Double Stuffed Insanity

Proud Boys Forever?  Even before last night’s debate began it was clear that Trump and his team had decided that being disruptive was the way to go. The day began with Rudy Giuliani asserting to the complicit hosts of Fox and Friends that his many medical experts had told him that “there’s no doubt that Joe Biden has dementia” and is taking Adderall because who isn’t into projection?  As the day wore on, the Trump echo chamber floated accusations that someone on moderator Chris Wallace’s team had shared the debate questions with Biden and that the answers would be fed to the “demented” former VP live during the debate through a transmitter hidden deep in one or maybe both of his ears. Not only did Trump’s team say that they wanted Biden to subject himself to a pre-debate ear inspection, but they also wanted him to provide a urine sample. Biden’s team laughed at the ear inspection request but did have a retort for the pee demand, saying if Trump “thinks his best case is made in urine he can have at it….we’d expect nothing less from Donald Trump, who pissed away the chance to protect the lives of 200K Americans when he didn’t make a plan to stop COVID-19.”  Given the early focus on urine, is it really all that surprising that the debate was a sh-t show.  Malevolent Trump, clearly rattled by recent poll results, the NY Times’s release of his tax records, and the prosecutions and litigation that are likely to follow him if he loses the election and actually leaves office, went off the rails, as in over the cliff and into a crevice of desperation and hate. He couldn’t even find it within himself to condemn the Proud Boys, the males only, far right, fascist, anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, white supremacist, violence promoting organization that is categorized by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group. In fact, instead of calling them out Trump called them to “stand back and standby” because “somebody has got to do something about antifa and the left.”  Not surprisingly the Proud Boys ate up Trump’s call to arms, turning his words into a logo that widely circulated on far right social media sites last night.  Proud Boy’s leader, Joe Biggs, said he took those words as a directive to “f-ck them up,” them being the left and all those other people that the Proud Boys hate so much. 

Worst Ever:  The rest of the debate wasn’t much better, Trump stuck with all his usual talking points, the ones we’ve grown used to hearing at his frequent press conferences/rallies. He blamed China for the virus, asserted he’d saved millions of lives by shutting down flights, claimed that his economy was the best ever, that everything Obama and Biden had ever touched had been an abject failure, insisted that his non-existent health care plan was better and cheaper than Obamacare, that a coronavirus vaccine was imminent and attacked Hunter Biden. Biden who made a point of moderating his tone while looking into the camera at all times, wasn’t always clear, did utter a few misstatements and responded to Trump’s constant interruptions with more than a few of his own but by comparison, even when he told Trump to shut up and said that he was the worst president ever,  he came off as a sane, compassionate savior. And he didn’t appear to be suffering from dementia though he did look a little concerned that he could catch some of those crazy cooties from Trump.  Moderator Wallace took a lot of hits from the pundits for failing to maintain control, but, to borrow a phrase from Biden, “come on,” by now we know that there’s only one way to control Trump and it involves voting him out and sadly judging by his continued attack on mail-in ballots, vote counting and his assertion that he needs his new Justice on the Supreme Court by election day to rule in his favor on what he keeps telling us will be an election that will have to be decided in the Court, even that might not work.   

People, Places, Things:  Though the debate dominated the news cycle, there are a few other things going on. Speaker Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin are taking another stab at cobbling together another virus relief package.  Former national security advisor Michael Flynn’s lawyer admitted to an increasingly skeptical Judge Emmet Sullivan that she’d spoken directly with Trump about his case, but nothing to worry about there because she says that she told Trump to hold off on granting Flynn a pardon because given the leg up that he’s getting from Attorney General Barr and his DOJ supplicants, she still hopes to get the case thrown out.  The Department of Health and Human Services appears to be squandering the $300 million that former communications honcho Michael Caputo redirected from treating the virus to a PR campaign that’s intended to convince the public that Trump’s been doing a great job dealing with the virus.  The money has been spent on some sweet heart contracts and few of the targeted celebrities who were supposed to help with the campaign have shown any interest in participating so we won’t be hearing Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake or Billy Joel in any PSA’s but we might hear Dennis Quaid, CeCe Winans and Hasidic singer Shulem Lemmer, though now even Quaid appears to be distancing himself from the effort.  Yesterday, Director of National Intelligence Ratcliffe, the former Congressional toady that Trump appointed this summer, released some highly questionable intelligence reports that were previously discounted and rejected by the Republican led Senate Intelligence committee.  The faux report blames  2016 Russia election interference on Hillary Clinton, that’s the same Hillary who Trump again called crooked during the debate.  Though a lot of people missed it, on Friday the Boston Globe published a letter from  James Herbert, a currently serving assistant US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, who called out AG Barr, accusing him of engaging in “a dangerous abuse of power” by politicizing his position and doing Trump’s bidding. Herbert still has his job, but it’s fair to assume that he’s now hanging by a thread.    

Et Cetera:  Trump who the NY Times reports made $500,000 for promoting double stuffed Oreos may not be a tax payer but Joe Biden and Kamala Harris certainly are.  Yesterday they both released their 2019 returns. Biden paid $300,000 in federal taxes, Harris paid $1.2 million.  That a lot of cookies.

 

 

Debate Night

September Surprise:  With the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett front and center, this weekend I took a much needed hiatus from watching and reading the news.  The image of our likely next Justice, with her perfectly dressed children alongside like props in a Stepford movie, asserting that she was the perfect replacement for RBG, her philosophical opposite, was too much to handle.  My brief hiatus was broken when I was asked what I thought about the NY Times getting hold of Trump’s tax information.  So here goes. The surprising part about the NY Times article, the first in a series, the second article which focuses in on the benefits that accrued to Trump from his Apprentice series dropped last night, is that it took so long for the information to be leaked.  The rest of it isn’t surprising as much as it is depressing, the depressing part being that so many people thought and likely still think that Trump is a legit businessman and/or just don’t care that he’s gamed the system and that he’s gotten away with his misdeeds for so long.  That he didn’t pay much, if anything in taxes, isn’t shocking, he’s told us as much for years.  What is surprising is how far he pressed the envelope, that he paid no federal taxes for eleven of the eighteen years that the NY Times reported on, and that Trump, the branding savant, and his accounting wizards failed to realize that the obvious $750 “plug” that he paid to the IRS for each of the first two years of his administration, the last years they obtained information for, wouldn’t eventually be known, providing a talking point of remarkable value to his opponents. As to the details, a number of things, silly and substantive stand out.  The $70,000 deducted for Trump’s hair styling and the $100,000 for Ivanka’s coif, especially ridiculous because stylists at one hair salon she frequented talk about her routinely stiffing them for her costly blonde extensions, fall into the silly category, because if you’re as rich as they’re supposed to be, why bother, and because it’s clearly an IRS no no.  On the substantive side, its notable that so much of Trump’s recent income came from his Apprentice days and from branding, rather than real estate development, and that instead of conservatively investing the hundreds of millions of dollars he raked in from those sources he plowed the funds into money losing and coffer draining golf courses and resorts. It’s also odd, and quite possibly illegal that he paid out millions in tax deductible consulting fees, including at least $700k to daughter Ivanka while she was an employee of his company, an amount we know about because she disclosed a too coincidental identical amount on her government financial disclosure statement.  We don’t know where the remaining millions of consultant fees went though it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that more went to Ivanka and to other members of the Trump crime family which would partially explain why Don Jr, who is looking increasingly coked out these days (no proof just an observation), and Eric were all over Fox and twitter attacking the NY Times yesterday.  Also in the substantive category, Trump has somewhere around $421 million in personally guaranteed debt coming due over the next few years.  That figure doesn’t include real estate secured mortgages and is especially concerning because it’s not known who he owes the money to and debt, especially debt of that magnitude, would disqualify anyone else from accessing the type of top secret information that Trump sees daily or would see daily if he read his briefs. On at least one front Trump hasn’t been lying to us, he is under audit, the IRS has been trying to claw back around $70 million of a refund that he received years ago, an amount that triggered lots of alarms within the IRS due to its size, with interest he likely now owes them at least $100 million. And though Trump hasn’t paid much to the US Treasury in recent years, he has paid lots to other countries including Turkey and India, places where he owns interests in profit making hotels, raising concerns that his foreign policy decisions, things like abandoning Kurdish allies, are influenced by  his profit motives.  The NY Times’ financial mavens were careful to say that they saw no Russian tracks, but didn’t rule any out and also pointed out that some of his more recent investments, particularly those money losing golf courses are convenient money laundry mats for oligarchs seeking to “bleach” their cash.  Naturally, Trump and the White House’s first response to the NY Times article was to call it politically motivated fake news.  Then Trump added that it was full of mistakes and was illegally obtained.  A Trump company spokesperson denied the validity of the article, using an argument also pushed by sons Don Jr and Eric, that Trump pays lots in taxes.  Of course Trump does pay taxes for things like payroll and real estate, they conveniently ignore his cheating on Federal taxes, the subject of the NY Times article.  Will any of this matter?  Probably not to most of Trump’s base but maybe a few of those undecideds, to the extent any remain, will be offended by the idea that a billionaire paid only $750 in taxes last year while they paid far more on incomes that fall far below his hair care deductions.  Who knows?   

Viral Musings:  CDC Head Robert Redfield was overheard talking on a phone call by an NBC reporter seated behind him on a flight from Atlanta to Washington DC.  During the call Redfield complained that Trump’s newest favorite “expert” Scott Atlas, the radiologist who is into herd immunity rather than virus science, was wrong about everything and that he was feeding the gullible Trump misinformation that was killing the rest of us. In a sign of just how upset Redfield is, when asked about the call, he didn’t deny what he said.  Similarly, reports are that Dr Debby Birx is also at her wit’s end, apparently kowtowing to Trump has its consequences, she’s no longer his favorite and her advice, which behind the scenes has been mostly spot on, isn’t being listened to any more.  And though Trump once again insisted that all’s good in virus land, virus guru Fauci and current  trends indicate otherwise.  The US mortality count is 205,000 to 208,000 depending on the source,  cases have crossed through the 7 million barrier and Fauci remains really, really concerned, especially about current trends and that idiot governor of Florida who just fully opened up all bars and restaurants while throwing face mask rules out the window. 

Human Resources:  Former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale went off the deep end this weekend. He threatened his wife, who reported to police that her very visible bruises were from an earlier dispute they’d had during the week.  She fled to a neighbor and then called for police help after hearing what she thought was a suicidal gunshot.  The police ultimately restrained Parscale, taking away his ten gun arsenal and dragging him away for a psych hold.  Parscale is very lucky that he’s white and that the police officer who talked him down off of his cliff was a friend.  A Forbes article published earlier in the week referenced a report from the bipartisan Campaign Legal Center that accused Trump’s campaign of laundering $170 million through Parscale controlled entities. Maybe that and a call from Trump who can’t be happy about recent polls contributed to Parscale’s meltdown. For what it’s worth, this morning’s Washington Post – ABC poll shows Trump down around 10 points in swing state Pennsylvania, a state that was previously much closer.   Fox’s Maria Bartiromo reported that the much awaited and teased report from US Attorney John Durham, the report that Fox and the right wing echo chamber says proves that the Russia investigation wasn’t legit and that is supposed to lead to indictments of everyone in the Obama administration including FBI guy James Comey and CIA guy John Brennan,  will not be released until after the election.  She says the delay is because Durham is now also investigating the investigation of the Clinton Foundation but it’s fair to assume that it isn’t being released because Durham hasn’t found anything worth releasing.  That said, AG Barr could still surprise us with a summary because when has a lack of facts ever stopped him?  And because speaking truth to power comes with risks, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is now throwing mud at FBI head Christopher Wray. 

Debate’s on for tonight from 9 to 10:30 EDT.           

Vote Him Out

Super Spreader in Chief:  Trump continued his super spreader tour yesterday, this time rallying in Jacksonville, Florida.  He stuck to his usual lies and hate filled repertoire and questioned the legitimacy of mail-in ballots in states not run by one of his mini-me Governors.  He also repeated one of his newer bits, getting laughs from his crowd by recounting an episode in May when MSNBC correspondent Ali Velshi was struck by a rubber bullet while covering one of the George Floyd related protests, calling it a “beautiful thing”  and evidence of “LAW & ORDER,” because what sitting president doesn’t celebrate a journalist getting shot on the job, particularly one with Kenyan and Canadian roots who also happens to be Muslim. Before leaving for his trip Trump, who has failed to either repeal or replace Obamacare but who is still supporting a lawsuit that might result in its demise as well as the elimination of its pre-existing coverage provision, issued an executive order declaring that “it is the policy of the US for people with pre-existing conditions to be protected.”  Of course, that executive order isn’t worth anything as it says nothing about making such coverage affordable and, as was admitted by Health Secretary Alex Azar on a call before Trump’s announcement, the order would have no affect if the Supreme Court strikes down Obamacare, the plan that already covers pre-existing conditions.  Trump also teased his intention to send all Medicare recipients a $200 prescription drug coupon over the next few weeks, no doubt with a Sharpie signed letter telling each and every one that it’s from him and him alone and they can only redeem it if they first promise to vote for him. On a serious note, details regarding the coupon/bribe, like how it’s $7 billion plus cost will be covered, remain vague but the fact that it’s even under consideration provides evidence that Trump’s frequently heralded but never delivered plan to reduce drug costs, like his comprehensive health care plan, isn’t happening any time soon, if ever.  It also shows that Trump is growing increasingly nervous about those polls, including a few from Fox, showing him behind Biden in important swing states and alarmingly close in others that he should be winning by a mile, not that we believe any polls anymore.   

Election Shenanigans: A whole crop of Republicans weighed in on Trump’s refusal to commit to accepting the result of the election.  A few of those pushbacks almost sounded sincere.  Congresswoman Liz Cheney, the third most senior Republican in the House, got out early, tweeting that “The peaceful transfer of power is enshrined in our Constitution and fundamental to the survival of our Republic.  America’s leaders swear an oath to the Constitution. We will uphold that oath” and Senator Marco Rubio tweeted that “As we have done for over two centuries we will have a legitimate & fair election, it may take longer than usual to know the outcome, but it will be a valid one and at noon on Jan 20,2021 we will peacefully swear in the President.”  However, a bunch of other Senators were less direct, with some misquoting an earlier statement made by favorite punching bag Hilary Clinton claiming that she had advised Biden not to concede when what she actually said was that he should wait until all the votes are counted before making any announcement.  And then there’s Senator Lindsey Graham, Trump’s fan boy/golfing buddy, he pretty much acknowledged that Trump plans to litigate and needs a full Supreme Court to get his way, tweeting “People wonder about the peaceful transfer of power.  I can assure you it will be peaceful. Now we may have litigation about who won the election, but the court will decide, and if Republicans lose, we'll accept that result. But we need a full court.”   Graham also spent part of the day whining about how expensive his campaign for reelection has become, complaining about all those dark forces and by dark forces think Democrats and Lincoln Project Republicans, contributing to his very capable opponent, Jaime Harrison.  A current Quinnipiac poll shows the two running neck and neck in the solidly red state that Trump won by 15 points in 2016. It turns out that going back on the promise he made not to confirm a replacement Supreme Court Justice during the run up to an election is costly, at the end of the day it might not lose him his seat but it certainly is raising the cost of his re-election campaign into the stratosphere. How sad for poor Lindsey.  As to election shenanigans, yesterday afternoon the US Attorney’s Office in the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced it had opened an inquiry into nine ballots that were found “discarded,” saying all nine ballots had been cast for Trump but then amending its statement to say that only seven had been cast for Trump the other two had been “resealed.”  Everything about this story is peculiar. Somehow, the White House knew about it enough in advance of the DOJ announcement for Press Secretary McEnany to use it as a talking point during her daily lie fest.  And as one legal expert from Pennsylvania’s Loyola Law School put it “it is really improper for DOJ to be putting out a press release with partial facts and it is career-endingly improper to designate the candidate for whom the votes are cast.”  In any case, it’s only nine votes but the incident feeds Trump’s election narrative which is of course the reason that AG Barr had his guys announce it. It almost makes you wonder if dirty trickster Roger Stone has something to do with the actual ballot tossing. Okay, maybe that’s a stretch, but who knows. 

Other News:  Niece Mary Trump is now suing Trump, her Aunt Maryanne and her deceased Uncle Robert, accusing them of fraud for swindling her out of her inheritance, the millions of dollars to which she says she was entitled.  Her lawsuit asserts that “Fraud was not just the family business — it was a way of life.”  It turns out that Trump’s good friend Vladimir Putin has also been nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize because who doesn’t think that a guy who repeatedly poisons his opponents and grabs on to neighboring countries' territories deserves a prize for keeping the peace. By the way Trump still can’t find it within himself to publicly condemn Putin for poisoning opponent Alexei Navalny even though the State Department position is that he did have Navalny poisoned.  And remember Michael Caputo, the HHS spokesperson who stepped down from his job after screwing around with coronavirus messaging to deal with “lymphatic issues,” sadly he wasn’t kidding about those health issues which is very bad for him but does make you wonder if he’d still be in his job screwing up messaging if not for what apparently is a very serious health crisis. Christopher Wray is still the FBI Director but he’s certainly not making Trump happy, yesterday the principled Wray testified in front of the Senate saying that the US has not experienced large-scale voter fraud by mail or other means, and said it would be a “major challenge” for a foreign country to attempt such a thing, despite Trump’s repeated claims.  He also said that “Americans must have confidence in our voting system and our election infrastructure,” and that “We are not going to tolerate foreign interference in our elections.”  Apparently his boss AG Barr forgot to fill him in on the mysterious case of the Pennsylvania ballots.  Yesterday Trump had one of those experiences that explains why he generally refrains from attending funerals of American heroes like John Lewis and John McCain. He was greeted with cheers of “vote him out” when he showed up to pay his respects to the forever Notorious RBG.  It turns out that while announcing plans to replace her moments after her death and questioning who really wrote her death bed wish go over big with his super spreader tour audience they don’t play well with the rest of us.  Who could have anticipated that?

     

Red Alert 

Crazy Day:  In Kentucky, the Breonna Taylor Grand Jury failed to indict the police who shot her dead after breaking into her apartment with a warrant obtained based on out of date information that had led them to believe that her ex-boyfriend, a drug dealer, was with her. He wasn’t with her but their forced entry led to a confrontation that left her dead, and later in an effort to further blur the facts they tried to get the former boyfriend to implicate her in his drug dealing activities in exchange for a lighter sentence, he refused.  The jury did indict one now former policeman for wanton endangerment, not for Taylor’s death but for shooting off a round of bullets that endangered her neighbors.   In Washington, Virus Guru Fauci very effectively called out the extremely annoying Senator Rand Paul for making false scientific assertions about coronavirus herd immunity in New York during a Senate Health Committee hearing.  In New York a judge rejected Eric Trump’s assertions that he was too busy working on his dad’s campaign to respond to a subpoena, telling him that he had to give a deposition about the Trump family business’ financial finagling before the election.  We also learned that the Trump administration wrongly intervened in the publication of former security advisor John Bolton’s book something that should make AG Barr’s efforts to indict him for violating secrecy laws that much more difficult; that the face mask dissing Governor of Missouri and his very symptomatic wife both have COVID; that the Department of Homeland Security granted acting head Chad Wolf’s wife’s firm $6 million in contracts while he was illegally acting; and that Republican Senator Ron Johnson’s report on Hunter and Joe Biden’s alleged illegal Ukraine activities, the one that was much anticipated by Trump’s echo chamber in Congress, at Fox News and at Rupert Murdoch’s publications and that “benefited” from cooperation from Russian spies and the like, found no illegalities and nothing new.  And Trump signaled that he might block the FDA from tightening vaccine approval procedures to help his election prospects naturally.  But all of that pales in comparison with the really BIGLY story of the day – that Trump with the help of the RNC and their 1000 or so election lawyers are planning to undermine the results of the election. 

Election Upheaval:    According to The Atlantic’s Barton Gellman, Trump and his RNC minions plan to question and delay the finalization of results in as many of those swing key states that he loses as he can.  Then to the extent those states have Republican led legislatures, his plan is to bypass the actual election results, appointing new local electors who would then cast their electoral college votes in his favor.  Sound crazy?  It’s not, apparently, a number of Republican legislators in the very swingy Pennsylvania confirm that they have been contacted about implementing such a plan and they seem to think the plan is a good one.  And to further dispel any doubt that Trump is moving in this direction, yesterday when asked, he would not commit to providing a peaceful transition of power after Election Day, instead he said “Well, we’re going to have to see what happens.” He added “You know that I've been complaining very strongly about the ballots and the ballots are a disaster.  Get rid of the ballots and you'll have a very ... there won't be a transfer, frankly. There'll be a continuation."  Of course most in Republican leadership conveniently ignored his remarks, well that is most except for Mitt Romney who tweeted "Fundamental to democracy is the peaceful transition of power; without that, there is Belarus.  Any suggestion that a president might not respect this Constitutional guarantee is both unthinkable and unacceptable." Of course, that’s the same Mitt Romney who announced his support for Trump’s plan to install another Justice on the Supreme Court even though early voting has already begun in a number of states and who also seems to be ignoring that Trump has now said several times that he need “his” ninth Justice in place to insure that SCOTUS rules in his favor when he contests the election results.  

That Trump plans to question the results of any election that he loses isn’t a surprise. To be clear, his intent is alarming, it’s just not surprising.  After all he threatened to do so in 2016 and even after trouncing Hillary Clinton in the electoral college he continued to question the legitimacy of her popular vote win, especially those three million extra “fraudulent” voters that put her over the top, well the top of the vote that didn’t matter.  He was so angry about that loss that he actually set up a commission to prove voter fraud, the commission that faded away when no fraud could be found.  So why should we doubt that someone who’s already suggested that the election be delayed due to the pandemic that his ineptitude amplified, verbally attacks mail-in voting daily except of course mail-in voting from Republican led states he expects to win, and who has diminished the capability of the USPS to deliver ballots on time by appointing a major donor/destroyer to the Postmaster General role would have any qualms about usurping the election?      

Et Cetera:  Getting back to Kentucky, there were demonstrations there and elsewhere last night.  Two policemen were shot, though thankfully it appears that neither was killed.  Joe Biden responded by saying violence is never the answer, Trump tweeted out “LAW & ORDER.” And by that he means that only he gets to break the law and cause disorder. 

Forty Days.  

Handmaids

Super Spreader Tour: Trump was off in Pittsburgh last night holding another large, unmasked virus rally.  Before departing he leaned in to the press contingent to better hear a reporter’s question but then once he realized she was seeking a comment on US COVID deaths passing through the grim 200,000 milestone, he huffed and waved her off and asked for another question.  Not a big deal because as he said Monday night in Ohio no one worthwhile dies from coronavirus, it’s just all those old folks and people of color.  That’s the virus that is now the third most common cause of death in the US.  By the way Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany who is even more soulless than her predecessors says that each one of those deaths keep Trump up at night, as if. Trump also commented on his upcoming Supreme Court pick, saying that he’d be naming her on Saturday because he absolutely has to have her in place by the election as he fully anticipates that he’ll need “his” judges to rule in his favor when he disputes the results of the election, something he will surely do because of all of those “illegal” mail-in ballots that he repeatedly rants about.  If we’ve learned anything about Trump over these four years of torture that feel like four decades, it’s that he says the quiet part out loud so when he tells us he’s going to contest the election and that he wants his right wing court in place to back him up we should believe him.  Trump’s focus is all about how to disrupt the election process in order to turn a possible loss into a resounding victory and no doubt his trusty toadies Attorney General Barr and Senate Majority Leader McConnell and his loyal cadre of Senate enablers, a crowd that now includes Mitt Romney, are all in on supporting those efforts.  That said, at least a few of the intelligence agencies don’t appear to be fully on board.  A highly secret report produced by the CIA asserts that Putin is “probably” up to his usual games, this time doing his best to damage Joe Biden’s electoral chances and yesterday the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released a joint statement advising “Americans to get election related information from ‘trustworthy sources’ like official government election websites.” The warning also said that “Americans, when dealing with reports of problems with voting or results, should ‘verify though multiple reliable sources’ and think twice before sharing unverified material on social media.”  So basically, we’re not supposed to listen to anything that Trump or his right wing media outlets say in the run up to and right after the election until all the votes are counted.  Sadly that vote counting part assumes that Trump’s Supremes doesn’t issue another vote count truncating decision like Bush v Gore, Trump’s AG doesn’t send in his Border and Prison armies to burn any of those troublesome absentee ballots, the Postal Service doesn’t redirect ballots to Siberia and Putin doesn’t play games with voter rolls.  Did I mention yet that late last week the buzz was that Trump has grown so angry with FBI Director Chris Wray for his propensity to speak truth about the Russians while besmirching white supremacists that he’s been asking his crowd who he should appoint in his place?  Clearly warning about election disinformation isn’t going to do anything to secure Wray’s longevity.

Better and Worse: On a positive note, Cindy McCain endorsed Joe Biden yesterday saying “My husband John lived by a code: country first. We are Republicans, yes, but Americans foremost. There’s only one candidate in this race who stands up for our values as a nation, and that is Joe Biden.”  It’s hardly a secret that Cindy McCain dislikes Trump, she narrated a video about her husband that was played at the Democratic convention, but she’d held off on formally endorsing Biden until now largely because of her party loyalty and her concern that crossing the aisle could hurt her son’s political ambitions.  It looks like those disparaging remarks about the military that Bob Woodward reported Trump made pushed her over the edge.  Former Mayor Mike Bloomberg is another one whose feelings about Trump are no secret.  In addition to his commitment to spend $100 million to help Biden in Florida, yesterday it was reported that he helped raise somewhere around $20 million to pay off fines owed by the 32,000 Floridians who have served prison time for felonies.  During the last election Floridians voted to given them back the right to vote but Florida’s Republican dominated legislature had blocked the effectiveness of the referendum by passing legislation, signed of course by Florida’s Trump mini me/co-virus denier Governor DeSantis,  requiring that they pay off their outstanding obligations which average about $1000 per person, something that few of them had the resources to do.  Now by virtue of Bloomberg’s and a few other notable celebrities, including basketball star LeBron James’, support for the nonpartisan Florida Rights Restoration Coalition the felons are one step closer to casting their votes.  By the way one of Trump’s potential SCOTUS nominees, Judge Barbara Lagoa concurred in the court decision upholding the right of the Florida legislature to hold up the felons’ vote restoration pending those “poll tax” like payments.  Though that and her Florida and Cuban roots make her an appealing Trump choice, it appears that Judge Amy Coney Barrett, whose anti-abortion stance is well known, is still Trump’s likely pick.  Though Senator Diane Feinstein got grief from the right for alluding to Coney Barrett’s somewhat extreme religious beliefs during her lower court confirmation hearings, those beliefs are more than a wee bit scary.  Reportedly Coney Barrett is a member of a charismatic Catholic group called the People of Praise which served as one of the inspirations for Margaret Atwood calling her dystopic book The Handmaid’s Tale.   

Et Cetera: According to the Washington Post, the FDA is soon to announce new, more stringent standards for an emergency authorization of a Covid-19 vaccine.  That means that there is now little if any chance that one will be cleared for use before the November election despite Trump’s oft repeated promise that one or more will be approved, unless of course the same powers who keep tinkering with the information posted on the CDC website get their hands around FDA commissioner Steven Hahn’s neck or whatever body part they need to grab to change his mind.  And because he gets to do what he wants or at least thinks he does, yesterday Trump expanded his ban on racial sensitivity training to include government contractors because “Americans should be taught to take PRIDE in our Great Country, and if you don't there's nothing in it for you!" And by PRIDE, think white pride.   

 

Banana Republic

Anarchy Central:  Good morning from the anarchist jurisdiction of New York.  Alternative side of the street rules are still in effect, jazz musicians are playing in Central Park and face masked school kids are walking in orderly packs to and from classes and outdoor activities, but according to Trump and his lackey Attorney General Barr, NYC, together with Portland and Seattle, are hotbeds of anarchy and as such are now at risk of being defunded by the federal government at a time that all are suffering from massive budget shortfalls tied to the coronavirus pandemic criminally mishandled by Trump and his administration’s failure to agree to state and local government funding.  It’s no coincidence that all three of these anarchist jurisdictions have Democratic mayors and are in state’s led by Democratic governors and it’s definitely not a coincidence that NYC’s gene pool isn’t as lily white as that Minnesota DNA that Trump celebrated over the weekend.  While pointing out that defunding NY would cause further police cuts, the kind of thing that could really lead to anarchy, NYS Attorney General Letitia James promised to challenge the designation in the courts, of course those are the courts that Trump has been doing his best to stack.  On that front, Trump appears to have secured the Senate votes he needs to move ahead with the confirmation of his as yet named Supreme Court Justice nominee despite all those public statements previously made by dozens of Republican Senators promising that they’d never allow for a Supreme to be considered and seated during the run up to a presidential election.  Last night Colorado’s very vulnerable incumbent Senator Cory Gardner signed on as did Iowa’s Chuck Grassley, the former Chair of the Senate Judiciary committee, who previously said that “you can’t have one rule for Democrat presidents and another rule for Republican presidents.”  Utah’s Mitt Romney still hasn’t weighed in but assuming reports are correct, McConnell and Trump don’t need his vote so the only question that remains is whether they’ll force a confirmation through before the election, or whether they’ll wait and push it through right afterwards.  Trump hasn’t even named his pick but at this point its fair to assume that the Republican led Senate would hold hearings and confirm a pet rock as long as that rock was firmly in the anti-abortion camp and, like leading candidate Amy Coney Barrett, didn’t believe that there was any reason to stick with that principal of stare decisis because who cares about precedent anyway? And for the record, it’s not just Roe v Wade that faces imminent demise, Obamacare is likely in bigly trouble as well even if the RBG spot stays open through the end of the year.  That’s because, in November, the court is due to consider a case by a coalition of red state Attorneys General who are seeking to strike down the entirety of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), including the requirement for insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions.  A lower court in Texas has already concluded that the whole law is invalid and even though a large number of legal experts believe that the lower court’s decision was seriously flawed, it’s highly likely that the SCOTUS conservatives who have previously ruled against Obamacare will agree with the Texas ruling. Though there remains a chance that Chief Justice Roberts will vote with the Court’s liberal contingent, absent RBG that wouldn’t be enough as the resulting 4-4 tie would leave the Texas decision in place.  Trump, who had his Justice Department weigh in on the side of the red state AG continent, wants everyone, especially those with pre-existing conditions to calm down because his health care plan, the top secret one that really doesn’t exist but that he routinely promises to reveal in “two weeks” covers pre-existing conditions including all those lasting COVID side effects so there’s nothing to worry about here.  Who doesn’t trust Trump?  As to timing, though the schedule is tight, don’t be surprised to see Trump push really hard to get his justice in place before the election. He’s been dissing mail in voting and the legitimacy of the election process because he plans to challenge any and all states where he loses by a small margin claiming voter fraud, by blue voters only, and is convinced that “his” judges, including that Supreme newbie will rule in his favor as payback.  Think Bush v Gore on steroids.  On the election front, some positive news:  yesterday another Federal Judge ordered Postmaster General DeJoy to treat all mail-in votes as first class mail and to restore overtime, but of course DeJoy still hasn’t said if he’ll comply or appeal and in Nevada another Federal Judge upheld that state’s new expanded mail-in ballot law but again the Trump campaign may appeal. 

Campaign Trail:  Trump was on the road again yesterday in Ohio.  Before leaving he questioned that RBG had dictated a letter to her granddaughter expressing her dying wish that her seat not be filled until the next president is determined and seated, suggesting instead that those reports were false and that the wish was made up by Democratic leaders Pelosi, Schumer and/or “Shifty Schiff.”  In Ohio, where Lieutenant Governor John Husted’s call for the crowd to don protective face masks was jeered, Trump said that the coronavirus effects virtually no one because all of those 200,000 plus dead people were old, had pre-existing conditions and were due to die anyway.  By contrast, Biden, also on the campaign trail, told a Wisconsin audience that “there are empty chairs at dining room tables and kitchen tables that weeks and months ago were filled with a loved one, a mom, a dad, a brother a sister,” adding “I worry we’re become numb to the toll it has taken to us and on our country.” As to that numbing, another insider reports that son in law Jared was emotionless from the start.  That insider, Max Kennedy Jr, RFK’s grandson, was a volunteer on Kushner’s coronavirus task force, the group of ambitious young’uns in charge of procuring personal protective equipment for virus hot spots back in March. Kennedy, who bolted early says that the team was instructed to prioritize requests from Trump's friends and supporters and told to pay special attention to Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, who he said was "particularly aggressive" in demanding masks be shipped to a hospital she favored.  Back in April, Kennedy sent an anonymous complaint to Congress about what he saw, he has decided to come forward publicly now, despite the NDA he’d been required to sign, to provide more details about Trump and Kushner’s incompetence and their misdirected efforts. 

Et Cetera:  The CDC’s reputation took another hit yesterday after officials posted and then took down a statement saying that it was “possible” that coronavirus spreads via airborne transmission. It was the third major revision to CDC information or guidelines published since May, once again raising valid concerns that the CDC has lost what’s left of its independence not surprising because in banana republics the king makes the rules and gets to makes up the facts. 

Forever Notorious

The Supreme Supreme:  Given her age, the number of times she had been hospitalized in recent months and her numerous cancer reoccurrences the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the forever notorious icon, wasn’t unexpected but that doesn’t make her passing any less of a shock to our collective cores already traumatized by the pandemic, election and all things Trump. It’s also not surprising that neither Trump nor Senate Majority Leader McConnell had the decency to wait until the end of her shiva period to announce their intention to ram a new conservative justice through the Senate as soon as possible.  That rule that McConnell ginned up to prevent President Obama’s choice, moderate Merrick Garland, from being confirmed nine months before a presidential election, who but everyone would have guessed that it only applies when a Democratic president is in office. The many Republican senators honoring their promises to apply it regardless of who was in office, including South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham now the Chair of the Senate Justice Department who is on tape saying he would apply the “rule” consistently and should be held accountable to do so, is rapidly shrinking because at the end of the day Graham and most of the others do what they’re told to do and with supporting conservative justices and overturning Roe a priority for McConnell, the evangelical base, and Republican big money donors, consistency, honor and accountability, to the extent that any of that ever mattered, is long gone.  So far only Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Maine’s Susan Collins are on the record saying that whoever wins the election should get to nominate the next justice.  It’s not surprising that either woman has said so, say what you like about the pearl clutching Collins, neither she nor Murkowski are likely to vote for Trump’s next nominee anyway since he’s on record saying that he will only pick an anti-abortion candidate and in all likelihood his candidate will be so obviously anti-abortion and happy to overturn Roe v Wade that she, and the candidate will most certainly be a she, won’t be able to snow even Collins with a Kavanaugh two-step.  Right now Trump’s likely choice will be either Amy Coney Barrett or Barbara Lagoa, both Appeals Court Judges that he appointed.  Until now Coney Barrett, already vetted because she was considered for the seat that ultimately went to Justice Kavanaugh, had been the front runner but reports are that Trump is now seriously considering advancing Cuban American Lagoa because he believes that nominating her will give him a boost in Florida. As to the process, it’s not clear whether McConnell or Trump will try to squeeze the confirmation vote through before the election.  It’s also not clear if two other Republicans will join Collins and Murkowski and all the Democrats in opposing the nomination. The group of potential Republican naysayers has already lost one possibility as Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander has already said that he’s sticking with Trump on this one.  All eyes are on Mitt Romney, a few of the vulnerable up for reelection Senators, and those not running again,  but it’s not clear that even Romney will abandon Trump on this one, he’s been a fairly reliable Republican vote when it comes to judge appointments.  One added wrinkle is the Arizona Senate race where Democrat Mark Kelly is expected to trounce John McCain fill-in temporary Senator  Martha McSally. Assuming that election goes as anticipated Kelly should be seated by the end of November, of course that assumes that the Republicans don’t figure how a way to screw that too. 

Viral Musings:  RBG’s passing diverted attention from the virus but unfortunately the virus rages with or without attention. The US coronavirus death toll is now north of 204,000 and climbing at a rate of about 1000 per day but Trump insists we’re lucky, that it’s only due to his excellent stewardship that we’re not at 2 million.  That’s Trump who continues to hold super spreader rallies where he disses facemask wearing, insists that testing causes COVID cases and alternatively promises a vaccine by November or April depending on the day. In addition to  pushing dangerous virus myths, Trump is also continuing with his racist dog whistles, in Minnesota, a state he desperately hopes to win, he told his audience that they have “good genes, you know that, right? You have good genes. A lot of it is about the genes, isn’t it, don't you believe? The racehorse theory. You think we’re so different? You have good genes in Minnesota.”  And of course by good genes, Trump means Caucasian ones. Trump, who was accused of still another case of sexual assault last week by former model Amy Doris, has also taken to retweeting assertions that Joe Biden is into pedophilia, a false and absurd accusation that has gained steam on Facebook, at least to those whose Facebook feeds are dominated by rightwing news feeds. 

October Surprise:  It’s not yet clear how or even if the Supreme Court opening will influence the election.  A few quick polls conducted over the weekend indicate that the majority believe that the winner of the November election should get to nominate the next Supreme Court Justice.  Additionally, Biden continues to lead in the national polls by 7 to 9%.  However, as we all know by now it’s the state polls that matter and in some states like Maine, the court opening could further damage the Republican party while in others like North Carolina it could help.  We’ll have to wait a few more days for a more up to date indication. It’s not just the courts, there are a few other “surprises” looming.  Senate Homeland Security Chairman/Trump ally Ron Johnson is expected to release his committee’s report on his investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden’s Ukraine stuff.  Johnson has already teased that the report will “prove,” or at least prove to him and anyone he can convince, that Joe Biden is unfit for office.  The report is based on evidence provided by questionable Russian influenced Ukrainian  sources one of whom who has been sanctioned by the US Treasury but none of that will prevent Johnson from creating a ruckus.  And don’t forget the long awaited US Attorney John Durham Report, according to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who shouldn’t have seen any of it but is talking as if he’s in the know, that report will “prove” that people like former FBI Director Comey and CIA agent Peter Strzok acted illegally by investigating  Trump’s 2016 election shenanigans even though they didn’t and its not clear that the Durham report, if it is released, will say any of that. As to that report, on Friday Democratic leadership asked the Justice Department Inspector General to investigate whether Attorney General Bill Barr and Durham are seeking to improperly influence the upcoming 2020 presidential election as if there is any question that Barr, at least, is.  And while everyone’s attention was directed elsewhere on Friday lawyers representing the US at Julian Assange’s extradition trial in Britain accepted the claim that the WikiLeaks founder was offered a presidential pardon on the condition that he would help cover up Russia’s involvement in hacking emails from the DNC.   

One More Thing: One way to honor RBG’s memory would be to help turn the Senate blue.  So think about making some contributions.  If you are so inclined go to ActBlue.com and donate across the board to Dr. Al Gross (Alaska), Doug Jones (Alabama), Mark Kelly (Arizona), John Hickenlooper (Colorado), John Ossoff (Georgia), Rev Raphael Warnock (Georgia), Theresa Greenfield (Iowa), Barbara Bollier (Kansas), Amy McGrath (Kentucky), Sara Gideon (Maine), Gary Peters (Michigan), Steve Bullock (Montana), Cal Cunningham (North Carolina), Jaime Harrison (South Carolina)  and MJ Hegar (Texas). 

Al Gross is running as an independent but will caucus with the Democrats if he wins.  Doug Jones is very vulnerable but is worthy of support because he is such a super nice guy and a long time champion for Civil Rights who successfully prosecuted two KKK members for the 1963 Birmingham Church bombing.  Gary Peters is also a vulnerable incumbent, less so than Jones, but his state Michigan is unpredictable so every bit helps. Georgia has two candidates. Jon Ossoff is competing in the regular election and stands a chance against incumbent Senator David Perdue while Raphael Warnock is competing in a special election against a number of Republican wannabees including fill-in Senator/accused inside trader Kelly Loeffler and Congressman Trump/ fan Doug Collins.          

 

 

Happy New Year! 

A lot of the usual yesterday.  Trump held another crowded mask free rally, this one in a virus laden area of Michigan.  He signed an executive order calling for the creation of a commission to rid the education system of  “left wing indoctrination,” promoting instead pro-American education, think lederhosen and Germany in the 1930s and you’ll get the idea.  Olivia Troye, a life-long Republican and senior advisor to VP Pence who served on the White House’s Coronavirus task force joined the parade of former Trump administration professionals endorsing Biden, while detailing how bungled Trump’s handling of the virus was from the get go.  She also revealed that he once suggested that COVID 19 might be a good thing because it would stop him from having to shake hands with “disgusting people,” you know those people who show up at his virus infused campaign rallies and march through Targets and Walmarts claiming face masks are unAmerican and infringe upon their personal freedom.  We learned that those widely criticized revised virus testing guidelines that were added to the CDC website last month, the ones that said that asymptomatic people needn’t bother to be tested even if they’d been exposed to COVID positive individuals, weren’t written by CDC scientists but instead were posted by HHS political appointees under direction of WH Task Force members because more testing means more disease, and who wants that?  Noting that USPS service changes were done in an intentional attempt to use the postal service for political purposes ahead of the November presidential election, a Federal judge halted any additional similar operational changes, a good thing but the damage probably has already been done. Testifying before the House Homeland Security Committee, FBI Director Chris Wray said that Russia is primarily interfering through "malign foreign influence in an effort to hurt Biden's campaign," Trump of course responded by tweet slamming “Chris” for not “seeing” activity from China, “even though it is a FAR greater threat than Russia, Russia, Russia,” while also dissing mail-in voting as a  “totally vulnerable Unsolicited (Counterfeit) Ballot Scam.”  The straight shooting Wray also said that though illegal acts by Antifa activists are a problem, their activities pale in comparison to white supremacist extremists, you know those good people on both sides folks.  And Joe Biden participated at a very socially distanced CNN town hall last night, drive in style.  He coherently and empathetically answered lots of questions, displaying a knowledge of details and complex concepts, leading Fox TV pundits to assert that he’d obviously been fed all the questions in advance.  Their logic being that he’s too addled to have actually sounded that intelligent without coaching but not so addled that he couldn’t memorize an hour or two worth of complex answers. Got that?         

But forget about all that for now and instead enjoy the weekend.  Wishing all who celebrate and those who don’t a happy, healthy, and sweet Rosh Hashanah. And if you’d like to start early, click on the attacked link of the Maccabeats singing in the new year with another one of their joyful renditions.    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WsWouCsbaQ

 

 

Faulty Lymphatics 

Forty Seven Days:  Trump is desperately fearful of losing in November.  That’s not to say that Joe Biden is anywhere close to locking up an election victory; given recent history and the rapidity at which outcome altering events keep jumping out at us only an excessively optimistic fool would believe that.  It’s just that Trump is increasingly acting like someone who fears the legal, financial and emotional consequences of a loss so much that he will do anything to avoid one, or alternatively avoid acknowledging one.  Yesterday, three of his tactics were on prominent display.  The first involves his ongoing attack on the election, the undermining of everything about mail-in voting from the legitimacy of the physical ballots to his disruption of the USPS’s capabilities aided by a Republican machine that keeps suing to complicate the voting process while at the same time helping third party candidates like Kanye West who by the way posted a personal pee tape on Twitter yesterday because that’s what serious candidates do; the second involves his hyping of the much hoped for coronavirus vaccination, both its effectiveness and the timing of its appearance; and the third involves the further weaponization of the Justice department, most notably his nefarious sidekick/attack dog Attorney General Barr.  

Viral Musings:  On the virus front, yesterday while testifying before the Senate Appropriations Committee, CDC Head Robert Redfield said that face masks remain the “most important powerful public health tool against the coronavirus pandemic” adding “I might even go so far as to say that this face mask is more guaranteed to protect me against COVID than when I take a COVID vaccine.”  He further explained that while a vaccine only works if it produces an immune response, something that at best will happen 70% of the time, a mask works for everyone,” or at least everyone who wears one right and has the good sense to hang with others who do as well. As to the timing of an effective vaccine, contradicting Trump who continues to promise that one will be available by the end of October but echoing virus guru Fauci, Redfield said that while one might be available by year end it won’t be broadly available to most of the US until the summer of 2021.  Suffice it to say, Trump wasn’t all that happy about Redfield’s testimony so he screamed at him and then scheduled an afternoon press conference to contradict what he said; it’s fair to assume that Redfield’s career is now hanging by an even more tenuous thread than it already was. During his press conference Trump essentially said that Redfield misspoke and that his statements were wrong because come hell or high water, safety or not, that vaccine will be out in time to insure his election victory and those face masks, everyone knows that they’re useless. Armed with charts displaying blue and red mortality curves, Trump also said that the US death count isn’t really all that high because that close to 200,000 number that everyone cites right now includes deaths from states that voted for Hillary Clinton and those deaths don’t count because who cares about people from New York and New Jersey anyway. By the way more than 1000 Americans died of COVID yesterday, less than 15 of them were people from New York or New Jersey but a lot were from Trump’s red states.  And even if you were to delete those troublesome blue state deaths from the total US death count we would be trailing only Brazil in overall COVID mortality, hardly a position to brag about.  Nevertheless Trump insists that everything he’s done has been perfect and that he wouldn’t do anything different if he had the chance to start over again. Under pressure from Trump, Redfield clarified his remarks, a little,  last night, tweeting “I 100% believe in the importance of vaccines and the importance in particular of a #COVID 19 vaccine.  A COVID 19 vaccine is the thing that will get Americans back to a normal life” but then added “The best defense we currently have against this virus are the important mitigation efforts of wearing a mask, washing your hands, social distancing and being careful about crowds.”  Worth mentioning that at least one member of the White House staff tested COVID positive yesterday.  We only know that because a member of the WH press corps was told that the reason his scheduled test was running late was because one or more of the WH’s tests had come back positive, causing a bit of a hub bub in Casa Trump. So far no details about who that person or persons are nor how close they’ve been to Trump, nor do we know if they caught the virus during one of his several recent mask free rallies.  By the way, Michael Caputo, the nefarious Trump fan/Roger Stone acolyte who had been in charge of CDC messaging and who screwed around with components of their statistical reports, he’s stepped down from his position for 60 days of mental health recovery, something to do with his lymphatic system being on overload, and his personal science assistant has been permanently removed.    

Barring Barr:  Unfortunately Attorney General Barr is still running Justice and judging by the things he said yesterday that’s something that we should all be very, very concerned about.  According to the NY Times, he called for Federal prosecutors to look into charging Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan over allowing protestors to create a police free protest zone, something that the Mayor called chilling and an abuse of power because it is both chilling and would be an abuse of power.  And according to the Wall Street Journal he also asked prosecutors to start charging protesters, particularly all those radical leftists and Black Lives Matters agitators with a rarely used sedition charge, one that is supposed to only be used for those who have plotted a threat that posed imminent danger to government authority.  How very Fascist of him.  Additionally, because he believes and wants to make it clear to everyone at Justice that his views are the only ones that matter he also launched a broadside at everyone who reports to him, especially all those remaining independent, principled US Attorneys scattered in places like NY and Washington DC saying that he gets to intervene in their cases if he wants to because he isn’t running a Montessori kindergarten, he is running Justice and his is the only position that counts.  Again a little more Fascism for anyone who’s counting. He also said that the US would be “irrevocably committed to the socialist path” if Trump was not re-elected, and he accused government workers of working to thwart the administration, and of course he made it clear that he agrees with Trump, that mail in votes cast for Biden are most likely coming from manipulators in China or Iran. Please someone, for the sake of all of us check his lymphatic system, STAT.   

Et Cetera:  Back to Ye, for some reason known only to him and maybe Kim K, he really did post a video of pee streaming onto a Grammy award in a toilet bowl because that’s what normal people do, right?  Also not so normal, when asked by a member of the WH Press Corp if she could share the vague health plan that Trump promised was ready during his Tuesday night ABC Town Hall, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said she would not divulge any of those details adding that if the reporter wanted to know them she’d have to give up her current job and join the White House staff, maybe to fill one of those recently opened job slots made available due to that lymphatic epidemic or those COVID positive test takers?

Herd Mentality

Campaigning: It’s not clear what group of stable geniuses at the White House thought that having Trump participate in last night’s ABC town hall was a good idea but whoever they are, and my guess is that it was some combination of Jared Kushner and the still unidentified Anonymous, Joe Biden should send them a thank you note, chocolates and two dozen long stem roses.  Trump’s performance was so bad that the event is being referred to on Twitter as a dumpster fire and Fox pundit Laura Ingraham is calling it an ambush.  Among other things, Trump blamed Biden for failing to implement a national face mask mandate, went off on a tangent about how waiters don’t like masks, claimed Biden was for endorsing socialized medicine while promising for the zillionth time that his health plan was ready to launch, blamed those Democratic cities for everything bad, said that he had upplayed rather than downplayed the virus and that anyway it would be going away soon either on its own, via that vaccine that will be available in weeks or through that well known phenomenon of “herd mentality,”  Of course he also denied that racial inequality was a thing.  Neither host George Stephanopoulos nor the event’s participants bought into his delusional thinking or his lies.  Stephanopoulos noted that Biden was against socialized medicine and wasn’t even a supporter of Medicare for All, pointed out that Trump is supposed to be the president of all cities regardless of their political stripes and one member of the audience got so annoyed when Trump tried to cut her off that she sternly told him to please stop and let her finish her question. Had she been a member of the press Trump would have told her she was despicable and fake but given the venue even he knew that such retort wouldn’t fly.  Biden got a word in too, last night he, or more likely a member of his fast response team, responded to Trump’s assertion about his failure to implement a national facemask policy by tweeting “To be clear I’m not the current president.”  Keeping with the dumpster fire theme, Ivanka is off to Florida tomorrow to participate in a fireside chat, fundraiser in Tampa because who doesn’t toast marshmallows in 90 degree, 100 percent humidity weather while skirting the Hatch Act.  Maybe she can follow up by throwing paper towels at Hurricane Sally victims in the Panhandle.   

 

Human Resources:  Depending on who you ask Michael Caputo, the HHS spokesperson who accused anti-Trump forces within HHS of sedition and who suggested that it will soon be time for Trump loyalists to take up arms against the Democratic hordes is on the verge of taking a leave to deal with his “mental health” problems or staying put.  Caputo discussed his frail state and talked about taking time off during a rambling speech that he delivered to staffers, one where he apologized for the whole sedition thing and suggested that they go home and listen to some Grateful Dead, Casey Jones maybe. So far the White House has said nothing about him leaving but reports are that HHS Secretary Azar wants him to exit ASAP, however that could mean little because a lot of people want Azar out too.   Attorney General Barr is following through on Trump’s threats against former national security advisor John Bolton. The Justice Department has convened a grand jury and opened a criminal investigation into whether Bolton unlawfully disclosed classified information in his recently published The Room Where it Happened, that’s the book that was initially cleared after a thorough security review but then was re-reviewed and held up once Trump realized that it was chock full of scathing criticism.  The Bolton book shouldn’t be confused with Bob Woodward’s Rage, that’s the book that he cooperated with but also hates. As to Bolton, Andrew Weissman, former Special Counsel Mueller’s leading prosecutor, points out that the Justice Department will have a hard time proving that the former security advisor revealed classified information since Trump is on the public record saying that everything in his book is not true but this is Trump’s America and if he wants Bolton prosecuted, his toady Barr, who believes in absolute presidential power, is all in.

 

Et Cetera:  Trump who has now received a second nomination for his much coveted Nobel Peace Prize, or Noble Peace Prize, the preferred spelling in his campaign literature, hosted the foreign ministers of Bahrain and the UAE together with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu yesterday morning to celebrate the signing of their normalization agreements yesterday.  That’s a good thing, well for everyone but the Palestinians who continue to find themselves sidelined, but the relationships aren’t new and the public recognition was inevitable. On the international front, Trump also has trusty, not so ethical Secretary of State Pompeo off trying to broker a deal between Afghanistan and the Taliban because with the virus still raging, he needs some more good things to announce.  One more thing, last night during his town hall Trump once again tried to dig himself out from the mess he created by calling soldiers suckers and losers.  He responded to a question on the subject by insisting that the reports of his comments were just more fake news but then doubled down on his McCain insults and insisting that all those generals who criticized him were nothing more than disgruntled fired employees.  Fortunately no one asked him about his Make America Great campaign committee’s recent ad, the one that called for donors to support the troops but that mistakenly featured Russian MIG 29s in the background. By the way the Russian who photographed those planes was amused, he cited the inclusion of his “stock” photo as funny and the result of bad fact checking.  If he knew Trump better, he’d know that fact checking isn’t one of his things.      

 

 

 Got Legs

Super Spreader Tour:  After visiting California where he again questioned the state’s forest sweeping skills, dissed climate science and asserted that record high temperatures would soon be replaced with a fire stopping cold wave because he knows science better than any of those scientists, Trump continued on to Arizona where he hosted local Hispanic business people at what his campaign called an indoor roundtable but was really a rally sized human petri dish, at least for everyone but Trump who remained socially distanced from the crowd and the other panelists, ensuring his own safety because as he told a reporter, he’s more concerned about maintaining distance from his audience than their closeness to each other because as we learned from journalist Bob Woodward Trump does know that COVID can be lethal, he just pretends that it’s not. The polls indicate that Trump is doing better with some segments of the diverse Hispanic population than he did in 2016 which explains why he’s been focusing on Arizona, Nevada and Florida.  That said it’s baffling why he thinks that jeopardizing the health of key voters is a good thing but apparently, despite the advice of some anonymous aides who assert that they’ve told him that indoor and/or crowded event aren’t really a good idea and even the generally supportive former Bush era Press Secretary Ari Fleisher, Trump has decided that killing off a few Hispanics supporters is okay especially if he gets a net pick up in votes. If the South Dakota motorcycle rally is any guide, there will likely be an increase in coronavirus counts in Arizona and Nevada over the next ten to fourteen days, with hospitalizations and deaths following a few weeks later, not that Trump or his base will ever concede the correlation. Trump’s attitude towards science as well as his campaign strategy are markedly different from Biden’s approach which is why Biden, who delivered a message on the environment yesterday, one which acknowledged that climate change is really a thing, doesn’t hold large rallies and makes a point of always wearing a facemask to the podium, one that he takes off to speak and then puts back on afterwards.  Of course Biden’s preference for facemasks is just another thing that Trump and a number of his supporters mock because it’s 2020 and the world, or at least the US is turned upside down. 

Human Resources:  Sticking with the science issue, it turns out that in addition to playing fast and loose with the CDC’s COVID morbidity and mortality statistics and reports, Michael Caputo, the Roger Stone crony who is the communications guru/assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human services has been posting conspiracy theories on Facebook that accuse the CDC of harboring a resistance unit determined to undermine Trump by inflating COVID death counts.  The NY Times reports that the paranoid Caputo who claims that he’s in mortal danger from opponents of the administration has suggested that his gun carrying followers stock up on ammunition before bullets fall into short supply. He also says that his physical health is in question, and appears to concede that his “mental health has definitely failed.”  In an ordinary administration he’d have been escorted off the premises by now and someone would have confiscated his weapons but apparently no one in a position to do anything about it is all that concerned about his behavior or his call to arms.  That’s disturbing, but even more so is a whistle blower report from a nurse who’s worked at a privately operated ICE detention facility in Irwin County, Georgia. The nurse, Dawn Wooten, accuses the center of negligence, poor COVID safety precautions, of maintaining unsanitary conditions and, as if that’s not bad enough, of performing an “alarmingly high number” of unwarranted hysterectomies on non-English speaking detainees who had no idea what they were in for.  She went on to say it was like an experimental concentration camp. According to The Intercept her accounts have been “bolstered by interviews with another current member” of the facilities medical staff and four people currently or recently detained there.  For the record the United Nations defines “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group” as an act of genocide, a crime under international law.  An ICE representative responded last night by saying that they take all accusations seriously, but then went on to slam the unproven allegations without denying them out right.  This story should and is likely to have legs.  Chad Wolf, who’s currently serving as the acting Head of the Department of Homeland Security where ICE is housed, has legs too and he’d be wise to use them to run out the door.  He won’t, but he should, or at least that’s what Maryland Federal Judge Paula Xinis concluded last night. She ruled that Wolf is likely unlawfully serving as the acting Homeland Security Secretary because his appointment violated government succession rules. That’s a conclusion previously made by the Government Accountability Office.  The Judge temporarily barred the Trump administration from enforcing some new some new asylum restrictions Wolf imposed saying that given his illegal appointment he doesn’t have the authority to sign anything.  Again, in a normal administration, he’d be out the door but he’s still there.  Trump has formally nominated him to become the permanent Secretary but at this point no confirmation hearings are on the Senate schedule.  Getting back to Roger Stone, the Justice Department Inspector General is now investigating the intervention into his sentencing process, focusing on the period when the prosecutors who had been responsible for his case asserted that they were told by Attorney General Barr to lighten up on their recommended sentencing because of Stone’s friendship with Trump.  All four of those prosecutors quit or asked to be reassigned rather than signing off leaving Barr to have to get a prosecutor uninvolved in the case to sign the revised recommendation.  Let’s hope that the Justice Department IG is prepared to shackle himself to his desk because if history is any guide he’ll soon face a Friday night dismissal.   

Election Shenanigans:  Last night in a 4 to 3 ruling the Wisconsin Supreme Court decided to keep the Green Party candidate off the state’s presidential ballot, ending a dispute that “briefly threw the state's mail-in voting plans into chaos, and clearing the way for clerks to mail out ballots this week as planned.” The decision is notable because in 2016 the number of votes that went to Green Party candidate Jill Stein exceeded Hillary Clinton’s margin of loss in the state and may well have been responsible for Trump’s Wisconsin victory which, of course, is why some Republican operatives were trying so hard to help this cycle’s Green Party nominee, Howie Hawkins, get on the ballot even though his petitions were significantly flawed.  Unfortunately, the Republican election disruption operation continues, a similar cast of characters are still doing their best to help Kanye West get on the ballot in a number of other swing states in the hope that he will siphon off some Black voters from Biden. 

 Fog of War

Election Shenanigans: Remember last week when we learned from author Bob Woodward that Trump knew and understood in January that COVID was airborne, deadlier than the flu and likely to become a pandemic but that he downplayed its lethality to keep us calm and, as several of his spokespeople told various news hosts during this weekend’s Sunday tour, because he was in the fog of war?  This weekend he proved again that he’s just a liar and possibly a human fog machine who cares nothing about our health but a lot about being reelected.  He did that by holding two super spreader campaign events in Nevada, including an indoor one, and by threatening to call out his troops to “put down” protesters if there is an “insurrection” on election night and/or  if he loses the “rigged” election.  In keeping with that violence theme, he justified what may have been an extrajudicial killing of the west coast antifa protester who himself was wanted for a protest related killing and by failing to say a word when his long-time friend, dirty trickster Roger Stone said he should seize total power and jail prominent figures including Bill and Hillary Clinton and Mark Zuckerberg if he loses to Joe Biden in November.  While Trump was performing his all too usual routine during his first Nevada rally, in front of a crowd of unmasked COVID deniers, one that had to be moved after the management of its original planned location refused to violate Nevada’s coronavirus restrictions, Stone was elsewhere in the state saying that “the ballots in Nevada on election night should be seized by federal marshals and taken from the state,” calling the as yet uncast votes “corrupted” and part of a “provable case” of fraud.  And by provable case you know that convicted felon Stone, whose sentence Trump commuted, means if the state goes for Biden instead of Trump that the votes would obviously be corrupted.  While Trump’s first super spreader Nevada rally was in process, his earlier taped interview with Judge Jeanine Pirro was airing on Fox, that’s the interview where he suggested that Joe Biden has a drug problem because how else can you explain the former VP’s “recent” lucidity.  There’s something very special about snorter Trump, whose namesake son has appeared more and more strung out during his recent shriekfests telling Pirro who almost always seems inebriated on her Saturday night shows that Joe Biden is under the influence.  And by the way, if there is a magical drug that makes those who really do suffer from Alzheimer lucid, why don’t we know about it?  As to those super spreader rallies, after Nevada’s Governor slammed the second one, which was held last night in an indoor warehouse outside of Las Vegas, as “shameful, dangerous and irresponsible,” Trump responded by calling him a political hack. Had he not died from COVID after attending Trump’s last indoor rally, that super spreader Tulsa event, we could ask Herman Cain about fog and hacks but oddly enough he’s not taking any calls. 

Barring Barr:  Something’s up at AG Barr’s Justice Department, nothing good.  Late Thursday, the Hartford Courant reported that Nora Dannehy, a respected long term Connecticut prosecutor who US Attorney John Durham had brought in as his top aide on his Barr commissioned investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation resigned amid concerns that Barr was pushing for Durham to release an interim report even though it doesn’t appear that Durham has finished interviewing witnesses, interim reports aren’t a thing, and going public with anything in the run up to a presidential election is supposed to be against the rules.  Given Barr’s track record, the fear is that if Durham hands him anything, even something benign, he will distort what he gets to make it look like the FBI and all those Obama era folks committed heinous crimes in the pursuit of Trump regardless of what Durham has or has not uncovered.  Apparently by resigning Dannehy is trying to distance herself from all of this.  It’s not clear, yet, whether Durham plans to cooperate with Barr but it’s seems that Dannehy fears that he will succumb to the pressure. In a less covered move, John Choi, a prosecutor working on Trump’s Law Enforcement Commission also resigned late last week saying that he is “worried that the group is intent on providing cover for a predetermined law and order agenda that will only widen the divisions in our nation.”  Rats fleeing a sinking ship?  In other Justice news, John Gleeson, the former judge retained by Judge Emmet Sullivan to analyze Barr’s efforts to force the dropping of the charges that former national security advisor Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to, called Barr’s efforts “a corrupt and politically motivated favor.”  Gleeson went on to say that "In the United States, Presidents do not orchestrate pressure campaigns to get the Justice Department to drop charges against defendants who have pleaded guilty -- twice, before two different judges -- and whose guilt is obvious, yet that is exactly what has unfolded here." Gleeson’s position is that Judge Emmet Sullivan should reject the Justice Department's request to dismiss the case, and should move forward with Flynn's sentencing. This inning goes to the good guys, but give Barr time, its doubtful that he’s ready to throw in the towel yet because doing Trump’s bidding is his oxygen.  

Et Cetera:  The west is burning, Trump blames all those fires on the failure of those Democratic governors to adequately sweep their forests, rather than anything related to climate change and doesn’t seem all that concerned because those states are primarily occupied by Democrats.  Nevertheless he’s planning to visit today maybe because someone reminded him that there are a few Republican districts in California worth saving. Hopefully, he’ll refrain from tossing any flammable paper towel rolls. The COVID death count is up to 194,000 and though the daily appears to have settled for now to somewhere around 40,000 that’s still a very high number, one that virus guru Fauci remains very concerned about.  Despite Trump’s assurance that we’ve “rounded the corner,” Fauci, doesn’t believe that things will return to normal until the end of next year.  Fauci’s tendency to speak the truth is not at all appreciated in Trump land. On Friday Politico reported that the Center for Disease Control’s Trump appointed communications aides have been demanding the right to review and seek changes in the CDC’s weekly scientific reports, to intimidate the reports’ authors and to water down the information that they produce and share with state and local health officials because if you can’t suppress the virus reporting that it’s on the decline is the next best thing?  And because the CDC isn’t the only place where questionable things are happening, the Washington Post reports that ICE flew detainees to the Washington DC area purportedly to transfer them out of virus infested crowded facilities but that it turns out that the facilities the detainees were transferred out of weren’t really all that crowded or COVID infested.  In reality ICE needed them on some planes so they could justify using them to fly some Homeland Security Tactical units into the Washington DC area for Trump’s show of force.  The detainees were needed to allow ICE to circumvent rules that prohibit chartering flights for employee travel.  That a number of those unnecessarily transferred detainees got COVID as a result of their transfer, apparently that’s just one of those “fog of war” things. 

 

 

Stay Calm and Carry On

Raging On: Trump shares a few characteristics with the coronavirus, they’re both still raging and they’re both responsible for the deaths of far too many people.  Trump’s rage has a lot to do with the fact that Bob Woodward actually published the implicating things he said during their taped interviews so naturally he is now blaming him rather than his only inaction for the virus’ deadly trajectory.  Yesterday during another one of his hastily scheduled White House press conferences, one clearly called to give him an opportunity to push back at the things disclosed in Woodward’s book, Trump went with his usual mostly false assertions about all the wonderful things he’s done, how under his watch the US has done so much better than Europe, not true but he keeps saying it anyway, and then called for college football to get back to a full schedule because apparently his eight hours a day of watching Fox News is not filling up enough of his day.  Suffice it to say he wasn’t all that pleased when ABC’s Jon Karl asked him "Why did you lie to the American people? And why should we trust what you have to say now?" Trump responded by to that query by lashing out at Karl, calling the question and the “phraseology” terrible, and then saying he didn’t lie focusing instead on how important it was to prevent all of us from panicking. He went with that theme again during his night time rally in Michigan, where thousands of his red hatted fans stood mostly mask-less, packed into an airport hangar in another super spreader event to listen to him rage on about how a Joe Biden victory would result in looters and anarchists moving into their suburbs because who “wants to have somebody from antifa as a member and as a resident….Say darling, look who moved in next door.” Hate to break it to them, but some of those antifa people as well as a few of those radicals are probably already in the suburbs alongside a larger contingent of violent white supremacists but whatever.  Trump actually compared himself to Winston Churchill who he claimed lied to the Brits during WW II to keep them calm, that’s the Churchill who said “The British people can face any misfortune with fortitude and buoyancy as long as they are convinced that those in charge of their affairs are not deceiving them, or not dwelling in a fool’s paradise.”  And because it was Michigan, he also took credit for saving the auto industry, the auto industry that the Obama/Biden administration saved after the 2008 financial crisis. 

Russia, Russia, Russia:  That radical leftist newspaper the Wall Street Journal reports that the Russians are back to their old election meddling games, that they’re targeting Democrats again and that their efforts which are being led by the same cast of government-directed hackers that attacked in 2016 are more sophisticated this time around.  Citing Microsoft the WSJ reported that the Chinese and the Iranians are also up to no good, but to a significantly lesser degree.  Of course the Trump party line is that the Russians aren’t doing anything wrong.  Not surprising as Trump still refuses to acknowledge that his good friend Vlad is responsible for the poisoning of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny.  While Trump’s Russian affinity remains as strong as ever, the Treasury Department appears to be going rogue.  Yesterday Treasury announced new sanctions against Andrii Derkach, accusing the controversial Ukrainian lawmaker of being a long term “active Russian agent” who is part of Putin’s 2020 election interference campaign.  That’s particularly notable because Derkach has close ties to Rudy Giuliani and has been providing him and Republican Senator/Homeland Security Committee Chair Ron Johnson and Republican Congressman/Intel ranking member Devon Nunes with the “dirt” on Joe and Hunter Biden that they keep asserting will take Biden down.  The Treasury action means that Giuliani has been collaborating with an active Russian agent; when asked by CNN about that Giuliani texted back “Who cares?” And really, why should he, Trump has his back.  Anyway, the Treasury’s action makes you wonder if Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin or one of his aides is the insider anti-Trumper who goes by the name of Anonymous. 

Et Cetera:  A NY Federal Court handed Trump a setback yesterday, rejecting his efforts to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census population counts that will be used in next year’s congressional seat reapportionment.  By a unanimous vote the three judge panel ruled that Trump’s gambit was so obviously illegal that the lawsuit challenging his order need not even go to a trial.  As expected Senate Democrats voted down Majority Leader McConnell’s “skinny” relief bill, one that House Speaker Pelosi called an “anorexic” attempt to deal with a huge problem.  The Republican bill which McConnell only offered up so that he could attack the Democrats for not lining up behind it would have raised only $350 million in new money, Pelosi who has whittled her ask from the $3 trillion passed by the House a few months ago down to around $1.5 trillion said that “We don’t want to go home without a bill, but don’t want to be a cheap date….When you are in a negotiation, the last place to get weak knees is at the end.”  Unfortunately for those individuals and hard hit states that really need the money to go on, nothing will be forthcoming for now and maybe at all.  One more factoid, the CDC reports that dining out raises the risk of contracting COVID more than other activities including shopping or going to a salon.  They attribute that to the obvious: that diners congregate too close, aren’t masked when they chow down and then fail to put their masks back on when they’re not eating.  Eating outside is better than eating indoors but the CDC recommends that people be very, very cautious.  Keep that in mind the next time you get an insatiable craving to eat at your favorite haunt. 

Remembering all those lost on 9.11 today and all those lost in the aftermath.  May their memories be a blessing today and always.