Monthly Archives: October 2020

Not its best video, but effective: The Lincoln Project.

13WOWK reports on a West Virginia political poll:

In the race for U.S. president, President Donald Trump (R) holds a 56% to 38% lead over Democratic nominee Joe Biden, according to the poll. 4.8% said they were still unsure of which candidate they would be voting for on Election Day.

Impressive, yeah? West Virginia voters aren’t paying attention, yeah?

No.

According to Wikipedia, Trump beat Clinton by 42 points in 2016.

And I want to know is if that 56% in the poll realize that a substantial portion of their former political colleagues have switched their party allegiance, and if they wonder if perhaps there’s something they’re missing in the current political climate.

Does self-doubt gnaw at them?

Or do they just merrily march on, certain that Trump is the way to go?

I’m going to guess the epistemic bubble echos the phrase You’re right! to them.

Woodrow Wilson, two nights before Election Day, 1916, wrote a letter in which he communicates a plan in case he loses his reelection campaign. Professor Matthew Waxman explains on Lawfare:

In his early life as a scholar, Wilson had written about the structural defects of the U.S. constitutional system for managing crises. So it should be no surprise that he thought about them as president. What is surprising are the actions he planned. Assuming that they went along with this move, in the interim between Hughes’s election and inauguration, Wilson would appoint Hughes to replace Robert Lansing as his secretary of state. Once Hughes was in that office, Wilson and Vice President Thomas Marshall would resign, whereupon, according to succession rules at the time, Hughes would become president early.

Wilson had his flaws, but at least he was prepared to sacrifice for his country. Should we expect the same from President Trump, if he fails to perform a miracle and win reelection?

And it’s a lovely little story.

Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), finding himself in an unexpectedly difficult reelection fight, and perhaps worried that with roughly four weeks left, MJ Heggar (D-TX) may be able to make up the gap, whatever it is (I’m not finding any recent polls), in that time, is starting to put some separation between himself and the President, much like these incumbents. Here he is, critiquing the President’s take on the coronavirus:

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn said Monday that President Donald Trump “let his guard down” on the coronavirus and that the president’s rhetoric has created “confusion” as the country has struggled to get the pandemic under control.

“I think he let his guard down, and I think in his desire to try to demonstrate that we are somehow coming out of this and that the danger is not still with us — I think he got out over his skis and frankly, I think it’s a lesson to all of us that we need to exercise self discipline,” Cornyn told the Houston Chronicle editorial board.

The comment came as he was asked about Trump rarely wearing a mask, holding Make America Great Again rallies and hosting a Supreme Court nomination ceremony at the White House attended by at least eight people, including two senators, who have since tested positive for the virus. [Houston Chronicle]

Cornyn’s TrumpScore? As of this writing, 95.1%.

Cornyn’s selection of the coronavirus as his divergence point from President Trump may have been inevitable, as Hegar has been attacking him on the subject (see above link), but it’s not without risks. I think that one of the key linkages between Trump and his base is his public embrace of magical thinking, which he has put on display repeatedly since the coronavirus became a pandemic.

That linkage validates the central identity of his supporters, as evidenced by their indulgence in such beliefs as claiming Covid-19 is a hoax, it’s only as bad as the flu, it’s a weapon, and several other false tropes that I might expect to hear from barstool blowhards, but not from serious people.

When Cornyn suggests that Trump is wrong, he is taking a risk that avid Trump supporters, sensing their central identities are not being validated by Cornyn, will turn on him in disgust. Through Trump, they have achieved a visceral power, a position on the prestige ladder, at least in their own eyes; Cornyn’s betrayal is an attack on their position.

It’ll be interesting to see if my hypothesis is correct. If he wins in November, I’ll have been wrong.

And if he loses?

Not only will I be right, it’ll be evidence that indulging in magical thinking isn’t merely a weird little habit of some people, but a road into a swamp from which there is no escape.

I’ve been saying this for years, as have many other pundits, but in a nation that thinks religious liberty is – somehow – under attack, it’s worth emphasizing that magical thinking, infectious in its own way, often has unsightly consequences, as Paul Waldman and Greg Sargent point out in The Plum Line:

Republicans always feared this day would come, when Trump would become not just an erratic, divisive president but someone whose manifest unfitness for office would result in full-blown catastrophe.

They decided they had no choice but to stand behind him, and convinced themselves that it might work out well. It would be a crazy four years, but maybe Trump would grow into the job, and maybe retaining the support of a dwindling constituency would be enough to squeak out another election win or two.

The incompetence and bigotry of the Trump Administration is, in a way, symbolic of the very phrase magical thinking. It symptoms include denial and disbelief in the observations and analysis of people who study reality; a belief that, with enough will, reality will bend to the needs, religious and political, of the magical thinker who can’t tolerate reality; a willingness to deny anything that makes reality less than their ideal.

Especially if that ideal includes such concepts as power, prestige, and wealth.

There are many obvious examples: Anthropogenic climate change deniers lead the way, even as storms worsen, tides creep in further and further. Next in line is Covid-19 denial, QAnon, and the list goes on.

But the roots are deeper than we sometimes realize. Think of the Scopes Trial of 1925, in which whether or not evolution should be taught in public schools was on trial, followed by Creationism, and, when that could not be sustained in the nation’s courts, Intelligent Design (ID), the foul child of the Discovery Institute. This deeper root to magical thinking is not often mentioned outside of the Skeptics community, although some of the latest defenses of ID’s magical thinking has led their “thinkers” down truly odd and pathological paths that might be clues as to how far the adherents of ID have wandered from rationality.

But now we’re seeing the fruit of persistent magical thinking.

Plenty of them went further and eagerly embraced Trump and Trumpism, too, while actively working to insulate him from accountability for all of his degradations. Now a new possibility has emerged: that this election could be not just bad for Republicans, but positively cataclysmic.

Cataclysmic? You know those horrifying pictures of California burning, fire storms consuming all in their path?

That’s what’s happening to the Republican Party, and magical thinking is the accelerant, the substance that is making the fire unquenchable. Until magical thinking is banished from the Republican Party, it will be the Party of Kooks. Indeed, it may remain the Party of Kooks for decades, and a new conservative party that, if it is wise, does not tolerate the kooks, will form to be a home for real conservatives.

And if you’re a Republican whose tender religious sensibilities are offended at having this blamed on you, tough shit. That’s how it is.

[From, IIRC, the Gilligan’s Island preamble.]

The latest from Erick Erickson’s email barrage of non-subscribers to his newsletter:

Let’s set aside the NBC News poll that shows Biden up 14 points. Instead, look at the polling average. It has Biden up 8 points. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.1% and the polling average was Clinton head by 3.2%.

In 2016, there were multiple well funded third party challengers as well and Trump ultimately only won by 70,000 votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. If Biden is really ahead by 6 points, he has a lead that will be reflected within the Electoral College.

This is why, if you know where to look, panic is starting to set in with Republicans. The public polling now is reflecting internal Republican polling from last week. Multiple campaign strategists and pollsters from states as diverse as Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and even South Carolina are starting to see the bottom falling out.

Senior citizens, suburban women, and white men from up north are drifting to Biden.

Wait, what? ... and white men from up north are drifting to Biden.

It took a moment – or two – to remember that Erickson’s located in Georgia. That must mean that, uh, I suppose in Erickson’s parlance Us Northern White Men, a remark I find mildly annoying, are abandoning the President.

And I suppose there’s some value to partitioning the voters for analysis. However, the way Erickson is using it, it feels faintly as if a Great Traitorhood to Trump is being formed up here. Which makes me grumpy.

Because, to be honest, I have been continually dismayed that white men are more or less supporting Trump in the same proportions – something like 56%, although I don’t have a recent number, or link, handy – as they did in 2016. Most other groups that supported Trump in substantial numbers in 2016 have reversed course, such as the suburban white women who have gotten much of the credit for Democratic resurgence in the 2018 midterms. They’ve recognized their error, whether it was Trump support or just Clinton non-support, and are trying to make up for it.

But the white guys? Not much movement, last I saw. But perhaps that’s finally changing. I’d been thinking of calling for a Lysistrata maneuver, which my five readers would no doubt laugh at it. But maybe that won’t be necessary.

Maybe the dysfunctional Republican Party can be burned to the ground this election cycle, and replaced with something more moderate, and operationally less insane. But it would help – me with my sanity – if Erickson could acknowledge the madness that has infected the Republican Party, and how it is much, much worse than the general Democrat inclination to let women decide on their own morality vis a vis abortion, rather than inflict a religious neurosis upon them.

Locally, in fact just up the road from our place, we have a Bible college named Bethel University. My Arts Editor informs me that Bethel, or Beth-El, means Of God.

So what am I supposed to make of this California based school, named … wait for it … Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry (BSSM)?

Is this, like, where you go to learn how to minister to … the supernatural? Evangelize the ghosts? How to negotiate those prickly conversations with Shiva about the Christian God?

I just boggle at the thought of missionaries heading out for wherever angels live.

And it really makes you wonder about this scene from Lord Of The Rings (2001):

I didn’t realize Gandalf was a graduate of BSSM! But my Arts Editor says Gandalf was a poor student and only earned an Associate’s Degree. That might explain the negative outcome.

I sure hope breakfast will be ready soon. I suspect a lot of folks have had a good laugh over that name.

Aaaaand … it’s a Covid-19 hot spot.

Not really. Although I have a friend who has made her living as a writer, who says her illness nightmares generally consist of her running down the street, pursued by letters from the alphabet.

Ahem. Sorry. It’s one of my favorite tidbits of a story. Anyways. Ever wonder just what statistics the government collects? Here’s the main agencies dedicated to the task:

1. Bureau of the Census
2. Bureau of Economic Analysis
3. Bureau of Justice Statistics
4. Bureau of Labor Statistics
5. Bureau of Transportation Statistics
6. Economic Research Service
7. Energy Information Administration
8. National Agricultural Statistics Service
9. National Center for Education Statistics
10. National Center for Health Statistics
11. National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics
12. Office of Research, Evaluation and Statistics
13. Statistics of Income

This comes from Considerations for the Structure of the Bureau of Cyber Statistics on Lawfare, by Chas Kissick and Paul Rosenzweig, analyzing a proposal for a new statistical gathering and analysis agency, of obvious purpose. They also note there are embedded statistics gathering entities.

But if you’re looking for statistics on something, it’s worth consulting this list first. I’ve used the Energy Information Administration statistics several times myself.

Commonweal:

“My generation doesn’t have a lot to be proud of,” says Harry Bryans, 74, a retired lawyer. “The commonweal is really threatened,” he says, using an archaic term for the public welfare. “If we fail in this — keep going down this path — there’s no turning back.”

– “Older voters may turn out to be the Democrats’ 2020 heroes,” Karen Heller, WaPo.

Skralyx on The Daily Kos says the physicists are on schedule.

Physicists? Not vote counting managers?

No, physicists. Specifically, the fusion energy folks, the ones who’ve been telling us fusion energy was 20 years away for all of my lifetime.

It’s hard to overstate how much the world would be changed by success in net energy generation by nuclear fusion.  A mini-Sun, on Earth, on demand.  But every time you hear about nuclear fusion, it seems the timeline for it just got extended again.  It’s always 20 or 30 years away, isn’t it?

Well, here’s a refreshing change, to say the very least:  The Journal of Plasma Physics has just released a special issue stating, via 7 papers, involving 12 different research teams, that due to recent advances in theory, design, and materials, the first working demonstration of net energy production by nuclear fusion, with no need to add external heat once it gets going, has been moved up by a decade.  It’s now projected for 2025.

Whether this turns out to be a panacea for our dirty energy pains is another question, though. How long does a fusion power plant stay in future? How often does it have to go down for maintenance? How much does it cost to build one or more of these such that they supply a substantial portion of the power grid?

What are the risks of catastrophic failure?

Still, this is an exciting time in fusion research – and maybe for future generations.

In Nature, Alexander C. Lees, Simon Attwood, Jos Barlow and Ben Phalan discuss the latest instances of science denialism, this time in the area of the loss of entire species, in “Biodiversity scientists must fght the creeping rise of extinction denial“:

Denial of scientific evidence and rejection of scientific methods are not new phenomena, but represent an increasingly serious problem, especially when driven by politically well-connected and well-funded antagonists seeking to sabotage evidence-based policy for political and/or financial gain. Terms such as ‘science denial’ and ‘science denialism’ are employed as monikers for such anti-scientific enterprises, seeking to discredit, for example, the health impacts of smoking, climate science, the teaching of evolution in schools and vaccination campaigns. There is an emerging body of literature characterizing the nature of these activities, and the personal, organizational and economic interlinkages between them.

The rise of organized denial of the biodiversity crisis was foreseen by conservation biologists and the growing wave of denial finally broke following the release of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) summary for policymakers which generated substantial media coverage. In its wake, a swathe of opinion pieces criticized the report and attacked both the reputations of the report’s authors and the process of estimating the total number of species threatened with extinction.

Their three categories of denial:

Literal denial: ‘Species extinctions were predominantly a historical problem’.

Extinction deniers often downplay the extinction crisis by framing it as a historical problem and a trivial contemporary challenge (Supplementary Table 1). By focusing attention on the loss of megafauna in prehistory owing to overhunting and rapid loss of island biodiversity in historic times, it is suggested we have passed through these extinction filters and reached the ‘other side’ of the crisis. …

Interpretive denial: ‘Economic growth alone will fix the extinction crisis’.

Extinction denialists often invoke an Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) response of biodiversity to development (Supplementary Table 1 [omitted]), arguing that pressures on the environment eventually decrease with rising income levels. …

Here’s a link to a definition of Kuznets Curve, which hypothesizes “graphs the hypothesis that as an economy develops, market forces first increase and then decrease economic inequality.

And their third category:

Implicatory denial: ‘Technological fixes and targeted conservation interventions will overcome extinction’.

Extinction denialists are often selective, choosing to highlight only a subset of factors causing contemporary extinctions, such as overharvesting and predation by non-native species, while choosing not to mention habitat loss that affects the majority of species on the Red List.

This is strongly reminiscent of my time reading libertarian rags: the spreading of doubt about science and the concomitant belief that development is always good. At least for someone’s pocket book.

The director doesn’t like your work, dude. Now he’ll have a yell at you.

As The Earth Turns (1938) is a surprisingly charming silent movie which postulates a world war (note the release date, although calling it a release date is problematic) taking place in the near future, in which a mystery entity, displaying immense power and ability to destroy, still cannot make the fighting stop. Two journalists, who happen across information received by US Naval Telegraph, pinpoint the headquarters of the mysterious adversary, and charge in to investigate.

I liked this film a lot. In most silent films, the performs overact outrageously, but not here; likewise, the placards are displayed for just long enough to read. The plot is clever and moves right along, not letting the important step of building empathy with the protagonists slow down the plot. It may have a nearly all-powerful antagonist, but he has his limitations as well, and the plot uses them nicely. The plot has a point: mankind cannot be stopped from fighting by force. The special effects are cheesy, but cheesy in that way that you laugh and joyfully accept them for what they’re trying to achieve.

If you want to see what was apparently a work of love, and not released until after the director died decades later, this might be right up your alley.

Like, how you learn about the mascot for a sports team:

… [director of the Wisconsin Elections Commission Meagan Wolfe] said Wisconsin’s ban on “electioneering” at polling sites applies to campaigning for candidates and issues. It doesn’t apply to general pushes to encourage people to vote, she said.

The issue has surfaced because the state Republican Party has warned Milwaukee officials that it believes athletes, the Bucks mascot Bango and the Brewers’ Racing Sausages cannot be present at Fiserv Forum and Miller Park when they are used as voting sites. [milwaukee journal sentinel]

The Racing Sausages. I’d never heard of them. They sound better than the St. Paul Saints‘ pig, whatever it’s called.

See, being a student of the election can lead to all sorts of revelations! Well, at least laughter – on my part.

Panoply:

A panoply of things is a wide range of them, especially one that is considered impressive.
[formal]
He was attended, as are all heads of state, by a full panoply of experts. [Collins English Dictionary]

Noted in “Considerations for the Structure of the Bureau of Cyber Statistics,” Chas Kissick and Paul Rosenzweig, Lawfare:

The Cyberspace Solarium Commission completed its work earlier this year, with a panoply of recommendations for improving the national cybersecurity posture of the United States. As one might expect for a federal commission, many of the more readily implementable recommendations focused on matters that lie exclusively within the control of the federal government. A number of those recommendations will soon become reality through either executive action or legislative decision.

An update on the legal aspects of the confirmation process of a SCOTUS nominee from lawyer and former conservative pundit Jennifer Rubin:

If three Republicans are incapacitated, the Senate would lack a quorum to vote on the nomination. If only two are out, a single Republican senator nevertheless could put an end to this wantonly dangerous behavior. Two Republicans have already said they oppose holding a vote for the nominee before Election Day, given the principle that McConnell used to deny Obama nominee Merrick Garland a confirmation hearing in 2016. We need a single Republican to step forward and say, Enough! Don’t bother endangering each other, because I won’t show up to jam this through. That would definitively end the whole reckless exercise. We will not have to rely on the good judgment of characters like Johnson, Lee and Tillis to absent themselves for a full 14 days or longer if need be.  [WaPo]

The plot thickens. It may only be morbid curiosity, but how this all plays out will be most interesting – and, no doubt, the subject of many stories, plays, movies, and even Fringe shows, nationwide.

I wonder, if Barrett is ultimately denied a seat on SCOTUS, if those who are viewing these events through a religious lens will take this to mean that God did not mean what they thought it meant, or if it’s all the work of evil divinities. My money’s on the latter.

Well, not really. We eat them. But this part amuses me.

Oh, so ugly. Misshapen. Given a few days, though, and it’ll be tasty.

For those who are wondering, it’s a variety of paste tomato named Opalka. The non-deformed specimens have the shape, but not the coloration, of bananas. We generally turn them into paste.

This caught my eye:

BREAKING — Sen Thom Tillis also tests positive for covid-19, his office says. Tillis is also a member of the Judiciary Committee, was at the White House SCOTUS event Saturday, met with Barrett on Wednesday. pic.twitter.com/FMGFWkOiFA

— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) October 3, 2020

Currently, the SCOTUS confirmation hearings have yet to start, and while Senator Tillis and Senator Lee (R-UT) have tested positive for Covid-19, the Judiciary Committee has a 12-10 Republican majority, so, assuming either Lee or Tillis is still functional at vote time, Barrett will make it out of the committee.

But then comes the floor vote. Currently Republicans hold the Senate 53-47 (yes, two Independents caucus with the Democrats, but I don’t think that’ll be relevant). Suppose one of the Senators is hurting so badly he can’t vote.

52-47.

And, remember, Murkowski and Collins have committed to voting against the nominee, not because they don’t like the nominee, but because they believe rules made up by Republicans should apply to Republicans. While I’ve heard that Murkowski has wavered, there’s no definite retraction of promises.

All of a sudden it’s 50-49 for the nominee.

And if one Republican Senator switches sides, nominee Barrett’s dreams of being a Justice go down the tubes, and there’s literally no time to gin up another candidate.

But this gets even more interesting. Suppose confirmation has either failed or not been held yet on November 4^th. Special elections result in the installation of the victories Senator immediately upon vote certification, and that can happen rapidly, according to what I read. There are two special elections this go around. The first is in Arizona, where Republican appointed incumbent and Trump-clinger Martha McSally, currently in Senator McCain (R-AZ) old seat, is polling poorly against first time politician and retired astronaut Mark Kelly. I would be surprised if Kelly is not Senator Kelly (D-AZ) in the near future.

But the surprise could be in Georgia, the site of the other special election. Republican appointed incumbent Kelly Loeffler, involved in a jungle primary in which there’s a runoff if no one exceeds 50%, had been in a battle, a war, not with a Democrat, of which no one of note had shown up, but with fellow Republican, House member & Trump ally Doug Collins.

This had been going along quite sleepily until Pastor Raphael Warnock (D-GA) entered the race. At first, he had a solid third place, not good enough to make the runoff. And then, following some high profile endorsements, polls showed Warnock suddenly leading the pack with numbers in the 30s – and some polls in the high 30s.

High enough that if the voters preferring the other Democratic candidates, of which there are two or three, were to transfer their preference to Warnock, he might possibly scrape together a large enough victory to avoid the runoff.

Suddenly, the Republican majority in the Senate is 51-49, and if Collins and Murkowski remain persistent in their insistence upon the importance of principle in the conduct of the Senate, Senator McConnell’s dreams of helping Trump to a third SCOTUS appointment would implode in a most shocking and dramatic fashion.

Sure, a lot of unlikely things have to occur for McConnell’s final (I hope) fiasco to be blighted – but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility. The next few weeks should be vertiginous fascinating.

In the wake of the revelation that President and Melania Trump, among others, have tested positive for Covid-19, there’s been a lot of speculation that it’s actually a lie. Professor Richardson summarizes:

This story proves how crucial it is to have a White House we trust. Immediately, Twitter users noted that someone had suggested this very scenario back in September as a way for Trump to steal headlines away from Biden, emerge victorious over the virus, and claim credit for a new treatment that had cured him. Elections almost always feature an “October Surprise” to move voters in the last few weeks of the election when it is too late for the other side to challenge that surprise move. And while this news certainly looks genuine—the White House doctor issued a statement after Trump announced the test results—there is plenty that the Trump campaign would like to distract us from.

And while this is not an unlikely scenario, so far I haven’t seen anyone treat this as an exit strategy.

That is, if President Trump “dies”, then he doesn’t have to face and acknowledge defeat in the November election. The White House announces his demise and that his corpse will be released quickly for a public viewing – just like his tax returns, perhaps, or some substitute will be found.

Meanwhile, Trump, in dramatic, undercover fashion, leaves the country, escaping prosecution, he hopes, forever.

It seems unlikely, and yet I could see him making a go of it.

There’s been some commentary, some public worry, about right wing violence perpetrated on Election Day, and I’m not sure I approve of that commentary. What I think should be said, and communicated very, very clearly, is this:

To anyone who thinks Election Day means you get to go out and commit mayhem for free, this is what will happen:

Local police, who are sworn to their duty to keep the public peace, will descend upon anyone committing political violence, and then one of two things will happen to those who think committing political violence is cool.

1. They’ll arrest your ass, or
2. They’ll shoot you dead.

Doubt that? Look up and remember what’s happened recently to Boogaloo Boys and white supremacists who thought they could get away with mayhem and murder. The police tried to arrest them, and then shot them dead.

For those of you who are merely arrested, you’ll then go through the court system, and no doubt end up spending lots of years doing hard time in a state penitentiary. Judges will not be lenient, because political violence is never tolerated in the United States. PERIOD.

And, while it’ll never happen, I’d be in favor of a law that stated that all such convicts would be subject to having their citizenship stripped, and being deported to Russia. Or Iran. Either works for me.

For all that police reputations have suffered over the last few years, I remain confident that those who are not explicit racists will step up and do their jobs when called upon.

And, if they’re insufficient to the job, there’s always the National Guard.

I do not expect any violence on Election Day, and in the days afterward the only violence will be to the patience of judges and voters, but if there are incidents, those who think they’ll effect some sort of political change through violence will run into the hard fist of law enforcement. And they won’t like it.

Fox News White House Correspondent John Roberts, apparently quite tired of Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany dodging questions about whether or not President Trump will denounce white supremacy:

On Fox News, @johnrobertsFox is visibly angry that @PressSec won't offer a clear denunciation of white supremacy: "Stop deflecting. Stop blaming the media. I'm tired of it. " pic.twitter.com/GcPcOsAHqJ

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) October 1, 2020

It’s not good when the news media that has consistently backed Trump is expressing frustration with his Administration. They may realize the dollars will stop flowing as advertisers flee any association with racist people.

Keep the chin up, Mr. Roberts. And remember – every other Twitter account is a ‘bot controlled by Russians frantic to control the American election. The last thing V. Putin wants is a clear-eyed American in the White House, ready to shut him down. Twitter criticism is the least important thing criticism in the world.

Another mass nomination.

The House adopted a resolution on Tuesday to affirm the chamber’s support for a peaceful transfer of power after President Trump last week declined to commit to it if he loses reelection.

Lawmakers adopted the measure in a bipartisan 397-5 vote, with all of the votes in opposition coming from Republicans.

Tuesday’s vote followed one last week on a virtually identical measure in the Senate, which lawmakers in that chamber passed unanimously.

Passage of the resolution in the Democratic-led House also came less than an hour before Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden were set to face off in the first of three presidential debates.

The five Republicans who voted against the resolution were Reps. Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Louie Gohmert (Texas), Clay Higgins (La.), Steve King (Iowa) and Thomas Massie (Ky.). [The Hill]

Loving the tyrant more than one’s freedoms.

Outside of the scale of these numbers, why am I not surprised?

They made a list of more than 30 celebrities including Justin Timberlake, Taylor Swift and Billy Joel to appear in their ad campaign to “inspire hope” about coronavirus, but they ended up with only Dennis Quaid, CeCe Winans and Hasidic singer Shulem Lemmer.

The health department’s $300 million-plus, taxpayer-funded vehicle to boost confidence in President Donald Trump’s response to the pandemic is sputtering. Celebrities are refusing to participate, and staff are arraying against it. Some complain of the unstated aim of helping Trump’s re-election. Others point to an ill-prepared video team and a 22-year-old political appointee who has repeatedly asserted control despite having no public health expertise, according to six people with close knowledge of the campaign and documents related to its operations.

Interviews with participants and others in the Health and Human Services Department paint a picture of a chaotic effort, scrambling to meet an unofficial Election Day deadline, floundering in the wake of the medical leave of its architect, Michael Caputo, and running up against increasing resistance among career staff. [Politico]

I hope that not all the money has been spent, but I suspect it has been. And this is what turns it into probable corruption for me.

A central problem: The video firm recommended by HHS to execute the campaign has struggled to meet deadlines, retain staff and even find the contact information of celebrities to participate in the videos, said three people with knowledge of the operation and documents reviewed by POLITICO.

That firm, DD&T, is led by a filmmaker who had no prior experience making U.S. public health campaigns and is also the business partner of Caputo, the Trump loyalist who served as the health department’s spokesperson before taking leave this month.

“They had no reason being the people working on this campaign,” the person involved in the process added. “They did not have any connections to filming crews, companies or anything.”

But they had connections to Caputo. That’s all it takes, doesn’t it?

I see some of the most desperate Republicans incumbent Senators are trying to build separation from the Administration on one of the hottest rails of the season:

Senate Democrats’ largely symbolic bid to cut off the Trump administration’s support for a Supreme Court challenge to Obamacare failed as expected Thursday, but several Republicans facing tough reelections crossed party lines to back the measure.

Sens. Martha McSally of Arizona, Susan Collins of Maine, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Joni Ernst of Iowa and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, who are trying to reassure voters about their defense of insurance protections for preexisting conditions, backed the Democrats’ measure. Another Republican, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who opposed Obamacare repeal efforts three years ago, also supported the bill.

But the bill fell 51-43, short of the 60 votes needed to advance. [Politico]

It’s interesting that Senator Graham (R-SC), who has authored some pathetic calls for campaign donations, was not in the list of Senators declaring a small shred of independence. Does he see his allegiance to Trump as his ticket back to Congress?

Less surprisingly, Senator Loeffler (R-GA), who has clung to Trump even though he’d prefer to see Rep Collins (R-GA) occupying the Senate seat, is also not on the list. Nor is her colleague in the same state, Senator Perdue (R-GA), who is considered a close ally of Trump’s. Much like Loeffler, he is in a hot race, and it’s important to remember that Georgia went to Trump by only 5 points in 2016. Republicans may be in danger of losing the state and both Senate seats to the Democrats in November.

It all comes down to where the Republican Senators see their political fortunes tied – to Trump, or to, well, competency.

This is an early step in the desperate fight to survive politically for these Senators (Murkowski is not up for reelection this year, but I think it counts for her next reelection effort). Will they dare take another step, and what will it be? Party loyalty can only go so far when your Party is shrinking. It’s too late for any of them to switch parties, so some of their options are gone. But they can still express disloyalty to Trump by denouncing his anti-democracy statements. Will they dare?

Here’s some morning glories to brighten the day: