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Saturday

Sep122020

The Commentariat -- Sept. 13, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Eric Fiegel, et al., of CNN: "... Donald Trump is expected to rally thousands of supporters indoors on Sunday for the first time in nearly three months. The campaign rally in Henderson, Nevada -- which will be held inside a facility of Xtreme Manufacturing -- is expected to violate the state of Nevada's restriction on gatherings of 50 people or more. ... The venue is not expected to enforce social distancing for the attendees who will be sitting in chairs lined up next to each other in rows, and few people attending any of the recent rallies have been wearing masks. Mrs. McC: Brian Stelter said on CNN Sunday, "Some, if not all, of the major TV networks have decided not to send their cameras inside." He said there would be a pool camera set up inside the facility. ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump should be encouraging, rather than discouraging mail-in voting. Some of his supports will be dead or too sick to go to the polls on election day.

** "Trump Endorses Extrajudicial Executions." Daniel Politi of Slate: "... Donald Trump appeared to give a nod to law enforcement officers killing suspected criminals, describing the death of an alleged shooting suspect by U.S. Marshals as 'retribution.' Speaking in an interview with Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, Trump spoke of the incident in which a law enforcement officer killed a self-described anti-fascist activist earlier this month in Washington state as they sought to arrest him on suspicion that he fatally shot a right-wing protester in Portland. Trump seemed to endorse the killing. 'This guy was a violent criminal, and the US Marshals killed him,' Trump told Pirro. 'And I will tell you something, that's the way it has to be. There has to be retribution.'" ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I'm not sure other news media are picking up on this remark, but every outlet should attach a big fat caveat to every instance in which they allow Trump to self-describe as a "law & order" advocate.

Trump Plans Unconstitutional Third Term. Daniel Politi: "Speaking to a packed, largely mask-less crowd in Nevada on Saturday night..., Donald Trump once again said he wanted to serve three terms in office. Trump said he is 'probably entitled' to an additional four years in the White House. 'Fifty-two days from now we're going to win Nevada, and we're going to win four more years in the White House,' Trump told a crowd of at least 5,000 people in Minden, Nevada that was standing shoulder-to-shoulder. 'And then after that, we'll negotiate, right? Because we're probably -- based on the way we were treated -- we are probably entitled to another four after that.'"

Josh Feldman of Mediaite: "CNN’s Jake Tapper abruptly ended his interview with White House adviser Peter Navarro after repeatedly confronting him and clashing with him on President Donald Trump's admission to Bob Woodward about downplaying the coronavirus." The articles includes video. Mrs. McC: This is Navarro's SOP in on-air interviews. I don't know why CNN books him unless producers think a liar shouting lies is good teevee.

Artemis Moshtaghian & Amir Vera of CNN: "The two Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputies who were shot and critically injured Saturday night are out of surgery, according to a LACSD spokesperson. The deputies, one male and one female, were 'ambushed as they sat in their vehicle, police said. Sheriff Alex Villanueva said at a press conference Saturday night that the shooting in Compton was done 'in a cowardly fashion' and that both deputies were being treated at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood. Capt. Kent Wegener said the shooting happened at 7 p.m. Wegener said the suspect approached from behind the deputies' vehicle and walked along the passenger side. He acted as if he was going to walk past the car, raised a pistol and shot multiple times hitting both deputies, Wegener said."

Riding While Black. Bill Hutchinson of ABC News: "A white Georgia sheriff's deputy seen in a viral video repeatedly punching a Black man who was pinned to the ground has been fired after the man's family demanded he be released from jail immediately. Roderick Walker, 26, remained locked up at the Clayton County Jail on Sunday, two days after video surfaced showing him being held on the ground by two Clayton County sheriff's deputies and being pummeled by one as he cried out 'I can't breathe' and as his 5-year-old son sat in a car screaming, 'Daddy.'... An attorney for Walker said the incident quickly escalated after a ride-share vehicle Walker was a passenger in was pulled over for a routine traffic violation." Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill says Walker remains in jail because of several outstanding warrants in other jurisdictions.

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

Lara Jakes & Pranshu Verma of the New York Times: "... as President Trump campaigns for re-election and the coronavirus has claimed more than 193,000 lives nationwide, the [U.S.A.I.D.] has been micromanaged by the White House and the State Department. That has prompted critics to say the intervention has slowed pandemic relief efforts to some places, weaponized aid in other areas to chastise Trump administration adversaries and disengaged the United States from the World Health Organization's coronavirus response."

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Presidential Race, Etc.

Ellen Berry of the New York Times how Kamala Harris's parents Shyamala Gopalan & Donald Harris met at Berkeley.

Florida, Florida, Florida. Michael Scherer of the Washington Post: "Former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg plans to spend at least $100 million in Florida to help elect Democrat Joe Biden, a massive late-stage infusion of cash that could reshape the presidential contest in a costly toss-up state central to President Trump's reelection hopes. Bloomberg made the decision to focus his final election spending on Florida last week, after news reports that Trump had considered spending as much as $100 million of his own money in the final weeks of the campaign, Bloomberg's advisers said. Presented with several options on how to make good on an earlier promise to help elect Biden, Bloomberg decided that a narrow focus on Florida was the best use of his money." Politico's story is here. Mrs. McC: Hey, it's only money.

Daniel Politi of Slate: "Twitter once again flagged a tweet from ... Donald Trump, this time for a message that sure made it seem like the commander in chief was encouraging some people to vote twice. The social media platform placed a warning label on one of the tweets Trump sent Saturday. Twitter placed a 'public interest notice' on the message and limited its circulation for violating its policies, 'specifically for encouraging people to potentially vote twice.' In his message, Trump called on North Carolinians to potentially vote twice by saying they could send in their mail-in ballot and the go to their polling station to see if it was counted and if they saw it wasn't they could cast another ballot. 'Don't let them illegally take your vote away from you!' Trump wrote."

Trump Headlines Another Super-spreader. Jonathan Lemire & Scott Sonner of the AP: "Kicking off a western swing..., Donald Trump barreled into Nevada on Saturday looking to expand his paths to victory while unleashing a torrent of unsubstantiated claims [Mrs. McC: that is, lies] that Democrats were trying to steal the election. Trump defied local authorities by holding a rally in tiny Minden after his initial plan to hold one in Reno was stopped out of concern it would have violated coronavirus health guidelines. Unleashing 90-plus minutes of grievances and attacks, Trump claimed the state's Democratic governor tried to block him and repeated his false claim that mail-in ballots would taint the election result. Addressing a mostly mask-less crowd tightly packed together, Trump spoke in front of mountains draped in haze, the scent of smoke in the air from wildfires raging a state away in California." ~~~

~~~ Now for the Racist Part: "Trump claimed that the Democrat's running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, would be president 'in about a month' if Biden won, asserting that the former vice president would be but a figurehead and that Harris would hold power." Mrs. McC Translation: A vote for Biden is a vote for Scary Black Woman President.

Desperate Fear-mongering. Blake Montgomery of the Daily Beast: "... Donald Trump's campaign solicited donations Saturday with a fear-mongering text warning of impending violent attacks by anti-fascist activists under a Joe Biden presidency: 'ANTIFA ALERT: They'll attack your homes if Joe's elected. Pres Trump needs you to become a Diamond Club Member. Your name is MISSING. Donate.'"

Marshall Cohen of CNN: "While election officials across the country try to prepare Americans for the chance of a prolonged vote-counting process this year..., Donald Trump and his allies have drawn a line in the sand and say they want to see a winner declared on election night. As a result, Trump and his allies are setting unrealistic expectations, and undermining warnings from bipartisan state and local election officials and experts that a slower vote-count doesn't always indicate a problem.... White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said last Wednesday that the Trump administration wants to see a presidential winner projected on election night this November. 'What we want election night to look like is a system that's fair, a situation where we know who the President of the United States is on election night. That's how the system is supposed to work. And that's ultimately what we're looking for and what we're hoping for,' McEnany said in a Fox News interview, where she criticized Democrats for expanding access to mail-in voting." ~~~

~~~ Roger Stone Has Some Election Advice for Donald Trump. Timothy Johnson of Media Matters: "Roger Stone is making baseless accusations of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election and is urging Donald Trump to consider several draconian measures to stay in power, including having federal authorities seize ballots in Nevada, having FBI agents and Republican state officials 'physically' block voting under the pretext of preventing voter fraud, using martial law or the Insurrection Act to carry out widespread arrests, and nationalizing state police forces.... Stone ... urged Trump to ... [use] his powers to arrest Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, 'the Clintons' and 'anybody else who can be proven to be involved in illegal activity.'... Stone declared that the only legitimate outcome to the 2020 election would be a Trump victory.... Stone, a longtime confidant of the president, made the comments during a September 10 appearance on far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones" Infowars network."~~~

~~~ Mary Papenfuss of the Huffington Post, republished in Yahoo! News: "Long-time Donald Trump confidant, and convicted felon, Roger Stone said that the president should declare 'martial law' to seize power if he loses what Stone characterized as an already corrupt election. The results will only be legitimate if the 'real winner' -- Trump -- takes office, regardless of what the votes say, Stone declared. A loss would apparently be justification for Trump to use force to take over the nation."

A Change of Plans. Matthew Brown of the AP: "Vice President Mike Pence has canceled plans to attend a Trump campaign fundraiser in Montana following revelations that the event's hosts had expressed support for the QAnon conspiracy theory.... Donald Trump's reelection campaign told The Associated Press on Saturday that Pence's schedule had been changed, but the campaign did not provide a reason or say whether the fundraiser might be held at a later time. The change comes after the AP reported Wednesday that hosts Cayrn and Michael Borland in Bozeman, Montana, had shared QAnon memes and retweeted posts from QAnon accounts."

Jake Johnson of Common Dreams: "Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold on Saturday filed a federal lawsuit against Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and other top U.S. Postal Service officials for sending out mailers containing information that could mislead and disenfranchise voters. 'These false statements will confuse Colorado voters, likely causing otherwise-eligible voters to wrongly believe that they may not participate in the upcoming election,' reads the complaint (pdf), which was filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. 'This attempt at voter suppression violates the United States Constitution and federal statutes and must be stopped immediately.' Griswold said in a statement that she first learned just two days ago that the postcards would be sent to households across the U.S., and voters have already begun receiving them in the mail. While the postcard contains broad advice that could be applicable to voters in some states, Griswold noted that the mailer's specific recommendation that voters request a mail-in ballot 'at least 15 days before Election Day' could confuse Coloradans. 'In Colorado, every registered voter is sent a ballot without having to make a request and voters are urged to return ballots by mail sooner than seven days before the election. My office asked USPS officials to delay or not send the mailer in Colorado, but they refused to commit to that,' said Griswold. Voters in states with similar vote-by-mail, such as California and Washington, could also be misled by the postcard's recommendations." A New York Times story is here.

Maine Senate Race. Christina Cauterucci of Slate: "Donald Trump's shadow loomed over ... Friday night's Senate candidate debate in Maine. From the first question to the closing statements, Sen. Susan Collins was repeatedly asked to answer for the leader of her party, who currently trails Joe Biden by a double-digit margin in statewide polls. As soon as the debate began, a moderator from a Maine NBC station asked Collins how she felt about the fact that Trump lied to Americans about the novel coronavirus in February.... 'I believe the president should have been straightforward,' she said, calling the president's handling of the pandemic 'uneven.'... Trump's unpopularity in Maine ... has been the principal advantage enjoyed by Collins' Democratic challenger, Sara Gideon, who currently serves as the speaker of the Maine House of Representatives and is leading Collins by a slim margin in all major polls. Gideon played to that strength throughout the debate, pressing Collins on two separate occasions to reveal who she supports in the upcoming presidential election." Collins refused to answer.

Chutzpah, Corruption, Laziness & Lies

Annie Karni of the New York Times: "After weeks of public silence about the wildfires devastating the West Coast, President Trump scheduled a visit to California on Monday, where he will join local and federal fire and emergency officials for a briefing on the crisis. The announcement of the visit, which was added to a three-day campaign swing through Nevada and Arizona, came after Mr. Trump tweeted Friday night thanking the firefighters and emergency medical workers. It was the president's first acknowledgment in almost a month of a wildfire season that has claimed at least 20 lives and destroyed millions of acres of land in California, Oregon and Washington.... Mr. Trump's silence has been more noticeable because of his outspokenness over the past week on many other subjects that advisers believe could have a more direct effect on his standing in the polls against ... Joseph R. Biden Jr. On Labor Day, for instance, Mr. Trump held a news conference to herald the improvements in the economy and defend himself after The Atlantic published a report that said the president had made disparaging remarks about the military's service members. At two rallies in Michigan and North Carolina, Mr. Trump made inflated and inaccurate statements about his own accomplishments.... And on Twitter, he has attacked Democrats and protesters while promoting false claims about the dangers of mail-in voting.... In one of the last times he mentioned the fires, he blamed the state of California for its forest management." A Politico story is here.

Maureen Dowd reports some anecdotes about Trump's desire to impress the elite journalists he knocks as part of the "fake news," "failing" media elite. "Even though [Bob] Woodward keeps writing books about Trump with titles that sound like Hitchcock horror flicks -- first 'Fear' and now 'Rage' -- Trump somehow thought he could win over the pillar of the Washington establishment.... At least with Nixon, Woodward had to follow the money to expose the venality. With Donald Trump, he simply had to turn on a recorder." (Also linked yesterday.)

William Rashbaum & Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "President Trump's lawyers on Friday accused a federal judge of 'stacking the deck' against Mr. Trump in his long-running fight to block the Manhattan district attorney from getting his tax returns. The assertion came in a legal filing in which Mr. Trump's lawyers asked a federal appeals court to scrap a lower court's decision that would allow the district attorney to obtain the returns and other financial records.... The appeal was the latest turn in a protracted legal battle that began in August 2019, when the office of the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., a Democrat, issued the subpoena to Mr. Trump's accounting firm seeking eight years of the president's personal and corporate tax returns and other financial records as part of a criminal investigation." (Also linked yesterday.)

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

Lena Sun of the Washington Post: "Political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services have sought to change, delay and prevent the release of reports about the coronavirus by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because they were viewed as undermining President Trump's message that the pandemic is under control. Michael Caputo, the top HHS spokesman, said in an interview Saturday that he and one of his advisers have been seeking greater scrutiny of the CDC's weekly scientific dispatches, known as the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, for the past 3½ months. The adviser, Paul Alexander, has sent repeated emails to the CDC seeking changes and demanding that the reports be halted until he could make edits. The emails, first reported late Friday by Politico [and linked here yesterday], describe the CDC documents ... as being 'hit pieces on the administration.' Caputo confirmed the authenticity of the emails." ~~~

~~~ Noah Weiland, et al., of the New York Times: "Current and former senior health officials with direct knowledge of phone calls, emails and other communication between the agencies said on Saturday that meddling from Washington was turning widely followed and otherwise apolitical guidance on infectious disease, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, into a political loyalty test, with career scientists framed as adversaries of the administration. They confirmed an article in Politico Friday night that the C.D.C.'s public morbidity reports, which one former top health official described on Saturday as the 'holiest of the holy' in agency literature, have been targeted for months by senior officials in the health department's communications office. It is unclear whether any of the reports were substantially altered, but important federal health studies have been delayed because of the pressure."

Jeff Stein & Eli Rosenberg of the Washington Post: "The emergency unemployment benefits approved by President Trump last month are already running out, leaving millions of Americans without extra support as prospects dim for a congressional deal to provide more relief for jobless Americans.... In recent days, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the agency funding the unemployment aid program, said the benefit was scheduled to last for a maximum of six weeks from the beginning of August. The benefit has been going to workers in 48 states, Guam and D.C. The agency has told states including Texas, Iowa, Montana, Tennessee and New Hampshire that the week ending Sept. 5 was the last covered by the additional benefit. Some states appear to have received even less. New Mexico, for example, told residents that they could expect only four weeks of payments -- assistance lasting only through Aug. 22."

Carolyn Johnson of the Washington Post: "A coronavirus vaccine trial resumed Saturday in the United Kingdom after the study was paused for a week because of an unexplained illness in a trial participant. The recommendation to resume human testing of the vaccine candidate being developed by the University of Oxford and pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca was made by an independent safety review committee and by the U.K. health regulator." Politico's story is here.

Michigan. Meredith Deliso of ABC News: "All local Michigan State University students have been asked to self-quarantine immediately for the next two weeks to contain the 'exponential growth' of COVID-19 cases, county health officials sad. At least 342 people affiliated with the East Lansing school have tested positive for the coronavirus since Aug. 24, according to the Ingham County Health Department. In the three weeks prior, there were only 23 such cases, officials said. Cases started to rise once thousands of students returned to the area for the fall semester, officials said. At least a third of the people who tested positive had recently attended parties or social gatherings -- and at least a third of those were associated with a fraternity or sorority, the health department said."

All the Best People, Ctd. Climate Science Denier Gets a Top Post at NOAA. Rebecca Hersher of NPR: "David Legates, a University of Delaware professor of climatology who has spent much of his career questioning basic tenets of climate science, has been hired for a top position at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Legates confirmed to NPR that he was recently hired as NOAA's deputy assistant secretary of commerce for observation and prediction. The position suggests that he reports directly to Neil Jacobs, the acting head of the agency that is in charge of the federal government's sprawling weather and climate prediction work."

Ava Wallace of the Washington Post: "The newly minted 2020 U.S. Open champion Naomi Osaka wore seven different masks for her seven matches this year in New York, each sporting the name of a victim of violence. Osaka, who was born to a Japanese mother and Haitian father, has fielded questions for two weeks about what she hopes to achieve by wearing names including Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and Tamir Rice in her televised on-court interviews. Almost every time, she answers that she simply wants to bring awareness about racial and social injustice in the United States and overseas. Osaka has unique reach in that regard -- inarguably a celebrity in the United States, where she spent most of her childhood and currently lives, she plays for Japan and captures an international audience as well."

Virginia. Statue of Very Fine Confederate Soldier Removed. Derrick Taylor of the New York Times: "... a Confederate statue in Charlottesville, Va., the site of a violent white supremacist rally in 2017, was removed on Saturday morning from its pedestal at the Albemarle County courthouse after 111 years. The removal of the monument, 'At Ready,' which depicts a Confederate soldier holding a rifle in his hands, along with two cannons and several cannonballs on either side of it, was live-streamed on the Albemarle County's official Facebook account. At the start of the removal process at 6:30 a.m., Ned Gallaway, chairman of the county board of supervisors, read a brief history of how the statue was erected in 1909 using taxpayer money and how supervisors voted last month to remove it.... On Tuesday, the board of supervisors voted to send the Confederate monument -- including the statue, cannons and cannonballs -- to the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation." The Guardian's story is here.

Rosie Gray & Ryan Mack of BuzzFeed News: "Four years ago, billionaire venture capitalist and Facebook board member Peter Thiel made one of his biggest bets: He went all in on Donald Trump ... tying his reputation as one of the most successful figures in modern tech to a presidential candidate despised throughout Silicon Valley.... Even as Thiel staked his reputation on the candidate in public, he met in private with the racist fringe that felt emboldened by Trump&'s rise to power.... [D]uring the summer of 2016, Thiel hosted a dinner with one of the most influential and vocal white nationalists in modern-day America [Kevin DeAnna] -- a man who has called for the creation of a white ethnostate and played a key role in an effort to mainstream white nationalism as the 'alt-right.'... Thiel emailed the next day to say how much he'd enjoyed his company.... The people he met or had had plans with ... were for a time key figures pushing racist ideology and white nationalism toward a place of greater acceptability within the hard-right world of Trumpism.... Newly uncovered emails seen by BuzzFeed News show white nationalist leaders were chattering about plans with Thiel in the summer of 2016.... Thiel's dinner coincided with the apex of the alt-right movement's influence in mainstream political discourse." Very informative reporting. --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Jessica Corbett of Common Dreams: "Conservation groups on Friday raised alarm about the Trump administration's push to lift protections for gray wolves across the country after an analysis revealed how a record-breaking 570 wolves, including dozens of pups, were brutally killed in Idaho over a recent one-year period.... Wolves no longer have Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and parts of Oregon, Utah, and Washington state but are still protected elsewhere. However, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Aurelia Skipwith told the Associated Press last week that her agency is 'working hard' to delist wolves nationwide by the end of the year, calling the policy change 'very imminent.'" --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Bob Brigham of RawStory: "The FBI on Friday denounced numerous false claims that 'extremists' are intentionally setting fires in Oregon, saying the misinformation is hampering efforts to bring devastating wildfires under control.... One of the false claims about Antifa arsonists appears to have originated with Paul Romero Jr, who unsuccessfully ran as a Republican to be one of Oregon's US senators." --s (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Meerah Powell, et al., of Oregon Public Radio: "A Clackamas County sheriff’s deputy was placed on administrative leave Saturday after a video was posted online of the deputy claiming anti-fascist activists had been starting fires in the area. The patrol deputy’s statements in the video are in direct conflict with efforts by law enforcement to dispel false rumors that antifa is responsible for wildfires burning in Clackamas County. The deputy, whose face and name badge are not fully shown in the video, is recorded saying: 'Antifa motherfuckers are out causing hell, and there's a lot of lives at stake. And there's a lot of people's property at stake because these guys got some vendetta.' The sheriff's office said in a statement Saturday that the on-duty patrol deputy was tasked with ensuring residents knew of wildfire hazards in the area.... The deputy has not been publicly identified."

Lois Beckett & Maanvi Singh of the Guardian: "Most news coverage of the wildfires raging in California, Washington and Oregon on American TV channels made no mention of the connection between the historic fires and climate crisis, according to a new analysis from Media Matters. Reviewing coverage aired over the 5-8 September holiday weekend, the progressive media watchdog group found that only 15% of corporate TV news segments on the fires ;mentioned the climate crisis. A separate analysis found that during the entire month of August only 4% of broadcast news wildfire coverage mentioned climate crisis.... A consensus of research has made clear that extreme heat and drought fueled by global heating has left the American west tinder-dry and especially vulnerable to runaway fires." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Peter Gleick in the Guardian: "My own work on climate and water 35 years ago found that rising temperatures would alter California's snowpack, water availability, and soil moisture in ways we’re now seeing in our mountains and rivers.... Projections have turned to reality. The future has arrived. What we're seeing now, with massive wildfires, worsening storms, unprecedented heat, and record droughts and floods is just the beginning of the climate changes to come. On top of rising oceans, the accelerating destruction of the Arctic ice cap, expanding water crises, and new health disasters, these climate impacts are something no human society has ever experienced and for which we remain woefully unprepared." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Hiroko Tabuchi of the New York Times: "Last summer, oil and gas-industry groups were lobbying to overturn federal rules on leaks of natural gas, a major contributor to climate change. Their message: The companies had emissions under control. In private, the lobbyists were saying something very different. At a discussion convened last year by the Independent Petroleum Association of America, a group that represents energy companies, participants worried that producers were intentionally flaring, or burning off, far too much natural gas, threatening the industry's image, according to a recording of the meeting reviewed by The New York Times.... A[n oil] well can produce both oil and natural gas, but oil commands far higher prices. Flaring it is an inexpensive way of getting rid of the gas. Yet the practice of burning it off, producing dramatic flares and attracting criticism, represented a 'huge, huge threat' to the industry's efforts to portray natural gas as a cleaner and more climate-friendly energy source, [Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council,] said."

News Ledes

The New York Times' live updates of Western wildfire developments Sunday are here.

Washington Post: "Oregon authorities and experts described the wildfires as unprecedented, leaving a painful trail of destruction across a wide swath of the state. Officials had linked the fires to at least nine deaths Saturday, a toll that could rise. In California, more than 3 million acres have burned in historic blazes now connected to at least 22 deaths. In Washington state, Gov. Jay Inslee (D) on Saturday urged residents to keep their doors and windows closed as smoke clogged the air."

AP: "Tropical Storm Sally slowed down Sunday as it churned northward toward the U.S. Gulf Coast, increasing the risk of heavy rain and dangerous storm surge before an expected strike as a Category 2 hurricane in southern Louisiana.... Forecasters from the National Hurricane Center in Miami said Sally is expected to become a hurricane on Monday and reach shore by early Tuesday, bringing dangerous weather conditions, including risk of flooding, to a region stretching from Morgan City, Louisiana, to Ocean Springs, Mississippi."

Hill: "Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) declared a state of emergency on Saturday as the state prepares for Tropical Storm Sally. Edwards said in a statement Saturday that Sally is expected to strengthen into a hurricane that could make land fall in Louisiana Monday morning. 'While we ultimately don't know where Sally will make landfall, much of Southeast Louisiana is in the storm's cone and the risk of tropical storm force or hurricane strength winds continues to increase,' Edwards said."

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Friday

Sep112020

The Commentariat -- Sept. 12, 2020

Late Morning Update:

William Rashbaum & Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: President Trump's lawyers on Friday accused a federal judge of 'stacking the deck' against Mr. Trump in his long-running fight to block the Manhattan district attorney from getting his tax returns. The assertion came in a legal filing in which Mr. Trump's lawyers asked a federal appeals court to scrap a lower court's decision that would allow the district attorney to obtain the returns and other financial records.... The appeal was the latest turn in a protracted legal battle that began in August 2019, when the office of the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., a Democrat, issued the subpoena to Mr. Trump's accounting firm seeking eight years of the president's personal and corporate tax returns and other financial records as part of a criminal investigation."

Rosie Gray & Ryan Mack of BuzzFeed News: "Four years ago, billionaire venture capitalist and Facebook board member Peter Thiel made one of his biggest bets: He went all in on Donald Trump ... tying his reputation as one of the most successful figures in modern tech to a presidential candidate despised throughout Silicon Valley.... Even as Thiel staked his reputation on the candidate in public, he met in private with the racist fringe that felt emboldened by Trump's rise to power.... [D]uring the summer of 2016, Thiel hosted a dinner with one of the most influential and vocal white nationalists in modern-day America [Kevin DeAnna] -- a man who has called for the creation of a white ethnostate and played a key role in an effort to mainstream white nationalism as the 'alt-right.'... Thiel emailed the next day to say how much he'd enjoyed his company.... The people he met or had had plans with ... were for a time key figures pushing racist ideology and white nationalism toward a place of greater acceptability within the hard-right world of Trumpism.... Newly uncovered emails seen by BuzzFeed News show white nationalist leaders were chattering about plans with Thiel in the summer of 2016.... Thiel's dinner coincided with the apex of the alt-right movement's influence in mainstream political discourse." --s

Common Dreams in RawStory: "Conservation groups on Friday raised alarm about the Trump administration's push to lift protections for gray wolves across the country after an analysis revealed how a record-breaking 570 wolves, including dozens of pups, were brutally killed in Idaho over a recent one-year period.... Wolves no longer have Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and parts of Oregon, Utah, and Washington state but are still protected elsewhere. However, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Aurelia Skipwith told the Associated Press last week that her agency is 'working hard' to delist wolves nationwide by the end of the year, calling the policy change 'very imminent.'" --s

Lois Beckett & Maanvi Singh of the Guardian: "Most news coverage of the wildfires raging in California, Washington and Oregon on American TV channels made no mention of the connection between the historic fires and climate crisis, according to a new analysis from Media Matters. Reviewing coverage aired over the 5-8 September holiday weekend, the progressive media watchdog group found that only 15% of corporate TV news segments on the fires mentioned the climate crisis. A separate analysis found that during the entire month of August only 4% of broadcast news wildfire coverage mentioned climate crisis.... A consensus of research has made clear that extreme heat and drought fueled by global heating has left the American west tinder-dry and especially vulnerable to runaway fires." --s

Peter Gleick in the Guardian: "My own work on climate and water 35 years ago found that rising temperatures would alter California's snowpack, water availability, and soil moisture in ways we're now seeing in our mountains and rivers.... Projections have turned to reality. The future has arrived. What we're seeing now, with massive wildfires, worsening storms, unprecedented heat, and record droughts and floods is just the beginning of the climate changes to come. On top of rising oceans, the accelerating destruction of the Arctic ice cap, expanding water crises, and new health disasters, these climate impacts are something no human society has ever experienced and for which we remain woefully unprepared." --s

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Presidential Race, Etc.

Planning Ahead -- What a Concept! Yasmeen Abutaleb & Laurie McGinley of the Washington Post: "Joe Biden has created a war-cabinet-in-waiting on the coronavirus pandemic, with major figures from the Obama, Clinton and George H.W. Bush administrations drafting plans for distributing vaccines and personal protective gear, dramatically ramping up testing, reopening schools and addressing health-care disparities. The effort began six months ago when the campaign consulted David Kessler, a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner under Presidents Bush and Bill Clinton, and Vivek H. Murthy, surgeon general under President Barack Obama, on how to run a presidential campaign during a pandemic. The pair, along with a growing cadre of volunteer health experts, has been working behind the scenes to craft plans that could take effect Jan. 20, when the next president will take the oath of office, said Jake Sullivan, a senior policy adviser on the Biden campaign."

Annie Karni, et al., of the New York Times: "The two presidential contenders put their acrimonious political sparring on hold* on Friday to pay their respects to the Americans killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a pause in an extraordinarily polarizing race in which the candidates have offered drastically different visions on virtually every issue, including what it means to comfort a grieving nation. President Trump offered somber remarks in Shanksville, Pa., honoring those who died on Flight 93, the plane that was hijacked and headed for Washington but instead crashed into a field after passengers fought back. Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic nominee, traveled to New York before visiting Shanksville to commemorate the 19th anniversary of the attacks, speaking with family members of the victims but not making a formal address." ~~~

~~~ * Not Quite. Meghan Roos of Newsweek: "... Donald Trump suggested in a new interview with Fox News that... Joe Biden 'probably' uses drugs to amplify his debate performance. Fox News shared a clip of the interview online before its scheduled airtime on Saturday night. 'There's probably, possibly drugs involved. That's what I hear,' Trump told Fox News host Jeanine Pirro." ~~~

~~~ Lia Eustachewich of the New York Post: "Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and Vice President Mike Pence shared an elbow bump Friday at the annual 9/11 memorial ceremony in New York City. The 2020 presidential ticket foes, each wearing face masks, greeted one another according to coronavirus pandemic protocol and briefly chatted at Ground Zero just before the 19th annual commemoration kicked off. They were among a number of elected officials and dignitaries to attend the event, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Bill de Blasio, NYPD Police Commissioner Dermot Shea, George Pataki, who was governor of New York during 9/11, New York Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Why didn't Trump go to New York, the city of his birth? Was he afraid of being ambushed by a subpoena-server? Or of being booed? Did he not want to go to his apartment where he would have to look down upon a "Black Lives Matter" street mural? Probably he just thought he'd get more of a campaign boost from going to Shanksville, and unlike Biden, Trump does not have the strength to attend two memorial services.

The Truth Shall Get Ye Ousted. Todd Spangler of the Detroit Free Press: "Kathleen Gray, a longtime political reporter for the Detroit Free Press who now works for the New York Times, said she was removed from ... Donald Trump's Michigan rally on Thursday after tweeting that few in the crowd appeared to be wearing masks. 'First for me: Trump campaign tracked me down from pics i tweeted and escorted me out,' Gray said in a post on Twitter. Earlier she had posted photos of the crowd and said 'Maybe 10% have masks.' National media reported that Trump campaign officials said she was removed from the rally at MBS International Airport in Freeland because she did not have campaign-issued credentials and was working in the general audience area rather than in a designated press area. Gray told Bridge Magazine that she had missed the deadline to get credentials but had tried multiple times to contact the campaign to get them after that and received no response. She acknowledged that she entered the general admission section of the rally because she didn't have the campaign-issued media credentials." (Also linked yesterday.)

Russian Election Interference, Brought to You by Donald Trump. S.V. Date of the Huffington Post: "An anti-Joe Biden conspiracy theory pushed by ... Donald Trump, his personal lawyer and his favorite television network has been labeled Russian interference into the coming U.S. election -- by Trump's own administration.... [Andrii] Derkach had been working with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and One America News network, which Trump has come to favor in the past year, to push the falsehood that ... [Biden] acted improperly when, as vice president, he worked to remove a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor, supposedly to protect a company his son, Hunter, had been working for.... Trump, who was impeached last year for his efforts to extort Ukraine's new president into opening an investigation into Biden, has nevertheless continued to push that conspiracy theory. 'Where is Hunter? -- Where is Hunter? -- I call him "Where is Hunter?"' Trump said at a White House news conference Monday. 'He walked away with a fortune from Ukraine.' His own handpicked Cabinet members, however, on Thursday, issued statements that describe Derkach's work as part of ongoing Russian attempts to sway the outcome of the coming election." As Date's headline writer puts it, "Trump's Own Officials Label His Ukraine Theory As Russian Election Interference." ~~~

~~~ Anna Nemtsova, et al., of the Daily Beast: Rudy Giuliani "and a key Ukrainian ally [Andriy Telizhenko] in their plot to smear Former Vice President Joe Biden have both tried to distance themselves from collaborator Andriy Derkach after he was sanctioned and outed as an 'active Russian agent' by the U.S. Treasury Department.... Giuliani, who worked with Derkach and whose work as Trump's lawyer and top Biden-dirt-digger culminated in his own client's impeachment, told The Daily Beast on Friday that he was no longer in touch with the Russian intelligence asset. Asked if he was going to continue communicating with Derkach, Giuliani -- who has since started working with the Trump 2020 campaign -- simply replied, 'Haven't talk[ed] to him in months.' Asked if this week's news means his friendship and collaborations with Derkach are over, Giuliani tersely responded, 'No idea.'... Although Telizhenko claims not to have been a close ally of Derkach, the pair have a history of working with Giuliani on propagating debunked conspiracy theories about Ukraine's interference in the 2016 presidential election."

Florida. Appeals Court Upholds Racist Florida Poll Tax. Lori Rozsa of the Washington Post: "A federal appeals court on Friday blocked hundreds of thousands of felons in Florida who still owe fines and fees from registering to vote, putting a halt to what was potentially the nation's largest re-enfranchisement of voters in more than 50 years. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta agreed with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) that the payment of fines and fees by ex-felons is part of their 'terms of sentence' and must be satisfied before they can register. The decision comes less than a month before the presidential swing state's Oct. 5 deadline to register to vote for November's general election." Mrs. McC: This is, @ 4:45 pm ET, a fairly incomplete report. There's no link to the decision, no information on who the judges were or if the vote was split. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I did two things Tuesday. I voted. And I convinced the IRS that I did not owe them thousands of dollars. But the first was not dependent upon the second. Whether or not I owed the government a bundle made no difference to my right to vote. The same is true for almost every voter. Being in arrears on property taxes or school taxes or traffic fines or state taxes or federal taxes or whatever does not disenfranchise most Americans.

Chutzpah, Corruption. Laziness & Lies

Nicole Wallace of MSNBC pointed out that Donald Trump was obsessed with protecting a federal building in Portland, Oregon, but he has not said word one about protecting Americans from the fires engulfing the West, including Oregon. L.A. Times reporter Eli Stokols said that on Thursday, Trump said he had watched 8 hours of television over the previous 24 hours, yet the governor of Oregon said she could not get through to him about the fires in her state. ~~~

~~~ Carla Marinucci of Politico: "California and the West have been on fire, but ... Donald Trump went more than three weeks without mentioning it. During that time, Trump tweeted, golfed, held news conferences and appeared at campaign rallies. He visited Louisiana in late August after Hurricane Laura killed 27 people, saying he wanted 'to support the great people of Louisiana, it's been a tremendous state for me.' But as wildfires ravaged Western states with a similar number of deaths, Trump waited until Friday night to reference it publicly after coming under growing criticism for his silence. 'THANK YOU to the 28,000+ Firefighters and other First Responders who are battling wildfires across California, Oregon, and Washington,' he wrote. 'I have approved 37 Stafford Act Declarations, including Fire Management Grants to support their brave work....' The Trump administration has behind the scenes approved emergency declarations and pledged federal relief to states trying to contain fast-moving fires. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he spoke to Trump for 30 minutes Thursday.... Last month, when California was under siege by hundreds of lightning-caused fires, Trump held up the state as an example of liberal excess in a speech to Pennsylvania rallygoers. 'I see again the forest fires are starting,' he told supporters. 'I said, you gotta clean your floors you gotta clean your forests -- there are many, many years of leaves and broken trees and they're like, like, so flammable, you touch them and it goes up.'"

** CDC Pressured to Mimic Trump's Lies about Covid-19. Dan Diamond of Politico: "The health department’s politically appointed communications aides have demanded the right to review and seek changes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's weekly scientific reports charting the progress of the coronavirus pandemic, in what officials characterized as an attempt to intimidate the reports' authors and water down their communications to health professionals. In some cases, emails from communications aides to CDC Director Robert Redfield and other senior officials openly complained that the agency's reports would undermine ... Donald Trump's optimistic messages about the outbreak, according to emails reviewed by Politico and three people familiar with the situation.... Since Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign official with no medical or scientific background, was installed in April as the health department's new spokesperson, there have been substantial efforts to align the reports with Trump's statements, including the president's claims that fears about the outbreak are overstated, or stop the reports altogether.... CDC officials have fought back against the most sweeping changes, but have increasingly agreed to allow the political officials to review the reports and, in a few cases, compromised on the wording, according to three people familiar with the exchanges. The communications aides' efforts to change the language in the CDC's reports have been constant across the summer and continued as recently as Friday afternoon."

Imagine you were an alien who landed on planet Earth, and you saw that our planet was afflicted by an infectious disease and that masks were an effective way to prevent the spread. And yet, when you went around, you saw some people not wearing them and some people wearing them. And you tried to figure out why, and it turned out it was their political party. And you would scratch your head and think, 'This is just not a planet that has much promise for the future, if something that is so straightforward can somehow get twisted into decision-making that really makes no sense.' -- NIH Director Francis Collins on CNN Thursday ~~~

~~~ NIH Director Implies Trump Rally Was an Indicator Trump Has Doomed Earth. Alternate Headline: Scientist Discovers Earth's Biggest Asshole. Quint Forgey of Politico: "Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said Thursday he was 'pretty puzzled' and 'rather disheartened by ... Donald Trump's crowded campaign rally in Michigan -- at which few of the several thousand attendees could be seen wearing face masks and virtually none appeared to be practicing social distancing. In unusually frank remarks during a CNN town hall event focused on the novel coronavirus, the nation's top public health official lamented that commonsense mitigation measures had become politicized and claimed that aliens from far-off worlds viewing Americans' behavior amid the pandemic would conclude that Earth was all but doomed." (Also linked yesterday.)

Rick Wilson & Molly Jong-Fast discuss "The New Abnormal." Daily Beast: "'No American has killed more of their fellow Americans in this country than Donald Trump, except for Robert E. Lee and Jefferson fucking Davis,' [Wilson] says. 'No one has a body count to rival Trump's. He knew it. He knew it was there. He did it. He let it happen. It is the most unbelievable and horrifying outcome that we can imagine.' Molly adds, 'Mike Pence was at a pro-life event the other day. And I was thinking about the irony, right? This administration has killed 100,000 plus plus plus people. And they're talking about embryos. Like, it's almost beyond parody'" (Also linked yesterday.) :

Bill Barr's Bad Day

** Sky Palma of the Raw Story: "Nora Dannehy, a federal prosecutor who is a top aide to U.S. Attorney John H. Durham in his Russia investigation, has quietly resigned from the probe, the Hartford Courant reports. Dannehy's resignation was at least partly out of concern that the investigative team is 'being pressed for political reasons to produce a report before its work is done,' her colleagues tell the Courant." Includes commentary from legal pundits. The Courant report, which is firewalled, is here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Adam Silverman of Balloon Juice reprints a chunk of the Courant report. ~~~

~~~ Josh Kovensky of TPM: "... Nora R. Dannehy's ... decision, the [Hartford Courant] says, was at least partly motivated by alleged attempts at speeding up the investigation for political reasons by Attorney General Bill Barr. The report cites colleagues of Dannehy's, who told the paper that, in the Courant's words, she 'has been concerned in recent weeks by what she believed was pressure from Barr -- who appointed Durham -- to produce results before the election.' Citing the same anonymous colleagues, the paper also reports that Dannehy has been considering resignation in recent weeks amid 'concern about politics.' The report offered few specifics about the reasons for Dannehy's concerns. But it notes that other 'Durham associates' believe that Barr has been pressuring him to produce some sort of result before the November election." A breaking CNN story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Update: The Washington Post story, by Devlin Barrett & Matt Zapotosky, is here. A New York Times report, by Charlie Savage & others, is here. ~~~

~~~ Former U.S. prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said on MSNBC Friday that Dannehy would have announced the reason for her resignation had it been for, say, personal family considerations, so as not to hurt the investigation. IOW, something is rotten in Connecticut.

** "A Corrupt Political Errand for the President." Jan Wolfe of Reuters: "A retired judge blasted the U.S. Justice Department's plan to drop the criminal case against ... Donald Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn as corrupt on Friday and urged the judge presiding over the case to reject the move. John Gleeson, a former trial judge and prosecutor, was named by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan to argue against the department's stance in the high-profile case in Washington. Critics have accused the department and Attorney General William Barr of going light on Flynn, a Trump ally who twice pleaded guilty in the case to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia's former ambassador in Washington. In a court filing, Gleeson said ... the department's effort to [drop the case] was a 'corrupt and politically motivated favor unworthy of our justice system.'... The department unsuccessfully sought to force Sullivan to drop the charges, but an appeals court allowed the judge to consider the matter further." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

The government makes virtually no effort to deny or rebut the powerful evidence that its ... motion improperly seeks to place this Court's imprimatur on a corrupt, politically motivated favor for the president's friend and ally. -- John Gleeson, brief re: Michael Flynn case ~~~

~~~ Kyle Cheney & Josh Gerstein of Politico: "In an unsparing, 30-page brief, John Gleeson ... suggests that the Justice Department's arguments for letting Flynn off the hook conflict with its positions in other cases -- and even in earlier rounds of the Flynn case itself -- and therefore can only be chalked up to Trump's pressure campaign. Gleeson's brief is here, via Politico. (Also linked yesterday.)

Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post: "An elected prosecutor [-- John Choi --] who took a role in Donald Trump's presidential commission on law enforcement has resigned, telling Attorney General William Barr that he is concerned the commission was 'intent on providing cover for a predetermined agenda that ignores the lessons of the past' and will issue a final report that 'will only widen the divisions in our nation.' Trump formed the Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice late last October, announcing its formation at the International Association of Chiefs of Polices annual meeting. Trumps order mandated that the commission issue a report within one year ― a deadline that falls just days ahead of the 2020 presidential election. The commission is stacked with members of law enforcement, and the American Civil Liberties Union has questioned whether it is a 'sham commission formed only for the purposes of advancing a Thin Blue Line' law and order agenda.'" The Justice Department & two commission members then trashed Choi.

Trump Treasury Stealing from 9/11 Heroes Fund. Michael McAuliff of the New York Daily News (Sept. 10): "The Trump administration has secretly siphoned nearly $4 million away from a program that tracks and treats FDNY firefighters and medics suffering from 9/11 related illnesses, the Daily News has learned. The Treasury Department mysteriously started withholding parts of payments -- nearly four years ago -- meant to cover medical services for firefighters, emergency medical technicians and paramedics treated by the FDNY World Trade Center Health Program, documents obtained by The News reveal. The payments were authorized and made by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which oversees the program. But instead of sending the funds to the city, the Treasury started keeping some of the money. 'This was just disappearing,' the program's director, Dr. David Prezant, told The News. 'This is the most amazing thing. This was disappearing -- without any notification.'"

Donna Cassata of the Washington Post: "The chairman of a House committee issued a subpoena Friday to compel Chad Wolf to testify next week after the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security declined to appear at a hearing on worldwide threats. Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said the panel had been in contact with the department since June to secure Wolf's testimony along with that of FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and Chris Miller, director of the National Counterterrorism Center.... In a Sept. 8 letter to Thompson, the department's assistant secretary for legislative affairs, Beth Spivey, said Wolf's appearance before the committee would be inappropriate as officials formally nominated typically do not testify to Congress before they have been confirmed by the Senate. Wolf was installed to run the department about 10 months ago on an interim basis, a move that a government watchdog has called unlawful. Trump formally nominated Wolf Thursday." ~~~

~~~ Mark Hosenball of Reuters: "The Senate intelligence committee is investigating a whistleblower complaint filed by a former top U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official alleging he was pressed to skew official intelligence reports for political purposes, according to a letter seen by Reuters. Senators Marco Rubio and Mark Warner, the committee's Republican acting chair and Democrat vice chair, wrote to DHS deputy general counsel Joseph Maher on Thursday, saying they had received the complaint and asking for related documents. Brian Murphy, who until recently was acting chief of DHS' intelligence and analysis (I&A) office, alleged in the complaint that acting DHS chief Chad Wolf asked him to stop providing assessments on Russian election interference and to play down U.S. white supremacist activity." ~~~

~~~ Zolan Kanno-Youngs & Adam Goldman of the New York Times profile Brian Murphy the DHS whistleblower who is scheduled to testify before House committees in the coming weeks regarding his complaint that he was ordered to "play down the primary national security threats of white supremacy and Russian election interference, thus distorting intelligence to mirror President Trump's messaging." Murphy is, according to the report, a loose cannon.

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of coronoavirus developments Saturday are here: "The United States should not expect a return to regular life until 'well into 2021, maybe even towards the end of 2021,' Dr. Anthony S. Fauci ... said on Friday.... I have to disagree,' Dr. Fauci said of Mr. Trump's read on the situation. 'We're plateauing at around 40,000 cases a day, and the deaths are around 1,000.'"

The New York Times' live updates of coronoavirus developments Friday are here.

DHS Caused Virginia Covid-19 Outbreak as Part of Effort to Police D.C. Protests. Antonio Olivo & Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration flew immigrant detainees to Virginia this summer to facilitate the rapid deployment of Homeland Security tactical teams to quell protests in Washington, circumventing restrictions on the use of charter flights for employee travel, according to a current and a former U.S. official. After the transfer, dozens of the new arrivals tested positive for the novel coronavirus, fueling an outbreak at the Farmville, Va., immigration jail that infected more than 300 inmates, one of whom died.... A former ICE official who learned about [the travel arrangements] from other personnel, said the primary reason for the June 2 transfers was to skirt rules that bar ICE employees from traveling on the charter flights unless detainees are also aboard. The transfers took place over the objections of ICE officials in the Washington field office, according to testimony at a Farmville town council meeting in August, and at a time when immigration jails elsewhere in the country had plenty of beds available because of a dramatic decrease in border crossings and in-country arrests." (Also linked yesterday.)

About Trump's Article II. Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "More than a month after Mr. Trump signed an executive memorandum to defer the collection of the payroll taxes that workers pay to help fund Social Security, few companies or people are taking part. Trade groups and tax experts say they know of no large corporations that plan to stop withholding employees' payroll taxes this fall. As a result, economic policy experts now say they expect the deferral to have little to no effect on economic growth this year. The fizzling of the payroll plan is the most prominent example of the difficulties Mr. Trump has encountered in trying to stimulate the economy while bypassing Congress. Another of his executive actions, to repurpose disaster funds to create a temporary lift in unemployment benefits, has quickly lost steam: Federal officials told states this week that the benefits would run out after six weeks for workers. Still, Mr. Trump has told reporters he believes he has the power to do more on his own, and might try to if Congress does not approve new stimulus."

Michael Crowley & David Halbfinger of the New York Times: "President Trump announced on Friday that Bahrain would establish full diplomatic relations with Israel, following the United Arab Emirates, in another sign of shifting Middle East dynamics that are bringing Arab nations closer to Israel. Mr. Trump announced the news on Twitter, releasing a joint statement with Bahrain and Israel and calling the move 'a historic breakthrough to further peace in the Middle East.' Speaking to reporters, the president said the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks was a fitting day for the announcement. 'There's no more powerful response to the hatred that spawned 9/11,' he said.... The deal, which isolates the Palestinians, comes as Mr. Trump tries to position himself as a peacemaker before the elections in November."

Alex Horton of the Washington Post: Army First Sgt. Thomas P. "Payne, now a sergeant major, received the highest award for valor, the Medal of Honor, in a White House ceremony Friday for his role in the operation to free about 70 captives [from ISIS], a mission in which he led many out of the compound and went back in for one last man.... The Army has said the mission was one of the largest hostage rescue operations in history. It was partially captured on the helmet camera of a Kurdish soldier, which shows Payne in a doorway leading a stream of captives out before going back to look for other survivors."

Kate Conger, et al., of the New York Times: "Officials dealing with catastrophic fires on the West Coast have had to counter social media rumors that the blazes were set by antifascist activists, publicly pleading that people verify information before sharing it. Despite their efforts, misinformation about the origin of the fires -- which have killed at least 15 people and consumed millions of acres -- continues to spread on Facebook and Twitter. Several law enforcement agencies in Oregon said they had been flooded with inquiries about rumors that activists were responsible. On Thursday, several journalists reporting on fires near the city of Molalla, Ore., said they had been confronted by a group of armed people who were worried about unverified reports of arsonists in the area." A CNN story is here. (Also linked yesterday.)

News Ledes

New York Times: "A 36-mile-wide line of flames edged into the towns around Portland, Ore., and cities along the West Coast were smothered in acrid smoke and ash on Friday as history-making wildfires remained unchecked, killing at least 17 and leaving dozens of people missing. 'We are preparing for a mass fatality incident based on what we know and the numbers of structures that have been lost,' Andrew Phelps, director of the Oregon Office of Emergency Management, said as firefighters struggled to contain blazes that have spread across millions of acres of the Pacific Northwest." ~~~

~~~ The New York Times' live updates of West Coast wildfire developments are here.

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Thursday

Sep102020

The Commentariat -- Sept. 11, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Bill Barr's Bad Day ~~~

~~~ ** Sky Palma of the Raw Story: "Nora Dannehy, a federal prosecutor who is a top aide to U.S. Attorney John H. Durham in his Russia investigation, has quietly resigned from the probe, the Hartford Courant reports. Dannehy's resignation was at least partly out of concern that the investigative team is 'being pressed for political reasons to produce a report before its work is done,' her colleagues tell the Courant." Includes commentary from legal pundits. The Courant report, which is firewalled, is here. ~~~

~~~ ** Jan Wolfe of Reuters: "A retired judge blasted the U.S. Justice Department's plan to drop the criminal case against ... Donald Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn as corrupt on Friday and urged the judge presiding over the case to reject the move. John Gleeson, a former trial judge and prosecutor, was named by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan to argue against the department's stance in the high-profile case in Washington. Critics have accused the department and Attorney General William Barr of going light on Flynn, a Trump ally who twice pleaded guilty in the case to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia's former ambassador in Washington. In a court filing, Gleeson said ... the department's effort to [drop the case] was a 'corrupt and politically motivated favor unworthy of our justice system.'... The department unsuccessfully sought to force Sullivan to drop the charges, but an appeals court allowed the judge to consider the matter further." ~~~

The government makes virtually no effort to deny or rebut the powerful evidence that its ... motion improperly seeks to place this Court's imprimatur on a corrupt, politically motivated favor for the president's friend and ally. -- John Gleeson, brief re: Michael Flynn case ~~~

Appeals Court Upholds Racist Florida Poll Tax. Lori Rozsa of the Washington Post: "A federal appeals court on Friday blocked hundreds of thousands of felons in Florida who still owe fines and fees from registering to vote, putting a halt to what was potentially the nation's largest re-enfranchisement of voters in more than 50 years. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta agreed with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) that the payment of fines and fees by ex-felons is part of their 'terms of sentence' and must be satisfied before they can register. The decision comes less than a month before the presidential swing state's Oct. 5 deadline to register to vote for November's general election." Mrs. McC: This is, @ 4:45 pm ET, a fairly incomplete report. There's no link to the decision, no information on who the judges were or if the vote was split. ~~~

~~~ Nicole Wallace of MSNBC pointed out that Donald Trump was obsessed with protecting a federal building in Portland, Oregon, but he has not said word one about protecting Americans from the fires engulfing the West, including Oregon. L.A. Times reporter Eli Stokols said that on Thursday, Trump said he had watched 8 hours of television over the previous 24 hours, yet the governor of Oregon said she could not get through to him about the fires in her state.

Imagine you were an alien who landed on planet Earth, and you saw that our planet was afflicted by an infectious disease and that masks were an effective way to prevent the spread. And yet, when you went around, you saw some people not wearing them and some people wearing them. And you tried to figure out why, and it turned out it was their political party. And you would scratch your head and think, 'This is just not a planet that has much promise for the future, if something that is so straightforward can somehow get twisted into decision-making that really makes no sense.' -- NIH Director Francis Collins on CNN Thursday ~~~

Lia Eustachewich of the New York Post: "Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and Vice President Mike Pence shared an elbow bump Friday at the annual 9/11 memorial ceremony in New York City. The 2020 presidential ticket foes, each wearing face masks, greeted one another according to coronavirus pandemic protocol and briefly chatted at Ground Zero just before the 19th annual commemoration kicked off. They were among a number of elected officials and dignitaries to attend the event, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Bill de Blasio, NYPD Police Commissioner Dermot Shea, George Pataki, who was governor of New York during 9/11, New York Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy." ~~~

~~~~~~~~~~

Matt Viser of the Washington Post: "Joe Biden was on an Amtrak train on Sept. 11, 2001, when his wife called to tell him about the attacks on the World Trade Center, and when he reached Washington, he grew frustrated that he couldn't get to the Senate floor for a speech because the U.S. Capitol had been evacuated. Biden nonetheless found ways to make his point -- that institutions like Congress and NATO are bulwarks against such assaults on democracy. 'I refuse to be part of letting these bastards win,' Biden said that day. Hundreds of miles to the north -- and four miles from Ground Zero -- Donald Trump was sitting in a tower bearing his name, watching CNBC and preparing to call a local TV station to offer his own commentary, including a lament that the stock market was forced to close.... Nineteen years later, Trump and Biden are their respective party's presidential candidates, and both will visit Shanksville, Pa., on Friday, the place where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field.... [Trump will visit in the morning; Biden in the afternoon.] The Sept. 11 attacks targeted the cities that molded the two men, Washington and New York, reinforcing the clashing worldviews they now offer the American electorate: Biden's embrace of U.S. institutions and global alliances, Trump's distrust of foreigners and insistence that America must go it alone." ~~~

~~~ Once Upon a Presidential Campaign. CBS/AP (September 11, 2008): "Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama made ground zero their common ground for one rare day, free of politics and infused with memory. Putting their partisan contest on a respectful hold, they walked together Thursday into the great pit where the World Trade Center once stood and, as one, honored the dead from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. They walked down a long ramp flanked with the flags of countries, chatting at times, silent other times, and sharing a quick laugh at one point. Right behind them, Cindy McCain clutched Mayor Michael Bloomberg's arm - Michelle Obama was with her daughters in Chicago. At the bottom of the ramp, the two rivals stopped to talk with a small group of family members of the attacks' victims of seven years ago. They laid flowers at the pit's commemorative reflecting pool - a pink rose from Obama, a yellow rose from McCain - bowed their heads and walked off to speak with fire and police personnel. There were no speeches. 'Thanks, we'll see ya,' McCain told Obama as the Democrat patted the Republican's back and they shook hands and parted."

Members of Congress from both parties, on the Capitol steps September 11, 2001, spontaneously sing "God Bless America":

Presidential Race:

Eric Bradner of CNN: "... Joe Biden said ... Donald Trump 'seems to have no conception of what constitutes national security' after Trump revealed in interviews with Bob Woodward the existence of a classified nuclear weapons system. In an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, the former vice president said Trump's comments to Woodward ... were 'not a surprise.' 'You wonder why people in the intelligence community wondered from the very beginning whether you could share data with him, 'cause they don't trust him. They don't trust what he'll say or do,' Biden said. 'He seems to have no conception of what constitutes national security, no conception of anything other than, what can he do to promote himself?'"

~~~ Lauren Gambino, et al., of the Guardian: "Joe Biden has branded Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic 'almost criminal' after book revelations that the US president admitted in early February the disease was 'deadly stuff' but deliberately played it down. As the death toll from Covid-19 nears 200,000 in America, the world's highest, Biden excoriated his opponent in November's election over the way he did not address the defining crisis of his presidency early and comprehensively.... Biden said Trump's public advice downplaying the virus has 'cost lives'. The former vice-president cited a report by Columbia University Medical School that said that if Trump had acted a week earlier in March to curb the virus, about 31,000 lives would have been saved, and if he had acted two weeks earlier, more than 50,000 deaths would have been prevented." ~~~

Bob Woodward had my quotes for many months. If he thought they were so bad or dangerous, why didn';t he immediately report them in an effort to save lives? Didn't he have an obligation to do so? No, because he knew they were good and proper answers. Calm, no panic! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet Thursday ~~~

~~~ Quint Forgey & Matthew Choi of Politico: "By Thursday afternoon, Trump found himself still trying to contain the fallout, aggressively fending off questions during an afternoon news conference. He repeated his Twitter defenses and pinned much of the responsibility on Woodward, saying the journalist should have alerted the appropriate authorities at the time of the interview if he found Trump's words problematic. Trump also watered down his contact with Woodward, portraying the interviews as casual quick chats rather than the hours of wide-ranging conversations that they were.... When a reporter [-- Mrs. McC: Jonathan Karl of ABC News--] asked why he lied to the American people about the severity of the disease, Trump bristled, calling the question 'disgraceful.' 'Such a terrible question and the phraseology,' Trump immediately shot back. 'I didn't lie.'... Biden's campaign ramped up its own assault on Thursday, contending that Trump's excuse of seeking to prevent coronavirus-related 'panic' did not explain his decision to hold a series of mega-rallies in the time between his first conversation with Bob Woodward and March." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Grace Segers & Nicole Sganga of CBS News: "Even after privately acknowledging that COVID-19 was a virus transmitted through the air in early February, President Trump participated in several campaign rallies in indoor venues before states began to shut down in early March to mitigate the spread of the virus, according to revelations from journalist Bob Woodward's upcoming book. In an interview with Woodward on February 7, Mr. Trump said the coronavirus was 'more deadly' than 'even your strenuous flus,' and difficult to address because 'it goes through air.' 'It goes through air, Bob. That's always tougher than the touch. You know, the touch, you don't have to touch things. Right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that's how it's passed,' Mr. Trump told Woodward.... Despite raising these concerns with Woodward, Mr. Trump held six rallies indoors between February 7 and March 2." ~~~

~~~ Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "Unlike most Trump tapes, Woodward's actually tell us something new about the president, rather than just confirming what we think we already know.... What's shocking -- even after more than three and a half numbing years -- is the deliberate, willful nature of the lies.... Because Trump is a prodigious consumer of propaganda, as well as a creator of it, it's not always clear how aware he is of spreading disinformation. People who've spent time with him often conclude that truth has no meaning for him.... Yet in recordings Woodward has released of Trump talking about the coronavirus ... the president doesn't sound ignorant or deluded.... This wasn't just Trump being buffoonish and engaging in magical thinking. It was conscious deception.... When someone's actions lead to the death of another, we evaluate that person's intent and state of mind in order to assign the right measure of blame. When a president's actions lead to the deaths of thousands, we should do the same." ~~~

~~~ Motive Matters. Paul Krugman of the New York Times: "... it's wrong to say that Trump mishandled Covid-19, that his response was incompetent. No, it wasn't; it was immoral, bordering on criminal." ~~~

~~~ Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Staring down reporters at a White House news conference in the wake of revelations from Bob Woodward's new book, 'Rage,' Trump cast his deception as a virtue -- a president instilling calm to protect the people.... Trump evidently did not feel the same presidential obligation to imbue serenity a few hours earlier, however, when he sounded the alarm on Twitter about a number of other topics. 'If I don't win, America's Suburbs will be OVERRUN with Low Income Projects, Anarchists, Agitators, Looters and, of course, "Friendly Protesters,"' Trump tweeted Thursday morning.... Throughout his five years on the national political stage, Trump has used fear to acquire and keep power. Scare tactics are the hammer and screwdriver of his tool kit.... As president, he has warned darkly -- and with considerable hyperbole -- of dangers he sees everywhere.... 'His political campaign's branding strategy is panic. They should put "PANIC" on a red hat,' said Tim Miller, a longtime GOP strategist who advises Republican Voters Against Trump. Miller said Trump's assertion that he played down the threat of the novel coronavirus because he did not want to panic the public was 'an absurd defense.'"

Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Fox "News" Anchor Fact-checks Trump Flack. Matt Wilstein of the Daily Beast: On Thursday, "as [Trump campaign spokesperson Tim] Murtaugh went on to claim that Trump was saying the 'same things' publicly that he was telling Woodward, Fox "News" anchor Bret] Baier stopped him in his tracks. 'That's not true, Tim' the anchor said.... 'It's not true. When he was saying publicly that the virus would go from 15 to zero and then it was magically going to wash away, that is not the same thing he's telling Bob Woodward, that it's a deadly virus that travels over the air and it's really serious and "I like to downplay it." He was not saying the same things publicly that he was privately to Bob Woodward.' 'It was public knowledge at the time,' Murtaugh replied. 'It was discussed in coronavirus briefings. Everyone knew that it was transmitted through things like coughing and sneezing.' Interrupting his guest again, Baier added, 'But what you just said was that what he was saying privately and publicly was the same. It's not.' And yet Murtaugh still insisted that President Trump 'was being straight with the American people,' adding, 'There is no question of that.'"

David Smiley, et al., of the Tampa Bay Times: "Kamala Harris's first Miami visit as Joe Biden's running mate was an attempt to engage a large group of voters who haven't seen the Democratic ticket in the state for nearly a year. On Thursday, Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, managed to meet with non-Cuban Hispanics, Black voters, college graduates and Jewish voters across Miami-Dade County in a six-hour span. They were courting a diverse group voters with vastly different policy preferences and values -- who are also crucial for Biden's hopes in Florida as the polls show a tightening race two months before Election Day.... Unlike ... Donald Trump, who is betting that his appeal with white voters and Cuban-Americans will put him over the top in Florida, Biden's winning coalition is far more diverse."

Another Killer Trump Rally. Jill Colvin of the AP: "Reeling from another crisis of his own making..., Donald Trump tried to refocus attention on his Democratic rival at a rally in battleground Michigan Thursday as he pushed to move past revelations that he purposefully played down the danger of the coronavirus last winter. But the virus controversy followed him as he faced new pushback from local officials worried about the growing size of his rallies and his campaign's repeated flouting of public health guidelines intended to halt the COVID-19 spread. That includes Michigan's Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who raised alarms about Thursday's event, warning it would make recovery harder. Trump, however, reveled in the crowd of several thousand, packed shoulder-to-shoulder in a cavernous airport hangar, mostly without masks -- with Air Force One on display as his backdrop. 'This is not the crowd of a person who comes in second place,' Trump declared to cheers as he railed against Whitmer for current state restrictions. 'Tell your governor to open up your state!' he demanded, saying Michigan would be better if it 'had a governor who knew what the hell she was doing.'" ~~~

~~~ Another Humongous Trump Lie. David Boucher & Todd Spangler of the Detroit Free Press: "... Donald Trump made wildly inaccurate claims at a rally outside Saginaw on Thursday night, suggesting he has revitalized auto manufacturing in the state when it actually lost jobs even before coronavirus hit in March. 'We brought you a lot of car plants, we brought you a lot ... and we're going to bring you a lot more,' Trump began his speech at MBS International Airport in Freeland. But only one new major assembly facility, a Jeep plant on Detroit's east side, has been announced during Trump's term, while General Motors underwent a divisive 40-day strike last year and announced the idling of four U.S. plants, including two in Michigan. One of those, Detroit-Hamtramck, has since been revived and is being retooled to build electric cars and SUVs. Warren transmission was revived most recently to make face masks, though its future is uncertain.... Trump also said that after speaking with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, officials announced 'five new car companies are coming to Michigan,' but there has been no such announcement that the Free Press is aware of.... He also said no new assembly plants had been built in the state in more than 40 years but at least two new GM plants have opened since 1999.... As of February, there were about 2,400 fewer auto and auto parts jobs in Michigan than when Trump took office in January 2017." ~~~

~~~ It's the Same Lie He Tells in Many Swing States:

Many plants are being built right now -- auto plants -- in Michigan, just like I said. They're being built in Ohio, they're being built in South Carolina, North Carolina, they're being built all over and expanded at a level that we've never seen before. Cause I said to Japan, Germany and others,'Sorry, you've got to come here and build plants, otherwise we're going to have to make it very tough on you with tariffs.' -- Donald Trump, remarks on Labor Day, Sept. 7, 2020

Trump keeps bragging about imaginary auto plants in swing states. Only five new auto plants have been announced since Trump took office, and investment in auto manufacturing was higher under the last three years of Barack Obama's presidency than the first three of Trump's. Three of the four states name-checked by Trump do not have new plants. And there's no evidence that Trump's threat of tariffs led to more auto investment. -- Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post

Will Steakin & Terrance Smith of ABC News: "A new ad released by ... Donald Trump's reelection campaign that looked to capitalize on the August jobs report to portray the country as being in the middle of a 'great American comeback' features foreign stock footage. The ad, which paints an incomplete picture of the American economy amid the coronavirus pandemic, does so in part by featuring stock footage from countries outside the United States, including a warehouse in Ukraine and publicly available footage of two models -- one from Italy and another from Ukraine -- but which appear in the ad to represent images from the U.S." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Rudy, Dumbest Senator Have Been Working with "Active Russian Agent." Noah Schactman of the Daily Beast: "The president's personal lawyer has been working closely with 'an active Russian agent' trying to smear the president's chief political rival. That's the conclusion of the U.S. Treasury Department, which sanctioned on Thursday one of Rudy Giuliani's Ukrainian allies for interference in the upcoming U.S. elections. Andriy Derkach worked closely with Giuliani -- and with the Trump-friendly cable network, OANN -- to push accusations of political misconduct against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. Derkach, a member of Kyiv's parliament and son of a former KGB officer, has also been supplying documents to Republicans on Capitol Hill, where Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) is conducting an election-eve investigation into the Bidens." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Eric Tucker of the AP: "The Trump administration has charged a Russian national in a sweeping plot to create distrust in the American political process. The Justice Department charges were announced Thursday along with sanctions against four people, including a Ukraine lawmaker, accused of election interference[.]... The administration's move was especially notable because the statement announcing it said [Andrii] Derkach's recordings advance anti-Biden claims that rely on 'false and unsubstantiated narratives.' Trump has promoted those recordings by retweeting posts that include them." ~~~

~~~ Joel Schectman, et al., of Reuters: "Microsoft Corp ... recently alerted one of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's main election campaign advisory firms that it had been targeted by suspected Russian state-backed hackers, according to three people briefed on the matter. The hacking attempts targeted staff at Washington-based SKDKnickerbocker, a campaign strategy and communications firm working with Biden and other prominent Democrats, over the past two months, the sources said. A person familiar with SKDK's response to the attempts said the hackers failed to gain access to the firm's networks. 'They are well-defended, so there has been no breach,' the person said." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ David Sanger & Nicole Perlroth of the New York Times: "The Russian military intelligence unit that attacked the Democratic National Committee four years ago is back with a series of new, more stealthy hacks aimed at campaign staff, consultants and think tanks associated with both Democrats and Republicans. That warning was issued on Thursday by the Microsoft Corporation, in an assessment that is far more detailed than any yet made public by American intelligence agencies. The findings come one day after a government whistle-blower claimed that officials at the White House and the Department of Homeland Security suppressed intelligence concerning Russia's continuing interference because it 'made the president look bad,' and instructed government analysts to instead focus on interference by China and Iran. Microsoft did find that Chinese and Iranian hackers have been active -- but often not in the way that President Trump and his aides have suggested. Contrary to an assessment by the director of national intelligence last month that said China preferred former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. win the election, Microsoft found that Chinese hackers have been attacking the private email accounts of Mr. Biden's campaign staff, along with a range of other prominent individuals in academia and the national security establishment.... Notably, only one of the Chinese targets detected by Microsoft was affiliated with Mr. Trump, a former administration official whom Microsoft declined to name." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Politico's report is here. A Microsoft report is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Marshall Cohen of CNN: "Twitter announced Thursday that it is expanding its policies against election-related misinformation, setting new rules that will likely force the platform to more aggressively fact-check ... Donald Trump during the final months of the 2020 campaign. The social media giant rolled out the new policies in a blog post, which said that Twitter ... will either add fact-check labels to or hide altogether tweets that contain 'false or misleading information that causes confusion' about election rules, or posts with 'unverified information about election rigging.' Twitter's porous and subjective policies have enabled Trump to spread a steady stream of misinformation about the election to millions of Americans. The company led the way for Big Tech when it rebuked Trump for a misleading tweet in May, but that watershed moment has ended up looking more like an outlier.... The new rules, which Twitter says will go into effect next week, explicitly prohibit a lot of the material Trump is prone to posting...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Chutzpah, Lies & Corruption, Ctd.

Trump Boasted of Saving MBS's Ass after Khashogi Murder. Sarah Burris of the Raw Story: "Among the 18 interviews with veteran reporter Bob Woodward..., Donald Trump admitted that he protected Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud after the murder and coverup of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashogi. BusinessInsider posted the excerpt Thursday from the book in which Trump bragged he 'saved his ass,' from Congress. 'I was able to get Congress to leave him alone. I was able to get them to stop.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Jeremy Barr of the Washington Post: "USA Today is defending longtime Washington bureau chief Susan Page, after a congressional investigation revealed that she hosted a 'Girls' Night Out' event at her home in honor of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma in November 2018. Page, a longtime member of the D.C. press corps, was recently picked by the Commission on Presidential Debates to host the vice-presidential debate on Oct. 7. Her leading role in hosting the event at her home raised eyebrows on social media from observers who suggested that it conflicted with her ability to cover the administration as an impartial journalist. Reporters are supposed to maintain an arm's-length relationship with their sources, and hosting parties for them arguably compromises this role." See related Politico story on Big Spender (of your money) Verma linked yesterday. ~~~

~~~ Elizabeth Williamson of the New York Times now has a story on Verma's $6 million-dollar taxpayer-paid self-promotion tab. "A yearlong investigation by congressional Democrats of Ms. Verma ... exposed not only a shadow operation to polish Ms. Verma's personal brand but also the underside of life in Washington, where the personal and the professional often blend into a mélange of questionable interactions."

The Trumpidemic, Etc.

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Thursday are here: "The coronavirus may be best known for the brutal toll it has taken on older adults, but a new study of hospital patients challenges the notion that young people are impervious. The research letter from Harvard found that among 3,222 young adults hospitalized with Covid-19, 88 died -- about 2.7 percent. One in five required intensive care, and one in 10 needed a ventilator to assist with breathing. Among those who survived, 99 patients, or 3 percent, could not be sent home from the hospital and were transferred to facilities for ongoing care or rehabilitation. The study 'establishes that Covid-19 is a life-threatening disease in people of all ages,' wrote Dr. Mitchell Katz, a deputy editor at JAMA Internal Medicine, in an accompanying editorial." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Thursday are here: "Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has quietly dropped a controversial rule directing states to give private schools a bigger share of federal coronavirus aid than Congress had intended after a federal judge ruled that it violated the law." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Erica Werner, et al., of the Washington Post: "Democrats blocked a pared-down GOP coronavirus relief bill in a bitterly disputed Senate vote Thursday, leaving the two parties without a clear path forward to approve new economic stimulus before the November elections. The vote was 52-47, far short of the 60 votes that would have been needed for the measure to advance. Democrats were united in opposing the legislation; all Republicans voted in favor except Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). For Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), wrangling a majority of the Senate behind the legislation constituted a measure of success, after months when Senate Republicans have been hopelessly divided. But next steps -- if any -- toward the kind of bipartisan deal that would be needed to actually pass a bill to provide new benefits to the public were unclear." The Hill's report is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Tara Bahrampour of the Washington Post: "A federal court on Thursday blocked a memorandum signed by President Trump seeking to exclude undocumented immigrants from being counted in the census for apportionment saying such action would violate the statute governing congressional apportionment. A special three-judge panel out of New York wrote that the president's argument that undocumented immigrants should not be counted runs afoul of a statute saying apportionment must be based on everyone who is a resident of the U.S. The judges found that all residents must be counted for apportionment purposes regardless of their legal status. The ruling came hours after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to produce internal documents connected to its sudden decision to end the 2020 Census count a month earlier than the Census Bureau had planned. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh gave the government three days to file all documents and communications between mid-April, when the bureau said it would extend the count to Oct. 31 due to the pandemic, and Aug. 3, when it abruptly said the count would end Sept. 30."

Jeff Cox of CNBC: "Weekly jobless claims were worse than expected last week amid a plodding climb for the U.S. labor market from the damage inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic. The Labor Department on Thursday reported 884,000 first-time filings for unemployment insurance, compared with 850,000 expected by economists surveyed by Dow Jones. The total was unchanged from the previous week." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Laura Strickler of NBC News: "The Kentucky attorney general is preparing to present evidence from the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor to a grand jury as early as next week, according to two sources familiar with the matter."

Aimee Ortiz & Alan Yuhas of the New York Times: "The Houston Police Department on Thursday fired four officers involved in the fatal shooting of a 27-year-old man in April and released body camera footage of the confrontation, after months of scrutiny by investigators and calls for transparency from protesters. The man, Nicolas Chavez, was shot dead by the police on the night of April 21. The next day the department said it was investigating the shooting and gave an account of what happened that was quickly challenged by Mr. Chavez's family and protesters, especially after cellphone video recorded by a bystander emerged."

Tim Elfrink of the Washington Post: "When police last week surrounded Michael Forest Reinoehl, a self-described anti-fascist suspected of fatally shooting a member of a far-right group in Portland, Ore., the wanted man wasn't obviously armed, a witness to the scene said Wednesday. In fact, according to Nate Dinguss, Reinoehl was clutching a cellphone and eating a gummy worm as he walked to his car outside an apartment complex in Lacey, Wash. That's when officers opened fire without first announcing themselves or trying to arrest him, Dinguss, a 39-year-old who lives in the apartment complex, said in a statement shared with The Washington Post.... Dinguss added officers waited 'multiple minutes' before rendering medical aid to Reinoehl, who died at the scene from several gunshot wounds.... Dinguss's account of the Sept. 3 fatal shooting, first reported by the Oregonian, contradicts details offered by federal authorities, who said Reinoehl, 48, pulled a gun as members of a fugitive task force tried to arrest him. Two other witnesses also told the Olympian they had seen Reinoehl fire a weapon at police." Mrs. McC: I thought from the git-go this was a questionable killing-by-cops. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

News Lede

The New York Times' live updates of West Coast fire developments are here.

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