The Commentariat -- November 14, 2020

Afternoon Update:

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."

Doing His Best Nero Imitation, Trump Golfs While Americans Die. 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.'" Washington Post reporters have a story here.

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."

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The Presidency, Ctd.

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. demanded on Friday that President Trump do more to confront the coronavirus infections exploding across the country, calling the federal response 'woefully lacking' even as Mr. Trump broke a 10-day silence on the pandemic to threaten to withhold a vaccine from New York. In a blistering statement, Mr. Biden said that the recent surge, which is killing more than 1,000 Americans and hospitalizing almost 70,000 every day, required a 'robust and immediate federal response.... I will not be president until next year,' Mr. Biden said. 'The crisis does not respect dates on the calendar, it is accelerating right now. Urgent action is needed today, now, by the current administration -- starting with an acknowledgment of how serious the current situation is.' Mr. Biden released his statement less than an hour before the president appeared in the Rose Garden at the White House, where he announced no new measures to slow the virus's long-anticipated autumn surge, which he hardly acknowledged." More on the Trumpidemic linked below.

Simon Lewis of Reuters: "U.S. President-elect Joe Biden will be briefed by national security experts next week, Biden transition official Jen Psaki said on Friday, amid concerns that being out of the loop due to delays to the transition could be a national security risk.... Psaki did not name the national security experts who would be briefing the former vice president.... Psaki called on the [GSA]'s Trump-appointed administrator, Emily Murphy, to sign off on the transition, but said Biden's team was still hoping it would not have to take legal action to make it happen."

Christopher Cadelago, et al., of Politico: "President-elect Joe Biden's return to 'normalcy' will include restoring the daily press briefing -- and at least two women are under consideration to lead the new post-Trump show, according to people familiar with the deliberations. Kate Bedingfield is seen as having the inside track to become either White House communications director or press secretary. Symone Sanders could be offered the role of incoming press secretary, or slot into another position before winding up 'at the podium' down the line, Biden aides and other people in and around the transition said."

Matthew Green & Kate Abnett of Reuters: "French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday welcomed the prospect of U.S. President-elect Joe Biden rejoining the Paris climate accord, saying countries now had a chance to 'make our planet great again'.... In 2017, Macron launched an initiative called 'Make our planet great again' which offered U.S. climate scientists multi-year grants to relocate and conduct climate research in France.... Biden has pledged to convene world leaders for climate talks within his first 100 days in office. Already, climate change has been a featured topic in his first calls with U.S. allies and Pope Francis since being elected." --s

CNN has called Georgia for Joe Biden & North Carolina for the other guy: ~~~

~~~ Gregory Krieg of CNN: "Joe Biden will win Georgia, CNN projected Friday, striking at the heart of what has been a Republican presidential stronghold for nearly three decades. The former vice president is the first Democratic nominee to triumph in Georgia since Bill Clinton did it in 1992. Biden's victory adds 16 electoral votes to his tally, bringing him to 306 -- matching ... Donald Trump's 2016 total. With CNN's projection that Trump will win North Carolina, the final tally is 306-232. ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post has now also called Georgia & North Carolina. So has NBC News. Also too CBS News. ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: In 2016, Trump called his win over Clinton by exactly the same number -- 306 - 232 -- a MASSIVE Electoral College landslide victory! So Congratulations, Mr. President-elect on your MASSIVE landslide victory! Biden, BTW, has already bested Trump in the popular vote by more than 5.3 million votes and counting, while Trump lost the popular vote to Clinton by nearly 2.9 million votes.

The Farce, Ctd.

Susan Rice, in a New York Times op-ed: "In the week since Joe Biden's victory became clear, President Trump and his administration have taken no steps toward starting the process of transition. The risks to our national security are mounting.... The Biden-Harris agency review teams are constituted but have been denied access to every element of the executive branch. Vital exchanges of information and expertise that would help combat Covid-19 and jump-start the economy remain stalled.... Without access to critical threat information, no incoming team can counter what it can't see coming.... Tragically, but not surprisingly, Mr. Trump appears determined to take a final wrecking ball to our democracy and national security on his inevitable way out the door." Rice's description of the Obama-Trump transition is illuminating. The Trumpies didn't want to know what they didn't know. Mrs. McC: Trump must have heard half of the famous line from Thomas Gray's baleful poem "Igorance is bliss" ... and gone with it.

Here's what passes for a Trump concession speech: ... hopefully the, the, whatever happens in the future, who knows which administration will be, I guess time will tell.... -- Donald Trump, during Friday's White House misinformation briefing

“Donald Trump v. USA.” Marc Caputo of Politico: "Lawsuits in Arizona and Nevada were dropped. A Georgia challenge was quickly rejected for lack of evidence. [Donald Trump's] Pennsylvania legal team just threw in the towel. The president's legal machine -- the one papering swing states with lawsuits and affidavits in support of Trump's unsubstantiated claims of widespread fraud -- is slowly grinding to a halt after suffering a slew of legal defeats and setbacks.... One hapless Michigan lawyer ... filed an election challenge Thursday evening in a federal claims court in Washington, D.C., the wrong venue, and bizarrely titled it, 'Donald Trump v. USA,' as if the president was suing the nation." The report is a catalog of pathetic Trumpian misfires. ~~~

     ~~~ And there's stuff like this: Brendan Keefe of WXIA-TV Atlanta: "11Alive confirmed that two of the four Georgia voters the president's campaign accused of fraudulently voting while 'dead' are alive." ~~~

~~~ Biggest Loser Keeps on Losing. Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "President Trump suffered multiple legal setbacks in three key swing states on Friday, choking off many of his last-ditch efforts to use the courts to delay or block President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s victory. In quick succession, Mr. Trump was handed defeats in Pennsylvania, Arizona and Michigan, where a state judge in Detroit rejected an unusual Republican attempt to halt the certification of the vote in Wayne County pending an audit of the count.... [Despite the losses, Trump] posted on Twitter on Friday evening that he would win in Pennsylvania, making a baseless assertion about vote counting in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh."

Pennsylvania. Maryclaire Dale & Mark Scolforo of the AP: "... a federal appeals court rejected an effort to block about 9,300 mail-in ballots that arrived after Election Day in Pennsylvania. The judges noted the 'vast disruption' and 'unprecedented challenges' facing the nation during the COVID-19 pandemic as they upheld the three-day extension. Chief U.S. Circuit Judge D. Brooks Smith said the panel kept in mind 'a proposition indisputable in our democratic process: that the lawfully cast vote of every citizen must count.' The ruling involves a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision to accept mail-in ballots through Friday, Nov. 6, citing the pandemic and concerns about postal service delays. Republicans have also asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the issue. However, there are not enough late-arriving ballots to change the results in Pennsylvania, given President-elect Joe Biden's lead." Mrs. McC: Smith is a Reagan & Bush I appointee.

Michigan. Judge Dismisses Suit Targeting Black People's Votes. Olivia Rubin of ABC News: "A Michigan judge has denied a petition to block the certification of the 2020 election results in the heavily Democratic county that is home to Detroit, another legal setback for the Trump campaign, which has similar cases in several states. The Michigan lawsuit, brought by two Republican poll challengers who leveled unfounded allegations of fraud -- not the campaign itself -- had also sought an independent audit of the election, which the judge also rejected. The campaign did, however, attach this entire lawsuit as evidence of fraud in its own lawsuit filed in the state this week.... Chief Judge Timothy M. Kenny described the plaintiff's 'interpretation' of events on Election Day as 'incorrect and not credible.... In a not-so-subtle slap on the wrist, Kenny suggested the challengers should have attended the training session in October, so they could have known what they were witnessing during the counting process was standard practice."

Arizona. Another One Bites the Dust. Harper Neidig of the Hill: "The Trump campaign dropped its lawsuit on Friday in Arizona seeking a review of ballots cast in the state's biggest county in the presidential race just hours after multiple outlets projected President-elect \Joe Biden to carry the state. The campaign, which filed the complaint Saturday, said in a new filing that it would no longer seek a court order for a review of presidential votes over its allegation that poll workers had mishandled ballots rejected by tabulation machines. 'Since the close of yesterday's hearing, the tabulation of votes statewide has rendered unnecessary a judicial ruling as to the presidential electors,' Trump campaign lawyers wrote Friday in the filing." (Also linked yesterday.)

David Enrich, et al., of the New York Times: "Porter Wright Morris & Arthur, the law firm leading the Trump campaign's efforts to cast doubt on the presidential election results in Pennsylvania, abruptly withdrew from a federal lawsuit that it filed days earlier on behalf of President Trump.... The law firm on Monday filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania on behalf of the Trump campaign. The suit, which is pending, alleged that there were 'irregularities' in the presidential vote across the state, which President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. won by more than 50,000 votes. The Democratic National Committee has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Previously, Porter Wright had filed a number of other actions in Pennsylvania courts challenging aspects of the state's voting process. It isn't clear if the firm will continue to represent Mr. Trump's campaign on those cases." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Apparently these lawyers are averse to losing their licenses to practice or being fined for bringing frivolous suits.

Career Prosecutors Blast Barr. Katie Benner & Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "Career Justice Department prosecutors pushed back this week against a memo by Attorney General William P. Barr that opened the door to politically charged election fraud investigations, saying in a pair of messages that Mr. Barr thrust the department into politics and falsely overstated the threat of voter fraud.The protests were the latest rebuke of Mr. Barr by his own employees, who have in recent months begun criticizing his leadership both privately and publicly.... On Friday, 16 federal prosecutors across the country who were assigned to monitor elections for signs of fraud wrote to Mr. Barr that they had found no evidence of 'substantial allegations of voting and vote tabulation irregularities.' They also asked him to rescind the memo, saying it thrust the department into partisan politics and was unnecessary because no one has identified any legitimate suspicions of mass voter fraud. The memo 'is not based in fact,' the monitors wrote."

     ~~~ Lawrence O'Donnell called the pair of letters "the most audacious act of insubordination in the history of the Justice Department" (slight paraphrase). The authors are not U.S. attorneys but assistant U.S. attorneys.

Does This Orange Jumpsuit Go with My Hair? William Rashbaum & Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "President Trump lost more than an election last week. When he leaves the White House in January, he will also lose the constitutional protection from prosecution afforded to a sitting president. After Jan. 20, Mr. Trump ... will be more vulnerable than ever to a pending grand jury investigation by the Manhattan district attorney into the president's family business and its practices, as well as his taxes. The two-year inquiry, the only known active criminal investigation of Mr. Trump, has been stalled since last fall, when the president sued to block a subpoena for his tax returns and other records, a bitter dispute that for the second time is before the U.S. Supreme Court. A ruling is expected soon.... [Trump's] pardon power does not extend to state crimes, like the possible violations under investigation by [the Manhattan DA's] office.... In addition to [the DA's] inquiry, Mr. Trump also faces continuing scrutiny by New York State's attorney general -- who he has also claimed has targeted him out of partisan rancor." (Also linked yesterday.)

Really? Steven Nelson of the New York Post: "Department of Homeland Security acting Secretary Chad Wolf is defying President Trump's order to terminate election cybersecurity official Christopher Krebs, multiple sources tell The Post. The White House on Wednesday evening instructed Wolf to fire Krebs after Krebs openly dismissed claims of voter fraud in the Nov. 3 election. 'He gave us a bunch of reasons why he didn't want to do it and he said no,' a senior White House official told The Post about Wolf's refusal.... Foes [of Krebs] claim he's close to former DHS chief of staff Miles Taylor, who recently outed himself as 'Anonymous.'"

Andrew Kaczynski & Em Steck of CNN: "A new senior adviser at the Pentagon repeatedly said the United States' support for Israel was the result of 'Israeli lobby' money and accused prominent officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, of becoming 'very very rich,' from their support for Israel. Retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor, who was appointed as senior adviser to newly installed acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller this week, made the comments in two media appearances in 2012 and 2019. 'You have to look at the people that donate to those individuals,' Macgregor said in a September 2019 interview when asked if then-national security adviser John Bolton and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham wanted war with Iran. 'Mr. Bolton has become very, very rich and is in the position he's in because of his unconditional support for the Israeli lobby. He is their man on the ground, in the White House.... The same thing is largely true for Mr. Pompeo, he has aspirations to be president,' he added. 'He has his hands out for money from the Israeli lobby, the Saudis and others.'...Macgregor was nominated to become the US ambassador to Germany this summer, but his nomination stalled in the Senate Foreign Relations committee after CNN's KFile reported he disparaged immigrants and refugees, called for martial law and lethal force at the US-Mexico border, and attacked Germany's military power and culture. He also has been a vocal opponent of the US military's presence in Afghanistan." Bolton called Macgregor an anti-Semite.

Rob Kuznia, et al., of CNN: "... Stop the Steal has swept across inboxes, Facebook pages and Twitter like an out-of-control virus, spreading misinformation and violent rhetoric -- and spilling into real life, like the protest planned for DC this weekend. But while Stop the Steal may sound like a new 2020 political slogan to many..., it has been in the works for years. Its origin traces to Roger Stone.... Stone's political action committee launched a 'Stop the Steal' website in 2016 to fundraise ahead of that election, asking for $10,000 donations by saying, 'If this election is close, THEY WILL STEAL IT.'... [Also,] a Stop the Steal Facebook group was managed by a loose coalition of right wing operatives, some of whom have worked with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. The group amassed hundreds of thousands of followers in little more than a day before Facebook shut it down on November 5 -- the day after it was launched. Also on November 5, Bannon started his own 'Stop the Steal' Facebook group; he changed the name to 'Own Your Vote' the following day." ~~~

Katie Paul of Reuters: "Facebook FB.O Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told an all-staff meeting on Thursday that former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon had not violated enough of the company's policies to justify his suspension when he urged the beheading of two senior U.S. officials [including Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray], according to a recording heard by Reuters." --s ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Because inciting acts of terrorism against public officials -- including brutal murders -- is not so bad if white people do it.

Tommy Tuberville Is Dumber than a Rock, Plans to Break Law, Too. Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "In his first big interview as a senator-elect, Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, misidentified the three branches of the federal government, claimed erroneously that World War II was a battle against socialism and wrongly asserted that former Vice President Al Gore was president-elect for 30 days.... 'Our government wasn't set up for one group to have all three branches of government -- wasn't set up that way,' Mr. Tuberville said. 'You know, the House, the Senate, and the executive.'... Mr. Tuberville said[,] 'I tell people, my dad fought 76 years ago in Europe to free Europe of socialism.' World War II was a global battle against fascism. Mr. Tuberville also said he planned to use his Senate office to raise money for two Republican senators in Georgia who are facing runoff elections that will determine control of the chamber. Senate ethics rules bar the use of official resources for campaign purposes." (Also linked yesterday.)

New Congressmen Are Dumber than Rocks. Say Her Name. Dartunorro Clark of NBC News: "Representative-elect Cori Bush, a Missouri Democrat, said Friday that several of her Republican colleagues mistakenly called her Breonna Taylor due to a face mask she was wearing during the new House members orientation. Bush said some of those Republican colleagues appeared to be unfamiliar with Taylor, whose killing by police during a botched drug raid in Kentucky sparked massive protests across the country this past summer. 'It's Day One, so I'm wearing my "Breonna Taylor" mask. A few of my Republican colleagues have called me Breonna, assuming that's my name. It hurts. But I'm glad they'll come to know her name & story because of my presence here. Breonna must be central to our work in Congress,' Bush said in a tweet."

** Florida. Glenn Milberg of Local 10 News: "Why would candidates for Florida Senate seats do no campaigning, no fundraising, have no issue platforms, nor make any effort to get votes? Local 10 News has found evidence to suggest three such candidates in three Florida Senate district races, two of them in Miami Dade County, were shill candidates whose presence in the races were meant to syphon votes from Democratic candidates. Comparisons of the no-party candidates' public campaign records show similarities and connections that suggest they are all linked by funding from the same dark money donors, and part of an elaborate scheme to upset voting patterns. In one of those races, District 37, a recount is underway because the spread between the Democratic and Republican candidates is only 31 votes. The third party candidate received more than 6300 votes." --s

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here: "Governors and public health officials across the United States are pleading with Americans to change their behavior and prepare for a long winter as the country shatters record after record on coronavirus cases and hospitalizations. Both records fell yet again Friday, as more than 181,100 new cases were reported nationwide. It was only eight days ago that the U.S. reported its first 100,000-case day. Now the seven-day average of new daily cases is more than 140,000. Sixteen states also set single-day case records on Friday, and 30 states added more cases in the last week than in any other seven-day period. In a reversal, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, which has critically understaffed hospitals and the highest rates of new cases and deaths per person in the nation, announced several measures late Friday, including a mask mandate, a limit on indoor dining of 50 percent capacity or 150 people and a suspension of high school winter sports and extracurricular activities until Dec. 14." Emphasis added.

Apoorva Mandavilli of the New York Times: "... recent recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now ... [are] hewing more closely to scientific evidence, often contradicting the positions of the Trump administration. In scientific briefs published on Tuesday, the C.D.C. described the benefits of masks to wearers, not just to those around them. Agency researchers also urged people to celebrate Thanksgiving only with others in their households or, failing that, to wear a mask with two or more layers.... The guidance was only the latest in a series of newly assertive bulletins from the C.D.C. In recent weeks, agency officials have issued strict requirements for cruise lines; updated the science on coronavirus infections in children; re-evaluated the risk from airborne virus indoors; and released recommendations for labs investigating viral reinfections in patients."

Zeke Miller, et al., of the New York Times: "Gliding over significant challenges still to come..., Donald Trump on Friday offered a rosy update on the race for a vaccine for the resurgent coronavirus as he delivered his first public remarks since his defeat by President-elect Joe Biden. He still did not concede the election. Trump spoke from the the Rose Garden as the nation sets records for confirmed cases of COVID-19, and as hospitalizations near critical levels and fatalities climb to the highest levels since the spring. He said a vaccine would ship in 'a matter of weeks' to vulnerable populations, though the Food and Drug Administration has not yet been asked to grant the necessary emergency approvals.... In fact, there's no guarantee that Pfizer's shot, the front-runner, will get rapid authorization for emergency use. Even if it does, there's no information yet indicating if the vaccine works in older adults or just younger, healthier adults. Nor does Pfizer have a large commercial stockpile already poised to ship; initial batches of shots would be small and targeted to certain still-to-be-determined populations. Trump took no questions Friday from reporters. He hasn't answered questions since before Election Day." ~~~

~~~ Hope Yen, et al., of the AP: "... Donald Trump on Friday wrongly claimed full credit for Pfizer Inc.'s announcement that its COVID-19 vaccine was robustly successful and suggested without evidence that a separate state review will cause a protracted delay for New York residents waiting for a vaccine." The authors lay out the facts. ~~~

~~~ Dareh Gregorian, et al., of NBC News: "Trump -- snapping the longest stretch of silence in his presidency -- began his remarks [Friday] in the White House Rose Garden by touting the effectiveness of Operation Warp Speed, his administration's initiative to spur production of a vaccine, before taking aim at his home state. 'As soon as April the vaccine will be available to the entire general population, with the exception of places like New York State, where for political reasons the governor decided to say -- and I don't think it's good politically, I think it's very bad from a health standpoint -- but he wants to take his time on the vaccine,' Trump said. He was referring to comments [Gov. Andrew] Cuomo made in September, where he said he planned to have a panel of experts review a vaccine because he was concerned that Trump was trying to rush one out ahead of the presidential election.... 'I hope he doesn't handle this as badly as he's handled the nursing homes. But we're ready to provide it as soon as they let us know that they'll actually use it,' Trump said.... Asked about Trump's comments, Cuomo told MSNBC, 'None of what he said is true.'"

Trump Sickens His Security Details. Carol Leonnig & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "More than 130 Secret Service officers who help protect the White House and the president when he travels have recently been ordered to isolate or quarantine because they tested positive for the coronavirus or had close contact with infected co-workers, according to three people familiar with agency staffing. The spread of the coronavirus -- which has sidelined roughly 10 percent of the agency's core security team -- is believed to be partly linked to a series of campaign rallies that President Trump held in the weeks before the Nov. 3 election, according to the people.... Trump went on a travel blitz in the final stretch of the campaign, making five campaign stops on each of the last two days. On Nov. 2, Trump's campaign schedule required five separate groups of Secret Service officers -- each numbering 20 to several dozen -- ... to screen spectators and secure the perimeter around the president's events. President-elect Joe Biden made two campaign stops that day that also required Secret Service protection, but in smaller numbers. The agency is also examining whether some portion of the current infections are not travel-related..., but instead trace back to ... the White House." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Turns out Trump isn't shooting people on Fifth Avenue in plain sight; he's figuratively doing it all over the country, including in the White House. These officers may have signed up to "take a bullet for the president," but surely they never anticipated the bullet would come from Trump's own gun.

Annie Gowan & Holly Bailey of the Washington Post: "As coronavirus cases grow across the United States -- up 70 percent on average in the past two weeks, with an average of 130,000 cases per day nationally -- the situation is particularly acute now in the Upper Midwest and Plains states, with North and South Dakota leading the nation in new cases and deaths per capita over the past week, according to Washington Post data. Experts say that cases are surging in the region as the weather has turned colder and more people are forced inside -- into more poorly ventilated indoor spaces where transmission thrives -- with the virus arriving even in remote areas in largely conservative states where Republican leaders have resisted mask mandates or business closures, asking their residents to rely instead on personal responsibility.... Doctors and health-care providers across the Upper Midwest grappling with rising caseloads and staff shortages continue to urge leaders in their states to do more to stem the tide of the virus, as many in these hardy, wind-swept states where independence is prized still refuse to wear masks." (Also linked yesterday.)

Sam Metz of the AP: "Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak on Friday said he has tested positive for COVID-19 as the virus surges to record levels in the state and across the U.S.The 66-year-old Democrat is the fifth governor to report testing positive for the coronavirus this year..... Sisolak's announcement comes on a day that Nevada reported 1,857 additional coronavirus cases, the highest single-day total since the start of the pandemic."

Guardian: "Al-Qaida's second-in-command was killed in Iran in August by Israeli operatives acting at the behest of the United States, the New York Times has reported, citing intelligence officials. Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, who went by the nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Masri, was gunned down by two men on a motorcycle in Tehran, the NYT reported. He was accused of helping to mastermind the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa.... It was unclear what, if any, role the United States had in the killing.... Iran's foreign ministry [denied the report saying] in a statement that there were no al Qaeda 'terrorists' on Iranian soil.... Masri was killed along with his daughter, the widow of Osama bin Laden's son Hamza bin Laden, the Times reported." --s  The New York Times story is here.

Time-out for a Feel-good Story. Courtney Kube of NBC News: "When a bystander collapsed at the Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery Wednesday, a nurse happened to be nearby and rushed to his aid. She ... was the wife of the nation's top military officer, Gen. Mark Milley.... 'When I first got there, he was breathing in a very erratic way that he wasn't really taking air into his lungs as he should have been,' [Hollyanne Milley] said. 'And then he stopped breathing.' The man had no pulse. Milley said she directed someone to call 911 and started chest compressions. 'I did about two cycles of CPR, and then he just took a big, deep breath and kind of groaned a little bit and then started moving around.'... Milley spoke with him the next morning and said he was doing very well. She said the man, a veteran who asked to remain anonymous, has since been discharged [from a local hospital]." (Also linked yesterday.)

Way Beyond the Beltway

U.K. Peter Walker, et al. of the Guardian: "Boris Johnson has ordered Dominic Cummings to leave Downing Street with immediate effect, in a dramatic end to a tumultuous era which leaves a void at the heart of Downing Street. Cummings and his ally Lee Cain -- both ardent Brexiters blamed by MPs for a macho culture and a series of communications crises -- were asked to step down on Friday instead of staying in place until Christmas. One source said the prime minister told Cummings to go following accusations he had briefed against Johnson." --s

The Commentariat -- November 13, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

CNN has called Georgia for Joe Biden & North Carolina for the other guy: ~~~

~~~ Gregory Krieg of CNN: "Joe Biden will win Georgia, CNN projected Friday, striking at the heart of what has been a Republican presidential stronghold for nearly three decades. The former vice president is the first Democratic nominee to triumph in Georgia since Bill Clinton did it in 1992. Biden's victory adds 16 electoral votes to his tally, bringing him to 306 -- matching ... Donald Trump's 2016 total. With CNN's projection that Trump will win North Carolina, the final tally is 306-232. ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post has now also called Georgia & North Carolina. So has NBC News. Also too CBS News. ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: In 2016, Trump called his win over Clinton by exactly the same numer -- 306 - 232 -- a MASSIVE Electoral College landslide victory! So Congratulations, Mr. President-elect on your MASSIVE landslide victory! Biden, BTW, has already bested Trump in the popular vote by more than 5.3 million votes and counting, while Trump lost the popular vote to Clinton by nearly 2.9 million votes.

Another One Bites the Dust. Harper Neidig of the Hill: "The Trump campaign dropped its lawsuit on Friday in Arizona seeking a review of ballots cast in the state's biggest county in the presidential race just hours after multiple outlets projected President-elect Joe Biden to carry the state.  The campaign, which filed the complaint Saturday, said in a new filing that it would no longer seek a court order for a review of presidential votes over its allegation that poll workers had mishandled ballots rejected by tabulation machines. 'Since the close of yesterday’s hearing, the tabulation of votes statewide has rendered unnecessary a judicial ruling as to the presidential electors,' Trump campaign lawyers wrote Friday in the filing."

Tommy Tuberville Is Dumber than a Rock, Plans to Break Law, Too. Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: “In his first big interview as a senator-elect, Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, misidentified the three branches of the federal government, claimed erroneously that World War II was a battle against socialism and wrongly asserted that former Vice President Al Gore was president-elect for 30 days.... 'Our government wasn’t set up for one group to have all three branches of government — wasn’t set up that way,' Mr. Tuberville said. 'You know, the House, the Senate, and the executive.'... Mr. Tuberville said[,] 'I tell people, my dad fought 76 years ago in Europe to free Europe of socialism.' World War II was a global battle against fascism. Mr. Tuberville also said he planned to use his Senate office to raise money for two Republican senators in Georgia who are facing runoff elections that will determine control of the chamber. Senate ethics rules bar the use of official resources for campaign purposes.”

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Say, it's Friday, Sen. Jim Lankford. What are you doing to make sure President-elect Biden gets his daily intel briefings?

David Enrich, et al., of the New York Times: “Porter Wright Morris & Arthur, the law firm leading the Trump campaign’s efforts to cast doubt on the presidential election results in Pennsylvania, abruptly withdrew from a federal lawsuit that it filed days earlier on behalf of President Trump.... The law firm on Monday filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania on behalf of the Trump campaign. The suit, which is pending, alleged that there were 'irregularities' in the presidential vote across the state, which President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. won by more than 50,000 votes. The Democratic National Committee has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Previously, Porter Wright had filed a number of other actions in Pennsylvania courts challenging aspects of the state’s voting process. It isn’t clear if the firm will continue to represent Mr. Trump’s campaign on those cases.” ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Apparently these lawyers are averse to losing their licenses to practice or being fined for bringing frivolous suits.

Does This Orange Jumpsuit Go with My Hair? William Rashbaum & Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "President Trump lost more than an election last week. When he leaves the White House in January, he will also lose the constitutional protection from prosecution afforded to a sitting president. After Jan. 20, Mr. Trump ... will be more vulnerable than ever to a pending grand jury investigation by the Manhattan district attorney into the president’s family business and its practices, as well as his taxes. The two-year inquiry, the only known active criminal investigation of Mr. Trump, has been stalled since last fall, when the president sued to block a subpoena for his tax returns and other records, a bitter dispute that for the second time is before the U.S. Supreme Court. A ruling is expected soon.... [Trump's] pardon power does not extend to state crimes, like the possible violations under investigation by [the Manhattan DA's] office.... In addition to [the DA’s] inquiry, Mr. Trump also faces continuing scrutiny by New York State’s attorney general — who he has also claimed has targeted him out of partisan rancor."

Trump Sickens His Security Details. Carol Leonnig & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "More than 130 Secret Service officers who help protect the White House and the president when he travels have recently been ordered to isolate or quarantine because they tested positive for the coronavirus or had close contact with infected co-workers, according to three people familiar with agency staffing. The spread of the coronavirus — which has sidelined roughly 10 percent of the agency’s core security team — is believed to be partly linked to a series of campaign rallies that President Trump held in the weeks before the Nov. 3 election, according to the people.... Trump went on a travel blitz in the final stretch of the campaign, making five campaign stops on each of the last two days. On Nov. 2, Trump’s campaign schedule required five separate groups of Secret Service officers — each numbering 20 to several dozen -- ... to screen spectators and secure the perimeter around the president’s events. President-elect Joe Biden made two campaign stops that day that also required Secret Service protection, but in smaller numbers. The agency is also examining whether some portion of the current infections are not travel-related..., but instead trace back to ... the White House." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Turns out Trump isn't shooting people on Fifth Avenue in plain sight; he's figuratively doing it all over the country, including in the White House. These officers may have signed up to "take a bullet for the president," but surely they never anticipated the bullet would come from Trump's own gun.

Annie Gowan & Holly Bailey of the Washington Post: "As coronavirus cases grow across the United States — up 70 percent on average in the past two weeks, with an average of 130,000 cases per day nationally — the situation is particularly acute now in the Upper Midwest and Plains states, with North and South Dakota leading the nation in new cases and deaths per capita over the past week, according to Washington Post data. Experts say that cases are surging in the region as the weather has turned colder and more people are forced inside — into more poorly ventilated indoor spaces where transmission thrives — with the virus arriving even in remote areas in largely conservative states where Republican leaders have resisted mask mandates or business closures, asking their residents to rely instead on personal responsibility.... Doctors and health-care providers across the Upper Midwest grappling with rising caseloads and staff shortages continue to urge leaders in their states to do more to stem the tide of the virus, as many in these hardy, wind-swept states where independence is prized still refuse to wear masks."

Time-out for a Feel-good Story. Courtney Kube of NBC News: “When a bystander collapsed at the Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery Wednesday, a nurse happened to be nearby and rushed to his aid. She ... was the wife of the nation’s top military officer, Gen. Mark Milley.... 'When I first got there, he was breathing in a very erratic way that he wasn’t really taking air into his lungs as he should have been,' [Hollyanne Milley] said. 'And then he stopped breathing.' The man had no pulse. Milley said she directed someone to call 911 and started chest compressions. 'I did about two cycles of CPR, and then he just took a big, deep breath and kind of groaned a little bit and then started moving around.'... Milley spoke with him the next morning and said he was doing very well. She said the man, a veteran who asked to remain anonymous, has since been discharged [from a local hospital].”

~~~~~~~~~~

The Presidency, Ctd.

CNN, the major networks, the New York Times & the Washington Post finally called the presidential race for Joe Biden Thursday night. The AP & Fox "News" called it last week. After Georgia's hand-recount, Biden also is likely to win the state, bringing Biden's total Electoral College vote to 306. Donald Trump will win North Carolina, the only other state the AP & networks have not called. ~~~

The New York Times' live election updates Thursday are here: "President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has narrowly won Arizona, capturing the state’s 11 electoral votes and strengthening his Electoral College margin as President Trump continues to make baseless attacks on the vote counts favoring Mr. Biden. Mr. Biden, whose margin in Arizona is currently about 11,000 votes, or 0.3 percentage points, is the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since President Bill Clinton in 1996. Four years ago, Mr. Trump won the state by 3.5 percentage points. That Arizona — the home of the late Senator John McCain and Senator Barry Goldwater, a founder of the 20th century conservative political movement and the 1964 Republican presidential nominee — was in play for Democrats at all is remarkable. Before the state voted for Mr. Clinton, the last Democrat it had supported for president was Harry S. Truman in 1948." A CNN story is here.

Nicole Via y Rada of NBC News: "President-elect Joe Biden spoke with Pope Francis on Thursday, according to his transition team. Biden, a devout Catholic, thanked the Pope for 'extending blessings and congratulations,' saying he expressed a desire to work together 'on the basis of a shared belief in the dignity and equality of all humankind.'" Here's a readout of the conversation provided by the Biden-Harris transition team.

Chimamanda Adichie, a Nigerian fiction & non-fiction writer, reviews Barack Obama's memoir A Promised Land for the New York Times: "It is not merely that this book avoids being ponderous, as might be expected, even forgiven, of a hefty memoir, but that it is nearly always pleasurable to read, sentence by sentence, the prose gorgeous in places, the detail granular and vivid. From Southeast Asia to a forgotten school in South Carolina, he evokes the sense of place with a light but sure hand. This is the first of two volumes, and it starts early in his life, charting his initial political campaigns, and ends with a meeting in Kentucky where he is introduced to the SEAL team involved in the Abbottabad raid that killed Osama bin Laden." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Martin Pengelly of the Guardian writes more of a book report. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ The Atlantic publishes an "adapted & updated" excerpt from Barack Obama's memoir, which is to be published Tuesday. It includes audio of the preface, as appears in the book, read by President Obama. (Firewalled.) (Also linked yesterday.)

The Farce, Ctd.

One Good Thing: We haven't heard the Voice of Trump for six days. Macho Man is cowering in a corner of his bunker or hiding under the Resolute Desk (sadly, no corners in the Oval, as pence explained to the Fat King in soothing tones).

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: “At a meeting on Wednesday at the White House, President Trump ... press[ed his advisors] on whether Republican legislatures could pick pro-Trump electors in a handful of key states and deliver him the electoral votes he needs to change the math and give him a second term, according to people briefed on the discussion.... 'He knows it’s over,' one adviser said. But instead of conceding, they said, he is floating one improbable scenario after another for staying in office while he contemplates his uncertain post-presidency future. There is no grand strategy at play, according to interviews with a half-dozen advisers and people close to the president. Mr. Trump is simply trying to survive from one news cycle to the next, seeing how far he can push his case against his defeat and ensure the continued support of his Republican base.” ~~~

~~~ David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "On Thursday, six American service members were killed in a helicopter crash during a peacekeeping mission in Egypt. Tropical Storm Eta made landfall in North Florida, contributing to severe flooding. The number of Americans infected with the novel coronavirus continued at a record-setting pace, sending the stock market tumbling. At the White House, President Trump spent the day as he has most others this week — sequestered from public view, tweeting grievances, falsehoods and misinformation about the election results and about Fox News’s coverage of him.... The contrast between the nation grappling with an ongoing global crisis and a president consumed with his own political problems highlighted a fundamental contradiction at the heart of Trump’s assault on the integrity of the U.S. election system: He is leveraging the power of his office in a long-shot bid to stay in the job while ignoring many of the public duties that come with it.... His public schedule has not included the daily presidential security briefing since early October, even as his administration has refused to launch the formal transition, depriving President-elect Joe Biden’s team of access to national security information."

David Sanger, et al., of the New York Times: “Hours after President Trump repeated a baseless report that a voting machine system 'deleted 2.7 million Trump votes nationwide,' he was directly contradicted by a group of federal, state and local election officials, who issued a statement on Thursday declaring flatly that the election 'was the most secure in American history' and that 'there is no evidence' any voting systems were compromised. The rebuke, in a statement by a coordinating council overseeing the voting systems used around the country, never mentioned Mr. Trump by name. But it amounted to a remarkable corrective to a wave of disinformation that Mr. Trump has been pushing across his Twitter feed. The statement was distributed by the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is responsible for helping states secure the voting process. Coming directly from one of Mr. Trump’s own cabinet agencies, it further isolated the president in his false claims that widespread fraud cost him the election.” The AP's story is here.

Trump Has “Already Lost.” Reid Epstein of the New York Times: “Five days after television networks and other major news organizations called the presidential election for Joseph R. Biden Jr., President Trump continues to maintain that he 'will win.' That is false. Mr. Biden’s winning margins in the key battleground states he has captured — 20,000 votes in Wisconsin, 54,000 votes in Pennsylvania and 148,000 votes in Michigan — are well above the thresholds of votes that have been changed in previous recounts. Even in Georgia, where officials are preparing for a hand recount of the ballots, Mr. Biden leads by 14,000 votes, a margin that is unlikely to be reversed. (Mr. Biden also leads by 11,000 votes in Arizona, but elections officials there are still counting absentee votes that arrived by mail.)... The former vice president has won enough states by enough votes that Mr. Trump cannot overcome those deficits through legal challenges or recounts.... The largest margin to be overturned in a recent recount came in Minnesota’s 2008 Senate contest, when a 215-vote margin for Senator Norm Coleman, the incumbent Republican, was reversed, becoming a 312-vote advantage for Al Franken, the Democratic candidate, after a court ruled that hundreds of absentee ballots were wrongly rejected.” ~~~

~~~ It's the Cyber! Or Something. Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "President Trump has transitioned from insisting that he will win the 2020 presidential election once all the votes are counted (he will not) to claiming that the results were muddied by rampant voter fraud (they were not) to a new set of claims: The results were altered by the use of computers and perhaps, more frightening, algorithms.... It’s important to note that the president’s track record on matters of technology is a bit spotty.... None of [the allegations Trump & his allies are pushing] ... is reinforced by any robust evidence. Adherents will insist that such evidence exists, because that’s what conspiracy theorists do. But it’s all just an effort to rationalize Trump’s loss, which, obviously, is why it appeals to Trump."

"The Golden Goose." Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump on Thursday unleashed on Fox News, retweeting a dozen messages attacking the network and sharing one himself lamenting that Fox 'forgot the Golden Goose' that made them successful." Mrs. McC: This would be a good place to remind ourselves that this is what the POTUS* was doing on yet another day in which more Americans than ever tested positive for the coronavirus. I hate that guy. ~~~

~~~ AND Why Was the Goose Attacking Fox "News"? Mike Allen of Axios: "President Trump has told friends he wants to start a digital media company to clobber Fox News and undermine the conservative-friendly network, sources tell Axios.... 'He plans to wreck Fox. No doubt about it,' said a source with detailed knowledge of Trump's intentions.... Trump is considering a digital media channel that would stream online, which would be cheaper and quicker to start [than would a cable network like Fox 'News.']" ~~~

~~~ Brian Stelter of CNN: "President Trump's fans who don't think Fox News is right-wing enough have another option on cable and satellite: Newsmax TV.... On Newsmax, voter fraud innuendo is everywhere. Conspiracy theory chatter is constant. And perhaps most importantly, Joe Biden is not the president-elect. The channel is tapping into a real vein of rage on the right. And Trump is encouraging it by retweeting Twitter users who are trashing Fox and promoting Newsmax."

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Benjamine Wittes of Lawfare notes in an analysis, “The administrator of the General Services Administration, Emily Murphy, has refused to 'ascertain' (in the language of the law) that Biden is the 'apparent' winner of the election, thus blocking transition funding and preventing certain other transition activity from beginning.” This has been annoying me all morning. Murphy and the media don't “declare ” a winner, as Republicans have said or implied; Murphy just has to acknowledge that Biden is the “apparent ” winner. That's obvious to anyone with access to a newspaper, a TV or the Internet. Even if you think Biden didn't win and Trump's goofy lawsuits will prove it, Biden is -- according to 50 state top election officials -- the apparent winner. Unlike Trump, who won by fewer Electoral College votes than Biden already has got, both Biden & Harris have or have had high-level security clearances, so there's no danger whatsoever in giving them access to national security briefings. In the past, these transition accommodations have been accorded to Trump & to other incoming administrations several weeks before the last states have certified their results. The only excuse for withholding them is to assuage Donnie's widdle feelings. That's corrupt. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Here's the segment PD Pepe mentions in yesterday's Comments, wherein Brian Williams tries (in vain, we can be sure) to explain to Donald Trump "how graciousness works": ~~~

Two Days Ago, We Learned This: Natasha Bertrand of Politico: "Since Election Day..., Donald Trump and his allies have pushed numerous merit-free allegations of voting irregularities. The Department of Homeland Security’s top cyber official [Chris Krebs] is swatting them down in near real-time — contradicting the president in a way that often ends in a pink slip...." ~~~

~~~ Now Read This. Christopher Bing & Joseph Menn of Reuters: "Top U.S. cybersecurity official Christopher Krebs has told associates he expects to be fired by the White House, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters." ~~~

~~~ AND This. Christopher Bing of Reuters: "A senior U.S. cybersecurity official is leaving government after being asked to resign, an official familiar with the matter said Thursday, part of a wider thinning of President Donald Trump’s administration following Joe Biden’s election win. Bryan Ware, the Assistant Director for Cybersecurity for the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), confirmed to Reuters that he had handed in his resignation on Thursday." ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Nick Miroff & Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: “The White House has forced out two top Department of Homeland Security officials as part of a widening purge of anyone suspected of lacking complete loyalty to President Trump, three people familiar with the removals said Thursday. Valerie Boyd, the top official for international affairs at DHS, was asked for her resignation, as well as Bryan Ware, a senior policy aide at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The requests came from the White House’s Presidential Personnel Office, whose 30-year-old director, John McEntee, has recently intensified efforts to purge appointees who have failed to demonstrate sufficient fealty to the president.... Boyd, in a resignation letter obtained by The Washington Post, wrote to DHS acting secretary Chad Wolf that she hopes government officials will 'act with honor' during the transition to a new presidency.” ~~~

     ~~~ No, Virginia, there is no honor in Trumpsville. Mrs. Bea McCrabbie 

WhoopDeeDoo. Shane Goldmacher & Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "The first small cracks have begun to appear in the Republican wall of support for President Trump and his unfounded claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, with a growing number of elected officials and party leaders signaling on Thursday that they would indulge Mr. Trump’s conspiracy theories for only so long. A few were willing to openly contradict him. Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio said that it was time to call Joseph R. Biden Jr. the 'president-elect.' The Republican attorney general of Arizona said that Mr. Trump would not end up winning his state, despite the president’s protestations. And on Capitol Hill, several Republican senators have begun, in measured tones, to say that Mr. Biden should be entitled to classified intelligence briefings as the incoming commander in chief or that it is time to recognize he will soon be certified as president-elect." ~~~

~~~ Felicia Sonmez & Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "An increasing number of Senate Republicans said Thursday that President-elect Joe Biden should be granted access to classified briefings during the presidential transition, an acknowledgment of the election results despite President Trump’s insistence that he will win. Republicans have sought to delegitimize Biden’s victory, amplifying Trump’s baseless claims about widespread election fraud and endorsing the president’s legal challenges as he refuses to concede. Only four of the 53 Senate Republicans have congratulated Biden. But several Republicans said Thursday that Biden should be afforded some of the privileges of an incoming president while still declining to say he won." Biden received some form of classified briefings during the campaign, and now that he has been elected, Trump is withholding them. How much sense does that make? ~~~

~~~ Ted Barrett of CNN: “Sen. Lindsey Graham [R] told CNN Thursday he thinks President-elect Joe Biden should get intelligence briefings starting now. 'Yeah, I think he should,' said Graham, a close ally of President Trump.... Another influential Republican, Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, said, 'yeah, I don’t think that would hurt,' for Biden to start getting the briefings now, as a handful of other Republicans have said they support this.” (Also linked yesterday.)

Manu Raju & Ted Barrett of CNN: "Two top GOP senators told CNN on Thursday that Joe Biden should have access to classified briefings, the latest indication that Republicans acknowledge the President-elect is likely on his way to the White House despite ... Donald Trump's refusal to accept the results.'I would think -- especially on classified briefings -- answer is yes,' said Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who as president pro tempore is the most senior Republican in the chamber. Senate Majority Whip John Thune of South Dakota also told CNN that Biden should have access to classified briefings. Those comments follow GOP Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma who made a similar comment Wednesday on a local radio station, and several other Republicans have signaled it's time to begin the transition process." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Lauren Egan & Nicole Via y Rada of NBC News: "Senate Republicans and former national security officials Thursday increased the pressure on the General Services Administration to grant President-elect Joe Biden access to presidential-level intelligence briefings, a key step in the transition to the White House.... Over 150 former national security officials urged the GSA in a letter Thursday to recognize Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as the winners of the election, giving them access to the President's Daily Brief and allowing them to begin to obtain the security clearances necessary for members of the transition team.... The group, which includes several former Trump administration officials, warned of serious national security risks as a result of the delay in Biden's transition. Other signatories include retired lawmakers and national security officials who served in both Republican and Democratic administrations."

** Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post: “... the [Republican] party [has] lurch[ed] away from democratic ideals and practices, a shift that predates Trump but one that has accelerated precipitously since. Now, according to data released by an international team of political scientists just before the Nov. 3 election, it’s possible to quantify the extent to which the Republican Party no longer adheres to such principles as the commitment to free and fair elections with multiple parties, the respectful treatment of political opponents and the avoidance of violent rhetoric. 'The Republican Party in the U.S. has retreated from upholding democratic norms in recent years,' said Anna Lührmann, a political scientist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and a former member of the German parliament. 'Its rhetoric is closer to authoritarian parties, such as AKP in Turkey and Fidesz in Hungary.'... Lührmann points out that the Republican Party score [as conveyed in a chart republished by the WashPo] started to edge downward during the Obama administration but fell off a cliff in 2016 with the ascent of Trump.” Mrs. McC: This is something we've been observing & remarking on (yelling! sometimes) for years, and now political scientists have quantified it.

Arizona. Justin Price of the Arizona Republic: "Results from newly counted ballots in Maricopa County released Wednesday night favored ... Donald Trump, but not by a wide enough margin to overtake President-elect Joe Biden in Arizona.... Trump would need about 74% of the 24,738 ballots left to tabulate statewide, in order to surpass Biden and win the state's 11 Electoral College votes. Since Election Day, Trump has been unable to garner such a large share of the results released by Maricopa County. The county has 6,715 ballots remaining to be tallied." ~~~

~~~ Adam Klasfeld of Law & Crime: “A Trump campaign attorney conceded in court on Thursday morning that he tried to enter hundreds of dodgy form-filed affidavits into evidence, even though their own investigation found that a subset of the sworn statements that they received were filled with lies and 'spam.'... 'How is that a reliable process of gathering evidence?' the judge asked, later blocking admission of the so-called evidence.... 'This is not a fraud case,' [attorney Kory] Langhofer said, casting the lawsuit instead as allegations of flaws within the voting system. 'It is not a stealing-the-election case.'... The Trump campaign’s admission came toward the beginning of a daylong evidentiary hearing in a case that began as the so-called 'Sharpiegate' lawsuit, the outlandish speculation that election workers handed markers to Trump voters to invalidate their votes on Election Day. The hearing is expected to last for five hours.” ~~~

~~~ Yvonne Sanchez of the Arizona Repubic: "Rae Chornenky, the chair of the Maricopa County Republican Party, has resigned from her position after Democrats called her out for skipping a meeting ahead of the election where the county’s ballot tabulation machines were tested. Chornenky, an attorney backed by the state's more establishment Republicans, had long clashed with the further-right-leaning figures within the state’s Republican Party. Calls for her to step down started after Maricopa County Democratic Party chair Stephen Slugocki reminded the public in a Twitter post that in October she had not attended a logic and accuracy test of election equipment. That equipment — new ballot tabulators from Dominion Voting Systems — are at the center of claims about software glitches that some Republicans have asserted changed votes from ... Donald Trump to Democrat Joe Biden. There is no credible evidence that happened."

Pennsylvania. Mick Stinelli of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "The Trump campaign on Thursday won a case attempting to disqualify a small number of mail-in ballots for first-time Pennsylvania voters who were unable to confirm their identification by Nov. 9. These ballots had been segregated pending the judge’s decision and have not yet been counted, so their disqualification will not affect the current vote count in Pennsylvania. Joe Biden won the state, and subsequently the election, on Saturday and currently leads President Trump by more than 53,000 votes."

Marissa Lang & Peter Hermann of the Washington Post: “Demonstrations in support of President Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the presidential election will descend on downtown Washington this weekend. The events have been promoted by far-right media personalities, white nationalists and conspiracy theorists — several of whom announced plans to attend. Counterdemonstrations organized by anti-fascist and anti-racism groups are being planned nearby.... The pro-Trump rallies have garnered support from Fox News host Sean Hannity as well as more fringe figures, including Enrique Tarrio, chairman of the Proud Boys; self-described 'American Nationalist' and social media agitator Nicholas Fuentes; conservative provocateur Jack Posobiec, who promoted the 'Pizzagate' conspiracy theory tied to the 2016 shooting at D.C. pizzeria Comet Ping Pong; Scott Presler, a pro-Trump activist who works with anti-Muslim group ACT for America; and Infowars founder and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.” Mrs. McC: The company Hannity keeps. ~~~

~~~ Timothy Johnson of Media Matters: “Oath Keepers militia leader Stewart Rhodes said that he has armed men on standby outside of Washington, D.C., to supposedly prevent the 2020 presidential election from being stolen from ... Donald Trump. Echoing elements of the QAnon conspiracy theory during an appearance on far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ program, Rhodes said the only way to prevent his men from engaging in a 'bloody fight' would be Trump declassifying information to supposedly expose pedophiles in the 'deep state' and allow the president to stay in power. Rhodes also indicated his militia will be involved in a rally to support Trump planned for this weekend in the nation's capital. Rhodes’ Oath Keepers militia, which comprises 'former law enforcement officials and military veterans,' is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as 'one of the largest radical antigovernment groups in the U.S. today.' But, as Rhodes recent public comments have made clear, the organization’s purpose has shifted from opposing the government to instead act as a pro-Trump vigilante group that is willing to violently support Trump’s unjust attempts to stay in power after losing the 2020 election.”

Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Too Fake for Fox. Justin Baragona of the Daily Beast: “After a tumultuous year at Fox News that included the network’s own 'Brain Room' warning hosts and anchors not to trust his 'disinformation,' pro-Trump columnist John Solomon is no longer a paid contributor with the network.... As the chief creative officer for Circa News, he teamed up with current Fox News contributor Sara Carter on a number of articles that set the table for Trumpworld’s 'Spygate' narrative, resulting in his becoming a fixture on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program. After joining The Hill ... in 2017, Solomon’s questionable reporting — which repeatedly pushed narratives that Trump was the victim of a liberal 'deep state' plot—caused tension in the newsroom, prompting The Hill to move him to the opinion side in 2018.... [But] Hannity would continue to call Solomon an 'investigative reporter' during his guest appearances, despite Fox management reportedly telling him to stop. Solomon’s opinion pieces at The Hill, meanwhile, helped fuel Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to dig up dirt on now-President-elect Joe Biden, something that was laid out in full during the impeachment hearings.”

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here: "Public health officials in the United States announced more than 160,000 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, the first day over 150,000 since the pandemic began — an alarming record that came just over a week after the country first experienced 100,000 cases in a single day. The pandemic has risen to crisis levels in much of the nation, especially the Midwest, as hospital executives warn of dwindling bed space and as coroners deploy mobile morgues. More than 100,000 coronavirus cases have been announced nationwide every day since Nov. 4, and six of the last nine days have broken the previous record.

"The United States set a record for new coronavirus cases and blew past the record for hospitalizations on Wednesday as the pandemic continued to balloon unabated, and a long list of cities and states imposed new restrictions on public life. More than 142,000 new cases were detected on Wednesday for the first time, according to data compiled by The New York Times, continuing a harrowing increase as the Northern Hemisphere enters a period of cold weather, indoor life, colds and flus that are expected to add fuel to the contagion." (Also linked yesterday.)

Aamer Madhani & Zeke Miller of the AP: "... Donald Trump has publicly disengaged from the battle against the coronavirus at a moment when the disease is tearing across the United States at an alarming pace. Trump, fresh off his reelection loss to President-elect Joe Biden, remains angry that an announcement about progress in developing a vaccine for the disease came after Election Day. And aides say the president has shown little interest in the growing crisis even as new confirmed cases are skyrocketing and hospital intensive care units in parts of the country are nearing capacity. Public health experts worry that Trump’s refusal to take aggressive action on the pandemic or to coordinate with the Biden team during the final two months of his presidency will only worsen the effects of the virus and hinder the nation’s ability to swiftly distribute a vaccine next year."

Brett Samuels of the Hill: "Corey Lewandowski, a senior adviser to President Trump's reelection campaign, has tested positive for coronavirus, a source familiar with the matter confirmed on Thursday.... Lewandowski was at a White House party on the night of the election, and he has mostly been in Pennsylvania in recent days as part of an effort to challenge the outcome there.... The White House election night party has emerged as the latest super-spreader event inside the building...." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Monica Alba of NBC News: "Republic[an] National Committee chief of staff Richard Walters has tested positive for coronavirus, according to a GOP official.... Unlike other Trump allies who have recently tested positive, Walters was not at the White House election night party."

Yereth Rosen of Reuters: “The Alaska congressman who once ridiculed the seriousness of the novel coronavirus, calling it the 'beer virus,' said on Thursday he is now infected with it. The announcement by Representative Don Young comes as the state’s governor on Thursday warned that health-care and public-safety systems were at risk of being overwhelmed by the rapid spread of the virus across Alaska. Young, the 87-year-old Republican who is Alaska’s sole U.S. House of Representatives member, made the announcement on Twitter.”

Shannon McMahon of the Washington Post: “The first cruise in the Caribbean since March has halted its journey after passengers tested for the coronavirus 'returned assumptive positive results' on Wednesday, yachting company SeaDream said in a news release. The cruising ship, the SeaDream I, returned to port in Barbados on Wednesday after administering rapid tests on all passengers as part of its routine testing protocol, which requires testing before and during the journey. The reported outbreak is a major setback for the cruise industry, which has been touting testing as a path to the return to sea.” A BuzzFeed News story is here.

Freeeedumb! Teo Armus of the Washington Post: "As coronavirus infections surge again across the country, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) ... said during a Fox News interview on Thursday evening..., 'We should tell [Americans who had recovered from Covid-19] to celebrate.... We should tell them to throw away their masks, go to restaurants, live again, because these people are now immune.' That medically suspect comment from Paul, who tested positive for the virus in March, contradicts widespread public health guidance as well as consistent messaging from many doctors and scientists: There is no evidence that people who have already contracted the virus are now immune to it, they have repeatedly said. And there is a possibility they can still spread the virus to others.... Peter Hotez, an infectious-disease specialist at Baylor University College of Medicine, wrote on Twitter that Paul’s remarks amounted to 'anti-science disinformation.'... It is far from the first time that Paul, a self-certified ophthalmologist, has been accused by doctors of spreading misinformation regarding a pandemic.... During a Senate hearing in September, he was singled out by Anthony S. Fauci ... for repeatedly misconstruing scientific data to serve a political talking point — in this case, about 'herd immunity' in New York.” A shorter version of the story appears in the WashPo's non-firewalled daily Covid-19 developments, linked above.

Freeeedumb! Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: “Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. told the Federalist Society on Thursday night that the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in previously 'unimaginable' restrictions on individual liberty.... He repeated his criticism of the court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges that granted same-sex couples the right to marry. He told those watching that he predicted at the time that those who continued to hold to the notion that marriage is only between a man and a woman would be seen as bigots. 'That is just what is coming to pass,' he said.... Alito said he was not criticizing officials for their policy decisions — 'I’m a judge, not a policymaker' — and said before launching into the speech that he hoped his remarks would not be 'twisted or misunderstood.'” Mrs. McC: No, Sam, I think we understand quite well. And, yes, Sam, you are a bigot. Thanks to Akhilleus for the lead. ~~~

~~~ Josh Gerstein of Politico: “Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito delivered an unusually inflammatory public speech Thursday night, starkly warning about the threats he contends religious believers face from advocates for gay and abortion rights, as well as public officials responding to the coronavirus pandemic.... Alito also seemed to minimize the significance of a refusal of a Colorado baker to produce a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. The justice noted that the couple involved 'was given a free cake by another bakery' and that the high-profile standoff prompted 'celebrity chefs' to come to their defense.” Mrs. McC: Sorta like saying it's okay if a Black woman's boss refuses to promote her & calls her racist & sexist names, but after awhile the company promotes her to another department & keeps the first boss on. 

Mike Baker of the New York Times: "... Russian military operations in August inside the U.S. economic zone off the coast of Alaska were the latest in a series of escalated encounters across the North Pacific and the Arctic, where the retreat of polar ice continues to draw new commercial and military traffic. This year, the Russian military has driven a new nuclear-powered icebreaker straight to the North Pole, dropped paratroopers into a high-Arctic archipelago to perform a mock battle and repeatedly flown bombers to the edge of U.S. airspace. As seas warmed by climate change open new opportunities for oil exploration and trade routes, the U.S. Coast Guard now finds itself monitoring a range of new activity: cruise ships promising a voyage through waters few have ever seen, research vessels trying to understand the changing landscape, tankers carrying new gas riches, and shipping vessels testing new passageways that sailors of centuries past could only dream of."

Letting a well-connected billionaire get away with child rape and international sex trafficking isn’t ‘poor judgment’ – it is a disgusting failure. Americans ought to be enraged. -- Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) ~~~

~~~ Matthew Goldstein & Katie Benner of the New York Times: “A former top federal prosecutor in Miami 'exercised poor judgment' by allowing the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein to evade federal child trafficking charges more than a decade ago, a Justice Department review revealed on Thursday, but it found no other wrongdoing, prompting criticism that the department dodged responsibility for its light treatment of Mr. Epstein, who died last year of an apparent suicide after his arrest on similar charges. The department’s Office of Professional Responsibility did not find any professional misconduct by R. Alexander Acosta, the U.S. attorney in Miami who oversaw the 2006 investigation into Mr. Epstein and who later served as labor secretary under President Trump until he resigned last year amid a renewed uproar over the Epstein case.” An NBC News story is here.

Bianca Quilantan of Politico: “A federal appeals court on Thursday agreed with a lower court ruling that Harvard University does not intentionally discriminate against prospective Asian American students. Two judges from the First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the district court was correct in ruling that Harvard’s limited use of race in its admissions process in order to achieve diversity 'is consistent with the requirements of Supreme Court precedent.'” (Also linked yesterday.) 

The Commentariat -- November 12, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Chimamanda Adichie, a Nigerian fiction & non-fiction writer, reviews Barack Obama's memoir A Promised Land for the New York Times: "It is not merely that this book avoids being ponderous, as might be expected, even forgiven, of a hefty memoir, but that it is nearly always pleasurable to read, sentence by sentence, the prose gorgeous in places, the detail granular and vivid. From Southeast Asia to a forgotten school in South Carolina, he evokes the sense of place with a light but sure hand. This is the first of two volumes, and it starts early in his life, charting his initial political campaigns, and ends with a meeting in Kentucky where he is introduced to the SEAL team involved in the Abbottabad raid that killed Osama bin Laden." ~~~

~~~ Martin Pengelly of the Guardian writes more of a book report. ~~~

~~~ The Atlantic publishes an "adapted & updated" excerpt from Barack Obama's memoir, which is to be published Tuesday. It includes audio of the preface, as appears in the book, read by President Obama. (Firewalled.)

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here: "The United States set a record for new coronavirus cases and blew past the record for hospitalizations on Wednesday as the pandemic continued to balloon unabated, and a long list of cities and states imposed new restrictions on public life. More than 142,000 new cases were detected on Wednesday for the first time, according to data compiled by The New York Times, continuing a harrowing increase as the Northern Hemisphere enters a period of cold weather, indoor life, colds and flus that are expected to add fuel to the contagion."

Brett Samuels of the Hill: "Corey Lewandowski, a senior adviser to President Trump's reelection campaign, has tested positive for coronavirus, a source familiar with the matter confirmed on Thursday.... Lewandowski was at a White House party on the night of the election, and he has mostly been in Pennsylvania in recent days as part of an effor to challenge the outcome there.... The White House election night party has emerged as the latest super-spreader event inside the building...."

Ted Barrett of CNN: "Sen. Lindsey Graham [R] told CNN Thursday he thinks President-elect Joe Biden should get intelligence briefings starting now. 'Yeah, I think he should,' said Graham, a close ally of President Trump.... Another influential Republican, Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, said, 'yeah, I don't think that would hurt,' for Biden to start getting the briefings now, as a handful of other Republicans have said they support this."

Manu Raju & Ted Barrett of CNN: "Two top GOP senators told CNN on Thursday that Joe Biden should have access to classified briefings, the latest indication that Republicans acknowledge the President-elect is likely on his way to the White House despite ... Donald Trump's refusal to accept the results. 'I would think -- especially on classified briefings -- answer is yes,' said Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who as president pro tempore is the most senior Republican in the chamber. Senate Majority Whip John Thune of South Dakota also told CNN that Biden should have access to classified briefings. Those comments follow GOP Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma who made a similar comment Wednesday on a local radio station, and several other Republicans have signaled it's time to begin the transition process."

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Benjamine Wittes of Lawfare notes in an analysis also linked below, "The administrator of the General Services Administration, Emily Murphy, has refused to 'ascertain' (in the language of the law) that Biden is the 'apparent' winner of the election, thus blocking transition funding and preventing certain other transition activity from beginning." This has been annoying me all morning. Murphy and the media don't "declare" a winner, as Republicans have said or implied; Murphy just has to acknowledge that Biden is the "apparent" winner. That's obvious to anyone with access to a newspaper, a TV or the Internet. Even if you think Biden didn't win and Trump's goofy lawsuits will prove it, Biden is -- according to 50 state top election officials -- the apparent winner. Unlike Trump, who won by fewer Electoral College votes than Biden already has got, both Biden & Harris have or have had high-level security clearances, so there's no danger whatsoever in giving them access to national security briefings. In the past, these transition accommodations have been accorded to Trump & to other incoming administrations several weeks before the last states have certified their results. The only excuse for withholding them is to assuage Donnie's widdle feelings. That's corrupt. ~~~

~~~ Here's the segment PD Pepe mentions in today's Comments, wherein Brian Williams tries (in vain, we can be sure) to explain to Donald Trump "how graciousness works": ~~~

Bianca Quilantan of Politico: "A federal appeals court on Thursday agreed with a lower court ruling that Harvard University does not intentionally discriminate against prospective Asian American students. Two judges from the First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the district court was correct in ruling that Harvard's limited use of race in its admissions process in order to achieve diversity 'is consistent with the requirements of Supreme Court precedent.'"

~~~~~~~~~~

The President-Elect

Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. will name Ron Klain, a veteran Democratic operative and a decades-long confidant, to be his White House chief of staff as early as Thursday morning, according to several people familiar with Mr. Biden's decision. Mr. Klain, a lawyer with deep experience on Capitol Hill, advising President Barack Obama and in corporate board rooms, has been seen for months as the likeliest choice to manage Mr. Biden's team in the White House. Known for steady nerves, he also has a fierce wit, which he has frequently unleashed on President Trump on Twitter. He was particularly critical of Mr. Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, having served as the 'Ebola czar' under Mr. Obama during an outbreak of the deadly disease in his second term. A video of Mr. Klain lecturing Mr. Trump about the pandemic was widely seen during the campaign." A CNN story is here.

Lankford Steps Up. Jordain Carney of the Hill: "GOP Sen. James Lankford (Okla.) said that there was 'nothing wrong' with President-elect Joe Biden getting intelligence briefings and pledged to 'step in' if the former vice president doesn't have access by Friday. Asked about Biden not getting the briefings, Lankford told Oklahoma radio station KRMG, in an interview that aired Wednesday, that it 'should be resolved' by Friday. 'There is no loss from him getting the briefings and to be able to do that and if that's not occuring by Friday I will step in as well, and to be able to push and to say this needs to occur so that regardless of the outcome of the election ... people can be ready for that actual task,' Lankford said.... Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, Lankford noted, is also a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, meaning that 'she has all the clearances that she needs.' Lankford is a former member of the Intelligence panel...."

The Farce Be with Us

How is it, she asked rhetorically, that a person who prides himself on being the ultimate macho strong man is spending his days in hiding where he sulks, whines & tweets preposterous conspiracy theories & makes absurd claims of victory?

Georgia. The Washington Post's live election updates Wednesday are here: "Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced a hand-counted audit of the vote in his state, where President-elect Joe Biden currently leads by more than 14,000 votes.... The goal is to have the recount completed by Nov. 20, the state deadline for certification. President Trump is projected to win Alaska and its three electoral votes, and Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan is projected to hold onto his seat in the state, according to Edison Research. That means Republicans are ensured 50 seats in the Senate, with the two runoffs in Georgia determining the majority." The page is free to non-subscribers. (Also linked yesterday.)

Alaska. CNN projects that Trump will win Alaska. No surprise there. (Also linked yesterday.)

Arizona. Another Law Firm Dumps Trump. David Thomas of Reuters: "The largest law firm representing the Trump campaign or its allies in post-election litigation challenging votes in key states has withdrawn from an election lawsuit in Maricopa County, Arizona. Associate Presiding Civil Judge Daniel Kiley on Tuesday granted Snell & Wilmer's request to withdraw as counsel of record for the Republican National Committee." Mrs. McC: My guess is they quit because they have no case. As Michigan AG Dana Nessel reminded me when she appeared on MSNBC yesterday, judges may sanction & fine lawyers who clog their courts with completely frivolous suits. ~~~

~~~ So Then Comes This. Maria Polletta of the Arizona Republic: "An attorney representing ... Donald Trump's reelection team, in a lawsuit alleging poll workers 'incorrectly rejected' Election Day votes, asked a Maricopa County Superior Court judge on Tuesday to seal the evidence he says will support that claim. But attorneys representing the election officials being sued convinced the judge to reject the request after arguing the public 'has a right to know how flimsy Plaintiffs' evidence actually is.'" Mrs. McC: Sure enough, one of the firms representing the plaintiffs in the case is Snell & Wilmer.

Michigan. Trump's Election Challenges Are Racist. Dave Boucher of the Detroit Free Press: "Michigan's top law enforcement officer [-- Attorney General Dana Nessel --] blasted the legal efforts of ... Donald Trump in the state on Wednesday, saying they include no evidence of misconduct, unfairly attack Black voters and workers in Detroit and will not change the outcome of the election.... 'Really the themes that we see, that persist, are this: Black people are corrupt, Black people are incompetent and Black people can't be trusted. That's the narrative that is continually espoused by the Trump campaign and their allies in these lawsuits,' Nessel said during a press call. Nessel noted the lawsuits focus on allegations of misconduct in Detroit, a city that typically votes for Democrats and that has a majority Black population." The Trump campaign has not brought suit against counties with majority-white populations that heavily favored Biden. ~~~

~~~ David Fahrenthold, et al., of the Washington Post: :On Wednesday, President Trump's campaign asked a federal judge to take a drastic step: block the state of Michigan from certifying the results of its presidential election. President-elect Joe Biden now leads Trump by about 148,000 votes there. To back up that lawsuit, Trump's campaign had promised 'shocking' evidence of misconduct. Instead, the campaign produced 238 pages of affidavits from Republican poll watchers across Michigan containing no evidence of significant fraud but rather allegations about ballot-counting procedures that state workers have already debunked -- and in some cases, complaints about rude behavior or unpleasant looks from poll workers or Democratic poll watchers.” The complaints were in the vein of "That big Black man is looking at me" and "The loudspeaker is too loud." ~~~

~~~ Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post has more examples of the contents of the affidavits, which don't seem to address voter fraud but do illuminate how the Black people hurt their feelings. The GOP poll watcher who came closest to addressing the issue at hand was a guy who estimated that 80% of the military ballots he saw were for Biden. "I had always been told that military personnel tended to be more conservative, so this stuck out to me as the day went on," the guy wrote. Mrs. McC: You know, Sherlock, I'll bet 80% of the military ballots of Detroit residents were not completed by your traditional "conservatives." ~~~

~~~ Jon Ward of Yahoo! News: "The city of Detroit has rejected claims of cheating brought by Trump supporters, stating in a court filing that ... 'Most of the objections raised in the submitted affidavits are grounded in an extraordinary failure to understand how elections function,' wrote attorneys for the city in a response filed Wednesday in Wayne County Circuit Court. The lawyers pointed out that President Trump received almost three times as many votes in Detroit in the 2020 election than he did four years ago: 12,654, up from 4,972 in 2016." The article includes the whats & why-fors.

Pennsylvania. Shawn Boburg, et al., of the Washington Post: "In an interview this week with federal agents, a Pennsylvania postal worker walked back his allegation that a supervisor had tampered with mailed ballots, saying he had made 'assumptions' based on overheard snippets of conversation, according to an audio recording of the interview posted online Wednesday by activists who have championed his cause. The two-hour recording shows that Richard Hopkins recanted claims he had made in a sworn affidavit that top Republicans cited over the weekend as potential evidence of widespread election irregularities and fraud. Hopkins told federal investigators on Monday his allegations were based on fragments of conversation among co-workers in a noisy mail facility in Erie, Pa., according to the recording.... On Tuesday, following a story in The Washington Post [also linked here yesterday] that quoted officials as saying Hopkins had recanted his earlier claims, Hopkins said in a YouTube video that he had not done so, and that the recording of the interview would show as much." It did not do so. And here's the coup de grâce: Hopkins, in explaining how he came to make his allegations in his original affidavit, "He told agents the affidavit was written by Project Veritas." ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: A neighbor stopped by to ask me if Pennsylvania could just send a troop of "faithless Electors" to the Electoral College who would give the state's votes to Trump., even though Biden won the popular vote. This is a rumor that's going around the Internets. I told him no & sort of explained why. Greg Sargent of the Washington Post has a fuller explanation here: "What happens if, say, the GOP legislature in Pennsylvania goes rogue and appoints a separate pro-Trump slate of electors for the electoral college, in defiance of the state's popular vote?... The relevant state law ... assigns the role of certifying the electors chosen by that statewide vote count to the governor, who is also a Democrat." Sargent then goes through scenarios in which multiple Republican states tried to send their own slate of Electors to the Electoral College. He concludes: "Everyone absolutely should remain on alert, to be clear. But a Trump win along these lines is absurdly, monumentally implausible." ~~~

~~~ Ben Wittes of Lawfare offers his own analysis of the likelihood of any state legislature fielding a slate of faithless Electors & explains why that's highly implausible. However, he too warns that in the age of Trump, one has to watch out for implausible outcomes.

Texas. Almost Too Stupid to Believe. Richard Luscombe of the Guardian: "An ultra-conservative Texas politician who believes seniors would rather die from Covid-19 than allow the pandemic to harm the economy is pushing another baseless theory, and dangling a million-dollar bounty for proof that Donald Trump is being cheated of victory in the presidential election. Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of the lone star state, says he is offering the money to 'incentivize, encourage and reward' citizens who can provide evidence of voter fraud, even though the president beat Joe Biden in Texas by almost 650,000 votes."

     ~~~ Thanks to RAS for the link.

The Man with No Plan. Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump declared Wednesday on Twitter, 'WE WILL WIN!' But, in fact, the president has no clear endgame to actually win the election -- and, in an indication he may be starting to come to terms with his loss, he is talking privately about running again in 2024. Trump aides, advisers and allies said there is no grand strategy to reverse the election results, which show President-elect Joe Biden with a majority of electoral college votes, as well as a 5 million-vote lead in the national popular vote.... Republican officials have scrambled nationwide to produce evidence of widespread voter fraud that could bolster the Trump campaign's legal challenges, but no such evidence has surfaced. And Biden's lead in several states targeted by the Trump campaign has expanded as late-counted votes are reported. In all-important Pennsylvania, the Democrat now leads by more than 50,000 votes." ~~~

     ~~~ Oh, Wait. There Is a Plan. Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "President Trump isn't really trying to overturn the election. He's simply running one more scam before he leaves office that would enable him to enrich himself. That's the way it appears, at least, from the scores of fundraising emails his campaign has sent out since the election. He seems to be asking for funds to challenge the election, but the fine print shows that the money could let him line his own coffers. The tin-pot-dictator routine looks more as if it's about passing the tin cup." Read on.

Bad Company. Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: "When [Aleksandr G. Lukashenko,] the strongman ruler of Belarus, declared an implausible landslide victory in an election in August, and had himself sworn in for a sixth term as president, the United States and other Western nations denounced what they said was brazen defiance of the voters' will. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last month [that Lukashenko's 'victory'] was 'fraud.'... Just a month on, Mr. Pompeo's boss, President Trump, is now borrowing from Mr. Lukashenko's playbook, joining a club of truculent leaders who ... declare themselves the winners of elections.... When [autocrats] do hold genuinely competitive votes and the result goes against them, they often ignore the result, denouncing it as the work of traitors, criminals and foreign saboteurs, and therefore invalid. By refusing to accept the results of last week's election and working to delegitimize the vote, Mr. Trump is following a similar strategy.... The United States has never before had to force an incumbent to concede a fair defeat at the polls. And merely by raising the possibility that he would have to be forced out of office, Mr. Trump has shattered the bedrock democratic tradition of a seamless transition. The damage already done by Mr. Trump's obduracy could be lasting."

Josh Feldman of Mediaite: "Karl Rove ... wrote in the Wall Street Journal Wednesday that the election outcome is not likely to be overturned, saying, 'The president's efforts are unlikely to move a single state from Mr. Biden's column, and certainly they're not enough to change the final outcome.'... He closes by advising Trump to 'do his part to unite the country by leading a peaceful transition and letting grievances go.'" Rove's WSJ opinion piece is here. Firewalled, of course.

AWOL. Betsy Klein of CNN: "The President of the United States is absent without leave.... Donald Trump is set to make his first public appearance in six days Wednesday when he visits Arlington National Cemetery to commemorate Veterans Day alongside first lady Melania Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. But as he mounts a fierce battle to remain in office and refuses to concede the election he lost, Trump has shown little interest in the work of being President. Since he vowed to fight the election results in the wee hours after Election Day, Trump ... has made few efforts to show the American people he is still governing. Instead, he is firing off inflammatory and baseless claims on his social media accounts, many of which have been flagged by Twitter as misinformation, and hitting his golf course." Mrs. McC: Yeah, any of those veterans he is supposedly honoring today could have been courtmartialed for being AWOL, but Trump gets atta-boys from the same senators who refused to courtmartial him for attempting to consort with a foreign government. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I thought pence was AWOL, too, but the NYT reports that "Vice President Mike Pence canceled a vacation at the last minute this week as the virus numbers grew worse, but the White House coronavirus task force that he leads has been all but publicly silent."

Crazy Becomes the GOP Norm. David Siders of Politico: "It was just noise when it started -- Donald Trump spouting wild, unsubstantiated claims about election fraud, his lawyer seething at an almost comical press conference in the parking lot of a Philadelphia landscaping business. But one week after an election in which Joe Biden received close to 5 million more popular votes than Trump and captured more than 270 electoral votes, the president and top Republican Party officials are nowhere near conceding. And with his posturing -- and statements of Cabinet officials like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- Trump is fueling a bonfire that's consuming the GOP and disrupting the traditional transfer of power.... A majority of Republicans, according to new polling, are convinced the election wasn't fair. Party officials are attacking one another for failing a litmus test of defending Trump's interests.... Many top GOP officials ... often [suggest] to the party rank-and-file that the election was stolen, or that the outcome stands to be reversed." (Also linked yesterday.)

Stephen Collinson of CNN: "... Donald Trump's administration is taking on the characteristics of a tottering regime -- with its loyalty tests, destabilizing attacks on the military chain of command, a deepening bunker mentality and increasingly delusional claims of political victory. In response, a visibly confident President-elect Joe Biden is going out of his way to project calm amid the deepening chaos, even as Trump and senior Republicans still refuse to acknowledge the President's defeat in a stunning break with America's democratic traditions.... Biden said he had a simple message for all the world leaders: 'I am letting them know America is back.'... But the Trump team only dug itself deeper into a bizarre parallel universe -- one where the President has already secured a second term -- consistent with the embrace of misinformation and alternative facts that has characterized the last four years." (Also linked yesterday.)

More Trump Paranoia. Laurie McGinley, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump is lashing out at the Food and Drug Administration following a disclosure Monday that an experimental coronavirus vaccine from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is more than 90 percent effective, convinced the timing -- six days after Election Day -- proves the 'medical deep state' deliberately tried to sabotage his electoral prospects by delaying the results. Shortly after Trump heard the news Monday, he demanded Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar 'get to the bottom' of what happened with Pfizer.... A few hours later, the issue was front and center at a meeting of the White House coronavirus task force when FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn briefed members about the vaccine data.... [At the meeting, Azar blamed Hahn for delaying the Pfizer announcement & implied Hahn and/or Pfizer had manipulated the timing for political reasons.] Trump weighed in Monday night, tweeting without evidence that the FDA and Pfizer intentionally withheld the news until after the election.... There is no proof decisions were made with the intent of imperiling Trump's reelection prospects." Pfizer didn't have access to the data until the Sunday following the election.

Erin Banco, et al., of the Daily Beast: "... Donald Trump continues to refuse to cede the election. His national security adviser Robert O'Brien is enabling the mayhem, four senior officials told The Daily Beast.... O'Brien -- once viewed as a potential check on Trump's erratic national security demands -- endorsed the installation of a pair of Trumpists at the Pentagon's highest levels, while a defense secretary O'Brien has long opposed was fired by tweet.... Officials familiar with the matter noted that O'Brien has also pushed national security officials to publicly embrace the absurd Trump message that the election has not been certified and that there are still legal battles playing out across the country that could turn in the president's favor. 'If you even mention Biden.s name ... that's a no go. You'd be fired,' one national security official said. 'Everyone is scared of even talking about the chance of working with the [Biden] transition.'" Not firewalled.

Insane Pettiness. "President Macron Calling"; "Sorry, He's Not In & He Never Will Be." Kylie Atwood of CNN: "A stack of messages from foreign leaders to President-elect Joe Biden are sitting at the State Department but the Trump administration is preventing him from accessing them, according to State Department officials familiar with the messages. Traditionally, the State Department supports all communications for the President-elect, which is why many countries began sending messages to State over the weekend. But with Biden prohibited from accessing State Department resources by the Trump administration, because ... Donald Trump refuses to accept Biden's victory, dozens of incoming messages have not been received. Biden's team is in touch with foreign governments without State Department involvement, and he has held numerous calls with leaders, including Germany's Angela Merkel and Canada's Justin Trudeau. But they are operating without the logistical and translation support that the State Department operations center provides." ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: It is true that there are some important elements of a transition that these petty people are withholding: classified briefings, funds, office space, phone messages, and perhaps most important, the ability to have candidates for office vetted, which is quite time-consuming. But even if the little Trumpettes allow the Biden administration access where access is due, this won't be an ordinary transition, because the people who holds the top jobs are not only hostile, they're also stupid. They might be able to show the Biden people where the paperclips & restrooms are, but after that, faggedaboudit.

Barr v. Public Integrity. Katie Benner of the New York Times: "As the scandal over President Trump's dealings with Ukraine unfolded in Washington last fall and prompted his impeachment, public corruption prosecutors in the Justice Department ... [intended] to pursue a potentially explosive inquiry into whether he had broken any ... laws. But Attorney General William P. Barr and other top officials held them back while Congress investigated the same matter during impeachment hearings.... Compounding the prosecutors' dissatisfaction was a stalled case around that time against a member of Mr. Trump's cabinet, the former interior secretary Ryan Zinke.... The boiling frustration was a critical moment in the long-running tensions between the Public Integrity Section and the Trump administration that ... spilled into the open this week Mr. Barr issued a memo authorizing prosecutors to investigate voter fraud claims before the results of the presidential race are certified, prompting the section's lawyer who oversees voter fraud investigations, Richard Pilger, to step down from the post in protest.... The encounters were the latest example of Trump appointees ... overruling career prosecutors, drawing criticism that the administration was eroding the department's typical separation from politics."

The Confederate Nation of Mississippi. Ted Armus of the Washington Post: "Instead of being governed by President-elect Joe Biden, Mississippi state Rep. Price Wallace (R) reportedly said on Twitter that Mississippi should 'succeed' from the rest of the United States and form its own country." (Also linked yesterday.) Mrs. McC: Mississippi has found itself another country to be part of:

But What About Don Junior? Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "Ronna [Romney] McDaniel is expected to seek a third term as Republican National Committee chair, according to a person familiar with her thinking, and she has ... Donald Trump's backing to keep her post. McDaniel, who[m] ... Donald Trump picked to lead the RNC after he won the 2016 election, received Trump's endorsement for another term on Wednesday evening, all but guaranteeing her reelection. Trump's endorsement shows how he is determined to play a central role in Republican Party politics even after losing his bid for reelection." Mrs. McC: Yesterday, we learned that Donnie Junior & his Lapdance Lady friend were considering taking over the RNC; now we find out Senior has shut down that coup attempt. Must be that Daddy doesn't think the Boy Wonder is up to the job.

Rachel Sharp of the Daily Mail & the AP: "Donald Trump is being offered book and TV deals worth around $100 million as part of a 'plan B' if his election legal battle fails to secure him a second term, according to a source close to the president. The source told Page Six Tuesday the president is being 'bombarded' with lucrative book deal offers about his time in the White House as well as offers from right-wing TV outlets.... Former-President Barack Obama and Former First Lady Michelle Obama are rumored to have bagged a $65 million deal with Crown in 2017...." Mrs. McC: A friend pointed out these stories to me yesterday, but she also noted that this sounded like just another White House plant designed to make it appear Trump had bested president Obama. I would note that Michelle Obama's book was a super-best-seller, far exceeding expectations. Barack Obama's book is scheduled to come out next week and based on PD Pepe's review of one chapter, it should do well, too. The amount of the advance does not determine the payoff; it's an estimation of the publisher's worst-case bet on what the author will earn in royalties. Besides, the Obamas also have at least one TV deal, so I'm not sure Trump could "beat" them in the numbers game. And I'll bet the Obamas could not care less either way.

Here's another huge downside of the Republicans' likely retention of Senate control: ~~~

~~~ Kyle Cheney & Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "In the Senate, where GOP control hinges on two Jan. 5 runoffs in Georgia, Republican lawmakers are plotting ways to expand and intensify their investigations targeting the former Obama administration and President-elect Joe Biden and his son Hunter, with Senate Republicans saying they will use the lame duck period to ramp up their probes. 'We're not going to stop,' Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said as he concluded a hearing this week on the FBI's handling of its investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign's ties to Russia.... 'Because this is fundamental to democracy that the law enforcement community acts based on evidence, not based on bias.'"

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

** The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Wednesday are here: "In one week, new daily coronavirus cases in the United States went from 104,000 to more than 145,000 on Wednesday, the latest all-time high. Almost every metric is trending in the wrong direction as states add restrictions and health officials warn of a dangerous fall ahead. The rise in infections comes with new highs in the number of deaths reported in a single day at 1,549, the highest since May 14. Tennessee, Alabama and Minnesota all reached new highs in the number of deaths reported in a single day."

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Wednesday are here: "Covid-19 hospitalizations in the United States hit an all-time high of 61,964 on Tuesday, and new daily cases passed 139,000 for the first time, as the raging pandemic continued to shatter record after record and strain medical facilities." (Also linked yesterday.)

Amy Walker & Matthew Conlen of the New York Times: "Three more White House staffers have tested positive for the coronavirus, bringing the latest outbreak among President Trump's aides and advisers to 12 people. At least four of them -- Mr. Trump's chief of staff, his political director, a campaign adviser leading the efforts to challenge election results and the housing secretary — attended an election night party at the White House where hundreds of people mingled for hours, many without masks. They join at least 20 members of Mr. Trump's administration, campaign and inner circle who have contracted the virus since late September, after an earlier outbreak among White House residence staff.... The recent spate of cases reflects a lax approach to preventing infections at the nation's highest level of government -- including an overreliance on rapid testing and the dismissal of mask-wearing and social distancing -- that did not appear to change even after the president himself was hospitalized with Covid-19 in early October." The article names those who have been infected.

Sheryl Stolberg, et al., of the New York Times: "... as the country enters what may be the most intense stage of the pandemic yet, the Trump administration remains largely disengaged. President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is trying to assume a leadership mantle, with the appointment of a coronavirus advisory board and a call for all Americans to wear masks, but until his inauguration on Jan. 20, he lacks the authority to mobilize a federal response.... Mr. Trump is at war with his own health officials. He was furious after the drug maker Pfizer announced Monday that early clinical trial data suggested its coronavirus vaccine was more than 90 percent effective.... White House aides were particularly incensed that Mr. Biden publicly said his public health advisers knew of Pfizer's results on Sunday, before aides said the news had reached the White House.... Meantime, the Strategic National Stockpile, the nation's emergency reserve, has only 115 million N95 masks, far short of the 300 million the administration had hoped to amass by winter.... Governors are once again competing with one another and big hospital chains for scarce gear. Nursing homes are grappling with staff shortages, which have left hospitals unable to discharge patients to their care." (Also linked yesterday.)

All the Best People, Florida Edition. DeSantis Hires "Crackpot" Anti-Masker to Do Covid-19 Research. Katie Shepherd of the Washington Post: "Last week, Kyle Lamb, a little-known sports blogger who moonlights as an anti-masker, announced he had been hired to do data analysis, 'including but not limited to Covid-19 research,' for the governor of Florida. Lamb would be joining a team of analysts under Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times reported, many of whom have been working to monitor the coronavirus pandemic. Lamb, 40, is not a data scientist by trade or training. In his own words, he is 'not an "expert."' His public statements about the pandemic have frequently contradicted advice from public health officials, and he has dedicated much of his coronavirus commentary to undermining experts.... Ryan Donnelly, a former sportswriter who worked with Lamb at a sports publication in 2018, told The Washington Post in a Twitter direct message that the podcast host has no background in data analysis or epidemiology. 'He is totally unfit for the role and appears to have been hired because he enjoyed posting charts and graphs on Twitter and offering misleading analysis alongside them,' Donnelly told The Post.... Lamb's former colleagues in the Ohio sports world, where he previously worked as a blogger and podcast host, have characterized him in interviews with the Herald and Tampa Bay Times as 'a nobody,' 'an amateur,' an 'Internet weirdo,' and a 'crackpot.'"

A Civil War Among Trump's Favorite Racists. Ewan Palmer of Newsweek: "Infighting has broken out between two leading members of the Proud Boys group, with one announcing he will be taking control of the far-right organization to address 'White Genocide' and the 'failures of multiculturalism.' White nationalist Kyle Chapman -- who set up the 'tactical defense arm' of the Proud Boys, the Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights (FOAK) -- has criticized the group's chairman Enrique Tarrio while announcing a so-called rebranding of the organization. Writing on encrypted messaging app Telegram, Chapman used racial slurs against Tarrio and other neo-Nazi rhetoric while announcing that ... the group would be renamed the Proud Goys.... 'We will no longer cuck to the left by appointing token negroes as our leaders. We will no longer allow homosexuals or other 'undesirables' into our ranks. We will confront the Zionist criminals who wish to destroy our civilization. We recognize that the West was built by the White Race alone and we owe nothing to any other race.'... Elsewhere, the Proud Boys and other far-right groups are planning a 'Million MAGA March' in Washington on Saturday in support of ... Donald Trump's baseless claim that he lost the election because of voter fraud."

Annals of Journalism, Ctd. It's Not So Neat to Beat Your Meat on the Electric Zoom Machine. Dominick Mastrangelo of the Hill: "Journalist Jeffrey Toobin has been fired by The New Yorker after being placed on suspension following an incident in which he exposed himself to colleagues during a virtual meeting last month. Toobin confirmed he had been fired in a tweet on Wednesday.... Toobin also serves as a legal analyst for CNN and did not appear as part of the network's coverage of the 2020 presidential election."

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: A neighbor stopped by to ask me if Pennsylvania could just send a troop of "faithless Electors" to the Electoral College who would give the state's votes to Trump., even though Biden won the popular vote. This is a rumor that's going around the Internets. I told him no & sort of explained why. Greg Sargent of the Washington Post has a fuller explanation here: "What happens if, say, the GOP legislature in Pennsylvania goes rogue and appoints a separate pro-Trump slate of electors for the electoral college, in defiance of the state's popular vote?... The relevant state law ... assigns the role of certifying the electors chosen by that statewide vote count to the governor, who is also a Democrat." Sargent then goes through scenarios in which multiple Republican states tried to send their own slate of Electors to the Electoral College. He concludes: "Everyone absolutely should remain on alert, to be clear. But a Trump win along these lines is absurdly, monumentally implausible."