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CDC warns of ‘distressing trend’ in Covid-19 cases as country heads into fall

coronavirus covid
coronavirus covid

The government’s top public health officials warned that the number of Covid-19 cases is rising across a majority of the country in a rare briefing Wednesday afternoon.

Dr. Jay Butler, deputy director for infectious diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the agency has noted a “distressing trend” in which coronavirus case numbers are “increasing in nearly 75 percent of the country.”

“This past week, we’ve seen nearly 60,000 cases a day on average, as well as 700 deaths,” he said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Pence chief of staff, senior political adviser both test positive for Covid-19

coronavirus covid tally
coronavirus covid tally

Two of Vice President Mike Pence’s closest political advisers have tested positive for Covid-19.

Pence’s office said in a statement Saturday night that his chief of staff, Marc Short, “began quarantine” after learning of the diagnosis and was cooperating with a contact-tracing effort.

“Vice President Pence and Mrs. Pence both tested negative for COVID-19 today, and remain in good health,” vice presidential spokesman Devin O’Malley said in the statement.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Stephcast 10-23-20

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GOP to high court: Halt longer N. Carolina absentee deadline

The legislative leaders argue in their appeal that the longer deadline, which was extended after early voting had begun, will result in unequal treatment of voters and dilute the value of ballots cast before the rule was changed.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

More Than 47 Million Ballots Cast In U.S. Election, Eclipsing 2016 Early Turnout

vote ballot election
vote ballot

U.S. voters have cast more than 47 million votes for the Nov. 3 presidential election, eclipsing total early voting from the 2016 election with 12 days to go, according to data compiled by the U.S. Elections Project.

Some 47.5 million Americans have turned in ballots, roughly eight times the number of early votes cast at about same point before the 2016 presidential contest, and above the 47.2 million early votes that were cast before Election Day in 2016.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Man with van full of guns had checklist to ‘execute’ Joe Biden, authorities say

blue light police siren

A man who was arrested in North Carolina on child pornography charges this year had a van full of guns and drove within 4 miles of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s home with a checklist to “execute” him, authorities alleged.

The allegations against the man, Alexander Treisman, were in a detention order filed this month in U.S. District Court in Durham, North Carolina.

According to the documents, Treisman’s white van was reported abandoned in the parking lot of a bank in Kannapolis, northeast of Charlotte, on May 28. Inside, responding officers found four rifles, including an AR-style Sig Sauer, a 9 mm handgun and $500,000 in cash that was believed to be his inheritance, the order states.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

4 takeaways from the last presidential debate of 2020

It was probably as normal as things could get this election cycle.

After the last faceoff turned into a name-calling shouting match, Thursday night’s presidential debate, moderated by NBC News correspondent Kristen Welker, resembled a much more traditional matchup and provided one the clearest contrasts yet between President Donald Trump and his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, on everything from race to the environment.

While Trump went into the final debate signaling that he was looking for theatrics — baselessly accusing Welker of being biased and bringing as his debate guest a former business partner of Biden’s son — the candidates stuck mostly to the topics at hand and allowed each other their allotted time to speak.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Stephcast 10-22-20

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Pope Francis becomes 1st pope to endorse same-sex civil unions

cross religion
cross religion

Pope Francis became the first pontiff to endorse same-sex civil unions in comments for a documentary that premiered Wednesday, sparking cheers from gay Catholics and demands for clarification from conservatives, given the Vatican’s official teaching on the issue.

The papal thumbs-up came midway through the feature-length documentary “Francesco,” which premiered at the Rome Film Festival. The film, which features fresh interviews with the pope, delves into issues Francis cares about most, including the environment, poverty, migration, racial and income inequality, and the people most affected by discrimination.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Russia, Iran have obtained voter data in election interference campaign, according to the DNI

vote ballot election
vote ballot

“This data can be used by foreign actors to attempt to communicate false information to registered voters that they hope will cause confusion, sow chaos, and undermine your confidence in American democracy,” Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said in a surprise news conferenceWednesday evening.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

In rare gloves-off moment, Obama calls on voters to hand Trump a clear defeat

Former President Barack Obama tore into President Donald Trumpin a fiery speech Wednesday as being unable to take “the job seriously,” faulting him for lacking a plan to address the coronavirus, emboldening racism, working to rip away health care protections without an alternative, tweeting conspiracy theories and engaging regularly in lies and indecent behavior.

It was a rare gloves-off moment for Obama in going after his successor — who trails Democratic nominee Joe Biden in polls less than two weeks before Election Day — in both personal and policy terms.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Rudy Giuliani denies inappropriate behavior in upcoming ‘Borat’ movie

Rudy Giuliani

Rudy Giuliani on Wednesday denied touching himself inappropriately in the upcoming “Borat” movie, insisting that a reported clip from the film was taken out of context.

“The Borat video is a complete fabrication,” Giuliani wrote on Twitter. “I was tucking in my shirt after taking off the recording equipment. At no time before, during, or after the interview was I ever inappropriate. If Sacha Baron Cohen implies otherwise he is a stone-cold liar.”

Read the rest of the story at Politico

Stephcast 10-21-20

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Trump Records Shed New Light on Chinese Business Pursuits

china Chinese flag
china Chinese flag

President Trump and his allies have tried to paint the Democratic nominee, Joseph R. Biden Jr., as soft on China, in part by pointing to his son’s business dealings there.

Senate Republicans produced a report asserting, among other things, that Mr. Biden’s son Hunter “opened a bank account” with a Chinese businessman, part of what it said were his numerous connections to “foreign nationals and foreign governments across the globe.”

But Mr. Trump’s own business history is filled with overseas financial deals, and some have involved the Chinese state. He spent a decade unsuccessfully pursuing projects in China, operating an office there during his first run for president and forging a partnership with a major government-controlled company.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

With coronavirus concerns a factor, it’s all tied up in North Carolina: Poll

Biden has 49% support among likely voters in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll in the state, with 48% for Trump. The U.S. Senate race, potentially critical for control of the chamber, is similar, with 49% support for Democrat Cal Cunningham, despite revelations of an extramarital relationship, and 47% for incumbent Republican Thom Tillis.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

McConnell signals Senate Republicans don’t want bigger Covid-19 relief bill before election

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told his fellow Republican members in a closed-door meeting Tuesday that he is “encouraging” the White House to wait until after the Nov. 3 election to reach an agreement on a Covid-19 relief package with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, according to three sources familiar with the conversation.

McConnell, R-Ky., was responding to a question from a Republican senator facing re-election who pressed the need to go home to campaign after next Monday’s full Senate vote to confirm Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Trump abruptly ends ’60 Minutes’ interview, taunts CBS’ Lesley Stahl

White House Washington DC President
White House Washington DC President

President Donald Trump abruptly ended a taped interview at the White House with “60 Minutes” reporter Lesley Stahl on Tuesday then taunted the veteran CBS News journalist in tweets.

“I am pleased to inform you that, for the sake of accuracy in reporting, I am considering posting my interview with Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes, PRIOR TO AIRTIME! This will be done so that everybody can get a glimpse of what a FAKE and BIASED interview is all about,” the president tweeted. He also called the interview a ” terrible Electoral Intrusion” in another tweet.

He then posted a short video making light of Stahl not wearing a mask while talking with producers for the show while at the White House, which a spokesman for CBS News was taken immediately after the interview. She previously had been wearing a mask when she entered the building and up to the start of the interview.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Bob Cesca: Let’s imagine the unimaginable… A second term for Donald Trump

With the high-water mark of the election just 14 days away, the tragedy of Nov. 8, 2016, haunts me more and more. 

Four years ago, nearly everyone, including Donald Trump himself, was convinced Hillary Clinton was all but guaranteed a resounding victory. I remember articles predicting that Clinton would win the entire East Coast, including South Carolina. Later, following the third debate of that campaign season, I distinctly recall watching Steve Schmidt on MSNBC announcing in his dramatic monotone, “Hillary Clinton will be the 45th president of the United States.” Election forecasters from Nate Silver to Sabato’s Crystal Ball agreed.

Read the rest of Bob Cesca’s piece at Salon

Stephcast 10-20-20

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Esquire Politics Zoom Meeting with Charlie Pierce!! Subscribe and Register Here!

Election discussion with Charlie Pierce of Esquire Magazine!  This Friday, October 23rd.  Register and subscribe at the link below!

Esquire Magazine

U.S. charges Russian intelligence officers in several high-profile cyberattacks

computer google mac laptop
computer google mac laptop

The United States on Monday unsealed criminal charges against six Russian intelligence officers in connection with some of the world’s most damaging cyberattacks, including disruption of Ukraine’s power grid and the release of a mock ransomware virus that infected computers globally and caused billions of dollars in damage.

That group, authorities alleged, also hacked computers supporting the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, hacked and leaked emails of individuals involved in Emmanuel Macron’s 2017 campaign for president of France, and targeted the organizations investigating the poisoning of former Russian operative Sergei Skripal two years ago in Britain.

Read the rest of the story at The Washington Post.

Trump calls Fauci a ‘disaster’ and says it would be a ‘bomb’ if he fired him

President Donald Trump on Monday attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci during a phone call with campaign staff, calling the infectious disease specialist a “disaster” and saying every time he goes on television there is a “bomb,” but there would be “a bigger bomb if you fire him,” according to a recording of the call obtained by NBC News.

“People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots — these people, these people that have gotten it wrong,” Trump said. “Fauci’s a nice guy. He’s been here for 500 years. He called every one of them wrong. And he’s like this wonderful guy, a wonderful sage telling us how” to respond to the pandemic.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Supreme Court Tie Blocks GOP Effort To Limit Mail-In Voting In Pennsylvania

Supreme Court SCOTUS
Supreme Court SCOTUS

The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a blow to Republicans on Monday with a split vote that effectively allows Pennsylvania to keep its extended mail-in voting period.

The justices’ 4-4 tie leaves in place a lower court ruling that will let state officials count ballots received after Election Day unless there’s evidence they were sent after the deadline. Election officials have three days to count those votes, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court determined last month. 

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Presidential Debate Commission Adopts New Rules To Mute Microphones

speech microphone
speech microphone

President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden will have their microphones cut off in Thursday’s debate while their rival delivers their opening two-minute answer to each of the debate topics.

The 90-minute debate is divided into six 15-minute segments, with each candidate granted two minutes to deliver uninterrupted remarks before proceeding to an open debate. The open discussion portion of the debate will not feature a mute button, but interruptions by either candidate will count toward their time in the second and final debate Thursday.

The nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates announced the rule changes Monday, three weeks after a chaotic opening faceoff between the two presidential contenders that featured frequent interruptions — most by Trump.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Stephcast 10-19-20

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Fauci admits administration has restricted his media appearances, says he’s not surprised Trump got COVID

fauci
fauci

This weekend, Americans face another surge in the COVID-19 pandemic. Infections have passed the 8 million mark and are rising rapidly. There are more than 218,000 dead. During the course of the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci has been the physician most Americans have relied upon for their information. But now, instead of worrying soley about developing vaccines or therapeutics, Dr. Fauci finds himself unhappily caught up in presidential politics, under protection from death threats, and forced to defend science itself.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

More than 27 million ballots have already been cast. Here’s where early voting opens this week

vote ballot election
vote ballot

Election Day is still 16 days away and more than 27 million ballots have already been cast, according to a survey of election officials by CNN, Edison Research, and Catalist.

 
Voters in the 45 states and the District of Columbia that make pre-Election Day data available are already setting records. The ballots cast so far represent almost 20% of the more than 136 million total ballots cast in the 2016 presidential election.
 

Nancy Pelosi: Pandemic Relief Needs A Deal By Tuesday To Pass By Election Day

capitol washington DC
capitol washington DC

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Sunday that the U.S. House and the Trump administration would need to come to an agreement on the next phase of pandemic-related economic stimulus by Tuesday for a coronavirus relief package to have any chance of passing before Election Day. 

“We have to freeze the design on some of these things,” Pelosi said on ABC’s ”This Week.” “Are we going with it or not?”

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Eric Boehlert: Enablers — NBC rewards Trump for blowing up Biden debate

One week after refusing to participate in the officially sanctioned presidential debate, an unprecedented move in modern American politics, NBC News has rewarded Trump by clearing its Thursday primetime schedule to air a last-minute town hall with the previously Covid-19-infected president. As Trump stumbles to the end of his re-election campaign and denounces the press at every turn, the brazen move by NBC highlights the dysfunctional and abusive relationship that has defined the Trump presidency.

He’s spent four years maligning the free press as “enemies of the people,” while corporate media outlets have granted him unheard of access. No president has been given as much free TV airtime as Trump — it’s not even close. Every briefing and virtually every utterance has been carried live and in full.

Read the rest of Eric Boehlert’s piece at PressRun Media

The Rude Pundit: Trump Has Faced Less Punishment Than Three Women in Mississippi Arrested for Getting Health Care for Their Kids

I can’t stop thinking about this story. The Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration announced last month that law enforcement had arrested and charged three separate women for committing fraud against the state’s health insurance system, which falls under its TennCare program. Two of the women, Nikki Carr and Nakina Brooks, face 24 years in prison for defrauding Tennessee for under $10,000 by using TennCare. The third, Nancy Smith, faces 27 years in prison because her fraud cost $24,000.  They were charged with multiple felonies, including theft of property through TennCare, and held on between $20-30,000 in bail. 

Read the rest of The Rude Pundit’s piece at his blog.

Michigan Gov. Lashes Trump For Endangering Her Life After Rally ‘Lock Her Up’ Chant

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer demanded an end to President Donald Trump inciting violence against her after she accused him of doing it yet again at his latest rally in her state on Saturday.

Whitmer, the target of an alleged kidnap plot by Trump-supporting militia members, called out at the president after he attacked her at the rally in Muskegon, working the crowd into a frenzy and triggering a chant of “Lock her up.”

“You gotta get your governor to open up your state,” Trump told the crowd. “And get your schools open, get your schools open. The schools have to be open, right?” added Trump, whose own son Baron attends a school that will not fully open through the fall.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Global Coronavirus Cases Rise By One-Day Record Of 400,000

covid coronavirus

Global coronavirus cases rose by more than 400,000 for the first time late on Friday, a record one-day increase as much of Europe enacts new restrictions to curb the outbreak.

Europe, which successfully tamped down the first surge of infections, has emerged as the new coronavirus epicentre in recent weeks and is reporting on average 140,000 cases a day over the past week.

As a region, Europe is reporting more daily cases than India, Brazil and the United States combined.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

SM Happy Hour Videocast 10-16-20 Bradley Whitford

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Stephcast 10-16-20

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Biden routs Trump in September fundraising, $383M to $248M

dollars money bills
dollars money bills

President Donald Trump, the Republican National Committee and affiliated joint fundraising committees raised $247.8 million in September, Trump’s campaign announced, leaving him at a significant cash deficit to former Vice President Joe Biden entering the final stretch of the 2020 election.

Biden’s campaign and affiliated committees raised a record $383 million in September, and they had $432 million in reserves at the end of the month, his campaign announced Wednesday.

Read the rest of the story at Politico.

Chris Christie, out of hospital after battling Covid, urges Trump to go further on masks

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, newly recovered from the coronavirus, urged President Donald Trump on Friday to encourage the wearing of face masks among Americans.

In his first TV interview since contracting Covid-19 earlier this month, Christie — a close ally of the White House who served as the president’s debate coach last month — said it was not enough for Trump to merely express approval of masks, as he did at a town hall event the previous evening.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

In Town Halls, Trump Defends Dangerous Theories As Biden Paints Vision For Future

democrat republican debate
democrat republican debate

President Donald Trump refused to denounce dangerous conspiracy theories and undercut efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19 as former Vice President Joe Biden called for a national strategy to combat the pandemic and painted his vision for America as the two held dueling town halls Thursday night that forced viewers to choose whom to watch in prime time.

The separate events took place after the second presidential debate was scrapped amid infighting between the Trump campaign and the Commission on Presidential Debates following the president’s positive COVID-19 diagnosis and his refusal to participate in a virtual event.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Stephcast 10-15-20

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Kamala Harris suspends travel after staffer tests COVID-19 positive

Harris was scheduled to travel Thursday to North Carolina for events encouraging voters to cast early ballots.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Senate Judiciary Sets Oct. 22 Vote On Amy Coney Barrett’s Nomination

The Senate Judiciary Committee convened on Thursday set an Oct. 22 vote on Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination as Republicans race to confirm President Donald Trump’s pick before the Nov. 3 election.

The session is without Barrett after two long days of public testimony in which she stressed that she would be her own judge and sought to create distance between herself and past positions critical of abortion, the Affordable Care Act and other issues.

Her confirmation to take the seat of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg seems inevitable, as even some Senate Democrats acknowledged.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Anthony Fauci Urges Americans To Reconsider Thanksgiving Gatherings Amid Pandemic

fauci
fauci

Dr. Anthony Fauci on Wednesday revealed that his family’s Thanksgiving “is going to look very different this year” and said Americans “may have to bite the bullet” and rethink holiday gatherings as the coronavirus pandemic continues raging.

Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, told “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell that his children, who live in three different states, would not be visiting him over the holidays “because of their concern for me and my age.” Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is 79 and therefore at high risk of severe symptoms if he contracts COVID-19.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Trump ‘not happy’ with Barr, won’t commit to keeping AG in potential second term

Attorney General Bill Barr
Attorney General Bill Barr

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he is “not happy” with Attorney General William Barr after the Justice Department’s investigation of the Obama administration found no wrongdoing and quietly concluded with no criminal charges.

Trump made the comments to Newsmax TV. He also declined to say whether he would keep Barr on as attorney general for a potential second term.

“Can’t comment on that. It’s too early. I’m not happy, with all of the evidence I had, I can tell you that. I am not happy,” Trump said in the interview.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Biden continues to hold double-digit national lead over Trump in NBC News/WSJ poll

Less than three weeks before Election Day, Joe Biden maintains a double-digit national lead over President Donald Trump, with 6 in 10 voters saying that the country is on the wrong track and that it is worse off than it was four years ago.

What’s more, a majority of voters say they have major concerns that Trump will divide the country rather than unite it — the largest concern for either presidential candidate.

Those are the results of a new national NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll — conducted after Trump returned to the White House from his hospitalization for the coronavirus — which finds Biden ahead of Trump by 11 points among registered voters, 53 percent to 42 percent.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Dr. Irwin Redlener: It’s Time for Trump’s Top Doctors to Step Down and Speak Up

Irwin Redlener
Irwin Redlener

Dear Colleagues, I certainly don’t need to tell any of you how unprecedented and difficult these past eight months have been. As I write this, more than 7.5 million Americans have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. The tragedy of what the country has been through is what you all have been living non-stop. Most tragic, of course, are the 215,000 deaths of our fellow citizens from this scourge. I am sure that not a day goes by without you hoping, wishing you could have done more—and could do more—to totally shut down the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read the rest of Dr. Irwin Redlener’s piece at The Daily Beast

Stephcast 10-14-20

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Trump’s Probe Into ‘Unmasking’ Conspiracy Ends With No Wrongdoing Found: Report

Attorney General Bill Barr
Attorney General Bill Barr

A federal investigation meant to target Obama administration officials for “unmasking” the names of individuals in classified intelligence reports ended recently without finding any wrongdoing that the Trump administration could use as political ammunition, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

Attorney General William Barr appointed Texas U.S. Attorney John Bash in May to look into the unmasking requests from late 2016 and early 2017, which involved intercepted conversations between Michael Flynn — President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser — and Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. during the 2016 election.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Obama to hit the campaign trail for Biden ‘soon’ as race enters final weeks

Former President Barack Obama is expected to hit the campaign trail “soon” for Joe Biden, his former vice president — a move that could help animate Democrats as the presidential race enters its pivotal final weeks.

“President Obama plans to hit the trail soon, in addition to all the other activities he’s undertaken all year in support of electing VP Biden – as he’s said, we all have to do everything we can to win on November 3,” an aide to the former president told ABC News.

Obama has participated in several fundraisers on behalf of Biden’s campaign and gave a primetime speech during the Democratic National Convention in which he excoriated President Donald Trump over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and extolled Biden’s leadership.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Key takeaways from the 2nd day of the SCOTUS nomination hearing

Supreme Court SCOTUS
Supreme Court SCOTUS

The Senate Judiciary Committee spent Tuesday questioning Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett, in a marathon session that featured exchanges about judicial independence, the future of the Affordable Care Act and any election-related cases that could come before the Supreme Court later this year.

Here are the key takeaways from the second day of the hearings:

See the list at ABC News

Supreme Court allows Trump administration to end census count early

census
census

The Supreme Court on Tuesday effectively allowed the government to stop the census count immediately, blocking a lower court order that would have required the Trump administration to continue gathering census information in the field until the end of October.

The Census Bureau said it wanted to stop the count so that it could start processing the data to meet a Dec. 31 deadline, set in federal law, for reporting the results to the president. But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the government to keep going with its field work until Oct. 31, concluding that a longer time in the field would increase accuracy.

In a brief unsigned order, the Supreme Court stayed the appeals court order.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Bob Cesca: Why the Democrats must fight to stop Barrett… With her on the court, the ACA is toast

Donald Trump and his henchmen keep promising to protect health insurance coverage for Americans with pre-existing conditions. They’re lying to you, probably because it’s what they do best and also because the president has no idea how to spell “ACA,” much less describe what’s in the law. 

The truth is that Trump’s entire agenda circulates around re-election and erasing the Obama legacy because he’s all about revenge — petty, self-serving Mafia-cosplay — and he doesn’t really care if his own supporters aren’t able to buy affordable health insurance due to his nincompoopery. This is why the president and his sidekick, Attorney General Bill Barr, are refusing to defend the ACA in court after a ludicrous ruling by a Trump-supporting Texas judge who also doesn’t understand how the law works.

Read the rest of Bob Cesca’s piece at Salon

Stephcast 10-13-20

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White House doctor says Trump tested negative for coronavirus ‘on consecutive days’

medicine doctor stethoscope
medicine doctor stethoscope

Sean P. Conley, Trump’s doctor, said Monday that the president recently tested negative for the coronavirus on “consecutive days,” although he did not specify which days.

Conley added that the negative tests were one of several factors contributing to the conclusion by Trump’s medical team that the president “is not infectious to others.”

“In response to your inquiry regarding the President’s most recent COVID-19 tests, I can share with you that he has tested NEGATIVE, on consecutive days, using the Abbott BinaxNOW antigen card,” Conley said in a letter shared on Twitter by White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany.

Read the rest of the story at The Washington Post

Two Parties Offer Dueling Views of Amy Coney Barrett as Confirmation Fight Begins

Supreme Court SCOTUS
Supreme Court SCOTUS

Republicans and Democrats offered sharply divergent arguments on Monday in a Supreme Court confirmation fight whose outcome is likely to steer the court to the right for years, vying to define Judge Amy Coney Barrett and frame the political stakes of President Trump’s rush to install her before he faces voters.

In a marathon day of opening statements, Democrats assailed Judge Barrett as a conservative ideologue who would overturn the Affordable Care Act and abortion rights, and whose nomination amounted to an illegitimate power grab by a president in the last days before the election.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Johnson & Johnson pauses clinical trials for a Covid-19 vaccine over participant’s illness

covid coronavirus
covid coronavirus

Johnson & Johnson has paused its clinical trials for a Covid-19 vaccine candidate after a participant fell ill, just weeks after it announced that trials were in their final stage.

A pause is not entirely unexpected in vaccine trials. When another vaccine trial was temporarily stopped last month, experts hailed the move as an example of the scientific rigor that is being maintained despite the understandably intense public interest in a Covid-19 vaccine.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Trump tells Florida rally he feels ‘powerful’ and wants to ‘kiss’ everyone after Covid-19 battle

President Donald Trump returned to the campaign trail on Monday, his first since he was hospitalized for Covid-19, taking familiar hits at his Democratic rival Joe Biden and urging his supporters in the crucial battleground state to vote .

At Trump’s Florida rally, the president was also cavalier about his battle with Covid-19, telling the crowd — estimated at 7,000 people — in a state that has been hit hard by the virus that he felt strong and better than before. The president took a myriad of treatments when he was hospitalized and told the crowd he wanted to make his treatment plan available to everyone.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Charlie Pierce: Amy Coney Barrett’s Nomination Is the Culmination of Various Long-Term Right-Wing Projects

If the Senate Judiciary Committee were to eliminate the roundelay involving opening statements and get right to the questioning of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, I, for one, would not be sad about that. I realize they’re aimed at the greater world outside the hearing room, and I realize that the historic basis for having a Senate at all is in large part to have a place where virtually unlimited bloviating can be safely indulged, but I don’t see much value in them beyond that.

On Day One, all the Democrats hit the theme of repealing the Affordable Care Act, with most of them telling stories about children whose lives have been saved because of it. On day one, the Republicans set a number of straw people aflame; Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, who apparently was cutting B-roll for his 2024 presidential campaign ad, said that wondering about the judge’s attitude towards Griswold v. Connecticut, the landmark Supreme Court decision establishing a right to privacy, was anti-Catholic because Griswold was about birth control.

Read the rest of Charlie Pierce’s piece at Esquire

Stephcast 10-12-20

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Poll: Lead among women fuels Biden’s 12-point edge

A huge edge among likely female voters is fueling a 12-point national lead for Democratic nominee Joe Biden over President Donald Trump, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Sunday.

The Post/ABC poll showed Biden leading Trump among likely voters, 54 percent to 42 percent. The lead is consistent with other national polls conducted in recent weeks.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

Anthony Fauci Says He Didn’t Consent To Trump Ad That Takes His Words Out Of Context

fauci
fauci

A campaign ad that appears to show Dr. Anthony Fauci endorsing President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic used a clip taken out of context and was not approved by Fauci before it aired, the doctor told media outlets Sunday.

“They did this without my permission and my comments were taken out of context,” Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert who’s a member of the White House coronavirus task force, said in a statement to NBC News and CNN.

“In my nearly five decades of public service, I have never publicly endorsed any political candidate. The comments attributed to me without my permission in the GOP campaign ad were taken out of context from a broad statement I made months ago about the efforts of federal public health officials,” his statement continued.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Eric Trump Says Nonexistent COVID-19 Vaccine His Dad ‘Took’ Worked Really ‘Well’

Eric Trump
Eric Trump

Eric Trump on Sunday touted a nonexistent “vaccine” that he claimed dramatically helped his father, President Donald Trump, recover from COVID-19 after the president “worked” hard to get it developed. 

The president didn’t get a vaccine, nor has he developed one, nor is it clear he’s recovered.

In fact, doctors administered a steroid, an antiviral drug and an antibody cocktail to the president after he tested positive for COVID-19. There is no authorized COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Hearings Begin Today. Here’s What to Watch For.

Supreme Court SCOTUS
Supreme Court SCOTUS

A deeply divided Senate Judiciary Committee will kick off four days of contentious confirmation hearings on Monday for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, drawing battle lines that could reverberate through the election.

Democrats will arrive ready to go on the offensive, portraying Judge Barrett’s nomination as an election-season power grab by Mr. Trump and Republicans. They will characterize her as a conservative ideologue who would overturn the Affordable Care Act, invalidate abortion rights and side with the president in any legal disputes arising from the Nov. 3 election.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Debate Commission Cancels 2nd Trump-Biden Debate After Campaign Disputes Over Covid Safety Protocols

speech microphone
speech microphone

The Commission on Presidential Debates officially canceled its second candidate forum between President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden, scheduled for next Thursday, October 15th.

According to a statement from the CPD, the bipartisan group has scrapped next week’s town hall after Trump refused to participate after the commission insisted on holding the debate virtually.

“For the health and safety of all involved, the second presidential debate, scheduled for October 15 in Miami, would be conducted virtually,” the statement read. “Subsequently, the campaigns of the two candidates who qualified for participation in the debate made a series of statement concerning their respective positions regarding their willingness to participate in a virtual debate.”

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

SM Happy Hour Videocast 10-9-20 Buzz Burbank

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Stephcast 10-9-20

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White House, Congress continue pressing on economic relief package but Pelosi bristles over Trump approach

Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Pelosi

The White House sent mixed signals Thursday about the direction of renewed stimulus talks, resulting in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi confronting Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin over who speaks for the president.

The developments occurred two days after President Trump ordered Mnuchin to stop negotiating with Pelosi, only to announce Thursday that talks were back on. Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Democrats were still ready to deal.

According to Pelosi’s spokesman, Mnuchin and Pelosi spoke by phone Thursday afternoon to discuss prospects for a comprehensive economic relief bill when White House communications director Alyssa Farah told reporters at the White House that the administration does not support legislation of that kind.

Read the rest of the story at The Washington Post

Rasping And Coughing Trump Insists He’s ‘In Great Shape’ As Voice Cracks In Crazy Rant On Hannity

President Donald Trump was hoarse throughout an extended telephone interview on Fox News with Sean Hannity on Thursday, yet insisted he was feeling great.

At one point, Trump lost his voice while accusing former Vice President Joe Biden of “choking like a dog” during their debate last week.

He also struggled with his voice while discussing absentee ballots.

Read the rest of the story and listen to the audio at HuffPost

McConnell says he’s avoided the White House for months because of Covid concerns

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday he hasn’t gone to the White House since August because their approach to safety during the coronavirus pandemic “is different than mine.”

Speaking at an event in Erlanger, Kentucky, McConnell, the most powerful Republican in Congress, suggested he didn’t think the Trump administration had been doing enough to keep the White House safe from Covid-19.

“I haven’t actually been to the White House since August the 6th, because my impression was their approach to how to handle this is different from mine and what I insisted that we do in the Senate, which is to wear a mask and practice social distancing,” McConnell said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

‘Just Grab The Bitch’: Militia Plotted To Kidnap Michigan Governor, Feds Say

A Michigan militia was plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat who has come under fire from President Donald Trump, according to the FBI.

Defendants Adam Fox, Barry Croft, Ty Garbin, Kaleb Franks, Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta were charged with conspiracy to commit kidnapping, according to court documents. The domestic terrorism investigation involved both confidential informants and undercover employees who recorded conversations, texts, online chats and phone calls with the defendants.

In an affidavit, an FBI agent wrote that the bureau learned through social media in early 2020 that a group was “discussing the violent overthrow of certain government and law-enforcement components.” At a meeting in June, defendants Fox and Croft allegedly met with about 13 others in Dublin, Ohio, where they discussed “creating a society that followed the U.S. Bill of Rights and where they could be self-sufficient.” Several members of the group “talked about murdering ‘tyrants’ or ‘taking’ a sitting governor.”

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Stephcast 10-8-20

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Trump vows not to participate in virtual debate with Biden

President Donald Trump vowed Thursday not to participate in next week’s debate with Democratic nominee Joe Biden after organizers announced it will take place virtually because of the president’s diagnosis of COVID-19.

“I’m not going to do a virtual debate” with Biden, Trump told Fox News, moments after the Commission on Presidential Debates announced the changes due to Trump’s diagnosis.

That cast serious doubts on whether the event will go forward, even as Biden’s campaign vowed that its candidate will participate.

Read the rest of the story at the Associated Press

Second Presidential Debate Will Go ‘Virtual,’ With Candidates in Remote Locations

The second presidential debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Joe Biden will be “virtual,” with the two participants holding forth from separate remote locations, a new twist to the event added in the wake of the president being exposed to the coronavirus.

The debate’s “town hall” format will remain in place, the Commission on Presidential Debates said Thursday, with the moderator, Steve Scully, staying at the event’s original location, the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County in Miami, Florida.

Read the rest of the story at Daily Variety

5 Takeaways From The Vice Presidential Debate

democrat republican debate
democrat republican debate

Vice President Mike Pence didn’t come to the first vice presidential debate against Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) to answer questions about what’s going on right now.

Since the train wreck of a presidential debate last week, the nation’s government has been in a total frenzy. 

President Donald Trump was just hospitalized for several days after contracting the novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 211,000 Americans and left the economy in pieces. The White House recently held what is now being considered a superspreader event, and more than two dozen administration officials, from security staff to top-ranking generals, have contracted COVID-19. And still, Trump continues to downplay the disease, calling it a “blessing” in his life.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Stephcast 10-7-20

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Justice officials drove family separation policy, draft watchdog report says

child sad boy
sad child boy

Top former Justice Department officials, including U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and deputy Rod Rosenstein, helped drive a Trump administration policy that resulted in the separation of children from their parents, a draft inspector general report shows.

The “zero tolerance” policy ultimately separated nearly 3,000 children from their parents for crossing the border illegally, which is a misdemeanor at the first offense.

Sessions announced the policy in April 2018, saying that every immigrant who crossed the U.S. border illegally would be prosecuted, including parents with young children. It resulted in children being separated from their parents and generated a huge public outcry.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Pence, Harris to debate in sole VP matchup of 2020 amid heightened COVID-19 concerns – Pence agrees to Plexiglass divider

democrat republican debate
democrat republican debate

With plexiglass and more than 12 feet of distance separating them, Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic nominee Sen. Kamala Harris of California will debate in Salt Lake City on Wednesday night in the first and only one-on-one matchup between the vice presidential candidates.

The showdown comes as President Donald Trump and several in his orbithave tested positive for the novel coronavirus, raising questions on a transfer of power to the vice president were Trump at 74 — or Democratic nominee Joe Biden at 77 — to become too ill to serve.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Stephen Miller, top White House aide, tests positive for coronavirus

Stephen Miller, a senior policy aide to President Donald Trump tested positive for coronavirus, he said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Today, I tested positive for COVID-19 and am in quarantine,” said Miller, who has been one of the chief architects of Trump’s immigration policies. He added he has been working remotely for the last five days and has been self-isolating.

Miller, who has been regularly traveling with the president and one of his closest aides, is the latest aide in the Trump orbit to test positive for Covid-19. Numerous people tied to the White House or campaign have tested positive, including Trump and the first lady.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Trump chaotically reverses course on coronavirus relief talks, dangles new $1,200 stimulus checks

dollars money bills
dollars money bills

President Donald Trump reversed course Tuesday night and urged Congress to approve a series of coronavirus relief measures that he would sign, including a new round of $1,200 stimulus checks for Americans.

Earlier in the day, he had halted talks between top Democrats and Republicans until “after I win” the election, which appeared to have killed the chances of a new package. Both moves by the president, who was released Monday from the hospital where he was being treated for Covid-19, were made on Twitter.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Bob Cesca: Trump’s Chernobyl moment… Phony patriotism can’t defeat this virus

There are so many scenes in Craig Mazin’s brilliant HBO miniseries “Chernobyl” that remind me of what’s happened here and now, in the United States, in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Obviously, there are myriad similarities between the Soviet Union’s deceptive response to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the White House’s deceptive response to COVID-19 — principally, Donald Trump’s intrinsic compulsion to lie about literally everything, even when it harms him politically.

Read the rest of Bob Cesca’s piece at Salon

Stephcast 10-6-20

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Kamala Harris And Mike Pence To Be Separated By Plexiglass During Tomorrow’s Debate

Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic challenger Kamala Harris will be separated by a plexiglass barrier during their debate on Wednesday, a source familiar with the matter said, in an effort to lower the risk of coronavirus transmission.

The debate, the only one scheduled between the vice presidential candidates, is scheduled for Salt Lake City, six days after President Donald Trump announced he had contracted the virus.

The Commission on Presidential Debates, which oversees the debate, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Biden says he’s not surprised Trump contracted the coronavirus

Joe Biden said Monday that he wasn’t surprised that President Donald Trump contracted Covid-19 because the president hasn’t followed health experts’ guidelines to wear a mask and social distance.

“Quite frankly, I wasn’t surprised,” the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee said during an NBC News town hall with host Lester Holt in Miami.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Trump returns to White House after leaving hospital, sheds mask for photo opportunity

White House Washington DC President
White House Washington DC President

President Donald Trump returned to the White House on Monday evening after being treated for Covid-19 for three days at Walter Reed Medical Center — and immediately took off his mask to pose for pictures before walking in.

The highly choreographed moment on the Truman Balcony came hours after Trump suggested online that the disease is not that serious a threat.

Trump walked out of the hospital’s main entrance shortly after 6:30 p.m. in a mask and a suit and tie and pumped his fist for the cameras before being driven to Marine One for the short trip back to the White House. He declined to answer questions from reporters.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

CNN Poll: Biden expands lead over Trump after contentious debate and President’s Covid diagnosis

graph poll
graph poll

Joe Biden’s advantage over President Donald Trump has expanded and the former vice president now holds his widest lead of the cycle with less than a month remaining before Election Day, according to a new nationwide CNN Poll conducted by SSRS.

Among likely voters, 57% say they back Biden and 41% Trump in the poll that was conducted entirely after the first debate and mostly after the President’s coronavirus infection was made public.
 
Regardless of Biden’s national lead, the race for the White House will ultimately come down to a handful of swing states that will drive the outcome in the Electoral College. The former vice president leads in several of those critical battlegrounds, but by more narrow margins than his national advantage. A poll is not a prediction of how the election will ultimately turn out but instead is a snapshot of the race as it currently stands.
 
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Charlie Pierce: Trump’s Little Sunday Road Trip Is Another Failure of His Ego

This was unprecedented in the long history of the human ego.

Quarantined because he has a serious case of a deadly and highly contagious disease, the president* of the United States on Sunday decided to throw himself a parade. So he arranged to be locked in an airtight vehicle with a couple of sacrificial lambs from the U.S. Secret Service so he could drive around the block and wave to the gathering of unemployables that has gathered outside Walter Reed National Medical Center to stand vigil for their Dear Leader. Now, we expect our presidents to have monstrous egos. Otherwise, no rational person would want that job. Because we are a maddening, inconstant people, however, we also expect the occasional ritual humility, some at least performative bows toward the humble. This is, after all, one of only two people fully capable of blowing up the entire world.

Read the rest of Charlie Pierce’s piece at Esquire

Stephcast 10-5-20

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New Jersey Health Officials Say Hundreds Of Trump Fundraiser Guests Exposed To COVID-19

New Jersey health officials said Sunday that at least 206 guests may have been exposed to COVID-19 at President Donald Trump’s campaign fundraiser on Thursday, just hours before he announced his positive test result.

The White House gave state officials the names of 206 people who attended the high-dollar event at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, according to the New Jersey Department of Health. The list ― which does not include staff working at the club ― allows health officials to have enough information to accurately contact trace in connection with the fundraiser.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Pence and Harris prep for a debate with suddenly higher stakes

Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris are expected to take the debate stage Wednesday night against an extraordinary backdrop that has raised the stakes of an event that for decades has been a routine, inconsequential fixture of presidential elections.

No vice president has debated while the president is known to be sick and possibly still in the hospital. And never have two vice presidential nominees debated at a time when Americans are giving far more than cursory thought to how each might lead in the top job.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News 

Doctors say Trump on steroid therapy, health improving after brief ‘episodes’

syringe injection vaccine
syringe injection vaccine

President Donald Trump’s medical team said Sunday that Trump’s condition was improving after multiple “episodes” over the weekend while also disclosing that Trump was placed on a steroid therapy typically used in more severe Covid-19 cases.

The update came as Trump sought to portray himself as unaffected by the deadly disease, posting photos of himself working from the hospital and taping multiple different video addresses in which he reassured the public he was doing well. On Sunday evening, he left the hospital grounds for a short motorcade ride to wave to supporters gathered outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Trump criticized by medical experts after leaving hospital to drive by supporters

Ambulance Hospital
Ambulance Hospital

President Donald Trump on Sunday briefly left his hospital room at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he is being treated for Covid-19, to drive past a group of supporters, a move medical experts and Democrats swiftly criticized as “insanity.”

The president posted a video to his Twitter account around 5:15 p.m. announcing that he would “pay a little surprise to some of the great patriots that we have out on the street.” A few minutes later, the presidential motorcade slowly drove by the perimeter of the hospital, where a crowd had been gathering since Friday night. Trump was seen through the window of an SUV waving and wearing what appeared to be a cloth mask, as opposed to a more protective N95 mask.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Eric Boehlert: Trump has Covid-19… How Fox News infected America

News that Trump and first lady Melania have tested positive for the coronavirus means our national health emergency has taken an extraordinary turn. “If he becomes sick, it could raise questions about whether he should remain on the ballot at all,” the New York Times reported early Friday morning.

After months of purposefully downplaying the pandemic, mocking the idea of wearing masks, and waging war on scientists fighting the public health crisis, Trump instantly becomes the world’s most famous Covid-19 patient.

And Fox News made him sick.

Read the rest of Eric Boehlert’s piece at subscribe at PressRun Media

The Rude Pundit: Donald Trump Is Sick and I Really Wish I Could Feel Good About That

You’re gonna hear from a lot of people today imploring you to offer sympathy, thoughts, and prayers to President Donald Trump and Christmas-hating wife Melania since they have tested positive for COVID-19. You’re gonna hear how Democrats should show how above politics we are when it comes to the human pain of our opponents. And that’s all well and good, but we all have to make our own decisions here, and my initial response is “Yeah, fuck that.”

Read the rest of The Rude Pundit’s piece at his blog.

SM Happy Hour Videocast 10-2-20 Laura Flanders

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Stephcast 10-2-20

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Stock Shares, Oil Prices Sink After Trump Tests Positive For Virus

mask stocks business

U.S. stock futures and Asian shares fell Friday after President Donald Trump said he and first lady Melania Trump had tested positive for the new coronavirus.

The future contracts for both the S&P 500 and the Dow industrials lost 1.9%. Oil prices also slipped.

Trump tweeted news of his test results just hours after the White House announced that senior aide Hope Hicks had come down with the virus after traveling with the president several times this week.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Hope Hicks Tests Positive For Coronavirus After Traveling With Trump

coronavirus covid

Hope Hicks, a counselor and senior adviser to President Donald Trump, has tested positive for COVID-19, the president said Thursday night.

Hicks, one of Trump’s closest and most trusted aides, traveled on Air Force One with the president to Cleveland for Tuesday’s presidential debate and to Minnesota for a rally on Wednesday, Bloomberg said. She was photographed leaving Air Force One in Cleveland while not wearing a mask. 

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

House passes Democratic pandemic relief measure as bipartisan talks continue

The House of Representatives passed a $2.2 trillion Covid-19 relief bill Thursday night as negotiations between the administration and Democrats have failed to yield a bipartisan deal and the time to pass new relief measures ahead of November’s election ticks away.

The measure passed 214-207. No Republicans supported it and 18 Democrats voted against it. Nearly all of the Democrats who voted against the bill are locked in close re-election races.

“Today’s package is another partisan exercise that will never become law,” Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., said in a statement about why she voted against it. “My focus remains on working with Democrats and Republicans to get relief to my district immediately, and partisan gamesmanship will not do it.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Donald Trump, first lady test positive for Covid-19

covid coronavirus

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump tested positive for the coronavirus, he announced on Twitter early Friday.

“Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!” Trump, 74, tweeted.

Trump’s doctor, Sean Conley, said, “The President and First Lady are both well at this time, and they plan to remain at home within the White House during their convalescence.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Stephcast 10-1-20

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Stephcast 9-30-20

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New York City’s daily positivity rate tops 3% amid ‘alarming increase’ in COVID-19 cases

covid coronavirus
covid coronavirus

The number — 3.25% — has been driven by rising cases in nine neighborhoods in the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, officials said. As of Tuesday, they accounted for over 25.6% of new cases citywide over the past two weeks despite representing only 7.4% of the city’s overall population, according to the city’s health department. The 14-day average positivity rate in the nine ZIP codes ranged from 3.31% to 6.92% as of Tuesday.

“We are deeply concerned about the alarming increase in COVID-19 in the ZIP codes in Brooklyn and Queens,” NYC Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi said during a press briefing Tuesday.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Chaos of 1st presidential debate prompts reactions of dismay, disappointment

Viewers from across the country let out their frustrations on social media while watching the first presidential debate as the face-off between President Trump and former Vice President Biden was marked by interruptions, name-calling and shouting from both candidates and moderator Chris Wallace.

Many Twitter users were critical of Wallace for his moderating skills and blamed him for not doing a good job keeping order during the 90 minutes.

Some called for moderators to have the option to silence the microphones after Trump repeatedly ignored calls to stop interrupting Biden during his turn to speak.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Trump Refuses To Condemn White Supremacists — Tells Proud Boys To ‘Stand By’

KKK racism white supremacy
KKK racism white supremacy

President Donald Trump refused to condemn white supremacist violence on Tuesday night, insisting without evidence that violence is a left-wing problem. 

During the first presidential debate, moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News asked Trump if he was willing to condemn “white supremacists and militia groups” and tell them to “stand down” in places like Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Portland, Oregon — cities where heavily armed far-right extremists have shown up to anti-racism demonstrations as counterprotesters. 

“Sure, I’m willing to do that,” Trump said, “but I would say almost everything I see is from the left wing, not from the right wing.” 

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

‘Will you shut up, man?’: Debate devolves to name-calling as Trump derails with interruptions

The first presidential debate Tuesday devolved into name-calling, shouting and insults as President Donald Trump derailed the discussion with constant interruptions, unfettered by a moderator who struggled to keep calm.

Trump talked constantly through the 90-minute debate, sometimes incoherently and other times rattling off unfounded and baseless attacks against Democrat Joe Biden while refusing to let the moderator even ask questions.

Pressed repeatedly, Trump refused to condemn extremist supporters or urge them to stay peaceful in the event of a disputed election while once again suggesting, without evidence, that it might be “rigged.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Bob Cesca: Trump’s resort business is collapsing — is that why he pushed to reopen the economy?

For the past several decades, Donald Trump has been widely regarded as a great big phony. Everything about him is a mirage. He steals credit for the accomplishments of others, especially his predecessor, Barack Obama. His business model is all about slapping his goofy name on properties built by others. Even his outward appearance is a fraud: his unsubstantiated self-confidence, his hair, his clown makeup, his baggy suits designed to hide his doughy frame, even his shoes, which appear to have unusually high heels — it’s all intended to make him appear physically more powerful than he actually is. Fake, fake and fake.

It’s all a big show. In reality, he’s nothing more than a petty, brittle, small man — and a business failure.

Read the rest of Bob Cesca’s piece at Salon.

Stephcast 9-29-20

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House Democrats unveil new $2.2T proposal for virus aid

Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Pelosi

House Democrats unveiled a scaled-back $2.2 trillion aid measure Monday in an attempt to boost long-stalled talks on COVID-19 relief, though there was no sign of progress in continuing negotiations between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

The latest Democratic measure would revive a $600-per-week pandemic jobless benefit and send a second round of $1,200 direct payments to most individuals. It would scale back an aid package to state and local governments to a still-huge $436 billion, send a whopping $225 billion to colleges and universities, and deliver another round of subsidies to businesses under the Paycheck Protection Program.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

White House Reportedly Pressured CDC to Downplay Risks of Reopening Schools to Align With Trump’s Re-Election Agenda

college university graduation
college university graduation

According to a report by the New York Times, multiple White House staffers spent this summer pressuring the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to relax its recommendations about restarting schools in the fall and succeeded in getting several key documents and communications edited, because President Donald Trump wanted schools reopened before the election.

The staffers reportedly involved include Dr. Deborah Birx and Mark Short, Vice President Mike Pence‘s chief of staff. A key source for the Times article was Olivia Troye, a former Pence staffer and lifelong Republican who resigned last month and, since then, has come out in support of Joe Biden and vocally criticized the White House in interviews this month.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite.

Trump’s Tax Debt Could Make Him A National Security Risk, Ethics Experts Say

Revelations that President Donald Trump is personally liable for more than $400 million in debt are casting a shadow over his presidency that ethics experts say raises national security concerns he could be manipulated to sway U.S. policy by organizations or individuals he’s indebted to.

New scrutiny of Trump, who claims great success as a private businessman, comes after The New York Times reported that tax records show he is personally carrying a staggering amount of debt ― including more than $300 million in loans that will come due in the next four years.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Coronavirus has now killed 1 million people around the world

covid coronavirus mask
covid coronavirus mask

More than 1 million people have died from Covid-19 since the coronavirus was first identified late last year in China, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

With more than 200,000 deaths, U.S. continues to lead the global death toll, followed by Brazil at 142,000 and India at 95,500, the tally on Monday showed.

“Our world has reached an agonizing milestone,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a video and written statement sent out shortly after the reported death toll hit 1 million. “It’s a mind-numbing figure. Yet we must never lose sight of each and every individual life.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

SM Happy Hour Videocast 9-28-20 Debby Boone

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Charlie Pierce: Trump’s Tax Returns Have Exposed Him as a Massive Failure Who Thrived in the Age of Plutocracy

By happy accident, the latest bombshell from The New York Times dropped one day after some nice folks in New York sent along a copy of Without Compromise, a collection of pieces written for the late, lamented Village Voice by the late (and equally lamented) Wayne Barrett, who wrote that newspaper’s “Runnin’ Scared” column for almost 40 years. There is absolutely no point in trying to understand the current president*, the sleazoid New York milieu that birthed him as a public figure, and our immediate peril without having read Barrett’s dogged pursuit of Manhattan’s landshark demimonde and how it put the screws to everyone else. From the Go-Go Gordon Gecko 1980s all the way through Rudy Giuliani’s fealty to developers (and criminal cops) as the city’s mayor, without fear or favor, as the old muckrakers used to say, and using the country’s signature city as his index patient, Wayne Barrett traced the steady corruption that came along with nearly a half-century of shoving the nation’s wealth upwards, a process that, hitched to retrograde politics, made someone like El Caudillo Del Mar-a-Lago not only possible, but inevitable. That Barrett died the day before this president*’s thoroughly corrupt inauguration is one of those episodes in which history and Providence get together to rob us blind.

Read the rest of Charlie Pierce’s piece at Esquire.

Stephcast 9-28-20

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Former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale hospitalized after threatening to harm himself: Police

Brad Parscale
Brad Parscale

According to a public information officer with the Ft. Lauderdale Police Department, a 911 call was placed by Parscale’s wife who advised that “her husband was armed, had access to multiple firearms inside the residence and was threatening to harm himself. Officers determined the only occupant inside the home was the adult male,” referring to Parscale.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Amy Coney Barrett Confirmation Hearings To Begin Oct. 12, Sen. Lindsey Graham Says

Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Saturday that confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett are scheduled to begin Oct. 12.

“That’d be 16 days from nomination,” Graham told Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro, adding that confirmation hearings for 24 of the 42 Supreme Court justices were held within 16 days of their nominations.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Biden Campaign Mocks Trump’s Drug Test Puffery: He Can ‘Have At It’

Joe Biden’s campaign showered Donald Trump with mockery on Sunday after the president again demanded that his presidential opponent take a drug test before their first debate on Tuesday.

Trump baselessly suggested, first in a Sunday morning tweet and then later during a press conference, that Biden was taking performance enhancing drugs. Trump has been making similar claims for weeks in an apparent effort to preemptively dismiss a strong Biden showing in the first debate, after spending months attacking the former vice president’s mental acuity.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Trump lashes out at New York Times report alleging years of tax avoidance

The New York Times obtained two decades of President Donald Trump’s tax information, reporting Sunday that the president paid only $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency and again during his first year in office.

The Times, which said it plans to publish additional stories based on the documents, reported that Trump has not paid any income taxes in 10 of the past 15 years, mostly because he reported significant losses. It reported that Trump is facing a decadelong Internal Revenue Service audit over a $72.9 million tax refund he received that could end up costing him more than $100 million.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Eric Boehlert: Trump trying to steal the election is the only campaign story that matters

Faced with an authoritarian ruler who proudly announced he has no intention of abiding the election outcome, the New York Times faced an editorial choice this week — how big to play the story? How much attention should the Times give to one of the most un-democratic things any sitting U.S. president has every said in public when Trump refused to commit to the peaceful transfer of power following the election. Should the Times run a banner, front-page headline, giving the story its full attention and indicating the historic significance of Trump’s promised power grab?

It should have, but the Times did not.

Read the rest of Eric Boehlert’s piece at PressRun Media

The Rude Pundit: If Trump Was Telling the Truth About Voter Fraud, People Would Be Arrested (But He’s Not)

Donald Trump is currently the president of the United States, whether we like it or not. And that’s apparently his plan for the 2020 election, as he savagely sows doubt about the validity of the vote for the presidency. He keeps speaking in desperate but vague tones, with his accusations now having reached  Trumpian shorthand like “fake news” and “Russia hoax” before it. 

Now it’s “the ballots.” At a press briefing this week, asked again about and declining to support a peaceful transfer of power should he lose the election, Trump said, “You know that I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots. And the ballots are a disaster…The ballots are out of control. You know it, and you know who knows it better than anybody else? The Democrats know it better than anybody else.”

Read the rest of The Rude Pundit’s piece at his blog.

Stephcast 9-25-20

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Trump booed while visiting Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s casket at Supreme Court

Supreme Court SCOTUS
Supreme Court SCOTUS

Members of the public have been waiting for hours to file past the flag-draped casket, which will on Friday be moved to the Capitol building where Ginsburg will lie in state.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

2 vehicles hit protesters in Los Angeles as Breonna Taylor protests continue throughout US

A pickup truck hit a protester Thursday night in Hollywood, California, and moments later a second vehicle hit a car participating in the same protest as it tried to leave the area, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

The “largely peaceful” group of protesters began marching around 7 p.m. local time with only isolated reports of vandalism, but shortly after 9 p.m., things turned violent when a blue pickup truck traveling on Sunset Boulevard maneuvered through the crowd and became involved in an altercation, according to authorities. The driver of the truck attempted to get away from the situation, but police said he struck a protester standing in the street.

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Trump Announces Phony New Health Care ‘Plan’

President Donald Trump really, really wants to fool voters into thinking he has a plan to make the health care system great again. But he really, really doesn’t.

In Charlotte, North Carolina, on Thursday, Trump signed executive orders he claims address two of the biggest concerns Americans have about the health care system: coverage for people with preexisting conditions and surprise medical bills.

The orders don’t do anything about anything, though. It’s just more vaporware from the Trump administration. Slogans, lies and exaggerations aren’t policies. Trump pitched his phantom plan by saying it rests on three pillars: “more choice,” “lower costs,” and “better care,” and that it would “put patients first.”

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Adam Schiff: Why major democracy reforms are necessary – Los Angeles Times

Having wrested hard-won independence from a monarch, the founders of our nation sought to form a new union where executive power was constrained by other branches of government. They did so knowing that men are not angels, and believing that through a system of checks and balances that set “ambition against ambition,” a fledgling democracy could survive, even thrive.

That beautiful construct has been put to the test by a president who neither understands nor respects our constitutional scheme or the value of democratic governance.

Read the rest of Rep. Schiff’s op-ed at The Los Angeles Times.

Stephcast 9-24-20

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Fauci Slaps Down Rand Paul’s Idiotic Coronavirus Claims: ‘You’re Not Listening’

fauci
fauci

Dr. Anthony Fauci slapped down Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a former ophthalmologist with dubious qualifications, for “repeatedly” misrepresenting coronavirus data to support politically motivated attacks during a Senate hearing Wednesday. When Paul asked why Fauci is a “big fan” of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo despite the state having one of the world’s worst death rates, Fauci shot back, “No, you misconstrued that senator and you’ve done that repeatedly in the past.” He said New York got hit badly and “made some mistakes” but they now have a 1 percent test positivity rate by following CDC guidelines on face masks, social distancing, outdoor activity and washing hands. “Or they’ve developed enough community immunity,” Paul quipped.

Read the rest of the story at The Daily Beast

Public mourns Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as she lies in repose at Supreme Court

Supreme Court SCOTUS
Supreme Court SCOTUS

Her casket was placed on the Lincoln Catafalque, once used for President Abraham Lincoln, before a ceremony inside the court’s Great Hall attended by family, friends and her fellow justices, all wearing masks.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Trump Refuses To Commit To A Peaceful Transfer Of Power Post-Election

President Donald Trump declined to say if he would accept the election results in November.

Asked at a press conference Wednesday if he would “commit to a peaceful transferal of power” if he lost the election, Trump said: “Well, we’re gonna have to see what happens.”

The president then tried, again, to delegitimize mail-in voting, saying: “You know that I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots. The ballots are a disaster … Get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a peaceful … there won’t be a transfer, frankly, there’ll be a continuation.”

As millions of Americans are set to vote by mail amid the coronavirus pandemic, Trump has repeatedly spread disinformation suggesting that mail-in voting is “fraudulent” — it is not. 

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

No Cops Charged With Murder In The Killing Of Breonna Taylor

A grand jury in Louisville, Kentucky, has indicted Detective Brett Hankison in the case of the shooting death of Breonna Taylor, charging him with three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment.

No charges were filed against Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and Officer Myles Cosgrove, the other two police officers who were at the scene the night Taylor was fatally shot. Notably, no murder charges were filed against any of the men.

First-degree wanton endangerment is a felony that comes with a sentence of up to five years in prison under Kentucky law. Jefferson County Circuit Judge Annie O’Connell issued a warrant for Hankison’s arrest in a Wednesday hearing and set his bail at $15,000.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Stephcast 9-23-20

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Romney supports election-year Senate vote on Trump’s Supreme Court nominee

Romney
Romney

“The Constitution gives the President the power to nominate and the Senate the authority to provide advice and consent on Supreme Court nominees. Accordingly, I intend to follow the Constitution and precedent in considering the President’s nominee. If the nominee reaches the Senate floor, I intend to vote based upon their qualifications,” he said in a statement.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

As nation surpasses 200,000 deaths, Trump keeps downplaying coronavirus

covid coronavirus mask
covid coronavirus mask

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Trump To Announce His Supreme Court Nominee On Saturday

Supreme Court SCOTUS
Supreme Court SCOTUS

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday the announcement of his nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will likely be made at 5 p.m. EDT on Saturday.

“We’re getting very close to having a final decision made,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

He said the announcement will be “I believe at 5 o’clock on Saturday.”

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Cindy McCain endorses Biden for president in rebuke of Trump

Cindy McCain on Tuesday endorsed Democratic nominee Joe Biden for president, a stunning rebuke of President Donald Trump by the widow of the GOP’s 2008 nominee.

Trump has had a fraught relationship with members of John McCain’s family since he disparaged the Arizona senator during his 2016 campaign. But the McCains have stopped short of endorsing Trump’s rivals until now.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Bob Cesca: How bad will it get if Trump wins a second term? Let me count the ways

It’s been 160 years, almost to the day, since the last time American voters faced an election with consequences as grievous as this one. The 2020 contest is a referendum on Donald Trump’s fascist idiocracy and the rise of a tyrannical Putin-style kleptocracy. Here. In our time. This harrowing assessment includes the rise of an ideological Stone Age for the Supreme Court and, with it, the reversal of myriad advances in human rights and social programs, including the elimination of health insurance for millions of Americans and the dissolution of more than 500,000 marriages.

The too-soon death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has torn an opening in the fabric of the court that millions of socially Paleolithic conservatives have been waiting for: They now see the real potential for a 6-3 advantage.

Read the rest of Bob Cesca’s piece at Salon

Stephcast 9-22-20

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Biden refuses to say whether he’d expand the Supreme Court if he wins

Joe Biden would not say whether he opposes the mounting calls in his party to add more members to the U.S. Supreme Court in retaliation for Republicans filling a vacancy right before the presidential election.

Biden told a local Wisconsin TV station Monday that he wants to keep the focus on President Donald Trump and not get distracted by the issue of so-called court-packing, an idea the Democratic presidential nominee has opposed for years.

‘We’ve Got The Votes’: Lindsey Graham Says Senate Will Fill Ginsburg’s Seat Before Election

Sen. Lindsey Graham, the powerful chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Monday that the Republican Party has the votes to confirm Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s replacement on the Supreme Court before the Nov. 3 election.

“They tried to destroy Brett Kavanaugh so they could fill the seat,” Graham said Monday on Fox News, lambasting Democratic colleagues who have vowed to block any such nomination. “I’ve seen this movie before. It’s not going to work. … We’ve got the votes to confirm Justice Ginsburg’s replacement before the election, we’re going to move forward in the committee, we’re going to report the nomination out of the committee to the floor of the United States Senate so we can vote before the election.”

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Will Be First Woman Ever To Lie In State At U.S. Capitol

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died Friday at 87, will be the first woman to lie in state at the U.S. Capitol, allowing mourners to come pay tribute to the trailblazing feminist litigator.

After civil rights legend Rosa Parks died in 2005, she lay in honor at the Capitol — a distinction given to private citizens, as opposed to government officials like Ginsburg. Ginsburg, who was the first Jewish woman on the Supreme Court, will also be the first Jewish person to lie in state at the U.S. Capitol.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

CDC Reverses Guidelines Stating The Coronavirus Is Airborne Virus, Further Undermining Its Credibility

covid coronavirus
covid coronavirus

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reversed an update made to its coronavirus guidance that stated COVID-19 is an airborne virus. The health agency said that update, posted to its website on Friday, was made in error.

“A draft version of proposed changes to these recommendations was posted in error to the agency’s official website,” the CDC said in a statement posted to its website on Monday. “CDC is currently updating its recommendations regarding airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19). Once this process has been completed, the update language will be posted.”

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Stephcast 9-21-20

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The 6 Republican senators who will decide the Supreme Court fight

capitol washington DC
capitol washington DC

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death on Friday kicked off what is sure to be the most consequential Supreme Court confirmation fight in decades — and puts a spotlight on the handful of senators whose votes will determine the future of the court.

The universe of potential swing votes in the Senate is surprisingly small considering how high the stakes are. The following senators will be under enormous pressure — from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and President Donald Trump — to either fall in line, or break from their party in the most dramatic fashion.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

Pelosi says Democrats will ‘use every arrow in our quiver’ to block Trump’s Supreme Court nominee

Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Pelosi

“We have our options. We have arrows in our quiver that I’m not about to discuss right now but the fact is we have a big challenge in our country. This president has threatened to not even accept the results of the election,” Pelosi told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos. “Our main goal would be to protect the integrity of the election as we protect the people from the coronavirus.”

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Republicans are usually more fired up over the Supreme Court. Now, polls say Democrats are.

Supreme Court SCOTUS
Supreme Court SCOTUS

For decades, Republicans have galvanized voters around reshaping the Supreme Court, and they have benefited from it at the ballot box. But in a stark reversal, polls indicate that Democrats have the edge this year.

National and battleground state surveys taken before Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died Friday showed that voters trust Joe Biden more than President Donald Trump to pick a Supreme Court nominee and that Democrats rate the court as more important to their votes than Republicans do.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Eric Boehlert: The press is desperate for a horse race

On Sunday, The New York Times released fresh polling data from four swing states. The results were so good for Democrat Joe Biden that his campaign may have allowed itself a cautious smile or two — Biden had huge lead in Minnesota, and was ahead in Wisconsin, Nevada, and New Hampshire. Accompanying the polling article, the Times published a political snapshot from each of those four states. But the snapshots read much differently than the polling results, as the Times seemed to lean hard into the idea that Biden was slumping.

“MINNESOTA: Some See an Edge for Trump,” read one headline. The Times interviewed just two people for the article and both thought Biden was facing trouble in Minnesota. Trump “looks stronger politically in the state than he did in 2016,” and Biden was “hardly a lock to carry the state,” the Times reported, even though the daily just found Biden’s lead to be nine points, seven weeks from Election Day.

Read the rest of Eric Boehlert’s piece at PressRun Media.

The Rude Pundit: Blaming 2016 Voters for the Supreme Court Is Worthless

Last night, right after I checked my phone after a joyful happy hour with friends on a rooftop bar, my buzz disappeared and I went immediately from chilled out to furnace-on-full-blast rage and gut-churning sadness about the death of Supreme Court Justice and genuine giant of American jurisprudence Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I thought about how I wanted to get on Twitter and savage anyone on the left who didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016. I wanted to blame them for everything that will come from a Supreme Court that is firmly conservative. I wanted to go on a tear about people who didn’t vote at all, as well as those who voted Green Party. I was gonna get all righteous about it, telling everyone to fuck off who blamed Hillary Clinton as a candidate. 

Read the rest of The Rude Pundit’s piece at his blog.

McConnell: I will fill Ginsburg’s seat with Trump’s nominee. Schumer says don’t dare.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Friday night that he intends to allow for a floor vote in the Senate to confirm a new nominee made by President Donald Trump to replace the Supreme Court vacancy left by Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

“In the last midterm election before Justice Scalia’s death in 2016, Americans elected a Republican Senate majority because we pledged to check and balance the last days of a lame-duck president’s second term. We kept our promise. Since the 1880s, no Senate has confirmed an opposite-party president’s Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year,” he said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies at 87

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court justice who was as pioneering as she was brash, died Friday, the high court said.

She was 87.

The court said Ginsburg, a lifelong champion of women’s rights and a fierce advocate for gender equality, died “surrounded by her family at her home in Washington, D.C., due to complications of metastatic pancreas cancer.”

Chief Justice John Roberts said: “Our Nation has lost a jurist of historic stature. We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn, but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her — a tireless and resolute champion of justice.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

SM Happy Hour Videocast 9-18-20 Adam Smyer

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Stephcast 9-18-20

This content is for Monthly Audio, Monthly Audio + Happy Hour Video, Yearly Audio, Yearly Audio + Happy Hour Video, and Give the Stephanie Miller Podcast! members only.
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Ex-Pence aide blasts Trump over Covid response, says she’ll vote for Biden

vote ballot election
vote ballot

In an ad released on Thursday, a former senior adviser on the White House coronavirus task force lambasted President Donald Trump as a stonewalling, capricious leader with more concern for his reelection than the pandemic, and said she would be voting for his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, in November.

Olivia Troye, who worked as an adviser on counterterrorism and homeland security to Vice President Mike Pence before leaving the administration in August, appeared in an ad in which she shared damning anecdotes that portrayed Trump as a debilitating actor in the administration’s efforts to contain the virus. She said Trump was dismissive toward the task force’s efforts to prepare for the outbreak from early in the year, before the virus had made heavy inroads into the U.S.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

Trump administration scrapped plan to send every American a mask in April, email shows

The White House scrapped an effort to send hundreds of millions of cloth masks to every U.S. household in April, choosing instead to distribute the masks to nonprofit organizations and state and federal agencies, according to an internal email from a senior Trump administration official obtained by NBC News.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services told NBC News that 600 million masks have been distributed around the country to nonprofits and state and federal agencies through the means the Trump administration ultimately chose. The mask distribution program was called Project America Strong.

Public health experts said sending masks directly to Americans’ homes in the early days of the global pandemic would have sent a stronger message encouraging Americans to wear masks.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Federal judge blocks Postal Service changes that slowed mail

mailbox
mailbox

A U.S. judge on Thursday blocked controversial Postal Service changes that have slowed mail nationwide, calling them “a politically motivated attack on the efficiency of the Postal Service” before the November election.

Judge Stanley Bastian in Yakima, Washington, said he was issuing a nationwide preliminary injunction sought by 14 states that sued the Trump administration and the U.S. Postal Service.

The states challenged the Postal Service’s so-called “leave behind” policy, where trucks have been leaving postal facilities on time regardless of whether there is more mail to load. They also sought to force the Postal Service to treat election mail as first class mail.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

At CNN Town Hall, Biden Blasts Trump’s ‘Criminal’ Response To Coronavirus

Joe Biden on Thursday went after President Donald Trump again and again over his handling of COVID-19, calling Trump’s downplaying of the pandemic “criminal” and his administration “totally irresponsible.”

“You’ve got to level with the American people — shoot from the shoulder. There’s not been a time they’ve not been able to step up. The president should step down,” the Democratic presidential nominee said to applause from a CNN drive-in town hall crowd in Moosic, outside his hometown of Scranton.

Speaking about Trump’s admission that he publicly played down the impact of the virus while aware of its severity, Biden declared: “He knew it and did nothing. It’s close to criminal.”

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Stephcast 9-17-20

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Biden: ‘I trust vaccines. I trust scientists. But I don’t trust Donald Trump’

“Let me be clear. I trust vaccines. I trust scientists. But I don’t trust Donald Trump. And at this moment, the American people can’t either,” Biden said in a speech delivered at a theater in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, after receiving a briefing from experts on the development of a vaccine for COVID-19, a virus that has thus far claimed the lives of nearly 200,000 Americans.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Top HHS official takes leave of absence after Facebook rant about CDC conspiracies

The top spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services is taking a leave of absence, the agency announced Wednesday, days after he promoted dangerous conspiracy theories during a Facebook Live video.

In the video, first reported by The New York Times, Michael Caputo, HHS’ assistant secretary for public affairs, charged that scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “don’t want America to get well.” He also urged supporters of President Donald Trump to load up on ammunition in preparation for a violent left-wing rebellion if the president wins re-election.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Barr blasts his own DOJ prosecutors, equates them to preschoolers and ‘headhunters’

Attorney General Bill Barr
Attorney General Bill Barr

In scathing remarks against his own staff, Attorney General William Barr said Wednesday that the Justice Department has recently acted “more like a trade association for federal prosecutors than the administrator of a fair system of justice” and equated some prosecutors to preschoolers and “headhunters.”

Too much deference is given to career prosecutors, rather than to politically appointed leaders who can be held accountable at the ballot box, he said in remarks likely to further strain relationsbetween Barr and some of the Justice Department’s career prosecutors.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Trump contradicts CDC director on Covid-19 vaccines after Biden slams president’s promises

laboratory lab doctor tests
laboratory lab doctor tests

President Donald Trump claimed Wednesday that a Covid-19 vaccinecould be ready for distribution as early as mid-October — hours after the head of the CDC testified it likely wouldn’t be ready until the end of the year and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden voiced concerns he was putting politics ahead of safety.

“We’re all set to distribute immediately. We are set to — it could be in October, or in November. It could be later than that, but I think it will be in October,” Trump told reporters in a news briefing, where he also said he thought a vaccine for the coronavirus would be ready in “mid-October.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Stephcast 9-16-20

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5 key takeaways from President Donald Trump’s ABC town hall in Pennsylvania

speech microphone
speech microphone

There are less than 60 days until many voters head to the polls to cast ballots for President Donald Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden — but some voters are still not committed to either candidate. In an ABC News town hall Tuesday, the president faced questions from some of those voters living in a critical battleground state: Pennsylvania.

The socially-distanced event was moderated by ABC News’ chief anchor, George Stephanopoulos, at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia — a different setting than the president (who usually answers questions from the White House press corps and his favorite anchors at Fox News) is used to.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Biden Calls Trump a ‘Fool’ for Speculating He’s Taking Performance-Enhancing Drugs

syringe injection vaccine
syringe injection vaccine

President Donald Trump has recently taken to calling for himself and Joe Biden to be drug-tested before they debate because Trump thinks that Biden is on some kind of performance-enhancing drug.

Trump used the same tactics against Hillary Clinton four years ago, and has been hammering away at it — saying on Fox News Tuesday morning that “a lot of people think that something happened” after Biden did better in his final debate with Bernie Sanders than during the first few debates.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

Trump fumbles during tough encounter with undecided voters

President Donald Trump faced life outside his own political bubble on Tuesday, where his self-congratulation, buck passing and audacious falsehoods conspicuously failed to meet the moment when he was confronted by undecided voters.

Trump appeared at an ABC News town hall in Philadelphia, and peppered a socially distanced audience with the rhetoric and talking points that delight his loyal base. But if his goal was to satisfy relatively small groups of voters who polls show haven’t yet made up their mind, the President appeared to fall short and rarely addressed the substance of questions about his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, race relations and health care.
 

Trump tells town hall he ‘up-played’ the coronavirus pandemic despite recordings saying he downplayed it

covid coronavirus

President Donald Trump claimed on Tuesday to have “up-played” the threat of coronavirus early in the pandemic, contradicting his own remarks to the journalist Bob Woodward that he wanted to minimize the disease to avoid panic.

Speaking at an ABC News town hall moderated by George Stephanopoulos, Trump rebutted a student who asked why he had downplayed “a pandemic that is known to disproportionately harm low-income families and minority communities.” Trump defended his response to the health crisis by citing an early travel ban on foreign nationals from China from entering the U.S. in order to curb the spread of the virus.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

Bob Cesca: Trump thinks he gets to be president of just the Republican states… But they’re a total mess

Donald Trump appears to be seceding from the Union, which is bizarre given his status as the president of it. Make no mistake: Trump appears to be deliberately marginalizing himself by repeatedly insisting that he’s not responsible for certain states and cities, despite technically being the president of the entire United States.

We’ve all heard him say it. On topics ranging from poverty to crime to COVID-19, Trump never hesitates to defer all the blame for whatever onto state and local Democrats rather than acknowledging that he’s supposed to be the president of those cities and states, too.

Read the rest of Bob Cesca’s piece at Salon.

Stephcast 9-15-20

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City of Louisville reaches settlement with Breonna Taylor’s family

blue light police siren

The city of Louisville, Kentucky, has reached a settlement with Breonna Taylor’s family six months after she was killed in her homeduring a police drug raid.

A source familiar with the details of the settlement told NBC News the agreement is in the millions of dollars and will include a list of police reforms that will address officer accountability and the execution of search warrants.

The settlement was first reported by The Louisville Courier-Journal. Lawyers for Taylor’s family will discuss the settlement at a 2 p.m. ET news conference. A spokeswoman for Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer declined to comment Tuesday morning.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

‘Nothing more could have been done’: Trump’s final phone call to Woodward

On August 14, the coronavirus pandemic was on fire in the US. More than 168,000 Americans had died, with more than 1,300 deaths that day alone. But when President Donald Trump called legendary journalist Bob Woodward, it was to find out one thing: He had recently learned that Woodward’s new book “Rage” was done and would be coming out in September, and Trump wanted to find out how he’d be portrayed.

It was their 19th conversation, following 18 interviews that formed a key component of Woodward’s book. Trump had privately told Woodward in February he knew critical details about how deadly the virus was, and in March admitted he was playing it down.
 

Trump alma mater says Biden plan would lead to more economic growth

Joe Biden’s economic proposals would create a faster growing economy, higher wages for American workers and reduce the debt compared to where the U.S. is headed under President Donald Trump, according to new analysis from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

That conclusion could give a further boost to the Democratic presidential candidate, who has generally led Mr. Trump in the polls but who often trails the president on the issue of the economy.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News.

Health Official Out To Manipulate CDC Reports Has Deep Russian Ties

The Health and Human Services official who has been pressuring the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to change COVID-19 reports to reflect well on President Donald Trump has troubling Kremlin ties stretching for years.

Politico was the first to report last week that HHS Assistant Secretary Michael Caputo has been orchestrating a pressure campaign on the CDC to alter agency reports — and even stop them — to fit Trump’s far more optimistic view of COVID-19. The president himself admitted that he lied when he presented a sunnier view of the pandemic.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Trump Has Head-Scratching Solution For California Wildfires : ‘It Will Start Getting Cooler’

President Donald Trump touched down in California on Monday to survey the wildfire damage and immediately launched into his usual talking points about poor forest management while denying the role of climate change

Trump arrived in Sacramento as more than two dozen major wildfires burned across the state. More than 2 million acres in the state have burned this year, a nearly 2,000% increase in land burned compared to this time last year.

At a roundtable discussion about the wildfires, California Secretary for Natural Resources Wade Crowfoot said Trump’s focus on forest management was obscuring the grim reality that climate change was behind the historically high temperatures and years of drought.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Charlie Pierce: Scientists at These Agencies Should Stage a Walkout

The most recent outrage against good government and common sense involves the technique most popular down at Camp Runamuck. If it’s not installing a useful tool at the U.S. Postal Service, it’s making sure a hopeless hack is in a position to barber the reports on the pandemic at the Centers for Disease Control. And what better time than right now, when the climate crisis is contributing not only to the torching of the western third of the country, but also to a view of the Atlantic and Caribbean in which hurricanes, both full and developing, are lined up like overseas flights arriving at JFK, to install at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration a guy who doesn’t believe in the climate crisis at all?

Read the rest of Charlie Pierce’s piece at Esquire.

Stephcast 9-14-20

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Stephanie Miller, Hugh Jackman, Janelle Monáe, John Oliver, Regina King, Laverne Cox appear in LGBTQ Entertainment Critics awards special

Hugh Jackman, Janelle Monáe, Regina King, Pose sensation and fashion trailblazer Billy Porter, groundbreaking trans actress Laverne Cox, Schitt’s Creek star Dan Levy and vaunted political satirist John Oliver are among the slew of actors, comics and performers lending cheer to GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics’ inaugural Dorians TV Toast 2020 on Revry, airing Sunday, September 13 on the first LGBTQ+ global streaming network Revry.

In the two-hour star-studded virtual event, hosted by famously opinionated entertainer and talk show host Karel, fans will find out which stars and TV shows the LGBTQ+ organization’s 270 members deemed the best, most visually stunning and even campiest of the past TV season. In addition to raising a glass to the honorees—many of whom delight in virtual acceptance videos—GALECA members discuss the nominees’ merits and even controversies (Randy Rainbow and Tiger King don’t get off lightly).

Read the rest of the story at The Seattle Lesbian

Fox News just proved why it shouldn’t be hosting first debate

Don’t reward awful behavior

Days after the Commission on Presidential Debates announced its misguided decision to reward Fox News’ Chris Wallace with hosting duties for the first debate between Trump and Joe Biden this month, the GOP network proved once again why it has no business taking its place alongside legitimate news organizations. The debate prize comes as Fox News has spent summer weeks and months lying relentlessly about a public health crisis, and fueling racial hatred among its viewers. More recently, the network yet again proved why it should not be given the cover of a news outlet.  

The President Is Our Mass Murderer

Sometimes, oh, my sweet, weary people of Donald Trump’s America, it feels like we’re sailing in skiffs on a sea of shit and some of us believe we can get across the shit sea to shore and some of us believe that we’re gonna sink but we all know we’re damned to keep sailing as wave after wave of shit keeps hitting us, and every time we dare to hope that we’ve seen the worst shit wave, that perhaps we’ll get a break and just sail as smoothly as possible through a shit sea, a fucking massive turd wave in a shit storm appears on the horizon and we’ve gotta batten down the hatches and ride this one out, even though we know that in the best possible circumstances, we’ll get over or through but still coated in shit.

Trump brags about Bill Barr’s DOJ killing a man: ‘That’s the way it has to be’

President Donald Trump praised the killing of Michael Forest Reinoehl by a Department of Justice fugitive task force.

Hew was wanted for the fatal shooting of Aaron “Jay” Danielson, who was a member of the far-right group Patriot Prayer, which had organized a Trump caravan through Portland. Reinoehl had claimed the shooting was in self-defense.

‘Biden didn’t stop the black plague’: GOP chair Ronna Romney humiliated trying to blame Biden for Trump’s COVID failure

republican elephant GOP
republican elephant GOP

COVID-19 is so-named because it first surfaced on the planet in 2019. It’s something that Republicans seem to be struggling to understand. 

It was just a few months ago that senior White House counselor Kellyanne Conway claimed it wasn’t the first COVID, assuming that the 19 meant there were 18 versions of the virus before this one. 

On Twitter Sunday, Republican Party chair Ronna Romney McDaniel blamed former Vice President Joe Biden for the virus, saying that Biden “can’t run from his disastrous record responding to the coronavirus.” The virus didn’t exist when Biden was in office, as it started in 2019.

Nora Dannehy, Connecticut prosecutor who was top aide to John Durham’s Trump-Russia investigation, resigns amid concern about pressure from Attorney General William Barr

WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 26: U.S. Attorney General William Barr as U.S. President Donald Trump holds a signing ceremony for an executive order establishing the Task Force on Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives, in the Oval Office of the White House on November 26, 2019 in Washington, DC. Attorney General Barr recently announced the initiative on a trip to Montana where he met with Confederated Salish Kootenai Tribe leaders. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Federal prosecutor Nora Dannehy, a top aide to U.S. Attorney John H. Durham in his Russia investigation, has quietly resigned – at least partly out of concern that the investigative team is being pressed for political reasons to produce a report before its work is done, colleagues said.

Health Official Reportedly Pressured CDC To Alter COVID-19 Info To Back President

Health Department public affairs and former Trump campaign official Michael Caputo called pressure on scientists a defense against the “deep state.”

SM Happy Hour Videocast 9-11-20 David Ferguson

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Stephcast 9-11-20

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Senate Votes 52-47 to Block McConnell’s $500 Billion Coronavirus Stimulus

The Senate on Thursday voted 52-47 to block a $500 billion stimulus package proposed by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), likely ending hopes that such a deal might pass before the November election.

“My home state just passed a sad milestone yesterday,” McConnell said in a statement Thursday morning in which he called on Democrats to support his measure. “More than 1,000 Kentuckians have now lost their lives to COVID-19. These families I represent are not burying their loved ones because Republicans or Democrats are the enemy. They are burying their loved ones because of this virus. That’s what we are fighting.”

‘I saved his a–‘: Trump boasted that he protected Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after Jamal Khashoggi’s brutal murder, Woodward’s new book says

  • President Donald Trump bragged that he protected Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after the assassination and dismembering of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018.
  • “I saved his ass,” Trump had said amid the US outcry over Khashoggi’s killing, according to Bob Woodward’s new book. “I was able to get Congress to leave him alone. I was able to get them to stop.”
  • The president told Woodward he didn’t believe that MBS ordered Khashoggi’s murder, though the US and other foreign intelligence services concluded that he did order the attack.
  • After Khashoggi’s murder, Trump bypassed Congress to sell roughly $8 billion in arms to the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates. He vetoed a trio of resolutions blocking the sale, as well as a resolution to end US support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

Russian hackers who disrupted 2016 election targeting political parties again, Microsoft says

Russian military spies who hacked and leaked Democratic emails to inject chaos into the 2016 presidential election are active again, targeting political parties, advocacy groups and consultants, Microsoft announced Thursday.

China and Iran are also attempting to penetrate the Microsoft email accounts of people affiliated with the political campaigns, though the efforts against the campaigns of President Trump by Iran and the Democratic nominee Joe Biden by China were not successful, the firm said.

Stephcat 9-10-20

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Whistle-Blower: Homeland Security Leaders Downplayed Threats From Russia and White Supremacists

Trump Putin Russia

The former head of the Homeland Security Department’s intelligence division has accused three senior leaders of warping the agency around President Trump’s rhetoric.

Trump adds 20 names to Supreme Court shortlist, including Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton

Supreme Court SCOTUS
Supreme Court SCOTUS
  • President Donald Trump on Wednesday added 20 names to his list of potential nominees to the Supreme Court and called on his Democratic rival Joe Biden to do the same, renewing a tactic he first employed during his last presidential campaign. 
  • Among the nearly two dozen additions to the list are GOP Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Josh Hawley of Missouri. 
  • “Every one of these individuals will ensure equal justice, equal treatment, and equal rights for citizens of every race, color, religion and creed,” Trump said at a press conference announcing the names. “Together we will defend our righteous heritage and preserve our magnificent American way of life.”

Emails show HHS official trying to muzzle Fauci

fauci
fauci

Paul Alexander, a Trump appointee at the Department of Health and Human Services, has been trying to prevent Anthony Fauci from talking about children wearing masks and getting COVID-19 tests, according to emails obtained by Politico.

Emails that Alexander sent to staff at the National Institutes of Health show that he has been trying to influence what Fauci should say during media interviews. His emails “often contradict mainstream science while promoting political positions taken by the Trump administration,” Politico reported.

‘Play it down’: Trump admits to concealing the true threat of coronavirus in new Woodward book

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump admitted he knew weeks before the first confirmed US coronavirus death that the virus was dangerous, airborne, highly contagious and “more deadly than even your strenuous flus,” and that he repeatedly played it down publicly, according to legendary journalist Bob Woodward in his new book “Rage.”

“This is deadly stuff,” Trump told Woodward on February 7.

In a series of interviews with Woodward, Trump revealed that he had a surprising level of detail about the threat of the virus earlier than previously known. “Pretty amazing,” Trump told Woodward, adding that the coronavirus was maybe five times “more deadly” than the flu.

Stephcast 9-9-20

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Trump Reportedly Considering Investing $100 Million of His Own Money in Cash-Strapped Campaign

President Donald Trump has reportedly been weighing whether to invest up to $100 million of his own money in his 2020 reelection campaign.

Trump “has talked about the idea with multiple people, though he hasn’t yet committed to any self-funding,” according to a Tuesday report from Bloomberg.

Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Is Now Linked to More Than 250,000 Coronavirus Cases

The inevitable fallout from last month’s Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, an annual event that packed nearly 500,000 people into a small town in South Dakota, is becoming clear, and the emerging picture is grim. 

According to a new study, which tracked anonymized cellphone data from the rally, over 250,000 coronavirus cases have now been tied to the 10-day event, one of the largest to be held since the start of the pandemic. It drew motorcycle enthusiasts from around the country, many of whom were seen without face coverings inside crowded bars, restaurants, and other indoor establishments. 

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Trump Campaign Paying to Repair Damages to White House Lawn, Just-Renovated Rose Garden After RNC Campaign Speeches

White House Washington DC President
White House Washington DC President

The Republican National Committee’s unprecedented — and possibly illegal — use of the White House for key events in last month’s convention has left Donald Trump’s campaign with unexpected costs after RNC attendees and heavy equipment damaged both the South Lawn and the newly-renovated Rose Garden.

According to the Washington Post, the convention exacted a noticeable toll on the White House grounds, requiring sections of the South Lawn to be re-sod and other repairs to account for foot traffic from more than a thousands Trump supporters and the large stage lights, scaffolding, and outdoor TV screens.

Justice Department wants to defend Trump in E. Jean Carroll defamation lawsuit

WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 26: U.S. Attorney General William Barr as U.S. President Donald Trump holds a signing ceremony for an executive order establishing the Task Force on Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives, in the Oval Office of the White House on November 26, 2019 in Washington, DC. Attorney General Barr recently announced the initiative on a trip to Montana where he met with Confederated Salish Kootenai Tribe leaders. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

(CNN) — The US Justice Department, in an extraordinary move on Tuesday, asked to take over the defense of President Donald Trump in a defamation lawsuit filed against him by E. Jean Carroll, a woman who has accused Trump of sexual assault.

While the alleged sexual assault occurred long before Trump became President, the Justice Department argued that it must take over because Trump’s comments spurring the defamation lawsuit came while he was in office. 

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Stephcast 9-8-20

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In new book, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen describes alleged episodes of racism and says president likes how Putin runs Russia

President Trump’s longtime lawyer and personal fixer, Michael Cohen, alleges in a new book that Trump made “overt and covert attempts to get Russia to interfere in the 2016 election” and that the future commander in chief was also well aware of Cohen’s hush-money payoff to adult-film star Stormy Daniels during that campaign.

Louis DeJoy Reportedly Pressured Former Employees To Donate To GOP, Then Reimbursed Them

mailbox
mailbox

“When we got our bonuses, let’s just say they were bigger, they exceeded expectations,” a former employee told The Washington Post.

Trump Campaign Official Mocked Joe Biden For Visiting Graves Of Late Family Members

While the president was out golfing, one of his campaign advisers made fun of the Democratic nominee for paying his respects after church on Sunday.

Jeffrey Goldberg’s Atlantic Piece Shows the Difference Between Battlefield and Political Courage

The most infuriating part of the soon-to-be-legendary story is what it says about the men who continued to serve this president*.

How Trump’s Billion-Dollar Campaign Lost Its Cash Advantage

dollars money bills
dollars money bills
Five months ago, President Trump’s re-election campaign had a huge financial edge over Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s. The Times conducted an extensive review of how the Trump team spent lavishly to show how that advantage evaporated.

SM Happy Hour Videocast 9-4-20 (Vintage) Best Friends Episode

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StephCast – 9-4-20

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Biden, in Kenosha, vows that America will address racism and ‘original sin’ of slavery

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden thrust his campaign into the roiling national debate over police violence and racial justice on Thursday as he traveled to Kenosha, Wis., and pointedly embraced the nation’s racial reckoning, vowing improvements if elected president.

During an emotional meeting held in a church not far from looted downtown buildings, Biden made some of his most direct comments yet on the subject of race, growing introspective at times and speaking barely above a whisper. He said the shock over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May, and the shooting that paralyzed Jacob Blake in Kenosha on Aug. 23, has provided the first window in generations for the nation to address centuries-old problems.

Read the rest of the story at The Washington Post

Fauci Warns 7 States To Take Extra Holiday Precautions Against COVID-19 Surge

fauci
fauci

Infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci is getting the word out to Americans — especially those in seven central states — to be extra vigilant over the holiday weekend amid concerns about a spike in COVID-19 cases.

He warned that carelessness about the coronavirus could trigger a surge, similar to what happened after the Memorial Day holiday and the Fourth of July. That means staying away from crowded picnics, backyards and beaches. The fear is that Americans are tired of COVID-19 precautions and may risk an end-of-summer blowout.

“You don’t want to be someone who’s propagating the outbreak,” Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on the “Today” show. “You want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.”

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Trump Reportedly Referred To American War Dead As ‘Losers’ And ‘Suckers’

military cemetery memorial
military cemetery memorial

President Donald Trump, who has been criticized in the past for making disparaging remarks about veterans and military families, reportedly referred to American service members who’d died in World War I as “losers” and “suckers” in conversations with his staff.

The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, citing multiple anonymous sources who had firsthand knowledge of the conversations, reported Thursday on the president’s comments.

Associated Press reporter James LaPorta later corroborated Goldberg’s article, saying a senior Defense Department official had confirmed the information.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

StephCast – 9-3-20

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StephCast – 9-2-20

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There’s a legitimate way to end coronavirus vaccine trials early, Fauci says

syringe injection vaccine
syringe injection vaccine

A COVID-19 vaccine could be available earlier than expected if ongoing clinical trials produce overwhelmingly positive results, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease official, in an interview Tuesday with KHN.

Although two ongoing clinical trials of 30,000 volunteers are expected to conclude by the end of the year, Fauci said an independent board has the authority to end the trials weeks early if interim results are overwhelmingly positive or negative.
 

Trump Raises Eyebrows With Tweet Declaring He Did Not Have ‘a Series of Mini-Strokes’

White House Washington DC President
White House DC President

President Donald Trump posted a baffling tweet on Tuesday declaring that he has not had a series of “mini-strokes”— and had the White House physician release a statement backing up his claim, NBC News reports.

“It never ends! Now they are trying to say that your favorite President, me, went to Walter Reed Medical Center, having suffered a series of mini-strokes. Never happened to THIS candidate – FAKE NEWS,” Trump tweeted.

The tweet was followed hours later by a statement from White House physician Sean Conley, who said he was speaking out at Trump’s request. “I can confirm that President Trump has not experienced nor been evaluated for a cerebrovascular accident (stroke), transient ischemic attack (mini-stroke), or any acute cardiovascular emergencies, as have been incorrectly reported in the media,” Conley said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC Dallas/Ft. Worth

Trump Returns To Fox News To Make 3 More Wildly Crazy Claims And Accusations

Fox News aired the second part of President Donald Trump’s lengthy interview with Laura Ingraham on Tuesday and it was nearly as wild as the first one. 

On Monday, Trump claimed “shadow” people were controlling former Vice President Joe Biden. He said the city of Portland, Oregon had been burning for decades (untrue). And he made unsubstantiated claims about airplanes “completely loaded with thugs” wearing dark uniforms and flying to disrupt the Republican National Convention. 

In the sequel chat, Trump continued his attacks on Biden, but with a twist. In the past, he has repeatedly ― and without evidence ― claimed that Biden was “mentally shot.” Now, however, Trump claims Biden has a souped-up brain from some kind of drug. 

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

In Kenosha, Trump blames ‘political violence’ on ‘radical ideology’

blue light police siren

President Donald Trump on Tuesday toured the site of a building that burned during the protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and met with local law enforcement officials, a trip meant to underscore his re-election argument that America is under a threat of being overtaken by violent mobs.

“To stop the political violence, we must also confront the radical ideology that includes this violence,” Trump said at a roundtable discussion on community safety. “Reckless far-left politicians continue to push the destructive message that our nation and our law enforcement are oppressive or racist.”

“Actually,” Trump continued, “we must give far great support to our law enforcement.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Bob Cesca: We just passed 6 million cases, and it didn’t have to be like this — if we’d had a leader

The United States this week surpassed 6 million cases of COVID-19, the most in the world. Even when measuring relative to population, America’s standing is dismal and depressing. We’re currently ranked 10th in the world with 18,675 cases per million people, and growing by 30-50,000 new cases every day. As I begin to write this essay, midday on Monday, we’ve already racked up 14,151 cases for the day so far. 

Just for the sake of contrast, Italy is ranked 60th in cases per million residents. France is ranked 63rd. Germany is 83rd. Iraq is ranked 49th. Canada is 76th. Again, the U.S. is ranked 10th. There are “shithole countries,” as Trump called them, who are faring better than we are.

Read the rest of Bob Cesca’s piece at Salon

StephCast 9-1-20

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Pence was on standby to ‘take over’ during Trump’s unannounced Walter Reed visit, new book reports

medicine doctor stethoscope
medicine doctor stethoscope

Vice President Mike Pence was put on standby to temporarily assume the powers of the presidency during President Donald Trump’s unannounced visit to Walter Reed hospital in November 2019, according to a copy of New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt’s forthcoming book obtained by CNN.

Trump had undergone a “quick exam and labs” as part of his annual physical out of anticipation of a “very busy 2020,” the White House had said of the trip at the time.
Schmidt writes, however, that he learned “in the hours leading up to Trump’s trip to the hospital, word went out in the West Wing for the vice president to be on standby to take over the powers of the presidency temporarily if Trump had to undergo a procedure that would have required him to be anesthetized.” Schmidt does not specify the sourcing for this reporting beyond “I learned.”
 

Trump alleges Biden controlled by people in ‘dark shadows’

President Donald Trump alleged unnamed people in “dark shadows” are controlling Democratic nominee Joe Biden in an interview with Laura Ingraham that aired Monday night on Fox News.

In discussing what he characterized as anarchists and thugs terrorizing American cities, Trump said, “People that you’ve never heard of, people that are in the dark shadows” are pulling the strings of the Democratic nominee.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

Charlie Pierce: Joe Biden Wants to Know If We’re Willing to Rid Ourselves of Donald Trump’s Poison

Thus did Joe Biden bring forward the only question that really matters in this election on Monday in a speech from a suburb of Pittsburgh. It was a good, thwacking indictment of a criminal and incompetent presidency*. It got Biden out in public again, which needed to happen. And if all he did was ask that question, it still would have been all of those things. Thus did Joe Biden put the responsibility right where it belongs: on the voters of the United States of America.

Are you satisfied with four more years of an unfunny burlesque of American government, with the reins of power in the hands of a foreign-owned vulgar talking yam, with another term of chaos, misrule, and kleptocratic vandalism, and with a final transition of the old republic into an incoherent ball of angry snakes?

Read the rest of Charlie Pierce’s piece at Esquire

StephCast 8-31-20

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Trump Set To Visit Kenosha Today As Turmoil Over Jacob Blake Shooting Continues

President Donald Trump defended his decision to visit Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Tuesday following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, despite calls from local leaders that he stay away from the state amid fears that the trip will only inflame tensions in the city. 

The president said Monday that he would go to the region, even though he was unwelcome, in his latest effort to cast himself as the “law-and-order” president going into the November election. The White House has said he will use the visit to support local law enforcement and “survey” damage after anti-racist demonstrations, but the move mirrors his administration’s efforts to cast such protests as violent riots rather than calls for change.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Trump’s Intel Chief Ends Election Security Briefings To Congress – Schiff and Pelosi are Livid

vote ballot election
vote ballot

The nation’s top intelligence official has informed Congress that his office will no longer give in-person election security briefings on Capitol Hill, a move that raised concern among lawmakers Saturday about the public’s right to know about foreign interference in the upcoming presidential election.

President Donald Trump said National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe made the decision because the administration “got tired” of intelligence about election security leaking from Congress.

“They leaked the information … and what’s even worse, they leaked the wrong information and we got tired of it,” Trump told reporters while attending a briefing on Hurricane Laura in Orange, Texas. He didn’t offer details to support his statement.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

U.S. tops 6 million coronavirus cases as nation continues to struggle with pandemic

covid coronavirus

The U.S. has surpassed 6 million coronavirus cases as the country struggles to reopen schools and rebuild its economy as the pandemic rages with no end in sight.

The number of coronavirus cases topped 6 million Sunday, according to NBC News data collected from health departments nationwide. The country has recorded more than 183,000 deaths due to the virus since the outbreak gained global attention in February.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

‘Fanning the flames of hate’: Biden slams Trump for ‘encouraging violence’ in Portland

Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, blasted President Donald Trump as having “recklessly” encouraged violence after a man died following clashes Saturday in Portland, Oregon, between people attending a pro-Trump vehicle rally and Black Lives Matter protesters.

In a long statement Sunday afternoon, Biden called “the deadly violence” in Portland “unacceptable” and said he condemns “violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Harry Litman: New York’s investigations into all things Trump may be the best bet for holding him accountable

President Trump faces incoming fire from three different directions in his native New York, and his odds of escaping unscathed look long.

We’ve known for a while about the Manhattan district attorney’s dogged pursuit of the president’s tax records. That odyssey is poised to end soon and probably successfully for the D.A., at least in terms of obtaining the records.

Then last week, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York indicted erstwhile Trump guru Stephen K. Bannon on criminal charges. If Bannon cooperates with authorities, he might well have vivid stories to tell about Trump and his circle.

Read the rest of Harry Litman’s piece at The Los Angeles Times

The Rude Pundit: RNC Night 4… “I Alone Can F*** It All Up”

One of President Donald Trump’s ultimate tells is the phrase “as you know.” Whenever Trump says something and follows it with “as you know,” it’s got one of two purposes. The first is flattery, as in, “I know that you are privy to this incredible insight that I have, too.” The second is conspiratorial, making you complicit in his lies. If he says something absurdly false and adds “as you know,” barring anyone shouting out, “No, I don’t fucking know,” he’s essentially acting as if you have assented to the lies.

For the idiot hordes of his voters, it doesn’t matter. For the rest of us, it should be alarming. Trump could say, “I strangle hobos with Ivanka’s panties and lean in to kiss them as they take their last breath because it’s the only thing that makes me ejaculate, as you know.”  We might raise a hand and say, “I’m sorry. Could you go back to that strangling part? We didn’t really know that.” Trump voters would nod and say, “Yes, of course, we know about the hobogasm.  Do continue,” and then, when Democrats started to complain about the president jizzing on hobo corpses, they’d get outraged and tell us, “Look, we all know that’s who he is. We don’t care.”

Read the rest of The Rude Pundit’s piece at his blog

SM Happy Hour Videocast 8-28-20 Katie Hill

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Stephcast 8-28-20

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Homicide charges announced against Kyle Rittenhouse, accused of killing 2 at Kenosha protests

child sad boy
sad child boy

A 17-year-old accused of killing two protesters and injuring another with an AR-15-style rifle in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Tuesday night has been charged as an adult with two counts of first degree homicide and one count of attempted homicide. The teen, Kyle Rittenhouse, also faces charges of recklessly endangering the safety of two other victims and possessing a weapon while under the age of 18.

In a complaint released Thursday by the Kenosha County Clerk of Courts, investigators identified the deceased victims as Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber. A third victim who survived being shot is identified as Gaige Grosskreutz. The shootings happened amid the third night of demonstrations over the Sunday police shooting of Jacob Blake.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Melania Trump Wore A ‘Green Screen Dress’ And It Played Out Just As You’d Expect

Repeat after me: Bright green clothing is not safe for the internet.

First lady Melania Trump learned that the hard way when she wore a lime green dress to the closing night of the Republican National Convention, which was held, in an unprecedented move, on the White House South Lawn Thursday. 

The moment she emerged from the building, internet pranksters knew they had their work cut out for them.

See the video at Huffpost

‘Abomination’: Critics Rip Trump For ‘Desecrating’ White House With RNC Speech

White House Washington DC President
White House DC President

Critics slammed President Donald Trump’s use of the White House for a political stunt on Thursday as both unethical and illegal.

Trump spoke to a crowd on the South Lawn as he accepted his party’s nomination at the Republican National Convention, one of several purely political events done on government property lately. 

Earlier this week, Trump turned a naturalization ceremony at the White House into a televised spectacle during the RNC. And on Thursday, for Trump’s speech, the White House was festooned with campaign signs and logos.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

President Trump Ends RNC 2020 With Divisive Rhetoric Emblematic Of His Tenure

President Donald Trump capped the Republican National Convention on Thursday with an ominous speech warning of an end to American exceptionalism in an effort to unite the fervent base that helped propel him to victory four years ago.

“Your vote will decide whether we protect law-abiding Americans, or whether we give free rein to violent anarchists, agitators and criminals who threaten our citizens,” Trump said, calling his competitor, former Vice President Joe Biden, a “Trojan horse” for socialism.

“Joe Biden is not a savior of America’s soul ― he is the destroyer of America’s jobs. And if given the chance, he will be the destroyer of American greatness,” he said.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Stephcast 8-27-20

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SM Happy Hour Videocast 8-26-20 Ernestine, the White House Operator

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Teen arrested in Kenosha shooting promoted ‘Blue Lives Matter,’ posed with firearms online

child sad boy
sad child boy

The videos that spread rapidly across social media Tuesday evening all showed a similar figure: a white man of medium build, a backward tan cap, an olive green T-shirt, dark pants, blue gloves, a rifle and a side bag.

“I’m Kyle, by the way,” the man says in one video.

That man now appears to be Kyle Rittenhouse, according to numerous videos from Tuesday night posted online and a Facebook account with pictures that match the man in the video. On Wednesday, Rittenhouse, 17, of Antioch, Illinois, was arrested and faces a warrant alleging first-degree intentional homicide in connection with the shooting deaths of two people during protests over the shooting by police of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Pro sports teams delay games after Milwaukee Bucks refuse to play in protest of Jacob Blake shooting

Professional basketball, baseball and soccer teams postponed their games Wednesday after the Milwaukee Bucks didn’t take the floor during a playoff match in a protest of the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin.

Top-ranked pro-tennis player Naomi Osaka also said she would sit out a semi-final match at the Western Southern Open scheduled for Thursday.

“Before I am a athlete, I am a Black woman,” she said in a statement. “And as a Black woman I feel as though there are much more important matters at hand.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News 

Hurricane Laura Makes Landfall In Louisiana As Category 4 Monster

Hurricane Laura made landfall in Louisiana early Thursday as a strong Category 4 storm, bringing maximum winds of 150 mph and dire warnings of extensive damage.

The National Hurricane Center described the hurricane as “extremely dangerous” as it moved across the state, warning of catastrophic storm surges, extreme winds and flash flooding across portions of low-lying Louisiana.

“Doppler radar images indicate that the eye of Hurricane Laura has made landfall at the coast near Cameron, Louisiana,” the agency said, noting the storm would likely move inland over southwest Louisiana and Arkansas later Thursday evening.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

The RNC Ignored Police Brutality And Kenosha Violence To Praise Trump For ‘Law And Order’

Republicans leaned into President Donald Trump’s “law and order” message on the third night of their party convention Wednesday. But with no substantive mentions of the unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the night felt very separated from the moment. 

Before the Republican National Convention kicked off for the night, the country was in severe turmoil stemming from the Kenosha police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man. An apparent white vigilante was arrested for murder hours before the convention began for allegedly shooting three protesters, two of whom died. The NBA and WNBA shut down for the evening as players demanded action to end police violence; several MLB and Major League Soccer games were canceled for the same reason.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Stephcast 8-26-20

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Dozens of coronavirus infections traced back to Sturgis Rally

covid coronavirus

The hundreds of thousands of bikers who attended the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally may have departed western South Dakota, but public health departments in multiple states are trying to measure how much and how quickly the coronavirus spread in bars, tattoo parlors and gatherings before people traveled home to nearly every state in the country.

From the city of Sturgis, which is conducting mass testing for its roughly 7,000 residents, to health departments in at least six states, health officials are trying to track outbreaks from the 10-day rally, which ended on Aug. 16. They face the task of tracking an invisible virus that spread among bar-hoppers and rally-goers, who then traveled to over half of the counties in the United States.

Read the rest of the story at The Los Angeles Times

Officials link more than 100 COVID-19 cases in 8 states to Sturgis Motorcycle Rally

The hundreds of thousands of bikers who attended the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally may have departed western South Dakota, but public health departments in multiple states are trying to measure how much and how quickly the coronavirus spread in bars, tattoo parlors and gatherings before people traveled home to nearly every state in the country.

From the city of Sturgis, which is conducting mass testing for its roughly 7,000 residents, to health departments in at least six states, health officials are trying to track outbreaks from the 10-day rally, which ended on Aug. 16. They face the task of tracking an invisible virus that spread among bar-hoppers and rally-goers, who then traveled to over half of the counties in the United States.

Read the rest of the story at The Los Angeles Times

Two people are dead and a third injured after an overnight shooting in Kenosha, police say

curfew
curfew

Two people are dead and a third was injured in Kenosha, Wisconsin, following a shooting late Tuesday night, police said.

The shooting happened amid the third night of protests over the police shooting of 29-year-old Jacob Blake on Sunday evening.
On Tuesday, officers responded to reports of multiple gunshot victims around 11:45 p.m., the Kenosha Police Department said in a news release early Wednesday.
The person injured was taken to the hospital with “serious, but non-life threatening injuries,” police said.
 

From Hunter Biden to ‘defund the police,’ some RNC headliners play fast and loose with the truth

Trump American Flag Speech
Trump American Flag Speech

On the second night of the Republican National Convention, several members of the Trump family made the case for President Donald Trump’s re-election in a program devoted to cultural flashpoints and dire predictions for the country under a Joe Biden administration.

The president’s son Eric Trump offered a number of false or misleading claims about Biden’s views and policy prescriptions, while top Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow got the facts wrong about the trajectory of the economy when the president took office. First lady Melania Trump, meanwhile, delivered a keynote address from the Rose Garden at the White House, while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a norm-defying speech recorded in Jerusalem.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Bob Cesca: Don’t cry for Kellyanne Conway… Like the whole corrupt Trump enterprise, she must pay

In keeping with the neck-snapping pace of the news these days, several breaking stories happened all at once Monday morning. 

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testified before the House Oversight Committee, repeatedly declaring that he would not reverse the sabotage he imposed on the Postal Service mid-pandemic, and with a presidential election 70 days away. Donald Trump tried to disrupt the hearings by jumping into an amped-up airing of grievances during the opening proceedings of the Republican convention, splitting cable news screens into two levels of Dante’s hell. Meanwhile, a former business partner of Jerry Falwell Jr. accused the Liberty University evangelist of being a willing cuckold in a love triangle. Practically buried under everything else was word that the Trump administration will not comply with the Supreme Court’s order to resume accepting new applicants into the DACA program.

Read the rest of Bob Cesca’s piece at Salon

Stephcast 8-25-20

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Jerry Falwell Jr. tells paper he is resigning from Liberty University

cross religion
cross religion

Jerry Falwell Jr. has resigned from his role as president of Liberty University after 13 turbulent years at the helm of the prominent evangelical Christian school, he told the Wall Street Journal late Monday.

It follows a day of back-and-forth after Liberty University released a statement that said Falwell had offered his resignation and then withdrawn it.

“On the first day of classes of Liberty University’s fall term, Jerry Falwell, Jr., agreed to resign as its President and from its Board of Directors but following media reports about the resignation, withdrew it,” the statement said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Protesters return to streets in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where Black man was shot in back by police

blue light police siren

A day after a police officer shot a Black man multiple times in the back, law enforcement deployed what appeared to be tear gas as protesters defied a curfew in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Multiple fires were burning at buildings in Kenosha lat Monday night, NBC affiliate WTMJ reported, but it was not clear how or when they started. Several parked vehicles not far from the courthouse were in flames about 11 p.m., according to video and an NBC crew at the scene.

Earlier in the day, Gov. Tony Evers authorized the National Guard to help local law enforcement respond to the protests.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

GOP Convention Embraces Anger And Fear, Despite Being Billed As ‘Optimistic’

“Rioters must not be allowed to destroy our cities. Human, sex, drug traffickers should not be allowed to cross our border.”

“People of faith are under attack.”

“Look at what’s happening in America’s cities ― all run by Democrats. Crime, violence, mob rule. Democrats refuse to denounce the mob.”

Those were all comments from speakers on Monday, the opening night of the Republican National Convention, which GOP aides had promised would be “very optimistic and upbeat.”

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Charlie Pierce: ‘Trump Time’ Is the New Doomsday Clock

Prior to embarking on his new career as an alleged pirate king of the bounding main, Steve Bannon used to talk bullishly about destroying the “administrative state.” Recently, there have been two epic reported stories that went spelunking into what that actually means. First, the good people at ProPublica went deeply into the history of how the meatpacking industry blew off a decade’s worth of warnings that, in the event of a pandemic, their facilities would convert themselves into thriving germ factories.

Read the rest of Charlie Pierce’s piece at Esquire

Stephcast 8-24-20

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Everything We Know About The 2020 Republican National Convention

republican elephant GOP
republican elephant GOP

The Republican National Convention is set to begin this week, on the heels of Democrats’ convention in which they nominated former Vice President Joe Biden to be their party’s presidential candidate.

Similar to the Democratic National Convention, the RNC will conduct most of its events and speeches virtually and remotely, with the exception of convention business in the host city of Charlotte, North Carolina. The RNC is expected to renominate President Donald Trump, who plans to deliver his address from Washington, D.C.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Trump announces emergency authorization for COVID-19 treatment after accusing FDA of delays

covid coronavirus mask
covid coronavirus mask

President Donald Trump announced Sunday his administration was providing an emergency authorization for the use of convalescent plasma to treat COVID-19, a treatment that more than 70,000 patients have already received.

One day prior to the start of the Republican National Convention, Trump made the announcement in an evening news conference. He said the authorization “will dramatically expand access to this treatment.”

“We’re years ahead of approvals if we went by the speed of past administrations,” Trump said, adding, “And that includes vaccines.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Longtime Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway to leave White House

Kellyanne Conway
Kellyanne Conway

Kellyanne Conway, the longtime adviser to President Donald Trump and wife of outspoken Trump critic George Conway, is leaving the White House at the end of August, she said in a statement Sunday.

Conway, who was Trump’s campaign manager before she became one of his staunchest defenders in the White House, said that she and her husband disagreed about plenty but “we are united on what matters most: the kids,” she said.

“Our four children are teens and ‘tweens starting a new academic year, in middle school and high school, remotely from home for at least a few months,” Conway said. “As millions of parents nationwide know, kids ‘doing school from home’ requires a level of attention and vigilance that is as unusual as these times.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Eric Boehlert: Trump, Putin, and the emails — Hillary deserves media apology

Confirming the disloyal ways of Trump’s 2016 campaign, the Senate Intelligence Committee released more bipartisan findings on Tuesday, reporting that the GOP election team worked closely with Russian operatives. Trump then lied about those contacts to Robert Mueller’s investigators.

“Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the 2016 hacking of Democratic Party accounts and the release of emails intended to harm Hillary Clinton’s campaign,” Bloomberg reported. “Moscow’s intent was to harm the Clinton Campaign, tarnish an expected Clinton presidential administration, help the Trump Campaign after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, and undermine the U.S. democratic process.” The report contains dozens of new findings that show a direct link between Trump associates and Russian intelligence.

Read the rest of Eric Boehlert’s piece at PressRun Media.

The Rude Pundit: Biden and Harris Believe You Deserve Sanity in Your Daily Lives

Everyone is talking about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s speeches at the Democratic National Convention this past week as being a return of empathy or decency, but I’d go one further with another overarching theme: “Remember sanity?” It was truly like watching a funhouse mirror version of our reality, except it took the warped world around us and made it look natural again. It was honestly like you could exhale and not just wonder what insane shit might follow after the last round of insane shit.

That was what Biden and Harris imparted: a sense that we could possibly exist in a normal nation, one that wasn’t constantly on the brink of exploding in violence or just collapsing into itself, unable to bear the weight of one man’s insatiable ego. Harris vividly described our national anxiety: “We’re at an inflection point. The constant chaos leaves us adrift. The incompetence makes us feel afraid. The callousness makes us feel alone. It’s a lot.” Then she went full inspirational speaker: “And here’s the thing: We can do better and deserve so much more.”

Read the rest of The Rude Pundit’s piece at his blog

Trump ‘Has No Principles’ And ‘You Can’t Trust Him,’ His Sister Reportedly Said On Tape

President Donald Trump’s sister was recorded saying that her brother “has no principles” and “you can’t trust him,” The Washington Post reported Saturday.

Maryanne Trump Barry, who was serving as a federal judge at the time, made the slashing comments to her niece Mary Trump, who was secretly recording her, the Post reported. At one point, Barry was discussing Trump’s moves in 2018 to separate immigrant children from their parents.

“All he wants to do is appeal to his base,” Barry said. “He has no principles. None. None. And his base, I mean, my God, if you were a religious person, you want to help people — not do this.”

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Stephcast 8-21-20

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Trump loses court ruling to quash subpoena for tax records

tax

A federal judge has rejected President Donald Trump’s attempt to quash a subpoena for his tax returns as part of an investigation into hush payments to women who alleged affairs, which Trump long has denied.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office had subpoenaed Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars, for eight years worth of the president’s personal and business tax returns.

The investigation is looking into bank and tax fraud, according to previous court filings.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Trump Cooks Up Wacky New Birther Slam: Joe Biden Wasn’t Born In Pennsylvania

President Donald Trump expanded his “birther” conspiracy theories on Thursday to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, telling a crowd in Pennsylvania that Biden “wasn’t born” in the state because he moved to Delaware with his family when he was a child.

“He’d say he was born here,” Trump told listeners in Scranton. “But he left when he was like 8, 9 or 10. So he left 68 years ago, he left — a long time ago. So I view it differently. He wasn’t born here. He abandoned Scranton!”

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Joe Biden Accepts Democratic Presidential Nomination: ‘I’ll Be An Ally Of The Light’

Joe Biden officially accepted the Democratic nomination for president on the final night of the party’s virtual convention on Thursday. As he accepted the honor, Biden promised to work hard for everyone, including people who didn’t vote for him. 

“While I’ll be a Democratic candidate, I will be an American president,” Biden said in his remarks. “I’ll work hard for those who didn’t support me, as hard for them as I did for those who did vote for me.”

The former vice president said that President Donald Trump has “cloaked America in darkness for much too long.”

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Stephcast 8-20-20

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Former Trump aide Steve Bannon charged with swindling donors in private border wall effort

Steve Bannon
Steve bannon

Stephen Bannon, a former senior White House adviser to President Donald Trump, has been arrested and charged along with three other men with swindling donors who supported a private effort to build sections of the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Bannon and the other men were indicted by a federal grand jury in New York on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering in connection with their roles in the non-profit group “We Build the Wall.”

Prosecutors allege that Bannon diverted $1 million raised by the group to another organization he controlled and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of donor funds on his personal expenses.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

Poll: Most Americans embarrassed by US response to coronavirus

Nearly 7 in 10 Americans say the US response to the coronavirus outbreak makes them feel embarrassed, according to a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS, as 62% of the public says President Donald Trump could be doing more to fight the outbreak.

The new poll finds disapproval of Trump’s handling of the outbreak at a new high, 58%, as the share who say the worst of the pandemic is yet to come has risen to 55% after dropping through the spring. And as the virus has spread from the nation’s cities throughout its countryside, the number who know someone who’s been diagnosed with the virus has jumped dramatically to 67%, up from 40% in early June.
 
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Trump seethes in all-caps tweetstorm during Obama’s DNC speech

President Donald Trump attacked former President Barack Obama on Wednesday, criticizing him for the message he delivered at the Democratic National Convention condemning his successor.

Trump appeared to be tuning into Obama’s address, tweeting “HE SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN, AND GOT CAUGHT!” as the former president began his speech — a message Joe Biden retweeted, with the addition of a line from Obama’s speech that “Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t.”

As the speech continued, Trump again tweeted about his predecessor: “WHY DID HE REFUSE TO ENDORSE SLOW JOE UNTIL IT WAS ALL OVER, AND EVEN THEN WAS VERY LATE? WHY DID HE TRY TO GET HIM NOT TO RUN?”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

History made as Harris accepts VP nomination; Obama condemns Trump’s ‘failure,’ ‘lies,’ ‘conspiracy theories’

Sen. Kamala Harris of California officially became the Democratic Party’s vice presidential nominee Wednesday night, making history as the first Black woman and Asian American on a major party’s presidential ticket.

Harris, the child of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, accepted her party’s nomination with a blistering speech that capped a star-studded night of programming on Night 3 of the virtual Democratic National Convention, during which former President Barack Obama attacked his successor with unusual force.

In an impassioned live speech from Joe Biden’s hometown, Wilmington, Delaware, Harris took stark aim at President Donald Trump, too, painting him as an incompetent chaos creator — all while deftly weaving in details from her barrier-breaking biography.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Trump calls for Goodyear boycott after company bans MAGA attire among employees

auto tire rubber
auto tire rubber

President Donald Trump on Wednesday promoted a boycott of Goodyear, angrily reacting to a viral company policy that banned employees from wearing “MAGA Attire.”

“Don’t buy GOODYEAR TIRES – They announced a BAN ON MAGA HATS. Get better tires for far less!” Trump wrote on Twitter. “(This is what the Radical Left Democrats do. Two can play the same game, and we have to start playing it now!).”

The president appeared to reference an image that a Goodyear employee said was taken during a diversity training slideshow that went viral this week.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

Stephcast 8-19-20

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Facing public scrutiny, postmaster general halts changes blamed for delays until after election

The postmaster general announced Tuesday he will be halting the operational changes put in place to cut costs at the embattled U.S Postal Service until after the November election after he came growing under pressure to reverse the shifts due to mail delays.

Louis DeJoy, a Republican donor who assumed the role of postmaster general in June, said in a statement his initiatives would be suspended “to avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail.”

“The Postal Service is ready today to handle whatever volume of election mail it receives this fall,” he said. “Even with the challenges of keeping our employees and customers safe and healthy as they operate amid a pandemic, we will deliver the nation’s election mail on time and within our well-established service standards. The American public should know that this is our number one priority between now and election day.”

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

10 highlights from the DNC Night 2: Food, song, emotional moments, biting attacks

Former presidents, ex-secretaries of state and a New York elevator operator provided some of the high points of Tuesday’s second night of the Democratic National Convention — but it was Jill Biden who stole the show.

Here are some of the most notable moments from Night 2:

1. Jill and Joe

Speaking from the high school where she used to teach, Jill Biden closed the night by talking about her relationship with Joe Biden and the pain they’ve shared over the years.

“How do you make a broken family whole? The same way you make a nation whole: with love and understanding and with small acts of kindness,” she said. Her husband joined her in the classroom at the end of the speech.

Read the rest of the story and see the video at NBC News

Senate report details Russia’s efforts to meddle in 2016, ties to Trump associates

A new bipartisan report released by a Senate panel Tuesday outlines perhaps the most detailed accounting to date of Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election while accusing the White House and others close to President Donald Trump of refusing to cooperate with an investigation into whether the president’s campaign simply benefited or sought to aid Russia’s efforts.

The nearly-1,000 page report from the Senate Intelligence Committee, its fifth and final examination of a years-long effort to probe Russian meddling in 2016, describes several episodes in which Trump and members of his campaign were keen to accept Russia’s help — and in some instances goes further than even former special counsel Robert Mueller in detailing ties between the campaign and Russian individuals.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Bob Cesca: We all know Trump wants to use the USPS to rig the election: Here’s how he’ll do it

Donald Trump is practically daring us to nab him in the act. That’s how obvious and unequivocal his latest conspiracy to cheat in the 2020 election happens to be. We all see it happening, we know what he’s doing and we know exactly why. The crisis is so urgent that it requires us to compile, step-by-step, a complete picture of his plot to sabotage the U.S. Postal Service and, with it, the election. That’s what I’d like to do here today, so let’s get started.

Michael Cohen, in the foreword to his memoir about his time as a fixer for Trump, repeated what he testified under oath to the House Oversight Committee last year: Trump will do anything to win, and possesses “the desire for power at all costs.” Cohen added, “I became even more convinced that Trump will never leave office peacefully.” And the president’s paranoia and rank ignorance when it comes to American government is fully embodied in this sentence: “He thinks everyone is as corrupt and shameless and ruthless as he is.” 

Read the rest of Bob Cesca’s piece at Salon

Stephcast 8-18-20

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Trump denies delaying mail; Postal Service head slated to testify before Congress

mailbox
mailbox

President Donald Trump denied Monday that he had done anything to slow mail delivery as accusations grow that he, as well as Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, have politicized the U.S. Postal Service and hamstrung the agency’s work. Meanwhile, DeJoy agreed to testify before Congress next week on the issue.

Trump told reporters Monday that he had “encouraged everybody to speed up the mail, not slow the mail,” but critics point to policy changes made by DeJoy, a close ally of the president and a Republican fundraiser, as the cause of the holdup.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

‘Disappointing’ and ‘disturbing’: Republicans sound off on Trump at DNC

A group of Republicans addressed the Democratic National Convention on Monday night to urge Americans to vote against the “disappointing” and “disturbing” Republican President Donald Trump.

“Many of us have been deeply concerned about the current path we’ve been following for the past four years. It’s a path that’s led to division, dysfunction, irresponsibility and growing vitriol between our citizens,” former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, one of four Republicans to take the virtual stage at the convention, said, standing at what appeared to be a fork in the road. “Continuing to follow that path will have terrible consequences for America’s soul, because we’re being taken down the wrong road by a president who has pitted one against the other.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Coronavirus updates: US reports under 40,000 new cases for 1st time since June

covid coronavirus mask
covid coronavirus mask

There were 35,112 new cases of COVID-19 identified in the United States on Monday, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

It’s the first time since June 28 that the country has reported under 40,000 new cases in a single day. Monday’s case count is also well below the record set on July 16, when more than 77,000 new cases were identified in a 24-hour reporting period.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Michelle Obama delivers scathing indictment of Trump at the 2020 DNC

Michelle Obama delivered a scathing indictment of President Donald Trump’s policies and character Monday on the first night of the all-virtual Democratic National Convention, accusing the White House of sowing “chaos” and “division” and showing a “total and utter lack of empathy.”

Coming at the end of a jam-packed two-hour program that tackled the coronavirus crisis, racial justice and the nation’s economic woes, Obama began by acknowledging Americans’ weariness with the current state of affairs.

“I know a lot of folks are reluctant to tune into a political convention right now or to politics in general. Believe me, I get that,” she said. “You know I hate politics.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Charlie Pierce: John Kasich Should Shut His Gob About What Qualifies as ‘Extreme’

In 1996, the keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention said the following about the incumbent Democratic president.

“Now, think about Bill Clinton. He promises one thing and does another. He hopes we’ll forget his broken promises. But I ask you — have you forgotten that Bill Clinton promised a middle class tax cut, then passed the largest tax increase in American history? I didn’t think so. Have you forgotten that Bill Clinton promised common-sense health care reform, only to impose a huge Washington-run bureaucracy health care system on all of us? And have you forgotten that Bill Clinton promised to balance the budget, first in five years, then 10, then seven, then nine, then went on to veto the first balanced budget in 25 years? Americans know that Bill Clinton’s promises have the lifespan of a Big Mac on Air Force One.”

Read the rest of Charlie Pierce’s piece at Esquire.

Stephcast 8-17-20

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Poll: Harris viewed more favorably than unfavorably

Kamala Harris is the only candidate on either major party ticket with a net favorability rating that is positive, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Sunday.

The California senator, announced last week as Joe Biden’s running mate, was viewed favorably by 39 percent of those polled, as opposed to 35 percent who viewed her unfavorably. That net rating of plus 4 tops the ratings of Biden (minus 6), President Donald Trump (minus 12) and Vice President Mike Pence (minus 5).

Read the rest of the story at Politico

Pelosi Calls On House To Return Early To Vote On Postal Service Legislation

mailbox
mailbox

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday the chamber will return from its vacation early to vote on legislation meant to limit changes to the Postal Service ahead of the presidential election in November. 

The California Democrat said she would call on the House to return to the Capitol in the coming days.

“Lives, livelihoods and the life of our American Democracy are under threat from the President,” Pelosi wrote in a letter to colleagues. “That is why I am calling upon the House to return to session later this week to vote on Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman [Carolyn B.] Maloney’s ‘Delivering for America Act,’ which prohibits the Postal Service from implementing any changes to operations or level of service it had in place on January 1, 2020.”

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Here’s What To Expect At The 2020 Democratic National Convention

speech microphone
speech microphone

The Democratic National Committee’s presidential nominating convention kicks off Monday after the coronavirus pandemic caused significant delays and changes in the schedule. 

While the host city for the convention was set to be Milwaukee, former Vice President Joe Biden is expected to accept the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination from his home in Delaware due to the virus. The presumptive nominee announced Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) last Tuesday as his choice for vice president after a drawn-out vetting process that included many women of color and prominent political leaders. 

The historic ticket is moving forward on the campaign message that President Donald Trump is a purveyor of crisis, with Harris calling 2020 a moment of “real consequence for America.”

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Eric Boehlert: Kamala Harris sparks right-wing media meltdown

Taking their cues from Trump and dropping any pretense of not being blatantly sexist and racist, the right-wing media immediately dove into a feeding trough of ugly rhetoric this week when Joe Biden announced Kamala Harris as his running mate. The conservative media machine set off allegorical bomb blasts around Harris, frantically trying to depict as radical and dangerous a mainstream U.S. senator from the largest state in the union.

“In style and policy, Harris epitomizes an authoritarian,” the National Review gasped. The far-right Federalist warned panicked readers that Harris, a former prosecutor, represents a “radical threat to America.” And Fox News’ Sean Hannity announced the Biden-Harris ticket was “the most radical ticket of a political party in our lifetime by far.”

Read the rest of Eric Boehlert’s piece and subscribe to his newsletter at PressRun Media.

The Rude Pundit: Kamala Harris Will Hurt Trump and Pence and That’s What We Need

Last week, I said on Twitter that I wanted Sen. Kamala Harris to be Joe Biden’s pick for a running mate because I wanted her out there for the next couple of months prosecuting Donald Trump’s administration in the public space. Several responses were along the lines of “No, fuck you, she should be attorney general, dick, so that my favorite Democrat can be VP!” 

There are a few reasons I thought Harris-as-AG was a dumb idea. First, no Attorney General has ever gone on to become president. (Robert Kennedy may have, but, well, we’ll never know.) And Harris obviously is eyeing the presidency down the road. More importantly, though, is that, as Biden’s vice presidential nominee, she will have an incredibly high profile, and in a media environment that too often ignores Democrats and especially Democratic women, she can go out every day and make Donald Trump and Mike Pence cry and it will have to be covered. That will shake some shit up.

Read the rest of The Rude Pundit’s piece at his blog

Obama: Trump is trying to ‘kneecap’ Postal Service

Former President Barack Obama condemned President Donald Trump in a new interview over his efforts to “actively kneecap” the United States Postal Service in order to frustrate mail-in voting ahead of the November election — casting the maneuvers by his White House successor as “unique to modern political history.”

The criticism from Obama came in response to Trump’s admission Thursday that he opposes additional funding for the federal agency and election security grants because those provisions would help facilitate voting by mail amid the global coronavirus pandemic.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

Pelosi weighs bringing House back early to address Postal Service crisis

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democratic leaders are considering cutting short the August recess and bringing the chamber back into session to deal with the unfolding crisis at the U.S. Postal Service, according to Democratic sources.

The House could return to vote with the next two weeks, the Democratic sources suggested. The chamber is currently in recess, with no votes scheduled until the week of Sept. 14.

Pelosi and other top Democrats, including House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), discussed the possibility of returning early during an emergency leadership call Saturday afternoon.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

Trump Refuses To Say Whether Kamala Harris Is ‘Eligible’ To Be Vice President

President Donald Trump, who earlier amplified a racist conspiracy theory about Sen. Kamala Harris’ citizenship, refused Saturday to say whether the California-born senator was eligible to become vice president.

Pressed by a reporter to answer a question on the topic, Trump said only that it was “not something that bothers me.”

“I have nothing to do with that,” he said on whether Harris — a natural-born U.S. citizen with immigrant parents from Jamaica and India — should be allowed to run for vice president.  

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

SM Happy Hour Videocast 8-14-20 Craig Shoemaker

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Stephcast 8-14-20

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Fauci says temperature checks not reliable to fight COVID-19

fauci
fauci

The novel coronavirus has now killed more than 753,000 people worldwide.

Over 20.7 million people across the globe have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new respiratory virus, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The actual numbers are believed to be much higher due to testing shortages, many unreported cases and suspicions that some national governments are hiding or downplaying the scope of their outbreaks.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Trump campaign adviser floats false birther theory about Kamala Harris’ eligibility for VP

Kamala Harris
Kamala Harris

A legal adviser to President Trump’s reelection campaign is amplifying a false theory from a conservative law professor that Kamala Harris may not be eligible for the vice presidency due to questions surrounding the immigration status of her parents at the time she was born.

Harris was born in Oakland, California, on October, 20, 1964. Constitutional scholars and Supreme Court precedent have long held that anyone born in the U.S. is an American citizen, which makes them eligible for the presidency.

Jenna Ellis, the Trump campaign adviser, reposted a tweet Thursday from Tom Fitton, the president of the conservative group Judicial Watch, in which he asked whether Harris is “ineligible to be Vice President under the U.S. Constitution’s ‘Citizenship Clause'” and shared an op-ed from John Eastman, a law professor at Chapman University, published in Newsweek.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Biden and Harris call for three-month nationwide mask mandate

Former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris are calling for a three-month nationwide mask mandate to limit the spread of coronavirus

During a briefing by public health experts in Wilmington, Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, told reporters that all the nation’s governors should require this.

“Every single American should be wearing a mask when they’re outside for the next three months, at a minimum. Every governor should mandate mandatory mask-wearing,” Biden said, suggesting that widespread mask use could save 40,000 lives over the next three months. “Let’s institute a mask mandate nationwide starting immediately, and we will save lives.”

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Trump‌ ‌says‌ ‌he opposes‌ ‌USPS‌ ‌funding‌ ‌in‌ ‌an‌ ‌effort‌ ‌to‌ ‌block ‌mail-in‌ ‌voting‌

mailbox
mailbox

President Donald Trump said Thursday he opposes funding for the U.S. Postal Service and election security grants in an effort to stymie mail-in voting for the upcoming presidential election.

Democrats “want 3½ billion dollars for something that will turn out to be fraudulent, that’s election money, basically. They want 3½ billion dollars for the mail-in votes, OK, universal mail-in ballots,” Trump told Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo, in response to a question on talks on the next coronavirus relief package. “They want 25 billion dollars — billion — for the Post Office.”

“Now they need that money in order to have the Post Office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” he continued. “By the way, those are just two items, but if they don’t get those two items that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting.”

Read the rest of the story at Politico

Stephcast 8-13-20

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Coronavirus update: US records nearly 56,000 new cases, over 1,500 additional deaths

covid coronavirus

The novel coronavirus has now killed more than 749,000 people worldwide.

Over 20.6 million people across the globe have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new respiratory virus, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The actual numbers are believed to be much higher due to testing shortages, many unreported cases and suspicions that some national governments are hiding or downplaying the scope of their outbreaks.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Biden raised $26 million in a day after picking Harris for VP

dollars money bills
dollars money bills

Joe Biden’s campaign raised $26 million in the 24 hours after he selected Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate — an eye-popping total that shows the campaign’s growing fundraising strength as the election draws nearer.

Biden announced the fundraising total during the ticket’s first virtual grassroots fundraiser on Wednesday evening, immediately following Biden and Harris’ first joint campaign event in Wilmington, Del.

The massive cash haul, which included 150,000 first-time donors, is a signal of Harris’ ability to generate enthusiasm for the campaign and the history-making moment of her selection, as the first woman of color named to a major party presidential ticket.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

House Democrats demand Postal Service chief roll back changes ahead of Election Day

mailbox
mailbox

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and 174 other Democrats in the chamber signed a letter sent Wednesday to the new Postmaster General demanding the agency reverses operational changes they argue would hamper mail-in voting on Nov. 3.

“It is always essential that the Postal Service be able to deliver mail in a timely and effective manner. During the once-in-a-century health and economic crisis of COVID-19, the Postal Service’s smooth functioning is a matter of life-or-death, and is critical for protecting lives, livelihoods and the life of our American Democracy,” the lawmakers wrote.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

‘America is crying out for leadership’: Harris gives first speech as VP candidate

Kamala Harris
Kamala Harris

Former Vice President Joe Biden described Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., as “experienced,” a “proven fighter” and ready to handle the presidency on day one of a Biden administration in their first joint appearance as a presidential ticket in Wilmington, Delaware, Wednesday evening.

Introducing Harris, Biden praised the senator’s bonafides and took aim at President Donald Trump a day after the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee announced his selection of Harrisas his running mate.

Biden said Harris “knows how to govern, she knows how to make the hard calls” and is “ready to do this job” from the onset.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Dr. Irwin Redlener: Reopening Schools in September Is a Dangerous Experiment

Irwin Redlener
Irwin Redlener

As Donald Trump keeps calling for the nation’s 124,000 public and private schools to reopen, even as he’s failed to contain COVID-19, we are about to embark on a massive, poorly controlled national experiment with the subjects being most of the nation’s 55 million school-age children, their families and their teachers.

Unfortunately, this may not go well—which helps explain why New York City is one of the few major school districts planning to open school buildings to students in September, and only on a staggered basis—and we could be facing a significant upsurge in COVID-19 cases, including in states where the outbreak seems, at the moment, relatively under control. 

Read the rest of Dr. Irwin Redlener’s piece at The Daily Beast

Stephcast 8-12-20

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White House acknowledges there is less jobless aid than Trump first said

President Trump’s senior aides acknowledged on Tuesday that they are providing less financial assistance for the unemployed than the president initially advertised amid mounting blowback from state officials of both parties.

On Saturday, Trump approved an executive action that he claimed would provide an additional $400 per week in expanded unemployment benefits for Americans who have lost their jobs during the pandemic.

By Tuesday, senior White House officials were saying publicly that the maneuver only guarantees an extra $300 per week for unemployed Americans — with states not required to add anything to their existing state benefit programs to qualify for the federal benefit.

Read the rest of the story at The Washington Post

Big Ten, Pac-12 cancel fall football seasons over coronavirus concerns

The Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences on Tuesday canceled their football seasons over coronavirus concerns, ignoring pleas from President Donald Trump, Republican lawmakers and college athletes to play in the fall.

College football has become a flashpoint in the fight over reopening the country, with government officials using the sport as a tool to encourage public compliance with health protocols. The president inserted himself into the debate this week and urged schools to let their athletes play.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

‘Squad’ member Ilhan Omar defeats well-funded Democratic primary challenger in Minnesota

Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, a member of the progressive “Squad” in Congress, defeated a well-funded challenger in a Minnesota Democratic primary on Tuesday, CNN projected.

Antone Melton-Meaux, an attorney who runs a mediation practice and is a first-time candidate for elected office, raised a substantial amount of money in his bid to take on the congresswoman — more than $4.1 million as of July 22, according to Federal Election Commission data. Omar had raised around $4.3 million by the same date.