The Commentariat -- August 6, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

The Washington Post's live updates of coronavirus developments Thursday are here.

Veronica Stracqualursi of CNN: "Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced on Thursday that he has tested positive for coronavirus. The announcement came shortly before DeWine, a Republican, was scheduled to meet with ... Donald Trump in Cleveland. DeWine was tested as part of the 'standard protocol' to greet Trump on the tarmac at Burke Lakefront Airport, the governor's office said in a statement. He is returning to Columbus, where he and his wife Fran will both be tested. DeWine tweeted Thursday that he's not experiencing symptoms at this time."

Good-ish News. Jeff Cox of CNBC: "Weekly jobless claims hit their lowest level of the pandemic area, totaling 1.186 million last week, well below Wall Street expectations. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for 1.42 million. The level for the week ended Aug. 1 represented a drop of 249,000 from the previous period. Amid worries that the employment picture was faltering after two record-breaking months of job creation, the claims number indicates some momentum. Continuing claims, or those who have collected benefits for two straight weeks, dropped by 844,000 to 16.1 million."

Zack Budryk of the Hill: "Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. addressed a now-deleted Instagram post depicting his pants unzipped and his arm around a woman, apologizing but saying the photo was 'just in good fun.' 'I've apologized to everybody,' Falwell said in an interview with WLNI 105.9FM, a Lynchburg, Va.-area radio station. 'And I've promised my kids I'm going to try to be a good boy from here on out.'" BUT WAIT! Jerry has an excuse! "He told the radio station the woman in the photo, seemingly taken on a yacht, was his 'wife's assistant' and that he regretted involving her. 'She's pregnant, so she couldn't get her pants up,' he told the radio station. 'And I had on pair of jeans that I hadn't worn in a long time so I couldn't get mine zipped either. And so I just put my belly out like hers.'" Mrs. McC: So Jerry was really showing empathy for the woman -- walking a mile in her pants, as Jesus might say. Nothing whatsoever untoward going on!

Mississippi. Jaclyn Peiser of the Washington Post: "Last week, schools in Corinth, Miss., welcomed back hundreds of students.... By early this week, the count [of positive Covid-19 tests] rose to six students and one staff member infected. Now, 116 students have been sent home to quarantine, a spokeswoman for the school district confirmed.... The district's superintendent said he has no plans to change course." ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Here's how these mandatory back-to-school orders are going to work. (1) Kids go to school. (2) Kids get sick. (3) Kids get quarantined. So roughly the same number of kids will be at home under the mandatory system (because they're sick and/or quarantined) as under an opt-in-or-out hybrid system, where some kids go to school & others school-at-home. The difference is that under the mandatory plan, many more of the kids at home will be sick than will those in the hybrid system. But mandatory schooling a great plan!

And the Winners Are .... Reed Abelson of the New York Times: "The nation’s leading health insurers are experiencing an embarrassment of profits. Some of the largest companies, including Anthem, Humana and UnitedHealth Group, are reporting second-quarter earnings that are double what they were a year ago. And while insurance profits are capped under the Affordable Care Act, with the requirement that consumers should benefit from such excesses in the form of rebates, no one should expect an immediate windfall.... The Health and Human Services Department advised companies to consider speeding up rebates, and on Tuesday suggested that they reduce premiums...." Abelson goes on to describe some of the potential political consequences of the insurance companies' windfalls.

Azi Paybarah of the New York Times: "The police have identified a suspect and prosecutors decided to charge him with first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of a man in June that took place during protests in Seattle seeking racial justice, the authorities said on Wednesday. The authorities said they were able to identify the gunman as Marcel Levon Long, 18, after collecting 'extremely high quality' surveillance video footage and statements from several eye witnesses. Mr. Long, whose last-known address was in Renton, Wash., about 20 minutes south of Seattle, remained at large as of Wednesday evening. The killing was among several shootings in and around a six-block area that protesters controlled for several weeks. The area was alternately called the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP), or the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ). It was cleared out by the police on July 1."

Michael Rosenwald of the Washington Post: "In the fall of 1945..., New Yorker writer John Hersey ... [and] his editor ... William Shawn ... suspected that the U.S. government's wartime propaganda machine had covered up the human suffering of the atomic bombs that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki 75 years ago this month. Pictures from Japan showed destroyed buildings and decimated neighborhoods, but little was known about the human toll, especially from radiation. The U.S. government controlled access to the bomb sites. The War Department quietly asked American news outlets to limit information about nuclear aspects of the attacks. When reports of widespread suffering from radiation began to emerge from international journalists and Japanese officials, the American government downplayed it all as propaganda. One general even told Congress that dying from radiation was, in fact, 'a very pleasant way to die.'... [Hersey] traveled to Hiroshima and spent two weeks reporting the misery from the point of view of six survivors. His 30,000-word account, told in a harrowing narrative using the tools of a novelist, took up an entire issue of the New Yorker in August 1946, stirring outrage throughout the world.... Hersey's story, later published as a book, has been celebrated as a journalistic and historical masterpiece. A panel of journalists and critics ranked it first on a list of the top 100 works of journalism in the 20th century.... Many historians and foreign policy experts say its impact was profound enough to help prevent future use of nuclear weapons." ~~~

~~~ Motoko Rich of the New York Times: "On the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, Setsuko Thurlow, then just 13, reported for her first full day of duty in Japan's increasingly desperate war effort. Together with 30 other girls, she had been recruited to assist with code breaking at a military office in Hiroshima.... At 8:15 a.m., a blast detonated over the city.... She was then thrown into the air, losing consciousness. When she came to, it was dark and silent, and she was pinned under parts of the wooden building. 'I'm going to die here,' she thought to herself.... Ms. Thurlow survived, but the attack would shape the rest of a life spent fighting for the abolition of nuclear weapons -- work for which she jointly accepted a Nobel Peace Prize in 2017.... In advance of the 75th anniversary of the dropping of the two bombs, Ms. Thurlow wrote to 197 heads of state asking them to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was formally adopted at the United Nations three years ago. The world's nine nuclear-armed countries have refused to sign the treaty on the grounds the weapons are necessary for deterrence."

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The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

** The Worst Country in the World (Well, Almost). David Leonhardt of the New York Times: "Nearly every country has struggled to contain the coronavirus and made mistakes along the way.... Yet ... one country stands alone, as the only affluent nation to have suffered a severe, sustained outbreak for more than four months: the United States.... When it comes to the virus, the United States has come to resemble not the wealthy and powerful countries to which it is often compared but instead to far poorer countries, like Brazil, Peru and South Africa, or those with large migrant populations, like Bahrain and Oman.... The New York Times set out to reconstruct the unique failure of the United States, through numerous interviews with scientists and public health experts around the world.... Together, the national skepticism toward collective action and the Trump administration's scattered response to the virus have contributed to several specific failures and missed opportunities, Times reporting shows: a lack of effective travel restrictions; repeated breakdowns in testing; fusing advice about masks; a misunderstanding of the relationship between the virus and the economy; and inconsistent messages from public officials."

David Jackson of USA Today: "... Donald Trump defended his call to reopen schools this fall by claiming children are 'virtually immune' from COVID-19 and that the coronavirus will 'go away' soon. 'This thing's going away -- It will go away like things go away,' Trump said during a wide-ranging interview on 'Fox & Friends' a day after authorities reported more than 1,000 Americans died of the virus. Children can catch -- and pass on -- the coronavirus, doctors have said. The National Education Association has cited that in arguing that reopening schools this fall may maintain spikes in the spread of the virus.... 'This is the magical thinking that has misled us down the road to 155,000 deaths,' said Jonathan Reiner, professor of medicine at George Washington University." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ ** Update. Heather Kelly of the Washington Post: "Breaking: Twitter said it will require President Trump's campaign account to remove a post containing coronavirus misinformation, banning the account from tweeting until it does so. Team Trump's tweet of a video clip from a Fox News interview -- in which President Trump said that children are 'almost immune' from covid-19 -- violates the site's rules against misinformation, the company said. Twitter hid the post and said the account will not be able to tweet again until it deletes it, although it can appeal the decision. Twitter spokeswoman Liz Kelley said the tweet 'is in violation of the Twitter Rules on COVID-19 misinformation. The account owner will be required to remove the Tweet before they can Tweet again.' Facebook on Wednesday said it removed President Trump's post of a video clip from a Fox News interview in which he said that children are 'almost immune' from covid-19, marking the company's increasingly tough stance on political speech amid heightened pressure.... This is the first time Facebook has taken down a post from the president for violating the company's policies on covid misinformation." The New York Times' story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: This is remarkable. Social media companies are taking down remarks by the POTUS* because they must: what he says is not only untrue, it poses a danger to Americans. For obvious reasons, these for-profit corporations try to keep out of politics. But they can't. They have imposed minimal ethical standards that Donald Trump cannot meet. That's who we have for a president*: a dangerous liar with a code of ethics lower than Mark Zuckerberg's. Corporations are people, my friend.

Uncle Donald Tells Another Fractured Fairy Tale. Alice Ollstein of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Wednesday praised Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey's handling of the pandemic -- even as the virus tears through the state at an alarming rate. 'Arizona's record in reducing the spread of the virus while maintaining hospital capacity and allowing society to continue functioning and functioning very nicely, very successfully, is an example that shows how our path forward can work in other states,' Trump said at a White House briefing, calling Arizona 'a state that is a model for applying a science-based approach to the decreasing cases and hospitalizations without implementing a punishing lockdown.'... Cases have decreased 24 percent in the last two weeks, according to the Covid Exit Strategy, but the numbers are still high. The state has the fifth-highest number of current hospitalizations in the country, the fifth-highes number of new cases in the last week, and the fifth-highest rate of tests that come back positive. Arizona has a test positivity rate of about 18 percent -- far higher than the 5 percent that the CDC says indicates sufficient testing and control of the virus. It's an improvement, however, on the nearly 25 percent test positivity rate the state was reporting two weeks ago."

Amy Gardner & Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: "Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill told negotiators for President Trump on Wednesday that preserving funding for the U.S. Postal Service and removing new rules that have slowed delivery times are essential ingredients of a new coronavirus relief bill in a year when millions of Americans plan to vote by mail. 'Elections are sacred,' Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), told reporters after a meeting with Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. 'To do cutbacks when ballots, all ballots, have to be counted -- we can't say, "Oh, we'll get 94 percent of them." It's insufficient.' Schumer said he and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told DeJoy, along with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, that their demands regarding the Postal Service are necessary to striking a deal on broader relief bill that may also include new unemployment benefits and a payroll tax cut. 'It was a heated discussion,' Schumer said...." ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), speaking on CNN today, said there were six chairs in the negotiating room: chairs for Pelosi, Schumer, Mnuchin, Meadows -- and Mitch McConnell & Kevin McCarthy. The chairs for McConnell & McCarthy remained empty. Durbin wondered (rhetorically) what-all McConnell & McCarthy had to do that was more important than getting relief to millions of coronavirus victims.

Shia Kapos of Politico: "Days after delivering a presentation on office safety in dealing with Covid-19, Illinois Congressman Rodney Davis, the top Republican on the House Administration Committee, announced he has tested positive for the virus. In a letter posted on his website, Davis said he tested positive Wednesday morning. He submitted to the test after one of his twice-daily temperature checks 'clocked in at 99 degrees Fahrenheit, which is higher than normal for me,' he wrote."

Matthew Perrone, et al., of the AP: "U.S. testing for the coronavirus is dropping even as infections remain high and the death toll rises by more than 1,000 a day, a worrisome trend that officials attribute largely to Americans getting discouraged over having to wait hours to get a test and days or weeks to learn the results. An Associated Press analysis found that the number of tests per day slid 3.6% over the past two weeks to 750,000, with the count falling in 22 states. That includes places like Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri and Iowa where the percentage of positive tests is high and continuing to climb, an indicator that the virus is still spreading uncontrolled."

Neil Vigdor of the New York Times: "Federal health authorities issued a formal warning on Wednesday about the dangers of drinking hand sanitizer and alerted poison control centers across the nation to be on the lookout for cases of methanol toxicity after four people died and nearly a dozen became ill. From May 1 to June 30, 15 people in Arizona and New Mexico were treated for poisoning after they swallowed alcohol-based hand sanitizer, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.... It was not immediately clear if any of the people who were poisoned drank the hand sanitizer for its disinfectant properties. The C.D.C. said some adults had consumed it for its alcohol content." Mrs. McC: IOW, they were alcoholics & not necessarily Trumpbots.

Georgia. Molly Hensley-Clancy & Caroline O'Donovan of BuzzFeed News: "Behind a viral photo of a crowded hallway at a high school in Georgia, a potentially dire situation is brewing. Students, teachers, and parents fear the Paulding County school's rushed reopening plans may be spiraling out of control just two days after students -- who said they were told they could face expulsion for remaining home -- returned to class despite reports of positive coronavirus cases among students and staff. North Paulding High School, about an hour outside Atlanta, reopened Monday despite an outbreak among members of its high school football team, many of whom, a Facebook video shows, worked out together in a crowded indoor gym last week as part of a weightlifting fundraiser.... And multiple teachers at North Paulding say there are positive tests among school staff, including a staff member who came into contact with most teachers at the school while exhibiting symptoms last week. Teachers and staff said the school won't confirm coronavirus infections among district employees, citing privacy reasons." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: If you are a parent thinking of sending your child to school soon, you might want to click on this story, which includes the photo of mostly-maskless students crowding a hallway at what appears to be a high school. Update: The CBS News story linked next IDs the school as North Paulding High. ~~~

~~~ CBS News/AP: "Two suburban Atlanta school districts that began in-person classes Monday with mask-optional policies face more questions about COVID-19 safety protocols after on-campus pictures showed students packed shoulder-to-shoulder. The day after school resumed, one school announced a second grader tested positive for the coronavirus, forcing the child's teacher and classmates to be sent home to quarantine for two weeks, CBS affiliate WGCL-TV reports. In Cherokee County, dozens of seniors gathered at two of the district's six high schools to take traditional first-day-of-school senior photos, with students squeezing together in black outfits. No one in pictures at Sequoyah High School in Hickory Flat or Etowah High School in Woodstock wore a mask.... Georgia hit a new weekly high for COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday, having averaged 51 confirmed deaths from the respiratory illness over the last seven days." ~~~

~~~ Illinois. Justine Coleman of the Hill: "Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the third-largest school district in the country, will retreat from its previous proposal for limited in-person classes and instead conduct online classes starting in September. Online instruction will continue through at least the first quarter of the school year, which ends Nov. 6, CPS CEO Janice Jackson said during a press conference Wednesday. Jackson said the decision was made after getting feedback from teachers and parents, including in a series of virtual town halls last week, where parents expressed concern." A Chicago Tribune story is here. ~~~

~~~ North Carolina. Ella Torres of ABC News: "Fourth graders at a school in North Carolina have been asked to quarantine for 14 days after a student there tested positive for COVID-19. The school, a Thales Academy in Wake Forest, said it was notified on Monday that the student became infected after having contact with an infected family member.... Thales Academy, a network of private non-sectarian community schools with eight locations in North Carolina, made the news last week after Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos visited a classroom and applauded the school for reopening. Pence and DeVos visited a campus in Apex, not Wake Forest." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Within the next month or so, there will be stories like those above for every state that doesn't ban face-to-face teaching. Check your local newspaper.

The Lamborghini Factory Protection Program. Azi Paybarah of the New York Times: "A Texas man this week became the second person in less than two weeks to be accused by federal prosecutors of using Covid-19 relief money to buy a Lamborghini. The man, Lee Price III, 29, of Houston, received more than $1.6 million under the federal Paycheck Protection Program after he submitted five applications in May and June with fraudulent information to numerous banks claiming to employ dozens of people, prosecutors in Houston said on Tuesday.... Mr. Price was arrested Tuesday and charged with wire fraud, bank fraud, making false statements to financial institutions and engaging in prohibited monetary transactions, the prosecutors said." Mrs. McC: Somebody check the Treasury Department parking lot & find out what kind of vehicle Steve Mnuchin is driving to work these days. (Also linked yesterday.)

Defense Secretary, Others Walk Back Another Trump Lie. Lolita Baldor & Deb Riechmann of the AP: "Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Wednesday that most people think the deadly explosion Tuesday in Lebanon that killed at least 100 people was an accident, contradicting ... Donald Trump, who said American generals told him it was likely caused by a bomb. Esper said the U.S. was still gathering information about the explosion, but said most believe 'it was an accident, as reported.' On Tuesday, Trump said, 'It looks like a terrible attack.... I met with some of our great generals and they just seem to feel that it was. This was not a -- some kind of a manufacturing explosion type of a event. ... They seem to think it was an attack. It was a bomb of some kind, yes.' From the outset, U.S. officials have said that they did not know the cause of the initial fire and explosions that set off the larger blast. But they say they do believe the reports out of Lebanon claiming a large stockpile of ammonium nitrate left over from a seizure is what exploded. Officials on Wednesday couldn't identify any 'generals' who delivered any such Beirut message to the president. And while none would comment publicly, some noted that defense and intelligence officials didn't have enough information about the explosion to make any statement about the cause on Tuesday evening.... Esper said the U.S. was preparing to provide humanitarian aid and medical or other supplies to the Lebanese people. The U.S. Embassy in Beirut said at least one American citizen was killed and several more were injured in the explosion." Emphasis added. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ This is an update of the report linked above. Lolita Baldor & Deb Riechmann of the AP: "... Donald Trump on Wednesday continued to suggest that the massive explosion that killed at least 135 people in Lebanon might have been a deliberate attack, even as officials in Lebanon and his own defense chief said it's believed to have be an accident. 'Whatever happened, it's terrible, but they don't really know what it is,' Trump insisted.... 'We're looking into it very strongly right now.... But whether it was a bomb intentionally set off -- it ended up being a bomb,' he said.'... While [no U.S. officials] would comment publicly, some noted that defense and intelligence officials didn't have enough information about the explosion to make any statement about the cause on Tuesday evening." ~~~

~~~ Julian Borger of the Guardian: "Donald Trump's unsubstantiated claim [Tuesday] that the massive explosion in Beirut was a bomb attack has revived fears of the president's potential to foment international crises.... The White House gave no guidance on Wednesday as to whether Trump had received a top secret intelligence briefing, had seen something on Twitter -- or just made up the claim and imagined a conversation with US generals. On Wednesday the president said the question was still unanswered. On Wednesday, the president said ... 'I can tell you whatever happened, it's terrible. But they don't really know what it is. Nobody knows yet.... How can you say accident? Somebody ... left some terrible explosive-type devices and things around perhaps. Perhaps it was that. Perhaps it was an attack. I don't think anybody can say right now. I've heard it both ways.'... It has become the norm for US officials to quietly correct the thicket of mistakes and lies embedded in Trump's daily discourse, but applied to a fragile and volatile corner of the world, the stakes are higher."

** David Enrich, et al., of the New York Times: "The New York prosecutors who are seeking President Trump's tax records have also subpoenaed his longtime lender, a sign that their criminal investigation into Mr. Trump's business practices is more wide-ranging than previously known. The Manhattan district attorney's office issued the subpoena last year to Deutsche Bank, which has been Mr. Trump's primary lender since the late 1990s, seeking financial records that he and his company provided to the bank, according to four people familiar with the inquiry.... The subpoena to Deutsche Bank sought documents on various topics related to Mr. Trump and his company, including any materials that might point to possible fraud, according to two people briefed on the subpoena's contents.... Deutsche Bank complied with the subpoena. Over a period of months last year, it provided [Manhattan DA Cyrus] Vance [Jr.]'s office with detailed records, including financial statements and other materials that Mr. Trump had provided to the bank as he sought loans, according to two of the people familiar with the inquiry." Emphasis added. The Guardian has a summary report here. Mrs. McC: Worth noting: There's nothing Bill Barr can do to curb the Manhattan DA's investigation.

Sorry, Lindsey. Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates told lawmakers Wednesday that neither President Barack Obama nor Vice President Joe Biden attempted to influence the FBI's investigation of incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn during a January 2017 Oval Office meeting with top national security officials. 'During the meeting, the president, the vice president, the national security adviser did not attempt to any way to direct or influence any investigation,' Yates said during sworn testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The testimony counters repeated insinuations by ... Donald Trump and his top allies that Obama and Biden took a leading role in steering an investigation into the incoming national security adviser, a charge Trump has used to claim he was the victim of an unspecified crime he has dubbed 'Obamagate.' Trump has provided no evidence to support the claim, and Yates said under oath that Obama's only interest in Flynn was to ensure that it was safe to share sensitive national security information with the incoming administration.... 'General Flynn had essentially neutered the U.S. government's message of deterrence,' Yates said." Read on. Yates knocked down one fake GOP talking point after another. Mrs. McC: I guess they'll have to conclude that "the woman" is lying. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post report, by Devlin Barrett, is here. "Trump attacked Yates before the hearing began, tweeting that she 'has zero credibility' and declaring her 'part of the greatest political crime of the Century, and ObamaBiden knew EVERYTHING!'... Seeking to use Yates to discredit the FBI's investigations around the 2016 Trump campaign, Republicans instead got a spirited defense of that work as ethical and necessary, even though she was critical of some of the FBI's moves at the time." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "Nearly 5 million covid-19 cases in the United States. One-hundred fifty-seven thousand dead. Thirty-two million out of work. Tens of millions facing eviction, foreclosure and hunger. What do we do now? Simple: We talk about Hillary Clinton's emails!... As the Trump administration drifts and millions lose their unemployment benefits, the Senate Judiciary Committee staged yet another hearing Wednesday about the Steele dossier, Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Peter Strzok, Andrew McCabe, Bruce Ohr, Fusion GPS and other golden oldies [like Anthony Weiner's laptop & Bill Clinton's meeting with Loretta Lynch]."

CIA Ignores Stupidest Senator. Andrew Desiderio & Natasha Bertrand of Politico: "The Central Intelligence Agency has ignored requests to brief senators as part of a Republican-led investigation that targets presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his son Hunter, according to sources familiar with the matter and an email described to Politico. The spy agency's resistance comes amid intelligence officials' deep skepticism of the probe, which is being led by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and focuses on Hunter Biden's role on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Democrats argue the investigation is based on Russian disinformation aimed at tipping the outcome of the election toward ... Donald Trump -- a charge Johnson rejects. Some intelligence officials similarly fear the Biden probe will only boost the Russian intervention. And while the motivations of the CIA are not certain, Johnson is considered 'toxic' by some members of the intelligence community, according to people with direct knowledge of the dynamic. The agency's reluctance to engage with the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which Johnson chairs, underscores the intelligence community's doubts about the probe."

Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump on Wednesday criticized former President Barack Obama's eulogy of the late Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.).... 'I thought it was a terrible speech. It was an angry speech. It showed this anger there that people don't see,' Trump said on 'Fox & Friends' when asked if he agreed the eulogy 'seemed like a campaign speech.' 'He lost control. He's been really hit very hard by both sides for that speech. That speech was ridiculous,' Trump said. Trump said he felt the eulogy was 'totally inappropriate' and spoke at length about how he has undone much of Obama's agenda." Mrs. McC: That's funny, because the family and friends of John Lewis who attended his funeral service gave President Obama a standing O for the very remarks Trump is criticizing. Video of President Obama's eulogy is here. You can decide for yourself whether or not you agree with Donald Trump -- or maybe suspect he is projecting his own angey behavior & constant inappropriate remarks about everything.

Pravda for Pence. Annie Karni of the New York Times: "When Vice President Mike Pence traveled to an event in Florida on Wednesday, he was not accompanied on his plane by a member of the White House press corps, as is typically the case. Instead, seated on Air Force Two in a space normally reserved for a White House reporter was the vice president for communications at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that has helped the Trump administration fill jobs throughout the government and influenced policy decisions. The foundation official, Robert B. Bluey, is also the executive editor of The Daily Signal, a news site run by the foundation to offer conservative commentary and analysis.... Mr. Bluey, a communications professional, is not listed as a reporter, and he does not cover the White House." But, it turns out, the absence of a "real" reporter on the trip is not all pence's fault: "The White House Correspondents' Association put out a call for reporters earlier in the week seeking a volunteer to cover Mr. Pence's day trip to Florida as part of the pool. When the organization was unable to fill the slot, Mr. Pence's office chose the print pooler instead...."

Pranshu Verma & Edward Wong of the New York Times: "The State Department's acting watchdog has resigned from his post less than three months after replacing the previous inspector general, whom President Trump fired in May, the department said on Wednesday. The departure of Stephen J. Akard came as Congress continued to investigate the firing of his predecessor, Steve A. Linick, who was pursuing inquiries into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Three congressional committees issued subpoenas this week to top aides of Mr. Pompeo. Mr. Linick had opened investigations into Mr. Pompeo's potential misuse of department resources and his effort to push arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The department gave no explanation for the departure of Mr. Akard, an ally of Vice President Mike Pence. A department spokeswoman said ... the deputy inspector general, Diana R. Shaw, would take over as acting inspector general.... Mr. Akard was also the agency's ambassador-level head of the Office of Foreign Missions, an arrangement that was a clear conflict of interest and widely criticized by Democratic lawmakers." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ According to the Times, the Washington Post & CNN broke the story. The Post's report is here. CNN's report is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Rachel Maddow, who interviewed former Ambassador Lewis Lukens last night, suggested Akard's abrupt resignation was tied to the so-far secret IG review of bad behavior by Trump's Ambassador to the U.K. Woody Johnson.

Anna Gronewold of Politico: "Gov. Andrew Cuomo officially assumed leadership of the National Governors Association on Wednesday during a meeting held virtually because of the pandemic. Alongside some chuckles and technical glitches that characterize the new normal of video gatherings, Republican Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland passed the mantle of leadership to Cuomo, who had been vice chair. The position has gained greater significance and visibility this year as governors shoulder primary responsibility for the pandemic response and recovery efforts.... The incoming vice chair is Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas. Cuomo's term will last a year."

Elections 2020

Ken Dilanian of NBC News: "The investigation ordered by Attorney General William Barr into how the CIA and the FBI looked into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia's 2016 election interference operation may be nearing a conclusion, people familiar with it say. One indication is that the prosecutor in charge, Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, has asked to interview former CIA Director John Brennan, according to a person familiar with the request. Brennan has agreed to be interviewed, and the details are being worked out, the person said. Attorney General William Barr told Congress last month that he would not wait until after the election to present Durham's findings if they are finalized. Barr has made clear he believes Obama administration officials acted wrongfully when they opened a counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign's dealings with Russians, but the Justice Department's inspector general found that the investigation was justified and untainted by political bias." ~~~

~~~ Ryan Goodman & Andrew Weissmann in a New York Times op-ed: "Today, Wednesday, marks 90 days before the presidential election, a date in the calendar that is supposed to be of special note to the Justice Department. That's because of two department guidelines, one a written policy that no action be influenced in any way by politics. Another, unwritten norm urges officials to defer publicly charging or taking any other overt investigative steps or disclosures that could affect a coming election. Attorney General William Barr appears poised to trample on both. At least two developing investigations could be fodder for pre-election political machinations. The first is an apparently sprawling investigation by John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, that began as an examination of the origins of the F.B.I. investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election. The other, led by John Bash, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, is about the so-called unmasking of Trump associates by Obama administration officials. Mr. Barr personally unleashed both investigations and handpicked the attorneys to run them." Read on. The writers suggest ways DOJ employees can at least partially thwart Barr's anticipated election-meddling.

Matthew Choi of Politico: "... Donald Trump raised more money than Joe Biden in July, after falling behind his Democratic rival for two straight months. Trump's campaign and the Republican National Committee reported that they raised $165 million last month -- an amount they said eclipsed any single month in all of 2016.... Biden's campaign and the Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, reported $140 million in July. The overwhelming majority of donations -- 97 percent -- were at the grassroots level, with the average contribution coming in at $34.77, the campaign said." Mrs. McC: Guess I'd have to pull some cash out of the mattress.

Felicia Sonmez, et al., of the Washington Post: "... Joe Biden will not travel to Milwaukee to accept the Democratic presidential nomination due to coronavirus concerns, convention organizers confirmed Wednesday. Biden will deliver his speech accepting the nomination later in August in his home state of Delaware, organizers said, adding that all other speakers who had been planning to travel to Milwaukee will no longer do so.... 'The mayor [of Milwaukee] has put in place a 225-person limit on people assembling in any one place,' Biden said. 'I think it's the right thing to do. I've wanted to set an example as to how we should respond individually to this crisis.' The move marks the latest disruption in plans for what is typically a political festival but is now being conducted almost entirely virtually. It comes after President Trump, who had attempted to hold the Republican National Convention in Charlotte and then Jacksonville, began exploring the option of delivering his speech from the South Lawn at the White House.... Under federal law, government employees and property are generally barred from being used for political purposes, with notable exceptions. The Hatch Act, which prevents federal officials from certain forms of political activity at work, exempts both the president and the vice president from any restrictions. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pushed back against Trump's proposal in an interview with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell on Wednesday afternoon." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Michael Scherer, et al., of the Washington Post: "Local and national leaders pushed back Wednesday against President Trump's desire to deliver his convention acceptance speech from the White House, warning that the event could bring protests and novel coronavirus spread to the nation's capital while violating historic norms that separate political activity from the seat of presidential power. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) predicted that a political convention gathering at the White House 'won't happen,' for legal and ethical reasons, while D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said she did not plan to offer 'any exemptions' for the event from a recent health order that restricts the movement of nonessential visitors to the city from 27 states with elevated rates of the virus.... Sen. John Cornyn [R] of Texas called it 'problematic,' Sen. John Thune ([R-]S.D.) questioned the legality of political events at the White House and Sen. Ron Johnson ([R-]Wis.) suggested that other plans should be made.... The pushback came as Trump indicated publicly for the first time that he preferred speaking from the White House.... When asked about Republican concerns over the legality of using the White House for a political event, Trump was dismissive. 'It is legal,' he said during a Wednesday evening news conference."

In a New York Times video op-ed, historian Allan Lichtman explains his presidential prediction model & predicts the winner of the 2020 presidential race. "In 1980, he developed a presidential prediction model that retrospectively accounted for 120 years of U.S. election history. Over the past four decades, his system has accurately called presidential victors, from Ronald Reagan in '84 to, well, Mr. Trump in 2016." (Also linked yesterday.)

Trump Second-Term Agenda Remains Nonexistent. Steve Benen of MSNBC: "Appearing on Fox News [Wednesday] morning, Donald Trump was asked, 'Mr. President, what is your second term agenda? What are your top priorities?' It was the fourth time is six weeks the president was asked this question -- the most obvious and basic of any president seeking re-election -- and he still struggled to answer it. 'I want to take where we left, we had the greatest economy in the history of the world, we were better than any other country, we were better than we were ever -- we -- we never had anything like it in this country.... What I want to do is take it from that point and then build it even better.'... At this point, we could note that Trump claims about the economy during his first three years are demonstrably ridiculous.... What's far more amazing is Trump's inability to think of anything he wants to do if he's rewarded with a second term." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Here's the front page to Joe Biden's policy proposals. But then Joe plans to be a real president as opposed to a corrupt slob who does nothing but play golf, whine & tweet insults.

John Avlon of CNN: "It's easy to dismiss the bizarre presidential campaign of [rapper Kanye West] -- who has bipolar disorder.... His behavior [has] compelled his wife, Kim Kardashian West, to call for compassion and respect for her family's privacy[.] The situation seems closer to a regrettable public breakdown than a presidential run. But there are a handful of Trump-orbiting GOP operatives pushing West's helter-skelter, supposedly independent campaign for president. According to CNN, one such operative with ties to the Trump campaign, Lane Ruhland, has filed paperwork to get West on the ballot in Wisconsin.... West and his team are working to get on the ballot in several states, including Arkansas, Illinois and Missouri.... He could be a spoiler for ... Donald Trump's reelection by siphoning off key portions of the Black vote in select states like Wisconsin and Ohio, with filing deadlines this week." ~~~

~~~ Dan Merica & Jeff Zeleny of CNN: "Republican operatives, some with ties to ... Donald Trump, are actively helping Kanye West get on presidential general election ballots in states ranging from Vermont to Arkansas to Wisconsin.... Until Tuesday, West's attempts to get his name on the ballot have only focused on states that are either dominated by Republicans or Democrats in presidential elections. But West's expected addition to the ballot in Wisconsin means the rapper will likely be a choice for voters in a battleground state that is key to both Trump and Biden's path to winning in November. 'I like Kanye very much,' Trump said at the White House on Wednesday evening. 'I have nothing to do with him being on the ballot. I'm not involved.'" Mrs. McC: Who's directing this effort? Roger Stone? Maybe that's the "real reason" Trump commuted Roger's sentence.

Michigan Congressional Race. Julia Manchester of the Hill: "Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) successfully defended her seat in Michigan's 13th District on Tuesday, fending off a primary challenge from former Rep. Brenda Jo[n]es (D-Mich.). The Associated Press called the race for the incumbent on Wednesday morning. Tlaib won 66 percent of the votes cast, with 87 percent of precincts reporting." (Also linked yesterday.)

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "President Trump has routinely asserted his outsize view of presidential power, but his claim to unprecedented clout in recent weeks springs from an unlikely source: one of his defeats at the Supreme Court.... The source of Trump's recent bravado appears to be provocative articles by a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley whose expansive views of presidential power match Trump's. John Yoo, the professor, has proclaimed Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.'s opinion stopping the Trump administration from dismantling the Obama-era program protecting young undocumented immigrants a blessing in disguise. He contends that it allows presidents to take even unlawful actions that can require years of legal battles to undo. To say that Yoo's view of the court's 5-to-4 decision on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is an outlier would be an understatement. 'I think he must be on some kind of drug,' said Laurence Tribe, a longtime constitutional scholar at Harvard. The court's decision 'did not even remotely provide a blueprint for the kind of lawlessness John Yoo seems to be trying to convince this president' to undertake, Tribe said." Read on, if you have the stomach for it.

Emily Pettus of the AP: "A federal judge in Mississippi has issued a sharply worded ruling that calls on the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the principle of qualified immunity, which protects law enforcement officers from being sued for some of their actions. U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit that Clarence Jamison, a Black resident of Neeses, South Carolina, filed against a white Mississippi police officer, Nick McClendon. The lawsuit said McClendon used Jamison's race as a 'motivating factor' for pulling McClendon over in traffic and searching his car. In dismissing the case, Reeves cited court precedents on qualified immunity, but he wrote that the principle has shielded officers who violate people's constitutional rights. 'The Constitution says everyone is entitled to equal protection of the law -- even at the hands of law enforcement,' Reeves wrote. 'Over the decades, however, judges have invented a legal doctrine to protect law enforcement officers from having to face any consequences for wrongdoing. The doctrine is called "qualified immunity." In real life it operates like absolute immunity.'"

Way Beyond the Beltway

Lebanon. Ben Hubbard of the New York Times: "Since an orphaned shipment of highly explosive chemicals arrived at the port of Beirut in 2013, Lebanese officials treated it the way they have dealt with the country's lack of electricity, poisonous tap water and overflowing garbage: by bickering and hoping the problem might solve itself. But the 2,750 tons of high-density ammonium nitrate combusted Tuesday, officials said, unleashing a shock wave on the Lebanese capital that gutted landmark buildings, killed 135 people, wounded at least 5,000 and rendered hundreds of thousands of residents homeless. The government has vowed to investigate the blast and hold those responsible to account. But as residents waded through the warlike destruction on Wednesday to salvage what they could from their homes and businesses, many saw the explosion as the culmination of years of mismanagement and neglect by the country's politicians." ~~~

~~~ Guy Davies & Ibtissem Guenfoud of ABC News: "The city's hospitals reached capacity soon after the explosion, forcing many of the wounded to travel as far as Tripoli, 50 miles north, to receive treatment. At least three hospitals were damaged by the blast. Three days of mourning have been declared.... The Lebanese Red Cross has made a series of urgent appeals for blood donations after they sent 75 ambulances and 375 paramedics to the scene. Search and rescue teams continued to look for missing people around the site on Wednesday.... After an emergency cabinet meeting, Lebanon's President Michel Aoun announced that an unspecified number of people who managed the ammonium nitrate storage at the warehouse linked to the explosion are to be put under house arrest. He also announced that four government field hospitals will be set up, and an official report into the explosion will be delivered to the cabinet within the next five days."

News Lede

New York Times: "Two days after Tropical Storm Isaias tore through the [Connecticut-New York-New Jersey] region, more than 1.4 million customers were still without power, and some could be in the dark into next week in what is emerging as the worst natural disaster to hit the area since Hurricane Sandy in 2012.... This time the storm arrived in the middle of a pandemic, bringing a new kind of misery to people who already felt as if they were just barely coping. New York City took less of a hit than the surrounding suburbs.... In Connecticut, which appeared to be more severely affected than New York or New Jersey, the main electric supplier, Eversource, said it could take several days to restore power to more than 500,000 of its 1.2 million electric customers."

The Commentariat -- August 5, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Pranshu Verma & Edward Wong of the New York Times: "The State Department's acting watchdog has resigned from his post less than three months after replacing the previous inspector general, whom President Trump fired in May, the department said on Wednesday. The departure of Stephen J. Akard came as Congress continued to investigate the firing of his predecessor, Steve A. Linick, who was pursuing inquiries into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Three congressional committees issued subpoenas this week to top aides of Mr. Pompeo. Mr. Linick had opened investigations into Mr. Pompeo's potential misuse of department resources and his effort to push arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The department gave no explanation for the departure of Mr. Akard, an ally of Vice President Mike Pence. A department spokeswoman said ... the deputy inspector general, Diana R. Shaw, would take over as acting inspector general.... Mr. Akard was also the agency's ambassador-level head of the Office of Foreign Missions, an arrangement that was a clear conflict of interest and widely criticized by Democratic lawmakers." ~~~

     ~~~ According to the Times, the Washington Post & CNN broke the story. The Post's report is here. CNN's report is here.

Sorry, Lindsey. Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates told lawmakers Wednesday that neither President Barack Obama nor Vice President Joe Biden attempted to influence the FBI's investigation of incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn during a January 2017 Oval Office meeting with top national security officials. 'During the meeting, the president, the vice president, the national security adviser did not attempt to any way to direct or influence any investigation,' Yates said during sworn testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The testimony counters repeated insinuations by ... Donald Trump and his top allies that Obama and Biden took a leading role in steering an investigation into the incoming national security adviser, a charge Trump has used to claim he was the victim of an unspecified crime he has dubbed 'Obamagate.' Trump has provided no evidence to support the claim, and Yates said under oath that Obama's only interest in Flynn was to ensure that it was safe to share sensitive national security information with the incoming administration.... 'General Flynn had essentially neutered the U.S. government's message of deterrence,' Yates said." Read on. Yates knocked down one fake GOP talking point after another. Mrs. McC: I guess they'll have to conclude that "the woman" is lying. ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post report, by Devlin Barrett, is here. "Trump attacked Yates before the hearing began, tweeting that she 'has zero credibility' and declaring her 'part of the greatest political crime of the Century, and ObamaBiden knew EVERYTHING!'... Seeking to use Yates to discredit the FBI's investigations around the 2016 Trump campaign, Republicans instead got a spirited defense of that work as ethical and necessary, even though she was critical of some of the FBI's moves at the time."

Felicia Sonmez, et al., of the Washington Post: "Former vice president Joe Biden will not travel to Milwaukee to accept the Democratic presidential nomination due to coronavirus concerns, convention organizers confirmed Wednesday. Biden will deliver his speech accepting the nomination later in August in his home state of Delaware, organizers said, adding that all other speakers who had been planning to travel to Milwaukee will no longer do so.... 'The mayor [of Milwaukee] has put in place a 225-person limit on people assembling in any one place,' Biden said. 'I think it's the right thing to do. I've wanted to set an example as to how we should respond individually to this crisis.' The move marks the latest disruption in plans for what is typically a political festival but is now being conducted almost entirely virtually. It comes after President Trump, who had attempted to hold the Republican National Convention in Charlotte and then Jacksonville, began exploring the option of delivering his speech from the South Lawn at the White House.... Under federal law, government employees and property are generally barred from being used for political purposes, with notable exceptions. The Hatch Act, which prevents federal officials from certain forms of political activity at work, exempts both the president and the vice president from any restrictions. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pushed back against Trump's proposal in an interview with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell on Wednesday afternoon."

David Jackson of USA Today: "... Donald Trump defended his call to reopen schools this fall by claiming children are 'virtually immune' from COVID-19 and that the coronavirus will 'go away' soon. 'This thing's going away -- It will go away like things go away,' Trump said during a wide-ranging interview on 'Fox & Friends' a day afte authorities reported more than 1,000 Americans died of the virus. Children can catch -- and pass on -- the coronavirus, doctors have said. The National Education Association has cited that in arguing that reopening schools this fall may maintain spikes in the spread of the virus.... 'This is the magical thinking that has misled us down the road to 155,000 deaths,' said Jonathan Reiner, professor of medicine at George Washington University."

Defense Secretary, Others Walk Back Another Trump Lie. Lolita Baldor & Deb Riechmann of the AP: "Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Wednesday that most people think the deadly explosion Tuesday in Lebanon that killed at least 100 people was an accident, contradicting ... Donald Trump, who said American generals told him it was likely caused by a bomb. Esper said the U.S. was still gathering information about the explosion, but said most believe 'it was an accident, as reported.' On Tuesday, Trump said, 'It looks like a terrible attack.... I met with some of our great generals and they just seem to feel that it was. This was not a - some kind of a manufacturing explosion type of a event. ... They seem to think it was an attack. It was a bomb of some kind, yes.' From the outset, U.S. officials have said that they did not know the cause of the initial fire and explosions that set off the larger blast. But they say they do believe the reports out of Lebanon claiming a large stockpile of ammonium nitrate left over from a seizure is what exploded. Officials on Wednesday couldn't identify any 'generals' who delivered any such Beirut message to the president. And while none would comment publicly, some noted that defense and intelligence officials didn't have enough information about the explosion to make any statement about the cause on Tuesday evening.... Esper said the U.S. was preparing to provide humanitarian aid and medical or other supplies to the Lebanese people. The U.S. Embassy in Beirut said at least one American citizen was killed and several more were injured in the explosion." Emphasis added.

The Lamborghini Factory Protection Program. Azi Paybarah of the New York Times: "A Texas man this week became the second person in less than two weeks to be accused by federal prosecutors of using Covid-19 relief money to buy a Lamborghini. The man, Lee Price III, 29, of Houston, received more than $1.6 million under the federal Paycheck Protection Program after he submitted five applications in May and June with fraudulent information to numerous banks claiming to employ dozens of people, prosecutors in Houston said on Tuesday.... Mr. Price was arrested Tuesday and charged with wire fraud, bank fraud, making false statements to financial institutions and engaging in prohibited monetary transactions, the prosecutors said." Mrs. McC: Somebody check the Treasury Department parking lot & find out what kind of vehicle Steve Mnuchin is driving to work these days.

In a New York Times video op-ed, historian Allan Lichtman explains his presidential prediction model & predicts the winner of the 2020 presidential race. "In 1980, he developed a presidential prediction model that retrospectively accounted for 120 years of U.S. election history. Over the past four decades, his system has accurately called presidential victors, from Ronald Reagan in '84 to, well, Mr. Trump in 2016."

Julia Manchester of the Hill: "Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) successfully defended her seat in Michigan's 13th District on Tuesday, fending off a primary challenge from former Rep. Brenda Jo[n]es (D-Mich.). The Associated Press called the race for the incumbent on Wednesday morning. Tlaib won 66 percent of the votes cast, with 87 percent of precincts reporting."

~~~~~~~~~~

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I'm posting this page before it's "ready." My power has been out for hours because of the hurricane/storm, and I can't guess when it will be back on because the power company is totally messed up in this secition of the country. It took more than 3 hours for me even to be able to report this neighborhood's outage. I'm running on a generator, but blips can occur. If today's Commentariat isn't up to its usual amateur standards, the wind is the why. Update: After a little more than 12 hours, the power company managed to restore power here. We had a little breeze; I'm going to hate to see how long it will take when a serious hurricane hits the area. And I'm awfully glad that several years ago, I gave myself the gift of what I call a "half-house" generator: that is, one that powers the essentials.

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Wednesday are here.

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Tuesday are here: "Negotiators on Capitol Hill reported little progress on Tuesday toward reaching an agreement over an economic recovery package. But the top Senate Republican [Mitch McConnell] signaled that he might be willing to reverse course and accept the extension of $600-per-week jobless-aid payments that many in his party oppose if it would yield a compromise, and the White House and congressional Democrats agreed to an end-of-the-week deadline to seal a deal." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Tuesday are here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Ginger Gibson of NBC News: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell conceded Tuesday that he will lack Republican support to pass further coronavirus aid and instead will rely on Democrats to fashion a deal with the White House. 'It's not going to produce a kumbaya moment,' McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters in the Capitol. 'But the American people in the end need help.'" ~~~

     [~~~ Merriam-Webster: "Our Kumbaya Moment: How a folk song became a term of derision."] ~~~

~~~ Seung Min Kim, et al., of the Washington Post: "The White House and Democratic leaders agreed to try to finalize a deal to address lapsed unemployment benefits and eviction restrictions by the end of this week and hold a vote in Congress next week, suddenly trying to rush stalled talks in the face of growing public and political unrest. Senior White House officials said Tuesday that they made 'very concrete offers' to Democrats related to unemployment benefits and eviction protections, and after days of bickering both sides now appear to be trying to secure a compromise. The agreement on a timeline came in a meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows." ~~~

~~~ Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "This is what happens when you put a saboteur in charge of governing.... The common denominator [in Congress's failure to pass a coronavirus relief bill & Donald Trump's chaotic 'leadership' of the pandemic response], the man with a lead role in both, is Mark Meadows, the new White House chief of staff. During his seven years in Congress, he developed an unsurpassed reputation for blowing things up and making sure bills didn't pass. But he has virtually no experience at getting things done. At deadlocked congressional negotiations Monday, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) complained to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who successfully cut two pandemic-relief deals with lawmakers, that Meadows had been a 'bad influence' on Mnuchin.... Under Meadows, Trump seems to have no guardrails.... Meadows's [history of] anti-government vandalism probably won't save Trump, but it could bring us all down with him."

Linda Qiu of the New York Times runs down some of the lies Trump told at a press briefing Tuesday about how well the U.S. was combatting the coronavirus. Mrs. McC: I don't think these lie-a-thons should be called "briefings." A "briefing" implies information is being shared, but lies are disinformation. ~~~

~~~ Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "In recent days, Trump has increasingly pointed to the experiences of other countries in an attempt to dilute the bad news at home and justify the largely hands-off federal response, which has included no national mandates or lockdowns. Germany, France, Spain, Belgium, Japan, Israel, India, Australia, Brazil, South Korea, China, Hong Kong and others have been part of a presidential spin-the-globe review of trouble spots, in which Trump makes misleading claims about the U.S. record and talks up the prospects for a cure.... But none [of the 'flare-ups' Trump describes in other countries] is equal to the United States, which, with a little more than 4 percent of the global population, has clocked about a quarter of the world's cases.... 'Most of the observations the president makes about the virus are inaccurate,' said Cheryl Healton, dean of the School of Global Public Health at New York University." The story is free to nonsubscribers.

~~~ Philip Bump of the Washington Post: During his interview with Jonathan Swan of Axios, "Trump held a number of loose sheets of paper, each with a graph that, he clearly believed, showed how well the United States has done in combating the coronavirus pandemic.... These were the emperor's clothes, and he was proud of them. But Swan, given one of the few opportunities for a non-sycophant to interview the president, revealed them for what they were. Trump was left fumbling, unable to rationalize his repeated claims that all was well. Because, of course, it isn't.... It quickly became apparent that he didn't have a grasp on what was happening with the pandemic.... On Tuesday morning, Politico published an article looking closely at how the White House operates under its new chief of staff, former North Carolina congressman Mark Meadows. One White House staffer who spoke with Politico's reporters said that Meadows and his team were protecting Trump from bad political news.... The Swan interview certainly suggests that someone is keeping Trump from understanding what's actually happening with the pandemic. The odds are that the person who is doing so is Trump." (Also linked yesterday.)

Aamer Madhani, et al., of the AP: "... as the crisis has spread to all reaches of the country, with escalating deaths and little sense of endgame, a chasm has widened between the president and the experts.... Trump and his political advisers insist that the United States has no rival in its response to the pandemic. They point to the fact that the U.S. has administered more virus tests than any other nation and that the percentage of deaths among those infected is among the lowest. 'Right now, I think it's under control,' Trump said during an interview with Axios.... 'We have done a great job.' But ... the president is increasingly out of step with the federal government's own medical and public health experts.... Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus task force coordinator, warned this week that the virus has become 'extraordinarily widespread.'... Adm. Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary of Health and Human Services who has avoided contradicting the president throughout the crisis, said on Sunday it was time to 'move on' from the debate over hydroxychloroquine, a drug Trump continues to promote.... Dr. Robert Redfield, head of the CDC, last week acknowledged during an ABC News interview that the initial federal government response to the virus too slow. 'It's not a separation from the president, it's a cavernous gap,' said Lawrence Gostin, a public health expert at Georgetown University. 'What we're seeing is that scientists will no longer be cowed by the White House.'"

"We Have the Best Testing in the World." -- Trump. Sarah Mervosh & Manny Fernandez of the New York Times: "Frustrated by a nationwide testing backlog, the governors of six states took the unusual step of banding together on Tuesday to reduce the turnaround time for coronavirus test results from days to minutes. The agreement, by three Republican governors and three Democratic governors, was called the first interstate testing compact of its kind. The six states -- Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio and Virginia -- agreed to work with the Rockefeller Foundation and two U.S. manufacturers of rapid tests to buy three million tests. The bipartisan plan highlights the depth of the testing problems in the United States more than six months into the pandemic."

Matthew Choi of Politico: "... Donald Trump suggested on Tuesday that a bomb attack was behind the catastrophic explosion that rocked Beirut earlier in the day, seemingly contradicting Lebanese officials' explanations that it was caused by confiscated explosives. The exact cause of the explosion was unclear Tuesday afternoon, but Abbas Ibrahim, chief of Lebanese General Security, said it was set off by explosive material that had been seized from a ship years ago, The Associated Press reported. The Lebanese interior minister also backed that explanation, saying the material was ammonium nitrate held in the port since 2014, Reuters reported.... 'I met with some of our great generals and they just seem to feel that it was' an attack, Trump replied to a reporter's question at a White House coronavirus briefing. 'This was not some kind of a manufacturing-explosion-type of event. This was, seems to be, according to them -- they would know better than I would -- they seem to think it was an attack. A bomb of some kind.'" ~~~

~~~ Just Making up Stuff. Barbara Starr et al., of CNN: "Three US Defense Department officials told CNN that as of Tuesday night there was no indication that the massive explosion that rocked Beirut on Tuesday were an "attack," contradicting an earlier claim from ... Donald Trump. While speaking to reporters at the White House on Tuesday, Trump offered sympathy and assistance to the people of Lebanon after the explosion, which left dozens dead and thousands injured and he referred to the incident as a 'terrible attack.'" ~~~

~~~ From Ben Hubbard's NYT report, also linked under Way Beyond the Beltway, on the devastating Beirut explosions: Trump "said he consulted with military generals and that 'they seem to think it's an attack, a bomb of some kind.' However, a senior U.S. official said, 'Everything I'm seeing thus far points to a tragic accident.'"

Mrs. McCrabbie: When you're sure Donald Trump is up to no good but you're not sure why, trust your instincts. He's up to no good. Yesterday, I linked an NPR story that said the Census Bureau had suddenly decided to stop its counting efforts a month early. The gist of the story was that the shortcut would make the Census less accurate. Well, yeah: ~~~

~~~ Vanita Gupta, in a Washington Post op-ed: "The Trump administration is doing everything it can to sabotage the 2020 Census so that it reflects an inaccurate and less diverse portrait of America. Its latest effort involves quietly compressing the census timeline to all but guarantee a massive undercount.... This move is part of a series of administration actions whose intent is unmistakable: to suppress minority representation and gain political advantage. First the administration tried to add a citizenship question to the census. Having been rebuffed by the Supreme Court, it issued an unconstitutional order last month instructing officials to exclude undocumented residents from being counted for purposes of apportioning congressional districts.... The census is foundational to democracy." ~~~

~~~ ** Steven Shepard of Politico: "The Census Bureau said late on Monday that it would finish collecting data for the decennial count next month and work to deliver population tallies to ... Donald Trump that meet his constitutionally questionable order to exclude undocumented immigrants for the purpose of congressional apportionment. The agency, which is part of the Commerce Department, had said this spring that it would require more time to complete its data collection because of the coronavirus pandemic. But amid a renewed push by Trump to remove those in the country without documentation from the count, Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham now says the data will be sent to the president by the end of the year -- and not next spring, when Joe Biden could be in the Oval Office.... Dillingham also said the bureau 'continues its work on meeting the requirements' of two Trump orders: a July 2019 executive order that asked administrative agencies to collect data on undocumented immigrants in order to provide counts that states could use to draw state legislative maps that did not include those people; and a presidential memorandum from last month instructing the Census Bureau to calculate apportionment counts -- the number of congressional seats each state will have in the next decade -- without undocumented immigrants included." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Plan C here is an acknowledgment that somebody thinks Trump is going to lose the election. I'll bet that's not the way the boys presented Plan C to Trump.

Jim Sciutto of CNN: "[H]ow should Americans understand their President's relationship with Putin and Russia? 'Putin is Trump's honey trap,' one of his former advisers told me, using an expression reserved for attractive spies who romance their marks into becoming double agents. It is not an encouraging appraisal to hear from someone who served this President at the highest level. Perhaps even more worrisome, Putin knows it. Some of the most experienced US intelligence officials have told me that Putin is aware of Trump's admiration for him and has sought to exploit it. They see the results in Trump's near mimicry of Kremlin talking points, on everything from election interference, to bounties on US troops in Afghanistan, to his understanding of Europe. Senior advisers have told me that Trump's hostility to European leaders and his understanding of the origins of the Second World War are influenced by Putin." --s

Trump says he has done more for black Americans than John Lewis -- and everybody else -- did. Also, Trump has nothing good to say about Lewis because Lewis did not attend his inauguration:

     ~~~ Maggie Haberman & Neil Vigdor of the New York Times: "President Trump played down the accomplishments of Representative John Lewis, the recently deceased civil rights icon, and criticized him for not attending the Trump inauguration in an interview conducted while Mr. Lewis was lying in state at the Capitol. The comments from Mr. Trump, which aired on 'Axios on HBO' Monday night, were unsurprising, given his penchant for grievance. But they were nonetheless stunning for the degree to which Mr. Trump refused to view Mr. Lewis's life and legacy in terms beyond how it related to Mr. Trump himself.... When asked to reflect on Mr. Lewis's contributions to the civil rights movement, Mr. Trump instead talked up his own record." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: As a number of pundits have pointed out, Lewis did not attend George W. Bush's inauguration either. That did not stop Dubya and Laura Bush from making a statement upon new of Lewis' death, after which Dubya was one of three Presidents to attend Lewis's funeral to make gracious remarks about the civil rights leader. ~~~

~~~ Axios has published Jonathan Swan's full interview of Donald Trump here. Poppy Harlow & Jim Sciutto of CNN urge you to watch it. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Paul Campos in LG&$: "... the most consistently underrated fact about Trump is how genuinely stupid he is. And I don't mean stupid compared to how smart you would want a president of the United States or the manager of a Wendy's to be. Just flat out stupid in comparison to the average human being. Watch this clip and then imagine trying to brief him on anything." ~~~

~~~ It Is Not Only the Stupid. Greg Sargent of the Washington Post assesses the reason for the success of Swan's interview: "Again and again, Swan practically pleaded with Trump to demonstrate a shred of basic humanity about the mounting toll under his presidency, and to display a glimmer of recognition of responsibility for it. Again and again, Trump failed this most basic test." ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: That may be, but I'd say the strength of Swan's interview lay in his repeated challenges to Trump. Rather than nod when Trump said something amazingly stupid, Swan sat up in feigned surprise: "Who said that?" "What manuals?" "Why can't I consider population?" Trump still tried to wiggle out of Swan's challenges by ignoring them and saying a different stupid thing, but after 5 or 10 of these evasions, even a dope notices, "Something is not right." ~~~

~~~ "Treat Him Like a Clown." Alex Shephard of the New Republic nails it: "On the one hand, there is the man in the office: grotesque, incoherent, malicious, dumb. On the other, there are the rituals and aesthetic trappings that have grown around the office of the presidency itself, which all communicate its awesome power and solemnity.... One of the many virtues of Axios's Jonathan Swan's interview with Trump is that it does away with much of that unearned solemnity.... Instead, it has the look of a sitcom. As many have pointed out, the rhythms of its edits, which cut between Trump's relentless maundering and bullshitting, Swan's increasingly incredulous reactions, and long, awkward shots of the two of them, most closely resembles HBO's Veep.... It wasn't always like this. Less than two years ago, Swan sat down with Trump and beamed while the president praised him for acquiring a shiny little scoop about the administration's plans to end birthright citizenship. That was access journalism at its worst, where the pursuit of scoops trumps everything.... [Perhaps now], with Trump floundering, there's little risk in making the president look bad. It also suggests that journalists have finally figured out the best way to interrogate the president: Treat him like a clown." The article is firewalled. Mrs. McC: I used up one of my three/month TNR shots. ~~~

~~~ Travis Andrews of the Washington Post interviews David Mandel, the producer of "Veep," about Trump's resemblance to some character(s) in the satirical show. "Almost as soon as President Trump's tense interview with Axios's Jonathan Swan aired, Twitter accounts started comparing it to HBO's political satire 'Veep.'... 'Yes, this is like a scene from Veep. Except on Veep this scene would have been re-written after the table read, because a president being this stupid is too gaggy and unrealistic,' tweeted Sam Richardson, who portrayed the honest-to-a-fault Richard Splett on that very show." ~~~

Adding the @VeepHBO credits/music to the @axios / @jonathanvswan Trump interview just makes sense pic.twitter.com/wtMBiBcZ3S

— brendan mcsomething (@brendanmc84) August 4, 2020

~~~ Stupid? Whaddaya Mean, "Stupid"? ~~~

"Yo, Semites" https://t.co/cGdQ4zliXz

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 4, 2020

~~~ Marina Pitofsky of the Hill: "President Trump ... mispronounced the name of one of America's most famous national parks at a ceremony touting his signature on a major piece of conservation legislation. Trump tripped up as he tried to speak about the giant sequoia trees of Yosemite National Park. Instead of Yosemite, it sounded as if Trump was saying 'yo-Semite.'" [Mrs. McC: And then, "Yo, Seminites."] Thanks to Ken W. for the link.

Black Lives Matter

Paul Murphy & Devan Cole of CNN: "The US Navy distanced itself on Sunday from an incident organized by the privately run Navy SEAL Museum, which is not sponsored the Navy, in which a Colin Kaepernick jersey was worn by a 'target' during a military working dog demonstration. In a pair of nearly two-year-old videos that were posted in January but went viral on social media over the weekend, a man can be seen wearing a red jersey emblazoned with Kaepernick's name and former player number during the working dog demonstration conducted by the museum. After a man in military fatigues begins the demonstration, a total of four military working dogs charge toward the jersey-wearing man and attack him, clinging to his arms and legs while a crowd of visitors watch on." Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Akhilleus mentioned in his commentary below that the so-called museum was in Fort Pierce, Florida. To double-check that, I clicked the link, and I'm so glad I did because now I plan to enter the raffle the "museum" is sponsoring: "A Chance to Win Two Weapons at Once!": a Shepherd Knife and a Cabot Pistol. Maybe I can pretend to be a SEAL & attack some terrorists (or football players exercising their First-Amendment rights) with those weapons. ~~~

~~~ UPDATE. James LaPorta of the AP: "The commander of the Navy SEALs said the unit will suspend its support of the National Navy SEAL Museum, a nonprofit organization not overseen by the military after videos surfaced online of dogs attacking a man wearing a Colin Kaepernick jersey during a demonstration. 'Each and every one of us serves to protect our fellow Americans - ALL Americans. Even the perception that our commitment to serving the men and women of this nation is applied unevenly is destructive,' Rear Adm. Collin Green, who heads the Naval Special Warfare Command, said in an email to his forces on Monday evening. He added: 'We will revisit our relationship with the Museum when I am convinced that they have made the necessary changes to ensure this type of behavior does not happen again.'" Mrs. McC: Oh, so he left open a window.

Cops Mistake SUV for a Motorcycle, Draw Guns on Little Girls. Teo Armus of the Washington Post: "Sunday morning was meant to be a girls outing for the Gilliams, as cousins, sisters, aunts and nieces piled into an SUV to go get their nails done together in suburban Denver. But before they could even find an open salon, the family's four children were ordered at gunpoint to lie facedown on the parking lot, and two were handcuffed. The Black girls, who range from 6 to 17 years old, broke down into tears and screams as a group of White [Aurora] police officers hovered over them.... Police blamed a misunderstanding: The license plate number on a stolen motorcycle matched the family's blue SUV, and that car had been reported missing earlier this year, too.... Aurora's police chief apologized on Monday night and launched an internal investigation after video of the incident quickly went viral.... Nearly one year ago, Aurora police tackled 23-year-old Elijah McClain as he was walking down the street and placed him into a chokehold, just moments before paramedics injected the Black man with a heavy sedative. Last month, two officers were fired over photos reenacting the violent arrest near a memorial for McClain, who died days later." ~~~

All the Best People, Ctd.

Linnaea Honl-Stuenkel of Crew: "William Perry Pendley, President Trump's nominee to lead the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), has said that the government should sell federal lands, denied climate change, wants to& weaken the Endangered Species Act and has sued BLM and the Interior Department repeatedly over the course of his career. His history of litigation against the agency that Trump has finally nominated him to lead -- after nearly a year as its acting head -- generated a list of potential conflicts of interest that is literally 17 pages long.... When he initially joined the agency..., Pendley issued a 17-page list of 57 potential conflicts that he had to recuse from.... Seven of those recusals have expired, and 50 are still in effect." --s

Nahal Toosi of Politico: "The State Department has sharply criticized and largely rejected a recent inspector general's investigation that found 'substantial evidence' two Trump administration political appointees had failed to properly report behavior amounting to 'workplace violence.' The department's response to the probe, included in papers obtained by Politico, is fresh evidence of the lingering tensions between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the watchdog office in the days since he engineered the firing of Inspector General Steve Linick in mid-May. The investigation into the workplace violence issue also involves the leaders of the Office of the Chief of Protocol -- a State Department division that faces scrutiny in a separate, ongoing inspector general's office probe into Pompeo and his wife. On Monday, Democrats subpoenaed four Pompeo aides to testify in a congressional investigation into why the secretary had pushed President Donald Trump to oust Linick, who was notified of his firing on May 15." --safari: Read on for the workplace violence.

Em Steck & Andrew Kaczynski of CNN: "... Donald Trump's nominee to become the US ambassador to Germany has a history of making xenophobic and racist comments about immigrants and refugees in both Germany and the US. Retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor, a decorated combat veteran, author and frequent guest on Fox News, claimed that Muslim migrants were coming to Europe 'with the goal of eventually turning Europe into an Islamic state.' He criticized Germany for giving 'millions of unwanted Muslim invaders' welfare benefits rather than providing more funding for its armed services.... [In interviews, he] repeatedly advocated to institute martial law at the US-Mexico border and 'shoot people' if necessary. He also said that Eastern Ukrainians are 'Russians' on the Russian state-controlled TV network RT in 2014.... Macgregor graduated from West Point and served in the US Army for nearly 30 years as a decorated combat veteran. He retired as a colonel in 2004." --s

Elections 2020

Arizona Senate Race. Jonathan Cooper of the AP: "Republican Sen. Martha McSally and Democratic astronaut Mark Kelly secured their parties' nominations Tuesday in the Arizona race to finish the late John McCain's U.S. Senate term. It sets up a heated contest between two former combat pilots in what is expected to be one of the most expensive and spirited Senate races of 2020. The race will test Democrats' growing strength in sprawling Sun Belt suburbs and Republican efforts to blame China for the coronavirus outbreak." ~~~

~~~ Arizona Congressional Race. Abigail Mihaly of the Hill: "Rep. Tom O’Halleran won the Democratic primary in Arizona's 1st District on Tuesday as he seeks to earn a third term in November. The Blue Dog Democrat won with 58.7 percent of the vote, beating Democratic rival Eva Putzova with 94 percent of precincts reporting, according to The Associated Press."

Kansas Senate Race. James Arkin & Ally Mutnick of Politico: "Rep. Roger Marshall won the GOP primary for an open Senate seat in Kansas on Tuesday, turning aside the controversial Kris Kobach -- to the relief of Republicans concerned that Kobach could put not just the state but the party's Senate majority at risk this fall. Marshall had 37 percent of the vote compared to 26 percent for Kobach when The Associated Press called the race. The result was a more decisive victory for Marshall than expected by many Republicans, who had predicted with deep concern that the race was a tossup going into Tuesday.... Donald Trump did not endorse or oppose anyone, frustrating some Republicans who thought he could have ended the concern by weighing in." ~~~

~~~ Kansas Congressional Race. Dave Weigel & Colby Itkowitz of the Washington Post: "Kansas Republicans on Tuesday ousted Rep. Steve Watkins, weeks after the freshman lawmaker was charged with voting illegally in a 2019 election and then obstructing the inquiry. State Treasurer Jake LaTurner was projected to win the primary in the state's 2nd Congressional District, according to the Associated Press. Watkins denied the three felony charges, and in a TV ad that ran before the primary, he tried to reintroduce himself as an outsider running against a career politician -- one who had supported a tax increase.... LaTurner's closing commercials framed the race around the charges, pitching him as a Republican who could 'turn the page' for voters who were 'sick of the scandals.'" A New York Times story is here.

Missouri Congressional Race. Ally Mutnick of Politico: "Liberal challenger Cori Bush defeated Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) in a primary for his St. Louis-based House seat on Tuesday -- a huge win for the left and a seismic loss for the Congressional Black Caucus, which has tried to snuff out challenges from younger candidates. Bush's victory came two years after her first challenge to Clay, which the incumbent won by 20 percentage points. But this cycle, Bush's campaign was better funded and had more outside help from a wide array of surrogates including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and the Justice Democrats, the group that helped elect Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)." A New York Times story is here. ~~~

~~~ Missouri -- ObamaCare. Rachel Roubein of Politico: "Missouri voters on Tuesday approved Medicaid expansion to many of the state's poorest adults, making their conservative state the second to join the Obamacare program through the ballot during the pandemic. The Missouri ballot measure expands Medicaid to about 230,000 low-income residents at a time when the state's safety net health care program is already experiencing an enrollment surge tied to the pandemic's economic upheaval. The measure was up 52 percent to 48 percent, with 83 percent of precincts reporting, when the Associated Press projected the win for expansion. Missouri becomes the sixth red state where voters have defied Republican leaders to expand Medicaid, just weeks after Oklahoma voters narrowly backed the program."

The Missouri vote came as the state has faced one of the sharpest increases in coronavirus infections and now reports on average over 1,200 daily new cases, almost three times more than a month ago.

"A Remarkable Change of Tune." Caitlin Opyrsko of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Tuesday reversed his opposition to mail-in voting and encouraged it -- at least in one crucial battleground state -- after railing against the practice for months amid the coronavirus pandemic. 'Whether you call it Vote by Mail or Absentee Voting, in Florida the election system is Safe and Secure, Tried and True,' Trump wrote in a tweet. 'Florida's Voting system has been cleaned up (we defeated Democrats attempts at change), so in Florida I encourage all to request a Ballot & Vote by Mail! #MAGA'[.] The tweet represented a remarkable change in tune for the president, who has himself voted by mail but has aggressively pushed voters to head to the polls in person this fall despite fears of spreading the coronavirus. Trump has repeatedly leveled unsubstantiated claims that voting by mail would result in widespread voter fraud and that the practice would ultimately benefit Democrats.... Just last week, Trump floated delaying November's election until it was safer to do so in person, a suggestion he is not constitutionally empowered to enact. On Monday the president claimed the right to issue an executive order pertaining to his concerns about mail-in voting, another legally dubious proposition, and pledged to sue Nevada over its plans to mail ballots to all registered voters. Asked about what authority the president might have to issue an executive order on mail-in voting, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany declined to answer." ~~~

~~~ Trump Campaign, GOP Sue Nevada. Kevin Freking of the AP: "Democrats currently have about 1.9 million Floridians signed up to vote by mail this November, almost 600,000 more than the Republicans' 1.3 million, according to the Florida secretary of state. In 2016, both sides had about 1.3 million signed up before the general election.... Trump elaborated Tuesday on why he supports voting by mail in Florida but not elsewhere. 'They've been doing this over many years, and they've made it really terrific,' he said during a news conference. 'This took years to do,' he added. 'This doesn't take weeks or months. In the case of Nevada, they're going to be voting in a matter of weeks. And you can t do that.' Nevada officials joined several states that plan on automatically sending voters mail ballots. Two states, California and Vermont, moved earlier this summer to adopt automatic mail ballot policies. With the bill passed by lawmakers on Sunday, Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, signed it into law on Monday. In a tweet Trump called the bill's passage 'an illegal late night coup' and accused Sisolak of exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to ensure votes would favor Democrats. Making good on Trump's threat of legal action, his campaign and the national and state GOP filed suit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Nevada against the secretary of state to stop the plan.... Florida hardly has a history of flawless elections...."

Michael Gryboski of the Christian Post: "The newly appointed head of faith outreach for former Vice President Joe Biden's presidential campaign is working on getting evangelicals to support the Democratic nominee. Josh Dickson, an evangelical Christian who has been active in the Democratic Party for nearly 10 years, was appointed National Faith Engagement director for the Biden campaign.... Dickson believes some evangelicals are moving toward supporting Biden. An example of this, he said, is seeing evangelical leaders' embrace of the Black Lives Matter movement." ~~~

~~~ Gabby Orr of Politico: "A left-leaning group focused on persuading religious Americans to vote out Donald Trump in November has recruited some of the president's leading Republican agitators to assist them. On Wednesday, Vote Common Good will launch a new partnership with the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump GOP group founded by veteran Republican strategists, to mobilize faith voters to reject Trump on Election Day. The initiative will focus on courting white evangelicals and white Catholics -- two demographics Trump won by significant margins in 2016 -- who have lost patience with the president's behavior or been disappointed with his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protest movement against racism. The efforts will be concentrated in six battleground states -- North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida --; where multiple polls have shown Trump trailing ... former Vice President Joe Biden."

Mrs. McCrabbie: The video below came up after the video of Trump's remarks about John Lewis. Kind of interesting how this dyed-in-the-wool, life-long Republican gave up on Trump & the cult of Trump:

Way Beyond the Beltway

Lebanon. Ben Hubbard of the New York Times: "First, an explosion in Beirut's port, possibly from a fireworks warehouse, sent a plume of smoke billowing over the capital skyline early Tuesday evening. Then a much larger explosion from a building nearby shot a chrysanthemum of orange and red smoke into the air followed by a massive shock wave of whitish dust and debris that rose hundreds of feet and spread out for blocks. The seaside capital rocked like an earthquake. Cars tumbled upside down and bricks rained down from apartment buildings. Glass flew out of windows miles away and roofs collapsed. The wounded stumbled through debris-choked streets to hospitals, only to be turned away in some cases because the hospitals, already reeling from the coronavirus pandemic, were overwhelmed. By late evening, the Health Ministry said, more than 70 people were dead and at least 3,000 wounded in the worst carnage to hit the city in more than a decade.... It was unclear exactly what caused the explosions, but Prime Minister Hassan Diab said an estimated 2,750 tons of highly explosive ammonium nitrate, commonly used in fertilizer and bombs, had been stored in a depot at the port for six years."

~~~ AP: "A massive explosion shook Lebanon's capital Beirut on Tuesday wounding a number people and causing widespread damage. The afternoon blast shook several parts of the capital and thick smoke billowed from the city center. Residents reported windows being blown out and a false ceilings dropping. The explosion appeared to be centered around Beirut's port and caused wide scale destruction and shattered windows miles away." (Also linked yesterday.)

News Lede

CNN: "More than 3.1 million homes and businesses have no electrical power after the powerful storm Isaias whipped through the mid-Atlantic and Northeast on Monday and Tuesday. According to a tally from Poweroutage.US, the outages were concentrated in the tri-state area: As of Wednesday morning, power was out for nearly a million people in New Jersey, about 775,000 people in New York, and about 700,000 in Connecticut. In all, outages stretched from North Carolina up to Maine. The storm system also killed several people as it ripped through the East Coast after making landfall as a Category 1 hurricane on Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina, Monday. Isaias brought hurricane-force wind gusts to Long Island, according to unofficial reports from the National Weather Service. Peak wind gusts reached 67 mph in Greenwich, Connecticut, 68 mph at Newark Airport in New Jersey, and over 75 mph in multiple parts of New York's Suffolk County, the weather service said. The storm, now a post-tropical cyclone, has moved into southeastern Canada, bringing heavy rain and powerful winds over the province of Quebec."

The Commentariat -- August 4, 2020

New York Times: "Five states hold primary elections Tuesday, with voters in Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington State choosing nominees for Congress and local offices." ~~~

~~~ James Arkin & Ally Mutnick of Politico outline some of the most hotly-contested races to be decided by today's primaries, starting with the GOP Senate battle in Kansas.

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Tuesday are here: "New York City's health commissioner, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, resigned on Tuesday in protest over her 'deep disappointment' with Mayor Bill de Blasio's handling of the coronavirus outbreak and subsequent efforts to keep the outbreak in check. Her departure came after escalating tensions between City Hall and top Health Department officials, which began at the start of the city's outbreak in March, burst into public view." ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Tuesday are here.

Philip Bump of the Washington Post: During his interview with Jonathan Swan of Axios, "Trump held a number of loose sheets of paper, each with a graph that, he clearly believed, showed how well the United States has done in combating the coronavirus pandemic.... These were the emperor's clothes, and he was proud of them. But Swan, given one of the few opportunities for a non-sycophant to interview the president, revealed them for what they were. Trump was left fumbling, unable to rationalize his repeated claims that all was well. Because, of course, it isn't.... It quickly became apparent that he didn't have a grasp on what was happening with the pandemic.... On Tuesday morning, Politico published an article looking closely at how the White House operates under its new chief of staff, former North Carolina congressman Mark Meadows. One White House staffer who spoke with Politico's reporters said that Meadows and his team were protecting Trump from bad political news.... The Swan interview certainly suggests that someone is keeping Trump from understanding what's actually happening with the pandemic. The odds are that the person who is doing so is Trump."

AP: "A massive explosion shook Lebanon's capital Beirut on Tuesday wounding a number people and causing widespread damage. The afternoon blast shook several parts of the capital and thick smoke billowed from the city center. Residents reported windows being blown out and a false ceilings dropping. The explosion appeared to be centered around Beirut's port and caused wide scale destruction and shattered windows miles away."

Trump says he has done more for black Americans than John Lewis -- and everybody else -- did. Also, Trump has nothing good to say about Lewis because Lewis did not attend his inauguration:

     ~~~ Maggie Haberman & Neil Vigdor of the New York Times: "President Trump played down the accomplishments of Representative John Lewis, the recently deceased civil rights icon, and criticized him for not attending the Trump inauguration in an interview conducted while Mr. Lewis was lying in state at the Capitol. The comments from Mr. Trump, which aired on 'Axios on HBO' Monday night, were unsurprising, given his penchant for grievance. But they were nonetheless stunning for the degree to which Mr. Trump refused to view Mr. Lewis's life and legacy in terms beyond how it related to Mr. Trump himself.... When asked to reflect on Mr. Lewis's contributions to the civil rights movement, Mr. Trump instead talked up his own record."

Mrs. McCrabbie: The video below came up after the video of Trump's remarks about John Lewis. Kind of interesting how this dyed-in-the-wool, life-long Republican gave up on Trump & the cult of Trump:

Black Lives Matter. Paul Murphy & Devan Cole of CNN: "The US Navy distanced itself on Sunday from an incident organized by the privately run Navy SEAL Museum, which is not sponsored the Navy, in which a Colin Kaepernick jersey was worn by a 'target' during a military working dog demonstration. In a pair of nearly two-year-old videos that were posted in January but went viral on social media over the weekend, a man can be seen wearing a red jersey emblazoned with Kaepernick's name and former player number during the working dog demonstration conducted by the museum. After a man in military fatigues begins the demonstration, a total of four military working dogs charge toward the jersey-wearing man and attack him, clinging to his arms and legs while a crowd of visitors watch on." Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Akhilleus mentioned in his commentary below that the so-called museum was in Fort Pierce, Florida. To double-check that, I clicked the link, and I'm so glad I did because now I plan to enter the raffle the "museum" is sponsoring: "A Chance to Win Two Weapons at Once!": a Shepherd Knife and a Cabot Pistol. Maybe I can pretend to be a SEAL & attack some terrorists (or football players exercising their First-Amendment rights) with those weapons.

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Donald Trump has told more than 20,000 lies since becoming president* according to a mid-July Washington Post account (or to put it as delicately as the WashPo does, "more than 20,000 false and misleading claims). But perhaps the biggest lie of all was one he told back in April 2016, before he was elected: "I will be so presidential." No, he would not. He never has been "presidential." He has no idea how to be "presidential." He doesn't seem to have any idea what real presidents do. Just look at this: ~~~

~~~ Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: "On the first day of the first full week when tens of millions of Americans went without the federal jobless aid that has cushioned them during the pandemic, President Trump was not cajoling undecided lawmakers to embrace a critical stimulus bill to stabilize the foundering economy. He was at the White House, hurling insults at the Democratic leaders whose support he needs to strike a deal. Mr. Trump called Speaker Nancy Pelosi 'Crazy Nancy,' charging that she had no interest in helping the unemployed. He said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, only wanted to help 'radical left' governors in states run by Democrats. And he threatened to short-circuit a delicate series of negotiations to produce a compromise and instead unilaterally impose a federal moratorium on tenant evictions. The comments came just as Mr. Trump's own advisers were on Capitol Hill meeting with Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer in search of an elusive deal, and they underscored just how absent the president had been from the negotiations. They also highlighted how, three months before he is to face voters, the main role that Mr. Trump appears to have embraced in assembling an economic recovery package is that of sniping from the sidelines in ways that undercut a potential compromise."

Axios has published Jonathan Swan's full interview of Donald Trump here. Poppy Harlow & Jim Sciutto of CNN urge you to watch it. ~~~

~~~ "It Is What It Is." Sam Baker of Axios: "Trump said in an interview with 'Axios on HBO' that he thinks the coronavirus is as well-controlled in the U.S. as it can be, despite dramatic surges in new infections over the course of the summer and more than 150,000 American deaths. 'They are dying, that's true. And you have -- it is what it is. But that doesn't mean we aren't doing everything we can. It's under control as much as you can control it." Here's an outrageous clip where Trump argues that the both number and percentage of deaths/population -- compared with incidences in other countries -- are irrelevant:

     ~~~ Trump persists in saying "you just can't do that" when Swan says the deaths/population ratios are relevant in comparing the U.S. response to the virus with efforts of other countries. Trump insists the only figure that matters is the percentage of deaths/cases. Mrs. McC: Trump's "logic" is doubly-nonsensical when you consider that Trump has repeatedly argued that the reason the number of cases in the U.S. is so high is that the U.S. has done so much more testing than other countries. If that were true, then the percentage of deaths per cases counted should be really, really low in the U.S. That is, if 1,000 people died, but we tested for & found only 100,000 cases, then the deaths/cases would be ten times higher than if those 1,000 people died and we had counted 1,000,000 cases. ~~~

     ~~~ Paul Campos in LG&$: "... the most consistently underrated fact about Trump is how genuinely stupid he is. And I don't mean stupid compared to how smart you would want a president of the United States or the manager of a Wendy's to be. Just flat out stupid in comparison to the average human being. Watch this clip and then imagine trying to brief him on anything."

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Monday are here. The Washington Post's live updates for Monday are here: @11:35 am "White House staffers received an email Monday notifying them of a new mandatory system of random coronavirus testing for those working throughout the executive complex, according to senior administration officials. In addition to the stepped-up testing, those expected to come into contact with President Trump and Vice President Pence will continue to be tested beforehand.... Another official said that random testing has been occurring for several months, but until now it had been voluntary. The new move comes a week after the White House announced that Robert C. O'Brien, Trump's national security adviser, had tested positive for the coronavirus." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Mind you, Trump is still complaining that there's too much testing going on in the U.S.

It's hard to believe this has to be said, but if I';m elected president, I'll spend my Monday mornings working with our nation's top experts to control this virus -- not insulting them on Twitter. -- Joe Biden, in a tweet Monday afternoon ~~~

~~~ Max Cohen of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Monday slammed White House coronavirus task force coordinator Deborah Birx after the public health official said the pandemic was 'extraordinarily widespread.' Trump's attack comes shortly after top White House officials admonished House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for undermining trust in Birx. 'So Crazy Nancy Pelosi said horrible things about Dr. Deborah Birx, going after her because she was too positive on the very good job we are doing on combatting the China Virus, including Vaccines & Therapeutics,' Trump wrote on Twitter. 'In order to counter Nancy, Deborah took the bait & hit us. Pathetic!' Politico reported last week that Pelosi tore into Birx in closed-door negotiations with administration officials, saying the White House was in 'horrible hands' with the public health expert leading the coronavirus taskforce. Pelosi continued her criticism of Birx on Sunday during an appearance on ABC. Past reporting by The New York Times presented Birx as a coronavirus optimist who told Trump that the United States was on its way to flattening its curve like Italy and that outbreaks were easing." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Birx complained on CNN yesterday that the Times did not contact her for comment when the paper's reporters wrote weeks back that in mid-April, "Dr. Birx was the chief evangelist for the idea that the threat from the virus was fading." But according to Maggie Haberman, who was one of the story's five writers and who spoke today on CNN, the Times did contact Birx before publication, and Brix declined to comment. In fact, in the story, dated July 18, the authors wrote, "Dr. Birx declined to be interviewed." So besides being Dr. Pollyanna, Birx is a liar. As Trump says, "Pathetic!" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Betsy Klein of CNN: "While Trump and other top White House officials have publicly attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci, the tweet marked the first time Birx ... publicly drew Trump's ire. The dust-up comes as the country continues to be ravaged by coronavirus, with more than 150,000 US citizens dead and more than 4 million cases. Trump has consistently lied and misled mostly in attempts to downplay concerns about the virus as he presses for schools and businesses to reopen." Mrs. McC: Worth noting, too, that Trump demeaned two older women in one tweet, calling one "crazy" and the other "pathetic." Trump believes women should "know their place" and not criticize or even disagree with a big, strong boy like him. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update, from Monday's New York Times coronavirus updates (also linked above): "Dr. Anthony S. Fauci ... agreed on Monday with his colleague Dr. Deborah Birx that the United States has entered a 'new phase' of the coronavirus pandemic, in which the virus is now spreading uncontrolled in some states by asymptomatic people -- comments that drew fire from President Trump.... In backing up Dr. Birx, the Trump administration's coronavirus response coordinator, Dr. Fauci indirectly put himself at odds with the president.... "

Mrs. McCrabbie: This morning when I posted the story about Trump's "signing a healthcare plan," I thought he probably had given some hapless junior G-man the job of coming up with a plan -- in two weeks' time! -- that would provide healthcare benefits only to white people in Trump country. Well, congrats to that junior G-man! Dan Diamond, et al., of Politico: "... Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order Monday aimed at boosting health care in rural areas, where struggling hospitals have faced worsening economic conditions during the pandemic." Now, it's true that people of every ethnic persuasion live in rural areas, but maybe the junior G-man figured out a way to direct funds to the "right" rural areas. Ah, yes: "Under the new plan, the federal Medicare agency will leverage its authority to test new pilot projects...." Whaddaya bet the "new pilot projects" are initiated in rural Iowa, not in the Mississippi Delta? (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "If you spend much of your tenure openly subverting the nation's interests to your own -- while manipulating the levers of government in service of unabashedly corrupt and megalomaniacal ends — then voters will ultimately grow wise to the scam. We are now learning, via an extraordinary new report in the New York Times that many scientists fear that Trump will attempt the ultimate 'October surprise.' These scientists -- which include some inside the government -- worry that Trump will thoroughly corrupt the process designed to ensure the safety and efficacy of any new vaccine against the coronavirus." Sargent goes on to elaborate on why the scientists are right to be concerned, citing examples of how Trump has done similar things numerous times before. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The Kleptocracy, Ctd. Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: The Congressional Oversight Committee wants to know why Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin took $700 million out of a "special pot" of coronavirus money, a pot which Mnuchin alone controls, to give YRL Worldwide trucking company a $700 million loan. YRC "had lost more than $100 million in 2019 and was being sued by the Justice Department over claims it defrauded the federal government for a seven-year period." In addition, YRC was not very profitable, and the funds specifically were not to be used to prop up companies that were in trouble before the virus hit. But the company had friends in high places in the Trump administration. "YRC has financial backing from Apollo Global Management," AND ... Surprise! ... so does Jared Kushner's family: in 2017 Apollo lent $184 million to the Kushner family real estate business."

They're All Crooks. Paul McLeod of BuzzFeed News: "The chief adviser to Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration's program investing billions of dollars into discovering a coronavirus vaccine, says media scrutiny of his stock ownership may delay a vaccine or make its discovery less likely because it is distracting him from his work. Moncef Slaoui made the remarks on the official Health and Human Services podcast, released Friday, while being interviewed by HHS assistant secretary of public affairs Michael Caputo. The interview quickly descended into a lengthy rant about the media.... [Slaoui] is working as a contractor voluntarily, drawing payment of only $1 [which] exempts him from ethics rules that would apply to federal employees. Slaoui worked for 30 years in senior roles at pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline. He still holds significant stock in the company. The HHS inspector general ruled that he can continue to own stock in the pharmaceutical industry and is exempt from disclosure rules that would apply if he joined the government." --s

[Pennsylvania. "Just Not Handling the Pandemic Well." Tim Elfrink of th Washington Post: "When a cigar shop clerk told Adam Zaborowski on Friday he had to wear a mask in the shop, the 35-year-old angrily refused. Instead, he grabbed two stogies, stormed outside -- and then pulled a handgun and shot at the clerk, Bethlehem Township, Pa., police said. The next day, cornered near his home, Zaborowski allegedly fired at police with an AK-47, sparking a wild shootout with at least seven officers that ended with him shot multiple times and under arrest. [His lawyer told the local newspaper 'He just wasn't ... handling the pandemic well.']... In recent weeks, police say arguments over masks have led to the vicious beating of Trader Joe's employees in New York, the fatal shooting of a Family Dollar store security guard in Michigan, and the shooting of a McDonald's worker in Oklahoma. That violence adds more challenges for retail stores and restaurants where workers are left to dictate mask rules that authorities often haven't given police the option to enforce."] ~~~

~~~ The Mask Slackers Will Always Be With Us. Christine Hauser of the New York Times reports on the controversy over mask-wearing during the 1918-1919 influenza epidemic (or what Trump calls the pandemic of 1917). In San Francisco, which was badly hit by the epidemic, an Anti-Mask League formed: "Their objections included lack of scientific evidence that masks worked and the idea that forcing people to wear the coverings was unconstitutional."

Russia. Vladimir Soldatkin of Reuters (August 1): "Russia's health minister is preparing a mass vaccination campaign against the novel coronavirus for October, local news agencies reported on Saturday, after a vaccine completed clinical trials. Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said the Gamaleya Institute, a state research facility in Moscow, had completed clinical trials of the vaccine and paperwork is being prepared to register it, Interfax news agency reported. He said doctors and teachers would be the first to be vaccinated. 'We plan wider vaccinations for October,' Murashko was quoted as saying." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

** Mary Papenfuss of the Huffington Post: "Mary Trump's scathing takedown of her uncle, the president of the United States, sold more books in a single week than Donald Trump's Art of the Deal sold in 29 years, according to sales stats.... The tell-all also debuted at the top of bestseller lists in the U.S., Canada, Britain and Ireland." --s

William Rahbaum & Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "The Manhattan district attorney's office suggested on Monday that it has been investigating President Trump and his company for possible bank and insurance fraud, a significantly broader inquiry than the prosecutors have acknowledged in the past. The office of the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., made the disclosure in a new federal court filing arguing Mr. Trump's accountants should have to comply with its subpoena seeking eight years of his personal and corporate tax returns. Mr. Trump has asked a judge to declare the subpoena invalid. The prosecutors did not directly identify the focus of their inquiry but said that 'undisputed' news reports last year about Mr. Trump's business practices make it clear that the office had a legal basis for the subpoena.... The clash over the subpoena comes less than a month after the Supreme Court, in a major ruling on the limits of presidential power, cleared the way for Mr. Vance's prosecutors to seek Mr. Trump's financial records." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) An NBC News story is here.

The FBI Has Not Let Jared Off the Hook Yet. Jason Leopold, et al., of BuzzFeed News file a report & publish FBI interview summaries of principals in the Mueller investigation. The documents include a 5-page interview of Jared Kushner, which is completely redacted. "The FBI's notations indicate that much of the material relates to an ongoing law enforcement investigation. Senior Assistant Special Counsel Andrew Goldstein told Kushner that answering a question with 'I don't recall' if he indeed did recall was considered a lie." Interviews of "former deputy national security adviser K.T. McFarland, former White House lawyer and senior Justice Department official James Burnham, and former Stone associate Randy Credico are also almost entirely redacted. McFarland and Credico's summaries include markings that indicate redacted information relates to ongoing investigations."

Zoe Tillman, et al., of BuzzFeed News file a report on and publish e-mails that flew among Aaron Zelinsky, one of the lead prosecutors in the Roger Stone case, and other DOJ officials (and a Fox "News" reporter!) after Bill Barr recommended a lighter sentence for Stone than Zelinsky & the three other prosecutors on the case had proposed to the judge. For one thing, Zelinsky's supervisor told him he could not withdraw from the case minutes after Zelinsky formally withdrew from the case.

Fred Kaplan of Slate: "President Trump's insouciant rampage of lawlessness continues. His latest violation -- less serious than some of his actions, but more brazen than most -- involves his desire to give Anthony Tata a senior job in the Pentagon without the Senate's consent.... [O]n Sunday night, it was announced that Tata would be appointed to a job described as 'Performing the Duties of Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Policy.' Trump ... gave Tata this ungainly, unprecedented, and legally dubious title.... [Tata] doesn't hold any sort of official position. As his title puts it, he is merely 'Performing the Duties of' the deputy undersecretary.... However, Trump might legitimately be wondering if anybody in Congress cares about the fine print of the law. For instance, his secretary and deputy secretary of homeland security, Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, are both acting; neither has been confirmed by the Senate.... Cuccinelli isn't even an acting deputy; like Tata at the Pentagon, he is 'Senior Official Performing the Duties of' deputy secretary.) Under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, an acting secretary cannot serve in that role for longer than 210 days. Yet Chad Wolf has been acting DHS secretary for 263 days, meaning that all of his decisions for nearly the past two months -- including the ordering of armed border guards to battle protesters in Portland -- are illegal. Yet nobody has raised a fuss...." --s ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Nick Miroff & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post write about how Chad Wolf has become a Trump favorite, "a DHS chief giving [Trump] the answers he wants." The reporters don't mention that Wolf remains in his acting job illegally; either Kaplan is wrong -- or he's right and nobody cares.

** Hansi Wang of NPR: "The Census Bureau is ending all counting efforts for the 2020 census on Sept. 30, a month shorter than previously announced, the bureau's director confirmed Monday in a statement. That includes critical door-knocking efforts and collecting responses online, over the phone and by mail.... These last-minute changes to the constitutionally mandated count of every person living in the U.S. threaten the accuracy of population numbers used to determine the distribution of political representation and federal funding for the next decade. With roughly 4 out of 10 households nationwide yet to be counted and already delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, the bureau now has less than two months left to try to reach people of color, immigrants, renters, rural residents and other members of historically undercounted groups who are not likely to fill out a census form on their own.... The bureau's announcement comes after NPR first reported that the agency had decided to cut short door-knocking efforts for the 2020 census." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Coincidentally, I just completed my Census questionnaire on line Sunday, even though I received an "invitation" in the mail months ago. Obviously, there are millions of procrastinators like me, who moved the Census letter to the bottom of the to-do pile, where it remains. Like everything Trumpish, this is surely going to be the worst Census endeavor in U.S. history. AND, as Wang points out, the sloppiness and undercount are unconstitutional. If you haven't completed your questionnaire, today would be a good day to do it, unless you live on the East Coast and your power is out of course. BTW, I think you need the letter from the Census Bureau to do it, because the letter contains a code that has to be input before answering the questionnaire. I don't know if there's a workaround.

Black Lives Matter. Katie Mettier of the Washington Post: A Secret Service cruiser apparently purposely ran into a legally parked vehicle in which two women were sitting as they got ready to take their two babies -- then in the back seats -- for an outing on the National Mall near the White House. "Within seconds, [one of the women] recalled, a uniformed Secret Service officer was pointing a rifle at them, yelling 'Get out!' and 'Put your hands in the air!' More officers surrounded them with guns pulled, the women said. Over the next hour, Winston and Johnson said, they were handcuffed without reason, separated from their crying babies, and handled by police who, at first, did not wear masks to protect against the novel coronavirus. Initially, the women said, an officer told them the vehicle had been reported stolen and that the suspects were two Black men. But the women, both African American, said no men were with them and provided proof that Johnson was the owner. She told the Secret Service she had never reported the car stolen. Eventually, the women were released -- without an apology or answers to their questions, [one of the women] said."

Elections 2020

Michael Martina of Reuters: "Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said on Monday that ... Donald Trump was telling 'bald-faced lies' about voting by mail to distract from his own failures, after Trump last week suggested it could be cause to delay the election. Biden's remarks were his strongest on the issue since Trump, who trails the presumptive Democratic nominee in opinion polls, tweeted on Thursday that he would not trust the results of an election that included widespread mail voting - a measure many observers see as critical during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.... Speaking during a virtual campaign fundraiser on Monday, Biden said he believed Trump would do everything in his power to 'argue this election is fraudulent.'"

Domenico Montanaro of NPR: "It's hard to believe that the hole President Trump dug for himself could get deeper, but it has. A record and widening majority of Americans disapprove of the job he's doing when it comes to handling the coronavirus pandemic; he gets poor scores on race relations; he's seen a suburban erosion despite efforts to win over suburban voters with fear; and all that has led to a worsened outlook for Trump against Democrat Joe Biden in the presidential election. As a result, in the past month and a half, the latest NPR analysis of the Electoral College has several states shifting in Biden's favor, and he now has a 297-170 advantage over Trump with exactly three months to go until Election Day."

Elizabeth Drew, in a New York Times op-ed, argues that the presidential debates should be scrapped: "The debates have never made sense as a test for presidential leadership." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

New York Times: “In his latest assault on voting by mail, President Trump said Monday he thought the Democratic primary in New York's 12th Congressional District should be rerun because of lengthy delays counting mail-in ballots in the race.... On Monday evening, Mr. Trump focused his attention on the New York Democratic primary, where large numbers of voters mailed in their ballots to avoid standing in lines at crowded polling places for the June 23 primary where Representative Carolyn B. Maloney is facing Suraj Patel, a challenger. Nearly six weeks later, all the ballots have yet to be counted. , a fact that Mr. Trump said Monday proves that his critique about mail-in balloting is correct.... Prompted by a question at an afternoon news conference, Mr. Trump also claimed that he has the right to take executive action to stop the broad use of mail-in ballots nationwide, but said 'we haven't gotten there yet.' He offered no details on what authority he would cite to override state laws that allow mail-in voting." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Do bear in mind that a real president would be encouraging calm and patience and would be suggesting & implementing ways to help make elections run more smoothly.

Quint Forgey of Politico: "... Donald Trump threatened legal action Monday after Nevada's Legislature passed a bill to mail ballots to all active voters, suggesting the measure would make it impossible for Republicans to win there in November's general election. 'In an illegal late night coup, Nevada's clubhouse Governor made it impossible for Republicans to win the state,' Trump wrote on Twitter. 'Post Office could never handle the Traffic of Mail-In Votes without preparation. Using Covid to steal the state. See you in Court!'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Amy Gardner & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "President Trump's unfounded attacks on mail balloting are discouraging his own supporters from embracing the practice, according to polls and Republican leaders across the country, prompting growing alarm that one of the central strategies of his campaign is threatening GOP prospects in November. Multiple public surveys show a growing divide between Democrats and Republicans about the security of voting by mail, with Republicans saying they are far less likely to trust it in November. In addition, party leaders in several states said they are encountering resistance among GOP voters who are being encouraged to vote absentee while also seeing the president describe mail voting as 'rigged' and 'fraudulent.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

George Conway, in a Washington Post op-ed: "... it should have come as no surprise that Trump finally went where no U.S. president had ever gone before. In a tweet last week, he actually suggested that the country 'Delay the Election.' That trial balloon was a brazen effort to see if he can defraud his way into four more years in the White House. And why not try? After all, Trump has managed to swindle his way through life, on matters large and small essential and trivial.... Now he peddles a different lie: that somehow extensive 'Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good)' would produce 'the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. Hence the supposed need to 'Delay the Election.'... For the sake of our constitutional republic, he must lose, and lose badly. Yet that should be just a start: We should only honor former presidents who uphold and sustain our nation's enduring democratic values. There should be no schools, bridges or statues devoted to Trump. His name should live in infamy, and he should be remembered, if at all, for precisely what he was -- not a president, but a blundering cheat."

Josh Marshall of TPM: "As I've mentioned a few times, we are so locked in the house with Trump, so surrounded by his predation, that the nature and scope of much of his abuse and wrongdoing are only partly visible to us.... Taken together he is actually depriving the whole nation of the ability to conduct a free and fair election. He is hanging over us as we do the normal work of campaigning and election-ing the possibility he'll disrupt the process, won't accept the result or most directly that the whole process won't end up mattering at all. This in itself is a grave crime against the constitution and the republic." --s

Sarah Burris of the Raw Story: "Jerry Falwell Jr. posted and then quickly deleted a strange vacation photo, leaving some to question what was actually going on. The photo, captured by Relevant Magazine, shows the Liberty University president on a yacht with his pants undone and his shirt hiked up. Next to him stands a young woman identified as a 'friend' whose pants are similarly unzipped and Falwell was holding up her shirt to expose her abdomen. In his hand was a glass of dark liquid." Story includes photo. Mrs. McC: Luckily, an associate of Falwell's had some equally weird excuses for the photo. Falwell, the president of the Christian confederate post-high-school institution Liberty University, is an important booster of Donald Trump. Falwell, who is 5 years old, has been having a midlife sex crisis for quite awhile, most or all of which you don't want to think about. (See "Personal Life" at the bottom of the linked Wikipage.) It won't be long before he he caught in flagrante with a four-legged, hoofed beast on the portico of Arthur DeMoss Hall.

Way Beyond the Beltway

U.K./Russia. Jack Stubb & Guy Faulconbridge of Reuters: "Classified U.S.-UK trade documents leaked ahead of Britain's 2019 election were stolen from the email account of former trade minister Liam Fox by suspected Russian hackers, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.... The hack of Fox's account - which has not been previously reported - and subsequent leak of the classified documents ahead of last year's election is one of the most direct examples of suspected Russian attempts to meddle in British politics." --s

Earth. Oliver Milman of the Guardian: "The growing but largely unrecognized death toll from rising global temperatures will come close to eclipsing the current number of deaths from all the infectious diseases combined if planet-heating emissions aren't constrained, a major new study has found.... 'A lot of older people die due to indirect heat affects,' said Amir Jina, an environmental economist at the University of Chicago and a co-author of the study, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. 'It's eerily similar to Covid -- vulnerable people are those who have pre-existing or underlying conditions. If you have a heart problem and are hammered for days by the heat, you are going to be pushed towards collapse.'" --s

News Lede

Weather Channel: "Tropical Storm Isaias ... will race northward near the East Coast through late Tuesday with damaging winds, flooding rainfall and tornadoes. Isaias made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane at 11:10 p.m. EDT Monday near Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina, with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph. Isaias is now centered over eastern Virginia and is moving to the north-northeast at 30 to 35 mph. Rainfall has spread northward ahead of the storm to locations as far north as New York and New England. A tornado watch is in effect until 12 p.m. EDT from eastern Maryland to Delaware and far southern New Jersey. There is a separate tornado watch in effect until 4 p.m. EDT for southeast Pennsylvania, central and northern New Jersey, southeast New York and southern Connecticut. There have been at least a dozen reports of tornadoes since last night from North Carolina to Virginia, Maryland and Delaware."