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.