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. ~~~

     ~~~ 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. ~~~

~~~ ** 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 ~~~

     ~~~ 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.

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. ~~~

     ~~~ 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.

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. ~~~

~~~ 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 ~~~

~~~ 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."

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."

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'":

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."

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." ~~~

     ~~~ 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.

~~~~~~~~~~

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.

Comments

[NiskyGuy]

Wow. September 11 2001 seems so far away. And we thought we had the worst possible president* then.

At work, we still have one of those graphic novel panels on the fridge, with a girl asking her mother “Is Dick Cheney really the Devil?”

He was and is. We have just learned that the Devil is not as bad as it can get.

[Akhilleus]

Trump and Tragedy. Ka-ching!

As we remember the victims who lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the passengers in United 93 that was forced to crash into a field in Pennsylvania, let us not forget that as the nation reeled and tried to make sense of the horror, and began, soon after, to pull together to recover, Donald Trump did what he always does, tried to figure how he could cash in on the tragedy.

He claimed to have been at various locations at the same time, claimed that he saw people jumping from the burning buildings (which, from Midtown, one of his supposed locations, was impossible), claimed that he saw hundreds of Muslims (in Jersey!!, an even more impossible feat of telescopic vision) celebrating wildly as the towers collapsed.

But what was uppermost in his mind that terrible morning was not the dead and dying, their loved ones, or even the fact that the nation was under attack.

Most important to Trump on 9/11 was the fact that, with the twin towers in ruins, his building was now the tallest structure downtown. Yay! And he called a radio station to brag about it.

But that’s not where Trump’s personal use of the 9/11 tragedy ends. Later he bragged that he personally, at great risk to himself, led a contingent of “my men” downtown to clear the rubble. No one ever saw him there.

He also claimed to have lost “hundreds of friends” but when pressed, couldn’t name one.

Later, when federal funds were made available for those in the area whose buildings and businesses were affected (a bill pushed through by Hillary Clinton!), this fat fuck lined up to grab whatever he could even though his building, by his own admission, sustained no damage. Zero. And his business was unaffected. But this didn’t stop him from shoving his way into the line with his hand out, swiping money that could have helped those truly deserving of assistance.

This is Donald Trump. National tragedy? What’s in it for me? How can I profit off the misery of others?

And he’s still doing it. Back then it was a few thousand dead, killed by a terrorist attack. Today, it’s several hundred thousand, many killed by Trump himself. And he’s still got his hand out. And patting himself on the back.

[Akhilleus]

“Why are you blaming me? Woodward knew I was a heartless, conniving, lying sack of shit and he did NOTHING!! It’s all his fault.”

Fatty McMurderface

[Ken Winkes]

The story linked above about the Justice Dept.'s actions againt a Russian and other foreigners plotting American election mayhem took this morning's Startlemeter prize.

I'd divide my reaction into three parts.

Looks like part of the Deep State is still functioning.

Some checks and balances are still in place (see the numerous court actions--yesterday on who counts for apportionment--that stop government by sole Pretender fiat.

A hope that the Pretender retweets will become part of the court record.

And, sad to say, a bonus fourth: I can't help but wonder if this action is part of a larger Barr plot, trying to burnish his department's image a bit before the next planned outrage, like the promised report "proving" the entire Russia investigation was really a hoax after all, just like the boss has been saying all along.

Even here, distrust reigns.

[PD Pepe]

Trump described by Ak as "a National tragedy ––-sums up this despicable human being better than anyone. This morning I feel no fury, no sorrow, no nothing––I am depleted. I'm a balloon that has been deflated. By noon I'll probably get my air back but right now...

Thinking back to 9/11 when I was working at the polls and someone came in to tell us that a plane had crashed into one of the towers I remember feeling a chill––wondering whether this was done on purpose. The country for the most part came together––a foreign enemy invasion––we against them. Today's 9/11 brings us division, a pandemic, wild fires, and looming large that National Tragedy in the form of a man whose own plan/plane has killed thousands.

[Marie Burns]

@Ken Winkes: Yeah, that Justice Department part surprised me, too. All day the stories were that the Treasury Department (Mnuchin) had imposed sanctions, and that part about the DOJ was a very late-night update to an AP story.

However, I think the last graf of an NYT story clears up the DOJ's move: "The Justice Department also filed charges on Thursday against one of the Russians who was penalized by the Treasury Department. Artem Mikhaylovich Lifshits was charged with wire fraud conspiracy for using the stolen identities of citizens in the troll-farm scheme to meddle in American politics."

In other words, the DOJ charges were against another Russian guy, and on the surface, seem to be unrelated to the false Biden stories Rudy's buddy & "active Russian agent" Derkach has peddled, stories Trump has retweeted, Rudy has spread, and apparently the U.S.'s dumbest senator Ron Johnson has relied upon to "investigate" Biden.

So there's not much, if anything, in the DOJ charge to rile Trump. In fact, it probably was presented to Trump as a nothingburger he can cite as "proof" he was "tough on Russia."

[PD Pepe]

Clip from "Unfit"–-a documentary that explores Trump's 'Cognitive Decline' over time.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/unfit-documentary-trump-cognitive-decline_n_5f5aa51bc5b67602f6029e6e

[Rockygirl]

Just read a WaPo comment that refers to the “Trump Scampaign”.

That just about sums it up.

[Akhilleus]

Moscow Mitch sniffs that a couple hundred dollars is good enough for the moochers left jobless and often sickened by his policy of allowing a murderer to run amok.

Meanwhile, as Americans wonder how they're going to decide between food, rent, and medicine (they can forget about medicine since Trump's flunky at the Post Office has decreed that they'll get it when they get it, and no sooner), the Glorious Leader has been raking in the filthy lucre hand over fist. Actually, forget hands and fists. To shovel all the money the Trump Crime Family has amassed over the last three and a half years you'd need a convoy of backloaders and a line of dump trucks from here to the horizon to carry it all to Marred-a-Lago.

If the Orange Murderer is defenestrated in November (if they can find a window wide enough to accommodate his fat ass), by the time a real president is sworn into office, he'll have made over two billion dollars
by turning the presidency into just another line item in his ledger books. That's 2 followed by nine zeros.

Contrary to the lies Fatty and Junior and the rest of those avaricious assholes tell about how much money their poor family has lost by being the bestest, most patriotest, militariest lovin' 'mericans EVAH, and how they'll be on the dole any day now, presidentin' has been a yuuuugely lucrative scam for this bunch of greedy con artists.

A couple of f'rinstances:

"In contrast to the modest-margin golf properties, Trump’s commercial real estate assets convert more like 50% of their revenue into profit. That means that they have been far more lucrative than the golf courses and clubs, throwing off an estimated $313 million of income from operations in the first three years Trump sat in the White House... although there’s a lot of talk about potential influence from Trump’s [golf] club members, the customers who can really impact his bottom line are those renting space in his buildings."

Not to mention impacting federal policy.

And then there's this:

"Trump receives more money from properties he sells....A single condo on Park Avenue in Manhattan, dealt to a woman who publicly boasts about her connections to government officials, brought in $15.9 million. A mansion in Beverly Hills, sold to a company connected to an Indonesian tycoon, produced another $13.5 million. Trump’s team promised he would do no new foreign deals while in office, but then he sold $3.2 million worth of land in the Dominican Republic. And on and on. Added up, all those transactions produced an estimated $118 million over three years."

Sound like they'll be on the bread line anytime soon?

Not just a murderer, a con man, a psychopath, and a liar, but one who has made a fortune by converting his position into cash on the barrel head.

Meanwhile, his party is bickering over whether Americans are sufficiently moral enough to eat cat food or just plain ol' dried dog food (the Dollar Store brand, natch).

You can bet that if Mitch and Fatty were being importuned by bankers and bigshots, there'd be zero debate and a payout with many, many, many zeros in a line. No cat food for the big dogs.

[Akhilleus]

Rockygirl,

"Scampaign". Perfect. Alternate spelling, Scampain.

[Akhilleus]

I a have question, one I'm sure many observers are wondering about. Granted, Trump is not within a hundred country miles of how smart he claims to be, but is he really so abysmally stupid as to allow himself to be taped, again and again, saying jaw dropping things? Does he really believe he's that slick? At this point, this idiot has shot himself in the foot so many times by saying stoopid, insulting, untrue, ridiculous, fantastical stuff that has to be immediately 1. retracted, 2. discounted, 3. denied, 4. covered up, 5. walked back by menials, or 6. all of the above, that you think he'd learn to keep his mouth shut.

And yet here he is, with Bob Woodward--Bob Fucking Woodward--the guy who makes a career out of this sort of thing, talking shit about dozens of topics, any one of which would sink a normal candidate (and get some imprisoned).

Why? Is his need to fill the narcissism maw so uncontrollable? Is his desire to talk about himself so overwhelming?

I don't really care about the answer. It's just another example of how far removed from the realm of "qualified" this murderer is.

[Marie Burns]

@Akhilleus: Conventional wisdom seems to be that Kellyanne Conway talked Trump out of sitting for an interview for Woodward's first book on the Trump "presidency" & the book was very unfavorable, so Trump thought he would get a better draft of history if he had a chance to give Woodward his own POV first-hand, unfiltered by deep-state flaks.

That sounds right to me, as Trump is certain he is smarter than anyone, including Nixon -- who didn't fare well in Woodward's reporting -- and of course smarter than Woodward himself. As Trump would say to Bob, "I'm president*, and you're not." Woodward encouraged this. He tried to establish a rapport by identifying with Trump as a privileged, financially comfortable, white guy. But Woodward, besides not being president*, also is not as rich & famous & privileged as Trump. So to Trump, that makes Woodward a lesser man, someone whom Trump, who probably thinks he wrote "The Art of the Deal," also thinks he can easily outsmart & manipulate.

To that end, Trump had to prove to Woodward that he was smarter & knew more than Woodward, so he bragged about a lot of things, including knowing all about how dangerous the coronavirus really was & about some classified missile system some Pentagon official unwisely told him about. Trump absolutely cannot help but show off. In situations where you would be polite to someone less fortunate than you, Trump would tell the guy how great Trump was. He may have assumed that because Woodward was either like Trump or aspired to be like Trump, that Woodward would keep Trump's confidences. (Yeah, Trump is that stupid.)

The other part of course is the white part. Although Woodward was not "as good as" Trump in Trump's eyes, he was a white guy of about the same age and enjoyed a good deal of Washington celebrity. Also, he seems to be a Republican. That made Trump (a) comfortable talking to Woodward because Trump assumed they were like-minded, and (b) feeling he needed to show Woodward how superior He Trump was.

Woodward is a good interviewer & he knows his subjects before he interviews them, so he encouraged Trump in these views.

Another thing is that Trump is sleep-deprived. I think this means that a lot of the time, especially in the middle of the night, which is apparently when Trump would call Woodward, Trump didn't really know what he was saying. He let his guard down.

I have watched many taped interviews of politicians. You can see the good politicians carefully thinking through their answers to what for you & me would be straightforward questions with simple answers. Wingers criticized Obama for his hesitancy in speaking -- the ers & ahs -- but those were "thinking pauses." Trump very occasionally makes a thinking pause, but it's just to dream up a new lie.

[Akhilleus]

Marie,

Yeah, sounds about right. Trump, despite the view he holds of his own unqualified superiority, is easily manipulated.

He’s like the guy you can goad to staying in on a big pot in a poker game with nothing but a pair of threes, getting him not just to see a bet, but to raise it because he’s afraid folding (the smart move at that point) will make him look like a loser to the “lesser” guys around the table. I’ve played with guys like this. It’s hard not to take them to the cleaners whenever you have the chance, but for some reason, they never learn.

This is Trump. A chump, like you read about. No wonder Putin wants this jamoke in the White House another four years.

I’m callin’ ya Mr. Putin. Whadaya got?” “I got a full house, Donaldovych, queens over jacks. And you?” “Um...a pair of threes! I win, right?” “ Nyet. And I don’t take IOUs. Cash, please. But I’ll let you off for a few state secrets...”

[NiskyGuy]

Maybe a bad day for Barr, but I really hope it’s not the worst.

[NiskyGuy]

As you might imagine, Francis Collins, head of the NIH, was appointed by President Obama.