The Commentariat -- October 16, 2020
Afternoon Update:
** The New York Times is featuring an extraordinary Sunday Review making "The Case Against Donald Trump." The Editors' cover essay begins, "Donald Trump's re-election campaign poses the greatest threat to American democracy since World War II. Mr. Trump's ruinous tenure already has gravely damaged the United States at home and around the world. He has abused the power of his office and denied the legitimacy of his political opponents, shattering the norms that have bound the nation together for generations. He has subsumed the public interest to the profitability of his business and political interests. He has shown a breathtaking disregard for the lives and liberties of Americans. He is a man unworthy of the office he holds." The linked page has links to "a series of essays focused on the Trump administration's rampant corruption, celebrations of violence, gross negligence with the public's health and incompetent statecraft. A selection of iconic images highlights the president's record on issues like climate, immigration, women's rights and race." Mrs. McC: I don't have to tell you this is a unique journalistic response to any president's tenure. What a shame Trump can't read.
Thomas Fuller & Derrick Taylor of the New York Times: "The Trump administration has rejected California's request for disaster relief aid for six major wildfires that scorched more than 1.8 million acres in land, destroyed thousands of structures and caused at least three deaths last month. The rejection of aid late Thursday, a rare move in cases of disasters on the scale of California's fires, escalated a long-running feud between the Trump administration and California on the issues of climate change and forest management.... 'Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forest fires that, with proper Forest Management, would never happen,' Mr. Trump tweeted in January 2019. 'Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money.' Mr. Trump's threat at the time alarmed both Republicans and Democrats in the state. And wildfire experts say Mr. Trump's analysis is problematic because most of California's forests are on land owned by the federal government and their maintenance largely falls under the responsibility of his administration."
Biden Town Hall Tops Trump Town Hall in Early Numbers Tallies. Will Thorne of Variety: "Presidential candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump appeared in directly competing town halls on Thursday night, after the President dropped out of the second debate. Trump's hourlong appearance on NBC, which drew criticism across the industry and even an angry letter from top talent and showrunners who work with NBCU, appears to be trailing Biden's 90-minute session with ABC in the ratings, at least according to early numbers. Biden drew 12.7 million total viewers on the Disney-owned network, while Trump drew 10.4 million in the same 9-10 p.m. time slot on NBC. Across the entire runtime, the Biden town hall averaged 12.3 million viewers.... Those numbers are of course subject to significant adjustment given that the Trump town hall aired simultaneously on NBC, its broadcast affiliates, and cable channels CNBC and MSNBC.... This story will be updated with more accurate figures, including the cable numbers, once they become available later in the day."
Mrs. McCrabbie: Turns out Donald Trump has far closer ties to QAnon that I surmised. Knows nothing about it? Hell, he's funding it, & QAnon nuts share attorneys with Trump's family: ~~~
~~~ Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "Senior lawyers for the Trump campaign set up a small law firm last year that is working for Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican House candidate in Georgia with a history of promoting QAnon, a pro-Trump conspiracy theory. While federal filings show that the firm, Elections L.L.C., principally collects fees from the president's campaign and the Republican National Committee, it also does work for a number of congressional candidates, and none more so than Ms. Greene, underscoring the connections between QAnon and Mr. Trump and his inner circle. The latest example came Thursday night, when President Trump repeatedly declined to disavow QAnon at a televised town hall."
This Country Is Teeming with Armed Nuts. Neil MacFarquhar of the New York Times: "With the approaching election ratcheting up tensions in recent months, armed groups that assembled via a few clicks on the keyboard have become both more visible and more widespread. Some especially violent groups were rooted in longstanding anti-government extremism, like the 14 men charged with various crimes in Michigan this month.... Starting in April, demonstrations against coronavirus lockdowns prompted makeshift vigilante groups to move offline and into the real world. That trickle become a torrent amid the nationwide protests after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis -- with some armed groups claiming to protect the protesters while others sought to check them." Read on.
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Presidential Race, Etc.
The New York Times is live-updating the Biden & Trump "town halls" here. Big surprise: Trump is lying, whining & being "contentious." Mrs. McC: I've been half-listening to Biden, and I'm reminded again that I forgot real presidents know a lot. ~~~
~~~ New York Times reporters' split-screen snark report is here. As Lisa Lerer notes (@8:28 pm ET): "The split screen is so jarring here. Trump is fighting with the moderator over mask wearing. And Biden is calmly talking about how he'll guarantee down payments for first-time homebuyers and help young Black entrepreneurs." ~~~
~~~ Here are the Washington Post's live updates of the dueling candidate teevee shows. These updates are free to non-subscribers. ~~~
~~~ Matthew Choi & Nick Niedzwiadek of Politico select "key moments" from both broadcasts. Helpful if you didn't watch. ~~~
~~~ Trump Used the Town Hall to Elevate QAnon. Really. Philip Bump of the Washington Post: During the NBC town hall, Savannah Guthrie asked Donald Trump if he would "disavow QAnon in its entirety." For the audience, she described QAnon as "this theory that Democrats are a satanic pedophile ring and that you are the savior of that." Trump insisted he knew nothing about QAnon, but said, "I do know they are very much against pedophilia. They fight it very hard...." Bump: When Trump "fails to say, 'of course QAnon is ridiculous,' he's not only giving the group a stamp of approval, he's actively reinforcing the idea that he's aware of the purported conspiracy. By saying they're 'fighting very hard' against pedophilia, adherents -- attuned to picking out signals that reinforce their position! -- are not going to have to look hard to find a positive message. This is dangerous. QAnon adherents have been implicated in murders and kidnappings and threats.... Guthrie tried to move on. Trump, angry, insisted they not.... The president of the United States, asked if there is a satanic pedophile cult with roots in the U.S. government, says he 'has no idea.' Further, that a journalist for a major news network can't honestly claim not to know whether this idea is legitimate." ~~~
~~~ Aaron Rupar of Vox: "The contrast between the dueling NBC/ABC town halls featuring ... Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was nicely captured by the difference between what each of them was saying at 8:13 pm Eastern time. On NBC, Trump was getting angry as host Savannah Guthrie grilled him on his reluctance to disavow white supremacist groups and dangerous conspiracy theories. He finally did so after repeated questioning. But asked specifically to categorically condemn QAnon ... Trump refused.... At the very moment Trump was making that display, Biden on ABC was talking about the importance of wearing masks and following public health measures endorsed by experts to slow the spread of the coronavirus. 'When a president doesn't wear a mask, or makes fun of folks like me when I was wearing a mask for a long time, then people say it mustn't be that important,' Biden said. 'If you listen to the head of the CDC, he stood up and he said, "You know, while we're waiting for a vaccine" -- he held up a mask -- "you wear this mask, you'll save more lives between now and the end of the year than if we had a vaccine."'... Minutes earlier, Trump defended his ongoing reluctance to wear masks in public ... with a lie about how 'just the other day they came out with a statement that 85 percent of the people that wear masks catch [coronavirus].'" ~~~
~~~ Scott Bixby & Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "On one channel, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. On the other, a rerun of Celebrity Deathmatch. Or, at least, that's how it felt.... Biden seemed to genuinely care if the person he was addressing felt heard.... Over on NBC, President Trump was busy doing a kinder, gentler impression of his usual self. Still, it included some of the same excesses.... The Trump campaign appeared flummoxed at how to spin what they had been hoping would be a humiliating defeat for Biden in the race for ratings.... 'He didn't spend the whole time yelling, he didn't piss himself ... so this was as best as we could have hoped for,' said one Trump campaign adviser. 'After the last debate, that is an improvement.'" ~~~
~~~ Jeremy Barr of the Washington Post: "NBC faced sharp criticism this week for scheduling a Thursday night town hall with President Trump, with even network employees chiding their employer for giving him an hour of airtime -- 'a free hour of television,' he said, sounding pleased, at a rally earlier that day. Even worse, critics said, it was matched up against ABC's town hall with Democratic candidate Joe Biden.... But, despite fears that the event would amount to a free promotion for Trump's campaign, it ended up being one of the toughest grillings he has faced as president, with questions about white supremacy, covid-19 deaths and his taxes.... The event ... included a lot of direct pressing by the moderator, 'Today' co-host Savannah Guthrie, who repeatedly challenged the president's evasions."
Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post: "When NBC News drew fire for scheduling Thursday night's town hall with President Trump directly opposite an ABC News town hall with Joe Biden, the excuse was parity.... I'd describe that gambit with an entirely different word: specious. It may sound plausible, but it is wrong. In fact, NBC News is doing what so much of mainstream media has done time and again: allowed Trump to steal the spotlight and command attention on his terms. 'I am dismayed -- more like disgusted -- by NBC's decision to air Trump's "I won't play by the rules so let me make my own rules" town hall opposite Biden's,' wrote a former NBC News executive, Cheryl Gould. She wasn't alone. MSNBC marquee host Rachel Maddow obliquely signaled her unhappiness with the decision.... More than a hundred actors and producers from NBC's entertainment division are protesting the move in a letter to top executives, as well." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Here's a New York Times story by John Koblin & Michael Grynbaum.
Molly Nagle of ABC News: "The Biden campaign has announced that someone who flew with former Vice President Joe Biden to Ohio on Monday and Florida on Tuesday has tested positive for COVID-19. The positive result was discovered through contact tracing that the campaign undertook following the positive diagnosis of Sen. Kamala Harris' communications director and a non-staff flight crew member.... However, the campaign says that Biden and the member who tested positive did not have any passing or close contact during the flight and he is not required to isolate." Mrs. McC: You may recall that when people in closer contact with Trump tested positive, Trump told them to keep it quiet. ~~~
~~~ Chelsea Janes & Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala D. Harris canceled her travel through this coming weekend after two people who were around her tested positive for the coronavirus Wednesday night.... Harris ... tested negative for the virus Wednesday and will be tested again Thursday, the campaign said. Harris has not been in close contact recently with either communications director Liz Allen or the other person who tested positive, a flight crew member who is not a campaign staff member, aides said. Former vice president Joe Biden..., also has not been in contact with those affected, according to a statement from campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
The next lede is so rare, it seems surreal: ~~~
~~~ Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, castigated President Trump in a telephone town hall with constituents on Wednesday, accusing the president of bungling the response to the coronavirus pandemic, cozying up to dictators and white supremacists, and offending voters so broadly that he might cause a "Republican blood bath' in the Senate." And off we go: "In a dire, nine-minute indictment of Mr. Trump's foreign policy and what Mr. Sasse called his 'deficient' values, the senator said the president had mistreated women and alienated important allies around the globe, been a profligate spender, ignored human rights and treated the pandemic like a 'P.R. crisis.' He predicted that a loss by Mr. Trump on Election Day, less than three weeks away, 'looks likely,' and said that Republicans would face steep repercussions for having backed him so staunchly over four tumultuous years." Read on, if you have a subscription. ~~~
~~~ The (right-wing) Washington Examiner's story, by David Drucker, is worth reading, too. It includes audio, which is labeled "RINO Ben Sasse," where RINO = Republican In Name Only.
** Shane Harris, et al., of the Washington Post: "U.S. intelligence agencies warned the White House last year that President Trump's personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani was the target of an influence operation by Russian intelligence, according to four former officials familiar with the matter. The warnings were based on multiple sources, including intercepted communications, that showed Giuliani was interacting with people tied to Russian intelligence during a December 2019 trip to Ukraine, where he was gathering information that he thought would expose corrupt acts by former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter.... The information that Giuliani sought in Ukraine is similar to what is contained in emails and other correspondence published this week by the New York Post.... The [intel] warnings ... led national security adviser Robert O'Brien to caution Trump in a private conversation that any information Giuliani brought back from Ukraine should be considered contaminated by Russia.... But O'Brien emerged from the meeting uncertain whether he had gotten through to the president.... Earlier in 2019, U.S. intelligence also had warned in written materials sent to the White House that Giuliani, in his drive for information about the Bidens, was communicating with Russian assets." Mrs. McC: O'Brien was uncertain he'd gotten through to Trump? Ha Ha. ~~~
~~~ Rebecca Klar of the Hill: "President Trump on Thursday slammed Facebook and Twitter over their decisions to limit the spread of a New York Post story that included allegations about Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden. Trump accused the companies of seeking to help his opponent's campaign by enforcing policies that limit users' ability to share the story.... 'Now, Big Tech -- you see what's going on with Big Tech? -- is censoring these stories to try and get Biden out of this impossible jam. He's in a big jam,' Trump said at a rally in North Carolina. 'He and his family are crooked and they were caught, they got caught,' Trump added." Mrs. McC: Yeah, O'Brien, you really got thru to Trump. ~~~
Glenn Greenwald, early photo. ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: And Glenn Greenwald also is in high dudgeon over Facebook's & Twitter's decisions, too. (To be fair, Greenwald existss in a state of high dudgeon. His first full sentence, uttered at the age of 18 months, was, "Waaah, it's not fair!" It's pretty much the only thing he's said since.) ~~~
~~~ Mike Isaac & Kate Conger of the New York Times: "President Trump called Facebook and Twitter 'terrible' and 'a monster' and said he would go after them. Senators Ted Cruz and Marsha Blackburn said they would subpoena the chief executives of the companies for their actions. And on Fox News, prominent conservative hosts blasted the social media platforms as 'monopolies' and accused them of 'censorship' and election interference.... Late Thursday, under pressure, Twitter said it was changing the policy that it had used to block the New York Post article and would now allow similar content to be shared, along with a label to provide context about the source of the information." ~~~
~~~ Adam Silverman of Balloon Juice: "It has been clear for a long time that Rudy was being used by Russian intelligence officers and assets.... But what we did not know, though it was a logical suspicion to have, that the US Intelligence Community had signals intelligence (SIGINT) from communications intercepts of Russian assets that clearly indicated this unfortunate reality. We also did not know that they had done their jobs and pushed their assessment up the chain to the Assistant to the President for National Security (AP-NSA) O'Brien, that O'Brien had briefed the President, and that the President blew him off! We also did not know that ... O'Brien then briefed the President to warn him off of Giuliani and the disinformation and agitprop Rudy was pushing as the centerpiece of the President's defense in his impeachment trial in the Senate! This was, of course part of the plan to turn both chambers of the US Congress into an information laundry for the Russian disinformation and agitprop Rudy was being used to promote, which was then repeated during the hearings Senators Johnson and Grassley held this past August and September." Silverman republishes quite a bit of the WashPo story. And has more analysis. ~~~
~~~ Ken Dilanian of NBC News: "Federal investigators are examining whether the emails allegedly describing activities by Joe Biden and his son Hunter and [Mrs. McC: purportedly] found on a laptop at a Delaware repair shop are linked to a foreign intelligence operation, two people familiar with the matter told NBC News. The FBI seized the laptop and a hard drive through a grand jury subpoena." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: The New York Post has another story out about Hunter Biden today. Didn't read it, not gonna, not linking it. ~~~
~~~ Alex Kaplan of Media Matters: "A user on TheDonald.win, a far-right message board, was hinting at and promoting a series of dubious articles from the New York Post about Hunter Biden days before they were published. The user also claimed to know the people involved with the articles.... In the days leading up to October 14 (a Wednesday), an account on TheDonald.win called 'Freedom_USA_88' had repeatedly posted threads that claimed that a 'massive' story about Biden was coming out that day. As noted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), '88' is 'a white supremacist numerical code for "Heil Hitler." The account's username also has exactly 14 characters, a reference to the white nationalist "14 Words" slogan that is often combined with '88,' as noted by the ADL.... The user claimed that they [he] had been 'authorized to drop a hint about Wednesday's story' and 'know the parties involved.'" Mrs. McC: That's actually believable, not only because he was right but also because he's a Nazi aficionado; IOW, just Rudy's type. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Summer Concepcion of TPM: Rudy's daughter "issued a scathing rebuke on Thursday against the President's re-election efforts and urged voters in next month's presidential election to throw their support behind ... Joe Biden instead. In an essay published in Vanity Fair on Thursday, Caroline Giuliani ... argued that 'none of us can afford to be silent right now' when 'the stakes are too high.'... Giuliani wrote that felt that it was important to speak her mind 'in Trump's era of chest-thumping partisan tribalism.'" ~~~
~~~ Phillip Halpern in a San Diego Union-Tribune op-ed: "After 36 years, I'm fleeing what was the U.S. Department of Justice -- where I proudly served 19 different attorneys general and six different presidents.... [William] Barr has never actually investigated, charged or tried a case. He's a well-trained bureaucrat but has no actual experience as a prosecutor.... Over the last year, Barr's resentment toward rule-of-law prosecutors became increasingly difficult to ignore, as did his slavish obedience to Donald Trump's will in his selective meddling with the criminal justice system in the Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn and Roger Stone cases.... This career bureaucrat seems determined to turn our democracy into an autocracy.... More recently, Barr directed federal officers to use tear gas in Lafayette Park to quell what were, at that time, peaceful protesters. Barr's assertion the square was not cleared due to the president's desire for a Bible-carrying photo op is laughable.... Barr's longest-running politicization of the Justice Department is the Durham investigation -- a quixotic pursuit designed to attack the president's political rivals."
Trip Gabriel, et al., of the New York Times: "With polls showing the president behind Mr. Biden nationally and in key states, Mr. Trump has descended into rants about perceived enemies, both inside and outside his administration, triggering in his staunchest supporters such fears for the outcome -- possibly a 'stolen' election, maybe a coup by the far left -- that he is emboldening them to disrupt the voting process, according to national security experts and law enforcement officials.... None of [the right-wing violence] has stopped Mr. Trump from fear-mongering about leftist violence. 'Biden will disarm law abiding Americans,' the president told supporters in suburban Virginia last month. 'At the same time, they'll have riots down your street and that's just fine.'... It was notable, national security experts said, that none of the nation's top officials from the Justice Department or the F.B.I. spoke at the news conference to announce the arrests in the Whitmer case."(Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: If you ever wonder what happened to the ugly misfit rowdy boys who dropped out of your high school class, it seems they got uglier & rowdier, are packing rifles & are dressed up in camo.
One Degree of Separation Is Not Far Enough to Spare You the Curse of Trump. David Bauder of the AP: "C-SPAN suspended its political editor Steve Scully indefinitely Thursday after he admitted to lying about his Twitter feed being hacked when he was confronted about a questionable exchange with former Trump aide Anthony Scaramucci. The news came on the day of what was supposed to be a career highlight for the 30-year C-SPAN veteran. Scully was to moderate the second debate between ... Donald Trump and ... Joe Biden, which was canceled after Trump would not agree to a virtual format because of his COVID-19 diagnosis. A week ago, after Trump had criticized him as a 'never Trumper,' Scully tweeted "@Scaramucci should I respond to Trump.' Scaramucci, a former Trump communications director and now a critic of the president, advised Scully to ignore him. Scully said that when he saw his tweet had created a controversy, 'I falsely claimed that my Twitter account had been hacked.' He had been frustrated by Trump's comments and several weeks of criticism on social media and conservative news outlets about his role as moderator, including attacks directed at his family, he said."
Florida. Gary Fineout of Politico: "Florida will seek to push former felons from voter rolls if they have outstanding court debts, a surprise, late-hour move that comes after more than 2 million people already have voted in the presidential battleground. The announcement, which was distributed to local election officials but not the wider public, drew immediate pushback from county election supervisors and suspicion from Democrats who say it could be used to challenge the eventual election results.... Unwritten in the email ... was the assumption that local officials should start acting on any information they receive. The email also instructed supervisors to act on information from other sources, including court clerks, that raises eligibility questions." Thanks to Bobby Lee for the link. Mrs. McC: Numerous media outlets have reported that Florida's records of court debts are scattered, outdated & disorganized. IOW, election officials who follow this order are sure to obtain records that falsely indicate a former felon/voter has an outstanding court debt. It's not clear from the story whether the voter will be notified of a decision to nullify his vote or have an opportunity to challenge the decision.
The Trumpidemic, Ctd.
Lauren Leatherby of the New York Times: "The number of new coronavirus cases in the United States is surging once again after growth slowed in late summer. While the geography of the pandemic is now shifting to the Midwest and to more rural areas, cases are trending upward in most states, many of which are setting weekly records for new cases.... 'We are headed in the wrong direction, and that's reflected not only in the number of new cases but also in test positivity and the number of hospitalizations,' said Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University. 'Together, I think these three indicators give a very clear picture that we are seeing increased transmission in communities across the country.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who was recently battling a coronavirus infection, said on Thursday that he was 'wrong' not to wear a mask at an even honoring Judge Amy Coney Barrett and in his debate preparation sessions with President Trump, and that people should take the threat of the virus seriously. In an interview with The New York Times and in a written statement, Mr. Christie said that he had believed he was in a 'safe zone' at the White House while he was there. He urged people to follow best practices, like mask wearing and social distancing, but argued there's a middle ground between extensive, large-scale shutdowns and reopening cities and states without taking proper precautions."
Erica Werner & Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "President Trump called Thursday for even more stimulus spending than the $1.8 trillion proposed by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in his talks with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, injecting yet more chaos into the unruly negotiations as the election nears. 'I would take more. I would go higher,' Trump said in an interview on Fox Business Network, repeating his directive from earlier in the week to 'Go big or go home!!!['] Trump said he's communicated his views to Mnuchin. 'I've told him. So far he hasn't come home with the bacon,' the president said." Mrs. McC: Trump's advocacy for a bigger stimulus package deal is B.S. Obviously, he wouldn't have to twist Mnuchin's arm to get him to up the administration's offer. Usually, the devil is in the details, but I'd say here the devil is in the Oval. And, for pete's sake, you don't complain that a Jewish person hasn't brought home the bacon. Idiot. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ The story has been updated. New Lede: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin cited progress Thursday in their ongoing coronavirus-relief negotiations less than three weeks before the November elections, though the Democratic leader raised concerns about whether any big spending package could pass Congress given fierce resistance in the GOP-controlled Senate."
~~~ MEANWHILE. Dan Primack of Axios: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday that he would not put a potential $1.8 trillion+ deal struck by Democrats and the Trump administration on the Senate floor. 'My members think half a trillion dollars, highly targeted is the best way to go,' he said." Mrs. McC: I expect McConnell knows or fears that a majority would vote for such a bill as in extremis Republican senators peel off & vote with Democrats to pass the bill. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Here's a New York Times story by Emily Cochrane & Alan Rappeport that relates the GOP divide on a stimulus package: Trump's "comments directly contradicted Republicans' efforts to foist blame onto Ms. Pelosi and Democrats as the impasse has dragged on for months."
Trump-o-nomics. Jason DeParle of the New York Times: "After an ambitious expansion of the safety net in the spring saved millions of people from poverty, the aid is now largely exhausted and poverty has returned to levels higher than before the coronavirus crisis, two new studies have found. The number of poor people has grown by eight million since May, according to researchers at Columbia University, after falling by four million at the pandemic's start as a result of an $2 trillion emergency package known as the Cares Act. Using a different definition of poverty, researchers from the University of Chicago and Notre Dame found that poverty has grown by six million people in the past three months, with circumstances worsening most for Black people and children.... The recent rise in poverty has occurred despite an improving job market, an indication that the economy has been rebounding too slowly to offset the lost benefits." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: "Descended into rants"? I wonder if the POTUS* realizes that the paper of record, the realm of the Gray Lady, is happy to publish news stories -- not opinion pieces -- that more-or-less describe him as a raving lunatic. It is a remarkable evolution.
"Just Doing His Job." Jennifer Senior of the New York Times: "What, in the Trump era, does the face of complicity look like?... It's just a man in rimless glasses and a dark suit. I'm talking about Rod J. Rosenstein. Years from now, I think we should remember the men and women like him, and the role they played in this administration's vilest deeds.... On a conference call with the Justice Department in the spring of 2018, five U.S. attorneys from our border states -- three of them Trump appointees -- expressed their alarm about the 'zero tolerance' policy of prosecuting all undocumented immigrants, even if it meant separating them from their sons and daughters[, including] some ... so young that they were still breastfeeding, so young that they were preverbail.... Rosenstein's complicity in this machine was ugly, but it was by no means unique. Top officials at the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services all played a role. They were all sowing chaos, inflicting cruelty and causing unfathomable trauma at the behest of a small, vicious cadre up top.... Separating families was the objective of the Trump administration's zero-tolerance policy, not a byproduct."
Paul Farhi of the Washington Post: "A District judge has ruled that a Trump appointee overstepped his authority when he fired the board of an agency that helps dissidents and journalists in repressive countries and sought to replace it with his own slate of directors, including himself. Shortly after taking over as chief executive of the federal agency that supervises the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and other government-funded media operations in June, Michael Pack began a sweeping overhaul of the six organizations, firing five of their directors; two others resigned in anticipation of his cuts. But the board of the Open Technology Fund, which Pack dismissed along with its director, rejected his order, arguing that he didn't have the authority to replace them, and at one point, it blocked Pack's chosen slate of directors and his new chief executive designee from taking over its offices in the District. The District's attorney general, which oversees nonprofits in the city, sued on the agency's behalf. And on Wednesday, Superior Court Judge Shana Frost Matini agreed that Pack was not authorized by the fund's bylaws to replace its leadership...."
Sheldon Whitehouse Lays Down the Gauntlet. Sahil Kapur of NBC News: "Republicans are confident a vote confirming Amy Coney Barrett to the the Supreme Court is only days away, but Democrats are looking farther ahead and warning that this swift process on the eve of an election won't be quickly forgotten.... 'The rule of "because we can," which is the rule that is being applied today, is one that leads away from a lot of the traditions and commitments and values that the Senate has long embodied, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said. 'Don't think that when you have established the rule of "because we can" that should the shoe be on the other foot that you will have any credibility to come to us and say, yeah, I know you can do that but you shouldn't because of X, Y, Z,' he said. 'Your credibility to make that argument in the future will die in this room and on that Senate floor if you continue to proceed in this way.'"
Way Beyond the Beltway
Japan. Justin McCurry of the Guardian: "Japan's government has reportedly decided to release more than 1m tonnes of contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the sea, setting it on a collision course with local fishermen who say the move will destroy their industry. Media reports said work to release the water, which is being stored in more than 1,000 tanks, would begin in 2022 at the earliest and would take decades to complete." --s
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