In the months since March, many Americans have habituated to the horrors of the pandemic. They process the election’s ramifications. They plan for the holidays. But health-care workers do not have the luxury of looking away: They’re facing a third pandemic surge that is bigger and broader than the previous two. In the U.S., states now report more people in the hospital with COVID-19 than at any other point this year—and 40 percent more than just two weeks ago.
Emergency rooms are starting to fill again with COVID-19 patients. Utah, where Nathan Hatton is a pulmonary specialist at the University of Utah Hospital, is currently reporting 2,500 confirmed cases a day, roughly four times its summer peak. Hatton says that his intensive-care unit is housing twice as many patients as it normally does. His shifts usually last 12 to 24 hours, but can stretch to 36. “There are times I’ll come in in the morning, see patients, work that night, work all the next day, and then go home,” he told me. I asked him how many such shifts he has had to do. “Too many,” he said.
Grey Kitty, by C.M. Cooper
Hospitals have put their pandemic plans into action, adding more beds and creating makeshift COVID-19 wards. But in the hardest-hit areas, there are simply not enough doctors, nurses, and other specialists to staff those beds. Some health-care workers told me that COVID-19 patients are the sickest people they’ve ever cared for: They require twice as much attention as a typical intensive-care-unit patient, for three times the normal length of stay. “It was doable over the summer, but now it’s just too much,” says Whitney Neville, a nurse based in Iowa. “Last Monday we had 25 patients waiting in the emergency department. They had been admitted but there was no one to take care of them.” I asked her how much slack the system has left. “There is none,” she said.
The entire state of Iowa is now out of staffed beds, Eli Perencevich, an infectious-disease doctor at the University of Iowa, told me. Worse is coming. Iowa is accumulating more than 3,600 confirmed cases every day; relative to its population, that’s more than twice the rate Arizona experienced during its summer peak, “when their system was near collapse,” Perencevich said. With only lax policies in place, those cases will continue to rise. Hospitalizations lag behind cases by about two weeks; by Thanksgiving, today’s soaring cases will be overwhelming hospitals that already cannot cope. “The wave hasn’t even crashed down on us yet,” Perencevich said. “It keeps rising and rising, and we’re all running on fear. The health-care system in Iowa is going to collapse, no question.”
Monday Reads: ‘And the people stayed home’
Posted: November 16, 2020 Filed under: just because | Tags: January 21 is coming!!!! 20 Comments
Jessica Boehman, Illustrated Print, Bedtime Stories, Girl with kid, bear, fox
Good Day Sky Dancers!
I’d like to introduce you to something shared with me by an old friend of our longstanding blog/Hillary community shared on her Facebook page. It’s amazing how long we’ve endured the last 12 years with so many of us still quite close and I still get so much from each and every one of you.
“And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently.
“And the people healed. And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.
“And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.”~Kitty O’Meara
Kitty O’Meara’s poem and message have gone viral. You can see why when you read even excerpts from it. Writer’s Digest introduces the author to us here at this link with the title “Kitty O’Meara: Finding Joy and Community in a Pandemic”
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
The inspiration to take time with their lives and choose ways to use their gifts that will allow them to feel the joy and healing power of creating goodness, beauty, kindness, and community in the world. And I hope that the book will underscore for readers that we have been given one planet to tend and love and that our well-being is dependent upon hers.
And h/t to BB we have some advice from Anderson Cooper who knows what it’s like to lose a parent at a very young age.
So, I’m supposed to do a face to face lecture with an Executive EMBA class on December 12th and I’m looking at this and wondering why they want to see me the first day of class. I had planned to zoom all my lectures. This graphic is pretty daunting and I wonder what it will look a month from now when I face that task.
And there’s good and bad news about another Vaccine–this time from Moderna--that seems to be quite effective. It’s not going to come quick enough for this uptick. It’s also going to have a hell of a time being distributed. And most importantly, it’s still technically not tested over a long period of time which means we have no idea how long it lasts. It’s also in need of a few more control groups like children.
“Lore finds the Star” from “Lore and the Little Star”. Jessica Boehman
But, as some one who used to do a lot of consulting with small business to improve their product I know a lot about supply chain management and these vaccines look like a nightmare compared to the kinds of things I’ve worked with.
This is from Kris Alexander writing at the Daily Beast: “I Was a Military COVID Planner. The Vaccine Rollout Is Going to Be a Nightmare.”
Given this isolation and lack of resources, the vaccines themselves present a logistical challenge alone that borders on the impossible for rural America. The Pfizer vaccine, now the leading contender, will require ultra-cold storage of at least -94 degrees Fahrenheit and two rounds of shots. Another leading vaccine candidate from Moderna also requires cold storage, albeit not to the same extent, according to the company. Typically, hospitals and large clinics have this capability. Small towns lacking even the most basic health clinics do not.
To deploy the Pfizer vaccine or any other one, health planners will have to figure out a way to deliver it to rural areas while maintaining its required temperature long enough to ensure that the population receives both doses. This scene will be repeated all across small-town America. This presents a big risk: An uncoordinated federal roll out of vaccines requiring ultra-cold storage could leave state and local governments competing for resources much like they were competing for PPE earlier in the pandemic.
Trump has indicated that the military will be the savior here, but the military has its limits. At NORTHCOM, we knew that we could surge military medical and logistical resources to hotspots, but we couldn’t blanket the country with them. Plus, Trump’s firing of Defense Secretary Mark Esper and ongoing purge at the Pentagon could delay and disrupt whatever plans the Department of Defense is developing.
And there is another potential limiting factor here. When a vaccine becomes widely available, the military may be strained taking care of its own and deploying the vaccine to troops and their families around the globe. So despite the promises of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the literal Cavalry may not be coming, at least not as quickly as we might like.
And then there’s more shenanigans even though the Trumpist Regime is beginning to come to terms with its end.
But, for right now let’s recognize what it means to be safe at home for those of us that have that luxury. We should also remember that much of the financial help for the first wave is disappearing.
President-elect Joe Biden is set to take office in January. But with both the House and the Senate back at work now, Washington has time to take up a problem that can’t wait until next year, with the expiration of assistance programs created with the CARES Act in March.
The extension of unemployment benefits and the weekly $300 bonus payment are set to expire by Dec. 31 unless Congress can agree on another stimulus bill that could include a second economic stimulus check for $1,200.
“The November Before You Came,” colored pencil, pencil, gauche, and water soluble graphite. Piece by Jessica Boehman.
So, I guess my thought for the day is that we’re going to all be hunkering down again which is necessary because so many states and people did not do it earlier. But just as we all start trying to face the inevitable the person were supposed to be able to forget sends his troops out to harass his ordained enemies. “Top Trump coronavirus adviser tells Michigan to “rise up” against new restrictions”.
Dr. Scott Atlas, a close adviser to President Trump on the coronavirus pandemic, encouraged Michigan residents to “rise up” after Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced more stringent restrictions on schools and businesses to mitigate a surge in coronavirus cases.
In response to a tweet outlining the new order from Whitmer, a Democrat, Atlas tweeted Sunday “the only way this stops is if people rise up. You get what you accept.”
So, I’m in acceptance mode. I just got a replacement yoga mat–fancier and more cushioned but still quite purple–to replace the one some one borrowed and never returned last year at the beginning of the first shut down. I am now on Medicare. I have a Silver Sneakers fitness program which includes Zoom Yoga and I intend to use it.
I’m planting more perennial herbs and some bulbs so that spring will be a bit cheerier. I’m hoping my Dr kids get the vaccine soon. They likely need it more than any one even though they do no work directly with COVID patients. I’m hoping my youngest can donate convalescent plasma when her symptoms end and that her best friend who is a Covid ICU nurse gets the vaccine and doesn’t wear out. At least they’re in states with sane governors and cities with good mayors, like me. For that, I am grateful.
I am also grateful for you my sweet community of 12 plus years. If we’re going to stay home, we have each other and here to share. I’m trying to take Anderson Cooper’s advice as well as that of Jessica Boehman.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Climbing up on Solsbury Hill
I could see the city light
Wind was blowing, time stood still
Eagle flew out of the night
He was something to observe
Came in close, I heard a voice
Standing stretching every nerve
Had to listen had no choice
I did not believe the information
(I) just had to trust imagination
My heart going boom boom boom
“Son,” he said “Grab your things,
I’ve come to take you home.”
Lazy Caturday Reads
Posted: November 14, 2020 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: 2020 presidential election, coronavirus pandemic, Donald Trump, Doug Burgum, health-care workers, hospitalizations, Joe Biden, Kristi Noem, North Dakota, South Dakota, Trump Death Cult, Trump denial of election results, vaccines 20 Comments
Cat and Butterfly by Diane Hoeptner
Good Morning!!
The coronavirus pandemic is worsening by the day, and the Trump administration refuses to do anything about it. Yesterday, the defeated “president” emerged from his hidey hole for an appearance in the former Rose Garden. He proceeded to falsely claim credit for the Pfizer vaccine and pretend that the election is still undecided.
Maeve Reston at CNN thinks Trump is beginning to accept reality: Trump wavers between reality and election fiction with eye on his legacy during Rose Garden vaccine address.
President Donald Trump had an eye on his legacy as he strode to the microphone in the White House Rose Garden Friday and touted the administration’s “unequaled and unrivaled” efforts to help produce a coronavirus vaccine through Operation Warp Speed. Then, for a brief moment, he seemed close to acknowledging the reality that his presidency is almost over.
“I will not — this administration will not be doing a lockdown,” Trump said, speaking for the first time in a week as coronavirus cases in the US shatter records and hospitalizations are surging. “Hopefully whatever happens in the future — who knows which administration it will be — I guess time will tell, but I can tell you this administration will not go to a lockdown.”
It was a fleeting shift in tone suggesting that the reality of President-elect Joe Biden’s substantial win is seeping into Trump’s psyche even as he and his advisers publicly deny it.
By Midori Yamada
The Democrat now has 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232 as a result of wins in two longtime Republican states, Arizona and Georgia, CNN projects — far above the 270 threshold that Biden needed to clinch the presidency. But the indisputable math has not prevented the President from continuing to try to whip up outrage among his supporters on Twitter with unfounded accusations that the election has been stolen from him.
Friday’s speech in the Rose Garden was a portrait of a President clinging to power as his legal challenges to the election results crumble around him, mindful that he ought to show Americans what he’s been doing with the power of government as he spends his days tweeting conspiracy theories about lost or deleted votes in the midst of a pandemic that is coursing through the United States.
Except he isn’t really doing anything about the most pressing problem facing the country–the pandemic. Philip Bump at The Washington Post: Trump also refuses to admit he lost the fight against the coronavirus.
“Case levels are high, but a lot of the case levels are high because of the fact that we have the best testing program anywhere in the world,” he said. “We’ve developed the most and the best tests, and we test far more than any other country. So it shows obviously more cases.”
This is false for a variety of reasons. The most obvious misstatement is that the current surge in new cases, leading to 1 in every 350 Americans contracting the virus in the past week, is solely a function of more testing. In reality, the number of new cases during this surge (which began around Sept. 12) has easily outpaced the increase in the number of tests being conducted. The rate at which tests are coming back positive is more than 9 percent at the moment, twice what it was a month ago.
It’s also important to remember that the United States has conducted so many tests because we’ve had to. Countries like South Korea effectively contained the virus and therefore didn’t have to keep testing hundreds of thousands of people a week. It’s our failure to contain the virus that necessitates a broad deployment of testing….
Menagerie, by Jane Lewis
“The federal government has 22,000 beds immediately available for states and jurisdictions that need additional capacity,” Trump said Friday. “But we think that it’s going to start going down possibly very quickly. We’ll see what happens. But with the vaccine, you’ll see numbers going down within a matter of months. And it’ll go down very rapidly.”
There’s no indication that the need for hospital capacity is going to go down quickly. It’s also not clear where that federal capacity is or how states can access it. It may be the case that the vaccine will drive down new infections and hospitalizations, but even limited distribution of the vaccine is weeks away. For most Americans, it’s months away, and cases are surging now.
Read more at the WaPo.
As I wrote in a comment yesterday, I think Trump should be prosecuted for negligent homicide. At Alternet, via Raw Story, Cory Fenwick writes: The Trump plan for mass death is unfolding before our eyes.
On Friday, the COVID Tracking Project reported that the number of positive coronavirus infections in the last day had reached 170,000, the highest record ever and a number that was, just a few months ago, hard to imagine. It’s now our daily reality, and it’s likely to only get worse.
Other figures are just as frightening. Hospitalizations — one of the clearest signs of the seriousness of the out break —have reached a new high at 69,000, according to the project. Deaths are at a disturbing 1,300, though that rate is almost certain to spike in recent weeks following the more recent spike in cases. And as the newest and largest wave yet engulfs the country, reports have begun to appear of hospitals being overwhelmed with patients, which is almost certainly a precursor to a spike in the case fatality rate.
by Jane Hoptner
It’s our horrifying new status quo, and one that experts and observers have been warning would unfold this fall for months. But the ming-boggling truth is that for the Trump administration, everything is pretty much going as planned.
Ever since the first wave in the spring, President Donald Trump has seemed increasingly drawn to the so-called (and, indeed, misleadingly named) “herd immunity” approach to the pandemic. On this approach, you reject government restrictions meant to stop people from getting the virus. What advocates of this strategy believe is that it’s best that more people get the virus, because eventually, enough people will have had it, they’ll immune, and life will return to normal.
Click the link to read the rest.
This piece by Ed Yong at The Atlantic is a must read: ‘No One Is Listening to Us.’ More people than ever are hospitalized with COVID-19. Health-care workers can’t go on like this.
There’s much more at the link. I hope you’ll take the time to read it.
It’s so sad to see North Dakota, my birthplace and the state where my parents were born and raised, experiencing such a terrible health emergency. USA Today: The Dakotas are ‘as bad as it gets anywhere in the world’ for COVID-19.
South Dakota welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors to a massive motorcycle rally this summer, declined to cancel the state fair and still doesn’t require masks. Now its hospitals are filling up and the state’s current COVID-19 death rate is among the worst in the world.
White Persian Cat, by Feridun Oral
The situation is similarly dire in North Dakota, with the state’s governor recently moving to allow health care workers who have tested positive for COVID-19 to continue working if they don’t show symptoms. It’s a controversial policy recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a crisis situation where hospitals are short-staffed.
And now — after months of resisting a statewide mask mandate — North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum changed course late Friday, ordering masks to be worn statewide and imposing several business restrictions.
“Our situation has changed, and we must change with it,” Burgum said in a video message posted at 10 p.m. Friday. Doctors and nurses “need our help, and they need it now,” he said.
Both North and South Dakota now face a predictably tragic reality that health experts tell USA TODAY could have been largely prevented with earlier public health actions.
Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota is still resisting. Sioux Falls Argus Leader: If Joe Biden enacts mask mandates, lockdowns, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem won’t enforce them.
The office of Gov. Kristi Noem said in a statement to the Argus Leader Friday that the first-term governor, who’s risen to stardom in the Republican party for her hands-off approach to managing the pandemic, has no intention of using state resources to enforce any federal COVID-19 orders.
“It’s a good day for freedom. Joe Biden realizes that the president doesn’t have the authority to institute a mask mandate,” said Ian Fury, communications specialist for Noem. “For that matter, neither does Governor Noem, which is why she has provided her citizens with the full scope of the science and trusted them to make the best decisions for themselves and their loved-ones.”
Famous last words?
Amaryllis and Cats, by Elizabeth Blackadder
More stories to check out today:
The New York Times: It’s Traumatizing: Coronavirus Deaths are Climbing Again.
Katlyn Polantz at CNN: Trump had a very bad Friday in court with his election cases. They’re headed for more action next week.
Politico: ‘Purely outlandish stuff’: Trump’s legal machine grinds to a halt.
The Washington Post: Federal prosecutors assigned to monitor election malfeasance tell Barr they see no evidence of substantial irregularities.
NBC News: QAnon’s Dominion voter fraud conspiracy theory reaches the president.
The Daily Beast: How Trump’s Voter Fraud War Room Became a Fart-Infused ‘Room From Hell’
Reuters: President-elect Biden, denied classified intel briefings, to bring in national security experts.
Susan Rice at The New York Times: Here’s How Trump’s Stalling Risks Our National Security.
The Washington Post: Defense secretary sent classified memo to White House about Afghanistan before Trump fired him.
The New York Times: Christopher Krebs Hasn’t Been Fired, Yet.
Have a nice weekend, Sky Dancers!
Friday Funky Fee Fee Reads: Cry Baby Cry!
Posted: November 13, 2020 Filed under: 2020 Elections 17 Comments
Portrait of Marcelle Roulin December 1888 by Vincent van Gogh –
Good Day Sky Dancers!
This is the kind’ve headline I’ve been waiting to read! From Raw Story: ” ‘The president is humiliated’ and doesn’t want to be seen in public: CNN’s John Harwood.” Who’s the snow flake now?
CNN White House correspondent John Harwood on Friday said that President Donald Trump has not spoken in public for the past eight days because he’s simply too embarrassed about his defeat at the hands of President-elect Joe Biden.
While talking with CNN host Jim Sciutto, Harwood explained why the president has completely disappeared from the public eye even though the novel coronavirus pandemic has been setting records for infections and hospitalizations over the last week.
“The president is humiliated by the outcome,” Harwood explained. “He understands that he has lost the election, but he does not want to face that music publicly, so he’s been hiding out in the White House, hasn’t been talking before cameras as he typically does every day for a week now.”
Harwood also said that the president is desperately trying to maintain some kind of relevance in the public eye, which is why he’s trying to convince his supporters that the election was stolen from him.
“He’s throwing up these bogus lawsuits which aren’t going anywhere, which are getting tossed out of court as fast as he files them to try to string this out,” he said. “He’s fundraising for his political action committee as well as his legal fund, and he’s trying to create… a sense of grievance going forward so he will have something to rally his supporters around.”
Helene de Septeuil
Mary Cassatt, 1889
We always knew it was around white grievance. But what about people dying and suffering from the pandemic? How about all those understaffed and overworked healthcare providers? What about all the children separated and orphaned by this President at the border? Then, there’s all that pandemic aid to people and businesses about to expire? Is any one home in the Republican party to work on that?
This is exactly what former President Obama says about this situation via Politico “‘There’s damage to this’: Obama slams GOP for lining up behind Trump’s fraud claims. The president’s campaign has continued to mount legal challenges in several states aimed at reversing the election’s outcome.” Even when Trump does nothing, he does harm to the country.
Former President Barack Obama said in a new interview that it “has been disappointing” to see congressional Republicans remain supportive of President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and his refusal to concede the 2020 White House race to President-elect Joe Biden.
“There’s damage to this,” Obama said in an interview with “CBS Sunday Morning” that is set to air in full this weekend. “Because what happens is that the peaceful transfer of power — the notion that any of us who attain an elected office, whether it’s dog catcher or president, are servants of the people, it’s a temporary job, we’re not above the rules, we’re not above the law — that’s the essence of our democracy.”
Obama also described the fraud allegations leveled by GOP lawmakers as disingenuous, saying that “they obviously didn’t think there was any fraud going on, because they didn’t say anything about it for the first two days” after Election Day, when the results in some key swing states were still unsettled. The election ultimately saw Democrats lose seats in the House of Representatives and underperform in competitive Senate races across the country, even as Biden clinched the presidency.
Still, Trump’s campaign has continued to mount legal challenges in several states aimed at reversing the election’s outcome, and congressional Republicans have broadly endorsed those efforts. Only a handful of Senate Republicans have acknowledged Biden as president-elect, although a growing number of top GOP senators have begun calling for Biden to receive intelligence briefings as part of the transition process the White House is working to slow.
More irregular, selfish stuff from the guy who lost while the world and the country danced and celebrated in the streets. What on earth will the kids reading history books a hundred years make of this?
Susan Comforting the Baby (no.1)
Mary Cassatt
c.1881
Meanwhile, the fallout continues. This horrifying news comes via WAPO : “More than 130 Secret Service officers are said to be infected with coronavirus or quarantining in wake of Trump’s campaign travel”,
More than 130 Secret Service officers who help protect the White House and the president when he travels have recently been ordered to isolate or quarantine because they tested positive for the coronavirus or had close contact with infected co-workers, according to three people familiar with agency staffing.
The spread of the coronavirus — which has sidelined roughly 10 percent of the agency’s core security team — is believed to be partly linked to a series of campaign rallies that President Trump held in the weeks before the Nov. 3 election, according to the people, who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the situation.
The outbreak comes as coronavirus cases have been rapidly rising across the nation, with more than 152,000 new cases reported Thursday.
El niño del pichón (1901), de Pablo Picasso
Alex Parene of The New Republic calls Trump’s current behavior–and those of fellow Republicans–a Coup. “A Coup Is a Coup, It’s still an illegitimate power grab, even if Republican operatives are only doing it to protect Trump’s fragile ego.”
“They all know he lost,” the former Republican strategist Tim Miller said of other Republicans, “and they are lying about it to protect his little feelings.”
The knowledge that Trump lost apparently extends to the White House, and even the president himself, according to The Wall Street Journal. “Trump understands that the fight isn’t winnable,” the paper wrote, but its source described the president’s “feelings” as “let me have this fight.”
Before the election, Trump seems to have expected the same level of unflinching support from the institutions of the conservative movement that George W. Bush received in 2000, with the entire conservative media and legal apparatuses working to ensure that the ballot box would be no obstacle to his reelection. Instead, he ended up with a legal team led by a man most recently in the news for a creepy appearance in the sequel to Borat. And Rupert Murdoch—if we can guess his intentions through the actions of Fox News—has seemingly cut bait, trying to ease his audience into accepting that Trump has lost the election.
But, apparently believing it would be too cruel to cut Trump off from his institutional support base completely, conservatives decided to arrange for him a sort of Make-a-Wish Foundation version of Bush v. Gore. Before he is out of his misery, everyone will expend a lot of energy creating the appearance of challenging the results of the election in order to appease the president.
One issue arising from that scheme is that creating the appearance of challenging the results of the election in order to appease the president requires actually challenging the results of the election, in real life. The Trump campaign has filed numerous actual lawsuits in actual courts, and it is still weighing, reportedly, an insane strategy of suing to delay vote certification in certain states in the hopes that Republican state lawmakers decide to try appointing pro-Trump electors. As Ford wrote, such schemes are unlikely to work. But even if the conservative operatives behind these efforts are only going through the motions of seizing power, without any real expectation of success, they are still trying, however feebly, to seize power.
Felix Schlesinger, The New Dress,
Susan Glasser at The New Yorker explores this further: “Is This a Coup, or Just Another Trump Con? A post-election report from Minsk-on-the-Potomac.”
At times, during this unnerving week in America’s capital, it has felt as though we were watching events unfold in Minsk or some other dictator stronghold where elections are not stolen the day votes are cast but in the weeks afterward, as the defeated President holes up in his palace, defying reality and increasingly urgent crowds in the streets. Here in Minsk-on-the-Potomac, Trump has been perpetrating the Big Lie, claiming the election was stolen from him and apparently persuading millions of Americans to go along with this evidence-free fantasy. Biden, so far, has urged calm. It’s an “embarrassment,” he told reporters Tuesday in Wilmington, Delaware, where he continued to plan his transition, took congratulatory phone calls from world leaders, and appointed a White House chief of staff. The official line from Biden has been clear and simple: concession or no concession, Trump will have to leave office at noon on January 20th, and that is that.
But is it? That we are reduced to even asking this question is a defeat for the United States and a win not only for Trump but for all the Trumpists to come, who will forever have the example of a President of the United States flouting the most basic principle of American democracy: accepting the election results and the consequences that come with them.
Ah, yes! Those Consequences!
But, less we lose hope The NYT reminds us: “As Soon as Trump Leaves Office, He Faces Greater Risk of Prosecution. The president is more vulnerable than ever to an investigation into his business practices and taxes.”
President Trump lost more than an election last week. When he leaves the White House in January, he will also lose the constitutional protection from prosecution afforded to a sitting president.
After Jan. 20, Mr. Trump, who has refused to concede and is fighting to hold onto his office, will be more vulnerable than ever to a pending grand jury investigation by the Manhattan district attorney into the president’s family business and its practices, as well as his taxes.
The two-year inquiry, the only known active criminal investigation of Mr. Trump, has been stalled since last fall, when the president sued to block a subpoena for his tax returns and other records, a bitter dispute that for the second time is before the U.S. Supreme Court. A ruling is expected soon.
Mr. Trump has contended that the investigation by the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., a Democrat, is a politically motivated fishing expedition. But if the Supreme Court rules that Mr. Vance is entitled to the records, and he uncovers possible crimes, Mr. Trump could face a reckoning with law enforcement — further inflaming political tensions and raising the startling specter of a criminal conviction, or even prison, for a former president.
But then, Trump is just the least of our worries. We have a Congresswoman that things the QAnon thing is real even though it’s short life appears to be over as a conspiracy. And then there’s this Congressman who thinks we fought World War 2 to defeat socialsim.
But worse than any of these congress critters is this terrible Judge with a Life time appointment to SCOTUS. This is from Mark Joseph Stern writing for Slate “Sam Alito Delivers Grievance-Laden, Ultrapartisan Speech to the Federalist Society. The justice railed against COVID restrictions, same-sex marriage, abortion, and the alleged persecution of conservatives.” The Republican party is still knee deep in demonstrably against the democratic and secular values that this country was founded about. Plus, they hate people that don’t look or act like them even if they have no reason to participate or be a voyeur to it.
These comments revealed early on that Alito would not be abiding by the usual ethics rules, which require judges to remain impartial and avoid any appearance of bias. The rest of his speech served as a burn book for many cases he has participated in, particularly those in which he dissented. Remarkably, Alito did not just grouse about the outcome of certain cases, but the political context of those decisions, and the broader cultural and political forces behind them. Although the justice accused several Democratic senators of being unprofessional, he himself defied the basic principles of judicial conduct.
For instance, the justice criticized state governors who’ve issued strict lockdown orders in response to COVID-19, referring to specific cases that came before the court. Alito said these “sweeping” and “previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty” have served as a “constitutional stress test,” with ominous results. The government’s response to COVID-19, Alito continued, has “highlighted disturbing trends that were already present before the virus struck.” He complained about lawmaking by an “elite group of appointed experts,” citing not just COVID rules but the entire regulatory framework of the federal government.
Alito also warned of a broader, ongoing assault on religious liberty. “In certain corners,” he alleged, “religious liberty is fast becoming a disfavored right.” Alito condemned the Obama administration’s “ protracted campaign” and “unrelenting attack” against the Little Sisters of the Poor, which refused to submit a form to the federal government opting out of the contraceptive mandate. The group alleged that submitting this notice burdened its religious exercise. Alito also disparaged Washington state for requiring pharmacies to provide emergency contraception—which, he claimed, “destroys an embryo after fertilization.” (That is false.) Finally, Alito rebuked Colorado for attempting to compel Jack Phillips to bake a cake for a same-sex couple.* He noted that the couple was given a free cake and supported by “celebrity chefs.”
It would be nice to think we could be less watchful given Trump’s exist from the world stage and back on to the stage of fools. The problem is that he left a lot of fools there making decisions that could wreck our lives including the ones caught up in conspiracy theories dating way way back. The old Roman empire event a Roman Religion and now the Republicans want the American Empire to embrace the one they made out of thin air too.
We’re not quit ready to run any victory laps down here in New Orleans. We’re making calls in to Georgia now try to ensure Mitch McConnell’s future damage will be limited. Down here in the South you learn the losers never admit they lost and never quit.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Thursday Reads
Posted: November 12, 2020 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Military, U.S. Politics | Tags: & Wilmer, Department of Defense, Donald Trump, Fox News, intelligence agencies, Jones Day, Porter, Robert O'Brien, Trump tantrums, Wright Morris & Arthur 11 Comments
Good Morning!!
Prospects are not looking good for Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results, but that doesn’t mean he won’t do serious damage to the government in his remaining lame duck weeks. The biggest problem for the transition to a real president is that Trump’s staff and most GOP elected officials are living in fear of Trump’s tantrums.
The Daily Beast: Trump’s National Security Adviser Tells Staff: Don’t Even Mention Biden’s Name.
President Donald Trump continues to refuse to cede the election. His national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, is enabling the mayhem, four senior officials told The Daily Beast.
O’Brien—once viewed as a potential check on Trump’s erratic national security demands—endorsed the installation of a pair of Trumpists at the Pentagon’s highest levels, while a defense secretary O’Brien has long opposed was fired by tweet.
One official claimed that O’Brien has been supportive of a peaceful transfer of power, joking in a Monday event about Trump’s loss and directing his staff to begin drafting transition materials. But three other officials told The Daily Beast that O’Brien has emerged as one of Trump’s biggest enablers at a decisive moment, supporting the president’s bid to retain power even though it is being waged through a nationwide disinformation campaign….
This week, officials say, O’Brien supported the removal of several top officials at the Pentagon and favored Christopher Miller, a former NSC official who moved to the National Counterterrorism Center, to replace Esper as secretary of defense. He also approved of the installation of Kash Patel as Miller’s chief of staff, officials said. Patel worked previously under O’Brien at the National Security Council. One senior official described Miller and Patel as “O’Brien’s boys.” Patel is also said to be close with another former NSC colleague, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, who is now the Pentagon’s senior intelligence official.
A bit more:
Other officials familiar with the matter noted that O’Brien has also pushed national security officials to publicly embrace the absurd Trump message that the election has not been certified and that there are still legal battles playing out across the country that could turn in the president’s favor.
“If you even mention Biden’s name… that’s a no-go, you’d be fired,” one national security official said. “Everyone is scared of even talking about the chance of working with the [Biden] transition.”
Asked if officials in the White House feel comfortable saying Biden’s name in the West Wing, one senior White House official said, half-jokingly, “Sure, you can say his name. If you’re talking about who lost the election to the president.”
Behind closed doors, one official claimed, O’Brien has been much more forthcoming about Trump’s loss and the need to prepare for a transition. The problem, the other officials said, is that O’Brien hasn’t made that known to the commander in chief.
There’s much more interesting gossip at the Daily Beast link.
On the other hand, some right wingers are speaking up, including John Yoo, Mike DeWine, and John Bolton.
The law firms representing Trump are also getting antsy. The New York Times: Growing Discomfort at Law Firms Representing Trump in Election Lawsuits.
Jones Day is the most prominent firm representing President Trump and the Republican Party as they prepare to wage a legal war challenging the results of the election. The work is intensifying concerns inside the firm about the propriety and wisdom of working for Mr. Trump, according to lawyers at the firm.
Doing business with Mr. Trump — with his history of inflammatory rhetoric, meritless lawsuits and refusal to pay what he owes — has long induced heartburn among lawyers, contractors, suppliers and lenders. But the concerns are taking on new urgency as the president seeks to raise doubts about the election results.
Some senior lawyers at Jones Day, one of the country’s largest law firms, are worried that it is advancing arguments that lack evidence and may be helping Mr. Trump and his allies undermine the integrity of American elections, according to interviews with nine partners and associates, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their jobs.
At another large firm, Porter Wright Morris & Arthur, based in Columbus, Ohio, lawyers have held internal meetings to voice similar concerns about their firm’s election-related work for Mr. Trump and the Republican Party, according to people at the firm. At least one lawyer quit in protest.
Read more at the NYT.
Yesterday another large law firm withdrew from a case in Arizona. Westlaw Today: Snell & Wilmer withdraws from election lawsuit as Trump contests Arizona results.
(Reuters) – The largest law firm representing the Trump campaign or its allies in post-election litigation challenging votes in key states has withdrawn from an election lawsuit in Maricopa County, Arizona.
Associate Presiding Civil Judge Daniel Kiley on Tuesday granted Snell & Wilmer’s request to withdraw as counsel of record for the Republican National Committee. The RNC had teamed-up with the Trump campaign and the Arizona Republican Party in the case, which alleges that Maricopa County incorrectly rejected some votes cast on Election Day.
Snell & Wilmer partners Brett Johnson and Eric Spencer first moved to withdraw on Sunday, a day after the case was filed. Johnson and Spencer did not respond to requests for comment. Snell & Wilmer chairman Matthew Feeney said the firm doesn’t comment on its client work.
Two other large law firms that have represented the Trump campaign in election litigation, Jones Day and Porter Wright Morris & Arthur, have faced an onslaught of online criticism this week from critics who say the cases erode confidence in the democratic process, sparked by a Monday New York Times story focused on the firms’ roles.
This story at The Washington Post by Philip Rucker, Josh Dawsey, and Ashley Parker suggests that Trump may be beginning to accept reality: Trump insists he’ll win, but aides say he has no real plan to overturn results and talks of 2024 run.
Trump aides, advisers and allies said there is no grand strategy to reverse the election results, which show President-elect Joe Biden with a majority of In 2024, Trump will be 79 years old and his dementia will have gotten much worse. But he’ll likely try to continue making our lives a living hell after he leaves the White House.
According to Mike Allen at Axios, Trump plans to form his own media company: Scoop: Trump eyes digital media empire to take on Fox News.
President Trump has told friends he wants to start a digital media company to clobber Fox News and undermine the conservative-friendly network, sources tell Axios.
The state of play: Some Trump advisers think Fox News made a mistake with an early call (seconded by AP) of President-elect Biden’s win in Arizona. That enraged Trump, and gave him something tangible to use in his attacks on the network.
- “He plans to wreck Fox. No doubt about it,” said a source with detailed knowledge of Trump’s intentions…..
Here’s Trump’s plan, according to the source:
-
There’s been lots of speculation about Trump starting a cable channel. But getting carried on cable systems would be expensive and time-consuming.
-
Instead, Trump is considering a digital media channel that would stream online, which would be cheaper and quicker to start.
-
Trump’s digital offering would likely charge a monthly fee to MAGA fans. Many are Fox News viewers, and he’d aim to replace the network — and the $5.99-a-month Fox Nation streaming service, which has an 85% conversion rate from free trials to paid subscribers — as their top destination.
I’ll believe that when I see it. Everyone needs to remember that Trump is a terrible businessman. Besides, he will have to deal with his massive debts and likely criminal charges in New York.
In the meantime, Trump has decapitated the top leadership of the Department of Defense and he may soon finish his takeover of the U.S. intelligence infrastructure.
The New York Times: Trump Stacks the Pentagon and Intel Agencies With Loyalists. To What End?
President Trump’s abrupt installation of a group of hard-line loyalists into senior jobs at the Pentagon has elevated officials who have pushed for more aggressive actions against Iran and for an imminent withdrawal of all American forces from Afghanistan over the objections of the military.
Mr. Trump made the appointments of four top Pentagon officials, including a new acting defense secretary, this week, leaving civilian and military officials to interpret whether this indicated a change in approach in the final two months of his presidency.
At the same time, Mr. Trump named Michael Ellis as a general counsel at the National Security Agency over the objections of the director, Gen. Paul M. Nakasone.
There is no evidence so far that these new appointees harbor a secret agenda on Iran or have taken up their posts with an action plan in hand. But their sudden appearance has been a purge of the Pentagon’s top civilian hierarchy without recent precedent.
Administration officials said the appointments were partly about Afghanistan, where the president has been frustrated by what he sees as a military moving too slowly to fulfill his promise that all American troops will be home by Christmas. The Pentagon announced on Wednesday that Douglas Macgregor, a retired Army colonel and fierce proponent of ending American involvement in Afghanistan, would serve as a senior adviser.
Read the rest at the NYT.
I’ll end there, and add a few more links in the comment thread. I hope everyone is doing OK. Please check in with us today if you have the time and inclination–we love to hear from you!
Tuesday Reads: Trump’s “Autocratic Attempt”
Posted: November 10, 2020 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Autocracy, autocratic attempt, autocratic breakthrough, Bálint Magyar, democracy, Department of Defense, Donald Trump, famous autocrats, GSA, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Mark Esper, NSA, Richard PIlger, U.S. nuclear arsenal, William Barr 18 CommentsGood Morning!!
Benito Mussolini
The U.S. is going through a very dangerous time. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been elected decisively, but Trump and his GOP cult followers are trying to overthrow the election results. They are, in fact, attempting a coup.
Masha Gessen at The New Yorker, November 5: By Declaring Victory, Donald Trump Is Attempting an Autocratic Breakthrough.
The President of the United States has called the election a fraud. He has declared victory without basis, tweeting on Wednesday, “We have claimed” Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, and perhaps Michigan—all states that were still counting votes. Donald Trump, who has been engaged in an autocratic attempt for the last four years, is now trying to stage an autocratic breakthrough.
I have borrowed the term “autocratic attempt” from the work of Bálint Magyar, a Hungarian sociologist who set out to develop analytical tools for understanding the turn away from democracy in many Eastern and Central European countries. I have found Magyar’s ideas surprisingly illuminating when applied to the United States.
Magyar divides the autocrat’s journey into three stages: autocratic attempt, autocratic breakthrough, and autocratic consolidation. The attempt is a period when autocracy is still preventable, or reversible, by electoral means. When it is no longer possible to reverse autocracy peacefully, the autocratic breakthrough has occurred, because the very structures of government have been transformed and can no longer protect themselves. These changes usually include packing the constitutional court (the Supreme Court, in the case of the U.S.) with judges loyal to the autocrat; packing and weakening the courts in general; appointing a chief prosecutor (the Attorney General) who is loyal to the autocrat and will enforce the law selectively on his behalf; changing the rules on the appointment of civil servants; weakening local governments; unilaterally changing electoral rules (to accommodate gerrymandering, for instance); and changing the Constitution to expand the powers of the executive.
Josef Stalin
For all the apparent flailing and incompetence of the Trump Administration, his autocratic attempt checks most of the boxes. He has appointed three Supreme Court Justices and a record number of federal judges. The Justice Department, under William Barr, acts like Trump’s pocket law-enforcement agency and personal law firm. Trump’s army of “acting” officials, some of them carrying out their duties in violation of relevant federal regulations, have made mincemeat of the rules and norms of federal appointments. Trump has preëmptively declared the election rigged; has incited voter intimidation and encouraged voter suppression; has mobilized his armed supporters to prevent votes from being counted; and has explicitly stated that he is changing the rules of the election. “We want all voting to stop,” he said on Wednesday morning, and vowed to take his case to the Supreme Court.
Please go read the rest at The New Yorker.
Ezra Klein makes a similar argument at Vox: Trump is attempting a coup in plain sight.
The Trump administration’s current strategy is to go to court to try and get votes for Biden ruled illegitimate, and that strategy explicitly rests on Trump’s appointees honoring a debt the administration, at least, believes they owe. One of his legal advisers said, “We’re waiting for the United States Supreme Court — of which the President has nominated three justices — to step in and do something. And hopefully Amy Coney Barrett will come through.”
If that fails, and it will, Mark Levin, one of the nation’s most popular conservative radio hosts, is explicitly calling on Republican legislatures to reject the election results and seat Donald Trump as president anyway. After Twitter tagged the tweet as contested, Trump’s press secretary weighed in furiously on Levin’s behalf.
That this coup probably will not work — that it is being carried out farcically, erratically, ineffectively — does not mean it is not happening, or that it will not have consequences. Millions will believe Trump, will see the election as stolen. The Trump family’s Twitter feeds, and those of associated outlets and allies, are filled with allegations of fraud and lies about the process (reporter Isaac Saul has been doing yeoman’s work tracking these arguments, and his thread is worth reading). It’s the construction of a confusing, but immersive, alternative reality in which the election has been stolen from Trump and weak-kneed Republicans are letting the thieves escape.
Francisco Franco, Spain
This is, to borrow Hungarian sociologist Bálint Magyar’s framework, “an autocratic attempt.” That’s the stage in the transition toward autocracy in which the would-be autocrat is trying to sever his power from electoral check. If he’s successful, autocratic breakthrough follows, and then autocratic consolidation occurs. In this case, the would-be autocrat stands little chance of being successful. But he will not entirely fail, either. What Trump is trying to form is something akin to an autocracy-in-exile, an alternative America in which he is the rightful leader, and he — and the public he claims to represent — has been robbed of power by corrupt elites.
“Democracy works only when losers recognize that they have lost,” writes political scientist Henry Farrell. That will not happen here.
It won’t happen, because the GOP is going along with Trump’s attempt.
Here’s the grim kicker: The conditions that made Trump and this Republican Party possible are set to worsen. Republicans retained control of enough statehouses to drive the next redistricting effort, too, and their 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court will unleash their map-drawers more fully. The elections analyst G. Elliott Morris estimates that the gap between the popular vote margin and the tipping point state in the Electoral College will be 4 to 5 percentage points, and that the GOP’s control of the redistricting process could push it to 6 to 7 points next time.
To say that America’s institutions did not wholly fail in the Trump era is not the same thing as saying they succeeded. They did not, and in particular, the Republican Party did not. It has failed dangerously, spectacularly. It has made clear that would-be autocrats have a path to power in the United States, and if they can walk far enough down that path, an entire political party will support them, and protect them. And it has been insulated from public fury by a political system that values land over people, and that lets partisan actors set election rules and draw district lines — and despite losing the presidency, the GOP still holds the power to tilt that system further in its direction in the coming years.
What happens when the next would-be autocrat tries this strategy — and what if they are smoother, more strategic, more capable than this one?
How is Trump’s autocratic attempt going so far? He has fired the Secretary of Defense and replaced him with a partisan loyalist.
Adolf HItler, Germany
The Independent: ‘God help us’: Fired defence secretary Mark Esper worries about ‘yes men’ under Trump.
In an exclusive interview with Military Times that dropped shortly after his abrupt firing, Mr Esper took exception with critics who have called him a “yes man”, the source of the derogatory nickname “Yesper” used by the president.
“Name another Cabinet secretary that’s pushed back… Have you seen me on a stage saying, ‘Under the exceptional leadership of blah-blah-blah, we have blah-blah-blah-blah?” Mr Esper said.
“At the end of the day, it’s as I said — you’ve got to pick your fights… I could have a fight over anything, and I could make it a big fight, and I could live with that —why? Who’s going to come in behind me? It’s going to be a real ‘yes man.’ And then God help us.”
The interview was conducted on 4 November, before Mr Esper’s replacement would have been known.
Trump also fired the three officials who were in charge of our nuclear weapons. NPR:
The Trump administration abruptly dumped the leaders of three agencies that oversee the nuclear weapons stockpile, electricity and natural gas regulation, and overseas aid during the past two days, drawing a rebuke from a prominent Republican senator for one of the decisions.
The sudden departures included:
- Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, the first woman to oversee the agency in charge of the nuclear stockpile. She was required to resign on Friday.
- Bonnie Glick, deputy administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. She was replaced by acting Administrator John Barsa, who had run out of time for his more senior role under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.
- Neil Chatterjee, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. He was replaced as chairman, though he will remain at FERC, an independent agency, as a commissioner.
The firings were overshadowed by the prolonged drama of the presidential election.
Hideki Tojo, Japan
Trump is expected to fire CIA director Gina Haspel and FBI director Christopher Wray, according to Axios.
He has named another yes man as general counsel at the NSA. The Washington Post: White House official and former GOP political operative Michael Ellis named as NSA general counsel.
The Pentagon general counsel has named a White House official and former GOP political operative to be the top lawyer at the National Security Agency, the U.S. government’s largest and most technically advanced spy agency, U.S. officials said.
There’s much more at the link.
Bill Barr is also on the case. The New York Times: Barr Hands Prosecutors the Authority to Investigate Voter Fraud Claims.
Attorney General William P. Barr, wading into President Trump’s unfounded accusations of widespread election irregularities, told federal prosecutors on Monday that they were allowed to investigate “specific allegations” of voter fraud before the results of the presidential race are certified.
Augusto Pinochet, Chile
Mr. Barr’s authorization prompted the Justice Department official who oversees investigations of voter fraud, Richard Pilger, to step down from the post within hours, according to an email Mr. Pilger sent to colleagues that was obtained by The New York Times.
Mr. Barr said he had authorized “specific instances” of investigative steps in some cases. He made clear in a carefully worded memo that prosecutors had the authority to investigate, but he warned that “specious, speculative, fanciful or far-fetched claims should not be a basis for initiating federal inquiries.”
Mr. Barr’s directive ignored the Justice Department’s longstanding policies intended to keep law enforcement from affecting the outcome of an election. And it followed a move weeks before the election in which the department lifted a prohibition on voter fraud investigations before an election.
More from NBC News: DOJ’s election crimes chief resigns after Barr allows prosecutors to probe voter fraud claims.
The head of the branch of the Justice Department that prosecutes election crimes resigned Monday hours after Attorney General William Barr issued a memo to federal prosecutors authorizing them to investigate “specific allegations” of voter fraud before the results of the presidential race are certified.
Richard Pilger, who was director of the Election Crimes Branch of the DOJ, sent a memo to colleagues that suggested his resignation was linked to Barr’s memo, which was issued as the president’s legal team mount baseless legal challenges to the election results, alleging widespread voter fraud cost him the race.
“Having familiarized myself with the new policy and its ramifications, and in accord with the best tradition of the John C. Keeney Award for Exceptional Integrity and Professionalism (my most cherished Departmental recognition), I must regretfully resign from my role as Director of the Election Crimes Branch,” Pilger’s letter said, according to a copy obtained by NBC News.
“I have enjoyed very much working with you for over a decade to aggressively and diligently enforce federal criminal election law, policy, and practice without partisan fear or favor. I thank you for your support in that effort.”
Kim Il-sung, North Korea
Finally, Trump is preventing the Biden transition team from beginning their work. The Washington Post: White House, escalating tensions, orders agencies to rebuff Biden transition team.
The Trump White House on Monday instructed senior government leaders to block cooperation with President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team, escalating a standoff that threatens to impede the transfer of power and prompting the Biden team to consider legal action.
While media outlets on Saturday projected Biden as the winner, President Trump has not conceded the election.
“We have been told: Ignore the media, wait for it to be official from the government,” said a senior administration official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly.
The GSA, the government’s real estate arm, remained for a third day the proxy in the battle. Administrator Emily Murphy, a Trump political appointee who has lasted a full term in an administration where turnover has been the norm, is refusing to sign paperwork that releases Biden’s $6.3 million share of nearly $10 million in transition resources and gives his team access to agency officials and information.
So that’s where things stand right now, as we battle an out-of-control pandemic with no help from the federal government and the Supreme Court hears arguments that may end the Affordable Care Act and strip 20,000,000 people of health insurance.
Hang in there Sky Dancers! Take care of yourselves in this dangerous time.
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