Wednesday
Sep162020
The Commentariat -- Sept. 16, 2020
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Nathaniel Weixel of the Hill: Michael Caputo, "the top communications official at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), will be taking a medical 'leave of absence,' the agency announced Wednesday.... Caputo has been under fire for comments he made attacking career scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), accusing them of being anti-Trump. CDC Director Robert Redfield pushed back on Caputo's attack earlier Wednesday, telling a Senate panel that the allegation 'not only is it not true, it deeply saddened me when I read those comments.'" Mrs. McC: Notice that neither Caputo's boss Alex Azar or il capo dei capi Donald Trump has condemned Caputo's remarks.
Trump: There are a lot of people think that masks are not good....
Stephanopoulos: Who are those people?
Trump: I'll tell you who those people are -- waiters. They come over and they serve you, and they have a mask. And I saw it the other day where they were serving me, and they're playing with the mask...I'm not blaming them...I'm just saying what happens. They're playing with the mask, so the mask is over, and they're touching it, and then they're touching the plate. That can't be good.... The concept of a mask is good, but it also does ... you're constantly touching it, you're touching your face, you're touching plates. There are people that don't think masks are good. -- ABC News Town Hall, Tuesday ~~~
~~~ ** CDC Director Contradicts Trump Club Waiters' Medical Advice. Peter Sullivan of the Hill: "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield said Wednesday that wearing a mask is more guaranteed to protect someone from the coronavirus than taking a vaccine. Redfield, speaking at a Senate hearing, emphasized the importance of wearing masks, noting that an eventual vaccine is not expected to work in 100 percent of people, and might only work in, say, 70 percent. But a mask is guaranteed to offer at least some protection for all wearers, he added, though it is far from total protection. 'We have clear scientific evidence they work, I might even go so far as to say that this face mask is more guaranteed to protect me against COVID than when I take a COVID vaccine, because the immunogenicity may be 70 percent and if I don't get an immune response, the vaccine's not going to protect me, this face mask will,' Redfield said." Mrs. McC: But can Redfield artfully present a well-done steak slathered in ketchup?
The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Wednesday are here: "The Big Ten Conference said Wednesday that it would try to play football as soon as the weekend of Oct. 23, stepping back from its leadership’s decision just more than a month ago not to compete this fall because of the coronavirus pandemic." The Washington Post's live updates for Wednesday are here.
Lachlan Markay of the Daily Beast: "A new advocacy group [-- "Democrats Against Joe Biden' --] ostensibly comprised of Democrats opposed to the election of Joe Biden appears to have the backing of few, if any, actual Democrats. Those involved, however, do include a Republican operative whose group illicitly funneled millions into political contests, a longtime Trump fan whose son works for the president's campaign, and a self-described celebrity psychic who's taught best practices for exorcisms." Mrs. McC: I'm the CEO of Trumpbots Against Donald Trump, so I don't know what Markay is complaining about.
Brian Stelter of CNN was able to reach three of the undecided voters who participated in ABC News' town hall Tuesday (related stories linked below). One said Trump didn't answer his question, but by failing to do so he "essentially" answered the question. Another said, "He didn't answer anything. He was lying through his teeth." And the third said he had "reanimated" her to vote: "I'm going to vote for Biden." So good work, Donald.
Aimee Ortiz of the New York Times: "Official misconduct played a role in the criminal convictions of more than half of innocent people who were later exonerated, according to a new report by a registry that tracks wrongful convictions. According to the report, by the National Registry of Exonerations, official misconduct contributed to false convictions in 54 percent of exonerations, usually with more than one type of misconduct. Over all, men and Black exonerees 'were modestly more likely to experience misconduct,' although there were larger differences by race when it came to drug crimes and murder."
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Presidential Race, Etc.
Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Joe Biden visited Florida for the first time as the Democratic presidential nominee Tuesday, seeking to bolster his candidacy with Latinos and veterans following complaints from party leaders nervous about his standing in the crucial battleground state. In a speech aimed largely at Puerto Rican voters, Biden took sharp aim at Trump over his panned responses to covid-19 and Hurricane Maria, among what Biden identified as presidential blunders he said have badly damaged Latino communities.... He cast himself as an alternative who would stand up for Latinos and help improve their lives, and he nodded to their crucial role in the upcoming election. 'More than any other time, the Hispanic community and the Latino community hold in the palm of their hand the destiny of this country,' Biden said."
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.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
~~~ Rebecca Klar of the Hill: "The television ad will air in battleground states and on cable in Washington, D.C., according to the DNC." (Also linked yesterday.)
Adrian Carrasquillo of Newsweek: "As the general election sprint began after Labor Day, so too did deepening scrutiny of Joe Biden's engagement and support from Latino voters, which polls show continues to lag Hillary Clinton's 2016 results, as well as in Florida. A multi-million dollar effort to boost his campaign with Hispanic voters launching Tuesday -- the first day of National Hispanic Heritage Month in the U.S. -- is looking to change that. The Lincoln Project, a well-funded group started by veterans of Republican campaigns that has produced electric anti-Trump ads, has teamed up with the on-the-ground expertise of grassroots groups that engage Latino voters each cycle.... Domingo Garcia, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), a longtime national Hispanic group [said], '...we're having to go to third parties like The Lincoln Project to activate the Latino community, because the Biden campaign has been so unresponsive to Latino organizations." --safari: That the DNC left this job to a last minute push led by NeverTrump Republicans is astonishing in its level of political malpractice. ~~~
~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: As you may recall, even in the 2008 primaries, Barack Obama addressed Spanish-speaking Americans. Ed O'Keefe, then of the Washington Post, May 2008: "Making use of relatively simple Spanish, but a very good accent, Barack Obama addresses the Democratic voters of Puerto Rico. 'Mensaje a Puerto Rico,' or 'Message to Puerto Rico' is a direct-to-camera appeal by Obama." Includes video. He later cut at least one ad in the general election, in which he spoke to voters in Spanish. Joe should have paid more attention, even if he can't approximate proper Spanish pronunciation. (On the other hand, Trump's Spanish is great!) ~~~
~~~ Joe does have a sense of humor, though (video dated 2014), something Donald Ducksass totally lacks:
Justine Coleman of The Hill: "A Catholic voters group launched a $9.7 million campaign against ... Joe Biden, targeting Catholic voters in swing states. Biden, if he is elected, would be the country's second Catholic president and the first since John F. Kennedy." --s
Adam Nagourney & Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times: "The explosion of wildfires across the West has opened a new battleground in the critical competition for suburban voters between President Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr., with growing evidence that climate change is an acute concern for many Americans, particularly women, viewing the nightly images of destruction and thick blankets of acrid air. Mr. Trump has sought to combat his sharp decline among suburban voters by asserting that Democratic control of the White House would be a threat to the safety of the suburbs, raising the specter of crime, rioting and an 'invasion' of low-income housing that many view as seeking to stoke racist fears. But Mr. Biden ... is seeking to redefine what 'safety' means for an electorate swept by fear amid a pandemic, social unrest in the streets and now deadly wildfires. He is casting climate change as a more real and immediate threat to the suburbs than the violence portrayed in Mr. Trump's ads and public remarks, seizing in a speech on Monday on the devastating fires ripping through forests, destroying homes and taking lives." ~~~
~~~ Forest Cities & Exploding Trees. Andrew Naughtie of the [U.K.] Independent, reprinted by MSN: "'You know, In Europe they have forest cities,' [Trump] told the hosts [of 'Fox & Friends' Tuesday morning, reiterating what he had said in California Monday]. 'You look at, you look at countries, Austria, you look at so many countries, they live in the forest, they're considered forest cities, so many of them. And they don't have fires like this, and they have more explosive trees. They have trees that will catch easier. But they maintain their fire, they have an expression, they "thin the fuel", the fuel is what's on the ground, the leaves, the trees that fall, they're dry, they're like a matchstick.' This year's wildfires are the most catastrophic to hit the western states in living memory, but Mr Trump has fixated on Finnish and Austrian forest floor management before. In 2018, when California faced another serious fire season, he claimed to have discussed 'raking and cleaning' with the president of Finland, who later said he had no such recollection."
"Herd Mentality" & the Covid Wisdom of Trump's Waiters. Trump Lies His Way through an ABC News Townhall Event. Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Trump denied on Tuesday that he downplayed the threat of the coronavirus that has taken more than 195,000 lives in the United States, directly contradicting his own recorded words in which he admitted doing exactly that. And then he proceeded to downplay the pandemic even further. Appearing at a town-hall-style event in Philadelphia, Mr. Trump presented a view of the pandemic radically at odds with the view of public health officials, insisting again that the virus would disappear on its own and contending that 'we're rounding the corner' of the crisis. He cast doubt on the value of wearing masks, citing the wisdom of restaurant waiters over the counsel of his own medical advisers. 'I feel that we've done a tremendous job, actually,' Mr. Trump said, defending his handling of the pandemic during the event broadcast on ABC News. 'It's something that I don't think has been recognized like it should.'" ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: To see how Earth people are failing to recognize the "tremendous job" Trump has done in controlling the coronavirus & in his "leadership" role in general, see the latest Pew Research findings, linked under "The Trumpidemic" heading below. ~~~
~~~ Lucien Bruggeman of ABC News: "Asked Tuesday by an uncommitted voter at ABC News' town hall..., why he would 'downplay a pandemic that is known to disproportionately harm low-income families and minority communities,' Trump denied ever understating the disease's threat. 'Yeah, well, I didn't downplay it. I actually, in many ways, I up-played it, in terms of action. My action was very strong,' Trump said." ~~~
~~~ "Four Pinocchios, Over & Over Again. Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: "At the ABC News Town hall Tuesday night, President Trump was challenged by ordinary voters in ways that he rarely experiences in the safe spaces of Fox News where he regularly answers questions. But he still retreated to false or misleading talking points that he offers in his usual venues. Here's a quick tour through 24 claims made at the town hall...."
~~~ Quinn Scanlan & Cheyenne Haslett of ABC News report five takeaways from the town hall meeting. It's a pretty good summary of the event. ~~~
~~~ Stephen Collinson of CNN: "... Donald Trump faced life outside his own political bubble on Tuesday, where his self-congratulation, buck passing and audacious falsehoods conspicuously failed to meet the moment when he was confronted by undecided voters.... Trump was largely cordial and likely came across as strong to voters that love him. But his performance offered ... Joe Biden multiple openings only two weeks before their first debate clash -- one of the last potential turning points of the White House race.... Answers that normally draw wild cheers at Trump's packed campaign events fell flat when he was confronted by voters who appeared to want to cut through bluster and propaganda. And his responses did little to recognize the magnitude of the challenges facing the nation in a fearful year.... On a day when America recorded more than 1,200 new deaths from Covid-19, Trump effectively told the country to ignore his own words to Bob Woodward downplaying the threat early this year even though he knew how bad it was.... He also illogically complained that Biden, who has no power, had not followed through on a national mask mandate and claimed falsely the US response to the crisis was the best in the world." Mrs. McC: Besides, Biden did not call for a national mask mandate; he urged every governor to impose one. There's a difference.
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." (Also linked yesterday.)~~~
~~~ 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." (Also linked yesterday.)
A Bet You Will Lose: Trump Can't Go Lower. Inae Oh of Mother Jones: "President Trump shared a video on Tuesday of Joe Biden embracing the wife of former Defense Secretary Ash Carter during a 2015 ceremony at the White House with the hashtag #PedoBiden, marking the president's first public entry into the categorically false conspiracy theory accusing the Democratic presidential candidate of pedophilia.... The clip ostensibly aims to demonstrate improper, potentially pedophilic behavior by Biden. It doesn't -- and Stephanie Carter, an adult, has written about how the encounter has been taken out of context to denigrate Biden. In reality, she notes, the former vice president had been comforting her during an 'uncharacteristically nervous' moment after she had fallen on ice shortly before her husband's swearing-in ceremony. But Trump's retweet comes as the twisted conspiracy theory continues QAnon's rapid rise among the highest ranks of the Republican party.... Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., has repeatedly promoted the Biden [QAnon pedophilia] conspiracy theory in recent weeks."
Trump Youth Group Pays for Fake Pro-Trump Posts. Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post: Erroneous and/or pro-Trump "messages have been emanating in recent months from the accounts of young people in Arizona seemingly expressing their own views -- standing up for President Trump in a battleground state and echoing talking points from his reelection campaign. Far from representing a genuine social media groundswell, however, the posts are the product of a sprawling yet secretive campaign that experts say evades the guardrails put in place by social media companies to limit online disinformation of the sort used by Russia during the 2016 campaign. Teenagers, some of them minors, are being paid to pump out the messages at the direction of Turning Point Action, an affiliate of Turning Point USA, the prominent conservative youth organization based in Phoenix, according to four people with independent knowledge of the effort.... In response to questions from The Post, Twitter on Tuesday suspended at least 20 accounts involved in the activity for 'platform manipulation and spam.' Facebook also removed a number of accounts as part of what the company said is an ongoing investigation."
If you dare to peruse the latest election forecasting supporting supposed signs of a blue wave, it's here, by Rachel Bitecofer of the Niskanen Center. --s
Craziness, Corruption, Laziness & Lies
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. (Also linked yesterday.)
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." (Also linked yesterday.)
Aimee Picchi of USA Today: "[The] change[s] put in place at the Postal Service by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy ... including limiting late deliveries and cracking down on overtime pay that resulted in delays in service across the country, have drawn scrutiny from lawmakers and customers, with particular concerns about how they affect mail-in ballots and prescription medication deliveries. But businesses ... say they're also feeling the impact. And the complaints from angry customers are raising anxieties ahead of the busy holiday season.... Joe Cortese says his company, NobleSpirit, relies on the U.S. Postal Service to ship thousands of packages containing stamps and collectibles each year. But starting in June, he and his wife, Polly, began noticing problems with shipments.... 'It was like somebody turned off a switch.' [Cortese said.]" --s
Another Trumpian Horror Story. Jacob Soboroff, et al., of NBC News: "A nurse who worked at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Irwin County, Georgia and four lawyers representing clients there are claiming that immigrant women are routinely being sent to a gynecologist who has left them bruised and performed unnecessary procedures, including hysterectomies. The doctor, who three lawyers identified as Dr. Mahendra Amin, practicing in Douglas, Georgia, has continued to see women from the Irwin County Detention Center for the past several years despite complaints from his patients. Amin was the subject of a Justice Department investigation in 2015 for making false claims to Medicaid and Medicare. As a result, he and other doctors involved paid $525,000 in a civil settlement, according to the Justice Department. The lawyers identified the doctor after a whistleblower complaint to the Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security was filed by Dawn Wooten, who worked as a nurse inside the facility." The Intercept's story is here, and it's just as horrifying. ~~~
~~~ PLUS. José Olivares & John Washington of the Intercept (Sept. 14): "A nurse at the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia is speaking out about a host of dangerous medical practices at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility amid the coronavirus outbreak. The whistleblower, Dawn Wooten, says that Irwin, which is run by the private corporation LaSalle Corrections, has underreported Covid-19 cases, knowingly placed staff and detainees at risk of contracting the virus, neglected medical complaints, and refused to test symptomatic detainees, among other dangerous practices. On September 8, Wooten submitted a letter detailing her complaints to the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General, with the help of attorneys from the Government Accountability Project. The grim situation inside the facility reflects what she called 'a silent pandemic' running rampant behind the prison bars."
The Trumpidemic, Ctd.
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? (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ 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." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ 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." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) A New York Times story is here. ~~~
~~~ 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." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
~~~ Trumpty-Dumpty Had a Great Fall. Adam Taylor of the Washington Post: "In a new poll of 13 nations released Tuesday, a median of 15 percent of respondents said the United States had handled the pandemic well, while 85 percent said the country had responded poorly. The data, released by Pew Research Center, suggests that the international reputation of the United States has dropped to a new low in the face of a disorganized response to the novel coronavirus. The country leads the world in virus-related deaths.... Among some traditional allies like Germany, views of the United States have declined to the lowest levels since Pew began tracking them nearly two decades ago.... After Trump entered office in 2017, Pew found much of the world to hold a negative view of the U.S. leader, with views of the United States overall dipping in many nations. But Pew's latest polling suggests that the pandemic, an unprecedented global crisis, has caused views of the United States among its closest peers to slide even further. The new Pew report is here.
Louisiana. Alex Scarborough of ESPN: "LSU football coach Ed Orgeron said Tuesday that most of his team has contracted COVID-19. 'Not all of our players, but most of our players have caught it,' Orgeron told reporters. 'I think that hopefully they won't catch it again, and hopefully they're not out for games.'"
Maine. Meryl Kornfield & Brittany Shammas of the Washington Post: "Only about 65 close family members and friends were on the guest list for a bride and groom's rustic wedding celebration in a small Maine town in early August. But the nuptials began an outbreak now traced to more than 175 reported novel coronavirus infections and also to the deaths of seven people, the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday. The cluster of coronavirus infections that originated from the Big Moose Inn outside Millinocket on Aug. 7 continues to grow in Maine, state health officials said, after guests flouted social distancing and mask guidelines. Now people who have no association with the party have died, including six residents of the Maplecrest Rehabilitation and Living Center in Madison, Maine CDC Director Nirav Shah said in a news briefing Tuesday.... 'The virus favors gatherings,' Shah said." The AP's story is here.
Michael Crowley of the New York Times: "Israel and two Arab nations signed agreements at the White House on Tuesday to normalize their relations, a step toward a realignment of the Middle East but one that failed to address the future of the Palestinians. President Trump presided over a South Lawn ceremony where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and the foreign ministers of Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates signed a general declaration of principles the White House has named the Abraham Accords, after the biblical father of three monotheistic religions, as well individual agreements between Israel and the two Arab states.... What was clear in the event, carried live on major cable networks less than 50 days before the November election, were Mr. Trump's political interests. The Trump campaign, eager to portray the belligerent president as a diplomat and peacemaker, has capitalized on the agreements with online ads suggesting he deserves nothing less than the Nobel Prize, for which two right-wing Scandinavian lawmakers have nominated him." An NBC News story is here. ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: As Joe Scarborough said this morning, this story is getting very little play because of the chaos that is the Trump administration. Scarborough said the peace accord did not make the top 17 Wall Street Journal stories.
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 above.) (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
As It Turns Out -- Black Lives Matter
Kentucky. 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. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Nebraska. Azi Paybarah of the New York Times: "A white bar owner in Nebraska was indicted on Tuesday in the fatal shooting of a Black man during a protest in May, a case that a prosecutor had initially declined to prosecute after characterizing the bar owner's actions as self-defense. The bar owner, Jake Gardner, was indicted by a grand jury in Douglas County on four counts, including manslaughter, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, attempted first degree assault and making terrorist threats, officials said. The authorities said that Mr. Gardner, 38, confronted a group of men outside one of his bars in Omaha on May 30 and was knocked to the ground. From there, he fired two warning shots and tried to get to his feet, prosecutors said. As he did, Mr. Gardner got into a fight with one man, James Scurlock, 22. The two scuffled before Mr. Gardner fired a shot that killed him. Mr. Scurlock's killing drew widespread attention and quickly touched off large demonstrations in Omaha."
New York. A Cover-up Conspiracy in Rochester. Michael Wilson & Edgar Sandoval of the New York Times: The City of Rochester, New York, released "a mass of city documents ... that show how the police chief, La'Ron Singletary, and other prominent Rochester officials did everything in their power to keep the troubling videos of the [the police killing of Daniel Prude] out of public view, and to prevent damaging fallout from Mr. Prude's death. The dozens of emails, police reports and internal reviews reveal an array of delay tactics -- from citing hospital privacy laws to blaming an overworked employee's backlog in processing videos -- used in that mission. The documents show how the police attempted to frame the narrative in the earliest hours, playing up Mr. Prude's potential for danger and glossing over the tactics of the officers who pinned him, naked and hooded, to the ground before he stopped breathing."
Michael Grynbaum & Tiffany Hsu of the New York Times: "Rush Limbaugh told millions of his radio listeners to set aside any suggestion that climate change was the culprit for the frightening spate of wildfires ravaging California and the Pacific Northwest.... Disregarding the mountains of empirical evidence to the contrary..., he ... [adopted] a popular right-wing talking point: that policies meant to curtail climate change are, in fact, an assault on freedom. 'Environmentalist wackos ... want man to be responsible for it because they want to control your behavior,' the conservative host said on the show. He added that they 'want to convince you that your lifestyle choices are the reason why all these fires are firing up out on the Left Coast.' Hours later..., Tucker Carlson said those who blamed climate change for the fires were merely reciting 'a partisan talking point.'... Fringe right-wing websites, like The Gateway Pundit, have blamed left-wing arsonists, fueling false rumors that authorities say are impeding rescue efforts."
Oregon. Sahid Fawaz of Labor 411: "Oregon Republican state senator Fred Girod was one of 11 Republicans who made headlines when they walked out of the senate -- some even leaving the state -- so that a quorum could not be achieved for a climate change bill.... Now with wildfires raging in Oregon, climate change has come to Girod's doorstep. Literally.... The walls of [his] one-story home had collapsed, leaving two stone columns and a chimney that rose out of the rubble.... 'It hurts,' Girod said, hands in his dark denim jeans.'" -s
News Ledes
New York Times: "Stanley Crouch, the fiercely iconoclastic social critic who elevated the invention of jazz into a metaphor for the indelible contributions that Black people have made to American democracy, died on Wednesday at a hospital in the Bronx. He was 74.&"
The New York Times' live update of Western wildfire developments Wednesday are here. "The prospect of scattered showers raised hopes for better firefighting conditions in the Pacific Northwest, but California 'remains dry and ripe for wildfires,' Cal Fire said."
The New York Times' live updates of Hurricane Sally developments are here. The Washington Post's live updates are here.
Weather Channel: "Hurricane Sally has made landfall this morning with potentially histori flooding rainfall, a dangerous storm surge and damaging winds. Sally will also pose a threat of flooding rainfall farther inland across parts of the Southeast. Sally made landfall near Gulf Shores, Alabama, at 4:45 a.m. CDT as a Category 2 with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph. Bands of heavy rain and strong winds are affecting the northern Gulf Coast..., particularly in parts of the Florida Panhandle and southern Alabama.... Nearly 300,000 homes and businesses have lost power in southern Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, according to poweroutage.us. Storm surge flooding is ongoing near and east of where Sally's center is crossing the coast. A storm surge of over 5 feet has been recorded so far this morning near Pensacola, Florida. Significant flash flooding with flooded roads and homes has also occurred in numerous spots from southeast Alabama into the western Florida Panhandle."
New York Times: "Bill Gates Sr., a lawyer and the father of Microsoft's co-founder, who stepped in when appeals for charity began to overwhelm his billionaire son and started what became the world's largest philanthropy, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, died on Monday at his beach home on Hood Canal, in the Seattle area. He was 94."
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I remember the sensation I had when I took my first walk in an Austrian forest back in 1966.
Familiar as I was with the wet and heavy undergrowth of western WA States's fir, cedar and hemlock stands, the Austrian forest I encountered was a shock. I felt I had been transported into a fairy tale scene.
The contrast with the forests I knew couldn't have been greater. Behind that old hotel up in the mountains where we were housed was not so much a forest as a manicured nursery, all its dead branches picked up, cut to length and stacked neartly in quaint ricks along the road.
I likened the scene to a child's cute toy woods.
There was an element of American superiority in my reaction I know. A Western American superiority, particularly, engendered by the open spaces and the rough and brawny mythology of the American West I grew up in, not a snobbiness exactly but a loftiness of spirit that time has not justified.
But in one sense it still reflects reality. While the U. S. and Europe are roughly equivalent in size, CA alone covers five time the area of Austria. The American West is big.
Add to that obvious difference the variation in forest species and once-established climatological conditions between Europe and America and our history of exploitive American forest practices, our confusing patchwork of forest jurisdictions, and the varying effects of climate change around the world and you have an Austrian apple to our American orange.
Of course, making such comparisons anyway doesn’t bother the Orange Menace (which in this case makes him menacing to our orange).
But we are no more likely to import Austrian forest practices to the U. S. than we are to replace Nashville's Grand Ole' Opry with the Vienna Stadts Oper.
It's another of the many Republican delusions.
Calling Dr. Socrates...
The other night, reading through one of Plato's dialogues (Phaedrus), I hit upon a particularly prescient bit that has contemporary applications.
The gist of this dialogue between Socrates and his friend Phaedrus is the latter's contention that one can give a speech on some subject without knowing what one is talking about, operating purely on the rules and tricks of the rhetorician.
Socrates is, understandably, concerned about this suspect belief and proceeds, as is his wont, to bring his wayward thinking pal around to the real world. He uses (again, as is his wont) numerous examples of how Not Knowing Shit but Pretending You Do can get you into trouble. Big Trouble (in addition to looking like a moron).
Now we've all heard (or seen in person) a speaker with decent forensic skills grab a random topic and ride it around the ring a few times. All he or she needs to do is employ some basic debating tricks and stay on the horse for a few minutes, just long enough to score points but not so long as to make it clear that deep knowledge of the subject at hand is not, well, at hand. (eg "There you go again.")
This is not at all the same as an ignorant liar like Trump who gets up without knowing a blessed fucking thing and making shit up on the fly. In a debate that is not expected to be an out and out lie fest, you can fudge, you can infer, you can run up to the edge of pure mendacity, but it's not at all kosher to go full Trump and lie your ass off to win points (like he tried to do at that town hall thingy last night).
Anyway, here's the exchange that caught my eye.
Socrates perambulates around his victim, er, friend, until he sees a good place to plant a thought bomb. In this case, he chooses the topic of medicine.
He says something along the lines of "Say this guy with orange hair (okay, I made that up) comes up to you and sez 'I'm great at medicine. I know more than all the doctors. Here's something that will make you hot if you're cold and cool you down if you're hot. It will work on anybody. This proves that I'm a great doctor!' What would you say?"
Phaedrus responds "[I] would be sure to ask him whether he knew 'to whom' he would give his medicines, and "when," and 'how much.'
Socrates: And suppose that he were to reply: 'No; I know nothing of all that; I expect the patient who consults me to be able to do these things for himself'? [Essentially what the Orange Menace is demanding of his "patients", the governors of states afflicted with the Trump virus. "Take care of that yourself. I'm not responsible."]
Phaedrus: They would say in reply that he is a madman or pedant who fancies that he is a physician because he has read something in a book, or has stumbled on a prescription or two, although he has no real understanding of the art of medicine."
Bingo!
You can forget the pedant part. Fatty doesn't even merit membership in the pedantry club. But "madman" fits like a bespoke suit.
From out of the past, Socrates (okay, Plato) nails a fat orange ass to the wall.
The latest bit of cheap Trumpian theatrics at the Blight House (something about peace in the Middle East, but more like the Middle East in pieces, blah, blah, blah) is sure to be followed by more gaudy playacting as Fatty and his gang of thimblerigging thespians toss shiny gewgaws out at the groundlings. Kushner will leer from stage right, McAninny will applaud til her hands fall off, Fox will give every bit of ragged rage-fright eight stars.
What might we expect over the next six weeks?
Trump Cures Cancer (secret formula to be revealed after he's elected, hint-hint).
Constitution being re-written to include Nazis and outlaw anything Evangelicals don't agree with. Jail sentences to follow.
Guns for Everyone. Biden will outlaw all guns, cap guns, and even slingshots!
Pandemic is Over! Yay!
Biden opens child sex ring from his campaign headquarters. White suburban children especially targeted!
Kamala Harris seen wearing a bandolier, wearing a Black Panthers beret and shouting "Gonna get me a shotgun and kill every whitey I see!"
Trump Declares NO TAXES for WHITE PEOPLE!
Immigrants found lurking under beds of white suburbanites! Aiiiieeee.
Police Given Power of Instant Execution.
ELECTION CANCELED!
@Ken & AK: Loved both of your comments and both Chiodo Sella testa!–- those nails whose heads are hit to perfection.
"Stories of Then that Still hold Up Now:"
Here's a short synopsis of four older political novels that speak to us about the world today:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/11/books/review/political-novels-mephisto-klaus-mann-1876-gore-vidal-senor-presidente-miguel-angel-asturias-all-kings-men-robert-penn-warren.html?referringSource=articleShare
The REAL story today about the hysterectomies performed on women unnecessarily at the Irwin county Detention Center in Georgia is shocking! And we didn't think a Dr. Death from the Third Reich would enter into our compassionate country.
And just a word about Jared: His exchange with Wolf Blitzer on CNN puts the prize for weasel-speak directly on this punk. Such chutzpah this lad has–-such smoothness underneath that heart of stone.
PD,
Thanks for that Times article. I never read the Mann book ("Mephisto") but I remember the film made of it, a knockout. It portrayed, as I recall it, a man, the actor, who believed in nothing but flowed with the prevailing wind, just as Republicans do now. The so-called longstanding beliefs they always loved to wave in the faces of Democrats, vanishing in the stench of Trumpian feculence.
Never read the Asturias either, but it's now on the list. Sounds like he was writing about Trump. "Get rich at the expense of the nation". Sounds like Fatty's motto.
The Vidal? Nope. But I didn't read that because I have never been much of a Vidal fan, could never warm up to his writing, mostly because his stuff tends to be pretty cold to start with. Plus all the feuds were exhausting. But I did enjoy the quoted line "Like most people who hate everyone, he desperately needs company". Sounds a lot like Vidal himself.
But the Warren? Ahhh...one of my favorites. Have re-read it several times over the years (love the prose tone poem of what it's like to drive at night in the rain). I'd probably read it again but my must-read list is so long now and the years not nearly so plentiful as they used to be.
Hopefully we'll all be around for a ripsnorting takedown of the Trump years, long after he's been jailed for treason and the myriad other crimes of which he is painfully guilty, including manslaughter of thousands. That, I'll line up to read.
@Ken Winkes: I'll confess that when I started reading your post, I laughed out loud. I thought I would scroll down to it was an Akhilleus set-piece, making a long joke about Trump & a troupe of Tyrolean yodelers. Yodel-lay-hee-who?
I have been through Austria but not really to it in one of my husband's ideas of "touring" places: "Look over there. It's Vienna," he says, speeding past on the autobahn. (This may have been just as well, as I was usually in charge of the map & I asked him, "Where's Wien?" which had an awfully large spot on the map for someplace I'd never heard of.)
At any rate, I didn't know the Austrian forests really were manicured. I would just urge Trump if he really wants California's forests swept, he should set up some CCC camps & put some of the jobless to work with rakes & brooms in all the national forests there. And order the timber companies who must own some of the land to do the same.
BTW, Austria -- for all its sweeping & vacuuming -- does have forest fires, & they are expected to get worse because of climate change.
Anyway, thanks for the unintended laughs. And, Akhilleus, about the yodelers ....
Akhilleus,
Different strokes...
May make me a little "cold," too, but I remember two Vidal novels very fondly, "Julian" and "Burr."
Each cast as a historical novel, they bent history in the direction of heterodox if not heresy (hard to miss the glint in the Vidal eye), thereby each implying not-so-subtle contrasts with typically simple-minded American views of its present and its overly fond perception of its past.
Eye-opening to me when read them, and my memories of reading them in my early twenties remain "warm."
I meant to post something about this a few days ago but, well, life intrudes.
The great and highly influential reggae master, Toots Hibbert, died a few days ago.
I was first introduced to Toots and the Maytals at a midnight screening of Perry Henzell and Jimmy Cliff's "The Harder They Come" at the old Orson Welles Cinema in Cambridge, MA. About ten minutes into the film, fatties were being fired up all around the theater. It added to the festive community feeling of watching this groundbreaking film and listening to Cliff, Toots, Desmond Dekker, et al.
My all-time favorite Toots song is still "Pressure Drop" which offers some semblance of comfort that mountebanks, liars, and creeps in this Age of Trump will get their comeuppance. As Toots himself described it, "Pressure Drop" is about revenge. Not personal, but Karmic. Karma gonna git ya, assholes. Here's what he's singing:
I said a pressure drop,
Oh pressure, oh yeah
[Mrs. McC: Copyrighted material removed]
Back in the day, "Pressure Drop" was a standard in my mix dance tapes. When Fatty gets flushed down the Karmic toilet bowl, I'll put it on and dance til I drop.
Thanks, Toots! You the man.
Marie,
About those yodelers...
Okay. Well, you asked for it...
Years ago, my friends and I used to have what we called Jazz Nights. We would all trundle in our latest finds from various jazz record stores, and occasionally would bring along some obscure oddities that caught our attention and insisted on coming up to the register with us. One night someone brought in a record by this guy named Franzl Lang. Ach, du lieber! The song that stood our collective hair on end was the kind of yodeling display that would cause the entire Alps to avalanche simultaneously if done at the right spot.
The song, if you can call it that, was called "Mei Vater is an Appenzeller" which, before the night was over, and ever since, became "Mein Vater ist ein Appetizer." We later found out that appenzeller is a kind of dog. Or cheese. Or something. Maybe a cheese dog. I dunno.
Ol' Franzl is known, apparently, as Die Schoensten Jodler Der Welt, and for my Deutschmarks, he's all that.
Anyway, listen to this thing and hold on to something heavy.
Bea,
Happy to hear my deadly earnestness provided you with some humor.
Thought the remark about Nashville and the Wien Stadts Oper was the funny line, but what do I know?
But thinking more about yodeling (thanks, Akhilleus, for the remarkable Lang) I remembered that yodeling and Nashville are not all that far removed.
It's not opera, but try this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpwcPmivcLw
Roberts gives Lang a run for his groschen...or shillings...or euros.
It is great to hear about people who do good. Bill Gates' dad who died recently was just such a man. The Washington Post obit story has interesting and funny tales of the interaction between Senior and young Bill as he was growing up. " Gate's Sr, Obit" it's a positive read (a change from all things Trump/Barr/Caputo, et ilk). Both of the Gates are highly respected for their work helping others. through the foundation). Nice to find there are those whose life isn't all about me, me, me.
@Akhilleus: Thanks a lot. In an odd way, I actually enjoyed the possibly-cannibalistic/patricidal yodel. Here's Franzl singing it in some movie.
BTW, Jimmy Fallon & Brad Pitt can yodel, too, in the canyons of New York. And there's the popular Trump Slow-Walk Yodel.
OK, so if today's yodeltag, let's hear Elton Britt do "Chime Bells", and check out how to work in a few bars of "The Peanut Vendor" while Elton holds the high note about 2:10 - 2:35.
My wife forbids the playing of Elton Britt, something about "he yodels."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gE4CyHX3LY
@Patrick: Thanks for the Elton Britt piece. I'm sure I heard yodeling in some of those cowboy movies that were part of Saturday morning kids' packages at the local movie theater when I was a child, because I actually kind of like the sound, in small doses, anyway. I just kept imagining how "Chime Bells" would sound if Elton John, not Elton Britt, were performing, & of course playing the piano. Don't think Elton John ever could hold a note like that, tho. Wow!
Do movie theaters still have those Saturday morning kids' specials? As I recall they included a feature film (sometimes a cowboy movie), 7 cartoons & an episode of a 1920s or '30s "Perils of Pauline"- or "Flash Gordon"-type serial. All for a quarter & sometimes a special that was less than that.
Mrs. McC: Fat chance. Those were the days when the local theater was the town babysitter on Saturday afternoons. Alas, long gone. Just like the meaning of the phrase: "This is where I came in."
But ... you can see a Saturday serial on Turner Classic Movies most Saturday mornings. "Terry and the Pirates" is in its last episodes. Last week's serial was followed by something like "Bomba the Jungle Boy", which would have been a kids' feature back in those days. Neither of us actually watch, but they are on the screen for background noise. I think they had Popeye between serial and "feature" until a few weeks back, the "good ones" from Max Fleischer (you can tell thery're "good" if the opening credits show a small boat cabin entry from the tiller view, where the cabin doors slide apart to reveal the credits). Popeye and Olive and Bluto all mutter incessantly in the true Fleischers.
But, if you stick your hand in the air, you will catch no Jujubes or Good n Plenty. And, hopefully, the floor isn't sticky.
"The Hill" says Caputo will focus on "the health of his family" during his 60 day leave. The radio told me he wanted to spend more time with his family.
In either case, they must be thrilled.