Monday
Sep142020
The Commentariat -- Sept. 15, 2020
Afternoon Update:
An Extraordinary Endorsement. Denise Chow of NBC News: "Scientific American has endorsed Joe Biden for president, the first time the venerable science magazine has backed a presidential candidate in its 175-year history. The endorsement was published in Scientific American's October issue, in which the magazine's editors explained their reasons for publicly supporting Biden, adding that they 'do not do this lightly.' They said they were motivated to endorse Biden after seeing how science has been ignored and politicized by ... Donald Trump and his administration.... The editors said Trump's failure to develop a national strategy to fight the pandemic helped accelerate the spread of the disease across the country and his misrepresentations of the facts have done even more damage. 'His lies encouraged people to engage in risky behavior, spreading the virus further, and have driven wedges between Americans who take the threat seriously and those who believe Trump's falsehoods,' they wrote.... Though much of Biden's [environmental & climate] plan would require approval from Congress, the magazine's editors said the candidate 'is acutely aware that we must heed the abundant research showing ways to recover from our present crises and successfully cope with future challenges.'"
The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Tuesday are here. The Washington Posts' live updates for Tuesday are here: "Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer called for Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to resign, saying that his department has 'become subservient to the president's daily whims' and that Azar, the nation's top health official, has been 'almost entirely silent about the chaos and mismanagement in his own agency.' In a floor speech Tuesday, Schumer (D-N.Y.) added: 'We need a secretary of health and human services who will look out for the American people, not President Trump's political interests.'" Mrs. McC: Why, whatevah could Chuck mean? ~~~
~~~ Adam Cancryn & Sarah Owermohle of Politico: "Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar led an escalating pressure campaign against his own Food and Drug Administration this spring and summer, urging the agency to abandon its responsibility for ensuring the safety and accuracy of a range of coronavirus tests as the pandemic raged. Then in late August, Azar took matters into his own hands. Overriding objections from FDA chief Stephen Hahn, Azar revoked the agency's ability to check the quality of tests developed by individual labs for their own use, according to seven current and former administration officials with knowledge of the decision.... At some points the dispute was so intense that it boiled over into screaming matches between Azar and Hahn, four of the sources said.... Azar's decision is the latest example of Trump administration appointees overruling experts at public health agencies. It comes at a particularly perilous time for the FDA, which is struggling to balance ... Donald Trump's push for a coronavirus vaccine by Election Day with public fears that the agency will rubber stamp an ineffective or even dangerous shot." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Everything is going very smoothly. Azar, a graduate of Ken Starr's Institute of the Independent Counsel, is a former top pharmaceuticals lobbyist & executive. He is not a medical doctor. His Wikipage should make you cringe -- and perhaps make you even more leery of a coronavirus shot you know has been "approved" by Azar & Trump. ~~~
~~~ Shadows on the Ceiling, Ctd. Adam Cancryn, et al., of Politico: "The health department's top spokesperson Michael Caputo called an emergency staff meeting on Tuesday to apologize for drawing negative attention to the Trump administration's health care strategy and signaled that he might be soon departing his role, according to five people with knowledge of the meeting.... Caputo told staffers that his series of false accusations on Facebook Live this weekend -- which included unfounded allegations that the Centers for Disease Control was harboring a 'resistance unit' -- reflected poorly on HHS' communications office. He blamed his recent behavior on a combination of physical health issues and the toll of fielding death threats against his family. Caputo also acknowledged that he had never read one of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, despite his team's ongoing efforts to try to edit those documents. Caputo told staff that he is scheduled to meet with HHS Secretary Alex Azar later Tuesday, the people with knowledge of the meeting said.... Donald Trump -- a close ally of Caputo who helped install him as HHS' communication head this year -- is also expected to be involved in any decision about Caputo's next steps." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McC: IOW, Azar can't fire Caputo, once Roger Stone's man, unless Donald says so.
Erica Werner of the Washington Post: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Tuesday that the House will stay in session until a new economic relief deal is reached, facing pressure from Democratic lawmakers over Congress' failure to address the ongoing fallout from the health care crisis as the election looms.... The House is scheduled to adjourn on Oct. 2 until after the election. Bipartisan talks on a new relief measure collapsed last month and have not been revived, leading to speculation that Congress and the administration will be unable to reach a bipartisan accord before Election Day.... The stock market has mostly recovered its losses from March, however, and President Trump has suggested he thinks a robust recovery is [already] underway."
Katie Benner of the New York Times: "The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into whether President Trump's former national security adviser John R. Bolton unlawfully disclosed classified information when he published a memoir this summer, a case that the department opened after it failed to stop the book's publication this summer, according to three people familiar with the matter. The department has convened a grand jury, which issued a subpoena for communications records from Simon & Schuster, the publisher of Mr. Bolton's memoir, 'The Room Where It Happened.' In the book, Mr. Bolton delivered a highly unflattering account of his 17 months working in the Trump administration.... Mr. Trump has made clear that he wants his former aide prosecuted. He said on Twitter that Mr. Bolton 'broke the law' and 'should be in jail, money seized, for disseminating, for profit, highly Classified information.' He has also called Mr. Bolton 'a dope,' 'incompetent' and the book 'a compilation of lies and made up stories, all intended to make me look bad.'" Politico's report is here. Thanks to Ken W. for the link. Mrs. McC: Another Trump/Barr hit job. As Trump says, "There has to be retribution." (See Jamelle Bouie's column, linked below.)
Tim Craig & Marisa Iati of the Washington Post: "The city of Louisville announced on Tuesday a $12 million settlement with the family of Breonna Taylor and a number of changes in how local officers obtain and execute search warrants, among the largest payouts for a police killing in the nation's history, according to a Taylor family attorney.Louisville police killed Breonna Taylor, 26, while executing a 'no-knock' search warrant at her apartment during a drug raid in March that uncovered no illegal substances and has become a driving symbol in the Black Lives Matter movement." A CNN story is here.
Late Morning Update:
Today's Late Morning Updates are brought to you by Trump's increasing advocacy for violence, first in the casual passive killing of tens of thousands Americans who died of Covid-19 & its complications, then in his & his allies' incitement of violence against Biden voters and those who would demand he leave the White House if he is not re-elected, then in the revelation of his plan to assassinate Bashar Al-Assad. Even Chuck Todd has noticed.
~~~ Rebecca Klar of the Hill: "The television ad will air in battleground states and on cable in Washington, D.C., according to the DNC."
Now we sent in the U.S. marshals for the killer, the man that killed the young man in the street. Two and a half days went by, and I put out 'when are you going to go get him.' And the U.S. marshals went in to get him. There was a shootout. This guy was a violent criminal, and the U.S. marshalls killed him. And I'll tell you something -- that's the way it has to be. There has to be retribution. -- Donald Trump, on the extra-judicial killing of suspected killer Michael Reinoehl, whom a witness claimed was unarmed ~~~
~~~ Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "If the president’s allies are talking about the moment 'shooting will begin' [Michael Caputo] and 'martial law,' [Roger Stone] it's not by accident.... [Donald Trump is running] a campaign to hold on to power by any means necessary.... Caputo, in that sense, is only taking cues from his boss.... If he doesn't win, [Trump] says again and again, then the outcome isn't legitimate.... Along with this warning comes Trump's call for supporters to act as 'poll watchers' to prevent imaginary fraud at voting locations.... He added that after they vote, his supporters should 'make sure it counts.'... Asked on Fox News about 'riots' if he wins re-election, Trump said he would 'put them down very quickly,' before adding: 'Look, it's called insurrection. We just send in and we do it, very easy. I mean, it's very easy....' For Trump..., this is the campaign, and it is laying the groundwork for chaos and violence should the outcome show the slightest ambiguity (and even if it doesn't). In a half-functioning country, all of the president's rhetoric on this score would be grounds for removal from office. But we don't live in a half-functioning country -- we live in the United States of America." ~~~
~~~ Chuck Todd, et al., of NBC News: "... Donald Trump has talked about the upcoming presidential election in conspiratorial and often violent ways, as liberal New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie notes.... It's become easy for the political community to dismiss this as your normal Trump rhetoric; after all, he says these kinds of things all the time, including when he was trailing Hillary Clinton four years ago. But it's another thing when the President of the United States says it, and when his supporters and allies starting saying it, too.... Trump's 'rigged' election talk is more dangerous than it was four years ago." ~~~
~~~ Spencer Ackerman of the Daily Beast: "The former senior CIA official once in charge of the hunt for Osama bin Laden has spent the summer calling for the slaughter of his fellow Americans. Michael Scheuer calls Black Lives Matter a 'terrorist organization' and a 'semi-human mob.' On his blog and his podcast, Scheuer rages against a widespread, treasonous conspiracy targeting not only President Trump but the fundamental character of the American republic. It deserves 'punishment... we've not seen before in this country.' Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year old charged with murder for shooting demonstrators at a Kenosha, Wisconsin, protest, is a 'young hero.'... Scheuer's advocacy of violence follows a long trajectory. In December, he endorsed the increasingly violent QAnon conspiracy movement.... Counterterrorism experts have long since written Scheuer off as a crank. Yet Scheuer's advocacy of political violence looks disturbingly like a harbinger.... Roger Stone urged Trump to declare martial law and jail his critics if he loses the November election. Ally Michael Caputo ... invented a left-wing insurrection on a Facebook Live chat. And over the weekend, Trump endorsed federal agents shooting dead a suspect in the killing of a right-wing protester."
Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "In [a 'Fox & Friends"] interview [Tuesday], Trump criticized former defense secretary Jim Mattis, who has in recent months warned the country strongly against reelecting Trump. But in the course of making that case, Trump offered an odd claim: He said Mattis had effectively stood in the way of his efforts to assassinate Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. 'I would've rather taken him out,' Trump said. 'I had him all set. Mattis didn't want to do it. Mattis was a highly overrated general.'... In the book ['Fear', published in 2018, Bob Woodward] reported that Trump had considered assassinating Assad. Trump, on Sept. 5, 2018, flatly denied it. 'I heard somewhere where they said the assassination of President Assad by the United States. Never even discussed,' Trump said, adding: 'No, that was never even contemplated, nor would it be contemplated.... It's just more fiction. The book is total fiction. Okay?'... Even planning such an operation as a contingency would be highly questionable, given its impact in a volatile region...." The Hill has a story here. Mrs. McC: In general, the U.S. has had a policy of not assassinating heads of states since President Gerald Ford signed an executive order in 1976 outlawing political assassinations.
~~~~~~~~~~
Presidential Race, Etc.
Mrs. McCrabbie @2:15 pm ET Monday: Biden gave a very good speech, raising his message & rhetoric way above & beyond Trump's remarks, which so far have been mostly limited to his old admonition to California to "clean the forest floors" -- a remark made more ridiculous by the fact that 58% of the forests in California are federally-owned, so Trump is responsible to "manage" them, while California state owns only 3% of them, the rest in private or Native American hands:
~~~ Kate Sullivan of CNN: "Joe Biden said Monday that ... Donald Trump's refusal to acknowledge the scientific reality of the climate crisis is 'unconscionable' and that he has failed to protect the United States from the 'ravages of climate change.' 'Donald Trump's climate denial may not have caused these fires and record floods and record hurricanes, but if he gets a second term, these hellish events will continue to become more common, more devastating and more deadly,' Biden said, speaking from Wilmington, Delaware.... The former vice president said, 'If you give a climate arsonist four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised if we have more of America ablaze? If you give a climate denier four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised when more of America is under water?'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
Yes, the Suburbs Are in Danger. If we have four more years of Trump's climate denial, how many suburbs will be burned in wildfires? How many suburban neighborhoods will have been flooded out? How many suburbs will have been blown away in superstorms? If you give a climate arsonist four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised if we have more of America ablaze? -- Joe Biden, in Wilmington, Delaware, Monday ~~~
~~~ Peter Baker, et al., of the New York Times: "With wildfires raging across the West, climate change took center stage in the race for the White House on Monday as former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. called President Trump a 'climate arsonist' while the president said that 'I don't think science knows' what is actually happening. A day of dueling appearances laid out the stark differences between the two candidates, an incumbent president who has long scorned climate change as a hoax and rolled back environmental regulations and a challenger who has called for an aggressive campaign to curb the greenhouse gases blamed for increasingly extreme weather. Mr. Trump flew to California after weeks of public silence about the flames that have forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes, wiped out communities and forests, burned millions of acres, shrouded the region in smoke and left at least 26 people dead. But even when confronted by California's governor and other state officials, the president insisted on attributing the crisis solely to poor forest management, not climate change." ~~~
~~~ On Monday, California's Secretary for Natural Resources Wade Crowfoot urged Donald Trump to put away his forest-sweeping broom & start working with local officials on climate change. No luck! ~~~
Caroline Kelly, et al., of CNN: "The Nevada company that hosted an indoor campaign rally for ... Donald Trump attended by thousands of people will face a fine of $3,000 for violating state coronavirus guidelines banning large gatherings. Sunday's rally in Henderson, Nevada -- which was held inside a facility owned by Xtreme Manufacturing -- was expected to violate the state's restriction on gatherings of 50 people or more. Attendees at the rally were not required to wear masks, and there was little social distancing. The city of Henderson had warned Xtreme Manufacturing that it would be violating the regulations if the rally proceeded. 'During the event, a compliance officer observed six violations of the directives and the City's Business Operations Division has issued a Business License Notice of Violation to Xtreme Manufacturing and assessed a penalty of $3,000,' Kathleen Richards, senior public information officer for the city of Henderson, told CNN in a statement Monday." Mrs. McC: I would have charged them $500 per person for whatever number Trump claimed attended the rally, minus the 50 people allowed.
Trump: To Hell with Everyone But Me. Annie Karni of the New York Times: “President Trump and his campaign are defending his right to rally indoors, despite the private unease of aides who called it a game of political Russian roulette and growing concern that such gatherings could prolong the coronavirus pandemic. 'I'm on a stage, and it's very far away,' Mr. Trump said in an interview with The Las Vegas Review-Journal on Monday, after thousands of his supporters gathered on Sunday night inside a manufacturing plant in a Las Vegas suburb, flouting a state directive limiting indoor gatherings to fewer than 50 people. The president did not address health concerns about the rally attendees, a vast majority of whom did not wear masks or practice any social distancing. When it came to his own safety, he said, 'I'm not at all concerned.'"
Pennsylvania. AP: "Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf's pandemic restrictions that required people to stay at home, placed size limits on gatherings and ordered 'non-life-sustaining' businesses to shut down are unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled Monday. U.S. District Judge William Stickman IV, who was appointed by ... Donald Trump, sided with plaintiffs that included hair salons, drive-in movie theaters, a farmer's market vendor, a horse trainer and several Republican officeholders in their lawsuit against Wolf, a Democrat, and his health secretary.... Courts had consistently rejected challenges to Wolf's power to order businesses to close during the pandemic, and many other governors, Republican and Democrat, undertook similar measures as the virus spread across the country." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Meryl Kornfield of the Washington Post: "Within hours after the decision was filed, Trump retweeted nearly two dozen posts about the blow to the Democratic governor's oversight of his state. In one post, seniors wag their fingers and peel off their face coverings to the beat of Twisted Sister's 'We're Not Gonna Take It.' 'PENNSYLVANIA GOVERNOR TOM WOLF AN YOUR STUPID WIFE .....YOUR NOT GOING TO MURDER US !!! TRUMP 2020 ... WE LOVE PENNSYLVANIA,' the caption read." Mrs. McC: Nice to see Trump's supporters are just as familiar with the English language as Trump is.
Wisconsin. Katelyn Polantz, et al., of CNN: "The Wisconsin Supreme Court decided on Monday to keep the Green Party candidate off the presidential ballot, ending a legal dispute that briefly threw the state's mail-in voting plans into chaos, and clearing the way for clerks to mail out ballots this week as planned. 'We would be unable to provide meaningful relief without completely upsetting the election,' the Supreme Court wrote in its 4-3 decision.Last week, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ordered local clerks to stop sending out ballots -- creating an impasse that threatened to derail the mail-in voting procedures in the key battleground state. Wisconsin state laws require clerks to mail ballots to voters who asked for them by Thursday." The Washington Post's story is here.
Craziness, Corruption, Laziness & Lies
** Reed Richardson of Mediaite: "CNN released another snippet of the on-the-record, taped conversations between ... Donald Trump and journalist Bob Woodward, this time revealing that the nation's leader was admitting on April 13 that the Covid-19 virus was 'a killer.'... 'These audio tapes show an ongoing pattern by Trump of misleading and playing down Covid to the public as you said while privately telling Woodward how dangerous the virus was,' [CNN correspondent Jamie] Gangel explained. 'And it wasn't just the February call or the March call. On April 5th, before we get to our audio, Trump tells Woodward it's a horrible thing. It's unbelievable. And then a week later on April 13th, [Trump] tells Woodward this...'[:] [Audio:]'This thing is a killer if it gets you. If you're the wrong person, you don't have a chance.... [So this rips you apart.... It is the plague.]'[End audio.] Notably, a New York Times analysis of Trump's press conference on that same day showed a swaggering leader, who confidently predicts the death toll will be easily kept in check...." Includes video clip, which is worth watching. ~~~
~~~ ** Matt Wilstein of the Daily Beast: "... Bob Woodward ... premiered a new exclusive audio recording of ... Donald Trump admitting behind closed doors how dangerous he knew the coronavirus to be long before he started taking it remotely seriously in public. 'Bob, it's so easily transmissible, you wouldn't even believe it,' Trump can be heard saying on the tape, which Woodward recorded on April 13th, 2020, and shared with Stephen Colbert for Monday night's episode of The Late Show. The president goes on to tell what he apparently thought was a hilarious story about being in the Oval Office with a group of advisers when one of them let out a sneeze. 'A guy sneezed, innocently,' Trump says. 'Not a horrible -- just a sneeze. The entire room bailed out, OK? Including me, by the way.'... Woodward ... remind[ed] viewers that Trump was still 'downplaying the virus' at this point, as he admitted to the journalist a few weeks earlier. ~~~
~~~ This video should play through to another segment.
"A Useful Idiot." Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic interviews Alexander Vindman. "'President Trump should be considered to be a useful idiot and a fellow traveler, which makes him an unwitting agent of Putin,' [Vindman] says.... 'They [the Russians] may or may not have dirt on him, but they don't have to use it,' he says. 'They have more effective and less risky ways to employ him. He has aspirations to be the kind of leader that Putin is, and so he admires him. He likes authoritarian strongmen who act with impunity, without checks and balances. So he'll try to please Putin.'... In the Army we call this "free chicken," something you don't have to work for -- it just comes to you. This is what the Russians have in Trump: free chicken.... Authoritarianism is able to take hold not because you have a strong set of leaders who are forcing their way,' he says. 'It's more about the fact that we can give away our democracy. In Hungary and Turkey today, in Nazi Germany, those folks gave away their democracy, by being complacent.' He goes on, truth is a victim in this administration, I think it's Orwellian -- the ultimate goal of this president is to get you to disbelieve what you've seen and what you've heard. My goal now is to remind people of this.'" The site is subscriber-firewalled. Mrs. McC: I used one of my freebies on this. (Also linked yesterday.)
"Shadows on the Ceiling." A Crazy Trump Aide Tosses Out Conspiracy Theories & Warns of Violence. Sharon LaFraniere of the New York Times: "The top communications official at the powerful cabinet department in charge of combating the coronavirus accused career government scientists on Sunday of 'sedition' in their handling of the pandemic and warned that left-wing hit squads were preparing for armed insurrection after the election. Michael Caputo, 58, the assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, said without evidence that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was harboring a 'resistance unit' determined to undermine President Trump. Mr. Caputo, who has faced criticism for leading efforts to warp C.D.C. weekly bulletins to fit Mr. Trump's pandemic narrative, suggested that he personally could be in danger. 'You understand that they're going to have to kill me, and unfortunately, I think that's where this is going,' Mr. Caputo, a Trump loyalist installed by the White House in April, told followers in a video he hosted live on ... Facebook....
"'I don't like being alone in Washington,' he said, describing 'shadows on the ceiling in my apartment, there alone, shadows are so long.' He then ran through a series of conspiracy theories, culminating in a prediction that Mr. Trump will win re-election but his Democratic opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr., will refuse to concede. 'And when Donald Trump refuses to stand down at the inauguration, the shooting will begin,' he said. 'The drills that you've seen are nothing.' He added: 'If you carry guns, buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because it's going to be hard to get.'" Mrs. McC: You may remember Caputo from his days as a rabid, fact-averse CNN "commentator" who labelled George Papadopolous as the "coffee boy." He is a protégé of Roger Stone's. (Also linked yesterday.) Paul Campos republishes much of the NYT story in LG&$. The Hill has a summary story here. ~~~
~~~ Summer Concepcion of TPM: "Senate health committee ranking member Patty Murray (D-WA) on Monday called for Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar to demand the resignation of Michael Caputo, HHS assistant secretary of public affairs...." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: If we had a normal administration, Murray's demand would be unnecessary. Caputo would be gone. But according to the Hill story linked above, "In a statement, HHS said 'Mr. Caputo is a critical, integral part of the President's coronavirus response, leading on public messaging as Americans need public health information to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic.'" ~~~
~~~ Steve M. People who associate with antifa "loathe Joe Biden. Joe Biden, for many of them, is no better than Donald Trump.... But nearly everyone on the right believes that antifa and the Democratic Party are part of one big evil, murderous octopus. It's a ridiculous notion believed even by right-wingers who aren't afraid of shadows." Steve republishes tweeted antifa-associated comments about Biden. ~~~
~~~ Caputo's Rant Is Trump on ... Something. Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: Michael "Caputo, who is playing a leading role in dictating the administration's public communications about the coronavirus pandemic, suggested that 'deep state' scientists are shaping their handling of coronavirus around the deliberate goal of not allowing 'America to get well, not until after Joe Biden is president.' And Caputo, who admitted that his 'mental health has definitely failed,' also referred to leftist 'hit squads being trained all over the country,' who will enter into a shooting war to depose President Trump after he's reelected, and advised his supporters to prepare. Everyone is understandably aghast at all this. But ... in an important respect, Caputo's rantings are just a more lurid version of what President Trump himself says constantly -- that the political opposition to Trump is at its core fundamentally illegitimate and, indeed, that there is no legitimate way for Trump to be removed from power.... As Crooked Media's Brian Beutler notes, Trump has been 'relentlessly messaging that he'll reject anything but election-night victory as illegitimate,' but it 'has had almost no impact on how journalists cover the horse race.'" Read on, if possible. ~~~
~~~ Nathaniel Weixel of the Hill: "House Democrats are launching an investigation into the Trump administration's political interference with the publication of scientific reports at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis, led by Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), cited reporting from Politico that showed administration appointees have repeatedly interfered with the CDC's reports on the pandemic, which are published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). The lawmakers said they are investigating the scope of political interference with the CDC's scientific reports and other efforts to combat the pandemic, the impact of the interference on the CDC's mission, whether the interference is continuing and any 'steps that Congress may need to take to stop it before more Americans die needlessly.'"
Julia Ainsley & Ken Dilanian of NBC News: "The Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General has begun investigating the circumstances surrounding the sentencing recommendation for Roger Stone..., according to two sources familiar with the matter. The investigation is focused on events in February, according to the two sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity, when prosecutors for Stone have said they were told to seek a lighter sentence for Stone than they had previously considered. One of those prosecutors, Aaron Zelinsky, testified before Congress in June that he was told by the office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia to recommend a lighter sentence for Stone than he otherwise would have because of Stone's close personal relationship with [Donald] Trump. Zelinsky said the U.S. Attorney, Timothy Shea, was 'receiving heavy pressure from the highest levels of the Department of Justice to cut Stone a break, and that the U.S. Attorney's sentencing instructions to us were based on political considerations.' Attorney General William Barr ultimately intervened to override the prosecutors' recommendation of seven to nine years and ask for a lighter sentence. All four prosecutors quit the case as a result." (Also linked yesterday.)
Jerry Lambe of Law & Crime: "Several legal advocacy groups on Monday filed a whistleblower complaint on behalf of a nurse at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center documenting 'jarring medical neglect' within the facility, including a refusal to test detainees for the novel coronavirus and an exorbitant rate of hysterectomies being performed on immigrant women.... Multiple women ... were subjected to hysterectomies -- a surgical operation in which all or part of the uterus is removed ... with one detainee likening their treatment to prisoners in concentration camps.... According to [the whistleblower], ICDC consistently used a particular gynecologist -- outside the facility -- who almost always opted to remove all or part of the uterus of his female detainee patients.... 'That's his specialty, he's the uterus collector.... Everybody he sees, he's taking all their uteruses out or he's taken their tubes out. What in the world.'" --s
Kyle Cheney of Politico: "The Postal Service last month abruptly ordered its police officers to stop investigating mail theft that occurs away from post office property, the Postal Police Officers Association alleged Monday, suing Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to block a change they say could erode the safety of mail carriers and delivery. 'The Postal Service's sudden change is unwarranted, impermissible, and contrary to the language of the statute and also to collective bargaining promises it has made to the officers' union,' the association said in its lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Washington D.C. Per the union, USPS implemented the change on Aug. 25, a day after DeJoy testified to Congress amid mounting concerns that policy changes he implemented were delaying mail service and could jeopardize record numbers of mail-in ballots expected in the presidential election."
The Trumpidemic, Ctd.
The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Monday are here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Companies Use Intermediaries to Get Speedy Test Results. Noam Scheiber of the New York Times: "Through a growing number of intermediaries, [businesses] can generally obtain test results in one to three days, often by circumventing large national labs like Quest and LabCorp that have experienced backlogs and relying on unused capacity at smaller labs instead.... Businesses for which an outbreak among employees would be extremely costly -- possibly curtailing or halting operations -- are generally the most likely to seek out tests."
Michael Grabell & Bernice Yeung of ProPublica: "In late April, as COVID-19 raced through meatpacking plants sickening and killing workers, President Donald Trump issued a controversial executive order aimed at keeping the plants open to supply food to American consumers...But emails obtained by ProPublica show that the meat industry may have had a hand in its own White House rescue: Just a week before the order was issued, the meat industry's trade group drafted an executive order that bears striking similarities to the one the president signed...[W]hile the final wording wasn't verbatim, Trump's order emphasized the points the industry had proposed and furthered the same goal, directing the agriculture secretary to take action 'to ensure that meat and poultry processors continue operations.'" --s
Miriam Jordan of the New York Times: "A federal appeals court ruled on Monday that the Trump administration acted within its authority in terminating legal protections that have allowed hundreds of thousands of immigrants to live and work legally in the United States, sometimes for decades, after fleeing conflict or natural disasters in their home countries. The 2-1 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit effectively strips legal immigration status from some 400,000 people, rendering them deportable if they do not voluntarily leave the country. The decision affects the overwhelming majority of beneficiaries of a program offering what is known as 'temporary protected status,' which has permitted them to remain in the United States after being uprooted from their unstable homelands. The Trump administration has argued that the emergency conditions that existed when people were invited to come to the United States -- earthquakes, hurricanes, civil war -- had occurred long ago.... The long-awaited decision does not immediately end the protections. The Trump administration has agreed to maintain them until at least March 5, 2021, for people from five of the affected countries and until November 2021 for people from El Salvador." A Politico story is here. ~~~
~~~ Yeah But. Laura Ly & Paul LeBlanc of CNN: "A federal judge in Maryland on Friday ruled that Chad Wolf is likely unlawfully serving as acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and temporarily barred the Trump administration from enforcing new asylum restrictions on members of two immigration advocacy groups, according to court documents."
Tim Elfrink of the Washington Post: "As Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies tackled Josie Huang to the street on Saturday night, the reporter for NPR affiliate KPCC screamed repeatedly she was a journalist. Deputies arrested her anyway, leaving her with scrapes, bruises, a five-hour stay in custody -- and an obstruction charge that carries up to a year in jail. Police claimed Huang, who also reports for LAist, didn't have credentials and ignored demands to leave the area. But those claims are contradicted by video Huang shared on Sunday showing her quickly backing away from police when ordered to do so and repeatedly identifying herself as a journalist. Huang said she also had a press badge around her neck. NPR executives and reporters groups condemned Huang's arrest, demanding her charges be dropped and the sheriff's department explain why officers forcefully tackled her." Related story linked yesterday. (Also linked yesterday.)
Beyond the Beltway
Marie Fazio of the New York Times: "South Dakota's attorney general, Jason Ravnsborg, was driving home alone from a Republican Party dinner on Saturday night when his car hit something, possibly a deer, he told the authorities. By the next day, the news had taken a grim turn: A man had been found dead near the highway. And the state's top law enforcement officer was under investigation. The dead man was officially identified Monday as Joe Boever, 55, of Highmore, S.D. He had apparently been walking along the highway to his disabled truck.... Because the attorney general oversees South Dakota's Department of Public Safety, Gov. Kristi Noem announced Sunday evening that her office had taken over supervision of the case, with assistance from investigators in neighboring North Dakota, to avoid any conflicts of interest. Both Governor Noem and Mr. Ravnsborg are Republicans.... The statement did not say if Mr. Ravnsborg had pulled over to look for the deer or to check his vehicle for damage." An NBC News story is here.
News Lede
Weather Channel: "Hurricane Sally is moving slowly near the northern Gulf Coast, where it will bring an extremely dangerous storm surge, potentially historic flooding rainfall and damaging winds through midweek. Sally will also pose a threat of flooding rainfall farther inland across parts of the Southeast. Sally will produce a deadly duo of human-height storm surge and a foot or more of rainfall along parts of the northern Gulf Coast. Nearly 90% of deaths caused by hurricanes are the result of a combination of rainfall flooding, storm surge and rip currents."
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Trevor presents some mind-blowing clips:
https://youtu.be/jSst2QANeyg
Selfish and willfully uninformed.
THE BIG SNEEZE
On Colbert last night Woodward released a new audio where Fatty freaks out when someone during a meeting sneezes. And yet-– we see and hear him ignore any safety protocols as though he's somehow immune; his disregard of the unmasked in the crowed audiences is stunning.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bob-woodward-stephen-colbert_n_5f602fdfc5b6e27db131cd2a
The Caputo story, told by Rachel last night, made me laugh–-and I thought while laughing that it has come to this: Things become so bad, so weird, so outrageous that in order not to tear one's hair out and scream and rant and sob–-we are reduced to helpless laughter.
Saw part of the hearings on the postal debacle where DeJoy was front and center but not a participant. Per usual the Republicans dismissed this as "another one of the Democrats' Kangaroo Court proceedings–– in fact, one guy coined it as such four times––and four times in his five minutes means he had nothing except to give us visions of Kangaroos leaping through the halls of congress leaving their large droppings that line the congressional floor.
Looks like one Honorable Brian Hagedorn (Wisconsin SC Judge) just resigned from the Republican Party.
He must have switched his vote and made a sane decision to let the Wisconsin election go forward, and as we have come to learn, sanity is no longer allowed within party boundaries.
Seriously, I would have liked to have been close to that decision, listening in. Must have provoked some interesting conversations along the way, and might still be doing so...
Am guessing that in Wisconsin Republican circles Hagedorn is now spelled "Mud."
@Ken Winkes: I assume you're being facetious here. According to this Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story, Hagedorn is a conservative who occasionally votes with liberals as he did in the Green party case, and his Wikipage -- which lets on that Scott Walker appointed him to several posts including the state's supreme court -- he doesn't sound like a Democrat to me. For one thing, he seems very worried about the kind of sex other people are having.
Re: the Nevada rally, I would make the hosting company and the campaign liable for any and all health care expenses and funeral costs, along with the contact tracing expense.
NiskyGuy,
Forget. Trump doesn’t pay any bills. Doesn’t pay taxes either. He and his family of crooks and liars are the biggest moochers in a party of moochers.
Bea.
Yup. Just kidding.
But as I've said, I'm convinced Republicanism and sanity can no longer co-exist, so I don't understand it when anyone who has declared allegiance to a party so thoroughly steeped in lunacy occasionally displays it.
Happening as it does with decreasing frequency, it always makes me wonder what's really going on inside the turncoat's head.
Was not joking, though, about how Hagedorn's decision will be met by his fellow nut-sos.
Not with plaudits and admiration, I'd guess.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/15/us/politics/john-bolton-book-criminal-investigation.html
Ya dance with the people that brung ya.
Looks like Bolton's dance with the Pretender isn't over.
It was a heck of a date.
As a longtime reader and subscriber to the venerable Scientific American, the organ of rational thinking in the New World, I’m thrilled to read that SA has determined that the Fatty Anti-Science brigade is all experiment and no control, and that the experimental part of the Fatty ideology involves far more fantasy than fact. In truth, it’s ALL fantasy. No fact.
The problem is that most, if not all, Trump MAGA droolers, have zero interest in science, never mind scientific fact or logical thinking. Like the Orange Menace, they hold to the easily disproven jumpity-jump bull crap that something, something, something, “he’s right”.
So, forest floors need to be swept. Um...ahh...something,
Akhilleus,
You're right of course.
They hold no truck with science, but they expect the lights to go on when they flip the switch, all their personal communication devices to work flawlessly, Netflix to stream into their homes and the heat or A/C to work on demand.
And oh yeah, they expect the doctor to fix them when they're broken.
These are people to whom the entire world of science is a black box, and they're just fine with that. In fact, they like it that way.
Again, let someone else do it, whatever it is, and they'll go along with it as long as it doesn't make them uncomfortable.
But for all the gods' sakes, don't make them think about it. That thinking stuff really hurts.
Ken,
Thinking is completely unnecessary if you have Trump and Jerry Falwell, and Moscow Mitch, and the Bible. Besides, science might allow you to turn the lights on, but those lights also allow you to read Darwin. Bad, bad, bad!