The Commentariat -- October 26, 2020

Late Morning Update:

Cristina Cabrera of TPM: "... Donald Trump argued on Monday morning that it ought to be against the law for the news media to cover the pandemic ahead of the elections as the COVID-19 death toll in the U.S. surpasses 225,000. 'We have made tremendous progress with the China Virus, but the Fake News refuses to talk about it this close to the Election,' he tweeted. 'COVID, COVID, COVID is being used by them, in total coordination, in order to change our great early election numbers. Should be an election law violation!'... 'All you hear is COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID,' he complained [at a North Carolina rally]. 'That's all they put on, because they want to scare the hell out of everyone.' Meanwhile, the White House has admitted that it's given up on trying to contain the virus." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Telling the news media what they can & can't report of course is what dictators do. I'm not sure even some of the world's worst dictators are cracking down on reports of an international pandemic.

The New Yorker publishes an excerpt of President Barack Obama's memoir, this on the fight to pass an affordable healthcare bill into law. Firewalled. ~~~

~~~ Tom McCarthy of the Guardian describes the excerpt: "The former president also speaks to the political divides that spawned Donald Trump and to the stakes of the election next week in which Obama's vice-president, Joe Biden, hopes to eject Trump from the White House."

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Monday are here: "With the coronavirus spreading out of control in many parts of the United States and daily case counts setting records, health experts say it is only a matter of time before hospitals start to reach the breaking point. In some places, it is already happening. There are more than 41,000 Covid-19 patients hospitalized in the United States, a 40 percent rise in the past month. And unlike during the earlier months of the pandemic, more of those patients are being cared for not in metropolitan regions but in more sparsely populated parts of the country, where the medical infrastructure is less robust."

Democrats Ask Pence to Show a Little Common Decency. Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Top Senate Democrats are urging Vice President Mike Pence to abandon plans to preside over Monday's vote to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court after several of his aides tested positive for the coronavirus. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and members of his leadership team sent a letter to Pence saying that in the wake of the recent coronavirus cases, presiding over the vote 'is not a risk worth taking.' 'Not only would your presence in the Senate Chamber tomorrow be a clear violation of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines, it would also be a violation of common decency and courtesy. Your presence alone could be very dangerous to many people ... who must be physically present inside the U.S. Capitol for it to function,' the senators wrote to Pence.... Pence won't be needed to break a tie during the vote." ~~~

~~~ Brett Samuels of the Hill: "The White House plans to host a swearing-in ceremony for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett on Monday night following her expected confirmation, despite concerns that a gathering for her nomination in September was a super-spreader event for the coronavirus."

Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "The president of Fox News and several of the network's top anchors have been advised to quarantine after being exposed to someone on a private flight who later tested positive for the coronavirus, two people with direct knowledge of the situation said on Sunday. The infected person was on a charter flight to New York from Nashville with a group of network executives, personalities and other staff members who attended the presidential debate on Thursday, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal network matters.... Those who were exposed include Jay Wallace, the president of Fox News Media; Bret Baier, the chief political anchor; Martha MacCallum, the anchor of Fox's 7 p.m. show, 'The Story'; and Dana Perino and Juan Williams, two hosts of 'The Five.'" This report is an item in Sunday's NYT Covid-19 updates.

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Presidential Race, Etc.

Norah O'Donnell of CBS News: "When we spoke with Joe Biden this past week in Wilmington, Delaware, the former vice president was ahead in the polls, but confronting a withering final assault from President Trump. As the presidential campaign enters its final full week, we also had questions for his running mate, California Senator Kamala Harris. In our conversation, Joe Biden discussed how much he'd be influenced by progressives within his own party, whether his proposed tax increases would hurt the economy, and how he views the current state of the race." Video & transcript of the interview included.

Matt Viser of the Washington Post: "... Joe Biden has endured a long and bruising campaign, with repeated attacks on his policies, his family, his mental faculties -- and, often, sustained doubts even from those inside his own party.... But the circumstances of this campaign -- a pandemic and an economic collapse costing millions of jobs and making even the still-employed feel vulnerable -- have pushed the race in the direction of Biden's strong suits and against his deficits, shining a bright light on his empathy and sober experience and casting his flaws into the shadows. He has emerged with more Americans viewing him favorably now than at this time last year, the opposite of the usual trajectory of a campaign and far different from the circumstances that faced Hillary Clinton in 2016. He holds a national lead approaching double digits and narrower but stable leads in many battleground states. He enters the final stretch with far more money to spend than Trump as he reaches for the pinnacle of a political career, one that has eluded him twice before."

Fadel Allassan of Axios: "The New Hampshire Union Leader, the conservative-leaning Manchester-based newspaper, endorsed Joe Biden for president on Sunday.... It's the first time the paper has endorsed a Democrat for president in over 100 years, after it broke from more than a century of backing Republicans to endorse libertarian Gary Johnson over President Trump in 2016.... 'President Trump is not always 100 percent wrong, but he is 100 percent wrong for America,' the editorial reads." The Union-Leader editors' endorsement is here. It's lukewarm, but it's something.

Shane Goldmacher, et al., of the New York Times: "Joe Biden has outraised President Trump on the strength of some of the wealthiest and most educated ZIP codes in the United States, running up the fund-raising score in cities and suburbs so resoundingly that he collected more money than Mr. Trump on all but two days in the last two months, according to a New York Times analysis of $1.8 billion donated by 7.6 million people since April. The data reveals, for the first time, not only when Mr. Biden decisively overtook Mr. Trump in the money race -- it happened the day Senator Kamala Harris joined the ticket -- but also what corners of the country, geographically and demographically, powered his remarkable surge. The findings paint a portrait of two candidates who are, in many ways, financing their campaigns from two different Americas.... Under Mr. Trump, Republicans have hemorrhaged support from white voters with college degrees.... The fund-raising data suggests that erosion is not only harming the party's electoral prospects but also its economic bottom line."

Russian Election Interference-- Not Sure Whom This Helps. Andrew Osborn of Reuters: "Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that he saw nothing criminal in Hunter Biden's past business ties with Ukraine or Russia, marking out his disagreement with one of Donald Trump's attack lines in the U.S. presidential election. Putin was responding to comments made by Trump during televised debates with Democratic challenger Joe Biden ahead of the Nov. 3 election. Trump, who is trailing in opinion polls, has used the debates to make accusations that Biden and his son Hunter engaged in unethical practices in Ukraine. No evidence has been verified to support the allegations, and Joe Biden has called them false and discredited. Putin, who has praised Trump in the past for saying he wanted better ties with Moscow, has said Russia will work with any U.S. leader, while noting what he called Joe Biden's 'sharp anti-Russian rhetoric'.... In what may be seen by some analysts as an attempt to try to curry favour with the Biden camp, he took the time to knock down what he made clear he regarded as false allegations from Trump about the Bidens."

Lesley Stahl interviews Donald Trump & mike pence. Of the interview with Trump, she says, "We had prepared to talk about the many issues and questions facing the president, but in what has become an all-too-public dust-up, the conversation was cut short. It began politely, but ended regrettably, contentiously." Includes video & transcript of the interviews. Here's the part where Angry Baby whines & walks out:

     ~~~ Daniel Dale of CNN: "... Donald Trump continued his dishonesty blitz in an interview with Lesley Stahl of '60 Minutes.' An edited version of the interview aired on CBS Sunday night. Trump released the full 38-minute interview on Facebook on Thursday, pre-empting the network because he said he was unhappy with Stahl's questioning. Despite Stahl's persistent efforts to challenge him, Trump made false or misleading claims about several topics on which he has been frequently deceptive in recent months -- most notably the coronavirus pandemic. We counted at least 16 false or misleading claims in the extended footage Trump posted, 10 of them pandemic-related." The article has a full list, including those that Trump made in the portions of the video "60 Minutes" cut.

Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "The presidential campaign was roiled this weekend by a fresh outbreak of the novel coronavirus at the White House that infected at least five aides or advisers to Vice President Pence, a spread that President Trump's top staffer acknowledged Sunday he had tried to avoid disclosing to the public.... The new White House outbreak spotlighted the administration's failure to contain the pandemic as hospitalizations surge across much of the United States and daily new cases hit all-time highs. The outbreak around Pence, who chairs the White House's coronavirus task force, undermines the argument Trump has been making to voters that the country is 'rounding the turn,' as the president put it at a rally Sunday in New Hampshire. Further complicating Trump's campaign-trail pitch was an extraordinary admission Sunday from White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows that the administration had effectively given up on trying to slow the virus's spread. 'We're not going to control the pandemic,' Meadows said on CNN's 'State of the Union.' '"We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigations.'... The vice president continued Sunday with his heavy travel schedule, flying to North Carolina for an evening rally in Kinston. He told aides that he was determined to keep up his appearances through the week despite his potential exposure, irrespective of guidelines, officials said." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Although the CDC recommends 14 days of quarantine, the White House is arguing that pence can continue his schedule because he is an "essential worker." That does not mean that leading superspreaders is "essential." ~~~

     ~~~ Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "... for voters, the new wave of infections at the White House just over a week before Election Day was a visceral reminder of the president's dismissive and erratic handling of the virus, even in one of the most secure spaces in the country.... Joseph R. Biden Jr. ... said Sunday that the statement by [Trump's Chief-of-Staff Mark Meadows was 'an acknowledgment of what President Trump's strategy has clearly been from the beginning of this crisis: to wave the white flag of defeat and hope that by ignoring it, the virus would simply go away. It hasn't, and it won't.'... As the leader of the White House virus task force, Mr. Pence has parroted the president's rosy outlook.... Over the past several months, Mr. Pence stood by as the White House sidelined Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease specialist, and Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the task force coordinator, and instead embraced Dr. Scott W. Atlas, a radiologist and senior fellow at Stanford University's conservative Hoover Institution, who has advocated a largely hands-off approach by the federal government to stopping the pandemic.... [After five of Pence's aides tested positive, at least some with symptoms,] his spokesman would not say whether Mr. Pence was receiving some of the drugs Mr. Trump was given.... The decision to continue Mr. Pence's schedule risked making the outbreak in his ranks a bigger story than if he pulled back from the campaign trail." ~~~

~~~ Anita Kumar & Nancy Cook of Politico: "... Donald Trump is heading into the final nine days of the 2020 election with a new nationwide explosion in coronavirus cases and a second outbreak in the top ranks of his own White House -- all while he tries to sell an alternate reality to voters. Trump claims the U.S. is turning the corner on the pandemic, blames the media for being too focused on the coronavirus and blasts the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, for trying to lock up the country.... Most polls show Trump lagging behind Biden in part because some Americans have lost confidence in the president's handling of the coronavirus, the most important issue to many voters."

The Washington Post's live election updates Sunday are here. They're free to nonsubscribers.

Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Ben Smith of the New York Times writes a column that begins with the failed attempt of Trump allies -- including a White House lawyer -- to plant a damaging story about Joe & Hunter Biden in the Wall Street Journal in time for Trump to hype it at the last presidential debate. Smith goes on to assert that establishment media "gatekeepers" are back in control after years of allowing right-wing media -- and Trump himself -- to drive the news. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Maybe. Since I scan -- but don't study -- a huge amount of media political reporting every day, I can tell you that my impression (and that's all it is -- an impression) is that major media outlets are just not that interested in slamming Joe Biden, but they have no qualms about pointing to the rich trove of bad -- and outright dangerous -- Trump behavior. I would guess this is not because Trump hurt their feelings by calling them fake news & not because Biden is the perfect candidate, but because they -- like all sensible Americans -- are terrified by what a second Trump term could do to destroy our fragile form of government. Anyway, if you have a NYT subscription, Smith's column is worth a read.

Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Tiffany Hsu of the New York Times: "In the final stretch of the 2020 campaign, right-leaning news sites with millions of readers have published dozens of false or misleading headlines and articles that effectively back unsubstantiated claims by President Trump and his allies that mail-in ballots threaten the integrity of the election. The Washington Examiner, Breitbart News, The Gateway Pundit and The Washington Times are among the sites that have posted articles with headlines giving weight to the conspiracy theory that voter fraud is rampant and could swing the election to the left, a theory that has been repeatedly debunked by data." Hsu provides examples of false stories, only some of which were corrected after the fake news had gone viral.

Neither Rhyme Nor Reason. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "At least nine times since April, the Supreme Court has issued rulings in election disputes. Or perhaps 'rulings' is too generous a word for those unsigned orders, which addressed matters as consequential as absentee voting during the pandemic in Alabama, South Carolina and Texas, and the potential disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of people with felony convictions in Florida. Most of the orders, issued on what scholars call the court's 'shadow docket,' did not bother to supply even a whisper of reasoning.... If the court is going to treat emergency applications with something like equal care, it might consider explaining what it is doing. Explaining, Judge Frank H. Easterbrook wrote in 2000, is what distinguishes judges from politicians. 'The political branches of government claim legitimacy by election, judges by reason,' he wrote. 'Any step that withdraws an element of the judicial process from public view makes the ensuing decision look more like fiat, which requires compelling justification.'"

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Sunday are here.

Santas Get the Sack. Daniel Politi of Slate: "The Department of Health and Human Services had planned to devote $250 million for an advertising campaign, part of which involved Santa Claus performers promoting COVID-19 vaccination, reports the Wall Street Journal. In exchange, they would get access to the vaccine before the general public. And not just Mr. Claus, performers playing Mrs. Claus and elves would also benefit from the scheme. Michael Caputo, an HHS assistant secretary who took a 60-day medical leave last month, was the one who thought up the plan. It has since been scrapped and the HHS spokesman denies that HHS Secretary Alex Azar had any idea that it was in the works. Rick Erwin, the head of the Fraternal Order of Real Bearded Santas, isn't happy with the news that had given Santa performers hope the holiday season wouldn't be completely lost due to the pandemic. Caputo had told Erwin the vaccine would likely be approved by mid-November and front-line workers would get it before Thanksgiving. 'If you and your colleagues are not essential workers, I don't know what is,' Caputo said in a call. Erwin recorded phone calls he had with Caputo and shared them with the Journal." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Since the vaccine is not likely to be given to children any time soon, the only purpose of using a child-friendly figure like Santa would be, I guess, to imply Santa Loves Trump. Hell, maybe they would have had Trump play Santa. He would only have had to change his make-up from the brownface he's favored lately (if you saw him at the last debate, you know what I mean) to something with a rosier glow. On the other hand, Anonymous has a reasonable theory explaining the purpose of the Santa's-Bag-Is-Full-of-Hypodermic-Needles project: "Maybe it was actually an attempt to neutralize Melania's recorded 'fuck Christmas' comment." ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Speaking of child-centric holiday celebrations ... an AP item about Sunday evening's White House Halloween party for kids reports, "Guests older than 2 were required to wear face coverings and practice social distancing. The same went for all White House personnel working the event, while any staff giving out candy also wore gloves." But the story, at least @ 7 am ET, does not mention that the hosts, two ghouls named Don Dracula & Mean Monster Melanie, were not wearing masks. Fortunately, in the online version, there are photos.

Ruby Mellen of the Washington Post: "Italy became the latest European country to announce new restrictions to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus on Sunday as countries across the continent continue to report surging infections. France on Sunday announced more than 50,000 new infections, a new record for the fourth day running. Germany, widely lauded for its initial handling of the virus, reported a surge of its own. The number of coronavirus cases in Poland has doubled in less than three weeks. And Spain has also imposed new restrictions. The World Health Organization reported new daily case records worldwide three days in a row last week, with new infections reaching more than 465,000 on Saturday. Almost half of those cases were in the organization's Europe region. The United States set a new record Friday with more than 82,000 confirmed new infections."

** Julian Borger of the Guardian: "The Republican party has become dramatically more illiberal in the past two decades and now more closely resembles ruling parties in autocratic societies than its former centre-right equivalents in Europe, according to a new international study. In a significant shift since 2000, the GOP has taken to demonising and encouraging violence against its opponents, adopting attitudes and tactics comparable to ruling nationalist parties in Hungary, India, Poland and Turkey.... By contrast the Democratic party has changed little in its attachment to democratic norms, and in that regard has remained similar to centre-right and centre-left parties in western Europe. Their principal difference is the approach to the economy." --s

Trump's Gifts to Putin Diminish the U.S. & Strengthen Russia. Philip Rucker & Shane Harris of the Washington Post: "Under President Trump, the United States has abandoned international climate and nuclear arms agreements. It has announced its withdrawal from the World Health Organization, questioned the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and antagonized stalwart allies like Germany. America's past presidents have long promoted democracy, human rights and the rule of law abroad, yet Trump instead has waged an assault on those values at home, where he has weakened institutions, shredded norms and declared without evidence that the upcoming election will be 'rigged.' America's moral authority also has been undercut by the devastatingly high death toll and wrenching economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, coupled with the racial reckoning that has convulsed the country. These highlights from Trump's nearly four years in office read like Vladimir Putin's wish list. Few countries have benefited more geopolitically from Trump's time in office than Russia."

Jonathan Swan & Alayna Treene of Axios: "If President Trump wins re-election, he'll move to immediately fire FBI Director Christopher Wray and also expects to replace CIA Director Gina Haspel and Defense Secretary Mark Esper, two people who've discussed these officials' fates with the president tell Axios.... The list of planned replacements is much longer, but these are Trump's priorities, starting with Wray.... A win, no matter the margin, will embolden Trump to ax anyone he sees as constraining him from enacting desired policies or going after perceived enemies. Trump last week signed an executive order that set off alarm bells as a means to politicize the civil service. An administration official said the order 'is a really big deal' that would make it easier for presidents to get rid of career government officials."

** "This Land is Their Land...". Emily Holden, et al. of the Guardian: "Under Donald Trump, the government has auctioned off millions of acres of public lands to the fossil fuel industry, the Guardian can reveal, in the most comprehensive accounting to date of how much public land the administration has handed over to oil and gas drillers over the past four years.... Trump has stacked the administration with former fossil-fuel lobbyists and conservative activists.... The Trump administration has leased 5.4m acres -- an area the size of New Jersey -- to oil and gas companies.... Drilling from the leases could result in the equivalent of 4.1bn metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions.... The interior department has also leased 4.9m acres in the Gulf of Mexico to drillers.... Should Trump win another term, leasing may grow. A total of 50m acres are being made available to drillers in proposed plans for public lands." --s

Ben Parker, et al. of McSweeney's have a "Catalogue of Trump's Worst Cruelties, Corruptions and Crimes" throughout his time in office. --s ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Thank goodness the writers left room for more. Because there will be.

Marianne Lavelle of Inside Climate News: "[C]limate scientists are bracing for the potential disruption of NOAA's climate work with the appointment of two prominent climate science deniers and a former campaign official for President Donald Trump to top agency positions this fall. One of the new hires, David Legates, a University of Delaware geography and climatology professor who works closely with anti-climate action advocacy groups like the Heartland Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, has been especially critical of the agency that he will now help run.... Legates maintains there is no scientific consensus on the environmental hazard of carbon dioxide emissions.... The hiring of Legates and others, only weeks before the election, comes just as NOAA is set to collaborate with more than a dozen other federal agencies on the next Congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment, due out in 2023." --s

Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Senate Democrats are holding an hours-long talk-a-thon to protest Judge Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court nomination. Democrats are vowing to hold the floor into Monday morning, as the Senate pulls an all-nighter ahead of a final vote to confirm Barrett to the Supreme Court.... Democrats are powerless to prevent Barrett's confirmation since every Republican senator except GOP Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) -- who doesn't believe a vote should take place before the election -- is expected to vote to confirm her on Monday. But Democrats are using the floor speeches, which they are highlighting on social media, to try to build awareness and rail against the decision by Republicans to move just days before the election to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg."

Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "A divisive drive to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court before Election Day wound on Sunday toward its expected end, as Senate Republicans overcame Democratic protests to limit debate and set up a final confirmation vote for Monday. Two Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joined united Democrats in an attempt to filibuster President Trump's nominee to protest a decision they say should be left to the winner of the presidential election. But Republicans had the simple majority they needed to blow past them, setting up the vote to confirm Judge Barrett just eight days before the election and a month to the day after she was chosen. The tally was 51 to 48. Republicans were expected to win back Ms. Murkowski's vote on Monday, though not that of Ms. Collins." ~~~

~~~ Valerie Volcovici & Jessica Resnick-Ault of Reuters: "The addition of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, moving it further rightward, could have significant consequences for U.S. climate change policy and complicate the government's ability to regulate pollution, according to legal experts.... That ideological leaning could make the court even more favorable toward oil and gas interests and could come into play in environmental cases as the justices resolve disputes involving climate policy and Trump administration rollbacks of environmental regulations, experts said." --s ~~~

~~~ E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post: "The truly scandalous lack of institutional patriotism on the right has finally led many of the most sober liberals and moderates to ponder what they opposed even a month ago: The only genuinely practical and proper remedy to conservative court-packing is to undo its impact by enlarging the court.... I's not court enlargement that's radical. Balancing a stacked court is a necessary response to the right's radicalism and (apologies, Thomas Jefferson) to its long train of abuses. And conservatives are as hypocritical about court enlargement as they are about [Merrick] Garland and [Amy] Barrett: In 2016, Republicans expanded the state supreme courts of Georgia and Arizona to enhance their party's philosophical sway."

Cat Zakrzewski of the Washington Post: "Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) intends to run for another term as House speaker, she said Sunday morning on CNN. Pelosi's commitment underscores Democrats' confidence that they will be able to retain their majority in the House after Election Day. She also called President Trump's debate-stage prediction that Republicans would retake the House majority 'delusional.'"

Frank Bajak of the AP: "Academics, journalists and First Amendment lawyers are rallying behind New York University researchers in a showdown with Facebook over its demand that they halt the collection of data showing who is being micro-targeted by political ads on the world's dominant social media platform. The researchers say the disputed tool is vital to understanding how Facebook has been used as a conduit for disinformation and manipulation. In an Oct. 16 letter to the researchers, a Facebook executive demanded they disable a special plug-in for Chrome and Firefox browsers that they have distributed to thousands of volunteers across the U.S. -- and delete the data obtained.... The tool is a key source of data on election interference and manipulation because it lets researchers see how some Facebook advertisers use data gathered by the company to profile citizens 'and send them misinformation about candidates and policies that are designed to influence or even suppress their vote,' Damon McCoy, an NYU professor involved in the project, said in a statement." --s

Rosanna Xia of the Los Angeles Times: "From 1947 to 1982, the nation's largest manufacturer of DDT [Montrose] ... was based in Los Angeles. An epic Superfund battle later exposed the company's disposal of toxic waster through sewage pipes that poured into the ocean -- but all the DDT that was barged out to sea drew comparatively little attention. Shipping logs show that every month in the years after World War II, thousands of barrels of acid sludge laced with this synthetic chemical were boated out to a site near Catalina and dumped into the deep ocean.... Mark Gold ... who is now Gov. Gavin Newsom's deputy secretary for coast and ocean policy, said he had heard stories of illegal dumping.... But there was no firsthand evidence in the 1990s, he said, nor a sense of whether it was five barrels, 10 or 20.... [Researchers have now found a graveyard of leaking barrels].... 'Nobody in their worst nightmares,' he said, 'ever thought there would be half a million barrels of DDT waste dumped into the ocean off of L.A. County's coast.'" --s Firewalled.

Elizabeth Dias & Jason Horowitz of the New York Times: "Pope Francis on Sunday namedWilton Gregory, the archbishop of Washington, [D.C.,] a cardinal, elevating the first African-American to the Catholic church's highest governing body, a groundbreaking act in a year when demands for racial justice have consumed the country. The rise of Archbishop Gregory, who is also the first American named to the College of Cardinals since 2016, comes as debates over how to address the legacy of slavery and racism have extended to the Catholic church, which for centuries excluded African Americans from positions of power."

The Commentariat -- October 25, 2020

Some of this is too true:

Presidential Race, Etc.

Jill Colvin, et al., of the AP: "With coronavirus infections reaching their highest peak of the pandemic just as the election headed into the home stretch, Trump and Biden took starkly different approaches to the public health crisis in appealing for votes in battleground states. 'We don't want to become superspreaders,' Biden told supporters at a 'drive-in' rally Saturday in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.... The former vice president pressed his case that Trump was showing dangerous indifference to the surging virus on a day he looked to boost his candidacy with the star power of rock legend Jon Bon Jovi, who performed before Biden took the stage at a second drive-in rally in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.... Biden hosted another rally later Saturday in Luzerne County, a blue-collar area that twice voted for Barack Obama but went overwhelmingly for Trump four years ago." Meanwhile, Trump held three superspreader rallies where he mocked Biden & measures to control coronavirus & claimed that testing was "in many ways foolish."

[When Joe Biden becomes president,] we won't have a president who threatens people with jail for just criticizing him.... That's not normal behavior, Florida.... You wouldn't tolerate it from a coworker, you wouldn't tolerate it from a high school principal, you wouldn't tolerate it from a coach, you wouldn't tolerate it from a family member. Why are we accepting it from the president of the United States?... Florida Man wouldn't even do this stuff. -- President Barack Obama, at a drive-in rally in North Miami, Saturday ~~~

~~~ Alex Daugherty & David Smiley of the Tampa Bay Times: "Former President Barack Obama criticized nearly every facet of ... Donald Trump's record while campaigning for Democratic nominee Joe Biden on Saturday, making specific appeals to Florida's diverse electorate by mentioning issues like socialism, the Affordable Care Act and the federal government's Hurricane Maria response during his first Miami speech in two years. But the biggest chunk of his 45-minute speech was devoted to an issue that affects every voter: ... Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic.... 'We literally left this White House a pandemic playbook to show them how to respond before a virus reached our shores,' Obama said at Florida International University's Biscayne Bay Campus in North Miami. 'It must be lost along with the Republican healthcare plan.'" Mrs. McC: Former Republican President George W. Bush did not campaign for Donald Trump.

A Woman Finds a Way to Get MAGA Men to Vote for Biden. Michael Ellsberg in the Daily Beast: "... up until recently, there's one group of potential Biden voters who have not been the subject of voter outreach: kinky, submissive male Trump supporters with humiliation fetishes. Now, thanks to a Las Vegas-based professional dominatrix named Empress Delfina, this once-overlooked voting bloc is covered -- and may be voting Biden. By force. She calls it 'Trump Conversion Therapy.' At $1.99 a minute, business is booming.” Ellsberg interviews Delfina. The interview is interesting, & in places creepy & funny. (I'm not sure if Ellsberg paid her $1.99/minute for the interview.)

Sarah Elbeshbishi of USA Today: "Most registered voters said that ... Joe Biden performed better than ... Donald Trump during the second presidential debate, according to a Politico/Morning Consult poll released Friday. Fifty-four percent of voters who watched the Thursday debate said Biden performed the best, while 39% said that Trump did. Eight percent of voters who watched weren't sure or had no opinion on who did best. Both& candidates' performances improved with voters since the first presidential debate."

Lev Casts More Doubt on Rudy's Purloined Laptop Fable. Natasha Bertrand of Politico: "... Rudy Giuliani was offered salacious photos and other documents belonging to Joe Biden's son Hunter in the spring of 2019, earlier than previously known, according to one of Giuliani's closest former associates [Lev Parnas]. And the alleged offer came from ... a Ukrainian oligarch looking for help with a potential legal jam [with the U.S. Justice Department]. The claim ... raises new questions about the provenance of the materials Giuliani has said he obtained recently from a computer repair shop in Delaware -- and that he is now touting to accuse the Democratic nominee of corruption. Parnas, who collaborated with Giuliani on the former New York mayor's quest to find damaging information on the Bidens beginning in late 2018, now says that similar materials were being offered to Giuliani just weeks after Joe Biden launched his presidential run.... Time Magazine reported earlier this week that at least two people were approached with offers to buy salacious Biden material in the spring and fall of 2019, raising similar questions about the original source of the photos and emails Giuliani gave to the New York Post."

They Learned from the Master to Whine & Deflect Responsibility. Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "... Donald Trump's top advisers have plunged into a bitter round of finger-pointing and blame-shifting ahead of an increasingly likely defeat. Accusations are flying in all directions and about all manner of topics -- from allegedly questionable spending decisions by former campaign manager Brad Parscale, to how White House chief of staff Mark Meadows handled Trump's hospitalization for Covid-19, to skepticism that TV ads have broken through. Interviews with nearly a dozen Trump aides, campaign advisers and Republican officials also surfaced accusations that the president didn't take fundraising seriously enough and that the campaign undermined its effort to win over seniors by casting Democrat Joe Biden as senile. Finger-pointing is a common feature of campaigns that think they're losing, but it's happening at an uncommon level in this campaign. Shifting responsibility has been a staple of the Trump presidency -- and his lieutenants are now following suit." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Congressional Races. Josh Dawsey & Rachel Bade of the Washington Post: "President Trump privately told donors this past week that it will be 'very tough' for Republicans to keep control of the Senate in the upcoming election because some of the party's senators are candidates he cannot support. 'I think the Senate is tough actually. The Senate is very tough,' Trump said at a fundraiser Thursday at the Nashville Marriott, according to an attendee. 'There are a couple senators I can't really get involved in. I just can't do it. You lose your soul if you do. I can't help some of them. I don't want to help some of them.'... The president -- in a sentiment not shared by many of his party's top officials and strategists -- said he instead thinks the Republicans 'are going to take back the House.' And many strategists involved in Senate races say the party's chances at keeping the chamber are undermined by the president's unscripted, divisive rhetoric and his low poll numbers in key states.: ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Nobody thinks you have a soul to lose, President* Lucifer. Let's hope Trump is right on the former, because it's unlikely he's right on the latter. Most pollsters think House Democrats, if anything, will gain seats.

And You Thought Bush II Was Bad. Andrew Solender of Forbes: "President Trump's two eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, both of whom have been deeply involved in their father's reelection campaign, broke with the 'Keep America Great' message on Saturday to hint at their own runs in 2024, as polls show their father heavily disfavored to win reelection. Donald Trump Jr. ... posted a photo of a 'Don Jr. 2024' flag to instagram.... Eric Trump ... liked a tweet on Saturday reading 'Eric Trump 2024,' a move some commentators recognized as roughly equivalent to his brother's instagram post."

Isaac Stanley-Becker & Tony Romm of the Washington Post: Especially in Republicans strongholds, voters are flooding county offices with fears their mail-in ballots will be ditched. Their "worries can be traced to baseless or alarmist statements by President Trump and posts on his Twitter feed. Others have been fed by headlines stripped of context and misleading reporting in the mainstream media according to election administrators, voting rights advocates and experts in online communication. The confusion and chaos follow a months-long campaign by Trump and his allies to sow doubt about voting by mail.... Many Democrats appear to have dealt with their fears by opting for early voting, powering overwhelming turnout, while Republicans insist they will make up ground on Election Day." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: The story includes some ridiculous rumors like, "They're sending ballots to dogs." But the most ridiculous assertion, the biggest lie is this: "In a statement, Trump campaign spokeswoman Thea McDonald said the president 'has been fighting for months' to stop what she described as 'last-minute election rule changes.'" The Trump campaign, the RNC & state GOP organizations have filed hundreds of lawsuits to effect "last-minute election rule changes." Ten days before the election, while Americans have been voting for weeks, some of those cases are still in court.

New York. Edgar Sandoval & Troy Closson of the New York Times: "New Yorkers flooded polling places on Saturday, the first day of early voting in the state.... Saturday was the first time New Yorkers were allowed to vote early in a presidential election, which is expected to produce record voter turnout.... Recent mishaps involving absentee ballots drove many voters to the polls on Saturday.... Late last month, the city's Board of Elections came under fire after as many as 100,000 voters in Brooklyn received absentee ballots with the wrong names and addresses.... Unlike in many other states and the rest of New York, where people can cast ballots at any early voting center in their county, voters in New York City are allowed to vote early only at assigned locations." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Texas. Julia Harte of Reuters: "The Texas Supreme Court on Saturday temporarily reinstated the governor's ban on multiple drop-off sites for mail ballots, in a short-term victory for ... Donald Trump. The ban will remain in effect while the state supreme court fully reviews a Friday appeals court ruling that overturned the order by Governor Greg Abbott...."

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Saturday are here: "The latest coronavirus surge is raging across the American heartland, most acutely in the Midwest and Mountain West. This harrowing third surge, which led to a U.S. single-day record of more than 85,000 new cases Friday, is happening less than two weeks from Election Day, which will mark the end of a campaign dominated by the pandemic and President Trump's much-criticized response to it.... The virus will be front of mind for voters in several key states: in Ohio, where more people are hospitalized than at any other time during the pandemic, and especially Wisconsin, home to seven of the country's 10 metro areas with the highest numbers of recent cases. On Friday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court blocked Gov. Tony Evers' emergency order restricting the size of indoor gatherings to 25 percent capacity on Friday.... President Trump and many supporters blame restrictions on business activity, often imposed by Democratic governors and mayors, for prolonging the economic crisis initially caused by the virus. But the experience of states like Iowa, which recently set a record for patients hospitalized with Covid-19, shows the economy is far from back to normal even in Republican-led states that have imposed few business restrictions." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

** Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Several members of Vice President Mike Pence's inner circle, including at least four members of his staff, have tested positive for the coronavirus in the past few days, people briefed on the matter said, raising new questions about the safety protocols at the White House, where masks are not routinely worn. Devin O'Malley, a spokesman for Mr. Pence, said that the vice president's chief of staff, Marc Short, had tested positive.... 'While Vice President Pence is considered a close contact with Mr. Short, in consultation with the White House Medical Unit, the vice president will maintain his schedule in accordance with the C.D.C. guidelines for essential personnel.' The statement did not come from the White House medical unit, but instead from a press aide. Two people briefed on the matter said that the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, had sought to keep news of the outbreak from becoming public.... The decision by Mr. Pence, who leads the White House Coronavirus Task Force, to continue campaigning is certain to raise new questions about how seriously the White House is taking the risks to their own staff members...." An ABC News story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Maybe when Trump keeps saying, "We're rounding the corner," he means, "I work in an Oval Office." Otherwise, record-breaking cases-per-day and coming up on a quarter of a million American deaths makes no sense at all.

Superspreader-in-Chief, Ctd. Shawn Boburg of the Washington Post: "In the days leading up to the Sept. 30 [Trump rally] in Duluth, Minn., local officials had privately pressed the campaign to abide by state public health guidelines aimed at slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus, documents show. In response, the campaign signed an agreement pledging to follow those rules, limiting attendance to 250 people. On the day of the rally, however, Trump supporters flooded onto the tarmac at Duluth International Airport. They stood shoulder to shoulder, many without masks.... Held two days before Trump was diagnosed with covid-19, the rally was attended by more than 2,500 people, airport officials estimated.... Emails and other documents obtained by The Washington Post through open-records requests show that Duluth officials insisted on adherence to the rules, and that the campaign responded by making commitments it ultimately did not keep. The documents also show that local officials suspected the campaign would violate the agreement, but shied away from enforcing public health orders for fear of provoking a backlash." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Officials always should have made the Trump campaign turn over at least a $1 million bond before any event. You can't trust those people as far as a mouse could throw President Fatso.

Barbie & Ken Very Upset Their Indifference to National Pandemic Makes Them Look Bad. Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are threatening to sue the Lincoln Project over billboards the anti-Trump group put up in Times Square assailing them over the White House's coronavirus response. In a letter to the group posted on Twitter on Friday night, an attorney for the president's daughter and son-in-law demanded the 'false, malicious and defamatory' billboards be taken down. Marc Kasowitz warned that if the ads stay up, 'we will sue you for what will doubtless be enormous compensatory and punitive damages.' The Lincoln Project was defiant, saying in a scathing public statement that the billboards would stay up." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Katherine Wu, et al., of the New York Times (Oct. 23): "Late-stage coronavirus vaccine trials run by AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson have resumed in the United States after the companies said on Friday that serious illnesses in a few volunteers appeared not to be related to the vaccines. Federal health regulators gave AstraZeneca the green light after a six-week pause.... Johnson & Johnson said that its trial, which had been on pause for 11 days, would restart after learning that a 'serious medical event' in one study volunteer had 'no clear cause.'"

Loveday Morris of the Washington Post: "Polish President Andrzej Duda has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, his spokesman announced on Saturday, the latest in a string of world leaders to be infected.... In addition to President Trump, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko are among other world leaders to have contracted the virus." Mrs. McC: Not coincidentally, every one of them is a careless, authoritarian right-winger. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Trump's Bad Bet. David Fahrenthold, et al., of the Washington Post: "As Trump fights to save his political career, another key part of his life -- his business -- is also under growing stress. In the next four years, Trump faces payment deadlines for more than $400 million in loans -- just as the pandemic robs his businesses of customers and income, according to a Washington Post analysis of Trump's finances. The bills coming due include loans on his Chicago hotel, his D.C. hotel and his Doral resort, all hit by a double whammy: Trump's political career slowed their business, then the pandemic ground it down much further. If Trump is reelected, these loan-saddled properties could present a significant conflict of interest: The president will owe enormous sums to banks that his government regulates. National security experts say Trump's debts to Deutsche Bank, a German company, and foreign deals may constitute security risks if they make him vulnerable to influence by foreign governments." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

What Not to Say When Announcing a Fake Peace Agreement. Elias Meseret of the AP (Oct. 23): "Ethiopia on Saturday denounced 'belligerent threats' over the huge dam it has nearly completed on the Blue Nile River, a day after ... Donald Trump said downstream Egypt will 'blow up' the project it has called an existential threat.... Trump made the comment while announcing that Sudan would start to normalize ties with Israel. 'They (Egypt) will end up blowing up the dam,' Trump said. 'And I said it and I say it loud and clear ... they'll blow up that dam....' Ethiopia's foreign minister summoned the U.S. ambassador to seek clarification, saying 'the incitement of war between Ethiopia and Egypt from a sitting U.S. president neither reflects the longstanding partnership and strategic alliance between Ethiopia and the United States nor is acceptable in international law governing interstate relations.'... 'The man doesn't have a clue on what he is talking about,' Former Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn tweeted, calling Trump's remark reckless and irresponsible.... Downstream Sudan is a party to the talks with Ethiopia and Egypt over the disputed dam. European Union representative Josep Borrell said in a statement that 'now is the time for action and not for increasing tensions,' adding that a deal on the dam [among affected countries] is within reach...." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump's brief self-congratulatory peace accord announcement was unique in diplomatic history. First, Sudan's legislature has not ratified the agreement, so it's not a done deal. Second, Trump managed to make two very undiplomatic gaffes: (1) inciting war between two other countries, and (2) attempting to induce a foreign leader to illegally interfere in U.S. elections. And Trump is upset that the media ignored his nomination -- by a couple of right-wing nuts -- for a Nobel Peace Prize.

The Definition of Self-Dealing. Stephen Gandel of CBS News: "Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's former company landed a $5 million highway-shipping contract last month with the United States Postal Service. DeJoy continues to own a multimillion-dollar stake in XPO Logistics as of early October. The $5 million deal is the first regular contract for a postal route that XPO Logistics has signed with the USPS in more than a year. XPO's last highway contract with the USPS was in December and was temporary. The one before that was signed in July 2019.... The USPS database shows the contract has one of the highest annual rates out of more than 1,600 contracts the Postal Service initiated with outside firms in its most recent quarter, which is the first full quarter DeJoy has served as head of the agency." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Murkowski Caves. Colby Itkowitz of the Washington Post: "Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the moderate Alaska Republican who had opposed voting on a new Supreme Court justice so close to the election, said Saturday she would vote to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett. In a Senate floor speech, Murkowski lamented that the Senate was spending the weekend debating a judicial nominee rather than a coronavirus relief bill days before the election. But she said she wouldn't hold her opposition to the process against Barrett, the 48-year-old conservative jurist, and would cast a vote based on the 'merits of her qualifications.' The Senate held a rare weekend session to debate the nomination...." Politico's story is here.

** Jenny Gross of the New York Times: "White supremacists and other like-minded groups have committed a majority of the terrorist attacks in the United States this year, according to a report by a security think tank that echoed warnings made by the Department of Homeland Security this month. The report, published Thursday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, found that white supremacist groups were responsible for 41 of 61 'terrorist plots and attacks' in the first eight months of this year, or 67 percent. The finding comes about two weeks after an annual assessment by the Department of Homeland Security warned that violent white supremacy was the 'most persistent and lethal threat in the homeland' and that white supremacists were the most deadly among domestic terrorists in recent years." Mrs. McC: Meanwhile, Trump & Barr continue to cite Black Lives Matter & antifa as the sources of lethal violence. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Richard Kreitner & Rick Perlstein, in a New York Review of Books essay, illuminate the time-honored technique of blaming "outside agitators" and "dangerous others" for violence perpetrated by the state and/or its own supporters. Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. See his commentary below.

Way Beyond the Beltway

Russia, Etc. Jack Stubbs & Christopher Bing of Reuters: "Russian hackers piggy-backed on an Iranian cyber-espionage operation to attack government and industry organizations in dozens of countries while masquerading as attackers from the Islamic Republic, British and U.S. officials said on Monday. The Russian group, known as 'Turla' and accused by Estonian and Czech authorities of operating on behalf of Russia's FSB security service, has used Iranian tools and computer infrastructure to successfully hack in to organizations in at least 20 different countries over the last 18 months, British security officials said. The hacking campaign, the extent of which has not been previously revealed, was most active in the Middle East but also targeted organizations in Britain, they said." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The Commentariat -- October 24, 2020

Afternoon Update:

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Saturday are here: "The latest coronavirus surge is raging across the American heartland, most acutely in the Midwest and Mountain West. This harrowing third surge, which led to a U.S. single-day record of more than 85,000 new cases Friday, is happening less than two weeks from Election Day, which will mark the end of a campaign dominated by the pandemic and President Trump's much-criticized response to it.... The virus will be front of mind for voters in several key states: in Ohio, where more people are hospitalized than at any other time during the pandemic, and especially Wisconsin, home to seven of the country's 10 metro areas with the highest numbers of recent cases. On Friday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court blocked Gov. Tony Evers' emergency order restricting the size of indoor gatherings to 25 percent capacity on Friday.... President Trump and many supporters blame restrictions on business activity, often imposed by Democratic governors and mayors, for prolonging the economic crisis initially caused by the virus. But the experience of states like Iowa, which recently set a record for patients hospitalized with Covid-19, shows the economy is far from back to normal even in Republican-led states that have imposed few business restrictions."

** Jenny Gross of the New York Times: "White supremacists and other like-minded groups have committed a majority of the terrorist attacks in the United States this year, according to a report by a security think tank that echoed warnings made by the Department of Homeland Security this month. The report, published Thursday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, found that white supremacist groups were responsible for 41 of 61 'terrorist plots and attacks' in the first eight months of this year, or 67 percent. The finding comes about two weeks after an annual assessment by the Department of Homeland Security warned that violent white supremacy was the 'most persistent and lethal threat in the homeland' and that white supremacists were the most deadly among domestic terrorists in recent years." Mrs. McC: Meanwhile, Trump & Barr continue to cite Black Lives Matter & antifa as the sources of lethal violence.

Edgar Sandoval & Troy Closson of the New York Times: "New Yorkers flooded polling places on Saturday, the first day of early voting in the state.... Saturday was the first time New Yorkers were allowed to vote early in a presidential election, which is expected to produce record voter turnout.... Recent mishaps involving absentee ballots drove many voters to the polls on Saturday.... Late last month, the city's Board of Elections came under fire after as many as 100,000 voters in Brooklyn received absentee ballots with the wrong names and addresses.... Unlike in many other states and the rest of New York, where people can cast ballots at any early voting center in their county, voters in New York City are allowed to vote early only at assigned locations."

Shawn Boburg of the Washington Post: "In the days leading up to the Sept. 30 [Trump rally] in Duluth, Minn., local officials had privately pressed the campaign to abide by state public health guidelines aimed at slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus, documents show. In response, the campaign signed an agreement pledging to follow those rules, limiting attendance to 250 people. On the day of the rally, however, Trump supporters flooded onto the tarmac at Duluth International Airport. They stood shoulder to shoulder, many without masks.... Held two days before Trump was diagnosed with covid-19, the rally was attended by more than 2,500 people, airport officials estimated.... Emails and other documents obtained by The Washington Post through open-records requests show that Duluth officials insisted on adherence to the rules, and that the campaign responded by making commitments it ultimately did not keep. The documents also show that local officials suspected the campaign would violate the agreement, but shied away from enforcing public health orders for fear of provoking a backlash." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Officials always should have made the Trump campaign turn over at least a $1 million bond before any event. You can't trust those people as far as a mouse could throw President Fatso.

Trump's Bad Bet. David Fahrenthold, et al., of the Washington Post: "As Trump fights to save his political career, another key part of his life -- his business -- is also under growing stress. In the next four years, Trump faces payment deadlines for more than $400 million in loans -- just as the pandemic robs his businesses of customers and income, according to a Washington Post analysis of Trump's finances. The bills coming due include loans on his Chicago hotel, his D.C. hotel and his Doral resort, all hit by a double whammy: Trump's political career slowed their business, then the pandemic ground it down much further. If Trump is reelected, these loan-saddled properties could present a significant conflict of interest: The president will owe enormous sums to banks that his government regulates. National security experts say Trump's debts to Deutsche Bank, a German company, and foreign deals may constitute security risks if they make him vulnerable to influence by foreign governments."

Barbie & Ken Very Upset Their Indifference to National Pandemic Makes Them Look Bad. Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are threatening to sue the Lincoln Project over billboards the anti-Trump group put up in Times Square assailing them over the White House's coronavirus response. In a letter to the group posted on Twitter on Friday night, an attorney for the president's daughter and son-in-law demanded the 'false, malicious and defamatory' billboards be taken down. Marc Kasowitz warned that if the ads stay up, 'we will sue you for what will doubtless be enormous compensatory and punitive damages.' The Lincoln Project was defiant, saying in a scathing public statement that the billboards would stay up."

They Learned from the Master to Whine & Deflect Responsibility. Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "... Donald Trump's top advisers have plunged into a bitter round of finger-pointing and blame-shifting ahead of an increasingly likely defeat. Accusations are flying in all directions and about all manner of topics -- from allegedly questionable spending decisions by former campaign manager Brad Parscale, to how White House chief of staff Mark Meadows handled Trump's hospitalization for Covid-19, to skepticism that TV ads have broken through. Interviews with nearly a dozen Trump aides, campaign advisers and Republican officials also surfaced accusations that the president didn't take fundraising seriously enough and that the campaign undermined its effort to win over seniors by casting Democrat Joe Biden as senile. Finger-pointing is a common feature of campaigns that think they're losing, but it's happening at an uncommon level in this campaign. Shifting responsibility has been a staple of the Trump presidency -- and his lieutenants are now following suit."

The Definition of Self-Dealing. Stephen Gandel of CBS News: "Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's former company landed a $5 million highway-shipping contract last month with the United States Postal Service. DeJoy continues to own a multimillion-dollar stake in XPO Logistics as of early October. The $5 million deal is the first regular contract for a postal route that XPO Logistics has signed with the USPS in more than a year. XPO's last highway contract with the USPS was in December and was temporary. The one before that was signed in July 2019.... The USPS database shows the contract has one of the highest annual rates out of more than 1,600 contracts the Postal Service initiated with outside firms in its most recent quarter, which is the first full quarter DeJoy has served as head of the agency." --s

Jack Stubbs & Christopher Bing of Reuters: "Russian hackers piggy-backed on an Iranian cyber-espionage operation to attack government and industry organizations in dozens of countries while masquerading as attackers from the Islamic Republic, British and U.S. officials said on Monday. The Russian group, known as 'Turla' and accused by Estonian and Czech authorities of operating on behalf of Russia's FSB security service, has used Iranian tools and computer infrastructure to successfully hack in to organizations in at least 20 different countries over the last 18 months, British security officials said. The hacking campaign, the extent of which has not been previously revealed, was most active in the Middle East but also targeted organizations in Britain, they said." --s

Loveday Morris of the Washington Post: "Polish President Andrzej Duda has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, his spokesman announced on Saturday, the latest in a string of world leaders to be infected.... In addition to President Trump, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko are among other world leaders to have contracted the virus." Mrs. McC: Not coincidentally, every one of them is a careless, authoritarian right-winger.

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race, Etc.

Sydney Ember of the New York Times: "... Joseph R. Biden Jr. sought Friday to amplify the closing argument he delivered on the debate stage a night earlier, accusing President Trump of failing to stem the ballooning coronavirus crisis and vowing more aggressive federal action for the 'dark winter ahead.' In a speech near his home in Wilmington, Del., Mr. Biden denounced Mr. Trump's familiar assertion that the pandemic was 'rounding the corner' and 'going away' even as cases surge across the country, placing the blame for the rising death toll squarely at the president's feet.... During his address, Mr. Biden laid out the immediate steps he would take to rein in the coronavirus if elected. He also said he would ask Congress to put a bill on his desk by the end of January outlining the resources needed for the country's public health and economic response to the virus. Mr. Biden said he would ask every governor to institute mask mandates; if they refused, he said, he would work with local officials to get local mandates in place nationwide. And he said he would require masks in federal buildings and on interstate transportation." This is an item from Friday's debate live updates. ~~~

~~~ Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "Joe Biden pledged Friday that if elected president he will begin reaching out to state and local leaders during the transition to begin crafting a coronavirus relief bill that he could sign by the end of January. In remarks in Wilmington, Del., after the final presidential debate, the Democratic nominee said he would look to gauge 'what support they need and how much of it they need.'... Biden again skewered President Donald Trump's handling of the virus.... 'If this is a success, what's a failure look like?' he [asked]. 'We're more than eight months into this crisis, and the president still doesn't have a plan.'"

Holly Otterbein, et al., of Politico: "Joe Biden's plan to move to a clean energy economy isn't new to those who've been paying attention: For months, he's promised to put the country on a path to be carbon-neutral by 2050. But Biden, who's been extraordinarily cautious throughout the campaign while talking about fossil fuels, clearly believes he botched his own strategy on Thursday night. Within minutes of the debate, where he said he wanted to transition away from the oil industry, Biden walked back his remarks with reporters. On Friday, his running mate Kamala Harris reaffirmed the ticket's support for fracking. And two members of Congress from oil- and gas-rich areas immediately distanced themselves from the Democratic nominee.... Donald Trump's campaign has spent the day rejoicing at Biden's remarks, crowing on a call with media outlets on Friday it 'put the nail in the coffin' for him in Pennsylvania. But in a sign of their confidence here in the presidential race, many Democrats in the critical battleground state, including those in fracking country, are largely shrugging it off."

We're going to quickly end this pandemic, this horrible plague that came in from China.... You look at what is going on and we're rounding the turn, we're rounding the corner. We're rounding the corner beautifully. -- Donald Trump at a superspreader rally in Florida's huge retirement community the Villages, Friday, the day of the highest number of reported coronavirus cases reported ~~~

~~~ ** Superspreader-in-Chief. Erin Mansfield, et al., of USA Today: "As ... Donald Trump jetted across the country holding campaign rallies during the past two months, he didn't just defy state orders and federal health guidelines. He left a trail of coronavirus outbreaks in his wake. The president has participated in nearly three dozen rallies since mid-August, all but two at airport hangars. A USA TODAY analysis shows COVID-19 cases grew at a faster rate than before after at least five of those rallies in the following counties: Blue Earth, Minnesota; Lackawanna, Pennsylvania; Marathon, Wisconsin; Dauphin, Pennsylvania; and Beltrami, Minnesota.... The earliest post-rally spikes occurred even as the nation's overall case counts were in decline from a peak in mid-July. When U.S. cases started climbing in mid-September, Trump did not alter his campaign schedule but continued holding an average of four rallies a week."

Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "President Trump ... had a ready deflection for the 'kids in cages' accusation [when the topic came up at the presidential debate Thursday]. It was Mr. Biden's fault. 'They said, "Look at these cages; President Trump built them,"' Mr. Trump said. 'And then it was determined they were built in 2014. That was him.'... The Obama administration separated children from adults at the border only in cases when there was a doubt about the familial relationship between a child and an accompanying adult or if the adult had a serious criminal record. Mr. Trump's 'zero tolerance' policy was a deliberate act of family separation, meant to deter migrants from trying to enter the United States. It directed prosecutors to file criminal charges against everyone who crossed the border without authorization, including parents, who were then separated from their children when they were taken into custody. That policy was ended amid international outcry, but its repercussions remain."

Elahe Izadi & Jeremy Barr of the Washington Post: "During the final presidential debate, President Trump made reference to 'the laptop from hell,' 'AOC plus three' and 'Russia, Russia, Russia.'... The material was very familiar to -- and maybe only familiar to -- regular viewers of Fox News opinion hosts such as Sean Hannity. 'I feel like he almost was speaking the language of Fox prime time,' Chuck Todd ... said on NBC after the debate. 'If you watch a lot of Fox prime time, you understand what he's saying. If you don't, you have no idea.'... 'Some of the punches he threw at Joe Biden I don't think landed, because unless you were Sean Hannity, you probably had no idea what he was talking about,' CNN host Jake Tapper said." Mrs. McC: We thought Trump's vocabulary had grown more and more limited, but it turns out he's just dropped a normal English vocabulary & replaced it with right-wing buzzwords & phrases. (Also linked yesterday.)

Prize for Best String of Words in the Debate Goes to Donald Trump: "I take full responsibility. It's not my fault...."

Prize for Audacity Goes to Donald Trump: To Kristen Welker: "I am the least racist person in this room."

Presidential Election 2016. Sarah Blaskey, et al. of the Miami Herald: "Donald Trump’s team knew they couldn't win the 2016 election simply by persuading people to vote for Trump.... So the campaign and its allies used big data to target Black communities along Miami-Dade County's historically disenfranchised Interstate 95 corridor. There, residents became some of the 12.3 million unwitting subjects of a groundbreaking nationwide experiment: A computer algorithm that analyzed huge sums of potential voters' personal data -- things they'd said and done on Facebook, credit card purchases, charities they supported, and even personality traits -- decided they could be manipulated into not voting. They probably wouldn't even know it was happening.... They called it 'deterrence.'... Behind the 2016 deterrence campaign was Cambridge Analytica ... at a time when Stephen Bannon, eventually hired to lead the Trump campaign, was the firm's vice president[.]" --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "... Republicans are hostile to greater democracy, where democracy means equal representation in a federal system of separated powers. Name a proposal that would enlarge the scope of American democracy -- more states, a national popular vote, a larger House of Representatives -- and Republicans (or their conservative allies) are almost certain to oppose it.... The Republican Party ... is a minority party representing a demographically narrow segment of the American electorate. It needs stasis -- institutional and constitutional -- to survive. Democrats do not.... The question of whether Democrats will abolish the filibuster or expand the courts or create new states, should they win power, is actually a question of whether Democrats will bring dynamism to the American political system.... But if they have any desire to reverse the damage of the past four years -- if they want to return to something like normalcy -- then the path to stability begins with transformation."

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Davey Alba of the New York Times: "... Fox News is giving more airtime to the unverified Hunter Biden emails than it did to the hacked emails from [John] Podesta in 2016, according to an analysis from the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, which studies disinformation.... In contrast, most viewers of CNN and MSNBC would not have heard much about the unconfirmed Hunter Biden emails, according to the analysis.... As for online news outlets, 85 percent of the 1,000 most popular articles about the Hunter Biden emails were by right-leaning sites, according to the analysis. Those articles, which were shared 28 million times, came from The New York Post, Fox Business, Fox News and The Washington Times, among other outlets."

Florida. Mary Ellen Klas of the Miami Herald: "A generation more familiar with TikTok, Instagram and XBox has the potential to make the difference in Florida's toss-up presidential race between two seventy-somethings. Younger voters this year have been registering and casting ballots in bigger numbers than previous years and, if the presidential race in Florida is as close as polls predict, it will be decided by the margins. There about 1.1 million additional new Florida voters between 18 and 34 in 2020 than there were in 2016.... According to an analysis by Catalist, a progressive polling organization that is monitoring Florida's voting trends among a slightly broader age group, ages 18 to 39, turnout has increased 44% among those voters compared to 2016." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Georgia. Frank Bajak of the AP: "A ransomware attack that hobbled a Georgia county government in early October reportedly disabled a database used to verify voter signatures in the authentication of absentee ballots. It is the first reported case of a ransomware attack affecting an election-related system in the 2020 cycle. Federal officials and cybersecurity experts are especially concerned that ransomware attacks -- even ones that don't intentionally target election infrastructure -- could disrupt voting and damage confidence in the integrity of the Nov. 3 election." --s ~~~

~~~ Republicans Donate to Crazy Candidate. Sam Stein of the Daily Beast: "After weeks of wavering, the national Republican party has formally thrown its support behind Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican House candidate who is openly supportive of QAnon. The National Republican Congressional Committee donated $5,000 to Greene's congressional campaign on September 25, according to campaign finance records -- the maximum amount the committee can donate. The donation formalizes the GOP's acceptance of Greene's candidacy after top officials in the party had signaled hesitancy in backing her."

Iowa. Trip Gabriel & Astead Herndon of the New York Times: "Iowa's governor [Kim Reynolds] is not on the ballot next month. But her defiant attitude toward the advice of health experts on how to fight the coronavirus outbreak, as her state sees a grim tide of new cases and deaths, may be dragging down fellow Republicans who are running, including Mr. Trump and Senator Joni Ernst. Ms. Reynolds, the first woman to lead Iowa, is an avatar of the president's approach to the pandemic, refusing to issue mandates and flouting the guidance of infectious disease experts, who say that universal masking and social distancing are essential to limiting the virus's spread. Defying that advice has eroded support for both Mr. Trump and Ms. Reynolds in Iowa, especially among voters over 65, normally a solid Republican constituency, according to public and private polls."

Pennsylvania. State Supremes Are Getting Sick of the Trump Campaign's Whining. Zach Montellaro of Politico: "The Pennsylvania state Supreme Court ruled Friday that ballots in the state cannot be rejected because of signature comparisons, backing up guidance issued by the state's chief elections officer heading into Pennsylvania's first presidential election with no-excuse mail voting. The ruling is a defeat for ... Donald Trump's campaign and other Republicans, who had challenged the decision by Pennsylvania election officials.... [The opinion was] signed by six of the seven justices, including five Democrats and one Republican. The seventh justice, another Republican, concurred with the ruling." Mrs. McC: This is the fifth or sixth voter case the Trump campaign has lost in state court.

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

Campbell Robertson, et al., of the New York Times: "The United States is in the midst of one of the most severe surges of the coronavirus to date, with more new cases reported across the country on Friday than on any other single day since the pandemic began. Since the start of October, the rise in cases has been steady and inexorable, with no plateau in sight. By Friday evening, more than 82,000 cases had been reported across the country, breaking a single-day record set on July 16 by more than 6,000 cases. By that measure, Friday was the worst day of the pandemic, and health experts warned of a further surge as cold weather sets in."

Trump Eliminated Vaccine Safety Office. Carl Zimmer of the New York Times: "For now, Operation Warp Speed, created by the Trump administration to spearhead development of coronavirus vaccines and treatments, is focused on getting vaccines through clinical trials in record time and manufacturing them quickly. The next job will be to monitor the safety of vaccines once they're in widespread use. But the administration last year quietly disbanded the office with the expertise for exactly this job, merging it into an office focused on infectious diseases. Its elimination has left that long-term safety effort for coronavirus vaccines fragmented among federal agencies, with no central leadership, experts say. [Plus:] In 2016, President Barack Obama set up a global health security office at the National Security Council. But in 2018, the Trump administration disbanded that office, saying it was streamlining bureaucratic bloat." ~~~

      ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: The irresponsibility of All the Best People is breathtaking. With any luck, Trump will be living in an undisclosed location somewhere in Moscow by the time Americans have access to vaccines, but it will be a big, expensive job to re-establish the "safety central command" that the Trumpies disbanded.

The Trump Plan to Defeat the Coronavirus. Thanks to RockyGirl for the link. And thanks to the Biden campaign.

The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here: "The average number of covid-19 hospitalizations has risen in at least 38 states over the past week -- a trend that cannot be explained by more widespread testing -- according to data tracked by The Washington Post." (Also linked yesterday.)

Lena Sun & Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration has been pressuring health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to endorse the use of border hotels to hold migrant children before deporting them, a practice the government halted last month under court order, according to federal health officials. Career CDC officials have declined to sign off on a declaration requested by the Department of Health and Human Services affirming that the use of hotels to detain migrant children is the best way to protect them from the spread of the novel coronavirus, according to one HHS official who has seen the declaration.... The request from HHS is the latest example of the administration's efforts to use government scientists and physicians to advance the president's political agenda." (Also linked yesterday.)

Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post: A scatter graph produced by "Carnegie Mellon's CovidCast, an academic project tracking real-time coronavirus statistics, yields a particularly vivid illustration of how mask usage influences the prevalence of covid-19 symptoms in a given area. For all 50 states plus D.C., this chart plots the percentage of state residents who say they wear a mask in public all or most of the time (on the horizontal axis) and the percentage who say they know someone in their community with virus symptoms (on the vertical axis).... [For those of you who passed Statistics 101:] The R-squared of CovidCast's mask and symptom data is 0.73, meaning that you can predict about 73 percent of the variability in state-level covid-19 symptom prevalence simply by knowing how often people wear their masks." Ingraham points out several factors that could have influenced the results. "Nevertheless, the chart is particularly useful in the context of all the other high-quality evidence showing that masks reduce the transmission of the coronavirus and other respiratory diseases." (Also linked yesterday.)

Susanne Craig, et al., of the New York Times: "In President Trump's telling, he is a committed philanthropist with strong ties to many charities.... And according to his tax records, he has given back at least $130 million since 2005, his second year as a reality TV star. But the long-hidden tax records, obtained by The New York Times, show that Mr. Trump did not have to reach into his wallet for most of that giving. The vast bulk of his charitable tax deductions, $119.3 million worth, came from simply agreeing not to develop land -- in several cases, after he had shelved development plans.... The New York attorney general is investigating whether the appraisals on two of Mr. Trump's easement donations were improperly inflated to win larger tax breaks, according to court filings. Mr. Trump's pronouncements of philanthropic largess have been broadly discredited by reporting, most notably in The Washington Post, that found he had exaggerated, or simply never made, an array of claimed contributions. His own charitable foundation shut down in 2018 amid allegations of self-dealing to benefit Mr. Trump, his businesses and his campaign."

I don't make money from China. You do. -- Donald Trump, to Joe Biden, presidential debate Thursday ~~~

~~~ ** Dan Alexander of Forbes: "... Donald Trump, who declared 'I don't make money from China' in Thursday night's presidential debate, has in fact collected millions of dollars from government-owned entities in China since he took office. Forbes estimates that at least $5.4 million has flowed into the president's business from a lease agreement involving a state-owned bank in Trump Tower. The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China signed a lease for space in 2008, years before the president took office, paying about $1.9 million in annual rent. Trump is well-aware of the deal.... Government-owned entities in China hold at least 70% of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. Suddenly, a routine real estate deal became a conduit for a foreign superpower to pay the president of the United States." Even though Eric Trump said in early 2017 that his father would donate to the U.S. Treasury profits from "all the properties," Donald Trump has not donated the profits from the Chinese bank lease. "Trump has other financial connections to China." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Biden has released decades of his tax returns. There's no evidence Biden has "made money from China." This is just the 999th iteration of Trump's infamous & despicable projection.

So it's now my great honor to sign the VA Mission Act, or as we all know it, the Choice Act, and to make Veterans Choice the permanent law of our great country. -- Donald Trump, June 6, 2018 ~~~

~~~ "Trump's Mendacity Is a Hallmark of His Presidency." Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "The first time President Trump claimed false credit for the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act -- which President Barack Obama signed into law in 2014 -- was on June 6, 2018. That day, as Trump signed the Mission Act, a modest update to the bipartisan VA Choice legislation, he seemed to conflate the two.... In the coming weeks, Trump began systematically erasing from the legislation's history not just Obama but also the late senator John McCain (R-Ariz.).... That didn't stop Trump from falsely claiming -- as he did at a tank factory in Lima, Ohio, in March 2019 -- that McCain, his frequent political rival, failed to make any progress on the VA Choice Act. 'McCain didn't get the job done for our great vets and the VA, and they knew it,' Trump said. More than two years after signing the Mission Act..., Trump has repeated some version of his VA Choice Act mistruth more than 156 times.... The president's handling of the VA Choice legislation offers a crystalline window into the anatomy of a Trump lie: the initial false claim, the subsequent embellishment and gilding, the incessant repetition and the clear evidence that he knows the truth but chooses to keep telling the falsehood -- all enabled by aides either unwilling or unable to rein him in."

Lisa Rein, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump's extraordinary directive allowing his administration to weed out career federal employees viewed as disloyal in a second term is the product of a four-year campaign by conservatives working from a little-known West Wing policy shop. Soon after Trump took office, a young aide [-- James Sherk --] hired from the Heritage Foundation with bold ideas for reining in the sprawling bureaucracy of 2.1 million came up with a blueprint. Trump would hold employees accountable, sideline their labor unions and give the president more power to hire and fire them, much like political appointees.... The result this week threatens to be the most significant assault on the nonpartisan civil service in its 137-year history: a sweeping executive order that strips job protections from employees in policy roles across the government. Exactly which roles would be affected will be up to personnel officials at federal agencies, who were tasked on Friday with reviewing all of their jobs and deciding who would qualify."

Caitlin Dickerson of the New York Times: "... about 600 people [are] stranded in ... a refugee camp on the doorstep of the United States, one of several that have sprung up along the border for the first time in the country's history. After first cropping up in 2018, the encampment across the border from Brownsville, Texas, exploded to nearly 3,000 people the following year under a policy that has required at least 60,000 asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for the entirety of their legal cases, which can take years.... Many have been living in fraying tents for more than a year.... The Trump administration has said the 'remain in Mexico' policy was essential.... The Mexican authorities have blamed the American government for the situation. But they have also declined to designate the outdoor areas as official refugee camps in collaboration with the United Nations, which could then have provided infrastructure for housing and sanitation.... The U.S. Supreme Court agreed this week to review the policy after it was successfully challenged in the federal Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit."

Deb Reichmann & Matthew Lee of the AP: "... Donald Trump announced Friday that Sudan will start to normalize ties with Israel, making it the third Arab state to do so as part of U.S.-brokered deals in the run-up to Election Day. The deal, which would deepen Sudan's engagement with the West, follows Trump's conditional agreement this week to remove the North African nation from the list of state sponsors of terrorism if it pays compensation to American victims of terror attacks. It also delivers a foreign policy achievement for Trump just days before the U.S. election and boosts his embattled ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Recently, the United States brokered diplomatic pacts between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Jordan recognized Israel in the 1990s." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: A photo accompanying the story pictures Trump in the Oval surrounded by 11 men & one woman applauding Donald Trump. They appeal to be Cabinet members & aides. They are standing close together, and none is wearing a mask except the woman, who is seated & appears to be pregnant. There is nothing Trump would change about his response to the coronavirus because he has saved millions of lives by cancelling some flights from China. ~~~

~~~ Sounds as if Bibi thinks Joe will will the election:

     ~~~  Quint Forgey of Politico: "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday passed up an opportunity to knock Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, seemingly deflating ... Donald Trump in the presence of reporters in the Oval Office.... Trump asked Netanyahu: 'Do you think Sleepy Joe could have made this deal, Bibi? Sleepy Joe? I think -- do you think he would have made this deal somehow? I don't think so.' Netanyahu hesitated before offering a halting answer: 'Well, Mr. President, one thing I can tell you is we appreciate the help for peace from anyone in America. And we appreciate what you've done enormously.' The smile on the president's face faded as he listened to the prime minister's response."

     ~~~ Just after Netanyahu shoots down Trump's flagrant attempt to get him to interfere in the U.S. presidential election, Trump makes fun of reporter Jeff Mason's mask. ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Oh, wait. The whole "agreement" may be fake, nothing more than Trump's attempt at a mini-October surprise. It seems one of the party's to the agreement has not agreed to it:

~~~ ** Times of Israel: "Following the announcement of Sudan's normalization agreement with Israel on Friday, Sudan's acting foreign minister said the agreement still depends on approval from the Sudanese legislative council, which has not yet been formed as the government goes through transition.... It remains unclear when a transitional parliament will be formed amid negotiations between the civilian and military parts of the transitional government. Whether or not to normalize ties with Israel has been a matter of vehement debate within Sudan's transitional government, with its military wing, headed by Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman al-Burhan, said in favor, but [Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla] Hamdok opposed. Trump announced the Israel-Sudan deal on Friday at the White House in a call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sudan's leaders." --s

All the Best Friends. Nicole Hong & Jesse Drucker of the New York Times: "Ken Kurson, a close friend of ... Jared Kushner, was taken into federal custody on Friday and charged with cyberstalking in connection with his divorce. Mr. Kurson, who now runs a media company and works in the cryptocurrency industry, helped write a speech for the president's 2016 campaign. When Mr. Kushner owned The New York Observer, the weekly newspaper, he appointed Mr. Kurson to be its editor in chief in 2013. Mr. Kurson was also a longtime associate of Rudolph W. Giuliani.... Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn accused Mr. Kurson of sending threatening and stalking messages to several people.... The F.B.I. has also gathered evidence that Mr. Kurson engaged in a similar pattern of harassment during his divorce proceedings in 2015, including installing software on someone's computer to monitor keystrokes, the criminal complaint said. He also used aliases to contact that person's employer to report false allegations of misconduct, according to the complaint." (Also linked yesterday.)

Justice System For Sale. Robert Maguire of CREW: "A close informal advisor [Leonard Leo] to President Trump who has been deeply involved in all three of his Supreme Court nomination battles is the sole trustee of a mysterious group [Rule of Law Trust (RLT)] that brought in more than $80 million in 2018, according to a previously unreported tax return uncovered by CREW. The filing vastly expands the amount of money known to be flowing into the growing constellation of dark money groups tied to Federalist Society co-chairman Leonard Leo and provides new details about his role in a secretive firm that was responsible for one of the largest donations received by President Trump's inaugural committee.... [The group] claimed it had no employees and no volunteers in its first year and listed what appears to be a virtual office in Virginia as its main address.... There's no apparent public information to demonstrate what that work entails, not even a website." --s

Ted Barrett & Clare Foran of CNN: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did not answer questions about his health Thursday, only saying there were 'no concerns' after reporters asked him about what appeared to be bruises and bandages on his hands in recent days. 'Of course not,' McConnell told reporters in the Capitol when asked if he had any health issues people should know about.... In 2019, McConnell fractured his shoulder after he tripped and fell at his Kentucky home. He also underwent triple heart bypass surgery in 2003." With photos. --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Lois Beckett of the Guardian & Agency: "A rightwing extremist boasted of driving from Texas to Minneapolis to help set fire to a police precinct during the George Floyd protests, federal prosecutors said. US attorney Erica MacDonald said on Friday that she had charged Ivan Harrison Hunter, a 26-year-old Texas resident, with traveling across state lines to participate in a riot. The charges are the latest example of far-right extremists attempting to use violence to escalate national protests against police brutality into an uprising against the government, and even full civil war. The case also reveals the extent of the coordination between violent members of the nascent far-right 'Boogaloo Bois' movement operating in different cities across the country.... Video shot [the night of May 28] shows a person later identified as Hunter firing 13 rounds from a semiautomatic assault-style rifle on the 3rd precinct police station while people believed to be looters were inside."

Way Beyond the Beltway

Russia. Bellingcat: "On October 15, 2020, the European Union imposed sanctions on six senior Russian officials and a leading Russian research institute over the alleged use of a nerve agent from the Novichok family in the poisoning of opposition leader Alexey Navalny.... Russian officials said the country had nothing to do with Navalny's poisoning.... [In 2018] Russia had ... stated that it had no ongoing chemical weapons program and had destroyed all of its prior arsenals.... A year-long investigation by Bellingcat and its investigative partners ... has discovered evidence that Russia continued its Novichok development program long beyond the officially announced closure date.... Crucially for our conclusions, we have identified evidence showing close coordination between ... two institutes and a secretive sub-unit of Military Unit 29155 of Russia's military intelligence, the GRU." --s

Vatican. Jason Horowitz & Natalie Kitroeff of the New York Times: "Pope Francis was an hour into a sprawling interview with a Mexican journalist at his Vatican residence in 2019 when he was asked if he had changed since his time as archbishop of Argentina, when he staunchly opposed gay marriage. Francis responded that he had always defended the church's teaching on marriage, then began to delve into the question of legalizing same-sex relationships when suddenly the video skipped forward. 'One changes in life,' he said. The words that went missing -- expressing support for same-sex civil unions -- surfaced only this week in a new documentary.... But the clip also became the subject of sudden intrigue over when and where the pope made the remarks, and why they were only now being made public. Two people close to the [Mexican broadcaster Televisa]..., said that the Vatican had required that the interview be filmed with Vatican cameras and that the Vatican be given control over the footage. The Vatican cut out the pope's remarks on same-sex unions in the edited version provided to Televisa, the two people said.... The Church allowed a documentary filmmaker access to the Vatican archives, including the raw footage of the Televisa interview. The filmmaker put the clip in a new documentary...." (Also linked yesterday.)

News Lede

NBC News: "Colorado has seen three of its largest wildfires in state history occur this year, two of which are still growing. The largest wildfire currently burning in the state is the Cameron Peak Fire, which has scorched more than 206,000 acres, according to the fire-reporting site InciWeb. As of Friday morning, it was 57 percent contained. The blaze erupted on Aug. 13 and flared up recently due to warm and dry weather, prompting evacuation warnings for several areas. The cause of the fire is still being investigated. Firefighters in the state have also been responding to the East Troublesome Fire, which has grown to more than 170,000 acres, now the second-largest in Colorado. It was only 5 percent contained as of Friday morning."