The Commentariat -- November 17, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Clown Car Driver Demands $20,000/Day Salary. Michael Schmidt & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Rudolph W. Giuliani, who has helped oversee a string of failed court challenges to President Trump's defeat in the election, asked the president's campaign to pay him $20,000 a day for his legal work, multiple people briefed on the matter said. The request stirred opposition from some of Mr. Trump's aides and advisers.... Since Mr. Giuliani took over management of the legal effort, Mr. Trump has suffered a series of defeats in court and lawyers handling some of the remaining cases have dropped out. A $20,000-a-day rate would have made Mr. Giuliani ... among the most highly compensated attorneys anywhere.... There is little to no prospect of any of the remaining legal cases being overseen by Mr. Giuliani altering the outcome in any of the states where Mr. Trump is still fighting in court, much less of overturning President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s Electoral College and popular vote victory." Mrs. McC: Tuck in your shirt, Rudy.

Mark Sherman of the AP: "The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives is asking the Supreme Court to put off upcoming arguments about whether Congress should have access to secret grand jury testimony from special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. The House Judiciary Committee that takes office in January 'will have to determine whether it wishes to continue pursuing the application for the grand-jury materials that gave rise to this case,' Douglas Letter, the top lawyer for the House said in a written filing Tuesday. Letter noted that ... Donald Trump's defeat in his bid for reelection could affect the committee's decision."

Best Headline: "After Big Thanksgiving Dinners, Plan Small Christmas Funerals, Health Experts Warn." Ashton Pittman of the Mississippi Free Press: "Mississippians should plan 'to have very small Thanksgiving gatherings' with only nuclear family members this year to stay safe amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Mississippi State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs and other public health officials warned on Friday. 'You're going to have a lot of sick folks who caught (COVID-19) during Thanksgiving. We know this is the perfect milieu, having young folks and old folks and folks with chronic illness around the table -- and then death,' Dobbs said during a sober Mississippi State Medical Association Zoom meeting with fellow physicians on Nov. 12. The state's top health official urged even Mississippians who are having small holiday gatherings to observe 6 feet of social distancing and to hold the gatherings outdoors, where the chance of transmission is lower."

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here: "Chuck Grassley [R-Iowa], the oldest Senate Republican, will quarantine after exposure to the virus."

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The President-elect

Anne Gearan & Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "President-elect Joe Biden urged Congress to immediately pass an economic relief package Monday as he warned that the coronavirus pandemic will worsen in the coming months. The incoming Democratic president also criticized President Trump for his refusal to concede his election loss and begin handing over power. Biden called Trump's unprecedented actions 'embarrassing for the country' and irresponsible. The delay in cooperation is setting back plans for a coordinated rollout of a coronavirus vaccine, Biden said. Most of that rollout would fall to the Biden administration next year, but the Trump White House is not sharing details of its distribution plan. Trump falsely claims that he won the Nov. 3 election and is holding up the normal transition process for a new president." The Hill's story is here. ~~~

~~~ Matt Viser of the Washington Post: "President-elect Joe Biden on Monday ratcheted up pressure on the Trump administration to engage in a transition of power, mincing no words on the dire consequences if his incoming team faces further delays in working with federal agencies. 'More people may die if we don't coordinate,' Biden said during a news conference in Wilmington, Del., following remarks on the economic impact of the coronavirus in which he warned of a 'very dark winter' where 'things are going to get much tougher before they get easier.' He also pointed out the absurdity that Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), the vice president-elect, still has access to classified intelligence briefings because she is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. But Biden himself is not able to get those briefings because Trump's administration has yet to acknowledge that Biden won the election."

Dan Merica & Jeff Zeleny of CNN: "Jen O'Malley Dillon will join President-elect Joe Biden's incoming administration as a deputy chief of staff, a source familiar with the matter tells CNN. The expected move, first reported by NBC News [in a tweet from reporter Geoff Bennett], is the latest in a long line of expected senior White House hires as Biden moves to fill out his administration. O'Malley Dillon was Biden's campaign manager, joining his team in March after he consolidated support among most of his primary rivals. She helped transform a shoestring primary organization, which struggled to raise money, into a general election juggernaut that ultimately made Donald Trump a one-term president. She was the first woman to lead a winning Democratic presidential race."~~~

~~~ Steve Peoples & Bill Barrow of the AP: "President-elect Joe Biden is drawing from the senior ranks of his campaign to fill out an increasingly diverse White House leadership team. Sources familiar with Biden's initial decisions confirmed Monday that former campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon will serve as a deputy chief of staff, while campaign co-chair Louisiana Rep. Cedric Richmond and campaign adviser Steve Ricchetti will play senior roles in the new administration. Richmond will leave his Louisiana congressional seat to fill the White House job.... Richmond, a 47-year-old African American, will take on a public engagement role in the Biden administration that will allow him to deal with Congress along with a focus on the Black community and other minority groups. Richmond's role will be like that of Valerie Jarrett in Obama's administrations, said two Democrats with knowledge of the hire. A former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Richmond was among Biden's earliest high-profile supporters and served as his campaign co-chair."

The Farce

Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump began his third straight week of angry defiance of the election results, brooding behind the scenes about the state of his campaign's legal challenges and of Georgia's hand recount while refusing the pleas of some advisers to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. Despite mounting legal losses in courts..., Trump dug in on his false claim that he 'won' the election. The president also assailed Georgia for what he described on Twitter as a 'Fake' and 'MEANINGLESS' recount in that state, which President-elect Joe Biden leads by 14,205 votes and has been projected to win.... As the Trump campaign's losses mount in courts, some of the president's more conspiratorial and polarizing advisers have become ascendant.... [Rudy] Giuliani, [Jenna] Ellis and others, including Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell, have embraced more extreme conspiracy theories...."

The Washington Post's live election updates Monday are here. They are free to non-subscribers. President-elect Joe "Biden plans to forge ahead Monday with his transition to the presidency, delivering remarks from Delaware on the economic recovery, his latest in a series of speeches on key issues confronting the country. According to his transition team, both Biden and Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), the vice president-elect, will receive a briefing on the economy, in Wilmington, in advance of a scheduled afternoon address. ~~~

~~~ [POUTUS.] "Trump continued to refuse to accept defeat, tweeting in all caps shortly before midnight on Sunday, 'I WON THE ELECTION.' He repeated his baseless claim on Monday morning, tweeting, 'I won the election,' amid a spate of other tweets airing grievances about the process. Twitter responded by a slapping a warning on the Sunday tweet, reading, 'Official sources called this election differently,' with a link to multiple news accounts of Biden winning the presidency.... Trump, meanwhile, has no public events on Monday." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Which one of these is more like a president? The one practicing to be president or the one who, theoretically, has held the job for almost four years?

Katherine Faulders, et al., of ABC News: "The top General Services Administration official who's blocking President-elect Joe Biden's transition team from accessing government resources ahead of his inauguration appears to be looking for a new job, according to a message obtained by ABC News. Emily Murphy, head of the GSA, recently sent that message to an associate inquiring about employment opportunities in 2021, a move that some in Washington interpreted as at least tacitly acknowledging that the current administration soon will be gone.... Congressional Democrats have accused Murphy of undermining the peaceful transition of power and could subpoena her for testimony on Capitol Hill to explain why she's doing so.... Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., a senior member of the House Oversight Committee, insisted that Murphy reaching out privately about future employment opportunities 'exposes the hypocrisy' of the Trump administration's position."

Nicole Perlroth of the New York Times: "Fifty-nine of the country's top computer scientists and election security experts rebuked President Trump's baseless claims of voter fraud and hacking on Monday, writing that such assertions are 'unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent.' The rebuttal, in a letter to be published on various websites, did not mention Mr. Trump by name but amounted to another forceful corrective to the torrents of disinformation that he has posted on Twitter. 'Anyone asserting that a U.S. election was "rigged" is making an extraordinary claim, one that must be supported by persuasive and verifiable evidence,' the scientists wrote.... 'To our collective knowledge, no credible evidence has been put forth that supports a conclusion that the 2020 election outcome in any state has been altered through technical compromise,' they wrote."

Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "Voters in four states who had brought longshot lawsuits to disrupt President-elect Joe Biden's win and went nowhere in court dropped their cases Monday morning. The cases were short-lived in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania federal courts, and fed into a pro-Donald Trump legal strategy to block Biden's presidential win before the Electoral College formalizes it.... Cases seeking to block battleground states' popular vote wins for Biden are getting fewer by the day, with two from the Trump campaign before federal judges in Michigan and Pennsylvania, one from an elector in Georgia, and one from pollwatchers in Michigan. The announcement that the voters are dropping their suits comes three days after a federal appellate court said voters couldn't bring some constitutional claims, essentially shutting down the path the Pennsylvania voters wanted to take in their suit." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: As Ari Melber put it on MSNBC Monday, Trump's "legal strategy" is pretty much down to Rudy's rantings on Fox "News."

Nick Niedzwiadek of Politico: "The White House's national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, on Monday promised president-elect Joe Biden an orderly transfer of power, a departure from other Trump administration officials who have shunned any perception that ... Donald Trump lost the election. 'If the Biden-Harris ticket is determined to be the winner -- and obviously things look that way now -- we'll have a very professional transition from the National Security Council,' O'Brien said in a virtual interview at the Global Security Forum.... O'Brien couched his statements, as Trump's campaign is still pursuing legal challenges to the election results, and he said the transition would commence 'if the current lawsuits don't work out for the president.... If there is a new administration, they deserve some time to come in and implement their policies,' O'Brien said.... [MEANWHILE,] 'The Radical Left Democrats, working with their partner, the Fake News Media, are trying to STEAL this Election,' Trump tweeted [Monday morning]. 'We won't let them!'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Burgess Everett, et al., of Politico: "Nearly two weeks after the election, there are signs that Republicans are starting to accept reality.... Most Republicans have been reluctant to contradict Trump's claim that he can still hold the White House, but there's been a steady trickle of GOP lawmakers defecting from Trump's false contention that he was robbed by fraudsters. After Trump tweeted Monday, 'I won the election,' Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) told reporters, 'I wouldn't have advised he put it that way.' Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Trump can and should continue his legal challenges but has 'every confidence on Jan. 20 we're going to inaugurate a president. And it will probably be Joe Biden.'... Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, referred to Biden as the president-elect unprompted, saying 'that's what the results, the preliminary results, seem to indicate, and we certainly have to anticipate that that's the highest likelihood at this point.'... Rubio is among a small minority of Republicans who believe that the General Services Administration should formally certify Biden as the winner...." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I thought Trump -- and Republican "leaders" in general -- were supposed to be brave macho-men who could face any adversity, while they characterized Democrats as weak cowards who let their girly "feelings" guide them. It isn't turning out that way, is it?

** Georgia. Amy Gardner of the Washington Post: "Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Monday that he has come under increasing pressure in recent days from fellow Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), to question the validity of legally cast absentee ballots in an effort to reverse President Trump's narrow loss in the state.... Raffensperger expressed exasperation over a string of baseless allegations coming from Trump and his allies about the integrity of the Georgia results, including claims that Dominion Voting Systems, the Colorado-based manufacturer of Georgia's voting machines, is a 'leftist' company with ties to Venezuela that engineered thousands of Trump votes to be left out of the count. The atmosphere has grown so contentious, Raffensperger said, that both he and his wife, Tricia, have received death threats in recent days, including a text to him that read: 'You better not botch this recount. Your life depends on it.'... The normally mild-mannered Raffensperger saved his harshest language for Rep. Douglas A. Collins (R-Ga.), who is leading the president's efforts in Georgia and whom Raffensperger called a 'liar' and a 'charlatan.'" ~~~

~~~ Here's the part about Lindsey Graham: "In their conversation, Graham questioned Raffensperger about the state's signature-matching law and whether political bias could have prompted poll workers to accept ballots with nonmatching signatures, according to Raffensperger. Graham also asked whether Raffensperger had the power to toss all mail ballots in counties found to have higher rates of nonmatching signatures, Raffensperger said. Raffensperger said he was stunned that Graham appeared to suggest that he find a way to toss legally cast ballots." Wowza! The Hill has a summary report here. ~~~

     ~~~ David Badash of the New Civil Rights Movement: "Marc Elias, a top attorney for the Democratic Party who has spent decades defending voting rights, is calling on the Ethics Committee to investigate Senator Lindsey Graham.... Former FBI special agent Asha Rangappa [in a tweet:] 'So this seems like something that would come under the guidance Bill Barr recently gave DOJ to investigate.'... Political scientist David Rothkopf [in a tweet]: 'This demands investigation. If laws were broken, it demands prosecution. Clearly, if true, @LindseyGrahamSC has no business being in the US Senate.'" ~~~

     ~~~ With Friends Like These.... Mrs. McCrabbie: Might be a good time to remind ourselves, "According to the 2015 version of Sen. Lindsey Graham, Donald Trump is 'a race baiting, xenophobic religious bigot,' while Joe Biden is 'as good a man as God ever created.'"

~~~ Rebecca Shabad of NBC News: "Georgia's Republican secretary of state posted several fact checks on his official Facebook page Sunday correcting misinformation about the election promoted by ... Donald Trump and his campaign. Brad Raffensperger, for example, shared an Associated Press story that fact-checked Trump's false claim that Georgia election officials were unable to verify signatures on absentee ballots because of a legal settlement.... Raffensperger also wrote that his office strengthened the absentee ballot process for the first time since 2005, and, in another post, said one of the first things he did as secretary of state was to ban ballot harvesting after the Legislature passed his proposal in 2019. 'Truth matters. Integrity matters,' he wrote." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Aris Folley of the Hill: "More than 2,600 votes have reportedly been uncovered in Georgia amid its recount process that weren't previously included in the state's overall tally of ballots in the presidential election. According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the ballots were uncovered in Floyd County. Gabriel Sterling, who serves as Georgia's voting system manager, told the newspaper the mishap was the result of human error, not equipment issues.... According to the newspaper, President Trump could see roughly 800 net votes added to his tally in the state as a result of the discovery.... The paper reports that the mishap has been the 'most significant issue' to come up as the state continues with its closely watched recount." Mrs. McC: Prior to the discovery of the untallied ballots, Biden had a lead of about 14,000 votes. The AJC story is firewalled.

Pennsylvania. Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The game of musical chairs among lawyers pursuing ... Donald Trump's court challenges to the election results continued on Monday evening, as the campaign tried to replace the entire team handling the campaign's federal lawsuit seeking to block certification of Pennsylvania's results. A court filing said Marc Scaringi, a Harrisburg, Pa., attorney, conservative talk radio host and former [spectacularly failed] Senate candidate, was taking over the case.... The legal escapade devolved into farce on Monday night as the federal judge rejected a move by the campaign to postpone [a] key [Tuesday afternoon] hearing." Two of the 'new' lawyers the campaign brought in to handle the Pennsylvania case lasted only one business day. Minutes after the campaign assured the judge Scaringi would be ready to meet the court's schedule, Scaringi asked for more time. And so on. Mrs. McC: In fairness to Trump, many of his escapades "devolve into farce" rather quickly. This one has the advantage of having begun as farce.

Fall of the House of Javanka. Frank Bruni of the New York Times: "Just five short years ago Jared and Ivanka were dinner-party royalty here in Manhattan.... They had money, they had youth, they had celebrity. They were thin. I'm told that their manners were impeccable, so you'd never know that his father was an actual felon and her father a de facto one.... [But now.] Jared and Ivanka are about to be held accountable.... They are the Faustian poster couple of the Trump presidency, the king and queen of the principle-torching prom at which so many danced alongside them, although in less exquisitely tailored attire.... Down there, near the border: migrant children in cages. Over here, near the Potomac: Javanka in their gilded tableaux.... They have made their bed. Lucky for them, the sheets have a serious thread count." (Also linked yesterday.)

Paul Krugman of the New York Times writes that in the election, "the big winners were the coronavirus and, quite possibly, catastrophic climate change.... Trump paid less of a penalty than expected for his deadly failure to deal with Covid-19, and few down-ballot Republicans seem to have paid any penalty at all. As a headline in The Washington Post put it, 'With pandemic raging, Republicans say election results validate their approach.' And their approach, in case you missed it, has been denial and a refusal to take even the most basic, low-cost precautions -- like requiring that people wear masks in public." ~~~

~~~ Emily Oster, in a New York Times op-ed inappropriately headlined, "How to deal with people who ignore Covid safety," backs up Krugman. She writes that people are unlikely to change their behavior for their own good, much less for the good of others: "People are often reluctant to do things they might find unpleasant to improve their health. The American government spends millions of dollars every year to educate the public about a healthy diet, for example. And yet most of this advice is ignored." She does write that aggressive testing could somewhat ameliorate that problem.

Eric Schmitt, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump is expected to order the U.S. military to withdraw thousands of troops from Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia by the time he leaves office in January, using the end of his time in power to significantly pull back American forces from far-flung conflicts around the world.... Shortly before Mr. Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper last week and installed Christopher C. Miller as the acting Pentagon chief, Mr. Esper had sent a classified memo to the White House expressing concerns about accelerating the troop drawdown in Afghanistan, a senior administration official said. Senator Mitch McConnell ... delivered a thinly veiled warning to Mr. Trump from the Senate floor on Monday, suggesting that the president would put himself at risk of squandering his record of accomplishment in the Middle East and repeating the mistakes of former President Barack Obama...."

Eric Schmitt, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump asked senior advisers in an Oval Office meeting on Thursday whether he had options to take action against Iran's main nuclear site in the coming weeks. The meeting occurred a day after international inspectors reported a significant increase in the country's stockpile of nuclear material, four current and former U.S. officials said on Monday. A range of senior advisers dissuaded the president from moving ahead with a military strike. The advisers -- including Vice President Mike Pence; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; Christopher C. Miller, the acting defense secretary; and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- warned that a strike against Iran's facilities could easily escalate into a broader conflict in the last weeks of Mr. Trump's presidency."

Going, Going, Gone. Henry Fountain of the New York Times: "The Trump administration on Monday announced that it would begin the formal process of selling leases to oil companies in a last-minute push to achieve its long-sought goal of allowing oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. That sets up a potential sale of leases just before Jan. 20, Inauguration Day, leaving the new administration of Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has opposed drilling in the refuge, to try to reverse them after the fact."

More on Trump's Legacy. Michael Balsamo of the AP: "Hate crimes in the U.S. rose to the highest level in more than a decade as federal officials also recorded the highest number of hate-motivated killings since the FBI began collecting that data in the early 1990s, according to an FBI report released Monday.... There were 7,314 hate crimes last year, up from 7,120 the year before -- and approaching the 7,783 of 2008. The FBI's annual report defines hate crimes as those motivated by bias based on a person's race, religion or sexual orientation, among other categories."

The Trumpdemic, Ctd.

The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here: "Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) announced a statewide mask mandate on Monday, months after dismissing such orders as 'feel-good' measures with little impact. Coronavirus infections in the state have doubled over the past month, and the number of hospitalized patients reached a new high on Monday. Stricter public health orders are also being imposed in Philadelphia, New Jersey, Oklahoma and California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said the state needed to slam the 'emergency brake' on reopening."

Elizabeth Cohen of CNN: "The Moderna vaccine is 94.5% effective against coronavirus, according to early data released Monday by the company, making it the second vaccine in the United States to have a stunningly high success rate. 'These are obviously very exciting results,' said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease doctor. 'It's just as good as it gets -- 94.5% is truly outstanding.' Moderna heard its results on a call Sunday afternoon with members of the Data Safety and Monitoring Board, an independent panel analyzing Moderna's clinical trial data." ~~~

~~~ Carl Zimmer of the New York Times provides some data points on "what you need to know about Moderna's Covid vaccine." Mrs. McC: He does leave out a couple of important points that I heard from multiple experts on the TV yesterday: 1. Moderna has not released its testing data; rather, they have issued a press release. (Same with Pfizer.) So there's nothing for outside experts to analyze. 2. Moderna's vaccine has a huge advantage over Pfizer's in that Moderna's product can be transported at normal refrigeration/freezer temperatures, while Pfizer's is more unstable & requires super-freezers to transport & store it. You might think that, for the good of humanity, Moderna would share the trick they've perfected for stabilizing the vaccine. Alas, as we know, capitalism is awesome, and Moderna is keeping its patented formula super-secret. And, BTW, Moderna has received about $2.5 billion in taxpayer dollars even as it cossets its secret patent. Seems to me there's something wrong with that picture.

Mrs. McCrabbie: I was kinda wondering what, if anything, the vaunted Hoover Institution would have to say about Scott Atlas. Here's Stanford's statement, in part: "The university has been asked to comment on recent statements made by Dr. Scott Atlas, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who is on leave of absence from that position.... Dr. Atlas has expressed views that are inconsistent with the university's approach in response to the pandemic. Dr. Atlas's statements reflect his personal views, not those of the Hoover Institution or the university." I assume, not necessarily accurately, that Stanford isn't paying him to encourage a revolution against a sitting governor who has already been the subject of a foiled kidnapping/murder plot, but we taxpayers are. ~~~

~~~ Washington Post Editors: "SCOTT ATLAS is a neuroradiologist, not an infectious disease expert, nor an epidemiologist. As President Trump’s leading adviser on the coronavirus pandemic, he continues to make statements that will cause more illness and death. He ought to be fired immediately.... Of [new] Michigan restrictions [imposed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D)], he wrote on Twitter: 'The only way this stops is if people rise up. You get what you accept. #FreedomMatters #StepUp.' So, while the governor was desperately trying to save lives by slowing the virus transmission, Dr. Atlas was urging people to disobey and revolt. This is incendiary talk, especially since the governor was the target of a kidnapping plot foiled by the FBI before the election."

Death in De Nile. Kathryn Krawczyk of the Week: "After a Twitter thread of her experiences started circulating, [South Dakota nurse Jodi] Doering appeared on CNN's New Day on Monday to describe how South Dakota hospitals are overwhelmed with coronavirus patients -- and yet some of them don't believe the virus they have is real.... Some COVID-19 patients spend their last moments refusing to call family and friends because they're convinced they're going to be fine, Doering said. 'Their last dying words are, "This can't be happening. It's not real,'" Doering recalled. In some cases, patients even insist they have the flu or lung cancer to avoid acknowledging the coronavirus." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marina Watts of Newsweek: "'The ones that stick out are those who still don't believe the virus is real. The ones who scream at you for a magic medicine and that Joe Biden is Going to ruin the USA. All while gasping for breath on 100% Vapotherm,' [Jodi Doering] wrote. 'They tell you there must be another reason they are sick. They call you names and ask why you have to wear all that "stuff" because they don't have COVID because it's not real. Yes. This really happens.'" Mrs. McC: These stories harken back to a comment contributor Jeanne wrote in Sunday's thread. Anyway, thanks, Trump! (Also linked yesterday.)

News Lede

Weather Channel: "Hurricane Iota is spreading a dangerous threat of flooding rainfall and damaging winds into Central America after making landfall in northern Nicaragua as a strong Category 4 late Monday night. Iota made landfall with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph at 10:40 p.m. EST on Monday near the town of Haulover, Nicaragua, or about 30 miles south of Puerto Cabezas, the National Hurricane Center said. The landfall location of Iota was just 15 miles south of where Hurricane Eta made landfall as a Category 4 earlier this month on Nov. 3. This is the first time on record two major hurricanes - Category 3 or stronger - have made landfall in Nicaragua in the same hurricane season, much less only two weeks apart. NOAA's hurricane database only documented seven such Category 3-plus landfalls in Nicaragua prior from the mid-19th century through 2019."

The Commentariat -- November 16, 2020

Late Morning Update:

Nick Niedzwiadek of Politico: ">The White House's national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, on Monday promised president-elect Joe Biden an orderly transfer of power, a departure from other Trump administration officials who have shunned any perception that ... Donald Trump lost the election. 'If the Biden-Harris ticket is determined to be the winner -- and obviously things look that way now -- we'll have a very professional transition from the National Security Council,' O'Brien said in a virtual interview at the Global Security Forum.... O'Brien couched his statements, as Trump's campaign is still pursuing legal challenges to the election results, and he said the transition would commence 'if the current lawsuits don't work out for the president.... If there is a new administration, they deserve some time to come in and implement their policies,' O'Brien said.... [MEANWHILE,] 'The Radical Left Democrats, working with their partner, the Fake News Media, are trying to STEAL this Election,' Trump tweeted [Monday morning]. 'We won't let them!'"

Rebecca Shabad of NBC News: "Georgia's Republican secretary of state posted several fact checks on his official Facebook page Sunday correcting misinformation about the election promoted by ... Donald Trump and his campaign. Brad Raffensperger, for example, shared an Associated Press story that fact-checked Trump’s false claim that Georgia election officials were unable to verify signatures on absentee ballots because of a legal settlement.... Raffensperger also wrote that his office strengthened the absentee ballot process for the first time since 2005, and, in another post, said one of the first things he did as secretary of state was to ban ballot harvesting after the Legislature passed his proposal in 2019. 'Truth matters. Integrity matters,' he wrote."

Death in De Nile. Kathryn Krawczyk of the Week: "After a Twitter thread of her experiences started circulating, [South Dakota nurse Jodi] Doering appeared on CNN's New Day on Monday to describe how South Dakota hospitals are overwhelmed with coronavirus patients -- and yet some of them don't believe the virus they have is real.... Some COVID-19 patients spend their last moments refusing to call family and friends because they're convinced they're going to be fine, Doering said. 'Their last dying words are, "This can't be happening. It's not real,'" Doering recalled. In some cases, patients even insist they have the flu or lung cancer to avoid acknowledging the coronavirus." ~~~

     ~~~ Marina Watts of Newsweek: "'The ones that stick out are those who still don't believe the virus is real. The ones who scream at you for a magic medicine and that Joe Biden is Going to ruin the USA. All while gasping for breath on 100% Vapotherm,' [Jodi Doering] wrote. 'They tell you there must be another reason they are sick. They call you names and ask why you have to wear all that "stuff" because they don't have COVID because it's not real. Yes. This really happens.'" Mrs. McC: These stories harken back to a comment contributor Jeanne wrote in Sunday's thread. Anyway, thanks, Trump!

Elizabeth Cohen of CNN: "The Moderna vaccine is 94.5% effective against coronavirus, according to early data released Monday by the company, making it the second vaccine in the United States to have a stunningly high success rate. 'These are obviously very exciting results,' said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease doctor. 'It's just as good as it gets -- 94.5% is truly outstanding.' Moderna heard its results on a call Sunday afternoon with members of the Data Safety and Monitoring Board, an independent panel analyzing Moderna's clinical trial data."

The Washington Post's live election updates Monday are here. They are free to non-subscribers. President-elect Joe "Biden plans to forge ahead Monday with his transition to the presidency, delivering remarks from Delaware on the economic recovery, his latest in a series of speeches on key issues confronting the country. According to his transition team, both Biden and Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), the vice president-elect, will receive a briefing on the economy, in Wilmington, in advance of a scheduled afternoon address. ~~~

~~~ [POUTUS.] "Trump continued to refuse to accept defeat, tweeting in all caps shortly before midnight on Sunday, 'I WON THE ELECTION.' He repeated his baseless claim on Monday morning, tweeting, 'I won the election,' amid a spate of other tweets airing grievances about the process. Twitter responded by a slapping a warning on the Sunday tweet, reading, 'Official sources called this election differently,' with a link to multiple news accounts of Biden winning the presidency.... Trump, meanwhile, has no public events on Monday." ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Which one of these is more like a president? The one practicing to be president or the one who, theoretically, has held the job for almost four years?

Fall of the House of Javanka. Frank Bruni of the New York Times: "Just five short years ago Jared and Ivanka were dinner-party royalty here in Manhattan.... They had money, they had youth, they had celebrity. They were thin. I'm told that their manners were impeccable, so you'd never know that his father was an actual felon and her father a de facto one.... [But now.] Jared and Ivanka are about to be held accountable.... They are the Faustian poster couple of the Trump presidency, the king and queen of the principle-torching prom at which so many danced alongside them, although in less exquisitely tailored attire.... Down there, near the border: migrant children in cages. Over here, near the Potomac: Javanka in their gilded tableaux.... They have made their bed. Lucky for them, the sheets have a serious thread count."

~~~~~~~~~~

The Real Presidencies, Past & Future

... Vaccines don't save lives: vaccinations save lives. -- Ron Klain, Sunday ~~~

~~~ Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar & Will Weissert of the AP: "Joe Biden's scientific advisers will meet with vaccine makers in coming days as the presidential transition remains stalled because of ... Donald Trump's refusal to acknowledge that he lost the election.... 'We're going to start those consultations this week,' said Biden's chief of staff, Ron Klain, citing Pfizer and other pharmaceutical companies.... Klain said Biden's experts also need a detailed understanding of distribution plans being finalized by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Pentagon. In some ways, that's the more critical issue, he said. 'We need to be talking to them as quickly as possible,' Klain said. 'It's great to have a vaccine, but vaccines don't save lives: vaccinations save lives. And that means you've got to get that vaccine into people's arms all over this country. It's a giant logistical project.'"

Arlette Saenz of CNN: "As President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take office in January, nearly half of the transition team laying the groundwork for his administration is made up of people of color, and women are in the majority. Forty-six percent of the transition staff are people of color, according to new diversity data of the transition team provided to CNN, and 41% of the senior staff are people of color. The majority of transition staff -- 52% -- are women, and 53% of the senior staff are women.... The transition team's diversity also extends to its advisory board -- where 43% are people of color and 52% are women. Nine of the 13 members of Biden's Covid-19 advisory board are people of color and five of the members are women, according to the data."

Andrew Van Dam & Heather Long of the Washington Post: "The parts of America that have seen strong job, population and economic growth in the past four years voted for Joe Biden, economic researchers found. In contrast, President Trump garnered his highest vote shares in counties that had some of the most sluggish job, population and economic growth during his term. Trump fared well among voters who said the economy was their top concern.... To be sure..., education and race most strongly explained voting patterns, but they were followed closely by a county's economic performance. The economy often decides elections, but the surprise in this case was that good economic performance didn't appear to favor the incumbent."

     ~~~ The transcript of Scott Pelley's interview of President Obama is here.

The Farce

** Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Trump's refusal to concede the election has entered a more dangerous phase as he stokes resistance and unrest among his supporters and spreads falsehoods aimed at undermining the integrity of the American voting system. More than a week after President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. was declared the winner, Mr. Trump continues to block his successor's transition, withholding intelligence briefings, critical information about the coronavirus pandemic and access to the vast machinery of government that Mr. Biden will soon oversee. Some former top advisers to Mr. Trump have said that his refusal to cooperate is reckless and unwise. John F. Kelly, Mr. Trump's former chief of staff, called it 'crazy' on Friday. John R. Bolton, the president's former national security adviser..., said the refusal 'harms the country.' The president's attempt to cling to power played out against a backdrop of protests by Trump supporters and opponents late Saturday, with sporadic clashes near the White House. The police arrested 21 people as one protester was stabbed and four officers were injured. Rather than seek to calm tensions, Mr. Trump lashed out. 'ANTIFA SCUM ran for the hills,' he posted on Twitter on Saturday as he urged the police to move in aggressively. 'DC Police, get going -- do your job and don't hold back!!!'"

Donald Trump's Twitter feed doesn't make Joe Biden president or not president. The American people did that. -- Ron Klain on NBC's "Meet the Press" ~~~

~~~ The Most Pathetic Loser. David Cohen of the Politico: "... Donald Trump has yet to concede the presidential election, but on Sunday he briefly came close to acknowledging that he lost in a tweet. 'He won because the Election was Rigged,' Trump tweeted. 'NO VOTE WATCHERS OR OBSERVERS allowed, vote tabulated by a Radical Left privately owned company, Dominion, with a bad reputation & bum equipment that couldn't even qualify for Texas (which I won by a lot!), the Fake & Silent Media, & more!' But an hour or so later, Trump made it clear he was not conceding, tweeting 'RIGGED ELECTION. WE WILL WIN!' and following it up with 'He only won in the eyes of the FAKE NEWS MEDIA. I concede NOTHING! We have a long way to go. This was a RIGGED ELECTION!' In the 12 days since the election, Trump has consistently claimed victory, while baselessly asserting that Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats had cheated to make it appear that he won. Trump and his legal team have lost numerous court cases trying to prove their theories due to a lack of evidence." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Josh Gerstein of Politico: "While Trump's flurry of litigation over the election has made little headway, the president insisted Sunday that more lawsuits are about to be unveiled and he suggested they'd be more spectacular than those already before judges. 'Our big cases showing the unconstitutionality of the 2020 Election, & the outrage of things that were done to change the outcome, will soon be filed!' the president wrote on Twitter."

Eleanor Mueller of Politico: "Public health officials, members of Joe Biden's transition team, and elected Democrats and Republicans urged ... Donald Trump on Sunday to begin the transfer of power to President-elect Joe Biden, warning that continuing to waylay the process amid a spiking pandemic could endanger American lives. 'Of course it would be better' if public health officials could begin working with Biden's transition team right now, Dr. Anthony Fauci ... said on CNN's 'State of the Union.' 'That is obvious.'... [Ron Klain, Biden's chief of staff, said on NBC,] 'Joe Biden's going to become president of the United States in the midst of an ongoing crisis.... That has to be a seamless transition.'... Asked on ABC';s 'This Week' whether the Biden transition team should be allowed contact with health officials, the Trump administration's coronavirus testing czar, Brett Giroir, replied: 'This is an issue of public health and saving American lives. There&'s nothing more important than that.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

** The Trump Conspiracy. Jim Rutenberg & Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "... in the fact-twisting narrative of Mr. Trump, his political allies and his supporters, the Detroit counting center was a crime scene where Democrats stole an election, a miscarriage demanding that outrage be channeled through the courts, presidential Twitter posts and cable news stemwinders. And that was the plan envisioned by the pro-Trump forces all along. Like similar episodes in Las Vegas, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, the scene in Detroit was the culmination of a yearslong strategy by Mr. Trump to use the power of the executive branch, an army of lawyers, the echo chamber of conservative news media and the obedience of fellow Republicans to try out his most audacious exercise in bending reality: to turn losing into winning. Obscured by the postelection noise over the president's efforts to falsely portray the election system as 'rigged' against him has been how much Mr. Trump and his allies did ahead of time to promote a baseless conspiracy devised to appeal to his most passionate supporters, providing him with the opportunity to make his historically anomalous bid to cling to power in the face of defeat.... A presidency that began with a lie -- that President Barack Obama was not a citizen -- is now ending with one, too." Read on. ~~~

~~~ Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration is ending as it began: with a lie about crowd size. On Saturday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany tweeted two overhead photos of President Trump supporters who had gathered for a pro-Trump march in Washington, writing, 'AMAZING! More than one MILLION marchers for President @realDonaldTrump descend on the swamp in support.' McEnany was off by many orders of magnitude -- the crowd of thousands was a notable show of force, perhaps, but a far cry from the million marchers she claimed.... Nearly four years ago, [another Trump press secretary,] Sean Spicer stepped behind the briefing room lectern on his first full day on the job and, at the president's urging, told falsehoods about the size of Trump's inauguration crowds.... Trump began his political career with the mendacious claim of birtherism ... as part of an effort to delegitimize his predecessor. And he is ending his political career amid false allegations that President-elect Joe Biden won the election only because it was somehow rigged or stolen -- part of an effort to delegitimize his successor." ~~~

~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Undergirding Trump's political career -- and missing from these analyses -- is one true thing: virulent racism. Birtherism is obviously racist, but so are Trump's claims of a "stolen" election. The "thieves," not surprisingly, are concentrated in large urban centers -- Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta -- which have large populations of Black voters. Trump isn't alone, of course. There's a reason Trump's Republican enablers across the country have tried, often successfully, to suppress the votes of Black & Hispanic Americans. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott limited the number of ballot drop boxes to one per county: the largest counties are home to huge numbers of Black & Hispanic voters. Trump believes only white people are legitimate Americans who have a right to participate in government. A non-white person cannot be president; non-whites can't even vote. The thousands of people who showed up for the Million MAGA March get that, too. They know exactly who "stole" the election.

Jon Swaine & Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "The federal government's chief information security officer [Carlos Sandoval] is participating in an effort backed by supporters of President Trump to hunt for evidence of voter fraud in the battleground states where President-elect Joe Biden secured his election victory.... Sandoval is one of several Trump appointees in the federal government -- some in senior roles -- who are harnessing their expertise for the project, according to the group's leader.... Officials with [Trump's] Voter Integrity Fund said the political appointees participating in the project are doing it in their personal time.... A spokeswoman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, where Sandoval works, said Friday that Sandoval was on leave, but she did not respond when asked whether he was continuing to receive his government salary."

Pennsylvania. Jon Swaine & Elise Viebeck of the Washington Post: "President Trump's campaign on Sunday scrapped a major part of its federal lawsuit challenging the election results in Pennsylvania. Trump's attorneys filed a revised version of the lawsuit, removing allegations that election officials violated the Trump campaign's constitutional rights by limiting the ability of their observers to watch votes being counted. Trump and Rudolph W. Giuliani ... have said repeatedly that more than 600,000 votes in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh should be invalidated because of this issue. Trump's pared-down lawsuit now focuses on allegations that Republicans were illegally disadvantaged because some Democratic-leaning counties allowed voters to fix errors on their mail ballots. Counties have said this affected only a small number of votes.Cliff Levine, an attorney representing the Democratic Party in the case, said on Sunday evening that Trump's move meant his lawsuit could not possibly change the result." The Politico story, by Josh Gerstein, is here; it's also linked above. ~~~

     ~~~ "A Non-zero Number of People." Mrs. McCrabbie: Mind you, Trump's lawyers didn't drop this portion of the suit because their evidence was shaky. They dropped it because their allegation was patently false. When federal Judge Paul Diamond last week "pressed the Trump campaign lawyer if there were observers in the room from the campaign, the lawyer, Jerome Marcus, said, 'There's a non-zero number of people in the room.'" Marcus apparently could not bring himself to give the correct answer, which was "yes." "After the judge confirmed the parties would have the same number of observers in the room, he dismissed the Trump campaign's request because it was moot."

Georgia. AP: "... Donald Trump has wrongly claimed that Georgia election officials are unable to verify signatures on absentee ballot envelopes because of a legal settlement known as a consent decree.... Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, said that not only is it entirely possible to match signatures, but that the state requires it."

Michigan. Best Headline: "Republican Convicted of Election Fraud Helps Lead Trump Rally Baselessly Claiming Election Fraud." Susan Demas of Michigan Advance: "Another pro-President Trump rally was held at the Michigan Capitol on Saturday.... One of the speakers is blogger and GOP activist Brandon Hall, who says he's running for Michigan Republican Party chair. That position is currently held by former state Rep. Laura Cox (R-Livonia), who Trump announced at a pre-election rally in Grand Rapids would 'be fired' if he lost the state, which he did.... In 2013, Hall was charged with 10 counts of election law forgery, which is a felony. In December 2016, Hall was sentenced to 30 days in jail and 18 months probation for election fraud, the Grand Haven Tribune, FOX-17 and MLive reported."

Georgia Senate Runoffs. Donald Judd, et al., of CNN: "Georgia Republican Sen. David Perdue has declined an invitation to debate Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff ahead of the January runoff election for his seat.... The Atlanta Press Club ... is hosting two separate debates for both Senate runoffs. Ossoff's campaign told CNN they have accepted the Press Club's invitation.... Ossoff [said] during a Sunday rally in the Atlanta suburbs [that] ... a debate 'the bare minimum' voters should expect from candidates.... The senior senator from Georgia drew fire after withdrawing from a debate just before Election Day, following a debate that saw Ossoff label Perdue a 'crook' and Perdue accuse Ossoff of profiting off China.... [Perdue] has thrown himself behind ... Donald Trump's false claims of election fraud, joining fellow Georgia Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler in calling on Georgia's Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to resign. But in interviews, Perdue has acknowledged President-elect Joe Biden's victory, warning that retaining the two Georgia Senate seats headed for a runoff would serve as 'the last line of defense against this liberal socialist agenda the Democrats will perpetrate.'"

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Monday are here. The Washington Post's live updates Monday are here.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Sunday are here: "Officials in the United States have reported more than 11 million total cases of coronavirus as of Sunday, as the country's outbreaks lead to agonizing new levels of hospitalizations.... The country logged more than 159,100 new cases on Saturday, the third highest total of the pandemic, raising the new seven-day average to more than 145,000, with upward trends in 48 states and an 80 percent increase in new cases from the average two weeks ago.... Deaths nationwide remain at lower levels than in spring's peak, but they are rising rapidly and approaching 250,000. More than 1,200 new deaths were reported on Saturday, pushing the seven-day average to more than 1,120 a day, a 38 percent increase from the average two weeks ago.... The pandemic continues to take a disproportionate toll on Americans of color, who have been hospitalized at rates roughly four times higher than non-Hispanic whites since the start of the epidemic." ~~~

~~~ John Bowden of the Hill: "The U.S. passed 11 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Sunday as the country saw a surge of roughly a million new cases in the past week, according to figures tabulated by Johns Hopkins University."

Michigan. Craig Mauger of the Detroit News: "Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced wide-ranging new restrictions limiting gatherings at high schools, colleges and restaurants Sunday night to combat what she described as the 'worst moment' yet in the COVID-19 pandemic. The new policies will temporarily halt in-person instruction at high schools and colleges, indoor dine-in service at restaurants and bars, and high school athletics as well as close some businesses, including movie theaters, bowling alleys and casinos." ~~~

~~~ Paul LeBlanc & Jeremy Diamond of CNN: "White House coronavirus task force member Dr. Scott Atlas criticized Michigan's new Covid-19 restrictions in a tweet shortly after they were announced Sunday evening.... 'The only way this stops is if people rise up,' Atlas said. 'You get what you accept. #FreedomMatters #StepUp'.... Responding to Atlas' tweet Sunday evening, [Gov. Gretchen] Whitmer told CNN's Wolf Blitzer, 'We know that the White House likes to single us out here in Michigan, me out in particular. I'm not going to be bullied into not following reputable scientists and medical professionals.' Instead, Whitmer said, she consults 'people that actually have studied and are well respected worldwide on these issues, not the -- not the individual that is doing the President's bidding on this one.'" Mrs. McC: An excellent slapdown, but I'd like to physically slap down Atlas. He is killing people, inciting violence & fomenting revolution. And he's damned arrogant about it.

New York. Bill Mahoney of Politico: "Gov. Andrew Cuomo is promising to 'mobilize an army' to ensure that Black and brown New Yorkers have equal access to any coronavirus vaccines, and threatened a lawsuit against the Trump administration if its distribution plan isn't overhauled to make that possible. 'The Trump administration is designing the distribution plan, and their plan basically has private health care companies administer the vaccines,' Cuomo said in a speech delivered during services in Manhattan's Riverside Church on Sunday morning.... 'The president talks about CVS and Walgreens and national chains. Sure. But they are mainly located in rich communities, not in poor communities. My friends, we cannot compound the racial injustice that Covid has already created. And let me be clear -- the Black and brown communities that were first on the list of who died cannot be last on the list of who receives the vaccines, period.'"

Washington State. Rebecca Falconer of Axios: "Washington Gov. Jay Inslee D) announced Sunday new restrictions to mitigate surging COVID-19 cases, as he warned the state is 'in a more dangerous position than we were in March, when our first stay-at-home order was issued.'... The state has seen 'consistent increasing daily case counts, with over 2,000 cases a day over the weekend and average cases in the state doubling over the past two weeks,' per a statement from the governor's office."

The Commentariat -- November 15, 2020

Afternoon Update:

Eleanor Mueller of Politico: "Public health officials, members of Joe Biden's transition team, and elected Democrats and Republicans urged ... Donald Trump on Sunday to begin the transfer of power to President-elect Joe Biden, warning that continuing to waylay the process amid a spiking pandemic could endanger American lives. 'Of course it would be better' if public health officials could begin working with Biden's transition team right now, Dr. Anthony Fauci ... said on CNN's 'State of the Union.' 'That is obvious.'... [Ron Klain, Biden's chief of staff, said on NBC,] 'Joe Biden's going to become president of the United States in the midst of an ongoing crisis.... That has to be a seamless transition.'... Asked on ABC's 'This Week' whether the Biden transition team should be allowed contact with health officials, the Trump administration's coronavirus testing czar, Brett Giroir, replied: 'This is an issue of public health and saving American lives. There's nothing more important than that.'"

Donald Trump's Twitter feed doesn't make Joe Biden president or not president. The American people did that. -- Ron Klain on NBC's "Meet the Press" ~~~

~~~ The Most Pathetic Loser. David Cohen of the Politico: "... Donald Trump has yet to concede the presidential election, but on Sunday he briefly came close to acknowledging that he lost in a tweet. 'He won because the Election was Rigged,' Trump tweeted. 'NO VOTE WATCHERS OR OBSERVERS allowed, vote tabulated by a Radical Left privately owned company, Dominion, with a bad reputation & bum equipment that couldn't even qualify for Texas (which I won by a lot!), the Fake & Silent Media, & more!' But an hour or so later, Trump made it clear he was not conceding, tweeting 'RIGGED ELECTION. WE WILL WIN!' and following it up with 'He only won in the eyes of the FAKE NEWS MEDIA. I concede NOTHING! We have a long way to go. This was a RIGGED ELECTION!' In the 12 days since the election, Trump has consistently claimed victory, while baselessly asserting that Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats had cheated to make it appear that he won. Trump and his legal team have lost numerous court cases trying to prove their theories due to a lack of evidence."

~~~~~~~~~~

Oliver Milman of the Guardian: "Joe Biden is piecing together what he has promised to be a diverse cabinet, with Michele Flournoy reportedly top choice for US defence secretary and Susan Rice considered a frontrunner for secretary of state. Flournoy was previously a senior defense adviser in Bill Clinton and Barack Obama's administrations and is considered a political moderate. Since leaving government she has been involved in various consultancy roles around military contracts. The appointment, if confirmed by the US Senate, would end a tumultuous period under Donald Trump, who has had five male defense secretaries during his presidency. The latest, Mark Esper, was unceremoniously fired on Monday for, among other issues, disagreeing with the president over the use of force against civilian protesters."

The Farce Still Be with Us

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Trump, the Republican party, their voters & supporters have made the U.S. the laughingstock of the world. Fascism & other sorts of dictatorships have never been satisfactory forms of government. What would make the supposedly intelligent people on the right think that re-enacting a failed scheme now was a good idea eludes me.

Mrs. McCrabbie: Poor, pitiful baby Donnie is beginning to try to face facts. Breakthrough 1! Friday Trump said he didn't know what administration would be in power after Jan. 20. Breakthrough 2! This morning Trump tweeted, "He won because the Election was Rigged." "He," we presume, is Joe Biden, the President-elect. The tweet goes on with more lies, and Twitter flagged it. But, wow!, we did read the independent clause "He won" on Donald Trump's Twitter account. Is that an official concession? What an embarrassment!

Doing His Best Nero Imitation, Trump Golfed While Americans Died. The New York Times' live post-election updates are here: "President Trump in his motorcade drove by hundreds of his supporters who showed up in Washington, D.C., on Saturday for demonstrations protesting the outcome of the 2020 election.... The president drove by in the motorcade on his way to his private golf club in Sterling, Va., and was greeted, according to a pool report, by applause and cheers. People who watched him go by carried signs reading 'Best prez ever' and 'Stop the steal.'" ~~~

~~~ Julie Zauzmer, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump's supporters had celebrated for hours on Saturday, waving their 'MAGA' flags and blaring 'God Bless the USA' as they gathered in Washington to falsely claim that the election had been stolen from the man they adore.... But ... the mood shifted, growing angrier as 300 or so counter protesters delivered a message the president's most ardent backers were unwilling to hear: The election is over. Trump lost.... In brief but intense clashes, activists spewed profanity and shouted threats, threw punches and launched bottles. On both sides, people were bloodied, and at least 10 were arrested, including four on gun charges.... After a week in which more than 750,000 Americans were diagnosed with the novel coronavirus, almost none of his backers was wearing masks. Among their ranks were white nationalists, conspiracy theorists and far-right activists carrying signs demanding action that was already being taken: 'Count the legal votes.'"

David Fahrenthold, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump lost his reelection bid at the ballot box. But he said he could win it back in court.... It's not going well. Rather than revealing widespread -- or even isolated -- fraud, the effort by Trump's legal team has so far done the opposite: It's affirmed the integrity of the election that Trump lost. Nearly every GOP challenge has been tossed out. Not a single vote has been overturned.... Part of the problem is that Trump's approach has been backward: Declare crimes first, then look for proof afterward. Again and again, the president or his allies said they'd found evidence that would stun the public and swing the election. But, when Trump and his team revealed that evidence, it often was far less than they had promised. A 'dead' voter turned out to be alive. 'Thousands' of problematic ballots turned out to be one."

My Cousin Vinny Meets Marx Bros., LLC. Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "Senior [Trump] campaign aides scurried to urge organizers to kill the ... infamously staged [Giuliani press briefing] at the wrong 'Four Seasons' -- a landscaping business adjacent to an adult bookstore and a crematorium. But Giuliani plowed ahead anyway, delivering a conspiracy-filled rant that undercut the legal strategy the president's advisers had meticulously mapped out in the run-up to the election. Campaign officials described the episode as disastrous, saying it scared off many of the lawyers they spent months recruiting.... Yet Giuliani is taking on a heightened role. The president on Friday appointed him to oversee any new post-election litigation.... Republican officials said they viewed Trump's decision to promote Giuliani as an implicit acknowledgment that his legal options are closing and a sign that he's determined to go out guns blazing." Mrs. McC: In this story, the right-wing flame-thrower David Bossie comes out as the "rational" one. Tuck in your shirt, Rudy.

Pennsylvania. Nicholas Reimann of Forbes: "President-elect Joe Biden now officially has a big enough lead in Pennsylvania that the state will not conduct a recount, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar announced Friday, as ... Donald Trump's claims of fraud and lawsuits concerning the election keep falling flat as Biden's victory looks increasingly decisive. Trump can still request a recount, but in doing so would need to allege a miscount in the official vote tally. On Friday, Trump's legal team withdrew from representing his campaign in a legal challenge looking to block vote certification in Pennsylvania. In the unlikely event Trump were to be granted a recount, his campaign would have to pay for it and the recount would have to be finished by November 24." ~~~

Bob Christie & Nicholas Riccardi of the AP: "Republican leaders in four critical states won by President-elect Joe Biden say they won't participate in a legally dubious scheme to flip their state's electors to vote for ... Donald Trump. Their comments effectively shut down a half-baked plot some Republicans floated as a last chance to keep Trump in the White House. State GOP lawmakers in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have all said they would not intervene in the selection of electors, who ultimately cast the votes that secure a candidate's victory. Such a move would violate state law and a vote of the people, several noted.... Still, it has been promoted by Trump allies, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and is an example of misleading information and false claims fueling skepticism among Trump supporters about the integrity of the vote. The theory is rooted in the fact that the U.S. Constitution grants state legislatures the power to decide how electors are chosen. Each state already has passed laws that delegate this power to voters and appoint electors for whichever candidate wins the state on Election Day."

Walter Shaub in the New York Review of Book: "Trump's absurd insistence that he 'WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!' is easy enough to ignore. What is harder to ignore is what his appointee who runs the General Services Administration (GSA) is doing.... Congress ... does not appear to have contemplated the risk that a partisan loyalist appointed by a corrupt president would refuse to fulfill [her] duty when the outcome of the election was clear. Enter GSA Administrator Emily Murphy. Murphy is refusing to ascertain the apparent winner of the 2020 election as the president who appointed her disputes the clear outcome.... Murphy's refusal comes as great news to hostile foreign powers. Murphy has a sordid history in the Trump administration.... She cancelled a long-planned relocation of the FBI's headquarters in Washington, D.C. Circumstances suggest she may have been satisfying a desire on the part of President Trump to avoid opening real estate near his Washington, D.C., hotel that a competing hotel could acquire.... Murphy also appears to have been complicit in President Trump's assault on the civil service...."

Dennis Romero of NBC News: "A federal judge in New York City on Saturday said Chad Wolf has not been acting lawfully as the chief of Homeland Security and that, as such, his suspension of protections for a class of migrants brought to the United States illegally as children is invalid. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that the Trump administration wrongly tried to shut down protections under the Obama-era legislation known as DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. On July 28, Wolf nonetheless suspended DACA pending review.... Karen Tumlin, a lawyer in the case and director of the Los Angeles-based Justice Action Center, said ... the ruling applies to more than a million people, including more recent applicants and those seeking two-year renewals for protection under DACA." ~~~

~~~ Jerry Lambe of Law & Crime: "Attorneys at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Friday notified a federal judge that a previous claim relied upon to justify the controversial and likely unlawful appointment of Chad Wolf as Acting Secretary was not true." Mrs. McC: Are these lawyers -- sick of defending Trumpian lies -- growing bolder as Trump exits right?

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

Josh Kovensky of TPM: "The official in charge of the Trump administration's bid to speed up vaccine development wants permission from the White House to begin briefing the Biden transition, the Financial Times reported. Moncef Slaoui heads Operation Warp Speed, the joint Health and Human Services-Department of Defense program to spur the creation of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine. Slaoui told the newspaper that he would need approval from the Trump administration before he could reach out to the transition team led by President-elect Joe Biden. 'I hope nothing interferes with [Operation Warp Speed]. It is a matter of life and death for thousands of people,' he said. The FT reported that, when asked if the vaccine program's success was contingent on access to the Biden team, Slaoui replied: 'I would assume, yes.'"

Minnesota. Selfish, Irresponsible Bastards. Minneapolis Star Tribune: "A day after it was revealed that GOP state Sen. Dave Senjem tested positive for COVID-19 after attending a Nov. 5 party caucus, news broke that Republican senators and staffers were informed in a Tuesday memo that 'a number of [GOP Senate] members and staff have been diagnosed with COVID-19.' DFLers [Democrats] were not informed of the rash of cases on the other side of the aisle."

As the Halo Slips. Jason Horowitz of the New York Times: “... after more than a decade of doubts, Pope John Paul II's reputation has fallen under its darkest cloud yet, after the very Vatican that rushed to canonize him released an extraordinary report this week that laid at the saint's feet the blame for the advancement of the disgraced former prelate Theodore E. McCarrick. The investigation, commissioned by Pope Francis, who canonized John Paul in 2014, revealed how John Paul chose not to believe longstanding accusations of sexual abuse against Mr. McCarrick, including pedophilia, allowing him to climb the hierarchy's ladder.... [The report] provides searing proof that the church moved with reckless speed to canonize John Paul and now it is caught in its own wreckage.... Citing John Paul's 'calamitous, callous decision-making,' which it said put children around the world at risk, an editorial Friday in the National Catholic Reporter urged American bishops meeting next week for their annual conference to 'discuss requesting that the Vatican formally suppress John Paul's cult,' or cease celebrating him. 'Abuse victims deserve no less.'"

News Lede

AP: "SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station on Sunday on the first full-fledged taxi flight for NASA by a private company. The Falcon rocket thundered into the night from Kennedy Space Center with three Americans and one Japanese, the second crew to be launched by SpaceX. The Dragon capsule on top -- named Resilience by its crew in light of this year's many challenges, most notably COVID-19 -- reached orbit nine minutes later. It is due to reach the space station late Monday and remain there until spring."