Two Weeks

Talking Points: Biden is a career criminal who should be happy that Attorney General Barr is such a nice guy because otherwise he’d be in the slammer by now.  Those guys at CNN, particularly “Guido” Cuomo are dumb bastards for spending so much time on the coronavirus story because who cares if daily COVID infection counts are peaking in eight states and that the death toll is now north of 220,000 and climbing.  Virus guru Fauci is a disaster who people are tired of hearing from, probably a reaction to Fauci’s appearance on 60 Minutes and that segment showing the fit guru walking with the two burly bodyguards he now needs to protect him from Trump’s fans.  Things will get even worse if Joe Biden wins the election because he would actually listen to Fauci.  Those are some of the points that Trump made yesterday on his super spreader tour and on a not so secret call to campaign workers.  He also insisted that he’s going to win, that he wouldn’t have said that a week ago but now he’s confident again, and let’s be honest don’t we all fear that despite the polls he could be right?  As to that Biden criminality thing, Trump keeps pushing the more than questionable laptop story, now claiming that its Joe’s laptop rather than Hunter’s but other than his hand selected, underqualified  Director of National Intelligence/toady John Ratcliffe, no one else in the know seems to be buying it.  In fact, yesterday’s Mediaite.com report that Fox News passed on the story over credibility concerns, could explain why Sean Hannity went with former Cheers actress Kirstie Alley, an ardent and vocal Trump supporter on his show last night. As to the laptop story, more than 50 former intelligence officials including some who served in the Trump administration signed on to a letter outlining their belief that it “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” A depressing tangent, though Trump asserts that coronavirus is so not an issue anymore, several US officials including the Undersecretary for Political Affairs is in quarantine right now, the result of a secret prisoner exchange meeting with Lebanon’s chief spymaster who has tested positive for the virus.  It’s not clear if CIA head Gina Haspel has put herself into quarantine, but she was one of the people who attended the meeting as was national security advisor Robert O’Brien who’s good to go because he already had COVID.  

One More Debate:  Getting back to the campaign, as of now the final debate, which will be moderated by NBC’s Kristin Welker, is scheduled to take place on Thursday. Trump who previously approved Welker’s selection is now asserting that she won’t be fair because she’s obviously a Democrat or so he says.  His current campaign chairman Bill Stepian, who is now out of his own COVID quarantine, sent a long letter to the Debate Commission complaining about the subjects that Welker plans to focus on, mostly upset that she will be asking questions about his coronavirus response and race relations rather than celebrating his innumerable international “accomplishments.” The ones that got him nominated for the Nobel/Noble prize he didn’t but should have won?  Contrary to reality, Stepian claims that the deal was that they wouldn’t bring up that virus thing again. The Trump team is also upset with the Debate Commission’s plan to mute the candidates’ mics so that each gets at least two minutes to answer questions before the one named Trump jumps in with a series of interruptions.  Keep in mind that the mic mute won’t stop the candidates from shouting during that two minutes so interruptions could and will still happen.  As of now Trump insists that he still plans to participate despite all the “last minute rule changes from the biased commission in their attempt to provide advantage to their favored candidate.”  That so-called favored candidate, Joe Biden, is off the trail until Thursday preparing for the debate or as Trump likes to put it, hiding in his cellar.  Trump, whose advisors have told him that he needs to hit the reset button and tone down his act in the upcoming debate, asserts that as proven by the first debate and his very successful town hall that was viewed by everyone on earth, he needs no preparation. That reset button, forget about it.  On the VP front, Mike Pence is on the road somewhere as is Kamala Harris who is out of her weekend isolation.  Yesterday, the ebullient Harris was seen dancing to the music during a rain storm in Jacksonville, Florida wearing her signature chucks and carrying a big umbrella.  If dance skills count, she wins. 

Some Senator Races:  Despite the congratulatory hug he got from California’s 87 year old Senator Diane Feinstein for holding what she called a wonderfully fair set of committee meetings on the Judge Amy nomination, Senator Lindsey Graham continues to struggle in his Senate race.  South Carolina being South Carolina, it would be crazy to count him out, but the latest poll shows his opponent Jaime Harrison up two points, well within a statistical error but who knows?  As to Senator Feinstein, a lot of Democrats were aghast at her hug and compliments, NARAL pulled their support for her and like several progressive Democrats have called for her to be removed from her Judiciary committee post and don’t even get me started on the COVID risk of an octogenarian hugging unmasked colleagues in the virus infected Senate right now.  Anyway, she is not up for reelection this cycle but it is probably time for her to be given some kind of emeritus status if such a thing exists.   Republican Joni Ernst who is up for reelection against Democrat Theresa Greenfield screwed up bigly during her debate.  She couldn’t answer a question about soybean prices, particularly notable because her opponent aced a similar question about corn.  That might seem esoteric to most of us but knowing your commodity pricing is an important credential in Iowa where Ernst is already in a bit of trouble for too closely sticking to the Trump line.  In North Carolina, despite his sexting, extramarital affairs scandal Cal Cunningham still appears to be have a slight lead over incumbent Thom Tillis. That said, the Trump campaign is very focused on North Carolina, is in a dead heat with Biden, and Tillis could ride the Trump coattails if he manages to eke out a win in the state.      

Et Cetera:  Chief Justice Roberts joined in with SCOTUS’s three liberals agreeing with a lower court ruling that Pennsylvania could count ballots received up to three days after election day.  That’s notable on a few fronts, first it’s a win for Democrats who want to see every vote count, second it’s a surprising decision by Roberts, who authored the Shelby v Holder case that has resulted in a lot of voter suppression laws getting passed in red states and third, because it demonstrates why Trump and his conservative enablers really need Judge Amy seated ASAP.  It’s fair to assume that she would have sided with the Court’s Conservative block, turning the four-four vote into a five-four decision that would have overturned the lower court’s decision.  After Trump said that if he wanted to raise more campaign cash he’d just call the CEO of Exxon and tell them they needed to fork over some big bucks to get a permit or two, Exxon’s freaked out CEO issued a statement saying that such a “hypothetical call” never happened.  Lastly, if you are into some more freaky things, try googling Jeffrey Toobin’s name.  The up until yesterday respected CNN and New Yorker legal analyst has been suspended by The New Yorker and has put himself on hiatus from CNN.  It’s that kind of year.  Enough said.