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.