The Commentariat -- Nov. 28, 2020

Afternoon Update:

Incredible Shrinking Man lashes out at conspirators who downsized his desk.Peter Baker & Kathleen Gray of the New York Times: "If the president hoped Republicans across the country would fall in line behind his false and farcical claims that the election was somehow rigged on a mammoth scale by a nefarious multinational conspiracy, he was in for a surprise. Republicans in Washington may have indulged Mr. Trump's fantastical assertions, but at the state and local level, Republicans played a critical role in resisting the mounting pressure from their own party to overturn the vote after Mr. Trump fell behind on Nov. 3.... In the end, the system [-- although vulnerable --] stood firm against the most intense assault from an aggrieved president in the nation's history because of a Republican city clerk in Michigan, a Republican secretary of state in Georgia, a Republican county supervisor in Arizona and Republican-appointed judges in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. They refuted conspiracy theories, certified results, dismissed lawsuits and repudiated a president of their own party, leaving him to thunder about a supposed plot that would have had to include people who had voted for him, donated to him or even been appointed by him." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Pretty much what I wrote in a comment this morning, albeit Baker & Gray do it with better words.

Marie (with a little help from my friends): Trump has not had time to take care of the nation's business because he was otherwise occupied designing his library. It's quite nice, although I'm pretty sure Trump will be adding plenty more faux gold finishes. While the lie-berry is not yet open, you can order Christmas presents (not "holiday gifts") from the grift shop. No money-back guarantees, but Trump assures us that mail orders, unlike mail-in ballots, are totally safe and will not be ripped off by criminal Democrat mail carriers. Thanks to RAS for the link. And do click on it. Whoever put this together did a great job.

Andrew Solender of Forbes: "Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-Va.) pulled no punches against President Trump and his fellow Republicans in Congress in an interview with Forbes, accusing them of a 'massive grift' in refusing to acknowledge the results of the election and claiming Trump appeals to groups that are 'anti-Semitic' and 'anti-American.' Riggleman, one of just 10 GOP House members acknowledging Joe Biden's victory, said the Republican refusal to acknowledge the result is 'just money-making for the 2024 election' and 'completely unethical,' saying he's spoken to 30 or 40 GOP members of Congress who privately acknowledge the result despite public silence.... Riggleman was even harsher toward colleagues who are 'true believers' of Trump's unfounded claims of widespread election fraud, asserting it 'really speaks to where your intelligence level is --- to believe in that type of operation.'"

It Takes a Crackpot. Will Sommer of the Daily Beast: "Former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne left behind a cloud of confusion when he resigned in 2019 from the internet retailer he'd founded after panicking investors with his bizarre claims that he had romanced a Russian agent at the behest of 'Men in Black' working for the United States government. Now he's back, with what he has described as his own personal 'army,' touting what he claims is proof that Democrats stole the election from Donald Trump. 'I've funded a team of hackers and cybersleuths, other people with odd skills,' Byrne said in a Tuesday interview at One America News, where OAN personality Chanel Rion praised Byrne as the head of an 'elite shadow cyber security team.'"

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Robert Hart of Forbes: "Less than a day after saying he would leave the White House should President-elect Joe Biden be voted in by the electoral college..., Donald Trump backtracked, baselessly insisting Friday that Biden 'can only enter the White House as President if he can prove' his 80 million votes were not 'fraudulently or illegally obtained,' and effectively recanting his closest admission to electoral defeat." MB: That's fine with me as long as whoever frog-marches the Kaiser out of the White House allows cameras to roll. Watching Trump kick, scream & wail as officers drag him across the White House lawn as Joe Biden delivers his inaugural address would be the best split screen in television history.

Michael Shear & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. moved quickly this past week to name the first two members of his cabinet, picking one of his closest confidants to be the nation's top diplomat and choosing an immigrant to lead the Department of Homeland Security for the first time. But as he fills out the rest of his team in the days and weeks ahead, the task will get more complicated, forcing him to navigate tricky currents of ideology, gender, racial identity, party affiliation, friendship, competence, personal background and past employment.... Republicans in the Senate will try to reject some of Mr. Biden's nominees. But his team is just as worried about opposition from Democrats.... Whom Mr. Biden will tap to be the next attorney general is among the most talked about -- and politically fraught -- decisions that the president-elect will make as civil rights issues roil the country and some Democrats expect investigations into President Trump and his associates." The article names contenders for various top jobs.

The "Deep State" Fights Back. Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "With two months left of the Trump administration, career E.P.A. employees find themselves where they began, in a bureaucratic battle with the agency's political leaders. But now, with the Biden administration on the horizon, they are emboldened to stymie Mr. Trump's goals and to do so more openly.... Current and former E.P.A. staff and advisers close to the transition said Mr. Biden's team has focused on preparing a rapid assault on the Trump administration's deregulatory legacy and re-establishing air and water protections and methane emissions controls. 'They are focused like a laser on what I call the "Humpty Dumpty approach," which is putting the agency back together again,' said Judith Enck, a former E.P.A. regional administrator who served in the Obama administration." MB: Sorry, Donald, real people don't go to work for the EPA because they hate science.

The Last Days of the Kaiser
Like Groundhog Day All Over Again

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "In a blistering decision, a Philadelphia appeals court ruled on Friday that the Trump campaign could not stop -- or attempt to reverse -- the certification of the voting results in Pennsylvania, reprimanding the president's team by noting that 'calling an election unfair does not make it so.' The 21-page ruling by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals was a complete repudiation of Mr. Trump's legal effort to halt Pennsylvania's certification process and was written by a judge that he himself appointed to the bench.... Judge Stephanos Bibas [-- MB: a Trump appointee --] wrote on behalf of the appeals court in a unanimous decision, 'Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.' Many courts have used scathing language in tossing out a relentless barrage of lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign and its supporters since Election Day; but even so, the Third Circuit's ruling was particularly blunt. 'Voters, not lawyers, choose the president,' the court declared.... 'Ballots, not briefs, decide elections.' The court accused the Trump campaign of engaging in 'repetitive litigation' and pointed out that the public interest strongly favored '... not disenfranchising millions of Pennsylvania voters who voted by mail.'... ~~~

~~~ "The Pennsylvania decision came on a day of baseless tweets from Mr. Trump that the election was 'a total scam,' that he 'won by a lot' and that the news media 'refuse to report the real facts and figures.'... Moments after the three-judge panel from the Third Circuit handed down its ruling, Jenna Ellis, one of Mr. Trump's lawyers, wrote on Twitter that she and Rudolph W. Giuliani ... planned to appeal to the Supreme Court. In her Twitter post, Ms. Ellis accused 'the activist judicial machinery in Pennsylvania' of covering up 'allegations of massive fraud' despite the fact that all three judges on the panel were appointed by Republicans." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Uh, Jenna, the "activist judicial machinery" is covering up "allegations"? That doesn't make sense. You made the allegations. The pleadings you presented, chockful of said allegations, are public records, and rather than hiding those allegations, the appeals court ruling highlights the falsity of said allegations & excoriates you & Rudy for repeatedly making them. ~~~

     ~~~ A BuzzFeed News story is here. A Politico story is here. ~~~

~~~ KDKA Pittsburgh: "Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers have introduced a resolution intending to dispute the 2020 election results on Friday. The resolution intends to declare the 2020 election results as being 'in dispute,' delay the certification of votes from Pennsylvania for both the state and presidential races and asks for the U.S. Congress to also declare the 2020 presidential race to be in dispute.... They also accuse Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar [D] of certifying the results of the election 'prematurely ... despite ongoing litigation.' The resolution does not specify how the state or presidential electors would be determined if the resolution were to pass.... The resolution ... is not expected to get a vote before lawmakers' terms end on Monday." MB: Am I missing something or are these people not too bright?

Wisconsin. Losing Loser Pays $3MM to Lose Bigger. Alison Dirr of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Milwaukee County's recount of the presidential election vote tally came to an end Friday, with Democratic President-elect Joe Biden adding 132 votes to his margin of victory over ... Donald Trump in Milwaukee County. In all, Biden gained 257 votes and Trump added 125.... The Dane County [Madison] recount was expected to continue into the weekend, after a day off for Thanksgiving. Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell tweeted Friday morning that the recount was about 65% done and he expected to finish Sunday.... Trump's campaign paid $3 million for the partial recount in the Nov. 3 presidential election, requesting a retallying of the votes only in the state's largest and most liberal counties of Milwaukee and Dane. Trump lost the state by nearly 21,000 votes to Biden.... Political observers believe the challenges Trump representatives lodged during the recount process were intended to set the stage for a lawsuit.... [During the recount,] there were tense exchanges between board Chairman Tim Posnanski, a Democrat, and Trump campaign attorney Joe Voiland, a former Ozaukee County judge, over the enforcement of a policy limiting the taking of photos by observers. At one point, Posnanski told Voiland he was reminded of the peasant from 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' who yells, 'Help, help I'm being repressed.' And, of course, there was the brief squabble over the poop emoji wristbands handed out Tuesday by the Wisconsin Center to denote that those who entered the building were fever-free."

Georgia. Sidney Files Claim in Distrcoict Court. Colin Kalmbacher of Law & Crime: "Former Trump campaign and alleged freelance attorney Sidney Powell filed her so-called 'Kraken' lawsuit in a Georgia federal court on Friday. The case seeks to de-certify the Peach State's 2020 election results which indicated Joe Biden won a slim but decisive victory. The lawsuit was previewed late Wednesday evening when it was made available on the conservative lawyer's personal website -- around the same time that a similar complaint was filed in Michigan federal court. Initially hyped up to intense fanfare among Trump's stalwart followers, the Georgia petition ... quickly led to a cascade of Twitter-based mockery and scorn as legal observers noted several clumsy formatting and typographical errors. Freshly filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, the actually-submitted lawsuit appears to repeat each and every one of those ... errors. 'If you thought Sidney Powell and her Kraken team of lawyers might have fixed the typos prior to filing their Georgia lawsuit, you were wrong,' noted Democratic election attorney Marc Elias via Twitter."

Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "The outgoing Trump administration is racing to enact the biggest change to the federal civil service in generations, reclassifying career employees at key agencies to strip their job protections and leave them open to being fired before Joe Biden takes office. The move to pull off an executive order the president issued less than two weeks before Election Day -- affecting tens of thousands of people in policy roles -- is accelerating at the agency closest to the White House, the Office of Management and Budget. The budget office sent a list this week of roles identified by its politically appointed leaders to the federal personnel agency for final sign-off. The list comprises 88 percent of its workforce -- 425 analysts and other experts who would shift into a new job classification called Schedule F.... If enough employees are viewed as disloyal to the outgoing administration, they could be fired or reassigned, leaving Biden with an empty budget office.... The Office of Personnel Management is also rushing to shuffle many of its own roughly 3,500 employees into the new category, a senior administration official said.... Democrats on Capitol Hill are trying to block the effort [to reclassify career employees]."

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here: "The number of coronavirus infections in the United States shot past 13 million on Friday, worsening the world's largest outbreak. The milestone came a day after Americans celebrated Thanksgiving against a backdrop of national travel patterns that, while diminished, still raised the prospect of an even greater rise in infections around the country.... And every day for more than two weeks, the country has set records for the number of people in the hospital, with the latest figure surging past 90,000 for the first time on Thursday."

Reed Richardson of Mediaite: "United Airlines has now begun flying charter flights to pre-position initial doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine all around the country. According to the Wall Street Journal, the airline has taken this step so that once the FDA issues the expected emergency use authorization for public distribution of the vaccine, it can be pushed out rapidly. Pfizer's vaccine, it should be noted, requires it to be stored at extremely cold temperatures for it to remain viable up to the point of inoculation."

Kent Babb of the Washington Post: "... when it comes to coronavirus testing, this is a nation of haves and have-nots. Among the haves are professional and college athletes, in particular those who play football. From Nov. 8 to 14, the NFL administered 43,148 tests to 7,856 players, coaches and employees. Major college football programs supply dozens of tests each day, an attempt -- futile as it has been -- to maintain health and prevent schedule interruptions. Major League Soccer administered nearly 5,000 tests last week, and Major League Baseball conducted some 170,000 tests during its truncated season. [Meanwhile, nurses & other front-line coronavirus workers are among the have-nots.]... This month, registered nurses gathered in Los Angeles to protest the fact that UCLA's athletic department conducted 1,248 tests in a single week while health-care workers at UCLA hospitals were denied testing. Last week National Nurses United, the country's largest nursing union, released the results of a survey of more than 15,000 members. About two-thirds reported they had never been tested. (Also linked yesterday.)~~~

~~~ MEANWHILE, in the U.K. Karla Adam of the Washington Post: The city of Liverpool, England, "[is] attempt[ing] to quash its [coronavirus] outbreak by swabbing its entire population.... After three weeks of screening, British politicians say the campaign is a success. [Mayor Joe] Anderson said nearly 1,000 people who hadn't known they were infected had tested positive and are 'self-isolating and not spreading the virus.' Prime Minister Boris Johnson said mass testing in Liverpool contributed to a 'very substantial' fall in infections and was a 'success story we want other parts of the country to replicate.'" MB: Donald Trump was playing golf on his private course. ~~~

~~~ Denis Campbell of the Guardian: "Hospitals [in England] have been told to prepare for the rollout of a coronavirus vaccine [manufactured by Pfizer/BioNTech] in as little as 10 days' time, with [National Health Service] workers expected to be at the front of the queue.... Regulatory approval [is] anticipated within days.... One senior hospital executive told the Guardian: 'We've been told to expect the vaccine on 7 December and plan to start vaccinating our staff all that week. However, it's the Pfizer vaccine we're getting, so it can't be moved again once it gets to us and we then have to use it within five days, as that's its shelf life.'"

Julie Turkewitz & Isayen Herrera of the New York Times: "... millions of migrants -- Afghans, Ethiopians, Nicaraguans, Ukrainians and others -- have lost work in their adopted countries and headed home.... International aid groups have begun to call these people the pandemic's 'stranded migrants' -- men, women and children who have been trying to get home since the virus began to spread. The International Organization for Migration said recently there are at least 2.75 million of them. Among the most affected have been Venezuelans, who even before the pandemic formed one of the largest migration waves in the world. As the oil-rich nation crumbled in the grip of its authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, hunger became widespread and nearly five million people fled."

Words to the Wise. James Gorman & Carl Zimmer of the New York Times: "In a 1988 essay on pandemics Joshua Lederberg, Nobel laureate and president of The Rockefeller University, reminded the medical community that when it comes to infectious disease, the laws of Darwin are as important as the vaccines of Pasteur. As medicine battles bacteria and viruses, those organisms continue to undergo mutations and evolve new characteristics.... But vaccines won't put an end to the evolution of this coronavirus, as David A. Kennedy and Andrew F. Read of The Pennsylvania State University ... wrote in PLoS Biology recently. Instead, they could even drive new evolutionary change. There is always the chance, though small, the authors write, that the virus could evolve resistance to a vaccine, what researchers call 'viral escape.' They urge monitoring of vaccine effects and viral response, just in case." (Also linked yesterday.)

No Lives Matter. Marie: In a peculiarly cruel nod to racial equality, Donald Trump has made "I can't breathe!" a cry by millions of Americans of all races & political persuasions.

Daniel Burke & Delia Gallagher of CNN: "During an installation ceremony planned for 4pm [Saturday] in Rome, [the Archbishop of Washington, D.C., Wilton] Gregory, will become the first African American cardinal in Catholic history. Gregory will be one of 13 men -- and the only American -- elevated to the College of Cardinals during Saturday's ceremony. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, two bishops will not be in Rome, another first in church history, according to Vatican News. In keeping with the Pope's concerns for Catholics who have been historically marginalized, the other soon-to-be cardinals include men from Rwanda, Brunei, Chile and the Philippines." A Washington Post story is here.

Way Beyond the Beltway

Patrick Wintour & Oliver Holmes of the Guardian: "An Iranian nuclear scientist described as the guru of Iran's nuclear programme has been gunned down in the street in a town near Tehran. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was ambushed in the town of Absard, about 40 miles east of Tehran. Four assailants opened fire after witnesses heard an explosion.... An adviser to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed that the country would retaliate against the perpetrators.... Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, identified Israel as the likely culprit. 'Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today,' he tweeted. 'This cowardice -- with serious indications of Israeli role -- shows desperate warmongering of perpetrators. Iran calls on international community -- and especially EU -- to end their shameful double standards & condemn this act of state terror.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Julian Borger of the Guardian: "The assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh may not much have impact on the Iranian nuclear programme he helped build, but it will certainly make it harder to salvage the deal intended to restrict that programme, and that is -- so far - the most plausible motive. Israel is widely agreed to be the most likely perpetrator. Mossad is reported to have been behind a string of assassinations of other Iranian nuclear scientists -- reports Israeli officials have occasionally hinted were true. According to former officials, the Obama administration leaned on Israel to discontinue those assassinations in 2013, as it started talks with Tehran that led two years later to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), by which Iran accepted constraints on its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. It would be a fair guess that Joe Biden would also oppose such assassinations when he takes office on 20 January and tries to reconstitute the JCPOA -- which has been left wounded but just about alive in the wake of Donald Trump's withdrawal in 2018."

The Commentariat -- Nov. 27, 2020

Late Morning Update:

Patrick Wintour & Oliver Holmes of the Guardian: "An Iranian nuclear scientist described as the guru of Iran's nuclear programme has been gunned down in the street in a town near Tehran. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was ambushed in the town of Absard, about 40 miles east of Tehran. Four assailants opened fire after witnesses heard an explosion.... An adviser to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed that the country would retaliate against the perpetrators.... Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, identified Israel as the likely culprit. 'Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today,' he tweeted. 'This cowardice -- with serious indications of Israeli role -- shows desperate warmongering of perpetrators. Iran calls on international community -- and especially EU -- to end their shameful double standards & condemn this act of state terror.'"

Kent Babb of the Washington Post: "... when it comes to coronavirus testing, this is a nation of haves and have-nots. Among the haves are professional and college athletes, in particular those who play football. From Nov. 8 to 14, the NFL administered 43,148 tests to 7,856 players, coaches and employees. Major college football programs supply dozens of tests each day, an attempt -- futile as it has been -- to maintain health and prevent schedule interruptions. Major League Soccer administered nearly 5,000 tests last week, and Major League Baseball conducted some 170,000 tests during its truncated season. [Meanwhile, nurses & other front-line coronavirus workers are among the have-nots.]... This month, registered nurses gathered in Los Angeles to protest the fact that UCLA's athletic department conducted 1,248 tests in a single week while health-care workers at UCLA hospitals were denied testing. Last week National Nurses United, the country's largest nursing union, released the results of a survey of more than 15,000 members. About two-thirds reported they had never been tested.

Words to the Wise. James Gorman & Carl Zimmer of the New York Times: "In a 1988 essay on pandemics Joshua Lederberg, Nobel laureate and president of The Rockefeller University, reminded the medical community that when it comes to infectious disease, the laws of Darwin are as important as the vaccines of Pasteur. As medicine battles bacteria and viruses, those organisms continue to undergo mutations and evolve new characteristics.... But vaccines won't put an end to the evolution of this coronavirus, as David A. Kennedy and Andrew F. Read of The Pennsylvania State University ... wrote in PLoS Biology recently. Instead, they could even drive new evolutionary change. There is always the chance, though small, the authors write, that the virus could evolve resistance to a vaccine, what researchers call 'viral escape.' They urge monitoring of vaccine effects and viral response, just in case." More on poor old Darwin at the bottom of the page.

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A Thanksgiving Day Message from Joe & Jill Biden ends like this: "May the emptiness at our tables and in our hearts be filled with memories of love and laughter. May we cherish our traditions, even when they are out of reach, and hold on to the hope of what's still to come. We're going to get through this together, even if we have to be apart. Happy Thanksgiving, from the Biden family to yours."

A Thanksgiving Day Message from Donald Trump goes like this: Jill Colvin of the AP: "... Donald Trump said Thursday that he will leave the White House if the Electoral College formalizes President-Elect Joe Biden's victory -- even as he insisted such a decision would be a 'mistake' -- as he spent his Thanksgiving renewing baseless claims that 'massive fraud' and crooked officials in battleground states caused his election defeat.... But Trump -- taking questions for the first time since Election Day -- insisted that 'a lot of things' would happen between now and then that might alter the results.... While there is no evidence of the kind of widespread fraud Trump has been alleging, he and his legal team have nonetheless been working to cast doubt on the integrity of the election and trying to overturn voters' will in an unprecedented breach of democratic norms. Trump spoke to reporters in the White House's ornate Diplomatic Reception Room after holding a teleconference with U.S. military leaders stationed across the globe.... Trump announced that he will be traveling to Georgia to rally supporters ahead of two Senate runoff elections that will determine which party controls the Senate. Trump said the rally for Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler would likely be held Saturday. The White House later clarified he had meant Dec. 5.... At one point he urged reporters not to allow Biden the credit for pending coronavirus vaccines. 'Don't let him take credit for the vaccines because the vaccines were me and I pushed people harder than they've ever been pushed before,' he said." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Joe Biden is not going to try to "take credit for vaccines" because Joe Biden (a) knows he did not develop the vaccines and (b) is not so stupid as to think scientists around the worldlogged overtime because U.S. president*. Trump, on the other hand, thinks that because his whining & barking orders causes the fraidycats who work for him to jump, that real people everywhere must do the same thing. They don't. ~~~

~~~ Michael Crowley of the New York Times: "The president was also strikingly testy at one point, lashing out at a reporter [-- Jeff Mason of Reuters --] who interjected during one of several of his rambling statements about the supposedly fraudulent election. 'You're just a lightweight,' Mr. Trump snapped, raising his voice and pointing a finger in anger. 'Don't talk to me that -- don't talk -- I'm the president of the United States. Don't ever talk to the president that way.'... At times, Mr. Trump shifted his explanation of his defeat from claims of fraud to complaints that the political battlefield had been slanted against him.... 'If the media were honest and big tech was fair, it wouldn't even be a contest,' he said. 'And I would have won by a tremendous amount.' After seeming to concede reality, Mr. Trump quickly caught himself and revised his conditional statement. 'And I did win by a tremendous amount,' he added." MB: Sorta like Donald is caught between two ferns: the reality tree & the fantasy plant. ~~~

~~~ Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "Even as most of his lawyers have quit and many campaign officials say the effort to overturn the election is going nowhere, Trump said it was going 'very well.'" ~~~

~~~ In an official presidential* Thanksgiving "proclamation," a White House writer conveyed Trump's message. Arris Foley of the Hill: "President Trump issued a proclamation encouraging Americans to gather 'in homes and places of worship' ahead of Thanksgiving, even as his successor and public health officials have urged people to practice social distancing and avoid large gatherings during the holidays to curb the spread of COVID-19." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The proclamation itself actually interested me as it pegged the Mayflower Compact as a precursor to American democracy. I had always thought of the Mayflower Compact as more of a religious document describing church rules & regs. But historians point to its democratically-established rule of law & to the reason it was necessary to work out the agreement in the first place: non-Puritan Mayflower passengers had proclaimed their "own liberty" & vowed not to follow church rules. It was, therefore, a secular social contract that bound all settlers, & which 41 of the passengers (all men, of course!) signed.

Rich Guy Notices Trump, et al., Defrauded Him. Mary Papenfuss of the Huffington Post: "A major contributor to a group backing ... Donald Trump's fight to overturn the presidential election sued to recover $2.5 million in donations after the campaign failed in several court cases and was unable to prove any fraud. The lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Texas by North Carolina venture capitalist Fred Eshelman argued that the nonprofit group True the Vote promised to keep him informed of how his millions were being used in what was pitched as a strong case against alleged election fraud. Instead, the suit alleged, he was fed 'vague responses, platitudes and empty promises of follow-up' that never occurred. He was kept in the dark when weak cases filed in Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania were voluntarily withdrawn in a decision the investor claimed was made in 'concert with counsel for the Trump campaign,' the suit said."

Pardon Me. Sky Palma of the Raw Story: "Writing in The Atlantic this Wednesday [firewalled], columnist David Frum says that when it comes to ... Donald Trump's recent pardoning of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, one must remember that the crime Flynn is accused of committing was not about lying to protect himself -- he lied to protect Trump. 'Flynn had dubious dealings of his own to cover up, yes,' Frum writes. 'He had failed to register as an agent of the Turkish government as he should have. But that omission -- and Flynn's lies about it -- only became an issue after Flynn was caught lying about the ... conversations [Flynn had with Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyac]. In the end, Flynn was never charged for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act [re: the Turkish affair].... 'Flynn sensed that Trump's preferred Russia policy was based on motives that everybody around Trump recognized as dangerous, even if they could not quite define where the danger lay,' Frum continues. 'So when asked by the FBI about the conversation, Flynn acted like a man aware of a terrible secret that must be concealed at all costs.'" Frum's Atlantic column is here.

The Way We Are. A Gruesome Thanksgiving. Thanks, Don & Bill! Hailey Fuchs of the New York Times: "The Justice Department has created new regulations allowing for the use of more methods for federal executions, including firing squad and electrocution. The new rule, which is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Friday, comes as the administration rushes to execute five more prisoners before the end of President Trump's term. It is part of a spate of moves and rule-making processes before he leaves office.... President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., who can rescind the rule, has signaled his opposition to the federal death penalty. Last week, the Justice Department announced that it plans to execute three more inmates on federal death row. If the administration does so, along with two other executions already scheduled, it will have put 13 prisoners to death since July, marking one of the deadliest periods in the history of federal capital punishment since at least 1927...." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Biden could save himself from possible carpal tunnel symptoms by signing just one executive order: "What he said ... is out!"

The Way We Were. Ramin Ganeshram of the Washington Post: "On the third Thursday of February 1795, President George Washington proclaimed a day of national thanksgiving to thank God 'for the Constitutions of Government which unite and by their union establish liberty.' The second such proclamation by Washington, it called for a religious rather than a feasting holiday, and that day's menu is unknown. As a regular night for the Congress dinners hosted by the president, it would have been presided over by Washington's cook, Hercules Posey -- a chef so notable that he was famous in his own time. Yet, the liberty Washington extolled was not something Posey enjoyed: He was enslaved.... Working in the kitchen of a fine household -- much less a presidential one -- would not have been easy. Meals were elaborate, multicourse affairs.... As described by Rep. Theophilus Bradbury (Federalist-Mass.) in 1795, the average Thursday Congress dinner would have put any modern Thanksgiving feast to shame, featuring 'an elegant variety of roast beef, veal, turkeys, ducks, fowls, hams, & puddings, jellies, oranges, apples, nuts, and almonds, figs, raisins, and a variety of wines and punch.' Producing these meals meant a 12-to-16-hour workday with a variety of cooks and assistants working under Posey. Remarkably, the Washington household accounts tell us that these staff members would have been hired and White indentured laborers -- all taking orders from an enslaved Black man."

The Midnight Ride of Amy & the Confederates. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: Around midnight Thursday morning, the Supreme Court "justices issued six opinions, several of them unusually bitter, in upholding challenges from churches and synagogues to state pandemic restrictions on religious services.... Justice [Amy] Barrett dealt the chief justice a body blow. She cast the decisive vote in a 5-to-4 ruling that rejected restrictions on religious services in New York imposed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to combat the coronavirus, shoving the chief justice into dissent with the court's three remaining liberals. It was one of six opinions the court issued on Wednesday, spanning 33 pages and opening a window on a court in turmoil.... The most notable signed opinion came from Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, Mr. Trump's first appointee. His concurrence was bitter, slashing and triumphant, and it took aim at Chief Justice Roberts.... 'Even if the Constitution has taken a holiday during this pandemic, it cannot become a sabbatical,' he wrote.... Roberts made a point of defending his colleagues from Justice Gorsuch's attacks, saying they were operating in good faith.... In a separate dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Elena Kagan, said the majority was being reckless. 'Justices of this court play a deadly game,' she wrote, 'in second-guessing the expert judgment of health officials about the environments in which a contagious virus, now infecting a million Americans each week, spreads most easily.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: One of these days, when things get back to "normal" post-pandemic, Col. Gorsuch will show up in court carrying a sheathed sword & will challenge Justice Sotomayor to a duel. ~~~

~~~ As unwashed pointed out in yesterday's thread, it's a shame the righty-right Roman Catholic Supremes don't read the elite-leftist New York Times, where they might have explored Pope Francis's op-ed -- adapted from his recent book -- on how to respond to the pandemic: Francis comes to Covid-19 with his experience as a young man suffering from a deathly illness that concentrated in his lungs. He praises both the nurses who saved him then & those who are now risking their own lives to save Covid-19 patients. As for the overall worldwide pandemic response, he writes "With some exceptions, governments have made great efforts to put the well-being of their people first, acting decisively to protect health and to save lives. The exceptions have been some governments that shrugged off the painful evidence of mounting deaths, with inevitable, grievous consequences. But most governments acted responsibly, imposing strict measures to contain the outbreak.... Looking to the common good is much more than the sum of what is good for individuals.... If we are to come out of this crisis less selfish than when we went in, we have to let ourselves be touched by others' pain." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: It's almost as if Francis is speaking directly to nasty Neil, the same empathetic guy who thought a trucker should freeze to death if his boss told him to do so.

Wherein recently-hired Trump lawyer a/k/a recently-fired Trump lawyer Sidney Powell (or is it "Sydney"? -- who cares, she misspells her top expert's name twice in one complaint) filed election fraud suits in Michigan & Georgia Wednesday night. Unfortunately, she (or an aide) drunk-typed the complaints & drunk-pasted them together. (Also, it would help if she turned off full justification & if sheputspacesbetweenwords.)

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

Rebecca Robbins & Benjamin Mueller of the New York Times: "The announcement this week that a cheap, easy-to-make coronavirus vaccine appeared to be up to 90 percent effective was greeted with jubilation.... But since unveiling the preliminary results, AstraZeneca has acknowledged a key mistake in the vaccine dosage received by some study participants, adding to questions about whether the vaccine's apparently spectacular efficacy will hold up under additional testing. Scientists and industry experts said the error and a series of other irregularities and omissions in the way AstraZeneca initially disclosed the data have eroded their confidence in the reliability of the results.... It was ... Moncef Slaoui, the head of Operation Warp Speed..., not the company -- who first disclosed that the vaccine's most promising results did not reflect data from older people."

Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "When President Trump talks about efforts to deliver the coronavirus vaccine to millions of Americans eager to return to their normal lives, he often says he is 'counting on the military' to get it done.... In reality, the role of the military has been less public and more pervasive than this characterization suggests. When companies have lacked the physical spaces needed to conduct their drug trials, the Defense Department has acquired trailers and permits to create pop-up medical sites in parking lots.... [The military has facilitated vaccine development & trials with logistical support through its contracting system.] But the distribution of vaccines will be left largely to their producers and commercial transportation companies. Black Hawk helicopters will not be landing next to neighborhood drugstore to drop off doses. No troops will be administering shots." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: No doubt Trump makes this claim about the military because (a) he's too stupid to understand the details, and (b) he wants people to think -- as he does -- that he has personally ordered & orchestrated vaccine distribution. And you can bet there will be plenty of Trumpbots who sit for the shots & and exclaim, "Ouch! Donald Trump has saved the country!" Ironically, President Biden likely will get personally involved in some of the details, & he might specifically order the military apparatus to facilitate particular aspects of the distribution. Trump likes to pretend he is doing presidenty things; real presidents do them.

Jesse McKinley & Liam Stack of the New York Times: "In a 5-4 decision [released around midnight Thursday morning], the [Supreme C]ourt struck down an order by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo [D-N.Y.] that had restricted the size of religious gatherings in certain areas of New York where infection rates were climbing. The governor had imposed 10- and 25-person capacity limits on churches and other houses of worship in those areas.... "Cuomo accused the court of partisanship, suggesting the[ir] ruling [for religious organizations] reflected the influence of the three conservative justices who have been nominated by President Trump in the past four years. 'You have a different court, and I think that was the statement that the court was making,' Mr. Cuomo ... said on Thursday. 'We know who he appointed to the court. We know their ideology.'... Mr. Cuomo maintains that those outbreaks have since been brought under control, in large part by the measures that the court struck down." MB: Apparently the confederate Supemes believe some religious services can't be Zoomed even though many places of worship do just that.

Tim Elfrink of the Washington Post: “Earlier this month, with coronavirus cases rising dramatically across Wyoming, a coalition of medical experts and nearly every county health officer in the state wrote to Republican Gov. Mark Gordon with an urgent demand: to issue a statewide mask mandate. Gordon declined. While he has stressed the importance of wearing masks, he has also argued that it's an individual choice to do so.... Now Gordon, 63, has tested positive for the virus, his office announced Wednesday. 'He only has minor symptoms at this time and plans to continue working on behalf of Wyoming remotely,' Gordon's office said in a news release." ~~~

    ~~~ Marie: I know we've said this hundreds of times before, but it seems to be even the most obtuse winger could understand this: "You do not have an individual right to spread a deadly illness to others."

Bonnie Rubin of the Washington Post: "When the pandemic upended their wedding plans, Emily Bugg and Billy Lewis tied the knot at Chicago's city hall last month instead. But ... what to do about their $5,000 nonrefundable catering deposit? The newlyweds decided to turn it into 200 Thanksgiving dinners for people with severe mental illness. 'This just seemed like a good way to make the best of a bad situation,' said Bugg, 33, an outreach worker at Thresholds, a nonprofit dedicated to helping people with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and other psychiatric conditions. In the week leading up to Thanksgiving, dozens of Thresholds clients received a boxed dinner of turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, green beans and other fixings from Big Delicious Planet, a high-end Chicago-based caterer." MB: Hey, what do you think Trump would have done in a similar situation? Gone ahead with a superspreader ceremony anyway? Or sue the caterer?

AP: "Bruce Carver Boynton, a civil rights pioneer from Alabama who inspired the landmark 'Freedom Rides' of 1961, died Monday. He was 83.... Boynton was arrested 60 years ago for entering the white part of a racially segregated bus station in Virginia and launching a chain reaction that ultimately helped to bring about the abolition of Jim Crow laws in the South. Boynton contested his conviction, and his appeal resulted in a U.S. Supreme Court decision that prohibited bus station segregation and helped inspire the 'Freedom Rides.'"

Way Beyond the Beltway

AP: "Cambridge University launched an appeal Tuesday to find two valuable notebooks written by Charles Darwin after they were reported as stolen from the university's library. The notebooks, estimated to be worth millions of pounds, include the 19th-century scientist's famous 'Tree of Life' sketch. They haven't been seen since 2000, and for years staff at the library believed that the manuscripts had probably been misplaced in the vast archives. But after doing a thorough search, library staff now conclude it's likely that the notebooks were stolen. Police are now investigating and Interpol has also been notified." MB: Talk about cold cases. It took them 20 years to decide the notebooks had not been misshelved?

News Lede

New York Times: "Dr. Mary Fowkes, a neuropathologist at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan whose autopsies of Covid-19 victims early in the pandemic discovered serious damage in multiple organs -- a finding that led to the successful use of higher doses of blood thinners to treat patients -- died on Nov. 15 at her home in Katonah, N.Y., in Westchester County. She was 66. Her daughter, Jackie Treatman, said the cause was a heart attack. When Dr. Fowkes ... and her team began their autopsies, little was known about the novel coronavirus, which was believed to be largely a respiratory disease. The first few dozen autopsies revealed that Covid-19 affected the lungs and other vital organs, and that the virus probably traveled through the body in the endothelial cells, which line the interior of blood vessels."

Thanksgiving Day 2020

Real Political News

Split Screen. The President & the Pretender. Jenna Johnson, et al., of the Washington Post: "President-elect Joe Biden urged Americans on the eve of Thanksgiving to recommit to fighting the coronavirus, not one another, and to take it upon themselves to make decisions that can save lives. In a somber and at times pleading speech, Biden reflected on other times in history that Americans have suffered, on the pain felt by the families of the more than 260,000 people who have been killed by the virus, on the sacrifices many Americans are making by scaling back or canceling their holiday plans and on the additional deaths that will undoubtedly come in the months ahead. He urged Americans to take 'simple steps' like wearing a mask, limiting the size of gatherings and socially distancing from others.... As Biden called on Americans to come together, President Trump spent the day tweeting a steady stream of grievances and baseless accusations, twice scream-tweeting: 'RIGGED ELECTION!' The president made no mention of the pandemic, which has killed more than 260,000 under his watch, offered no suggestions to Americans conflicted about how to celebrate Thanksgiving safely and publicly expressed no gratitude. Just before Biden began speaking in Wilmington, Del., Trump called the cell phone of his attorney Jenna Ellis, who was at a news conference about voter fraud in Pennsylvania. As she put him on speakerphone, he continued to unleash his grievances over the sometimes scratchy line.... At the event, [Rudy] Giuliani appeared without a mask, even though he had been in close contact with campaign adviser Boris Epshteyn, who tested positive after appearing last week at the RNC with Giuliani. Much of the White House was empty on Wednesday morning, and several advisers said they were no longer paying attention to Trump's antics." More on Trump's spectacular performance linked below. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

Dan Diamond of Politico: "Trump administration health officials on Wednesday kicked off a series of planned meetings with the Biden transition team on 'Operation Warp Speed,' the administration's effort to rush Covid-19 vaccines and treatments, according to two people familiar with the hastily scheduled session. The focus of the initial meeting was on Covid-19 vaccines, therapeutics and distribution, said one person familiar with the agenda, with a goal of bringing President-elect Joe Biden's agency review team up to speed on Operation Warp Speed's workings. A second person familiar with the meeting said it was scheduled about 24 hours after the General Services Administration's announcement on Monday that the transition could proceed and that Wednesday's meeting was intended to be the first of multiple briefings in coming weeks." (Also linked yesterday.)

The Last Days of the Kaiser

Meredith McGraw of Politico: "...Donald Trump's campaign has gone quiet. Some aides are leaving their posts for the holidays. It has been days since Trump's aides held a briefing for the press on its dwindling legal efforts to overturn the election, replaced by Rudy Giuliani's Twitter feed and YouTube videos. The campaign's communications director, Tim Murtaugh, hasn't tweeted himself for almost a week. A senior campaign official described the campaign manager, Bill Stepien, as 'MIA.'... But back in Washington, Trump is clinging to the White House, attending to the bare minimum of presidential duties and improbably boasting on Twitter that he 'will soon prevail!' in the already-settled presidential election. In other words, he's soldiering on -- publicly, at least. Almost everyone else is going home." (Also linked yesterday.)

Pennsylvania. Fake "President' Fake-"Testifies" at Fake State Senate "Hearing." Jill Colvin & Mark Scolforo of the AP: "... Donald Trump on Wednesday baselessly claimed anew that he had won the election and uttered repeated falsehoods when he called into an event held by Pennsylvania Republicans to investigate unproven allegations of voter fraud. 'This was an election that we won easily. We won it by a lot,' Trump declared to the group gathered at a hotel in Gettysburg.... Wednesday's event, hastily organized by Republican state lawmakers, including Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, an outspoken Trump supporter, came with trappings of an official hearing -- flags, a gavel, and unsworn 'witnesses' who 'testified' in person and by phone. Among them was a special guest -- the president -- who at one point had been expected to attend in person, but did not after another member of his legal team announced that he had tested positive for the coronavirus Wednesday morning. Trump spoke for about 11 minutes via a phone held up to a microphone by his lawyer Jenna Ellis and insisted again that the election had been 'rigged' for Biden." ~~~

~~~ Jeremy Diamond of CNN: "... Donald Trump has invited Republican lawmakers from Pennsylvania to the White House on Wednesday night, following a 'hearing' the lawmakers hosted in Gettysburg over baseless allegations of voter fraud in this month's election that Trump called in to. Trump is expected to meet with them in the West Wing, two sources said.... Trump is also considering attending a similar event in Michigan next week. The Michigan State Board of Canvassers certified Biden's victory in that state on Monday, after Trump's legal efforts and a pressure campaign on state and local officials collapsed." ~~~

~~~ Kevin Breuninger & Dan Mangan of CNBC: "A lawyer for ... Donald Trump's campaign on Wednesday revealed that the campaign could be relying on pulling off a complicated -- and possibly unprecedented -- legal and legislative trick shot to undo President-elect Joe Biden's victory in Pennsylvania and possibly in other states. That far-fetched strategy would require a federal court to invalidate Pennsylvania's certification of its election results, and then get the state's General Assembly to agree to send Trump electors to the Electoral College. The idea is buried in a footnote in a three-page letter that campaign attorney Marc Scaringi wrote to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. The Trump campaign is asking that appeals court to hear its bid to block the effect of Tuesday's certification of a win for Biden in Pennsylvania."

'In Wisconsin, somebody has to be indefinitely confined in order to vote absentee. In the past there were 20,000 people. This past election there were 120,000...and Republicans were locked out of the vote counting process.' @VicToensing @newsmax -- Donald Trump, in a tweet, November 24

In case anyone needed a reminder that Trump simply cannot be believed on the election, this is it. He is casting doubt on Wisconsin's results, but every part of his claim is demonstrably false. -- Salvator Rizzo of the Washington Post (Also linked yesterday.)

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a USA Today op-ed: "By all accounts, Georgia had a wildly successful and smooth election. We finally defeated voting lines and put behind us Fulton County's now notorious reputation for disastrous elections. This should be something for Georgians to celebrate, whether their favored presidential candidate won or lost. For those wondering, mine lost -- my family voted for [Trump], donated to him and are now being thrown under the bus by him." Raffensperger knocks both Democratic (Stacey Abrams) & Republican losing candidates.

Criminal Pardons Criminal. Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "President Trump pardoned on Wednesday his former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, who had twice pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about his conversations with a Russian diplomat and whose prosecution Attorney General William P. Barr tried to shut down. 'It is my Great Honor to announce that General Michael T. Flynn has been granted a Full Pardon,' Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter." Politico's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Ken Vogel & Eric Lipton of the New York Times: "It's not just Michael T. Flynn. The White House is weighing a wave of pardons and commutations by President Trump in his final weeks in office, prompting jockeying by a range of clemency seekers and their representatives, including more allies of Mr Trump.... The end of any presidential administration is a time for intense lobbying related to pardons. But in Mr. Trump's case, it extends to his own personal and political considerations, his lingering bitterness over the Russia inquiry and his transactional approach to governing.... There are at least 13,700 people who have formally applied to the Justice Department for pardons that are listed as 'pending.'... There is open speculation about whether he might go even further in using his clemency power in his self-interest, possibly issuing pre-emptive pardons to members of his family and even himself for federal crimes." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Washington Post Editors: "President Trump is leaving the White House just as he entered it: a total disgrace.... Mr. Flynn freely pleaded guilty to lying to FBI investigators, a felony, about whether he discussed anti-Kremlin sanctions with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. 'I recognize that the actions I acknowledged in court today were wrong, and, through my faith in God, I am working to set things right,' Mr. Flynn said then. 'I accept full responsibility for my actions.' But then ... Mr. Flynn switched lawyers, hiring Sidney Powell -- yes, the same Sidney Powell who last week alleged a vast international communist plot to flip the 2020 presidential election to President-elect Joe Biden.... As he so often does, Mr. Trump grounded his decision in a half-baked conspiracy theory, insisting Wednesday through his press secretary that Mr. Flynn was 'the victim of partisan government officials engaged in a coordinated attempt to subvert the election of 2016.'"

Georgia Senate Race. Brian of the AP: "As the ravages of the novel coronavirus forced millions of people out of work, shuttered businesses and shrank the value of retirement accounts, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged to a three-year low. But for Sen. David Perdue, a Georgia Republican, the crisis last March signaled something else: a stock buying opportunity. And for the second time in less than two months, Perdue's timing was impeccable. He avoided a sharp loss and reaped a stunning gain by selling and then buying the same stock: Cardlytics, an Atlanta-based financial technology company on whose board of directors he once served. On Jan. 23, as word spread through Congress that the coronavirus posed a major economic and public health threat, Perdue sold off $1 million to $5 million in Cardlytics stock at $86 a share before it plunged, according to congressional disclosures. Weeks later, in March, after the company's stock plunged further following an unexpected leadership shakeup and lower-than-forecast earnings, Perdue bought the stock back for $30 a share, investing between $200,000 and $500,000. Those shares have now quadrupled in value, closing at $121 a share on Tuesday." ~~~

~~~ Katie Benner, et al., of the New York Times: Federal "investigators found that Cardlytics' chief executive at the time, Scott Grimes, sent Mr. Perdue a personal email two days before the senator's stock sale that made a vague mention of 'upcoming changes.'... Ultimately, [investigators closed] the case...." ~~~

     ~~~ Sam Brodey of the Daily Beast: "Earlier this year, Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) personally directed his wealth adviser to sell off $1 million worth of stock in a financial company before its share price cratered, The New York Times reported on Wednesday -- a finding that flies in the face of Perdue's repeated insistence that he has no input whatsoever over his considerable investment portfolio."

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

Oh, God. Amy Rules! Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court late Wednesday night barred restrictions on religious services in New York that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo had imposed to combat the coronavirus. The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the court's three liberal members in dissent. The order was the first in which the court's newest member, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, played a decisive role. The court's ruling was at odds with earlier ones concerning churches in California and Nevada. In those cases, decided in May and July, the court allowed the states' governors to restrict attendance at religious services. The Supreme Court's membership has changed since then, with Justice Barrett succeeding Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in September. The vote in the earlier cases was also 5 to 4, but in the opposite direction, with Chief Justice Roberts joining Justice Ginsburg and the other three members of what was then the court's four-member liberal wing."

Lauren Leatherby of the New York Times: "For the first time since the coronavirus outbreak hit the United States, the country has added more than one million cases in each of the past two consecutive weeks. Covid deaths, which lag reported cases by weeks, are also at a level not seen since the spring." (Also linked yesterday.)

Glenn Rifkin of the New York Times: "Honestie Hodges, who was handcuffed by the police outside her home in Grand Rapids, Mich., when she was 11, a frightening incident that drew outrage and national headlines in 2017, died on Sunday. She was 14. Her death, at the Helen DeVos Children's Hospital in Grand Rapids, was caused by Covid-19, her grandmother Alisa Niemeyer wrote in a post on the website GoFundMe."

Jeff Cox of CNBC: "The pace of first-time filings for jobless claims picked up last week, with the jobs market showing increasing vulnerability to the coronavirus spread. Claims totaled 778,000 for the week ended Nov. 21, ahead of the 733,000 expectation from economists surveyed by Dow Jones and up from 742,000 the previous week, the Labor Department reported Wednesday."

Julian Barnes, et al., of the New York Times: "A veteran C.I.A. officer was killed in combat in Somalia in recent days, according to current and former U.S. officials, a death that is likely to reignite debate over American counterterrorism operations in Africa. The officer was a member of the C.I.A.'s paramilitary division, the Special Activities Center, and a former member of the Navy's elite SEAL Team 6.... It was unclear whether the officer was killed in a counterterrorism raid or was the victim of an enemy attack, former American officials said."

Aaron Katersky of ABC News: "The Justice Department filed a notice of appeal Wednesday as it seeks to intervene in the defamation lawsuit against ... Donald Trump by E. Jean Carroll. Last month, a federal judge in New York rejected the Justice Department's attempt to substitute for President Trump as the defendant in a suit that claimed he defamed Carroll when he accused her of lying about an alleged rape in a department store dressing room."

Way Beyond the Beltway

Korea. Putting Life Skills to Work. Jaclyn Diaz of NPR: "A North Korean man seeking to escape his homeland took a nearly 10-foot leap of faith earlier this month. The jump, which occurred under -- or more accurately over -- the noses of soldiers, brought him to safety in South Korea, where he told troops he wanted to defect. It's no surprise that the man claims he is a former gymnast. The unnamed man, who is described as being in his late 20s, crossed into South Korea through the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) at around 7 p.m. Nov. 3, evading capture for 14 hours. He was found by South Korean soldiers at around 10 a.m. the next day less than a mile away from the border, according to The Korean Herald and Yonhap News Agency.... If the man's story is accurate, it's all the more remarkable because he managed to avoid detection by North Korean troops, evade landmines that litter the DMZ and not trigger sensors on the surrounding fences." The article includes a photo of the double fence, which looks impossible to leap.