises to pass an economic aid agreement as quickly as possible, also offered a blessing of sorts for the effort. In a virtual event with laid-off workers and a small-business owner struggling amid the pandemic, Mr. Biden said the bipartisan package' wouldn't be the answer, but it would be immediate help for a lot of things, quickly.'"

Andrew Desiderio, et al., of Politico: "Congress is moving forward on a must-pass defense policy bill without repealing a legal shield for social media companies, rejecting a last-minute veto threat from ... Donald Trump. The final version of the National Defense Authorization Act that will soon be considered by the House and Senate won't include Trump's long-sought repeal of the legal immunity for online companies, known as Section 230, according to lawmakers and aides.... Senate Armed Services Chair Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) said that while he agrees with Trump on Section 230, the provision 'has nothing to do with the military.... You can't do it in this bill. That's not a part of the bill,' Inhofe said, adding that he has conveyed that belief to Trump.... The final defense bill does include a provision that would spur the Pentagon to remove the names [of Confederate leaders from ten Army bases] over a three-year period, according to an aide for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who authored the proposal." Trump also has said he would veto the bill if it included that provision. MB: I guess Congressional leaders think they have enough votes to override a veto by America's Biggest Loser. (Also linked yesterday.)

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

Jamie Gangel & Shelby Erdman of CNN: "Former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton are volunteering to get their Covid-19 vaccines on camera to promote public confidence in the vaccine's safety once the US Food and Drug Administration authorizes one. The three most recent former presidents hope an awareness campaign to promote confidence in its safety and effectiveness would be a powerful message as American public health officials try to convince the public to take the vaccine." MB: Uh, where's Trump?

The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Wednesday are here: "The United States set a pair of alarming coronavirus records Wednesday, surpassing 200,000 new infections and topping 100,000 covid-19 patients hospitalized -- the first time the country has reached either metric in a single day." ~~~

~~~ The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Wednesday are here: "The United States on Wednesday recorded its single-worst daily death toll since the pandemic began, and on a day when Covid-19 hospitalizations also hit an all-time high, the pace of loss showed no signs of slowing any time soon. Not since spring, during the pandemic's first peak, were so many deaths reported. The high point then was 2,752 deaths on April 15. On Wednesday it was at least 2,760. Hospitalizations from the virus topped 100,000 -- more than double the number at the beginning of November. That is a clear indicator of what the days ahead may look like, experts say.... ~~~

~~~ “The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned on Wednesday that the nation is facing a devastating winter, predicting that total deaths from Covid-19 could reach 'close to 450,000' by February unless a large percentage of Americans follow precautions like mask-wearing. 'The reality is, December and January and February are going to be rough times,' said Dr. Robert Redfield, the head of the C.D.C., in an address to the Chamber of Commerce Foundation." (Also linked yesterday.)

Worse than Trump. David Sanger & Sharon LaFraniere of the New York Times: "A series of cyberattacks is underway aimed at the companies and government organizations that will be distributing coronavirus vaccines around the world, IBM's cybersecurity division has found, though it is unclear whether the goal is to steal the technology for keeping the vaccines refrigerated in transit or to sabotage the movements.... Both the IBM researchers and the department's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the attacks appear intended to steal the network credentials of corporate executives and officials at global organizations involved in the refrigeration process necessary to protect vaccine doses.... Researchers for IBM Security X-Force ... said they believed that the attacks were sophisticated enough that they pointed to a government-sponsored initiative, not a rogue criminal operation aimed purely at monetary gain. But they could not identify which country might be behind them."

Party On, Dudes! John Hudson of the Washington Post: "Following a sharp spike in coronavirus cases across the country, State Department leadership sent out a notice to employees one week ago recommending that 'any non-mission critical events' be changed to 'virtual events as opposed to in-person gatherings.' That same week, U.S. event planners were told that the guidance did not apply to the upcoming functions they were working on: large indoor holiday parties hosted by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his wife, Susan, on the eighth floor of the State Department involving hundreds of guests, food and drinks. Pompeo's lineup of parties in the next three weeks comes as the Trump administration's own health experts are imploring Americans to limit travel and avoid large gatherings amid a pandemic that has killed more than 270,000 Americans and infected nearly 14 million across the United States.... Invitations have already gone out to 900 people [for a December 15 party in the department's main reception room]..., raising concerns about a potential superspreader event."